Well I could either type a seventeen page essay indicating every war, coupe, and uprising. Or I could choose the most colorful and well most well known and summarize it to a three pager. I think I’ll go with the latter for your sake and mine. Now the start of the USSR all began with the abdication of the Czar Nicholas the 2nd on March 2nd 1917, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia), due to his little reforms when he gained power and his foolish decisions for his entire dictatorship. As for the USSR, it was not fully established for another five years. In the five year span two groups of differing political ideas, Bolsheviks or majority and the Mensheviks meaning minority, fought over who should have the power. At the time, Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks and established the ground laws of the communist party by taking what Karl Marx wrote, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx), and adapting it so it actually could work. AKA Leninism, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leninism). Lenin in fact was not made the first General Secretariat of the Communist Party but remained the leader of the Bolshevik party and died on January 21st in 1924. Two years after the founding of the USSR. Joseph Stalin was in fact the first leader or General Secretariat of the USSR on April 3rd 1922. Stalin’s reign lasted until his death on March 5 in 1953 in what was known as the “Doctors Plot”, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot). Sadly it’s not as cool as it sounds and was another case of anti-semitism gone really wrong. After Stalin’s death Nikita Khrushchev succeeded his office and led the nation through the Cuban missile crisis and has not died yet. But he was “disposed” of in office by Leonid Brezhnev who reigned through Vietnam until his death in 1982. As for the next two honchos, they only lasted a year before death so I’m going to skip them but if you really want to learn about them here are there links in chronological order, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Andropov), (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Chernenko). Finally at long last my man Gorbachev took office on March 11, 1985. NOTE I realize some of you may be confused by me using the phrase take office when on the economic page I explained what exactly the relationship of a General Secretariat was to the Communist Party. So I’ll briefly explain it here, the General Secretariat is the most influential man in the USSR because he speaks for the communist party and controls most of the government's power and decision making, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Secretary_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union). Now that does not mean he is on the same level as a US president, rather he has a slight bit of power compared to the rest of the Council of Ministers but they still have the power to make decisions on everything but they must come to a consensus with the General Secretariats voice having slightly more say. As I return to Gorbachev, he was known most famously for speaking out against the Soviet Union’s communist ideas and economics and in fact was the last communist ruler of the USSR. He was almost overthrown in 1991 but the military refused to cooperate with the terrorists and the Soviet Union was disbanded in 1991 on December 26 when the Supreme Soviet officially disbanded the Soviet Union. Then in 1999 and on Vladimir Putin has been the President of Russia and has made the country's economy pretty stable and made it capitalist while taking part in some very sketchy things. For instance the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Now below you can see a homemade jpg of the Soviet Union summed up pretty fast while skipping everything important and traumatizing.