Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the CPSU, who was also a Politburo member, was the leader of the Secretariat and of the Party. Dual membership in the Secretariat and the Politburo was in practice reserved for two or three very senior members of the Soviet leadership, and in the post-Stalin era (after March 1953) was a stepping-stone to ultimate power. The last five Soviet leaders (Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev) were all senior Secretaries before becoming First or General Secretaries. Additionally, Georgy Malenkov was briefly reckoned as the leader of the Party for a week after Stalin's death by
Railway system of the Soviet Union the Ministry of Railways in the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Railways were split into fifteen different national railways belonging to the respective countries. However, after the end of Soviet Railways, rail transport in the former Soviet states greatly declined and have not recovered to their former efficiency to this day. Russian Railways is considered as the primary successor of Soviet Railways. Other successors inherited the Soviet infrastructure in Central Asia. Railway system of the Soviet Union The Soviet Railways (Russian: Cоветские железные дороги (CЖД)) was the state owned national railway system of the