So, here’s your chance to vote for your personal favourite leader of the Soviet Union. Feel free to use whatever criteria you want—base your choice on looks, political skill, economic policy, personal buffoonery, military prowess, moustache style, or whatever else tickles your fancy.
Here’s the rundown of your choices:
[ul]
[li]Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1917–1924) The man who started it all: an established intellectual and persuasive orator whose political theories formed the basis for a new social system. His corpse currently holds the record for the longest lying in state, which has got to count for something.[/li][li]Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (ca. 1924–1953) The personality-culted, iron-fisted generalissimo who led his battle-torn country to victory in World War II, and set up an enduring sphere of influence in Europe with satellite states. Responsible for untold purges and repression. Fears of a zombie resurrection were quelled in 1961 when his preserved body was finally buried by the Kremlin walls.[/li][li]Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1953–1964) Best known in the West for his outlandish shoe-banging incident at the United Nations and for his “We will bury you!” catchphrase. He was obsessed with corn, decreeing its cultivation on such a scale that by 1965 it became the most reviled food in the country.[/li][li]Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1964–1982) Presided over a long period of economic stagnation. Was evidently quite the Narcissus, instigating a personality cult to provide himself with a steady string of self-congratulatory awards and undeserved medals for fictitious feats of bravery in the Great Patriotic War. Surprisingly, a 2007 poll found the majority of Russians wanted to live during Brezhnev’s era rather than any other period of Soviet history.[/li][li]Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (1982–1984) A former ambassador and head of the KGB who played a key role in suppressing the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, crushing the Prague Spring in 1968, and invading Afghanistan in 1979. It was during his leadership that Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”. Best known in the West for befriending American schoolchild Samantha Smith, whom he invited to visit him in Moscow.[/li][li]Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko (1984–1985) An ailing politician who spent more time sick at home or in the hospital than at Politburo meetings. Announced the USSR’s boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics. Upon his death, was found to have piles and piles of cash stashed around his office.[/li][li]Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (1985–1991) The instigator of glasnost and perestroika who presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Instantly recognizable for his distinctive port wine birthmark, which the yellow press in America claimed was the sign of the Antichrist.[/li][/ul]
None of them really although I picked Gorbachev because he at least tried to reform the morally bankrupt system of the USSR and Marxist-Leninism. Putin is the only good Russian leader since probably Alexander I>
I was going to vote for Chernenko, but Brezhnev is the USSR leader from my childhood so he scored massive nostalgia points for all the remembered TV footage of the Tanks and Tractors parades they would have in May, everybody looking as miserable as ever.
Has to be Gorby, since he was smart enough to realize that communism was a bad bet for the people of Russia. Lenin, Stalin and Krushchev were certifiably insane (especially the two latter men) and oppressed and murdered their own people by the millions. The others were primarily former KGB and continued those murder and torture practices once in the office of Premier.
I voted for J.V. Stalin, although he was “responsible for untold purges and repression”. He did as much as he could for his country. Soviet people really liked him. Russians always need so called “tsar-batyushka”. That’s why they have Putin now. And btw Stalin reminds me of Yuri Irsenovich Kim.
There should be a whole separate poll for “best eyebrows”, and the candidates shouldn’t be limited to Soviet leaders. Lets see how Brezhnev fares against the likes of Eugene Levy, Groucho Marx, and Frida Kahlo.
Good lord, how I hate when people say things like that. What, do you think there’s something magical in the Russian water that renders Russians incapable of democracy? “My people are uniquely unsuited to self-rule, and thus need a national father to rule for them” is the self-serving line of drivel trotted out by nearly every tyrant for the last hundred years.
No one yearns for the secret policeman’s knock at 3AM, nor to be jailed without a fair trial, nor to be shot for criticizing the government, either with rubber bullets or metal ones. The Russians have had a lengthy run of godawful luck, but it’s absurd to suggest that an ordinary Russian man or woman needs to be oppressed any more than you or I do.
“Purges and repression” are polite terms for mass murder, deportations and imprisonment. Hundreds of thousands in the former instance, millions in the latter two. Industrializing and militarizing one’s country can’t atone for any of that. The man was a monster.
Most useful as an example of an evil totalitarian dictator: killed more people than Hitler, arguably more ruthless than Mao Zedong, more charismatic than Fidel Castro. Great in analogies where you don’t want racist or antisemitic overtones. Big enough to be his own caricature, but still enough gravity to carry a serious discussion.
I picked Khruschev because he was the only one with any comic value. The others were just evil sourpusses, except for Gorbachev, who was just overwhelmed.
I voted for Gorbachev but the bar is set pretty low. All of them were dictators that were trying to hold up a bad system and Gorbachev stands out only because he did such a poor job at it that the bad system collapsed.
Brezhnev was not only a narcissist, he was also a huge lush (and drug user). Which is ironic considering that he started one of the first anti-alcohol campaigns in the Soviet Union.
