Soviet Union

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Союз Советских Социалистических Республик
Soyuz Sovyetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik
(in Russian; for names of the Soviet Union
in other official languages, see this list)[1]
1922–1991
Flag of Soviet Union
Flag
(1955–1991)
State Emblem (1956–1991) of Soviet Union
State Emblem
(1956–1991)
Motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!
"Workers of the world, unite!"
Anthem: Интернационал
"The Internationale" (1922–1944)

Государственный гимн СССР[a]
"State Anthem of the Soviet Union" (1944–1991)
The Soviet Union during the Cold War
The Soviet Union during the Cold War
Capital
and largest city
Moscow
55°45′N 37°37′E / 55.750°N 37.617°E / 55.750; 37.617
Official languagesRussian[b]
Recognised regional languages
Ethnic groups
(1989)
70% East Slavs
17% Turkic
13% other
Religion
Secular state (de jure)
State atheism (de facto)
Demonym(s)Soviet
GovernmentSee: Government of the Soviet Union
Main Leader 
• 1922–1924
Vladimir Lenin[c]
• 1924–1953
Joseph Stalin[d]
• 1953[f]
Georgy Malenkov[e]
• 1953–1964
Nikita Khrushchev[g]
• 1964–1982
Leonid Brezhnev[h]
• 1982–1984
Yuri Andropov
• 1984–1985
Konstantin Chernenko
• 1985–1991
Mikhail Gorbachev[i]
Head of State 
• 1922–1946 (first)
Mikhail Kalinin[j]
• 1988–1991 (last)
Mikhail Gorbachev[k]
Premier 
• 1922–1924 (first)
Vladimir Lenin[l]
• 1991 (last)
Ivan Silayev[m]
LegislatureCongress of Soviets
(1922–1936)[n]
Supreme Soviet
(1936–1991)
Soviet of Nationalities
(1936–1991)
Soviet of Republics
(1991)
Soviet of the Union
(1936–1991)
Historical era
7 November 1917
30 December 1922
• End of the Civil War
16 June 1923
31 January 1924
5 December 1936
1939–1940
1941–1945
24 October 1945
25 February 1956
9 October 1977
11 March 1990
19–22 August 1991
8 December 1991[o]
26 December 1991[p]
Area
• Total
22,402,200 km2 (8,649,500 sq mi) (1st)
• Water
2,767,198 km2 (1,068,421 sq mi)
• Water (%)
12.3
Population
• 1989 census
Neutral increase 286,730,819[2] (3rd)
• Density
12.7/km2 (32.9/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)1990 estimate
• Total
$2.7 trillion (2nd)
• Per capita
$9,000
GDP (nominal)1990 estimate
• Total
$2.7 trillion[3] (2nd)
• Per capita
$9,000 (28th)
Gini (1989)0.275
low
HDI (1990 formula)0.920[4]
very high
CurrencySoviet ruble (Rbl) (SUR)
Time zone(UTC+2 to +12)
Driving sideright
Calling code+7
ISO 3166 codeSU
Internet TLD.su[q]
Preceded by
Succeeded by
1922:
Russian SFSR
Ukrainian SSR
Byelorussian SSR
Transcaucasian SFSR
1940:
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
1990:
Lithuania
1991:
Georgia
Estonia
Latvia
Ukraine
Moldova
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan
Tajikistan
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Turkmenistan
Belarus
Russian Federation
Kazakhstan

The Soviet Union,[r] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[s] (USSR),[t] was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. It was a successor state to the Russian Empire that was nominally organized as a federal union of fifteen national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR;[u] in practice both its government and economy were highly centralized until its final years. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was a flagship communist state.

The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February Revolution that had dissolved the Russian Empire. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin, established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR),[v] the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the brutal Russian Civil War. As the war progressed in the Bolsheviks' favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land acquired from the war into nominally independent states, which were merged into the Soviet Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930 to 1933 that killed millions. The forced labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. During the late 1930s, Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove actual and perceived opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact despite their ideological incongruence; nonetheless, in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers in 1945, suffering an estimated 27 million casualties, which accounted for the majority of Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war, the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army, forming various satellite states, and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower.

Following World War II, ideological tensions with the United States eventually led to the Cold War. The American-led Western Bloc coalesced into NATO in 1949, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, commonly known as the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. Neither side ever engaged in direct military confrontation, and instead fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. In 1953, following Stalin's death, the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China. During the 1950s, the Soviet Union rapidly expanded its efforts in space exploration and took an early lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, the first space station, and the first probe to land on another planet (Venus). The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.

The 1970s saw a brief détente in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions emerged again following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes, and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to reform and preserve the country as a renewed federation, an attempted coup d'état against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the three most populous and economically developed republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede from the Union. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation, which became the Soviet Union's successor state; all other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states.

During its existence, the Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An NPT-designated state, it housed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Before its dissolution, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomatic and ideological influence (particularly in the Global South), military and economic strengths, and scientific accomplishments.

  1. ^ "Language Policy in the former Soviet Union". H. Schiffman. University of Pennsylvania. 19 November 2002.
  2. ^ Almanaque Mundial 1996, Editorial América/Televisa, Mexico, 1995, pp. 548–552 (Demografía/Biometría table).
  3. ^ "GDP – Million – Flags, Maps, Economy, Geography, Climate, Natural Resources, Current Issues, International Agreements, Population, Social Statistics, Political System". Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 29 August 2018.
  4. ^ "Human Development Report 1990" (PDF). HDRO (Human Development Report Office) United Nations Development Programme. January 1990. p. 111. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 1 September 2020.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).