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While the table lists people in chronological order. The graph is in reverse chronological order.
Can someone fix this?
Actually, I see the graph as being sideways. I'm going to try to make a new one in a day or two. Also, the table is very confusing to me. I wish we could put braces (curly brackets) or something around the multiple offices to make it more accesible. 68.161.30.23601:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This article is not about the Premier of the Soviet Union but its leaders, i.e. the men who were in the top of power. Molotov, Rykov, Kosygin were not the top leader at their time. Avia08:13, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean the premier ministers, I think it is not necessary, since after Lenin that post was no longer most powerful. Avia08:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Although Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was the official head of state of the Soviet Union, that post had never meant top power. Maybe, you do not remember the men who held that post before Brezhnev, e.g. Kalinin :-) Avia07:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is it appropriate to include countries which were existing independent states before being annexed by the USSR in a list of states that replaced the Soviet Union (i.e. the Baltics)? Unigolyn05:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
only the states that turned SSR then joined the USSR replaced the USSR.
In the image Nikita Khrushchev misspelled as Krushchev. In fact threre is not k sound, but the phoneme just as in 'hope' or 'home'.--Nixer18:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who was it who changed the listings under the supreme ruler box? I do not believe Malenkov lost power until '55 and i know breznev was apart of a troikas until c.'68. And Stalin clearly wasnt leader in 1934, there was the long power struggle. Vital Component, 2:32 est. oct 24, 06
Here: "... Lenin, Stalin, Malenkov and Khrushchev preferred the post of the premier, while Brezhnev and his successors preferred that of the president."
There: "The President of the Soviet Union was the Head of State of the USSR from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev was the first and only person to occupy the office."
What is true? An office cannot be created in 1990, and have someone preferring it in the seventies.
as president in Brezhnev case is meant Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet that is equivalent to position president in other countries. --Li-sung17:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Short answer -- no. :)
Chairman was not a president for a simple reason. "A president" was called "Presidium of the Supreme Council". _Collectively_ you can call is a "president-like entity". Chairman of such Presidium was per se no more than speaker of the parliament in modern democratic countries. Of course, that is unless it was same person as General Secretary :))
Is it worth to mention this property of the USSR/Russia leaders' sequence Lenin-Stalin-Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko-Gorbachev-Yeltsin-Putin-Medvedev?92.39.161.221 (talk) 18:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A common mistake pretty much everyone makes. Soviet history is not that straightforward as it seems :) You forget that Khruschev wasn't a sole leader initially, it was him and Zhukov. Egh0st (talk) 19:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Under the Constitution of the Soviet Union, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars was the head of government and the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets was the head of state."
This is terribly muddled and needs a proper overhaul, or even better removal.
Lenin and his entourage created the USSR around themselves, establishing the Council of People's Commissars in 1917, a full five years before the USSR was set up. The first sentence is quite misleading. The Council of Ministers (Soviet Union) wasn't set up until 1946.
"The office of the Council of Ministers was the equivalent to the office of Prime Minister" - It is hard to understand what is meant by this!
Changed to; "The office of the chairman of the CoM was the equivalent to the office of the Prime Minsiter".
"The office of the leader of the Soviet Union: if this is referring to the title of an office it should have the Russian translation by it.
Fixed.
All in all the first paragraph and the summary should better be removed so that the article becomes precisely what it sets out to be: a list, rather than a inadequate summary of certian points in the history of the Soviet Union.Harrypotter (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why do the picture tags say things like: "Old man in a white shirt with black tie" instead of the names of the people in the picture? 62.12.14.28 (talk) 11:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There was the dictator. Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev and Brezhnev. They didn't NEED no stinking titles, although they were called "VZOD". The Premier was the Prime Minister, which was a subordinate position to the VZOD, except when he wanted the job for himself. From 1964 to sometime in the 1970s, Brezhnev and Kosygn were equals. The General Secretary was head of the party. If you were head of the party you were head of the country. That went all the way from the October Revolution to the Christmas collapse 80 years laterEricl (talk) 19:12, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The Premier was the second highest political office in the USSR, and was in control over the state bureaucracy and the General Secretary was the leader of the party. Because of a lack of formal rules in the USSR (which is the reason why Stalin came to power), you did not need to hold a specific office to be considered the leader of the USSR .. For instance, in his later years, Stalin ruled the country through is post as Premier (the post of general secretary was even abolished in 1952).. Lenin and Malenkov also ruled the country through the office of premier, and Gorbachev, from 1990 until the USSr's dissolution through the post of President.. In short, the leader of the Soviet Union was the person with majority support in the Politburo of the CPSU. --TIAYN (talk) 19:19, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that removing a comment from a talk page is rude!00:12, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Was there a line of succession, like in the USA? If someone died while in office, who was the next in line to take over until a new person can be officially sworn in?
-G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.159.22.224 (talk) 04:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
+[reply]
The head of the funeral commission. In truth, no one cared. In 1924 and 1953, no one knew who was really next in line. Rhyskov was sort of elected, but in fact Stalin was grabbing power before Lenin had kicked the bucket. In 1953, Malenkov was the designated successor, but Khruschev grabbed power in the party then the collective leadership had Beria shot. They all deserved to die.19:05, 16 September 2013 (UTC) (I put it back, as this is the talk page)
There was no formal line of succession in the USSR (the communist countries of Cuba, China, Laos and Vietnam are introducing these into their systems now, which shows you the extent of the problem).. A successor was appointed by the members of the Politburo, either through votes or consensus. --TIAYN (talk) 19:19, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to change this because it's in the introductory paragraph, but I'm not sure if "equivalent to a First Worldprime minister" is the best wording. Perhaps "capitalist countries" or "Western countries" would be better. This is because the term "First World" exists today only in contrast to "Third World", with the "Second World" rarely referred to. The terms are now used almost entirely to refer to economic development, rather than political affiliation. In the context of this article it refers to the structure of government, and FWIW some Third World countries had prime ministers and the United States has only the President.
I don't want to make the change per WP:BOLD; I think it should be considered by others. Is it better to replace "First World" with "capitalist" or "Western"? Roches (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Should Gorbachev be considered to serve two terms as leader due to the August Coup as during his house arrest Yanavev is considered by this page to be a leader of the Soviet Union? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LARobson1998 (talk • contribs) 22:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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I see you pinging people, including me; but I only knew by seeing this edit, without being pinged. Per Template:Reply to, "The notification will work successfully only if you sign your post in the same edit in which you use this template." Dhtwiki (talk) 03:31, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Some sources mention that the triumvirate consisted of Khrushchev-Malenkov-Beria from the very beginning. I'm not sure what Troikas should be in the article. When Troika is mentioned, they usually mean Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev. In other cases, this term is usually not used, since the number of officials will exceed three. 'Doomer1557' ( talk) 07:36, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Doomer1557: When I included Khrushchev among the troikas listed in this article, it wasn’t my intent to indicate he was part of the Beria-Malenkov-Molotov troika which followed Stalin's death. Rather, I sought to show that he effectively took Beria’s place in that troika upon bringing about his removal. Under such circumstances, its members would not rise above three. Assuming you are opposed to the addition of a Khrushchev-Malenkov-Molotov troika because I gave no citations, would your opinion change if I provided a list of sources corroborating its existence? Emiya1980 (talk) 17:05, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Emiya1980: There is information that initially the troika consisted of Malenkov-Khrushchev-Bulganin. There are many versions, so it makes no sense to accept one. In general, I think that the Troika should not be mentioned, because the only one with strong sources is Stalin-Kamenev-Zinoviev. It is also the most famous. As a Russian, I have not heard of the Troikas Brezhnev-Kosygin-Podgorny and Chernenko-Gromyko-Ustinov. Troikas are also not mentioned on the Russian Wikipedia. 'Doomer1557' ( talk) 19:34, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No (Summoned by bot) – we need to follow what the reliable sources say, and most reliable sources discussing Soviet troikas do not include Khruschev among them. While a WP:CHERRYPICKed search such as this one turns up one reference[1] in the top ten that lists Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov as a troika. However, an unbiased-search like this one which is not cherry-picked, turns up no mention of Khrushchev in the result snippets in the first 50 results. To answer the question: "would your opinion change if I provided a list of sources corroborating its existence?": Yes, I would change my mind if you included your search method and it was unbiased and the sources represented the majority view; but No, if you either failed to provide your search method or you used a biased search (such as searching for "Khrushchev AND troika") because your list of references could represent a tiny minority of views of reliable sources on the topic, and those must be ignored in articles per WP:NPOV. Mathglot (talk) 20:04, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathglot: I think you would be stymying the quality of this discussion by prejudging my sources' quality based solely on how I found them. Regardless of the method used to find it, the reliability of a renowned scholarly work would remain the same. A better method would be to review the quality of my sources on their own merits and to objectively determine whether their evidence backs up my claim. Is that an acceptable compromise? Emiya1980 (talk) 21:42, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of the method used to find it, the reliability of a renowned scholarly work would remain the same.
That is exactly right; they would. Let's say I grant you in advance, that all of your sources are high quality, all of them are highly reliable, and every one of them backs up your claims; so no compromise needed on your part. The reliability of the work remains the same irrespective of how you found it. Okay, are we in agreement so far? Now to the part that you seem not to understand, which has to do with neutrality of the article based on majority/minority views. What doesn't remain the same depending on how you found those sources, is the validity of your argument. You said,
A better method would be to review the quality of my sources on their own merits and to objectively determine whether their evidence backs up my claim. Is that an acceptable compromise?
It's not a better method, and it's not acceptable because it goes against Wikpedia's policy of WP:DUEWEIGHT. Depending on the method you used to find your sources, your argument may either be valid, or may fall apart as a violation of WP:NPOV's principle of due weight.
At first glance, based on the searches I did earlier and linked above, your claims appear not to be held by a majority of reliable sources on the topic, nor even by a significant minority of sources. According to Wikipedia's policy of due weight, they must therefore be excluded from the article. A WP:CHERRYPICKed search can always turn up evidence for a tiny minority view, you simply have to include search terms for that view, and you will find it. The key point you seem to be missing, is that a reliable view is not sufficient for inclusion in an article; it must also be a majority or significant minority view. If it is not, it must be excluded. The searches I linked above support the latter conclusion. In order to overturn that conclusion, you would need to provide evidence that the view you hold is either a majority view, or the view of a significant minority. So far, you haven't done that. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 20:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mathglot I have reviewed the WP:NPOV page. You are correct in saying that the viewpoints published in Wikipedia articles should be presented in "in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." With that being said, your argument that I need to prove this by showing how I found these sources is not supported by Wikipedia's guidelines. The page you frequently reference, WP:CHERRYPICK, is merely an essay which contains the opinions of one or more editors but does not speak for the entire Wikipedia community. As far as I can tell while looking at the WP:NPOV page, the closest thing to a hard-and-fast rule for determining whether a viewpoint is held by the majority/minority of reliable source is as follows:
If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article.
Based on this test, you can judge whether the viewpoint I am presenting represents a majority or significant minority view based on (1) the reliability of the sources containing it (as explained on this page) and (2) the proportion which such sources make up the body of published work on the subject. I am willing not only to provide my sources but to quote how they support the view that Khrushchev formed a troika alongside Malenkov and Molotov after Beria's removal. If you think I have not provided enough reliable sources to back up this viewpoint, present your own list of verifiable sources and show how they represent views held by the majority that refute it. Point out to me one place in the guidelines (NOT an advisory opinion) which prohibits us from reaching a consensus this way. Emiya1980 (talk) 21:32, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Although I've explained it twice, you seem to still miss the point. You don't have to supply your sources or quote how they support the view that Khrushchev formed a troika alongside Malenkov and Molotov; I believe you have the sources, I believe the sources say what you claim they say. Furthermore, the only source added to this discussion that supports your point of view, is the one that I added myself. This is not a "battle of the reliable sources" and I don't have to present any sources that refute your point of view, as the WP:BURDEN is on you to prove your thesis. I cannot prove a negative: no historian will add to his page about Soviet history, "...and by the way, Montezuma of Mexico was not part of any of the Soviet troikas." You can only prove a positive, that he was part of one. The onus is on you to prove your point, and you have not done so. This is my last comment at this Rfc, so I'll try to state this as clearly as I can: I assert the following:
Based on the data provided above, the position that Khrushchev was part of a troika is supported by only a tiny minority of reliable sources on the topic, therefore per WP:UNDUE this view and these sources cannot be mentioned in the article at all.
I have performed numerous searches that support this assertion; the sources that I am seeing that support your position are around 1 or 2 in 50. Two of these searches are linked above, which you've failed to address now, twice. You keep giving your opinion here about why K. should be included in the troika, based on this or that reliable source you've found; please just stop, I've already told you I believe you can find them. What you need to do, is show some data that demonstrate that your view is a majority or a significant minority view, and that the data from the links above is somehow incorrect or unrepresentative. You haven't done that so far, the data stands in stark opposition to your claims, and you haven't provided anything of substance to believe otherwise.
I feel like we're going around in circles and I'm repeating the same points over and over. I apologize if I haven't been clear thus far, and perhaps it's best to leave this to other editors to weigh in, so I'll bow out quietly now. If you can come up with some data to prove your point, I'll be happy for you, but I have nothing new to add; please don't ping me. Good luck, Mathglot (talk) 23:37, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mathglot It is you that is missing the point. Before I even have the chance to make an argument as to why a viewpoint should be included, you set arbitrary limits on how I can go about doing so. As I said before, WP:CHERRYPICKisNOT a part of Wikipedia's guidelines (a point you conveniently failed to address in your last post). Therefore, the evidence I provide is not conditional on me providing search result "data" which suits your specifications. Some of my sources happen to be books which I own so there is no "search data" available for them. Moreover, the sources I did research online were originally found at least a year ago so it would be highly impractical for me to go back and pinpoint the search terms I used when first locating them (assuming the logs have not already been deleted in my web history by now).
Please stop trying to pass off your own preferences as Wikipedia policy. There is no basis for them to dictate others' thoughts on this matter. Emiya1980 (talk) 00:58, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
^Fursenko, A. A.; Naftali, Timothy J. (2006). Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. Norton. p. 15. ISBN978-0-393-05809-3. Retrieved 29 August 2020. Alongside Malenkov in this troika were two other powerful Kremlin figures: the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Nikita Khrushchev, and Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
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Hi all, I just had an idea for adding two columns to the table of leaders. These would be “Heads of state” and “Heads of government”, showing who served as Chairman of the Presidium and Premier during the leader’s rule. Should I add this? Thanks LivingInTwilight (talk) 05:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, it’s been about 2 days since I posted this with no reply, so I’m just going to go ahead and add the columns. Feel free to revert the edit should you consider it unhelpful. Thanks LivingInTwilight (talk) 07:37, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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