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Vladimir Lenin
Lenin Presidency
Lenin Speech: How the Working People Can Be Saved
Vladimir Lenin was a communist politician who led the October Revolution, which help establish the USSR. As leader/founder of the Bolsheviks,a political party that strongly supported communism, he was the president of the USSR during its initial years. He lead the USSR as it fought to establish control of Russia during the Russian Civil War. -
GOELRO Plan
GOELRO Plan
Vladamir Lenin launches a plan to support economic growth in Soviet Russia. The Plan represented a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. Lenin's stated the goal was "The organization of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology.” -
Politics
GOELRO Plan
He established free universal health care and free education systems, and promulgated the politico-civil rights of women. He was very concerned about creating a free universal health care system for everyone because of famine and typhus. Those ravaged Russia and left over 27 million dead. -
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Joseph Stalin
Stalin Presidency
Joseph Stalin: Red Terror (Video)
Joseph Stalin was a powerful and dictator in Soviet Russia from 1922-1953. He was a very violent man and some estimates say he killed 20 million people. He established the violent KGB (Committee State Security). After 31 years of brutal leading, he died of a brain hemorrhage, but that is believed to be a cover up for his cabinet turning on him. -
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Alexei Rykov
Rykov Presidency
Alexei Rykov was a politician who supported the Bolsheviks and worked as a Bolshevik agent in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Rykov was appointed to many positions in the government and assumed control of the USSR in 1917. Rykov stepped down as a leader of the USSR in 1924, but still had some positions in the right wing of the Bolshevicks. In 1929, Joseph Stalin turned against the right-wing of the party and Rykov was removed for all posts. -
Rykov Removed
The Great Purge
Joseph Stalin turned against the right-wing of the party. At this time, Rykov was no longer president, but a member of the government. Stalin believed the right-wing of the government was plotting against him. Rykov was removed for all posts. -
Executed
Rykov Disputed
Rykov, along with several others, were officially arrested and accused of being involved with Leon Trotsky in a plot against Joseph Stalin. Alexei Rykov was found guilty and executed on 15th March, 1938. -
First Soviet Atomic Test
First Atomic Bomb
On this date the USSR exploded their first atomic bomb at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR. This project took about 9 years from start to first test. The first idea was created by Joseph Stalin during World War II because he thought the allies already had atomic bombs assembled. The bomb was never actually used in combat, only tested. -
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Georgy Malenkov
Malenkov Presidency
Malenkov joined the Communist Party in 1920. He was the leading figure of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, he was soon forced to resign. He was locked in a power struggle against Khrushchev. -
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Nikita Khrushchev
Khrushchev Presidency
Nikita started off as a miner who joined the Bolsheviks in 1918. He gained technical education from the October Revolution. Then, he became a member of the Central Committee in 1924 and of the Politburo in 1939. After Stalin’s Death, Khrushchev became the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. -
Kitchen Debate
Kitchen Debate Video
Kitchen Debate Speech
This was a debate between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon in 1959. They were debating the merits of Capitalism versus Communism on the site of the first-ever American Exhibition in Moscow. They had interpreters while they debated about each of their economic system preferences. -
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Leonid Brezhnev
Brezhnev Presidency
Brezhnev was a Soviet statesman, Communist Party Official, and leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years. In 1952, he was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Comunist Party. He also got inducted into Presidium as the Chairman of Supreme Soviet in 1960 to 1964. -
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Agreement
Brezhnev and Nixon
This agreement limited each side to their launchers and interceptors. These restrictions were made for an overall missile defense system. This also represents a system of mutual verification and a principle of non-interference by one party with the other. This allows the US and USSR to maintain over flights. -
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Yuri Andropov
Andropov Presidency
Yuri Andropov, became an organizer for the Young Communist League (Komsomol) in the Yaroslav region and joined the Communist Party in 1939. Yuri was head of the Soviet Union’s KGB (State Security Committee) from 1967 to 1982 and the country’s leader as general secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee from November 1982 until his death 15 months later. -
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Konstantin Chernenko
Chernenko Presidency
Chernenko became apart of th party in 1931, as a Frontier Guard on the Soviet border. His career in the USSR was being an administrator within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was not well-known in any job he held. When Brezhnev died in 1982, Chernenko lost the election to Andropov. When Andropov died only a year later Chernenko was elected to replace him, despite his doctor’s warning that he was too sick for the job. -
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Mikhail Gorbachev
Gobachev Presidency
Mikhail Gorbachev, served from 1985 to 1991 as Soviet official, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and president of the Soviet Union only one year, from 1990-1991. Over his presidency, he tried to change his country’s political system to a democracy, and break down its economy to give the people more power. This led to the down fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. -
Meeting with Ronald Reagan
Gorbachev and Reagan
In 1987, Gorbachev met with Ronald Reagan and signed the Immediate Nuclear Forces abolition treaty. He also made it clear that he would no longer interfere in the domestic policies of other countries in Eastern Europe. It was an agreement between the U.S. and Soviet Union. This treaty was signed in Washington D.C. and was ratified by the U.S. Senate in May 27, 1988. -
Nobel Peace Prize
Gorbachev Nobel Peace Prize Video
Gorbachev Noble Peace Prize
In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his great foreign policy plans, and for his leading role in the peace process. He was also elected for his leading role in the peace process which characterizes important parts of the international community.
