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{{Country| classname ="wikitable" style="float:right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"! colspan="2" | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''Союз Советских<br/>Социалистических Республик<smallbr/>Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́бликSoyuz Sovetskikh<br/small>Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik'' |-map =Soviet union rel 1986.jpg| colspanflag ="2" |[[File:800px600px-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection)Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg.png|frameless|300x300|center|The Soviet Union]]<br><div style="text-align:center">Map of the USSR</div>|-| stylearms ="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; padding-top: 5px;" |[[File:Ussrflag.jpg|125x63px|frameless|Flag Coat of the Soviet Union]] | style="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; padding-top: 5px;" | [[File:State Emblem 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''), formally 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 1922 and -1991,<ref>[http://www. It was governed history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-established/ This Day in History USSR Established 1922]</ref> then broke into 15 separate countries, most notably [[Russia]]. The USSR guaranteed free healthcare and jobs as a single-party state by basic right, even if the employment was in a [[Communist Party gulag]] as a [[slave]] of the Soviet Union[[state]] with Moscow as . It was the most powerful established [[socialist]] state in history, coming to power under [[Lenin]] in 1918 and killing tens of millions of its capitalpeople to establish an extreme [[leftwing]] ideology.

[[File:480px-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg.png|thumbnail|right|400px|The Soviet Union after [[WWII]] ]]===Russian Revolution=Geography==[[File:Саблинский хребет.jpg|thumbnail|300px|The RSFSR (Russian Ural Mountains run north-to-south through the Soviet Federative Socialist RepublicUnion (Russia) emerged out of , roughly dividing the [[Russian Revolution of 1917eastern and western parts.]]Located in the middle and northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with 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 European landmass, made up 25% of Russia's total area, was where 72% of the people lived, and was where most industrial and agricultural activities were concentrated. The largest region was the lightly populated [[Bolshevism|BolshevikSiberia]] revolutionary [[Vladimir Lenin]] as its first president. The new government created , a constitution establishing itself land between the Urals and the Pacific that for centuries was infamous as a Socialist republicplace of exile, a land of endless expanses of snow and frigid temperatures.

===Red vs. White Civil War===In 1918Extending for over 60,000 kilometers, following the seizure of power by Soviet border was the Bolsheviksworld's longest national frontier, sharing a civil war between common border with twelve countries, six on each continent. In Asia, its neighbors were the Bolsheviks [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] (or ‘Reds’North Korea) , [[China]], [[Mongolia]], [[Afghanistan]], [[Iran]], and the remaining monarchists [[Turkey]]; in [[Europe]], it bordered [[Romania]], [[Hungary]], [[Czechoslovakia]] (the ‘Whites’now [[Czech Republic]] and [[Slovakia]]), along with various disgruntled social democrats and liberals such as their rival faction[[Poland]], the Mensheviks[[Norway]], tore apart the RSFSR. Despite support from the capitalist Western Powers, the Whites were ultimately defeated in 1920and [[Finland]].

During Approximately two-thirds of the warfrontier was bounded by water, forming the Bolsheviks militarily intervened in Ukrainelongest and, which was under owing to its proximity to the control North Pole, probably the most useless coastline of anarcho-communists (led by [[Nestor Makhno]]) and Ukrainian ultranationalistsany country. The anarchists made a treaty with the Bolsheviks in 1920Apart from Murmansk, but which receives the Bolsheviks refused to publicly acknowledge itwarm currents of the Gulf Stream, leading to the arrest northern coast is locked in ice much of Nestor Makhno and his delegation upon confronting the Bolsheviksyear. The search for a warm water port was a central theme throughout Russian history.

===New Economic Policy===The New Economic Policy was A dozen seas, part of what historian Brinton called the thermidor after the French Revolution's Thermidorian Reaction. It involved a variety of concessions to the backward strata water systems of three oceans—the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific—washed over Soviet societyshores. *Size: Approximately 22, including the restoration of obstacles to divorce402, laws against homosexuality200 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 the abolition northern portion of the age Asian continent. Most of consent lawscountry north of 50° north latitude.<ref>{{safesubst*Topography:cite book|last=Brinton|first=CVast steppe with low hills west of Ural Mountains; extensive coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; deserts in Central Asia; mountains along southern boundaries.|title=The Anatomy *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 Revolution|country receiving fewer than forty centimeters of rainfall per year=1965|pages=225–226}}</ref> Economically, it meant most of Soviet Central Asia northeastern Siberia receiving only half that industrial state owner enterprises gained autonomy in its policies while in rural areas individual private initiative 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 enterprise was allowed to dominate economic conductTurkey 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.

In 1928 the NEP ended when ===Administrative-Political-Territorial Divisions===The USSR was divided into fifteen union republics - the Soviet government implemented the first Five Year Plan. This became largest administrative and political units - officially known as central planning Soviet republics or a command economyunion republics. Theoretically they were independent countries; in practice they were controlled by the Kremlin. Nationality, which lasted until circa 1991 when size of the economy had reached a critical point 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 [[CrisisLithuania]]n, [[Latvia]]n, [[Estonia]]n, [[Belarus]]ian, [[Ukraine|crisis of Ukrainian]], and [[Moldavia]]n republics; the absolute over-accumulation of capital[[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]n, [[Azerbaijan]], and [[Armenian]] republics occupy the Caucasus; and Soviet Central Asia is home to the [[Kazakhstan|Kazakh]], [[Uzbekistan|Uzbek]], [[Turkmenistan|Turkmen]], [[Kyrgyzstan|Kyrgyz]], and [[Tajikistan|Tajik]]republics.

===Socialism in one country===In spite of an arguably overpowered bureaucracy and some of the reactionary concessionsThe Soviet republics were subdivided into administrative subdivisions called autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, the Soviets made extensive achievements which vastly improved life for hundreds of millions of peopleautonomous okruga, kraia, or most often oblasts. These achievements were subdivisions made the result of the [[planned economy]] (built primarily during the 1930s). Even reactionaries<ref>{{cite book|last=Losurdo |first=Domenico |chapter=1 |chapterurl=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WS8cCjXDgdJaXFrkW9b1ldY3xlwiPPQ89AwZo53Amlk |title=Stalin: The History country easier to manage and Critique of a Black Legend |url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/18K7U3g_ZsHwasqAS_BiokoWg5A0vXAsCkwYoO_xw93A |location=|publisher=|year= |page= |pageurl= |isbn= |oclc= |text=}}</ref> have been unable some served to deny this;<ref>{{cite book|last1=Downey |first1=Town |last2=Smith |first2=Nigel |chapter=6 |chapterurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C&pg=PA37 |title=Russia and the USSR 1900–1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C |location=Great Clarendon Street |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |page=43 |pageurl=https://books.googlerecognize additional nationalities.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C&pg=PA43 |isbn=0-19-917248-X |oclc= |text=}}</ref> as antisocialist propagandist Nick Eberstadt admitted:

{{quote|==People==[[Joseph StalinImage:Solzhenitsyn.jpg‎|Stalinthumb|150px|right|The [[Nobel Prize]] winning [[Russia]]n author [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]’s results were incontestable. This is a point those of us in the West often overlook. Stalin inherited a country that was exiled from the primary casualty of World War I, and bequeathed Soviet Union due to his successors a super-power. It is but a single measure criticism of the success Soviet government.]]The official Soviet census of 1989 listed over 100 nationalities in the ‘Leader’Soviet Union. Each had its own history, culture, and his understanding language. Each possessed its own sense of the endurance of his nation, that between 1940 national identity and 1953, a period marked by an immensely destructive world war costing perhaps twenty million national consciousness. The position of each nationality in the Soviet lives and Union depended to a series of purges claiming perhaps not many lesslarge degree on its size, the USSR doubled its production percentage of coal and steelthe people using the national language as their first language, tripled its output the degree of cement and industrial goodsits integration into the Soviet society, and increased its pool territorial-administrative status. This position was also dependent on each nationality's share of skilled labor by a factor membership in the [[Communist Party of ten. These rates the Soviet Union]] (CPSU), the number of growth were geometrically higher than students in higher institutions, the less devastated number of scientific workers, and Terror-free West.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Eberstadt|first=Nick|title=The Health Crisis in the USSR*|url=https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/6/1384/660149|journal=International Journal urbanization of Epidemiology|volume=35|issue=6|date=2006-12-04|pages=1384–1394|doi=10each nationality.1093/ije/dyl238}}</ref>}}

The claim that various nationalities differed greatly in size. On the Soviets purged ‘perhaps not many less’ 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 twenty100,000 people. Twenty-two nationalities had more than 1 million peopleeach. Fifteen of the major nationalities had their own union republics, however, is obvious nonsense:which together comprised the federation known as the Soviet Union.

{{quote|The Stalinist regime was consequently responsible for about a million purposeful killings, nationalities having union republic status commanded more political and through its criminal neglect economic power than other nationalities and irresponsibility found it was probably responsible for easier to maintain their own language and culture. In 1989 some nationalities formed an overwhelming majority within their own republics; one nationality (the premature deaths of about another two million more victims amongst the repressed populationKazakhs), however, ilacked even a majority.e. in In addition to the campsfifteen union republics, coloniesindividual nationalities had their own territorial units, prisonssuch as autonomous republics, exileautonomous oblasts, in transit and in the POW camps for Germans. These are clearly much lower figures than those for whom Hitler’s regime was responsibleautonomous okruga.|Stephen Wheatcroft|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Wheatcroft|first=Stephen|title=The Scale and Nature remaining nationalities did not have territorial units of German their own and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|url=http://sovietinfoin most cases only constituted minorities in the Russian Republic.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf|publisher=University of Glasgow|volume=48|number=8|year=1996|pages=1319–1353}}</ref>}}

The Stalin administration was thus responsible for about three 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 deathspeople in 1989. They are the Slavic nationalities, the Baltic nationalities, the nationalities of the Caucasus, the Central Asian nationalities, and even that is only if one includes Fascist POWsa few other nationalities. *Population: 293, victims 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. [[File:Bezhnoznik u stanka 15-1929.jpg|thumb|260px|A Soviet propaganda poster disseminated in the ''Bezbozhnik'' (''Atheist'') magazine depicting [[Jesus]] being dumped from a wheelbarrow by an unintentional 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 tragic famine (Wheatcroft’s own research proves that it Marxism–Leninism, the official ideology, was unintentionalmilitantly [[Atheism|atheistic]] (see: [[Militant atheism]]). Reliable statistics are unavailable, but about 18 percent was Russian Orthodox; 17 percent Muslim; and gulag prisonersnearly 7 percent Roman Catholic, Protestant, Armenian Orthodox, Georgian Orthodox, and Jewish combined. The purges Officially, most of remainder was atheist. *Languages: Russian was the late 1930s are a black mark on the USSR’s legacy; this much cannot be deniedofficial language. That being saidOver 200 other languages and dialects were spoken, they have been often as the subject primary tongue; 18 languages were spoken by groups of decades-worth more than 1 million each. About 75 percent of unjustified 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 Marxist–Leninist ideology at all levels. Science and intolerable distortions technology emphasized at secondary level and exaggerations by bourgeois academicsabove. As of 1979 census, necessitating a thorough replyofficial literacy rate 99. While Westerners are often treated to numbers ranging from 20 to 50 8 percent for persons between nine and forty-nine years old. Over 5.3 millionstudied 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 true figures (while worrisome enough highest number of physicians and hospital beds per capita in their own right) are nowhere near that highworld. According to Professor JWelfare and pension programs provided, albeit marginally, for substantial segments of population. Arch Getty:

{{quote|From 1921 to […] 1953===Population===Seven official censuses have been taken in the Soviet Union (1920, around 8001926,000 people were sentenced to death and shot1939, 85 percent of them in 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989). Both the years of quality and the Great Terror quantity of 1937–1938the data have varied: in 1972 seven volumes totaling 3,238 pages were published on the 1970 census. From 1934 to Stalin’s deathIn contrast, the results of the 1979 census were published more than a million perished five years later in the gulag campsa single volume of 366 pages.|J. Arch Getty|<ref name=Future/>}}

To these figures must be added an important qualification: contrary According to popular opinion, the vast majority census of gulag inmates were not innocent political prisoners. Professor Getty notes that those convicted of ‘counterrevolutionary crimes’ made up between 12 and 33 percent (depending 1989, on the year) day of the gulag populationcensus, January 12, with the rest having been convicted population of ordinary crimesthe Soviet Union was estimated to be 286,717,000. He also rejects This figure maintained the common claim that noncountry's long-Russian nationalities were disproportionately targeted. To quote from his article in standing position as the world''American Historical Review''s third most populous country after China and India. In the intercensal period (1979–88), concerning the gulag inmates in particular:population of the Soviet Union grew from 262.4 million to 286.7 million, a 9 percent increase.

{{quote|The long-awaited archival evidence on repression in During the period of 1970s and early 1980s, the Great Purges shows that the levels of arrestsSoviet Union experienced declining birth rates, political prisonersincreasing divorce rates, executionsa trend toward smaller nuclear families, and general camp populations tend to confirm the orders of magnitude indicated by those labeled increasing mobility and urbanization. Major problems associated with such factors as "revisionists" migration, tension among nationality groups, uneven fertility rates, and mocked by those proposing high estimates. […] Inferences that the terror fell particularly hard on non-Russian nationalities are not borne out by camp population data from the 1930s. The frequent assertion that most of the camp prisoners infant and adult mortality became increasingly acute, and various social programs and incentives were "political" also appears not introduced to be truedeal with them.|J. Arch Getty|<ref name =Getty>{{safesubst:cite journal|last1=Getty|first1=J. Arch|last2Religion=Rittersporn|first2=Gábor|last3=Zemskov|first3=Viktor|title=Victims Over one-third of the Soviet Penal System people in the Pre-War YearsSoviet Union, an officially [[Atheism|journal=The American Historical Review|url=httpatheistic]] state, professed religious belief. [[Christianity]] and Islam had the most believers. Christians belonged to various churches://sovietinfoOrthodox, which had the largest number of followers; Catholic; and Baptist and various other Protestant sects.tripodThe majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni.com/GTY-Penal_SystemJudaism also had many followers.pdf|publisher=Oxford University Press|volume=98|Other religions, which were practiced by a relatively small number=4|year=1993|pages=1017–1049|doi=10.2307/2166597|jstor=https://www.jstorof believers, included Buddhism, Lamaism, and shamanism, a religion based on primitive spiritualism.org/stable/2166597}}</ref>}}

According to this research, alleged counterrevolutionaries never made up more than a third The role of religion in the gulag population (daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly. Because Islamic religious tenets and generally much lesssocial values of Muslims are closely interrelated, around 12%). This is backed-up by religion appeared to have a CIA report greater influence on the topic, which found that as many as 95% of camp prisoners were non-political in camps that they investigatedMuslims than on either Christians or other believers.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Forced Labor Camps in the USSR|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIATwo-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 thirds of camp prisoners were thus genuine criminalsthe Soviet population, convicted of rapehowever, murder, theft, and similarhad no religious beliefs. In addition, About half the gulag camps were not death camps like those people, including members of the [[Third Reich]]; they were prisonsCPSU and high-level government officials, albeit harsh onesprofessed atheism. Even noted antisocialist scholars (such as those who worked on For the infamous ''[[Black Book majority of Communism]]'') have admitted thisSoviet citizens, therefore, religion seemed irrelevant. To quote again from Professor Getty:

{{quote|Stalin’s camps were different from Hitler’s. Tens ==Government==[[File:200px-Coat of thousands arms of prisoners were released every year upon completion of their sentencesthe Soviet Union. We now know that before World War II more inmates escaped annually from svg.png|thumbnail|200px|Coat of arms of the Soviet camps than died thereUnion. 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: […] Werth[Workers of the world, a wellunite!|"Workers of all countries, unite!"]] The hammer-regarded French specialist on sickle device overspreading the world signifies the spread of Communism worldwide.]]{{Main|Soviet Union whose sections in government}}The Soviet Union administered the country''Black Book'' on s economy and society through decisions made by the extremely authoritarian leading political institution in the country, the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Communists are sober Union]] (CPSU). 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 damninggranted to citizens a series of political and civic rights. A legislative body, told ''Le Monde'the Congress of People's Deputies, and its standing legislature, “Death camps did not exist in the Supreme Soviet Union, represented the principle of popular sovereignty.”|JThe 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. Arch Getty|<ref name=Future>{{safesubst:Cite web| last = Getty| first = J. Arch| title = The Future Did Not Work| work = The Atlantic| accessdate = 2019-10-09| date = 2000-03-01| url = https://wwwchairman of the Council of Ministers, whose selection was approved by the legislative branch, functioned as head of government.theatlanticA 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.com/magazine/archive/2000/03/According to the-future-did-not-work/378081/}}</ref>}}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.

It must also be noted thatIn practice, however, contrary to the popular conception of government differed markedly from other Western systems. In the USSR as a place of ‘total terror’ (to quote Hannah Arendt)late 1980s, the majority CPSU performed many functions that governments of other countries usually perform. For example, the population did not feel threatened by party decided on the purgespolicy alternatives that the government ultimately implemented. Referring to The government merely ratified the time party's decisions to lend them an aura of the Great Purge, Professor<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Dr. Robert Thurston|url=https://miamiohlegitimacy.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 The CPSU used a variety of mechanisms to ensure that the Great Purge was an exceptional occurrencegovernment adhered to its policies. The party, which cannot be used using its nomenklatura authority, placed its loyalists in leadership positions throughout the government, where they were subject to characterize the USSR pre-1953 as a whole:norms of [[democratic centralism]]. Party bodies closely monitored the actions of government ministries, agencies, and legislative organs.

{{quote|I will not simply imply but will state outright that The content of the ''Ezhovshchina'' (Great Purge) was 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 aberrationideal set of political relationships. Torture The Constitution was uncommon until August 1937long and detailed, when it became the norm; it ended abruptly with Beria’s rise to head giving technical specifications for individual organs of the [[NKVD]] in late 1938government. Mass arrests followed the same pattern. […] A campaign for more regularThe Constitution included political statements, fairsuch as foreign policy goals, and systemic judicial procedures that began in 1933–1934 was interrupted and overwhelmed by provided a theoretical definition of the Terror in 1937. It resumed in state within the spring ideological framework of 1938, more strongly and effectively than beforeMarxism–Leninism. Thus more than one trend was broken by The CPSU could radically change the ''Ezhovshchina''constitution or remake it completely, only to reappear after as it.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Life and Terror has done several times in Stalin’s Russia, 1934–1941|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1996|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/jthe past.ctt32bw0h}}</ref>}}

He also points out that some arrests which took place during The Council of Ministers acted as the Great Purge were based on previously ignored (yet arguably still legitimate) crimes against executive body of the Soviet stategovernment. Its most important duties lay in the administration of the economy. The council was thoroughly under the control of the CPSU, such and its chairman - the prime minister - was always a member of the Politburo. The council, which in 1989 included more than 100 members, is too large and unwieldy to act as fighting with a unified executive body. The council's Presidium, made up of the reactionary forces during leading economic administrators and led by the chairman, exercised dominant power within the Civil War:Council of Ministers.

{{quote|According to the Constitution, as amended in 1988, the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union was the Congress of People 's Deputies, which convened for the first time in May 1989. The main tasks of the congress were suddenly arrested the election of the standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, and the election of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, who acted as head of state. Theoretically, 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 few days in 1937 for things that 1989 to approve decisions made by the party, the Council of Ministers, and its own Supreme Soviet. The Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and the Council of Ministers had happened many years earlier but had been ignored sincesubstantial authority to enact laws, for exampledecrees, serving in a White armyresolutions, and orders binding on the population. The Congress of People's Deputies had the authority to ratify these decisions.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

The question arises: why arrest former White Army soldiersgovernment lacked an independent judiciary. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts and applied the law, among others? as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The answer lies in Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the general fear constitutionality of counterrevolution which pervaded the party at this timelaws and acts. According to Professor<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Professor James HarrisThe Soviet Union lacked an [[Adversary proceeding|url=https://ahcadversary court procedure]].leeds.acUnder Soviet law, which derived from Roman law, a procurator worked together with a judge and a defense attorney to ensure that civil and criminal trials uncovered the truth of the case, rather than protecting individual rights.uk/history/staff/64/professor-james-harris|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044120/https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/history/staff/64/professor-james-harris|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref> James Harris:

{{quote|By the mid–1930sThe Soviet Union was a federal state made up of fifteen republics joined together in a theoretically voluntary union. In turn, the rise a series of territorial units made up the Nazis in Germany and republics. The republics also contained jurisdictions intended to protect the militarists in Japaninterests of national minorities. The republics had their own constitutions, both stridently antiwhich, along with the all-communistunion Constitution, posed a very real threat to provide the USSR. War was then on theoretical division of power in the horizonSoviet Union. In 1989, however, the CPSU and [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] felt he had no choice but to take preemptive action against what he saw as a potential fifth column — a group that would undermine the larger collectivecentral government retained all significant authority, setting policies that were executed by republic, provincial (''oblast'', ''krai'', and autonomous subdivisions), and district (''raion'') governments.|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://historynewsnetwork.org/article/163498|accessdate=2020-01-03}}</ref>}}

Bear in mind that since the moment of its founding (still a recent event, at this time), Soviet Eurasia had been invaded by multiple capitalist powers<ref>==History=={{safesubst:cite webMain|lastHistory of the Soviet Union}}=Budanovic|first=Nikola|title=The Day That The USA Invaded Russia And Fought The Red Army|urlLenin=https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-day-that-the-usa-invaded-russia-and-fought-with-the-red-army-x.html|date=2016-11-17|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044116/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/The Soviet Union was established in December 1922 by the-day-that-leaders of the-usa-invaded-russia-and-fought-with-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) on territory generally corresponding to that of the-red-army-xold Russian Empire.html|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref> (including A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd overthrew the [[United States]]) imperial government in the early 1920sMarch 1917, and had also been subject leading to espionage and internal sabotage. Combined with the looming threat formation of war with an increasingly powerful Third Reichthe Provisional Government, it is hardly surprising that these factors came together which intended to form an atmosphere of paranoiaestablish democracy in Russia. At the same time, which lent itself to ensure the sort rights of violent excess seen during the Purgeworking class, workers' councils (''soviets'') sprang up across the country. This coincides with Professor Thurston’s interpretation of The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir I. Lenin, agitated for socialist revolution in the eventssoviets and on the streets, and they seized power from his book ''Life and Terror the Provisional Government in Stalin’s Russia'':November 1917. Only after the ensuing Civil War (1918–21) and foreign intervention was the new communist government secure.

{{quote|[B]etween 1934 and 1936 police and court practice relaxed significantly. Then a series of eventsFrom its first years, together with government in the tense international situation and memories Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of real enemy activity the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves beginning March 1918. After unsuccessfully attempting to centralize the economy during the savage Russian Civil War, combined the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to push coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders and people into a hysterical hunt to contend for perceived ‘wreckers.’ After late 1938, however, power in the police years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually consolidating influence and courts isolating his rivals within the party, [[Joseph Stalin|Joseph V. Stalin]] became dramatically milderthe sole leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

This general atmosphere Lenin had a criticism of fear (not the tsarist Russian empire as a ''prison house of nations'',<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6g86AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 Lenin’s Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the purgesOctober Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both]</ref> but of external and internal enemies) is most likely why in the majority of end under communist rule the Soviet people seemed to support USSR became the government’s actions during most prison-like state the Purge period:world had ever seen up to this point.

{{quote===Stalin===[[Image:Stalin-140508 27880t.jpg|The various reactions to arrest cataloged above suggest that general fear did not exist in the USSR at any time in right|225px|thumb|Joseph Stalin, the late 1930s. […] People who remained at liberty often felt that some event in the backgrounds Premier of the detained individuals justified their arrests. The sense that anyone could be nextSoviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953, founded the underpinning League of theoretical systems of terrorMilitant Atheists, rarely appearswhose chief aim was to propagate militant atheism and eradicate [[religion]].|Robert Thurston|<refname=Hesemann-Strieber>{{safesubst:cite journalbook|lastauthor=ThurstonMichael Hesemann, Whitley Strieber|firsttitle=RobertThe Fatima Secret|titleurl=Fear and Belief in the USSR’s “Great Terror”https: Response to Arrest, 1935//books.google.com/books?id=tx-1939|journalBEpkJBq8C&pg=Slavic ReviewPT107&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|publisherquote=Association for SlavicLenin's death in 1924 was followed by the rise of Joseph Stalin, East European"the man of steel, " who founded the "Union of Militant Atheists," whose chief aim was to spread [[atheism]] and Eurasian Studieseradicate religion. In the following years it devastated hundreds of churches, destroyed old icons and relics, and persecuted the clergy with unimaginable brutality.|yearpublisher=1986|volume=45|issue=2Random House Digital, Inc.|pagesdate=213–342000|doiaccessdate=10.2307/24991759 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 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 borderlands (Polish: 'Kresy'Main Article: ) of Poland, while going to war with [[World 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 all of 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. ===Cold War===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 Central Europe and the Balkans, except for Yugoslavia and Albania. The active Soviet foreign policy helped bring about the [[Cold War II]], 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. ===Khrushchev===[[File:Nikita Krushchev.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Nikita Khrushchev]] liked to threaten and bully, often using "brinkmanship" (the threat of nuclear weapons); ''Time'' Sept. 8, 1961]]

===Gorbachev-era reforms===In 1987, Gorbachev passed a law that decentralized much of the economy and expanded market activity, however was not by itself a restoration of capitalism. Nowhere within the law were capitalist relations of production legalized.{{quote|The Basic Provisions stress that the economy shall continue to be planned and managed as "a unified national economic complex" as the principal means for carrying out the Party's economic policies. These policies are to be embodied in a 15-year plan that sets goals and priorities and outlines a program for implementing them. This plan, which is to contain specific targets for the 15- year period, is to be the basis for detailed formulation of the plan for the initial 5-year period, with a breakdown by years. Per the current procedure, this plan will be worked out by Gosplan and sent down to republic Councils of Ministers and to ministries. These bodies, in turn, send "initial planning data" to firms, on the basis of which the latter work out and ratify their own 5-year and annual plans. Plans are reviewed annually and revised if required. Proposals for revisions are submitted to Gosplan, which reviews them, revises the 5-year plan if necessary, and submits a report to the Council of Ministers and to the Central Committee, along with the draft state budget.<br><br>The firms receivesee: (1) "non-binding control figures" that specify the value of output, profit, foreign currency receipts, 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) limits, which include rationed goods 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 wages, payments for capital and labor, and the allocation of profits among various kinds of taxes and reserve funds set up by ministries and enterprises. Three major funds are the bonus fund, the social development fund, and the fund for financing research and development and investment.<br><br>Clearly, the state intends to determine the rate and direction of the bulk of investment. To what extent will depend on how state centralized investment is defined. The state also intends to determine the directions of economic development and to enforce programs of scientific-technical progress that are worked out from the top.|Gertrude E. Schroeder|"Anatomy of Gorbachev's Economic Reform" in ''Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka: The Economy'', pp. 205-206}}[[Nikita Khrushchev]]

The 1987 reforms were still somewhat "moderate" compared to YugoslaviaAfter three years of a join leadership, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] seized power, denounced Stalin's system, use of terror and clearly didn't go nearly as far as Dengeffectively reduced repressive controls over party and society. Khrushchev's reformsin 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.

One of ===Brezhnev ===Following the reasons used to justify Perestroika was because the USSR had problems with shortages beforehand. The continued existence ouster of shortages are evidence the reforms didn't work and instead made the situation far worse than it had been beforeKhrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, which lasted until [[Leonid Brezhnev|Leonid I. Shortages clearly weren't an unknown phenomenon Brezhnev]] established himself in socialist economies during the 20th century. It's something bourgeois economists usually focus on when criticizing socialism, hence early 1970s as the two-volume Economics of Shortage by János Kornaipreeminent figure in Soviet political life. Not coincidentally, Kornai's text had Brezhnev presided over a lot period of influence among Chinese reformers and he personally worked to convince them to enact market reforms détente with the rest of the West while at the 1985 Bashan conference, whereas Kornai's influence on same time building up Soviet reformers (at least those who advised Gorbachev) was a lot more limited. Furthermore, shortages are not proof military strength; the arms buildup contributed to the demise of capitalist restoration[[détente]] in the late 1970s. Marxists frequently argue that capitalism displays a very different problem: a crisis Also contributing to the end of overproduction caused by détente was the purchasing power [[Soviet-Afghan War|Soviet invasion of workers declining amid an ever greater abundance of goods flooding the marketAfghanistan]] in December 1979.

===Collapse and dissolution==={{hatnote|Main article: [[Collapse of the USSR]]}}In the 1980s, [[Imperial America]] expanded its arms chase, terrorizing the Soviets into catching up, a process made more stressful by the struggle After some experimentation with economic reforms in the Afghan war. Antisocialist officials also pressured banks and other businessesmid-1960s, and even the Swedish state, into ignoring the Soviet Union.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Krehbiel|first=Paul|title=The Demise of 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 leadership reverted to both the economy and politics, which worsened the condition established means of the workers by increasing wealth inequality — though it never reached the same rate as it had in capitalist countries, e.geconomic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during the U.S. — as well as breadlines1970s, and allowed more critical opinions while agricultural development continued to be voiced politicallylag. But heads of newspapers were now in fact being replaced or pushed towards a more right-wing view by In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that same government, meaning such policies did not actually result in more discourse. Nonetheless it became a more and more accepted view to advocate for regulated or even free markets, which then led to accompanied the rising popularity birth of Yeltsin. He criticized the Soviet elite and advocated for market reformsUnion, promising less waiting lines and a decrease in inequality. In April 1990 Yeltsin became the chairman prevailing mood of the Russian parliament. The direction Soviet leadership at the country was taking triggered a [[1991 Soviet coup dtime of Brezhnev'état attempt|coup attempt s death in August 1991]], 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 1982 was one 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, cautious conservatism and eventually republics started declaring independence — the union, in a sense, aversion to change. Brezhnev was falling apartsucceeded by former KGB head Yuri Andropov.

After ===Reagan challenge===Friction with other Western countries continued in the Soviet Union’s discontinuation1980s, living standards decreased dramatically especially with the United States and to this day many former citizens of it regret its fallnew president, as many polls show[[Ronald Reagan]], though who saw the results sometimes strongly vary among some 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 former republicstwo 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.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=People who lived under communism more convinced ordinary people did not benefit from societal changes|url=https://wwwS.pewresearchCongressman, [[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.org/global/?p=44546|date=2019 Reagan's [[Strategic Defense Initiative]], a space-10-09}}</ref>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.

==Politics==Modern evidence suggests that the masses did indeed support the Stalin administrationAndropov and his successor, which likewise encouraged mass participation from [[Konstantin Chernenko]], kept the working people:communist system under Brezhnev intact, but upon Chernenko's death [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became party chairman.

{{quote|Stalin, the press, and the Stakhanovite movement all regularly encouraged ordinary people to criticize those in authority. […] If the citizenry was supposed to be terrorized and stop thinking, why encourage criticism and input from below on a large scale? […] my evidence suggests that widespread fear did not exist in the case at hand [the ‘Great Terror’ period].|Robert Thurston|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=On Desk-Bound Parochialism, Commonsense Perspectives, Gorbachev and Lousy Evidence: A Reply to Robert Conquest|journalthe end of communist rule=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>}}see [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]

These states were not entirely non-participatory A reformer, he introduced a series of economic and political reforms known as some have suggested; ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openess") and ''[[perestroika]]'' ("restructuring"), which began to creak open 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 doors of Comparison for the American Worker|url=https://return2sourceSoviet's closed system.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/ A failed attempt to reign in the-trade-unions-actually-existing-socialism-three [[Baltic States]] in 1989 led to adomino-point-effect of[[Warsaw Pact]] countries abandoning communism; a coup attempt against Gorbachev in 1991 by hard-comparison-for-the-american-worker/amp|date=2013-02-19|archiveurl=https://webliners trying to keep their tattering empire ended within days.archive The USSR was formally dissolved on Christmas Day 1991 by [[Boris Yeltsin]], freeing many from its tyranny.org/web/20180920140818/https://return2source.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/The main successor state to the-trade-unions-actually-existing-socialism-Soviet Union is Russia; the effort to form a-point-"Commonwealth of-comparison-for-the-american-worker/amp|archivedate=2018-09-20}}</ref> Professor Thurston states that ‘at the lower levels of societyIndependent States" went nowhere, in day-to-day affairs and the implementation 15 republics of policy, [the Soviet system] was participatoryUSSR are now independent states.’ 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 leaders, at least below a certain exalted level. For example, in March 1937 Stalin emphasized the importance dissolution of the party’s ‘ties to the masses.’ To maintain themSoviet Union on December 26, it 1991 was necessary ‘to listen carefully to the voice a watershed event in terms of the masses, to the voice [[decline of rank leftism]] and file members of the party, to the voice [[decline of so-called “little people,” to the voice of ordinary folk.’|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Reassessing the History of Soviet Workers: Opportunities to Criticize and Participate in Decision-Making, 1935–1941|journal=International Council for Central and East European Studies|url=https://www.docdroid.net/t9gG4jQ/thurston-robert-reassessing-the-history-of-soviet-workers-opportunities-to-criticize-and-participate-in-decision-makingsecular left]].pdf|pages=160–188}}</ref>}}

While there were limits to criticism, Professor Thurston notes that ‘such bounds allowed a great deal that was deeply significant to workers, including some aspects ==See also==*[[Soviet Union government]]*[[Decline of production norms, pay rates leftism]]*[[Soviet Union and classifications, safety on morality]]*[[Mass rape during the job, housing, and treatment occupation of Germany|Mass rape of German women by managers.’ The workers had the Soviet army]]*[[Nazi Germany]]*[[Korean Airlines Flight 007]]*[[KAL 007: the Russian Federation support for a voice in various official bodieswater landing]] The Soviet Staff and military communications evidence*[[Soviet Officers of KAL 007 Shootdown]]*[[KAL 007: Soviet stalk, shoot down, and they generally had their demands metrescue mission orders transcripts]]*[[KAL 007:Timeline of Interception and Shootdown]]*[[Anatoly Kornukov]]*[[The Soviet/ U.S naval confrontation]]*[[KAL 007 and the Soviet Top Secret Memos]]*[[Soviet Union and obesity]]

{{quote|==Bibliography=====Surveys===* Brzezinski, Zbigniew. ''Grand Failure: The Commissariat Birth and Death of Justice also heard Communism in the Twentieth Century'' (1990)* Ingram, Philip. ''Russia and responded to workers’ appealsthe USSR, 1905-1991'' (1997) [https://www. In August 1935 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 the Saratov city prosecutor reported that Empires: A History of 118 cases regarding pay recently handled by his officethe Soviet Union, 901945-1991'' (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, or 73Martin.6 percent ''The Soviet Union: 1917-1991'' (1993) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54365219 online edition]* McCauley, had been resolved Martin. ''Who's Who in favor 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 workersSocialism in Russia'' (1995) [https://www.|Robert Thurston|<amazon.com/Soviet-Tragedy-History-Socialism-Russia/dp/0684823136/ref name=Reassessingsr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232396454&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]* Nove, Alec. ''An Economic History of the 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 ACLS 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]

Workers also took part in direct oversight ===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 managersthe 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=o&d=109468478 online edition]* Hoffmann, David L. ed. ''Stalinism: The Essential Readings,'' (2002) essays by 12 scholars* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the Russian 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. ''Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation'' (1998) [https://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]

{{quote|Workers participated by the hundreds of thousands ===[[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 special inspectoratesthe USSR, commissions1937-1949'' (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 brigades which checked Economic Growth in the work of managers and institutions1930s" ''Europe-Asia Studies,'' Vol. These agencies sometimes wielded significant power48, No.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing6 (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]

===World War II===* Brandon, Ray, and Wendy Lower, eds. ''The rights of Soviet workers were often noted Shoah in later accounts of Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization.'' (2008). 378 pp. [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24078 online review], on the preHolocaust* Broekmeyer, Marius. ''Stalin, the Russians, and Their War, 1941-1945.'' 2004. 315 pp. * Overy, Richard. ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.'' 2004. 448 pp. focus on 1930-45 [https://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) [https://www.amazon.com/Stalinism-Politics-Mobilization-David-Priestland/dp/0199245134/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201494105&sr=8-1953 era1 excerpt and text search]* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Stalin's Wars:From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953'' (2006).

{{quote|One émigré recalled that his stepmother===Cold War===* see [[Cold War]]* Craig, a factory workerCampbell, ‘often scolded the bossand Yuri Smirnov. ''Truman, Stalin,’ and also complained about living conditionsthe Bomb'' (2008)* Gaddis, but was never arrested. John Scott. ''A New History of the Cold War'' (2006)* Holloway, an American employed for years in David. ''Stalin and the late 1930s as a welder in MagnitogorskBomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, attended 1939-1956'' (1996) [https://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]* Mastny, Vojtech. ''The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years'' (1998) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a meeting =o&d=98422373 online edition] [http://www.historyebook.org/ online at a Moscow factory ACLS e-books]* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in 1940 where workers were able to ‘criticize the plant director, make suggestions as Cold War from Stalin to how 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]===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 increase productionCollapse'' (1995) [http://www.questia.com/read/100838053?title=The%20Soviet%20System%3a%20From%20Crisis%20to%20Collapse online edition] * Matlock, increase qualityJack. ''Reagan and Gorbachev: How the 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 lower coststext search]* Taubman, William.’|Robert Thurston|<''Khrushchev: The Man and His Era'' (2004) [https://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Man-His-William-Taubman/dp/0393324842/ref name=Reassessingpd_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) [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|Far from basing its rule on the negative means of coercion, the Soviet regime in the late 1930s fostered a limited but positive political role for the populace. […] Earlier concepts of the Soviet state require rethinking: the workers who ousted managers, achieved the imprisonment of their targets, and won reinstatement at factories did so through organizations which constituted part of the state apparatus and wielded state powers.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}} These facts are all the more impressive when we recall the dismal state of workers’ rights in the market economies at this time: {{quote|This occurred at a time when American workers in particular were struggling for basic union recognition, which even when won did not provide much formal influence at the work place.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}} Professor Thurston also states: {{quote|Stalin did not intend to terrorize the country and did not need to rule by fear. Memoirs and interviews with Soviet people indicate that many more believed in Stalin’s quest to eliminate internal enemies than were frightened by it.|Robert Thurston|<ref nameExternal links=Life/>}} Perhaps one of his most interesting statements (indeed, one of the most statements from any bourgeois historian dealing with the Stalin administration) and perhaps the most succinct summary of this issue is the following: {{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/>}} 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|first=Kazuko|title=Rethinking Soviet Democracy|journal=Japanese Political Science Review|url=httpshttp://researchmaplcweb2.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 demandsloc.’ 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=Kawamotogov/>}} 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>[https:frd/cs/b-oksutoc.cc/book/831235/8b358a Peasant Rebels under Stalin]</ref> ==Political Economy html Library 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 Congress detailed country study on a labour-market. ===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]] by Left Communists, Trotskyists, and Hoxhaists. === 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://citeseerx.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 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=httpshttp://www.jstoribiblio.org/stableexpo/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=10.1017exhibit/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]]intro2. {{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. […] html 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, Union and rising per capita consumption even in the 1930s. […United States] 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 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 1970Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss […] 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>{{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.cialoc.gov/libraryexhibits/readingroomarchives/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/Sovietl2tartar.html}}</ref> While "On 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://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion |location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltd. |year=1984 |section=Imports |page=132 |pageurl=https://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]Crimean Tatars"], 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 1980Kremlin, 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/1982/1213/121323.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 United States Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)|accessdate=2020-02-May 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 model1944. […] 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. <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>*[httpshttp://wwwbertschlossberg.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html#chap10]</ref> <br>''- Article 41: Citizens of 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'']</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.springerblogspot.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 general, the patients, who included persons of varied ethnic and social backgrounds, were getting good medical attention. […] 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 Secret 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 Missions 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 KAL 007 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=https://archive.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.google.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 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 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 NatureMoneron Island]] (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 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 waste]</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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