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128-704: A raion is a standardized administrative entity across most of the former Soviet Union and is usually a subdivision two steps below the national level, such as a subdivision of an oblast . However, in smaller USSR republics, it could be the primary level of administrative division. After the fall of the Soviet Union , some of the republics kept the raion (e.g. Azerbaijan , Belarus , Ukraine , Russia , Moldova , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan ) while others dropped it (e.g. Georgia , Uzbekistan , Estonia , Latvia , Armenia , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan ). In Bulgaria , it refers to an internal administrative subdivision of

256-594: 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

384-730: A Commune (Town Council) on the basis of the most democratic voting, without limitations for the bourgeoisie. These elections, being boycotted by the bourgeoisie parties, gave us a crushing majority. The democratically elected Council voluntarily submitted to the Petrograd Soviet... the Soviet Government placed no obstacle in the way of the bourgeois parties; and if the Cadets, the SRs and the Mensheviks, who had their press which

512-1010: A city not related to the administrative division of the country as a whole, or, in the case of Sofia municipality a subdivision of that municipality . The word raion is derived from French rayon , which is itself derived from Frankish * hrātu 'honeycomb'. It is used in many languages spanning Central Europe to Central Asia and Siberia . For instance, Azerbaijani : rayon ; Belarusian : раён , romanized :  rajon ; Bulgarian : район , romanized :  rajon ; Georgian : რაიონი , romanized : raioni ; German : Rayon ; Ingrian : raijona ; Latvian : rajons ; Lithuanian : rajonas ; Polish : rejon ; Romanian : raion ; Russian : район , romanized :  raion ; Turkish : reyon ; Ukrainian : район , romanized :  rajon ; Uyghur : رايون , romanized :  rayon ; and Yakut : оройуон , romanized:  oroyuon . Fourteen countries have or had entities that were named "raion" or

640-541: A closer relationship with France and Britain. In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement , the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain. Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in

768-528: A fleet of strategic bombers and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers. Soviet (council) A soviet ( Russian : совет , romanized :  sovet , IPA: [sɐˈvʲet] , lit.   ' council ' )

896-519: A greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии , romanized : Soyuz Sovyetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii ). 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

1024-606: A military commission regarding those involved in the short-lived soviet state. This work might have been what ensured his future employment with the Reichswehr in Munich as an "educational officer" whose task was combating "dangerous" ideas like communism, pacifism, and democracy among the army's ranks (many soldiers had taken part in the German Revolution ; in fact it was sparked by mutinous German sailors ). After

1152-597: A new profitable market. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labour unions or other organizations on the left, which they labelled social fascists . In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, the epithet fascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with

1280-540: A part of the Soviet administrative reform and continued through 1929, by which time the majority of the country's territory was divided into raions instead of the old volosts and uyezds . The concept of raionirovanie was met with resistance in some republics, especially in Ukraine , where local leaders objected to the concept of raions as being too centralized in nature and ignoring the local customs. This point of view

1408-417: A program called "soviet government". The soviet system was described as "a higher type of state" and "a higher form of democracy" which would "arouse the masses of the exploited toilers to the task of making new history". Furthermore, it offered "to the oppressed toiling masses the opportunity to participate actively in the free construction of a new society". According to Lenin, soviet rule "is nothing else than

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1536-528: A republic. He was assassinated three months after, whereupon a short-lived soviet republic was established by the Bavarian workers. On 1 May 1919, the German Army , along with local Bavarian Freikorps , overthrew the nascent republic, massacring several hundred persons in the process, including many non-Communist. A Social Democratic government was thereupon restored, however, political power passed to

1664-689: A short-lived soviet in Bama County . The term soon came to be used outside the former Russian Empire following 1917. The Limerick Soviet was formed in Ireland in 1919 at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence . A soviet republic was established in Bavaria on 7 April 1919. In 1920, the Workers' Dreadnought published "A Constitution for British Soviets" in preparation for the launch of

1792-631: A status that is retained by the Russian Federation . Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America . Two other successor states, Kazakhstan and Ukraine , rank among the top 10 countries by land area, and the largest country entirely in Europe, respectively. The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to

1920-475: A union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians . The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as 'Russia'. While the Russian SFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and area), most powerful, and most highly developed. The Russian SFSR

2048-774: Is a workers' council that follows a socialist ideology, particularly in the context of the Russian Revolution . Soviets were the main form of government in the Russian SFSR and the Makhnovshchina . The first soviets were established during the 1905 Revolution in the late Russian Empire . In 1917, following the February Revolution , a state of dual power emerged between the Russian Provisional Government and

2176-573: Is derived from the Russian word sovet (Russian: 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 word sovietnik means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called council (Russian: совет ). In the Russian Empire ,

2304-421: Is divided into seven districts. In Belarus , raions ( Belarusian : раён, rajon ) are administrative units subordinated to oblasts . See also: Category:Districts of Belarus . In Bulgaria , raions are subdivisions of three biggest cities: Sofia , Plovdiv and Varna . Sofia is subdivided to 24 raions ( Sofia districts ), Plovdiv - 6, Varna - 5 raions. In Ukraine , there are a total of 136 raions which are

2432-655: Is his background, his education , his profession . These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror ." During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , or by

2560-520: The Council of People's Commissars ), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society. State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of

2688-606: 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

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2816-755: The Land Forces , the Air Force , the Navy , Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and the Internal Troops . The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the NKVD secret police, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in

2944-528: The Moscow State Institute of International Relations . The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions. During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it

3072-745: The Nanchang uprising , the term was also used by the Chinese Communists in the 1920s taking control in some parts of the country , which were later declared as the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1931. The CSR was China's first communist government in a structure that would later evolve into the People's Republic of China, but was ultimately wiped out by the Chinese Nationalist forces. In 1929, Deng Xiaoping led

3200-657: The Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia , was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones , and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra , taiga , steppes , desert and mountains . The USSR, like Russia , had the world's longest border , measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it

3328-790: The Popular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all anti-Fascist political, labour, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism , especially of the Nazi variety. The rapid growth of power in Nazi Germany encouraged both Paris and Moscow to form a military alliance, and the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed in May 1935. A firm believer in collective security, Stalin's foreign minister Maxim Litvinov worked very hard to form

3456-726: The Socialist Revolutionary Party , and even the Mensheviks had a larger share of the elected representatives than the Bolsheviks . As World War I continued and the Russians met defeat after defeat, and the provisional government proved inadequate at establishing industrial peace, the Bolsheviks began to grow in support. By degrees, the Bolsheviks dominated with a leadership which demanded "all power to

3584-581: The Soviet republics , and the control of the Communist Party weakened. The failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Gorbachev by hardline communists hastened the end of the Soviet Union , which formally dissolved on December 26, 1991, ending nearly seven decades of Soviet rule. With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country,

3712-618: 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 1905 Russian Revolution . 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

3840-635: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), saying that it was "overly juridical" and potentially infringed on national sovereignty. The Soviet Union later signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 (and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ), but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by

3968-769: 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. The word soviet

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4096-584: The official historiography of the Soviet Union , the first workers' council (soviet) formed in May 1905 in Ivanovo (north-east of Moscow ) during the 1905 Russian Revolution ( Ivanovsky Soviet ). However, in his memoirs, the Russian anarchist Volin claims that he witnessed the beginnings of the St Petersburg Soviet in January 1905. The Russian workers were largely organized at the turn of

4224-577: The rady managed to form self-defence units, the councils were dismantled by July 1919 – mostly due to suppression by the Polish government and withdrawal of support from the reformist Polish Socialist Party . The rady robotnicze also appeared in the aftermath of World War II 1944–1947, in the Polish People's Republic during the Poznań protests of 1956 and Polish October , in 1970, as well as

4352-485: The right to food , the right to work , and the right to education . The Soviet conception of human rights was very different from international law . According to Soviet legal theory , "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the individual". The Soviet state was considered as the source of human rights. Therefore, the Soviet legal system considered law an arm of politics and it also considered courts agencies of

4480-632: The " Soviet of People's Commissaries " – the Ministry. Beginning with a minimum of three and maximum of 50 members for smaller communities, the maximum for town soviets was fixed at 1,000 members. The soviet system was seen as an alternative to parliamentary systems for administering republican governments. As outlined in the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of

4608-463: The 1905 of revolution. In 1918, soviets began popping up all around Poland, which was regaining independence after 123 years of colonial rule . Over 100 workers' councils operated there in the years 1918–1919, assembling around 500,000 workers and peasants. The most numerous and radical councils were located in Kraśnik , Lublin , Płock , Warsaw , Zamość , and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie . Although some of

4736-703: The 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union , concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR , to himself. Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling

4864-482: 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

4992-601: The 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissioned nuclear submarines , and the processing of nuclear waste or spent nuclear fuel . It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to the Barents Sea and Kara Sea , which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of the K-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in

5120-507: The 20th century, leading to a government-sponsored trade-union leadership . In 1905, as the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) increased the strain on Russian industrial production, the workers began to strike and rebel. The soviets represented an autonomous workers' movement, one that broke free from the government's oversight of workers' unions and played a major role in the 1905 Russian Revolution. Soviets sprang up throughout

5248-424: The 20th century. The first known examples occurred during the Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907) , part of the 1905 Russian Revolution , wherein workers in Congress Poland took control of factories and sometimes even entire towns until tsarist authorities quelled the rebellion using police and military forces; alongside Central Russia and Latvia , Congress Poland was one of the most active centres of

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5376-488: The Bavarian right. The political turmoil of post-war Bavaria was also the political springboard of Hitler's political career. Hitler, having returned to Munich in late November 1918, detested the soviet state (he elaborated on his aversion to it in his autobiographical work, Mein Kampf , where he also claimed he once narrowly avoided arrest by the state). After the fall of the soviet administration in Bavaria, Hitler began his "first more or less political activity", informing

5504-402: The Bolsheviks, who long before October put forward the slogan of proletarian dictatorship, did not say anything in advance about disenfranchising the exploiters. This aspect of the dictatorship did not make its appearance 'according to the plan' of any particular party; it emerged of itself in the course of the struggle ... even when the Mensheviks (who compromised with the bourgeoisie) still ruled

5632-427: The CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees , local Soviets and executive committees . While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary. The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies ) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Red Terror and Great Purge , but

5760-411: The Communist authorities. Under Joseph Stalin , the death penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935. Sergei Kovalev recalled "the famous article 125 of the Constitution which enumerated all basic civil and political rights" in the Soviet Union. But when he and other prisoners attempted to use this as a legal basis for their abuse complaints, their prosecutor's argument

5888-420: The Council in good time, as at a certain moment did the bourgeois members of the Paris Commune ." Vladimir Lenin wrote that the soviets were originally politically open and inclusive entities, writing in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918) that, "the disenfranchisement of the bourgeoisie is not a necessary and indispensable feature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. And in Russia,

6016-434: The Creation of the USSR , and successively the 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union and 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union , the Soviets were the basis of government in the USSR. Factory and village Soviets would send delegates to town Soviets, and in turn the town Soviet would send delegates to the regional Soviet, town and regional Soviets elected delegates to the provincial Soviet, provincial Soviets sent delegates to

6144-481: The Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal, itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee. All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party. Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from

6272-420: The Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС has been taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is associated with the infamous Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany , as SS is in English. In English-language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that, for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it

6400-459: The Russian word "soviet" plus the Russian suffix -ник denoting an occupation. A number of organizations in Russian were called "council" ( Russian : сове́т ). For example, in Imperial Russia , the State Council , which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers. The Polish and Ukrainian word is respectively rada and рада , 'council, advice', from Middle High German rāt . See Rada . According to

6528-450: The Soviet Union and turned into SSRs, which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation . After the Soviet invasion of Finland , the Karelo-Finnish SSR was formed on annexed territory as a Union Republic in March 1940 and then incorporated into Russia as the Karelian ASSR in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below). While nominally

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6656-477: 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

6784-417: The Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with the United Kingdom , Vyacheslav Molotov dropped his post war border demands. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc , which began following World War II in 1945. The term cold war is used because there

6912-480: The Soviet Union's superpower status, the economy struggled due to its centralized nature, technological backwardness, and inefficiencies. The vast military expenditures and burdens of maintaining the Eastern Bloc, further strained the Soviet economy. In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev 's policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) aimed to revitalize the Soviet system but instead accelerated its unraveling. Nationalist movements gained momentum across

7040-424: The Soviet authorities admitted. The Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. In 1988, total emissions in the Soviet Union were about 79% of those in the United States. But since the Soviet GNP was only 54% of that of the United States, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the United States per unit of GNP. The Soviet Chernobyl disaster in 1986

7168-408: The Soviet of the constituent republic, and the Soviets of the Union Republics sent delegates to the Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R. As of 1936, the election of delegates up the pyramid became direct with the creation of the Supreme Soviets . Elections of delegates were made by a show of hands in open factory and village meetings, or in meetings of the rank and file of the army. Any candidate

7296-406: 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

7424-415: The Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet ,

7552-551: 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

7680-430: The USSR. Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it

7808-409: 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 December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of

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7936-449: The accident, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005). Another major radioactive accident was the Kyshtym disaster . The Kola Peninsula was one of the places with major problems. Around the industrial cities of Monchegorsk and Norilsk , where nickel , for example, is mined, all forests have been destroyed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions. During

8064-413: The administrative divisions of oblasts (provinces) and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea . Major cities of regional significance as well as the two national cities with special status ( Kyiv and Sevastopol ) are also subdivided into raions (constituting a total of 118 nationwide). Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ), commonly known as the Soviet Union ,

8192-467: The administrative level, customarily abbreviated: gorsoviet ( gorodskoy sovyet : city council), raysoviet / raisoviet' ( rayonny sovyet : raion council), selsoviet ( sel'sky sovyet : rural council), possoviet ( poselkovy sovyet : settlement council). In practice deputies in a soviet often worked in standing committees and carried out functions with the help of unpaid volunteers (the aktiv - Russian : актив ). Although English speakers perceive

8320-443: The bourgeoisie organised and demanded representation in the Soviets, they would have been given it. For example, during the regime of the Provisional Government there was bourgeois representation in the Petrograd Soviet – a delegate of the Union of Professional Men which comprised doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc." Similarly, Leon Trotsky wrote in Terrorism and Communism (1920) that "In Petrograd, in November 1917, we also elected

8448-429: The country was limited. The state restricted rights of citizens to private property . According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , human rights are the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." including the right to life and liberty , freedom of expression , and equality before the law ; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture ,

8576-442: The creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the government budget . The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium (successor of the Central Executive Committee ) to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court , the Procurator General and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as

8704-465: The day-to-day running of the government. In the 1940s, it was estimated that at any given time there were over a million people participating in the running of the Soviets. Each Soviet has a variety of committees, parallel to the government departments in the USSR as a whole- public employees aided, advised and ran their relevant committees- for example, teachers would be on education sections, and doctors on healthcare sections: One major factor making

8832-409: The degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They were not controlled by

8960-556: The delegate; and it was equally easy for him to report back to his electors. Local constituents within the factory and village soviet would compile a list of what they want the government to do, and the role of the elected delegates was to carry out the given tasks. Unsatisfactory delegates are liable to recall by majority decision of the electorate: in the 30s, fifteen delegates were so recalled within four years in Moscow alone. There were very few full time administrative workers or state functionaries; instead, many citizens would take part in

9088-432: The duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in

9216-723: The founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan PSPs . In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR

9344-410: The general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism , demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above. The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over the system of appointments . All senior government officials and most deputies of

9472-525: The globe. The post-Stalin leadership, particularly under Nikita Khrushchev , initiated a de-Stalinization process, leading to a period of liberalization and relative openness known as the Khrushchev Thaw . However, the subsequent era under Leonid Brezhnev , referred to as the Era of Stagnation , was marked by economic decline, political corruption, and a rigid gerontocracy . Despite efforts to maintain

9600-497: The government. Extensive extrajudicial powers were given to the Soviet secret police agencies . In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed the rule of law , civil liberties , protection of law and guarantees of property , which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky . The USSR and other countries in the Soviet Bloc had abstained from affirming

9728-518: The highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989, the first in Soviet history. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since

9856-621: The ideology of the Soviet Union. "Soviet" is derived from a Russian word meaning council, assembly, advice, harmony, or concord, and all ultimately deriving from the Proto-Slavic verbal stem of *vět-iti "to inform", related to the Slavic "věst" ("news"), English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or" (which came to English through French), or the Dutch "weten" ('to know'; cf. "wetenschap" 'science'). The word "sovietnik" means "councillor", from

9984-472: The implementation of socialist policies and the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for market-oriented reforms. The rise of Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s ushered in an era of intense centralization and totalitarianism. Stalin's rule was characterized by the forced collectivization of agriculture , rapid industrialization , and the Great Purge , which eliminated perceived enemies of

10112-413: The industrial centers of Russia , usually organizing meetings at the factory level. These soviets disappeared after the revolution of 1905, but re-emerged under socialist leadership during the revolutions of 1917 . Soviets emerged as inclusive bodies to lead workers, and to organize strikes and to politically and militarily fight the government of Russian empire mainly through direct action , with

10240-546: The instruments through which the Party governed the country. Thus the organs of the Communist Party (the highest being the Central Committee ) made decisions on state policy, while the soviets acted as a system for public approval of implementing the Party's programme. Later, in the USSR, republics were also called soviets and local-government bodies were named soviet ( sovyet : council) with an adjective indicating

10368-513: The local version of it. In the Soviet Union , raions were administrative divisions created in the 1920s to reduce the number of territorial divisions inherited from the Russian Empire and to simplify their bureaucracies. The process of conversion to the system of raions was called raionirovanie ("regionalization"). It was started in 1923 in the Urals , North Caucasus , and Siberia as

10496-541: The most common Russian initialization is Союз ССР (transliteration: Soyuz SSR ) which essentially translates to Union of SSRs in English. In addition, the Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovyetsky Soyuz , 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

10624-624: The national policy. More than half of the Union Republic's income went towards local grants, and local Soviets were largely allowed to determine how their budget was spent. Based on the Bolshevik view of the state, the word soviet extended its meaning to any overarching body that obtained the authority of a group of soviets. In this sense, individual soviets became part of a federal structure - Communist government bodies at local level and republic level were called "soviets", and at

10752-417: The newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR , and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt . The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power 'in the period of transition'. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR. The judiciary

10880-400: The nominal head of state . The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations . However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party, nor

11008-608: The official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force fourth, and Navy fifth). The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis , under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov , it expanded significantly. It became known for battlecruisers and submarines. In 1989, there served 500 000 men. The Soviet Air Force focused on

11136-477: The old police services and members of the Romanov dynasty ; lunatics and criminals." With village and factory soviets as a base, there arose a vast pyramid of district, cantonal, county and regional soviets, each with its executive soviet. Over and above these stood the " All-Russian Soviet Congress ", which appointed an " All-Russian Central Executive Committee " of not more than 200 members, which in turn chooses

11264-477: The only legal party and the final policymaker in the country. At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee , elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966), Secretariat and the general secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union. Depending on

11392-651: The oppressed; the fight, the unscrupulous, self-seeking and sordid fight, the bourgeoisie waged against the soviets; and, lastly, the overt participation of the bourgeoisie (from the Cadets to the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, from Pavel Milyukov to Alexander Kerensky ) in the Kornilov mutiny  – all this paved the way for the formal exclusion of the bourgeoisie from the Soviets." The Bolsheviks and their allies came out with

11520-462: The organized form of the dictatorship of the proletariat". A code of rules governing elections to the soviets was framed in March 1918, but the following classes were disqualified to vote: "Those who employ others for profit; those who live on incomes not derived from their own work – interest on capital, industrial enterprises or landed property; private business men, agents, middlemen; monks and priests of all denominations; ex-employees of

11648-694: 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 . СССР (in the Latin alphabet: SSSR ) is the abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters . The Soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this,

11776-570: The partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II . Up until his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during the interwar period . Despite the increasing build-up of Germany 's war machine and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path. However, after Operation Barbarossa ,

11904-485: The party's highest body the Politburo . Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs . It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in

12032-460: The primary actors being socialist revolutionaries and anarchists , as Lenin 's party was a minority. During this time they established minor worker cooperatives , though the operations were minor due to Russian crackdown on leftist organizations. The popular organizations which came into existence during the February Revolution were called "Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies". These bodies were supposed to hold things together under

12160-466: The provisional government until the election of a constituent assembly could take place; in a sense, they were vigilance committees designed to guard against counter-revolution . The Petrograd Soviet of 4,000 members was the most important of these, on account of its position in the capital and its influence over the garrison. At the beginning of the Revolution, these soviets were under control of

12288-421: The soviets, the bourgeoisie cut themselves off from the soviets of their own accord, boycotted them, put themselves up in opposition to them and intrigued against them. The soviets arose without any constitution and existed without one for more than a year (from the spring of 1917 to the summer of 1918). The fury of the bourgeoisie against this independent and omnipotent (because it was all-embracing) organisation of

12416-637: The soviets. This ended later that year with the October Revolution , during which the Second Congress of Soviets proclaimed itself as the supreme governing body of the country. Because soviets gave the name to the later Soviet Union , they are frequently associated with the state's establishment. However, the term may also refer to any workers' council that is socialist, such as the Irish soviets . Soviets do not inherently need to adhere to

12544-492: The soviets." The Bolsheviks promised the workers a government run by workers' councils to overthrow the bourgeoisie's main government body - the Provisional Government . In October 1917, the provisional government was overthrown, giving all power to the Soviets. John Reed , an American eyewitness to the October Revolution , wrote, "Until February 1918 anybody could vote for delegates to the Soviets. Even had

12672-636: The standing committees a more likely arena for deputy participation in the work of the soviet is their smaller size [...] in 1985 nearly 2 million deputies were members of one or another standing committee - about 80 percent of all deputies. In addition, deputies are assisted in their work by unpaid volunteers ( aktiv ) with a particular interest or expertise in the issues before the committee. The Union Republics , Provinces and Town Soviets had jurisdiction to run their own industry, take censuses, employ more doctors, teachers, and nurses, build schools, libraries and hospitals so long as it did not directly conflict with

12800-714: The state. The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II , but at a tremendous human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict. The Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, leading the Eastern Bloc in opposition to the Western Bloc during the Cold War . This period saw the USSR engage in an arms race, the Space Race , and proxy wars around

12928-667: The strike committees and councils of 1980–1981 . In the wake of World War I, the Social Democrats took power in Bavaria , setting up the People's State of Bavaria under the leadership of Kurt Eisner , a popular Jewish writer. Eisner, an eccentric and well known figure in Munich , succeeded in carrying out a bloodless coup with a few hundred men on 7 November 1918, occupying the seat of parliament and government, and proclaiming

13056-469: The struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare , propaganda campaigns, espionage , far-reaching embargoes , rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race . Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs), all four being

13184-539: The term as connoting the defunct Soviet Union , the same word is used in Russian for the Federation Council of the post-communist Russian Federal Assembly . Its untranslated name is Сове́т Федера́ции (Sovyet Federatsii). Workers' councils, known as rady delegatów robotniczych (councils of workers' delegates) or simply rady robotnicze (workers' councils), were formed in Poland at various times throughout

13312-669: The term is used in Uyghur in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In Romania they have been later replaced. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, raions as administrative units continue to be used in Azerbaijan , Belarus , Moldova , Russia , and Ukraine . They are also used in breakaway regions: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria. In Georgia they exist as districts in Tbilisi. Abkhazia

13440-545: The top of the hierarchy, the Congress of Soviets became the nominal core of the Union government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), officially formed in December 1922. Successive Soviet Constitutions recognised the leading role of the Communist Party in politics, - the 1936 Constitution deemed it the "leading nucleus of all organisations of workers, whether public or state". The soviets were structured as

13568-492: The truth". Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labour unions , private corporations , independent churches or opposition political parties . The freedom of movement within and especially outside

13696-527: The west further raised concerns. In the past, there were accidents involving submarines K-19 , K-8 , a K-129 , K-27 , K-219 and K-278 Komsomolets . There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the government represented by the Council of Ministers , and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),

13824-573: 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

13952-465: 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. Neighbouring countries were aware of the high levels of pollution in the Soviet Union but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was discovered that its environmental problems were greater than what

14080-572: Was a coastline . The country bordered Afghanistan , the People's Republic of China , Czechoslovakia , Finland , Hungary , Iran , Mongolia , North Korea , Norway , Poland , Romania , and Turkey from 1945 to 1991. The Bering Strait separated the USSR from the United States . The country's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak ) in Tajikistan , at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The USSR also included most of

14208-422: 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

14336-539: Was also the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was 'window dressing' for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were usually called 'Russians', not 'Soviets', since 'everyone knew who really ran the show'. Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of

14464-572: Was backed by the Soviet Russian People's Commissariat of Nationalities . Nevertheless, eventually all of the territory of the Soviet Union was regionalized. Soviet raions had self-governance in the form of an elected district council ( raysovet ) and were headed by the local head of administration, who was either elected or appointed. Following the model of the Soviet Union, raions were introduced in Bulgaria and Romania. In China

14592-483: Was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov , the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The constitution , which

14720-540: Was carried out within the terms of the Soviet Civil Code. Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt. Martin Latsis , chief of Soviet Ukraine 's secret police explained: "Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what

14848-475: Was colloquially, but incorrectly, referred to as Russia . The history of the Soviet Union began with the ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following the Russian Civil War , the Soviet Union quickly became a one-party state under the Communist Party . Its early years under Lenin were marked by

14976-404: Was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia , Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from the Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status. In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of Ukraine and Soviet-occupied Bessarabia , and Ukrainian SSR. Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania were also annexed by

15104-424: Was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers , but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars . The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment,

15232-450: Was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts ( People's Court ) and applied the law as established by the constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law , where the judge, procurator , and defence attorney collaborate to "establish

15360-617: Was openly calling for the overthrow of the Soviet Government, boycotted the elections, it was only because at that time they still hoped soon to make an end of us with the help of armed force... If the Petrograd bourgeoisie had not boycotted the municipal elections, its representatives would have entered the Petrograd Council. They would have remained there up to the first Social Revolutionary and Cadet rising, after which ... they would probably have been arrested if they did not leave

15488-468: Was personally known to the electors, and his qualifications could be argued about immediately in front of his face. Delegates once elected were liable to 'recall' should they cease to represent the views of their electorate. Since this electorate was a real entity, always in existence and discussing politics from day to day, it had a live and changing public opinion. Thus the will of his 'constituency' could easily, unmistakably and effectively be brought home to

15616-433: Was promulgated in 1924 , 1936 and 1977 , did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in

15744-540: Was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924. All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of

15872-543: Was that "the Constitution was written not for you, but for American Negroes, so that they know how happy the lives of Soviet citizens are". Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, instead, it was determined as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example, a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. The liquidation and deportation of millions of peasants in 1928–31

16000-540: 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),

16128-587: Was the Russian responsibility to assist them. The Comintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic —lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help. By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became

16256-404: Was the first major accident at a civilian nuclear power plant . Unparalleled in the world, it resulted in a large number of radioactive isotopes being released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses were scattered relatively far. Although long-term effects of the accident were unknown, 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer which resulted from the accident's contamination were reported at the time of

16384-431: Was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned . The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets ) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including

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