Council of Ministers (Soviet Union) - History

History

The Council of People's Commissars, the Soviet Government, was transformed into the Council of Ministers in March 1946 in all level of governance. At the same time The People's Commissariats were transformed into Ministries. Joseph Stalin's death sparked a power struggle within the Soviet leadership between the Government apparatus led by Georgy Malenkov as Premier, and the Party apparatus led by Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary. Malenkov lost the power struggle, and in 1955 he was demoted from his office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was succeeded in his post by Nikolai Bulganin, who in turn was removed and replaced by Khrushchev because of his support for the Anti-Party Group, which had tried to oust Khrushchev in 1957.

Following Khrushchev's removal from power, the collective leadership led by Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin held a Central Committee plenum which forbade any single individual to hold the two most powerful posts in the country: First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, was in charge of economic administration while Brezhnev, the General Secretary, took care of other domestic matters. In the later part of the Brezhnev Era the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers lost its position as the second-most powerful in the Soviet Union to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Nikolai Podgorny's removal as head of state in 1977 had the effect of reducing Kosygin's role in day-to-day management of government activities as Brezhnev strengthened his control over the government apparatus.

Kosygin resigned in 1980, to be succeeded by his First Deputy Chairman Nikolai Tikhonov. After five-years service, under the rules laid down by Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko Tikhonov was compelled to retire by Mikhail Gorbachev on 27 September 1985. Tikhonov was succeeded by Nikolai Ryzhkov. Ryzhkov was a half-hearted reformer, and was skeptical towards the de-nationalisation and the monetary reform of 1989, however, he did support the creation of a "regulated market" economy. In 1991 Ryzhkov was succeeded as Premier by Valentin Pavlov. The Council of Ministers was dissolved and replaced with the newly established Cabinet of Ministers.