The Soviet Union was a federal state made up of fifteen republics joined together in a theoretically voluntary union. In turn, a series of territorial units made up the republics. The republics also contained jurisdictions intended to protect the interests of national minorities. The republics had their own constitutions, which, along with the all-union Constitution, provide the theoretical division of power in the Soviet Union. In 1989, however, the CPSU and the central government retained all significant authority, setting policies that were executed by republic, provincial (''oblast'', ''krai'', and autonomous subdivisions), and district (''raion'') governments.
==FoundingHistory==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 Main article: [[LeninSoviet Union (history]], ''The Soviet Union was established in December 1922 following by the overthrow leaders of the [[czar|tsarist]] [[Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) on territory generally corresponding to that of the old Russian Empire]] . A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd overthrew the [[Russian Revolution]]imperial government in March 1917, and the ensuing [[Russian Civil War]]. It allowed one central government under Lenin leading to control many republics, including the original members formation of [[Ukraine]]the Provisional Government, [[Belarus]], [[which intended to establish democracy in Russia]] and . At the republics same time, to ensure the rights of the Trans-Caucasian regionworking class, workers' councils (''soviets'') sprang up across the country. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics became a multi-national entity that eventually included 15 republics: Russia (the RSFSR)Bolsheviks, [[Latvia]]led by Vladimir I. Lenin, [[Lithuania]], [[Estonia]], [[Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], [[Georgia]], [[Azerbaijan]], [[Armenia]], [[Uzbekistan]], [[Tajikistan]], [[Kyrgyzstan]], [[Turkmenistan]], [[Kazakhstan]]agitated for socialist revolution in the soviets and on the streets, and [[Moldova]]they seized power from the Provisional Government in November 1917. Only after the ensuing Civil War (1918-21) and foreign intervention was the new communist government secure.
==Rise From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of Stalin==Upon Lenin's deaththe Communists, a power struggle ensued between [[Leon Trotsky]] and [[Joseph Stalin]], two influential officials during Lenin's tenureas the Bolsheviks called themselves beginning March 1918. Stalin eventually gained After unsuccessfully attempting to centralize the upper hand in economy during the fightCivil War, and forced Trotsky into exile; Trotsky was eventually assassinated the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in [[Mexico]] in 1940the 1920s. By 1932, Debate over the standard future of living of average the economy provided the background for Soviet workers was lower than that of leaders to contend for power in the unemployed years after Lenin's death in Western countries1924. Tens of thousands had been shot as dissenters By gradually consolidating influence and as “speculators,” i.e., for engaging in [[free market]] trade. <ref>[http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1468 ''FDR: The Man, isolating his rivals within the Leaderparty, the Legacy''], Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001Joseph V. Retrieved from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.</ref> The [[Gulag]] was rapidly filling up with millions condemned to hunger and death. And then came Stalin became the great terror-famine sole leader 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 Soviet Union by the North Caucasus and other regions. From end of the villages stretching across this vast area, state functionaries nervously informed Moscow that conditions were so bad that cannibalism was becoming common1920s.
The correspondent of In 1928 Stalin introduced the ''[[New York Times]]''First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. In industry, Walter Duranty, staunchly denied the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization; in print that any famine existedagriculture, although he admitted it in privatethe state appropriated the peasants' property to establish collective farms. For his reporting from RussiaThese sweeping economic innovations produced widespread misery, Duranty won and millions of peasants perished during forced collectivization. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s when Stalin began a [[Pulitzer Prize]], purge of which the ''New York Times'' still boasts 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 dayturmoil, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II.
On Stalin tried to avert war with Germany by concluding the eve of [[World War II]] came the [[Great Purge]]NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939, but in which Stalin disposed of all followers of Lenin and Trotsky1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The liquidation of Red Army stopped the military leadership had important ramifications after the [[Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and then overran much of eastern Europe before Germany]] invaded surrendered in 19411945. Although severely ravaged in the war, and is largely accredited as the cause Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as one of the USSRworld's unpreparedness and setbacks in the early part of the Wargreat powers.
[[Adolf Hitler]] was an outspoken anti-Communist During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and longed to crush Russiathen expanded its economy. The German armySoviet Union consolidated its control over postwar Eastern Europe, howeversupplied aid toward the victory of the communists in China, failed and sought to capture [[Moscow]]expand its influence elsewhere in the world. The active Soviet foreign policy helped bring about the Cold War, mostly due to which turned its wartime allies, Britain and the harsh Russian winterUnited States, into foes. Over twelve million Russians Within the Soviet Union, repressive measures continued in force; Stalin apparently was about to launch a new purge when he died in the Second World War1953.
The In the absence of an acceptable successor, Stalin's closest associates opted to rule the Soviet Union supposedly was vocal in protecting workers' interestsjointly, however Isaac Deutscher noted after World War II restrictions on although behind the employment public display of [[child labor]] were abolishedcollective leadership a struggle for power took place.<ref>Isaac DeutscherNikita S. Khrushchev, who acquired the dominant position in the country in the mid-1950s, denounced Stalin's use of terror and effectively reduced repressive controls over party and society. Khrushchev'The Great Purges''s reforms in agriculture and administration, edited by Tamara Deutscher (Basil Blackwellhowever, Oxfordwere generally unproductive, 1984), pand foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses. 79Khrushchev's colleagues in the leadership removed him from power in 1964.</ref>
Following the ouster of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, which lasted until 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 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 invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.
{{Famine After some experimentation with economic reforms in the mid-1960s, the Soviet leadership reverted to established means of 1933}}economic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during the 1970s, while agricultural development continued to lag. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of cautious conservatism and aversion to change. Brezhnev was succeeded by former KGB head Yuri Andropov.
==Soviet aggression==Friction with the west continued in the 1980's, especially with the United States and its new president, [[Image:Sovietambitions.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The darkened areas represent territorries of Ronald Reagan]], who saw the Soviet ambitions Union for what it was and designsbranded it an "evil empire, 1921 " partially in response to the Afghanistan occupation. Reagan negotiated with West Germany to provide sites for the basing of Pershing II medium- 1949range 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 ambitions in attack on a commercial airliner, [[ChinaKorean Airlines Flight 007]] , over international waters near Sakhalin Island on September 1, 1983, and killing 269 civilians; this was followed by events within a military exersize known as early as 1921 were to transform all northern China — [[SinkiangAble Archer]], [[Mongolia]] in which a falling satellite was mistaken for an incoming ICBM and almost triggered a major war. Reagan's [[ManchuriaStrategic Defense Initiative]] — into outright Russian dependencies and to convert what remained of China into a Communist satellite.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin a space- Adair Companybased missile defense system critics derisively dubbed "Star Wars" as well as his expantion of the United States military, 1951also prompted a new, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 17] pdfexpensive arms race.</ref>
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 Andropov and [[Outer Mongolia]]his successor,while at the same timeKonstantin Chernenko, Japan was censured for stationing troops in China. <ref>"The Explanation of kept the Foreign Minister at Imperial Conferencecommunist system under Brezhnev intact," 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.Putnamupon Chernenko's Sons, 1945), pp. 231-232. death [http://home.comcast.net/~markconrad/Sinkiang.htm#_ednref9][http://www.oxuscom.com/sovinxj.htmMikhail Gorbachev]</ref> ==The Cold War== Later the USSR would oppose the [[United States]] by providing aid to enemies in direct conflictbecame party chairman. 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 StatesA reformer, [[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.)<ref>The World Almanac, Global Press, 1999</ref> 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 [http://www.rescue007.org/]. ==Disintegration==The Soviet Union eventually imploded after he introduced a series of economic and political reforms known as ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openenss") and ''[[perestroika]]'' introduced by ("restructuring"), which began to creak open the last chairman doors of the [[Communist Party Soviet's closed system. However, the doors were forced open by other countries' demands of the Soviet Unionfacts concerning the 1986 [[Chernobyl]] (CPSU), nuclear accident which spread radiation as far north as Sweden. A failed attempt to reign in in the three [[Mikhail GorbachevBaltic States]], in the 1980s. As previously mentioned, the Soviet Union was also strategically weakened 1989 led to a domino-effect of Warsaw Pact countries abandoning communism; a coup attempt against Gorbachev in 1991 by its engagement in Afghanistan and the need hard-liners trying to keep up with the United States military under Reagan, which it could not dotheir tattering empire ended within days. The USSR was formally dissolved in 1991 by [[Boris Yeltsin]], freeing many from its [[tyranny]]. The [[successor state|successor states]] to the Soviet Union are the [[Russian Federation]] and the other members of the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]].
==See Also==