History
The prize was created as the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples on December 21, 1949 by executive order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in honor of Joseph Stalin's seventieth birthday (although it was actually after his seventy-first). Following Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin during the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956, the prize was renamed on September 6 the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples. All previous recipients were asked to return their Stalin Prizes so they could be replaced by the renamed Lenin Prize. By a decision of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 11, 1989, the prize was renamed the International Lenin Peace Prize. Two years later, after the USSR had collapsed, the Russian government, as the successor state to the defunct Soviet Union, ended the award program.
The International Lenin Prize should not be confused with the International Peace Prize, awarded by the World Peace Council. There was also a Stalin Prize (later renamed the USSR State Prize) created during 1941 which was awarded annually to accomplished Soviet writers, composers, artists and scientists.
Read more about this topic: Lenin Peace Prize
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