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The Soviet Union (Советский Союз), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or U.S.S.R.; Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was the first constitutionally socialist nation that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.

Political divisions
Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a union of Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), although the rule of the highly centralized Communist Party made the union merely nominal. The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR was signed in December 1922 by four founding republics, the RSFSR, Transcaucasian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR and Belorussian SSR. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, the Uzbek and Turkmen SSRs were formed from parts of the RSFSR's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan SSR. In 1929, the Tajik SSR was split off from the Uzbek SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the constituents of the Transcaucasian SFSR, namely the Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijan SSRs, were elevated to union republics, while the Kazakh and Kirghiz SSRs were split off from the RSFSR. In August 1940, the Soviet Union formed the Moldavian SSR from parts of the Ukrainian SSR and parts of Bessarabia annexed from Romania. It also annexed the Baltic states as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian SSRs. The Karelo-Finnish SSR was split off from the RSFSR in March 1940 and merged back in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below).

On 16 November 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR passed the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration that asserted Estonia's sovereignty and declared the supremacy of Estonian laws over those of the Soviet Union. In March 1990, the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR declared independence, followed by the Georgian Supreme Soviet in April 1991. Although the symbolic right of the republics to secede was nominally guaranteed by the constitution and the union treaty, Soviet authorities at first refused to recognize it. After the August coup attempt, most of the other republics followed suit, leaving the Soviet Union with the Russian, Kazakh, and Turkmen republics. The Soviet Union ultimately recognized the secession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on 6 September 1991. The remaining republics were recognized as independent with the Soviet Union's final dissolution in December 1991.

History
The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled the Russian Empire until his abdication in March 1917, due in part to the strain of fighting in World War I. A short-lived Russian provisional government took power, to be overthrown in the 1917 October Revolution (N.S. November 1917) by revolutionaries led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.

The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 with the union of the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics, each ruled by local Bolshevik parties. Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities, the term "Soviet Russia" – strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republic – was often incorrectly applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers and politicians.

Fall of the Russian Empire
After losing the Crimean War, Russian Tsar Alexander II reorganised the nation to that comparable to Western nations, although it remained backward compared to Europe's social, political, and economic progress and the majority of the Russian population were still little more than serfs. Many revolutionary groups formed in the 1870s, including the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (which later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) and a terrorist group known as The Peoples Will (Narodnaya Volya ), which successfully assassinated Alexander II. His successor, Alexander III, reaffirmed the Tsarist autocracy as an assurance of security and stability. That also prevailed under his successor, Nicholas II, who rose to power in 1894.

Due to the lack of industrial progress in the Industrial Revolution, concern rose in the government. The Finance Minister, Sergei Witte, accelerated the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which had reached the Russian Far East in 1903. In 1904, Japan declared war on the Russian Empire, causing civil unrest. Many peasants rebelled and workers went on strike.

The next year, which ended with the Russian Empire's defeat, caused more civil unrest. In January 1905, a group of workers peacefully marched to present demands before the Tsar, whose guards slaughtered the workers. This event, known as Bloody Sunday, started the Russian Revolution of 1905. Workers in St. Petersburg formed the St. Petersburg Soviet and participated in anti-tsarist demonstrations.

In response to the chaos, Nicholas II established a parliamentary representative body, the State Duma. In spite of this move, the Tsar resisted attempts to make the transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, dissolving the first three Duma sessions in 1906, 1907, and 1912.

World War I
The Russian Empire entered World War I as a member of the Triple Entente, siding with France and Britain to oppose the Central Powers, consisting of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, who were later joined by the Ottoman Empire. Grand Duke Nicholas was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Russian Army. The civilians initially supported the war effort, but after Russia's invasion of East Prussia resulted in the disastrous Russian defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg, morale was decreased in spite of the Russian victory in the Battle of Galicia.

In April 1915, the German Army began its offensive against the Russian defence at Görlitz. By the end of the year, Germany had occupied Galicia, Poland, and part of Belorussia. The next month, Nicholas II personally took over the armies, and left his wife, Alexandra, in charge at the capital. By that time, the Germans had occupied the entire Russian sector, including Warsaw, which allowed Poland to declare independence in 1916. In the same year, Aleksei Brusilov launched what would be known as the Brusilov Offensive, leading the Southwestern Front to a victory against Austro-Hungarians, who retreated to the Carpathian passes. The Russian army took over Bukovina and southern Galicia, along with over 300,000 prisoners.

In October 1916, 250,000 workers revolted in Petrograd. Although the weapons supply improved, 2,000,000 soldiers surrendered, and 1,500,000 deserted due to the low morale.

The casualties sustained by the Russian Empire during their offense against the Germans was relatively high, between 1914 and 1917 Russia sustained the heaviest casualties of any side in the war with nearly 10 dead or wounded. For every 1000 men, the Russian Army lost 85, whereas the British Army lost 6 for every 1000 men.

February and October Revolutions
In early 1917, workers at Putilov, Petrograd's largest industrial plant, announced a strike. Tsarist troops were sent to quell the riots, but when ordered to use force, some troops refused to shoot, while others joined the rebels.

Taking the advice of his generals, Nicholas II abdicated the throne on 15 March 1917, ending the Romanov dynasty, and with it, the Russian Empire. The Duma established the provisional government in its place. In the provisional government, the center-left was well represented, and the government was initially chaired by a liberal aristocrat, Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov, a member of the Constitutional Democratic party (KD). The socialists had formed their rival body, the Petrograd Soviet (or workers' council) four days earlier.

The Provisional Government wanted to continue the war. It launched the Kerensky Offensive in July 1917, against Austria-Hungary and the German Empire. However, the Petrograd Soviet wanted peace, supported by rapidly multiplying soviets. In November 1917, Leon Trotsky commanded the Bolsheviks and seized power in Petrograd and Moscow within a week of fighting. The All-Russian Constituent Assembly, a legislative body, was elected, although the Bolsheviks dissolved it shortly after and set up the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in its place.

Lenin, after debating with leading Bolsheviks who favoured prolonging the war in hopes of precipitating class warfare in Germany, persuaded the All-Russian Central Executive Committee that peace must be made at any cost. On 3 March 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee capitulated to the Central Powers' terms and signed Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia lost Poland, the Baltic lands, Finland, and Ukraine to German control and gave up a portion of the Caucasus region to Turkey. With the new border dangerously close to Petrograd, the government was soon transferred to Moscow.

Interwar years
In late 1917, Lenin established the Council of People's Commissars and the Cheka; the former was a governing body, and the latter was the state's security apparatus. With Leon Trotsky's assistance, Lenin also created the Red Army, which helped strengthen the recovering country. The next year, in January 1918, Lenin also decreed compulsory labour service, and created the infamous Gulag labour camps.

In the same year, the Russian Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites, ending in 1923 with the Reds victorious. It included terrorism by the Reds and the Whites, foreign intervention, the execution of Nicholas II and his family, and the Russian famine of 1921, which killed about five million people. In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. The Soviet Union had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established republics of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The banks were nationalised and the economy was placed under the command of an economic council in preparation for a planned economy, but due to the lack of industry throughout the country, administration was impossible. Lenin, declaring that the Soviet Union would be a model for future socialist countries, started the GOELRO plan, which was meant to develop electrical power across the country. It called for the construction of 30 electric power plants and 10 hydroelectric power plants, with a capacity of 1.75 million kilowatts, over a period of ten to fifteen years. It became the predecessor to the subsequent Five-Year Plans, and was fulfilled by 1931.

In March 1921, the Tenth Congress replaced War Communism with Lenin's proposal, the New Economic Policy (NEP). Referred to as state capitalism by Lenin, the NEP was meant to reestablish the pre-war living standards. Small private enterprises were legalised, along with private commerce. A small percentage of goods were to be given to the government, leaving a surplus that could be privately sold. Heavy industry returned slowly under the NEP.

In May 1922, Lenin had a stroke, leaving him unable to speak for weeks. In December 1922 and March 1923, he suffered two more strokes, and later died in January 1924. His body was embalmed and moved to Lenin's Mausoleum, and Petrograd was renamed to Leningrad in his honour.



World War II


The third Five-Year Plan, ratified in March 1939, was meant to further development of the Soviet Union's economy and industry.

Cold War
The Soviet Union emerged from World War II as a world Superpower.

Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras
On 6 March, 1953, Stalin's death was announced, and a committee of top leaders governed in a collective leadership, with Georgy Malenkov as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Beria (who consolidated his hold over the security agencies), Kaganovich, Bulganin and former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as first vice-chairmen.

On 14 March, Malenkov resigned from the secretariat of the Central Committee. Later, in September, Khrushchev was elected by the Central Committee as First Secretary of the Party. The next year, on 25 February 1956, Khrushchev denounced the Stalinist system and Stalin's cult of personality. On 31 October 1961, Stalin's dead body was moved from Lenin's Mausoleum to a spot next to the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Reforms and dissolution
Nuclear power issues.

Foreign relations and military
The Soviet Union, as a superpower, exercised global economic political and military influence. From 1946, a year after the found of the United Nations (UN), until 1991, it was one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council; however, because the Ukrainian SSR and Belorussian SSR were admitted as full members into the UN, the country was represented by thee seats in the UN. The Soviet Union maintained diplomatic relationships with particularly those of the Eastern Bloc and other communist countries.

The Soviet Union's military was handled by the Soviet Armed Forces, which consisted of the four original components: the Army, the Air Forces, the Navy and the State Political Directorate (SPD, predecessor of the KGB). To these were added the Air Defense Forces in 1948, the Strategic Missile Troops in 1960, and the All-Union National Civil Defence Forces in 1970. The SPD was later made independent and amalgamated with the NKVD in 1934.

Economy
The Soviet Union's economy was based on socialist ownership of the means of production. In the early 1920s, Lenin developed war communism to reorganise Russia into a socialist state.

Science and technology
Must remember about the Lunokhod.