A complete history of the Soviet Union

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The word “Soviet” is derived from a Russian word meaning council, assembly, advice, harmony, concord,[note 1] and all ultimately deriving from the Proto-Slavic verbal stem of *vět-iti "to inform", related to Slavic "věst" ("news"), English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or" (which came to English through French), or the Dutch "weten" (to know; cf. "wetenschap"=science). The word "sovietnik" means councillor.[14]

A number of organizations in Russian history were called "council" (Russian: сове́т). For example, in the Russian Empire, the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers after the revolt of 1905.[14]

During the Georgian Affair, Vladimir Lenin envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Joseph Stalin and his supporters, calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Респу́блик Евро́пы и А́зии, tr. Soyúz Sovétskikh Respúblik Evrópy i Ázii).[15] Stalin initially resisted the proposal, but ultimately accepted it, although – with Lenin's agreement – he changed the name of the newly proposed state to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, although all the republics began as Socialist Soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the national languages of several republics the word "Council/Conciliar" in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian "Soviet" – and never in others, e.g., Ukraine.

The names of the Soviet Union are as follows in several languages of its 15 constituent republics:

Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик; Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik
Ukrainian: Союз Радянських Соціалістичних Республік; Soyuz Radyans’kykh Socialistychnykh Respublik
Belarusian: Саюз Савецкіх Сацыялістычных Рэспублік; Sajuz Savieckich Sacyjalistyčnych Respublik
Uzbek: Совет Социалистик Республикалари Иттифоқи; Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikalari Ittifoqi
Kazakh: Кеңестік Социалистік Республикалар Одағы; Keñestik Socïalïstik Respwblïkalar Odağı
Georgian: საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკების კავშირი (sabch’ota sotsialist’uri resp’ublik’ebis k’avshiri)
Azerbaijani: Совет Сосиалист Республикалары Иттифагы; Sovet Sosialist Respublikaları İttifaqı
Lithuanian: Tarybų Socialistinių Respublikų Sąjunga
Moldovan: Униуня Републичилор Советиче Сочиалисте; Uniunea Republicilor Sovietice Socialiste
Latvian: Padomju Sociālistisko Republiku Savienība
Kyrgyz: Советтик Социалисттик Республикалaр Союзу; Sovettik Socialisttik Respublikalar Soyuzu
Tajik: Иттиҳоди Ҷумҳуриҳои Шӯравии Сосиалистӣ; Ittihodi Chumhurihoi Shūravii Sosialistī
Armenian: Խորհրդային Սոցիալիստական Հանրապետությունների Միություն; Xorhrdayin Soc̕ialistakan Hanrapetowt̕yownneri Miowt̕yown
Turkmen: Совет Социалистик Республикалары Союзы; Sovet Sosialistik Respublikalary Soýuzy
Estonian: Nõukogude Sotsialistlike Vabariikide Liit
In some cases, due to the length of its name, the state was referred to as the "Soviet Union" or the "USSR" especially when used in the Western media. It was also informally called "Russia" (and its citizens "Russians"[1]), though that was technically incorrect since Russia was only one of the republics.[16]

With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country, a status that is retained by the Russian Federation.[17] Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America.[18] The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area, and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia, was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert, and mountains.

The Soviet Union had the world's longest border, like Russia, measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or 1 1⁄2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it was a coastline. 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 from 1945 to 1991.

The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak) in Tajikistan, at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The Soviet Union also included most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran), and Lake Baikal, the world's largest and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia.

The composition of the Soviet Union was as follows:

Under the Treaty on the Establishment of the Soviet Union (30 December 1922), the first four signatories to the Soviet Union were:
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (later split into Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic),
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic,
Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (from 1936 split into Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic).
In 1940 there was more Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic
In the period 1940–1954 exist Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, later on Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

By 1990, the Soviet Union had a total of 15 republic under.

The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled the Russian Empire until his abdication in March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution, due in part to the strain of fighting in World War I, which lacked public support. A short-lived Russian Provisional Government took power, to be overthrown in the October Revolution (N.S. 7 November 1917) by revolutionaries led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.[19]

The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 with the union of the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics, each ruled by local Bolshevik parties. Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities, the term "Soviet Russia" – strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republic – was often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers and politicians.

History
Part of a series on the
History of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(Soviet Union)
State Emblem of the Soviet Union
1917–1927
Revolutionary Beginnings
Revolution Civil War New Economic Policy 1922 Treaty National delimitation
1927–1953
Stalinist rule
Socialism in One Country Great Purge
Soviet famine of 1932–33
(HolodomorKazakhstan famine of 1932-1933)
World War II
(Molotov–Ribbentrop PactGreat Patriotic WarOperation BarbarossaOccupation of the Baltic statesSoviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern BukovinaBattle of BerlinSoviet invasion of Manchuria)
Soviet deportations Soviet famine of 1946–47 Cold War Korean War
1953–1964
Post-Stalin era
Berlin blockade 1954 transfer of Crimea Khrushchev Thaw On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences We will bury you 9 March riots Wage reforms Cuban Revolution Sino-Soviet split Space program Cuban Missile Crisis
1964–1982
Brezhnev era
Brezhnev Doctrine Era of Stagnation 50th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide protests Prague Spring
Vietnam War
(Laotian Civil WarOperation MenuCambodian Civil WarFall of Saigon)
Six-Day War Détente Yom Kippur War Dirty War
Wars in Africa
(Angolan War of IndependenceAngolan Civil WarMozambican War of IndependenceMozambican Civil WarSouth African Border WarRhodesian Bush War)
Cambodian-Vietnamese War Soviet–Afghan War 1980 Summer Olympics
Olympic boycotts
(1980 Olympic boycott1984 Olympic boycott)
Polish strike Death and funeral of Brezhnev
1982–1991
Leadership changes and collapse
Invasion of Grenada Glasnost Perestroika Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan
Singing Revolution
(Estonian Sovereignty DeclarationBaltic WayAct of the Re-Establishment of the State of LithuaniaOn the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia)
Revolutions of 1989
(Pan-European picnicDie WendePeaceful RevolutionFall of the Berlin WallVelvet RevolutionEnd of communist rule in HungaryRomanian RevolutionGerman reunification)
Dissolution
(JeltoqsanNagorno-Karabakh War9 April tragedyBlack JanuaryOsh riotsWar of LawsDushanbe riotsJanuary EventsThe BarricadesReferendumUnion of Sovereign StatesAugust CoupUkrainian independence (referendum)Belavezha AccordsAlma-Ata Protocol)
History of
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Soviet leadership

Lenin 2. Stalin 3. Malenkov 4. Khrushchev 5. Brezhnev 6. Andropov 7. Chernenko 8. Gorbachev
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Main article: History of the Soviet Union
The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled the Russian Empire until his abdication in March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution, due in part to the strain of fighting in World War I, which lacked public support. A short-lived Russian Provisional Government took power, to be overthrown in the October Revolution (N.S. 7 November 1917) by revolutionaries led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.[19]

Revolution and foundation
Main article: History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–27)
Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done 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 Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.

Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution, 1919
A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the February Revolution and the toppling of the imperial government in March 1917. The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government, which intended to conduct elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and to continue fighting on the side of the Entente in World War I.

At the same time, workers' councils, known in Russian as "Soviets", sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, pushed for socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets. On 7 November 1917, the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, ending the rule of the Provisional Government and leaving all political power to the Soviets. This event would later be officially known in Soviet bibliographies as the Great October Socialist Revolution. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers, though by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets ended involvement in the war for good and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It included foreign intervention, the execution of the former tsar and his family, and the famine of 1921, which killed about five million people.[20] In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established Republic of Finland, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, and the Republic of Lithuania.

Unification of republics

The Russian SFSR as a part of the USSR in 1922.

The Russian SFSR as a part of the USSR after 1936 Russian territorial changes.
On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR[21] and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.[22] These two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations,[23] Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Alexander Chervyakov,[24] on 30 December 1922. The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.

On 1 February 1924, the USSR was recognized by the United Kingdom. The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union.

An 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 done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees, government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, which 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 stations, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.[25] The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931.[26]

Stalin era
Main article: History of the Soviet Union (1927–53)

Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was edited out of the image.
From its creation, the government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[27] After the economic policy of "War communism" during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax.

The stated purpose of the one-party state was to ensure that capitalist exploitation would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of democratic centralism would be most effective in representing the people's will in a practical manner. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin was to be replaced by a "troika" consisting of Grigory Zinoviev of the Ukrainian SSR, Lev Kamenev of the Russian SFSR, and Joseph Stalin of the Transcaucasian SFSR.

On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the 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 and forced into exile.

In 1928, Stalin introduced the first five-year plan for building a socialist economy. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization. In agriculture, rather than adhering to the "lead by example" policy advocated by Lenin,[28] forced collectivization of farms was implemented all over the country.

Famines ensued, causing millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour.[29] Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Stalin's Great Purge resulted in the execution or detainment of many "Old Bolsheviks" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. According to declassified Soviet archives, in 1937 and 1938, the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people, of whom 681,692 were shot. Over those two years that averages to over one thousand executions a day.[30] According to historian Geoffrey Hosking, "...excess deaths during the 1930s as a whole were in the range of 10–11 million"[31] , although historian Timothy D. Snyder claims that archival evidence suggests a maximum excess mortality of nine million during the entire Stalin era.[32] Historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft asserts that around a million "purposive killings" can be attributed to Stalinist regime, along with the premature deaths of roughly two million more amongst the repressed populations (i.e., in camps, prisons, exile, etc.) through criminal negligence.[33] 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.

Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism" conducted by Communists.[34][35][36] The communist regime targeted religions based on State interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools.[37] In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the propaganda campaign.[38] Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the official structures and mass media and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious. As for the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet authorities sought to control it and, in times of national crisis, to exploit it for the regime's own purposes; but their ultimate goal was to eliminate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled. Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were closed, and the publication of most religious material was prohibited. By 1941 only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in existence prior to World War I.

1930s

"Strengthen working discipline in collective farms" – Soviet propaganda poster issued in Uzbekistan, 1933
The early 1930s saw closer cooperation between the 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 when in November, the newly elected President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt chose to formally recognize Stalin's Communist government and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two nations.[39] 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 Republican forces against the Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new Soviet Constitution. The supporters around the world hailed it as the most democratic Constitution imaginable. Historian J. Arch Getty concludes:

Many who lauded Stalin's Soviet Union as the most democratic country on earth lived to regret their words. After all, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was adopted on the eve of the Great Terror of the late 1930s; the "thoroughly democratic" elections to the first Supreme Soviet permitted only uncontested candidates and took place at the height of the savage violence in 1937. The civil rights, personal freedoms, and democratic forms promised in the Stalin constitution were trampled almost immediately and remained dead letters until long after Stalin's death.[40]

Sergei Korolev, the father of the Soviet space program, shortly after his arrest during Stalin's Great Terror
The year 1939 saw a dramatic shift toward Nazi Germany that astonished the world. In 1939, almost a year after Britain and France had concluded the Munich Agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union made agreements with Germany as well, both militarily and economically during extensive talks. The two countries concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement in August 1939. The nonaggression pact made possible Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and eastern Poland. In late November of the same year, unable to coerce the Republic of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border 25 kilometres (16 mi) back from Leningrad, Joseph Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland.

In the east, the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the Empire of Japan in 1938 and 1939. However, in April 1941, USSR signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with the Empire of Japan, recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state.

World War II
Main article: Eastern Front (World War II)

The Battle of Stalingrad is considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II.
Although it has been debated whether the Soviet Union intended to invade Germany once it was strong enough,[41] Germany itself broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, starting what was known in the USSR as the "Great Patriotic War". The Red Army stopped the seemingly invincible German Army at the Battle of Moscow, aided by an unusually harsh winter. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, dealt a severe blow to the Germans from which they never fully recovered and became a turning point in the war. After Stalingrad, Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945. The German Army suffered 80% of its military deaths in the Eastern Front.[42]

The same year, the USSR, in fulfillment of its agreement with the Allies at the Yalta Conference, denounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945[43] and invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories on 9 August 1945.[44] This conflict ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.

Left to right: Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill confer in Tehran in 1943.
The Soviet Union suffered greatly in the war, losing around 27 million people.[45] Approximately 2.8 million Soviet POWs died of starvation, mistreatment, or executions in just eight months of 1941–42.[46] During the war, the Soviet Union together with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four Allied powers in World War II [47], and later became the Four Policemen, which formed the basis of the United Nations Security Council.[48] It emerged as a superpower in the post-war period. Once denied diplomatic recognition by the Western world, the Soviet Union had official relations with practically every nation by the late 1940s. A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions.

The Soviet Union maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, economic strength, aid to developing countries, and scientific research, especially in space technology and weaponry.[49]

Cold War
Main article: Cold War
During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union rebuilt and expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. It took effective control over most of Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia and Albania), turning them into satellite states. The Soviet Union bound its satellite states in a military alliance (the Warsaw Pact) in 1955; and an economic organization (The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comecon), a counterpart to the European Economic Community, from 1949 to 1991.[50] The Soviet Union concentrated on its own recovery. It seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It used trading arrangements deliberately designed to favor the Soviet Union. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes:

The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under the Marshall Plan.[51]
Later, the Comecon supplied aid to the eventually victorious Communist Party of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Fearing its ambitions, the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, became its enemies. In the ensuing Cold War, the two sides clashed indirectly using mostly proxies.

Khrushchev era
Main article: History of the Soviet Union (1953–64)

Globe showing the greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and states that were dominated politically, economically and/or militarily by it, which was in 1960. This was during the period of time just after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and just before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961.
Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Without a mutually agreeable successor, the highest Communist Party officials initially opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly through a troika headed by Georgy Malenkov. This did not last, however, and Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the power struggle by the mid-1950s. He shortly afterward denounced Stalin's use of repression in 1956 and proceeded to ease Stalin's repressive controls over party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) with John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961
Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a critically vital buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders, in case of another major invasion such as the German invasion of 1940. For this reason, the USSR sought to cement its control of the region by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states, dependent upon, and subservient to, its leadership. Soviet military force was used to suppress anti-Stalinist uprisings in Hungary and Poland in 1956.

In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the USSR's rapprochement with the West, and what Mao Zedong perceived as Khrushchev's revisionism, led to the Sino–Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist–Leninist movement, with the governments in Albania, Cambodia and Somalia choosing to ally with China in place of the USSR.

During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union continued to realize scientific and technological exploits in the Space Race, rivaling the United States: launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexey Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966; and the first moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.[52]

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, first human to travel into space
Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw", a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the Soviet Union. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing living standards to rise dramatically while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well.

Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. In 1962, he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. An agreement was made between the Soviet Union and the United States to remove enemy nuclear missiles from both Cuba and Turkey, concluding the crisis. This event caused Khrushchev much embarrassment and loss of prestige, resulting in his removal from power in 1964.

Era of Stagnation
Main articles: History of the Soviet Union (1964–82), History of the Soviet Union (1982–91), and Era of Stagnation
The Era of Stagnation was a period of negative economic, political, and social effects in the Soviet Union, which began during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.

Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of 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 Soviet leader.

In 1968, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring reforms. In the aftermath, Brezhnev justified the invasion along with the earlier invasions of Eastern European states by introducing the Brezhnev Doctrine, which claimed the right of the Soviet Union to violate the sovereignty of any country that attempted to replace Marxism–Leninism with capitalism.

Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and US President Jimmy Carter sign the SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979.
Brezhnev presided over a period of détente with the West that resulted in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) while at the same time building up Soviet military might.

In October 1977, the third 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", with an aging and ossified top political leadership.

Gorbachev era
Main articles: Cold War (1985–91), History of the Soviet Union (1982–91), and 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt

Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-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 selling their oil, so the USSR's hard currency reserves became depleted.[53]

Brezhnev's next two successors, transitional figures with deep roots in his tradition, did not last long. Yuri Andropov was 68 years old and Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power; both died in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called perestroika. His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship.

Reagan greets a young boy while touring Red Square with Gorbachev during the Moscow Summit, 31 May 1988
Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the Soviet Union abandoned its nine-year war in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces. In the late 1980s, he refused military support to the governments of the Soviet Union's satellite states[clarify], which paved the way for Revolutions of 1989. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East Germany and West Germany pursuing unification, the Iron Curtain between the West and Soviet-controlled regions came down.

In the late 1980s, the constituent republics of the Soviet Union started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing Article 72 of the USSR constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede.[54] On 7 April 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum.[55] 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 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 its chairman. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990.

A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics (the remainder having boycotted the vote), with the majority of the population in those nine republics voting for preservation of the Union. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost. In the summer of 1991, the New Union Treaty, which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics.

Boris Yeltsin stands on a tank in Moscow to defy the August Coup, 1991
The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup—an attempted coup d'état by hardline 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 was seen as a hero for his decisive actions, while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence (following Lithuania's 1990 example). Gorbachev resigned as general secretary in late August, and soon afterward the Party's activities were indefinitely suspended—effectively ending its rule. By the fall, Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside Moscow, and he was being challenged even there by Yeltsin, who had been elected President of Russia in July 1991.

Dissolution
Main articles: Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Commonwealth of Independent States
The remaining 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. However, by December, all except Russia and Kazakhstan had formally declared independence. During this time, Yeltsin took over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Moscow Kremlin. The final blow was struck on 1 December, when Ukraine, the second most powerful republic, voted overwhelmingly for independence. Ukraine's secession ended any realistic chance of the Soviet Union staying together even on a limited scale.

Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War
On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (formerly Byelorussia), 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 accords to do this, on 21 December 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the accords. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that had been vested in the presidency over to Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place.

The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, voted both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence. This is generally recognized as marking the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state. The Soviet Army originally remained under overall CIS command, but was soon absorbed into the different military forces of the newly independent states. The few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased to function by the end of 1991.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, Russia was internationally recognized[56] as its legal successor on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt and claimed overseas Soviet properties as its own. Under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, Russia also agreed to receive all nuclear weapons remaining in the territory of other former Soviet republics. Since then, the Russian Federation has assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations. Ukraine has refused to recognize exclusive Russian claims to succession of the USSR and claimed such status for Ukraine as well, which was codified in Articles 7 and 8 of its 1991 law On Legal Succession of Ukraine. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has continued to pursue claims against Russia in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the Soviet Union.

Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, 1993
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was followed by a severe economic contraction and catastrophic fall in living standards in post-Soviet states[57] including a rapid increase in poverty,[58][59][60][61] crime,[62][63] corruption,[64][65] unemployment,[66] homelessness,[67][68] rates of disease,[69][70][71] demographic losses,[72] income inequality and the rise of an oligarchical class,[73][58] along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income.[74] Between 1988/1989 and 1993/1995, the Gini ratio increased by an average of 9 points for all former socialist countries.[58] The economic shocks that accompanied wholesale privatization were associated with sharp increases in mortality. Data shows Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia saw a tripling of unemployment and a 42% increase in male death rates between 1991 and 1994.[75][76]

In summing up the international ramifications of these events, Vladislav Zubok stated: "The collapse of the Soviet empire was an event of epochal geopolitical, military, ideological, and economic significance[77]

Country emblems of the Soviet Republics, before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Post-Soviet states
Main article: Post-Soviet states
The analysis of the succession of states with respect to the 15 post-Soviet states is complex. The Russian Federation is seen as the legal continuator state and is for most purposes the heir to the Soviet Union. It retained ownership of all former Soviet embassy properties, as well as the old Soviet UN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council.

There are additionally four states that claim independence from the other internationally recognized post-Soviet states, but possess limited international recognition: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. The Chechen separatist movement of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria lacks any international recognition.

Foreign affairs
Main article: Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

1960s Cuba-Soviet friendship poster with Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev

Gerald Ford, Leonid Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger speaking informally at the Vladivostok Summit in 1974

Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush signing bilateral documents during Gorbachev's official visit to the United States in 1990
Organizations
Stalin always made the final policy decisions, 1925–1953. Otherwise Soviet foreign policy was set by the Commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or by the Party's highest body the Politburo. Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.[78]

COMINTERN (1919–1943), or Communist International was an international communist organization based in the Kremlin that advocated world communism. The COMINTERN intended to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state".[79] It was abolished as a conciliatory measure toward Britain and the U.S.[80]
COMECON, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Russian: Совет Экономической Взаимопомощи, Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi, СЭВ, SEV) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under Soviet control that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world. Moscow was concerned about the Marshall Plan. Comecon was meant to prevent countries in the Soviets' sphere of influence from moving towards that of the Americans and South-East Asia. Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation in Western Europe of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation (OEEC),[81][82]
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence alliance formed in 1955 among the USSR and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO.[83]
The Cominform (1947–1956), informally the "Communist Information Bureau" and officially the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties was the first official agency of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. Its role was to coordinate actions between Communist parties under Soviet direction. Stalin used it to order Western European Communist parties to abandon their exclusively parliamentarian line and, instead, concentrate on politically impeding the operations of the Marshall Plan.[84] It also coordinated international aid to communist insurgents during the Greek Civil War in 1947-49.[85] It expelled Yugoslavia in 1948 after Tito insisted on an independent program. Its newspaper, For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy! promoted Stalin's positions. The Cominform's concentration on Europe meant a deemphasis on world revolution in Soviet foreign policy. By enunciating a uniform ideology, it allowed the constituent parties to focus on personalities rather than issues.[86]
Early Soviet foreign policies (1919–1939)
Further information: International relations (1919–1939) § Soviet Union
The Communist leadership the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and change directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates and he frequently changed positions.[87]

The first stage (1917–1921), assumed that Communist revolutions would break out very soon in every major industrial country, and it was the Soviet responsibility to assist them. The COMINTERN Was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic—lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help.

By 1921, the second stage came with the realization by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became the duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now in it a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time the two countries secretly set up training programs for illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the Soviet Union.[88]

At the same time, Moscow stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. United Kingdom, dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing communist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the prewar tsarist debts, but that issue was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924.[89] All the other major countries opened trade relationships. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relationships with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping it would lead to a long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the Soviet Union, a decision backed by public opinion and especially by American business interests that expected a new profitable market would open up.[90]

A third stage came in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when Stalin ordered Communist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-communist political parties, labor unions or other organizations on the left. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with the Popular Front program the called on all Communist parties to join together with all anti-Fascist political, labor, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism, especially of the Nazi variety.[91][92]

World War II era (1939–1945)
Main articles: Causes of World War II and Diplomatic history of World War II § Soviet Union
Cold War era (1945–1991)
Main articles: Origins of the Cold War and Cold War
Politics
Main articles: Politics of the Soviet Union and Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the government represented by the Council of Ministers, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only legal party and the ultimate policymaker in the country.[93]

Communist Party
Main article: Communist Party of the Soviet Union
At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. The Central Committee in turn voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952–1966), Secretariat and the General Secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union.[94] Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country[95] (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).[96] They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.[97]

The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state largely through its control over the system of appointments. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin in 1941–1953 and Khrushchev in 1958–1964 were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership,[98] but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of state. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations.[99]

In practice, however, the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party.[100] Nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.[101]

Government
Main article: Government of the Soviet Union

The Grand Kremlin Palace, seat of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, 1982
The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets and Central Executive Committee) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history,[102] at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, the powers and functions of the Supreme Soviet were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including the creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the Soviet government budget.[103] The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium to wield its power between plenary sessions,[104] ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court,[105] the Procurator General[106] and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society.[104] State and party structures of the 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 party committees, local Soviets and executive committees. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.[107]

The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Stalinist terror,[108] but after the death of Stalin, the state security police was brought under strict party control. Under Yuri Andropov, KGB chairman in 1967–1982 and General Secretary from 1982 to 1984, the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure,[109] culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[110]

Separation of power and reform
Main article: Perestroika

Nationalist anti-government riots in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 1990
The Union constitutions, which were promulgated in 1918, 1924, 1936 and 1977,[111] did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers[112] that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin[113] and Joseph Stalin,[114] as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal,[115] itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee.[116] All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov[117] and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party.[116]

Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, 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, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, much stronger than before. For the first time since the 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers.[118] 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,[119] now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, to himself.[120]

Tensions grew 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 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged an abortive coup attempt. Following the failed coup, the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power "in the period of transition".[121] Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR.[122]

Judicial system
Main article: Law of the Soviet Union
See also: Socialist law
The judiciary was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts (People's Court) 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 used the inquisitorial system of Roman law, where the judge, procurator, and defense attorney collaborate to establish the truth.[123]

Administrative divisions
Main articles: Soviet republic (system of government) and Republics of the Soviet Union
Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federal states, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs),[93] all four being the founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of the Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan SSRs. In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status.[124] In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of the Ukraine and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (SSRs) were also admitted into the union which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation. Karelia was split off from Russia as a Union Republic in March 1940 and was reabsorbed in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below).[125]

While nominally a union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians. The domination was so absolute that for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as "Russia". While the RSFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and geography), most powerful, and most highly developed. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the Soviet Union's federal structure was "window dressing" for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the Soviet Union were usually called "Russians", not "Soviets", since "everyone knew who really ran the show".[126]

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