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The Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union or Russia (Россия, ), is a transcontinental country spanning much of Eurasia. It is the largest country in the world by area, extends across eleven time zones, and shares land boundaries with twelve countries. It is the world's fourth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital is Leningrad and its largest city is Moscow. Other major urban areas in the country include Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok.

The Rus' emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. Their first state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, with the Grand Duchy of Moscow growing to become the Tsardom of Russia. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished. Following the Russian Civil War, the Soviet Union had been established. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and its political structure was dominated by a totalitarian regime of Joseph Stalin, who was a long-reigning leader of the Bolshevik Party. Russia later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for global ideological influence.

Afther Stalin's death, the Soviet Union shifted its political course, largely abstaining from the international communist movement, transforming its economy into a state capitalism through the proccess of de-collectivization of the agriculture, encouragment of foreign investment and lifting of price controls through the 1950s and 1960s. The 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space. In foreign policy, Russia and NATO agreed to establish a number of neutral buffer states in Central Europe, reducing Soviet outside military presence for the sake of better relations and economic integration with the West. A dramatic political reform launched in 1958 known as Perestroika ("restructuring" in Russian) transformed the Soviet Union from an asymmetric federation of 15 republics divided based on their ethnic composition, dominated by the Russian SFSR which had its own autonomies as well, to a more balanced commonwealth of 25 poliethnic regions, establishing Russian as the official language and abolishing the right of secession for the republics. The reforms made the Soviet Union one of the largest economies in the world, with Russia joining the Group of Eight in 1997 and the World Trade Organization in 1999.

The Soviet Union have produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It has the world's second-largest economy, and the Soviet Armed Forces comprise the largest standing military in the world. An NPT-designated state, it possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It is a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Russia has maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military and economic strengths and scientific research.

Internationally, Russia ranks among the lowest in measurements of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption. The Soviet economy ranks 11th by nominal GDP, relying heavily on its abundant natural resources. Its mineral and energy sources are the world's largest, and its figures for oil production and natural gas production rank highly globally. The Soviet GDP ranks 65th by per capita; Russia has the third-highest military expenditure. The Soviet Union is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; a member state of the G8, G20, SCO, BRICS, APEC, OSCE, and WTO; and the leading member state of organisations such as COMECON and the Warsaw Pact. Russia is home to 84 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Etymology
The name Russia comes from a Medieval Latin name for Rus', a medieval state populated primarily by the East Slavs. In modern historiography, this state is usually denoted as Kievan Rus' after its capital city. The name Rus' itself comes from the early medieval Rus' people, who were originally a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and first settled in the northern region of Novgorod, and later founded a state centred on Kiev. Another Medieval Latin name for Rus' was Ruthenia.

In Russian, Россия (Rossiya) comes from the Byzantine Greek name for Rus', Ρωσία (Rosía). A new form of the name Rus, Росия (Rosiya), was borrowed from the Greek term and first attested in 1387, before coming into official use by the 15th century, though the country was still often referred to by its inhabitants as Rus or the Russian land until the end of the 17th century. There are two words in Russian which translate to "Russians" in English – русские (russkiye), which refers to ethnic Russians, and россияне (rossiyane), which refers to Russian citizens, regardless of ethnicity.

The current official name of the country is Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics. The word soviet is derived from the Russian word sovet (совет), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice', ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of vět-iti ('to inform'), related to Slavic věst ('news'), English wise, the root in ad-vis-or (which came to English through French), or the Dutch weten ('to know'; compare wetenschap meaning 'science'). The word sovietnik means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called council (совет). In the Russian Empire, the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers.

The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Although they were quickly suppressed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917, workers' and soldiers' Soviets emerged throughout the country, and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, demanded that all power be transferred to the Soviets, and gained support from the workers and soldiers. After the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets, Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR).

During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national Soviet republics to form a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии). Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began as socialist soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the word council or conciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian soviet and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR. The current name has been adopted in 1959, after adopting a new constitution.

СССР (in the Latin alphabet: SSSR) is the abbreviation of the Russian language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters. In addition, the Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovjetskij Sojuz, which literally means Soviet Union) is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of the Great Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating the Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС (in the same way as, for example, United States is abbreviated into US) has been a complete taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is instead associated with the infamous Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany, just as SS is in English. One apparent exception is the Russian abbreviation the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, КПСС (KPSS).

Early history
The first human settlement on Russia dates back to the Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic. About 2 million years ago, representatives of Homo erectus migrated to the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia. Flint tools, some 1.5 million years old, have been discovered in the North Caucasus. Radiocarbon dated specimens from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains estimate the oldest Denisovan specimen lived 195–122,700 years ago. Fossils of Denny, an archaic human hybrid that was half Neanderthal and half Denisovan, and lived some 90,000 years ago, was also found within the latter cave. Russia was home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals, from about 45,000 years ago, found in Mezmaiskaya cave.

The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years, in Western Siberia. The discovery of high concentration cultural remains of anatomically modern humans, from at least 40,000 years ago, was found at Kostyonki–Borshchyovo, and at Sungir, dating back to 34,600 years ago—both in western Russia. Humans reached Arctic Russia at least 40,000 years ago, in Mamontovaya Kurya. Ancient North Eurasian populations from Siberia genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Ancient Native Americans and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.

The Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of southern Russia and Ukraine as the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and Russia spread Yamnaya ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Eurasia. Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic–Caspian steppe beginning in the Chalcolithic. Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in places such as Ipatovo, Sintashta, Arkaim, and Pazyryk, which bear the earliest known traces of horses in warfare. The genetic makeup of speakers of the Uralic language family in northern Europe was shaped by migration from Siberia that began at least 3,500 years ago.

In the 3rd to 4th centuries CE, the Gothic kingdom of Oium existed in southern Russia, which was later overrun by Huns. Between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, the Bosporan Kingdom, which was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars. The Khazars, who were of Turkic origin, ruled the steppes between the Caucasus in the south, to the east past the Volga river basin, and west as far as Kyiv on the Dnieper river until the 10th century. After them came the Pechenegs who created a large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks.

The ancestors of Russians are among the Slavic tribes that separated from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe c. 1500 years ago. The East Slavs gradually settled western Russia in two waves: one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov. From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in western Russia, and slowly but peacefully assimilated the native Finnic peoples.

Kievan Rus'
The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians, the Vikings who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas. According to the Primary Chronicle, a Varangian from the Rus' people, named Rurik, was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In 882, his successor Oleg ventured south and conquered Kiev, which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars. Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar Khaganate, and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia.

In the 10th to 11th centuries, Kievan Rus' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda. The age of feudalism and decentralisation had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of the Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, the Novgorod Republic in the north, and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west. By the 12th century, Kiev lost its pre-eminence and Kievan Rus' had fragmented into different principalities. Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky sacked Kiev in 1169 and made Vladimir his base, leading to political power being shifted to the north-east.

Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle on the Ice in 1242.

Kievan Rus' finally fell to the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240, which resulted in the sacking of Kiev and other cities, as well as the death of a major part of the population. The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which ruled over Russia for the next two centuries. Only the Novgorod Republic escaped foreign occupation after it surrendered and agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols. Galicia-Volhynia would later be absorbed by Lithuania and Poland, while the Novgorod Republic continued to prosper in the north. In the northeast, the Byzantine-Slavic traditions of Kievan Rus' were adapted to form the Russian autocratic state.

Feudal Rus' and the rise of Moscow
The destruction of Kievan Rus' saw the eventual rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal. While still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the region in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the leading force in the "gathering of the Russian lands". When the seat of the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church moved to Moscow in 1325, its influence increased. Moscow's last rival, the Novgorod Republic, prospered as the chief fur trade centre and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League.

Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed its parent duchy and surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod.

Ivan III ("the Great") threw off the control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of northern Rus' under Moscow's dominion, and was the first Russian ruler to take the title "Grand Duke of all Rus'". After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, and made the Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russia's, coat-of-arms. Vasili III united all of Russia by annexing the last few independent Russian states in the early 16th century.

Tsardom of Russia
In development of the Third Rome ideas, the grand duke Ivan IV ("the Terrible") was officially crowned the first tsar of Russia in 1547. The tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (the Zemsky Sobor), revamped the military, curbed the influence of the clergy, and reorganised local government. During his long reign, Ivan nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates: Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga, and the Khanate of Sibir in southwestern Siberia. Ultimately, by the end of the 16th century, Russia expanded east of the Ural Mountains. However, the Tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (later the united Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth), the Kingdom of Sweden, and Denmark–Norway for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade. In 1572, an invading army of Crimean Tatars were thoroughly defeated in the crucial Battle of Molodi.

The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the disastrous famine of 1601–1603, led to a civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, taking advantage, occupied parts of Russia, extending into the capital Moscow. In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by merchant Kuzma Minin and prince Dmitry Pozharsky. The Romanov dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 by the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis.

Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of the Cossacks. In 1654, the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar, Alexis; whose acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War. Ultimately, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper, leaving the eastern part, (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Russian rule. In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of vast Siberia continued, hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian River Routes, and by the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov became the first European to navigate through the Bering Strait.

Imperial Russia
Under Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an empire in 1721, and established itself as one of the European great powers. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700–1721), securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade. In 1703, on the Baltic Sea, Peter founded Saint Petersburg as Russia's new capital. Throughout his rule, sweeping reforms were made, which brought significant Western European cultural influences to Russia. The reign of Peter I's daughter Elizabeth in 1741–1762 saw Russia's participation in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). During the conflict, Russian troops overran East Prussia, reaching Berlin. However, upon Elizabeth's death, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia by pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia.

Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled in 1762–1796, presided over the Russian Age of Enlightenment. She extended Russian political control over the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and annexed most of its territories into Russia, making it the most populous country in Europe. In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, by dissolving the Crimean Khanate, and annexing Crimea. As a result of victories over Qajar Iran through the Russo-Persian Wars, by the first half of the 19th century, Russia also conquered the Caucasus. Catherine's successor, her son Paul, was unstable and focused predominantly on domestic issues. Following his short reign, Catherine's strategy was continued with Alexander I's (1801–1825) wresting of Finland from the weakened Sweden in 1809, and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812. In North America, the Russians became the first Europeans to reach and colonise Alaska. In 1803–1806, the first Russian circumnavigation was made. In 1820, a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica.

Early Tsarist society
During the Napoleonic Wars, Russia joined alliances with various European powers, and fought against France. The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power in 1812 reached Moscow, but eventually failed as the obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which the pan-European Grande Armée faced utter destruction. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, the Imperial Russian Army ousted Napoleon and drove throughout Europe in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ultimately entering Paris. Alexander I controlled Russia's delegation at the Congress of Vienna, which defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe. The officers who pursued Napoleon into Western Europe brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia, and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825. At the end of the conservative reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe, was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War.

Reforms of Alexander II
Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant changes throughout the country, including the emancipation reform of 1861. These reforms spurred industrialisation, and modernised the Imperial Russian Army, which liberated much of the Balkans from Ottoman rule in the aftermath of the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War. During most of the 19th and early 20th century, Russia and Britain colluded over Afghanistan and its neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia; the rivalry between the two major European empires came to be known as the Great Game.

The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists. The reign of his son Alexander III (1881–1894) was less liberal but more peaceful.

Late Russian Empire
Under last Russian emperor, Nicholas II (1894–1917), the Revolution of 1905 was triggered by the failure of the humiliating Russo-Japanese War. The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms (Russian Constitution of 1906), including granting freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalisation of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma.

Revolution and civil war
In 1914, Russia entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia, and fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente allies. In 1916, the Brusilov Offensive of the Imperial Russian Army almost completely destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army. However, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, high casualties, and rumors of corruption and treason. All this formed the climate for the Russian Revolution of 1917, carried out in two major acts. In early 1917, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate; he and his family were imprisoned and later executed during the Russian Civil War. The monarchy was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government, and proclaimed the Russian Republic. On, 1918, the Russian Constituent Assembly declared Russia a democratic federal republic (thus ratifying the Provisional Government's decision). The next day the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet, wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called soviets. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it, and eventually, the October Revolution, led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the soviets, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state. The Russian Civil War broke out between the anti-communist White movement and the Bolsheviks with its Red Army. In the aftermath of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I; Bolshevist Russia surrendered most of its western territories, which hosted 34% of its population, 54% of its industries, 32% of its agricultural land, and roughly 90% of its coal mines. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-communist forces. In the meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror. By the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged, and as many as 10 million perished during the war, mostly civilians. Millions became White émigrés, and the Russian famine of 1921–1922 claimed up to five million victims.

Command economy
On 30 December 1922, Lenin and his aides formed the Soviet Union, by joining the Russian SFSR into a single state with the Byelorussian, Transcaucasian, and Ukrainian republics. Eventually internal border changes and annexations during World War II created a union of 15 republics; the largest in size and population being the Russian SFSR, which dominated the union for its entire history politically, culturally, and economically.

Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s. Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of world revolution, was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, and Stalin's idea of Socialism in One Country became the official line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge.

Stalin era
Under Stalin's leadership, the government launched a command economy, industrialisation of the largely rural country, and collectivisation of its agriculture. During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to penal labour camps, including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin's rule; and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought, led to the Soviet famine of 1932–1933; which killed up to 8.7 million, 3.3 million of them in the Russian SFSR. The Soviet Union, ultimately, made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse within a short span of time.

Great Patriotic War
The Soviet Union entered World War II on 17 September 1939 with its invasion of Poland, in accordance with a secret protocol within the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union later invaded Finland, and occupied and annexed the Baltic states, as well as parts of Romania. On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front, the largest theater of World War II.

Eventually, some 5 million Red Army troops were captured by the Nazis; the latter deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet POWs, and a vast number of civilians, as the "Hunger Plan" sought to fulfil Generalplan Ost. Although the Wehrmacht had considerable early success, their attack was halted in the Battle of Moscow. Subsequently, the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943, and then in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad, in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, and suffered starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered. Soviet forces steamrolled through Eastern and Central Europe in 1944–1945 and captured Berlin in May 1945. In August 1945, the Red Army invaded Manchuria and ousted the Japanese from Northeast Asia, contributing to the Allied victory over Japan.

The 1941–1945 period of World War II is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union, along with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II, and later became the Four Policemen, which was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council. During the war, Soviet civilian and military death were about 26–27 million, accounting for about half of all World War II casualties. The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation, which caused the Soviet famine of 1946–1947. However, at the expense of a large sacrifice, the Soviet Union emerged as a global superpower.

Cold War
After World War II, parts of Eastern and Central Europe, including East Germany and eastern parts of Austria were occupied by Red Army according to the Potsdam Conference. Dependent communist governments were installed in the Eastern Bloc satellite states. After becoming the world's second nuclear power, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact alliance, and entered into a struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War, with the rivalling United States and NATO.

Post-Stalin reforms
After Stalin's death in 1953 and a short period of collective rule, the new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and launched the policy of de-Stalinization, releasing many political prisoners from the Gulag labour camps. The general easement of repressive policies became known later as the Khrushchev Thaw. At the same time, Cold War tensions reached its peak when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the United States Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, thus starting the Space Age. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 crewed spacecraft on 12 April 1961.

1970s liberalization
Following the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, another period of collective rule ensued, until Leonid Brezhnev became the leader. The era of the 1970s and the early 1980s was later designated as the Era of Stagnation. The 1965 Kosygin reform aimed for partial decentralisation of the Soviet economy. In 1979, after a communist-led revolution in Afghanistan, Soviet forces invaded the country, ultimately starting the Soviet–Afghan War. In May 1988, the Soviets started to withdraw from Afghanistan, due to international opposition, persistent anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare, and a lack of support by Soviet citizens.

Geography
With an area of 22402200 km2, the Soviet Union is the world's largest country. Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America. The European portion accounts for a quarter of the country's area and is the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extends to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia, is much less populous. It spans over 10000 km east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7200 km north to south. It has five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.

Russia has the world's longest border, measuring over 60000 km, or $1 1/2$ circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it is a coastline. The country borders Afghanistan, the People's Republic of China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Iran, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Turkey. The Bering Strait separates the USSR from the United States.

The country's highest mountain is Ismoil Somoni Peak in South Turkestan, at 7495 m. The USSR also includes most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran), and Lake Baikal, the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia.



Russia, as one of the world's only three countries bordering three oceans, has links with a great number of seas. Its major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands (four of which are disputed with Japan), and Sakhalin. The Diomede Islands, administered by Russia and the United States, are just 3.8 km apart; and Kunashir Island of the Kuril Islands is merely 20 km from Hokkaido, Japan.

THe Soviet Union, home of over 100,000 rivers, has one of the world's largest surface water resources, with its lakes containing approximately one-quarter of the world's liquid fresh water. Lake Baikal, the largest and most prominent among Russia's fresh water bodies, is the world's deepest, purest, oldest and most capacious fresh water lake, containing over one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. Ladoga and Onega in northwestern Russia are two of the largest lakes in Europe. Russia is second only to Brazil by total renewable water resources. The Volga in western Russia, widely regarded as Russia's national river, is the longest river in Europe; and forms the Volga Delta, the largest river delta in the continent. The Siberian rivers of Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and Amur are among the world's longest rivers.

Climate
The size of Russia and the remoteness of many of its areas from the sea result in the dominance of the humid continental climate throughout most of the country, except for the tundra and the extreme southwest. Mountain ranges in the south and east obstruct the flow of warm air masses from the Indian and Pacific oceans, while the European Plain spanning its west and north opens it to influence from the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Most of northwest Russia and Siberia have a subarctic climate, with extremely severe winters in the inner regions of East Siberia, where the Northern Pole of Cold is located with the record low temperature of -71.2 °C), and more moderate winters elsewhere. Russia's vast coastline along the Arctic Ocean and the Russian Arctic islands have a polar climate.

The coastal part of Kuban on the Black Sea, most notably Sochi, and some coastal and interior strips of the North Caucasus possess a humid subtropical climate with mild and wet winters. In many regions of East Siberia and the Russian Far East, winter is dry compared to summer; while other parts of the country experience more even precipitation across seasons. Winter precipitation in most parts of the country usually falls as snow. The westernmost parts of Kaliningrad Oblast and some parts in the south of Kuban and the North Caucasus have an oceanic climate. The region along the Lower Volga and Caspian Sea coast, as well as some southernmost slivers of Siberia, possess a semi-arid climate.

Throughout much of the territory, there are only two distinct seasons, winter and summer; as spring and autumn are usually brief periods of change between extremely low and extremely high temperatures. The coldest month is January (February on the coastline); the warmest is usually July. Great ranges of temperature are typical. In winter, temperatures get colder both from south to north and from west to east. Summers can be quite hot, even in Siberia. Climate change in Russia is causing more frequent wildfires, and thawing the country's large expanse of permafrost.

Biodiversity
The Soviet Union, owing to its gigantic size, has diverse ecosystems, including polar deserts, tundra, forest tundra, taiga, mixed and broadleaf forest, forest steppe, steppe, semi-desert, and subtropics. About half of Russia's territory is forested, and it has the world's largest area of forest, which sequester some of the world's highest amounts of carbon dioxide.

Russian biodiversity includes 12,500 species of vascular plants, 2,200 species of bryophytes, about 3,000 species of lichens, 7,000–9,000 species of algae, and 20,000–25,000 species of fungi. Russian fauna is composed of 320 species of mammals, over 732 species of birds, 75 species of reptiles, about 30 species of amphibians, 343 species of freshwater fish (high endemism), approximately 1,500 species of saltwater fishes, 9 species of cyclostomata, and approximately 100–150,000 invertebrates (high endemism). Approximately 1,100 rare and endangered plant and animal species are included in the Russian Red Data Book.

Russia's entirely natural ecosystems are conserved in nearly 15,000 specially protected natural territories of various statuses, occupying more than 10% of the country's total area. They include 45 biosphere reserves, 64 national parks, and 101 nature reserves. Although in decline, the country still has many ecosystems which are still considered intact forest; mainly in the northern taiga areas, and the subarctic tundra of Siberia. Russia had a Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.02 in 2019, ranking 10th out of 172 countries; and the first ranked major nation globally.

Government and politics
There are three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the government represented by the Cabient of Ministers, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the ruling party and the final policymaker in the country.

Communist Party
At the top of the Communist Party is the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee votes for a Politburo, Secretariat and the general secretary, the highest office in the party whose holder is also the president of the Soviet Union. They are not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization is democratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and the election process, although partly free, is still highly controlled from above.

The Communist Party maintaines its dominance over the state mainly through its control over the system of appointments. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet are members of the CPSU. However, in practice the degree of control the party is able to exercise over the state bureaucracy is far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that are at times in conflict with the party, nor is the party itself monolithic from top to bottom. Other parties occupying the Supreme Soviet are holding little real power and are highly controlled by the state.

Government
The Soviet Union, by 1959 constitution, is a symmetric federal republic with a semi-presidential system, wherein the president is the head of state, and the vice president is the head of government. Formally, it is structured as a multi-party representative democracy, although in fact the political structure is dominated by the Communist Party. The federal government is composed of three branches:
 * Legislative: The bicameral Supreme Soviet, made up of the 450-member State Duma and the 170-member Senate, adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse and the power of impeachment of the president.
 * Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, and appoints the Cabinet of ministers and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies. The president may issue decrees of unlimited scope, so long as they do not contradict the constitution or federal law.
 * Judiciary: The Supreme Court of the Soviet Union and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Supreme Soviet on the recommendation of the president, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.

The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term and may be elected no more than twice. Ministries of the government are composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the vice president (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma).

Administrative divisions
The Soviet Union is a federation of 25 constituent Union Republics, which are unitary states. The Union Republics are allowed to have their own legislation, own co-official language with Russian, but no right for secession from the Union. 10 Union Agglomerations are the largest Russian cities that are not administrative centers (excluding capital city Leningrad) whose economic freedoms are greatly expanded.



Military
The Soviet Armed Forces consist of the Land Forces, the Air Force, the Navy, Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), the Internal Troops, Strategic Missile Forces, Air Defense Forces, and National Civil Defense Forces. The army has the greatest political influence. It is known for battlecruisers and submarines. The Soviet Air Force focuses on a fleet of strategic bombers and during war situation is to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also has a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces have more than 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers.

Throughout its history, the Soviet Army was directly involved in several military operations abroad. These include the suppression of the uprising in East Germany (1953), Hungarian revolution (1956) and the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). The Soviet Union also participated in the war in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. In the Soviet Union there is general conscription, meaning all able-bodied males aged 18 and older are drafted in the armed forces.

Economy


The Soviet Union has a market economy, with enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. It has the world's ninth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the sixth-largest by PPP. The large service sector accounts for 62% of total GDP, followed by the industrial sector (32%), while the agricultural sector is the smallest, making up only 5% of total GDP. Russia has a low official unemployment rate of 4.1%. Its foreign exchange reserves are the world's fifth-largest, worth $540 billion. It has a labour force of roughly 70 million, which is the world's sixth-largest.

Russia is the world's thirteenth-largest exporter and the 21st-largest importer. It relies heavily on revenues from oil and gas-related taxes and export tariffs, which accounted for 45% of Russia's federal budget revenues in January 2022, and up to 60% of its exports in 2019. Russia has one of the lowest levels of external debt among major economies, although its inequality of household income and wealth is one of the highest among developed countries. High regional disparity is also an issue. After over a decade of rapid economic growth, backed by high oil-prices and a surge in foreign exchange reserves and investment,

Transport and energy
Railway transport in Russia is mostly under the control of the state-run Soviet Railways. The total length of common-used railway tracks is the world's third-longest, and exceeds 87000 km., Russia has the world's fifth-largest road network, with 1.5 million km of roads, while its road density is among the world's lowest. Russia's inland waterways are the world's longest, and total 102000 km. Among Russia's 1,218 airports, the busiest is Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. Russia's largest port is the Port of Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai along the Black Sea.

The Soviet Union is an energy superpower. It has the world's largest proven gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, the eighth-largest oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe. Russia is also the world's leading natural gas exporter, the second-largest natural gas producer, and the second-largest oil producer and exporter. Russia's oil and gas production led to deep economic relationships with the European Union, China, and former Soviet and Eastern Bloc states. For example, over the last decade, Russia's share of supplies to total European Union (including the United Kingdom) gas demand increased from 25% in 2009 to 32% in the weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In the mid-2000s, the share of the oil and gas sector in GDP was around 20%, and in 2013 it was 20–21% of GDP. The share of oil and gas in Russia's exports (about 50%) and federal budget revenues (about 50%) is large, and the dynamics of Russia's GDP are highly dependent on oil and gas prices, but the share in GDP is much less than 50%. According to the first such comprehensive assessment published by the Russian statistics agency Rosstat in 2021, the maximum total share of the oil and gas sector in Russia's GDP, including extraction, refining, transport, sale of oil and gas, all goods and services used, and all supporting activities, amounts to 19.2% in 2019 and 15.2% in 2020. This is comparable to the share of GDP in Norway and Kazakhstan. It is much lower than the share of GDP in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Soviet Union ratified the Paris Agreement in 2019. Greenhouse gas emissions by Russia are the world's fourth-largest. Russia is the world's fourth-largest electricity producer. It was also the world's first country to develop civilian nuclear power, and to construct the world's first nuclear power plant. Russia was also the world's fourth-largest nuclear energy producer in 2019, and was the fifth-largest hydroelectric producer in 2021.

Agriculture and fishery
Russia's agriculture sector contributes about 5% of the country's total GDP, although the sector employs about one-eighth of the total labour force. It has the world's third-largest cultivated area, at 1265267 km2. However, due to the harshness of its environment, about 13.1% of its land is agricultural, and only 7.4% of its land is arable. The country's agricultural land is considered part of the "breadbasket" of Europe. More than one-third of the sown area is devoted to fodder crops, and the remaining farmland is devoted to industrial crops, vegetables, and fruits. The main product of Russian farming has always been grain, which occupies considerably more than half of the cropland. Russia is the world's largest exporter of wheat, the largest producer of barley and buckwheat, among the largest exporters of maize and sunflower oil, and the leading producer of fertilizer.

Various analysts of climate change adaptation foresee large opportunities for Russian agriculture during the rest of the 21st century as arability increases in Siberia, which would lead to both internal and external migration to the region. Owing to its large coastline along three oceans and twelve marginal seas, Russia maintains the world's sixth-largest fishing industry; capturing nearly 5 million tons of fish in 2018. It is home to the world's finest caviar, the beluga; and produces about one-third of all canned fish, and some one-fourth of the world's total fresh and frozen fish.

Science and technology
The Soviet Union spent about 1% of its GDP on research and development in 2019, with the world's tenth-highest budget. It also ranked tenth worldwide in the number of scientific publications in 2020, with roughly 1.3 million papers. Since 1904, Nobel Prize were awarded to 26 Soviets and Russians in physics, chemistry, medicine, economy, literature and peace. Russia ranked 45th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021.

Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky, who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry, and Pafnuty Chebyshev, a prominent tutor; Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential. Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table, the main framework of modern chemistry. Nine Soviet and Russian mathematicians have been awarded with the Fields Medal. Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006.

Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio, while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser. Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions, and discovered light-emitting diodes. Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology. Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology. Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning. Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics.

Nikolai Vavilov was best known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants. Trofim Lysenko was known mainly for Lysenkoism. Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés. Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer. Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems. Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis. George Gamow was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory.

Space exploration
Sovcosmos is Russia's national space agency. The country's achievements in the field of space technology and space exploration can be traced back to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of theoretical astronautics, whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Sergey Korolyov, Valentin Glushko, and many others who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program in the early stages of the Space Race and beyond.

In 1957, the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin. Many other Soviet and Russian space exploration records ensued. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6. In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2.

In 1957, Laika, a Soviet space dog, became the first animal to orbit the Earth, aboard Sputnik 2. In 1966, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial body, the Moon. In 1968, Zond 5 brought the first Earthlings (two tortoises and other life forms) to circumnavigate the Moon. In 1970, Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus. In 1971, Mars 3 became the first spacecraft to land on Mars. During the same period, Lunokhod 1 became the first space exploration rover, while Salyut 1 became the world's first space station.

The Soviet Union had 172 active satellites in space in April 2022, the world's third-highest. Between the final flight of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 and the 2020 SpaceX's first crewed mission, Soyuz rockets were the only launch vehicles able for transporting astronauts to the ISS. Luna 25 launched in August 2023, is the first of the Luna-Glob Moon exploration programme.

Tourism
According to the World Tourism Organization, the Soviet Union was the sixteenth-most visited country in the world, and the tenth-most visited country in Europe, in 2018, with over 24.6 million visits. According to Federal Agency for Tourism, the number of inbound trips of foreign citizens to Russia amounted to 24.4 million in 2019. Russia's international tourism receipts in 2018 amounted to $11.6 billion. In 2019, travel and tourism accounted for about 4.8% of country's total GDP.

Major tourist routes in the Soviet Union include a journey around the Golden Ring of Russia, a theme route of ancient Russian cities, cruises on large rivers such as the Volga, hikes on mountain ranges such as the Caucasus Mountains, and journeys on the famous Trans-Siberian Railway. Russia's most visited and popular landmarks include Red Square, the Peterhof Palace, the Kazan Kremlin, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Lake Baikal.

Moscow, the nation's largest agglomeration, is a bustling megacity. It retains its classical and Stalin-era architecture; while boasting high art, world class ballet, and modern skyscrapers. Saint Petersburg, the Imperial capital, is famous for its classical architecture, cathedrals, museums and theatres, white nights, criss-crossing rivers and numerous canals. Russia is famed worldwide for its rich museums, such as the State Russian, the State Hermitage, and the Tretyakov Gallery; and for theatres such as the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. The Moscow Kremlin and the Saint Basil's Cathedral are among the cultural landmarks of Russia.

Demographics


The Soviet Union is one of the world's most sparsely populated and urbanised countries, with the vast majority of its population concentrated within its western part. It had a population of 142.8 million according to the 2010 census, which rose to 144.7 million as of the 2021 census (excluding Crimea and Sevastopol). Russia is the most populous country in Europe, and the world's ninth most populous country, with a population density of 8 /km2.

Since the 1980s, Russia's been in a state of a demographic crisis. In 2022, the total fertility rate across Russia was estimated to be 1.42 children born per woman, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1, and is one of the world's lowest fertility rates. Subsequently, the nation has one of the world's oldest populations, with a median age of 40.3 years. In 2009, it recorded annual population growth for the first time in fifteen years, and subsequently experienced annual population growth due to declining death rates, increased birth rates, and increased immigration.

However, since 2020, Russia's population gains have been reversed, as excessive deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in its largest peacetime decline in history. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the demographic crisis in the country has deepened, as the country has reportedly suffered high military fatalities while facing renewed brain drain and human capital flight caused by Western mass-sanctions and boycotts.

The Soviet Union is a poliethnic state with many subnational entities associated with different minorities. There are over 193 ethnic groups nationwide. In the 2010 census, roughly 81% of the population were ethnic Russians, and the remaining 19% of the population were ethnic minorities; while over four-fifths of Russia's population was of European descent—of whom the vast majority were Slavs, with a substantial minority of Finnic and Germanic peoples. According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population is the world's third-largest, numbering over 11.6 million; most of which are from post-Soviet states, mainly from Central Asia.

Religion
The Soviet Union is a secular state by constitution, and its largest religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, chiefly represented by the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox Christianity, together with Islam, Buddhism, and Paganism (either preserved or revived), are recognised by Russian law as the traditional religions of the country, part of its "historical heritage".

Islam is the second-largest religion in Russia, and is the traditional religion among the majority of the peoples of the Caucasus and Turkestan, and among some Turkic peoples scattered along the Volga-Ural region. Large populations of Buddhists are found in Kalmykia, Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai, and they are the vast majority of the population in Tuva. Many Russians practise other religions, including Rodnovery (Slavic Neopaganism), Assianism (Scythian Neopaganism), other ethnic Paganisms, and inter-Pagan movements such as Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism, various movements of Hinduism, Siberian shamanism and Tengrism, various Neo-Theosophical movements such as Roerichism, and other faiths. Some religious minorities have faced oppression and some have been banned in the country; notably, in 2017 the Jehovah's Witnesses were outlawed in Russia, facing persecution ever since, after having been declared an "extremist" and "nontraditional" faith.

Education
The Soviet Union has an adult literacy rate of 100%, and has compulsory education for a duration of 11 years, exclusively for children aged 7 to 17–18. It grants free education to its citizens by constitution. The Ministry of Education of Russia is responsible for primary and secondary education, as well as vocational education; while the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia is responsible for science and higher education. Regional authorities regulate education within their jurisdictions within the prevailing framework of federal laws. Russia is among the world's most educated countries, and has the sixth-highest proportion of tertiary-level graduates in terms of percentage of population, at 62.1%. It spent roughly 4.7% of its GDP on education in 2018.

Russia's pre-school education system is highly developed and optional, some four-fifths of children aged 3 to 6 attend day nurseries or kindergartens. Primary school is compulsory for eleven years, starting from age 6 to 7, and leads to a basic general education certificate. An additional two or three years of schooling are required for the secondary-level certificate, and some seven-eighths of Russians continue their education past this level.

Admission to an institute of higher education is selective and highly competitive: first-degree courses usually take five years. The oldest and largest universities in Russia are Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. There are ten highly prestigious federal universities across the country. Russia was the world's fifth-leading destination for international students in 2019, hosting roughly 300 thousand.

Health
USSR, by constitution, guarantees free, universal health care for all Russian citizens, through a compulsory state health insurance program. The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation oversees the Russian public healthcare system, and the sector employs more than two million people. Federal regions also have their own departments of health that oversee local administration. A separate private health insurance plan is needed to access private healthcare in Russia.

The Soviet Union spent 5.65% of its GDP on healthcare in 2019. Its healthcare expenditure is notably lower than other developed nations. Russia has one of the world's most female-biased sex ratios, with 0.859 males to every female, due to its high male mortality rate. In 2021, the overall life expectancy in Russia at birth was 70.06 years (65.51 years for males and 74.51 years for females), and it had a very low infant mortality rate (5 per 1,000 live births).

The principal cause of death in the USSR are cardiovascular diseases. Obesity is a prevalent health issue in Russia; most adults are overweight or obese. However, Russia's historically high alcohol consumption rate is the biggest health issue in the country, as it remains one of the world's highest, despite a stark decrease in the last decade. Smoking is another health issue in the country. The country's high suicide rate, although on the decline, remains a significant social issue.

Culture
Russian writers and philosophers have played an important role in the development of European literature and thought. The Russians have also greatly influenced classical music, ballet, sport, painting, and cinema. The nation has also made pioneering contributions to science and technology and space exploration.

The Soviet Union is home to 84 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The large global Russian diaspora has also played a major role in spreading Russian culture throughout the world. Russia's national symbol, the double-headed eagle, dates back to the Tsardom period, and is featured in its coat of arms and heraldry. The Russian Bear and Mother Russia are often used as national personifications of the country. Matryoshka dolls are considered a cultural icon of Russia.

Holidays
The Soviet Union has eight—public, patriotic, and religious—official holidays. The year starts with New Year's Day on 1 January, which is the country's most popular holiday. Defender of the Fatherland Day, dedicated to men, is celebrated on 23 February. International Women's Day on 8 March, gained momentum during the Russian Revolution. The annual celebration of women has become so popular, especially among Russian men, that Moscow's flower vendors often see profits of "15 times" more than other holidays. Spring and Labour Day, a holiday dedicated to workers, is celebrated on 1 May.

Victory Day, which honours Soviet victory over Nazi Germany and the End of World War II in Europe, is celebrated as an annual large parade in Moscow's Red Square; and marks the famous Immortal Regiment civil event. Unity Day of 4 November commemorates the 1612 uprising which marked the end of the Polish occupation of Moscow.

There are many popular non-public holidays. Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on 7 January. Old New Year is celebrated on 14 January. Maslenitsa is an ancient and popular East Slavic folk holiday. Cosmonautics Day on 12 April, in tribute to the first human trip into space. Two major Christian holidays are Easter and Trinity Sunday.

Art and architecture
Early Russian painting is represented in icons and vibrant frescos. In the early 15th-century, the master icon painter Andrei Rublev created some of Russia's most treasured religious art. The Russian Academy of Arts, which was established in 1757, to train Russian artists, brought Western techniques of secular painting to Russia. In the 18th century, academicians Ivan Argunov, Dmitry Levitzky, Vladimir Borovikovsky became influential. The early 19th century saw many prominent paintings by Karl Briullov and Alexander Ivanov, both of whom were known for Romantic historical canvases. Ivan Aivazovsky, another Romantic painter, is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art.

In the 1860s, a group of critical realists (Peredvizhniki), led by Ivan Kramskoy, Ilya Repin and Vasiliy Perov broke with the academy, and portrayed the many-sided aspects of social life in paintings. The turn of the 20th century saw the rise of symbolism; represented by Mikhail Vrubel and Nicholas Roerich. The Russian avant-garde flourished from approximately 1890 to 1930; and globally influential artists from this era were El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall.

The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs, and the church architecture of Kievan Rus'. Following the Christianization of Kievan Rus', for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by Byzantine architecture. Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia. The 16th-century saw the development of the unique tent-like churches; and the onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture. In the 17th-century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl, gradually paving the way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1680s.

After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the splendid works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. The most influential Russian architects of the eighteenth century; Vasily Bazhenov, Matvey Kazakov, and Ivan Starov, created lasting monuments in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and established a base for the more Russian forms that followed. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture. Under Alexander I, Empire style became the de facto architectural style. The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style. In early 20th-century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend. Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were Art Nouveau, Constructivism, and Socialist Classicism.

Music
Until the 18th-century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances. In the 19th-century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with other members of The Mighty Handful, who were later succeeded by the Belyayev circle, and the Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein. The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff. World-renowned composers of the 20th century include Alexander Scriabin, Alexander Glazunov, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, and later Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Georgy Sviridov, and Alfred Schnittke.

During the 20th century, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers—Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava, and performers such as Alla Pugacheva. Jazz, even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of the country's most popular musical forms. By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria, Aquarium, DDT, and Kino; the latter's leader Viktor Tsoi, was in particular, a gigantic figure. Pop music has continued to flourish in Russia since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u.

Literature and philosophy
Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed. It can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, with works from Mikhail Lomonosov, Denis Fonvizin, Gavrila Derzhavin, and Nikolay Karamzin. From the early 1830s, during the Golden Age of Russian Poetry, literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet.

The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov, non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky, and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry. This era had poets such as Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and Konstantin Balmont. It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky, who laid the foundations of this style. Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era. Nikolay Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov, and Isaac Asimov; who was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers. Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in the Gulag camps.

Russian philosophy has been greatly influential. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of agrarian populism. Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism. Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism. Mikhail Bakhtin's writings have significantly inspired scholars. Helena Blavatsky gained international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, and co-founded the Theosophical Society. Vladimir Lenin, a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism. Leon Trotsky, on the other hand, founded Trotskyism. Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher in the second half of the 20th century. Aleksandr Dugin, known for his fascist views, has been regarded as the "guru of geopolitics".

Cuisine
Russian cuisine has been formed by climate, cultural and religious traditions, and the vast geography of the nation; and it shares similarities with the cuisines of its neighbouring countries. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provide the ingredients for various breads, pancakes and cereals, as well as for many drinks. Bread, of many varieties, is very popular across Russia. Flavourful soups and stews include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka, and okroshka. Smetana (a heavy sour cream) and mayonnaise are often added to soups and salads. Pirozhki, blini, and syrniki are native types of pancakes. Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Kiev,  pelmeni, and shashlyk are popular meat dishes. Other meat dishes include stuffed cabbage rolls (golubtsy) usually filled with meat. Salads include Olivier salad, vinegret, and dressed herring.

Russia's national non-alcoholic drink is kvass, and the national alcoholic drink is vodka; its creation in the nation dates back to the 14th century. The country has the world's highest vodka consumption, while beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage. Wine has become increasingly popular in Russia in the 21st century. Tea has been popular in Russia for centuries.

Mass media and cinema
There are 400 news agencies in the Soviet Union, among which the largest internationally operating are TASS, Sputnik, and Interfax. Television is the most popular medium in the USSR. Among the 3,000 licensed radio stations nationwide, notable ones include Radio Rossii, Vesti FM, Echo of Moscow, Radio Mayak, and Sovetskoye Radio. Of the 16,000 registered newspapers, Argumenty i Fakty, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Sovetskaya Gazeta, Izvestia, and Moskovskij Komsomolets are popular. State-run Channel One and Russia-1 are the leading news channels, while RT is the flagship of Russia's international media operations. The Soviet Union has the largest video gaming market in Europe, with over 65 million players nationwide.

Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as The Battleship Potemkin, which was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors. Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov, who developed the groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school, the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Dziga Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism. Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev, The Cranes Are Flying, and Ballad of a Soldier.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema. The comedies of Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catchphrases still in use today. In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Oscar-winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace, which was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. In 1969, Vladimir Motyl's White Sun of the Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian cinema industry suffered large losses—however, since the late 2000s, it has seen growth once again, and continues to expand.

Sports
Football is the most popular sport in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960, and reached the finals of Euro 1988. Russian clubs CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008. The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008. Russia was the host nation for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. However, Russian teams are currently suspended from FIFA and UEFA competitions.

Ice hockey is very popular in Russia, and the Soviet national ice hockey team dominates the sport internationally. Bandy is Russia's national sport, and it has historically been the highest-achieving country in the sport. The Russian national basketball team won the EuroBasket 2007, and the Russian basketball club PBC CSKA Moscow is among the most successful European basketball teams. The annual Formula One Russian Grand Prix was held at the Sochi Autodrom in the Sochi Olympic Park, until its termination following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Historically, Russian athletes have been one of the most successful contenders in the Olympic Games. Russia is the leading nation in rhythmic gymnastics; and Russian synchronised swimming is considered to be the world's best. Figure skating is another popular sport in Russia, especially pair skating and ice dancing. Russia has produced numerous prominent tennis players. Chess is also a widely popular pastime in the nation, with many of the world's top chess players being Russian for decades. The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow, and the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics were hosted in Sochi. However, Russia has also had 43 Olympic medals stripped from its athletes due to doping violations, which is the most of any country, and nearly a third of the global total.

Surveys

 * A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former) . Library of Congress Country Studies, 1991.
 * Brown, Archie, et al., eds.: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
 * historiographical essay that covers the scholarship of the three major schools, totalitarianism, revisionism, and post-revisionism.
 * Gilbert, Martin. Routledge Atlas of Russian History (4th ed. 2007) excerpt and text search.
 * Gorodetsky, Gabriel, ed. Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991: A Retrospective (2014).
 * Grant, Ted. Russia, from Revolution to Counter-Revolution, London, Well Red Publications, 1997.
 * Hosking, Geoffrey. The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within (2nd ed. Harvard UP 1992) 570 pp.
 * Howe, G. Melvyn: The Soviet Union: A Geographical Survey 2nd. edn. (Estover, UK: MacDonald and Evans, 1983).
 * Kort, Michael. The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (7th ed. 2010) 502 pp.
 * McCauley, Martin. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union  (2007), 522 pages.
 * Moss, Walter G. A History of Russia. Vol. 2: Since 1855. 2d ed. Anthem Press, 2005.
 * Nove, Alec. An Economic History of the USSR, 1917–1991. (3rd ed. 1993) online free to borrow.
 * Pipes, Richard. Communism: A History (2003).
 * Pons, Silvio, and Stephen A. Smith, eds. The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 1): World Revolution and Socialism in One Country, 1917–1941 (2017) excerpt
 * Naimark, Norman Silvio Pons and Sophie Quinn-Judge, eds. The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 2): The Socialist Camp and World Power, 1941–1960s (2017) excerpt
 * Fürst, Juliane, Silvio Pons and Mark Selden, eds. The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 3): Endgames?.Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present (2017) excerpt
 * Service, Robert. A History of Twentieth-Century Russia (2nd ed. 1999).

Lenin and Leninism

 * Clark, Ronald W. Lenin (1988). 570 pp.
 * Debo, Richard K. Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1921 (1992).
 * Marples, David R. Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917–1921 (2000) 156pp. short survey.
 * Pipes, Richard. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution (1996) excerpt and text search, by a leading conservative.
 * Pipes, Richard. Russia under the Bolshevik Regime. (1994). 608 pp.
 * Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography (2002), 561pp; standard scholarly biography; a short version of his 3 vol detailed biography.
 * Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: Life and Legacy (1994). 600 pp.

Stalin and Stalinism

 * Daniels, R. V., ed. The Stalin Revolution (1965).
 * Davies, Sarah, and James Harris, eds. Stalin: A New History, (2006), 310pp, 14 specialized essays by scholars excerpt and text search.
 * De Jonge, Alex. Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union (1986).
 * Fitzpatrick, Sheila, ed. Stalinism: New Directions, (1999), 396pp excerpts from many scholars on the impact of Stalinism on the people (little on Stalin himself) online edition.
 * Fitzpatrick, Sheila. "Impact of the Opening of Soviet Archives on Western Scholarship on Soviet Social History." Russian Review 74#3 (2015): 377–400; historiography.
 * Hoffmann, David L. ed. Stalinism: The Essential Readings, (2002) essays by 12 scholars.
 * Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations (1990).
 * Kershaw, Ian, and Moshe Lewin. Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (2004) excerpt and text search.
 * 976 pp.; First volume of a trilogy.
 * ; 1184 pp.; Second volume of a trilogy.
 * Lee, Stephen J. Stalin and the Soviet Union (1999) online edition.
 * Lewis, Jonathan. Stalin: A Time for Judgement (1990).
 * McNeal, Robert H. Stalin: Man and Ruler (1988).
 * Martens, Ludo. Another view of Stalin (1994), a highly favorable view from a Maoist historian.
 * Service, Robert. Stalin: A Biography (2004), along with Tucker the standard biography.
 * Trotsky, Leon. Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence, (1967), an interpretation by Stalin's worst enemy.
 * Tucker, Robert C. Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879–1929 (1973); Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929–1941 (1990) online edition with Service, a standard biography; at ACLS e-books.

World War II

 * Barber, John, and Mark Harrison. The Soviet Home Front: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II, Longman, 1991.
 * Bellamy, Chris. Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (2008), 880pp excerpt and text search.
 * Berkhoff, Karel C. Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule. Harvard U. Press, 2004. 448 pp.
 * Berkhoff, Karel C. Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II (2012) excerpt and text search covers both propaganda and reality of homefront conditions.
 * Braithwaite, Rodric. Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War (2006).
 * Broekmeyer, Marius. Stalin, the Russians, and Their War, 1941–1945. 2004. 315 pp.
 * Dallin, Alexander. Odessa, 1941–1944: A Case Study of Soviet Territory under Foreign Rule. Portland: Int. Specialized Book Service, 1998. 296 pp.
 * Kucherenko, Olga. Little Soldiers: How Soviet Children Went to War, 1941–1945 (2011) excerpt and text search.
 * Overy, Richard. The road to war (4th ed. 1999), covers 1930s; pp 245–300.
 * Overy, Richard. Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941–1945 (1998) excerpt and text search.
 * Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (2006).
 * Schofield, Carey, ed. Russian at War, 1941–1945. (Vendome Press, 1987). 256 pp., a photo-history, with connecting texts. ISBN 978-0-86565-077-0.
 * Seaton, Albert. Stalin as Military Commander, (1998) online edition.
 * Thurston, Robert W., and Bernd Bonwetsch, eds. The People's War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (2000).
 * Uldricks, Teddy J. "War, Politics and Memory: Russian Historians Reevaluate the Origins of World War II", History and Memory 21#2 (2009), pp. 60–82 online, historiography.
 * Reports life expectancy at birth fell to a level as low as ten years for females and seven for males in 1933 and plateaued around 25 for females and 15 for males in the period 1941–1944.

Cold War

 * Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1989).
 * Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years (1983).
 * Goncharov, Sergei, John Lewis and Litai Xue, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War (1993) excerpt and text search.
 * Gorlizki, Yoram, and Oleg Khlevniuk. Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953 (2004) online edition.
 * Holloway, David. Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (1996) excerpt and text search.
 * Mastny, Vojtech. Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945 (1979).
 * Mastny, Vojtech. The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years (1998) excerpt and text search; online complete edition.
 * Matlock, Jack. Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (2005).
 * Nation, R. Craig. Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917–1991 (1992).
 * Sivachev, Nikolai and Nikolai Yakolev, Russia and the United States (1979), by Soviet historians.
 * Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (2004), Pulitzer Prize; excerpt and text search.
 * Taubman, William. Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War (1983).
 * Taubman, William. Gorbachev: His Life and Times (2017).
 * Tint, Herbert. French Foreign Policy since the Second World War (1972) online free to borrow 1945–1971.
 * Ulam, Adam B. Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973, 2nd ed. (1974).
 * Wilson, James Graham. The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev's Adaptability, Reagan's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (2014).
 * Zubok, Vladislav M. Inside the Kremlin's Cold War (1996) 20% excerpt and online search.
 * Zubok, Vladislav M. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (2007).

Collapse

 * Beschloss, Michael, and Strobe Talbott. At the Highest Levels:The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (1993).
 * Bialer, Seweryn and Michael Mandelbaum, eds. Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy (1988).
 * Carrère d'Encausse, Hélène. Decline of an Empire: the Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt. First English language ed. New York: Newsweek Books (1979). 304 p. N.B.: Trans. of the author's L'Empire éclaté. ISBN 978-0-88225-280-3.
 * Garthoff, Raymond. The Great Transition: American–Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (1994), detailed narrative.
 * Grachev, A. S. Gorbachev's Gamble: Soviet Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War (2008) excerpt and text search.
 * Hogan, Michael ed. The End of the Cold War. Its Meaning and Implications (1992) articles from Diplomatic History.
 * Roger Keeran and Thomas Keeny. Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union, International Publishers Co Inc., US 2004.
 * Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000 (2008) excerpt and text search.
 * Matlock, Jack. Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1995).
 * Ostrovsky, Alexander (2010). Кто поставил Горбачёва? (Who appointed Gorbachev?) – М.: Алгоритм-Эксмо, 2010. – 544 с. ISBN 978-5-699-40627-2
 * Ostrovsky, Alexander (2010). Кто поставил Горбачёва? ("Who appointed Gorbachev?") – М.: Алгоритм-Эксмо. ISBN 978-5-699-40627-2 ("Проект "Распад СССР: Тайные пружины власти" – М. "Алгоритм", 2016. Переиздание книги "Кто поставил Горбачёва?") ("Project" Collapse of the USSR: Secret Springs of Power ". Reissue of the book «Who brought Gorbachev to power?» – М.: «Алгоритм», 2016).
 * Ostrovsky, Alexander (2011). Глупость или измена? Расследование гибели СССР. (Stupidity or treason? Investigation of the death of the USSR) М.: Форум, Крымский мост-9Д, 2011. – 864 с. ISBN 978-5-89747-068-6
 * Ostrovsky Alexander (2011). Глупость или измена? Расследование гибели СССР. ("Foolishness or treason? Investigation into the death of the USSR") М.: Крымский мост. ISBN 978-5-89747-068-6.
 * Pons, S., Romero, F., Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, Interpretations, Periodizations, (2005) ISBN 978-0-7146-5695-3.
 * Remnick, David. Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, (1994), ISBN 978-0-679-75125-0.
 * Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals, trans. and annotated by Alexis Klimoff. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991. N.B.: Also discusses the other national constituents of the USSR. ISBN 978-0-374-17342-5.

Social and economic history

 * Bailes, Kendall E. Technology and society under Lenin and Stalin: origins of the Soviet technical intelligentsia, 1917–1941 (1978).
 * Bailes, Kendall E. "The American Connection: Ideology and the Transfer of American Technology to the Soviet Union, 1917–1941." Comparative Studies in Society and History 23.3 (1981): 421–448.
 * Brooks, Jeffrey. "Public and private values in the Soviet press, 1921–1928." Slavic Review 48.1 (1989): 16–35.
 * Caroli, Dorena. "'And all our classes turned into a flower garden again'–science education in Soviet schools in the 1920s and 1930s: the case of biology from Darwinism to Lysenkoism." History of Education 48.1 (2019): 77–98.
 * Dobson, Miriam. "The Social History of Post-War Soviet Life" Historical Journal 55.2 (2012): 563–569. Online
 * Dowlah, Alex F., et al. The life and times of soviet socialism (Greenwood, 1997), Emphasis on economic policies. Online.
 * Engel, Barbara, et al. A Revolution of Their Own: Voices of Women in Soviet History (1998), Primary sources; Online.
 * Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism: ordinary life in extraordinary times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (Oxford UP, 2000). Online.
 * Graham, Loren R. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A short history (Cambridge UP, 1993).
 * Hanson, Philip. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR 1945–1991 (2014).
 * Heinzen, James W. Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917–1929 (2004).
 * Link, Stefan J. Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order (2020) excerpt
 * Lutz, Wolfgang et al. Demographic Trends and Patterns in the Soviet Union before 1991 (1994) online.
 * Mironov, Boris N. "The Development of Literacy in Russia and the USSR from the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries". History of Education Quarterly 31#2 (1991), pp. 229–252. [www.jstor.org/stable/368437 Online].
 * Nove, Alec. Soviet economic system (1986).
 * Weiner, Douglas R. "Struggle over the Soviet future: Science education versus vocationalism during the 1920s." Russian Review 65.1 (2006): 72–97.
 * Warshofsky Lapidus, Gail. Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union (1982) Online.
 * Warshofsky Lapidus, Gail. Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union (1982) Online.
 * Warshofsky Lapidus, Gail. Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union (1982) Online.

Nationalities

 * Katz, Zev, ed.: Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York: Free Press, 1975).
 * Nahaylo, Bohdan and Victor Swoboda. Soviet Disunion: A History of the nationalities Nationalities problem in the USSR (1990) excerpt.
 * Rashid, Ahmed. The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? (2017).
 * Smith, Graham, ed. The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (2nd ed. 1995).

Specialty studies

 * Armstrong, John A. The Politics of Totalitarianism: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present. New York: Random House, 1961.
 * Moore Jr., Barrington. Soviet politics: the dilemma of power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
 * Rizzi, Bruno: The Bureaucratization of the World: The First English edition of the Underground Marxist Classic That Analyzed Class Exploitation in the USSR, New York: Free Press, 1985.
 * Schapiro, Leonard B. The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955, 1966.
 * Smolkin, Victoria/ A Sacred Space is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton UP, 2018) online reviews