Soviet Union
Socialist state in Eurasia, 1922–1991 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Soviet Union,[lower-alpha 20] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[lower-alpha 21] (USSR),[lower-alpha 22] was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The country was a successor state to the Russian Empire; it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR,[lower-alpha 23] but in practice both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was a flagship communist state.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics | |
---|---|
1922–1991 | |
Flag
(1955–1991) State Emblem
(1956–1991) | |
Motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! "Workers of the world, unite!" | |
Anthem: Интернационал "The Internationale" (1922–1944) Государственный гимн СССР[lower-alpha 1] "State Anthem of the Soviet Union" (1944–1991) | |
Capital and largest city | Moscow 55°45′N 37°37′E |
Official languages | Russian[lower-alpha 2] |
Recognised regional languages | |
Ethnic groups (1989) | 70% East Slavs 17% Turkic 13% other |
Religion | Secular state (de jure) State atheism (de facto) |
Demonym(s) | Soviet |
Government | See: Government of the Soviet Union |
State Leader | |
• 1922–1924 | Vladimir Lenin[lower-alpha 3] |
• 1924–1953 | Joseph Stalin[lower-alpha 4] |
• 1953[lower-alpha 5] | Georgy Malenkov[lower-alpha 6] |
• 1953–1964 | Nikita Khrushchev[lower-alpha 7] |
• 1964–1982 | Leonid Brezhnev[lower-alpha 8] |
• 1982–1984 | Yuri Andropov |
• 1984–1985 | Konstantin Chernenko |
• 1985–1991 | Mikhail Gorbachev[lower-alpha 9] |
• 1991[lower-alpha 10] | Vladimir Ivashko[lower-alpha 11] |
Head of State | |
• 1922–1946 (first) | Mikhail Kalinin[lower-alpha 12] |
• 1988–1991 (last) | Mikhail Gorbachev[lower-alpha 13] |
Premier | |
• 1922–1924 (first) | Vladimir Lenin[lower-alpha 14] |
• 1991 (last) | Ivan Silayev[lower-alpha 15] |
Legislature | Congress of Soviets (1922–1936)[lower-alpha 16] Supreme Soviet (1936–1991) |
Soviet of Nationalities (1936–1991) Soviet of Republics (1991) | |
Soviet of the Union (1936–1991) | |
Historical era | |
7 November 1917 | |
30 December 1922 | |
• End of the Civil War | 16 June 1923 |
31 January 1924 | |
5 December 1936 | |
1939–1940 | |
1941–1945 | |
24 October 1945 | |
25 February 1956 | |
9 October 1977 | |
11 March 1990 | |
19–22 August 1991 | |
8 December 1991[lower-alpha 17] | |
26 December 1991[lower-alpha 18] | |
Area | |
• Total | 22,402,200 km2 (8,649,500 sq mi) (1st) |
• Water | 2,767,198 km2 (1,068,421 sq mi) |
• Water (%) | 12.3 |
Population | |
286,730,819[2] (3rd) | |
• Density | 12.7/km2 (32.9/sq mi) |
GDP (PPP) | 1990 estimate |
• Total | $2.7 trillion (2nd) |
• Per capita | $9,000 |
GDP (nominal) | 1990 estimate |
• Total | $2.7 trillion[3] (2nd) |
• Per capita | $9,000 (28th) |
Gini (1989) | 0.275 low |
HDI (1990 formula) | 0.920[4] very high |
Currency | Soviet ruble (Rbl) (SUR) |
Time zone | (UTC+2 to +12) |
Driving side | right |
Calling code | +7 |
ISO 3166 code | SU |
Internet TLD | .su[lower-alpha 19] |
The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February Revolution that had dissolved the Russian Empire. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin, established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR),[lower-alpha 24] the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the brutal Russian Civil War. As the war progressed in the Bolsheviks' favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land acquired from the war into nominally independent states, which were merged into the Soviet Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin inaugurated a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930–1933 that killed millions. The forced labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. During the late 1930s, Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove his actual and perceived opponents. In 1939 the USSR and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact which sought to bring peaceful relations to the respective countries, despite their ideological incongruence. Nonetheless, in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviet civilian and military casualties of the war – estimated at 27 million people – accounted for the majority of Allied losses. In the aftermath of World War II, the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army, forming various Soviet satellite states and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower.
Following World War II, ideological tensions with the United States eventually led to the Cold War. The Western Bloc, led by the United States, coalesced into NATO in 1949; this development prompted the Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, commonly known as the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. During this period, there was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. In 1953, following Stalin's death, the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China. During the 1950s, the Soviet Union rapidly expanded its efforts in space exploration and took an early lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, the first space station, and the first probe to land on another planet (Venus).
In 1968, the Warsaw Pact saw its largest military engagement: the invasion of Czechoslovakia, a Warsaw Pact member state. The aftermath of the invasion led to the establishment of the Brezhnev Doctrine. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions emerged again following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, Gorbachev initiated a national referendum, boycotted by six Soviet republics. In the referendum, citizens voted in favour of preserving the country as a renewed federation. In August 1991, hardline members of the Communist Party staged a coup d'état against Gorbachev; however, the attempt failed, leading to the subsequent banning of the Communist Party. Following this development, the three Soviet constituent republics (Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus) with the largest economies and populations voted to secede from the Union. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation, which became the Soviet Union's successor state. All other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states.
During its existence, the Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An NPT-designated state, it housed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Before the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military and economic strengths and scientific research.
The word soviet is derived from the Russian word sovet (Russian: совет), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice',[lower-alpha 25] ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of *vět-iti ('to inform'), related to Slavic věst ('news'), English wise. The word sovietnik means 'councillor'.[5] Some organizations in Russian history were called council (Russian: совет). In the Russian Empire, the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers.[5]
The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the 1905 Russian Revolution.[6][7] Although they were quickly suppressed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917, workers' and soldiers' Soviets emerged throughout the country, and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government.[6][8] The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, demanded that all power be transferred to the Soviets, and gained support from the workers and soldiers.[9] After the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets,[8][10] Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR).[11]
During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national Soviet republics to form a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии, tr. Sojuz Sovjetskih Respublik Evropy i Azii).[12] Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began as socialist soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the word council or conciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian soviet and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR.
СССР (in the Latin alphabet: SSSR) is the abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters. The Soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this, the most common Russian initialization is Союз ССР (transliteration: Soyuz SSR) which essentially translates to Union of SSRs in English. In addition, the Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovjetskij Sojuz, which literally means Soviet Union) is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of the Great Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating the Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС has been taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is associated with the infamous Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany, just as SS is in English.
In English-language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it was commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as Russia. According to historian Matthew White, it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was "window dressing" for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were almost always called "Russians", not "Soviets", since "everyone knew who really ran the show".[13]