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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.

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.

==Founding==

==History==

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 [[czar|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]].

:''Main article: [[Soviet Union (history]]''

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 (1918-21) and foreign intervention was the new communist government secure.  

==Rise of Stalin==

From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves beginning March 1918. After unsuccessfully attempting to centralize the economy during the Civil War, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually consolidating influence and isolating his rivals within the party, Joseph V. Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s.  

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. <ref>[http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1468 ''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.</ref>  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.

In 1928 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.  

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.

Stalin tried to avert war with Germany by concluding the NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939, but in 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Red Army stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and then overran much of eastern 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.  

[[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.

During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy. The Soviet Union consolidated its control over postwar Eastern Europe, supplied aid toward the victory of the communists in China, and sought to expand its influence elsewhere in the world. The active Soviet foreign policy helped bring about the Cold War, 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.  

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.<ref>Isaac Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', edited by Tamara Deutscher (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984), p. 79.</ref>

In the absence of an acceptable successor, Stalin's closest associates opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly, although behind the public display of collective leadership a struggle for power took place. Nikita 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's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses. Khrushchev's colleagues in the leadership removed him from power in 1964.  

{{Famine of 1933}}

After some experimentation with economic reforms in the mid-1960s, the Soviet leadership reverted to established means of economic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during the 1970s, while agricultural development continued to lag. 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.

Friction with the west continued in the 1980's, 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; this was followed by events within a military exersize 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 expantion of the United States military, also prompted a new, expensive arms race.

[[Image:Sovietambitions.jpg|thumb|300px|right|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.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 17] pdf.</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 and [[Outer Mongolia]],

Andropov and his successor, Konstantin Chernenko, kept the communist system under Brezhnev intact, but upon Chernenko's death [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became party chairman.  A reformer, he introduced a series of economic and political reforms known as ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openenss") and ''[[perestroika]]'' ("restructuring"), which began to creak open the doors of the Soviet's closed system.  However, the doors were forced open by other countries' demands of the facts concerning the 1986 [[Chernobyl]] nuclear accident which spread radiation as far north as Sweden.  A failed attempt to reign in 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 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]].

while at the same time, Japan was censured for stationing troops in China. <ref>"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. [http://home.comcast.net/~markconrad/Sinkiang.htm#_ednref9][http://www.oxuscom.com/sovinxj.htm]</ref>

 

 

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.)<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.

 

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/].

 

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 state|successor states]] to the Soviet Union are the [[Russian Federation]] and the other members of the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]].

==See Also==

==See Also==