Difference between revisions of "Soviet Union"

Revision as of 05:46, July 31, 2008

Союз Советских Социалистических Республик Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik
	85px
Flag	Coat of Arms
Capital	Moscow
Government	Communist
Language	Russian (de facto) (official)
President	Ivan Silayev (last, 1991)
Area	8,649,538 sq. mi. (1991)
Population	293,047,571 (1991)

The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, Sovyetskiy Soyuz), formally the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, Soyuz Sovietskykh Sotsialisticheskykh Respublik, abbreviated СССР) was one of the most powerful established socialist states in history. At its height the USSR covered one-sixth of the earth's land area stretching from eastern Europe across north Asia to the Pacific Ocean.

Geography

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 inhabited land area. Its western portion, more than half of all Europe, made up 25 percent of its area; this, however, was where the overwhelming majority (about 72 percent) of the people lived and where most industrial and agricultural activities were concentrated. Despite its European ties, the Soviet Union was largely an Asian country because of 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.

The Soviet Union measures some 10,000 kilometers from Kaliningrad on the Gulf of Danzig in the west to Ratmanova Island (Big Diomede Island) in the Bering Strait, or roughly equivalent to the distance from Edinburgh, Scotland, east to Nome, Alaska. From the tip of the Taymyr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean to the Central Asian town of Kushka near the Afghan border extend almost 5,000 kilometers of mostly rugged, inhospitable terrain.

Extending for over 60,000 kilometers, the Soviet border was once 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, Poland, Norway, and Finland.

Approximately two-thirds of the frontier was bounded by water, forming the longest and, owing to its proximity to the North Pole, probably the most useless coastline of any country. Practically all of the lengthy northern coast is well above the Arctic Circle and, with the important exception of Murmansk, which receives the warm currents of the Gulf Stream, is locked in ice much of the year. A dozen seas, part of the water systems of three oceans--the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific--washed over Soviet shores.

• Size: Approximately 22,402,200 square kilometers (land area 22, 272,000 square kilometers); slightly less than 2.5 times size of United States.
• Location: Occupies eastern portion of European continent and northern portion of Asian continent. Most of country north of 50° north latitude.
• Topography: Vast steppe with low hills west of Ural Mountains; extensive coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; deserts in Central Asia; mountains along southern boundaries.
• Climate: Generally temperate to Arctic continental. Winters vary from short and cold along Black Sea to long and frigid in Siberia. Summers vary from hot in southern deserts to cool along Arctic coast. Weather usually harsh and unpredictable. Generally dry with more than half of country receiving fewer than forty centimeters of rainfall per year, most of Soviet Central Asia northeastern Siberia receiving only half that amount.
• Land Boundaries: 19,933 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.
• Water Boundaries: 42,777 kilometers washed by oceanic systems of Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific.
• 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.

Administrative-Political-Territorial Divisions

Since 1956 the enormous territory of the Soviet Union had consisted of fifteen union republics - the largest administrative and political units - officially known as Soviet republics or union republics. Nationality, size of the population, and location were the determinants for republic status. By far the largest and most important of the union republics was the Russian Republic, containing about 51 percent of the population. Largely because it encompasses Siberia, the Russian Republic alone accounted for 75 percent of Soviet territory and formed the heartland of both the European and the Asian portions of the Soviet Union. Although in 1989 Russians made up over 51 percent of the Soviet population and were in many ways the dominant nationality, they are just one of more than 100 nationality groups that make up Soviet society. Fourteen other major nationalities also have their own republics: in the European part are the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, and Moldavian republics; the Georgian, Azerbaydzhan, and Armenian republics occupy the Caucasus; and Soviet Central Asia is home to the Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kirgiz, and Tadzhik republics (these republics have broken from the Soviet Union following the 1991 collapse of the government). The Soviet system also provided for territorial and administrative subdivisions called autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, autonomous okruga, kraia, or most often oblasts. These subdivisions make the country easier to manage and at times serve to recognize additional nationalities.

People

The official Soviet census of 1989 listed over 100 nationalities in the Soviet Union. Each had its own history, culture, and language. Each possessed its own sense of national identity and national consciousness. The position of each nationality in the Soviet Union depended to a large degree on its size, the percentage of the people using the national language as their first language, the degree of its integration into the Soviet society, and its territorial-administrative status. This position was also dependent on each nationality's share of membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the number of students in higher institutions, the number of scientific workers, and the urbanization of each nationality.

The various nationalities differed greatly in size. On the one hand, the Russians, 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.

The nationalities having union republic status commanded more political and economic power than other nationalities and found it easier to maintain their own language and culture. In 1989 some nationalities formed an overwhelming majority within their own republics; one nationality (the Kazakhs), however, lacked even a majority. In addition to the fifteen union republics, 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 their own and in most cases only constituted minorities in the Russian Republic.

The nationalities that have had a significant political and economic impact on the 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 Caucasus, the 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 people lived west of Ural Mountains.
• Nationalities: 51 percent of population Russian, 15 percent Ukrainian, 6 percent Uzbek, nearly 4 percent Belorussian, and 24 percent about 100 other nationalities.
• Religions: Religious worship authorized by Constitution, but Marxism-Leninism, the official ideology, militantly atheistic. Reliable statistics unavailable, but about 18 percent Russian Orthodox; 17 percent Muslim; and nearly 7 percent Roman Catholic, Protestant, Armenian Orthodox, Georgian Orthodox, and Jewish combined. Officially, most of remainder atheist.
• Languages: Russian the official language. Over 200 other languages and dialects spoken, often as the primary tongue; 18 languages 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. Compulsory attendance through eleventh grade. Strong emphasis on training for vocations selected by central authorities. Indoctrination in 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 parttime . 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 highest number of physicians and hospital beds per capita in world. Welfare and pension programs provided, albeit marginally, for substantial segments of population.

Population

Seven official censuses have been taken in the Soviet Union (1920, 1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989). Both the quality and the quantity of the data have varied: in 1972 seven volumes totaling 3,238 pages were published on the 1970 census. In contrast, the results of the 1979 census were published more than five years later in a single volume of 366 pages.

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 (1979-88), the population of the Soviet Union grew from 262.4 million to 286.7 million, a 9 percent increase.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, a trend toward smaller nuclear families, and increasing mobility and urbanization. Major problems associated with such factors as migration, tension among nationality groups, uneven fertility rates, and high infant and adult mortality became increasingly acute, and various social programs and incentives were introduced to deal with them.

Religion

Over one-third of the people in the Soviet Union, an officially atheistic state, professed religious belief. Christianity and Islam had the most believers. Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox, which had the 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.

The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly. Because Islamic religious tenets and social values of Muslims are closely interrelated, religion appeared to have a greater influence on Muslims than on either Christians or other believers. Two-thirds of the Soviet population, however, had no religious beliefs. About half the people, including members of the CPSU and high-level government officials, professed atheism. For the majority of Soviet citizens, therefore, religion seemed irrelevant.

Founding

The USSR, the primary member of which was communist-era Russia, was established by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Russian: Владимир Ильич Улянов), known by his nom de guerre of Lenin, in 1922 following the overthrow of the tsarist Russian Empire in the Russian Revolution, and the ensuing Russian Civil War. It allowed one central government under Lenin to control many republics, including the original members of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and the republics of the Trans-Caucasian region. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics became a multi-national entity that eventually included 15 republics: Russia (the RSFSR), Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Moldova.

Rise of Stalin

Upon Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, two influential officials during Lenin's tenure. Stalin eventually gained the upper hand in the fight, and forced Trotsky into exile; Trotsky was eventually assassinated in Mexico in 1940. By 1932, the standard of living of average Soviet workers was lower than that of the unemployed in Western countries. Tens of thousands had been shot as dissenters and as “speculators,” i.e., for engaging in free market trade. ^[1] The Gulag was rapidly filling up with millions condemned to hunger and death. And then came the great terror-famine of 1932–33. In this forgotten democide, some five or six or more millions died of starvation and diseases resulting from malnutrition, mostly in the Ukraine, but also in the North Caucasus and other regions. From the villages stretching across this vast area, state functionaries nervously informed Moscow that conditions were so bad that cannibalism was becoming common.

The correspondent of the New York Times, Walter Duranty, staunchly denied in print that any famine existed, although he admitted it in private. For his reporting from Russia, Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize, of which the New York Times still boasts to this day.

On the eve of World War II came the Great Purge, in which Stalin disposed of all followers of Lenin and Trotsky. The liquidation of the military leadership had important ramifications after the Nazi Germany invaded in 1941, and is largely accredited as the cause of the USSR's unpreparedness and setbacks in the early part of the War.

Adolf Hitler was an outspoken anti-Communist and longed to crush Russia. The German army, however, failed to capture Moscow, mostly due to the harsh Russian winter. Over twelve million Russians died in the Second World War.

The Soviet Union supposedly was vocal in protecting workers' interests, however Isaac Deutscher noted after World War II restrictions on the employment of child labor were abolished.^[2]

"This famine was deliberately engineered by the regime of Josef Stalin 91 years ago claimed millions of lives, mostly in Ukraine but also in some other parts of the Soviet Union. It is today considered one of the worst atrocities of the Soviet regime and a terrifying act of genocide. Even so, the famine of 1933 is relatively unknown. ... Estimates of how many people died in Stalin's engineered famine of 1933 vary. But they are staggering in their scale -- between seven and 11 million people."^[3]

Soviet aggression

The darkened areas represent territorries of Soviet ambitions and designs, 1921 - 1949.

Soviet ambitions in China as early as 1921 were to transform all northern China — Sinkiang, Mongolia and Manchuria — into outright Russian dependencies and to convert what remained of China into a Communist satellite.^[4]

The U.S. Department of State refused to regard Japan as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in North China in the 1930s. As a matter of fact, not one protest was sent by the Department of State against the Soviet Union despite her absorption of Sinkiang and Outer Mongolia, while at the same time, Japan was censured for stationing troops in China. ^[5]

The Cold War

Later the USSR would oppose the United States by providing aid to enemies in direct conflict. In the 1960s the USSR provided heavy arms shipments to Egypt and Syria that were used in their 1967 war with Israel. Although the two Arab nations were routed the Soviets would replenish the arms lost. Soviet military assistance aided North Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s during the Vietnam War.

In 1979 Soviet forces entered Afghanistan to support that government against Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen rebels. These rebels found support from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations. By 1989 the Soviets withdrew with some 14,000 killed and 53,000 troops wounded during the course of the conflict. This, along with the economic cost needed to keep up with the increasing United States military under Ronald Reagan, helped lead to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. (Only 80,000 - 140,000 troops were in Afghanistan at any given time.)^[6]

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to the America and several other nations boycotting the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics. In turn the Soviets and many of their proxy states would boycott the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics.

The Shootdown of KAL 007

Considered by many as the second or third most critical single incident of the Cold War, after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and Able Archer 83, the shooting down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 on Sept. 1, 1983 would signal a change in the relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union prompted by the subsequent deployment of Pershing and cruise missiles in West Germany just 6 minutes from launch to Moscow. This precipitated the era of confrontation of 1983 and 1984 between the two nations. The world would once again witness what it saw as the blatent barbarity of what President Reagan had termed the "Evil Empire". Though the world had accepted that KAL 007 had exploded and crashed with no survivors of the 269 passengers and crew, there has most recently surfaced evidence to the contrary [3].

Disintegration

The Soviet Union eventually imploded after a series of economic and political reforms known as glasnost and perestroika introduced by the last chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachev, in the 1980s. As previously mentioned, the Soviet Union was also strategically weakened by its engagement in Afghanistan and the need to keep up with the United States military under Reagan, which it could not do. The USSR was formally dissolved in 1991 by Boris Yeltsin, freeing many from its tyranny. The successor states to the Soviet Union are the Russian Federation and the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

See Also

• Nazi Germany
• Korean Airlines Flight 007
• Soviet Officers of KAL 007 Shootdown
• KAL 007: Timeline of Interception and Shootdown

References

1. ↑ FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001. Retrieved from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.
2. ↑ Isaac Deutscher, The Great Purges, edited by Tamara Deutscher (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984), p. 79.
3. ↑ Stalin's Starvation of Ukraine – Seventy Years Later, World Still Largely Unaware Of Tragedy, By Askold Krushelnycky, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Prague, 8 April 2003 (RFE/RL).
4. ↑ While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It, John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, pg. 17 pdf.
5. ↑ "The Explanation of the Foreign Minister at Imperial Conference," December 1, 1941, Far Eastern Military Tribunal, Record p. 26101. According to Alexander Barmine, who was in charge of the supply of Soviet arms, by 1935, Sinkiang had become "a Soviet colony in all but name." One Who Survived (NewYork: G. P.Putnam's Sons, 1945), pp. 231-232. [1][2]
6. ↑ The World Almanac, Global Press, 1999

External links

• Library of Congress detailed country study on the Soviet Union
• State Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss "On the Crimean Tatars", The Kremlin, May 11, 1944.