Soviet Union Leaders During the Cold War

During the Cold War power in the Soviet Union changed hands 8 times.  The founder of the Soviet Union was Vladimir Lenin (we barely touched on Lenin this year so I will not focus on him) He was in power for just over one year.  After Lenin came Joseph Stalin.  Under Stalin's brutal leadership the Soviet Union won world 2, developed it's first atomic bomb, but also killed approximately 20 million people.  After Stalin's death in 1953 Georgy Malenkov was his replacement.  He was in power for 11 days before being replaced by Nikita Khrushchev.  Khrushchev gave a speech in 1956 talking about De-Stalinization. De-Stalinization was the reforms to change/remove key ideals that helped Stalin to control total power in the Soviet Union.  Some examples are GULAG and the renaming of cities such as Stalingrad and Leningrad.  After Khrushchev being removed from office in 1964 Leonid Brezhnev replaced him.  Brezhnev played a key role in Soviet-American relations.  He was in charge during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks which provided a maximum number of missiles a country could have at any given time.  Yuri Andropov replaced Brezhnev in 1942 but died after only 1 year in power.  Following the death of Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko took power, but similarly to Yuri his health was rapidly declining and died after only 1 year in power.  After Chernenko, the final leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev took power.  Gorbachev was the most important leader of the Soviet Union in terms of Soviet-American relations.  His reforms changed the Soviet Union into a more free nation.  He encouraged people to think for themselves.  When Gorbachev resigned in 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved with him.