View source for Place:Soviet Union

{{Short description|Communist state in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991}}
{{Pp-semi-indef}}
{{Infobox former country
| conventional_long_name = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
| common_name            = Soviet Union
| native_name            = {{Nowrap|{{small|{{lang|ru|Союз Советских Социалистических Республик}}}}}}
| life_span              = 1922–1991
| religion               = [[Philosophy:Secular state|Secular state]] (''de jure'')<br />[[Philosophy:State atheism|State atheism]] (''de facto'')
| government_type        = ''See also: Government of the Soviet Union''
----
{{Plainlist|
* [[Social:Federation|Federal]] [[Social:One-party state|one-party]] [[Earth:Socialist state|socialist republic]]<br>(1922–1924)
* Federal Leninist one-party socialist republic under a [[Philosophy:Totalitarianism|totalitarian dictatorship]]<br>(1924–1927)
* Federal Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic under a [[Social:Stalinism|Stalinist]] totalitarian dictatorship<ref>Hough, Jerry F. "The 'Dark Forces,' the Totalitarian Model, and Soviet History." The Russian Review, vol. 46, no. 4, 1987, pp. 397–403</ref><ref>Bergman, Jay. "Was the Soviet Union Totalitarian? The View of Soviet Dissidents and the Reformers of the Gorbachev Era." Studies in East European Thought, vol. 50, no. 4, 1998, pp. 247–281.</ref><br>(1927–1953)
* Federal Marxist–Leninist one-party [[Social:Directorial system|directorial]] parliamentary socialist republic<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1244&context=cilj |title=Crises in the USSR: Are the Constitutional and Legislative Changes Enough |journal=Cornell International Law Journal |volume=23 |issue=2 |access-date=24 April 2022 |archive-date=19 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319084237/https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&httpsredir=1&article=1244&context=cilj |url-status=live }}</ref><br>(1953–1990)
* Federal [[Social:Semi-presidential system|semi-presidential republic]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://constitution.garant.ru/history/ussr-rsfsr/1977/zakony/185465 |title=Law of the USSR of March 14, 1990 N 1360-I 'On the establishment of the office of the President of the USSR and the making of changes and additions to the Constitution (Basic Law) of the USSR' |publisher=Garant.ru |access-date=12 July 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010070843/http://constitution.garant.ru/history/ussr-rsfsr/1977/zakony/185465/|archive-date=10 October 2017|url-status=dead }}</ref><br>(1990–1991)}}
| era                    = Interwar period • [[Social:World War II|World War II]] • [[History:Cold War|Cold War]]
| event_pre              = October Revolution
| date_pre               = 7 November 1917
| date_start             = 30 December 1922
| event_start            = Treaty of Creation
| event1                 = {{nowrap|End of Russian Civil War}}
| date_event1            = 16 June 1923
| event2                 = First constitution
| date_event2            = 31 January 1924
| event3                 = Second constitution
| date_event3            = 5 December 1936
| event4                 = Westward expansion
| date_event4            = 1939–1940
| event5                 = {{nowrap|Great Patriotic War}}
| date_event5            = 1941–1945
| event6                 = {{nowrap|Admission to UN}}
| date_event6            = 24 October 1945
| event7                 = De-Stalinization
| date_event7            = 25 February 1956
| event8                 = Last constitution
| date_event8            = 9 October 1977
| event9                 = {{nowrap|Secession of Lithuania}}
| date_event9            = 11 March 1990
| event10                = August Coup
| date_event10           = 19–22 August 1991
| event_end              = Belovezh Accords
| date_end               = 8 December 1991{{efn|The Alma-Ata Protocol was signed by the remaining 11 of 12 republics on 21 December 1991.}}
| date_post              = 26 December 1991{{efn|Declaration № 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, formally establishing the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a state and subject of international law (in [[Social:Russian language|Russian]]).}}
| event_post             = {{nowrap|Dissolution}}
| image_flag             = Flag of the Soviet Union.svg
| flag_type_article      = Flag of the Soviet Union
| flag_type              = Flag<br />(1980–1991)
| flag                   = Flag of the Soviet Union
| image_coat             = State Emblem of the Soviet Union.svg
| symbol_type_article    = State Emblem of the Soviet Union
| symbol_type            = State Emblem<br />(1956–1991)
| image_map              = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg
| map_caption            = The Soviet Union after [[Social:World War II|World War II]]
| image_map_size         = 250
| image_map_caption      = The Soviet Union in 1922
| capital                = [[Place:Moscow|Moscow]]
| coordinates            = {{coord|55|45|N|37|37|E|type:city}}
| largest_city           = capital|
| national_motto         = {{lang|ru|Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!}}<br />"[[Philosophy:Workers of the world, unite!|Workers of the world, unite!]]"
| national_anthem        = {{lang|ru|Интернационал}}<br />"The Internationale" (1922–1944){{parabr}}{{center|[[File:Internationale-ru.ogg]]}}{{parabr}}{{lang|ru|Государственный гимн СССР}}{{efn|The original lyrics used from 1944 to 1956 praised Stalin. No lyrics were used from 1956 to 1977. Revised lyrics were used from 1977 to 1991.}}<br />"State Anthem of the Soviet Union" (1944–1991){{parabr}}{{center|[[File:Gimn Sovetskogo Soyuza (1977 Vocal).oga]]}}
| official_languages     = [[Social:Russian language|Russian]] {{efn|None until 1990. Constituent republics had the right to declare their own official languages.}}
| regional_languages     = {{hlist|[[Social:Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]]|[[Social:Belarusian language|Belarusian]]|[[Social:Uzbek language|Uzbek]]|[[Social:Kazakh language|Kazakh]]|[[Social:Georgian language|Georgian]]|[[Social:Azerbaijani language|Azerbaijani]]|[[Social:Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]]|Moldavian|[[Social:Latvian language|Latvian]]|[[Social:Kyrgyz language|Kyrgyz]]|[[Social:Tajik language|Tajik]]|[[Social:Armenian language|Armenian]]|[[Social:Turkmen language|Turkmen]]|[[Social:Estonian language|Estonian]]}}
| ethnic_groups          = * 64% Russians
*  2% Tatars
* 33%  Others
| ethnic_groups_year     = 1922
| demonym                = Soviet
| currency               = Soviet ruble (Rbl)
| title_leader           = Leader
| leader1                = [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]]{{Efn|As chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.}}
| year_leader1           = 1922–1924
| leader2                = {{wipe|Joseph Stalin}}{{Efn|As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (then the Council of Ministers).}}
| year_leader2           = 1924–1953
| leader3                = Georgy Malenkov{{Efn|As chairman of the Council of Ministers.}}
| year_leader3           = 1953{{efn|March–September.}}
| leader4                = Nikita Khrushchev{{Efn|As First Secretary of the Communist Party.}}
| year_leader4           = 1953–1964
| leader5                = Leonid Brezhnev{{Efn|As General Secretary of the Communist Party.}}
| year_leader5           = 1964–1982
| leader6                = Yuri Andropov
| year_leader6           = 1982–1984
| leader7                = Konstantin Chernenko
| year_leader7           = 1984–1985
| leader8                = [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|Mikhail Gorbachev]]{{Efn|As General Secretary of the Communist Party and President of the Soviet Union.}}
| year_leader8           = 1985–1991
| representative1        = Mikhail Kalinin
| representative2        = Mikhail Gorbachev
| year_representative1   = 1922–1946 (first)
| year_representative2   = 1988–1991 (last)
| title_representative   = Head of state
| deputy1                = Vladimir Lenin
| deputy2                = Ivan Silayev
| year_deputy1           = 1922–1924 (first)
| year_deputy2           = 1991 (last)
| title_deputy           = Head of government
| legislature            = Congress of Soviets<br />(1922–1936){{efn|Unicameral.}}<br />Supreme Soviet<br />(1936–1991)
| house1                 = Soviet of Nationalities<br>(1936–1991)<br>Soviet of Republics<br>(1991)
| house2                 = Soviet of the Union<br>(1936–1991)
| area_km2               = 22,402,200
| area_water_km2         = 2767198
| population_census      = 286,730,819<ref>''Almanaque Mundial 1996'', Editorial América/Televisa, Mexico, 1995, pages 548–552 (''Demografía/Biometría'' table).</ref>
| population_census_year = 1989
| population_density_km2 = 12.7
| p1                     = Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic{{!}}'''1922:'''<br />Russian SFSR
| flag_p1                = Flag RSFSR 1918.svg
| p2                     = Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic{{!}}Ukrainian SSR
| flag_p2                = Flag of the Ukrainian SSR (1919-1929).svg
| p3                     = Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic{{!}}Byelorussian SSR
| flag_p3                = Flag of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919-1927).svg
| p4                     = Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic{{!}}Transcaucasian SFSR
| flag_p4                = Flag of the Transcaucasian SFSR (1925-1936).svg
| p5                     = Bukharan People's Soviet Republic{{!}}'''1924:'''<br />Bukharan SSR
| flag_p5                = Flag of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.svg
| p6                     = Khorezm People's Soviet Republic{{!}}Khorezm SSR
| flag_p6                = Flag of Khiva 1920-1923.svg
| p7                     = Second Polish Republic{{!}}'''1939:'''<br />Poland (portion)
| flag_p7                = Flag of Poland (1928–1980).svg
| p8                     = Finland{{!}}'''1940:'''<br />Finland (portion)
| flag_p8                = Flag of Finland.svg
| p9                     = Kingdom of Romania{{!}}Romania (portion)
| flag_p9                = Flag of Romania.svg
| p10                    = Estonia
| flag_p10               = Flag of Estonia.svg
| p11                    = Latvia
| flag_p11               = Flag of Latvia.svg
| p12                    = Lithuania
| flag_p12               = Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg
| p13                    = Tuvan People's Republic{{!}}'''1944:'''<br />Tuva
| flag_p13               = Flag of the Tuvan People's Republic (1943-1944).svg
| p14                    = Nazi Germany{{!}}'''1945:'''<br />Germany (portion)
| flag_p14               = Flag of Germany (1935–1945).svg
| p15                    = Empire of Japan{{!}}Japan (portion)
| flag_p15               = Flag of Japan (1870–1999).svg
| p16                    = Third Czechoslovak Republic{{!}}'''1946:'''<br />Czechoslovakia (portion)
| flag_p16               = Flag of the Czech Republic.svg
| s1                     = Lithuania{{!}}'''1990:'''<br />Lithuania
| flag_s1                = Flag of Lithuania (1988–2004).svg
| s2                     = Georgia (country){{!}}'''1991:'''<br />Georgia
| flag_s2                = Flag of Georgia (1990-2004).svg
| s3                     = Estonia
| flag_s3                = Flag of Estonia.svg
| s4                     = Latvia
| flag_s4                = Flag of Latvia.svg
| s5                     = Ukraine
| flag_s5                = Flag of Ukraine (1991-1992).svg
| s6                     = Moldova
| flag_s6                = Flag of Moldova.svg
| s7                     = Kyrgyzstan
| flag_s7                = Flag of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.svg
| s8                     = Uzbekistan
| flag_s8                = Flag of Uzbek SSR.svg
| s9                     = Tajikistan
| flag_s9                = Flag of Tajikistan 1991-1992.svg
| s10                    = Armenia
| flag_s10               = Flag of Armenia.svg
| s11                    = Azerbaijan
| flag_s11               = Flag of Azerbaijan 1918.svg
| s12                    = Turkmenistan
| flag_s12               = Flag of the Turkmen SSR.svg
| s13                    = Belarus
| flag_s13               = Flag of Belarus (1991-1995).svg
| s14                    = Russia
| flag_s14               = Flag of Russia (1991-1993).svg
| s15                    = Kazakhstan
| flag_s15               = Flag of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.svg
| s16                    = Русь{{!}}'''2018:'''<br />Русь 
| flag_s16               = SymbolRus.png
| footnote_a             = {{Note|box2}} The successor of the Soviet Union is the [[Organization:Русь|Community Rus']] ({{lang-ru|Общность Русь}}) as stated in its Constitution, which is now in force and applicable to the entire territory of the former Soviet Union.
| footnotes              = 
| GDP_PPP                = $2.7&nbsp;trillion<ref name="theodora.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html |title=GDP – Million – Flags, Maps, Economy, Geography, Climate, Natural Resources, Current Issues, International Agreements, Population, Social Statistics, Political System | access-date=29 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612163518/https://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html | archive-date=12 June 2018 | url-status=live }}</ref>
| GDP_PPP_rank           = 2nd
| GDP_PPP_year           = 1990
| GDP_PPP_per_capita     = $9,000
| GDP_nominal            = $2.7&nbsp;trillion<ref name="theodora.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html |title=GDP – Million – Flags, Maps, Economy, Geography, Climate, Natural Resources, Current Issues, International Agreements, Population, Social Statistics, Political System | access-date=29 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612163518/https://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html | archive-date=12 June 2018 | url-status=live }}</ref>
| GDP_nominal_year       = 1990
| GDP_nominal_rank       = 2nd
| GDP_nominal_per_capita = $9,000
| GDP_nominal_per_capita_rank = 28th
| Gini                   = 0.275
| Gini_year              = 1989
| Gini_rank              = 
| Gini_change            = low
| cctld                  = .su{{efn|Assigned on 19 September 1990, existing onwards.}}
| drives_on              = right
| calling_code           = +7
| time_zone              = ([[Physics:Coordinated Universal Time|UTC]]+2 to +12)
| iso3166code            = SU
| area_rank              = 1st
| percent_water          = 12.3
| HDI                    = 0.920
| HDI_year               = 1990 formula
| HDI_ref                = <ref name="HDI">{{cite web |url=http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/219/hdr_1990_en_complete_nostats.pdf |title=Human Development Report 1990 |date=January 1990 |publisher=HDRO (Human Development Report Office) [[Finance:United Nations Development Programme|United Nations Development Programme]] |page=111 |access-date=1 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207194131/http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/219/hdr_1990_en_complete_nostats.pdf |archive-date=7 February 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>
}}


The '''Soviet Union''',{{efn|{{lang-rus|Советский Союз|Sovetsky Soyuz|sɐˈvʲetskʲɪj sɐˈjus|a=Ru-Советский Союз.ogg}}.}} officially the '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics'''{{efn|{{lang-rus|Союз Советских Социалистических Республик|Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik|sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈsʲtʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪˈspublʲɪk|a=Ru-CCCP.ogg}}.}} ('''USSR'''),{{efn|{{lang-rus|СССР|SSSR}}.}} was a transcontinental country that spanned much of [[Earth:Eurasia|Eurasia]] from 1922 to 1991. A flagship [[Social:Communist state|communist state]], it was nominally a [[Social:Federation|federal union]] of twenty one republics;{{efn|As outlined in Part III of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, "The National-State Structure of the USSR".}} in practice, both its government and its economy were highly [[Social:Soviet-type economic planning|centralized]] until its final years. It was a [[Social:One-party state|one-party state]] governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of [[Place:Moscow|Moscow]] serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic, the [[Place:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]]. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), [[Place:Kyiv|Kiev]] ([[Place:Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]]), [[Place:Minsk|Minsk]] (Byelorussian SSR), [[Place:Tashkent|Tashkent]] (Uzbek SSR), [[Place:Almaty|Alma-Ata]] (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over {{convert|22402200|km2|sqmi|abbr=off}} and spanning eleven time zones.

The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]], overthrew the Russian Provisional Government that had earlier replaced the House of Romanov of the [[Place:Russian Empire|Russian Empire]]. The Bolshevik victory established the Russian Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally guaranteed [[Earth:Socialist state|socialist state]].{{efn|Later renamed the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (1918) and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1936).}} Persisting internal tensions escalated into the Russian Civil War. By 1922, the Bolsheviks under [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]] had emerged victorious, forming the Soviet Union.

Following Lenin's death in 1924, {{wipe|Joseph Stalin}} came to power.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.history.com/topics/russia/joseph-stalin |title=Joseph Stalin – Biography, World War II & Facts – History |access-date=6 December 2021 |date=12 November 2009 |archive-date=12 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180912144422/https://www.history.com/topics/russia/joseph-stalin |url-status=live }}</ref> 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 labor camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. Stalin conducted the Great Purge from 1936–1938 to remove his actual and perceived political opponents. After the outbreak of [[Social:World War II|World War II]], Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The combined Soviet civilian and military casualty count—estimated to be around 27 million people—accounted for the majority of losses of Allied forces. In the aftermath of World War II, the territory taken by the Red Army formed various Soviet satellite states. 

The beginning of the [[History:Cold War|Cold War]] saw the Soviet Union's Eastern Bloc confront the {{wipe|United States}}' Western Bloc, with the latter grouping becoming largely united in 1949 under NATO and the former grouping becoming largely united in 1955 under the [[Organization:Warsaw Pact|Warsaw Pact]]. Following Stalin's death in 1953, a period known as de-Stalinization occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviets took an early lead in the [[Astronomy:Space Race|Space Race]] with the [[Engineering:Sputnik 1|first artificial satellite]], the [[Astronomy:Vostok 1|first human spaceflight]], and the [[Astronomy:Venera 7|first probe to land on another planet]] (Venus). In the 1970s, there was a brief ''détente'' in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions resumed following the [[Religion:Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]] in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|Mikhail Gorbachev]], sought to reform the country through his policies of ''glasnost'' and ''perestroika''. In 1989, during the closing stages of the Cold War, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, which was accompanied by the outbreak of strong [[Social:Nationalism|nationalist]] and [[Social:Separatism|separatist]] movements across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, Gorbachev initiated a national referendum—boycotted by the Soviet republics of Lithuania, [[Place:Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic|Latvia]], Estonia, Armenia, Georgia, and [[Place:Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic|Moldova]]—that resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favor of preserving the country as a renewed federation. In August 1991, hardline members of the Communist Party staged a coup d'état against Gorbachev; the attempt failed, with Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in facing down the unrest, and the Communist Party was subsequently banned. All of the republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as fully independent [[Earth:Post-Soviet states|post-Soviet states]]. 

The Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy, and the Soviet Armed Forces comprised the largest standing military in the world.<ref name="theodora.com" /><ref>Scott and Scott (1979) p. 305</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ctbto.org/specials/testing-times/30-october-1961-the-tsar-bomba |title=October 30, 1961 – The Tsar Bomba: CTBTO Preparatory Commission|access-date=29 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319201753/http://ctbto.org/specials/testing-times/30-october-1961-the-tsar-bomba/|archive-date=19 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> An NPT-designated state, it possessed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It was a founding member of the {{wipe|United Nations}} as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. From the end of World War II until its dissolution, the country maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers, alongside the United States, through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military and economic strengths, aid to [[Finance:Developing country|developing countries]], and scientific research.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html |title=The Soviet Union and the United States – Revelations from the Russian Archives {{!}} Exhibitions – Library of Congress|date=15 June 1992|website=www.loc.gov|access-date=12 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915012329/http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html|archive-date=15 September 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Etymology ==
The word ''soviet'' is derived from the Russian word {{lang|ru-Latn|sovet}} ({{lang-ru|link=no|совет}}), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice',{{Efn|{{lang-uk|рада}} ({{lang|uk-Latn|rada}}); {{lang-pl|rada}}; {{lang-be|савет/рада}}; {{lang-uz|совет}}; {{lang-kk|совет / кеңес}} ({{lang|kk-Latn|sovet / kenges}}); {{lang-ka|საბჭოთა}} ({{lang|ka-Latn|sabch′ota}}); {{lang-az|совет|italic=no}}; {{lang-lt|taryba}}; {{lang-ro|soviet}} ([[Social:Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet|Moldovan Cyrillic]]: {{lang|ro-Cyrl|совиет}}); {{lang-lv|padome}}; {{lang-ky|совет}}; {{lang-tg|шӯравӣ / совет}} ({{lang|tg-Latn|šūravī / sovet}}); {{lang-hy|խորհուրդ / սովետ}} ({{lang|hy-Latn|xorhurd / sovet}}); {{lang-tk|совет|italic=no}}; {{lang-et|nõukogu}}.}} ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of {{lang|sla-x-proto|vět-iti}} ('to inform'), related to Slavic {{lang|sla|věst}} ('news'), English ''wise'', the root in ''ad-vis-or'' (which came to English through French), or the Dutch {{lang|nl|weten}} ('to know'; compare {{lang|nl|wetenschap}} meaning 'science'). The word ''sovietnik'' means 'councillor'.<ref name="americana">{{Cite Americana |wstitle=Soviet |year=1920 |first=Henri F. |last=Klein}}</ref>

Some organizations in Russian history were called ''council'' ({{lang-ru|link=no|совет}}). In the [[Place:Russian Empire|Russian Empire]], the State Council which functioned from 1810 to 1917 was referred to as a Council of Ministers after the revolt of 1905.<ref name="americana" />

During the Georgian Affair, [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]] envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by {{wipe|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 ({{lang-rus|links=no|Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии|Soyuz Sovetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii}}).{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=608|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2p=50|3a1=Leggett|3y=1981|3p=354|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=421|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=455|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=175}} Stalin initially resisted the proposal but ultimately accepted it, although with Lenin's agreement changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 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'' or ''conciliar'' in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian ''soviet'' and never in others, e.g. [[Place:Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]].

{{lang|ru|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 {{lang|ru|Союз ССР}} (transliteration: {{lang|ru-Latn|Soyuz SSR}}) which, after compensating for grammatical differences, essentially translates to ''Union of SSRs'' in English. In addition, the Russian short form name {{lang|ru|Советский Союз}} (transliteration: {{lang|ru-Latn|Sovetskiy Soyuz}}, 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 {{lang|ru|СС}} (in the same way as, for example, ''{{wipe|United States}}'' is abbreviated into ''US'') has been complete taboo, the reason being that {{lang|ru|СС}} as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is instead associated with the infamous {{lang|de|Schutzstaffel}} of [[Place:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]], just as ''SS'' is in English.

In English language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. In other European languages, the locally translated short forms and abbreviations are usually used such as {{lang|fr|Union soviétique}} and {{lang|fr|URSS}} in French, or {{lang|de|Sowjetunion}} and {{lang|de|UdSSR}} in German. In the English-speaking world, the Soviet Union was also informally called Russia and its citizens Russians,<ref name="OXRussian">{{cite web |title=Russian |url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/russian |publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]] |access-date=9 May 2017 |quote=historical (in general use) a national of the former Soviet Union. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010070656/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/russian |archive-date=10 October 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> although that was technically incorrect since Russia was only one of the republics of the USSR.<ref name="MWRussia">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Russia |encyclopedia=Merriam-Webster |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Russia |date=10 May 2017 |access-date=10 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170606105510/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Russia |archive-date=6 June 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> Such misapplications of the linguistic equivalents to the term ''Russia'' and its derivatives were frequent in other languages as well.

== Geography ==
The Soviet Union covered an area of over {{convert|22402200|km2}}, and was the world's largest country,<ref name=":0">Television documentary from CC&C Ideacom Production, "Apocalypse Never-Ending War 1918–1926", part 2, aired at Danish DR K on 22 October 2018.</ref> a status that is retained by its successor state, Russia.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513251/Russia Russia – Encyclopædia Britannica] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080426065826/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513251/Russia |date=26 April 2008 }}. Britannica.com (27 April 2010). Retrieved on 29 July 2013.</ref> It covered a sixth of Earth's land surface, and its size was comparable to the continent of North America.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pages.towson.edu/thompson/courses/regional/reference/sovietphysical.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120915090942/http://pages.towson.edu/thompson/Courses/Regional/Reference/SovietPhysical.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 September 2012 |title=The Former Soviet Union: Physical Geography |author=Virginia Thompson |publisher=Towson University: Department of Geography & Environmental Planning|access-date=24 March 2016}}</ref> Its western part in Europe 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 [[Place:Democratic Republic of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]] to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia, was much less populous. It spanned over {{Convert|10000|km}} east to west across eleven time zones, and over {{convert|7200|km}} north to south. It had five climate zones: [[Earth:Tundra|tundra]], taiga, [[Earth:Steppe|steppe]]s, [[Earth:Desert|desert]] and mountains.

The Soviet Union, similarly to Russia, had the world's longest border, measuring over {{convert|60000|km}}, or {{frac|1|1|2}} circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it was a [[Earth:Coast|coast]]line. The country bordered (from 1945 to 1991): {{wipe|Norway}}, {{wipe|Finland}}, the Baltic Sea, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, [[Place:Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]], the Black Sea, [[Place:Turkey|Turkey]], Iran, the Caspian Sea, [[Place:Democratic Republic of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], China, Mongolia, and North Korea. The Bering Strait separated the country from the United States, while the La Pérouse Strait separated it from Japan.

The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak) in Tajik SSR, at {{Convert|7495|m}}. It also included most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran), and [[Earth:Lake Baikal|Lake Baikal]] in Russia, the world's largest and deepest freshwater lake.

== History ==

=== Revolution and foundation (1917–1927) ===
Modern revolutionary activity in the [[Place:Russian Empire|Russian Empire]] began with the 1825 Decembrist revolt. 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 [[Social:Absolute monarchy|absolute]] to a [[Social:Constitutional monarchy|constitutional monarchy]]. [[Social:Rebellion|Social unrest]] continued and was aggravated during [[Social:World War I|World War I]] by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.

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 Nicholas II and 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 [[Social:World War I|World War I]].

At the same time, [[Social:Workers' council|workers' council]]s, known in Russian as "Soviets", sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|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.<ref>{{Cite news |title=The causes of the October Revolution |publisher=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/russia/october/revision/1 |url-status=live |access-date=5 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140805155250/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/russia/october/revision/1 |archive-date=5 August 2014}}</ref> 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 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mawdsley |first=Evan |url=https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan |title=The Russian Civil War |date=1 March 2007 |publisher=Pegasus Books |isbn=978-1-933648-15-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan/page/287 287] |url-access=registration}}</ref> In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in {{wipe|Belarus}} and {{wipe|Ukraine}} between the [[Place:Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established republics of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

=== Treaty on the Creation of the USSR ===
On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the [[Place:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], the [[Place:Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic|Transcaucasian SFSR]], the [[Place:Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]] and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sakwa |first=Richard |title=The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991: 1917–1991 |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-12290-0 |pages=140–143}}</ref> and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Towster |first=Julian |title=Political Power in the U.S.S.R., 1917–1947: The Theory and Structure of Government in the Soviet State |date=1948 |publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]] |page=106}}</ref> These two documents were confirmed by the first Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations,<ref>{{In lang|ru}} [http://region.adm.nov.ru/pressa.nsf/0c7534916fcf6028c3256b3700243eac/4302e4941fb6a6bfc3256c99004faea5!OpenDocument Voted Unanimously for the Union.]   {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091204132112/http://region.adm.nov.ru/pressa.nsf/0c7534916fcf6028c3256b3700243eac/4302e4941fb6a6bfc3256c99004faea5%21OpenDocument |date=4 December 2009 }}</ref> Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Alexander Chervyakov,<ref>{{In lang|ru}} [http://www.hronos.km.ru/sobyt/cccp.html Creation of the USSR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070529132218/http://www.hronos.km.ru/sobyt/cccp.html |date=29 May 2007 }} at Khronos.ru.</ref> on 30 December 1922. The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.

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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lapin |first=G. G. |year=2000 |title=70 Years of Gidroproekt and Hydroelectric Power in Russia |journal=Hydrotechnical Construction |volume=34 |issue=8/9 |pages=374–379 |doi=10.1023/A:1004107617449 |s2cid=107814516}}</ref> The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931.<ref name="Kuzbassenergo">{{In lang|ru}} [http://www.kuzbassenergo.ru/goelro/ On GOELRO Plan — at Kuzbassenergo.]  {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081226190310/http://www.kuzbassenergo.ru/goelro | date=26 December 2008 }}</ref> After the economic policy of "War communism" during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing [[Philosophy:Socialist mode of production|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.

From its creation, the government in the Soviet Union was based on the [[Social:One-party state|one-party rule]] of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks).{{Efn|The consolidation into a one-party state took place during the first three and a half years after the revolution, which included the period of War communism and an election in which multiple parties competed. See {{Cite book |last=Schapiro |first=Leonard |title=The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922 |date=1955 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}}} The stated purpose was to prevent the return of capitalist exploitation, and that the principles of [[Social:Democratic centralism|democratic centralism]] would be the most effective in representing the people's will in a practical manner. The 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 "[[Social:Collective leadership|troika]]" consisting of Grigory Zinoviev of the [[Place:Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]], Lev Kamenev of the [[Place:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], and {{wipe|Joseph Stalin}} of the [[Place:Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic|Transcaucasian SFSR]].

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.

According to Archie Brown the constitution was never an accurate guide to political reality in the USSR. For example the fact that the Party played the leading role in making and enforcing policy was not mentioned in it until 1977.<ref>Archie Brown, ''The rise and fall of Communism'' (2009) p, 518.</ref> The USSR was a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities. However, the term "Soviet Russia"{{Spaced ndash}}strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republic{{Spaced ndash}}was often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers.

=== Stalin era (1927–1953) ===
[[File:19191107-lenin second anniversary october revolution moscow.jpg|thumb|[[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]], Trotsky and Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution]]
[[File:Russia Famine Saratov 1921.jpg|thumb|The Russian famine of 1921–22 killed an estimated 5 million people.<br /><ref>{{Cite news |date=17 June 2015 |title=Famine of 1921–22 |language=en-US |work=Seventeen Moments in Soviet History |url=http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/famine-of-1921-22/ |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=15 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190115171429/http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/famine-of-1921-22/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Courtois |first1=Stéphane |url=https://archive.org/stream/TheBlackBookofCommunism10/the-black-book-of-communism-jean-louis-margolin-1999-communism#page/n71/ |title=The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression |last2=Werth |first2=Nicolas |last3=Panné |first3=Jean-Louis |last4=Paczkowski |first4=Andrzej |last5=Bartošek |first5=Karel |last6=Margolin |first6=Jean-Louis |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-674-07608-2 |page=123}}</ref>]]

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 [[Social:Dictator|undisputed leader]] of the country and, by the end of the 1920s, established a [[Philosophy:Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] rule. In October 1927, Zinoviev and [[Biography:Leon Trotsky|Leon Trotsky]] were expelled from the Central Committee and forced into exile.

In 1928, Stalin introduced the first five-year plan for building a [[Social:Socialist economics|socialist economy]]. In place of the [[Social:Proletarian internationalism|internationalism]] expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build [[Social:Socialism in One Country|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,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lenin |first=V.I. |title=Collected Works |pages=152–164, Vol. 31 |quote=The proletarian state must effect the transition to collective farming with extreme caution and only very gradually, by the force of example, without any coercion of the middle peasant.}}</ref> forced collectivization of farms was implemented all over the country.

Famines ensued as a result, causing deaths estimated at three to seven million; surviving kulaks were persecuted, and many were sent to Gulags to do forced labor.{{Sfn|Davies|Wheatcroft|2004|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=4s1lCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14#v=onepage&q&f=false xiv], 401 441}}<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Stéphane |last1=Courtois |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC&pg=PA206 |title=Livre noir du Communisme: crimes, terreur, répression |last2=Mark Kramer |date=15 October 1999 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-07608-2 |page=206 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=22 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622213827/https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC&pg=PA206 |url-status=live }}</ref> Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Despite the turmoil of the mid-to-late 1930s, the country developed a robust industrial economy in the years preceding [[Social:World War II|World War II]].
[[File:Kolyma road00.jpg|thumb|left|Construction of the bridge through the Kolyma (part of the Road of Bones from Magadan to Jakutsk) by the workers of Dalstroy.]]
Closer cooperation between the USSR and the West developed in the early 1930s. From 1932 to 1934, the country 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 recognize Stalin's Communist government formally and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two countries.<ref>[http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html Ukrainian 'Holodomor' (man-made famine) Facts and History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130424093532/http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html |date=24 April 2013 }}. Holodomorct.org (28 November 2006). Retrieved on 29 July 2013.</ref> In September 1934, the country joined the League of Nations. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the [[Place:Second Spanish Republic|Republican forces]] against the Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and [[Place:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Casanova |first=Julián |title=República y Guerra Civil. Vol. 8 de la Historia de España, dirigida por Josep Fontana y Ramón Villares |publisher=Crítica/Marcial Pons |year=2007 |isbn=978-84-8432-878-0 |location=Barcelona |pages=271–274 |language=es |}}</ref>
[[File:5marshals 01.jpg|thumb|Five Marshals of the Soviet Union in&nbsp;1935. Only two of them – Budyonny and Voroshilov – survived Great Purge. Blyukher, Yegorov and Tukhachevsky were executed.]]
In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new constitution that was praised by supporters around the world as the most democratic constitution imaginable, though there was some skepticism.{{Efn|name=fn2|American 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."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Getty |first=J. Arch |year=1991 |title=State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s |journal=Slavic Review |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=18–35 |doi=10.2307/2500596 |jstor=2500596}}</ref>}} Stalin's Great Purge resulted in the detainment or execution of many "Old Bolsheviks" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. According to declassified Soviet archives, the [[Social:NKVD|NKVD]] arrested more than one and a half million people in 1937 and 1938, of whom 681,692 were shot.<ref name="Thurston">{{Cite book |last=Thurston |first=Robert W. |title=Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934–1941 |date=1998 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-07442-0 |page=139 |author-link=Robert W. Thurston}}</ref> Over those two years, there were an average of over one thousand executions a day.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Abbott |last=Gleason |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC&pg=PA373 |title=A companion to Russian history |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4051-3560-3 |page=373 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=5 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905175409/https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC&pg=PA373 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Efn|name=fn1|According to British historian Geoffrey Hosking, "excess deaths during the 1930s as a whole were in the range of 10–11&nbsp;million."<ref name="1930s">{{Cite book |first=Geoffrey A. |last=Hosking |url=https://archive.org/details/russiarussianshi00hosk |title=Russia and the Russians: a history |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-674-00473-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/russiarussianshi00hosk/page/469 469] |url-access=registration}}</ref> American historian Timothy D. Snyder claims that archival evidence suggests maximum excess mortality of nine million during the entire Stalin era.<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012090945/http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ |date=12 October 2017 }}, ''The New York Review of Books'', 27 January 2011</ref> Australian historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft asserts that around a million "purposive killings" can be attributed to the Stalinist regime, along with the premature deaths of roughly two million more amongst the repressed populations (i.e. in camps, prisons, exiles, etc.) through criminal negligence.{{Sfn|Wheatcroft|1996|pp=1334,1348}}}}

In 1939, after attempts to form a military alliance with Britain and France against Germany failed, the Soviet Union made a dramatic shift towards Nazi Germany.<ref>{{cite web |title=Why didn't the USSR join Allies in 1939? |last=Yegorov |first=Oleg |url=https://www.rbth.com/history/331039-ussr-britain-france-talks-wwii |date=26 September 2019 |access-date=5 February 2022 |website=Russia Beyond |archive-date=6 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206011636/https://www.rbth.com/history/331039-ussr-britain-france-talks-wwii |url-status=live }}</ref> 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 on 23 August 1939. The former made possible the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and eastern Poland.

On 1 September, Germany invaded Poland and on the 17th the Soviet Union invaded Poland as well. On 6 October, Poland fell and part of the Soviet occupation zone was then handed over to Germany. 

On 10 October the Soviet Union and Lithuania signed an agreement whereby the Soviet Union transferred Polish sovereignty over the Vilna region to Lithuania, and on 28 October the boundary between the Soviet occupation zone and the new territory of Lithuania was officially demarcated.

On 1 November, the Soviet Union annexed Western Ukraine, followed by Western Belarus on the 2nd.

In late November, unable to coerce the {{wipe|Finland}} by diplomatic means into moving its border {{Convert|25|km}} back from Leningrad, Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland. On 14 December 1939 the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.<ref>[https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-expelled-from-the-league-of-nations?form=MY01SV&OCID=MY01SV USSR expelled from the League of Nations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210914013927/https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-expelled-from-the-league-of-nations?form=MY01SV&OCID=MY01SV |date=14 September 2021 }}. www.history.com. 5 November 2009</ref> In the east, the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the [[Place:Empire of Japan|Empire of Japan]] in 1938 and 1939. However, in April 1941, the USSR signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with Japan, recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo, a Japanese [[Social:Puppet state|puppet state]].

==== World War II ====
[[File:RIAN archive 44732 Soviet soldiers attack house.jpg|thumb|left|The Battle of Stalingrad, considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II.]]
Germany broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 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. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, dealt a severe blow to Germany 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.<ref>{{Cite book |first=William J. |last=Duiker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uqvgYtJHGSMC |title=Contemporary World History |date=31 August 2009 |publisher=Wadsworth Pub Co |isbn=978-0-495-57271-8 |page=128 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=22 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622200541/https://books.google.com/books?id=uqvgYtJHGSMC |url-status=live }}</ref> Harry Hopkins, a close foreign policy advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, spoke on 10 August 1943 of the USSR's decisive role in the war.{{Efn|name=fn3|"In War II Russia occupies a dominant position and is the decisive factor looking toward the defeat of the Axis in Europe. While in Sicily the forces of Great Britain and the United States are being opposed by 2 German divisions, the Russian front is receiving attention of approximately 200 German divisions. Whenever the Allies open a second front on the Continent, it will be decidedly a secondary front to that of Russia; theirs will continue to be the main effort. Without Russia in the war, the Axis cannot be defeated in Europe, and the position of the United Nations becomes precarious. Similarly, Russia's post-war position in Europe will be a dominant one. With Germany crushed, there is no power in Europe to oppose her tremendous military forces."<ref>{{cite web |title=The Executive of the Presidents Soviet Protocol Committee (Burns) to the President's Special Assistant (Hopkins) |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943/d317 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821062622/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943/d317 |archive-date=21 August 2018 |access-date=21 August 2018 |website=www.history.state.gov |publisher=Office of the Historian}}</ref>}}

[[File:Teheran conference-1943.jpg|thumb|From left to right, the Soviet General Secretary {{wipe|Joseph Stalin}}, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill confer in Tehran, 1943.]]
In 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] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520092519/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s3.asp |date=20 May 2011 }} 5 April 1945. (Avalon Project at [[Organization:Yale University|Yale University]])</ref> and invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories on 9 August 1945.<ref name="declarationofwar">[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s4.asp Soviet Declaration of War on Japan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520092513/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s4.asp |date=20 May 2011 }}, 8 August 1945. (Avalon Project at [[Organization:Yale University|Yale University]])</ref> This conflict ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.

The USSR suffered greatly in the war, losing around 27 million people.<ref name="1930s" /> Approximately 2.8&nbsp;million Soviet POWs died of starvation, mistreatment, or executions in just eight months of 1941–42.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goldhagen |first=Daniel | title=Hitler's Willing Executioners |page=290 |quote=2.8&nbsp;million young, healthy Soviet POWs" killed by the Germans, "mainly by starvation{{nbsp}}... in less than eight months" of 1941–42, before "the decimation of Soviet POWs{{nbsp}}... was stopped" and the Germans "began to use them as laborers.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Treatment of Soviet POWs: Starvation, Disease, and Shootings, June 1941 – January 1942 |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-treatment-of-soviet-pows-starvation-disease-and-shootings-june-1941january-1942 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106204101/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-treatment-of-soviet-pows-starvation-disease-and-shootings-june-1941january-1942 |archive-date=6 November 2018 |access-date=9 March 2019 |website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org}}</ref> During the war, the country together with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four Allied powers,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brinkley |first=Douglas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HymSg_Pp7X0C&q=big+four+world+war+2&pg=PA223 |title=The New York Times Living History: World War II, 1942–1945: The Allied Counteroffensive |publisher=Macmillan, 2004 |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8050-7247-1 |author-link=Douglas Brinkley |access-date=15 October 2020 |archive-date=15 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815162717/https://books.google.com/books?id=HymSg_Pp7X0C&q=big+four+world+war+2&pg=PA223 |url-status=live }}</ref> and later became the [[Four Policemen]] that formed the basis of the United Nations Security Council.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Urquhart |first=Brian |title=Looking for the Sheriff |publisher=New York Review of Books, 16 July 1998 |author-link=Brian Urquhart}}</ref> It emerged as a superpower in the post-war period. Once denied diplomatic recognition by the Western world, the USSR had official relations with practically every country by the late 1940s. A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945, the country became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions.

==== Cold War ====
{{Main|History:Cold War}}
[[File:Soviet empire 1960.png|thumb|Map showing greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the states that it dominated politically, economically and militarily in 1960, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961 (total area: c. 35,000,000 km<sup>2</sup>){{Efn|34,374,483 km<sup>2</sup>.}}]]
During the immediate post-war period, the Soviet Union rebuilt and expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. It took effective control over most of the countries of Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia and later Albania), turning them into satellite states. The USSR bound its satellite states in a military alliance, the [[Organization:Warsaw Pact|Warsaw Pact]], in 1955, and an economic organization, Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comecon, a counterpart to the European Economic Community (EEC), from 1949 to 1991.<ref name="fas.org">{{cite web |title=Main Intelligence Administration (GRU) Glavnoye Razvedovatel'noye Upravlenie – Russia / Soviet Intelligence Agencies |url=https://fas.org/irp/world/russia/gru/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081226090607/http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gru/ |archive-date=26 December 2008 |access-date=24 November 2008 |publisher=Fas.org}}</ref> The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations from [[Place:East Germany|East Germany]], Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favor the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin.{{Efn|name=fn4|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."<ref>Mark Kramer, "The Soviet Bloc and the Cold War in Europe," in {{Cite book |editor-first=Klaus | editor-last=Larresm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EyNcCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT174 |title=A Companion to Europe Since 1945 |publisher=Wiley |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-118-89024-0 |page=79}}</ref>}} Later, the Comecon supplied aid to the eventually victorious Chinese Communist Party, and its influence grew 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 [[History:Cold War|Cold War]], the two sides clashed indirectly in [[Social:Proxy war|proxy war]]s.

=== De-Stalinization and Khrushchev Thaw (1953–1964) ===
[[File:John Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev 1961.jpg|thumb|left|Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) with US President John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 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 ensuing power struggle by the mid-1950s. In 1956, he denounced Joseph Stalin and proceeded to ease controls over the party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.

Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a critically vital buffer zone for the forward defence of its western borders, in case of another major invasion such as the German invasion of 1941. 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. As a result, Soviet military forces were used to suppress an anti-communist uprising in Hungary in 1956.

In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the Soviet rapprochement with the West, and what [[Biography:Mao Zedong|Mao Zedong]] perceived as Khrushchev's [[Social:Revisionism (Marxism)|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.

During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the USSR continued to realize scientific and technological exploits in the [[Astronomy:Space Race|Space Race]], rivaling the United States: launching the first artificial satellite, [[Engineering:Sputnik 1|Sputnik 1]] in 1957; a living dog named [[Engineering:Laika|Laika]] in 1957; the first human being, [[Biography:Yuri Gagarin|Yuri Gagarin]] in 1961; the first woman in space, [[Biography:Valentina Tereshkova|Valentina Tereshkova]] in 1963; Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft [[Astronomy:Luna 9|Luna 9]] in 1966; and the first Moon rovers, [[Astronomy:Lunokhod 1|Lunokhod 1]] and [[Astronomy:Lunokhod 2|Lunokhod 2]].<ref name="lunokhod">{{Cite episode |title=Tank on the Moon |url=http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/magazine2.html |series=The Nature of Things with David Suzuki |network=CBC-TV |air-date=6 December 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081226123643/http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/magazine2.html |archive-date=26 December 2008}}</ref>

Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw", a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the country. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing a dramatic rise in living standards 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 [[Engineering:Nuclear weapons delivery|nuclear missiles]] in Cuba. An agreement was made with the United States to remove nuclear missiles from both Cuba and [[Place:Turkey|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 (1964–1985) ===
[[File:Nikolai-Podgornyi-1969-in-Tampere.jpg|thumb|right|Nikolai Podgorny visiting Tampere, {{wipe|Finland}} on 16 October 1969]]
[[File:Carter Brezhnev sign SALT II.jpg|thumb|left|Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and US President Jimmy Carter sign the SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979]]
Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of [[Social:Collective leadership|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 [[Place:Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovakia]] to halt the Prague Spring reforms. In the aftermath, Brezhnev justified the invasion and previous military interventions as well as any potential military interventions in the future by introducing the Brezhnev Doctrine, which proclaimed any threat to socialist rule in a Warsaw Pact state as a threat to all Warsaw Pact states, therefore justifying military intervention.

Brezhnev presided throughout ''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"<!---застой--->, with an ageing and ossified top political leadership. This period is also known as the Era of Stagnation, a period of adverse economic, political, and social effects in the country, which began during the rule of Brezhnev and continued under his successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.

In late 1979, the Soviet Union's military intervened in the ongoing civil war in neighboring Afghanistan, effectively ending a détente with the West.

=== Perestroika and Glasnost reforms (1985–1991) ===
[[File:President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland.jpg|thumb|Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US 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, and resulted in the depletion of the country's [[Finance:Hard currency|hard currency]] reserves.<ref>Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak.</ref>
[[File:00 Páneurópai Piknik emlékhely.jpg|thumb|left|150px|The Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the Hungarian-Austrian border.]]
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 [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|Mikhail Gorbachev]]. He 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. Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the USSR abandoned its [[Religion:Soviet–Afghan War|war in Afghanistan]] and began to withdraw its forces. In the following year, Gorbachev refused to interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet satellite states, which paved the way for the Revolutions of 1989. In particular, the standstill of the Soviet Union at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 then set a peaceful chain reaction in motion at the end of which the Eastern Bloc collapsed. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East and West Germany pursuing unification, the [[Social:Iron Curtain|Iron Curtain]] between the West and Soviet-controlled regions came down.<ref>Andreas Rödder, Deutschland einig Vaterland – Die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung (2009).</ref><ref>Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German – Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.</ref><ref>Otmar Lahodynsky: Paneuropäisches Picknick: Die Generalprobe für den Mauerfall (Pan-European picnic: the dress rehearsal for the fall of the Berlin Wall – German), in: Profil 9 August 2014.</ref><ref>"Der 19. August 1989 war ein Test für Gorbatschows" (German – 19 August 1989 was a test for Gorbachev), in: FAZ 19 August 2009.</ref>

At the same time, the Soviet republics started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing the freedom to secede in Article 72 of the USSR constitution.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20050324050607/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n12_v42/ai_9119705 The red blues — Soviet politics] by Brian Crozier, ''National Review'', 25 June 1990. {{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{Cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.rspp.su/sobor/conf_2006/istoki_duh_nrav_crisis.html Origins of Moral-Ethical Crisis and Ways to Overcome it] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928104220/http://www.rspp.su/sobor/conf_2006/istoki_duh_nrav_crisis.html |date=28 September 2007 }} 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 [[Place:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]] 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 Soviet laws. After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990.
[[File:Image0 ST.jpg|thumb|[[Engineering:T-80|T-80]] tank on Red Square during the August Coup]]
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 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 country into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics. 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 afterwards, 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 and aftermath ===
[[File:Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War.jpg|thumb|Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War]]
[[File:Refugeesaz.jpg|thumb|Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, 1993]]
[[File:USSR - Then and Now.png|thumb|Country emblems of the Soviet Republics before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (note that the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and the emblem is unofficial)]]
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 country staying together even on a limited scale.

On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and {{wipe|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, voted both itself and the country out of existence. This is generally recognized as marking the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state, and the end of the [[History:Cold War|Cold War]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vt5OLD3vp4UC&q=26+december+1991+ussr&pg=PR5 |title=Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States: Documents, Data, and Analysis |last1=Brzezinski |first1=Zbigniew K. |last2=Sullivan |first2=Paige |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-56324-637-1 |access-date=15 October 2020 |archive-date=17 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217230805/https://books.google.com/books?id=Vt5OLD3vp4UC&q=26+december+1991+ussr&pg=PR5 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Soviet Army initially 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, 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. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311123046/http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket%2FXcelerate%2FShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029394365&a=KCountryProfile&aid=1019744935436 |date=11 March 2008 }}</ref> as its [[History:Succession of states|legal successor]] on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt and claimed Soviet overseas 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. {{wipe|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 USSR.

The dissolution was followed by a severe drop in economic and social conditions in [[Earth:Post-Soviet states|post-Soviet states]],<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/966616.stm "Child poverty soars in eastern Europe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110512034826/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/966616.stm |date=12 May 2011 }}, BBC News, 11 October 2000.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Parenti |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/blackshirtsredsr00pare |title=Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism |date=1997 |publisher=City Lights Books |isbn=978-0-87286-329-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blackshirtsredsr00pare/page/n70 118] |url-access=limited}}</ref> including a rapid increase in poverty,<ref name="Scheidel" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=McAaley |first=Alastair |url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A8M3JFdbXA7sJ%3Awww.crop.org%2Fviewfile.aspx%3Fid%3D381+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz |title=Russia and the Baltics: Poverty and Poverty Research in a Changing World |access-date=18 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123224044/http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A8M3JFdbXA7sJ%3Awww.crop.org%2Fviewfile.aspx%3Fid%3D381+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz |archive-date=23 January 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=An epidemic of street kids overwhelms Russian cities |work=The Globe and Mail |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/an-epidemic-of-street-kids-overwhelms-russian-cities/article4141933/ |url-status=live |access-date=17 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828195036/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/an-epidemic-of-street-kids-overwhelms-russian-cities/article4141933/ |archive-date=28 August 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Targ |first=Harry |title=Challenging Late Capitalism, Neoliberal Globalization, & Militarism |date=2006}}</ref> crime,<ref>Theodore P. Gerber & Michael Hout, "More Shock than Therapy: Market Transition, Employment, and Income in Russia, 1991–1995", AJS Volume 104 Number 1 (July 1998): 1–50.</ref> corruption,<ref>{{Cite news |date=2010 |title=Cops for hire |url=http://www.economist.com/node/15731344 |url-status=live |newspaper=The Economist |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208110401/http://www.economist.com/node/15731344 |archive-date=8 December 2015 |access-date=4 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="CPI2015">{{cite web |title=Corruption Perceptions Index 2014 |url=http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151202072021/http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results |archive-date=2 December 2015 |access-date=18 July 2016 |publisher=Transparency International}}</ref> unemployment,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hardt |first=John |title=Russia's Uncertain Economic Future: With a Comprehensive Subject Index |date=2003 |publisher=M. E Sharpe |page=481}}</ref> homelessness,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Alexander |first1=Catharine |title=Urban Life in Post-Soviet Asia |last2=Buchil |first2=Victor |last3=Humphrey |first3=Caroline |date=12 September 2007 |publisher=CRC Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Smorodinskaya |title=Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Russian |publisher=Routledge}}</ref> rates of disease,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Galazkaa |first=Artur |year=2000 |title=Implications of the Diphtheria Epidemic in the Former Soviet Union for Immunization Programs |journal=Journal of Infectious Diseases |volume=181 |pages=244–248 |doi=10.1086/315570 |pmid=10657222 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Shubnikov |first=Eugene |title=Non-communicable Diseases and Former Soviet Union countries |url=http://www.pitt.edu/~super4/33011-34001/33991.ppt |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011091551/http://www.pitt.edu/~super4/33011-34001/33991.ppt |archive-date=11 October 2016 |access-date=18 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Wharton |first1=Melinda |last2=Vitek |first2=Charles |year=1998 |title=Diphtheria in the Former Soviet Union: Reemergence of a Pandemic Disease |journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=539–550 |doi=10.3201/eid0404.980404 |pmc=2640235 |pmid=9866730}}</ref> infant mortality and domestic violence,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parenti |first=Michael |title=Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism |publisher=City Lights Books |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-87286-329-3 |location=San Francisco |pages=107, 115 |author-link=Michael Parenti}}</ref> as well as demographic losses,<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Hudson |first1=Michael |author-link=Michael Hudson (economist) |last2=Sommers |first2=Jeffrey |date=20 December 2010 |title=Latvia provides no magic solution for indebted economies |work={{wipe|The Guardian}} |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/latvia-debt-economy-europe-austerity |url-status=live |access-date=24 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025021924/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/latvia-debt-economy-europe-austerity |archive-date=25 October 2017 |quote=Neoliberal austerity has created demographic losses exceeding Stalin's deportations back in the 1940s (although without the latter's loss of life). As government cutbacks in education, healthcare and other basic social infrastructure threaten to undercut long-term development, young people are emigrating to better their lives rather than suffer in an economy without jobs. More than 12% of the overall population (and a much larger percentage of its labor force) now works abroad.}}</ref> income inequality and the rise of an oligarchical class,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hoepller |first=C |date=2011 |title=Russian Demographics: The Role of the Collapse of the Soviet Union |url=http://www.kon.org/urc/v10/hoeppler.html |url-status=live |journal=Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences |volume=10 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160806005855/http://www.kon.org/urc/v10/hoeppler.html |archive-date=6 August 2016 |access-date=18 July 2016}}</ref><ref name="Scheidel">{{Cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-691-16502-8 |location=Princeton |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NgZpDQAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false 51] & [https://books.google.com/books?id=NgZpDQAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA222#v=onepage&q&f=false 222–223] |author-link=Walter Scheidel}}</ref> along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income.<ref>{{cite web |last=Poland |first=Marshall |title=Russian Economy in the Aftermath of the Collapse of the Soviet Union |url=http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/03-04/baker%20poland%20p1/ussr.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160708010129/http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/03-04/baker%20poland%20p1/ussr.htm |archive-date=8 July 2016 |access-date=18 July 2016 |website=Needham K12}}</ref> Between 1988 and 1989 and 1993–1995, the Gini ratio increased by an average of 9 points for all former socialist countries.<ref name="Scheidel" /> The economic shocks that accompanied wholesale [[Finance:Privatization|privatization]] were associated with sharp increases in mortality.<ref>{{cite book  |last1=Ghodsee|first1=Kristen|last2=Orenstein|first2=Mitchell A.|author-link1=Kristen Ghodsee|date=2021|title=Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions|publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]]|pages=83–85|doi=10.1093/oso/9780197549230.001.0001 |isbn=978-0197549247}}</ref> 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.<ref>David Stuckler, Lawrence King, and Martin McKee. "Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis: a cross-national analysis." ''The Lancet'' 373.9661 (2009): 399–407.</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7828901.stm Privatisation 'raised death rate'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306005653/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7828901.stm |date=6 March 2016 }}. ''BBC'', 15 January 2009. Retrieved 19 November 2014.</ref> In the following decades, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the fall of the Soviet Bloc.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/red-hangover |title=Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism |date=2017 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-6949-3 |page=63 |author-link=Kristen R. Ghodsee |access-date=6 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180804180848/https://www.dukeupress.edu/red-hangover |archive-date=4 August 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Milanović |first=Branko |author-link=Branko Milanović |year=2015 |title=After the Wall Fell: The Poor Balance Sheet of the Transition to Capitalism |journal=Challenge |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=135–138 |doi=10.1080/05775132.2015.1012402 |s2cid=153398717}}</ref>

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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zubok |first=Vladislav M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3j2VJj1hs1EC&pg=PR9 |title=A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev |date=1 February 2009 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-9905-2 |page=ix |access-date=1 December 2017 |via=Google Books |archive-date=9 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309161344/https://books.google.com/books?id=3j2VJj1hs1EC&pg=PR9 |url-status=live }}</ref> Before the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers for four decades after World War II through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, economic strength, aid to [[Finance:Developing country|developing countries]], and scientific research, especially in space technology and weaponry.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html |title=The Soviet Union and the United States – Revelations from the Russian Archives {{!}} Exhibitions – Library of Congress|date=15 June 1992|website=www.loc.gov|access-date=12 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915012329/http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html|archive-date=15 September 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Post-Soviet states ====
{{Main|Earth:Post-Soviet states}}
The analysis of the [[History:Succession of states|succession of states]] for the 15 [[Earth:Post-Soviet states|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, and also inherited the Soviet Union's UN membership, with its permanent seat on the Security Council.

Of the two other co-founding states of the USSR at the time of the dissolution, {{wipe|Ukraine}} was the only one that had passed laws, similar to Russia, that it is a state-successor of both the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR.<ref>[https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/main/1543-12 "ЗАКОН УКРАЇНИ Про правонаступництво України"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191123004257/https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/main/1543-12 |date=23 November 2019 }} (in Ukrainian).</ref> Soviet treaties laid groundwork for Ukraine's future foreign agreements as well as they led to Ukraine agreeing to undertake 16.37% of debts of the Soviet Union for which it was going to receive its share of USSR's foreign property. Although it had a tough position at the time, due to Russia's position as a "single continuation of the USSR" that became widely accepted in the West as well as a constant pressure from the Western countries, allowed Russia to dispose state property of USSR abroad and conceal information about it. Due to that Ukraine never ratified "zero option" agreement that Russian Federation had signed with other former Soviet republics, as it denied disclosing of information about Soviet Gold Reserves and its Diamond Fund.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JSwstF6SEAkC&pg=PA924 |title=The Former Soviet Union in Transition |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1993 |isbn=978-1-56324-318-9 |editor-last=Kaufman |editor-first=Richard F. |page=924 |editor-last2=Hardt |editor-first2=John P. |access-date=28 November 2020 |archive-date=19 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819033956/https://books.google.com/books?id=JSwstF6SEAkC&pg=PA924 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Zadorozhnii |first=Oleksandr |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lMokDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA98 |title=International Law in the Relations of Ukraine and the Russian Federation |publisher=Yuri Marchenko |year=2016 |isbn=978-617-684-146-3 |page=98 |access-date=28 November 2020 |archive-date=17 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817025957/https://books.google.com/books?id=lMokDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA98 |url-status=live }}</ref> The dispute over former Soviet property and assets between the two former republics is still ongoing:
{{Blockquote|text=The conflict is unsolvable. We can continue to poke Kiev handouts in the calculation of "solve the problem", only it won't be solved. Going to a trial is also pointless: for a number of European countries this is a political issue, and they will make a decision clearly in whose favor. What to do in this situation is an open question. Search for non-trivial solutions. But we must remember that in 2014, with the filing of the then Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, litigation with Russia resumed in 32 countries.|author=Sergei Markov<ref>{{cite web |title=Ни по-честному, ни по-братски – Москва и Киев не могут поделить советскую собственность за рубежом |url=https://news.rambler.ru/ukraine/43812763-ni-po-chestnomu-ni-po-bratski-moskva-i-kiev-ne-mogut-podelit-sovetskuyu-sobstvennost-za-rubezhom/ |website=Рамблер/новости |access-date=14 July 2020 |archive-date=15 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200715131651/https://news.rambler.ru/ukraine/43812763-ni-po-chestnomu-ni-po-bratski-moskva-i-kiev-ne-mogut-podelit-sovetskuyu-sobstvennost-za-rubezhom/ |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Similar situation occurred with restitution of cultural property. Although on 14 February 1992 Russia and other former Soviet republics signed agreement "On the return of cultural and historic property to the origin states" in [[Place:Minsk|Minsk]], it was halted by Russian State Duma that had eventually passed "[[Social:Russian cultural property law|Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation]]" which made restitution currently impossible.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Николаевич |first=Касатенко Александр |date=21 September 2013 |title=История и теория реституции культурных ценностей |url=https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/istoriya-i-teoriya-restitutsii-kulturnyh-tsennostey |journal=Вестник Таганрогского института управления и экономики |volume=1 |issue=17 |via=cyberleninka.ru |access-date=14 July 2020 |archive-date=16 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200716201711/https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/istoriya-i-teoriya-restitutsii-kulturnyh-tsennostey |url-status=live }}</ref>

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania consider themselves as revivals of the three independent countries that existed prior to their occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940. They maintain that the process by which they were incorporated into the Soviet Union violated both international law and their own law, and that in 1990–1991 they were reasserting an independence that still legally existed.

There are additionally six states that claim independence from the other internationally recognised post-Soviet states but possess limited international recognition: [[Place:Abkhazia|Abkhazia]], [[Place:Republic of Artsakh|Artsakh]], Donetsk, Luhansk, [[Place:South Ossetia|South Ossetia]] and Transnistria. The Chechen separatist movement of the [[Place:Chechen Republic of Ichkeria|Chechen Republic of Ichkeria]], the Gagauz separatist movement of the Gagauz Republic and the Talysh separatist movement of the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic lack any international recognition.

== Foreign relations ==
[[File:Soekarno and Voroshilov.jpg|thumb|Sukarno and Voroshilov in a state meeting on 1958.]]
[[File:Soviet stamp 1974 for friendship between USSR and India 4k.jpg|thumb|Soviet stamp 1974 for friendship between USSR and India]]
[[File:President Ford informally concludes the Vladivostok Summit - NARA - 7062568.jpg|thumb|Gerald Ford, Andrei Gromyko, Leonid Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger speaking informally at the Vladivostok Summit in 1974]]
[[File:RIAN archive 330109 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George Bush.jpg|thumb|Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush signing bilateral documents during Gorbachev's official visit to the United States in 1990]]
During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. 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.<ref>Adam B. Ulam, ''Expansion and coexistence: the history of Soviet foreign policy, 1917–73'' (1974)</ref>
* 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".<ref>{{cite book |author=Harold Henry Fisher |title=The Communist Revolution: An Outline of Strategy and Tactics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b2umAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13 |year=1955 |publisher=Stanford UP |page=13}}</ref> It was abolished as a conciliatory measure toward Britain and the United States.<ref>Duncan Hallas, ''The Comintern: The History of the Third International'' (1985).</ref>
* 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 several communist states elsewhere in the world. Moscow was concerned about the Marshall Plan, and Comecon was meant to prevent countries in the Soviets' sphere of influence from moving towards that of the Americans and Southeast Asia. Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation in Western Europe of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation (OEEC),<ref name="loc-cs">"Germany (East)", Library of Congress Country Study, [http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html Appendix B: The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501075842/http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html |date=1 May 2009 }}</ref><ref>Michael C. Kaser, ''Comecon: Integration problems of the planned economies'' (Oxford University Press, 1967).</ref>
* The [[Organization:Warsaw Pact|Warsaw Pact]] was a collective defence alliance formed in 1955 among the USSR and its satellite states in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Comecon, the regional economic organization for the [[Earth:Socialist state|socialist state]]s of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO.<ref>Laurien Crump, ''The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered: International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955–1969'' (Routledge, 2015).</ref>
* 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 Marxist-Leninist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. Its role was to coordinate actions between Marxist-Leninist 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.<ref>Michał Jerzy Zacharias, "The Beginnings of the Cominform: The Policy of the Soviet Union towards European Communist Parties in Connection with the Political Initiatives of the United States of America in 1947." ''Acta Poloniae Historica'' 78 (1998): 161–200. {{ISSN|0001-6829}}</ref> It also coordinated international aid to Marxist-Leninist insurgents during the Greek Civil War in 1947–1949.<ref>Nikos Marantzidis,  "The Greek Civil War (1944–1949) and the International Communist System." ''Journal of Cold War Studies'' 15.4 (2013): 25–54.</ref> It expelled Yugoslavia in 1948 after Josip Broz 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.<ref>Heinz Timmermann,  "The cominform effects on Soviet foreign policy." ''Studies in Comparative Communism'' 18.1 (1985): 3–23.</ref>

=== Early policies (1919–1939) ===
[[File:1987 CPA 5896.jpg|thumb|upright|1987 Soviet stamp]]
The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions.<ref>Ulam, ''Expansion and Coexistence'' (1974) pp 111–79.</ref>

During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out 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 [[Social:Hungarian Soviet Republic|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, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized 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 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 the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the USSR.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=1986524 |title=Rapallo Reexamined: A New Look at Germany's Secret Military Collaboration with Russia in 1922 |journal=Military Affairs |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=109–117 |last1=Mueller |first1=Gordon H. |year=1976 |doi=10.2307/1986524 }}</ref>

Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and ''de facto'' diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924.<ref>Christine A. White, ''British and American Commercial Relations with Soviet Russia, 1918–1924'' (UNC Press Books, 2017).</ref> All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of a new profitable market.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=42860014 |title=American Business and the Recognition of the Soviet Union |journal=Social Science Quarterly |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=349–368 |last1=Wilson |first1=J. H. |year=1971}}</ref>

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labor unions or other organizations on the left. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with the Popular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all [[Social:Anti-fascism|anti-Fascist]] political, labor, and organizational forces that were opposed to [[Social:Fascism|fascism]], especially of the [[Social:Nazism|Nazi]] variety.<ref>Chris Ward, ''Stalin's Russia'' (2nd ed. 1999) pp 148–88.</ref><ref>Barbara Jelavich, ''St.Petersburg and Moscow: Czarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974'' (1974) pp 342–46.</ref>

In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement, the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain.<ref>{{cite book |author=Louise Grace Shaw |title=The British Political Elite and the Soviet Union, 1937–1939 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iAmDj-U-1fAC&pg=PA103 |year=2003 |page=103 |isbn=978-0-7146-5398-3 |access-date=17 September 2019 |archive-date=17 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617200516/https://books.google.com/books?id=iAmDj-U-1fAC&pg=PA103 |url-status=live }}</ref> Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in the partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of [[Social:World War II|World War II]].<ref>D.C. Watt, ''How War Came: the Immediate Origins of the Second World War 1938–1939'' (1989).</ref>

=== World War II (1939–1945) ===

=== Cold War (1945–1991) ===
{{Main|Origins of the Cold War|Cold War}}The '''Cold War''' was a period of geopolitical tension between the {{wipe|United States}} and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which began following [[Social:World War II|World War II]] in 1945. The term ''[[Social:Cold war (general term)|cold war]]'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as [[Social:Proxy war|proxy war]]s. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against [[Place:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]] in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as [[Social:Psychological warfare|psychological warfare]], propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the [[Astronomy:Space Race|Space Race]].

== Politics ==
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 final policymaker in the country.<ref name="sakwa">Sakwa, Richard. ''Soviet Politics in Perspective''. 2nd ed. London – N.Y.: Routledge, 1998.</ref>

=== Communist Party ===
[[File:MoskauRoterPlatzSeptember1990.jpg|left|thumb|Military parade on the Red Square in Moscow, 7 November 1964]]
At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966), Secretariat and the general secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the ''de facto'' highest office in the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite book |author=Law, David A. |title=Russian Civilization |publisher=Ardent Media |year=1975 |pages=193–94 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f3ky9qBavl4C |isbn=978-0-8422-0529-0|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512055909/http://books.google.com/books?id=f3ky9qBavl4C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> 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<ref>{{cite book |author=Zemtsov, Ilya |title=Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik: The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=1989 |page=325 |url=https://archive.org/details/chernenkolastbol00zemt|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-88738-260-4|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref> (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).<ref>{{cite book |author=Knight, Amy |title=Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1995 |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PxiuUGRQhUIC |isbn=978-0-691-01093-9|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512055028/http://books.google.com/books?id=PxiuUGRQhUIC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was [[Social:Democratic centralism|democratic centralism]], demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Hough, Jerry F. |author2=Fainsod, Merle |title=How the Soviet Union is Governed |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1979 |page=486 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=38gMzMRXCpQC |isbn=978-0-674-41030-5|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512054528/http://books.google.com/books?id=38gMzMRXCpQC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly 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 (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership,<ref>{{cite book |author=Service, Robert |title=History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ |isbn=978-0-14-103797-4 |page=378|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511090135/http://books.google.com/books?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ&dq|archive-date=11 May 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly 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.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Конститутион оф тхе Руссиян Федератион: витх комментариес анд интерпретатион |publisher=Brunswick Publishing Corp |year=1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3mQjvzP8VSYC |isbn=978-1-55618-142-9 |page=82|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512045452/http://books.google.com/books?id=3mQjvzP8VSYC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

However, in practice 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.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ōgushi, Atsushi |title=The Demise of the Soviet Communist Party |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |pages=31–32 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7mDUC1nOZsC |isbn=978-0-415-43439-3|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512042443/http://books.google.com/books?id=N7mDUC1nOZsC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> Nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Taras, Ray|title=Leadership change in Communist states |publisher=Routledge |year=1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AlcVAAAAIAAJ |isbn=978-0-04-445277-5 |page=132|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512053745/http://books.google.com/books?id=AlcVAAAAIAAJ&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Government ===
[[File:Supreme Soviet 1982.jpg|thumb|left|The Grand Kremlin Palace, the seat of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, 1982]]
The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history,<ref>{{cite book |author1=F. Triska, Jan |author2=Slusser, Robert M. |title=The Theory, Law, and Policy of Soviet Treaties |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1962 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/theorylawpoli00tris/page/63 63]–64 |url=https://archive.org/details/theorylawpoli00tris|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-8047-0122-8|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref> at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions 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 [[Finance:Government budget|government budget]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Deb, Kalipada |title=Soviet Union to Commonwealth: Transformation and Challenges |publisher=M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd |year=1996 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvK6r-8Ogg0C |isbn=978-81-85880-95-2|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512053347/http://books.google.com/books?id=IvK6r-8Ogg0C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium (successor of the Central Executive Committee) to wield its power between plenary sessions,<ref name="COMSSP" /> ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court,<ref>{{cite book |title=The Communist World |publisher=Ardent Media |year=2001 |page=441 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h9FFVgu-Ff0C |isbn=978-0-271-02170-6|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512051205/http://books.google.com/books?id=h9FFVgu-Ff0C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> the Procurator General<ref>{{cite book |author=Joseph Marie Feldbrugge, Ferdinand |title=Russian Law: The End of the Soviet System and the Role of Law |publisher=[[Company:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |year=1993 |page=205 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JWt7MN3Dch8C |isbn=978-0-7923-2358-7|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512041218/http://books.google.com/books?id=JWt7MN3Dch8C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name="COMSSP">{{cite book |author=Benson, Shirley |title=Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower |publisher=Penn State University Press |year=2001 |pages=XIV |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQeahlZdM7sC |isbn=978-0-271-02170-6|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910233718/https://books.google.com/books?id=dQeahlZdM7sC&dq|archive-date=10 September 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |author1=White, Stephen |author2=J. Gill, Graeme |author3=Slider, Darrell |title=The Politics of Transition: Shaping a post-Soviet Future |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1993 |page=[https://archive.org/details/politicsoftransi0000whit/page/108 108] |url=https://archive.org/details/politicsoftransi0000whit|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-521-44634-1|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref>

The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Great Purge,<ref>{{cite book |author1=P. Hoffmann, Erik |author2=Laird, Robin Frederick |title=The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=1984 |pages=313–315 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC |isbn=978-0-202-24165-4|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512045329/http://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> but was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov, 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,<ref>{{cite book |author1=P. Hoffmann, Erik |author2=Laird, Robin Frederick |title=The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=1984 |pages=315–319 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC |isbn=978-0-202-24165-4|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512045329/http://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era |journal=Great Russian Encyclopedia |year=2005 |volume=1 |page=742}}</ref>

=== Separation of power and reform ===
[[File:RIAN archive 699872 Dushanbe riots, February 1990.jpg|thumb|Nationalist anti-government riots in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 1990]]
The constitution, which was promulgated in 1924, 1936 and 1977,<ref>{{cite book |author=Sakwa, Richard |title=Soviet Politics in Perspective |publisher=Routledge |year=1998 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vX1U5G_xnqcC |isbn=978-0-415-07153-6 |page=106|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512042437/http://books.google.com/books?id=vX1U5G_xnqcC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> did not limit state power. No formal [[Philosophy:Separation of powers|separation of powers]] existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers<ref>{{cite book |author=Kucherov, Samuel |title=The Organs of Soviet Administration of Justice: Their History and Operation |publisher=[[Company:Brill Publishers|Brill Archive Publishers]] |year=1970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ssMUAAAAIAAJ |page=31|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512060346/http://books.google.com/books?id=ssMUAAAAIAAJ&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> that represented executive and [[Social:Legislature|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<ref>{{cite book |author=Phillips, Steve |title=Lenin and the Russian Revolution |publisher=Heinemann |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_na0zfdhKQMC |isbn=978-0-435-32719-4 |page=71|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512055812/http://books.google.com/books?id=_na0zfdhKQMC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> and Stalin,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |year=2005 |title=Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |page=1014}}</ref> as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal,<ref>{{cite book |author=Service, Robert |title=History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ |page=379 |isbn=978-0-14-103797-4|author-link=Robert Service (historian)|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511090135/http://books.google.com/books?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ&dq|archive-date=11 May 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee.<ref name="Khrushchevgoner" /> All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov<ref>{{cite book |author=Polley, Martin |title=A–Z of modern Europe since 1789 |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |url=https://archive.org/details/azofmoderneurope0000poll|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-415-18597-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/azofmoderneurope0000poll/page/88 88]|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref> and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party.<ref name="Khrushchevgoner">{{cite book |author=Khrushchev, Nikita |year=2007 |title=Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Volume 3: Statesman |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |isbn=978-0-271-02935-1 |page=674|author-link=Nikita Khrushchev}}</ref>

Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|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, and much stronger than before. For the first time since the 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers.<ref name="countrystudies">{{cite web |publisher=Library of Congress Country Studies |title=Gorbachev's Reform Dilemma |url=http://countrystudies.us/russia/18.htm|access-date=16 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623125043/http://countrystudies.us/russia/18.htm|archive-date=23 June 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> 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,<ref>{{cite book |author=Polmar, Norman |title=The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet |publisher=United States Naval Institute |year=1991 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tkGDkpkQh-sC |isbn=978-0-87021-241-3 |page=1|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/https://books.google.com/books?id=tkGDkpkQh-sC&dq|archive-date=4 September 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, to himself.<ref>{{cite book |author=McCauley, Martin |title=The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union |publisher=Pearson Education |year=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ycCZqmhhceMC |isbn=978-0-582-78465-9 |page=490|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/https://books.google.com/books?id=ycCZqmhhceMC&dq|archive-date=4 September 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

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 hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt. The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power "in the period of transition".<ref>{{cite web |author=Government of the USSR: [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev, Mikhail]] |script-title=ru:УКАЗ: ПОЛОЖЕНИЕ О МИНИСТЕРСТВЕ ЮСТИЦИИ СССР |trans-title=Law: About state governing bodies of USSR in a transition period on the bodies of state authority and administration of the USSR in Transition |url=http://www.sssr.su/zopp.html |date=21 March 1972 |publisher=sssr.su |language=ru  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130425162517/http://www.sssr.su/zopp.html |archive-date=25 April 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR.<ref>{{cite book |author=Vincent Daniels, Robert |title=A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev |publisher=University Press of New England (UPNE) |year=1993 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gTIZ2dvDKF0C |isbn=978-0-87451-616-6 |page=388|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512041324/http://books.google.com/books?id=gTIZ2dvDKF0C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Judicial system ===
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 defence attorney collaborate to establish the truth.<ref>{{cite web |author=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/288956/inquisitorial-procedure |title=Inquisitorial procedure (law) – Britannica Online Encyclopedia |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |access-date=30 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222225224/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/288956/inquisitorial-procedure |archive-date=22 December 2010 |url-status=live  |}}</ref>

== Administrative divisions ==
Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as [[Place:Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukraine]] or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as [[Place:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russia]] or [[Place:Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic|Transcaucasia]] (SFSRs),<ref name="sakwa" /> 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 Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and [[Place:Bukharan People's Soviet Republic|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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Adams, Simon |title=Russian Republics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LyqIDCc-cSsC |year=2005 |page=21 |publisher=Black Rabbit Books |isbn=978-1-58340-606-9|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512041101/http://books.google.com/books?id=LyqIDCc-cSsC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> In August 1940, [[Place:Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic|Moldavia]] was formed from parts of Ukraine and Bessarabia and Ukrainian SSR. Estonia, [[Place:Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic|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).<ref>{{cite book |last=Feldbrugge, Ferdinand Joseph Maria |title=Russian Law: The Rnd of the Soviet system and the Role of Law |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JWt7MN3Dch8C |year=1993 |page=94 |publisher=[[Company:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |isbn=978-0-7923-2358-7|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512041218/http://books.google.com/books?id=JWt7MN3Dch8C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

While nominally a union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians. The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country 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 area), most powerful, and most highly developed. The RSFSR was also the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that 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 usually called "Russians", not "Soviets", since "everyone knew who really ran the show".<ref>{{cite book |title=The Great Big Book of Horrible Things |last=White |first=Matthew|publisher=W. W. Norton |year=2012 |page=368 |isbn=978-0-393-08192-3|title-link=The Great Big Book of Horrible Things}}</ref>

{|class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto;"
|-
!colspan="2" |Republic
!Map of the Union Republics between 1956 and 1991
|-
|1
|{{flag|Russian SFSR}}
|rowspan="15" style="width:350px;"|[[File:Republics of the USSR.svg|600px]]
|-
|2
|{{flag|Ukrainian SSR}}
|-
|3
|{{flag|Byelorussian SSR}}
|-
|4
|{{flag|Uzbek SSR}}
|-
|5
|{{flag|Kazakh SSR}}
|-
|6
|{{flag|Georgian SSR}}
|-
|7
|{{flag|Azerbaijan SSR}}
|-
|8
|{{flag|Lithuanian SSR}}
|-
|9
|{{flag|Moldavian SSR}}
|-
|10
|{{flag|Latvian SSR}}
|-
|11
|{{flag|Kirghiz SSR}}
|-
|12
|{{flag|Tajik SSR}}
|-
|13
|{{flag|Armenian SSR}}
|-
|14
|{{flag|Turkmen SSR}}
|-
|15
|{{flag|Estonian SSR}}
|}

== Military ==
[[File:RSD-10 2009 G1.jpg|thumb|A medium-range SS-20 non-ICBM ballistic missile, the deployment of which in the late 1970s launched a new arms race in Europe in which NATO deployed Pershing II missiles in West Germany, among other things]]
Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Land Forces, the {{wipe|Soviet Air Forces}}, the Navy, Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the Internal Troops.<ref>Scott and Scott, The Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, Westview Press, 1979, p.13</ref> The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the [[Social:NKVD|NKVD]], and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in the official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force Fourth, and Navy Fifth).

The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis, under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov, it expanded significantly. It became known for [[Engineering:Battlecruiser|battlecruiser]]s and submarines. In 1989 there served 500 000 men. The {{wipe|Soviet Air Force}} focused on a fleet of [[Engineering:Strategic bomber|strategic bomber]]s and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400 [[Engineering:Intercontinental ballistic missile|intercontinental ballistic missile]]s (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers.

In the post-war period, the Soviet Army was directly involved in several military operations abroad. These included the suppression of the uprising in East Germany (1953), Hungarian revolution (1956) and the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). The Soviet Union also participated in the [[Religion:Soviet–Afghan War|war in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989]].

In the Soviet Union, general [[Social:Conscription|conscription]] applied.

== Space program ==
[[File:Soyuz rocket ASTP.jpg|thumb|[[Engineering:Soyuz (rocket family)|Soyuz]] rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome]]
At the end of the 1950s, the USSR constructed the first [[Astronomy:Satellite|satellite]] – [[Engineering:Sputnik 1|Sputnik 1]], which marked the beginning of the [[Astronomy:Space Race|Space Race]], a competition to achieve superior spaceflight capability with the United States.<ref>{{cite web|date=27 November 2021|title=Sputnik|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/astronomy-and-space-exploration/space-exploration/sputnik|url-status=live|website=Encyclopedia|access-date=27 November 2021|archive-date=27 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211127121715/https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/astronomy-and-space-exploration/space-exploration/sputnik}}</ref> This was followed by other successful satellites, most notably Sputnik 5, where test dogs were sent to space. On 12 April 1961, the USSR launched [[Astronomy:Vostok 1|Vostok 1]], which carried [[Biography:Yuri Gagarin|Yuri Gagarin]], making him the first human to ever be launched into space and complete a space journey.<ref>{{cite web|date=27 November 2021|title=Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space|url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-man-in-space|url-status=live|website=History.com|access-date=27 November 2021|archive-date=23 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123163507/https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-man-in-space}}</ref> At that time, the first plans for [[Astronomy:Spaceplane|space shuttle]]s and orbital stations were drawn up in Soviet design offices, but in the end personal disputes between designers and management prevented this.

As for Lunar space program; USSR only had [[Astronomy:Luna programme|a program on automated spacecraft launches]]; with no crewed spacecraft used; passing on the "Moon Race" part of [[Astronomy:Space Race|Space Race]].<ref>{{cite web|date=27 November 2021|title=The Soviet Manned Lunar Program|url=https://spp.fas.org/eprint/lindroos_moon1.htm|url-status=live|website=e-Prints|access-date=27 November 2021|archive-date=23 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211223163134/https://spp.fas.org/eprint/lindroos_moon1.htm}}</ref>

<!--first big fiasco for the USSR was the landing on the Moon by the Americans, when the Russians were not able to respond to the Americans in time with the same project. NB: please add data on existence of failed _manned_ Moon space program !-->

In the 1970s, specific proposals for the design of the space shuttle began to emerge, but shortcomings, especially in the electronics industry (rapid overheating of electronics), postponed the program until the end of the 1980s. The first shuttle, the [[Engineering:Buran (spacecraft)|Buran]], flew in 1988, but without a human crew. Another shuttle, ''[[Engineering:Ptichka|Ptichka]]'', eventually ended up under construction, as the shuttle project was canceled in 1991. For their launch into space, there is today an unused superpower rocket, Energia, which is the most powerful in the world.<ref>{{cite web|date=27 November 2021|title=Energia, Soviet Launch Vehicle|url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/Energia-Soviet-launch-vehicle|url-status=live|website=Britannica|access-date=27 November 2021|archive-date=27 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211127121714/https://www.britannica.com/technology/Energia-Soviet-launch-vehicle}}</ref>

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union managed to build the ''[[Astronomy:Mir|Mir]]'' orbital station. It was built on the construction of [[Engineering:Salyut programme|''Salyut'' stations]] and its only role was civilian-grade research tasks.<ref name=Harland2020 /><ref>{{cite wikisource |title=NASA FACTS/Russian Space Stations |publisher=NASA |date=January 1997 |id=IS-1997-06-004JSC}}</ref>
* Mir was the only orbital station in operation from 1986 to 1998. Gradually, other modules were added to it, including American ones. However, the station deteriorated rapidly after a fire on board, so in 2001 it was decided to bring it into the atmosphere where it burned down.<ref name=Harland2020>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Mir |last=Harland |first=David M. |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=28 January 2020 |access-date=22 January 2021 |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mir-Soviet-Russian-space-station |archive-date=1 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201090705/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mir-Soviet-Russian-space-station |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Economy ==
[[File:Gdp per capita 1965.png|thumb|upright=1.2|The Soviet Union in comparison to other countries by GDP (nominal) per capita in 1965 based on a West-German school book (1971)
{|width=100%
|-
|valign=top|
{{legend|#400082|&gt; 5,000 [[Finance:Deutsche Mark|DM]]}}
{{legend|#00BFFF|2,500–5,000 [[Finance:Deutsche Mark|DM]]}}
{{legend|#3CB371|1,000–2,500 [[Finance:Deutsche Mark|DM]]}}
|valign=top |
{{legend|#9ACD32|500–1,000 [[Finance:Deutsche Mark|DM]]}}
{{legend|#FFFF00|250–500 [[Finance:Deutsche Mark|DM]]}}
{{legend|#FFFACD|&lt; 250 [[Finance:Deutsche Mark|DM]]}}
|}]]
The Soviet Union adopted a command economy, whereby production and distribution of goods were centralized and directed by the government. The first Bolshevik experience with a command economy was the policy of War communism, which involved the nationalization of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, private enterprises and [[Finance:Free trade|free trade]]. After the severe economic collapse, Lenin replaced war communism by the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, legalizing free trade and private ownership of small businesses. The economy quickly recovered as a result.<ref name="gregory2004">{{cite book |author=Gregory, Paul R. |title=The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives |pages=218–20 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hFHU5kaXhu8C |isbn=978-0-521-53367-6|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512042222/http://books.google.com/books?id=hFHU5kaXhu8C&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

After a long debate among the members of the Politburo about the course of economic development, by 1928–1929, upon gaining control of the country, Stalin abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning, starting forced collectivization of agriculture and enacting draconian labor legislation. Resources were mobilized for rapid industrialization, which significantly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s.<ref name="gregory2004" /> The primary motivation for industrialization was preparation for war, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalist world.<ref>{{cite book |author=Mawdsley, Evan |page=30 |title=The Stalin Years: The Soviet Union, 1929–1953 |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1998 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-voAAAAIAAJ |isbn=978-0-7190-4600-1 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=21 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210321215327/https://books.google.com/books?id=m-voAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power, leading the way for its emergence as a superpower after [[Social:World War II|World War II]].<ref name="auto2">{{cite book |author1=Wheatcroft, S. G. |author2=Davies, R. W. |author3=Cooper, J. M. |pages=30–2 |title=Soviet Industrialization Reconsidered: Some Preliminary Conclusions about Economic Development between 1926 and 1941 |publisher=Economic History Review |year=1986 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-voAAAAIAAJ |isbn=978-0-7190-4600-1 |volume=39 |issue=2 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=21 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210321215327/https://books.google.com/books?id=m-voAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> The war caused extensive devastation of the Soviet economy and infrastructure, which required massive reconstruction.<ref>{{cite web |title=Reconstruction and Cold War |publisher=Library of Congress |url=http://countrystudies.us/russia/12.htm|access-date=23 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927170555/http://countrystudies.us/russia/12.htm|archive-date=27 September 2006|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:DneproGES 1947.JPG|thumb|left|The DneproGES, one of many hydroelectric power stations in the Soviet Union]]
By the early 1940s, the Soviet economy had become relatively [[Philosophy:Autarky|self-sufficient]]; for most of the period until the creation of Comecon, only a tiny share of domestic products was traded internationally.<ref name="foreign trade">{{cite web |title=Reconstruction and Cold War |publisher=Library of Congress Country Studies |url=http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0391%29|access-date=23 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309155830/http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+su0391%29|archive-date=9 March 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> After the creation of the Eastern Bloc, external trade rose rapidly. However, the influence of the [[Finance:World economy|world economy]] on the USSR was limited by fixed domestic prices and a state monopoly on [[Finance:Foreign trade of the Soviet Union|foreign trade]].<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Organization:International Monetary Fund|IMF]] and OECD |title=A Study of the Soviet Economy |volume=1 |publisher=[[Organization:International Monetary Fund|International Monetary Fund]] |year=1991 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ |page=9 |isbn=978-0-14-103797-4 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=11 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511090135/http://books.google.com/books?id=o8Z1QAAACAAJ&dq |url-status=live }}</ref> Grain and sophisticated consumer manufactures became major import articles from around the 1960s.<ref name="foreign trade" /> During the [[Engineering:Arms race|arms race]] of the Cold War, the Soviet economy was burdened by military expenditures, heavily lobbied for by a powerful bureaucracy dependent on the arms industry. At the same time, the USSR became the largest arms exporter to the [[Social:Third World|Third World]]. Significant amounts of Soviet resources during the Cold War were allocated in aid to the other [[Earth:Socialist state|socialist state]]s.<ref name="foreign trade" />

[[File:Armenian cotton.jpg|thumb|Picking cotton in Armenia in the 1930s]]
From the 1930s until its dissolution in late 1991, the way the Soviet economy operated remained essentially unchanged. The economy was formally directed by [[Social:Economic planning|central planning]], carried out by [[Social:Gosplan|Gosplan]] and organized in five-year plans. However, in practice, the plans were highly aggregated and provisional, subject to ''ad hoc'' intervention by superiors. All critical economic decisions were taken by the political leadership. Allocated resources and plan targets were usually denominated in rubles rather than in physical goods. Credit was discouraged, but widespread. The final allocation of output was achieved through relatively decentralized, unplanned contracting. Although in theory prices were legally set from above, in practice they were often negotiated, and informal horizontal links (e.g. between producer factories) were widespread.<ref name="gregory2004" />

A number of basic services were state-funded, such as education and health care. In the manufacturing sector, heavy industry and defence were prioritized over consumer goods.<ref name="economy" /> Consumer goods, particularly outside large cities, were often scarce, of poor quality and limited variety. Under the command economy, consumers had almost no influence on production, and the changing demands of a population with growing incomes could not be satisfied 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 grew up at low levels alongside the planned one, providing some of the goods and services that the planners could not. The legalization of some elements of the decentralized economy was attempted with the reform of 1965.<ref name="gregory2004" />

[[File:RIAN archive 633872 Workers of Soligorsk potash plant.jpg|thumb|upright|Workers of the Salihorsk potash plant, Belarus, 1968]]
Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its economic growth difficult to estimate precisely,<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1057/ces.1997.1 |author=Bergson, Abram |year=1997 |title=How Big was the Soviet GDP? |journal=Comparative Economic Studies |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |s2cid=155781882}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1080/09668139308412080 |author=Harrison, Mark |year=1993 |title=Soviet Economic Growth Since 1928: The Alternative Statistics of G. I. Khanin |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=141–167}}</ref> by most accounts, the economy continued to expand until the mid-1980s. During the 1950s and 1960s, it had comparatively high growth and was catching up to the West.<ref>{{cite book |author=Gvosdev, Nikolas |title=The Strange Death of Soviet communism: A Postscript |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=2008 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q_xTyZUEqkYC |isbn=978-1-4128-0698-5 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819204015/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q_xTyZUEqkYC |url-status=live }}</ref> However, after 1970, the growth, while still positive, steadily declined much more quickly and consistently than in other countries, despite a rapid increase in the capital [[Finance:Stock|stock]] (the rate of capital increase was only surpassed by Japan).<ref name="gregory2004" />
[[File:RIAN archive 878967 AvtoVAZ- Volga automaking plant in Togliatti, the Samara Region.jpg|thumb|left|Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod (VAZ) in 1969]]
Overall, the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1989 was slightly above the world average (based on 102 countries).{{sfn|Fischer|Easterly|1994|p=4}} A 1986 study published in the ''American Journal of Public Health'' claimed that, citing [[Organization:World Bank|World Bank]] data, the Soviet model provided a better [[Philosophy:Quality of life|quality of life]] and human development than market economies at the same level of economic development in most cases.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Cereseto|first=Shirley|date=June 1986|title=Economic Development, Political-Economic System, and the Physical Quality of Life|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=76|issue=6|pages=661–666|pmc=1646771|pmid=3706593|doi=10.2105/ajph.76.6.661}}</ref> According to [[Biography:Stanley Fischer|Stanley Fischer]] and William Easterly, growth could have been faster. By their calculation, per capita income in 1989 should have been twice higher than it was, considering the amount of investment, education and population. The authors attribute this poor performance to the low productivity of capital.{{sfn|Fischer|Easterly|1994|p=5}} Steven Rosefielde states that the [[Finance:Standard of living|standard of living]] declined due to Stalin's despotism. While there was a brief improvement after his death, it lapsed into stagnation.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rosefielde |first=Steven |year=1996 |title=Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labor and Economic Growth in the 1930s |pages=956–987 |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=48 |issue=6 |jstor=152635 |quote=The new evidence shows that administrative command planning and Stalin's forced industrialization strategies failed in the 1930s and beyond. The economic miracle chronicled in official hagiographies and until recently faithfully recounted in Western textbooks has no basis in fact. It is the statistical artefact not of index number relativity (the Gerschenkron effect) but of misapplying to the calculation of growth cost prices that do not accurately measure competitive value. The standard of living declined during the 1930s in response to Stalin's despotism, and after a brief improvement following his death, lapsed into stagnation. Glasnost and post-communist revelations interpreted as a whole thus provide no basis for Getty, Rittersporn & Zemskov's relatively favorable characterization of the methods, economic achievements and human costs of Stalinism. The evidence demonstrates that the suppression of markets and the oppression of vast segments of the population were economically counterproductive and humanly calamitous, just as anyone conversant with classical economic theory should have expected. |doi=10.1080/09668139608412393}}</ref>

In 1987, [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|Mikhail Gorbachev]] attempted to reform and revitalize the economy with his program of ''perestroika''. His policies relaxed state control over enterprises but did not replace it by market incentives, resulting in a sharp decline in output. The economy, already suffering from reduced petroleum export revenues, started to collapse. Prices were still fixed, and the property was still largely state-owned until after the country's dissolution.<ref name="gregory2004" /><ref name="hanson" /> For most of the period after World War II until its collapse, Soviet GDP ([[Purchasing power parity|PPP]]) was the second-largest in the world, and third during the second half of the 1980s,<ref>{{cite web |author=Central Intelligence Agency |title=GDP – Million 1990 |website=The World Factbook |year=1991 |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html|access-date=12 June 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151109124727/http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_million_1.html|archive-date=9 November 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> although on a per-capita basis, it was behind that of [[Finance:First World|First World]] countries.<ref>{{cite web |author=Central Intelligence Agency |title=GDP Per Capita – 1991 |website=The World Factbook |year=1992 |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1991/rankings/gdp_per_capita_0.html|access-date=12 June 2010|author-link=Central Intelligence Agency|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100819051611/http://www.theodora.com/wfb/1991/rankings/gdp_per_capita_0.html|archive-date=19 August 2010|url-status=live}}</ref> Compared to countries with similar per-capita GDP in 1928, the Soviet Union experienced significant growth.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://waitingforputney.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/a-beginners-guide-to-soviet-industrialization/ |title=A Beginner's Guide to Soviet Industrialization |date=28 October 2013 |website=Waiting for Putney|access-date=18 October 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019101414/https://waitingforputney.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/a-beginners-guide-to-soviet-industrialization/|archive-date=19 October 2016}}</ref>

In 1990, the country had a [[Engineering:Human Development Index|Human Development Index]] of 0.920, placing it in the "high" category of human development. It was the third-highest in the Eastern Bloc, behind Czechoslovakia and [[Place:East Germany|East Germany]], and the 25th in the world of 130 countries.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr1990 |title=Human Development Report 1990 {{!}} Human Development Reports|website=hdr.undp.org|year=1990|access-date=18 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019062220/http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr1990|archive-date=19 October 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Energy ===
[[File:1987 CPA 5858.jpg|thumb|Soviet stamp depicting the 30th anniversary of the [[Organization:International Atomic Energy Agency|International Atomic Energy Agency]], published in 1987, a year following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster]]
The need for fuel declined in the Soviet Union from the 1970s to the 1980s,<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|pp=105–108}}</ref> both per ruble of gross social product and per ruble of industrial product. At the start, this decline grew very rapidly but gradually slowed down between 1970 and 1975. From 1975 and 1980, it grew even slower,{{Clarify|date=March 2011}}<!--it grew or the decline grew? !--> only 2.6%.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|p=295}}</ref> David Wilson, a historian, believed that the gas industry would account for 40% of Soviet fuel production by the end of the century. His theory did not come to fruition because of the USSR's collapse.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|p=297}}</ref> The USSR, in theory, would have continued to have an economic growth rate of 2–2.5% during the 1990s because of Soviet energy fields.{{Clarify|date=March 2011}}<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|pp=297–99}}</ref> However, the energy sector faced many difficulties, among them the country's high military expenditure and hostile relations with the [[Finance:First World|First World]].<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|p=299}}</ref>

In 1991, the Soviet Union had a [[Physics:Pipeline transport|pipeline]] network of {{convert|82000|km|mi}} for [[Chemistry:Petroleum|crude oil]] and another {{convert|206500|km|mi}} for natural gas.<ref name="ciacom" /> Petroleum and petroleum-based products, natural gas, metals, wood, agricultural products, and a variety of manufactured goods, primarily machinery, arms and military equipment, were exported.<ref name="CIA">{{cite web |title=Soviet Union – Economy |author=Central Intelligence Agency |year=1992 |website=The World Factbook |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_economy.html|access-date=23 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101005005804/http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_economy.html|archive-date=5 October 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> In the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR heavily relied on fossil fuel exports to earn [[Finance:Hard currency|hard currency]].<ref name="foreign trade" /> At its peak in 1988, it was the largest producer and second-largest exporter of crude oil, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Hardt, John Pearce |author2=Hardt, John P. |title=Russia's Uncertain Economic Future: With a Comprehensive Subject Index |page=233 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvKF3PKGYAcC |isbn=978-0-7656-1208-3|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512044209/http://books.google.com/books?id=IvKF3PKGYAcC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Science and technology ===
[[File:Sputnik-stamp-ussr.jpg|thumb|upright|Soviet stamp showing the orbit of Sputnik 1]]
The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on science and technology within its economy,<ref name="science&technology">{{cite web |title=Science and Technology |publisher=Library of Congress Country Studies |url=http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0413%29|access-date=23 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+su0413%29|archive-date=4 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> however, the most remarkable Soviet successes in technology, such as producing the [[Engineering:Sputnik 1|world's first space satellite]], typically were the responsibility of the military.<ref name="economy">{{cite web |title=Economy |publisher=Library of Congress Country Studies |url=http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0009%29|access-date=23 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+su0009%29|archive-date=4 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> Lenin believed that the USSR would never overtake the developed world if it remained as technologically backward as it was upon its founding. Soviet authorities proved their commitment to Lenin's belief by developing massive networks, research and development organizations. In the early 1960s, the Soviets awarded 40% of chemistry PhDs to women, compared to only 5% in the United States.<ref>Rose Eveleth (12 December 2013). [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/soviet-russia-had-a-better-record-of-training-women-in-stem-than-america-does-today-180948141/?no-ist Soviet Russia Had a Better Record of Training Women in STEM Than America Does Today] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006112126/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/soviet-russia-had-a-better-record-of-training-women-in-stem-than-america-does-today-180948141/?no-ist |date=6 October 2014 }}. ''Smithsonian.com.'' Retrieved 26 June 2014.</ref> By 1989, Soviet scientists were among the world's best-trained specialists in several areas, such as Energy physics, selected areas of medicine, mathematics, welding and military technologies. Due to rigid state planning and bureaucracy, the Soviets remained far behind technologically in chemistry, biology, and computers when compared to the [[Finance:First World|First World]]. The Soviet government opposed and persecuted geneticists in favour of [[Biology:Lysenkoism|Lysenkoism]], a [[Unsolved:Pseudoscience|pseudoscience]] rejected by the scientific community in the Soviet Union and abroad but supported by Stalin's inner circles. Implemented in the USSR and China, it resulted in reduced crop yields and is widely believed to have contributed to the Great Chinese Famine.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Offord |title=Stamping Out Science, 1948 |journal=The Scientist |url=https://www.the-scientist.com/foundations/stamping-out-science-1948-68665 |access-date=20 September 2021 |archive-date=28 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210528184521/https://www.the-scientist.com/foundations/stamping-out-science-1948-68665 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Under the Reagan administration, Project Socrates determined that the Soviet Union addressed the acquisition of science and technology in a manner that was radically different from what the US was using. In the case of the US, economic prioritization was being used for indigenous [[Research and development|research and development]] as the means to acquire science and technology in both the private and public sectors. In contrast, the USSR was offensively and defensively maneuvering in the acquisition and use of the worldwide technology, to increase the competitive advantage that they acquired from the technology while preventing the US from acquiring a competitive advantage. However, technology-based planning was executed in a centralized, government-centric manner that greatly hindered its flexibility. This was exploited by the US to undermine the strength of the Soviet Union and thus foster its reform.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Global Tech Strategies Brought to U.S |journal=Washington Technology |date=3 May 1990 |first=Margo |last=MacFarland}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=R.A. |last=Deckert |title=The science of uncovering industrial information |date=10 October 1990 |work=Business Journal of the Treasure Coast}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=U.S. Firms Must Trade Short-Term Gains for Long-Term Technology Planning |date=7 March 1991 |work=Inside the Pentagon}}</ref>

=== Transport ===
[[File:Flag of the Aeroflot.svg|thumb|Aeroflot's flag during the Soviet era]]
Transport was a vital component of the country's economy. The economic centralization of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure on a massive scale, most notably the establishment of Aeroflot, an aviation enterprise.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Highman, Robert D.S. |author2=Greenwood, John T. |author3=Hardesty, Von |title=Russian Aviation and Air Power in the Twentieth Century |publisher=Routledge |year=1998 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cpynoFM-Jf4C |isbn=978-0-7146-4784-5 |page=134 |access-date=14 September 2017 |archive-date=16 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116193139/https://books.google.com/books?id=cpynoFM-Jf4C |url-status=live }}</ref> The country had a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air.<ref name=ciacom /> However, due to inadequate maintenance, much of the road, water and Soviet civil aviation transport were outdated and technologically backward compared to the First World.<ref name="twocerofive" />

Soviet rail transport was the largest and most intensively used in the world;<ref name="twocerofive">{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|p=205}}</ref> it was also better developed than most of its Western counterparts.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1983|p=201}}</ref> By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the burdens from the railways and to improve the Soviet [[Finance:Government budget|government budget]].<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 166–67.</ref> The [[Engineering:Street network|street network]] and automotive industry<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 168.</ref> remained underdeveloped,<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 165.</ref> and dirt roads were common outside major cities.<ref name="Ambler 1985, p. 167">Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 167.</ref> Soviet maintenance projects proved unable to take care of even 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 name="Ambler 1985, p. 167" /> Meanwhile, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than road construction.<ref>Ambler, Shaw and Symons 1985, p. 169.</ref> The underdeveloped road network led to a growing demand for public transport.<ref>[[Organization:International Monetary Fund|International Monetary Fund]] and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 1991, p. 56.</ref>

Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still{{when|date=February 2016}} riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making. Soviet authorities were unable to meet the growing demand for transport infrastructure and services.

The Soviet [[Engineering:Merchant navy|merchant navy]] was one of the largest in the world.<ref name="ciacom">{{cite web |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_communications.html |title=Soviet Union – Communications |author=Central Intelligence Agency |website=The World Factbook |year=1991 |access-date=20 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101005005759/http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_communications.html |archive-date=5 October 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Demographics ==
[[File:Population of former USSR.PNG|thumb|upright=1.1|Population of the Soviet Union (red) and the post-Soviet states (blue) from 1961 to 2009 as well as projection (dotted blue) from 2010 to 2100]]
Excess deaths throughout [[Social:World War I|World War I]] and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18&nbsp;million,<ref>{{cite book |author=Mark Harrison |title=Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940–1945 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yJcD7_Q_rQ8C&pg=PA167 |date=18 July 2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-89424-1 |page=167 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=17 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617211223/https://books.google.com/books?id=yJcD7_Q_rQ8C&pg=PA167 |url-status=live }}</ref> some 10&nbsp;million in the 1930s,<ref name="1930s" /> and more than 26&nbsp;million in 1941–1945. The postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50&nbsp;million smaller than it would have been if pre-war demographic growth had continued.<ref name="Geoffrey A. Hosking 2006 242">{{cite book |author=Geoffrey A. Hosking |title=Rulers and victims: the Russians in the Soviet Union |url=https://archive.org/details/rulersvictimsrus00hosk|url-access=registration |year=2006 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02178-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/rulersvictimsrus00hosk/page/242 242]}}</ref> According to Catherine Merridale, "...{{nbsp}}reasonable estimate would place the total number of excess deaths for the whole period somewhere around 60 million."<ref>{{cite book |author1=Jay Winter |author2=Emmanuel Sivan |title=War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZK2A5x7E8IkC&pg=PA64 |date=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-79436-7 |page=64|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZK2A5x7E8IkC&pg=PA64|archive-date=4 September 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

The [[Birth rate|birth rate]] of the USSR decreased from 44.0 per thousand in 1926 to 18.0 in 1974, mainly due to increasing urbanization and the rising average age of marriages. The [[Mortality rate|mortality rate]] demonstrated a gradual decrease as well – from 23.7 per thousand in 1926 to 8.7 in 1974. In general, the birth rates of the southern republics in Transcaucasia and Central Asia were considerably higher than those in the northern parts of the Soviet Union, and in some cases even increased in the post–World War II period, a phenomenon partly attributed to slower rates of urbanistion and traditionally earlier marriages in the southern republics.<ref name="GSE">{{cite book |author=Government of the USSR|script-title=ru:Большая советская энциклопедия |trans-title=Great Soviet Encyclopaedia |volume=24 |page=15 |year=1977 |location=Moscow |publisher=State Committee for Publishing |language=ru|author-link=Government of the USSR}}</ref> Soviet Europe moved towards sub-replacement fertility, while Soviet Central Asia continued to exhibit population growth well above replacement-level fertility.<ref>{{cite book |author=Anderson, Barbara A. |title=Growth and Diversity of the Population of the Soviet Union |volume=510 |pages=155–77 |year=1990 |publisher=Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences}}</ref>

The late 1960s and the 1970s witnessed a reversal of the declining trajectory of the rate of mortality in the USSR, and was especially notable among men of working age, but was also prevalent in Russia and other predominantly Slavic areas of the country.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Vallin, J. |author2=Chesnais, J.C. |title=Recent Developments of Mortality in Europe, English-Speaking Countries and the Soviet Union, 1960–1970 |volume=29 |pages=861–898 |year=1970 |publisher=Population Studies}}</ref> An analysis of the official data from the late 1980s showed that after worsening in the late-1970s and the early 1980s, adult mortality began to improve again.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ryan, Michael |title=Life Expectancy and Mortality Data from the Soviet Union |volume=296 |page=1,513–1515 |date=28 May 1988 |work=British Medical Journal}}</ref> The infant mortality rate increased from 24.7 in 1970 to 27.9 in 1974. Some researchers regarded the rise as mostly real, a consequence of worsening health conditions and services.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Davis, Christopher |author2=Feshbach, Murray |title=Rising Infant Mortality in the USSR in the 1970s |page=95 |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=United States Census Bureau}}</ref> The rises in both adult and infant mortality were not explained or defended by Soviet officials, and the Soviet government stopped publishing all mortality statistics for ten years. Soviet demographers and health specialists remained silent about the mortality increases until the late-1980s, when the publication of mortality data resumed, and researchers could delve into the real causes.<ref>{{cite book |author=Krimins, Juris |title=The Changing Mortality Patterns in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: Experience of the Past Three Decades |date=3–7 December 1990}} Paper presented at the International Conference on Health, Morbidity and Mortality by Cause of Death in Europe.</ref>

=== Women and fertility ===
[[File:RIAN archive 16735 Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.jpg|thumb|170px|Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, visiting the Lviv confectionery, Ukrainian SSR, 1967]]
Under Lenin, the state made explicit commitments to promote the equality of men and women. Many early Russian feminists and ordinary Russian working women actively participated in the Revolution, and many more were affected by the events of that period and the new policies. Beginning in October 1918, Lenin's government liberalized divorce and abortion laws, decriminalized homosexuality (re-criminalized in the 1930s), permitted cohabitation, and ushered in a host of reforms.<ref>Wendy Z. Goldman, ''Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993</ref> However, without birth control, the new system produced many broken marriages, as well as countless out-of-wedlock children.<ref>Richard Stites, ''The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930'' (1978)</ref> The epidemic of divorces and extramarital affairs created social hardships when Soviet leaders wanted people to concentrate their efforts on growing the economy. Giving women control over their fertility also led to a precipitous decline in the birth rate, perceived as a threat to their country's military power. By 1936, Stalin reversed most of the liberal laws, ushering in a pronatalist era that lasted for decades.<ref>Rebecca Balmas Neary, "Mothering Socialist Society: The Wife-Activists' Movement and the Soviet Culture of Daily Life, 1934–1941," ''Russian Review'' (58) 3, July 1999: 396–412</ref>

By 1917, Russia became the first [[Social:Great power|great power]] to grant women the right to vote.<ref>{{cite web |last=Figes |first=Orlando |title=From Tsar to U.S.S.R.: Russia's Chaotic Year of Revolution. |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/09-10/russian-revolution-history-lenin/ |website=National Geographic |publisher=National Geographic Society |access-date=28 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190322092654/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/09-10/russian-revolution-history-lenin/ |archive-date=22 March 2019 |url-status=live |date=25 October 2017}}</ref> After heavy casualties in World War I and II, women outnumbered men in Russia by a 4:3 ratio.<ref>{{cite web |last=Gao |first=George |title=Why the Former USSR Has Far Fewer Men than Women |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/14/why-the-former-ussr-has-far-fewer-men-than-women/ |website=Pew Research Center |publisher=Pew Research Center |access-date=28 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328231028/https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/14/why-the-former-ussr-has-far-fewer-men-than-women/ |archive-date=28 March 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> This contributed to the larger role women played in Russian society compared to other great powers at the time.

=== Education ===
[[File:Young Pioneers in Kazakh SSR.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Young Pioneers at a Young Pioneer camp in Kazakh SSR]]
Anatoly Lunacharsky became the first People's Commissar for Education of Soviet Russia. In the beginning, the Soviet authorities placed great emphasis on the elimination of illiteracy. All left-handed children were forced to write with their right hand in the Soviet school system.<ref>А.&nbsp;П.&nbsp;Чуприков, В.&nbsp;Д.&nbsp;Мишиев. // Латеральность населения СССР в конце 70-х и начале 80-х годов. К истории латеральной нейропсихологии и нейропсихиатрии. Хрестоматия. Донецк, 2010, 192 с.</ref><ref name="autogenerated2">А.&nbsp;П.&nbsp;Чуприков, Е.&nbsp;А.&nbsp;Волков. // Мир леворуких. Киев. 2008.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-03-27-1998086130-story.html |title=In Russia, left isn't quite right Handedness: The official Moscow line is that lefties are OK, but suspicion of those who are different persists from the old Soviet days. |last=Englund |first=Will |website=baltimoresun.com|access-date=24 June 2019|archive-date=24 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190624220243/https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-03-27-1998086130-story.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite report |url=https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/21/contribution/38628/ |title=Wrong Hand/Wrong Children: Education of Left Handed Children in the Soviet Union |first1=Linda |last1=Daniela |first2=Zanda |last2=Rubene |first3=Dace |last3=Medne |date=23 August 2016 |website=European Educational Research Association |access-date=24 June 2019 |archive-date=13 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013124517/https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/21/contribution/38628/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Literate people were automatically hired as teachers. {{citation needed|date=May 2017}} For a short period, quality was sacrificed for quantity. By 1940, Stalin could announce that illiteracy had been eliminated. Throughout the 1930s, [[Social:Social mobility|social mobility]] rose sharply, which has been attributed to reforms in education.<ref>Sheila Fitzpatrick, ''[http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/education-and-social-mobility-soviet-union-19211934 Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141118133419/http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/education-and-social-mobility-soviet-union-19211934 |date=18 November 2014 }}'', {{wipe|Cambridge University Press}} (16 May 2002), {{ISBN|0-521-89423-9}}</ref> In the aftermath of World War II, the country's educational system expanded dramatically, which had a tremendous effect. In the 1960s, nearly all children had access to education, the only exception being those living in remote areas. Nikita Khrushchev tried to make education more accessible, making it clear to children that education was closely linked to the needs of society. Education also became important in giving rise to the New Man.<ref>{{cite book |last=Law |first=David A. |title=Russian Civilization |publisher=Ardent Media |year=1975 |pages=300–1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f3ky9qBavl4C |isbn=978-0-8422-0529-0 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512055909/http://books.google.com/books?id=f3ky9qBavl4C&dq |archive-date=12 May 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> Citizens directly entering the workforce had the constitutional right to a job and to free vocational training.

The education system was highly centralized and universally accessible to all citizens, with [[Social:Affirmative action|affirmative action]] for applicants from nations associated with cultural backwardness. However, as part of the general antisemitic policy, an unofficial Jewish quota was applied{{when|date=July 2019}} in the leading institutions of higher education by subjecting Jewish applicants to harsher entrance examinations.<ref>{{cite book |editor=[[Biography:Mikhail Shifman|Mikhail Shifman]] |title=You Failed Your Math Test, Comrade Einstein: Adventures and Misadventures of Young Mathematicians Or Test Your Skills in Almost Recreational Mathematics |publisher=World Scientific |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ho6fMF8ehogC |isbn=978-981-270-116-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Edward Frenkel |title=The Fifth problem: math & anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union |date=October 2012 |journal=The New Criterion |url=http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446|access-date=12 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151207161404/http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446|archive-date=7 December 2015|url-status=live|author-link=Edward Frenkel}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-more-migrants-please-especially-the-clever-ones-2368622.html |location=London |work=The Independent |date=11 October 2011 |title=More migrants please, especially the clever ones |author=Dominic Lawson|access-date=14 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204140558/http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-more-migrants-please-especially-the-clever-ones-2368622.html|archive-date=4 February 2012|url-status=live|author-link=Dominic Lawson}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Andre Geim |title=Biographical |publisher=Nobelprize.org |date=2010 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2010/geim-bio.html|access-date=14 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170616114451/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2010/geim-bio.html|archive-date=16 June 2017|url-status=live|author-link=Andre Geim}}</ref> The Brezhnev era also introduced a rule that required all university applicants to present a reference from the local Komsomol party secretary.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shlapentokh |first=Vladimir |title=Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: The Post-Stalin Era |page=26 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=1990 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7VFqqE5995UC |isbn=978-1-85043-284-5 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512041316/http://books.google.com/books?id=7VFqqE5995UC&dq |archive-date=12 May 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to statistics from 1986, the number of higher education students per the population of 10,000 was 181 for the USSR, compared to 517 for the US.<ref name="education">{{cite book |last=Pejovich |first=Svetozar |title=The Economics of Property Rights: Towards a Theory of Comparative Systems |page=130 |year=1990 |publisher=[[Company:Springer Science+Business Media|Springer Science+Business Media]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ocQKHRReKdcC |isbn=978-0-7923-0878-2 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=17 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617225600/https://books.google.com/books?id=ocQKHRReKdcC |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Nationalities and ethnic groups ===
[[File:Samarkand-1981-0013.JPG|thumb|upright=0.9|People in [[Place:Samarkand|Samarkand]], Uzbek SSR, 1981]]
[[File:Mestia, Svaneti. October 30, 1929.JPG|thumb|upright=0.9|Svaneti man in Mestia, Georgian SSR, 1929]]
The Soviet Union was an ethnically diverse country, with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups. The total population of the country was estimated at 293&nbsp;million in 1991. According to a 1990 estimate, the majority of the population were Russians (50.78%), followed by Ukrainians (15.45%) and Uzbeks (5.84%).<ref name="cia">{{cite web |url=http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_people.html |title=Soviet Union – People |author=Central Intelligence Agency |website=The World Factbook |year=1991 |access-date=25 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101004135453/http://www.theodora.com/wfb1991/soviet_union/soviet_union_people.html |archive-date=4 October 2010 |url-status=live}}</ref> Overall, in 1989 the ethnic demography of the country showed that 69.8% was East Slavic, 17.5% was Turkic, 1.6% were Armenians, 1.6% were Balts, 1.5% were Finnic, 1.5% were Tajik, 1.4% were Georgian, 1.2% were Moldovan and 4.1% were of other various ethnic groups.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Демоскоп Weekly – Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей |url=http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/sng_nac_89.php}}</ref>

All citizens of the USSR had their own ethnic affiliation. The ethnicity of a person was chosen at the age of sixteen by the child's parents.{{sfn|Comrie|1981|p=2}} If the parents did not agree, the child was automatically assigned the ethnicity of the father. Partly due to Soviet policies, some of the smaller minority ethnic groups were considered part of larger ones, such as the Mingrelians of Georgia, who were classified with the linguistically related Georgians.<ref>{{harvnb|Comrie|1981|p=3}}</ref> Some ethnic groups voluntarily assimilated, while others were brought in by force. Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, who were all East Slavic and Orthodox, shared close cultural, ethnic, and religious ties, while other groups did not. With multiple nationalities living in the same territory, ethnic antagonisms developed over the years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historytoday.com/geoffrey-hosking/rulers-and-victims-russians-soviet-union |title=Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union |author=Hosking, Geoffrey |date=13 March 2006 |website=History Today |access-date=25 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501085443/http://www.historytoday.com/geoffrey-hosking/rulers-and-victims-russians-soviet-union |archive-date=1 May 2011 |url-status=live}} (pay-fee)</ref>{{POV statement|date=February 2013}}

Members of various ethnicities participated in legislative bodies. Organs of power like the Politburo, the Secretariat of the Central Committee etc., were formally ethnically neutral, but in reality, ethnic Russians were overrepresented, although there were also non-Russian leaders in the Soviet leadership, such as {{wipe|Joseph Stalin}}, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Podgorny or Andrei Gromyko. During the Soviet era, a significant number of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians migrated to other Soviet republics, and many of them settled there. According to the last census in 1989, the Russian "diaspora" in the Soviet republics had reached 25&nbsp;million.<ref>Pål Kolstø, "Political construction sites:  Nation-building in Russia and the post-Soviet States". Boulder, Colorado: Westview press 2000, pp. 81–104
uncorrected version, [https://folk.uio.no/palk/ch02.htm Chapter 2, par. "Nations and Nation-Building in Eastern Europe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219130957/http://folk.uio.no/palk/ch02.htm |date=19 December 2017 }} and [https://folk.uio.no/palk/PCSch05russian%20diasporas.htm Chapter 5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050102081015/http://folk.uio.no/palk/PCSch05russian%20diasporas.htm |date=2 January 2005 }}</ref>

<gallery widths="300" heights="300">
File:Ethnic map USSR 1941.jpg|Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union, 1941
File:Map of the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union.png|Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union, 1970
</gallery>

=== Health ===
[[File:RussianAbortionPoster.jpg|thumb|An early Soviet-era poster discouraging unsafe abortion practices]]
In 1917, before the revolution, health conditions were significantly behind those of developed countries. As Lenin later noted, "Either the lice will defeat socialism, or socialism will defeat the lice".<ref name="lane">{{harvnb|Lane|1992|p=353}}</ref> The Soviet principle of health care was conceived by the People's Commissariat for Health in 1918. Health care was to be controlled by the state and would be provided to its citizens free of charge, a revolutionary concept at the time. Article 42 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution gave all citizens the right to health protection and free access to any health institutions in the USSR. Before Leonid Brezhnev became general secretary, the Soviet healthcare system was held in high esteem by many foreign specialists. This changed, however, from Brezhnev's accession and [[Biography:Mikhail Gorbachev|Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s tenure as leader, during which the health care system was heavily criticized for many basic faults, such as the quality of service and the unevenness in its provision.<ref>{{harvnb|Lane|1992|p=352}}</ref> Minister of Health Yevgeniy Chazov, during the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while highlighting such successes as having the most doctors and hospitals in the world, recognized the system's areas for improvement and felt that billions of rubles were squandered.<ref>{{harvnb|Lane|1992|pp=352–53}}</ref> <!-- Billions in the previous line was prior milliard, but was changed according to WP:MOSNUM. Don't be fooled by the surrounding British English. I checked the rest of the article: All other named numbers were either "million" (same on both scales) or "trillion USD", where a value of $10^18 is completely implausible. -->

After the revolution, life expectancy for all age groups went up. This statistic in itself was seen by some that the [[Philosophy:Socialist mode of production|socialist system]] was superior to the [[Philosophy:Capitalism|capitalist system]]. These improvements continued into the 1960s when statistics indicated that the life expectancy briefly surpassed that of the United States. Life expectancy started to decline in the 1970s, possibly because of alcohol abuse. At the same time, infant mortality began to rise. After 1974, the government stopped publishing statistics on the matter. This trend can be partly explained by the number of pregnancies rising drastically in the Asian part of the country where infant mortality was the highest while declining markedly in the more developed European part of the Soviet Union.<ref name="SeemingParadox">{{cite journal |author=Dinkel, R.H. |title=The Seeming Paradox of Increasing Mortality in a Highly Industrialized Nation: the Example of the Soviet Union |journal=Population Studies |pages=155–77 |year=1990 |volume=39 |issue=1 |doi=10.1080/0032472031000141296 |pmid=11611752}}</ref>

==== Dentistry ====
Soviet dental technology and dental health were considered notoriously bad. In 1991, the average 35-year-old had 12 to 14 cavities, fillings or missing teeth. Toothpaste was often not available, and toothbrushes did not conform to standards of modern dentistry.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Niedowski |title=Dentistry in Russia is finally leaving the Dark Ages behind |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-03-04-0703040477-story.html |agency=Chicago Tribune |date=2007 |access-date=30 April 2021 |archive-date=5 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210405013455/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-03-04-0703040477-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ferber & Bedrick |title=Dental survey of 620 Soviet immigrants |journal=JADA |date=1979 |volume=98 |issue=3 |pages=379–383 |pmid=283158 |url=https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(79)83017-2/pdf |access-date=14 July 2021 |archive-date=24 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221556/https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177%2879%2983017-2/pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Language ===
Under Lenin, the government gave small language groups their own writing systems.<ref>{{harvnb|Comrie|1981|pp=3–4}}</ref> The development of these writing systems was highly successful, even though some flaws were detected. During the later days of the USSR, countries with the same multilingual situation implemented similar policies. A serious problem when creating these writing systems was that the languages differed [[Social:Dialect|dialect]]ally greatly from each other.<ref>{{harvnb|Comrie|1981|p=4}}</ref> When a language had been given a writing system and appeared in a notable publication, it would attain "official language" status. There were many minority languages which never received their own writing system; therefore, their speakers were forced to have a second language.<ref>{{harvnb|Comrie|1981|p=25}}</ref> There are examples where the government retreated from this policy, most notably under Stalin where education was discontinued in languages that were not widespread. These languages were then assimilated into another language, mostly Russian.<ref>{{harvnb|Comrie|1981|p=26}}</ref> During World War II, some minority languages were banned, and their speakers accused of collaborating with the enemy.<ref>{{harvnb|Comrie|1981|p=27}}</ref>

As the most widely spoken of the Soviet Union's many languages, Russian ''de facto'' functioned as an official language, as the "language of interethnic communication" ({{lang-ru|link=no|язык межнационального общения}}), but only assumed the ''de jure'' status as the official national language in 1990.<ref>{{cite web|script-title=ru:ЗАКОН СССР ОТ 24 April 1990 О ЯЗЫКАХ НАРОДОВ СССР |publisher=Government of the Soviet Union |date=24 April 1990 |url=http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm|trans-title=Law of the USSR from 24 April 1990 on languages of the USSR|access-date=24 October 2010 |language=ru|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508201331/http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm|archive-date=8 May 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Religion ===
[[File:Bezbozhnik u stanka 22-1929.jpg|thumb|left|Cover of Bezbozhnik in 1929, magazine of the Society of the Godless. The first five-year plan of the Soviet Union is shown crushing the gods of the Abrahamic religions.]]
[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow during its demolition in 1931]]
[[File:Hujum.png|thumb|A paranja burning ceremony in the Uzbek SSR as part of Soviet Hujum policies]]
[[Religion:Christianity|Christianity]] and [[Religion:Islam|Islam]] had the highest number of adherents among the religious citizens.<ref name="dailylife">{{cite book |author=Eaton, Katherine Bliss |title=Daily life in the Soviet Union |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2004 |url=https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinsovie00eato|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-313-31628-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinsovie00eato/page/285 285] and 286|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref> [[Religion:Eastern Christianity|Eastern Christianity]] predominated among Christians, with Russia's traditional [[Religion:Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Orthodox Church]] being the largest Christian denomination. About 90% of the Soviet Union's Muslims were Sunnis, with Shias being concentrated in the Azerbaijan SSR.<ref name="dailylife" /> Smaller groups included [[Organization:Catholic Church|Roman Catholics]], Jews, [[Religion:Buddhism|Buddhists]], and a variety of Protestant denominations (especially [[Religion:Baptists|Baptists]] and Lutherans).<ref name="dailylife" />

Religious influence had been strong in the Russian Empire. The Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed a privileged status as the church of the monarchy and took part in carrying out official state functions.<ref name="Simkin 2003">{{cite book |author=Silvio Ferrari |author2=W. Cole Durham |author3=Elizabeth A. Sewell |title=Law and religion in post-communist Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QEucgny-0k4C |year=2003 |publisher=Peeters Pub & Booksellers |isbn=978-90-429-1262-5 |page=261 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=22 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622083150/https://books.google.com/books?id=QEucgny-0k4C |url-status=live }}</ref> The immediate period following the establishment of the Soviet state included a struggle against the Orthodox Church, which the revolutionaries considered an ally of the former [[Ruling class|ruling class]]es.<ref name="Simon 1974, 64-65">{{harvnb|Simon|1974|pp=64–65}}</ref>

In Soviet law, the "freedom to hold religious services" was constitutionally guaranteed, although the ruling Communist Party regarded religion as incompatible with the [[Philosophy:Marxism|Marxist]] spirit of [[Metaphysical naturalism|scientific materialism]].<ref name="Simon 1974, 64-65" /> In practice, the Soviet system subscribed to a narrow interpretation of this right, and in fact used a range of official measures to discourage religion and curb the activities of religious groups.<ref name="Simon 1974, 64-65" />

The 1918 Council of People's Commissars decree establishing the Russian SFSR as a secular state also decreed that "the teaching of religion in all [places] where subjects of general instruction are taught, is forbidden. Citizens may teach and may be taught religion privately."<ref name="Simon 1974, 209">{{harvnb|Simon|1974|p=209}}</ref> Among further restrictions, those adopted in 1929 included express prohibitions on a range of church activities, including meetings for organized [[Religion:Bible study (Christian)|Bible study]].<ref name="Simon 1974, 64-65" /> Both Christian and non-Christian establishments were shut down by the thousands in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1940, as many as 90% of the churches, synagogues, and mosques that had been operating in 1917 were closed.<ref name="Atwood 2001, 311">{{cite book |author=Atwood, Craig D. |title=Always Reforming: A History of Christianity Since 1300 |location=Macon, Georgia |publisher=Mercer University Press |year=2001 |url=https://archive.org/details/alwaysreformingh0000atwo|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-86554-679-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/alwaysreformingh0000atwo/page/311 311]|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref>

The Soviet Union was officially a [[Philosophy:Secular state|secular state]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html |title=ARTICLE 124.  |access-date=4 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190102163245/http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html |archive-date=2 January 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html |title=Article 52.  |access-date=4 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190216062245/http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html |archive-date=16 February 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> but a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism" was conducted under the doctrine of [[Philosophy:State atheism|state atheism]].<ref>Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival, by Christopher Marsh, page 47. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.</ref><ref>Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History, by Dilip Hiro. Penguin, 2009.</ref><ref name="Adappur2000">{{cite book |last=Adappur |first=Abraham |title=Religion and the Cultural Crisis in India and the West |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=44DYAAAAMAAJ|access-date=14 July 2016 |year=2000 |publisher=Intercultural Publications |isbn=978-81-85574-47-9 |quote=Forced Conversion under Atheistic Regimes: It might be added that the most modern example of forced "conversions" came not from any theocratic state, but from a professedly atheist government – that of the Soviet Union under the Communists.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170314065732/https://books.google.com/books?id=44DYAAAAMAAJ|archive-date=14 March 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> The government 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.<ref>USGOV1</ref> In 1925, the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the propaganda campaign.<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.494"</ref> Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the formal structures and mass media, and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious. While persecution accelerated following Stalin's rise to power, a revival of Orthodoxy was fostered by the government during World War II and the Soviet authorities sought to control the Russian Orthodox Church rather than liquidate 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 before World War I.

Convinced that religious anti-Sovietism had become a thing of the past, and with the looming threat of war, the Stalin regime began shifting to a more moderate religion policy in the late 1930s.<ref name="Janz 1998, 38-39">{{harvnb|Janz|1998|pp=38–39}}</ref> Soviet religious establishments overwhelmingly rallied to support the war effort during World War II. Amid other accommodations to religious faith after the German invasion, churches were reopened. Radio Moscow began broadcasting a religious hour, and a historic meeting between Stalin and Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Sergius of Moscow was held in 1943. Stalin had the support of the majority of the religious people in the USSR even through the late 1980s.<ref name="Janz 1998, 38-39" /> The general tendency of this period was an increase in religious activity among believers of all faiths.<ref name="Ro'i 1995, 263">{{cite book |author=Ro'i, Yaacov |title=Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union |location=London |publisher=Frank Cass |year=1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJBH5pxzSyMC |isbn=978-0-7146-4619-0 |page=263|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512055620/http://books.google.com/books?id=bJBH5pxzSyMC|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

Under Nikita Khrushchev, the state leadership clashed with the churches in 1958–1964, a period when [[Philosophy:Atheism|atheism]] was emphasized in the educational curriculum, and numerous state publications promoted atheistic views.<ref name="Janz 1998, 38-39" /> During this period, the number of churches fell from 20,000 to 10,000 from 1959 to 1965, and the number of synagogues dropped from 500 to 97.<ref name="Nahaylo & Swoboda 1990, 144">{{cite book |author1=Nahaylo, Bohdan |author2=Victor Swoboda|name-list-style=amp |title=Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR |location=London |publisher=Hamish Hamilton |year=1990 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrG7vrPue4wC |isbn=978-0-02-922401-4 |page=144|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512050225/http://books.google.com/books?id=ZrG7vrPue4wC|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> The number of working mosques also declined, falling from 1,500 to 500 within a decade.<ref name="Nahaylo & Swoboda 1990, 144" />

Religious institutions remained monitored by the Soviet government, but churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques were all given more leeway in the Brezhnev era.<ref name="Steinberg & Wanner 2008,">{{cite book |author=Mark D. Steinberg |author2=Catherine Wanner |title=Religion, morality, and community in post-Soviet societies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LR6X3EY8oPIC |date=October 2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-22038-7 |page=6 |access-date=25 May 2020 |archive-date=17 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617211211/https://books.google.com/books?id=LR6X3EY8oPIC |url-status=live }}</ref> Official relations between the Orthodox Church and the government again warmed to the point that the Brezhnev government twice honored Orthodox Patriarch Alexy I with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.<ref name="Janz 1998, 42">{{harvnb|Janz|1998|p=42}}</ref> A poll conducted by Soviet authorities in 1982 recorded 20% of the Soviet population as "active religious believers."<ref name="subculture">{{cite book |author1=McKay, George |author2=Williams, Christopher |title=Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East-Central Europe |publisher=Peter Lang |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpNBm-z7aOYC |isbn=978-3-03911-921-9 |pages=231–32|access-date=20 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512035801/http://books.google.com/books?id=xpNBm-z7aOYC&dq|archive-date=12 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Legacy ==
[[File:World War II military deaths in Europe by theater and by year.png|thumb|300px|World War II military deaths in Europe by theater and by year. Nazi Germany suffered 80% of its military deaths in the Eastern Front.<ref>{{cite book |last=Duiker |first=William J. |title=Contemporary World History |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd0bCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT159 |edition=sixth |year=2015 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-285-44790-2 |page=138 |chapter=The Crisis Deepens: The Outbreak of World War II |access-date=16 December 2020 |archive-date=2 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210202093539/https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd0bCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT159 |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
The legacy of the USSR remains a controversial topic. The socio-economic nature of [[Social:Communist state|communist state]]s such as the USSR, especially under Stalin, has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of [[Organization:Bureaucratic collectivism|bureaucratic collectivism]], [[Social:State capitalism|state capitalism]], [[Philosophy:State socialism|state socialism]], or a totally unique [[Social:Mode of production|mode of production]].<ref>Sandle, Mark (1999). ''A Short History of Soviet Socialism''. London: UCL Press. pp. 265–266. {{doi|10.4324/9780203500279}}. {{ISBN|978-1-85728-355-6}}.</ref>
The USSR implemented a broad range of policies over a long period of time, with a large amount of conflicting policies being implemented by different leaders. Some have a positive view of it whilst others are critical towards the country, calling it a repressive [[Philosophy:Oligarchy|oligarchy]].<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/slavic-review/article/ussr-oligarchy-or-dictatorship/F1160FECB8F85CC44E9765233D6BF16E |title=The USSR: Oligarchy or Dictatorship? |first=Robert G. |last=Wesson |date=26 June 1972 |journal=Slavic Review |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=314–322 |via=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.2307/2494336 |jstor=2494336 |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=25 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825043408/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/slavic-review/article/ussr-oligarchy-or-dictatorship/F1160FECB8F85CC44E9765233D6BF16E |url-status=live }}</ref> The opinions on the USSR are complex and have changed over time, with different generations having different views on the matter as well as on Soviet policies corresponding to separate time periods during its history.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232446718 |journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |date=December 1985 |volume=49 |issue=6 |pages=1565–85 |title=Integrative Complexity of American and Soviet Foreign Policy Rhetoric: A Time Series Analysis |first=Philip E. |last=Tetlock |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.49.6.1565 |access-date=4 December 2020 |archive-date=24 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221555/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232446718_Integrative_Complexity_of_American_and_Soviet_Foreign_Policy_Rhetoric_A_Time-Series_Analysis |url-status=live }}</ref> Leftists have largely varying views on the USSR. Whilst some leftists such as anarchists and other libertarian socialists, agree it did not give the workers control over the [[Social:Means of production|means of production]] and was a centralized oligarchy, others have more positive opinions as to the Bolshevik policies and [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]]. Many [[Social:Anti-Stalinist left|anti-Stalinist left]]ists such as anarchists are extremely critical of Soviet authoritarianism and repression. Much of the criticism it receives is centered around massacres in the Soviet Union, the centralized [[Hierarchy|hierarchy]] present in the USSR and mass political repression as well as violence towards government critics and political dissidents such as other leftists. Critics also point towards its failure to implement any substantial worker cooperatives or implementing worker liberation as well as corruption and the Soviet authoritarian nature.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/messages/downloadsexceeded.html |title=Download Limit Exceeded |website=citeseerx.ist.psu.edu |access-date=26 October 2020 |archive-date=23 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123045528/http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/messages/downloadsexceeded.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Stamp of Moldova md383.jpg|thumb|2001 stamp of Moldova shows Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space]]
Many Russians and other former Soviet citizens have nostalgia for the USSR, pointing towards most infrastructure being built during Soviet times, increased job security, increased literacy rate, increased caloric intake and supposed ethnic pluralism enacted in the Soviet Union as well as political stability. The Russian Revolution is also seen in a positive light as well as the leadership of Lenin, Nikita Khrushchev and the later USSR, although many view {{wipe|Joseph Stalin}}'s rule as positive for the country.<ref>{{cite news |last=Arkhipov |first=Ilya |date=16 April 2019 |title=Russian Support for Stalin Surges to Record High, Poll Says |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/russian-support-for-soviet-tyrant-stalin-hits-record-poll-shows |work=Bloomberg |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=3 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003223316/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/russian-support-for-soviet-tyrant-stalin-hits-record-poll-shows |url-status=live }}</ref> In [[Place:Armenia|Armenia]], 12% of respondents said the USSR collapse did good, while 66% said it did harm. In Kyrgyzstan, 16% of respondents said the collapse of the USSR did good, while 61% said it did harm.<ref>{{cite web |title=Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup |date=19 December 2013 |url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx |publisher=Gallup |access-date=19 December 2013 |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111230251/https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> In a 2018 Rating Sociological Group poll, 47% of Ukrainian respondents had a positive opinion of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982.<ref>{{cite news |title=Survey shows Ukrainians most negatively regard Stalin, Lenin and Gorbachev |url=https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/survey-shows-ukrainians-most-negatively-regard-stalin-lenin-and-gorbachev.html |work=Kyiv Post |date=20 November 2018 |access-date=9 December 2020 |archive-date=8 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108124647/https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/survey-shows-ukrainians-most-negatively-regard-stalin-lenin-and-gorbachev.html |url-status=live }}</ref> A 2021 poll conducted by the Levada Center found that 49% of Russians prefer the USSR's political system, while 18% prefer the current political system and 16% would prefer a Western Democracy. A further 62% of people polled preferred the Soviet system of central planning, while 24% prefer a market-based system.<ref>{{Cite web |date=November 2021 |title=What Should Russia be in the View of Russians? |url=https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/ |access-date=4 March 2022 |website=Levada Center |archive-date=5 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305061703/https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Much of the admiration of the USSR comes from the failings of the modern post-Soviet governments such as the control by oligarchs, corruption and outdated Soviet-era infrastructure as well as the rise and dominance of organised crime after the dissolution of the Soviet Union all directly leading into nostalgia for it.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://faculty.fordham.edu/onikolayenko/Nikolayenko%20ComPostCom2008.pdf |title=Contextual effects on historical memory: Soviet nostalgia among post-Soviet adolescents |first=Olena |last=Nikolayenko |journal=Communist and Post-Communist Studies |volume=41 |issue=2 |date=June 2008 |pages=243–259 |publisher=Elsevier Ltd |doi=10.1016/j.postcomstud.2008.03.001 |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=5 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105114431/https://faculty.fordham.edu/onikolayenko/Nikolayenko%20ComPostCom2008.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

The 1941–1945 period of World War&nbsp;II is still known in Russia as the "Great Patriotic War". The war became a topic of great importance in cinema, literature, history lessons at school, the mass media, and the arts. As a result of the massive losses suffered by the military and civilians during the conflict, Victory Day celebrated on 9 May is still one of the most important and emotional dates in Russia.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ločmele |first1=K. |last2=Procevska |first2=O. |last3=Zelče |first3=V. |year=2011 |title=Celebrations, Commemorative Dates and Related Rituals: Soviet Experience, its Transformation and Contemporary Victory Day Celebrations in Russia and Latvia |editor-last=Muižnieks |editor-first=Nils |work=The Geopolitics of History in Latvian-Russian Relations |location=Riga |publisher=Academic Press of the University of Latvia |url=https://www.szf.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/szf_faili/Petnieciba/sppi/lat_un_starp/The%20Geopolitics%20of%20History%20in%20Latvian-Russian%20Relations.pdf |access-date=9 December 2020 |archive-date=2 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210702115233/https://www.szf.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/szf_faili/Petnieciba/sppi/lat_un_starp/The%20Geopolitics%20of%20History%20in%20Latvian-Russian%20Relations.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== In the former Soviet Republics ===
[[File:2018-05-09. День Победы в Донецке f171.jpg|thumb|People in Donetsk celebrate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, 9 May 2018]]
In some post Soviet republics, there is a more negative view of the USSR, although there is no unanimity on the matter. In large part due to the Holodomor, ethnic Ukrainians have a negative view of it.<ref>{{Cite thesis |url=http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/25786 |title=Making Sense of Suffering : Holocaust and Holodomor in Ukrainian Historical Culture |first=Johan |last=Dietsch |date=26 October 2006 |publisher=Lund University |type=thesis/docmono |via=lup.lub.lu.se |access-date=26 October 2020 |archive-date=24 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221612/https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/25786 |url-status=live }}</ref> Russian-speaking Ukrainians of Ukraine's southern and eastern regions have a more positive view of the USSR. In some countries with internal conflict, there is also nostalgia for the USSR, especially for refugees of the post-Soviet conflicts who have been forced to flee their homes and have been displaced. This nostalgia is less an admiration for the country or its policies than it is a longing to return to their homes and not to live in poverty. The many Russian enclaves in the former USSR republics such as Transnistria have in a general a positive remembrance of it.<ref>{{Cite thesis |url=https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=5289947 |title=Nostalgia and discontinuity of life: A multiple case study of older ex-Soviet refugees seeking psychotherapeutic help for immigration-related problems. |type=PhD |first=A. V. |last=Zinchenko |date=26 October 2003 |pages=1 |via=eLibrary.ru |access-date=26 October 2020 |archive-date=24 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221600/https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=5289947 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== By the political left ===
The left's view of the USSR is complex. While some leftists regard the USSR as an example of state capitalism or that it was an oligarchical state, other leftists admire [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]] and the Russian Revolution.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=History of Economics Review |title='State Capitalism' in the Soviet Union |first1=M.C. |last1=Howard |first2=J.E. |last2=King |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.691.8154&rep=rep1&type=pdf |doi=10.1080/10370196.2001.11733360 |volume=34 |year=2001 |issue=1 |pages=110–126 |citeseerx=10.1.1.691.8154 |s2cid=42809979 |via=CiteSeer |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=18 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818055829/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.691.8154&rep=rep1&type=pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Council communists generally view the USSR as failing to create [[Philosophy:Class consciousness|class consciousness]], turning into a corrupt state in which the elite controlled society. 

Anarchists are also critical of the country, labeling the Soviet system as ''red fascism''. Factors contributing to the anarchist animosity towards the USSR included the Soviet attacks against the Makhnovist movement after an initial alliance, the suppression of the anarchist Kronstadt rebellion, and the defeat of the rival anarchist factions by the Soviet-supported Communist faction during the Spanish Civil War.<ref>{{cite book |title=ABC of Anarchism |orig-year=1942 |first=Alexander |last=Berkman |url=http://assets.zinedistro.org/zines/pdfs/116.pdf |publisher=Freedom Press |year=2006 |isbn=0-900384-03-4 |via=Zine Distro |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=5 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105124142/http://assets.zinedistro.org/zines/pdfs/116.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

Maoists also have a mixed opinion on the USSR, viewing it negatively during the Sino-Soviet Split and denouncing it as revisionist and reverted to capitalism. The Chinese government in 1963 articulated its criticism of the USSR's system and promoted China's ideological line as an alternative<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sino-soviet-split/cpc/proposal.htm|title=A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement|website=marxists.org|access-date=24 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160131074829/https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sino-soviet-split/cpc/proposal.htm|archive-date=31 January 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/polemics/sevenlet.html |title=Seven Letters Exchanged Between the Central Committees of the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union |access-date=21 October 2007 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225024740/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/polemics/sevenlet.html |archive-date=25 December 2007 |website=Etext Archives }}</ref>

== Culture ==
[[File:Марш энтузиастов.ogg|thumb|The "Enthusiast's March", a 1930s song famous in the Soviet Union]]
[[File:Vladimir Vysotsky.jpg|thumb|upright|Soviet singer-songwriter, poet and actor Vladimir Vysotsky in 1979]]
The culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the USSR's existence. During the first decade following the revolution, there was relative freedom and artists experimented with several different styles 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, such as Nikolay Gumilyov who was shot for alleged conspiring against the Bolshevik regime, and Yevgeny Zamyatin.<ref>'On the other hand{{nbsp}}...' 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 Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Mayakovsky were active during this time. As a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, films received encouragement from the state, and much of director Sergei Eisenstein's best work dates from this period.

During Stalin's rule, the Soviet culture was characterized by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style of [[Social:Socialist realism|socialist realism]], with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions, such as Mikhail Bulgakov's works. Many writers were imprisoned and killed.<ref>{{harvnb|Rayfield|2004|pp=317–320}}</ref>

Following the Khrushchev Thaw, censorship was diminished. During this time, a distinctive period of Soviet culture developed, characterized by conformist public life and an intense focus on personal life. Greater experimentation in art forms was again permissible, resulting in the production of more sophisticated and subtly critical work. 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. 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 music, in response to the increasing popularity of forms of popular music like jazz in the West, many jazz orchestras were permitted throughout the USSR, notably the Melodiya Ensemble, named after the principle record label in the USSR.

In the second half of the 1980s, Gorbachev's policies of ''perestroika'' and ''glasnost'' significantly expanded freedom of expression throughout the country in the media and the press.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Gorbachev, Mikhail |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=2 October 2007 |url=https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037405&gt |quotation="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 candor in their reportage and criticism; and the country's legacy of Stalinist totalitarian rule was eventually completely repudiated by the government."|access-date=1 December 2017}}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

== Sport ==
[[File:RR5110-0098R.png|thumb|Valeri Kharlamov represented the Soviet Union at 11 Ice Hockey World Championships, winning eight gold medals, two silvers and one bronze]]
Founded on 20 July 1924 in Moscow, ''Sovetsky Sport'' was the first sports newspaper of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Olympic Committee formed on 21 April 1951, and the IOC recognized the new body in its 45th session. In the same year, when the Soviet representative Konstantin Andrianov became an IOC member, the USSR officially joined the Olympic Movement. The 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki thus became first Olympic Games for Soviet athletes. The Soviet Union was the biggest rival to the United States at the Summer Olympics, winning six of its nine appearances at the games and also topping the medal tally at the Winter Olympics six times. The Soviet Union's Olympics success has been attributed to its large investment in sports to demonstrate its superpower image and political influence on a global stage.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/tyler-benson/ |title=The Role of Sports in the Soviet Union &#124; Guided History |access-date=8 March 2021 |archive-date=22 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022002522/http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/tyler-benson/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Soviet Union national ice hockey team won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament between 1954 and 1991 and never failed to medal in any [[Organization:International Ice Hockey Federation|International Ice Hockey Federation]] (IIHF) tournament in which they competed.

The advent{{when|date=January 2018}} of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession – in reality, the state paid many of these competitors to train on a full-time basis.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,976117-1,00.html |title=Traditions Pro Vs. Amateur |author=Benjamin, Daniel |magazine={{wipe|Time (magazine)}}|access-date=18 March 2009 |date=27 July 1992|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090902183140/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,976117-1,00.html|archive-date=2 September 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.<ref>{{cite web |last=Schantz |first=Otto |title=The Olympic Ideal and the Winter Games Attitudes Towards the Olympic Winter Games in Olympic Discourses—from Coubertin to Samaranch |publisher=Comité International Pierre De Coubertin |url=http://www.coubertin.ch/pdf/schantz.pdf|access-date=13 September 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130505052232/http://www.coubertin.ch/pdf/schantz.pdf |year=2007|archive-date=5 May 2013}}</ref>

A 1989 report by a committee of the Australian Senate claimed that "there is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner{{nbsp}}... who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might well have been called the Chemists' Games".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/07/daily-chart-15 |newspaper=The Economist |title=Doping violations at the Olympics|access-date=6 June 2017 |date=25 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809041739/https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/07/daily-chart-15|archive-date=9 August 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

A member of the IOC Medical Commission, Manfred Donike, privately ran additional tests with a new technique for identifying abnormal levels of testosterone by measuring its ratio to [[Chemistry:Epitestosterone|epitestosterone]] in [[Biology:Urine|urine]]. Twenty percent of the specimens he tested, including those from sixteen gold medalists, would have resulted in disciplinary proceedings had the tests been official. The results of Donike's unofficial tests later convinced the IOC to add his new technique to their testing protocols.<ref name="D. Derse2001">{{cite book |first1=Wayne (PhD) |last1=Wilson |first2=Ed |last2=Derse |title=Doping in Élite Sport: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wi2d4YyLh3wC&pg=PA77|access-date=19 July 2012 |year=2001 |publisher=Human Kinetics |isbn=978-0-7360-0329-2 |pages=77–|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140627082301/http://books.google.com/books?id=wi2d4YyLh3wC&pg=PA77|archive-date=27 June 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> The first documented case of "blood doping" occurred at the 1980 Summer Olympics when a runner{{who|date=January 2018}} was transfused with two pints of blood before winning medals in the 5000&nbsp;m and 10,000&nbsp;m.<ref name="Sytkowski2006">{{cite book |first=Arthur J. |last=Sytkowski |title=Erythropoietin: Blood, Brain and Beyond |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v135CsEL_LQC&pg=PA187|access-date=19 July 2012 |date=May 2006 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-3-527-60543-9 |pages=187–|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619114943/http://books.google.com/books?id=v135CsEL_LQC&pg=PA187|archive-date=19 June 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>

Documentation obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated before the decision to boycott the 1984 Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements. Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture prepared the communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field. Portugalov later became one of the leading figures involved in the implementation of Russian doping before the 2016 Summer Olympics.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/sports/olympics/soviet-doping-plan-russia-rio-games.html?_r=0 |date=13 August 2016 |first=Rebecca R. |last=Ruiz |website={{wipe|The New York Times}} |title=The Soviet Doping Plan: Document Reveals Illicit Approach to '84 Olympics|access-date=15 January 2018 |quote=The document – obtained by The New York Times from a former chief medical doctor for Soviet track and field – was signed by Dr. Sergei Portugalov, a Soviet sports doctor who went on to capitalize on a growing interest in new methods of doping.{{nbsp}}... Now, more than 30 years later, Dr. Portugalov is a central figure in Russia's current doping scandal. Last fall, the World Anti-Doping Agency named him as a key broker of performance-enhancing drugs in Russia, someone who in recent years injected athletes personally and made a business of covering up drug violations in exchange for money.{{nbsp}}... Dr. Portugalov came to global prominence in 2014 when two Russian whistle-blowers identified him as a linchpin distributor in Russia's state-run doping scheme.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201055317/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/sports/olympics/soviet-doping-plan-russia-rio-games.html?_r=0|archive-date=1 December 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Environment ==
[[File:AralSea1989 2014.jpg|thumb|One of the many impacts of the approach to the environment in the USSR is the Aral Sea (see status in 1989 and 2014)]]
Official Soviet environmental policy has always attached great importance to actions in which human beings actively improve nature. Lenin's quote "Communism is Soviet power and electrification of the country!" in many respects summarizes the focus on modernization and industrial development. During the first five-year plan in 1928, Stalin proceeded to industrialize the country at all costs. Values such as environmental and nature protection have been completely ignored in the struggle to create a modern industrial society. After Stalin's death, they focused more on environmental issues, but the basic perception of the value of environmental protection remained the same.<ref name="Ziegler">{{Cite journal |author=Ziegler, Charles E. |title=Soviet Images of the Environment |journal=British Journal of Political Science |date=July 1985 |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=365–380 |doi=10.1017/S0007123400004233 |jstor=193698|s2cid=154887279 }}</ref>
[[File:Karabash mountain.jpg|thumb|left|Landscape near Karabash, Chelyabinsk Oblast, an area that was previously covered with forests until acid rainfall from a nearby copper smelter killed all vegetation]]
The Soviet media has always focused on the vast expanse of land and the virtually indestructible natural resources. This made it feel that contamination and uncontrolled exploitation of nature were not a problem. The Soviet state also firmly believed that scientific and technological progress would solve all the problems. Official ideology said that under socialism environmental problems could easily be overcome, unlike capitalist countries, where they seemingly could not be solved. The Soviet authorities had an almost unwavering belief that man could transcend nature. However, when the authorities had to admit that there were [[Earth:Ecology|environmental problems]] in the USSR in the 1980s, they explained the problems in such a way that socialism had not yet been fully developed; pollution in a socialist society was only a temporary anomaly that would have been resolved if socialism had developed.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}

The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was the first major accident at a civilian [[Engineering:Nuclear power plant|nuclear power plant]]. Unparalleled in the world, it resulted in a large number of radioactive isotopes being released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses have scattered relatively far. 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer were reported after the incident, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005).<ref>{{cite web |title=Chernobyl: the true scale of the accident |url=https://www.who.int/news/item/05-09-2005-chernobyl-the-true-scale-of-the-accident |website=www.who.int |access-date=7 October 2021 |language=en |archive-date=25 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180225095828/http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, the long-term effects of the accident are unknown. Another major accident is the Kyshtym disaster.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Baverstock |first1=Keith |last2=Williams |first2=Dillwyn |title=The Chernobyl Accident 20 Years on: An Assessment of the Health Consequences and the International Response |journal=Environmental Health Perspectives |date=2006 |volume=114 |issue=9 |pages=1312–1317 |doi=10.1289/ehp.9113 |pmid=16966081 |pmc=1570049}}</ref>

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was discovered that the environmental problems were greater than what the Soviet authorities admitted. The Kola Peninsula was one of the places with clear problems. Around the industrial cities of Monchegorsk and Norilsk, where [[Chemistry:Nickel|nickel]], for example, is mined, all forests have been destroyed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions. During the 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissioned [[Engineering:Nuclear submarine|nuclear submarine]]s, and the processing of [[Physics:Nuclear waste|nuclear waste]] or [[Physics:Spent nuclear fuel|spent nuclear fuel]]. It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to the Barents Sea and Kara Sea, which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of the K-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in the west further raised concerns.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hønneland |first1=Geir |last2=Jørgensen |first2=Anne-Kristin |title=Implementing Russia's International Environmental Commitments: Federal Prerogative or Regional Concern? |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |date=December 2002 |volume=54 |issue=8 |pages=1223–1240 |doi=10.1080/0966813022000025862 |jstor=826384 |s2cid=156340249}}</ref> In the past, there were accidents involving submarines K-19, K-8, a K-129, K-27, K-219 and K-278 Komsomolets.

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
*Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–1991)
*[[History:Cold War|Cold War]]
*[[Organization:Warsaw Pact|Warsaw Pact]]
*North Atlantic Treaty Organization
*[[Social:Communism|Communism]]
*Eastern Bloc
*Nostalgia for the Soviet Union
*[[Social:Ideocracy|Ideocracy]]
*Index of Soviet Union–related articles
*Religion in the Soviet Union
*Korenizatsiya
*[[Social:Neo-Sovietism|Neo-Sovietism]]
*Soviet patriotism
*[[Place:Russian Empire|Russian Empire]]
*Orphans in the Soviet Union
*[[Earth:Post-Soviet states|Post-Soviet states]]
*Soviet Empire
*Second Cold War
{{div col end}}

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}
{{reflist|group=note}}
{{notes}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{cite book |last1=Ambler |first1=John |last2=Shaw |first2=Denis J.B. |last3=Symons |first3=Leslie |title=Soviet and East European Transport Problems |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1985 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rpg9AAAAIAAJ |isbn=978-0-7099-0557-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Comrie |first=Bernard |title=The Languages of the Soviet Union |publisher={{wipe|Cambridge University Press}} (CUP) Archive |year=1981 |url=https://archive.org/details/languagesofsovie0000comr|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-521-29877-3|}}
* {{cite book |last1=Davies |first1=Robert|last2=Wheatcroft |first2=Stephen|author-link2=Stephen G. Wheatcroft |title=The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 5: The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931–1933 |url=http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780333311073 |year=2004 |publisher=[[Company:Palgrave Macmillan|Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0-230-23855-8}}
* {{cite book |title=The Life of Lenin |last=Fischer |first=Louis|year=1964 |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location=London}}
* {{cite web |last1=Fischer |first1=Stanley |last2=Easterly |first2=William |author-link2=William Easterly |title=The Soviet Economic Decline, Historical and Republican Data |publisher=[[Organization:World Bank|World Bank]] |year=1994 |url=http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/1994/04/01/000009265_3961006063138/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf |access-date=23 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110301162126/http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/1994/04/01/000009265_3961006063138/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf |archive-date=1 March 2011 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Janz |first=Denis |title=World Christianity and Marxism |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1998 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EUVwrcnXwBsC |isbn=978-0-19-511944-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Lane |first=David Stuart |title=Soviet Society under Perestroika |publisher=Routledge |year=1992 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcXafOqyxgQC |isbn=978-0-415-07600-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Leggett |first=George |title=The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-19-822552-2|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/chekaleninspolit0000legg}}
* {{cite book |title=Lenin's Last Struggle |last=Lewin |first=Moshe|year=1969 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London |translator-last=Sheridan Smith |translator-first=A. M. |translator-link=Alan Sheridan}}
* {{cite book |last=Rayfield |first=Donald |title=Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him |publisher=Viking Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-375-75771-6|title-link=Stalin and His Hangmen}}
* Ostrovsky, Alexander (2010). [https://ru.bookshome.net/book/3299571/e53580 Кто поставил Горбачёва? (Who put Gorbachev?)] — М.: Алгоритм-Эксмо, 2010. — 544 с. ISBN 978-5-699-40627-2
* Ostrovsky, Alexander (2011). [https://ru.bookshome.net/book/1137525/d94429 Глупость или измена? Расследование гибели СССР. (Stupidity or treason? Investigation of the death of the USSR)] М.: Форум, Крымский мост-9Д, 2011. — 864 с. ISBN 978-5-89747-068-6
* {{cite book |title=Lenin: A Biography |last=Service |first=Robert |year=2000 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-0-333-72625-9 |title-link=Lenin: A Biography}}
* {{cite book |last=Simon |first=Gerard |title=Church, State, and Opposition in the U.S.S.R |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |publisher=University of California Press |year=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTLc8H3b4vUC |isbn=978-0-520-02612-4}}
* {{cite book |title=Lenin: Life and Legacy |last=Volkogonov |first=Dmitri |year=1994 |translator-last=Shukman |translator-first=Harold |translator-link=Harold Shukman |publisher=HarperCollins |location=London |isbn=978-0-00-255123-6}}
* {{cite book |title=Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution |last=White |first=James D. |year=2001 |series=European History in Perspective |publisher=Palgrave |location=Basingstoke, England |isbn=978-0-333-72157-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Wilson |first=David |title=The Demand for Energy in the Soviet Union |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1983 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1qgOAAAAQAAJ |isbn=978-0-7099-2704-4}}
* {{cite book |author=[[Organization:World Bank|World Bank]] and OECD |title=A Study of the Soviet economy |volume=3 |publisher=[[Organization:International Monetary Fund|International Monetary Fund]] |year=1991 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fiDpE5M9jRAC |isbn=978-92-64-13468-3}}
* {{cite book |title=Social Identities in Revolutionary Russia |last=Palat |first=Madhavan K.|year=2001 |publisher=Palgrave |location=UK |isbn=978-0-333-92947-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-d_QgAACAAJ|access-date=26 May 2012}}
* {{cite book |last=Warshofsky Lapidus |first=Gail |year=1978 |title=Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development, and Social Change |location=Berkeley, CA |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-03938-4}}
* {{cite journal |url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf |title=The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45 |last=Wheatcroft |first=Stephen|year=1996 |volume=48 |issue=8 |pages=1319–1353 |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |jstor=152781 |doi=10.1080/09668139608412415}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
=== Surveys ===
* [http://rs6.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html ''A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former)''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061024175600/http://rs6.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html |date=24 October 2006 }}. Library of Congress Country Studies, 1991.
* Brown, Archie, et al., eds.: ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union'' (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
* {{cite journal |jstor=4502285 |title=Revisionism in Soviet History |journal=History and Theory |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=77–91 |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Sheila |year=2007 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-2303.2007.00429.x}}  historiographical essay that covers the scholarship of the three major schools, totalitarianism, revisionism, and post-revisionism.
* Gilbert, Martin. ''Routledge Atlas of Russian History'' (4th ed. 2007) excerpt and text search.
* Gorodetsky, Gabriel, ed. ''Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991: A Retrospective'' (2014).
* Grant, Ted. ''Russia, from Revolution to Counter-Revolution'', London, Well Red Publications, 1997.
* Hosking, Geoffrey. ''The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within'' (2nd ed. Harvard UP 1992) 570 pp.
* Howe, G. Melvyn: ''The Soviet Union: A Geographical Survey'' 2nd. edn. (Estover, UK: MacDonald and Evans, 1983).
* Kort, Michael. ''The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath'' (7th ed. 2010) 502 pp.
* McCauley, Martin. ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union '' (2007), 522 pages.
* Moss, Walter G. ''A History of Russia''. Vol. 2: Since 1855. 2d ed. Anthem Press, 2005.
* Nove, Alec. ''An Economic History of the USSR, 1917–1991''. (3rd ed. 1993) online free to borrow.
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003).
* Pons, Silvio, and Stephen A. Smith, eds.  ''The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 1): World Revolution and Socialism in One Country, 1917–1941'' (2017) [https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Communism-1/dp/1107467365/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211116151244/https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Communism-1/dp/1107467365 |date=16 November 2021 }}
**Naimark, Norman Silvio Pons and Sophie Quinn-Judge, eds. ''The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 2): The Socialist Camp and World Power, 1941-1960s'' (2017) [https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Communism-2/dp/1107133548/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818132634/https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Communism-2/dp/1107133548 |date=18 August 2021 }}
** Fürst, Juliane, Silvio Pons and Mark Selden, eds. ''The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 3): Endgames?.Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present''  (2017) [https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Communism-3-dp-1107135648/dp/1107135648/  excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031133507/https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Communism-3-dp-1107135648/dp/1107135648/ |date=31 October 2021 }}
* Service, Robert. ''A History of Twentieth-Century Russia'' (2nd ed. 1999).

=== Lenin and Leninism ===
* 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) 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 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) online edition.
* Fitzpatrick, Sheila. "Impact of the Opening of Soviet Archives on Western Scholarship on Soviet Social History." ''Russian Review'' 74#3 (2015): 377–400; historiography.
* 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) excerpt and text search.
* {{cite book |last=Kotkin |first=Stephen|year=2014 |title=Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 |location=London |publisher=Allen Lane |isbn=978-0-7139-9944-0}} 976 pp.; First volume of a trilogy.
** {{cite book |last=Kotkin |first=Stephen|year=2017 |title=Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-59420-380-0}}; 1184 pp.; Second volume of a trilogy.
* Lee, Stephen J. ''Stalin and the Soviet Union'' (1999) 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) online edition with Service, a standard biography; at ACLS e-books.

=== World War II ===
* Barber, John, and Mark Harrison. ''The Soviet Home Front: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II,'' Longman, 1991.
* Bellamy, Chris. ''Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War'' (2008), 880pp excerpt and text search.
* Berkhoff, Karel C. ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule.'' Harvard U. Press, 2004. 448 pp.
* Berkhoff, Karel C. ''Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II'' (2012) excerpt and text search covers both propaganda and reality of homefront conditions.
* Braithwaite, Rodric. ''Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War'' (2006).
* Broekmeyer, Marius. ''Stalin, the Russians, and Their War, 1941–1945.'' 2004. 315 pp.
* Dallin, Alexander. ''Odessa, 1941–1944: A Case Study of Soviet Territory under Foreign Rule.'' Portland: Int. Specialized Book Service, 1998. 296 pp.
* Kucherenko, Olga. ''Little Soldiers: How Soviet Children Went to War, 1941–1945'' (2011) excerpt and text search.
* Overy, Richard. ''The road to war'' (4th ed. 1999), covers 1930s; pp 245–300.
* Overy, Richard. ''Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941–1945'' (1998) excerpt and text search.
* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953'' (2006).
* Schofield, Carey, ed. ''Russian at War, 1941–1945''. (Vendome Press, 1987). 256 pp., a photo-history, with connecting texts. {{ISBN|978-0-86565-077-0}}.
* Seaton, Albert. ''Stalin as Military Commander,'' (1998) online edition.
* Thurston, Robert W., and Bernd Bonwetsch, eds. ''The People's War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union'' (2000).
* Uldricks, Teddy J. "War, Politics and Memory: Russian Historians Reevaluate the Origins of World War II," ''History and Memory'' 21#2 (2009), pp.&nbsp;60–82 online, historiography.
* {{cite journal |jstor=3092980 |title=A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses during the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s |journal=Population Studies |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=249–264 |last1=Vallin |first1=Jacques |last2=Meslé |first2=France |last3=Adamets |first3=Serguei |last4=Pyrozhkov |first4=Serhii |year=2002 |doi=10.1080/00324720215934 |pmid=12553326 |s2cid=21128795 |url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/92668ee6ee5b6f87a9f7a5ee59b1153691be63f3 |access-date=29 November 2019 |archive-date=28 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728153601/https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-new-estimate-of-Ukrainian-population-losses-the-Vallin-Mesl%C3%A9/92668ee6ee5b6f87a9f7a5ee59b1153691be63f3 |url-status=live }} Reports life expectancy at birth fell to a level as low as ten years for females and seven for males in 1933 and plateaued around 25 for females and 15 for males in the period 1941–1944.

=== 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) excerpt and text search.
* Gorlizki, Yoram, and Oleg Khlevniuk. ''Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953'' (2004) online edition.
* Holloway, David. ''Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956'' (1996) 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) excerpt and text search; online complete edition.
* Matlock, Jack. ''Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended'' (2005).
* 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; excerpt and text search.
* Taubman, William. ''Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War'' (1983).
* Taubman, William. ''Gorbachev: His Life and Times'' (2017).
* Tint, Herbert. ''French Foreign Policy since the Second World War'' (1972) online free to borrow 1945–1971.
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973'', 2nd ed. (1974).
* Wilson, James Graham. ''The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War'' (2014).
* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''Inside the Kremlin's Cold War'' (1996) 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).
* Carrère d'Encausse, Hélène. ''Decline of an Empire: the Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt''. First English language ed. New York: Newsweek Books (1979). 304 p. ''N.B''.: Trans. of the author's ''L'Empire éclaté''. {{ISBN|0-88225-280-1}}.
* 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) excerpt and text search.
* Hogan, Michael ed. ''The End of the Cold War. Its Meaning and Implications'' (1992) articles from ''Diplomatic History''.
* Roger Keeran and Thomas Keeny. ''Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union'', International Publishers Co Inc., US 2004.
* Kotkin, Stephen. ''Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000'' (2008) excerpt and text search.
* Matlock, Jack. ''Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union'' (1995).
* Ostrovsky Alexander. [https://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=1025297 Кто поставил Горбачёва?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200213154554/https://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=1025297 |date=13 February 2020 }} (2010). ("Who brought Gorbachev to power?") – М.: "Алгоритм-Эксмо". {{ISBN|978-5-699-40627-2}} ("Проект "Распад СССР: Тайные пружины власти" – М. "Алгоритм", 2016. Переиздание книги "Кто поставил Горбачёва?") ("Project" Collapse of the USSR: Secret Springs of Power ". Reissue of the book «Who brought Gorbachev to power?» — М.: «Алгоритм», 2016).
* Ostrovsky Alexander. [https://web.archive.org/web/20190817125705/https://itexts.net/avtor-aleksandr-vladimirovich-ostrovskiy/164701-glupost-ili-izmena-rassledovanie-gibeli-sssr-aleksandr-ostrovskiy/read/page-1.html Глупость или измена? Расследование гибели СССР.] (2011). ("Foolishness or treason? Investigation into the death of the USSR") М.: "Крымский мост". {{ISBN|978-5-89747-068-6}}.
* 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}}.
* Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. ''Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals'', trans. and annotated by Alexis Klimoff. First ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991. ''N.B''.: Also discusses the other national constituents of the USSR. {{ISBN|0-374-17342-7}}.

=== Social and economic history ===
* Bailes, Kendall E. ''Technology and society under Lenin and Stalin: origins of the Soviet technical intelligentsia, 1917–1941'' (1978).
* Bailes, Kendall E. "The American Connection: Ideology and the Transfer of American Technology to the Soviet Union, 1917–1941." ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 23.3 (1981): 421–448.
* Brooks, Jeffrey. "Public and private values in the Soviet press, 1921–1928." ''Slavic Review'' 48.1 (1989): 16–35.
* Caroli, Dorena. "'And all our classes turned into a flower garden again'–science education in Soviet schools in the 1920s and 1930s: the case of biology from Darwinism to Lysenkoism." ''History of Education'' 48.1 (2019): 77–98.
* Dobson, Miriam. "The Social History of Post-War Soviet Life" ''Historical Journal'' 55.2 (2012): 563–569. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23263351 Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724173035/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23263351 |date=24 July 2019 }}
* Dowlah, Alex F., et al. ''The life and times of soviet socialism'' (Greenwood, 1997), Emphasis on economic policies. Online.
* Engel, Barbara, et al. ''A Revolution of Their Own: Voices of Women in Soviet History'' (1998), Primary sources; Online.
* Fitzpatrick, Sheila. ''Everyday Stalinism: ordinary life in extraordinary times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s'' (Oxford UP, 2000). Online.
* Graham, Loren R. ''Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A short history'' (Cambridge UP, 1993).
* Hanson, Philip. ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR 1945–1991'' (2014).
* Heinzen, James W. ''Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917–1929'' (2004).
* Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky. ''Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union'' (1982) Online.
* Link, Stefan J. ''Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order'' (2020) [https://www.amazon.com/Forging-Global-Fordism-Germany-Industrial/dp/0691177546/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614075754/https://www.amazon.com/Forging-Global-Fordism-Germany-Industrial/dp/0691177546 |date=14 June 2021 }}
* Lutz, Wolfgang et al. ''Demographic Trends and Patterns in the Soviet Union before 1991'' (1994) online.
* Mironov, Boris N. "The Development of Literacy in Russia and the USSR from the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries". ''History of Education Quarterly'' 31#2 (1991), pp.&nbsp;229–252. [www.jstor.org/stable/368437 Online].
* Nove, Alec. ''Soviet economic system'' (1986).
* Weiner, Douglas R. "Struggle over the Soviet future: Science education versus vocationalism during the 1920s." ''Russian Review'' 65.1 (2006): 72–97.

=== Nationalities ===
* Katz, Zev, ed.: ''Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities'' (New York: Free Press, 1975).
* Nahaylo, Bohdan and Victor Swoboda. ''Soviet Disunion: A History of the nationalities Nationalities problem in the USSR'' (1990) excerpt.
* Rashid, Ahmed. ''The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism?'' (2017).
* Smith, Graham, ed. ''The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union'' (2nd ed. 1995).

=== 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.
* Moore, Jr., Barrington. ''Soviet politics: the dilemma of power.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
* Rizzi, Bruno: ''The Bureaucratization of the World: The First English edition 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.
* Smolkin, Victoria/  ''A Sacred Space is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism'' (Princeton UP, 2018) [https://hdiplo.org/to/RT21-56 online reviews] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221605/https://issforum.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XXI-56.pdf |date=24 April 2022 }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* [http://ariwatch.com/VS/JD/ImpressionsOfSovietRussia.htm Impressions of Soviet Russia] by [[Biography:John Dewey|John Dewey]]
* [https://www.loc.gov/item/97007563/ A Country Study: Soviet Union] (PDF)

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