Encyclopedia
The
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , more commonly known as the
Soviet Union, was a
Communist state that existed in
Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. From 1945 until its dissolution in 1991 it was, along with the
United States, one of the world's two
superpowers.
The USSR was created and expanded as a union of Soviet republics formed within the territory of the
Russian Empire abolished by the
Russian Revolution of 1917 followed by the
Russian Civil War of 1918-1920. The geographic boundaries of the Soviet Union varied with time, but after the last major territorial annexations of the Baltic States, eastern Poland,
Bessarabia, and certain other territories during World War II, from 1945 until dissolution the boundaries approximately corresponded to those of late Imperial Russia, with the notable exclusions of
Poland and
Finland.
The Soviet Union became the primary model for future
Communist states during the
Cold War; the government and the political organization of the country were defined by the only permitted political party, the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Established by four Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR grew and from 1956 to 1991 politically contained 15 constituent or union republics —
Armenian SSR,
Azerbaijan SSR, Byelorussian SSR, Estonian SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR, Kyrgyz SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR,
Moldavian SSR, Russian SFSR, Tajik SSR, Turkmen SSR,
Ukrainian SSR, and Uzbek SSR — joined in a strongly centralized federal union. After the USSR's collapse, all 15 SSRs became independent countries.
The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, and the successor states are a collection of 15 countries commonly dubbed, 'the former Soviet Union'. Eleven of these states are aligned through a loose confederation known as the
Commonwealth of Independent States .
Turkmenistan, originally a full member of the CIS, is now an associate member. The three
Baltic States did not join this Commonwealth; instead, they joined both the
European Union and the
NATO alliance in 2004.
Russia and
Belarus also belong to the
Union of Russia and Belarus.
History
The Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be the successor of the
Russian Empire. The last Russian tsar,
Nicholas II, ruled until March 1917 and was executed with his family the following year. The Soviet Union was established in December 1922 as the union of the Russian ,
Ukrainian, Belarusian, and
Transcaucasian Soviet republics ruled by
Bolshevik parties.
Modern revolutionary activity in the
Russian Empire began with the
Decembrist Revolt of 1825, and although
serfdom was abolished in 1861, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament, the
State Duma, was established in 1906, after the
1905 Revolution but political and social unrest continued and was aggravated during
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 toppling of the imperial government in March 1917 . The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the
Provisional Government, whose leaders intended to establish liberal democracy in Russia and to continue participating on the side of the Allies in
World War I. At the same time, to ensure the rights of the working class, workers' councils, known as soviets, sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, agitated for socialist revolution in the soviets and on the streets. They seized power from the Provisional Government in November 1917 . Only after the long and bloody
Russian Civil War of 1918-1921, which included foreign intervention in several parts of Russia, was the new Communist regime secure. The
Red Army became infamous for burning entire villages full of people and sending the men to labor camps for sometimes harboring deserters from the army. The
Cheka also had to put down numerous rebellions by the peaseants because of food requisition. In
a related conflict with Poland, the "
Peace of Riga" in early 1921 split disputed territories in
Belarus and
Ukraine between Poland and Soviet powers.
From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the
Communist Party . After the extraordinary economic policy of War Communism during the Civil War the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the
1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax . Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating his rivals within the party, notably Lenin's more obvious heir
Leon Trotsky,
Joseph Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s.
In 1928
Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy, now, unlike the internationalism expressed by Lenin and Trotsky throughout the course of the Revolution, "in one country." In industry the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization; in agriculture collective farms were established all over the country . The Soviet Union became a major industrial power; but the plan's implementation produced widespread misery for segments of the population. Collectivization met widespread resistance from peasants, resulting in a bitter struggle against the authorities in many areas, famine, and estimated millions of deaths. Social upheaval continued in the mid-
1930s. Stalin's purge of the party eliminated many "Old Bolsheviks", who had participated in the Revolution with Lenin. Meanwhile, countless Soviets were jailed and sent to
Gulags , a vast network of forced-labor camps, or executed. Yet despite the turmoil of the mid- to late 1930s, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before
World War II.
The 1930s saw closer cooperation between
Western countries and the USSR. In 1933 diplomatic relations between the
USA and the USSR were established. Four years later the USSR actively supported the
Second Spanish Republic in the
Spanish Civil War against Italian and German fascists. However, after Great Britain and France concluded the
Munich Agreement with
Nazi Germany, the USSR dealt with the latter as well, both economically and militarily, by concluding the
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which involved the engagement of
Red Army into
Lithuania,
Latvia,
Estonia and the in 1939. In late November 1939, unable to gain control of the strategic port of
Petsamo by diplomatic means, Stalin ordered the
invasion of Finland. Although it has been debated whether the Soviet Union had the intention of invading Nazi Germany once it was strong enough, Germany itself broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The
Red Army stopped the
Nazi offensive in the
Battle of Stalingrad, lasting from late 1942 to early 1943, being the major turning point, and drove through
Eastern Europe to
Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 . Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged
superpower.
During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. The Soviet Union aided postwar reconstruction in Eastern Europe while turning them into Soviet
satellite states, set up the
Warsaw Pact and
Comecon, supplied aid to the eventually victorious Communists in the
People's Republic of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, the rising tension of the
Cold War turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the
United Kingdom and the
United States, into foes.
Joseph Stalin died on March 5 1953. In the absence of an acceptable successor, the highest Communist Party officials opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly, although a struggle for power took place behind the facade of collective leadership.
Nikita Khrushchev, who won the power struggle by the mid-
1950s,
denounced Stalin's use of repression in 1956 and eased repressive controls over party and society . At the same time, Soviet military force was used to suppress democratic uprisings in
Hungary and
Poland in 1956. During this period the Soviet Union continued to realize scientific and technological pioneering exploits, in extenso, to launch the first artificial satellite
Sputnik 1, living being
Laika, and later, the first human being
Yuri Gagarin into Earth's orbit. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy towards China and the United States suffered reverses, including the actions that led to the
Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Khrushchev's colleagues in the leadership removed him from power in 1964.
Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting until
Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early
1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. Brezhnev presided over a period of
Détente is a French [i] term, meaning a
relaxing or
easing; the term has been ...
with the West while at the same time building up Soviet military strength; the arms buildup contributed to the demise of Détente in the late 1970s. Another contributing factor was the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.
After some experimentation with economic reforms in the mid-
1960s, the Soviet leadership reverted to established means of economic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during the 1970s, while agricultural development continued to lag. Throughout the period the Soviet Union maintained parity with the United States in the areas of military technology but this expansion ultimately crippled the economy. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, 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 "stagnation" , with an aging and ossified top political leadership.
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. After the rapid succession of
Yuri Andropov and
Konstantin Chernenko, transitional figures with deep roots in Brezhnevite tradition, beginning in 1985
Mikhail Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy and the party leadership. His policy of
glasnost freed public access to information after decades of government regulations.
In the late
1980s constituent republics of the Soviet Union started asserting sovereignty over their territories or even declaring independence, citing Article 72 of the USSR Constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede. 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 Russian SFSR, which was then the largest constituent republic convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies.
Boris Yeltsin was elected the chairman of the Congress. On June 12, 1990 the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. The period of legal uncertainty continued throughout 1991 as constituent republics slowly became de-facto independent.
A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on March 17, 1991, with the majority of the population voting for preservation of the Union in most republics. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost, and in the summer of 1991 a new Union Treaty was designed and agreed upon by most republics which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser federation. The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup - an attempted
coup d'état against Mikhail Gorbachev by conservative members of the Communist Party, referred to as "Hardliners" by the Western media. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin came out as a hero while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania immediately declared their independence, while the other 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. On December 8 1991 Presidents of Russia,
Ukraine and
Belarus signed Belavezha Accords which declared the Union dissolved and established the
Commonwealth of Independent States - CIS, in its place. While doubts remained over the authority of the Belavezha Accords to dissolve the Union, on December 21 1991 the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia, including those republics that had signed the Belavezha Accords, signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the dismemberment and consequential extinction of the USSR and restated the establishment of the CIS. The summit of Alma-Ata also agreed on several other practical measures consequential to the extinction of the Union. On December 25 1991, Gorbachev yielded to the inevitable and resigned as the president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that until then were vested in the presidency over to
Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia. The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, recognized the collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself. This is generally recognized as the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state. Many organizations such as the Red Army and Police forces continued to remain in place in the early months of 1992 but were slowly phased out and either withdrawn from or absorbed by the newly independent states.
Politics
The government of the Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society. It implemented decisions made by the leading political institution in the country, the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union .
In the late
1980s, the government appeared to have many characteristics in common with liberal democratic political systems. For instance, a constitution established all organizations of government and granted to citizens a series of political and civic rights. A legislative body, the Congress of People's Deputies, and its standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, represented the principle of popular sovereignty. The Supreme Soviet, which had an elected chairman who functioned as head of state, oversaw the Council of Ministers, which acted as the executive branch of the government. The chairman of the Council of Ministers, whose selection was approved by the legislative branch, functioned as head of government. A constitutionally based judicial branch of government included a court system, headed by the Supreme Court, that was responsible for overseeing the observance of Soviet law by government bodies. According to the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the government had a federal structure, permitting the republics some authority over policy implementation and offering the national minorities the appearance of participation in the management of their own affairs.
In practice, however, the government differed markedly from Western systems. In the late 1980s, the CPSU performed many functions that governments of other countries usually perform. For example, the party decided on the policy alternatives that the government ultimately implemented. The government merely ratified the party's decisions to lend them an aura of legitimacy. The CPSU used a variety of mechanisms to ensure that the government adhered to its policies. The party, using its
nomenklatura authority, placed its loyalists in leadership positions throughout the government, where they were subject to the norms of democratic centralism. Party bodies closely monitored the actions of government ministries, agencies, and legislative organs.
The content of the Soviet Constitution differed in many ways from typical Western constitutions. It generally described existing political relationships, as determined by the CPSU, rather than prescribing an ideal set of political relationships. The Constitution was long and detailed, giving technical specifications for individual organs of government. The Constitution included political statements, such as foreign policy goals, and provided a theoretical definition of the state within the ideological framework of Marxism-Leninism. The CPSU leadership could radically change the constitution or remake it completely, as it did several times throughout its history.
The Council of Ministers acted as the executive body of the government. Its most important duties lay in the administration of the economy. The council was thoroughly under the control of the CPSU, and its chairman - the Soviet prime minister - was always a member of the Politburo. The council, which in 1989 included more than 100 members, was too large and unwieldy to act as a unified executive body. The council's Presidium, made up of the leading economic administrators and led by the chairman, exercised dominant power within the Council of Ministers.
According to the Constitution, as amended in 1988, the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union was the Congress of People's Deputies, which convened for the first time in May 1989. The main tasks of the congress were the election of the standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, and the election of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, who acted as head of state. Theoretically, the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet wielded enormous legislative power. In practice, however, the Congress of People's Deputies met infrequently and only to approve decisions made by the party, the Council of Ministers, and its own Supreme Soviet. The Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and the Council of Ministers had substantial authority to enact laws, decrees, resolutions, and orders binding on the population. The Congress of People's Deputies had the authority to ratify these decisions.
The judiciary was not independent. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts and applied the law as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union lacked an adversarial court procedure known to common law jurisdictions. Rather, Soviet law utilised the system derived from Roman law, where judge, procurator and defense attorney worked collaboratively to establish the truth.
The Soviet Union was a
federal state made up of fifteen republics joined together in a theoretically voluntary union. In turn, a series of territorial units made up the republics. The republics also contained jurisdictions intended to protect the interests of national minorities. The republics had their own constitutions, which, along with the all-union Constitution, provide the theoretical division of power in the Soviet Union. In 1989, however, the CPSU and the central government retained all significant authority, setting policies that were executed by republic, provincial, oblast, and district governments.
Leaders of the Soviet Union
The
de facto leader of the Soviet Union was the First/General Secretary of the
CPSU. The head of government was considered the Premier, and the head of state was considered the President. The Soviet leader could also have one of these positions, along with the position of General-Secretary of the party.
- List of Soviet Premiers
- List of Soviet Presidents
Foreign relations
- Main article: Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
