1912    ''Pravda,'' the "voice" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg.

1953    Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1953    Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1953    Nikita Khrushchev is appointed secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1956    The XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins in Moscow. On the last night of the meeting, Premier Nikita Khrushchev condemns Joseph Stalin's crimes in a secret speech.

1964    Leonid Brezhnev becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and thereby, along with his allies - such as Alexei Kosygin - the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), ousting the former monolithic leader Nikita Khrushchev, and sending him into retirement as a nonperson in the USSR.

1984    Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1991    Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.