What were the requirements to be President of the Soviet Union?

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

I'm not sure if the leader was formally called this or if it was just the General Sec. of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but the same question applies.

[Ismail]

The Presidency of the Soviet Union came into existence in 1990 when the Soviet Constitution was modified. The President was appointed by the Congress of People's Deputies, which came into existence a year earlier.

Before then there were three "leaders" of the country. The most important was the leader of the Communist Party. Lenin occupied no formal "leader" position, he was one of the members of the Politburo, but as founder of the Bolsheviks he was was de facto leader of the party as far as everyone was concerned. The Politburo was appointed by the Central Committee. The Central Committee was elected by the Party Congress. After Lenin came Stalin, who Lenin had recommended as General Secretary. Again though this position didn't automatically mean "leader." Stalin himself from 1934 just signed things as "Secretary of the Central Committee" and the office was formally abolished in 1952, but the designation still stuck. After Stalin came Khrushchev, who was known as First Secretary. Brezhnev restored the title of General Secretary.

Moving onto state affairs, the leader of the Soviet Union as a country (aka head of government) was first known as the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and later as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Both the People's Commissariats and the Council of Ministers were appointed by the Congress of Soviets, which became the Supreme Soviet in the 1936 Constitution. Sometimes the leader of the party was also leader of the state, sometimes not.

Then there was the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets, later known as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. This was the closest thing the USSR had to a head of state. He carried out rather mundane things like handling diplomatic correspondence and presiding over sessions of the Congress of Soviets (later sessions of the Supreme Soviet.)

Basically the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party were responsible for working out countrywide policies, the Council of People's Commissars (later Ministers) was responsible for putting them into practice. Laws would generally be announced as the joint decision of the party Central Committee and the government Council. As Lenin put it (http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html): "Not a single important political or organizational question is decided by any state institution in our republic without the guiding instructions of the Central Committee of the Party."