Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a country that stretched across much of Eurasia, existing from 1922 to 1991. It was the largest nation on Earth by area, the third most populous, and shared borders with twelve other countries. This multinational state was structured as a federation of national republics, the biggest and most heavily populated being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). As the leading communist state globally, its government was run by the Communist Party, which operated under the ideology of Marxism–Leninism and through local councils called soviets.

The economy was managed through central planning, and Moscow served as both the capital and largest city. The USSR originated from the October Revolution of 1917. Vladimir Lenin’s new government created the RSFSR, the first constitutionally communist state in history. After the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War, the RSFSR and its associated republics were united into the Soviet Union in 1922.

Following Lenin’s death in 1924, a six-year power struggle ended with Joseph Stalin becoming the country’s absolute ruler. He pushed for rapid industrial growth and forced collectivization, which spurred economic expansion but also caused a severe famine in the 1930s that killed millions. The Gulag, a network of forced labor camps, was enlarged. In the late 1930s, Stalin’s regime carried out the Great Purge to crush opposition, leading to deportations, executions, and the Moscow trials.

After failing to form an anti-Nazi coalition in Europe, the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. But in 1941, Germany launched the largest land invasion in history against the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The USSR was a key Allied force in defeating the Axis powers, while also expanding its influence into Central and Eastern Europe. It suffered the highest death toll of any country in the war, with about 27 million casualties.

After the war, the Soviet Union turned territories occupied by the Red Army into satellite states and pursued rapid economic growth, solidifying its position as a superpower. Tensions with the United States sparked the Cold War. The US-led Western Bloc formed the NATO military alliance in 1949, which prompted the Eastern Bloc to create the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The two blocs fought through ideology and proxy wars rather than direct combat.

After Stalin died in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev began a de-Stalinization campaign, causing ideological rifts with Mao Zedong’s communist China and leading to a bitter split. The Soviet military put down uprisings in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, while the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved without global war. Under Leonid Brezhnev, prosperity gave way to stagnation, though relations with the US improved. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms through glasnost and perestroika.

By 1989, most Warsaw Pact countries had overthrown their Soviet-backed governments, effectively ending the Eastern Bloc. Nationalist movements in Soviet republics declared sovereignty, and after a 1991 referendum for a renewed federation, a failed coup by hardliners occurred. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus then seceded. On December 26, Gorbachev officially acknowledged the USSR’s dissolution.

Boris Yeltsin, president of the RSFSR, oversaw its transformation into the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union’s successor. All fifteen republics became independent; all except the Baltic states joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. The post-Soviet states faced a humanitarian crisis. The Soviet Union was one of the world’s two superpowers, holding sway over Eastern Europe, global diplomacy, ideological influence (especially in the Global South), military power, economic strength, and scientific and technological achievements.

Its space program made major strides in the Space Race. It had the second-largest economy and the largest standing military in the world. As a nuclear state, it possessed the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons. As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations and one of five permanent members of its Security Council.

The word “soviet” comes from the Russian term meaning “council,” “assembly,” or “advice,” ultimately tracing back to a proto-Slavic verb for “to inform,” related to the Slavic word for “news” and the English word “wise.” A sovietnik is a “councillor.” In Russian history, some organizations were called councils. In the Russian Empire, the State Council, active from 1810 to 1917, was known as a Council of Ministers.

Workers’ councils called soviets first appeared during the 1905 Russian Revolution. Though quickly crushed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917, workers’ and soldiers’ soviets emerged across the country and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, demanded that all power go to the soviets, gaining support from workers and soldiers. After the October Revolution, when they seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the soviets, Lenin announced the creation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR).

During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin proposed that the RSFSR and other national soviet republics form a larger union, which he initially called the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.