Portal:Soviet Union

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

Introduction

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 (CPSU), 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 SFSR, 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 Russian SFSR 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 Soviet Union 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 United States 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 and perestroika. In 1989, various countries of the Warsaw Pact 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 26 December, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the Russian SFSR, 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 Soviet Union 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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Recognized article - show another

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

All ministry seals of the Soviet Union used the State Emblem

The Ministry of Justice of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: Министерство юстиции СССР, Ministerstvo Yustitsii SSSR), formed on 15 March 1946, was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. It was formerly (until 1946) known as the People's Commissariat for Justice (Russian: Народный комиссариат юстиции, Narodniy Komissariat Yustitsi'i) abbreviated as Наркомюст (Narkomiust or sometimes known in English as "Narkomyust"). The Ministry, at the All-Union (USSR-wide) level, was established in the 1936 Soviet Constitution, and was in turn based upon the People's Commissariat for Justice of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) formed in 1917, with the latter becoming subordinate, along with the other republican Narkomyusts, to the Union-level People's Commissariat of Justice of the USSR. The Ministry was led by the Minister of Justice, prior to 1946 a Commissar, who was nominated by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and was a member of the Council of Ministers.

The Ministry of Justice was responsible for courts, prisons, and probations. Further responsibilities included criminal justice policy, sentencing policy, and prevention of re-offending in the USSR. The Ministry was organised into All-Union and Union departments. The All-Union level ministries were divided into separate organisations in the Republican, Autonomous Oblast, and provincial level. The leadership of the Ministry of Justice came from notable Soviet law organisations from around the country. (Full article...)

List of recognized articles

edit

Selected picture

Credit: Kiselev d

The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, named after Vladimir Lenin, leader of the October Revolution.

More selected pictures

edit

Did you know... - show different entries

... that the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, first formed in 1920, has since been renamed three times, most recently as the Udmurt Republic in 1991?

... that the February 9, 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Central Powers that helped clear Bolshevik forces from Ukraine?

... that members of Sub-Carpathian Reformed Church were persecuted by communists in the Soviet Union and were sent to Gulag labour camps in Siberia?

... that the Poltava Bandurist Capella, directed by Hnat Khotkevych, was the first Soviet ensemble to be invited to tour North America?

More did you know facts

edit

Selected quote

“

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.

”

— Vladimir Lenin, talking about the national question

More selected quotes...

More information...

edit

WikiProjects

WikiProject
Soviet Union

WikiProject
Socialism

WikiProject
Russia

WikiProject
Philosophy

What are WikiProjects?

Selected biography - show another

Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan, also known as Hovhannes Khachaturi Baghramyan (2 December [O.S. 20 November] 1897 – 21 September 1982), was a Soviet military commander of Armenian origin who held the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. As commander of the Baltic Front, he participated in the offensives which pushed German forces out of the Baltic republics.

During World War II, Bagramyan was the second non-Slavic military officer, after Latvian Max Reyter, to become a commander of a front. He was among several Armenians in the Soviet Army who held the highest proportion of high-ranking officers in the Soviet military during the war. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Nikita Khrushchev Lavrentiy Beria George Koval El Lissitzky Dmitri Shostakovich Alexei Kosygin Mikhail Suslov Alexander Alekhine Pavel Bure Gennady Yanayev Andrei Kirilenko (politician) Lev Chernyi Eduard Streltsov Vyacheslav Molotov Valentin Pavlov Samantha Smith Guy Burgess Sergo Ordzhonikidze Vladimir Lenin

General images

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

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

edit

Selected anniversaries for December

USSR Constitution Day - 5 December - was the constitution day before the Brezhnev Constitution.

More anniversaries ...

More Did you know (auto generated)

... that Spectrum HoloByte published Tetris without permission from the Soviet Union?
... that Soviet academic Lily Golden researched "officially disapproved" genres of contemporary Black music?
... that the first model of cosmic inflation was formulated by a Soviet physicist but initially remained unknown outside the Soviet Union?
... that during the first tour to the Soviet Union by any American ballet company, Lupe Serrano danced the first encore in the American Ballet Theatre's history?
... that agronomist Oliver Golden remained in the Soviet Union after his delegation of cotton experts returned to the United States?
... that Estonian minister of war Paul Lill resigned in 1939, citing the unacceptable conditions of the Bases Treaty with the Soviet Union?

edit

Related portals

edit

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.

Featured articles

Former featured articles

Featured lists

Former featured lists

List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999

A-Class articles

Good articles

Former good articles

Good article nominees

Featured pictures

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
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

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

(SCROLL)

edit

Main topics

edit

Things you can do

Привет and welcome! Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If you are interested in the Soviet Union and have some information that can be added to an existing article, please help. Here are some things you can do: