Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext) | '{{Redirect4|USSR|CCCP}}
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{{Redirect6|Soviet|the term itself|Soviet (council)}}
{{Infobox Former Country
|native_name = Союз Советских Социалистических Республик<br />''Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik''
|conventional_long_name = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics <br /><small>[[Official names of the Soviet Union|Other names]]</small>
|common_name = Soviet Union
|continent = Eurasia
|status = Federation
|government_type = [[Federal system|Federal]] [[Socialist state|socialist]] [[Soviet republic (system of government)|republic]], [[Single-party state|single-party]] [[communist state]]
|year_start = 1922
|year_end = 1991
|date_start = December 30
|date_end = December 26
|p1 = Russian SFSR
|flag_p1 = Flag RSFSR 1918.svg
|p2 = Transcaucasian SFSR
|flag_p2 = Flag of Transcaucasian SFSR.svg
|p3 = Ukrainian SSR
|flag_p3 = Flag of the Ukrainian SSR (1927-1937).svg
|p4 = Byelorussian SSR
|flag_p4 = Flag of the Byelorussian SSR (1919).svg
|s1 = Russia
|flag_s1 = Flag of Russia 1991-1993.svg
|s2 = Georgia (country){{!}}Georgia
|flag_s2 = Flag of Georgia (1990-2004).svg
|s3 = Ukraine
|flag_s3 = Flag of Ukraine.svg
|s4 = Moldova
|flag_s4 = Flag of Moldova.svg
|s5 = Belarus
|flag_s5 = Flag of Belarus (1991-1995).svg
|s6 = Armenia
|flag_s6 = Flag of Armenia.svg
|s7 = Azerbaijan
|flag_s7 = Flag of Azerbaijan.svg
|s8 = Kazakhstan
|flag_s8 = Flag of Kazakh SSR.svg
|s9 = Uzbekistan
|flag_s9 = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg
|s10 = Turkmenistan
|flag_s10 = Flag of Turkmen SSR.svg
|s11 = Kyrgyzstan
|flag_s11 = Flag of Kyrgyz SSR.svg
|s12 = Tajikistan
|flag_s12 = Flag of Tajik SSR.svg
|s13 = Estonia{{!}}Estonia<sup>3</sup>
|flag_s13 = Flag of Estonia.svg
|s14 = Latvia{{!}}Latvia<sup>3</sup>
|flag_s14 = Flag of Latvia.svg
|s15 = Lithuania{{!}}Lithuania<sup>3</sup>
|flag_s15 = Flag of Lithuania 1989-2004.svg
|
|
|image_flag = Flag of the Soviet Union.svg
|flag = Flag of the Soviet Union
|image_coat = Coat_of_arms_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg
|symbol = Coat of arms of the Soviet Union
|symbol_type = State Emblem
|image_map = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg
|image_map_size = 220px
|image_map_caption = The Soviet Union after [[World War II]]
|capital = [[Moscow]]
|latd=55|latm=45|latNS=N|longd=37|longm=37|longEW=E
|largest_city =[[Moscow]]
|national_motto = Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!<br />([[Romanization of Russian|Translit.]]: ''Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes'!'')<br />[[English language|English]]: [[Workers of the world, unite!]]
|national_anthem = ''[[The Internationale]]'' (1922–1944)<br />''[[Hymn of the Soviet Union]]'' (1944–1991)
|common_languages = [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Languages of the Soviet Union|many others]]
|demonym = [[Soviet nation|Soviet]]
|religion = [[State atheism|None]]
|currency = [[Soviet ruble]] (руб) (SUR)
|currency_code = SUR
<!-- If there are more than 4 leaders, only give first and last — the infobox is not intended to list everything. -->
|leader1 = Vladimir Lenin
|leader2 = Mikhail Gorbachev
|year_leader1 = 1922–1924 (first)
|year_leader2 = 1985–1991 (last)
|title_leader = [[List of leaders of the Soviet Union|Leader]]
|stat_year1 = 1991
|stat_area1 = 22402200
|stat_pop1 = 293047571
|footnotes =
<sup>1</sup>On December 21, 1991, eleven of the former socialist republics declared in [[Alma-Ata]] (with the 12th republic – [[Georgian SSR|Georgia]] – attending as an observer) that with the formation of the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]] the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceases to exist.<br />
<sup>2</sup>Assigned on September 19, 1990, existing onwards.<br />
<sup>3</sup>The governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania view themselves as continuous and unrelated to the respective Soviet republics.<br />Russia views the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian SSRs as legal constituent republics of the USSR and predecessors of the modern Baltic states.<br />The Government of the [[United States]] and [[State continuity of the Baltic states#No final decision on non-recognition policy|a number of other countries]] did not recognize the invasion of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the USSR as legal inclusion.
|utc_offset = +2 to +13
|cctld = [[.su]]<sup>2</sup>
|calling_code = 7
}}
{{Soviet Union sidebar}}
The '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''' ('''USSR''', {{lang-rus|Союз Советских Социалистических Республик|r=Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik}} {{IPA-ru|sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɨəlʲɪˈstʲiʨɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk|IPA|Ru-CCCP.ogg}}, abbreviated СССР, ''SSSR''), informally known as the '''Soviet Union''' ({{lang-rus|Советский Союз|r=Sovetsky Soyuz}}) or '''Soviet Russia''', was a [[Constitution of the Soviet Union|constitutionally]] [[socialist state]] that existed on the territory of most of the former [[Russian Empire]] in [[Eurasia]] between 1922 and 1991.<ref name="britannica1">[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]: [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/614785/Union-of-Soviet-Socialist-Republics Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]</ref>
The Soviet Union had a [[single-party political system]] dominated by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]].<ref>Bridget O'Laughlin (1975) ''Marxist Approaches in Anthropology'' Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 4: pp. 341–70 (October 1975) (doi:10.1146/annurev.an.04.100175.002013).<br />William Roseberry (1997) ''Marx and Anthropology'' Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26: pp. 25–46 (October 1997) (doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.25)</ref> Although the USSR was nominally a [[Political union|union]] of [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republics]] (of which there were 15 after 1956) with the capital in [[Moscow]], it was in actuality a highly centralized state with a [[Economy of the Soviet Union|planned economy]]. Much of Soviet society was overseen by national security agencies such as the [[KGB]] (which was active from 1954).<ref name=shiman>{{cite book | last = Shiman | first = David | title = Economic and Social Justice: A Human Rights Perspective | publisher = Amnesty International | year= 1999 | url = http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/tb1b/Section1/tb1-2.htm | isbn = 0967533406}}</ref>
The Soviet Union was founded in December 1922 when the [[Russian SFSR]], which formed during the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]] and emerged victorious in the ensuing [[Russian Civil War]], unified with the [[Transcaucasian SSR|Transcaucasian]], [[Ukrainian SSR|Ukrainian]] and [[Belorussian SSR]]s. After the death of [[Vladimir Lenin]], the first Soviet leader, power was eventually consolidated by [[Joseph Stalin]],<ref name="StalinRobertService">Robert Service. ''Stalin: A Biography.'' 2004. ISBN 978-0-330-41913-0</ref> who led the country through a large-scale [[industrialization]] with [[planned economy|command economy]] and [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|political repression]].<ref name="StalinRobertService" /><ref>{{cite book |first=George |last=Crile |title=Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History |publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press |year=2003 |isbn=0871138549}}</ref> During [[World War II]], in June 1941, the Soviet Union was [[Operation Barbarossa|attacked]] by [[Nazi Germany|Germany]], a country with whom it had signed a [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|non-aggression pact]]. After [[Eastern Front (World War II)|four years of warfare]], the Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two [[superpower]]s, extending its influence into much of [[Eastern Europe]] and beyond.
The Soviet Union and its satellites from the [[Eastern Bloc]] were one of two participating factions in the [[Cold War]], a global ideological and political struggle against the [[United States]] and its allies; the Soviet bloc ultimately lost, however, having been hit by economic standstill and both domestic and foreign political unrest, an event which marks the beginning of the post-war period.<ref>{{cite book |title=Stalin and the Bomb |last=Mr. David Holloway |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1996 |publisher=Yale University Press |location= |isbn=978-0300066647 |page=18 |url=http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300066647 |accessdate=}}</ref><ref name="turner23">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=23}}</ref> In the late 1980s the last Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] tried to reform the state with his policies of [[perestroika]] and [[glasnost]], but the Soviet Union [[History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)|collapsed]] and was [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|formally dissolved]] in December 1991 after the abortive [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|August coup attempt]].<ref name = "Byrd">{{cite encyclopedia|author=Byrd, Peter|editor=McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair|encyclopedia=The concise Oxford dictionary of politics|title=Cold War (entire chapter)|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xLbEHQAACAAJ&ei=E45VSJrQO4e4jgGh_oWODA|accessdate=2008-06-16|year=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0192802763}}</ref> Since then the [[Russia|Russian Federation]] has been exercising its rights and fulfilling its obligations.<ref>"Russia is now a party to any Treaties to which the former Soviet Union was a party, and enjoys the same rights and obligations as the former Soviet Union, except insofar as adjustments are necessarily required, e.g. to take account of the change in territorial extent. [...] The Russian federation continues the legal personality of the former Soviet Union and is thus not a successor State in the sense just mentioned. The other former Soviet Republics are successor States.", United Kingdom Materials on International Law 1993, BYIL 1993, pp. 579 (636).</ref>
==Geography==
{{Main|Geography of the Soviet Union}}
The Soviet Union, with {{Convert|22402200|km2}},{{When|date=July 2010}} was the world's largest state. Covering a sixth of the world's inhabited land, its size was comparable to that of [[North America]]. The western part (in [[Europe]]) accounted for a quarter of the country's area, and was the country's cultural and economic center. The eastern part (in [[Asia]]) extended to the [[Pacific Ocean]] to the east and [[Afghanistan]] to the [[south]], and was much less populated than the European part. It was over {{Convert|10000|km}} across (11 [[time zone]]s) and almost {{Convert|5000|km}} north to south.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}} Its five climatic zones were [[tundra]], [[taiga]], [[steppe]]s, desert, and mountains.
The Soviet Union had the world's longest border, measuring over {{Convert|60000|km}}.{{When|date=July 2010}} Two thirds of the Soviet border was coastline of the [[Arctic Ocean]]. Across the [[Bering Strait]] was the [[United States]]. The Soviet Union bordered [[Afghanistan]], [[China]], [[Czechoslovakia]], [[Finland]], [[Hungary]], [[Iran]], [[Mongolia]], [[North Korea]], [[Norway]], [[Poland]], [[Romania]], and [[Turkey]] at the end of WWII.
The Soviet Union's longest river was the [[Irtysh]]. The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (today's [[Ismail Samani Peak]]) in Tajikistan at {{Convert|7495|m}}. The world's largest lake, the [[Caspian Sea]], lay mainly in the Soviet Union. The world's deepest lake, [[Lake Baikal]], was in the Soviet Union.
==Demographics==
{{Main|Demographics of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:Population of former USSR.PNG|thumb|250px|left|USSR and [[Post-Soviet states|FSU]] Population from 1961–2009.]]
[[Image:Ethnic map USSR 1941.jpg|thumb|left|250px|1941 USSR geographic location of ethnicities]]
[[Image:USSR Ethnic Groups 1974.jpg|thumb|left|250px|1974 USSR geographic location of ethnicities]]
The Soviet Union was one of the world's most ethnically diverse countries, with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups within its borders.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} The total population was estimated at 293 million in 1991. It was the third most populous nation (after China and India) for decades.{{When||need rough time span since claim has been made. With footnote|date=May 2010}} There were 23 cities with more than one million people each in the Soviet Union in 1989. The country's largest city and capital was [[Moscow]] with nine million inhabitants.
===Ethnic groups===
As a 1990 estimate, the majority of the population were [[Russians]] (50.78%), followed by [[Ukrainians]] (15.45%) and [[Uzbeks]] (5.84%).
Some nationality groups came into the empire voluntarily, others were brought in by force. Russians,<ref>[http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=31575&amid=30229744 Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union], [[History Today]]</ref> [[Belarusians]], and Ukrainians shared close cultural ties while other subjects of the empire did not. Due to multiple nationalities located in the same territory, national antagonisms developed over the years.
For many years, Soviet leaders maintained that the underlying causes of conflict between nationalities had been eliminated and that the Soviet Union consisted of a family of nations living harmoniously together. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the government conducted a policy of [[korenizatsiya]] (indigenization) of local governments in an effort to recruit non-Russians into the new Soviet political institutions and to reduce the conflict between Russians and the minority nationalities.
To increase literacy and [[mass education]], the Soviets encouraged development and publication in many of the languages of minority groups. Russian became a required ''subject'' of study in all Soviet schools in 1938; however, in mainly non-Russian areas the chief language of instruction was the local language. This led to widespread bilingualism in the educated population, though smaller nationalities were often linguistically assimilated, in which the members of the nationality lost their historic language.<ref>Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver. 1984. "Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in Soviet Bilingual Education Policy, 1934–1980," ''American Political Science Review'' 78 (December): 1019–1039.</ref>
===Religion===
{{Main|Religion in the Soviet Union}}
The Soviet Union was officially secular: [[atheism]] was supported in schools. The [[Separation of church and state|state was separated from church]] by the Decree of [[Council of People's Commissars]] on January 23, 1918. Prior to the country's dissolution, two-thirds of the Soviet population lacked religious belief while one-third of the people professed religious belief. [[Christianity]] and [[Islam]] had the most believers. About half of the people, including members of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] and high-level government officials, professed atheism. Government persecution of Christianity continued undiminished until the fall of the Communist government. Only 500 churches, out of the 54,000 before the revolution, remained open in 1941. The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly and was far less integral in city dwellers where Party control was strongest.
===Language===
{{Main|Languages of the Soviet Union}}
[[Russian language|Russian]] was the ''language of interethnic communication'' ({{lang-ru|язык межнационального общения}}) and assumed ''de facto'' the role of official language.<ref name = "lang">Bernard Comrie, ''The Languages of the Soviet Union'', page 31, the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1981. ISBN 0-521-23230-9</ref> It was used in industry, military, party, and state management.
In 1990, in the latter says of ''[[perestroika]]'' and [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|the Soviet Union itself]], the Russian language was declared to be the official language of [[USSR]] and the constituent republics were given rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions. <ref> [http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm Law on Languages of Nations of USSR.] {{ru icon}}</ref>
===Life expectancy===
{{Further|[[Demographics of the Soviet Union#Life expectancy and infant mortality|History of Soviet Union life expectancy]]}}
After the [[October Revolution|communist takeover]] of power the life expectancy for all age groups went up. The trend continued into the 60s, when the life expectancy in the Soviet Union went beyond the life expectancy in the United States. In 1964 the trend reversed. Life expectancy went down dramatically for men because of alcohol abuse and poor health care.<ref name="SeemingParadox">The Seeming Paradox of Increasing Mortality in a Highly Industrialized Nation: the Example of the Soviet Union : 1985. author Dinkel, R. H.</ref>
===Emigration===
{{Further|[[Aliyah from the Soviet Union in the 1970s|Jewish Emigration from the USSR]]}}
Despite the strict rules that would prevent emigration, there were many Soviet citizens who wanted to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The desire to emigrate elsewhere applied especially to the Jewish community of USSR, as they often felt alienated by the anti-Semitic attitudes in society and sometimes even anti-Jewish campaigns of the Soviet State.<ref name="DomesticPressures">Domestic Pressures and the Politics of Exit: Trends in Soviet Emigration Policy : 1989-90. author Salitan, Laurie P. page 671-687 url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/2151104</ref>
==History==
{{Main|History of the Soviet Union}}
The last Russian [[Tsar]], [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]], ruled until March 1917, when the [[Russian Empire]] was overthrown and a short-lived [[Russian provisional government]] took power, to be overthrown in November 1917 by [[Vladimir Lenin]].
From 1917 to 1922, the predecessor to the Soviet Union was the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR), which was an independent country, as were other Soviet republics at the time. The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 as the union of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian]] (colloquially known as [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Bolshevist Russia]]), [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian]], [[Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic|Belarusian]], and [[Transcaucasian SFSR|Transcaucasian]] Soviet republics ruled by [[Bolshevik]] parties.
===Revolution and the foundation of a Soviet state===
{{Main|History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917-1927)|Russian Revolution (1917)|February Revolution|Russian Provisional Government|October Revolution|Russian Civil War}}
Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the [[Decembrist Revolt]] of 1825, and although [[Russian serfdom|serfdom]] was abolished in 1861, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the [[State Duma]]—was established in 1906 after the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]], but the Tsar resisted attempts to move from [[Absolute monarchy|absolute]] to [[constitutional monarchy]]. [[Social unrest]] continued and was aggravated during [[World War I]] by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.
[[Image:Lenin-Trotsky 1920-05-20 Sverdlov Square (original).jpg|thumb|left|[[Vladimir Lenin]] addressing a crowd in 1920.]]
A spontaneous popular uprising in [[Saint Petersburg]], in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the "[[February Revolution]]" and the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|toppling of the imperial government in March 1917]]. The [[tsarist autocracy]] was replaced by the [[Russian Provisional Government|Provisional Government]], whose leaders intended to conduct elections to [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] and to continue participating on the side of the [[Allies of World War I|Entente]] in World War I.
At the same time, workers' councils, known as [[soviet (council)|Soviets]], sprang up across the country. The [[Bolshevik]]s, led by [[Vladimir Lenin]], pushed for [[Communist revolution|socialist revolution]] in the Soviets and on the streets. In November 1917, during the "[[October Revolution]]", they seized power from the Provisional Government. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an [[armistice]] with the [[Central Powers]]. But, by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets quit the war for good and signed the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]].
Only after the long and bloody [[Russian Civil War]] was the new Soviet power secure. The civil war between the [[Red Army|Reds]] and the [[White movement|Whites]] started in 1917 and ended in 1923. It included [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|foreign intervention]], the execution of [[Nicholas II of Russia#Final months and death|Nicholas II and his family]] and the [[Russian famine of 1921|famine of 1921]], which killed about 5 million.<ref>"''[http://books.google.com/books?id=LUhXZD2BPeQC&pg=PA287&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false The Russian Civil War]''". Evan Mawdsley (2007). Pegasus Books. p.287. ISBN 1-933648-15-5</ref> In March 1921, during [[Polish-Soviet War|a related conflict with Poland]], the [[Peace of Riga]] was signed and split disputed territories in [[Belarus]] and [[Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] and Soviet Russia. The Soviet Union had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established [[Finland's Declaration of Independence|Republic of Finland]], the [[Estonian War of Independence|Republic of Estonia]], the [[Latvian-Soviet War|Republic of Latvia]], and the [[Lithuanian–Soviet War|Republic of Lithuania]].
===Unification of the Soviet Republics===
On December 28, 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], the [[Transcaucasian SFSR]], the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]] and the [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic|Byelorussian SSR]] approved the [[Treaty of Creation of the USSR]]<ref>Richard Sakwa ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991: 1917–1991''. Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-12290-2, 9780415122900. pp. 140–143.</ref> and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.<ref>Julian Towster. ''Political Power in the U.S.S.R., 1917–1947: The Theory and Structure of Government in the Soviet State'' Oxford Univ. Press, 1948. p. 106.</ref> These two documents were confirmed by the 1st [[Congress of Soviets]] of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations<ref>{{Ru icon}} [http://region.adm.nov.ru/pressa.nsf/0c7534916fcf6028c3256b3700243eac/4302e4941fb6a6bfc3256c99004faea5!OpenDocument Voted Unanimously for the Union.]</ref> – [[Mikhail Kalinin]], Mikha Tskhakaya, [[Mikhail Frunze]] and [[Grigory Petrovsky]], [[Aleksandr Chervyakov]]<ref>{{Ru icon}} [http://www.hronos.km.ru/sobyt/cccp.html Creation of the USSR] at Khronos.ru.</ref> respectively on December 30, 1922.
On February 1, 1924, the USSR was recognized by the [[British Empire]]. Also in 1924, a [[1924 Soviet Constitution|Soviet Constitution]] was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union of the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR to form the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR).
The intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was performed according to [[Bolshevik Initial Decrees]], documents of the Soviet government, signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the [[GOELRO plan]], that envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The Plan was developed in 1920 and covered a 10- to 15-year period. It included construction of a network of 30 regional [[power plants]], including ten large [[hydroelectric power plant]]s, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3677572g016338u/|title=70 Years of Gidroproekt and Hydroelectric Power in Russia}}</ref> The Plan became the prototype for subsequent [[Five-Year Plan (USSR)|Five-Year Plans]] and was basically fulfilled by 1931.<ref name="Kuzbassenergo">{{Ru icon}} [http://www.kuzbassenergo.ru/goelro/ On GOELRO Plan — at Kuzbassenergo.]</ref>
===Stalin's rule===
{{Main|History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)}}
[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|200px|upright|The [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in [[Moscow]] during its 1931 demolition. Organized religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union.]]
From its beginning years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the [[Single-party state|one-party rule]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]].<ref>The consolidation into a single-party regime took place during the first three and a half years after the revolution, which included the period of [[War communism|War Communism]] and an election in which multiple parties competed. See Leonard Schapiro, ''The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922.'' Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]], 1955, 1966.</ref> After the economic policy of [[War Communism]] during the Civil War, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax (''see'' [[New Economic Policy]]).
Soviet leaders argued that one-party rule was necessary because it ensured that 'capitalist exploitation' would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of [[Democratic Centralism]] would represent the people's will. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin [[Lenin's Testament|was to be replaced by]] a "[[triumvirate|troika]]" composed of [[Grigory Zinoviev]] of [[Ukraine]], [[Lev Kamenev]] of [[Moscow]], and [[Joseph Stalin]] of [[Georgian people|Georgia]].
On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]. Lenin had appointed Stalin to be the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, known by the acronym [[Rabkrin]], which gave Stalin considerable power. By [[Stalin's rise to power|gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and out-maneuvering his rivals within the party]], Stalin became the [[dictator|undisputed leader]] of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the 1920s, established [[totalitarian]] rule. In October 1927, Grigory Zinoviev and [[Leon Trotsky]] were expelled from the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] and forced into exile.
In 1928, Stalin introduced the [[First Five-Year Plan]] for building a [[Socialist economics|socialist economy]]. While encompassing the [[Proletarian internationalism|internationalism]] expressed by [[Lenin]] throughout the course of the Revolution, it also aimed for building [[socialism in one country]]. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of [[industrialization]]; in agriculture [[Collectivisation in the USSR|collective farms]] were established all over the country.
[[Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR|Famines]] occurred, causing millions of deaths and surviving [[kulak]]s were politically persecuted and many sent to [[Gulags]] to do [[Unfree labour|forced labour]]. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Stalin's [[Great Purge]] resulted in execution or detainment of many "[[Old Bolsheviks]]" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. A wide range of death tolls was suggested, from as many as 60 million kulaks being killed (suggested by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) to as few as 700 thousand (according to Soviet news sources).
According to the declassified Soviet archives, during the Great Purge in 1937 and 1938, the [[NKVD]] arrested more than one and a half million people, of whom 681,692 were shot – an average of 1,000 executions a day.<ref>"''[http://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC&pg=PA373&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false A Companion to Russian History]''". Abbott Gleason (2009). Wiley-Blackwell. p.373. ISBN 1-4051-3560-3</ref> Yet despite the turmoil of the mid- to late 1930s, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before [[World War II]].
====The 1930s====
The early 1930s saw closer cooperation between the [[Western world|West]] and the USSR. From 1932 to 1934, the Soviet Union participated in the [[World Disarmament Conference]]. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established. In September 1934, the Soviet Union joined the [[League of Nations]]. After the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the [[Second Spanish Republic|Republican forces]] against the [[Spain under Franco|Nationalists]]. The Nationalists were supported by [[Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)|Fascist Italy]] and [[Nazi Germany]].
In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new [[1936 Soviet Constitution|Soviet Constitution]]. The constitution was seen as a personal triumph for Stalin, who on this occasion was described by [[Pravda]] as "genius of the new world, the wisest man of the epoch, the great leader of communism." By contrast, western historians and historians from former Soviet occupied countries have seen the constitution as a meaningless propaganda document.
The late 1930s saw a shift towards the [[Axis powers]]. In 1938 and 1939, armed forces of the USSR won several decisive victories during [[Soviet–Japanese Border Wars|border clashes]] with the armed forces of the [[Japanese Empire]]. In 1938, after the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Third French Republic|France]] concluded the [[Munich Agreement]] with Germany, the USSR dealt with Germany as well.
====World War II====
{{Main|Molotov-Ribbentrop pact|Eastern Front (WWII)}}
The USSR dealt with Germany both militarily and economically during [[German–Soviet Axis talks|extensive talks]] and by concluding the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact|German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact]] and the [[German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940)|German–Soviet Commercial Agreement]]. The conclusion of the nonaggression pact made possible the Soviet occupation of [[Occupation of the Baltic States|Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia]], [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|Bessarabia, northern Bukovina]], and [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|eastern Poland]]. In late November of the same year, unable to force the [[Finland|Republic of Finland]] into agreement to move its border {{Convert|25|km}} back from [[Leningrad]] by diplomatic means, [[Stalin]] ordered the [[Winter War|invasion of Finland]]. On April 1941, USSR signed the [[Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact]] with the [[Empire of Japan]], recognizing the territorial integrity of [[Manchukuo]], a Japanese [[puppet state]].
Although it has been debated whether the Soviet Union had the intention of invading Germany once it was strong enough,<ref>{{Ru icon}} Mel'tiukhov, Mikhail. ''Upushchennyi shans Stalina: Sovetskii Soiuz i bor'ba za Evropu'' 1939–1941. Moscow: Veche, 2000. ISBN 5-7838-1196-3.</ref> Germany itself broke the treaty and [[Operation Barbarossa|invaded the Soviet Union]] on 22 June 1941 and started what was known in the USSR as the "[[Eastern Front (WWII)|Great Patriotic War]]". The [[Red Army]] stopped the initial German offensive during the [[Battle of Moscow]]. The [[Battle of Stalingrad]], which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, was a major defeat for the Germans and became a major turning point of the war. After Stalingrad, Soviet forces drove through [[Eastern Europe]] to [[Berlin]] before [[End of World War II in Europe|Germany surrendered in 1945]]. The same year, the USSR, in fulfilment of its agreement with the Allies at the [[Yalta Conference]], denounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945<ref name=denunciation>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s3.asp Denunciation of the neutrality pact] April 5, 1945. ([[Avalon Project]] at [[Yale University]])</ref> and [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)|invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories]] on August 9, 1945.<ref name=declarationofwar>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s4.asp Soviet Declaration of War on Japan], August 8, 1945. ([[Avalon Project]] at [[Yale University]])</ref> [[Soviet-Japanese War (1945)|This conflict]] ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional [[surrender of Japan]] and the end of World War II. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people in the war.<ref>"''[http://books.google.com/books?id=CDMVMqDvp4QC&pg=PA242&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Rulers and victims: the Russians in the Soviet Union]''". Geoffrey A. Hosking (2006). [[Harvard University Press]]. p.242. ISBN 0-674-02178-9</ref> Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged victorious from the conflict and became an acknowledged military superpower.
[[Image:Teheran conference-1943.jpg|thumb|left|Left to right: [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]] [[Joseph Stalin]], [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]] [[Winston Churchill]].]]
Once denied diplomatic recognition by the [[free world]], the Soviet Union had official relations with practically all nations of the world by the late 1940s. The Soviet Union also had progressed from being an outsider in international organizations and negotiations to being one of the arbiters of the world's fate after [[World War II]]. A member of the [[United Nations]] at its foundation in 1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the [[UN Security Council]] which gave it the right to [[veto]] any of its resolutions (''see'' [[Soviet Union and the United Nations]]).
The Soviet Union emerged from [[World War II]] as one of the world's two superpowers, a position maintained for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe (''see'' [[Eastern Bloc]]), military strength, economic strength, aid to [[Developing country|developing countries]], and scientific research, especially into space technology and weaponry. The Soviet Union's growing influence abroad in the postwar years helped lead to a Communist system of states in Eastern Europe united by military and economic agreements.
====The Cold War====
During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, while maintaining its [[planned economy|strictly centralized control]]. The Soviet Union aided post-war reconstruction in the countries of Eastern Europe while turning them into Soviet [[satellite states]], founded the [[Warsaw Pact]] in 1955. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ([[Comecon]]), 1949–1991, was an economic organization of communist states and a kind of [[Eastern Bloc]] equivalent to—but more geographically inclusive than—the European Economic Community.<ref name="fas.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gru/ |title=Main Intelligence Administration (GRU) Glavnoye Razvedovatel'noye Upravlenie – Russia / Soviet Intelligence Agencies |publisher=Fas.org |date= |accessdate=2008-11-24}}</ref> Later, the [[Comecon]] supplied aid to the eventually victorious [[Chinese Communist Party|Communists]] in the People's Republic of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, the rising tension of the [[Cold War]] turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into enemies.
===Post-Stalin period===
{{Main|History of the Soviet Union (1953–1985)}}
[[File:Soviet empire 1960.png|thumb|left|The maximum territorial extent of countries in the world under Soviet [[Sphere of influence|influence]], after the [[Cuban Revolution]] of 1959 and before the official [[Sino-Soviet split]] of 1961]]
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. In the absence of an acceptable successor, the highest Communist Party officials opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly. [[Nikita Khrushchev]], who had won the power struggle by the mid-1950s, [[destalinization|denounced Stalin's use of repression]] in 1956 and eased repressive controls over party and society. This was known as [[History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)#De-Stalinization and the Khrushchev era|de-Stalinization]].
Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by transforming the East European countries into [[satellite state]]s. Soviet military force was used to suppress anti-communist uprisings in [[1956 Hungarian Revolution|Hungary]] and [[Poznań 1956 protests|Poland]] in 1956. In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the USSR's rapprochement with [[Western world|the West]] and what [[Mao]] perceived as Khrushchev's [[Marxist revisionism|revisionism]] led to the [[Sino-Soviet split]]. This resulted in a break throughout the global [[Communist]] movement and Communist regimes in [[Albania]] and [[Cambodia]] choosing to ally with China in place of the USSR. During this period, the Soviet Union continued to realize scientific and technological pioneering exploits; to launch the first artificial satellite, [[Sputnik 1]]; a living dog, [[Laika]]; and later, the first human being, [[Yuri Gagarin]], into Earth's orbit. [[Valentina Tereshkova]] was the first woman in space aboard [[Vostok 6]] on June 16, 1963, and [[Alexey Leonov]] became the first person to walk in space on March 18, 1965. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. During the same period, a tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over the Soviet deployment of [[nuclear missiles]] in [[Cuba]] sparked the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] in 1962. Khrushchev was retired from power in 1964.
Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, consisting of [[Leonid Brezhnev]] as General Secretary, [[Alexei Kosygin]] as Premier and [[Nikolai Podgorny]] as Chairman of the Presidium, lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. In 1968 the Soviet Union and members of its Warsaw Pact allies invaded [[Czechoslovakia]] to halt the [[Prague Spring]] reforms.
[[Image:Carter Brezhnev sign SALT II.jpg|thumb|[[Leonid Brezhnev]] and [[Jimmy Carter]] sign SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in [[Vienna]].]]
Brezhnev presided over a period of ''[[Détente]]'' with the West (''see'' [[SALT I]], [[SALT II]], [[Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty]]) while at the same time building up Soviet military strength.
In October 1977, the third [[1977 Soviet Constitution|Soviet Constitution]] was unanimously adopted. The prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of "standstill" <!---застой--->, with an aging and ossified top political leadership.
===Reforms of Gorbachev and collapse of the Soviet Union===
{{Main|Cold War (1985–1991)|History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)|1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|Commonwealth of Independent States}}
[[Image:Reagan and Gorbachev hold discussions.jpg|thumb|left|[[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] in one-on-one discussions with U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]].]]
Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in ''Beyond Oil'' that the Reagan administration encouraged [[Saudi Arabia]] to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit from selling their oil, so that the USSR's [[hard currency]] reserves became depleted.<ref>Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak.</ref>
After the rapid succession of [[Yuri Andropov]] and [[Konstantin Chernenko]], transitional figures with deep roots in Brezhnevite tradition, beginning in 1985 [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] made significant changes in the economy (see [[Perestroika]], [[Glasnost]]) and the party leadership. His policy of ''[[glasnost]]'' freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. With the Soviet Union in bad economic shape and its satellite states in eastern Europe abandoning communism, Gorbachev moved to end the Cold War. After [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] succeeded [[Konstantin Chernenko]] as General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985, he introduced many changes in Soviet foreign policy and in the economy of the USSR.
[[Image:Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian.jpg|thumb|Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1988]]
In 1988, the Soviet Union abandoned its [[Soviet war in Afghanistan|nine-year war with Afghanistan]] and began to withdraw forces from the country. In the late 1980s, Gorbachev refused to send military support to defend the Soviet Union's former satellite states, resulting in multiple communist regimes in those states being forced from power. With the tearing down of the [[Berlin Wall]] and with [[East Germany]] and [[West Germany]] pursuing unification, the [[Iron Curtain]] took the final blow.
In the late 1980s, the constituent republics of the Soviet Union started legal moves towards or even declaration of [[sovereignty]] over their territories, citing Article 72 of the USSR Constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede.<ref>[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n12_v42/ai_9119705 The red blues — Soviet politics] by Brian Crozier, ''[[National Review]]'', June 25, 1990.</ref> On April 7, 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of that republic's residents vote for secession on a referendum.<ref>[http://www.rspp.su/sobor/conf_2006/istoki_duh_nrav_crisis.html Origins of Moral-Ethical Crisis and Ways to Overcome it] by V.A.Drozhin Honoured Lawyer of Russia.</ref> Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the "[[War of Laws]]".
In 1989, the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], which was then the largest constituent republic (with about half of the population) convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. [[Boris Yeltsin]] was elected the chairman of the Congress. On June 12, 1990, the Congress [[Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory]] and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. The period of legal uncertainty continued throughout 1991 as constituent republics slowly became [[de facto]] independent.
A [[Soviet Union referendum, 1991|referendum for the preservation of the USSR]] was held on March 17, 1991, with the majority of the population voting for preservation of the Union in nine out of 15 republics. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost, and, in the summer of 1991, the [[New Union Treaty]] was designed and agreed upon by eight republics which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser federation. [[Image:Boris Yeltsin 19 August 1991-1.jpg|left|thumb|Yeltsin stands on a tank to defy the [[August Coup]] in 1991.]]
The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|August Coup]]—an attempted [[coup d'état]] against Gorbachev by hardline Communist Party members of the government and the KGB, who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin—who had publicly opposed it—came out as a hero while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared restoration of full independence (following Lithuania's 1990 example), while the other twelve republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union.
On December 8, 1991, the presidents of Russia, [[Ukraine]] and [[Belarus]] signed the [[Belavezha Accords]] which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]] (CIS) in its place. While doubts remained over the authority of the Belavezha Accords to dissolve the Union, on December 21, 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republics except [[Georgian SSR|Georgia]], including those republics that had signed the Belavezha Accords, signed the [[Alma-Ata Protocol]], which confirmed the dismemberment and consequential extinction of the USSR and restated the establishment of the CIS. The summit of [[Alma-Ata]] also agreed on several other practical measures consequential to the extinction of the Union. On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev yielded to the inevitable and resigned as the president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that until then were vested in the presidency over to [[Boris Yeltsin]], [[President of the Russian Federation|president of Russia]].
The following day, the [[Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union|Supreme Soviet]], the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, recognized the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself. This is generally recognized as the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state. Many organizations such as the [[Soviet Army]] and police forces continued to remain in place in the early months of 1992 but were slowly phased out and either withdrawn from or were absorbed by the newly independent states.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, Russia was internationally recognized<ref name=uk>[http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029394365&a=KCountryProfile&aid=1019744935436 Country Profile: Russia] Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom.</ref> to be the legal successor to the Soviet state on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt, and claimed overseas Soviet properties as its own. Since then the [[Russian Federation]] has been exercising its rights and fulfilling its obligations.
==Government and politics==
{{Main|Government of the Soviet Union|Politics of the Soviet Union|State ideology of the Soviet Union}}
[[File:October Revolution celebration 1983.png|thumb|The 1983 annual military parade in Moscow, commemorating the 66th anniversary of the October Revolution. The banner at the top reads: "Glory to the CPSU!"]]
There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the state systems of Soviets and ministries as well as the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU), the only legal party and the ultimate policymaker in the country, known under the name of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) before the [[19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|19th Party Congress]] in 1952.<ref name="sakwa">Sakwa, Richard. ''Soviet Politics in Perspective''. 2nd ed. London – N.Y.: Routledge, 1998.</ref><ref name="ross">Ross, Cameron. Party-State Relations. In: Eugene Huskey (ed.), ''Executive power and Soviet politics: the rise and decline of the Soviet state''. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.</ref>
At the top of the Communist Party was the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]], elected at [[Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Party Congresses]] and Conferences. The Central Committee in turn voted for a [[Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] (called Presidium between 1952–1966), [[Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee|Secretariat]] and [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Secretary General]] (First Secretary in 1953-1966), position that came to prominence with [[Stalin's rise to power]]. Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the Secretary General, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They weren't controlled by the mass of the party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was [[democratic centralism]], demanding strict subordination to the higher bodies, and the elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
[[File:Supreme Soviet 1982.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Grand Kremlin Palace]], seat of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in 1982]]
The [[Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union|Supreme Soviet]] (known before 1936 as the Central Executive Committee), nearly unanimously voted for by the population in uncontested and less than secret elections, nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, ''de facto'' was a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions imposed on it by the party. It elected a [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet|Presidium]] to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the [[Supreme Court of the Soviet Union|Supreme Court]], the [[Prosecutor General of the USSR|Procurator General]] and the [[Council of Ministers of the USSR|Council of Ministers]] (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars), headed by the [[Prime Minister of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
State and party structures of the [[Republics of the Soviet Union|constituent republics]] largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into [[Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Lower levels|party committees]], [[Soviet (council)|local Soviets]] and [[Ispolkom|executive committees]]. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state largely through its control over the [[nomenklatura|system of appointments]]. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU, the more important they were the higher their position in the party hierarchy. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin in 1941-1953 and Khrushchev in 1958-1964 were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev the party head became prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later Secretaries General for at least some part of their tenure in office occupied the position of the [[Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]], nominal [[List of heads of state of the Soviet Union|head of state]], albeit largely ceremonial. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by [[Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Lower levels|primary party organizations]].<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
In practice, however, the control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the state bureaucracy pursuing different interests, at times in conflict with the party. Neither was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
The state security police (the [[KGB]] and its predecessor agencies) played important role in the Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the [[Great Purge|Stalinist terror]]. After the death of Stalin the state security police was brought under strict party control. Under [[Yury Andropov]], KGB chairman in 1967-1982 and Secretary General in 1982-1983, the KGB, engaging in the suppression of political dissent and maintaining an extensive network of informers, reasserted itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high party officials in the late 1970s-early 1980s.<ref name="sakwa"/>
The [[Soviet constitution]]s, which were promulgated in [[Russian Constitution of 1918|1918]], [[1924 Soviet Constitution|1924]], [[1936 Soviet Constitution|1936]] and [[1977 Soviet Constitution|1977]], didn't limit state power. No formal [[separation of powers]] existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers, the fusion of [[Executive (government)|executive]] and [[legislature|legislative]] functions was pervasive. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions. No settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggle took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after [[Nikita Khrushchev#Removal|Khrushchev's dismissal]], itself due to a coup in the Central Committee. With the only exception of Khrushchev, all Soviet party leaders before Gorbachev died in office.<ref name="sakwa"/>
[[File:1991coup2 ST.jpg|thumb|An armored personnel carrier surrounded by anti-coup demonstrators in Moscow during the 1991 August Coup]]
In 1988-1990, facing considerable opposition, Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The [[Congress of People's Deputies]] was established, majority of whose members were directly elected by the population in competitive elections held in March 1989. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, much stronger than before, and, although still being largely conservative, for the first time since the 1920s refused to rubber-stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990 Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the [[President of the Soviet Union]], concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed Cabinet of Ministers, to himself. Tensions were growing between the union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists, led in Russia by [[Boris Yeltsin]] and controlling the newly elected [[Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR]], and Communist Party hardliners. On August 19–21, 1991, a group of hardliners staged an [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|abortive coup attempt]]. Following its failure Gorbachev resigned as Secretary General, only remaining Soviet President for the final months of the existence of the union, and the USSR Supreme Soviet suspended the CPSU.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
===Judicial system===
{{Details|Soviet law}}
The judiciary was not independent from the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts and applied the law as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union utilized the [[inquisitorial system]] of [[Roman law]], where judge, procurator, and defense attorney work collaboratively to establish the truth.<ref>{{cite web|author=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/288956/inquisitorial-procedure |title=inquisitorial procedure (law) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia |publisher=Britannica.com|accessdate=2010-05-16}}</ref>
==Political divisions==
{{Main|Soviet Republic (system of government)|Republics of the Soviet Union}}
Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a [[union]] of [[Soviet Socialist Republics]] (SSRs) and the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR), although the rule of the highly cenralized Communist Party made the union merely nominal.<ref name="sakwa"/> The [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR]] was signed in December 1922 by four founding republics, the RSFSR, [[Transcaucasian SFSR]], [[Ukrainian SSR]] and [[Belorussian SSR]]. In 1924, during the [[National delimitation in the Soviet Union|national delimitation]] in Central Asia, the [[Uzbek SSR|Uzbek]] and [[Turkmen SSR]]s were formed from parts of the RSFSR's [[Turkestan ASSR]] and two Soviet dependencies, the [[Khorezm SSR|Khorezm]] and [[Bukharan SSR]]. In 1929 the [[Tajik SSR]] was split off from the Uzbek SSR. With the constitution of 1936 the constituents of the Transcaucasian SFSR, namely the [[Georgian SSR|Georgian]], [[Armenian SSR|Armenian]] and [[Azerbaijan SSR]]s, were elevated to union republics, whereas the [[Kazakh SSR|Kazakh]] and [[Kirghiz SSR]]s were split off from the RSFSR.<ref>{{cite book | last=Adams, Simon | title= Russian Republics | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=LyqIDCc-cSsC&dq | year=2005 | page=21|publisher=Black Rabbit Books| isbn=1583406069}}</ref> In August 1940 the Soviet Union formed the [[Moldavian SSR]] from parts of the Ukrainian SSR and [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|parts of Bessarabia annexed from Romania]], as well as [[Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union (1940)|annexed the Baltic states]] as the [[Estonian SSR|Estonian]], [[Latvian SSR|Latvian]] and [[Lithuanian SSR]]s. The [[Karelo-Finnish SSR]] was split off from the RSFSR in March 1940 and merged back in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991 there were 15 union republics (see the map below).<ref>{{cite book | last=Feldbrugge, Ferdinand Joseph Maria | title= Russian law: the end of the Soviet system and the role of law | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=JWt7MN3Dch8C&dq | year=1993 | page=94 |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] | isbn=0792323580}}</ref>
In 16 November 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the [[Estonian SSR]] passed the [[Estonian Sovereignty Declaration]] that asserted Estonia's [[sovereignty]] and declared the supremacy of the Estonian laws over the laws of the Soviet Union.<ref name="DS">{{cite book |title=Dissolution |last=Walker |first=Edward |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2003 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location= |isbn=0742524531 |page=63 |pages= |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y06eqVKtfQgC&pg=PA63&dq |accessdate=}}</ref> In March 1990 the newly elected [[Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR]] [[Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania|declared independence]], followed by the [[Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR|Georgian Supreme Soviet]] in April 1991. Although the symbolic right of the union republics to secede was nominally guaranteed by the constitution and the union treaty,<ref name="sakwa"/> the union authorities at first refused to recognize it. After the August coup attempt most of the other republics followed suit. The Soviet Union ultimately recognized the secession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on September 6, 1991. The remaining republics were recognized as independent with [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|the union's final dissolution]] in December 1991.<ref>{{Cite book| author = Hughes, James; Sasse, Gwendolyn | title = Ethnicity and territory in the former Soviet Union: regions in conflict | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=7vjb-0eZ-wcC&dq | year = 2002 |publisher=[[Routledge]]| pages = 63 and 146 | isbn=0714652261}}</ref>
* {{legend|#c0c0c0|Despite [[Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–1991)|annexation of their territories by the Soviet Union]], the [[government-in-exile|governments-in-exile]] of the Baltic republics retained diplomatic recognition of most Western states until the restoration of their independence.<ref>'''Notes:'''
* {{Cite web | publisher = Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia | title = The Occupation of Latvia: Aspects of History and International Law | url = http://www.am.gov.lv/en/latvia/history/occupation-aspects | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{Cite web | publisher = [[United States Department of State]] | title = U.S.-Baltic Relations: Celebrating 85 Years of Friendship | url = http://merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/EUR/State/86539.pdf | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{Cite web | publisher = [[European Parliament]] | title = Motion for a Resolution on the Situation in Estonia | url = http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+MOTION+B6-2007-0215+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{Cite web | publisher = [[European Parliament]] | title = Motion for a Resolution on the Situation in Estonia | url = http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+MOTION+B6-2007-0215+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{cite book | title=Official Journal of the European Communities | year=1983 | publisher= [[European Parliament]] }}
* {{cite book | last=Aust, Anthony | title= Handbook of International Law | url = http://books.google.com/?id=EqO9rKIcoQMC&pg=PA26 | year=2005 | page=26 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | isbn=978-0521530347}}
* {{cite book | last=Ziemele, Ineta | title= State continuity and nationality: the Baltic States and Russia : past present and future as defined by international law | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=vs99QgAACAAJ&dq | year=2005 | publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] | isbn=90-04-14295-9}}</ref>}}
{| class="wikitable" style="border:1px black; float:centre; margin-left:1em;"
|-
! #
! Republic
! Map of the Union Republics between 1956–1991
|-
| 1
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Russian SFSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Russian SFSR]] [[Russian SFSR]]
| rowspan="15" width="350"| [[File:Republics of the USSR.svg|600px]]
|-
| 2
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Ukrainian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Ukrainian SSR]] [[Ukrainian SSR]]
|-
| 3
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Byelorussian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Belarusian SSR]] [[Belorussian SSR]]
|-
| 4
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Uzbek SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Uzbekistan SSR]] [[Uzbek SSR]]
|-
| 5
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Kazakh SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Kazakhstan SSR]] [[Kazakh SSR]]
|-
| 6
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Georgian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Georgian SSR]] [[Georgian SSR]]
|-
| 7
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Azerbaijan SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Azerbaijan SSR]] [[Azerbaijan SSR]]
|- style="background:silver;"
| 8
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==Economy==
{{Main|Economy of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:DneproGES 1947.JPG|thumb|left|The [[DneproGES]], one of many [[hydroelectric]] power stations in the Soviet Union]]
The Soviet Union became the first country that adopted a [[planned economy]], whereby production and distribution of goods were to be centralized and directed by the government. The first Bolshevik experience with command economy was the policy of [[War Communism]], involving [[nationalization]] of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, as well as private enterprises and [[free trade]].<ref name="gregory2004">Gregory, Paul R. ''The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives''. N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 2004.</ref> As it had aggravated a severe economic collapse caused by the war, in 1921 Lenin replaced War Communism with the [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP), legalizing free trade and private ownership of smaller businesses. The economy subsequently recovered fairly quickly.<ref name="gregory2004"/>
Following a lengthy debate among the members of Politburo over the course of economic development, by 1928-1929, upon [[Rise of Joseph Stalin|gaining the upper hand in the power struggle]], Joseph Stalin had abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning, starting [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|forced collectivization of agriculture]] and enacting draconian labor legislation. The resources were mobilized for [[Soviet industrialization|rapid industrialization]], which greatly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s.<ref name="gregory2004"/> Preparation for war was one of the main driving forces behind industrialization, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalistic world.<ref>{{cite book | author = Mawdsley, Evan | title = The Stalin Years: the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 | page = 30 | publisher = [[Manchester University Press]] | year = 1998 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=m-voAAAAIAAJ&dq | isbn = 0719046009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author = Barnett, Vincent| title = The revolutionary Russian economy, 1890-1940: ideas, debates and alternatives | page = 91 | year = 2004 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=Gz98Tx3Z1VQC | isbn = 9780415312646}}</ref> As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power, and the basis was provided for its emergence as a [[superpower]] after recovering from [[World War II]].<ref>
Wheatcroft S. G., Davies R. W., Cooper J. M. Soviet Industrialization Reconsidered: Some Preliminary Conclusions about Economic Development between 1926 and 1941. // Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 1986. Vol. 39, No. 2. p. 264. {{DOI|10.1111/j.1468-0289.1986.tb00406.x}}</ref> During the war the Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation and subsequently required extensive reconstruction.<ref>{{cite web|title=Reconstruction and Cold War|publisher=Library of Congress|url=http://countrystudies.us/russia/12.htm|accessdate =2007-12-27}}</ref>
A wide range of industries constituted the Soviet industrial sector in the later decades, including [[machine]]-building and [[metal-working]], [[metallurgy]], [[chemicals]], [[petroleum]] and [[natural gas]], [[coal mining]], [[forestry]], [[defense industry]], textiles, food processing, and construction.<ref name="economy">[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0009%29 Economy] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref><ref name="CIA"/> By 1980, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest industrial capacity with 20 percent of total world industrial output, leading the world in producing [[oil]], [[cast iron]], [[steel]], [[Coke (fuel)|coke]], mineral [[fertilizer]]s, [[locomotive]]s, [[tractor]]s, and [[cement]].<ref>[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0318%29 Industrial resources] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref>
By the early 1940s, the Soviet economy had become relatively [[autarkic]]; for most of the period up until the creation of [[Comecon]], only a very small share of domestic products were traded internationally.<ref name="foreign trade">[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0391%29 Foreign trade] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref> After the creation of the [[Eastern Bloc]], external trade rose rapidly. Still the influence of the [[world economy]] on the USSR was limited by fixed domestic prices and state monopoly on the [[Foreign trade of the Soviet Union|foreign trade]].<ref>{{cite book | author = [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]] and [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]] | title = A Study of the Soviet economy | volume = 1 | location = | publisher = [[International Monetary Fund]] | year = 1991 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ&dq | isbn = 0141037970 }}</ref> [[Grain]] and sophisticated consumer manufactures became major import articles from around 1960s.<ref name="foreign trade"/> [[Petroleum]] and petroleum products, [[natural gas]], [[metals]], [[wood]], agricultural products, and a variety of manufactured goods, primarily machinery, arms and military equipment, were exported from the country.<ref name="CIA">{{cite book | author = | title = Soviet Union Economy 1991 | location = | publisher = [[CIA Factbook]] | year = 1992 | page = | url = http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_economy.html | accessdate = June 12, 2010 }}</ref><ref name="foreign trade"/> In the 1970s-1980s, the Soviet Union heavily relied on fossil fuel exports to earn [[hard currency]].<ref name="foreign trade"/> At the peak level in 1988, it was the largest producer and second largest exporter of crude oil, surpassed only by [[Saudi Arabia]].
The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on [[Science and technology in the Soviet Union|science and technology]] within its economy,<ref name="science&technology">[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0413%29 Science and Technology] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref> however the most remarkable Soviet successes in technology, such as producing the [[Sputnik|world's first space satellite]], typically were the military responsibility.<ref name="economy"/> During the [[arms race]] of the [[Cold War]] the Soviet economy was burdened by military expenditures, heavily lobbied by the powerful bureaucracy dependent on the arms industry. At the same time the Soviet Union became the largest arms exporter to the [[Third World]]. Significant amounts of the Soviet resources during the [[Cold War]] were [[International relations within the Comecon|allocated in aid]] to the other [[socialist states]].<ref name="foreign trade"/>
Since the 1930s and until its collapse in the late 1980s, the way the Soviet economy operated had remained essentially unchanged. The economy was formally directed by [[economic planning|central planning]], carried out by [[Gosplan]] and organized into [[Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the Soviet Union|five-year plans]]. In practice, however, the plans were highly aggregated and provisional, subject to ''ad hoc'' intervention by superiors. All key economic decisions were taken by the political leadership. Allocated resources and plan targets were normally denominated in [[Soviet ruble|rubles]] rather than in physical goods. [[Credit (finance)|Credits]] were discouraged, but widespread. Final allocation of output was achieved through relatively decentralized, unplanned contracting. Although in theory prices were legally set from above, in practice the actual prices were often negotiated, and informal horizontal links were widespread.<ref name="gregory2004"/><ref name="gregory&harrison">Gregory, Paul & Mark Harrison. Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives. ''Journal of Economic Literature'' Vol. XLIII (September 2005), 721-761.</ref>
{| class="wikitable" style="border:1px black; float:right; margin-left:1em;"
|-
! style="background:#d3d3d3;" colspan="3"| Comparison between USSR and [[Economy of the United States|US]] economies (1989)<br />according to 1990 [[CIA]] [[World Factbook]]<ref name=cia1990>{{cite web|url=http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact90/world12.txt|publisher=[[Central Intelligence Agency]]|accessdate=2008-03-09|title=1990 CIA World Factbook}}</ref>
|-
!||USSR||US
|-
|[[GNP]] ([[Purchasing power parity|PPP adjusted]], 1989)||[[US$]]2.6595 trillion ||US$5.2333 trillion
|-
|Population (July 1990) ||290,938,469||250,410,000
|-
|[[GNP|GNP per capita]] (PPP adjusted)||US$9,211||US$21,082
|-
|[[Labour force]] (1989)||152,300,000||125,557,000
|}
A number of basic [[Service (economics)|services]] were state-funded, such as [[education in the Soviet Union|education]] and [[healthcare]]. In the manufacturing sector, heavy industry and defense were assigned higher priority than consumer goods production.<ref name="economy"/> [[Consumer goods in the Soviet Union|Consumer goods]], in particular outside large cities, were often in [[short supply]], of poor quality and limited choice, as under command economy consumers' preferences wielded almost no influence over production, changing demands of the population with growing money incomes couldn't be matched by supplies at rigidly fixed prices.<ref name="hanson">Hanson, Philip. ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR from 1945''. London: Longman, 2003.</ref> A massive unplanned second economy existed alongside the planned one at low levels, providing some of the goods and services that the planners could not. Legalization of some elements of the decentralized economy was attempted with the [[1965 Soviet economic reform|reform of 1965]].<ref name="gregory2004"/><ref name="gregory&harrison"/>
Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its [[economic growth]] is difficult to estimate precisely,<ref>{{Cite journal | author = Bergson, Abram | year = 1997 | title = How big was the Soviet GDP? | url = | journal = Comparative Economic Studies | volume = 39 | issue = 1| pages = 1–14 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | author = Harrison, Mark | year = 1993 | title = Soviet Economic Growth Since 1928: The Alternative Statistics of G. I. Khanin | url = | journal = Europe-Asia Studies | volume = 45 | issue = 1| pages = 141–167 }}</ref> by most accounts the economy continued to expand until mid eighties. During 1950s and 1960s the Soviet economy performed with comparatively high growth rates and was catching up with the West.<ref>{{cite book | author = [[Nikolas Gvosdev|Gvosdev, Nikolas]] | title = The Strange Death of Soviet communism: a postscript | volume = | location = | publisher = [[Transaction Publishers]] | year = 2008 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=Q_xTyZUEqkYC&dq | isbn = 1412806984 }}</ref> However, after 1970 the growth, while still positive, [[Brezhnev stagnation|steadily declined]], much more quickly and consistently than in other countries, despite a rapid increase in the [[capital stock]], (the rate of increase in capital was only surpassed by [[Japan]]).<ref name="gregory2004"/>
Overall, between 1960 and 1989, the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union was slightly above world average (based on 102 countries). However, given the very high level of investment in physical capital, high percentage of people with a secondary education, and low population growth the Soviet economy should have grown much faster. According to [[Stanley Fischer]] and [[William Easterly]] the Soviet growth record was among "the worst in the world". By their calculation per capita income of Soviet Union in 1989 should have been twice as high as it was, if investment, education and population had their typical effect on growth. The authors attribute this poor performance to low productivity of capital in the Soviet Union.<ref>Stanley Fischer and William Easterly, [http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/1994/04/01/000009265_3961006063138/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf "The Soviet Economic Decline, Historical and Republican Data"], World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 1284, 1994</ref>
In 1987 [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] pushed to reform the economy with his program of [[Perestroika]] in an attempt to revitalize it. His policies relaxed state control over enterprises, but hadn't yet allowed it to be replaced with market incentives, ultimately resulting in a sharp decline in production output. The economy, already suffering from [[1980s oil glut|reduced petroleum export revenues]], started to collapse. Prices were still fixed, property was still largely state-owned until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.<ref name="gregory2004"/><ref name="hanson"/> For the most of the period after World War II and up to its collapse, the Soviet economy was [[List of regions by past GDP (PPP)|the second largest in the world]] by [[GDP]] ([[Purchasing power parity|PPP]]),<ref>{{cite book | author = | title = GDP - Million 1990 | location = | publisher = [[CIA Factbook]] | year = 1991 | page = | url = http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html | accessdate = June 12, 2010 }}</ref> though in [[GDP per capita|per capita]] terms the Soviet GDP was behind that of the [[First World]] countries.<ref>{{cite book | author = | title = GDP Per Capita 1991 | location = | publisher = [[CIA Factbook]] | year = 1992 | page = | url = http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1991/rankings/gdp_per_capita_0.html | accessdate = June 12, 2010 }}</ref>
===Transport===
{{main|Transportation in the Soviet Union}}
[[File:Flag of the Aeroflot.svg|thumb|right|The Soviet era flag of Aeroflot]]
Transport was a key component of the nation's [[economy of the Soviet Union|economy]]. The [[First Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)|economic centralisation]] of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure in a massive scale, most notably the establishment of [[Aeroflot]], an aviation [[Enterprises in the Soviet Union|enterprise]].<ref>{{cite book | author = Highman, Robert D.S.; Greenwood, John T.; Hardesty, Von | title = Russian aviation and air power in the twentieth century | location = | publisher = [[Routledge]] | year = 1998 | url = http://books.google.no/books?id=cpynoFM-Jf4C&dq | isbn = 0714647845 | page = 134 }}</ref> The country had a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air.<ref name=cia/> However, due to bad maintance, much of the road, water and Soviet civil aviation transport were outdated and technologically backward, when compared to the [[First World]]. Soviet rail transport was the largest and the most intensively used in the world;<ref name="twocerofive">Wilson 1983, p. 205.</ref> it was also better developed than most of its Western counterparts.<ref>Wilson 1983, p. 201.</ref> By the late 1970s and early 1980s Soviet economist were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the weight from the railways and to improve the Soviet [[state budget]].<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 166–67.</ref> The road network, and [[Automobile industry of the Soviet Union|automobile industry]],<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 168.</ref> of the Soviet Union remained underdeveloped,<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 165.</ref> and [[dirt road]]s were common outside majors cities.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 167.</ref> Soviet maintenance projects were unable to take care of the few roads the country had. By the early to mid-1980s, the Soviet authorities tried to solve the road problem by ordering the construction of new ones.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 167.</ref> Another obstacle was that the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than road construction.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 169.</ref>
Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making by the authorities. The demand for transport infrastructure and services was rising, the Soviet authorities proved to be unable to meet the growing demand of the people. The underdeveloped Soviet [[road network]], in a [[chain reaction]], led to a growing demand for [[public transport]].<ref>[[IMF]] and [[OECD]] 1991, p. 56.</ref> The Soviet [[merchant fleet]] was one of the largest in the world.<ref name=cia>{{cite web |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_communications.html |title=Soviet Union – Communications |author=[[Central Intelligence Agency]] | work = [[The World Factbook]] |year=1991 |accessdate=20 October 2010}}</ref>
==Culture==
{{Ref improve section|date=August 2010}}
{{Main|Culture of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:Kolkhoznitsa.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Worker and Kolkhoz Woman]]'' over the northern entrance to the All-Soviet Exhibition Centre in [[Moscow]] (today the [[All-Russia Exhibition Centre]])]]
The [[culture]] of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the USSR's 70-year existence. During the first eleven years following the Revolution (1918–1929), there was relative freedom and artists experimented with several different styles in an effort to find a distinctive Soviet style of art. Lenin wanted art to be accessible to the Russian people. On the other hand, hundreds of intellectuals, writers, and artists were exiled or executed, and their work banned, for example [[Nikolai Gumilev]] (shot) and [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]] (banned).<ref>'On the other hand...' See the index of ''Stalin and His Hangmen'' by Donald Rayfield, 2004, Random House</ref>
The government encouraged a variety of trends. In art and literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental, proliferated. Communist writers [[Maksim Gorky]] and [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]] were active during this time. Film, as a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, received encouragement from the state; much of director [[Sergei Eisenstein]]'s best work dates from this period.
Later, during [[Joseph Stalin]]'s rule, Soviet culture was characterised by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style of [[Socialist realism]], with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions (e.g. [[Mikhail Bulgakov]]'s works). Many writers were imprisoned and killed.<ref>Rayfield 2004, pp. 317–320.</ref> Those who were not murdered were often banned, for example [[Anna Akhmatova]] and [[Alexander Solzhenytsin]]. Also, religious people were persecuted and either sent to Gulags or were murdered by the thousands.<ref>Rayfield 2004, pp. 121–122.</ref> The ban on the [[Orthodox Church]] was temporarily lifted in the 1940s, in order to rally support for the Soviet war against the invading forces of Germany. Under Stalin, prominent symbols that were not in line with communist ideology were destroyed, such as Orthodox Churches and Tsarist buildings.
Following the [[Khrushchev Thaw]] of the late 1950s and early 1960s, censorship was diminished. Greater experimentation in art forms became permissible once again, with the result that more sophisticated and subtly critical work began to be produced. The regime loosened its emphasis on [[socialist realism]]; thus, for instance, many protagonists of the novels of author [[Yury Trifonov]] concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. An underground dissident literature, known as [[samizdat]], developed during this late period. In architecture the Khrushchev era mostly focused on functional design as opposed to the highly decorated style of Stalin's epoch.
In the second half of the 1980s, [[Gorbachev]]'s policies of [[perestroika]] and [[glasnost]] significantly expanded [[freedom of expression]] in the media and press.<ref>"Gorbachev, Mikhail." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2 October 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037405>. "Under his new policy of glasnost (“openness”), a major cultural thaw took place: freedoms of expression and of information were significantly expanded; the press and broadcasting were allowed unprecedented candour in their reportage and criticism; and the country's legacy of Stalinist totalitarian rule was eventually completely repudiated by the government."</ref>
==Notes==
;Notes
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}
;Bibliography
* {{cite book | author = Ambler, John; Shaw, Denis J.B.; Symons, Leslie | title = Soviet and East European transport problems | location = | publisher = [[Taylor & Francis]] | year = 1985 | url = http://books.google.no/books?id=Rpg9AAAAIAAJ&dq | isbn = 0709905572 | pages = 260 }}
* {{ cite book | author = Wilson, David | title = The demand for energy in the Soviet Union | location = | publisher = [[Taylor & Francis]] | year = 1983 | url = http://books.google.no/books?id=1qgOAAAAQAAJ&dq | isbn = 0709927045| pages = 201 }}
* {{cite book | author = [[World Bank]] and [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]] | title = A Study of the Soviet economy | volume = 3 | location = | publisher = [[International Monetary Fund]] | year = 1991 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=fiDpE5M9jRAC&dq | isbn = 9264134689 | pages = 408 }}
==Further reading==
{{seealso|List of primary and secondary sources on the Cold War}}
{{Refbegin}}
;Surveys
* [http://rs6.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)'']. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]], 1991.
* Brown, Archie, et al., eds.: ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union'' (Cambridge, UK: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1982).
* Gilbert, Martin: ''The Routledge Atlas of Russian History'' (London: Routledge, 2002).
* Goldman, Minton: ''The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe'' (Connecticut: Global Studies, Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc., 1986).
* Grant, Ted: ''Russia, from Revolution to Counter-Revolution'', London, Well Red Publications,1997
* Howe, G. Melvyn: ''The Soviet Union: A Geographical Survey'' 2nd. edn. (Estover, UK: MacDonald and Evans, 1983).
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative scholar
;Lenin and beginnings
* Clark, Ronald W. ''Lenin'' (1988). 570 pp.
* Debo, Richard K. ''Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-1921'' (1992).
* Marples, David R. ''Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917-1921'' (2000) 156pp. short survey
* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the Russian Revolution'' (1996) [http://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Russian-Revolution/dp/0679745440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393501&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search], by a leading conservative
* Pipes, Richard. ''Russia under the Bolshevik Regime.'' (1994). 608 pp.
* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Biography'' (2002), 561pp; standard scholarly biography; a short version of his 3 vol detailed biography
* Volkogonov, Dmitri. ''Lenin: Life and Legacy'' (1994). 600 pp.
;Stalin and Stalinism
* Daniels, R. V., ed. ''The Stalin Revolution'' (1965)
* Davies, Sarah, and James Harris, eds. ''Stalin: A New History,'' (2006), 310pp, 14 specialized essays by scholars [http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-New-History-Sarah-Davies/dp/0521616530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494353&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* De Jonge, Alex. ''Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union'' (1986)
* Fitzpatrick, Sheila, ed. ''Stalinism: New Directions,'' (1999), 396pp excerpts from many scholars on the impact of Stalinism on the people (little on Stalin himself) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=109468478 online edition]
* Hoffmann, David L. ed. ''Stalinism: The Essential Readings,'' (2002) essays by 12 scholars
* Laqueur, Walter. ''Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations'' (1990)
* Kershaw, Ian, and Moshe Lewin. ''Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison'' (2004) [http://www.amazon.com/Stalinism-Nazism-Dictatorships-Ian-Kershaw/dp/0521565219/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215563813&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Lee, Stephen J. ''Stalin and the Soviet Union'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/read/108215209?title=Stalin%20and%20the%20Soviet%20Union online edition]
* Lewis, Jonathan. ''Stalin: A Time for Judgement'' (1990)
* McNeal, Robert H. ''Stalin: Man and Ruler'' (1988)
* Martens , Ludo. ''Another view of Stalin'' (1994), a highly favorable view from a Maoist historian
* Service, Robert. ''Stalin: A Biography'' (2004), along with Tucker the standard biography
* Trotsky, Leon. ''Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence,'' (1967), an interpretation by Stalin's worst enemy
* Tucker, Robert C. ''Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929'' (1973); ''Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929-1941.'' (1990) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103246514 online edition] with Service, a standard biography; [http://www.historyebook.org/ online at ACLS e-books]
;World War II
* Bellamy, Chris. ''Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War'' (2008), 880pp [http://www.amazon.com/Absolute-War-Soviet-Russia-Vintage/dp/0375724710/ excerpt and text search]
* Broekmeyer, Marius. ''Stalin, the Russians, and Their War, 1941-1945.'' 2004. 315 pp.
* Overy, Richard. ''Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945'' (1998) [http://www.amazon.com/Russias-War-History-Soviet-1941-1945/dp/0140271694/ excerpt and text search]
* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953'' (2006).
* Seaton, Albert. ''Stalin as Military Commander,'' (1998) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100872346 online edition]
;Cold war
* Brzezinski, Zbigniew. ''The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century'' (1989)
* Edmonds, Robin. ''Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years'' (1983)
* Goncharov, Sergei, John Lewis and Litai Xue, ''Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War'' (1993) [http://www.amazon.com/Uncertain-Partners-Studies-Security-Control/dp/0804725217/ref=sr_1_1/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193675770&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Gorlizki, Yoram, and Oleg Khlevniuk. ''Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945-1953'' (2004) [http://www.questia.com/read/105899376 online edition]
* Holloway, David. ''Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956'' (1996) [http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Bomb-Soviet-Atomic-1939-1956/dp/0300066643/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193876689&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* [[Mastny, Vojtech]]. ''Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945'' (1979)
* [[Mastny, Vojtech]]. ''The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years'' (1998) [http://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-Soviet-Insecurity-Stalin/dp/0195126599/ref=sr_1_6/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193676128&sr=8-6 excerpt and text search]; [http://www.questia.com/read/98422373 online complete edition]
* Nation, R. Craig. ''Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991'' (1992)
* Sivachev, Nikolai and Nikolai Yakolev, ''Russia and the United States'' (1979), by Soviet historians
* Taubman, William. ''Khrushchev: The Man and His Era'' (2004), Pulitzer Prize; [http://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Man-His-William-Taubman/dp/0393324842/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191567469&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973'', 2nd ed. (1974)
* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''Inside the Kremlin's Cold War'' (1996) [http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books#q=zubok&filter=all&start=1 20% excerpt and online search]
* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007)
;Collapse
* Beschloss, Michael, and Strobe Talbott. ''At the Highest Levels:The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War'' (1993)
* Bialer, Seweryn and Michael Mandelbaum, eds. ''Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy'' (1988).
* Garthoff, Raymond. ''The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War'' (1994), detailed narrative
* Grachev, A.S. ''Gorbachev's Gamble: Soviet Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War'' (2008) [http://www.amazon.com/Gorbachevs-Gamble-Soviet-Foreign-Policy/dp/0745643450/ excerpt and text search]
* Hogan, Michael ed. ''The End of the Cold War. Its Meaning and Implications'' (1992) articles from ''Diplomatic History''
* Kotkin, Stephen. ''Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000'' (2008) [http://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Averted-Soviet-Collapse-1970-2000/dp/0195368630/ excerpt and text search]
* Matlock, Jack. ''Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union'' (1995)
* Pons, S., Romero, F., ''Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, Interpretations, Periodizations'', (2005) ISBN 0-7146-5695-X
* Remnick, David. ''Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire'', (1994), ISBN 0-679-75125-4
;Specialty studies
* Armstrong, John A. ''The Politics of Totalitarianism: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present.'' New York: Random House, 1961.
* Katz, Zev, ed.: ''Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities'' (New York: Free Press, 1975).
* Moore, Jr., Barrington. ''Soviet politics: the dilemma of power.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
* [[Dmitry Orlov]], ''[http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3991 Reinventing Collapse]'', New Society Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-86571-606-3
* [[Donald Rayfield|Rayfield, Donald]]. ''[[Stalin and His Hangmen]]: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him''. New York: Random House, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0-375-50632-2); 2005 (paperback, ISBN 0-375-75771-6).
* Rizzi, Bruno: "The bureaucratization of the world : the first English ed. of the underground Marxist classic that analyzed class exploitation in the USSR" , New York, NY : Free Press, 1985.
* Schapiro, Leonard B. ''The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955, 1966.
{{Refend}}
{{loc}}
==See also==
*[[Index of Soviet Union-related articles]]
==External links==
{{Sister project links|Soviet Union}}
* [http://ariwatch.com/VS/JD/ImpressionsOfSovietRussia.htm Impressions of Soviet Russia], by [[John Dewey]].
* [http://soviethistory.com/ Documents and other forms of media from the Soviet Union: 1917–1991.]
* [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)]
* [http://soviet.globalmuseumoncommunism.org/ Soviet Union Exhibit at Global Museum on Communism with essay by Richard Pipes]
* [http://www.history.com/topics/soviet-union The Soviet Union]
{{Soviet Republics}}
{{Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union}}
{{Autonomous Oblasts of the Soviet Union}}
{{Socialist states}}
{{Eastern Bloc}}
[[Category:Soviet Union| ]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union and Soviet Russia]]
[[Category:Communist states]]
[[Category:Early Soviet republics]]
[[Category:States and territories established in 1922]]
[[Category:Former Slavic countries]]
[[Category:Single-party states]]
[[Category:History of Russia]]
[[Category:Former polities of the Cold War]]
[[Category:Superpowers]]
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[[ar:الاتحاد السوفيتي]]
[[an:Unión de Republicas Socialistas Sovieticas]]
[[ast:Xunión Soviética]]
[[az:Sovet Sosialist Respublikaları İttifaqı]]
[[bn:সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন]]
[[zh-min-nan:Soviet Siā-hōe-chú-gī Kiōng-hô-kok Liân-ha̍p]]
[[ba:Советтар Союзы]]
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[[br:Unaniezh ar Republikoù Sokialour ha Soviedel]]
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[[ca:Unió de Repúbliques Socialistes Soviètiques]]
[[cv:СССР]]
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[[et:Nõukogude Liit]]
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[[es:Unión Soviética]]
[[eo:Sovetunio]]
[[eu:Sobietar Errepublika Sozialisten Batasuna]]
[[fa:اتحاد جماهیر شوروی سوسیالیستی]]
[[fo:Sovjetsamveldið]]
[[fr:Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques]]
[[fy:Sowjetuny]]
[[ga:An tAontas Sóivéadach]]
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[[hy:Խորհրդային Սոցիալիստական Հանրապետությունների Միություն]]
[[hi:सोवियत संघ]]
[[hsb:Sowjetski zwjazk]]
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[[ia:Union Sovietic]]
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[[it:Unione Sovietica]]
[[he:ברית המועצות]]
[[jv:Uni Sovyèt]]
[[kn:ಸೊವಿಯೆಟ್ ಒಕ್ಕೂಟ]]
[[ka:საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკების კავშირი]]
[[kk:Кеңестік Социалистік Республикалар Одағы]]
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[[sw:Umoja wa Kisovyeti]]
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[[la:Unio Rerum Publicarum Sovieticarum Socialisticarum]]
[[lv:Padomju Savienība]]
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[[lij:Union de e Repubbriche Soçialiste Sovietiche]]
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[[mr:सोव्हियेत संघ]]
[[arz:الاتحاد السوفييتى]]
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[[ms:Kesatuan Republik Sosialis Soviet]]
[[mdf:Советонь Соткс]]
[[mn:Зөвлөлт Холбоот Улс]]
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[[no:Sovjetunionen]]
[[nn:Sovjetunionen]]
[[nrm:Unnion Soviétique]]
[[oc:Union de las Republicas Socialistas Sovieticas]]
[[mhr:Совет Социализм Республик-влак Ушем]]
[[uz:Sovet Sotsialistlik Respublikalar Ittifoqi]]
[[pnb:سویت یونین]]
[[km:សហភាពសូវៀត]]
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[[pl:Związek Socjalistycznych Republik Radzieckich]]
[[pt:União das Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas]]
[[crh:Şuralar Sotsialistik Cumhuriyetler Birligi]]
[[ksh:ẞoffjätunjoon]]
[[ro:Uniunea Republicilor Sovietice Socialiste]]
[[qu:Susyalista Suwit Republikakunap Huñun]]
[[ru:Союз Советских Социалистических Республик]]
[[sah:Сэбиэт Социалист Республикалар Холбоhуга]]
[[sco:Soviet Union]]
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[[scn:Unioni Suviètica]]
[[si:සෝවියට් සංගමය]]
[[simple:Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]
[[sk:Sovietsky zväz]]
[[cu:Съвѣ́тьскъ Социалисти́чьскъ Димократі́и Съвѫ́ꙁъ]]
[[sl:Sovjetska zveza]]
[[szl:Sojusz Socjalistycznych Sowjeckich Republik]]
[[sr:Савез Совјетских Социјалистичких Република]]
[[sh:Sovjetski Savez]]
[[fi:Neuvostoliitto]]
[[sv:Sovjetunionen]]
[[tl:Unyong Sobyet]]
[[ta:சோவியத் ஒன்றியம்]]
[[tt:Sovet Sosialist Cömhüriätlär Berlege]]
[[te:సోవియట్ యూనియన్]]
[[th:สหภาพโซเวียต]]
[[tg:Иттиҳоди Шӯравӣ]]
[[tr:Sovyet Sosyalist Cumhuriyetler Birliği]]
[[uk:Союз Радянських Соціалістичних Республік]]
[[ur:سوویت اتحاد]]
[[ug:سوۋېت ئىتتىپاقى]]
[[za:Suhlienz]]
[[vec:Union Sovietica]]
[[vi:Liên Xô]]
[[fiu-vro:Nõvvokogo Liit]]
[[wa:URSS]]
[[war:Unyon Sobyet]]
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[[yo:Ìsọ̀kan Sófìẹ̀tì]]
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New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | '{{Redirect4|USSR|CCCP}}
{{pp-semi|small=yes}}{{pp-move-indef}}
{{Redirect6|Soviet|the term itself|Soviet (council)}}
{{Infobox Former Country
|native_name = Союз Советских Социалистических Республик<br />''Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik''
|conventional_long_name = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics <br /><small>[[Official names of the Soviet Union|Other names]]</small>
|common_name = Soviet Union
|continent = Eurasia
|status = Federation
|government_type = [[Federal system|Federal]] [[Socialist state|socialist]] [[Soviet republic (system of government)|republic]], [[Single-party state|single-party]] [[communist state]]
|year_start = 1922
|year_end = 1991
|date_start = December 30
|date_end = December 26
|p1 = Russian SFSR
|flag_p1 = Flag RSFSR 1918.svg
|p2 = Transcaucasian SFSR
|flag_p2 = Flag of Transcaucasian SFSR.svg
|p3 = Ukrainian SSR
|flag_p3 = Flag of the Ukrainian SSR (1927-1937).svg
|p4 = Byelorussian SSR
|flag_p4 = Flag of the Byelorussian SSR (1919).svg
|s1 = Russia
|flag_s1 = Flag of Russia 1991-1993.svg
|s2 = Georgia (country){{!}}Georgia
|flag_s2 = Flag of Georgia (1990-2004).svg
|s3 = Ukraine
|flag_s3 = Flag of Ukraine.svg
|s4 = Moldova
|flag_s4 = Flag of Moldova.svg
|s5 = Belarus
|flag_s5 = Flag of Belarus (1991-1995).svg
|s6 = Armenia
|flag_s6 = Flag of Armenia.svg
|s7 = Azerbaijan
|flag_s7 = Flag of Azerbaijan.svg
|s8 = Kazakhstan
|flag_s8 = Flag of Kazakh SSR.svg
|s9 = Uzbekistan
|flag_s9 = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg
|s10 = Turkmenistan
|flag_s10 = Flag of Turkmen SSR.svg
|s11 = Kyrgyzstan
|flag_s11 = Flag of Kyrgyz SSR.svg
|s12 = Tajikistan
|flag_s12 = Flag of Tajik SSR.svg
|s13 = Estonia{{!}}Estonia<sup>3</sup>
|flag_s13 = Flag of Estonia.svg
|s14 = Latvia{{!}}Latvia<sup>3</sup>
|flag_s14 = Flag of Latvia.svg
|s15 = Lithuania{{!}}Lithuania<sup>3</sup>
|flag_s15 = Flag of Lithuania 1989-2004.svg
|
|
|image_flag = Flag of the Soviet Union.svg
|flag = Flag of the Soviet Union
|image_coat = Coat_of_arms_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg
|symbol = Coat of arms of the Soviet Union
|symbol_type = State Emblem
|image_map = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg
|image_map_size = 220px
|image_map_caption = The Soviet Union after [[World War II]]
|capital = [[Moscow]]
|latd=55|latm=45|latNS=N|longd=37|longm=37|longEW=E
|largest_city =[[Moscow]]
|national_motto = Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!<br />([[Romanization of Russian|Translit.]]: ''Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes'!'')<br />[[English language|English]]: [[Workers of the world, unite!]]
|national_anthem = ''[[The Internationale]]'' (1922–1944)<br />''[[Hymn of the Soviet Union]]'' (1944–1991)
|common_languages = [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Languages of the Soviet Union|many others]]
|demonym = [[Soviet nation|Soviet]]
|religion = [[State atheism|None]]
|currency = [[Soviet ruble]] (руб) (SUR)
|currency_code = SUR
<!-- If there are more than 4 leaders, only give first and last — the infobox is not intended to list everything. -->
|leader1 = Vladimir Lenin
|leader2 = Mikhail Gorbachev
|year_leader1 = 1922–1924 (first)
|year_leader2 = 1985–1991 (last)
|title_leader = [[List of leaders of the Soviet Union|Leader]]
|stat_year1 = 1991
|stat_area1 = 22402200
|stat_pop1 = 293047571
|footnotes =
<sup>1</sup>On December 21, 1991, eleven of the former socialist republics declared in [[Alma-Ata]] (with the 12th republic – [[Georgian SSR|Georgia]] – attending as an observer) that with the formation of the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]] the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceases to exist.<br />
<sup>2</sup>Assigned on September 19, 1990, existing onwards.<br />
<sup>3</sup>The governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania view themselves as continuous and unrelated to the respective Soviet republics.<br />Russia views the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian SSRs as legal constituent republics of the USSR and predecessors of the modern Baltic states.<br />The Government of the [[United States]] and [[State continuity of the Baltic states#No final decision on non-recognition policy|a number of other countries]] did not recognize the invasion of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the USSR as legal inclusion.
|utc_offset = +2 to +13
|cctld = [[.su]]<sup>2</sup>
|calling_code = 7
}}
{{Soviet Union sidebar}}
The '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''' ('''USSR''', {{lang-rus|Союз Советских Социалистических Республик|r=Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik}} {{IPA-ru|sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɨəlʲɪˈstʲiʨɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk|IPA|Ru-CCCP.ogg}}, abbreviated СССР, ''SSSR''), informally known as the '''Soviet Union''' ({{lang-rus|Советский Союз|r=Sovetsky Soyuz}}) or '''Soviet Russia''', was a [[Constitution of the Soviet Union|constitutionally]] [[socialist state]] that existed on the territory of most of the former [[Russian Empire]] in [[Eurasia]] between 1922 and 1991.<ref name="britannica1">[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]: [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/614785/Union-of-Soviet-Socialist-Republics Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]</ref>
The Soviet Union had a [[single-party political system]] dominated by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]].<ref>Bridget O'Laughlin (1975) ''Marxist Approaches in Anthropology'' Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 4: pp. 341–70 (October 1975) (doi:10.1146/annurev.an.04.100175.002013).<br />William Roseberry (1997) ''Marx and Anthropology'' Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26: pp. 25–46 (October 1997) (doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.25)</ref> Although the USSR was nominally a [[Political union|union]] of [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republics]] (of which there were 15 after 1956) with the capital in [[Moscow]], it was in actuality a highly centralized state with a [[Economy of the Soviet Union|planned economy]]. Much of Soviet society was overseen by national security agencies such as the [[KGB]] (which was active from 1954).<ref name=shiman>{{cite book | last = Shiman | first = David | title = Economic and Social Justice: A Human Rights Perspective | publisher = Amnesty International | year= 1999 | url = http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/tb1b/Section1/tb1-2.htm | isbn = 0967533406}}</ref>
The Soviet Union was founded in December 1922 when the [[Russian SFSR]], which formed during the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]] and emerged victorious in the ensuing [[Russian Civil War]], unified with the [[Transcaucasian SSR|Transcaucasian]], [[Ukrainian SSR|Ukrainian]] and [[Belorussian SSR]]s. After the death of [[Vladimir Lenin]], the first Soviet leader, power was eventually consolidated by [[Joseph Stalin]],<ref name="StalinRobertService">Robert Service. ''Stalin: A Biography.'' 2004. ISBN 978-0-330-41913-0</ref> who led the country through a large-scale [[industrialization]] with [[planned economy|command economy]] and [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|political repression]].<ref name="StalinRobertService" /><ref>{{cite book |first=George |last=Crile |title=Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History |publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press |year=2003 |isbn=0871138549}}</ref> During [[World War II]], in June 1941, the Soviet Union was [[Operation Barbarossa|attacked]] by [[Nazi Germany|Germany]], a country with whom it had signed a [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|non-aggression pact]]. After [[Eastern Front (World War II)|four years of warfare]], the Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two [[superpower]]s, extending its influence into much of [[Eastern Europe]] and beyond.
The Soviet Union and its satellites from the [[Eastern Bloc]] were one of two participating factions in the [[Cold War]], a global ideological and political struggle against the [[United States]] and its allies; the Soviet bloc ultimately lost, however, having been hit by economic standstill and both domestic and foreign political unrest, an event which marks the beginning of the post-war period.<ref>{{cite book |title=Stalin and the Bomb |last=Mr. David Holloway |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1996 |publisher=Yale University Press |location= |isbn=978-0300066647 |page=18 |url=http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300066647 |accessdate=}}</ref><ref name="turner23">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=23}}</ref> In the late 1980s the last Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] tried to reform the state with his policies of [[perestroika]] and [[glasnost]], but the Soviet Union [[History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)|collapsed]] and was [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|formally dissolved]] in December 1991 after the abortive [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|August coup attempt]].<ref name = "Byrd">{{cite encyclopedia|author=Byrd, Peter|editor=McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair|encyclopedia=The concise Oxford dictionary of politics|title=Cold War (entire chapter)|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xLbEHQAACAAJ&ei=E45VSJrQO4e4jgGh_oWODA|accessdate=2008-06-16|year=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0192802763}}</ref> Since then the [[Russia|Russian Federation]] has been exercising its rights and fulfilling its obligations.<ref>"Russia is now a party to any Treaties to which the former Soviet Union was a party, and enjoys the same rights and obligations as the former Soviet Union, except insofar as adjustments are necessarily required, e.g. to take account of the change in territorial extent. [...] The Russian federation continues the legal personality of the former Soviet Union and is thus not a successor State in the sense just mentioned. The other former Soviet Republics are successor States.", United Kingdom Materials on International Law 1993, BYIL 1993, pp. 579 (636).</ref>
==Geography==
{{Main|Geography of the Soviet Union}}
The Soviet Union, with {{Convert|22402200|km2}},{{When|date=July 2010}} was the world's largest state. Covering a sixth of the world's inhabited land, its size was comparable to that of [[North America]]. The western part (in [[Europe]]) accounted for a quarter of the country's area, and was the country's cultural and economic center. The eastern part (in [[Asia]]) extended to the [[Pacific Ocean]] to the east and [[Afghanistan]] to the [[south]], and was much less populated than the European part. It was over {{Convert|10000|km}} across (11 [[time zone]]s) and almost {{Convert|5000|km}} north to south.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}} Its five climatic zones were [[tundra]], [[taiga]], [[steppe]]s, desert, and mountains.
The Soviet Union had the world's longest border, measuring over {{Convert|60000|km}}.{{When|date=July 2010}} Two thirds of the Soviet border was coastline of the [[Arctic Ocean]]. Across the [[Bering Strait]] was the [[United States]]. The Soviet Union bordered [[Afghanistan]], [[China]], [[Czechoslovakia]], [[Finland]], [[Hungary]], [[Iran]], [[Mongolia]], [[North Korea]], [[Norway]], [[Poland]], [[Romania]], and [[Turkey]] at the end of WWII.
The Soviet Union's longest river was the [[Irtysh]]. The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (today's [[Ismail Samani Peak]]) in Tajikistan at {{Convert|7495|m}}. The world's largest lake, the [[Caspian Sea]], lay mainly in the Soviet Union. The world's deepest lake, [[Lake Baikal]], was in the Soviet Union.
==Demographics==
{{Main|Demographics of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:Population of former USSR.PNG|thumb|250px|left|USSR and [[Post-Soviet states|FSU]] Population from 1961–2009.]]
[[Image:Ethnic map USSR 1941.jpg|thumb|left|250px|1941 USSR geographic location of ethnicities]]
[[Image:USSR Ethnic Groups 1974.jpg|thumb|left|250px|1974 USSR geographic location of ethnicities]]
The Soviet Union was one of the world's most ethnically diverse countries, with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups within its borders.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} The total population was estimated at 293 million in 1991. It was the third most populous nation (after China and India) for decades.{{When||need rough time span since claim has been made. With footnote|date=May 2010}} There were 23 cities with more than one million people each in the Soviet Union in 1989. The country's largest city and capital was [[Moscow]] with nine million inhabitants.
===Ethnic groups===
As a 1990 estimate, the majority of the population were [[Russians]] (50.78%), followed by [[Ukrainians]] (15.45%) and [[Uzbeks]] (5.84%).
Some nationality groups came into the empire voluntarily, others were brought in by force. Russians,<ref>[http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=31575&amid=30229744 Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union], [[History Today]]</ref> [[Belarusians]], and Ukrainians shared close cultural ties while other subjects of the empire did not. Due to multiple nationalities located in the same territory, national antagonisms developed over the years.
For many years, Soviet leaders maintained that the underlying causes of conflict between nationalities had been eliminated and that the Soviet Union consisted of a family of nations living harmoniously together. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the government conducted a policy of [[korenizatsiya]] (indigenization) of local governments in an effort to recruit non-Russians into the new Soviet political institutions and to reduce the conflict between Russians and the minority nationalities.
To increase literacy and [[mass education]], the Soviets encouraged development and publication in many of the languages of minority groups. Russian became a required ''subject'' of study in all Soviet schools in 1938; however, in mainly non-Russian areas the chief language of instruction was the local language. This led to widespread bilingualism in the educated population, though smaller nationalities were often linguistically assimilated, in which the members of the nationality lost their historic language.<ref>Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver. 1984. "Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in Soviet Bilingual Education Policy, 1934–1980," ''American Political Science Review'' 78 (December): 1019–1039.</ref>
===Religion===
{{Main|Religion in the Soviet Union}}
The Soviet Union was officially secular: [[atheism]] was supported in schools. The [[Separation of church and state|state was separated from church]] by the Decree of [[Council of People's Commissars]] on January 23, 1918. Prior to the country's dissolution, two-thirds of the Soviet population lacked religious belief while one-third of the people professed religious belief. [[Christianity]] and [[Islam]] had the most believers. About half of the people, including members of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] and high-level government officials, professed atheism. Government persecution of Christianity continued undiminished until the fall of the Communist government. Only 500 churches, out of the 54,000 before the revolution, remained open in 1941. The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly and was far less integral in city dwellers where Party control was strongest.
===Language===
{{Main|Languages of the Soviet Union}}
[[Russian language|Russian]] was the ''language of interethnic communication'' ({{lang-ru|язык межнационального общения}}) and assumed ''de facto'' the role of official language.<ref name = "lang">Bernard Comrie, ''The Languages of the Soviet Union'', page 31, the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1981. ISBN 0-521-23230-9</ref> It was used in industry, military, party, and state management.
In 1990, in the latter says of ''[[perestroika]]'' and [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|the Soviet Union itself]], the Russian language was declared to be the official language of [[USSR]] and the constituent republics were given rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions. <ref> [http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm Law on Languages of Nations of USSR.] {{ru icon}}</ref>
===Life expectancy===
{{Further|[[Demographics of the Soviet Union#Life expectancy and infant mortality|History of Soviet Union life expectancy]]}}
After the [[October Revolution|communist takeover]] of power the life expectancy for all age groups went up. The trend continued into the 60s, when the life expectancy in the Soviet Union went beyond the life expectancy in the United States. In 1964 the trend reversed. Life expectancy went down dramatically for men because of alcohol abuse and poor health care.<ref name="SeemingParadox">The Seeming Paradox of Increasing Mortality in a Highly Industrialized Nation: the Example of the Soviet Union : 1985. author Dinkel, R. H.</ref>
===Emigration===
{{Further|[[Aliyah from the Soviet Union in the 1970s|Jewish Emigration from the USSR]]}}
Despite the strict rules that would prevent emigration, there were many Soviet citizens who wanted to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The desire to emigrate elsewhere applied especially to the Jewish community of USSR, as they often felt alienated by the anti-Semitic attitudes in society and sometimes even anti-Jewish campaigns of the Soviet State.<ref name="DomesticPressures">Domestic Pressures and the Politics of Exit: Trends in Soviet Emigration Policy : 1989-90. author Salitan, Laurie P. page 671-687 url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/2151104</ref>
==History==
{{Main|History of the Soviet Union}}
The last Russian [[Tsar]], [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]], ruled until March 1917, when the [[Russian Empire]] was overthrown and a short-lived [[Russian provisional government]] took power, to be overthrown in November 1917 by [[Vladimir Lenin]].
From 1917 to 1922, the predecessor to the Soviet Union was the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR), which was an independent country, as were other Soviet republics at the time. The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 as the union of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian]] (colloquially known as [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Bolshevist Russia]]), [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian]], [[Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic|Belarusian]], and [[Transcaucasian SFSR|Transcaucasian]] Soviet republics ruled by [[Bolshevik]] parties.
===Revolution and the foundation of a Soviet state===
{{Main|History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917-1927)|Russian Revolution (1917)|February Revolution|Russian Provisional Government|October Revolution|Russian Civil War}}
Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the [[Decembrist Revolt]] of 1825, and although [[Russian serfdom|serfdom]] was abolished in 1861, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the [[State Duma]]—was established in 1906 after the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]], but the Tsar resisted attempts to move from [[Absolute monarchy|absolute]] to [[constitutional monarchy]]. [[Social unrest]] continued and was aggravated during [[World War I]] by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.
[[Image:Lenin-Trotsky 1920-05-20 Sverdlov Square (original).jpg|thumb|left|[[Vladimir Lenin]] addressing a crowd in 1920.]]
A spontaneous popular uprising in [[Saint Petersburg]], in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the "[[February Revolution]]" and the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|toppling of the imperial government in March 1917]]. The [[tsarist autocracy]] was replaced by the [[Russian Provisional Government|Provisional Government]], whose leaders intended to conduct elections to [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] and to continue participating on the side of the [[Allies of World War I|Entente]] in World War I.
At the same time, workers' councils, known as [[soviet (council)|Soviets]], sprang up across the country. The [[Bolshevik]]s, led by [[Vladimir Lenin]], pushed for [[Communist revolution|socialist revolution]] in the Soviets and on the streets. In November 1917, during the "[[October Revolution]]", they seized power from the Provisional Government. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an [[armistice]] with the [[Central Powers]]. But, by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets quit the war for good and signed the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]].
Only after the long and bloody [[Russian Civil War]] was the new Soviet power secure. The civil war between the [[Red Army|Reds]] and the [[White movement|Whites]] started in 1917 and ended in 1923. It included [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|foreign intervention]], the execution of [[Nicholas II of Russia#Final months and death|Nicholas II and his family]] and the [[Russian famine of 1921|famine of 1921]], which killed about 5 million.<ref>"''[http://books.google.com/books?id=LUhXZD2BPeQC&pg=PA287&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false The Russian Civil War]''". Evan Mawdsley (2007). Pegasus Books. p.287. ISBN 1-933648-15-5</ref> In March 1921, during [[Polish-Soviet War|a related conflict with Poland]], the [[Peace of Riga]] was signed and split disputed territories in [[Belarus]] and [[Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] and Soviet Russia. The Soviet Union had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established [[Finland's Declaration of Independence|Republic of Finland]], the [[Estonian War of Independence|Republic of Estonia]], the [[Latvian-Soviet War|Republic of Latvia]], and the [[Lithuanian–Soviet War|Republic of Lithuania]].
===Unification of the Soviet Republics===
On December 28, 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], the [[Transcaucasian SFSR]], the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]] and the [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic|Byelorussian SSR]] approved the [[Treaty of Creation of the USSR]]<ref>Richard Sakwa ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991: 1917–1991''. Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-12290-2, 9780415122900. pp. 140–143.</ref> and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.<ref>Julian Towster. ''Political Power in the U.S.S.R., 1917–1947: The Theory and Structure of Government in the Soviet State'' Oxford Univ. Press, 1948. p. 106.</ref> These two documents were confirmed by the 1st [[Congress of Soviets]] of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations<ref>{{Ru icon}} [http://region.adm.nov.ru/pressa.nsf/0c7534916fcf6028c3256b3700243eac/4302e4941fb6a6bfc3256c99004faea5!OpenDocument Voted Unanimously for the Union.]</ref> – [[Mikhail Kalinin]], Mikha Tskhakaya, [[Mikhail Frunze]] and [[Grigory Petrovsky]], [[Aleksandr Chervyakov]]<ref>{{Ru icon}} [http://www.hronos.km.ru/sobyt/cccp.html Creation of the USSR] at Khronos.ru.</ref> respectively on December 30, 1922.
On February 1, 1924, the USSR was recognized by the [[British Empire]]. Also in 1924, a [[1924 Soviet Constitution|Soviet Constitution]] was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union of the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR to form the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR).
The intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was performed according to [[Bolshevik Initial Decrees]], documents of the Soviet government, signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the [[GOELRO plan]], that envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The Plan was developed in 1920 and covered a 10- to 15-year period. It included construction of a network of 30 regional [[power plants]], including ten large [[hydroelectric power plant]]s, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3677572g016338u/|title=70 Years of Gidroproekt and Hydroelectric Power in Russia}}</ref> The Plan became the prototype for subsequent [[Five-Year Plan (USSR)|Five-Year Plans]] and was basically fulfilled by 1931.<ref name="Kuzbassenergo">{{Ru icon}} [http://www.kuzbassenergo.ru/goelro/ On GOELRO Plan — at Kuzbassenergo.]</ref>
===Stalin's rule===
{{Main|History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)}}
[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|200px|upright|The [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in [[Moscow]] during its 1931 demolition. Organized religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union.]]
From its beginning years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the [[Single-party state|one-party rule]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]].<ref>The consolidation into a single-party regime took place during the first three and a half years after the revolution, which included the period of [[War communism|War Communism]] and an election in which multiple parties competed. See Leonard Schapiro, ''The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922.'' Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]], 1955, 1966.</ref> After the economic policy of [[War Communism]] during the Civil War, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax (''see'' [[New Economic Policy]]).
Soviet leaders argued that one-party rule was necessary because it ensured that 'capitalist exploitation' would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of [[Democratic Centralism]] would represent the people's will. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin [[Lenin's Testament|was to be replaced by]] a "[[triumvirate|troika]]" composed of [[Grigory Zinoviev]] of [[Ukraine]], [[Lev Kamenev]] of [[Moscow]], and [[Joseph Stalin]] of [[Georgian people|Georgia]].
On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]. Lenin had appointed Stalin to be the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, known by the acronym [[Rabkrin]], which gave Stalin considerable power. By [[Stalin's rise to power|gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and out-maneuvering his rivals within the party]], Stalin became the [[dictator|undisputed leader]] of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the 1920s, established [[totalitarian]] rule. In October 1927, Grigory Zinoviev and [[Leon Trotsky]] were expelled from the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] and forced into exile.
In 1928, Stalin introduced the [[First Five-Year Plan]] for building a [[Socialist economics|socialist economy]]. While encompassing the [[Proletarian internationalism|internationalism]] expressed by [[Lenin]] throughout the course of the Revolution, it also aimed for building [[socialism in one country]]. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of [[industrialization]]; in agriculture [[Collectivisation in the USSR|collective farms]] were established all over the country.
[[Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR|Famines]] occurred, causing millions of deaths and surviving [[kulak]]s were politically persecuted and many sent to [[Gulags]] to do [[Unfree labour|forced labour]]. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Stalin's [[Great Purge]] resulted in execution or detainment of many "[[Old Bolsheviks]]" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. A wide range of death tolls was suggested, from as many as 60 million kulaks being killed (suggested by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) to as few as 700 thousand (according to Soviet news sources).
According to the declassified Soviet archives, during the Great Purge in 1937 and 1938, the [[NKVD]] arrested more than one and a half million people, of whom 681,692 were shot – an average of 1,000 executions a day.<ref>"''[http://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC&pg=PA373&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false A Companion to Russian History]''". Abbott Gleason (2009). Wiley-Blackwell. p.373. ISBN 1-4051-3560-3</ref> Yet despite the turmoil of the mid- to late 1930s, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before [[World War II]].
====The 1930s====
The early 1930s saw closer cooperation between the [[Western world|West]] and the USSR. From 1932 to 1934, the Soviet Union participated in the [[World Disarmament Conference]]. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established. In September 1934, the Soviet Union joined the [[League of Nations]]. After the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the [[Second Spanish Republic|Republican forces]] against the [[Spain under Franco|Nationalists]]. The Nationalists were supported by [[Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)|Fascist Italy]] and [[Nazi Germany]].
In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new [[1936 Soviet Constitution|Soviet Constitution]]. The constitution was seen as a personal triumph for Stalin, who on this occasion was described by [[Pravda]] as "genius of the new world, the wisest man of the epoch, the great leader of communism." By contrast, western historians and historians from former Soviet occupied countries have seen the constitution as a meaningless propaganda document.
The late 1930s saw a shift towards the [[Axis powers]]. In 1938 and 1939, armed forces of the USSR won several decisive victories during [[Soviet–Japanese Border Wars|border clashes]] with the armed forces of the [[Japanese Empire]]. In 1938, after the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Third French Republic|France]] concluded the [[Munich Agreement]] with Germany, the USSR dealt with Germany as well.
====World War II====
{{Main|Molotov-Ribbentrop pact|Eastern Front (WWII)}}
The USSR dealt with Germany both militarily and economically during [[German–Soviet Axis talks|extensive talks]] and by concluding the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact|German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact]] and the [[German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940)|German–Soviet Commercial Agreement]]. The conclusion of the nonaggression pact made possible the Soviet occupation of [[Occupation of the Baltic States|Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia]], [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|Bessarabia, northern Bukovina]], and [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|eastern Poland]]. In late November of the same year, unable to force the [[Finland|Republic of Finland]] into agreement to move its border {{Convert|25|km}} back from [[Leningrad]] by diplomatic means, [[Stalin]] ordered the [[Winter War|invasion of Finland]]. On April 1941, USSR signed the [[Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact]] with the [[Empire of Japan]], recognizing the territorial integrity of [[Manchukuo]], a Japanese [[puppet state]].
Although it has been debated whether the Soviet Union had the intention of invading Germany once it was strong enough,<ref>{{Ru icon}} Mel'tiukhov, Mikhail. ''Upushchennyi shans Stalina: Sovetskii Soiuz i bor'ba za Evropu'' 1939–1941. Moscow: Veche, 2000. ISBN 5-7838-1196-3.</ref> Germany itself broke the treaty and [[Operation Barbarossa|invaded the Soviet Union]] on 22 June 1941 and started what was known in the USSR as the "[[Eastern Front (WWII)|Great Patriotic War]]". The [[Red Army]] stopped the initial German offensive during the [[Battle of Moscow]]. The [[Battle of Stalingrad]], which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, was a major defeat for the Germans and became a major turning point of the war. After Stalingrad, Soviet forces drove through [[Eastern Europe]] to [[Berlin]] before [[End of World War II in Europe|Germany surrendered in 1945]]. The same year, the USSR, in fulfilment of its agreement with the Allies at the [[Yalta Conference]], denounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945<ref name=denunciation>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s3.asp Denunciation of the neutrality pact] April 5, 1945. ([[Avalon Project]] at [[Yale University]])</ref> and [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)|invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories]] on August 9, 1945.<ref name=declarationofwar>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s4.asp Soviet Declaration of War on Japan], August 8, 1945. ([[Avalon Project]] at [[Yale University]])</ref> [[Soviet-Japanese War (1945)|This conflict]] ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional [[surrender of Japan]] and the end of World War II. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people in the war.<ref>"''[http://books.google.com/books?id=CDMVMqDvp4QC&pg=PA242&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Rulers and victims: the Russians in the Soviet Union]''". Geoffrey A. Hosking (2006). [[Harvard University Press]]. p.242. ISBN 0-674-02178-9</ref> Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged victorious from the conflict and became an acknowledged military superpower.
[[Image:Teheran conference-1943.jpg|thumb|left|Left to right: [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]] [[Joseph Stalin]], [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]] [[Winston Churchill]].]]
Once denied diplomatic recognition by the [[free world]], the Soviet Union had official relations with practically all nations of the world by the late 1940s. The Soviet Union also had progressed from being an outsider in international organizations and negotiations to being one of the arbiters of the world's fate after [[World War II]]. A member of the [[United Nations]] at its foundation in 1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the [[UN Security Council]] which gave it the right to [[veto]] any of its resolutions (''see'' [[Soviet Union and the United Nations]]).
The Soviet Union emerged from [[World War II]] as one of the world's two superpowers, a position maintained for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe (''see'' [[Eastern Bloc]]), military strength, economic strength, aid to [[Developing country|developing countries]], and scientific research, especially into space technology and weaponry. The Soviet Union's growing influence abroad in the postwar years helped lead to a Communist system of states in Eastern Europe united by military and economic agreements.
====The Cold War====
During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, while maintaining its [[planned economy|strictly centralized control]]. The Soviet Union aided post-war reconstruction in the countries of Eastern Europe while turning them into Soviet [[satellite states]], founded the [[Warsaw Pact]] in 1955. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ([[Comecon]]), 1949–1991, was an economic organization of communist states and a kind of [[Eastern Bloc]] equivalent to—but more geographically inclusive than—the European Economic Community.<ref name="fas.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gru/ |title=Main Intelligence Administration (GRU) Glavnoye Razvedovatel'noye Upravlenie – Russia / Soviet Intelligence Agencies |publisher=Fas.org |date= |accessdate=2008-11-24}}</ref> Later, the [[Comecon]] supplied aid to the eventually victorious [[Chinese Communist Party|Communists]] in the People's Republic of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, the rising tension of the [[Cold War]] turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into enemies.
===Post-Stalin period===
{{Main|History of the Soviet Union (1953–1985)}}
[[File:Soviet empire 1960.png|thumb|left|The maximum territorial extent of countries in the world under Soviet [[Sphere of influence|influence]], after the [[Cuban Revolution]] of 1959 and before the official [[Sino-Soviet split]] of 1961]]
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. In the absence of an acceptable successor, the highest Communist Party officials opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly. [[Nikita Khrushchev]], who had won the power struggle by the mid-1950s, [[destalinization|denounced Stalin's use of repression]] in 1956 and eased repressive controls over party and society. This was known as [[History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)#De-Stalinization and the Khrushchev era|de-Stalinization]].
Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by transforming the East European countries into [[satellite state]]s. Soviet military force was used to suppress anti-communist uprisings in [[1956 Hungarian Revolution|Hungary]] and [[Poznań 1956 protests|Poland]] in 1956. In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the USSR's rapprochement with [[Western world|the West]] and what [[Mao]] perceived as Khrushchev's [[Marxist revisionism|revisionism]] led to the [[Sino-Soviet split]]. This resulted in a break throughout the global [[Communist]] movement and Communist regimes in [[Albania]] and [[Cambodia]] choosing to ally with China in place of the USSR. During this period, the Soviet Union continued to realize scientific and technological pioneering exploits; to launch the first artificial satellite, [[Sputnik 1]]; a living dog, [[Laika]]; and later, the first human being, [[Yuri Gagarin]], into Earth's orbit. [[Valentina Tereshkova]] was the first woman in space aboard [[Vostok 6]] on June 16, 1963, and [[Alexey Leonov]] became the first person to walk in space on March 18, 1965. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. During the same period, a tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over the Soviet deployment of [[nuclear missiles]] in [[Cuba]] sparked the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] in 1962. Khrushchev was retired from power in 1964.
Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, consisting of [[Leonid Brezhnev]] as General Secretary, [[Alexei Kosygin]] as Premier and [[Nikolai Podgorny]] as Chairman of the Presidium, lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. In 1968 the Soviet Union and members of its Warsaw Pact allies invaded [[Czechoslovakia]] to halt the [[Prague Spring]] reforms.
[[Image:Carter Brezhnev sign SALT II.jpg|thumb|[[Leonid Brezhnev]] and [[Jimmy Carter]] sign SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in [[Vienna]].]]
Brezhnev presided over a period of ''[[Détente]]'' with the West (''see'' [[SALT I]], [[SALT II]], [[Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty]]) while at the same time building up Soviet military strength.
In October 1977, the third [[1977 Soviet Constitution|Soviet Constitution]] was unanimously adopted. The prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of "standstill" <!---застой--->, with an aging and ossified top political leadership.
===Reforms of Gorbachev and collapse of the Soviet Union===
{{Main|Cold War (1985–1991)|History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)|1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|Commonwealth of Independent States}}
[[Image:Reagan and Gorbachev hold discussions.jpg|thumb|left|[[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] in one-on-one discussions with U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]].]]
Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in ''Beyond Oil'' that the Reagan administration encouraged [[Saudi Arabia]] to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit from selling their oil, so that the USSR's [[hard currency]] reserves became depleted.<ref>Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak.</ref>
After the rapid succession of [[Yuri Andropov]] and [[Konstantin Chernenko]], transitional figures with deep roots in Brezhnevite tradition, beginning in 1985 [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] made significant changes in the economy (see [[Perestroika]], [[Glasnost]]) and the party leadership. His policy of ''[[glasnost]]'' freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. With the Soviet Union in bad economic shape and its satellite states in eastern Europe abandoning communism, Gorbachev moved to end the Cold War. After [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] succeeded [[Konstantin Chernenko]] as General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985, he introduced many changes in Soviet foreign policy and in the economy of the USSR.
[[Image:Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian.jpg|thumb|Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1988]]
In 1988, the Soviet Union abandoned its [[Soviet war in Afghanistan|nine-year war with Afghanistan]] and began to withdraw forces from the country. In the late 1980s, Gorbachev refused to send military support to defend the Soviet Union's former satellite states, resulting in multiple communist regimes in those states being forced from power. With the tearing down of the [[Berlin Wall]] and with [[East Germany]] and [[West Germany]] pursuing unification, the [[Iron Curtain]] took the final blow.
In the late 1980s, the constituent republics of the Soviet Union started legal moves towards or even declaration of [[sovereignty]] over their territories, citing Article 72 of the USSR Constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede.<ref>[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n12_v42/ai_9119705 The red blues — Soviet politics] by Brian Crozier, ''[[National Review]]'', June 25, 1990.</ref> On April 7, 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of that republic's residents vote for secession on a referendum.<ref>[http://www.rspp.su/sobor/conf_2006/istoki_duh_nrav_crisis.html Origins of Moral-Ethical Crisis and Ways to Overcome it] by V.A.Drozhin Honoured Lawyer of Russia.</ref> Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the "[[War of Laws]]".
In 1989, the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], which was then the largest constituent republic (with about half of the population) convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. [[Boris Yeltsin]] was elected the chairman of the Congress. On June 12, 1990, the Congress [[Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory]] and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. The period of legal uncertainty continued throughout 1991 as constituent republics slowly became [[de facto]] independent.
A [[Soviet Union referendum, 1991|referendum for the preservation of the USSR]] was held on March 17, 1991, with the majority of the population voting for preservation of the Union in nine out of 15 republics. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost, and, in the summer of 1991, the [[New Union Treaty]] was designed and agreed upon by eight republics which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser federation. [[Image:Boris Yeltsin 19 August 1991-1.jpg|left|thumb|Yeltsin stands on a tank to defy the [[August Coup]] in 1991.]]
The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|August Coup]]—an attempted [[coup d'état]] against Gorbachev by hardline Communist Party members of the government and the KGB, who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin—who had publicly opposed it—came out as a hero while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared restoration of full independence (following Lithuania's 1990 example), while the other twelve republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union.
On December 8, 1991, the presidents of Russia, [[Ukraine]] and [[Belarus]] signed the [[Belavezha Accords]] which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]] (CIS) in its place. While doubts remained over the authority of the Belavezha Accords to dissolve the Union, on December 21, 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republics except [[Georgian SSR|Georgia]], including those republics that had signed the Belavezha Accords, signed the [[Alma-Ata Protocol]], which confirmed the dismemberment and consequential extinction of the USSR and restated the establishment of the CIS. The summit of [[Alma-Ata]] also agreed on several other practical measures consequential to the extinction of the Union. On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev yielded to the inevitable and resigned as the president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that until then were vested in the presidency over to [[Boris Yeltsin]], [[President of the Russian Federation|president of Russia]].
The following day, the [[Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union|Supreme Soviet]], the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, recognized the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself. This is generally recognized as the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state. Many organizations such as the [[Soviet Army]] and police forces continued to remain in place in the early months of 1992 but were slowly phased out and either withdrawn from or were absorbed by the newly independent states.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, Russia was internationally recognized<ref name=uk>[http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029394365&a=KCountryProfile&aid=1019744935436 Country Profile: Russia] Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom.</ref> to be the legal successor to the Soviet state on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt, and claimed overseas Soviet properties as its own. Since then the [[Russian Federation]] has been exercising its rights and fulfilling its obligations.
==Government and politics==
{{Main|Government of the Soviet Union|Politics of the Soviet Union|State ideology of the Soviet Union}}
[[File:October Revolution celebration 1983.png|thumb|The 1983 annual military parade in Moscow, commemorating the 66th anniversary of the October Revolution. The banner at the top reads: "Glory to the CPSU!"]]
There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the state systems of Soviets and ministries as well as the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU), the only legal party and the ultimate policymaker in the country, known under the name of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) before the [[19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|19th Party Congress]] in 1952.<ref name="sakwa">Sakwa, Richard. ''Soviet Politics in Perspective''. 2nd ed. London – N.Y.: Routledge, 1998.</ref><ref name="ross">Ross, Cameron. Party-State Relations. In: Eugene Huskey (ed.), ''Executive power and Soviet politics: the rise and decline of the Soviet state''. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.</ref>
At the top of the Communist Party was the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]], elected at [[Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Party Congresses]] and Conferences. The Central Committee in turn voted for a [[Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] (called Presidium between 1952–1966), [[Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee|Secretariat]] and [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Secretary General]] (First Secretary in 1953-1966), position that came to prominence with [[Stalin's rise to power]]. Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the Secretary General, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They weren't controlled by the mass of the party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was [[democratic centralism]], demanding strict subordination to the higher bodies, and the elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
[[File:Supreme Soviet 1982.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Grand Kremlin Palace]], seat of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in 1982]]
The [[Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union|Supreme Soviet]] (known before 1936 as the Central Executive Committee), nearly unanimously voted for by the population in uncontested and less than secret elections, nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, ''de facto'' was a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions imposed on it by the party. It elected a [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet|Presidium]] to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the [[Supreme Court of the Soviet Union|Supreme Court]], the [[Prosecutor General of the USSR|Procurator General]] and the [[Council of Ministers of the USSR|Council of Ministers]] (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars), headed by the [[Prime Minister of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
State and party structures of the [[Republics of the Soviet Union|constituent republics]] largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into [[Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Lower levels|party committees]], [[Soviet (council)|local Soviets]] and [[Ispolkom|executive committees]]. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state largely through its control over the [[nomenklatura|system of appointments]]. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU, the more important they were the higher their position in the party hierarchy. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin in 1941-1953 and Khrushchev in 1958-1964 were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev the party head became prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later Secretaries General for at least some part of their tenure in office occupied the position of the [[Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]], nominal [[List of heads of state of the Soviet Union|head of state]], albeit largely ceremonial. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by [[Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Lower levels|primary party organizations]].<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
In practice, however, the control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the state bureaucracy pursuing different interests, at times in conflict with the party. Neither was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
The state security police (the [[KGB]] and its predecessor agencies) played important role in the Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the [[Great Purge|Stalinist terror]]. After the death of Stalin the state security police was brought under strict party control. Under [[Yury Andropov]], KGB chairman in 1967-1982 and Secretary General in 1982-1983, the KGB, engaging in the suppression of political dissent and maintaining an extensive network of informers, reasserted itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high party officials in the late 1970s-early 1980s.<ref name="sakwa"/>
The [[Soviet constitution]]s, which were promulgated in [[Russian Constitution of 1918|1918]], [[1924 Soviet Constitution|1924]], [[1936 Soviet Constitution|1936]] and [[1977 Soviet Constitution|1977]], didn't limit state power. No formal [[separation of powers]] existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers, the fusion of [[Executive (government)|executive]] and [[legislature|legislative]] functions was pervasive. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions. No settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggle took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after [[Nikita Khrushchev#Removal|Khrushchev's dismissal]], itself due to a coup in the Central Committee. With the only exception of Khrushchev, all Soviet party leaders before Gorbachev died in office.<ref name="sakwa"/>
[[File:1991coup2 ST.jpg|thumb|An armored personnel carrier surrounded by anti-coup demonstrators in Moscow during the 1991 August Coup]]
In 1988-1990, facing considerable opposition, Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The [[Congress of People's Deputies]] was established, majority of whose members were directly elected by the population in competitive elections held in March 1989. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, much stronger than before, and, although still being largely conservative, for the first time since the 1920s refused to rubber-stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990 Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the [[President of the Soviet Union]], concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed Cabinet of Ministers, to himself. Tensions were growing between the union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists, led in Russia by [[Boris Yeltsin]] and controlling the newly elected [[Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR]], and Communist Party hardliners. On August 19–21, 1991, a group of hardliners staged an [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|abortive coup attempt]]. Following its failure Gorbachev resigned as Secretary General, only remaining Soviet President for the final months of the existence of the union, and the USSR Supreme Soviet suspended the CPSU.<ref name="sakwa"/><ref name="ross"/>
===Judicial system===
{{Details|Soviet law}}
The judiciary was not independent from the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts and applied the law as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union utilized the [[inquisitorial system]] of [[Roman law]], where judge, procurator, and defense attorney work collaboratively to establish the truth.<ref>{{cite web|author=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/288956/inquisitorial-procedure |title=inquisitorial procedure (law) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia |publisher=Britannica.com|accessdate=2010-05-16}}</ref>
==Political divisions==
{{Main|Soviet Republic (system of government)|Republics of the Soviet Union}}
Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a [[union]] of [[Soviet Socialist Republics]] (SSRs) and the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR), although the rule of the highly cenralized Communist Party made the union merely nominal.<ref name="sakwa"/> The [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR]] was signed in December 1922 by four founding republics, the RSFSR, [[Transcaucasian SFSR]], [[Ukrainian SSR]] and [[Belorussian SSR]]. In 1924, during the [[National delimitation in the Soviet Union|national delimitation]] in Central Asia, the [[Uzbek SSR|Uzbek]] and [[Turkmen SSR]]s were formed from parts of the RSFSR's [[Turkestan ASSR]] and two Soviet dependencies, the [[Khorezm SSR|Khorezm]] and [[Bukharan SSR]]. In 1929 the [[Tajik SSR]] was split off from the Uzbek SSR. With the constitution of 1936 the constituents of the Transcaucasian SFSR, namely the [[Georgian SSR|Georgian]], [[Armenian SSR|Armenian]] and [[Azerbaijan SSR]]s, were elevated to union republics, whereas the [[Kazakh SSR|Kazakh]] and [[Kirghiz SSR]]s were split off from the RSFSR.<ref>{{cite book | last=Adams, Simon | title= Russian Republics | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=LyqIDCc-cSsC&dq | year=2005 | page=21|publisher=Black Rabbit Books| isbn=1583406069}}</ref> In August 1940 the Soviet Union formed the [[Moldavian SSR]] from parts of the Ukrainian SSR and [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|parts of Bessarabia annexed from Romania]], as well as [[Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union (1940)|annexed the Baltic states]] as the [[Estonian SSR|Estonian]], [[Latvian SSR|Latvian]] and [[Lithuanian SSR]]s. The [[Karelo-Finnish SSR]] was split off from the RSFSR in March 1940 and merged back in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991 there were 15 union republics (see the map below).<ref>{{cite book | last=Feldbrugge, Ferdinand Joseph Maria | title= Russian law: the end of the Soviet system and the role of law | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=JWt7MN3Dch8C&dq | year=1993 | page=94 |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] | isbn=0792323580}}</ref>
In 16 November 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the [[Estonian SSR]] passed the [[Estonian Sovereignty Declaration]] that asserted Estonia's [[sovereignty]] and declared the supremacy of the Estonian laws over the laws of the Soviet Union.<ref name="DS">{{cite book |title=Dissolution |last=Walker |first=Edward |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2003 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location= |isbn=0742524531 |page=63 |pages= |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y06eqVKtfQgC&pg=PA63&dq |accessdate=}}</ref> In March 1990 the newly elected [[Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR]] [[Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania|declared independence]], followed by the [[Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR|Georgian Supreme Soviet]] in April 1991. Although the symbolic right of the union republics to secede was nominally guaranteed by the constitution and the union treaty,<ref name="sakwa"/> the union authorities at first refused to recognize it. After the August coup attempt most of the other republics followed suit. The Soviet Union ultimately recognized the secession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on September 6, 1991. The remaining republics were recognized as independent with [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|the union's final dissolution]] in December 1991.<ref>{{Cite book| author = Hughes, James; Sasse, Gwendolyn | title = Ethnicity and territory in the former Soviet Union: regions in conflict | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=7vjb-0eZ-wcC&dq | year = 2002 |publisher=[[Routledge]]| pages = 63 and 146 | isbn=0714652261}}</ref>
* {{legend|#c0c0c0|Despite [[Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–1991)|annexation of their territories by the Soviet Union]], the [[government-in-exile|governments-in-exile]] of the Baltic republics retained diplomatic recognition of most Western states until the restoration of their independence.<ref>'''Notes:'''
* {{Cite web | publisher = Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia | title = The Occupation of Latvia: Aspects of History and International Law | url = http://www.am.gov.lv/en/latvia/history/occupation-aspects | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{Cite web | publisher = [[United States Department of State]] | title = U.S.-Baltic Relations: Celebrating 85 Years of Friendship | url = http://merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/EUR/State/86539.pdf | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{Cite web | publisher = [[European Parliament]] | title = Motion for a Resolution on the Situation in Estonia | url = http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+MOTION+B6-2007-0215+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{Cite web | publisher = [[European Parliament]] | title = Motion for a Resolution on the Situation in Estonia | url = http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+MOTION+B6-2007-0215+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN | accessdate = 16 October 2010 }}
* {{cite book | title=Official Journal of the European Communities | year=1983 | publisher= [[European Parliament]] }}
* {{cite book | last=Aust, Anthony | title= Handbook of International Law | url = http://books.google.com/?id=EqO9rKIcoQMC&pg=PA26 | year=2005 | page=26 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | isbn=978-0521530347}}
* {{cite book | last=Ziemele, Ineta | title= State continuity and nationality: the Baltic States and Russia : past present and future as defined by international law | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=vs99QgAACAAJ&dq | year=2005 | publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] | isbn=90-04-14295-9}}</ref>}}
{| class="wikitable" style="border:1px black; float:centre; margin-left:1em;"
|-
! #
! Republic
! Map of the Union Republics between 1956–1991
|-
| 1
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Russian SFSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Russian SFSR]] [[Russian SFSR]]
| rowspan="15" width="350"| [[File:Republics of the USSR.svg|600px]]
|-
| 2
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Ukrainian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Ukrainian SSR]] [[Ukrainian SSR]]
|-
| 3
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Byelorussian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Belarusian SSR]] [[Belorussian SSR]]
|-
| 4
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Uzbek SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Uzbekistan SSR]] [[Uzbek SSR]]
|-
| 5
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Kazakh SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Kazakhstan SSR]] [[Kazakh SSR]]
|-
| 6
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Georgian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Georgian SSR]] [[Georgian SSR]]
|-
| 7
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Azerbaijan SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Azerbaijan SSR]] [[Azerbaijan SSR]]
|- style="background:silver;"
| 8
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Lithuanian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Lithuanian SSR]] [[Lithuanian SSR]]
|-
| 9
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Moldavian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Moldovan SSR]] [[Moldavian SSR]]
|- style="background:silver;"
| 10
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Latvian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Latvian SSR]] [[Latvian SSR]]
|-
| 11
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Kyrgyz SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Kyrgyzstan SSR]] [[Kirghiz SSR]]
|-
| 12
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Tajik SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Tajikistan SSR]] [[Tajik SSR]]
|-
| 13
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Armenian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Armenian SSR]] [[Armenian SSR]]
|-
| 14
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Turkmen SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Turkmenistan SSR]] [[Turkmen SSR]]
|-
|- style="background:silver;"
| 15
| align=left | [[File:Flag of Estonian SSR.svg|border|18px|Flag of Estonian SSR]] [[Estonian SSR]]
|}
==Economy==
{{Main|Economy of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:DneproGES 1947.JPG|thumb|left|The [[DneproGES]], one of many [[hydroelectric]] power stations in the Soviet Union]]
The Soviet Union became the first country that adopted a [[planned economy]], whereby production and distribution of goods were to be centralized and directed by the government. The first Bolshevik experience with command economy was the policy of [[War Communism]], involving [[nationalization]] of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, as well as private enterprises and [[free trade]].<ref name="gregory2004">Gregory, Paul R. ''The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives''. N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 2004.</ref> As it had aggravated a severe economic collapse caused by the war, in 1921 Lenin replaced War Communism with the [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP), legalizing free trade and private ownership of smaller businesses. The economy subsequently recovered fairly quickly.<ref name="gregory2004"/>
Following a lengthy debate among the members of Politburo over the course of economic development, by 1928-1929, upon [[Rise of Joseph Stalin|gaining the upper hand in the power struggle]], Joseph Stalin had abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning, starting [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|forced collectivization of agriculture]] and enacting draconian labor legislation. The resources were mobilized for [[Soviet industrialization|rapid industrialization]], which greatly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s.<ref name="gregory2004"/> Preparation for war was one of the main driving forces behind industrialization, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalistic world.<ref>{{cite book | author = Mawdsley, Evan | title = The Stalin Years: the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 | page = 30 | publisher = [[Manchester University Press]] | year = 1998 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=m-voAAAAIAAJ&dq | isbn = 0719046009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author = Barnett, Vincent| title = The revolutionary Russian economy, 1890-1940: ideas, debates and alternatives | page = 91 | year = 2004 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=Gz98Tx3Z1VQC | isbn = 9780415312646}}</ref> As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power, and the basis was provided for its emergence as a [[superpower]] after recovering from [[World War II]].<ref>
Wheatcroft S. G., Davies R. W., Cooper J. M. Soviet Industrialization Reconsidered: Some Preliminary Conclusions about Economic Development between 1926 and 1941. // Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 1986. Vol. 39, No. 2. p. 264. {{DOI|10.1111/j.1468-0289.1986.tb00406.x}}</ref> During the war the Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation and subsequently required extensive reconstruction.<ref>{{cite web|title=Reconstruction and Cold War|publisher=Library of Congress|url=http://countrystudies.us/russia/12.htm|accessdate =2007-12-27}}</ref>
A wide range of industries constituted the Soviet industrial sector in the later decades, including [[machine]]-building and [[metal-working]], [[metallurgy]], [[chemicals]], [[petroleum]] and [[natural gas]], [[coal mining]], [[forestry]], [[defense industry]], textiles, food processing, and construction.<ref name="economy">[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0009%29 Economy] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref><ref name="CIA"/> By 1980, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest industrial capacity with 20 percent of total world industrial output, leading the world in producing [[oil]], [[cast iron]], [[steel]], [[Coke (fuel)|coke]], mineral [[fertilizer]]s, [[locomotive]]s, [[tractor]]s, and [[cement]].<ref>[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0318%29 Industrial resources] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref>
By the early 1940s, the Soviet economy had become relatively [[autarkic]]; for most of the period up until the creation of [[Comecon]], only a very small share of domestic products were traded internationally.<ref name="foreign trade">[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0391%29 Foreign trade] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref> After the creation of the [[Eastern Bloc]], external trade rose rapidly. Still the influence of the [[world economy]] on the USSR was limited by fixed domestic prices and state monopoly on the [[Foreign trade of the Soviet Union|foreign trade]].<ref>{{cite book | author = [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]] and [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]] | title = A Study of the Soviet economy | volume = 1 | location = | publisher = [[International Monetary Fund]] | year = 1991 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ&dq | isbn = 0141037970 }}</ref> [[Grain]] and sophisticated consumer manufactures became major import articles from around 1960s.<ref name="foreign trade"/> [[Petroleum]] and petroleum products, [[natural gas]], [[metals]], [[wood]], agricultural products, and a variety of manufactured goods, primarily machinery, arms and military equipment, were exported from the country.<ref name="CIA">{{cite book | author = | title = Soviet Union Economy 1991 | location = | publisher = [[CIA Factbook]] | year = 1992 | page = | url = http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_economy.html | accessdate = June 12, 2010 }}</ref><ref name="foreign trade"/> In the 1970s-1980s, the Soviet Union heavily relied on fossil fuel exports to earn [[hard currency]].<ref name="foreign trade"/> At the peak level in 1988, it was the largest producer and second largest exporter of crude oil, surpassed only by [[Saudi Arabia]].
The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on [[Science and technology in the Soviet Union|science and technology]] within its economy,<ref name="science&technology">[http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0413%29 Science and Technology] from ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref> however the most remarkable Soviet successes in technology, such as producing the [[Sputnik|world's first space satellite]], typically were the military responsibility.<ref name="economy"/> During the [[arms race]] of the [[Cold War]] the Soviet economy was burdened by military expenditures, heavily lobbied by the powerful bureaucracy dependent on the arms industry. At the same time the Soviet Union became the largest arms exporter to the [[Third World]]. Significant amounts of the Soviet resources during the [[Cold War]] were [[International relations within the Comecon|allocated in aid]] to the other [[socialist states]].<ref name="foreign trade"/>
Since the 1930s and until its collapse in the late 1980s, the way the Soviet economy operated had remained essentially unchanged. The economy was formally directed by [[economic planning|central planning]], carried out by [[Gosplan]] and organized into [[Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the Soviet Union|five-year plans]]. In practice, however, the plans were highly aggregated and provisional, subject to ''ad hoc'' intervention by superiors. All key economic decisions were taken by the political leadership. Allocated resources and plan targets were normally denominated in [[Soviet ruble|rubles]] rather than in physical goods. [[Credit (finance)|Credits]] were discouraged, but widespread. Final allocation of output was achieved through relatively decentralized, unplanned contracting. Although in theory prices were legally set from above, in practice the actual prices were often negotiated, and informal horizontal links were widespread.<ref name="gregory2004"/><ref name="gregory&harrison">Gregory, Paul & Mark Harrison. Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives. ''Journal of Economic Literature'' Vol. XLIII (September 2005), 721-761.</ref>
{| class="wikitable" style="border:1px black; float:right; margin-left:1em;"
|-
! style="background:#d3d3d3;" colspan="3"| Comparison between USSR and [[Economy of the United States|US]] economies (1989)<br />according to 1990 [[CIA]] [[World Factbook]]<ref name=cia1990>{{cite web|url=http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact90/world12.txt|publisher=[[Central Intelligence Agency]]|accessdate=2008-03-09|title=1990 CIA World Factbook}}</ref>
|-
!||USSR||US
|-
|[[GNP]] ([[Purchasing power parity|PPP adjusted]], 1989)||[[US$]]2.6595 trillion ||US$5.2333 trillion
|-
|Population (July 1990) ||290,938,469||250,410,000
|-
|[[GNP|GNP per capita]] (PPP adjusted)||US$9,211||US$21,082
|-
|[[Labour force]] (1989)||152,300,000||125,557,000
|}
A number of basic [[Service (economics)|services]] were state-funded, such as [[education in the Soviet Union|education]] and [[healthcare]]. In the manufacturing sector, heavy industry and defense were assigned higher priority than consumer goods production.<ref name="economy"/> [[Consumer goods in the Soviet Union|Consumer goods]], in particular outside large cities, were often in [[short supply]], of poor quality and limited choice, as under command economy consumers' preferences wielded almost no influence over production, changing demands of the population with growing money incomes couldn't be matched by supplies at rigidly fixed prices.<ref name="hanson">Hanson, Philip. ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR from 1945''. London: Longman, 2003.</ref> A massive unplanned second economy existed alongside the planned one at low levels, providing some of the goods and services that the planners could not. Legalization of some elements of the decentralized economy was attempted with the [[1965 Soviet economic reform|reform of 1965]].<ref name="gregory2004"/><ref name="gregory&harrison"/>
Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its [[economic growth]] is difficult to estimate precisely,<ref>{{Cite journal | author = Bergson, Abram | year = 1997 | title = How big was the Soviet GDP? | url = | journal = Comparative Economic Studies | volume = 39 | issue = 1| pages = 1–14 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | author = Harrison, Mark | year = 1993 | title = Soviet Economic Growth Since 1928: The Alternative Statistics of G. I. Khanin | url = | journal = Europe-Asia Studies | volume = 45 | issue = 1| pages = 141–167 }}</ref> by most accounts the economy continued to expand until mid eighties. During 1950s and 1960s the Soviet economy performed with comparatively high growth rates and was catching up with the West.<ref>{{cite book | author = [[Nikolas Gvosdev|Gvosdev, Nikolas]] | title = The Strange Death of Soviet communism: a postscript | volume = | location = | publisher = [[Transaction Publishers]] | year = 2008 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=Q_xTyZUEqkYC&dq | isbn = 1412806984 }}</ref> However, after 1970 the growth, while still positive, [[Brezhnev stagnation|steadily declined]], much more quickly and consistently than in other countries, despite a rapid increase in the [[capital stock]], (the rate of increase in capital was only surpassed by [[Japan]]).<ref name="gregory2004"/>
Overall, between 1960 and 1989, the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union was slightly above world average (based on 102 countries). However, given the very high level of investment in physical capital, high percentage of people with a secondary education, and low population growth the Soviet economy should have grown much faster. According to [[Stanley Fischer]] and [[William Easterly]] the Soviet growth record was among "the worst in the world". By their calculation per capita income of Soviet Union in 1989 should have been twice as high as it was, if investment, education and population had their typical effect on growth. The authors attribute this poor performance to low productivity of capital in the Soviet Union.<ref>Stanley Fischer and William Easterly, [http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/1994/04/01/000009265_3961006063138/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf "The Soviet Economic Decline, Historical and Republican Data"], World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 1284, 1994</ref>
In 1987 [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] pushed to reform the economy with his program of [[Perestroika]] in an attempt to revitalize it. His policies relaxed state control over enterprises, but hadn't yet allowed it to be replaced with market incentives, ultimately resulting in a sharp decline in production output. The economy, already suffering from [[1980s oil glut|reduced petroleum export revenues]], started to collapse. Prices were still fixed, property was still largely state-owned until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.<ref name="gregory2004"/><ref name="hanson"/> For the most of the period after World War II and up to its collapse, the Soviet economy was [[List of regions by past GDP (PPP)|the second largest in the world]] by [[GDP]] ([[Purchasing power parity|PPP]]),<ref>{{cite book | author = | title = GDP - Million 1990 | location = | publisher = [[CIA Factbook]] | year = 1991 | page = | url = http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html | accessdate = June 12, 2010 }}</ref> though in [[GDP per capita|per capita]] terms the Soviet GDP was behind that of the [[First World]] countries.<ref>{{cite book | author = | title = GDP Per Capita 1991 | location = | publisher = [[CIA Factbook]] | year = 1992 | page = | url = http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1991/rankings/gdp_per_capita_0.html | accessdate = June 12, 2010 }}</ref>
===Energy===
[[File:Soviet Union stamp 1987 CPA 5858.jpg|right|thumb|A Soviet stampt depicting the 30th anniversarry of the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]]]]
{{main|Energy in the Soviet Union}}
The need for [[fuel]] had declined in the Soviet Union for several years, both per rouble of gross social product and per rouble of industrial product. At the start, this decline grew very rapidly, but slowly slowed down between 1970 and 1975, from 1975 and 1980 it grew even slower, only 2.6 percent.<ref>Wilson 1983, p. 295.</ref> David Wilson, a historian, believed that Soviet gas industry would account for 40 percent of Soviet fuel production by the end of the century. This theory of his did not come to fruitian because of the USSR's collapse.<ref>Wilson 1983, p. 297.</ref> The USSR, in theory, would have continued to have an economic growth rate of 2-2.5 percent during the 1990s because of Soviet energy fields.<ref>Wilson 1983, p. 297–99.</ref> However, the Soviet energy sector faced many difficultues, among them the country's high military expenditure and the USSR's hostile foreign relations with the [[First World]] (pre-1985).<ref>Wilson 1983, p. 299.</ref> In 1991, the Soviet Union had a [[pipeline]] network of {{convert|82,000|km|mi}} for [[crude oil]] and another {{convert|206,500|km|mi}} for [[natural gas]].<ref name="cia"/>
===Transportation===
{{main|Transportation in the Soviet Union}}
[[File:Flag of the Aeroflot.svg|thumb|right|The Soviet era flag of Aeroflot]]
Transport was a key component of the nation's [[economy of the Soviet Union|economy]]. The [[First Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)|economic centralisation]] of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure in a massive scale, most notably the establishment of [[Aeroflot]], an aviation [[Enterprises in the Soviet Union|enterprise]].<ref>{{cite book | author = Highman, Robert D.S.; Greenwood, John T.; Hardesty, Von | title = Russian aviation and air power in the twentieth century | location = | publisher = [[Routledge]] | year = 1998 | url = http://books.google.no/books?id=cpynoFM-Jf4C&dq | isbn = 0714647845 | page = 134 }}</ref> The country had a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air.<ref name=cia/> However, due to bad maintance, much of the road, water and Soviet civil aviation transport were outdated and technologically backward, when compared to the [[First World]]. Soviet rail transport was the largest and the most intensively used in the world;<ref name="twocerofive">Wilson 1983, p. 205.</ref> it was also better developed than most of its Western counterparts.<ref>Wilson 1983, p. 201.</ref> By the late 1970s and early 1980s Soviet economist were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the weight from the railways and to improve the Soviet [[state budget]].<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 166–67.</ref> The road network, and [[Automobile industry of the Soviet Union|automobile industry]],<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 168.</ref> of the Soviet Union remained underdeveloped,<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 165.</ref> and [[dirt road]]s were common outside majors cities.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 167.</ref> Soviet maintenance projects were unable to take care of the few roads the country had. By the early to mid-1980s, the Soviet authorities tried to solve the road problem by ordering the construction of new ones.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 167.</ref> Another obstacle was that the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than road construction.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 169.</ref>
Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making by the authorities. The demand for transport infrastructure and services was rising, the Soviet authorities proved to be unable to meet the growing demand of the people. The underdeveloped Soviet [[road network]], in a [[chain reaction]], led to a growing demand for [[public transport]].<ref>[[IMF]] and [[OECD]] 1991, p. 56.</ref> The Soviet [[merchant fleet]] was one of the largest in the world.<ref name=cia>{{cite web |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_communications.html |title=Soviet Union – Communications |author=[[Central Intelligence Agency]] | work = [[The World Factbook]] |year=1991 |accessdate=20 October 2010}}</ref>
==Culture==
{{Ref improve section|date=August 2010}}
{{Main|Culture of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:Kolkhoznitsa.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Worker and Kolkhoz Woman]]'' over the northern entrance to the All-Soviet Exhibition Centre in [[Moscow]] (today the [[All-Russia Exhibition Centre]])]]
The [[culture]] of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the USSR's 70-year existence. During the first eleven years following the Revolution (1918–1929), there was relative freedom and artists experimented with several different styles in an effort to find a distinctive Soviet style of art. Lenin wanted art to be accessible to the Russian people. On the other hand, hundreds of intellectuals, writers, and artists were exiled or executed, and their work banned, for example [[Nikolai Gumilev]] (shot) and [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]] (banned).<ref>'On the other hand...' See the index of ''Stalin and His Hangmen'' by Donald Rayfield, 2004, Random House</ref>
The government encouraged a variety of trends. In art and literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental, proliferated. Communist writers [[Maksim Gorky]] and [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]] were active during this time. Film, as a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, received encouragement from the state; much of director [[Sergei Eisenstein]]'s best work dates from this period.
Later, during [[Joseph Stalin]]'s rule, Soviet culture was characterised by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style of [[Socialist realism]], with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions (e.g. [[Mikhail Bulgakov]]'s works). Many writers were imprisoned and killed.<ref>Rayfield 2004, pp. 317–320.</ref> Those who were not murdered were often banned, for example [[Anna Akhmatova]] and [[Alexander Solzhenytsin]]. Also, religious people were persecuted and either sent to Gulags or were murdered by the thousands.<ref>Rayfield 2004, pp. 121–122.</ref> The ban on the [[Orthodox Church]] was temporarily lifted in the 1940s, in order to rally support for the Soviet war against the invading forces of Germany. Under Stalin, prominent symbols that were not in line with communist ideology were destroyed, such as Orthodox Churches and Tsarist buildings.
Following the [[Khrushchev Thaw]] of the late 1950s and early 1960s, censorship was diminished. Greater experimentation in art forms became permissible once again, with the result that more sophisticated and subtly critical work began to be produced. The regime loosened its emphasis on [[socialist realism]]; thus, for instance, many protagonists of the novels of author [[Yury Trifonov]] concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. An underground dissident literature, known as [[samizdat]], developed during this late period. In architecture the Khrushchev era mostly focused on functional design as opposed to the highly decorated style of Stalin's epoch.
In the second half of the 1980s, [[Gorbachev]]'s policies of [[perestroika]] and [[glasnost]] significantly expanded [[freedom of expression]] in the media and press.<ref>"Gorbachev, Mikhail." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2 October 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037405>. "Under his new policy of glasnost (“openness”), a major cultural thaw took place: freedoms of expression and of information were significantly expanded; the press and broadcasting were allowed unprecedented candour in their reportage and criticism; and the country's legacy of Stalinist totalitarian rule was eventually completely repudiated by the government."</ref>
==Notes==
;Notes
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}
;Bibliography
* {{cite book | author = Ambler, John; Shaw, Denis J.B.; Symons, Leslie | title = Soviet and East European transport problems | location = | publisher = [[Taylor & Francis]] | year = 1985 | url = http://books.google.no/books?id=Rpg9AAAAIAAJ&dq | isbn = 0709905572 | pages = 260 }}
* {{ cite book | author = Wilson, David | title = The demand for energy in the Soviet Union | location = | publisher = [[Taylor & Francis]] | year = 1983 | url = http://books.google.no/books?id=1qgOAAAAQAAJ&dq | isbn = 0709927045| pages = 201 }}
* {{cite book | author = [[World Bank]] and [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]] | title = A Study of the Soviet economy | volume = 3 | location = | publisher = [[International Monetary Fund]] | year = 1991 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=fiDpE5M9jRAC&dq | isbn = 9264134689 | pages = 408 }}
==Further reading==
{{seealso|List of primary and secondary sources on the Cold War}}
{{Refbegin}}
;Surveys
* [http://rs6.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)'']. [[Library of Congress Country Studies]], 1991.
* Brown, Archie, et al., eds.: ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union'' (Cambridge, UK: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1982).
* Gilbert, Martin: ''The Routledge Atlas of Russian History'' (London: Routledge, 2002).
* Goldman, Minton: ''The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe'' (Connecticut: Global Studies, Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc., 1986).
* Grant, Ted: ''Russia, from Revolution to Counter-Revolution'', London, Well Red Publications,1997
* Howe, G. Melvyn: ''The Soviet Union: A Geographical Survey'' 2nd. edn. (Estover, UK: MacDonald and Evans, 1983).
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative scholar
;Lenin and beginnings
* Clark, Ronald W. ''Lenin'' (1988). 570 pp.
* Debo, Richard K. ''Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-1921'' (1992).
* Marples, David R. ''Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917-1921'' (2000) 156pp. short survey
* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the Russian Revolution'' (1996) [http://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Russian-Revolution/dp/0679745440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393501&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search], by a leading conservative
* Pipes, Richard. ''Russia under the Bolshevik Regime.'' (1994). 608 pp.
* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Biography'' (2002), 561pp; standard scholarly biography; a short version of his 3 vol detailed biography
* Volkogonov, Dmitri. ''Lenin: Life and Legacy'' (1994). 600 pp.
;Stalin and Stalinism
* Daniels, R. V., ed. ''The Stalin Revolution'' (1965)
* Davies, Sarah, and James Harris, eds. ''Stalin: A New History,'' (2006), 310pp, 14 specialized essays by scholars [http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-New-History-Sarah-Davies/dp/0521616530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494353&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* De Jonge, Alex. ''Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union'' (1986)
* Fitzpatrick, Sheila, ed. ''Stalinism: New Directions,'' (1999), 396pp excerpts from many scholars on the impact of Stalinism on the people (little on Stalin himself) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=109468478 online edition]
* Hoffmann, David L. ed. ''Stalinism: The Essential Readings,'' (2002) essays by 12 scholars
* Laqueur, Walter. ''Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations'' (1990)
* Kershaw, Ian, and Moshe Lewin. ''Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison'' (2004) [http://www.amazon.com/Stalinism-Nazism-Dictatorships-Ian-Kershaw/dp/0521565219/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215563813&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Lee, Stephen J. ''Stalin and the Soviet Union'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/read/108215209?title=Stalin%20and%20the%20Soviet%20Union online edition]
* Lewis, Jonathan. ''Stalin: A Time for Judgement'' (1990)
* McNeal, Robert H. ''Stalin: Man and Ruler'' (1988)
* Martens , Ludo. ''Another view of Stalin'' (1994), a highly favorable view from a Maoist historian
* Service, Robert. ''Stalin: A Biography'' (2004), along with Tucker the standard biography
* Trotsky, Leon. ''Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence,'' (1967), an interpretation by Stalin's worst enemy
* Tucker, Robert C. ''Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929'' (1973); ''Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929-1941.'' (1990) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103246514 online edition] with Service, a standard biography; [http://www.historyebook.org/ online at ACLS e-books]
;World War II
* Bellamy, Chris. ''Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War'' (2008), 880pp [http://www.amazon.com/Absolute-War-Soviet-Russia-Vintage/dp/0375724710/ excerpt and text search]
* Broekmeyer, Marius. ''Stalin, the Russians, and Their War, 1941-1945.'' 2004. 315 pp.
* Overy, Richard. ''Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945'' (1998) [http://www.amazon.com/Russias-War-History-Soviet-1941-1945/dp/0140271694/ excerpt and text search]
* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953'' (2006).
* Seaton, Albert. ''Stalin as Military Commander,'' (1998) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100872346 online edition]
;Cold war
* Brzezinski, Zbigniew. ''The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century'' (1989)
* Edmonds, Robin. ''Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years'' (1983)
* Goncharov, Sergei, John Lewis and Litai Xue, ''Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War'' (1993) [http://www.amazon.com/Uncertain-Partners-Studies-Security-Control/dp/0804725217/ref=sr_1_1/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193675770&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Gorlizki, Yoram, and Oleg Khlevniuk. ''Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945-1953'' (2004) [http://www.questia.com/read/105899376 online edition]
* Holloway, David. ''Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956'' (1996) [http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Bomb-Soviet-Atomic-1939-1956/dp/0300066643/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193876689&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* [[Mastny, Vojtech]]. ''Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945'' (1979)
* [[Mastny, Vojtech]]. ''The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years'' (1998) [http://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-Soviet-Insecurity-Stalin/dp/0195126599/ref=sr_1_6/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193676128&sr=8-6 excerpt and text search]; [http://www.questia.com/read/98422373 online complete edition]
* Nation, R. Craig. ''Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991'' (1992)
* Sivachev, Nikolai and Nikolai Yakolev, ''Russia and the United States'' (1979), by Soviet historians
* Taubman, William. ''Khrushchev: The Man and His Era'' (2004), Pulitzer Prize; [http://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Man-His-William-Taubman/dp/0393324842/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191567469&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973'', 2nd ed. (1974)
* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''Inside the Kremlin's Cold War'' (1996) [http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books#q=zubok&filter=all&start=1 20% excerpt and online search]
* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007)
;Collapse
* Beschloss, Michael, and Strobe Talbott. ''At the Highest Levels:The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War'' (1993)
* Bialer, Seweryn and Michael Mandelbaum, eds. ''Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy'' (1988).
* Garthoff, Raymond. ''The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War'' (1994), detailed narrative
* Grachev, A.S. ''Gorbachev's Gamble: Soviet Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War'' (2008) [http://www.amazon.com/Gorbachevs-Gamble-Soviet-Foreign-Policy/dp/0745643450/ excerpt and text search]
* Hogan, Michael ed. ''The End of the Cold War. Its Meaning and Implications'' (1992) articles from ''Diplomatic History''
* Kotkin, Stephen. ''Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000'' (2008) [http://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Averted-Soviet-Collapse-1970-2000/dp/0195368630/ excerpt and text search]
* Matlock, Jack. ''Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union'' (1995)
* Pons, S., Romero, F., ''Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, Interpretations, Periodizations'', (2005) ISBN 0-7146-5695-X
* Remnick, David. ''Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire'', (1994), ISBN 0-679-75125-4
;Specialty studies
* Armstrong, John A. ''The Politics of Totalitarianism: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present.'' New York: Random House, 1961.
* Katz, Zev, ed.: ''Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities'' (New York: Free Press, 1975).
* Moore, Jr., Barrington. ''Soviet politics: the dilemma of power.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
* [[Dmitry Orlov]], ''[http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3991 Reinventing Collapse]'', New Society Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-86571-606-3
* [[Donald Rayfield|Rayfield, Donald]]. ''[[Stalin and His Hangmen]]: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him''. New York: Random House, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0-375-50632-2); 2005 (paperback, ISBN 0-375-75771-6).
* Rizzi, Bruno: "The bureaucratization of the world : the first English ed. of the underground Marxist classic that analyzed class exploitation in the USSR" , New York, NY : Free Press, 1985.
* Schapiro, Leonard B. ''The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955, 1966.
{{Refend}}
{{loc}}
==See also==
*[[Index of Soviet Union-related articles]]
==External links==
{{Sister project links|Soviet Union}}
* [http://ariwatch.com/VS/JD/ImpressionsOfSovietRussia.htm Impressions of Soviet Russia], by [[John Dewey]].
* [http://soviethistory.com/ Documents and other forms of media from the Soviet Union: 1917–1991.]
* [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)]
* [http://soviet.globalmuseumoncommunism.org/ Soviet Union Exhibit at Global Museum on Communism with essay by Richard Pipes]
* [http://www.history.com/topics/soviet-union The Soviet Union]
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