Who Were the Leaders of the Soviet Union?
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The Soviet Union (USSR) officially began in October 1917 after the monarchy was ousted in the Russian Revolution. The USSR existed for 3/4 of a century during which time there were a series of internationally prominent leaders. The following seven Soviet leaders played significant roles in shaping the 20th century:
| USSR Leader | Leadership Began | Leadership Ended | Duration |
| Vladimir Ilych Lenin | 26 October 1917 | 3 April 1922 | 4 years 6 months |
| Joseph Stalin | 3 April 1922 | 5 March 1953 | 30 years 11 months |
| Nikita Khrushchev | 7 September 1953 | 14 October 1964 | 11 years 1 month |
| Leonid Brezhnev | 14 October 1964 | 10 November 1982 | 18 years 1 month |
| Yuri Andropov | 12 November 1982 | 9 February 1984 | 1 year 3 months |
| Konstantin Chernenko | 13 February 1984 | 10 March 1985 | 1 year 1 month |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | 11 March 1985 | 25 December 1991 | 6 years 9 months |
As is evident from the chart above, Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for an astonishing 3 decades! Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, on the other hand, presided over the communist nation for just over a year each.
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New: Discuss this ArticlePosted by: habura
The Soviet Union has many names...it's also known as the USSR, CCCP and the SSSR. USSR is the acronym for Soviet Union's full name in English: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The country's real name was in Cyrillic: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик and the English acronym for that is CCCP. But, the conversion (or transliteration) of its Cyrillic name into Roman characters was Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik which turned into SSSR in its acronym form.
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