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
Joseph Stalin is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder. Stalin strengthened and stabilised the Soviet Union; Service suggested that without him the country might have collapsed long before 1991. In under three decades, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power, one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education, and Soviet pride. Under his rule, the average Soviet life expectancy grew due to improved living conditions, nutrition, and medical care; mortality rates declined. Although millions of Soviet citizens despised him, support for Stalin was nevertheless widespread throughout Soviet society. Stalin's Soviet Union has