History of the Soviet Union (1953–64) Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and Georgi Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. However the central figure in the immediate post-Stalin period was the former head of the state security apparatus, Lavrentiy Beria. Stalin had left the Soviet Union in an unenviable state when he died. At least 2.5 million people languished in prison and in labor camps, science and the arts had been subjugated to socialist realism, and agriculture productivity on the whole was meager. The country had only one quarter of the livestock it
The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): Short Course (), translated to English under the title History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, is a textbook on the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, first published in 1938. Colloquially known as "the Short Course", it was the most widely disseminated book during the time Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and one of the most important ones elucidating Marxism-Leninism. The book was commissioned by