UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union 1
The flag of the Soviet Union The
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (
USSR ), commonly known as the
Soviet Union , was a
transcontinental country that spanned much of
Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. During its existence, it was the
largest country by area , extending across
eleven time zones and sharing
borders with twelve countries , and the
third-most populous country . An overall successor to the
Russian Empire , it was nominally organized as a
federal union of
national republics , the largest and most populous of which was the
Russian SFSR . In practice,
its government and
economy were
highly centralized . As a
one-party state governed by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union , it was a flagship
communist state . Its capital and largest city was
Moscow .
The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin , established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally socialist state . The revolution was not accepted by all within the Russian Republic , resulting in the Russian Civil War . The RSFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth but contributed to a famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system of the Gulag was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact , but in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II . The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers , suffering an estimated 27 million casualties , which accounted for most Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war , the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army , forming satellite states , and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower .
Geopolitical tensions with the US led to the Cold War . The American-led Western Bloc coalesced into NATO in 1949, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact , in 1955. Neither side engaged in direct military confrontation, and instead fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . In 1953, following Stalin's death , the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev , which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China . During the 1950s, the Soviet Union expanded its efforts in space exploration and took a lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite , the first human spaceflight , the first space station , and the first probe to land on another planet . In 1985, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev , sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost perestroika overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes , and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to preserve the country as a renewed federation , an attempted coup against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the largest republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union . Boris Yeltsin , the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation , which became the Soviet Union's successor state; all other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states .
During its existence, the Soviet Union produced
many significant social and technological achievements and innovations . It
had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An
NPT-designated state , it wielded the
largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world . As an Allied nation, it was a
founding member of the
United Nations as well as one of the
five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council . Before its dissolution, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomatic and ideological influence (particularly in the
Global South ), military and economic strengths, and
scientific accomplishments. (
Full article... )
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards. Clockwise from top: Remnants of Azerbaijani APCs; internally displaced Azerbaijanis from the Armenian-occupied territories; Armenian T-72 tank memorial at the outskirts of Stepanakert; Armenian soldiers
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan , between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia , and the Republic of Azerbaijan with support from Turkey . As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics , entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The enclave's parliament had voted in favor of uniting with Armenia and a referendum , boycotted by the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh, was held, in which a 99.89% voted in favor of independence with an 82.2% turnout. The demand to unify with Armenia began in a relatively peaceful manner in 1988; in the following months, as the Soviet Union disintegrated , it gradually grew into an increasingly violent conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, resulting in ethnic cleansing , including the Sumgait (1988) and Baku (1990) pogroms directed against Armenians, and the Gugark pogrom (1988) and Khojaly Massacre (1992) directed against Azerbaijanis.
Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in Azerbaijan voted to unite the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the culmination of a territorial conflict. As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh . (Full article...
“
I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.
”
Photo portrait, before 1951
Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess diplomat and Soviet double agent , and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 to the Soviet Union, with his fellow spy Donald Maclean , led to a serious breach in Anglo-United States intelligence co-operation , and caused long-lasting disruption and demoralisation in Britain's foreign and diplomatic services.
Born into an upper middle class family, Burgess was educated at Eton College , the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth , and Trinity College, Cambridge . An assiduous networker, he embraced left-wing politics at Cambridge and joined the British Communist Party . Burgess was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1935, on the recommendation of the future double agent Harold "Kim" Philby . After leaving Cambridge, Burgess worked for the BBC as a producer, briefly interrupted by a short period as a full-time MI6 intelligence officer, before joining the Foreign Office in 1944. (Full article...
The following are images from various Soviet Union-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1 Bolshevik (1920) by
Boris Kustodiev (from
October Revolution )
Image 2 "Pogrom in the Winter Palace" by
Ivan Vladimirov (from
October Revolution )
Image 3 The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on 6 January 1918. The
Tauride Palace is locked and guarded by
Trotsky ,
Sverdlov ,
Zinoviev , and
Lashevich . (from
October Revolution )
Image 5 European theatre of the
Russian Civil War in 1918 (from
October Revolution )
Image 6 The dissolution of the
Constituent Assembly on 6 January 1918. The
Tauride Palace is locked and guarded by
Trotsky ,
Sverdlov ,
Zinoviev and
Lashevich . (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 7 Map showing the greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the sovereign states that it dominated politically, economically and militarily in 1960, after the
Cuban Revolution of 1959 but before the official
Sino-Soviet split of 1961 (total area: c. 35,000,000 km
2 ) (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 8 Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 10 Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 11 Russian Civil War in the European part of Russia (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 12 Cruiser
Aurora (from
October Revolution )
Image 13 Lenin ,
Trotsky and
Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from
October Revolution )
Image 14 On 21 December 1991, the leaders of 11 former Soviet republics, including Russia and Ukraine, agreed to the
Alma-Ata Protocols , formally establishing the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 15 Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from
Nagorno-Karabakh , 1993 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 16 Soviet general secretary
Leonid Brezhnev and US President
Jimmy Carter sign the
SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979. (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 17 Russian troops in trenches awaiting a German attack (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 18 Anniversary of October Revolution in
Riga , Soviet Union in 1988 (from
October Revolution )
Image 19 Lenin ,
Trotsky , and
Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the
October Revolution (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 20 Soldiers marching in
Petrograd , March 1917 (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 21 The 2nd Moscow Women Death Battalion protecting the Winter Palace as the last guards of the stronghold (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 22 The New York Times headline from 9 November 1917 (from
October Revolution )
Image 23 American, British, and Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support to the White Army. (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 24 Red Guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917 (from
October Revolution )
Image 25 The
Russian famine of 1921–22 killed an estimated 5 million people.
(from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 26 The
Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the Hungarian-Austrian border. (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 28 Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President
Ronald Reagan (
left ), 1985 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 29 The elections to the
Constituent Assembly took place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks won 24% of the vote. (from
October Revolution )
Image 30 Forward gun of
Aurora that fired the signal shot (from
October Revolution )
Image 31 Russian troops meeting German troops in No Man's Land (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 32 A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters. (from
October Revolution )
Image 33 Residents of Leningrad leave their homes destroyed by German bombing. About 1 million civilians died during the 871-day
Siege of Leningrad , mostly from starvation. (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 34 Russian
peasants holding
banners of Lenin (left),
Marx (centre) and Trotsky (right) in early
Soviet Russia . (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 35 The
Battle of Stalingrad , considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 36 From left to right, the Soviet General Secretary
Joseph Stalin , US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill confer in Tehran, 1943 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 38 Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev (left) with US President
John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 39 A revolutionary meeting of Russian soldiers in March 1917 in Dalkarby of
Jomala ,
Åland (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 40 Murder of the Romanov family,
Le Petit Journal (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 41 Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 42 Stalin and
Lavrentiy Beria with Stalin's daughter,
Svetlana , on his lap. As head of the NKVD, Beria was responsible for many
political repressions in the Soviet Union . (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 44 Petrograd
Milrevcom proclamation about the deposing of the
Russian Provisional Government (from
October Revolution )
Image 45 Revolutionaries protesting in February 1917 (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 46 Provisional Government 's volunteer soldiers secure Petrograd's
Palace Square with the
Austin Armoured Car , summer 1917. (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 48 Country emblems of the Soviet Republics before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the
Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and the emblem is unofficial.) (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Selected anniversaries for November
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2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515
Alexei Leonov
Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration
German instrument of surrender2
Instrument of surrender Japan2
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War
Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1
Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09
Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2
RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01
Russian Imperial Family 1913
USS Yorktown collision
Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W)
Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration
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German instrument of surrender2 (2009-05-07)
Instrument of surrender Japan2 (2009-09-02)
Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W) (2010-05-08)
USS Yorktown collision (2011-02-12)
Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1 (2013-03-28)
Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration (2020-03-09)
Alexei Leonov (2020-03-18)
Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration (2020-05-08)
RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01 (2020-06-08)
Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09 (2022-02-26)
Russian Imperial Family 1913 (2022-07-17)
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War (2022-09-02)
2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515 (2023-04-18)
Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2 (2023-07-25)
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