Soviet Union

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Союз Советских Социалистических Республик¹Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik¹Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

↓ 1922 – 1991 ↓

Flag Coat of arms

MottoПролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!(Translit.: Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes!)English translation: Workers of the world, unite!

AnthemThe Internationale (1922–1944)Hymn of the Soviet Union (1944-1991)

Capital Moscow

Language(s) Russian (de facto),14 other official languages

Government Federal socialist republicGeneral Secretary- 1922–1924 (first) Vladimir Lenin- 1985–1991 (last) Mikhail Gorbachev

Premier- 1923–1924 (first) Vladimir Lenin- 1991 (last) Ivan Silayev

History- Established December 30, 1922- Disestablished December 26 19912

Area

- 1991 22,402,200 km²(8,649,538 sq mi)

Population- 1991 est. 293,047,571

Density 13.1 /km² (33.9 /sq mi)

Currency Ruble (SUR)

Internet TLD .su

Calling code +7

Preceded by Succeeded by

Russian SovietFederativeSocialistRepublic

TranscaucasianSocialistFederativeSoviet Republic

UkrainianSoviet SocialistRepublic

ByelorussianSoviet SocialistRepublic

Estonia

Latvia

Lithuania

Russia

Belarus

Ukraine

Moldova

Georgia

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Kazakhstan

Uzbekistan

Turkmenistan

Kyrgyzstan

Tajikistan

Estonia

Lithuania

Latvia

1Official names of the USSR

2On 21 December 1991, eleven of the former socialist republicsdeclared in Alma-Ata (with the twelfth republic - Georgia -attending as an observer) that with the formation of theCommonwealth of Independent States the Union of Soviet SocialistRepublics ceases to exist.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (abbreviatedUSSR, Russian: Союз Советских СоциалистическихРеспублик, СССР (help·info); tr.: Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsial-isticheskikh Respublik, SSSR), also called the SovietUnion[1] (Russian: Советский Союз; tr.: Sovetsky Soyuz),was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eur-asia from 1922 to 1991.

Emerging from the Russian Empire following theRussian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War of1918–1921, the USSR was a union of several Soviet

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republics, but the synecdoche Russia—after its largestand dominant constituent state—continued to be com-monly used throughout the state’s existence. The geo-graphic boundaries of the USSR varied with time, butafter the last major territorial annexations of the Balticstates, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and certain other ter-ritories during World War II, from 1945 until dissolutionthe boundaries approximately corresponded to those oflate Imperial Russia, with the notable exclusions of Po-land, most of Finland, and Alaska. The Soviet Union be-came the primary model for future Communist statesduring the Cold War; the government and the politicalorganization of the country were defined by the onlypolitical party, the Communist Party of the SovietUnion.

From 1945 until dissolution in 1991—a period knownas the Cold War—the Soviet Union and the United Statesof America were the two world superpowers that domin-ated the global agenda of economic policy, foreign af-fairs, military operations, cultural exchange, scientificadvancements including the pioneering of space explor-ation, and sports (including the Olympic Games andvarious world championships).

Initially established as a union of four Soviet Social-ist Republics, the USSR grew to contain 15 constituent or"union republics" by 1956: Armenian SSR, AzerbaijanSSR, Byelorussian SSR, Estonian SSR, Georgian SSR, Kaza-kh SSR, Kirghiz SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Mol-davian SSR, Russian SFSR, Tajik SSR, Turkmen SSR,Ukrainian SSR, and Uzbek SSR. (From annexation of theEstonian SSR on August 6, 1940 up to the reorganisationof the Karelo-Finnish SSR into the Karelian ASSR on July16, 1956, the count of "union republics" was 16.)

HistoryThe Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be thesuccessor of the Russian Empire and of its short-livedsuccessor Provisional Government under Georgy Yev-genyevich Lvov and then Alexander Kerensky. The lastRussian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled until March, 1917 whenthe Empire was overthrown and a short-lived Russianprovisional government took power, the latter to beoverthrown in November 1917 by Vladimir Lenin. From1917 to 1922, the predecessor to the Soviet Union wasthe Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR),which was an independent country as well as otherSoviet republics at the time. The Soviet Union was offi-cially established in December 1922 as the union of theRussian (colloquially known as Bolshevist Russia),Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Transcaucasian Soviet repub-lics ruled by Bolshevik parties.

Revolution and the foundation of aSoviet stateModern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empirebegan with the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, and althoughserfdom was abolished in 1861, its abolition wasachieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants andserved to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—theState Duma—was established in 1906 after the RussianRevolution of 1905, but the Tzar resisted attempts tomove from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Socialunrest continued and was aggravated during World WarI by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.

Vladimir Lenin addressing a crowd in 1920.

A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in re-sponse to the wartime decay of Russia’s economy andmorale, culminated in the toppling of the imperial gov-ernment in March 1917 (see February Revolution). Thetzarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provision-al Government, whose leaders intended to establish lib-eral democracy in Russia and to continue participatingon the side of the Entente in World War I. At the sametime, to ensure the rights of the working class, workers’councils, known as soviets, sprang up across the coun-try. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, pushed forsocialist revolution in the soviets and on the streets.They seized power from the Provisional Government inNovember 1917 (see October Revolution). Only after thelong and bloody Russian Civil War of 1918–1921, whichincluded foreign intervention in several parts of Russia,was the new Soviet power secure. In a related conflictwith Poland, the "Peace of Riga" in early 1921 split dis-puted territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Polandand Soviet Russia.

Unification of the Soviet RepublicsOn December 28, 1922 a conference of plenipotentiarydelegations from the RSFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR,the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approvedthe Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declarationof the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of SovietSocialist Republics. These two documents were

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confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR andsigned by heads of delegations[2] - Mikhail Kalinin,Mikha Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Pet-rovsky, Aleksandr Chervyakov[3] respectively on Decem-ber 30, 1922. The first foreign state to recognize theSoviet Union was the Irish Republic. On February 1, 1924the USSR was recognized by the British Empire.

The intensive restructuring of the economy, in-dustry and politics of the country began in the earlydays of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this wasperformed according to Bolshevik Initial Decrees, docu-ments of the Soviet government, signed by VladimirLenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs wasthe GOELRO plan, that envisioned a major restructuringof the Soviet economy based on total electrification ofthe country. The Plan was developed in 1920 andcovered a ten to 15 year period. It included constructionof a network of 30 regional power plants, including tenlarge hydroelectric power plants, and numerouselectric-powered large industrial enterprises.[4] The Planbecame the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plansand was basically fulfilled by 1931.[5]

Stalin’s rule

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1923 to his deathin 1953.

From its beginning years, government in the SovietUnion was based on the one-party rule of the Commun-ist Party (Bolsheviks).[6] After the economic policy ofWar Communism during the Civil War, the Soviet

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow during its 1931demolition. Organized religion was repressed in the SovietUnion.

government permitted some private enterprise to coex-ist with nationalized industry in the 1920s and total foodrequisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax(see New Economic Policy). Soviet leaders argued thatone party rule was necessary because it ensured that’capitalist exploitation’ would not return to the SovietUnion and that the principles of Democratic Centralismwould represent the people’s will. Debate over the fu-ture of the economy provided the background for Sovietleaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin’sdeath in 1924. By gradually consolidating his influenceand isolating his rivals within the party, Georgian JosephStalin became the leader of the Soviet Union by the endof the 1920s.

In 1928, Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan forbuilding a socialist economy. While encompassing theinternationalism expressed by Lenin throughout thecourse of the Revolution, it also aimed for building so-cialism in one country. In industry, the state assumedcontrol over all existing enterprises and undertook anintensive program of industrialization; in agriculturecollective farms were established all over the country. Itmet widespread resistance from kulaks and some pros-perous peasants, who withheld grain, resulting in a bit-ter struggle of this class against the authorities and thepoor peasants. Famines occurred causing millions ofdeaths and surviving kulaks were politically persecutedand many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. A widerange of death tolls has been suggested, from as many as60 million kulaks being killed suggested by AleksandrSolzhenitsyn to as few as 700 thousand by Soviet newssources. [7]. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s.Stalin’s Great Purge of the party eliminated many "OldBolsheviks" who had participated in the Revolution with

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Lenin. Yet despite the turmoil of the mid- to late 1930s,the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial eco-nomy in the years before World War II.

Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of Stalingrad, 1942, thebloodiest battle in human history and a major turning point inWorld War II. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million peopleduring the war, almost half of all World War II casualties.

The 1930s saw closer cooperation between the Westand the USSR. In 1933, diplomatic relations between theUnited States and the USSR were established. Four yearslater, the USSR actively supported the Republican forcesin the Spanish Civil War against the Nationalists, whichwere supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.Nevertheless, after Great Britain and France concludedthe Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany, the USSRdealt with the latter as well, both economically and mil-itarily, by concluding the Nazi-Soviet NonaggressionPact, which involved the occupation of Lithuania, Latvia,Estonia and the invasion of Poland in 1939. In lateNovember 1939, unable to force Finland into agreementto move its border 25 kilometres back from Leningrad bydiplomatic means, Stalin ordered the invasion of Fin-land. Although it has been debated whether the SovietUnion had the intention of invading Nazi Germany onceit was strong enough, Germany itself broke the treatyand invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The Red Armystopped the Nazi offensive in the Battle of Stalingrad,lasting from late 1942 to early 1943, being the majorturning point, and drove through Eastern Europe to Ber-lin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patri-otic War). Although ravaged by the war, the SovietUnion emerged from the conflict as an acknowledgedsuperpower.

During the immediate postwar period, the SovietUnion first rebuilt and then expanded its economy,while maintaining its strictly centralized control. TheSoviet Union aided post-war reconstruction in the coun-tries of Eastern Europe while turning them into Sovietsatellite states, founded the Warsaw Pact in 1955, later,the Comecon, supplied aid to the eventually victoriousCommunists in the People’s Republic of China, and saw

its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile,the rising tension of the Cold War turned the SovietUnion’s wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the Un-ited States, into enemies.

First human in space, Yuri Gagarin

Post-Stalin Soviet UnionJoseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953. In the absence of anacceptable successor, the highest Communist Party offi-cials opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly, although astruggle for power took place behind the facade of col-lective leadership. Nikita Khrushchev, who had won thepower struggle by the mid-1950s, denounced Stalin’s useof repression in 1956 and eased repressive controls overparty and society known as de-Stalinization. At the sametime, Soviet military force was used to suppress nation-alistic uprisings in Hungary and Poland in 1956. Duringthis period, the Soviet Union continued to realize sci-entific and technological pioneering exploits; to launchthe first artificial satellite Sputnik 1, living being Laika,and later, the first human being Yuri Gagarin intoEarth’s orbit. Valentina Tereshkova was the first womanin space aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963, and AlexeyLeonov became the first person to walk in space onMarch 18 1965. Khrushchev’s reforms in agriculture andadministration, however, were generally unproductive,and foreign policy towards China and the United States

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suffered difficulties, including those that led to the Sino-Soviet split. Khrushchev was retired from power in 1964.

Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another periodof rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting untilLeonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970sas the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. Brezh-nev presided over a period of Détente with the Westwhile at the same time building up Soviet militarystrength; the arms buildup contributed to the demise ofDétente in the late 1970s. Another contributing factorwas the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December1979.

Throughout the period, the Soviet Union maintainedparity with or superiority to the United States in theareas of military numbers and technology, but thisstrained the economy. In contrast to the revolutionaryspirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union,the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the timeof Brezhnev’s death in 1982 was one of aversion tochange. The long period of Brezhnev’s rule had come tobe dubbed one of "standstill" (застой), with an agingand ossified top political leadership.

After some experimentation with economic reformsin the mid-1960s, the Soviet leadership reverted to es-tablished means of economic management. Industryshowed slow but steady gains during the 1970s. Agricul-tural development continued, but could not keep upwith the growing consumption and the USSR had to im-port food products like grain. Due to the low investmentin consumer goods, the USSR was largely only able to ex-port raw materials, notably oil, which made it vulner-able to global price shifts. Moreover, human welfare inthe Soviet Union was keeping behind Western andsocialist Central-European levels, after initially conver-ging in the 1950s and 60’s. Even in absolute measure-ments, Soviet citizens were becoming less healthybetween the 1960s and 1985: the crude death rateclimbed from 6.9 per 1,000 in 1964 to 10.3 in 1980.[8]

Reforms of Gorbachev and dissolutionTwo developments dominated the decade that followed:the increasingly apparent crumbling of the SovietUnion’s economic and political structures, and thepatchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process.After the rapid succession of Yuri Andropov and Kon-stantin Chernenko, transitional figures with deep rootsin Brezhnevite tradition, beginning in 1985 MikhailGorbachev made significant changes in the economy(see Perestroika, Glasnost) and the party leadership. Hispolicy of glasnost freed public access to information afterdecades of heavy government censorship.

In the late 1980s, the constituent republics of theSoviet Union started legal moves towards or even de-claration of sovereignty over their territories, citingArticle 72 of the USSR Constitution, which stated that

Perestroika ("Restructuring") poster featuring Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev

any constituent republic was free to secede.[9] On April7, 1990 a law was passed, that a republic could secede, ifmore than two thirds of that republic’s residents votefor it on a referendum.[10] Many held their first freeelections in the Soviet era for their own national legis-latures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded toproduce legislation contradicting the Union laws inwhat was known as "The War of Laws". In 1989, the Rus-sian SFSR, which was then the largest constituent repub-lic (with about half of the population) convened a newlyelected Congress of People’s Deputies. Boris Yeltsin waselected the chairman of the Congress. On June 12, 1990,the Congress declared Russia’s sovereignty over its ter-ritory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to su-persede some of the USSR’s laws. The period of legal un-certainty continued throughout 1991 as constituent re-publics slowly became de facto independent.

A referendum for the preservation of the USSR washeld on March 17, 1991, with the majority of the popula-tion voting for preservation of the Union in nine out offifteen republics. The referendum gave Gorbachev aminor boost, and, in the summer of 1991, the New UnionTreaty was designed and agreed upon by eight republicswhich would have turned the Soviet Union into a muchlooser federation.

The signing of the treaty, however, was interruptedby the August Coup—an attempted coup d’état againstGorbachev by hardline Marxist members of the govern-ment, who sought to reverse Gorbachev’s reforms andreassert the central government’s control over the re-publics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin came out as ahero while Gorbachev’s power was effectively ended.The balance of power tipped significantly towards therepublics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia

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In an iconic photograph by the Associated Press broadcastworldwide[11]Yeltsin (far left) stands on a tank to defy thecoup.

immediately declared restoration of full independence(following Lithuania’s 1990 example), while the other 12republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser,models of the Union.

On December 8, 1991, the presidents of Russia,Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accordswhich declared the Soviet Union dissolved and estab-lished the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) inits place. While doubts remained over the authority ofthe Belavezha Accords to dissolve the Union, on Decem-ber 21, 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republicsexcept Georgia, including those republics that hadsigned the Belavezha Accords, signed the Alma-Ata Pro-tocol, which confirmed the dismemberment and con-sequential extinction of the USSR and restated the es-tablishment of the CIS. The summit of Alma-Ata alsoagreed on several other practical measures consequen-tial to the extinction of the Union. On December 25,1991, Gorbachev yielded to the inevitable and resignedas the president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct.He turned the powers that until then were vested in thepresidency over to Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia. Thefollowing day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest govern-mental body of the Soviet Union, recognized the col-lapse of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself. This isgenerally recognized as the official, final dissolution ofthe Soviet Union as a functioning state. Many organiza-tions such as the Soviet Army and police forces contin-ued to remain in place in the early months of 1992 butwere slowly phased out and either withdrawn from orabsorbed by the newly independent states.

PoliticsThe government of the Soviet Union administered thecountry’s economy and society. It implemented de-cisions made by the leading political institution in the

The Kremlin in Moscow, the official residence of the govern-ment of the USSR.

country, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union(CPSU).

In the late 1980s, the government appeared to havemany characteristics in common with liberal democraticpolitical systems. For instance, a constitution estab-lished all organizations of government and granted tocitizens a series of political and civic rights. A legislativebody, the Congress of People’s Deputies, and its standinglegislature, the Supreme Soviet, represented the prin-ciple of popular sovereignty. The Supreme Soviet, whichhad an elected chairman who functioned as head ofstate, oversaw the Council of Ministers, which acted asthe executive branch of the government. The chairmanof the Council of Ministers, whose selection was ap-proved by the Supreme Soviet, functioned as head ofgovernment. A constitutionally based judicial branch ofgovernment included a court system, headed by the Su-preme Court, that was responsible for overseeing the ob-servance of Soviet law by government bodies. Accordingto the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the government had afederal structure, permitting the republics some author-ity over policy implementation and offering the nationalminorities the appearance of participation in the man-agement of their own affairs.

White House, 2006

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In practice, however, the government differedmarkedly from Western systems. In the late 1980s, theCPSU performed many functions that governments ofother countries usually perform. For example, the partydecided on the policy alternatives that the governmentultimately implemented. The government merely rati-fied the party’s decisions to lend them an aura of legit-imacy. The CPSU used a variety of mechanisms to ensurethat the government adhered to its policies. The party,using its nomenklatura authority, placed its loyalists inleadership positions throughout the government, wherethey were subject to the norms of democratic central-ism. Party bodies closely monitored the actions of gov-ernment ministries, agencies, and legislative organs.

The content of the Soviet Constitution differed inmany ways from typical Western constitutions. It gener-ally described existing political relationships, as determ-ined by the CPSU, rather than prescribing an ideal set ofpolitical relationships. The Constitution was long anddetailed, giving technical specifications for individualorgans of government. The Constitution included polit-ical statements, such as foreign policy goals, andprovided a theoretical definition of the state within theideological framework of Marxism-Leninism. The CPSUleadership could radically change the constitution or re-make it completely, as it did several times throughout itshistory.

A 1932 Soviet poster for International Women’s Day.

The Council of Ministers acted as the executive bodyof the government. Its most important duties lay in theadministration of the economy. The council was thor-oughly under the control of the CPSU, and its chair-man—the Soviet prime minister—was always a memberof the Politburo. The council, which in 1989 includedmore than 100 members, was too large and unwieldy toact as a unified executive body. The council’s Presidium,made up of the leading economic administrators and ledby the chairman, exercised dominant power within theCouncil of Ministers.

According to the Constitution, as amended in 1988,the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union was theCongress of People’s Deputies, which convened for thefirst time in May 1989. The main tasks of the congresswere the election of the standing legislature, the Su-preme Soviet, and the election of the chairman of theSupreme Soviet, who acted as head of state. Theoretic-ally, the Congress of People’s Deputies and the SupremeSoviet wielded enormous legislative power. In practice,however, the Congress of People’s Deputies met infre-quently and only to approve decisions made by theparty, the Council of Ministers, and its own SupremeSoviet. The Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Su-preme Soviet, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, andthe Council of Ministers had substantial authority to en-act laws, decrees, resolutions, and orders binding on thepopulation. The Congress of People’s Deputies had theauthority to ratify these decisions.

The judiciary was not independent. The SupremeCourt supervised the lower courts and applied the law asestablished by the Constitution or as interpreted by theSupreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Commit-tee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. TheSoviet Union lacked an adversarial court procedureknown to common law jurisdictions. Rather, Soviet lawutilized the system derived from Roman law, wherejudge, procurator and defense attorney worked collabor-atively to establish the truth.

The Soviet Union was a federal state made up of fif-teen republics joined together in a theoretically volun-tary union; it was this theoretical situation that formedthe basis of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs’ mem-bership in the United Nations. In turn, a series of territ-orial units made up the republics. The republics alsocontained jurisdictions intended to protect the interestsof national minorities. The republics had their own con-stitutions, which, along with the all-union Constitution,provide the theoretical division of power in the SovietUnion. All the republics except Russian SFSR had theirown communist parties. In 1989, however, the CPSU andthe central government retained all significant author-ity, setting policies that were executed by republic, pro-vincial, oblast, and district governments.

For more details on this topic, see Soviet law.

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Leaders of the Soviet UnionThe de facto leader of the Soviet Union was the First/General Secretary of the CPSU. The head of governmentwas considered the Premier, and the head of state wasconsidered the chairman of the Presidium. The Sovietleader could also have one (or both) of these positions,along with the position of General Secretary of theparty. The last leader of the Soviet Union was MikhailGorbachev, serving from 1985 until late December 1991.

List of Soviet Premiers

(Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars ofthe USSR (1923–1946); Chairman of the Council ofMinisters of the USSR (1946–1990); Prime Ministerof the USSR (1991))

List of Soviet Heads of state

(Chairman of the Central Executive Committee ofthe All-Russian Congress of Soviets (1917–1922);Chairman of the Central Executive Committee ofthe USSR (1922–1938); Chairman of the Presidiumof the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1938–1989);Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR(1989–1990); President of the Soviet Union(1990–1991))

Foreign relations

Map of Comecon (1986) which includes the Soviet Union and itsallies.

members members who did not participate associatesobservers

Once denied diplomatic recognition by the capitalistworld, the Soviet Union had official relations with prac-tically all nations of the world by the late 1940s. TheSoviet Union also had progressed from being an outsiderin international organizations and negotiations to beingone of the arbiters of the world’s fate after World War II.A member of the United Nations at its foundation in1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five perman-ent members of the UN Security Council which gave itthe right to veto any of its resolutions (see Soviet Unionand the United Nations).

Left to right: General Secretary of the Communist Party JosephStalin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, andPrime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom .

The Soviet Union emerged from World War II as oneof the world’s two superpowers, a position maintainedfor four decades through its hegemony in EasternEurope (see Eastern Bloc), military strength, economicstrength, aid to developing countries, and scientific re-search, especially into space technology and weaponry.The Soviet Union’s growing influence abroad in thepostwar years helped lead to a Communist system ofstates in Eastern Europe united by military and econom-ic agreements. It overtook the British Empire as a globalsuperpower, both in a military sense and its ability toexpand its influence beyond its borders. The Council forMutual Economic Assistance (COMECON / Comecon /CMEA / CAME), (Russian: Совет экономическойвзаимопомощи - СЭВ), 1949 – 1991, was an economicorganization of communist states and a kind of EasternBloc equivalent to—but more geographically inclusivethan—the European Economic Community. The militarycounterpart to the Comecon was the Warsaw Pact,though Comecon’s membership was significantlywider.[12]

Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban President Fidel Castro at theUnited Nations building in 1960.

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The descriptive term Comecon was often applied toall multilateral activities involving members of the or-ganization, rather than being restricted to the directfunctions of Comecon and its organs.[13] This usage wassometimes extended as well to bilateral relations amongmembers, because in the system of socialist internation-al economic relations, multilateral accords — typically ofa general nature — tended to be implemented through aset of more detailed, bilateral agreements.[12]

Established in 1949 the Soviet-dominated Council forMutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) led by Moscow,served as a framework for cooperation among theplanned economies of the Soviet Union, and, later, fortrade and economic cooperation with the Third World.The military counterpart to the Comecon was theWarsaw Pact. The Soviet economy was also of major im-portance to Eastern Europe because of imports of vitalnatural resources from the USSR, such as natural gas.

The Soviet Union’s endorsement of the construction of the Ber-lin Wall in the 1960s by East Germany increased tensions withthe west and was unpopular amongst many Germans.

Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a bufferzone for the forward defense of its western borders andensured its control of the region by transforming theEast European countries into satellite states. Soviettroops intervened in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution andcited the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet counterpart tothe U.S. Johnson Doctrine and later Nixon Doctrine, andhelped oust the Czechoslovak government in 1968,sometimes referred to as the Prague Spring.

In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regard-ing the USSR’s rapprochement with the West and whatMao perceived as Khrushchev’s revisionism led to theSino-Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout theglobal Communist movement and Communist regimes inAlbania and Cambodia choosing to ally with China inplace of the USSR. For a time, war between the formerallies appeared to be a possibility; while relations wouldcool during the 1970s, they would not return to normal-ity until the Gorbachev era.

During the same period, a tense confrontationbetween the Soviet Union and the United States over theSoviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba sparkedthe Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The KGB (Committee for State Security) served in afashion as the Soviet counterpart to both the FederalBureau of Investigation and the Central IntelligenceAgency in the U.S. It ran a massive network of inform-ants throughout the Soviet Union, which was used tomonitor violations in law. The foreign wing of the KGBwas used to gather intelligence in countries around theglobe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was re-placed in Russia by the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Ser-vice) and the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russi-an Federation).

The KGB was not without substantial oversight. TheGRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), not publicized bythe Soviet Union until the end of the Soviet era duringperestroika, was created by Lenin in 1918 and servedboth as a centralized handler of military intelligence andas an institutional check-and-balance for the otherwiserelatively unrestricted power of the KGB. Effectively, itserved to spy on the spies, and, not surprisingly, the KGBserved a similar function with the GRU. As with the KGB,the GRU operated in nations around the world, particu-larly in Soviet bloc and satellite states. The GRU contin-ues to operate in Russia today, with resources estimatedby some to exceed those of the SVR [12][13].

Gorbachev in one-on-one discussions with U.S. President Ron-ald Reagan.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved rough nucle-ar parity with the United States, and eventually over-took it. It perceived its own involvement as essential tothe solution of any major international problem. Mean-while, the Cold War gave way to Détente and a more com-plicated pattern of international relations in which theworld was no longer clearly split into two clearly op-posed blocs. Less powerful countries had more room toassert their independence, and the two superpowerswere partially able to recognize their common interestin trying to check the further spread and proliferation of

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nuclear weapons (see SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Mis-sile Treaty).

By this time, the Soviet Union had concluded friend-ship and cooperation treaties with a number of states inthe non-Communist world, especially among ThirdWorld and Non-Aligned Movement states like India andEgypt. Notwithstanding some ideological obstacles, Mo-scow advanced state interests by gaining militaryfootholds in strategically important areas throughoutthe Third World. Furthermore, the Soviet Union contin-ued to provide military aid for revolutionary movementsin the Third World. For all these reasons, Soviet foreignpolicy was of major importance to the non-Communistworld and helped determine the tenor of internationalrelations.

Although myriad bureaucracies were involved in theformation and execution of Soviet foreign policy, themajor policy guidelines were determined by the Polit-buro of the Communist Party. The foremost objectives ofSoviet foreign policy had been the maintenance and en-hancement of national security and the maintenance ofhegemony over Eastern Europe. Relations with the Un-ited States and Western Europe were also of major con-cern to Soviet foreign policy makers, and relations withindividual Third World states were at least partly de-termined by the proximity of each state to the Sovietborder and to Soviet estimates of its strategicsignificance.

Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1988.

After Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded KonstantinChernenko as General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985, heintroduced many changes in Soviet foreign policy and inthe economy of the USSR. Gorbachev pursued conciliat-ory policies towards the West instead of maintaining theCold War status quo. The Soviet Union ended its occupa-tion of Afghanistan, signed strategic arms reductiontreaties with the United States, and allowed its allies inEastern Europe to determine their own affairs.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union onDecember 25, 1991, Russia was internationally recog-nised[14] to be the legal successor to the Soviet state onthe international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily

accepted all Soviet foreign debt, and claimed overseasSoviet properties as its own. To prevent subsequent dis-putes over Soviet property, "zero variant" agreementswere proposed to ratify with newly independent statesthe status quo on the date of dissolution. (Ukraine is thelast former Soviet republic not to have entered into suchan agreement.) The end of the Soviet Union also raisedquestions about treaties it had signed, such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; Russia has held the position thatthose treaties remain in force, and should be read asthough Russia were the signatory.[15]

For more details on this topic, see Military history of theSoviet Union.

Republics

Soviet Union administrative divisions, 1989

The Soviet Union was a federation that consisted ofSoviet Socialist Republics (SSR). The first Republics wereestablished shortly after the October Revolution of 1917.At that time, republics were technically independentfrom one another but their governments acted in closelycoordinated confederation, as directed by the CPSUleadership. In 1922, four Republics (Russian SFSR,Ukrainian SSR, Belarusian SSR, and TranscaucasianSFSR) joined into the Soviet Union. Between 1922 and1940, the number of Republics grew to sixteen. Some ofthe new Republics were formed from territories ac-quired, or reacquired by the Soviet Union, others bysplitting existing Republics into several parts. The cri-teria for establishing new republics were as follows:1. to be located on the periphery of the Soviet Union so

as to be able to exercise their right to secession;2. be economically strong enough to survive on their

own upon secession; and3. be named after the dominant ethnic group which

should consist of at least one million people.The system remained almost unchanged after 1940. Nonew Republics were established. One republic, Karelo-Finnish SSR, was disbanded in 1956, and the territoryformally became the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Social-ist Republic (ASSR) within the Russian SFSR. The

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The Republics of the Soviet Union

Flag Republic Capital

1 Armenian SSR Yerevan

2 Azerbaijan SSR Baku

3 Byelorussian SSR Minsk

4 Estonian SSR Tallinn

5 Georgian SSR Tbilisi

6 Kazakh SSR Alma-Ata

7 Kirghiz SSR Frunze

8 Latvian SSR Riga

9 Lithuanian SSR Vilnius

10 Moldavian SSR Kishinev

11 Russian SFSR Moscow

12 Tajik SSR Dushanbe

13 Turkmen SSR Ashgabat

14 Ukrainian SSR Kiev

15 Uzbek SSR Tashkent

remaining 15 republics lasted until 1991. Even thoughSoviet Constitutions established the right for a republicto secede, it remained theoretical and very unlikely, giv-en Soviet centralism, until the 1991 collapse of theUnion. At that time, the republics became independentcountries, with some still loosely organized under theheading Commonwealth of Independent States. Some re-publics had common history and geographical regions,and were referred by group names. These were BalticRepublics, Transcaucasian Republics, and Central AsianRepublics.

Economy

The DneproGES, one of many hydroelectric power stations inthe Soviet Union

Prior to its dissolution the USSR had the second largesteconomy in the world after the United States.[16] Theeconomy of the Soviet Union was the modern world’sfirst centrally planned economy. It was based on a sys-tem of state ownership and managed through Gosplan(the State Planning Commission), Gosbank (the StateBank) and the Gossnab (State Commission for Materialsand Equipment Supply). The first major project of eco-nomic planning was the GOELRO plan, which was fol-lowed by a series of other Five-Year Plans. The emphasiswas put on a very fast development of heavy industryand the nation became one of the world’s top manufac-turers of a large number of basic and heavy industrialproducts, but it lagged behind in the output of light in-dustrial production and consumer durables.

Agriculture of the Soviet Union was organized into asystem of collective farms (kolkhozes) and state farms(sovkhozes) but it was relatively unproductive. Crises inthe agricultural sector reaped catastrophic con-sequences in the 1930s, when collectivization met wide-spread resistance from the kulaks, resulting in a bitterstruggle of many peasants against the authorities, andfamine, particularly in Ukraine (see Holodomor), butalso in the Volga River area and Kazakhstan.

Comparison between USSR and US economies (1989)according to 1990 CIA World Factbook[16]

USSR US

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GDP (1989 - millions $) 2,659,500 5,233,300

Population (July 1990) 290,938,469 250,410,000

GDP Per Capita ($) 9,211 21,082

Labour force (1989) 152,300,000 125,557,000

As the Soviet economy grew more complex, it requiredmore and more complex disaggregation of control fig-ures (plan targets) and factory inputs. As it requiredmore communication between the enterprises and theplanning ministries, and as the number of enterprises,trusts, and ministries multiplied, the Soviet economystarted stagnating. The Soviet economy was increasinglysluggish when it came to responding to change, adaptingcost−saving technologies, and providing incentives at alllevels to improve growth, productivity and efficiency.Most information in the Soviet economy flowed fromthe top down and economic planning was often donebased on faulty or outdated information, particularly insectors with large numbers of consumers. As a result,some goods tended to be underproduced, leading toshortages, while other goods were overproduced and ac-cumulated in storage. Some factories developed a sys-tem of barter and either exchanged or shared raw ma-terials and parts, while consumers developed a blackmarket for goods that were particularly sought after butconstantly underproduced.

Conceding the weaknesses of their past approachesin solving new problems, the leaders of the late 1980s,headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, were seeking to mold aprogram of economic reform to galvanize the economy.However, by 1990 the Soviet government had lost con-trol over economic conditions. Government spending in-creased sharply as an increasing number of unprofitableenterprises required state support and consumer pricesubsidies to continue. Since the dissolution of the SovietUnion in 1991, almost all of the 15 former Soviet repub-lics have dismantled their Soviet-style economies.

GeographyThe Soviet Union occupied the eastern portion of theEuropean continent and the northern portion of the Asi-an continent. Most of the country was north of 50° northlatitude and covered a total area of approximately22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi). Due tothe sheer size of the state, the climate varied greatlyfrom subtropical and continental to subarctic and polar.11% of the land was arable, 16% was meadows and pas-ture, 41% was forest and woodland, and 32% was de-clared "other" (including tundra).

The Soviet Union measured some 10,000 kilometres(6,200 mi) from Kaliningrad on the in the west to Rat-manova Island (Big Diomede Island) in the Bering Strait,or roughly equivalent to the distance from Edinburgh,

Scotland, west to Nome, Alaska. From the tip of the Tay-myr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean to the Central Asiantown of Kushka near the Afghan border extended almost5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) of mostly rugged, inhospit-able terrain. The east-west expanse of the continentalUnited States would easily fit between the northern andsouthern borders of the Soviet Union at theirextremities.

Population and society

This map shows the 1974 geographic location of various ethnicgroups within the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was one of the world’s most ethnicallydiverse countries, with more than 200 distinct ethnicgroups within its borders. The total population was es-timated at 293 million in 1991, having been the 3rd mostpopulous nation after China and India for decades. In thelast years of the Soviet Union, the majority of the popu-lation were Russians (50.78%), followed by Ukrainians(15.45%) and Uzbeks (5.84%). Other ethnic groups in-cluded Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Estonians,Georgians, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Latvians, Lithuanians, Mol-dovans, Tajiks, and Turkmen as well as Abkhaz, Adyghes,Aleuts, Assyrians, Avars, Bashkirs, Bulgarians, Buryats,Chechens, Chinese, Chuvash, Cossacks, Evenks, Finns,Gagauz, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Ingushes, Inuit,Jews, Kalmyks, Karakalpaks, Karelians, Kets, Koreans,Lezgins, Maris, Mongols, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians,Poles, Roma, Romanians, Rusyns, Tats, Tatars, Tuvans,Udmurts, Yakuts, and others. Mainly because of differ-ences in birth rates among the Soviet nationalities, theshare of the population that was Russian steadily de-clined in the post-World War II period.[17]

NationalitiesThe extensive multinational empire that the Bolsheviksinherited after their revolution was created by Tsaristexpansion over some four centuries. Some nationalitygroups came into the empire voluntarily, others werebrought in by force. Russians, Belarusians and Ukraini-ans shared close cultural ties while, generally, the other

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subjects of the empire shared little in com-mon—culturally, religiously, or linguistically. More oftenthan not, two or more diverse nationalities were co-loc-ated on the same territory. Therefore, national antagon-isms built up over the years not only against the Russi-ans but often between some of the subject nations aswell.

For many years, Soviet leaders maintained that theunderlying causes of conflict between nationalities ofthe Soviet Union had been eliminated and that theSoviet Union consisted of a family of nations living har-moniously together. In the 1920s and early 1930s, thegovernment conducted a policy of korenizatsiya(indigenization) of local governments in an effort torecruit non-Russians into the new Soviet political insti-tutions and to reduce the conflict between Russians andthe minority nationalities. One area in which the Sovietleaders made concessions perhaps more out of necessitythan out of conviction, was language policy. To increaseliteracy and mass education, the government encour-aged the development and publication in many of the"national languages" of the minority groups. While Rus-sian became a required subject of study in all Sovietschools in 1938, in the mainly non-Russian areas thechief language of instruction was the local language orlanguages. This practice led to widespread bilingualismin the educated population, though among smaller na-tionalities and among elements of the population thatwere heavily affected by the immigration of Russians,linguistic assimilation also was common, in which themembers of a given non-Russian nationality lost facilityin the historic language of their group.[18]

The concessions granted national cultures and thelimited autonomy tolerated in the union republics in the1920s led to the development of national elites and aheightened sense of national identity. Subsequent re-pression and Russianization fostered resentment againstdomination by Moscow and promoted further growth ofnational consciousness. National feelings were also ex-acerbated in the Soviet multinational state by increasedcompetition for resources, services, and jobs, and by thepolicy of the leaders in Moscow to move work-ers—mainly Russians—to the peripheral areas of thecountry, the homelands of non-Russian nationalities.

By the end of the 1980s, encouraged in part byGorbachev’s policy of glasnost, unofficial groups formedaround a great many social, cultural, and political issues.In some non-Russian regions ostensible green move-ments or ecological movements were thinly disguisednational movements in support of the protection of nat-ural resources and the national patrimony generallyfrom control by ministries in Moscow.

Religious groupsAlthough the Soviet Union was officially secular, it sup-ported atheist ideology and suppressed religion, thoughaccording to various Soviet and Western sources, overone-third of the people in the Soviet Union professed re-ligious belief. Christianity and Islam had the most be-lievers. The state was separated from church by theDecree of Council of People’s Comissars on January 23,1918. Two-thirds of the Soviet population, however, hadno religious beliefs. About half the people, includingmembers of the CPSU and high-level government offi-cials, professed atheism. Official figures on the numberof religious believers in the Soviet Union were not avail-able in 1989.

Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox,which had the largest number of followers; Catholic; andBaptist and various other Protestant denominations.

Government persecution of Christianity continuedunabated until the fall of the Communist government,with Stalin’s reign the most repressive. Stalin is quotedas saying that "The Party cannot be neutral towards reli-gion. It conducts an anti-religious struggle against anyand all religious prejudices." In World War II, however,the repression against the Russian Orthodox Churchtemporarily ceased as it was perceived as "instrument ofpatriotic unity" in the war against "the western Teuton-ics". Repression against Russian Orthodox restartedfrom ca. 1946 onwards and more forcibly under NikitaKhrushchev. In 1914, before the revolution, there wereover 54,000 churches, while during the early years ofStalin’s reign that number was counted in the hundreds.By 1988, the number had decreased to roughly 7,000. Im-mediately following the fall of the Soviet government,churches were re-opening at a recorded rate of overthirty a week. Today, there are nearly 20,000.

Although there were many ethnic Jews in the SovietUnion, actual practice of Judaism was rare in Communisttimes. In 1928, Stalin created the Jewish AutonomousOblast in the far east of what is now Russia to try to cre-ate a "Soviet Zion" for a proletarian Jewish culture todevelop.

The overwhelming majority of the Islamic faithfulwere Sunni. The Azerbaijanis, who were Shiite, were onemajor exception. The largest groups of Muslims in theSoviet Union resided in the Central Asian republics(Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan)and Kazakhstan, though substantial numbers alsoresided in Central Russia (principally in Bashkiria andTatarstan), in the North Caucasian part of Russia(Chechnya, Dagestan, and other autonomous republics)and in Transcaucasia (principally in Azerbaijan but alsocertain regions of Georgia).

Other religions, which were practiced by a relativelysmall number of believers, included Buddhism (mostlyVajrayana) and paganism (which was largely shamanic),

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a religion based on spiritualism. The role of religion inthe daily lives of Soviet citizens thus varied greatly.

Culture

Worker and Kolkhoz Woman over the northern entrance to theAll-Soviet Exhibition Centre in Moscow (today the All-RussiaExhibition Centre)

The culture of the Soviet Union passed through severalstages during the USSR’s 70-year existence. During thefirst eleven years following the Revolution (1918–1929),there was relative freedom and artists experimentedwith several different styles in an effort to find a dis-tinctive Soviet style of art. Lenin wanted art to be ac-cessible to the Russian people. The government encour-aged a variety of trends. In art and literature, numerousschools, some traditional and others radically experi-mental, proliferated. Communist writers Maksim Gorkyand Vladimir Mayakovsky were active during this time.Film, as a means of influencing a largely illiterate soci-ety, received encouragement from the state; much ofdirector Sergei Eisenstein’s best work dates from thisperiod.

Later, during Joseph Stalin’s rule, Soviet culture wascharacterised by the rise and domination of thegovernment-imposed style of Socialist realism, with allother trends being severely repressed, with rare excep-tions (e.g. Mikhail Bulgakov’s works). Many writers wereimprisoned and killed.[19]Also religious people were per-secuted and either sent to Gulags or were murdered intheir thousands[20] though the ban on the OrthodoxChurch was temporarily lifted in the 1940s, in order torally support for the Soviet war against the invadingforces of Nazi Germany. Under Stalin, prominent sym-bols that were not in line with communist ideology weredestroyed, such as Orthodox Churches and Tsaristbuildings.

Following the Khrushchev Thaw of the late 1950sand early 1960s, censorship was diminished. Greater ex-perimentation in art forms became permissible onceagain, with the result that more sophisticated and subtlycritical work began to be produced. The regime loosenedits emphasis on socialist realism; thus, for instance,many protagonists of the novels of author Iurii Trifonovconcerned themselves with problems of daily life ratherthan with building socialism. An underground dissidentliterature, known as samizdat, developed during this lateperiod. In architecture Khrushchev era mostly focusedon functional design as opposed to highly decoratedstyle of Stalin’s epoch.

In the second half of 1980s, Gorbachev’s policies ofperestroika and glasnost significantly expanded freedomof expression in the media and press, eventually result-ing in the complete abolishment of censorship, totalfreedom of expression and freedom to criticise the gov-ernment.[21]

The following articles contain information on specif-ic aspects of Soviet culture:• Soviet art• Soviet music• Soviet education• Soviet cinema• Philosophy in the Soviet Union• Soviet television• Broadcasting in the Soviet Union• Voluntary Sports Societies of the USSR• Soviet Union at the Olympics• USSR Chess Championship• Palace of Culture• Research in the Soviet Union• Soviet Ballroom dances• Soviet Student Olympiads• Great Soviet Encyclopedia• Censorship in the Soviet Union• Glavlit• Samizdat

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Audio• National Anthem of the Soviet Union

See also• Dates of establishment of diplomatic relations with

the USSR• Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR• History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)• History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)• Human rights in the Soviet Union• Kaliningrad Oblast (see also: German East Prussia)• List of Soviet Leaders• List of Soviet Republics• Population transfer in the Soviet Union• Post-Soviet states• Prometheism• List of premiers of the Soviet Union• List of the presidents of the Soviet Union• Public holidays in the Soviet Union• Sovietization• Soviet war in Afghanistan• Collapse of the Soviet Union• Military history of the Soviet Union

References[1] Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Britannica[2] (Russian)Voted Unanimously for the Union[3] (Russian)Creation of the USSR at Khronos.ru[4] 70 Years of Gidroproekt and Hydroelectric Power

in Russia[5] (Russian) On GOELRO Plan—at Kuzbassenergo[6] The consolidation into a single-party regime took

place during the first three and a half years afterthe revolution, which included the period of WarCommunism and an election in which multipleparties competed. See Leonard Schapiro, TheOrigin of the Communist Autocracy: PoliticalOpposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955,1966.

[7] Matthew White according to Matthew White'sresearch

[8] W. Tompson, The Soviet Union under Brezhnev,(Edinburgh, 2003), p. 91

[9] The red blues—Soviet politics by Brian Crozier,National Review, June 25, 1990

[10] Origins of Moral-Ethical Crisis and Ways toOvercome it by V.A.Drozhin Honoured Lawyer ofRussia

[11] Robert L. Hilliard; Michael C. Keith (2006). TheBroadcast Century and Beyond: a Biography ofAmerican Broadcasting. Elsevier, p. 271. ISBN0240805704.

[12] Main Intelligence Administration (GRU)Glavnoye Razvedovatel'noye Upravlenie - Russia/ Soviet Intelligence Agencies

[13] The SVR Russia’s Intelligence Service[14] Country Profile: Russia Foreign & Commonwealth

Office of the United Kingdom[15] Memorandum of Understanding, AcqWeb, 7

February 2007[16] 1990 CIA World Factbook. Central Intelligence

Agency. Retrieved on 2008-03-09.[17] Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver,

"Demographic Sources of the Changing EthnicComposition of the Soviet Union," Population andDevelopment Review 15 (December 1989): 609–656.

[18] Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver. 1984."Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in SovietBilingual Education Policy, 1934–1980," AmericanPolitical Science Review 78 (December): 1019–1039.

[19] Rayfield 2004, p. 317-320.[20] Rayfield 2004, p. 121-122[21] "Gorbachev, Mikhail." Encyclopædia Britannica.

2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2 Oct. 2007<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037405>. "Under his new policy ofglasnost (“openness”), a major cultural thaw tookplace: freedoms of expression and of informationwere significantly expanded; the press andbroadcasting were allowed unprecedentedcandour in their reportage and criticism; and thecountry's legacy of Stalinist totalitarian rule waseventually completely repudiated by thegovernment."

References• Armstrong, John A. The Politics of Totalitarianism: The

Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to thePresent. New York: Random House, 1961.

• Brown, Archie, et al, eds.: The Cambridge Encyclopediaof Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press, 1982).

• Gilbert, Martin: The Routledge Atlas of Russian History(London: Routledge, 2002).

• Goldman, Minton: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe(Connecticut: Global Studies, Dushkin PublishingGroup, Inc., 1986).

• Grant, Ted: Russia, from Revolution to Counter-Revolution, London, Well Red Publications,1997

• Howe, G. Melvyn: The Soviet Union: A GeographicalSurvey 2nd. edn. (Estover, UK: MacDonald and Evans,1983).

• Katz, Zev, ed.: Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities(New York: Free Press, 1975).

• Moore, Jr., Barrington. Soviet politics: the dilemma ofpower. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1950.

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• Rayfield, Donald. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrantand Those Who Killed for Him. New York: RandomHouse, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0-375-50632-2); 2005(paperback, ISBN 0375757716).

• Rizzi, Bruno: "The bureaucratization of the world :the first English ed. of the underground Marxistclassic that analyzed class exploitation in the USSR" ,New York, NY : Free Press, 1985.

• Schapiro, Leonard B. The Origin of the CommunistAutocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, FirstPhase 1917–1922. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1955, 1966.

External links• Bibliographic database of german publications on

Russia and the Soviet Union (about 175 000positions)

• Images of the Soviet Union—a collection of photosshowing everyday life in the Soviet Union

• Impressions of Soviet Russia, by John Dewey• Soviet Agitation Posters• Documents and other forms of media from the Soviet

Union: 1917-1991• Revival Program, Part of the Chechen Rebels.• Soviet Union• Soviet Calculators Collection — a big collection of

Soviet technology goods: calculators, computers,electronic watches, etc

This article contains material from the Library of CongressCountry Studies, which are United States government publica-tions in the public domain.

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