query: Who was the first USSR leader?
passage: List of leaders of the Soviet Union
Through the history of the Soviet Union several political offices were endowed with power, which made their holder the de facto leader of the country. Under the 1977 Constitution, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, was the head of government[1] and the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was the head of state.[2] The office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers was comparable to a prime minister in the First World[1] whereas the office of the Chairman of the Presidium was comparable to a president.[2] In the Soviet Union's seventy-year history there was no official leader of the Soviet Union office, but during most of that era there was a de facto top leader who usually led the country through the office of Premier or the office of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In the ideology of Vladimir Lenin, the head of the Soviet state was a collegiate body of the vanguard party (see What Is To Be Done?).
passage: List of leaders of the Soviet Union
At the age of 54, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the General Secretariat by the Politburo on 11 March 1985.[30] In May 1985, Gorbachev publicly admitted the slowing down of the economic development and inadequate living standards, being the first Soviet leader to do so while also beginning a series of fundamental reforms. From 1986 to around 1988, he dismantled central planning, allowed state enterprises to set their own outputs, enabled private investment in businesses not previously permitted to be privately owned and allowed foreign investment, among other measures. He also opened up the management of and decision-making within the Soviet Union and allowed greater public discussion and criticism, along with a warming of relationships with the West. These twin policies were known as perestroika (literally meaning "reconstruction", but it varies) and glasnost ("openness" and "transparency"), respectively.[31] The dismantling of the principal defining features of Soviet Communism in 1988 and 1989 in the Soviet Union led to the unintended consequence of the Soviet Union breaking up after the failed August coup of 1991 led by Gennady Yanayev.[32]