who was the first leader of Soviet Union? what do you think of him?
543048
Lenin.  \n\nGiven the history of the Soviet Union it's impossible to come to any other opinion than he failed in his aim to improve the lot of the Russian people.
1014500
One of the big problems Gorbachev created was the idea to give the people the right to complain about things without putting in place any mechanism for making things better. What this did was to show that the majority of the people thought the system was doing very badly, and also that trying to work within the existing political framework was meaningless.\n\nAlso, Gorbachev's chaotic style made a lot of people very uneasy since they did not know what to expect from him. When he first came into power, he was replacing all of the Brezhnev people ruthlessly with his own people, he crushed Latvia with the black-hatted security forces and put the squeeze on the Eastern European client states. Then, when he started to become a rock star he let it go to his head and started to pretend he was the nicest guy in the world, and then it started to look like he was getting lethally frustrated with everything.
21896
Oh lord, if only there weren't so much competition for that title.  I guess I'll go with Kim Jong Il, "General Secretary of the Party and chairman of the National Defense Commission" aka brutal dictator of North Korea.  He's startlingly inept at governing, causing widespread famine.  Also, he's working on building nukes.  Bad dictator; NO NUKES FOR YOU. <3
356400
No, he was not. He was given control over a Soviet agency after Lenin's death and consolidated his power from there. Malenkov or Trotsky were considered the likely successors to Lenin. Malenkov was too meek to fight Stalin for power and Stalin turned public opinion against Trotsky, forcing him to flee to Mexico, where he was assassinated.
245134
1.adolf hitler\n2> Josef Stalin\n3. Mao Tse tung\n4. ...\n\nbut maybe you mean alive or of all time? you should clarify then I';ll edit if need be...\n\n10) Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea. Age 63. In power since 1979. Last year’s rank: 10\n\n9) Seyed Ali Khamane’i, Iran. Age 66. In power since 1989. Last year’s rank: 18\n\n8) Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan. Age 65. In power since 1990. Last year’s rank: 8\n\n6) Hu Jintao, China.Age 63.In power since 2002. Last year’s rank:4\nBetween 250,000 and 300,000 political dissidents are held in “reeducation-through-labor” camps. There are no privately owned TV or radio stations. The government opens and censors mail and monitors phone calls, faxes, e-mails and text messages. \n\n5) Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan. Age 67. In power since 1990. Last year’s rank: 15\nKarimov’s army, massacred hundreds of men, women and children. A 2003 law made Karimov and all members of his family immune from prosecution forever. \n\n\n4) Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe. Age 81. In power since 1980. Last year’s rank: 9\nLife in Zimbabwe has gone from bad to worse: It has the world’s highest inflation rate, 80% unemployment and an HIV/AIDS rate of more than 20%. Life expectancy has declined since 1988 from 62 to 38 years. Mugabe forcibly evicted some 700,000 people from their homes or businesses.\n\n3) Than Shwe, Burma (Myanmar). Age 72. In power since 1992. Last year’s rank: 3\nBurma leads the world in the use of children as soldiers, and the regime is notorious for using forced labor on construction projects and as porters for the army in war zones. The long-standing house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, recently was extended for six months. Just to drive near her heavily guarded home is to risk arrest.\n\n2) Kim Jong-il, North Korea. Age 63. In power since 1994. Last Year’s rank: 2\nWhile the outside world focuses on Kim Jong-il’s nuclear weapons program, domestically he runs the world’s most tightly controlled society. North Korea continues to rank last in the index of press freedom compiled by Reporters Without Borders, and for the 34th straight year it earned the worst possible score on political rights and civil liberties from Freedom House. An estimated 250,000 people are confined in “reeducation camps.” Malnourishment is widespread: According to the United Nations World Food Program, the average 7-year-old boy in North Korea is almost 8 inches shorter than a South Korean boy the same age and more than 20 pounds lighter.\n\n1) Omar al-Bashir, Sudan. Age 62. In power since 1989. Last year’s rank: 1\n\nSince February 2003, Bashir’s campaign of ethnic and religious persecution has killed at least 180,000 civilians in Darfur in western Sudan and driven 2 million people from their homes. The good news is that Bashir’s army and the Janjaweed militia that he supports have all but stopped burning down villages in Darfur. The bad news is why they’ve stopped: There are few villages left to burn. The attacks now are aimed at refugee camps. While the media have called these actions “a humanitarian tragedy,” Bashir himself has escaped major condemnation. In 2005, Bashir signed a peace agreement with the largest rebel group in non-Islamic southern Sudan and allowed its leader, John Garang, to become the nation’s vice president. But Garang died in July in a helicopter crash, and Bashir’s troops still occupy the south.
563445
Churchill\nTruman\nHitler\nKruschev\n Chiang Kai-Shek\nKuniaki Koiso\nJohn Curtin\nCharles de Gaulle\nBenito Mussolini\nPius XII\nWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King\n\nAnd so many more at:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_leaders_by_year#Twentieth_century
188421
if you read Russian, read here:\nhttp://history.tuad.nsk.ru/Author/Russ/T/TimchenkoJaJu/golgofa/razd1-1.html\n\nIn brief, he was a Tsarist general who took the bolsheviks' side after the revolution (the first general to do that). Played important role during the civil war, was briefly arrested in 1931, but was released the same year.\n\nIn English you might try to search Bonch-Bruevitch or something similar
862213
He was Soviet Union's/Russia's communist party leader from 1928 to 1953. \n\nAs far as what he did that was bad, in summary, he basically believed in violence against anyone that opposed his power or his beliefs in government. This included murdering opposing views. He was also responsible for many assassinations of anyone he felt threatened his position of power.\n\nYears ago, I watched an awesome two hour documentary/movie on him with Duvall playing Stalin. It was great and very informative. If my memory serves, I think it is actually called 'Stalin' and you can get it at public libraries.... well you used to could.
75938
He was charismatic, but he wasn't a great president.\n\nHis unplanned remarks to Nikita Khruschev, President of the Soviet Union, caused Khruschev to judge Kennedy to be weak.  Consequently, he installed nuclear missles in Cuba.  Kennedy reacted by blockading Cuba.  For several days in October 1963, the world was on the brink of a nuclear war.\n\nShortly after taking office, he allowed plans for an invasion of Cuba to proceed.  The invasion by Cuban refugees from Miami was a debacle that was a violation of international law and a humiliation to the United States.\n\nHe continued the program of sending military advisors to Viet Nam.  After his death, this was continued by President Lyndon Johnson and expanded into the Viet Nam war.  The Viet Nam war destroyed Johnson's presidency.\n\nTo his great credit, he was aggressive about furthering the Civil Rights movement by supporting activists with Federal authority in several high profile integration efforts.\n\nIf he had lived, almost surely he would have been elected to a second term.  He seemed to grow wiser while in office.  Would that wisdom have led him to become a great president?  Would the US have become bogged down in an unwinnable war in Viet Nam?  Would his philandering have brought him down?\n\nInteresting questions.\n\nWikipedia knows all.\n\nI was 10 when he was elected and 13 when he was assassinated.  I will never forget the optimism he brought to the country.  We believed he could lead us into the bright future.  I will never forget the terror of the Cuban Missle Crisis.  I will never forget the devastation I felt when he was assassinated.  The United States has not been the same since.  John Kennedy was the last president who _lead_ us.  Presidents after him have been followers without vision.\n\nIn 1989 (I was 39), I went to President Kennedy's grave in Arlington Cemetary.  Probably 15 or 20 people were there.  I was amazed that people were moved to silence, even those obviously born after his presidency.  I felt a great deal of reverence and had tears in my eyes.
648769
Nikita Kruschev\n\nSoldier for USSR during WW2\nSoviet Premiere after Stalin
781991
Sun Yat-sen was the 1st president. \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Republic_of_China\n\nLook under History
383840
Ronald Regan gets the credit because he was the president at the time and he was noted for his anti-soviet politics.  My guess is that he was just there at the right time.  The economy in the Soviet Union was beyond repair.  "US intelligence experts did not fail to predict the self-destruction of the former USSR. The CIA's analysts had actually been warning US leaders since the early 1980s about the former USSR's weakening economy..."
36153
It didn't last for the USSR! :)
632487
Moscow started out as just a village.  Who knows who founded it?  If I remember my Russian history right, I think that it was Ivan the Terrible who made Moscow the strongest city in Russia, and began to form a "Russian" nation.
984971
History of the Soviet Union  \n    Human beings have always demanded leadership; without it, society invariably heads toward self-destruction. But mankind has evolved over time, from a primal form of tribal leadership, to monarchy and dictatorship and finally, is on its tortuous path to the possibility of complete democracy. From the end of the Renaissance, the people have gradually awaken to the knowledge of human rights and a hatred of dictatorship, thus leading to bloody striving for independence. Such was the case of Russia, a nation rocked by many revolutions; a nation which, in stretching its arms toward economic superiority and political freedom, has sacrificed tens of millions of its people. In proud Russia’s turbulent history, it is demonstrated over and over again that, while the people may be repressed and scared into obedient silence for a while, they will rise, in order to defend their basic rights as human beings.\n\n \nBOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION  \n    Russia, near the end of the nineteenth century, was an impoverished state, miles and miles behind the other nations of Europe. At the beginning of the reign in 1894, Tsar Nicholas II, made an attempt at building factories and railways in order to boost Russia’s economy. Despite such vast economic progress and industrialization, the peasantry was far from satisfied. For, just as in any country new to industrialization, the government temporarily forgot its priority, in the rush to catch up to other more technologically advanced countries: its people. Ridiculously low wages, child labor and deplorable working conditions were wide spread, as trade unions were still outlawed. As the bridge between the poor and the rich widened, revolutionary sentiments began to grow.\n    From the masses, two revolutionary groups arose, both stemmed from the followers of Karl Marx, the Mensheviks, those who wanted wider popular support before launching any revolutionary movements, and the Bolsheviks, disciples of a particular interpretation of Marxism, who wanted radical change immediately. On January 22, 1905, 200,000 workers and their families gathered in front of the Czar palace to demand better “better working conditions, more personal freedom, and an elected national assembly.” The czar’s generals ordered their soldiers to fire into the crowd, killing as many as 1000 citizens, whose efforts only achieved little in terms of political change.\n    To complicate matters even further, in 1914, Czar Nicholas II made the fateful decision to launch Russia into The Great War, World War I, dragging with him Russia’s 11 million peasants. Russia’s economy was still growing, not yet mature, no where near able to handle the economic crisis that the war brought. The Germans crushed the Russian’s poorly equipped troops and inexperienced generals, as well as the soldiers’ morale. The czar had pushed his unstable economy and his unwilling people into World War I; he would indeed feel the consequences of his actions.\n \nMARCH REVOLUTION  \n    In March of 1917, a group of women textile workers led a riot against shortages of bread and fuel. The Tsar’s soldiers were ordered, once again, to fire into the crowd, but were convinced by some of the women to join their cause. Enthusiastic shouts of “down with the war!” and “down with the autocracy!” were heard all over. The Russian populace, after three centuries of oppressive rule, suddenly erupted with the “fever of the masses”; their sheer number and determination forced Nicholas to abdicate his throne. He and his family were placed under house arrest and shot a year later by the ultimately victorious Bolsheviks.\n    A provisional government (temporary government) headed by Alexander Kerensky replaced the dead czar regime as the people dared to look forward to a more secure future. But the provincial government decided to continue Russia’s involvement in the war, worsening internal conditioning. Kerensky gradually lost th
121097
Kim Il-sung (15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was the leader of North Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death, when he was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death, although his real power came from his position as General Secretary of the Korean Workers' Party. North Korea officially refers to him as the "Great Leader" and he is designated in the constitution as the country's "eternal President." His birthday and the day of his death are public holidays in North Korea.\nRestored as leader of North Korea, Kim purged his political rivals, particularly the former southern Korean Communist leadership, and embarked on the reconstruction of the country devastated by the war. He launched a five-year national economic plan to establish a Soviet-style command economy, with all industry owned by the state and all agriculture collectivised. The economy was based on heavy industry, particularly arms production. North Korea retained huge armed forces to defend the 1953 ceasefire line.\n\nDuring the 1950s, Kim was seen as an orthodox Communist leader, loyal to and ultimately under the control of the Soviet Union. When the Sino-Soviet split developed in the 1960s, however, Kim became increasingly independent. He sided with the Chinese in the early 1960s, but never severed his relations with the Soviets. When the Cultural Revolution broke out in China after 1966, Kim veered back to the Soviet side. At the same time, he established an extensive personality cult in which he was called the "Great Leader"\n\nKim developed the policy and ideology of Juche (self-reliance), and North Korea became increasingly independent from the rest of the world.\n\nA new constitution was proclaimed in December 1972, under which Kim became President of North Korea. By this time, he had decided that his son Kim Jong-il would succeed him, and increasingly delegated the running of the government to him. The Kim family was supported by the army, due to Kim Il-Sung's revolutionary record and the support of the veteran defence minister, Oh Jin-wu. At the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980, Kim publicly designated his son as his successor.\n\nHope this helps!
566190
Georgy (Georgii) Maximilianovich Malenkov (Russian: Гео́ргий Максимилиа́нович Маленко́в, his first name then surname pronounced "GHYOR-ghee mah-leen-KOF"; January 8 [O.S. December 26, 1901] 1902 – January 14, 1988) was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. He briefly became leader of the Soviet Union (from March to September 1953) after Stalin's death and was Premier of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1955.