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{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"{Country! colspan="2" | Union of Soviet Socialist Republicsname =''Союз Советских<br/>Социалистических Республик<smallbr/>Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́бликSoyuz Sovetskikh<br/small>Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik'' |-established=1922| colspandissolved="2" 1991|[[File:800px-Union of map =Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection)union rel 1986.svg.png|frameless|300x300|center|The Soviet Union]]<br><div style="text-align:center">Map of the USSR</div>jpg|-| styleflag ="width:50%; border:none; text600px-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; padding-top: 5px;" |[[File:UssrflagFlag_of_the_Soviet_Union.jpg|125x63px|frameless|Flag of the Soviet Union]] svg.png| stylearms ="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; padding-top: 5px;" | [[File:State Emblem Coat of arms of the Soviet Union.svg.png|85x88px|frameless|Emblem of the Soviet Union]] capital =Moscow|- government =Communist| stylelanguage ="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center;" | Flag Russian (de facto)| stylearea ="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center;" 8,649,538 sq. mi. (1991)| State Emblem pop =293,047,571 (1991)|pop-basis =}}The '''Soviet Union''' (Russian: Советский Союз, ''Sovyetskiy Soyuz''), officially the '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''' (or '''USSR'''; or in ) (Russian "СССР"): Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, also known as the ''Soyuz Sovietskykh Sotsialisticheskykh Respublik'Soviet Union', abbreviated '', СССР'') was a [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist-Leninistprogressive]] [[police state on the Eurasian continent ]] that existed between 30 December from 1922 and 26 to December 25, 1991,<ref>[http://www. It was governed as a singlehistory.com/this-party state by day-in-history/ussr-established/ This Day in History USSR Established 1922]</ref> then broke into 15 separate countries, most notably the [[Communist Party of the Soviet UnionRussian Federation]] with Moscow as . Throughout its capitalhistory, the leadership in the [[Kremlin]] and [[Politburo]] was never dominated by ethnic Russians. The communist ideology suppressed the dominant culture and national identity while promoting [[diversity]] and inclusion of minorities.

===Russian Revolution===The RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) emerged out of Union, and Lenin in particular, was also notorious for being the [[Russian Revolution first country in all of 1917]]history to not only legalize abortion, but also having absolutely no restrictions on the practice, with [[Bolshevism|Bolshevik]] revolutionary [[Vladimir Lenin]] as its first presidentthe only exception being 1936 up until 1953 where Stalin briefly made it illegal in order to preserve some elements of the Soviet people when it became apparent the rate of abortions were such that the country would go extinct soon. The new government created a constitution establishing itself as a Socialist republic<ref>https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/11/17/november-1920-2020-a-century-of-abortion-in-russia/</ref>

===Red vs. White Civil War===In 1918After an [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact|alliance among socialists]] to dismember [[Catholic]] [[Poland]] (1939–41), following the seizure of power by [[Nazi]] [[German]]s under [[Adolf Hitler]] invaded the Bolsheviks, USSR in a civil war between to the Bolsheviks (or ‘Reds’) and death. The USSR defeated the remaining monarchists Nazis in [[World War II]] (the ‘Whites’1941–45), along with various disgruntled social democrats and liberals such as their rival factiontook control of most of [[Central Europe]], turning formerly independent countries into [[Communist]] satellite states. It was the Mensheviks, tore apart primary antagonist of the RSFSRUnited States during the [[Cold War]] (1947-1989); it then collapsed because of [[American]] pressure and its own internal economic and social failures. Despite support At its height the USSR covered one-sixth of the earth's land area, stretching from [[Central Europe]] across [[Eastern Europe]] and northern Asia to the capitalist Pacific Ocean. Although Russia and most of Soviet republics are [[Western Powersworld]] countries, during the Whites were ultimately defeated in 1920Soviet period, a war was declared on [[Christianity]], the country wanted to cut its Western roots and create a brand new civilization, a communist utopia.

During [[File:480px-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg.png|thumbnail|right|400px|The Soviet Union after [[WWII]] ]]==Geography==[[File:Саблинский хребет.jpg|thumbnail|300px|The Ural Mountains run north-to-south through the warSoviet Union (Russia), roughly dividing the Bolsheviks militarily intervened eastern and western parts.]]Located in Ukraine, which was under the control middle and northern latitudes of anarchothe Northern Hemisphere, the Soviet Union's 22.4 million square kilometers included one-communists sixth of the earth's usable land area. Its western portion (led by [[Nestor Makhno]]European part of Russia) , comprising more than half of all European landmass, made up 25% of Russia's total area, was where 72% of the people lived, and Ukrainian ultranationalistswas where most industrial and agricultural activities were concentrated. The anarchists made a treaty with largest region was the Bolsheviks in 1920lightly populated [[Siberia]], but a land between the Bolsheviks refused to publicly acknowledge it, leading to Urals and the arrest Pacific that for centuries was infamous as a place of Nestor Makhno exile, a land of endless expanses of snow and his delegation upon confronting the Bolsheviksfrigid temperatures.

===New Economic Policy=== ''Main Article: [[New Economic Policy]]''The New Economic Policy Extending for over 60,000 kilometers, the Soviet border was part of what historian Brinton called the thermidor after the French Revolutionworld's Thermidorian Reaction. It involved longest national frontier, sharing a variety of concessions to the backward strata of Soviet societycommon border with twelve countries, including six on each continent. In Asia, its neighbors were the restoration [[Democratic People's Republic of obstacles to divorceKorea]] (North Korea), laws against homosexuality[[China]], [[Mongolia]], [[Afghanistan]], [[Iran]], and the abolition of the age of consent laws.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Brinton|first=C.|title=The Anatomy of Revolution|year=1965|pages=225–226}}</ref> Economically[[Turkey]]; in [[Europe]], it meant that industrial state owner enterprises gained autonomy in its policies while in rural areas individual private initiative bordered [[Romania]], [[Hungary]], [[Czechoslovakia]] (now [[Czech Republic]] and enterprise was allowed to dominate economic conduct[[Slovakia]]), [[Poland]], [[Norway]], and [[Finland]].

In 1928 Approximately two-thirds of the NEP ended when frontier was bounded by water, forming the Soviet government implemented longest and, owing to its proximity to the first Five Year PlanNorth Pole, probably the most useless coastline of any country. This became known as central planning or a command economyApart from Murmansk, which lasted until circa 1991 when receives the economy had reached a critical point in the [[Crisis|crisis warm currents of the absolute over-accumulation Gulf Stream, the northern coast is locked in ice much of capital]]the year. The search for a warm water port was a central theme throughout Russian history.

===Socialism in one country===In spite of an arguably overpowered bureaucracy and some of the reactionary concessionsA dozen seas, the Soviets made extensive achievements which vastly improved life for hundreds of millions part of people. These achievements were the result water systems of the [[planned economy]] three oceans—the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific—washed over Soviet shores. *Size: Approximately 22,402,200 square kilometers (built primarily during the 1930sland area 22, 272,000 square kilometers); slightly less than 2. Even reactionaries<ref>{{cite book|last=Losurdo |first=Domenico |chapter=1 |chapterurl=https://docs.google5 times size of United States.com/document/d/1WS8cCjXDgdJaXFrkW9b1ldY3xlwiPPQ89AwZo53Amlk |title=Stalin*Location: The History Occupies eastern portion of European continent and Critique northern portion of a Black Legend |url=https://docsAsian continent.googleMost of country north of 50° north latitude.com/document/d/18K7U3g_ZsHwasqAS_BiokoWg5A0vXAsCkwYoO_xw93A |location=|publisher=|year= |page= |pageurl= |isbn= |oclc= |text=}}</ref> have been unable to deny this*Topography: Vast steppe with low hills west of Ural Mountains;<ref>{{cite book|last1=Downey |first1=Town |last2=Smith |first2=Nigel |chapter=6 |chapterurl=httpsextensive coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; deserts in Central Asia; mountains along southern boundaries. *Climate://booksGenerally temperate to Arctic continental.google.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C&pg=PA37 |title=Russia Winters vary from short and the USSR 1900–1995 |url=https://bookscold along Black Sea to long and frigid in Siberia.googleSummers vary from hot in southern deserts to cool along Arctic coast.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C |location=Great Clarendon Street |publisher=Oxford University Press |Weather usually harsh and unpredictable. Generally dry with more than half of country receiving fewer than forty centimeters of rainfall per year=1996 |page=43 |pageurl=https, most of Soviet Central Asia northeastern Siberia receiving only half that amount. *Land Boundaries://books19,933 kilometers total: Afghanistan 2,384 kilometers' China 7,520 kilometers; Czechoslovakia 98 kilometers; Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) 17 kilometers; Finland 1,313 kilometers, Hungary 135 kilometers; Iran 1,690 kilometers; Mongolia 3,441 kilometers; Norway 196 kilometers; Poland 1,215 kilometers; Romania 1,307 kilometers; and Turkey 617 kilometers.google*Water Boundaries: 42,777 kilometers washed by oceanic systems of Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C&pg=PA43 |isbn=0-19-917248-X |oclc= |text=}}</ref> as antisocialist propagandist Nick Eberstadt admitted*Land Use:11 percent of land arable; 16 percent meadows and pasture; 41 percent forest and woodland; and 32 percent other, including tundra. *Natural Resources: Oil, natural gas, coal, iron ore, timber, gold, manganese, lead, zinc, nickel, mercury, potash, phosphates, and most strategic minerals.

{{quote|[[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]’s results were incontestable. This is a point those of us in the West often overlook. Stalin inherited a country that ===Administrative-Political-Territorial Divisions===The USSR was divided into fifteen union republics - the primary casualty of World War I, largest administrative and bequeathed to his successors a superpolitical units -powerofficially known as Soviet republics or union republics. It is but a single measure of Theoretically they were independent countries; in practice they were controlled by the success Kremlin. Nationality, size of the ‘Leader’population, and his understanding of location were the endurance of his nation, that between 1940 determinants for republic status. By far the largest and 1953most important was the Russian Republic, a period marked by an immensely destructive world war costing perhaps twenty million Soviet lives and a series containing about 51% of purges claiming perhaps not many less, the USSR doubled its production population. In 1989 Russians made up over 51% of coal the Soviet population and steelwere politically, tripled its output of cement economically and industrial goodsculturally the dominant nationality, and increased its pool of skilled labor by a factor of ten. These rates of growth were geometrically higher there are more than in the less devastated and Terror-free West100 other nationality groups that make up Soviet society.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt>{{safesubstFourteen other major nationalities also have their own republics:cite journal|last=Eberstadt|first=Nick|title=The Health Crisis in the USSR*European part are the [[Lithuania]]n, [[Latvia]]n, [[Estonia]]n, [[Belarus]]ian, [[Ukraine|url=https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/6/1384/660149Ukrainian]], and [[Moldavia]]n republics; the [[Georgia (country)|journal=International Journal of EpidemiologyGeorgia]]n, [[Azerbaijan]], and [[Armenian]] republics occupy the Caucasus; and Soviet Central Asia is home to the [[Kazakhstan|volume=35Kazakh]], [[Uzbekistan|issue=6Uzbek]], [[Turkmenistan|date=2006-12-04Turkmen]], [[Kyrgyzstan|pages=1384–1394Kyrgyz]], and [[Tajikistan|doi=10Tajik]] republics.1093/ije/dyl238}}</ref>}}

The claim that the Soviets purged ‘perhaps not many less’ than twenty-million peopleSoviet republics were subdivided into administrative subdivisions called autonomous republics, howeverautonomous oblasts, is obvious nonsense:autonomous okruga, kraia, or most often oblasts. These subdivisions made the country easier to manage and some served to recognize additional nationalities.

{{quote==People==[[Image:Solzhenitsyn.jpg‎|thumb|150px|right|The Stalinist regime was consequently responsible for about a million purposeful killings, and through its criminal neglect and irresponsibility it [[Nobel Prize]] winning [[Russia]]n author [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] was probably responsible for exiled from the premature deaths Soviet Union due to his criticism of about another two million more victims amongst the repressed population, i.eSoviet government. ]]The official Soviet census of 1989 listed over 100 nationalities in the campsSoviet Union. Each had its own history, coloniesculture, prisons, exile, in transit and in the POW camps for Germanslanguage. These are clearly much lower figures than those for whom Hitler’s regime was responsibleEach possessed its own sense of national identity and national consciousness.|Stephen Wheatcroft|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Wheatcroft|first=Stephen|title=The Scale and Nature position of German and each nationality in the Soviet Repression and Mass KillingsUnion depended to a large degree on its size, 1930the percentage of the people using the national language as their first language, the degree of its integration into the Soviet society, and its territorial-45|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|url=http://sovietinfoadministrative status.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf|publisher=University This position was also dependent on each nationality's share of Glasgow|volume=48|membership in the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU), the number=8|year=1996|pages=1319–1353}}</ref>}}of students in higher institutions, the number of scientific workers, and the urbanization of each nationality.

The Stalin administration was thus responsible for about three million deaths, and even that is only if various nationalities differed greatly in size. On the one includes Fascist POWshand, victims the Russians, who constituted about 50.8 percent of an unintentional but tragic famine (Wheatcroft’s own research proves that it was unintentional)the population, and gulag prisonersnumbered about 145 million in 1989. The purges On the other hand, half of the late 1930s are a black mark on nationalities listed in the USSR’s legacy; this much cannot be deniedcensus together accounted for only 0. That being said, they have been 5 percent of the subject total population, most of decades-worth of unjustified and intolerable distortions and exaggerations by bourgeois academicsthem having fewer than 100, necessitating a thorough reply000 people. While Westerners are often treated to numbers ranging from 20 to 50 Twenty-two nationalities had more than 1 million, people each. Fifteen of the true figures (while worrisome enough in major nationalities had their own right) are nowhere near that high. According to Professor Junion republics, which together comprised the federation known as the Soviet Union. Arch Getty:

{{quote|From 1921 The nationalities having union republic status commanded more political and economic power than other nationalities and found it easier to […] 1953maintain their own language and culture. In 1989 some nationalities formed an overwhelming majority within their own republics; one nationality (the Kazakhs), around 800however,000 people were sentenced lacked even a majority. In addition to death and shotthe fifteen union republics, 85 percent individual nationalities had their own territorial units, such as autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okruga. The remaining nationalities did not have territorial units of them their own and in the years of the Great Terror of 1937–1938. From 1934 to Stalin’s death, more than a million perished most cases only constituted minorities in the gulag camps.|JRussian Republic. Arch Getty|<ref name=Future/>}}

To these figures must be added an important qualification: contrary to popular opinion, the vast majority of gulag inmates were not innocent political prisoners. Professor Getty notes The nationalities that those convicted of ‘counterrevolutionary crimes’ made up between 12 have had a significant political and 33 percent (depending economic impact on the year) Soviet Union include the fifteen nationalities that have their own union republics and the non-union republic nationalities that numbered at least 1 million people in 1989. They are the Slavic nationalities, the Baltic nationalities, the nationalities of the gulag populationCaucasus, with the rest having been convicted Central Asian nationalities, and a few other nationalities. *Population: 293,047,571 (1991 estimate). Average annual growth rate 0.9 percent. Density twelve persons per square kilometer; 75 percent of ordinary crimespeople lived west of Ural Mountains. He also rejects the common claim that non-*Nationalities: 51 percent of population Russian , 15 percent Ukrainian, 6 percent Uzbek, nearly 4 percent Belorussian, and 24 percent about 100 other nationalities were disproportionately targeted. To quote from his article [[File:Bezhnoznik u stanka 15-1929.jpg|thumb|260px|A Soviet propaganda poster disseminated in the ''American Historical ReviewBezbozhnik''(''Atheist'') magazine depicting [[Jesus]] being dumped from a wheelbarrow by an industrial worker as well as a smashed church [[bell]]; the text advocates Industrialisation Day as an alternative replacement to the [[Christian]] Transfiguration Day. see: [[Militant atheism]] ]]*Religions: Religious worship was authorized by Constitution, but Marxism–Leninism, concerning the gulag inmates official ideology, was militantly [[Atheism|atheistic]] (see: [[Militant atheism]]). Reliable statistics are unavailable, but about 18 percent was Russian Orthodox; 17 percent Muslim; and nearly 7 percent Roman Catholic, Protestant, Armenian Orthodox, Georgian Orthodox, and Jewish combined. Officially, most of remainder was atheist. *Languages: Russian was the official language. Over 200 other languages and dialects were spoken, often as the primary tongue; 18 languages were spoken by groups of more than 1 million each. About 75 percent of people spoke Slavic languages. *Education: Highly centralized school system with standardized curriculum. Attendance was compulsory through eleventh grade. Strong emphasis on training for vocations selected by central authorities. Indoctrination in particularMarxist–Leninist ideology at all levels. Science and technology emphasized at secondary level and above. As of 1979 census, official literacy rate 99.8 percent for persons between nine and forty-nine years old. Over 5.3 million studied at universities and institutes, nearly 50 percent part-time. All education free, and in many cases students received stipends. *Health and Welfare:Medical care by government health institutions; free, but of poor quality for general public despite having the highest number of physicians and hospital beds per capita in world. Welfare and pension programs provided, albeit marginally, for substantial segments of population.

{{quote|The long-awaited archival evidence on repression ===Population===Seven official censuses have been taken in the period of the Great Purges shows that the levels of arrestsSoviet Union (1920, political prisoners1926, executions1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, and general camp populations tend to confirm 1989). Both the orders of magnitude indicated by those labeled as "revisionists" quality and mocked by those proposing high estimates. […] Inferences that the terror fell particularly hard quantity of the data have varied: in 1972 seven volumes totaling 3,238 pages were published on non-Russian nationalities are not borne out by camp population data from the 1930s1970 census. The frequent assertion that most In contrast, the results of the camp prisoners 1979 census were "political" also appears not to be true.|J. Arch Getty|<ref name=Getty>{{safesubst:cite journal|last1=Getty|first1=J. Arch|last2=Rittersporn|first2=Gábor|last3=Zemskov|first3=Viktor|title=Victims of the Soviet Penal System published more than five years later in the Pre-War Years|journal=The American Historical Review|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf|publisher=Oxford University Press|a single volume=98|number=4|year=1993|of 366 pages=1017–1049|doi=10.2307/2166597|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597}}</ref>}}

According to this researchthe census of 1989, alleged counterrevolutionaries never made up more than a third on the day of the gulag census, January 12, the population (and generally much lessof the Soviet Union was estimated to be 286,717, around 12%)000. This is backedfigure maintained the country's long-up by a CIA report on the topic, which found that standing position as many as 95% of camp prisoners were non-political in camps that they investigated.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Forced Labor Camps in the USSR|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf|date=1957-02-11|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200120215158/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf|archivedate=2020-01-20}}</ref> The majority of camp prisoners were thus genuine criminals, convicted of rape, murder, theft, world's third most populous country after China and similarIndia. In additionthe intercensal period (1979–88), the gulag camps were not death camps like those population of the [[Third Reich]]; they were prisonsSoviet Union grew from 262.4 million to 286.7 million, albeit harsh onesa 9 percent increase. Even noted antisocialist scholars (such as those who worked on the infamous ''[[Black Book of Communism]]'') have admitted this. To quote again from Professor Getty:

{{quote|Stalin’s camps were different from Hitler’s. Tens of thousands of prisoners were released every year upon completion of their sentences. We now know that before World War II more inmates escaped annually from During the Soviet camps than died there. […] Werth1970s and early 1980s, a well-regarded French specialist on the Soviet Union whose sections in the ''Black Book'' on the Soviet Communists are sober experienced declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, a trend toward smaller nuclear families, and damningincreasing mobility and urbanization. Major problems associated with such factors as migration, told ''Le Monde''tension among nationality groups, “Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Unionuneven fertility rates, and high infant and adult mortality became increasingly acute, and various social programs and incentives were introduced to deal with them.”|J. Arch Getty|<ref name =Future>{{safesubst:Cite web| last = Getty| first = J. Arch| title Religion= The Future Did Not Work| work = The Atlantic| accessdate = 2019Over one-10-09third of the people in the Soviet Union, an officially [[Atheism| date = 2000-03-01| url = https://wwwatheistic]] state, professed religious belief.theatlantic[[Christianity]] and Islam had the most believers.com/magazine/archive/2000/03/Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox, which had the-future-did-not-work/378081/}}</ref>}}largest number of followers; Catholic; and Baptist and various other Protestant sects. The majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni. Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, which were practiced by a relatively small number of believers, included Buddhism, Lamaism, and shamanism, a religion based on primitive spiritualism.

It must also be noted that, contrary to the popular conception The role of religion in the USSR as a place daily lives of ‘total terror’ (Soviet citizens varied greatly. Because Islamic religious tenets and social values of Muslims are closely interrelated, religion appeared to quote Hannah Arendt), the majority have a greater influence on Muslims than on either Christians or other believers. Two-thirds of the Soviet population did not feel threatened by the purges, however, had no religious beliefs. Referring to About half the time people, including members of the Great PurgeCPSU and high-level government officials, Professor<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Drprofessed atheism. Robert Thurston|url=https://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/history/about/faculty/emeriti-faculty/thurston/index.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118140600/http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/history/about/faculty/emeriti-faculty/thurston/index.html|archivedate=2020-10-18}}</ref> Thurston notes that For the Great Purge was an exceptional occurrencemajority of Soviet citizens, which cannot be used to characterize the USSR pre-1953 as a whole:therefore, religion seemed irrelevant.

==Government==[[File:200px-Coat of arms of the Soviet Union.svg.png|thumbnail|200px|Coat of arms of the Soviet Union. The legend on the red ribbon repeats, in the fifteen national languages spoken in the original "republics," the final line from Karl Marx' Communist Manifesto: [[Workers of the world, unite!|"Workers of all countries, unite!"]] The hammer-sickle device overspreading the world signifies the spread of Communism worldwide.]]{{quoteMain|I will not simply imply but will state outright that Soviet Union government}}The Soviet Union administered the country''Ezhovshchina'' s economy and society through decisions made by the extremely authoritarian leading political institution in the country, the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (Great PurgeCPSU) was an aberration. Torture was uncommon until August 1937The USSR guaranteed free healthcare and jobs as a basic right, when it became even if the norm; it ended abruptly with Beria’s rise to head employment was in a [[gulag]] as a [[slave]] of the [[NKVDstate]] in late 1938. Mass arrests followed In the same patternlate 1980s, the government appeared to have many characteristics in common with other Western, democratic political systems. For instance, a constitution established all organs of government and granted to citizens a series of political and civic rights. […] A campaign for more regularlegislative body, fairthe Congress of People's Deputies, and systemic judicial procedures that began in 1933–1934 was interrupted and overwhelmed by its standing legislature, the Terror in 1937Supreme Soviet, represented the principle of popular sovereignty. It resumed in The Supreme Soviet, which had an elected chairman who functioned as head of state, oversaw the spring Council of 1938Ministers, more strongly and effectively than beforewhich acted as the executive branch of the government. Thus more than one trend The chairman of the Council of Ministers, whose selection was broken approved by the ''Ezhovshchina''legislative branch, only to reappear after itfunctioned as head of government.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Life A constitutionally based judicial branch of government included a court system, headed by the Supreme Court, which was responsible for overseeing the observance of Soviet law by government bodies. According to the Constitution of 1977, the government had a federal structure, permitting the republics some authority over policy implementation and Terror offering the national minorities the appearance of participation in Stalin’s Russia, 1934–1941|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1996|jstor=https://wwwthe management of their own affairs.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bw0h}}</ref>}}

He also points out In practice, however, the government differed markedly from other Western systems. In the late 1980s, the CPSU performed many functions that some arrests which took place during governments of other countries usually perform. For example, the Great Purge were based party decided on previously ignored (yet arguably still legitimate) crimes against the Soviet statepolicy 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, such as fighting with using its nomenklatura authority, placed its loyalists in leadership positions throughout the reactionary forces during government, where they were subject to the Civil War:norms of [[democratic centralism]]. Party bodies closely monitored the actions of government ministries, agencies, and legislative organs.

{{quote|People were suddenly arrested The content of the Soviet Constitution differed in 1937 for things that had happened many years earlier but had been ignored sinceways 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 exampleindividual organs of government. The Constitution included political statements, serving in such as foreign policy goals, and provided a White armytheoretical definition of the state within the ideological framework of Marxism–Leninism. The CPSU could radically change the constitution or remake it completely, as it has done several times in the past.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

The question arises: why arrest former White Army soldiers, among others? The answer lies Council of Ministers acted as the executive body of the government. Its most important duties lay in the general fear administration of counterrevolution which pervaded the party at this timeeconomy. According to Professor<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Professor James Harris|url=https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/history/staff/64/professorThe council was thoroughly under the control of the CPSU, and its chairman -jamesthe prime minister -harris|archiveurl=https://webwas always a member of the Politburo.archiveThe council, which in 1989 included more than 100 members, is too large and unwieldy to act as a unified executive body.org/web/20200119044120/https://ahc.leedsThe council's Presidium, made up of the leading economic administrators and led by the chairman, exercised dominant power within the Council of Ministers.ac.uk/history/staff/64/professor-james-harris|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref> James Harris:

{{quote|By According to the mid–1930sConstitution, as amended in 1988, the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union was the rise Congress of People's Deputies, which convened for the Nazis first time in Germany May 1989. The main tasks of the congress were the election of the standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, and the militarists in Japanelection of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, both stridently anti-communistwho acted as head of state. Theoretically, posed the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet wielded enormous legislative power. In practice, however, the Congress of People's Deputies met only a very real threat few days in 1989 to approve decisions made by the USSRparty, the Council of Ministers, and its own Supreme Soviet. War was then on The Supreme Soviet, the horizonPresidium of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] felt he the Council of Ministers had no choice but substantial authority to take preemptive action against what he saw as a potential fifth column — a group that would undermine enact laws, decrees, resolutions, and orders binding on the larger collectivepopulation.|James Harris|<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Harris|first=James|title=Historian James Harris Says Russian Archives Show We’ve Misunderstood Stalin|publisher=History News Network|url=https://historynewsnetworkThe Congress of People's Deputies had the authority to ratify these decisions.org/article/163498|accessdate=2020-01-03}}</ref>}}

Bear in mind that since The government lacked an independent judiciary. The Supreme Court supervised the moment of its founding (still a recent eventlower courts and applied the law, at this time), Soviet Eurasia had been invaded as established by multiple capitalist powers<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Budanovic|first=Nikola|title=The Day That The USA Invaded Russia And Fought The Red Army|url=https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-day-that-Constitution or as interpreted by the-usa-invaded-russia-and-fought-with-the-red-army-xSupreme Soviet.html|date=2016-11-17|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044116/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the-day-that-the-usa-invaded-russia-constitutionality of laws and-fought-with-the-red-army-xacts.html|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref> (including the The Soviet Union lacked an [[United StatesAdversary proceeding|adversary court procedure]]) in the early 1920s. Under Soviet law, which derived from Roman law, a procurator worked together with a judge and had also been subject a defense attorney to espionage ensure that civil and internal sabotage. Combined with criminal trials uncovered the looming threat truth of war with an increasingly powerful Third Reichthe case, it is hardly surprising that these factors came together to form an atmosphere of paranoia, which lent itself to the sort of violent excess seen during the Purgerather than protecting individual rights. This coincides with Professor Thurston’s interpretation of the events, from his book ''Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia'':

{{quote|[B]etween 1934 and 1936 police and court practice relaxed significantlyThe Soviet Union was a federal state made up of fifteen republics joined together in a theoretically voluntary union. Then In turn, a series of eventsterritorial units made up the republics. The republics also contained jurisdictions intended to protect the interests of national minorities. The republics had their own constitutions, together which, along with the tense international situation and memories all-union Constitution, provide the theoretical division of real enemy activity during power in the savage Russian Civil War, combined to push leaders and people into a hysterical hunt for perceived ‘wreckersSoviet Union.’ After late 1938In 1989, however, the police CPSU and the central government retained all significant authority, setting policies that were executed by republic, provincial (''oblast'', ''krai'', and autonomous subdivisions), and courts became dramatically milderdistrict (''raion'') governments.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

This general atmosphere ==History=={{Main|History of fear the Soviet Union}}===Lenin===The Soviet Union was established in December 1922 by the leaders of the Russian Communist Party (not Bolshevik) on territory generally corresponding to that of the purgesold Russian Empire. A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd overthrew the imperial government in March 1917, but of external and internal enemies) is most likely why leading to the majority formation of the Soviet people seemed Provisional Government, which intended to support establish democracy in Russia. At the government’s actions during same time, to ensure the rights of the working class, workers' councils (''soviets'') sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir I. Lenin, agitated for socialist revolution in the soviets and on the streets, and they seized power from the Provisional Government in November 1917. Only after the ensuing Civil War (1918–21) and foreign intervention was the Purge period:new communist government secure.

{{quote|The various reactions to arrest cataloged above suggest that general fear did not exist From its first years, government in the USSR at any time in Soviet Union was based on the late 1930sone-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves beginning March 1918. […] People who remained at liberty often felt that After unsuccessfully attempting to centralize the economy during the Civil War, the Soviet government permitted some event private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the backgrounds of the detained individuals justified their arrests1920s. The sense that anyone could be next, Debate over the underpinning future of theoretical systems of terror, rarely appearsthe economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924.|Robert Thurston|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Fear By gradually consolidating influence and Belief in isolating his rivals within the USSR’s “Great Terror”: Response to Arrestparty, 1935-1939[[Joseph Stalin|journal=Slavic Review|publisher=Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies|year=1986|volume=45|issue=2|pages=213–34|doi=10Joseph V. Stalin]] became the sole leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s.2307/2499175}}</ref>}}

===World War II===Lenin had a criticism of the tsarist Russian empire as a ''Main Articleprison house of nations'',<ref>[https: [[World War II//books.google.com/books?id=6g86AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 Lenin’s Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both]]''</ref> but in the end under communist rule the USSR became the most prison-like state the world had ever seen up to this point.

===Khrushchev-eraStalin===Nikita Khrushchev won a power struggle that ensued after [[Image:Stalin's death, coming to power in the mid-1950s and lasting until 1964 when he was ousted140508 27880t. During his "secret speech" at jpg|right|225px|thumb|Joseph Stalin, the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party Premier of the Soviet Union]] in 1956from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953, he denounced Joseph Stalin and decentralized control within founded the party on top League of easing control over societyMilitant Atheists, this being known as de-Stalinizationwhose chief aim was to propagate militant atheism and eradicate [[religion]]. The speech he gave caused many people to leave non<ref name=Hesemann-ruling communist partiesStrieber>{{cite book|author=Michael Hesemann, especially in the West, with an estimate of approximately one-half given by Grover FurrWhitley Strieber|title=The Fatima Secret|url=https://books. However, there were also those who were merely shaken by the news and remained in said parties until Soviet intervention in Hungary later that year, which was considered the "last straw"google. com/books?id=tx-BEpkJBq8C&pg=PT107&dq=Joseph+Stalin+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=-DeRTpLrJoPi0QHo88wi&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=Joseph%20Stalin%20militant%20atheism&f=false|quote=Lenin's reputation death in 1924 was at a high during World War II, when followed by the USSR was fighting with the Allies against the Axisrise of Joseph Stalin, though it wasn't flawless before de-Stalinization. As an example, during "the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] plenty man of commentators wrote of the USSR and Nazi Germany as totalitarian twins and the term steel,"Communazis" gained widespread use. FDR, not known for any hatred of who founded the Soviets, stated in a February 1940 speech: "The Soviet Union, as a matter of practical factMilitant Atheists, as everybody knows … is run by a dictatorship, a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world." The USSR's invasion of Finland whose chief aim was also not popular in the West. Then of course came the to spread [[Cold Waratheism]], in which Stalin was frequently portrayed as a demented and bloody tyrant who betrayed promises at Yalta and threatened freedom across the globeeradicate religion. By In the time following years it devastated hundreds of his death everything he was ever accused of (mass bloodshed churches, destroyed old icons and famine as a consequence of collectivizationrelics, the assassination of Kirov and consequent bloody purges, deportation of nationalities, anti-Semitism in his last years, persecuted the gulag system, allying clergy with Nazi Germany against the democraciesunimaginable brutality.|publisher=Random House Digital, Katyn, etcInc.) had already been covered in |date=2000|accessdate=9 October 2011}}</ref> See also: [[Atheism]] ]]In 1928 Joseph Stalin introduced the WestFirst Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. Obviously among "official" communist parties Stalin wouldIn industry, of course, be respected as both a leader the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and a theoretician, whose works were (as undertook an intensive program of industrialization; in agriculture, the USSR itself until 1956) upheld as being on state appropriated the same level as Marx, Engelspeasants' property to establish collective farms. These sweeping economic innovations produced widespread misery, and Lenin. The view millions of Khrushchev's speech peasants perished during forced collectivization. Social upheaval continued in the West is that it was shocking simply because mid-1930s when Stalin began a leader purge of the Soviet Union was speaking party; out against Stalin, not of this purge grew a campaign of terror that he was saying anything new. Numerous commentators pointed out that Khrushchev left out much else that could be said, and that Khrushchev had exclusively fixated on Stalin as an individual so as led to absolve "the system" execution or imprisonment of untold millions of people from any blameall walks of life. Glasnost would echo Yet despite this situation laterturmoil, mostly being seen as confirming what was already alleged about Stalin (e.g. Gorby handing over Katyn documents to Poland the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in 1990)the years before World War II.

===Gorbachev-era reformsWorld War II===In 1987, Gorbachev passed a law that decentralized much of the economy and expanded market activity, however was not Stalin tried to divide up Central Europe with Germany by itself a restoration of capitalism. Nowhere within concluding the law were capitalist relations of production legalizedNazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939.{{quote|The Basic Provisions stress that USSR took over the economy shall continue to be planned Baltics (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) and managed as "a unified national economic complex" as the principal means for carrying out the Partyeastern borderlands (Polish: 'Kresy's economic policies. These policies are ) of Poland, while going to be embodied in a 15-year plan that sets goals and priorities and outlines a program for implementing themwar with [[Finland]]. This plan, which is to contain specific targets for Communists across the 15- year periodworld ended their diatribes against fascism, is to be while Stalin provided the basis for detailed formulation German war machine with supplies of the plan oil and grain. Europe was not big enough for the initial 5-year periodtwo dictators, with a breakdown by yearsso in June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Per The U.S. and Britain formed an alliance with Stalin to fight the current procedureNazis, this plan will be worked out by Gosplan and sent down to republic Councils poured in [[Lend Lease]] aid. After many humiliating defeats and the loss of Ministers and to ministries. These bodiesthree mission soldiers, in turn, send "initial planning data" to firms, on the basis Red Army finally stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of which the latter work out and ratify their own 5Stalingrad in 1942-year 43 and annual plansthen all of Central Europe before Germany surrendered in 1945. Plans are reviewed annually and revised if required. Proposals for revisions are submitted to Gosplan, which reviews them, revises Although severely ravaged in the 5-year plan if necessarywar, and submits a report to the Council Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as one of Ministers and to the Central Committee, along with the draft state budgetworld's great powers.<br><br>===Cold War===The firms receive: (1) "non-binding control figures" that specify During the value of output, profit, foreign currency receiptsimmediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and major indicators of scientific and technical progress and social development; (2) a mandatory bill of state orders for output that "ensure meeting society's priority needs"; (3) limitsthen expanded its economy, which include rationed goods using resourcs stripped from defeated Germany. The Red Army imposed Communist political control over postwar Central Europe and centralized investment allocations; (4) long-term economic normatives based on a list approved by the Council of Ministers regulating, among other things, growth of total wagesBalkans, payments except for capital Yugoslavia and labor, and the allocation of profits among various kinds of taxes and reserve funds set up by ministries and enterprisesAlbania. Three major funds are The active Soviet foreign policy helped bring about the bonus fund[[Cold War]], the social development fundstarting about 1947, which turned its wartime allies, Britain and the fund for financing research and development and investment.<br><br>ClearlyUnited States, into foes. Within the state intends Soviet Union, repressive measures continued in force; Stalin apparently was about to determine the rate and direction of the bulk of investmentlaunch a new purge when he died in 1953. To what extent will depend on how state centralized investment is defined===Khrushchev===[[File:Nikita Krushchev. The state also intends jpg|thumb|200px|[[Nikita Khrushchev]] liked to determine the directions of economic development threaten and to enforce programs of scientific-technical progress that are worked out from bully, often using "brinkmanship" (the top.|Gertrude E. Schroeder|"Anatomy threat of Gorbachevnuclear weapons); 's Economic Reform" in ''Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka: The EconomyTime''Sept. 8, pp. 205-206}}1961]]

One After three years of the reasons used to justify Perestroika was because the USSR had problems with shortages beforehand. The continued existence a join leadership, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] seized power, denounced Stalin's use of shortages are evidence the reforms didn't work terror and instead made the situation far worse than it had been beforeeffectively reduced repressive controls over party and society. Shortages clearly werenKhrushchev't an unknown phenomenon s reforms in socialist economies during the 20th century. It's something bourgeois economists usually focus on when criticizing socialismagriculture and administration, hence the two-volume Economics of Shortage by János Kornai. Not coincidentallyhowever, were generally unproductive, Kornai's text had a lot of influence among Chinese reformers and he personally worked to convince them to enact market reforms at foreign policy toward China and the 1985 Bashan conference, whereas KornaiUnited States suffered reverses. Khrushchev's influence on Soviet reformers (at least those who advised Gorbachev) was a lot more limited. Furthermore, shortages are not proof of capitalist restoration. Marxists frequently argue that capitalism displays a very different problem: a crisis of overproduction caused by colleagues in the purchasing leadership removed him from power of workers declining amid an ever greater abundance of goods flooding the marketin 1964.

===Collapse and dissolutionBrezhnev ==={{hatnote|Main article: [[Collapse Following the ouster of the USSR]]}}In the 1980sKhrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, which lasted until [[Imperial AmericaLeonid Brezhnev|Leonid I. Brezhnev]] expanded its arms chase, terrorizing established himself in the Soviets into catching up, a process made more stressful by early 1970s as the struggle preeminent figure in the Afghan war. Antisocialist officials also pressured banks and other businesses, and even the Swedish state, into ignoring the Soviet Unionpolitical life.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Krehbiel|first=Paul|title=The Demise Brezhnev presided over a period of détente with the Soviet Union: The Secret War that Helped Destroy Soviet Socialism, 1981–1991|url=http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/RR-PAUL-SECRETWAR.pdf|accessdate=2020-03-13}}</ref> Gorbachev introduced new reforms to both the economy and politics, which worsened the condition rest of the workers by increasing wealth inequality — though it never reached West while at the same rate as it had in capitalist countries, e.g. time building up Soviet military strength; the U.S. — as well as breadlines, and allowed more critical opinions arms buildup contributed to be voiced politically. But heads the demise of newspapers were now [[détente]] in fact being replaced or pushed towards a more right-wing view by that same government, meaning such policies did not actually result in more discoursethe late 1970s. Nonetheless it became a more and more accepted view to advocate for regulated or even free markets, which then led Also contributing to the rising popularity end of Yeltsin. He criticized détente was the Soviet elite and advocated for market reforms, promising less waiting lines and a decrease in inequality. In April 1990 Yeltsin became the chairman of the Russian parliament. The direction the country was taking triggered a [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt-Afghan War|coup attempt in August 1991Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]], but which failed as Yeltsin called for a strike against it. While according to a referendum from 1991 most people did not want a complete dissolution of the Soviet republics, this is exactly what happened until the end of 1991: Parts of the government were simply dismantled, the party lost its power, and eventually republics started declaring independence — the union, in a sense, was falling apartDecember 1979.

After some experimentation with economic reforms in the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union’s discontinuationleadership reverted to established means of economic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during the 1970s, living standards decreased dramatically and while agricultural development continued to this day many former citizens lag. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of it regret its fallthe Soviet Union, as many polls show, though the results sometimes strongly vary among some prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of cautious conservatism and aversion to change. Brezhnev was succeeded by former republicsKGB head Yuri Andropov.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=People who lived under communism more convinced ordinary people did not benefit from societal changes|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/global/?p=44546|date=2019-10-09}}</ref>

==Politics=Reagan challenge===Modern evidence suggests that Friction with other Western countries continued in the masses did indeed support 1980s, especially with the Stalin administrationUnited States and its new president, [[Ronald Reagan]], who saw the Soviet Union for what it was and branded it an "evil empire," partially in response to the Afghanistan occupation. Reagan negotiated with West Germany to provide sites for the basing of Pershing II medium-range ballistic missiles, which likewise encouraged mass participation from was bitterly opposed by Moscow. A short period of confrontation existed between the working people:two superpowers during the period of late-1983 through 1984, beginning with the tragic Soviet attack on a commercial airliner, [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]], over international waters near Sakhalin Island on September 1, 1983, and killing 269 civilians, including a sitting U.S. Congressman, [[Larry McDonald]]; this was followed by events within a military exercise known as Able Archer, in which a falling satellite was mistaken for an incoming ICBM and almost triggered a major war. Reagan's [[Strategic Defense Initiative]], a space-based missile defense system critics derisively dubbed "Star Wars" as well as his expansion of the United States military, also prompted a new, expensive arms race.

{{quote|StalinAndropov and his successor, the press, and the Stakhanovite movement all regularly encouraged ordinary people to criticize those in authority. […[Konstantin Chernenko] If ], kept the citizenry was supposed to be terrorized and stop thinkingcommunist system under Brezhnev intact, why encourage criticism and input from below on a large scale? but upon Chernenko's death […] my evidence suggests that widespread fear did not exist in the case at hand [the ‘Great Terror’ periodMikhail Gorbachev]] became party chairman.|Robert Thurston|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=On Desk-Bound Parochialism, Commonsense Perspectives, and Lousy Evidence: A Reply to Robert Conquest|journal=Slavic Review|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=45|number=2|year=1986|pages=238–244|doi=10.2307/2499177|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2499177}}</ref>}}

These states were not entirely non-participatory as some have suggested; the working masses did have a genuine voice in political affairs.<ref name=vincesherman>{{safesubst:cite web|author=vincesherman|title=The Trade Unions & Actually Existing Socialism: A Point of Comparison for Gorbachev and the American Worker|url=https://return2source.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-trade-unions-actually-existing-socialism-a-point-end of-comparison-for-the-american-worker/amp|datecommunist rule=2013-02-19|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180920140818/https://return2source.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-trade-unions-actually-existing-socialism-a-point-of-comparison-for-the-american-worker/amp|archivedate=2018-09-20}}</ref> Professor Thurston states that ‘at the lower levels of society, in day-to-day affairs and the implementation of policy, see [[the Soviet systemMikhail Gorbachev]] was participatory.’ He notes that workers were frequently encouraged to take part in decision making:

{{quote|The regime regularly urged its people to criticize local conditions and their leadersA reformer, at least below he introduced a certain exalted level. For example, in March 1937 Stalin emphasized the importance series of the party’s ‘ties to the masses.’ To maintain themeconomic and political reforms known as ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openess") and ''[[perestroika]]'' ("restructuring"), it was necessary ‘to listen carefully which began to creak open the voice doors of the masses, Soviet's closed system. A failed attempt to reign in the voice of rank and file members of the party, three [[Baltic States]] in 1989 led to the voice a domino-effect of so[[Warsaw Pact]] countries abandoning communism; a coup attempt against Gorbachev in 1991 by hard-called “little peopleliners trying to keep their tattering empire ended within days. The USSR was formally dissolved on Christmas Day 1991 by [[Boris Yeltsin]],” freeing many from its tyranny. The main successor state to the voice of ordinary folk.’|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Reassessing Soviet Union is Russia; the History effort to form a "Commonwealth of Soviet Workers: Opportunities to Criticize and Participate in Decision-MakingIndependent States" went nowhere, 1935–1941|journal=International Council for Central and East European Studies|url=https://www.docdroid.net/t9gG4jQ/thurston-robert-reassessing-the-history-15 republics of-soviet-workers-opportunities-to-criticize-and-participate-in-decision-makingthe USSR are now independent states.pdf|pages=160–188}}</ref>}}

While there were limits According to criticismdeclassified CIA documents, Professor Thurston notes that ‘such bounds allowed [[George Soros]] targeted the Soviet government as early as 1987. Soros worked closely with a great deal that was deeply significant to workersCIA linked non-governmental organization, including some aspects of production normsthe Institute for East-West Security Studies, pay rates to take advantage of Glasnost and classifications, safety on Perestroika for the job, housing, purpose of infiltrating and treatment by managers.’ The workers had a voice in various official bodies, sabotaging the Soviet economic and they generally had their demands metpolitical system. <ref>https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/12/09/soros-and-his-cia-friends-targeted-ussr-russia-1987/</ref>

{{quote|The Commissariat To assent to the reunification of Justice also heard and responded Germany, Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] ultimately agreed to workers’ appealsa proposal from then U. In August 1935 the Saratov city prosecutor reported S. Secretary of State [[James Baker (DOS)]] that a reunited Germany would be part of 118 cases regarding pay recently handled by his officeNATO but the military alliance would not move “one inch” to the east, 90that is, or 73.6 percent, had been resolved in favor absorb any of workersthe former [[Warsaw Pact]] nations into NATO.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}

Workers also took part On Feb. 9, 1990, Baker said: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in direct oversight the framework of managersthe 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East.” On the next day, then German Chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]] said:“We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity.”<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2022/01/28/the-tangled-tale-of-nato-expansion-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-crisis/</ref> Gorbachev’s mistake was not to get it in writing as a legally-binding agreement.<ref>For years it was believed there was no written record of the Baker-Gorbachev exchange at all, until the National Security Archive at George Washington University in December 2017 published a series of memos and cables about these assurances against NATO expansion eastward.</ref>[[File:Schifrinson.PNG|right|350px|thumb|Gorbachev and Yeltsin agreed to collapsing the Soviet Union in exchange for a non-NATO expansion pledge. In 2021 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denied such agreements ever existed or discussions even took place.<ref>https://www.rt.com/russia/544257-nato-boss-expansion-proposals/</ref>]]{{quotebox-float|“U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous ‘not one inch eastward’ assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by [[Western]] leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents …

{{quote|Workers participated by The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the hundreds context of thousands German unification negotiations in special inspectorates, commissions1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of [[East German]] territory, and brigades which checked that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the work highest levels. … The documents reinforce former CIA Director [[Robert Gates]]’s criticism of managers ‘pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and institutionsothers were led to believe that wouldn’t happen. These agencies sometimes wielded significant power.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}’ …

The rights of Soviet workers were often noted President [[George H.W. Bush]] had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in later accounts December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (‘I have not jumped up and down on the [[Berlin Wall]]”) of the pre-1953 erarevolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests.’”<ref>https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early</ref>}}

{{quote|One émigré recalled that his stepmother, The minutes of a factory workerMarch 6, 1991 meeting in [[Bonn]], ‘often scolded [[West Germany]] between political directors of the bossforeign ministries of the US,’ and also complained about living conditionsUK, but was never arrested. John ScottFrance, an American employed for years and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which Western officials made it “clear” to the late 1930s as a welder Soviet Union that NATO would not push into territory east of Germany. “We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in Magnitogorskthe 2+4 talks, attended a meeting at a Moscow factory as well as in 1940 where workers were able other negotiations – that we do not intend to ‘criticize benefit from the plant directorwithdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, make suggestions as ” the document in British foreign ministry archives quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz. “NATO should not expand to how to increase productionthe east, increase qualityeither officially or unofficially, and lower costs” Seitz added.’|Robert Thurston| A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for [[eastern Europe]]an countries is “unacceptable.”<ref name=Reassessing>https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund-stuetzt-russische-version-a-1613d467-bd72-4f02-8e16-2cd6d3285295</ref>}}

Professor Thurston makes The dissolution of the following observation:Soviet Union on December 26, 1991 was a watershed event in terms of the [[decline of leftism]] and the [[decline of the secular left]].

{{quote|Far from basing its rule on the negative means ==See also==*[[Soviet Union government]]*[[Decline of coercion, the leftism]]*[[Soviet regime in Union and morality]]*[[Mass rape during the late 1930s fostered a limited but positive political role for occupation of Germany|Mass rape of German women by the populace. Soviet army]]*[…[Nazi Germany] Earlier concepts of ]*[[Korean Airlines Flight 007]]*[[KAL 007: the Russian Federation support for a water landing]] The Soviet state require rethinkingStaff and military communications evidence*[[Soviet Officers of KAL 007 Shootdown]]*[[KAL 007: the workers who ousted managersSoviet stalk, achieved the imprisonment of their targetsshoot down, and won reinstatement at factories did so through organizations which constituted part rescue mission orders transcripts]]*[[KAL 007: Timeline of the state apparatus Interception and wielded state powers.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=ReassessingShootdown]]*[[Anatoly Kornukov]]*[[The Soviet/>}}U.S naval confrontation]]*[[KAL 007 and the Soviet Top Secret Memos]]*[[Soviet Union and obesity]]

These facts are all ==Bibliography=====Surveys===* Brzezinski, Zbigniew. ''Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the more impressive when we recall Twentieth Century'' (1990)* Ingram, Philip. ''Russia and the dismal state USSR, 1905-1991'' (1997) [https://www.amazon.com/Russia-1905-1991-Cambridge-History-Programme/dp/0521568676/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232394134&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]* Keep, John L. H. ''Last of workers’ rights the Empires: A History of the Soviet Union, 1945-1991'' (1996) [http://www.questia.com/read/25055927?title=Last%20of%20the%20Empires%3a%20A%20History%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union%2c%201945-1991 online edition]* McCauley, Martin. ''The Soviet Union: 1917-1991'' (1993) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54365219 online edition]* McCauley, Martin. ''Who's Who in Russia since 1900,'' (1997) [http://www.questia.com/read/103052094?title=Who's%20Who%20in%20Russia%20since%201900 online edition] * Malia, Martin. ''Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia'' (1995) [https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Tragedy-History-Socialism-Russia/dp/0684823136/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232396454&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]* Nove, Alec. ''An Economic History of the market economies USSR 1917-1991'' (3rd ed. 1993) * Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative * Suny, Ronald Grigor. ''The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States.'' (1998) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24265044# online edition]===Lenin and Stalin===* Bullock, Alan. ''Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives'' (1992), a double biography covering each man in separate but parallel chapters* Lee, Stephen J. ''Stalin and the Soviet Union'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/read/108215209?title=Stalin%20and%20the%20Soviet%20Union online edition] * McCauley, Martin. ''Stalin and Stalinism'' (3rd ed 2003), 172pp* Service, Robert. ''Stalin: A Biography'' (2004), along with Tucker the standard biography* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Biography'' (2002)* Tucker, Robert C. ''Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929'' (1973); ''Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929-1941.'' (1990) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103246514 online edition] with Service, a standard biography; [http://www.historyebook.org/ online at this timeACLS e-books]* Ulam, A. B. ''Stalin'' (1973), good older biography; replaced by Tucker and Service* Wood, Alan. ''Stalin and Stalinism'', (2004), 105pp [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=108863368 online edition] ===Peoples, society, culture===* Cole, J. P. ''Geography of the Soviet Union'' (1984) [http://www.questia.com/read/7724372?title=Geography%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union online edition]* Davis, Nathaniel. ''A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy'' (1995) [http://www.questia.com/read/30537968?title=A%20Long%20Walk%20to%20Church%3a%20A%20Contemporary%20History%20of%20Russian%20Orthodoxy online edition]* Denber, Rachel. ''The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context'' (1992) [http://www.questia.com/read/97474829?title=The%20Soviet%20Nationality%20Reader%3a%20The%20Disintegration%20in%20Context online edition] * Lane, David. ''Soviet Society under Perestroika'' (1992) [http://www.questia.com/read/103443652?title=Soviet%20Society%20under%20Perestroika online edition]* Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky. ''Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union'' (1982) [http://www.questia.com/read/106056669?title=Women%2c%20Work%2c%20and%20Family%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union online edition]* Lutz, Wolfgang Lutz, Sergei Scherbov, Andrei Volkov. ''Demographic Trends and Patterns in the Soviet Union before 1991'' (1994) [http://www.questia.com/read/103849492?title=Demographic%20Trends%20and%20Patterns%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20before%201991 online edition]* Wixman, Ronald. ''The Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook'' (1984) [http://www.questia.com/read/582240?title=The%20Peoples%20of%20the%20USSR%3a%20An%20Ethnographic%20Handbook online edition]

{{quote|This occurred at ===1918-1939===* 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 [https://www.amazon.com/Stalin-New-History-Sarah-Davies/dp/0521616530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494353&sr=8-1 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) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a time when American workers in particular were struggling for basic union recognition=o&d=109468478 online edition]* Hoffmann, which even when won did not provide much formal influence at David L. ed. ''Stalinism: The Essential Readings,'' (2002) essays by 12 scholars* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the work placeRussian Revolution'' (1996) [https://www.|amazon.com/Concise-History-Russian-Revolution/dp/0679745440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393501&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search], by a leading conservative* Tucker, Robert Thurston|<. ''Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation'' (1998) [https://www.amazon.com/Stalinism-Historical-Interpretation-Robert-Tucker/dp/0765804832/ref name=Reassessingsr_1_12/>}}103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193876953&sr=1-12 excerpt and text search]

Professor Thurston also states===[[Gulag]] and Terror===* Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag:A History.'' 2003. 736 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Gulag-History-ANNE-APPLEBAUM/dp/B0007NMYPY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494284&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]* Conquest, Robert. ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment'' (1991) [http://www.questia.com/read/79044140?title=The%20Great%20Terror%3a%20A%20Reassessment online edition]* Pohl, J. Otto. ''Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/read/9465022?title=Ethnic%20Cleansing%20in%20the%20USSR%2c%201937-1949 online edition]* Rosefielde, Steven. "Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s" ''Europe-Asia Studies,'' Vol. 48, No. 6 (Sep., 1996), pp.&nbsp;959–987 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0966-8136(199609)48%3A6%3C959%3ASIPPNE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V in JSTOR]

{{quote|===World War II===* Brandon, Ray, and Wendy Lower, eds. ''The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization.'' (2008). 378 pp. [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24078 online review], on the Holocaust* Broekmeyer, Marius. ''Stalin did not intend to terrorize , the country Russians, and did not need to rule by fearTheir War, 1941-1945. Memoirs '' 2004. 315 pp. * Overy, Richard. ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and interviews with Soviet people indicate that many more believed in Stalin’s quest to eliminate internal enemies than were frightened by itStalin's Russia.|Robert Thurston|<'' 2004. 448 pp. focus on 1930-45 [https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Hitlers-Germany-Stalins-Russia/dp/B000FTCH5W/ref name=Lifesr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494219&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]* Priestland, David. ''Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization'' (2007) [https:/>}}/www.amazon.com/Stalinism-Politics-Mobilization-David-Priestland/dp/0199245134/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494105&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953'' (2006).

Perhaps one of his most interesting statements ===Cold War===* see [[Cold War]]* Craig, Campbell, and Yuri Smirnov. ''Truman, Stalin, and the Bomb'' (indeed2008)* Gaddis, one John. ''A New History of the most statements from any bourgeois historian dealing with Cold War'' (2006)* Holloway, David. ''Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956'' (1996) [https://www.amazon.com/Stalin administration-Bomb-Soviet-Atomic-1939-1956/dp/0300066643/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193876689&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]* Mastny, Vojtech. ''The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years'' (1998) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98422373 online edition] [http://www.historyebook.org/ online at ACLS e-books]* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [https://www.amazon.com/Failed-Empire-Soviet-Gorbachev-History/dp/0807859583/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393695&sr=8-5 excerpt and perhaps text search]===Khruschev, Gorbachev===* Brown, Archie. ''The Gorbachev Factor'' (1996) [http://www.questia.com/read/109878423?title=The%20Gorbachev%20Factor online edition] * Dallin, Alexander, and Gail W. Lapidus. ''The Soviet System: From Crisis to Collapse'' (1995) [http://www.questia.com/read/100838053?title=The%20Soviet%20System%3a%20From%20Crisis%20to%20Collapse online edition] * Matlock, Jack. ''Reagan and Gorbachev: How the most succinct summary of this issue is Cold War Ended'' (2005), by leading conservative [https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Gorbachev-How-Cold-Ended/dp/0812974891/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393695&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]* Taubman, William. ''Khrushchev: The Man and His Era'' (2004) [https://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Man-His-William-Taubman/dp/0393324842/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393626&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the followingCold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [https://www.amazon.com/Failed-Empire-Soviet-Gorbachev-History/dp/0807859583/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393695&sr=8-5 excerpt and text search]

{{quote|There was never a long period of Stalinism without a serious foreign threat, major internal dislocation, or both, which makes identifying its true nature impossible.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life=References==<references/>}}

This relates to how the Soviet government reacted to the genuine material conditions faced by the Soviet Union, rather than simply following its own whims and desires. Working people did not only have the right to take part in decision-making at the workplace; they also had a voice in national policy decisions. Professor Kawamoto (Hitotsubashi University) states that the USSR had ‘a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people.’ As they put it: {{quote|The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word. [P]articipation through sending letters and attending discussions gave self-government a certain reality and helped to legitimize the Soviet regime. Therefore, listening to the people was an important obligation for the authorities. [T]he government encouraged people to send letters to the authorities and actively used the all-people’s discussions.|Kazuko Kawamoto|<ref name=Kawamoto>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Kawamoto|firstExternal links=Kazuko|title=Rethinking Soviet Democracy|journal=Japanese Political Science Review|url=https://researchmap.jp/read0148263/?lang=english}}</ref>}} It is also noted that Soviet citizens ‘believed that they were entitled to demand policy changes, and the draft writers, including specialists, officials, and deputies, felt obliged to respond to those demands.’ The process of gathering public opinion was intensive enough that it often slowed down the process of legislation: {{quote|Regarding the process of creating the Principles, direct participation worked largely as expected in the ideology of Soviet democracy, although it took many years.|Kazuko Kawamoto|<ref name=Kawamoto/>}} As Professor Kawamoto says, ‘the reason why it took so long was deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy.’ In addition to the aforementioned means of popular participation, Soviet officials also traveled throughout the nation to gather information on popular opinion. Using the development of Soviet family law as an example, Professor Kawamoto states: {{quote|The draft makers were not only passive recipients of letters but also traveled throughout the Soviet Union to listen to the people. When the work in the Commissions of Legislative Proposals was reaching its end, members of the subcommittee and officials working for them visited several union republics from April to June 1962 to research the practice of family law and collect opinions on important standards in the draft of the Principles… After these research trips, the commission finished the draft and presented it to the Central Committee of the Party in July.|Kazuko Kawamoto|<ref name=Kawamoto/>}} While Soviet democracy was not without its flaws (as mentioned, the process was often rather slow, and there were limits on the extent of criticism), it would be highly inaccurate to describe the USSR as a ‘totalitarian’ society, with no democratic structures; on the contrary, the USSR did practice its own form of democracy, and it did so rather effectively. ===Scope of authority===The government's authority over cities was uncontested throughout its existence, bar areas which were under foreign occupation during the Great Patriotic War. There were however cases of villages being seized by the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, which was in essence defeated in 1931, with its remnants extinguished in Kirghizia by 1934. In the Baltics there were the "Forest Brothers", who were anti-Soviet resistance forces that were pretty much defeated by Stalin's death. There were also some anti-collectivization rebellions.<ref>*[httpshttp://b-oklcweb2.cc/book/831235/8b358a Peasant Rebels under Stalin]</ref> ==Political Economy of the Soviet Union== ===Wage Labour=== In capitalist theories of the Soviet Union labour-power is considered a commodity in the Soviet Union, bought and sold on a labour-marketloc. ===Commodity Production=== In capitalist theories of the Soviet Union, commodity production is regarded to have had a generalised character, with inputs and outputs being commodities. Labour-power was sold to and bought by individual state enterprises, the means of production were sold between individual enterprises, and outputs, capital and consumer goods, were likewise sold to a market of consumers. ===Competition of Capitals=== In capitalist theories of the Soviet Union there is some debate about the existence of the competition of capitals. Tony Cliff and Raya Dunayevskaya claim that the law of value operated nonetheless due to international trade. [[Paresh Chattopadhyay]] disagrees, arguing that the law of value couldn't exist under such conditions and maintains that enterprises were reciprocally independent and were 'competitive' in the Marxist sense by confronting each other through the exchange of commodities. ===Accusations of imperialism=== The USSR has been accused of [[imperialism]] primarily by left communists, Trotskyists, and Hoxhaists. In the Marxist sense, the USSR was not imperialist because it was not capitalist; a prerequisite of imperial exploitation. As Harry Haywood (a veteran CPUSA member-turned-Maoist-turned-critic of China's foreign policy) put it:<blockquote>History demonstrates that, overall, Soviet foreign policy has been basically defensive and non-aggressive. This fact does not mean that everything the Soviet Union does is correct or that it cannot make serious mistakes or pursue wrong lines. For example, its relations with China and other socialist countries have been marked at times by chauvinism and hegemonism. But these problems do not make the Soviet Union a social imperialist power. Without a monopoly capitalist class and without capitalist relations of production there is no fundamental and compelling logic in the Soviet economy that creates a need to export capital and exploit other countries through trade. As a result it also has no colonies and no empire to sustain.<gov/blockquote>Chapters 6-8 of ''[[Is the Red Flag Flying?]]'' develops on this. It was possible for the USSR to use its political power to impose onerous or otherwise "lopsided" economic arrangements on other countries, e.g. the joint-stock companies in parts of Eastern Europe and China after WWII, but these were just as easily abolished after Stalin's death. By contrast, if a communist were elected President of the United States they would not be able to change the imperialist nature of the American capitalist economy, let alone of capitalism more broadly. In contrast to supposed imperialism, Soviet reformers in the late 80s were lamenting how the USSR's foreign policy was oriented toward subsidizing allies' economies rather than dealing with them on a more "businesslike" footing (e.g. Cuban sugar was bought at prices considerably higher than that of the world market). In terms of "imperialism" in a non-Marxist sense, e.g. in terms of political control, then the lines are blurred a bit. Just as the United States presumably wouldn't stand by if France or Italy went communist, the USSR was clearly willing to deploy troops to prevent any possibility of counter-revolution in the Warsaw Pact states. But this sort of analysis obscures the fundamental differences between the US and USSR in favor of "power politics" and other general concepts typical of bourgeois relations.  === Non-mode of production ===Some Marxists provide an alternative theory of the nature of the political economy of the Soviet Union. The theory was first formulated by [[Hillel Ticktin]]. == Economy =={{hatnote|Main article: [[economics of the Soviet Union]]}} With the exceptional periods of the 1910s and the 1990s, the Soviet Union was a [[planned economy]]. It achieved massively positive economic results until the 1970s, when revisionist policies and the [[Cold War]] began to cause a stagnation.  === Prerevolutionary background ===In 1917, Russia was a backwards, semicapitalist and feudal society. They had only recently abolished the manor system, and replaced it with the most brutal and primitive form of capitalism. The nation was dreadfully underdeveloped, with no sign of improving in the future, and what little growth did occur led to massive inequalities. According to a Professor of Economic History at Oxford University: {{quote|Not only were the bases of Imperial advance narrow, but the process of growth gave rise to such inequitable changes in income distribution that revolution was hardly a surprise. Real wages for urban workers were static in the late Imperial period despite a significant increase in output per worker[.] The revolution was also a peasant revolt, and the interests of the peasants were different[.] As in the cities, there was no gain in real wages.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Allen|first=Robert|title=A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution|url=https:frd/cs/citeseerxsutoc.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf|journal=Comparative Economic Studies|publisher=Oxford University|volume=47|issue=2|year=2005|pages=315–332|doi=10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100101|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044114/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref>}} The University html Library of Warwick corroborates these observations: {{quote|Agriculture had reached North American levels of productivity by 1913 and wheat prices collapsed after 1914. The expansion of the railroads had run its course and there was no prospect of protected light industry becoming internationally competitive. The appropriate comparators for the prospects for Russian capitalism in the twentieth century are not Japan but Argentina or even India. Moreover, Russian capitalist development had brought little if any benefit to the urban and rural working class, intensifying the class conflicts that erupted in Revolution.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Clarke|first=Simon|title=Reviewed Work: Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution|journal=Labour / Le Travail|url=https://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~syrbe/pubs/FarmtoFactory.pdf|publisher=Princeton University Press|volume=55|year=2005|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118140746/https://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~syrbe/pubs/FarmtoFactory.pdf|pages=300–302|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25149595|archivedate=2020-01-18}}</ref>}} === Revolutionary period ===With the 1917 revolution (and after the bloody civil war, with its policy of [[war communism]]), the Soviet economy began to grow rapidly.<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Allen|first=Robert|title=The Standard of Living in the Soviet Union, 1928–1940|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/standard-of-living-in-the-soviet-union-19281940/2922A641CA53F7BF592ECDDAF3316070|journal=The Journal of Economic History|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1998|date_published=2009-03-03|doi=10.1017/S0022050700021732}}</ref> The New Economic Policy (which nationalized large-scale industry and redistributed land, while allowing for the private sale of agricultural surplus) succeeded in transforming Russia from a semicapitalist existence into a developing state capitalist society, laying the groundwork for a [[planned economy]]. {{quote|Following War Communism, the New Economic Policy (NEP) sought to develop the Russian economy within a quasi-capitalist framework.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}} Economic circumstances came to require the transition to a planned economy: {{quote|However, the institutional and structural barriers to Russian economic development were now compounded by the unfavorable circumstances of the world economy, so that there was no prospect of export-led development, while low domestic incomes provided only a limited market for domestic industry. Without a state coordinated investment program, the Soviet economy would be caught in the low-income trap typical of the underdeveloped world.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}} In 1928 (after they selected the new head of the Communist Party), the [[RSFSR]] instituted a fully planned economy, and the first Five Year Plan was enacted. This resulted in rapid economic growth: {{quote|Soviet GDP increased rapidly with the start of the first Five Year Plan in 1928. […] The expansion of heavy industry and the use of output targets and soft-budgets to direct firms were appropriate to the conditions of the 1930s, they were adopted quickly, and they led to rapid growth of investment and consumption.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} Bourgeois economists often alleged that this rapid growth came at the cost of per-capita consumption and living standards. However, more recent research has shown this to be false: {{quote|There has been no debate that ‘collective consumption’ (principally education and health services) rose sharply, but the standard view was that private consumption declined. Recent research, however, calls that conclusion into question. […] While investment certainly increased rapidly, recent research shows that the standard of living also increased briskly. […] Calories are the most basic dimension of the standard of living, and their consumption was higher in the late 1930s than in the 1920s. […] There has been no debate that ‘collective consumption’ (principally education and health services) rose sharply, but the standard view was that private consumption declined. Recent research, however, calls that conclusion into question. […] Consumption per head rose about one quarter between 1928 and the late 1930s.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} Calorie consumption rose rapidly during this period: {{quote|Calories are the most basic dimension of the standard of living, and their consumption was higher in the late 1930s than in the 1920s. […] In 1895-1910, calorie availability was only 2100 per day, which is very low by modern standards. By the late 1920s, calorie availability advanced to 2500. […] By the late 1930s, the recovery of agriculture increased calorie availability to 2900 per day, a significant increase over the late 1920s. The food situation during the Second World War was severe, but by 1970 calorie consumption rose to 3400, which was on a par with western Europe.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} Overall, the development of the Soviet economy during the interbellum period was extremely impressive: {{quote|The Soviet economy performed well. […] Planning led to high rates of capital accumulation, rapid GDP growth, and rising per capita consumption even in the 1930s. […] The expansion of heavy industry and the use of output targets and soft-budgets to direct firms were appropriate to the conditions of the 1930s, they were adopted quickly, and they led to rapid growth of investment and consumption.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} The USSR’s growth during the interbellum period exceeded that of the market economies: {{quote|The USSR led the non-OECD countries and, indeed, achieved a growth rate in this period that exceeded the OECD catch-up regression as well as the OECD average.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} This success is also attributed specifically to the revolution and the planned economy: {{quote|This success would not have occurred without the 1917 revolution or the planned development of state owned industry.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} The benefits of the planned economy become obvious upon closer Congress detailed country study: {{quote|A capitalist economy would not have created the industrial jobs required to employ the surplus labour, since capitalists would only employ labour so long as the marginal product of labour exceeded the wage. State-sponsored industrialization faced no such constraints, since enterprises were encouraged to expand employment in line with the demands of the plan.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}} Economic growth was also aided by the liberation of women, and the resulting control over the birth rate, as well as women's participation in the workforce: {{quote|The rapid growth in per capita income was contingent not just on the rapid expansion of GDP but also on the slow growth of the population. This was primarily due to a rapid fertility transition rather than a rise in mortality from collectivization, political repression, or the Second World War. Falling birth rates were primarily due to the education and employment of women outside the home. These policies, in turn, were the results of enlightenment ideology in its communist variant.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}} Reviews of Allen’s work have backed up his statements: {{quote|Allen shows that the Stalinist strategy worked, in strictly economic terms, until around 1970. […] Allen’s book convincingly establishes the superiority of a planned over a capitalist economy in conditions of labour surplus (which is the condition of most of the world most of the time).|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}} Other studies have backed-up the findings that the USSR’s living standards rose rapidly: {{quote|Remarkably large and rapid improvements in child height, adult stature and infant mortality were recorded from approximately 1945 to 1970. […] Both Western and Soviet estimates of GNP growth in the Soviet Union indicate that GNP per capita grew in every decade in the postwar era, at times far surpassing the growth rates of the developed western economies. […] The conventional measures of GNP growth and household consumption indicate a long, uninterrupted upward climb in the Soviet standard of living from 1928 to 1985; even Western estimates of these measures support this view, albeit at a slower rate of growth than the Soviet measures.|Williams College|<ref name=Brainerd>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Brainerd|first=Elizabeth|title=Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data|url=https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf|publisher=Williams College|year=2008|doi=10.2139/ssrn.906590|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150318181223/http://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf|archivedate=2015-03-18|accessdate=2020-03-20}}</ref>}} As early as 1917, forest conservation became one of Bolshevism’s duties.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Lenin|first=Vladimir|chapter=8|title=The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/ch08.htm#v24zz99h-071-GUESS|year=1917}}</ref> With one minor exception, the Politburo consistently rejected the drive toward hyperindustrialism in the forest: Moscow capitulated only briefly to the industrialists in 1929, and in the 1930s and 1940s it set aside larger tracts of the RSFSR’s most valuable forests as preserves, off-limits to industrial exploitation.<ref name=Stalin_Environmentalism>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Brain|first=Stephen|title=Stalin’s Environmentalism|url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/13QiQYmG65Vlr7ncIJI44ynMIWwOzWOWR|journal=The Russian Review|publisher=Wiley on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review|year=2010|month=January|volume=69|number=1|pages=93–118}}</ref> === Cold War ===While the Soviet economy outperformed the market economies in numerous ways, the introduction of market reforms and other revisionist policies after 1953 may have contributed to the system’s deceleration and delayed the increase of living standards: {{quote|Three different measures of population health show a consistent and large improvement between approximately 1945 and 1969: child height, adult height and infant mortality all improved significantly during this period. These three biological measures of the standard of living also corroborate the evidence of some deterioration in living conditions beginning around 1970, when infant and adult mortality were rising and child and adult height stopped increasing and in some regions began to decline.|Williams College|<ref name=Brainerd/>}} Economic growth also began to slow around this time: {{quote|After the Second World War, the Soviet economy resumed rapid growth. By 1970, the growth rate was sagging, and per capita output was static by 1985.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}} The *[[Cold War]] was another factor which contributed to slowing growth rates: {{quote|The Cold War was an additional factor that lowered Soviet growth after 1968. The creation of high tech weaponry required a disproportionate allocation of R & D personnel and resources to the military. Innovation in civilian machinery and products declined accordingly. Half of the decreased in the growth rate of per capita GDP was due to the decline in productivity growth, and that decrease provides an upper bound to the impact of the arms race with the United States.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}} Despite the delayed growth rates, food consumption remained at acceptable levels. By 1976 the average caloric intake of the Soviet population was 3,330.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book| publisher = Springer| isbn = 978-1-349-10349-2| last = Birman| first = Igor| title = Personal Consumption in the USSR and the USA| date = 1989-06-18| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_hexCwAAQBAJ|page=36|pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=_hexCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36}}</ref> Similarly, a 1983 report confirmed that Soviets and U.S. citizens ate about the same amount of food quotidianly, but the Soviet diet may have be more eutrophic; they put the daily caloric intake at 3,280.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=STRENGTH‐DIET|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf|date=1983-01-08|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200224040849/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf|archivedate=2020-02-24}}</ref><ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=The Nutrient Content of the Soviet Food Supply|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf|year=1984|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200203193608/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf|archivedate=2020-02-03}}</ref> Dr. Kenneth Gray, the White House’s top expert on Soviet agriculture, confirmed in his testimony to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that ‘the food shortages in the USSR are occurring at fairly respectable levels of consumption.’<ref name=Medley>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Medley|first=Joseph| accessdate = 2019-10-09| title = Soviet Agriculture: A Critique of the Myths Constructed by Western Critics|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611145106/http://www.usm.maine.edu/eco/joe/works/Soviet.html}}</ref> While the USSR did become a major importer of grain by the 1980s,<ref name=Medley/> they intended these imports strictly for feeding livestock, since it takes between seven and fourteen pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. They thereby increased their consumption of meat and dairy.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book |last=Syzmański |first=Albert |authorlink= |chapter=5 |title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union |url=https://archiveibiblio.org/streamexpo/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion |location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltdsoviet. |year=1984 |section=Imports |page=132 |pageurl=https:exhibit//archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion#page/n74/mode/1up |isbn=0 086232 018 6 |oclc=}}</ref> Per capita meat consumption in the USSR doubled from the 1960s to the 1980s and exceeded such nations as the [[Kingdom of Norway]], Italy, Greece, the [[Kingdom of Spain]],<ref name=HRSU72>{{safesubst:cite book |last=Syzmański |first=Albert |authorlink= |chapter=5 |title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union |url=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion |location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltd. |year=1984 |section=Living Standards|pages=128–9 |pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion#page/n72/mode/1up |isbn=0 086232 018 6 |oclc=}}</ref> [[Japan]], and the [[State of Israel]]. Milk production increased almost sixty percent in two decades, to the point when during the 1980s the USSR became by far the world’s largest milk-producing country. According to the 1982 [[CIA]] report on the Soviet economy, ‘The Soviet Union remains basically self-sufficient with respect to food.’<ref>{{safesubst:cite book| publisher = Transaction Publishers| isbn = 978-1-4128-3909-9| last1 = Hoffmann| first1 = Erik P.| last2 = Laird| first2 = Robbin Frederick| title = The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era| page = 431|pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC&pg=PA431}}</ref> These were the accomplishments of an agrarian labour force that decreased from 42% in 1960 to 20% in 1980, working in a country where over 90% of the land is either too arid or too frigid for farming.<ref>{{safesubst:cite news| issn = 0882-7729| title = Soviet farming: more success than failure?| work = Christian Science Monitor| accessdate = 2019-10-09| date = 1982-12-13| url = https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/1213/121323intro2.html}}</ref> Although Vladimir Lenin would inspire many ecosocialists in the U.S.S.R.,<ref>{{safesubst:Cite news| title = Lenin’s Eco-Warriors - The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/opinion/lenin-environment-siberia.html| accessdate = 2019-10-09| date = 2017-08-15|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815005108/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/opinion/lenin-environment-siberia.html|archivedate=2017-08-15}}</ref> and Moscow initiated history’s first state-directed effort to reverse artificially induced climate change,<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Brain|first=Stephen|title=The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature|journal=Environmental History|publisher=Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History|year=2010|month=October|volume=15|number=4|page=671|JSTOR=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25764488}}</ref> the immense pressure to compete with antisocialist régimes meant that pollution and irresponsible use of the environment would become very significant issues in later decades.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Szymański|first=Albert|chapter=5|title=Is the Red Flag Flying?|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-6/red-flag.pdf|location=London|publisher=Zed Press|year=1979|page=83|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/IsTheRedFlagFlying#page/n45/mode/1up|ISBN=0 905762 35 5}}</ref><ref>{{safesubst:Cite web| title = Environmental Policy and Law in the USSR| accessdate = 2019-10-09| url = https://elr.info/sites/default/files/articles/17.10068.htm}}</ref> For example, a series of dry years in the 1970s (particularly 1974–1975) and low flows between 1982 and 1986 contributed to the Aral Sea’s desiccation, but overconsumption of the water for irrigation was another factor. Starting in the 1960s, the Soviets proposed a large-scale project to redirect part of the flow of the Ob basin’s rivers to Central Asia over a gigantic canal system; replenishing the Aral Sea was considered as one of the project’s main goals.<ref>{{safesubst:Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-1-139-42941-2| last = Glantz| first = Michael| title = Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin| date = 1999-05-13|pageurl = https://books.google.com/books?id=2YXnBxZg7c4C&pg=PA174| page = 174}}</ref> It was only due to its staggering costs and the negative public opinion in the R.S.F.S.R. that the federal authorities unfortunately relinquished the project by 1986. (The worst effects of the sea’s desiccation manifested '''after''' the short twentieth century:<ref>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:AralSea1989_2014.jpg</ref> when a market economy was well in place.) The discontinuation of many Soviet industries also lead to a temporary reduction in CO₂ emissions in the Eastern world;<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last1=Schierhorn|first1=Florian|last2=Kastner|first2=Thomas|last3=Kuemmerle|first3=Tobias|last4=Meyfroidt|first4=Patrick|last5=Kurganova|first5=Irina|last6=V Prishchepov|first6=Alexander|last7=Erb|first7=Karl-Heinz|last8=A Houghton|first8=Richard|last9=Müller|first9=Daniel|title=Large greenhouse gas savings due to changes in the post-Soviet food systems|journal=Environmental Research Letters|url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1cf1|publisher=IOP Publishing Ltd|date=2019-06-21|volume=14|number=6}}</ref> United Nations data from 1990 indicate that the Soviet Union was emitting 13.5 tons of CO₂ per capita (lower than antisocialist states such as Australia (17.2), Canada (16.2), and Imperial America (19.1)).<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (CDIAC)|url=http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx|publisher=United Nations Statistics Division and the United States Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)|accessdate=2020-02-11}}</ref> In summary: {{quote|Compared with the later period it is justifiable to talk of the indisputable advantages of the command over the market economy in Russian conditions. […] [T]hese advantages are evident even in comparison with the degenerate mid-1980s version of the command economy, which was very different from the classical model. […] The USSR economy also exceeded the main capitalist countries in this period in terms of a number of indicators of economic efficiency. […] [T]he fading of the rate of economic growth which began at the end of the 1950s was not an inevitable consequence of the faults of command economy as an economic system but was the result of its gradual dismantling and the incompetent actions of the political and economic leadership in this period.|G.I. Khanin|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Khanin|first=G.I.|title=The 1950s: The Triumph of the Soviet Economy|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3594504|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|publisher=Taylor & Francis, Ltd.|volume=55|number=8|year=2003|pages=1187–1211|ISSN=0966-8136|DOI=10.1080/0966813032000141088}}</ref>}} == Infrastructure == === Health ===The USSR placed importance on the health of its people, and alongside quality food products, provided health care as a constitutional right*State Defense Committee Decree No. <br>''ARTICLE 120. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.'' - (Soviet Constitution of 1936 Chapter 10: FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS)<ref>5859ss [httpshttp://www.departmentsloc.bucknell.edugov/russianexhibits/constarchives/36cons04l2tartar.html#chap10]</ref> <br>''- Article 41: Citizens of "On the USSR have the right to rest and leisure. This right is ensured by the establishment of a working week not exceeding 41 hours, for workers and other employees, a shorter working day in a number of trades and industries, and shorter hours for night work; by the provision of paid annual holidays, weekly days of rest, extension of the network of cultural, educational, and health-building institutions, and the development on a mass scale of sport, physical culture, and camping and tourism; by the provision of neighborhood recreational facilities, and of other opportunities for rational use of free time. The length of collective farmers' working and leisure time is established by their collective farms. - Article 42: Citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection. This right is ensured by free, qualified medical care provided by state health institutions; by extension of the network of therapeutic and health-building institutions; by the development and improvement of safety and hygiene in industry; by carrying out broad prophylactic measures; by measures to improve the environment; by special care for the health of the rising generation, including prohibition of child labour, excluding the work done by children as part of the school curriculum; and by developing research to prevent and reduce the incidence of disease and ensure citizens a long and active life.'' - (Soviet Constitution of 1977, Part II. The State And The Individual; Chapter 7: The Basic Rights, Freedoms, And Duties Of Citizens Of The USSR)<ref>[https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html#chap07 ''CONSTITUTION (FUNDAMENTAL LAW) OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS: Part II, Chapter 7''Crimean Tatars"]</ref> Health conditions in Imperial Russia had been deplorable; it was among the unhealthiest nations in Europe, if not Earth in general: {{quote|Without doubt the Soviet Union was one of the most underdeveloped European countries at the time of the October Revolution. In terms of life-expectancy it lagged behind the other industrialized countries of Europe by a gap of about 15 years.|University of Munich|<ref name=Dinkel>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Dinkel|first=Reiner|title=Declining Life Expectancy in a Highly Developed Nation: Paradox or Statistical Artifact?|url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-95874-8_22|journal=Paradoxical Effects of Social Behavior|publisher=Physica-Verlag HD|year=1986|pages=311–321|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-95874-8_22|ISBN=978-3-7908-0350-1}}</ref>}} However, after the October Revolution, healthcare conditions began to improve rapidly.<ref>{{safesubst:Cite book|author=Howard M. Leichter|authorlink=|chapter=7|editor=|editors=|title=A Comparative Approach to Policy Analysis: Health Care Policy in Four Nations|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cfI6AAAAIAAJ|archiveurl=https://wp.me/pa7b25-X|archivedate=27/July/2018|edition=|location=New York|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1979|volume=|section=|page=200|pageurl=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cfI6AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA200|isbn=0-521-22648|oclc=|text=In this hospital great pains were taken to keep surgical areas antiseptic and patient areas clean. The patients could enjoy fresh air and relaxation in an outdoor garden. In generalKremlin, the patientsMay 11, who included persons of varied ethnic and social backgrounds, were getting good medical attention1944. […] As the two literary descriptions suggest, the quality of medical care has improved substantially under communist rule.}}</ref> By the end of the interbellum period, healthcare standards (measured by life expectancy and mortality rates) were superior to those of Western Europe and the USA: {{quote|One of the most striking advances of socialism has been and was generally seen to be the improvement in public health provision for the population as a whole. In accordance with this assumption mortality-rates in the Soviet Union declined rapidly in the first two decades after World War II. In 1965 life-expectancy for men and women in all parts of the Soviet Union, which still included vast underdeveloped regions with unfavorable living conditions, were as high or even higher than in the United States. Such a development fits perfectly into the picture of emerging industrial development and generally improving conditions of living.|University of Munich|<ref name=Dinkel/>}} Even reactionary intellectuals were forced to acknowledge these achievements; according to Nick Eberstadt (an antisocialist think-tank adviser), healthcare standards in the Soviet Union during the interbellum period surpassed those of the USA and Western Europe: {{quote|Over much of this century the nation in the vanguard of the revolution in health was the Soviet Union. In 1897 Imperial Russia offered its people a life expectancy of perhaps thirty years. In European Russia, from what we can make out, infant mortality (that is, death in the first year) claimed about one child in four, and in Russia’s Asian hinterlands the toll was probably closer to one in three. Yet by the late 1950s the average Soviet citizen could expect to live 68.7 years: longer than his American counterpart, who had begun the century with a seventeen-year lead. By 1960 the Soviet infant mortality rate, higher than any in Europe as late as the Twenties, was lower than that of Italy, Austria, or East Germany, and seemed sure to undercut such nations as Belgium and West Germany any year.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt/>}} He even notes that these achievements made planned economics seem nearly indefatigable: {{quote|In the face of these and other equally impressive material accomplishments, Soviet claims about the superiority of their “socialist” system, its relevance to the poor countries, and the inevitability of its triumph over the capitalist order were not easily refuted.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt/>}}  While health conditions did start to decline after the introduction of revisionist policies in the mid-1960s, this was likely caused mostly by the substance abuse, lopsided age demographics due to WWII, and the disparities in mortality rates between the European and Asian regions of the union rather than actual deficiencies in the healthcare system.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Cockshott|first=Paul|title=Economic Factors in Soviet Collapse|url=https://invidio.us/embed/EE-kCZnlGZU|accessdate=2020-03-26}}</ref> Either way, the planned economy’s healthcare achievements remain unimpeachable. In January of 1960, news of a smallpox epidemic reached Moscow, which immediately mobilized all the resources of its hospitals, clinics, police departments and the KGB to search for and contain probable carriers. For example, they interrupted university lectures to quarantine one hundred fifty students, and searched elsewhere for other contacts until they establish an entire chain, interrupting trains and flights to quarantine potentially infected people. They placed a total of 9,342 people under quarantine. The Soviets prevented the spread of smallpox by vaccinating all of Moscow’s and Moscow Region’s residents of all ages. Within only a week, they successfully vaccinated more then 9.5 million people, an unprecedented case in history. By mobilizing law enforcement, epidemiologists, and all medics, they successfully defeated the virus in only 19 days, concluding on February 3, 1960. In total, they found only forty-five Moscow residents suffering from smallpox, only three of whom died.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Egorov|first=Boris|title=How the USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days|url=https://www.rbth.com/history/331857|date=2020-03-19|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200321031034/https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpox|archivedate=2020-03-21}}</ref> ===Education===Already in 1919, despite the lackluster economic conditions, the Bolsheviki improved education substantially: {{quote|Thousands of new schools have been opened in all parts of Russia and the Soviet Government seems to have done more for the education of the Russian people in a year and a half than Czardom did in 50 years. *[…] The achievements of the department of education under Lunacharsky have been very great. Not only have all the Russian classics been reprinted in editions of three and five million copies and sold at a low price to the people, but thousands of new schools for men, women, and children have been opened in all parts of Russia. Furthermore, workingmen’s and soldiers’ clubs have been organized in many of the palaces of yesteryear, where the people are instructed by means of moving pictures and lectures. In the art galleries one meets classes of working men and women being instructed in the beauties of the pictures. The children’s schools have been entirely reorganized, and an attempt is being made to give every child a good dinner at school every day. Furthermore, very remarkable schools have been opened for defective and over-nervous children. On the theory that genius and insanity are closely allied, these children are taught from the first to compose music, paint pictures, sculpt and write poetry, and it is asserted that some valuable results have been achieved, not only in the way of productions but also in the way of restoring the nervous systems of the children.|William C. Bullitt|<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Kominsky|first=Morris|IV|title=The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars|url=httpshttp://archivebertschlossberg.org/stream/TheHoaxers|edition=|location=Boston|publisher=Branden Press, Inc.|year=1970|id=8283-1288-5|volume=I|page=256|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers#page/n250/mode/1up}}</ref>}} Corporal punishment, common in Imperial Russia, became illegal and increasingly rare.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last1=Gould|first1=Laurie|last2=Pate|first2=Matthew|chapter=1|editor=Graeme R. Newman|title=Corporal Punishment around the World|url=https://books.googleblogspot.com/books?id=Uf-1r3SVVrYC|location=Santa Barbara|publisher=Praeger|year=2012|page=26|pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uf-1r3SVVrYC&pg=PA26|ISBN=978-0-313-39131-6|LCCN=2012017133}}</ref> Education continued to improve from the 1920s to the 1960s, and various nonsocialist observers, including Western government officials, have attested to the high quality of Soviet education, noting the diverse range of subjects, support for students, and complexity compared to U.S. education.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Kominsky|first=Morris|IV|title=The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers|edition=|location=Boston|publisher=Branden Press, Inc.|year=1970|id=8283-1288-5|volume=I|pages=294–303|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers#page/n288/mode/1up}}</ref> {{quote|In common with primary and secondary education, all higher education is free, and students in higher education who maintain a ‘B’ average also receive a stipend. Such stipends vary according to the year of study, the subject studied, the type of school and the student’s progress; no stipend is paid for a year that must be repeated. In the mid-1970s university students received 40–60 roubles a month and technical school students 30–45 roubles. Admission to higher education is by examinations for specific institutions; there are no IQ tests or general aptitude tests in the USSR. Students who fail one institution’s entrance exam can reapply in future years or apply to other institutions. Advantages are given to higher education applicants with work experience, for example, quotas, extra points on examinations, special tutorial programmes. In 1967, 30% of admissions to higher education were of people who had been working full time. In general, Soviets are actively encouraged to continue with formal education throughout their lives. Indeed, the Soviets have one of the highest rates of attendance at institutions of higher education in the world.|Albert Szymański|<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Syzmański|first=Albert|chapter=5 |title=Human Rights in the Secret Soviet Union |url=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion|location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltd.|year=1984|page=137|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion#page/n76/mode/1up |isbn=0 086232 018 6}}</ref>}} ==Environment=====Environmentalism===The USSR produced so little plastic that it was essential non-existent, and the plastic that was produced was made Missions to last. Most bottles were made of glass, with old ones sent to factories to be sanitized and reused, with broken glass either swept up to be melted down or otherwise disposed of. Metal and paper waste was treated just like in wartime, similar to the US scrap collection system during World War II, resulting in minimal metal and paper waste. Littering was fined and weekly cleanup volunteers helped reduce trash in public places. Widespread availability and use of public transport meant less CO₂ produced as well. Cars also tended to have 4-6 cylinders meaning they used less gas, with trucks using diesel fuel which requires less refinement and is thus cheaper, while also using less energy from power plants.  The focus on nuclear power further reduced CO₂ emissions, with nuclear power gradually coming to supersede coal-based power. Windmills were also used in areas for water pumps and flour production.And furthermore Stalin, for one, had a series of ecological programs which replanted thousands of square kilometers of forests cut down or destroyed in preparation for and during World War II - [[The Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature]] (1948-1953). In all these ways, the Soviets sought to reduce the ecological effects of their rapid and massive industrialization necessary to survive their early years as a nation.  The Russian Federation, on the other hand, shirked environmental maintenance work which was regularly done in the USSR. The current system is to cut down a section of forest, dig a deep pit, dump waste in the pit, light it on fire, and then bury it while the methane and other fuel continue to let the fire burn under ground; leaking into the air and nearby villages. This has caused and still causes large protests, especially since this is a significant step down from the more efficient trash sorting and processing system present in the Soviet Union. ===The Aral Sea===Aral Sea has been slowly drying up for a while naturally. If no humans effect it this would take a few millenia to eliminate. Obviously human impact has sped up this process. In the 1960s, Soviet researchers predicted the complete evaporation of the body of water, and a river used to irrigate farmland had the excess water siphoned into the lake and would have been rerouted to continue to do so. This was, however, expensive, and during the privatizations (and subsequent economic catastrophe) of the 1980s, that came with the rise of Gorbachev, the plan was abandoned. After Kazakhstan seceded, high-intensity cotton farming practices and infrastructure mismanagement - most water running through irrigation to the farms evaporated on the way there - accelerated the shrinkage. Most of the former Aral Sea is a desert. The destruction of the Aral Sea is a product of resource mismanagement both during the Soviet Union and after, with the latter being exemplified by Yeltsin's capitalist shock therapy which largely disregarded environmental sustainability rather than simple ignorance of impact. ===Radioactive dumping===There is only one lake with high radiation levels as a result of radioactive dumping, Lake Karachay, but that was because radiation wasn't understood nearly as well KAL 007 at the time. Similarly, radioactive dumping by Soviets has occurred in the Barents and Kara Seas, however this was not a phenomenon unique to the USSR.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200609083923/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste Ocean disposal of radioactive wasteMoneron Island]</ref> ==Railways== From 1927 to 1941, the USSR expanded their freight rail network to be 20x larger than before, surpassing the US. From 1965 to 1980, the USSR build 639km of track a year (or about 1.5km a day).  ==References==

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