The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were the two primary socialist political parties in 1917, the time of the revolution in Russia. The Mensheviks were lead by Alexander Kerenskii and the Bolsheviks were lead by Lenin. The Bolsheviks were the majority and differed from the Menshevik minority in their beliefs; Mensheviks favored a gradual change and opposed revolution, and the Bolsheviks desired absolute control for the Socialist Party and favored revolution as opposed to gradual change. The Bolsheviks and Lenin would emerge in control.

The Great Purge was a campaign initiated by Stalin in 1934 to remove all “undesirable” elements from the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. In practical terms, it involved the removal of numerous government officials from their positions, the execution of much of the Red Army’s leadership, repression of the peasantry, and the execution and imprisonment of intellectuals. The Purge was primarily caused by Stalin’s desire to consolidate his control over the Communist Party and to remove any factions who might remain loyal to his chief challenger, Leon Trotsky.

When Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in 1985 he set about reviving the stagnant Russian economy. He soon realized that the Soviet Union’s extensive economic problems could not be resolved without a complete restructuring of the political and social institutions of the U.S.S.R. To this end he adopted two famous policies called “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (restructuring). “Perestroika” sought to replace Russia’s planned economy with something much more akin to a western economic system, whereas “glasnost” was designed to implement openness and accountability into the Soviet government. These two major reforms are usually credited with bringing about the end of communism and fracturing the Soviet Union. 

“Glasnost” was a policy of openness implemented by Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev in the waning years of the Soviet Union. Its primary intention was to provide the public with greater access to information and ensure higher levels of accountability in the government.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 is the collective term given to the process whereby the Tsarist regime was overthrown and replaced by the Soviet Union. Due to differences at the time between the European and Russian calendars, the two revolutions are called either “the February and October Revolutions” or “the March and November Revolutions.” The March revolution overthrew the Tsarist regime and replaced it with a provisional government; however, the Socialists were still not in complete control, and in November, Lenin overthrew the provisional government and established the Soviet Union.

The Russian Premier during much of the 1960s and all of the 1970s was Leonid Brezhnev. He argued, in what would come to be called the Brezhnev Doctrine, that all Communist states (particularly the Soviet Union) had a responsibility to aid the spread of Communism around the world. And, furthermore, to ensure that those states that had become Communist remained so.

All of these men served as heads of the Communist party and/or Soviet government except for Leon Trotsky. Trotsky came to power in the same wave of revolution that ushered in Vladimir Lenin as leader of the country. However, Trotsky opposed the rise of Josef Stalin, and once Stalin assumed control of the country, Trotsky was exiled and a decade later, executed on Stalin's orders.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union was suffering from a series of agricultural and industrial failures, and its economy was in a shambolic state. In an attempt to allieviate some of the ills of society and provide a more open state, the Communist party leader Mikhail Gorbachev promoted a series of reforms called "glasnost" and "perestroika." They were designed to open up individual freedoms and promote democracy in the country.

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in 1963. The President of the United States at the time was John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union was Nikita Kruschev. The crisis began when the Soviet Union installed missiles in Cuba very close to American territory. For a short time, the world was very close to nuclear warfare between the two countries until Kruschev and the Russians agreed to remove their missiles from Cuba if the United States removed its missiles from Turkey.

Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human to go to outer space. During the 1950s and 1960s, a major part of the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union was the Space Race. The Soviets were the first to orbit the Earth (with Sputnik) and the first to put a man in space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; however, the United States was the first to put a man on the moon in 1969.