Soviet Union

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

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

Founding

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

Rise of Stalin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soviet aggression

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

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

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

The Cold War

Later the USSR would steathly oppose the United States by providing aid to enemies in direct conflict. In 1971 the USSR provided heavy arms shipments to Egypt and Syria that were used in their 1973 war with Israel. Although the two Arab nations were routed the Soviets would replenish the arms lost. Soviet military assistance aided North Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s during the Vietnam War.

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

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

The Shootdown of KAL 007

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

Disintegration

The Soviet Union eventually imploded after a series of economic and political reforms known as Glasnost and perestroika introduced by the last Chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachov, in the 1980s. As previously mentioned, the Soviet Union was also strategically weakened by its engagement in Afghanistan. The USSR was formally dissolved in 1991 by Boris Yeltsin. The successor states to the Soviet Union are the Russian Federation, and the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

See Also

• Nazi Germany
• Korean Airlines Flight 007

External links

• State Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss "On the Crimean Tatars", The Kremlin, May 11, 1944.