Council of Ministers (Soviet Union)

The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (, tr.: Sovet Ministrov SSSR; sometimes abbreviated to Sovmin or referred to as the Soviet of Ministers), was the de jure government comprising the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet Union from 1946 until 1991.

In 1946 the Council of People's Commissars was transformed into the Council of Ministers, with People's Commissariats turned into Ministries. The council issued declarations and instructions based on and in accordance with applicable laws, which had obligatory jurisdictional power over the territories of all republics within the Union. However, the most important state issues were handled through joint declarations with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU), which was de facto more powerful than the Council of Ministers. In 1991 the Council of Ministers was dissolved, and replaced by the newly-established Cabinet of Ministers, which itself disappeared only months later when the Soviet Union disintegrated.

There were seven chairmen of the Council of Ministers, in effect Premier of the Soviet Union. Following Nikita Khrushchev's removal from the post of Party First Secretary and Premier by Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin, a Central Committee plenum forbade any individual to hold the posts of First Secretary and Premier concurrently. The Presidium of the Council of Ministers was the collective decision-making body of government. The Chairman of...
Read More