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. It was the
largest country in the world by area , extending across
eleven time zones and sharing
land borders with twelve countries . A successor state to the
Russian Empire , the country was nominally organized as a
federal union of
fifteen national republics , the largest and most populous of which was the
Russian SFSR ; in practice, both
its government and
its economy were
highly centralized until its final years. It was the
world's third-most populous country and
Europe's most populous country . As a
one-party state governed by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union , it was a flagship
communist state . Its capital as well as its largest city was
Moscow . Other
highly urbanized centers were Leningrad ,
Kiev ,
Tashkent , and
Baku .
The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February Revolution that had dissolved the Russian Empire . 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 between the Bolsheviks and the anti-communist Whites . As the war progressed in the Bolsheviks' favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land acquired from the war into various puppet states, which were merged into the Soviet Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed millions. The forced labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. During the late 1930s, Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove actual and perceived opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact despite their ideological incongruence; nonetheless, in 1941, Nazi 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 in 1945, suffering an estimated 27 million casualties , which accounted for the majority of Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war , the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army , forming various satellite states , and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower .
Following World War II, ideological tensions with the United States eventually 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, commonly known as the Warsaw Pact , in 1955. Neither side ever 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 the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev , which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China . During the 1950s, the Soviet Union rapidly expanded its efforts in space exploration and took an early 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 (Venus ). The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war .
The 1970s saw a brief détente Soviet Union's relationship with the United States , but tensions emerged again following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. 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 entire Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to reform and preserve the country as a renewed federation , an attempted coup d'état against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the three most populous and economically developed republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede from the Union. 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. The Punch-up in Piestany bench-clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union during the final game of the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Piešťany , Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia ) on January 4, 1987. The incident resulted in the ejection of both teams, and while the Soviets had already been eliminated from medal contention, the disqualification cost Canada a medal – potentially the gold. The brawl is famous for officials having turned off the arena lights in a desperate attempt to end the 20-minute melee. Much of the blame was placed on Norwegian referee Hans Rønning, who had been selected for the game based on his perceived neutrality rather than experience.
Following the brawl, the
International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended the players involved for 18 months and the coaches for three years. The players' suspensions were later reduced to six months on appeal, allowing several players from both teams to return for the
1988 tournament in
Moscow . Both nations won medals in 1988, with Canada taking the gold and the Soviets winning silver. (
Full article... )
List of recognized articles
... 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
“
Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-determination; the unity of the workers of all nations—such is the national program that Marxism, the experience of the whole world, and the experience of Russia, teach the workers.
”
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria BERR -ee-əЛаврентий Павлович Берия IPA: [lɐˈvrʲenʲtʲɪj ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈbʲerʲɪjə] Georgian : ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია romanized :Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria ; 29 March [O.S. 17 March] 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph Stalin 's secret police chiefs, serving as head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) from 1938 to 1946, during the country's involvement in the Second World War .
An ethnic
Georgian , Beria enlisted in the
Cheka in 1920, and quickly rose through its ranks. He transferred to
Communist Party work in the
Caucasus in the 1930s, and in 1938 was appointed head of the NKVD by Stalin. His ascent marked the end of the Stalinist
Great Purge carried out by previous chief
Nikolai Yezhov , whom Beria purged. After the
Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Beria organized the
Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia, and after the
occupation of the Baltic states and
parts of Romania in 1940, he oversaw the
deportations of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Balts, and Romanians to remote areas or
Gulag camps. In 1941, Beria began a new
purge of the Red Army . After
Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union later that year, he was appointed to the
State Defense Committee , overseeing security. (
Full article... )
List of selected biographies
The following are images from various Soviet Union-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 2 Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 3 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
Soviet Union )
Image 4 Russian
peasants holding
banners of Lenin (left),
Marx (centre) and Trotsky (right) in early
Soviet Russia . (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 6 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
Soviet Union )
Image 7 Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev (left) with US President
John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961 (from
Soviet Union )
Image 8 A revolutionary meeting of Russian soldiers in March 1917 in Dalkarby of
Jomala ,
Åland (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 9 A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters. (from
October Revolution )
Image 10 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
Soviet Union )
Image 11 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
Soviet Union )
Image 12 Revolutionaries protesting in February 1917 (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 13 U.S.
Lend Lease shipments to the USSR. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless
repayment of Lend-Lease . (from
Soviet Union )
Image 14 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
Soviet Union )
Image 15 Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from
Nagorno-Karabakh , 1993 (from
Soviet Union )
Image 16 Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President
Ronald Reagan (
left ), 1985 (from
Soviet Union )
Image 17 Provisional Government 's volunteer soldiers secure Petrograd's
Palace Square with the
Austin Armoured Car , summer 1917. (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 19 Murder of the Romanov family,
Le Petit Journal (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 20 American, British, and Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support to the White Army. (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 21 The New York Times headline from 9 November 1917 (from
October Revolution )
Image 22 The elections to the
Constituent Assembly took place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks won 24% of the vote. (from
October Revolution )
Image 24 "Pogrom in the Winter Palace" by
Ivan Vladimirov (from
October Revolution )
Image 25 Forward gun of
Aurora that fired the signal shot (from
October Revolution )
Image 26 Lenin ,
Trotsky and
Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from
October Revolution )
Image 27 Soldiers marching in
Petrograd , March 1917 (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 28 Nikolai Podgorny visiting
Tampere ,
Finland on 16 October 1969 (from
Soviet Union )
Image 29 Lenin ,
Trotsky , and
Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the
October Revolution (from
Soviet Union )
Image 30 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
Soviet Union )
Image 31 Russian troops meeting German troops in No Man's Land (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 32 Anniversary of October Revolution in
Riga , Soviet Union in 1988 (from
October Revolution )
Image 33 Petrograd
Milrevcom proclamation about the deposing of the
Russian Provisional Government (from
October Revolution )
Image 34 The
Soviet famine of 1930–1933 , with areas where the effects of famine were most severe shaded (from
Soviet Union )
Image 35 Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War (from
Soviet Union )
Image 36 Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 37 Soviet general secretary
Leonid Brezhnev and US President
Jimmy Carter sign the
SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979. (from
Soviet Union )
Image 38 Red Guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917 (from
October Revolution )
Image 39 Russian Civil War in the European part of Russia (from
Soviet Union )
Image 40 The
Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the Hungarian-Austrian border. (from
Soviet Union )
Image 41 European theatre of the
Russian Civil War in 1918 (from
October Revolution )
Image 42 The 2nd Moscow Women Death Battalion protecting the Winter Palace as the last guards of the stronghold (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 43 Bolshevik (1920) by
Boris Kustodiev (from
October Revolution )
Image 44 Dissolution of the elected
Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks on 6 January 1918 (from
Soviet Union )
Image 45 Construction of the bridge through the
Kolyma (part of the
Road of Bones from
Magadan to
Jakutsk ) by the prisoners of
Dalstroy (from
Soviet Union )
Image 46 Russian troops in trenches awaiting a German attack (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 47 The
Battle of Stalingrad , considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II (from
Soviet Union )
Image 48 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 49 T-80 tank on
Red Square during the
August Coup (from
Soviet Union )
Image 50 The
Russian famine of 1921–22 killed an estimated 5 million people.
(from
Soviet Union )
Image 51 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 )
Selected anniversaries for June
The Grand Trianon at Versailles, site of the signing.
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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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