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LEADERS OF THE SOVIET UNION Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) Founder of the Bolshevik Communist party: leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the founder-head of the USSR during the most difficult period following the revolution (1917-1924): an outstanding theoretician and practitioner of Marxism and a source of inspiration for communists all over the world. LEADERS OF THE SOVIET UNION Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) Successor to Lenin and led the Soviet Union during its consolidation (1924 53): began rapid industrialisation and forcible collectivisation of agriculture, credited with Soviet victory in the Second World War; held responsible for the Great Terror of the 1930s, authoritarian functioning and elimination of rivals within the party. LEADERS OF THE SOVIET UNION Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) Leader of the Soviet Union (1953-64): denounced Stalin's leadership style and introduced some reforms in 1956 suggested "peaceful coexistence with the West: involved in suppressing popu...

GORBACHEV AND THE DISINTEGRATION Mikhail Gorbachev , who had become General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985 , sought to reform this system. Reforms were necessary to keep the USSR abreast of the information and technological revolutions taking place in the West. However, Gorbachev's decision to normalize relations with the West and democratize and reform the Soviet Union had some other effects that neither he nor anyone else intended or anticipated. The people in the East European countries which were part of the Soviet bloc started to protest against their own governments and Soviet control. Unlike in the past, the Soviet Union, under Gorbachev, did not intervene when the disturbances occurred, and the communist regimes collapsed one after another. These developments were accompanied by a rapidly escalating crisis within the USSR that hastened its disintegration. Gorbachev initiated the policies of economic and political reform and democratization wit...