How does Vladimir Putin stand up next to his processors? Here are five key points in the records of past leaders of Russia and the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Lenin (1917-24)
• led the Bolshevik revolution that took control of Russia, provoking a civil war in which millions perished from battles, executions, famine and epidemics.
• initiated the Red Terror brutal crackdown after a nearly successful assassination attempt, executing as many estimated 200,000 perceived opponents.
• founded the Soviet Union, extending Russia's control over neighbouring nations.
• his policies lead to rapid economic recovery after the devastating effects of the First World War, the revolution and the civil war.
• inspired revolutionary movements in other countries, including Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and China.
Joseph Stalin (1928-53)
• transformed the Soviet Union from an agricultural nation of peasants into an urbanized industrial and military superpower, but with little improvement to the lives of its citizens - oversaw a military force that helped defeat Nazism during the Second World War and bring most of Eastern Europe under his control.
• brought the Soviet Union into the nuclear age, exploding its first atomic device.
• moved the Soviet Union from a revolutionary government of ideas to a solidly totalitarian regime.
• although historians argue about the number, his policies of forced agricultural collectivism, rapid industrialization and suppression of opponents resulted in the deaths of at least 10 million people (some say as many as 60 million) through executions, harsh treatment in prisons, deportations and avoidable famines.
Nikita Khrushchev (1956-63)
• supported a campaign of "de-Stalinization," restoring legal procedures, diminishing the role of the secret police, closing prison camps and allowing greater cultural and intellectual freedom.
• brought the USSR into the space age, with the 1957 flight of Sputnik I, the first spacecraft to orbit the earth.
• oversaw the signing of the Warsaw Pact, delineating the split between East and West, capitalist and communist.
• presided over a series of crises at the height of the Cold War, including the downing of the U.S. U2 spy-plane, the erection of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• encouraged more liberal communists, including Mikhail Gorbachev.
Leonid Brezhnev (1963-82)
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achieved equality with the United States on strategic nuclear weapons, setting the stage for weapons' limitations treaties to come
• sent Soviet troops into Afghanistan, opening a new front in the Cold War
• asserted Soviet control over other Eastern Bloc states by invading Czechoslovakia to stop its movement toward liberalization.
• brought the Soviet Union to its peak in military and economic might, but it also began to slip down the other side of that height as the agricultural and industrial sectors stalled
• despite its economic might, much of the money went into the arms race with the United States, and ordinary Soviets saw little benefit .
Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)
• allowed increased freedom of speech and greater independence and privatization of enterprise under the policies of glasnost (openness), and perestroika (restructuring) respectively, but the economy continued to spiral downward.
• pulled Soviet troops out of Afghanistan.
• signed treaties with the United States to reduce their nuclear arsenals, effectively ending the Cold War.
• allowed citizens to vote for the first time in decades.
• presided over the end of the Warsaw Pact and the emergence of strong nationalist movements in the 15 republics of the USSR, leading to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Eastern Bloc.
Boris Yeltsin (1991 - 1999)
• led popular resistance to a coup attempt by hard-line Soviets against Mikhail Gorbachev, drawing Muscovites into the streets to defend the Russian parliament and effectively sideline Mr. Gorbachev.
• ushered in democracy as the first democratically elected president in Russian history.
• his "shock therapy" to take Russia from a planned economy to a free market allowed a handful of people to enrich themselves but devastated the living standards of much of the population, wiped out vast sectors of the economy and increased inequality and unemployment.
• ordered the invasion of Chechnya to bring the breakaway republic back under Moscow's control, launching a bloody war that isn't fully over yet.
• made Russia the object of ridicule in his declining years with increasingly erratic behaviour on the world stage, often thought to be the result of alcoholism.
Vladimir Putin (2000 - present)
• forcefully re-asserted Russia's influence in world affairs, opposing the invasion of Iraq and wielding the country's considerable oil and gas resources as a diplomatic weapon.
• balanced the budget, cut inflation, and brought the economy back from it's 1998 collapse.
• to many ordinary Russians, he restored much-needed poryadok (order), nurtured the country's renaissance, and gave Russians something to be proud of after years of feeling humiliated.
• rolled back many of the freedoms allowed in the chaotic period immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, shutting down or taking control of independent media organizations, putting down public protests, and hobbling the opposition to the point that his United Russia is the only political party with any real power.
• rebels, mostly Chechens, were able to carry out in a series of high-profile bombings and hostage-takings that often ended in bloodbaths, most notably at a Moscow theatre and a school in Beslan.
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