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On
30 December 1922 the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, better known as the USSR, was founded.
The constitutional basis for the Soviet Union had been agreed on 29 December. The
Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the
Declaration of the Creation of the USSR was approved by delegations from all the founding countries. It officially came into force when it was confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets and signed by the heads of each republic’s respective delegation.
In 1922 the Soviet Union consisted of just four Soviet republics – the Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR and Transcaucasian SFSR – although it’s important to note that the Russian and Transcaucasian SFSRs actually incorporated a number of separate Soviet Socialist Republics. The creation of the USSR therefore effectively created a centralised federal government.
This was an important step for the Bolsheviks who, having won the Russian Civil War, needed to consolidate their gains into a formal political entity. Stalin in particular argued that the New Economic Policy that followed War Communism required centralised control, which threatened some national groups. At the same time, some Bolsheviks hoped for a world revolution that would overthrow capitalist governments around the globe.
The USSR’s founding documents therefore allowed Soviet republics to withdraw from the Union at any time, even though none actually did so before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. New members were able to join the union at any time, which allowed the USSR’s membership to grow from four republics in 1922 to sixteen by 1940.
The
Soviet Union, officially the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (
USSR), was a
transcontinental country that
spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship
communist state, it was nominally a
federal union of
fifteen national republics; in practice, both
its government and
its economy were
highly centralized until its final years. It was a
one-party state governed by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of
Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the
Russian SFSR. Other major cities included
Leningrad (Russian SFSR),
Kiev (
Ukrainian SSR),
Minsk (
Byelorussian SSR),
Tashkent (
Uzbek SSR),
Alma-Ata (
Kazakh SSR), and
Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It
was the
largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning
eleven time zones.
The country's roots lay in the
October Revolution of 1917, when the
Bolsheviks, under the leadership of
Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the
Russian Provisional Government that had
earlier replaced the
House of Romanov of the
Russian Empire. The Bolshevik coup led to the establishment of the Russian Soviet Republic, the
world's first constitutionally guaranteed socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the
Russian Civil War. By 1922 the Bolsheviks under
Vladimir Lenin had emerged victorious, forming the Soviet Union. Following
Lenin's death in 1924,
Joseph Stalin came to power.
Stalin inaugurated a period of
rapid industrialization and
forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a
famine in 1930–1933 that killed millions. The
labour camp system of the
Gulag was also expanded in this period. Stalin conducted the
Great Purge to remove his actual and perceived opponents. After the outbreak of
World War 2, Germany
invaded the Soviet Union. The
combined Soviet civilian and military casualty count—estimated to be around
27 million people—accounted for the majority of losses of
Allied forces. In the
aftermath of World War 2, the territory taken by the Red Army formed various
Soviet satellite states.
The beginning of the
Cold War saw the
Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union confront the
Western Bloc of the
United States, with the latter grouping becoming largely united in 1949 under
NATO and the former grouping becoming largely united in 1955 under the
Warsaw Pact. Following
Stalin's death in 1953, a period known as
de-Stalinization occurred under the leadership of
Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviets took an early lead in the
Space Race with the
first artificial satellite, the
first human spaceflight, and the
first probe to land on another planet (
Venus). In the 1970s, there was a brief
détente in the
Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions resumed 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, during the closing stages of the Cold War, various countries of the Warsaw Pact
overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, which was accompanied by the
outbreak of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the entire Soviet Union. In
1991, Gorbachev initiated
a national referendum—
boycotted by the Soviet republics of
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova—that resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favour of
preserving the country as a renewed federation. In
August 1991, hardline members of the Communist Party staged
a coup d'état against Gorbachev; the attempt
failed, with
Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in facing down the unrest, and the Communist Party was subsequently banned.
All of the republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as fully independent post-Soviet states.
The Soviet Union produced many significant
social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy, and the
Soviet Armed Forces comprised the largest standing military in the world. An
NPT-designated state, it possessed
the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. 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 the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military and economic strengths, aid to
developing countries, and scientific research.
