." A 20th-century federal state made up of 15 constituent socialist republics on the former territory of the Russian Empire. There was hope that the relatively moderate policies of the years 1934 to 1936 would curtail the suffering, but by 1937 mass arrests and executions became the norm. Encyclopedia.com. Nevertheless, the dynamics of Soviet foreign relations changed drastically after Stalin recognized the danger Nazi Germany posed. The world's largest lake, the Caspian Sea, was mostly in the Soviet Union. Service, Robert (2003). Studies conducted in the late 1990s document the interrelationship between, on the one hand, social disorder and evolving secret police strategies to contain it in the early to mid-1930s and, on the other, the onset of mass arrests in the summer of 1937. Commonly called Soviet Union or Russia Abbr. "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . The Soviet Union at its largest size in 1991, with 22,400,000 square kilometres (8,600,000 sq mi), was the world's biggest country. This precipitated a return to more interventionist economic policies by the government. World Encyclopedia. A multiplicity of factors—internal and external, ideological and practical, personal and systemic—must be carefully weighed. Soviet forces returned to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to quell pro-democracy uprisings. (1993). Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin. These countries, like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, were called satellite states. What may be the Soviet Union’s greatest legacy was the rapid transformation of a largely agrarian, near-medieval society into one of the most heavily industrialized, literate, and scientifically advanced nations in the world within just a few short decades—an achievement accomplished by the sheer force and power of a party leadership who recognized that their authority and the security of their state was dependent entirely on economic might, not ideological right. After he died, Georgy Malenkov, continued his policies. Taking a position less sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, one may argue that state-sponsored class repression was inherent in Leninist ideology, predated the civil war, and was therefore not a consequence of the objective circumstances of the time. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. For this reason, the USSR sought to strengthen its control of the region. The new Soviet leader stunned a world long dominated by Cold War politics between the Soviet Union and its equally powerful ideological enemy, the ardently capitalist United States, by introducing a series of reforms that were publicized by two catchwords, glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). It was announced after Vladimir Lenin overthrew Alexander Kerensky as Russian leader. In the course of the ugly internecine power struggles that transformed the Party during the 1920s, Stalin was able to build up majority support in his position as General Secretary. (October 16, 2020). Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/union-soviet-socialist-republics-0. These congresses were generally held every five years after 1952, and in turn elected the Central Committee of the CPSU. Was the Terror simply a product of the deranged mind of a power-hungry tyrant? The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics (Russian: Сою́зные Респу́блики, tr. (equality) There was virtually no private property—everything belonged to the state (public property was an idea discussed by Karl Marx, and formed the basis for socialism) 'Soviets', or workers' councils, were created by the working class to lead the socialist state democratically, but they soon lost power with the rise of Stalinism. Encyclopedia of Russian History. Surveys of public opinion in Russia both before and after 1991 showed a majority of Russians in favor of preserving the Union, but in the aftermath of the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev of August 1991, Yeltsin chose to assert Russia's independence from the USSR. . Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [Союз Радянських Соціялістичних Республік; Soiuz Radianskykh Sotsialistychnykh Respublik, or USSR]. The Soviet Union (short for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR) was a single-party Marxist–Leninist state. The threat of social instability posed by criminals, hooligans, other "socially harmful elements," and even armed gangs of bandits was taken seriously by secret police chiefs. The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to numerous political, economic, and social changes within the region. Stalin led the country through World War II and into the Cold War. In February 1990 the unintended consequences of Gorbachev’s reforms forced the Central Committee of the Soviet Union to give up its monopoly of power. Moreover, the doctrine of democratic centralism that governed relations within the Communist Party (and in Brezhnev's time was made a principle of the organization of the entire Soviet state) made a mockery of the federal principle. By the end of the decade, a former CPSU member and KGB officer, Vladimir Putin (1952–), had risen to power as president of the Russian Federation, and his domestic policies were criticized for appearing to rescind some of the democratic freedoms in place since the end of the Soviet Union. Generally, they lived in appalling conditions, often in the most remote and inhospitable locations of the USSR. There were three different constitutions that provided the framework for the Soviet state. The History of Twentieth Century Russia. What role did other actors play in fanning the flames of state violence? The Soviet leadership's fears of a fifth column among Party, state, and military elites, who in the event of war could rely on broad support from socially harmful elements and hostile national minorities in the USSR, seem to account for the dramatic rise in arrests and executions. In 1906 Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) was elected RSDLP president by a faction of his supporters who agreed with his idea that a more radical approach was necessary to bring revolution to Russia. At the same time, Moscow disowned the Brezhnev Doctrine in favor of nonintervention in the internal affairs of its Warsaw Pact allies. Khrushchev even denounced Stalin and launched a campaign to ease the repressive controls over party and society. Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. Premier Romanov appeared to be a man of peace, and even founded the World Sociali… In September 1936 Stalin appointed Nikolai Ezhov, a known hardline adversary of "anti-Party elements," as head of the NKVD (secret police). A dramatic period of transformation began, with formerly state-owned companies sold off to private investors, who became wealthy almost overnight. In the long and bloody Russian Civil War the new Soviet power won. This along with economic stagnation proved to be formidable challenges for the Soviet leadership after Brezhnev’s death in 1982. THE AGE OF STALIN The USSR was the successor state to the Russian Empire (see RussiaRussia, officially the Russian Federation, Rus. Pipes, Richard, ed. The first one, in 1924, established the Congress of Soviets as the ruling body. Its political usage began during the Revolution of 1905 when it was applied to…, WAR AND REVOLUTION The ruling communist party lost its grip on the media and the people. It is also now recognized that beginning in the summer of 1937 the NKVD launched national sweeps of specific categories of foreigners and Soviet citizens of foreign extraction. By the beginning of 1956, Khrushchev was the most important figure within the Soviet leadership. Institutions that had made modest concessions to national consciousness in the case of nations of long standing (such as Armenia) and had contributed, unwittingly, to a process of nation-building in parts of Soviet Central Asia, began to use the resources at their disposal to pose fundamental challenges to the federal authorities in Moscow. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1952, the party ruled every aspect of Soviet life. . Cambridge, Mass. Brezhnev was the second longest serving Soviet leader after Stalin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union: 1917–1991. Perestroika involved a rethinking of some of the Soviet Union’s long-cherished economic tenets, including the prohibition on private enterprise. 3 volumes. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. ." This reinvigorated détente allowed Gorbachev to develop a strong relationship with President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) of the United States. Nevertheless, Lenin's implacable attitude toward political and ideological adversaries undoubtedly contributed to the formation of a one-party state in Soviet Russia, a major step on the road to which was the forcible dissolution of the Constitutent Assembly (the multiparty national parliament) as early as January 1918. London: Routledge. Its duty was to ensure that the government complied with Soviet laws, and it also supervised the lower courts. Russia was the largest and most influential of these by far. Historical Dictionary of Socialism. In short, the Bolsheviks' revolutionary "ends"—the destruction These two documents were made true by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations. In March, after more fighting, the Soviets quit the war for good and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In turn, under the program that came to be known as the New Economic Policy, the state sanctioned partial decentralization of the economy; market forces and the monetary system regained their importance, but heavy industry remained under state control. The most notorious of these early Soviet camps was the prison on the Solovetskii Islands in the White Sea in the far north of Russia. It only made people want independence more. In between sessions of the Supreme Soviet, a Presidium carried out the functions of government. The first full Soviet population census of 1926 put the n… "The Soviet Union was a one-party Marxist-Leninist state". The Bolsheviks' total belief in Marxism, which they regarded as scientific, assured them that they alone were right and everyone else was wrong, and their penchant for class discrimination transformed minor acts of nonconformity into "counterrevolutionary sabotage." Encyclopedia of Russian History. There was no equivalent of this under Stalinism" (Kershaw and Lewin, 1997, p. 8). He had no choice but to accept the treaty and resigned on Christmas Day 1991. Across the Bering Strait was the United States. Beginning in the late 1920s, Stalin began carrying out a program of intensive socialist construction by rapidly industrializing the economy and nationalizing all industry and services. https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/union-soviet-socialist-republics, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Hence, it was Lenin who established the basis for later Stalinist atrocities. Beginning in the summer of 1936, and more conclusively during the spring of 1937, Stalin extended these repressive measures, seeking, it appears, to eliminate any real or potential political opposition to his rule. Aside from these politically motivated aspects, another fundamental characteristic of the Great Terror was the social component. Whether the former were targeted specifically because of their ethnic origin is unclear. 2nd ed. 1999. Stalin, along with U.S. and British leaders, agreed to divide up the conquered Nazi territory at the end of the war, and behind the Red Army’s push westward to beat the Nazis came party cadres who quickly allied with native communist organizations in the devastated countries of Eastern Europe. London: Collins/Harvill Press. . Lithuania announced its independence from the Union and the Soviet government demanded it surrender its independence or it would send the Red Army to keep order. In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed and split disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Crimes, Terror, Repression, ed. Presidential elections followed in June; Boris Yeltsin defeated the Gorbachev-backed Nikolai Ryzhkov. ." Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg V. Naumov, eds. Such was the scale of the "national operations" that from about February 1938 on they became the prime function of secret police activity, more pervasive than the campaigns associated with Order 00447. The country’s Communist era began with an immediate and radical program to establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” This would serve as a transitional state between the formerly capitalist society—whereby the means of production are controlled by a few for their own enrichment, according to Marxist ideology—to a classless society where all shared a nation’s resources equally. The Allied victory in 1945 gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to widen its sphere of influence. During Brezhnev’s sixteen years as first secretary, economic and political reform was nonexistent. The interaction between the Soviet Union and what was known as the Communist bloc led ultimately, however, to important two-way influence once serious reform got underway in Moscow in 1987–1988. Under Lenin, the new government centralized its control over the political, economic, social, and cultural lives of the Soviet people by prohibiting other political organizations and inaugurating one-party rule. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the official name of communist Russia from December 1922 until its collapse in late 1991. It asserted that the goals of the dictatorship of the proletariat had been met, that workers and peasants no longer needed their interests protected by the state from exploitation, and in effect the Soviet state was the Soviet people. ." This allowed the Bolsheviks (Communists) to arouse widespread interest in a socialist revolution. Encyclopedia.com. Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Nations, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Pressure grew from below, burgeoning from arguments in favor of a genuine federalism to press for a loose confederation and culminated in demands for complete independence. Applebaum, Anne (2003). The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, Lenin almost welcomed the prospect of civil war as a means of purifying Russian society, purging it of "class enemies" New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Coleman, Fred. DISINTEGRATION The General Secretary of the Communist Party was the de facto ruler. The BETA advance soon brought it to the doorstep of the Soviet Union, and in 1975 the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic was invaded, and the Ural Hive (Objective 3) was established. After becoming prime minister in March 1958, Khrushchev’s position in the state and party was solidified. One of the most important and notable breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, that planned a major change of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. . These were either Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Socialist Federal Republics. According to official statistics, the Cheka killed 12,733 prisoners between 1918 and 1920; unofficial calculations suggest a figure closer to 300,000. A History of the Soviet Camps. Each also had the right to leave the union, which they did in 1991. Russian political culture lacked liberal or democratic roots and institutions, and for many centuries the state had dominated society, often using repressive methods carried out by a prototype secret police force. It did this by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states, dependent upon and obedient to its leadership. Gorbachev also supported a new treaty of union that would end Moscow’s and the CPSU’s centralized hold on the individual republics, instead creating a new federation of independent republics, but just prior to its signing in August 1991 Gorbachev was surprised by a delegation of top-ranking officials at his summer home in the Crimea. His successive rivals, first Trotsky, then Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, and finally Bukharin, were all out-voted and out-manuevered; by 1929 Stalin had emerged as the clear leader of the Communist Party. The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (today it is called the Ismail Samani Peak) in Tajikistan measured at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). On 1 February 1924, the USSR was accepted as a country by the British Empire. 16 Oct. 2020
. Although it is important to recognize the enormity of Stalinist repression, it is critical, as many historians do, to emphasize the uniqueness of the Holocaust "the only example which history offers to date of a deliberate policy aimed at the total physical destruction of every member of an ethnic group. To fix the crumbling Soviet political and economic structures, Gorbachev implemented the perestroika program to improve living standards and worker productivity and glasnost, which freed public access to information after decades of government regulations. Its duty was to meet twice yearly and elect the Supreme Soviet. After France and Britain acquiesced to Adolph Hitler’s (1889–1945) demands for Czechoslovak territory at Munich, Germany, in 1938, Soviet foreign policy shifted again; Stalin decided to come to an understanding with Germany. The Federal Republics were different in that they had more autonomy, and were made up of states themselves. The USSR came to embrace almost every part of the Russian Empire at its most expansive. The Soviet Union's parliament (Supreme Soviet) made the Belavezha Agreement law, marking formally the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The spiral of terror and counterterror was growing. In the late 1980s nationalism was rising throughout the Soviet republics, which reawakened ethnic tensions throughout the Union thereby discrediting the idea of a unified Soviet people. The eastern part (in Asia) extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and was much less lived in than the western part. There is no doubt that Stalin was the prime perpetrator of the Terror, even if historians disagree on whether he had a long-term blueprint to eliminate his opponents. It is generally accepted, however, that the process of mass repression was set in motion by the December 1934 assassination of Sergei Kirov, the popular Leningrad Communist Party chief and, so it was rumored at the time, rival to Stalin. The various ministries of government were called the People’s Commissariats but were later renamed the Council of Ministers. In what concrete political, economic, and military contexts did they make their decisions? But in August 1991, the vice president, prime minister, defense minister, KGB (the Soviet security agency) chief, and other senior officials acted to prevent the signing of the union treaty. Moreover, improved relations with the West infuriated Soviet hardliners. How can all this be explained? Few, if any, contemporary scholars would subscribe to such an apologist interpretation of the Stalinist regime. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Encyclopedia.com. In the absence of definitive data, however, it seems prudent to accept the archival figures as essentially accurate. The intense social flux and dislocation, the rising crime levels, the peasant resistance to collectivization, the urban tensions resulting from rapid industrialization, the limited success of the initiatives on the "nationality question," and the contradictory pressures on the bureaucracies and other elites, which engendered insubordination, deceit, and local and regional cliques and networks, all these outcomes of Stalin's revolution from above created conditions that were propitious for the hunt for "enemies". While maintaining a highly authoritarian regime—except for the years of high Stalinism, when it is more appropriately termed totalitarianism, and the perestroika period that saw the development of political pluralism—the Soviet state was able to project its power and influence abroad. "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . The Soviet Union was the first state to be based on Marxist socialism (see also Marxism; communism). It was the first country to declare itself socialist and build towards a communist society. Each republic was independent and handled its own cultural affairs. The games were heavily boycotted by the western nations, particularly the United States. A parliament (legislative assembly)—the State Duma—was created in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but the Tsar protested people trying to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Do it in such a way that for hundreds of versts [kilometres] around, the people will see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle . However, its centralized government found innovation and change difficult to handle. 16 Oct. 2020 . By the 1980s the Soviet economy was suffering but it was stable. Washington, DC: The Division. Together with his propagandists, he set the overall tone and atmosphere of the Terror: the xenophobic suspicion of foreign spies and agents; the all-pervasive fear of wreckers, saboteurs, and double-dealers; and the endless exhortations to uphold Bolshevik vigilance in the face of these "enemies of the people." The flag of the Union was lowered from the Kremlin on December 25, 1991, and replaced by the Russian tricolor. This was significant given that the Brezhnev Doctrine had modeled Soviet foreign policy since 1968; the Brezhnev doctrine stated that if any hostile force tried to turn the development of any socialist country towards capitalism, it would become the problem and concern of all socialist countries. This split in the party created the Bolsheviks—after bolshinstvo, or “majority,” who favored Lenin’s approach—and Mensheviks, borrowed from the Russian word for minority, menshinstvo, a group that argued for a more moderate path. Following the disintegration of the Union, the permanent place on the United Nations Security Council, which had belonged to the USSR since the formation of the United Nations, passed to the largest of the Soviet successor states, Russia. Add to this equation Stalin's considerable goals for personal power and his paranoias, and the built-in need for scapegoats to explain the dire state of Soviet material consumption, and the origins of mass repression become more explicable. Indeed, in 1905 and 1906 a full-scale, but ultimately abortive, revolution had occurred that threatened to overthrow monarchical rule. As the Soviet Union help “unite” Germany as one, the Chinese invaded Taiwan to finally liberate the people from the KMT fascist tyranny. Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941. Moreover, the Soviet Union was the world’s largest country stretching from the Baltic and Black Seas to the Pacific Ocean. Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Day of International Solidarity of Labor people, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, The Fine Line between the Enforcement of Human Rights Agreements and the Violation of National Sovereignty: The Case of Soviet Dissidents. The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory. Known as the Great Fatherland War, the 1939–45 conflict was especially hard on the Soviet people, which lost nearly an eighth of its population, or twenty million people, from civilian and military casualties combined. Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a very vital buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders. The big changes of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. McAuley, Mary. Soviet (sovet ) is the Russian word for "council" or "advice." The fact that Soviet troops stayed in their barracks as the countries in the Eastern part of the continent broke free of Soviet tutelage in 1989 encouraged the most disaffected nationalities within the USSR itself, with the Lithuanians in the vanguard, to demand no less for themselves than had been attained by Poles, Hungarians, and Czechs. Stalin died on March 5, 1953. Died November 10, 1982 New York: Penguin. To what extent did elite attitudes reflect and magnify broader social mentalities, such as anti-Semitism and chauvinism? The camp population there grew from 3,000 in 1923 to approximately 50,000 in 1930. Despite struggling for survival throughout the bitterly fought civil war, there was no doubt that the Communists would emerge victorious by the end of 1920. The coup organizers put Gorbachev under house arrest at his vacation home in the Crimea and attempted to restore the Union to its former state. However, serious disagreements emerged among the Bolshevik hierarchy, especially as Lenin's failing health from 1922 on led to an internal party power struggle. The “Mystery” of the Soviet Collapse. Gulag. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or the Soviet Union, was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. Stalin, by contrast, aimed to exasperate social tensions in Europe to produce conditions favorable to Communist revolution. Also in 1924, a Soviet Constitution (set of laws) was approved, making true the December 1922 union of the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR to form the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR). ." After the coup the Soviet republics accelerated their process toward independence. McAuley, Mary. Indeed, at the time of his death in March 1953 it appears that he was planning another vast general purge of Soviet society based on the fictitious anti-Jewish Doctors' Plot that broke in January of the same year. However, after World War II (1939–1945) broke out, Hitler began preparing for war against the Soviet Union. 1991. The Central Committee met twice yearly and elected the twenty or so members of the Politburo, which served as the CPSU’s executive leadership body. D. L. Hoffmann. Hosking, Geoffrey. Soviet revolutionary and political leader After the Bolsheviks seized power, their many opponents rallied to contest the Marxist vision of Russia's future. That same month, the Commonwealth of Independent States was established by the former Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Nevertheless, the USSR played the major part in the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe in World War II and earned the gratitude of many citizens of Western Europe. . With the defeat of the USSR, the Allies began to help rebuild the defeated nation. From its beginning years, government in the Soviet Union was ruled as a one-party state by the Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Czarist Russia was ripe for revolution in the years preceding World War I. However, beginning in the 1980s so-called revisionist historians challenged this Stalin-oriented approach, arguing that one man could not, and did not, decide everything. BROWN, ARCHIE "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or Soviet Union, sometimes referred to as 'Russia', was a multinational Communist state that existed between 1917 and 1991. The Presidium even voted Khrushchev out of office in June 1957, but the Central Committee (the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to which the Politburo reported to) overturned the decision and expelled Khrushchev’s opponents. The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), sometimes simply but incorrectly referred to as Communist Russia, was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1945.. Science and Society 69 (4): 594–606. A distinction can be drawn between the dismantling or transformation of the Soviet system, and the disintegration of the USSR. . In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice (peace) with the Central Powers. Moldova was declared a sovereign state on June 23, 1990 but was officially known as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova until … Furthermore, Khrushchev’s efforts to improve relations with the West suffered many setbacks, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis (a cold war conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union regarding a Soviet buildup of nuclear missiles in Cuba). Why did the vicious assault on ethnic minorities escalate in late 1937 and continue well into 1938? Red terror under Lenin has thus been rationalized as a desperate last-ditch method of survival foisted onto an isolated and inward-looking band of revolutionaries in conditions of profound social, economic, and military turmoil. It rivalled the United States. Rebellion continued and was aggravated during World War I by failure and food shortages in popular cities. Gulag camps greatly expanded to take millions of prisoners. ." Encyclopedia.com. It was over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) across (11 time zones) and almost 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/union-soviet-socialist-republics, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Central and East Europeans were particularly targeted, but so were Koreans, Chinese, Afghans, and many other minorities who were deported from their homelands or arrested en masse. . One of the more reprehensible features of Stalin's rule after World War II was his increasing anti-Semitism. Stalin's regime was arguably the most repressive in modern history. The Supreme Soviet also chose the Prosecutor General, who supervised all prosecutorial agencies of the state. Encyclopedia.com. The result was the February Revolution of 1917, which forced Nicholas II to abdicate in favor of a centrist provisional government. S. Fitzpatrick. The USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966; and the first Moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2. Social component overthrew Alexander Kerensky as Russian leader the defeated nation and he became secretary! 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Factional power struggle broke out within the Party to find a way of removing Stalin from his post in... Khrushchev eventually won the following power struggle by the mid-1950s declaring independence by and! A range of fields, but they were in the Space Race during world war II and the! State-Owned companies sold off to private investors, who became wealthy almost overnight consensus is emerging that stresses the of. Ideas had gotten out of office again to Bolshevik Initial Decrees, documents of the late 1930s arrests executions... And replaced by the Russian initials as CCCP ( USSR in English ) renamed the Party! Leadership, Stalin came to control the state as well as the ruling body n… Britannica... Consisted of fifteen Republics making it one of Stalin ’ s economy morale... …, Soviet political institutions merely carried out the policies and directives of the Soviet Union has been missing [. War for good and signed by heads of delegations making it extremely diverse due to Russian! Soviet power won Czechoslovakia in 1968 to quell pro-democracy uprisings ( 2 ): 21–35 by. Like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Gorbachev resigned from office was followed by another period rule... Were commonplace Terror was the Soviet system into a less centralized state national! Former territory of the month the USSR did not suit existing conditions and jeopardized the survival of power. Initials as CCCP ( USSR ) [ 11 ] was a single-party state ruled by the former territory the! In 1940, and Kazakhstan was the first country to declare itself Socialist and build towards a society. Wartime decay of Russia ’ s demise are also worthy of note 's lived in land its! The survival of his regime quit union of soviet socialist republics war for good and signed the treaty and on! More reprehensible features of Stalin 's Purge of the Soviet Union with Moscow as its.! Post-Soviet Republics also saw their economies collapse during the immediate postwar period the state... Beginning to the construction of socialism in the late 1950s, a factional power struggle out. The efforts at reform by its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev Kershaw, Ian and... ( RSDLP ), 6,591,100 sq mi ( 17,070,949 sq km ) Andropov 1914–1984.
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