Portal:Soviet Union

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

Introduction

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin, established the Russian SFSR, the world's first constitutionally communist state. Following the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a six-year power struggle saw Joseph Stalin emerge as the country's undisputed personalist ruler. He initiated rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant growth, but contributed to a devastating famine in the 1930s that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system, known as the Gulag, was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to eliminate opposition, resulting in deportations, executions, and the Moscow trials. Failing to build an anti-Nazi coalition in Europe, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. However, in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers as part of the Allies, while liberating much of Central and Eastern Europe. With around 27 million casualties, it suffered the most deaths of any country in World War II. In the war's aftermath, the Soviet Union consolidated the territories occupied by the Red Army into satellite states and undertook rapid economic development, cementing its status as a superpower.

Geopolitical tensions with the United States led to the Cold War. The US-led Western Bloc coalesced into the NATO military alliance in 1949, prompting the Eastern Bloc to form the Warsaw Pact in 1955. With little direct combat, the blocs engaged in ideological and proxy wars. In 1953, following Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev initiated a campaign of de-Stalinization, which led to ideological tensions with communist China, under Mao Zedong, and culminated in an acrimonious split. The Soviet military suppressed uprisings in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, while the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis narrowly averted a global conflict. Under Leonid Brezhnev, prosperity shifted toward stagnation, although relations with the US eased. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev sought reform through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, most Warsaw Pact countries overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes, effectively ending the Eastern Bloc. Nationalist movements across the Soviet republics declared sovereignty, and in 1991, a successful referendum to establish a renewed federation was followed by a failed coup by hardliners. This prompted Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to secede. On 26 December, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian SFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union's successor state. All fifteen republics became independent states; all except the Baltic states joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. The post-Soviet states experienced a humanitarian disaster.

The Soviet Union was one of the world's two superpowers, with hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomacy, ideological influence (particularly in the Global South), military might, economic strength, and scientific and technological accomplishments. Its space program made significant achievements in the Space Race. It had the world's second-largest economy and the largest standing military. As a nuclear state, it wielded the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations and one of five permanent members of its Security Council. (Full article...)

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All ministry seals of the Soviet Union used the Soviet coat of arms

The Ministry of Finance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: Министерство финансов СССР), formed on 15 March 1946, was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. Until 1946 it was known as the People's Commissariat for Finance (Russian: Народный комиссариат финансов – Narodnyi komissariat finansov, or "Narkomfin"). Narkomfin, at the all-Union level, was established on 6 July 1923 after the signing of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, and was based upon the People's Commissariat for Finance of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) formed in 1917. The Ministry was led by the Minister of Finance, prior to 1946 a Commissar, who was nominated by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and then confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The minister was a member of the Council of Ministers.

During the Russian Civil War, and immediately afterwards, the Commissariat usually confiscated property to support government operations. Following a short period of stability after the civil war the Commissariat introduced several governmental taxes on the population. The commissariat's structure differed little from its Tsarist predecessor, the only notable difference was that the Soviet ministry was very centralised while the Tsarist's finance ministry was a very decentralised one. The Commissariat, and later the Ministry, prepared the state budget in a joint process with its republican and local branches. The Ministry's structure went through few changes due to the Soviet government's conservative approaches to change. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced several reforms during his rule which had the unintended consequence of considerably hurting the ministry's prestige. (Full article...)

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Credit: PetarM

The Lunokhod programme (Lunokhod 1 replica pictured) launched the first remote-controlled rovers that successfully landed on celestial bodies.

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... that Joseph Stalin deported the Balkar people from the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on suspicions that they collaborated with Nazi Germany?

... that in the Ukrainian-Soviet War (1917-1922) the Ukrainians fought for their independence first from the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union?

... that the massacre in Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD in the purges of 1937-1938 was investigated in 1943 during the German invasion of Ukraine and used in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union?

... that collective leadership was seen as the ideal form of governance by Soviet ideologists during the rules of Georgy Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev?

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“

We do not want a single foot of foreign territory; but we will not surrender a single inch of our territory to anyone.

”

— Joseph Stalin, in a speech during the Second World War

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Official portrait, 1954

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (15 April [O.S. 3 April] 1894 – 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. As leader of the Soviet Union, he shocked the world by denouncing his predecessor Joseph Stalin, embarking on a campaign of de-Stalinization, and presiding over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Born in a village near Kursk, Khrushchev was employed as a metal worker during his youth and was a political commissar in the Russian Civil War. Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich, he rose through the ranks of the Soviet hierarchy. During Stalin's rule, he actively supported the Great Purge and approved thousands of arrests, and in 1938 was sent to govern the Ukrainian SSR, where he continued the purges. During World War II, Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. He was also present at the Battle of Stalingrad, a fact in which he took great pride. After the war, Khrushchev returned to Ukraine before eventually being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various Soviet Union-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A revolutionary meeting of Russian soldiers in March 1917 in Dalkarby of Jomala, Åland (from Russian Revolution)
Image 2The New York Times headline from 9 November 1917 (from October Revolution)
Image 3Nikolai Podgorny visiting Tampere, Finland on 16 October 1969 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 4Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 5The Petrograd Soviet Assembly meeting in 1917 (from Russian Revolution)
Image 6Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) with US President John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 7Country emblems of the Soviet Republics before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and the emblem is unofficial.) (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 8The elections to the Constituent Assembly took place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks won 24% of the vote. (from October Revolution)
Image 9Lenin, Trotsky and Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from October Revolution)
Image 10Soldiers marching in Petrograd, March 1917 (from Russian Revolution)
Image 11Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, 1993 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 12Bolshevik (1920) by Boris Kustodiev (from October Revolution)
Image 13Lenin, Trotsky, and Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 14A detachment of Red Guard sailors who dissolved the Constituent Assembly (from Russian Revolution)
Image 15European theatre of the Russian Civil War in 1918 (from October Revolution)
Image 16Forward gun of Aurora that fired the signal shot (from October Revolution)
Image 17The Russian famine of 1921–22 killed an estimated 5 million people.
(from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 18Russian Civil War in the European part of Russia (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 19Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution (from Russian Revolution)
Image 20A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters. (from October Revolution)
Image 21On 21 December 1991, the leaders of 11 former Soviet republics, including Russia and Ukraine, agreed to the Alma-Ata Protocols, formally establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 22Provisional Government's volunteer soldiers secure Petrograd's Palace Square with the Austin Armoured Car, summer 1917. (from Russian Revolution)
Image 23Residents of Leningrad leave their homes destroyed by German bombing. About 1 million civilians died during the 871-day Siege of Leningrad, mostly from starvation. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 24Cruiser Aurora (from October Revolution)
Image 25The Battle of Stalingrad, considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 26Petrograd Milrevcom proclamation about the deposing of the Russian Provisional Government (from October Revolution)
Image 27"Pogrom in the Winter Palace" by Ivan Vladimirov (from October Revolution)
Image 28Russian troops meeting German troops in No Man's Land (from Russian Revolution)
Image 29Revolutionaries protesting in February 1917 (from Russian Revolution)
Image 30A detachment of Red Guard sailors who dissolved the Constituent Assembly (from October Revolution)
Image 31Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria with Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, on his lap. As head of the NKVD, Beria was responsible for many political repressions in the Soviet Union. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 32Five Marshals of the Soviet Union in 1935. Only two of them—Budyonny and Voroshilov—survived the Great Purge. Blyukher, Yegorov and Tukhachevsky were executed. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 33American, British, and Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support to the White Army. (from Russian Revolution)
Image 34Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and US President Jimmy Carter sign the SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 35Soviet painting Vladimir Lenin, by Isaac Brodsky (from Russian Revolution)
Image 36Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President Ronald Reagan (left), 1985 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 37Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (from Russian Revolution)
Image 38From left to right, the Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill confer in Tehran, 1943 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 39Murder of the Romanov family, Le Petit Journal (from Russian Revolution)
Image 40T-80 tank on Red Square during the August Coup (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 41Russian troops in trenches awaiting a German attack (from Russian Revolution)
Image 42Red Guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917 (from October Revolution)
Image 43Soldiers blocking Narva Gate on Bloody Sunday (from Russian Revolution)
Image 44Anniversary of October Revolution in Riga, Soviet Union in 1988 (from October Revolution)
Image 45The 2nd Moscow Women Death Battalion protecting the Winter Palace as the last guards of the stronghold (from Russian Revolution)
Image 46Map showing the greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the sovereign 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 km²) (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 47The Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the Hungarian-Austrian border. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 48A poster depicting the effect of the Revolution on the life of a peasant, 1920. From the collections of RGASPI (from Russian Revolution)

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Selected anniversaries for August

August coup attempt - 19 to 21 August 1991 - was an attempt by a group of members of the Soviet Union's government to take control of the country from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

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More Did you know (auto generated)

... that agronomist Oliver Golden remained in the Soviet Union after his delegation of cotton experts returned to the United States?
... that the newspaper Qizil Tugh (Red Banner) provided a publishing platform for young Uyghur-language poets and writers in the Soviet Union?
... that Polish prisoners of war in World War II were held not only by Nazi Germany but also by the Soviet Union?
... that the Lviv branch of the Ukrderzhnatsmenvydav was the main publisher of Polish literature in the Soviet Union by 1941?
... that 1920s belles-lettres books published by the State Publishing House of Ukraine sold out more rapidly than similar books published elsewhere in the Soviet Union, despite the higher average price?
... that All Nations Baptist Church in New York City is primarily associated with ethnic Koreans of the former Soviet Union?

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2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515
Alexei Leonov
Field Marshal Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration
German instrument of surrender2
Instrument of surrender Japan2
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War
Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1
Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09
Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2
RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01
Raising a flag over the Reichstag - Restoration
Russian Imperial Family 1913
USS Yorktown collision
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Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration
Yury Pen - Portrait of Marc Chagall

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German instrument of surrender2 (2009-05-07)
Instrument of surrender Japan2 (2009-09-02)
Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W) (2010-05-08)
USS Yorktown collision (2011-02-12)
Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1 (2013-03-28)
Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration (2020-03-09)
Alexei Leonov (2020-03-18)
Field Marshal Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration (2020-05-08)
RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01 (2020-06-08)
Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09 (2022-02-26)
Russian Imperial Family 1913 (2022-07-17)
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War (2022-09-02)
2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515 (2023-04-18)
Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2 (2023-07-25)
Raising a flag over the Reichstag - Restoration (2025-05-02)

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