20th century russian presidents in order

Countries, including Russia, are shaped by historical legacies. However, individual actors may play an even greater role in the formation of a state, its culture, and national identity. In the case of Russian leaders, it was Peter the Great who introduced revolutionary reforms and managed to open a “window to Europe” for Russians. It was Elizabeth Petrovna who continued the westernization process, and Alexander II who paved the way for Russian imperialism and changed its social-political setting by abolishing serfdom.

Later on, the ideas and actions of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mikhail Gorbachev dramatically shaped the Russian state and Russian identity, linking it to communism and the Soviet Union. And finally, we see today Vladimir Putin trying to rebuild Russian power and its international presence.

1. Peter the Great (1682-1725): Reformer Among Russian Leaders

From 1682 to 1725, Peter the Great reigned the Tsardom of Russia. He is called the “Tsar Reformer,” who modernized Russia and grew it into a European power, making him a reformer among Russian leaders.

Determined to establish Russia as a modern maritime power, Peter the Great engaged in several wars with Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and Turkey and managed to seize control over the ports of Azov and the Baltic Sea. These moves proved necessary to form the basis for establishing the Imperial Russian Navy, which ended the Swedish supremacy in the Baltic and catalyzed Russia’s territorial expansion.

The Soviet Union had eight leaders during its existence from 1922 to 1991. Unlike countries in which a president or prime minister is the designated head of state, the leaders of the USSR mostly assumed power by becoming the head of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, in addition to any other roles they may have taken on along the way.

The men who ruled the Soviet Union the longest were Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev, who each served several decades as head of the Communist Party. Lesser-known are Soviet heads of state such as Georgy Malenkov, who lost power to Nikita Khrushchev after only a few weeks, or Konstantin Chernenko, who died after barely a year in office and was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev. Each of these eight men, however, in some way shaped the USSR.

Vladimir Lenin (1922-1924)

Vladimir Lenin was the founder of the Russian Communist Party and the first Soviet head of state. Following the February Revolution that ousted the Russian monarchy and ended the Russian Empire in 1917, Lenin helped lead the October Revolution (or Bolshevik Revolution) that established a new Soviet government.

The October Revolution sparked the Russian Civil War, which lasted for the first few years of Lenin’s tenure. Lenin’s Red Army won the war, cementing the power of the new Soviet government. In 1922, Lenin’s government signed a treaty with Ukraine, Belarus and Transcaucasia (a region including Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) to form the Soviet Union, or USSR.

That same year, Lenin’s health began to deteriorate. Doctors removed a bullet from his neck that had been lodged there since an assassination attempt in 1918, but his health continued to worsen. On January 21, 1924, he died of a stroke at age 53.

Lenin had begun his revolutionary career as a Marxist who wanted to give political power to workers and peasants. Yet when he died, the actual Soviet government he had established was much different than the type