Premier of the Soviet Union
Portrait | Name | Term of office | Mandate | Political party | Policies | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) |
6 Jul. 1923 |
21 Jan. 1924 |
● Russian Revolution | Communist Party | Leninism | ||
After the Russian Revolution, Lenin became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917 and leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1922 until his death. In his final testament, he recommended to reverse the ban on factions once the Soviet state was in a less precarious position. | |||||||
Alexei Rykov (1881-1941) |
21 Jan. 1924 |
15 Mar. 1930 |
● Elected by Assembly | Communist Party | Leninism | ||
Reconstruction from the Civil War; Expanded NEP; Normalized Relations with most capitalist countries; Support for KMT; Courting foreign investment; 1927-1929 - Beginning of "2-Year Plan" to contract the peasants to work on collective farms, cut short by Great Depression; Formal factions emerge (mainly the "Right" and "Left"); 1930 - USSR joins the League of Nations | |||||||
Leon Trotsky (1879-1947) |
15 Mar. 1930 |
2 Dec. 1938 |
● Consolidation | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Trotskyism | ||
1931 - End of NEP; 1930-1935 - "First 5-Year Plan" focused on heavy industry buildup, massive infrastructure expansion, and collectivization; 1931-1934 - Enforced Collectivization Campaign - Trotsky makes attempts at forced collectivization alongside incentives, resulting in famines and industrialization slowdown as attempts to provide famine relief mean that there is less grain to sell, and thus less money with which to purchase industrial equipment; 1933-1934 "First Democracy Campaign" - Trotsky attempts to involve proletariat directly in economic planning and socialist construction, but the campaign stalled after economic slowdown and political instability; "Revolutionary Internationalist" foreign policy against capitalist countries; "United Front" policy for foreign communist parties; 1935-1938 - "Second 5-Year Plan" focused on building up heavy industry alongside light industry and mass urbanization; 1936-1938 - Military Aid to the Spanish Republic against the Nationalists; 1936-1938 - "Second Democracy Campaign" - attempts to increase the powers of local soviets and uplift proletarians to positions of leadership in the professional bureaucracy en masse; 1938 - Trotsky voted out by CPSU members due to political instability and foreign policy failures (most notably the fall of the Spanish Republic) | |||||||
Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1977) |
2 Dec. 1938 |
21 Dec. 1941 |
● Elected by Assembly | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Proletarian Humanism | ||
Re-normalized relations with most capitalist powers; 1938 - "Second 5-Year Plan" cut short; 1938-1939 - "Collective Security" negotiations with France and the UK end in failure; 1938 - End of the "Second Democracy Campaign" to stabilize internal politics and appease "bourgeois specialists" (Tsarist-era bureaucrats), who feared losing their positions; Some relaxation of censorship and social restrictions; 1939-1941 - "Anti-Fascist Neutrality" (diplomatic support for the Allies, embargo against Axis); 1938-1941 - Reintroduction of "2-Year Plan" and end of internal passport system for peasant laborers on collective farms, resulting in less peasant unrest at the cost of slowed industrialization; 1939-1941 - Latent buildup for military industry; 1940 - Soviet-Finnish War, USSR expelled from League of Nations; 1941 - Beginning of the Great Patriotic War; Oct. 1941 - Fall of Minsk; Nov. 1941 - Beginning of Leningrad Siege, Fall of Kiev; Dec. 1941 - Battle of Moscow begins, Bukharin resigns after military pressures him to do so | |||||||
Leon Trotsky (1879-1947) |
21 Dec. 1941 |
21 Aug. 1947 |
● Appointed | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Trotskyism | ||
1942 - 1946 - Great Patriotic War; Dec. 1941 - March 1943 - Battle of Moscow; Dec. 1941 - Japan attacks; Feb. 1942 - Ceasefire with Japan, ceding Vladivostok; June 1942 - April 1943 - Battle of Symchkagrad; Oct. 1943 - Liberation of Leningrad; Nov. 1943 - Ceasefire with Finland, ceding Karelia and Murmansk; June 1943 - April 1944 - Stalemate; May 1944 - July 1944 - "Operation Bagration" / "May Offensive" results in taking back most of the Don, Eastern Ukraine; Nov. 1944 - Liberation of Minsk; March 1945 - Liberation of Kiev; April 1945 - Oct. 1945 - Retaking Eastern Ukraine and Belarus; Nov. 1945 - Feb. 1946 - Entry into Poland; May 1946 - US Army takes Berlin, the war in Europe is over; Aug. 1946 - USSR gets Konigsburg, reformed as the "Judean SSR," ceding back Polish territory that the Red Army occupied at the end of the GPW; 1946-1947 - Reconstruction and recovery from the Great Patriotic War, 30 million Soviet dead; Aug. 1947 - Death of Trotsky | |||||||
Natalia Sedova (1882-1962) |
21 Aug. 1947 |
13 Feb. 1950 |
● Appointed by Predecessor | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Trotskyism | ||
Continued Industrial and Agricultural Reconstruction; 1947 - Japanese Victory in the Pacific, End of WW2; 1947 - Marshall Plan Loans from the USA to assist reconstruction | |||||||
Martemyan Ryutin (1890-1962) |
13 Feb. 1950 |
21 Oct. 1958 |
● Appointed | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Proletarian Humanism | ||
1951 - USSR rejoins the League of Nations; 1952 - Formation of the Belgrade Pact with Yugoslavia; "Non-Alignment Policy" - After the Soviet sympathetic President Wallace is replaced with the virulently anti-communist President MacArthur, the USSR regards the Cold War as an "inter-imperialist" conflict between the USA and Japan, condemning both powers; Limited reintroduction of private enterprise, courting foreign investments; Technological investments; Light Industry Emphasis; Technocratic Economic Planning; Mass expansion of cities; Collective Farm Supremacy, gradual pressure on remaining smallholder peasants; "Ryutin Reforms" - decrease in censorship, limited competitive elections between CPSU candidates and independents, more power to local Soviets; "Formalized Faction System" - The CPSU approves official factions within its party, formalizing the "Left," "Right," and "Center" factions; Unsanctioned party factions are banned to prevent counter-revolutionary infiltration; Assistance to Nasser; Economic ties with India after it broke ties with Japan | |||||||
Roman Rozdolsky (1898-1967) |
21 Oct. 1958 |
3 Sep. 1962 |
● Elected by Assembly | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Trotskyism | ||
Economic Centralization; Increased influence for trade unions; 1961-1962 - Second Soviet-Finnish War, resulting in regaining Murmansk and part of Karelia; | |||||||
Pyotr Masherov (1919-1999) |
3 Sep. 1962 |
13 Jun. 1970 |
● Elected by Assembly | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Marxist Unionism | ||
1963 - Beginning of Soviet Space Program; 1963-1965 - Glushkov v. Kosygin debates about economic reform; 1964 - Religious reform, allowing more religious freedom on the condition of state loyalty; 1966 - First Soviet Satellite sent into orbit; 1967 - Kosygin reforms implemented, increasing economic growth but also corruption; Support for Latin American/African revolutions, angering the USA; 1968 - Recognition of French Communal Republic, asylum for Ho Chi Minh and other PCF members, cold relations with France thereafter | |||||||
Varlam Shalamov (1907-1982) |
13 Jun. 1970 |
3 Jan. 1978 |
● Elected by Assembly | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Orthodox Marxism | ||
1971 - Judean SSR revolts, breaking off and becoming a new country, New Judea, Slow reversal of Kosygin reforms; Steady implementation of OGAS; Increased trade with the West during Oil Crisis; 1973- recognition of New Judea's independence, Decreased censorship of the arts; "Balanced" foreign policy; 1975 - Beginning of UPA insurgency | |||||||
Valery Sablin (b. 1939) |
3 Jan. 1978 |
5 Mar. 1989 |
● Consolidation | Communist Party (Center Faction) |
Leninism | ||
Maoist influence; "Second Russian Revolution" - Populist campaign against corruption, bureaucracy, counter-revolutionary influence, and imperialism; Partial decentralization of the Soviets and collective farms; "Komsomol Youth Campaigns" against reactionary culture; 1978-1983 - Fighting the ongoing UPA insurgency, gradually dying down into sporadic terrorist bombings/shootings; 1979-1983 - "Third Democracy Campaign" - decentralizing and slowing OGAS implementation to allow mass input within economic planning and politics; Denouncing "counter-revolutionary" CPSU party members and technocrats; Condemnation of Japan and the West as "imperialist vultures," resulting in a hardline stance against both; Strong support for third-world revolutionaries, particularly in Africa; Revival in World Communism; Populist Soviet Nationalism, promoting a unified Soviet identity as a nation acting as the "moral vanguard" of the world against all forms of imperialism; Strained relations with India as it shifts rightward; Support for Bhutto's Pakistan; Support for Irish Unification Movement; 1985 - Central American Socialist Confederation joins the Belgrade Pact; 1986 - Burkina Faso joins the Belgrade Pact; 1987-1989 - Soviet-Chinese War, involving massive Chinese Communist revolts, the invasion of Tanna Tuva and Mongolia, and covert US support, ending in a pyrrhic Soviet victory since the Soviets gain only Tannu Tuva; 1987-1989 - Diplomatic and Military support for Korean Revolution; 1989 - Impeached by CPSU members; Becomes leader of the Tuvan ASSR | |||||||
Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931) |
5 Mar. 1989 |
25 Dec. 1993 |
● Appointed | Communist Party (Right Faction, then Federalist Faction) |
Federal Reformism | ||
Halting OGAS implementation; Extensive market reforms result in economic downturn, privatization, increased corruption, and increased demand for consumer goods; Promised reforms to democratize the USSR, completely abolish censorship; allow multiple parties, and make peace with the world; Co-operation with the West; Near abolition of censorship, except for "extreme anti-communists" (monarchists and fascists); 1991 - Bukhara and Turkmenistan secede from USSR; 1991 - Legalization of "Federalist" faction of the CPSU as an official faction; 1991 - Legalization of Democratic Union, an openly liberal and anti-communist party; 1993 - Stockholm Accords signed, which ends the Cold War, increased free trade between all powers; 1993 - Armenia secedes from USSR | |||||||
Victor Glushkov (1923-2000) |
25 Dec. 1993 |
5 Oct. 2000 |
● 1993 Soviet Election | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Cybernetic Communism | ||
First Soviet leader directly elected by population, wins on a platform of reversing market reforms, retaining peace, and returning to OGAS; Massive investment in technological sector, achieving semiconductor independence, space technology advancements, and the development of profitable computers sold both inside and outside the USSR; Focused on implementation of OGAS across the USSR; Retained freedom of speech laws, but Gorbachev's Soviet electoral laws are changed to be first-past-the-post, so that communists have a better chance of winning; NKVD infiltration of Democratic Union as sole legal opposition party, keeping them mired in infighting; Co-operation between "Left," "Right," and "Center" factions against the "Federalist" faction (for example, uniting around a single candidate in some district election rather than running against each other to avoid giving their opponents in the CPSU-F an advantage); Increased trade with the USA, opening of trade with Japan; decreased corruption, increased administrative and economic efficiency; Oct. 2000 - Resigns, dies in December of 2000 | |||||||
Natalia Magnat (b. 1954) |
5 Oct. 2000 |
26 Dec. 2002 |
● Consolidation | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Orthodox Marxism | ||
Continued Glushkov policies; 2001 - Experiments to replace money within Soviet economy, but trial runs fail; Increased opposition to OGAS consolidation from bureaucrats, factory managers, and professionals; Some feminist reforms to allow more support for abused spouses and children, harsh punishments for domestic violence, and more affirmative action policies to promote female leadership in different sectors of the economy and politics. | |||||||
Andrey Kolganov (b. 1955) |
26 Dec. 2002 |
12 Jun. 2006 |
● 2002 Soviet Election | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Marxist Unionism | ||
Slows expansion of OGAS to consolidate where it has already been implemented; Courting foreign investment to make up for shortfalls in economic planning with OGAS; Condemnation of USA for wars against Sudan, the Dominican Republic, etc.; 2004 - Legalization of Gay Marriage; 2005 - Beginning of Al-Qaeda insurgency in the Caucuses; 2006 - Bombing of Moscow Metro by Islamist terrorists | |||||||
Garry Kasparov (b. 1963) |
12 Jun. 2006 |
2 Nov. 2010 |
● 2006 Soviet Election | Communist Party (Federalist Faction) |
Federal Reformism | ||
Co-operation with the West; Mass privatization; Gridlocked Assembly; Rolling back of OGAS systems; Communist protests; 2008 - The Great Recession hits the USSR, resulting in massive economic meltdown, drying up of foreign investments/trade, and a great decrease in standards of living; 2008-2010 Mass strikes across the USSR; June-August 2009 - Riots in major cities against privatization, economic mismanagement, lack of goods, etc.; 2009 - Grozny bombings by Islamist terrorists; 2010 - Coup plot revealed, thwarted internally by other Red Army elements | |||||||
Bo Xilai |
2 Nov. 2010 |
3 Aug. 2014 |
● 2010 Soviet Election | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Marxist Unionism | ||
"Peaceful Revolution" - Total reversal of privatization, Increasing OGAS input centers and consolidating their network centers; Slow economic recovery; The "Center" faction calls to ban the "Federalist" faction, but the resolution fails to achieve a majority of votes; 2014 - Xilai acts without Assembly approval to send funds abroad to foreign communist parties, and is impeached for violating the Soviet Constitution of 1995. | |||||||
Boris Kagarlitsky (b. 1958) |
3 Aug. 2014 |
31 Dec. 2014 |
● Appointed | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Proletarian Humanism | ||
Caretaker leader until Dec. 2014 election | |||||||
Alexander Tarasov (b. 1958) |
31 Dec. 2014 |
22 Mar. 2018 |
● 2014 Soviet Election | Communist Party (Left Faction) |
Orthodox Marxism | ||
Return of the "Non-Alignment Policy" stance against both Japan and USA; Inspired by Stafford Beer's work on cybernetics, Tarasov attempts to decentralize OGAS to involve popular economic planning and input on a greater scale, sometimes called the "Fourth Democracy Campaign" by his political opponents; 2016 - Moscow Concert bombing by Neo-Nazi terrorists, increased funding for NKVD to enforce anti-fascist surveillance and counter-terrorism; Tarasov alleges that the Russian Government of National Salvation, along with Japan, planned the Moscow terror attacks; Support for Communists in the Myanmar Civil War | |||||||
Boris Kagarlitsky (b. 1958) |
22 Mar. 2018 |
Incmbnt. | ● 2018 Soviet Election | Communist Party (Right Faction) |
Proletarian Humanism | ||
Slow electoral recovery of the "Federalist" faction; Investments into technological sector and funding AI research for OGAS information management; Open military and diplomatic support for third world revolutions: increased support for Myanmar communists, support for Anatolian communist revolutionaries, and support for ANC insurgency in the apartheid state of South Africa, all of which anger both Japan and the USA; 2019 - Soviet Family Code passes; Rapprochement with Armenia, angering the Azerbaijan SSR |