De-Stalinization (Russian: десталинизация) refers to a process of political reform in the Soviet Union that took place after the death of head of state Joseph Stalin in 1953. The reforms consisted of changing or removing key institutions that helped Stalin hold power: the cult of personality that surrounded him, the Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system, all of which had been created and dominated by him as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, among other titles, from 1922–52. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953, consisting of: Georgi Malenkov, Premier of the Soviet Union; Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Ministry of the Interior; and Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).Contemporary historians regard the process of de-Stalinization as a significant turning point in the history of the Soviet Union.