Portal:Soviet Union

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

Introduction

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. 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 SFSR, the world's first constitutionally communist state. Following the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a six-year power struggle saw Joseph Stalin emerge as the country's undisputed personalist ruler. He initiated rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant growth, but contributed to a devastating famine in the 1930s that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system, known as the Gulag, was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to eliminate opposition, resulting in deportations, executions, and the Moscow trials. Failing to build an anti-Nazi coalition in Europe, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. However, in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviet Union played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers as part of the Allies, while extending its sphere of influence to Central and Eastern Europe. With around 27 million casualties, it suffered the most deaths of any country in World War II. In the war's aftermath, the Soviet Union consolidated the territories occupied by the Red Army into satellite states and undertook rapid economic development, cementing its status as a superpower.

Geopolitical tensions with the United States led to the Cold War. The US-led Western Bloc coalesced into the NATO military alliance in 1949, prompting the Eastern Bloc to form the Warsaw Pact in 1955. With little direct combat, the blocs engaged in ideological and proxy wars. In 1953, following Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev initiated a campaign of de-Stalinization, which led to ideological tensions with communist China, under Mao Zedong, and culminated in an acrimonious split. The Soviet military suppressed uprisings in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, while the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis narrowly averted a global conflict. Under Leonid Brezhnev, prosperity shifted toward stagnation, although relations with the US eased. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev sought reform through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, most Warsaw Pact countries overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes, effectively ending the Eastern Bloc. Nationalist movements across the Soviet republics declared sovereignty, and in 1991, a successful referendum to establish a renewed federation was followed by a failed coup by hardliners. This prompted Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to secede. On 26 December, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian SFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union's successor state. All fifteen republics became independent states; all except the Baltic states joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. The post-Soviet states experienced a humanitarian disaster.

The Soviet Union was one of the world's two superpowers, with hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomacy, ideological influence (particularly in the Global South), military might, economic strength, and scientific and technological accomplishments. Its space program made significant achievements in the Space Race. It had the world's second-largest economy and the largest standing military. As a nuclear 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 and one of five permanent members of its Security Council. (Full article...)

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Mir seen from Space Shuttle Endeavour during STS-89 (28 January 1998)

Mir (Russian: Мир, IPA: [ˈmʲir]; lit. 'peace' or 'world') was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russian Federation. Mir was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996. At the time it was the largest artificial satellite in orbit, only being succeeded by the International Space Station (ISS) after Mir's deorbiting in 2001. The station served as a microgravity research laboratory in which crews conducted experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and spacecraft systems with a goal of developing technologies required for permanent occupation of space.

Mir was the first continuously inhabited long-term research station in orbit and previously held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space at 3,644 days, until it was surpassed by the ISS in 2010. It holds the record for the longest single human spaceflight, Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days on the station from 1994 until 1995. Mir's typical crew size was 3, though larger short-term crews made an appearance, peaking at ten during STS-71. Occupied for twelve and a half years out of its fifteen-year lifespan, 105 cosmonauts and astronauts from 12 different nations visited the station, and conducted 80 spacewalks. (Full article...)

List of recognized articles

Selected picture

Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference with Clement Attlee and Harry Truman.

Did you know... -

... that the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic lasted for only nine months as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which turned it into the Altai Republic?

... that because Leonid Brezhnev had more than 200 decorations, it was decided to break the Soviet custom of featuring only one decoration on cushions during his funeral?

... that the Soviet 383rd Rifle Division was originally comprised completely of miners, from the Ukrainian Donets Basin?

... that Valentin Pavlov, the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union and de facto Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, was involved in the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev?

Selected quote

WikiProjects

What are WikiProjects?

Selected biography -

Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko (Ukrainian: Андрій Павлович Кириленко, romanized: Andriy Pavlovych Kyrylenko; Russian: Андрей Павлович Кириленко, IPA: [ɐnˈdrʲej ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ kʲɪrʲɪˈlʲɛnkə]; 8 September [O.S. 26 August] 1906 – 12 May 1990) was a Soviet politician, and a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was one of the most loyal politicians to Leonid Brezhnev.

His role in the CPSU was to ensure Brezhnev's power base and, if possible, to strengthen Brezhnev's position within the party. In order to accomplish this task, he emerged as one of the leading figures in the Secretariat under Brezhnev's rule. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

General images

The following are images from various Soviet Union-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Russian famine of 1921–22 killed an estimated 5 million people.
(from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 2The Petrograd Soviet Assembly meeting in 1917 (from Russian Revolution)
Image 3Soviet painting Vladimir Lenin, by Isaac Brodsky (from Russian Revolution)
Image 4Cruiser Aurora (from October Revolution)
Image 5A poster depicting the effect of the Revolution on the life of a peasant, 1920. From the collections of RGASPI (from Russian Revolution)
Image 6European theatre of the Russian Civil War in 1918 (from October Revolution)
Image 7Stalin 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 8A revolutionary meeting of Russian soldiers in March 1917 in Dalkarby of Jomala, Åland (from Russian Revolution)
Image 9Lenin, Trotsky, and Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 10The elections to the Constituent Assembly took place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks won 24% of the vote. (from October Revolution)
Image 11Nikolai Podgorny visiting Tampere, Finland on 16 October 1969 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 12Red Guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917 (from October Revolution)
Image 13Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution (from Russian Revolution)
Image 14Forward gun of Aurora that fired the signal shot (from October Revolution)
Image 15Anniversary of October Revolution in Riga, Soviet Union in 1988 (from October Revolution)
Image 16T-80 tank on Red Square during the August Coup (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 17Russian troops in trenches awaiting a German attack (from Russian Revolution)
Image 18Soldiers blocking Narva Gate on Bloody Sunday (from Russian Revolution)
Image 19Soldiers marching in Petrograd, March 1917 (from Russian Revolution)
Image 20Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) with US President John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 21The 2nd Moscow Women Death Battalion protecting the Winter Palace as the last guards of the stronghold (from Russian Revolution)
Image 22Five Marshals of the Soviet Union in 1935. Only two of them—Budyonny and Voroshilov—survived the Great Purge. Blyukher, Yegorov and Tukhachevsky were executed. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 23The Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the Hungarian-Austrian border. (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 24Bolshevik (1920) by Boris Kustodiev (from October Revolution)
Image 25Lenin, Trotsky and Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from October Revolution)
Image 26Map 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 km²) (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 27Petrograd Milrevcom proclamation about the deposing of the Russian Provisional Government (from October Revolution)
Image 28Country 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)
Image 29Russian troops meeting German troops in No Man's Land (from Russian Revolution)
Image 30Murder of the Romanov family, Le Petit Journal (from Russian Revolution)
Image 31A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters. (from October Revolution)
Image 32From 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 33Residents 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 34The Battle of Stalingrad, considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 35A detachment of Red Guard sailors who dissolved the Constituent Assembly (from Russian Revolution)
Image 36Soviet 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 37A detachment of Red Guard sailors who dissolved the Constituent Assembly (from October Revolution)
Image 38"Pogrom in the Winter Palace" by Ivan Vladimirov (from October Revolution)
Image 39Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (from Russian Revolution)
Image 40Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 41American, British, and Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support to the White Army. (from Russian Revolution)
Image 42Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President Ronald Reagan (left), 1985 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 43Provisional Government's volunteer soldiers secure Petrograd's Palace Square with the Austin Armoured Car, summer 1917. (from Russian Revolution)
Image 44Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, 1993 (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 45On 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 46The New York Times headline from 9 November 1917 (from October Revolution)
Image 47Russian Civil War in the European part of Russia (from History of the Soviet Union)
Image 48Revolutionaries protesting in February 1917 (from Russian Revolution)

Selected anniversaries for August

August coup attempt - 19 to 21 August 1991 - was an attempt by a group of members of the Soviet Union's government to take control of the country from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

More anniversaries ...

More Did you know (auto generated)

... that the Vulcan Bridge, a bridge in Vulcan, West Virginia, was constructed after the mayor requested financial aid from the Soviet Union?
... that Dusko Doder reported the 1984 death of Yuri Andropov, the leader of the Soviet Union, before any official announcement?
... that Nicolae Moromete, who tortured prisoners of the Romanian communist regime in the 1950s, fought the Soviet Union in World War II?
... that the editors of the Red Army newspaper Qьzьl Armies were seen as opponents of the reform to introduce a Latin script for the Tatar language?
... that the newspaper Qizil Tugh (Red Banner) provided a publishing platform for young Uyghur-language poets and writers in the Soviet Union?
... that agronomist Oliver Golden remained in the Soviet Union after his delegation of cotton experts returned to the United States?

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Recognized content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Soviet Union}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.

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Former featured lists

List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999

Good articles

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Featured pictures

2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515
Alexei Leonov
Field Marshal 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
Raising a flag over the Reichstag - Restoration
Russian Imperial Family 1913
USS Yorktown collision
Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W)
Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration
Yury Pen - Portrait of Marc Chagall

Picture of the day pictures

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 Marshal 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)
Raising a flag over the Reichstag - Restoration (2025-05-02)

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