Russian History and Politics Russia, Term Paper

Total Length: 937 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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Upon Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, molding the features that characterized the new Soviet regime, with policies based on Marxist-Leninist ideology, which is often considered to represent a political and economic system called Stalinism (Russia pp). During the 1920's, Stalin consolidated his authority with the Great Purge, which was a period of severe repression that peaked in 1937 (Russia pp).

After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and Georgi Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union (Russia pp). Under this new leadership, an amnesty was declared for some who were serving prison sentences for criminal offices, price cuts were announced, and a relaxation of restrictions on private plots, ending the role of large-scale forced labor in the economy (Russia pp). From 1958 to 1964, Khrushchev was also the Premier of the Soviet Union (Russia pp).

The ten years following Stalin's death saw the reassertion of political power over the means of coercion, thus the party became the dominant institution over the secret police and army (Russia pp). Aid to developing countries, scientific research, space technology and weaponry, maintained the Soviet Union as one of the world's two major world powers (Russia pp).

In 1964, CPSU First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei Kosygin became the most influential cadres in the new collective leadership (Russia pp). The government improved living standards by doubling urban wages and raising rural wages by seventy-five percent, building millions of one-family apartments, and manufacturing large quantities of consumer goods and home appliances (Russia pp). Industrial output increased by seventy-five percent and the country became the world" largest producer of oil and steel (Russia pp).

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In fact, the twenty years following Stalin's death were the best period in history for the ordinary citizen in terms of living standards, stability and peace (Russia pp).

During the 1970's, momentum for economic and political reform stalled until the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid- 1980's, who ushered in the process that led to the political collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Soviet administration command economy through the programs of glasnost, political openness, perestroika, economic restructuring, and uskorenie, speed-up of economic development (Russia pp). Through the fall of 1991, the Russian government took over the union government, ministry by ministry, and by November 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree banning the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the Russian republic (Russia pp).

When Yeltsin resigned in December 1999, he appointed Vladimir Putin the second President of the Russian Federation (Russia pp). Putin won the election a few months later, and was re-elected in March 2004 (Russia pp). Although often criticized as an autocrat, Putin's….....

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"Russian History And Politics Russia ", 06 June 2005, Accessed.16 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/russian-history-politics-russia-65263