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The '''Soviet Union''' (Russian: Советский Союз, ''Sovyetskiy Soyuz''), formally officially the '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''' (or '''USSR''') (Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, ''Soyuz Sovietskykh Sotsialisticheskykh Respublik'', abbreviated ''СССР'') was a [[progressive]] [[police state]] that existed 1917-from 1922 to December 25, 1991, <ref>[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-established/ This Day in History USSR Established 1922]</ref> then broke into 15 separate countries, most notably the [[RussiaRussian Federation]]. It was Throughout its history, the most powerful established [[socialist]] states leadership in history, coming to power under the [[LeninKremlin]] in 1918 and killing millions of its peasants to establish a ruthless Communist dictatorship under [[Joseph StalinPolitburo]] in the 1930s. After cooperating with the USSR (1939-41), the Nazi Germans under [[Adolf Hitler]] invaded in a war to the deathwas never dominated by ethnic Russians. The USSR defeated communist ideology suppressed the Nazis in [[World War II]] (1941-45), dominant culture and took control of most of Eastern Europe, turning formerly independent countries into Communist satellites. It was the primary antagonist of the United States during the national identity while promoting [[Cold Wardiversity]] (1947-1989); it then collapsed because of American pressure and its own internal economic and social failures. At its height the USSR covered one-sixth inclusion of the earth's land area, stretching from eastern Europe across north Asia to the Pacific Oceanminorities.

[[File:Siberian catСаблинский хребет.jpg|thumbnail|300px|The [[Siberia]]n [[cat]] is Ural Mountains run north-to-south through the national cat of [[Soviet Union (Russia]].<br /><br /><small>(photo obtained from [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bugsy_outside4.jpg Wikimedia commons]), photographer: Jan Warner, see: [http://creativecommonsroughly dividing the eastern and western parts.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en license agreement])</small>]]Located in the middle and northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, the Soviet Union's 22.4 million square kilometers included one-sixth of the earth's usable land area. Its western portion(European part of Russia), comprising more than half of all EuropeEuropean landmass, made up 25% of its Russia's total area; this, however, was where 72% of the people lived , and was where most industrial and agricultural activities were concentrated. The largest region was the lightly populated [[Siberia]], a land between the Urals and the Pacific that for centuries was infamous as a place of exile, a land of endless expanses of snow and frigid temperatures.

Extending for over 60,000 kilometers, the Soviet border was the world's longest national frontier, sharing a common border with twelve countries, six on each continent. In Asia, its neighbors were the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] (North Korea), [[China]], [[Mongolia]], [[Afghanistan]], [[Iran]], and [[Turkey]]; in [[Europe]], it bordered [[Romania]], [[Hungary]], [[Czechoslovakia]](now [[Czech Republic]] and [[Slovakia]]), [[Poland]], [[Norway]], and [[Finland]].

A dozen seas, part of the water systems of three oceans--the oceans—the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific--washed Pacific—washed over Soviet shores.

The USSR was divided into fifteen union republics - the largest administrative and political units - officially known as Soviet republics or union republics. Theoretically they were independent countries; in practice they were controlled by the Kremlin. Nationality, size of the population, and location were the determinants for republic status. By far the largest and most important was the Russian Republic, containing about 51% of the population. In 1989 Russians made up over 51% of the Soviet population and were politically, economically and culturally the dominant nationality, there are more than 100 other nationality groups that make up Soviet society. Fourteen other major nationalities also have their own republics: in the European part are the [[Lithuania]]n, [[Latvia]]n, [[Estonia]]n, [[Belarus|Belarusian]]ian, [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]], and [[Moldavia]]n republics; the [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]n, Azerbaydzhan[[Azerbaijan]], and [[Armenian]] republics occupy the Caucasus; and Soviet Central Asia is home to the [[Kazakhstan|Kazakh]], [[Uzbekistan|Uzbek]], [[Turkmenistan|Turkmen]], Kirgiz[[Kyrgyzstan|Kyrgyz]], and Tadzhik [[Tajikistan|Tajik]] republics.

[[Image:Solzhenitsyn.jpg‎|thumb|150px|right|The [[Nobel Prize]] winning [[Russia|Russian]] n author [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] was exiled from the Soviet Union due to his criticism of the Soviet government.]]

The various nationalities differed greatly in size. On the one hand, the [[Russia]]nsRussians, who constituted about 50.8 percent of the population, numbered about 145 million in 1989. On the other hand, half of the nationalities listed in the census together accounted for only 0.5 percent of the total population, most of them having fewer than 100,000 people. Twenty-two nationalities had more than 1 million people each. Fifteen of the major nationalities had their own union republics, which together comprised the federation known as the Soviet Union.

*Religions: Religious worship was authorized by Constitution, but Marxism-LeninismMarxism–Leninism, the 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.

*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 Marxist-Leninist Marxist–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.

According to the census of 1989, on the day of the census, January 12, the population of the Soviet Union was estimated to be 286,717,000. This figure maintained the country's long-standing position as the world's third most populous country after China and India. In the intercensal period (1979-881979–88), the population of the Soviet Union grew from 262.4 million to 286.7 million, a 9 percent increase.

[[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''Main articleCommunist Manifesto: [[Workers of the world, unite!|"Workers of all countries, unite!"]] The hammer-sickle device overspreading the world signifies the spread of Communism worldwide.]]{{Main|Soviet Union government]]''}}The Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society through decisions made by the extremely authoritarian leading political institution in the country, the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU). The USSR guaranteed free healthcare and jobs as a basic right, even if the employment was in a [[gulag]] as a [[slave]] of the [[state]].

In the late 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 legislative body, the Congress of People's Deputies, and its standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, represented the principle of popular sovereignty. The Supreme Soviet, which had an elected chairman who functioned as head of state, oversaw the Council of Ministers, which acted as the executive branch of the government. The chairman of the Council of Ministers, whose selection was approved by the legislative branch, functioned as head of government. A constitutionally based judicial branch of government included a court system, headed by the Supreme Court, 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 offering the national minorities the appearance of participation in the management of their own affairs.

In practice, however, the government differed markedly from other Western systems. In the late 1980s, the CPSU performed many functions that governments of other countries usually perform. For example, the party decided on the policy alternatives that the government ultimately implemented. The government merely ratified the party's decisions to lend them an aura of legitimacy. The CPSU used a variety of mechanisms to ensure that the government adhered to its policies. The party, using its nomenklatura authority, placed its loyalists in leadership positions throughout the government, where they were subject to the norms of [[democratic centralism]]. Party bodies closely monitored the actions of government ministries, agencies, and legislative organs.

The content of the Soviet Constitution differed in many ways from typical Western constitutions. It generally described existing political relationships, as determined by the CPSU, rather than prescribing an ideal set of political relationships. The Constitution was long and detailed, giving technical specifications for individual organs of government. The Constitution included political statements, such as foreign policy goals, and provided a theoretical definition of the state within the ideological framework of Marxism-LeninismMarxism–Leninism. The CPSU could radically change the constitution or remake it completely, as it has done several times in the past.

:''{{Main article: [[|History of the Soviet Union]]''}}

The Soviet Union was established in December 1922 by the leaders of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) on territory generally corresponding to that of the old Russian Empire. A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd overthrew the imperial government in March 1917, leading to the formation of the Provisional Government, which intended to establish democracy in Russia. At the 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 (1918-211918–21) and foreign intervention was the new communist government secure.

[[Image:Stalin-140508 27880t.jpg|right|225px|thumb|[[Joseph Stalin]], the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953, founded the League of Militant Atheists, whose chief aim was to propagate [[militant atheism]] and eradicate [[religion]].<ref name=Hesemann-Strieber>{{cite book|author=Michael Hesemann, Whitley Strieber|title=The Fatima Secret|url=httphttps://books.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 death in 1924 was followed by the rise of Joseph Stalin, "the man of steel," who founded the "Union of Militant Atheists," whose chief aim was to spread [[atheism]] and eradicate religion. In the following years it devastated hundreds of churches, destroyed old icons and relics, and persecuted the clergy with unimaginable brutality.|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|date=2000|accessdate=09 9 October 2011}}</ref> See also: [[Atheism]] ]]In 1928 [[Joseph Stalin]] introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization; in agriculture, the state appropriated the peasants' property to establish collective farms. These sweeping economic innovations produced widespread misery, and millions of peasants perished during forced collectivization. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s when Stalin began a purge of the party; out of this purge grew a campaign of terror that led to the execution or imprisonment of untold millions of people from all walks of life. Yet despite this turmoil, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II.

Stalin tried to divide up Eastern Central Europe with Germany by concluding the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939. The USSR took over the Baltics (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) and the eastern half borderlands (Polish: 'Kresy') of Poland, while going to war with [[Finland]]. Communists across the world ended their diatribes against fascism, while Stalin provided the German war machine with supplies of oil and grain. Europe was not big enough for two dictators, so in June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The U.S. and Britain formed an alliance with Stalin to fight the Nazis, and poured in [[Lend Lease]] aid. After many humiliating defeats and the loss of three mission soldiers, the Red Army finally stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43 and then overran much all of eastern Central Europe before Germany surrendered in 1945. Although severely ravaged in the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as one of the world's great powers.

During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, using resourcs stripped from defeated Germany. The Red Army imposed Communist political control over postwar Eastern Central Europeand the Balkans, except for Yugoslavia and Albania. The active Soviet foreign policy helped bring about the [[Cold War]], starting about 1947, which turned its wartime allies, Britain and the United States, into foes. Within the Soviet Union, repressive measures continued in force; Stalin apparently was about to launch a new purge when he died in 1953.

Following the ouster of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, which lasted until [[Leonid Brezhnev|Leonid I. Brezhnev]] established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. Brezhnev presided over a period of détente with the rest of the West while at the same time building up Soviet military strength; the arms buildup contributed to the demise of [[détente]] in the late 1970s. Also contributing to the end of détente was the [[Soviet-Afghan War|Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]] in December 1979.

Friction with the west other Western countries continued in the 1980's1980s, especially with the United 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 was bitterly opposed by Moscow. A short period of confrontation existed between the 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.

Andropov and his successor, [[Konstantin Chernenko]], kept the communist system under Brezhnev intact, but upon Chernenko's death [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became party chairman.

===Gorbachev and the end of Communismcommunist rule===

A reformer, he introduced a series of economic and political reforms known as ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openess") and ''[[perestroika]]'' ("restructuring"), which began to creak open the doors of the Soviet's closed system. A failed attempt to reign in the three [[Baltic States]] in 1989 led to a domino-effect of [[Warsaw Pact]] countries abandoning communism; a coup attempt against Gorbachev in 1991 by hard-liners trying to keep their tattering empire ended within days. The USSR was formally dissolved on Christmas day Day 1991 by [[Boris Yeltsin]], freeing many from its tyranny. The main successor state to the Soviet Union is [[Russia]]; the effort to form a "Commonwealth of Independent States" went nowhere, and the 15 republics of the USSR are now independent states.

==See Also==According to declassified CIA documents, [[George Soros]] targeted the Soviet government as early as 1987. Soros worked closely with a CIA linked non-governmental organization, the Institute for East-West Security Studies, to take advantage of Glasnost and Perestroika for the purpose of infiltrating and sabotaging the Soviet economic and political system. <ref>https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/12/09/soros-and-his-cia-friends-targeted-ussr-russia-1987/</ref>*To assent to the reunification of Germany, Soviet leader [[Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev]] ultimately agreed to a proposal from then U.S. Secretary of State [[James Baker (DOS)]] that a reunited Germany would be part of NATO but the military alliance would not move “one inch” to the east, that is, absorb any of the former [[Warsaw Pact]] nations into NATO.  On Feb. 9, 1990, Baker said: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 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 Unionin 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 … 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 context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of [[East German]] territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. … The documents reinforce former CIA Director [[Robert Gates]]’s criticism of ‘pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.’ … President [[George H.W. Bush]] had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (‘I have not jumped up and down on the [[Berlin Wall]]”) of the revolutions 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>}} The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in [[Bonn]], [[West Germany]] between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which Western officials made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO would not push into territory east of Germany. “We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the document in British foreign ministry archives quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz. “NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added. A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for [[eastern Europe]]an countries is “unacceptable.”<ref>https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund-stuetzt-russische-version-a-1613d467-bd72-4f02-8e16-2cd6d3285295</ref> The dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991 was a watershed event in terms of the [[decline of leftism]] and the [[decline of the secular left]]. ==See also==

* Ingram, Philip. ''Russia and the USSR, 1905-1991'' (1997) [httphttps://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]

* Malia, Martin. ''Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia'' (1995) [httphttps://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]

* Davies, Sarah, and James Harris, eds. ''Stalin: A New History,'' (2006), 310pp, 14 specialized essays by scholars [httphttps://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]

* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the Russian Revolution'' (1996) [httphttps://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. ''Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation'' (1998) [httphttps://www.amazon.com/Stalinism-Historical-Interpretation-Robert-Tucker/dp/0765804832/ref=sr_1_12/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193876953&sr=1-12 excerpt and text search]

* Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' 2003. 736 pp. [httphttps://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]

* 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. 959-987 &nbsp;959–987 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0966-8136(199609)48%3A6%3C959%3ASIPPNE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V in JSTOR]

* Overy, Richard. ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.'' 2004. 448 pp. focus on 1930-45 [httphttps://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Hitlers-Germany-Stalins-Russia/dp/B000FTCH5W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494219&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]* Priestland, David. ''Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization'' (2007) [httphttps://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]

* Holloway, David. ''Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956'' (1996) [httphttps://www.amazon.com/Stalin-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]

* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [httphttps://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]

* Matlock, Jack. ''Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended'' (2005), by leading conservative [httphttps://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) [httphttps://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 Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [httphttps://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]

*State Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss [http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/l2tartar.html "On the Crimean Tatars"], The Kremlin, May 11, 1944. *[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ The Secret Soviet Missions to KAL 007 at Moneron Island]

{{communism}}[[categoryCategory:Russian History]]