Misplaced Pages

Security Council of Russia

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

The Security Council of the Russian Federation ( SCRF or Sovbez ; Russian : Совет безопасности Российской Федерации (СБРФ) , romanized :  Sovet bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii (SBRF) ) is a constitutional consultative body of the Russian president that supports the president's decision-making on national security affairs and matters of strategic interest. Composed of Russia's top state officials and heads of defence and security agencies and chaired by the president of Russia, the SCRF acts as a forum for coordinating and integrating national security policy.

#122877

143-783: The Security Council of the RSFSR was legally set up by Congress of People's Deputies of Russia in April 1991 along with the office of the President of the RSFSR (the RSFSR at that time operated as one of the constituent republics of the USSR ). The 1993 Constitution of Russia refers to the SCRF in Article 83, which stipulates (as one of the president's prerogatives) that the SCRF is formed and headed by

286-532: A 1963 plot to remove him from power, possibly playing a leading role. Also in 1963, Brezhnev succeeded Frol Kozlov , another Khrushchev protégé, as Secretary of the Central Committee , positioning him as Khrushchev's likely successor. Khrushchev made him Second Secretary , or deputy party leader, in 1964. After returning from Scandinavia and Czechoslovakia in October 1964, Khrushchev, unaware of

429-928: A campaign to liberalise the Soviet Union. Notwithstanding the backlash to his regime's policies in the mid-1980s, Brezhnev's rule has received consistently high approval ratings in public polls conducted in post-Soviet Russia. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoye (now Kamianske, Ukraine ) within the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire , to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874–1934) and his wife, Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886–1975). His parents lived in Brezhnevo ( Kursky District, Kursk Oblast , Russia) before moving to Kamenskoye. Brezhnev's ethnicity

572-464: A decline in productivity and labor discipline. While Brezhnev, albeit "sporadically", through Alexei Kosygin , attempted to reform the economy in the late 1960s and 1970s, he failed to produce any positive results. One of these reforms was the economic reform of 1965 , initiated by Kosygin, though its origins are often traced back to the Khrushchev Era. The reform was ultimately cancelled by

715-701: A deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the Soviet Union's highest legislative body. In July that year he was sent to the Moldavian SSR and appointed Party First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova , where he was responsible for completing the introduction of collective agriculture. Konstantin Chernenko , a loyal addition to the "mafia", was working in Moldova as head of

858-518: A hectare. These measures removed important obstacles for the expansion of agricultural output but did not solve the problem. Under Brezhnev, private plots yielded 30% of the national agricultural production when they cultivated only 4% of the land . This was seen by some as proof that de-collectivization was necessary to prevent Soviet agriculture from collapsing, but leading Soviet politicians shrank from supporting such drastic measures due to ideological and political interests. The underlying problems were

1001-542: A major general during World War II. Following the war's end, Brezhnev was promoted to the party's Central Committee in 1952 and became a full member of the Politburo by 1957. In 1964, he consolidated enough power to replace Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the CPSU , the most powerful position in the country. During his tenure, Brezhnev's governance improved the Soviet Union's international standing while stabilizing

1144-890: A minor one, in public support. The standard of living in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) had fallen behind that of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (GSSR) and the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) under Brezhnev; this led many Russians to believe that the policies of the Soviet Government were hurting the Russian population . The state usually moved workers from one job to another, which ultimately became an ineradicable feature in

1287-744: A new Constitution of Russia was adopted. On 29 May 1990, at his third attempt, Boris Yeltsin was elected the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR . The Congress of People's Deputies of the Republic adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian SFSR on 12 June 1990, which was the beginning of the " War of Laws ", pitting the Soviet Union against the Russian Federation and other constituent republics. On 17 March 1991, an all-Russian referendum created

1430-696: A new state office of Deputy Chairman of the Security Council. On the same day, president Putin appointed Dmitry Medvedev as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council. As of 30 September 2024: RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic ( Russian SFSR or RSFSR ), previously known as the Russian Soviet Republic and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , and unofficially as Soviet Russia ,

1573-505: A rapid shift of investment to satisfy Soviet consumers and lead to an even higher standard of living. This did not happen. During 1928–1973, the Soviet Union was growing economically at a faster pace than the United States and Western Europe. However, objective comparisons are difficult. The USSR was hampered by the effects of World War II, which had left most of the western USSR in ruins; however, Western aid and Soviet espionage in

SECTION 10

#1732772036123

1716-425: A shortage of skilled workers, a ruined rural culture, and inappropriate farm machinery for small collective farms. A significant reform was necessary, but it was not supported due to ideological and political considerations. Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced the conventional methods for organizing the collective farms . Output quotas continued to be imposed centrally. Khrushchev's policy of amalgamating farms

1859-503: A tank factory. During Stalin's Great Purge , Brezhnev was one of many apparatchiks who exploited the resulting openings in the government and the party to advance rapidly in the regime's ranks. In 1936, he became director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum (a technical college) and was transferred to the regional center of Dnipropetrovsk . In May 1937, he became deputy chairman of

2002-521: The Azerbaijan SSR ( Azerbaijan ), Georgian SSR ( Georgia ) and Kazakh SSR ( Kazakhstan ) to the south. Roughly 70% of the area in the RSFSR consisted of broad plains , with mountainous tundra regions mainly concentrated in the east of Siberia with Central Asia and East Asia. The area is rich in mineral resources, including petroleum, natural gas, and iron ore. The Soviet government first came to power on 7 November 1917, immediately after

2145-532: The Belovezh Accords . The document, consisting of a preamble and fourteen articles, stated that the Soviet Union no longer existed "as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality". However, based on the historical community of peoples and relations between the three states, as well as bilateral treaties, the desire for a democratic rule of law, the intention to develop their relations based on mutual recognition and respect for state sovereignty,

2288-605: The Central Committee , though the Committee admitted that economic problems did exist. After becoming leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev would characterize the economy under Brezhnev's rule as "the lowest stage of socialism". Based on its surveillance, the CIA reported that the Soviet economy peaked in the 1970s upon reaching 57% of American GNP. However, beginning around 1975, economic growth began to decline at least in part due to

2431-673: The Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in the territory of Russia. On 6 November, he went further, banning the Communist Parties of the USSR and the RSFSR in the RSFSR. On 8 December 1991, at Viskuli near Brest (Belarus) , Yeltsin, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich signed the "Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States", known in media as

2574-660: The Constitution of the Russian SFSR . By 1918, during the Russian Civil War , several states within the former Russian Empire had seceded, reducing the size of the country even more, although some were conquered by the Bolsheviks. The Russian famine of 1921–22 , also known as Povolzhye famine, killed an estimated 5 million, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River regions. The economic impact of

2717-627: The Era of Stagnation . In addition to pervasive corruption and falling economic growth, this period was characterized by an increasing technological gap between the Soviet Union and the United States. After 1975, Brezhnev's health rapidly deteriorated and he increasingly withdrew from international affairs despite maintaining his hold on power. He died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded as general secretary by Yuri Andropov . Upon coming to power in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev denounced Brezhnev's government for its inefficiency and inflexibility before launching

2860-723: The First Congress of the Soviets of the USSR approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR , by which Russia was united with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and Transcaucasian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic into a single federal state, the Soviet Union. The treaty was included in the 1924 Soviet Constitution , adopted on 31 January 1924 by

3003-774: The Kazakh SSR (now Kazakhstan ) and Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic ( Kyrgyzstan ). The former Karakalpak Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic was transferred to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic ( Uzbekistan ). The final name for the republic during the Soviet era was adopted by the Russian Constitution of 1937, which renamed it the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Just four months after Operation Barbarossa ,

SECTION 20

#1732772036123

3146-614: The Kazakh SSR , and was promoted to General Secretary in May, following Khrushchev's victory over Malenkov. On the surface his brief was simple: to make the new lands agriculturally productive. In reality, Brezhnev became involved in the development of the Soviet missile and nuclear arms programs, including the Baykonur Cosmodrome . The initially successful Virgin Lands Campaign soon became unproductive and failed to solve

3289-591: The Kuril Islands off the coast of East Asia, north of Japan , making them part of the RSFSR. The status of the southernmost Kurils, north of Hokkaido of the Japanese home islands remains in dispute with Japan and the United States following the peace treaty of 1951 ending the state of war. On 17 April 1946, the Kaliningrad Oblast – the north-eastern portion of the former Kingdom of Prussia ,

3432-504: The Prague Spring (whose sharp departure from the Soviet model led to its armed suppression in 1968), the reforms provoked a backlash among the party's old guard who proceeded to flock to Brezhnev and strengthened his position within the Soviet leadership. In 1969, Brezhnev further expanded his authority following a clash with Second Secretary Mikhail Suslov and other party officials who thereafter never challenged his supremacy within

3575-698: The Russian flag , the Soviet Union was self-dissolved by the Soviet of the Republics on 26 December, which by that time was the only functioning parliamentary chamber of the All-Union Supreme Soviet (the other house, Soviet of the Union , had already lost the quorum after recall of its members by the several union republics). After the dissolution, Russia took full responsibility for all

3718-668: The Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR . One of the early ambitious economic plans of the Soviet government was GOELRO , Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" ( Го сударственная комиссия по эл ектрификации Ро ссии), which sought to achieve total electrification of the entire country. Soviet propaganda declared the plan was basically fulfilled by 1931. The national power output per year stood at 1.9 billion kWh in Imperial Russia in 1913, and Lenin's goal of 8.8 billion kWh

3861-864: The Southern Front , with the rank of Brigade-Commissar (Colonel). When the Germans occupied Ukraine in 1942, Brezhnev was sent to the Caucasus as deputy head of political administration of the Transcaucasian Front . In April 1943 he became head of the Political Department of the 18th Army. Later that year, the 18th Army became part of the 1st Ukrainian Front , as the Red Army regained the initiative and advanced westward through Ukraine. The Front's senior political commissar

4004-551: The Soviet state on 7 November [ O.S. 25 October] 1917. This happened immediately after the October Revolution toppled the interim Russian Provisional Government (most recently led by opposing democratic socialist Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970)) which had governed the new Russian Republic after the abdication of the Russian Empire government of the Romanov imperial dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II

4147-635: The Soviet form of government ), established citizenship of Russia and stated that the RSFSR shall retain the right of free secession from the Soviet Union. On 12 June 1991, Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007), supported by the Democratic Russia pro-reform movement, was elected the first and only President of the RSFSR, a post that would later become the Presidency of the Russian Federation . The August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt in Moscow with

4290-762: The Ukrainian SSR . On 8 February 1955, Malenkov was officially demoted to deputy Prime Minister. As First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev's authority was significantly enhanced by Malenkov's demotion. The Karelo-Finnish SSR was transferred back to the RSFSR as the Karelian ASSR in 1956. On 9 January 1957, Karachay Autonomous Oblast and Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were restored by Khrushchev and they were transferred from

4433-601: The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 in response to Alexander Dubček 's reforms. Under Brezhnev, the Politburo abandoned Khrushchev's decentralization experiments. By 1966, two years after taking power, Brezhnev abolished the Regional Economic Councils , which were organized to manage the regional economies of the Soviet Union. The Ninth Five-Year Plan delivered a change: for

Security Council of Russia - Misplaced Pages Continue

4576-578: The Wehrmacht was quickly advancing through the Russian SFSR, and was approximately 10 miles (16 km) away from Moscow. However, after the defeat in the Battle of Moscow and the Soviet winter offensive , the Germans were pushed back. In 1942, the Wehrmacht entered Stalingrad . Despite a deadly five-month battle in which the Soviets suffered over 1,100,000 casualties, they achieved victory following

4719-575: The Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire . After the results of the October Revolution were finalized with the creation of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev joined the Communist party's youth league in 1923 before becoming an official party member in 1929. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 , he joined the Red Army as a commissar and rose rapidly through the ranks to become

4862-663: The agitprop department, and one of the officials Brezhnev brought with him from Dnipropetrovsk was the future USSR Minister of the Interior, Nikolai Shchelokov . In 1952, Brezhnev met with Stalin who subsequently promoted him to the Communist Party's Central Committee as a candidate member of the Presidium (formerly the Politburo ) and made him a member of the Secretariat . Following Stalin's death in March 1953, Brezhnev

5005-496: The liberalizing reforms of Khrushchev, and clamping down on cultural freedom. During the Khrushchev years, Brezhnev had supported the leader's denunciations of Stalin's arbitrary rule, the rehabilitation of many of the victims of Stalin's purges, and the cautious liberalization of Soviet intellectual and cultural policy. However, as soon as he became leader of the Soviet Union, he began to reverse this process, and developed an increasingly authoritarian and conservative attitude. By

5148-400: The then existing Constitution of 1978 , and were retained as such in the subsequent 1993 Constitution of Russia . At a total of about 17,125,200 km (6,612,100 sq mi), the Russian SFSR was the largest of the fifteen Soviet republics, with its southerly neighbor, the Kazakh SSR , being second. The international borders of the RSFSR touched Poland on the west; Norway and Finland on

5291-432: The " Dnipropetrovsk Mafia " that would greatly aid his rise to power. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Brezhnev was, like most middle-ranking Party officials, immediately drafted. He worked to evacuate Dnipropetrovsk's industries before the city fell to the Germans on 26 August, and then was assigned as a political commissar . In October, Brezhnev was made deputy of political administration for

5434-423: The 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union) and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a loose replacement confederation. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet (the parliament of the Russian SFSR); therefore the Russian SFSR had renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union and de facto declared Russia's independence from the Soviet Union itself and

5577-405: The 1970s from the level held in the 1950s and 1960s, they likewise began to lag behind that of Western Europe and the United States. Eventually, the stagnation reached a point that the United States began growing an average of 1% per year above the growth rate of the Soviet Union. The stagnation of the Soviet economy was fueled even further by the Soviet Union's ever-widening technological gap with

5720-456: The Brezhnev era, the majority of civilian services deteriorated and living conditions for Soviet citizens fell rapidly. Diseases were on the rise because of the decaying healthcare system. The living space remained rather small by First World standards, with the average Soviet person living on 13.4 square metres. Thousands of Moscow inhabitants became homeless, most of them living in shacks, doorways and parked trams. Nutrition ceased to improve in

5863-444: The Central Committee wanted him to undergo punishment of some kind, but Brezhnev, who had already been assured the office of the General Secretary, saw little reason to punish Khrushchev further. Brezhnev was appointed First Secretary on the same day, but at the time was believed to be a transitional leader, who would only "keep the shop" until another leader was appointed. Alexei Kosygin was appointed head of government , and Mikoyan

Security Council of Russia - Misplaced Pages Continue

6006-422: The Civil War was devastating. A black market emerged in Russia, despite the threat of martial law against profiteering. The ruble collapsed, with barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money. 70% of locomotives were in need of repair , and food requisitioning, combined with

6149-415: The Congress of People's Deputies of Russia approved the renaming of the RSFSR into the Russian Federation, by making appropriate amendments to the Constitution, which entered into force since publication on 16 May 1992. The Government was known officially as the Council of People's Commissars (1917–1946) and Council of Ministers (1946–1991). The first government was headed by Vladimir Lenin as Chairman of

6292-518: The Congress. At the same time, a number of prominent members of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had assumed positions in Lenin's government and lead commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture ( Kolegaev ), property ( Karelin ), justice ( Steinberg ), post offices and telegraphs ( Proshian ) and local government (Trutovsky). Lenin's government also instituted a number of progressive measures such as universal education , healthcare and equal rights for women . On 25 January 1918, at

6435-407: The Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR and the last by Boris Yeltsin as both head of government and head of state under the title of president. The Russian SFSR was controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until the 1991 August coup , which prompted President Yeltsin to suspend the recently created Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic . In

6578-434: The Georgian SSR back to the Russian SFSR . In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from his position of power and replaced with Leonid Brezhnev . Under his rule, the Russian SFSR and the rest of the Soviet Union went through a mass era of stagnation . Even after Brezhnev's death in 1982, the era did not end until Mikhail Gorbachev took power in March 1985 and introduced liberal reforms in Soviet society. On 12 April 1978,

6721-403: The IBM/360. However, following the adoption of the IBM/360 system, the Soviet Union was never able to build enough platforms, let alone improve on its design. As its technology continued to fall behind the West, the Soviet Union increasingly resorted to pirating Western designs. The last significant reform undertaken by the Kosygin government , and some believe in the pre- perestroika era,

6864-403: The Kamenskoye Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industries of eastern Ukraine. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth division, the Komsomol , in 1923, and the Party itself in 1929. From 1935 to 1936 he completed the compulsory term of military service. After taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in

7007-406: The Kamenskoye city soviet. In May 1938, after Nikita Khrushchev had taken control of the Ukrainian communist party, he was appointed head of the propaganda department of the Dnipropetrovsk regional communist party, and later, in 1939, a regional Party Secretary, in charge of the city's defense industries. Here, he took the first steps toward building a network of supporters which came to be known as

7150-407: The Politburo became aggressively anti-reformist , Kosygin was able to convince both Brezhnev and the politburo to leave the reformist communist leader János Kádár of the Hungarian People's Republic alone because of an economic reform entitled New Economic Mechanism (NEM), which granted limited permission for the establishment of retail markets. In the Polish People's Republic , another approach

7293-451: The Politburo issued a resolution titled, "On the Further Development of Specialisation and Concentration of Agricultural Production on the Basis of Inter-Farm Co-operation and Agro-Industrial Integration". The resolution ordered kolkhozes close to each other to collaborate in their efforts to increase production. In the meantime, the state's subsidies to the food-and-agriculture sector did not prevent bankrupt farms from operating and rises in

SECTION 50

#1732772036123

7436-435: The Politburo. Brezhnev was adept at politics within the Soviet power structure. He was a team player and never acted rashly or hastily. Unlike Khrushchev, he did not make decisions without substantial consultation from his colleagues, and was always willing to hear their opinions. During the early 1970s, Brezhnev consolidated his domestic position. In 1977, he forced the retirement of Podgorny and became once again Chairman of

7579-488: The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , making this position equivalent to that of an executive president. While Kosygin remained Premier until shortly before his death in 1980 (replaced by Nikolai Tikhonov as Premier), Brezhnev was the dominant figure in the Soviet Union from the mid-1970s until his death in 1982. Brezhnev has defined the iconic "Developed Socialism" as the Soviet-style socialism , which he believed had successfully constructed socialism in

7722-434: The RSFSR became an integral part of the economy of the USSR. The economic program of the RSFSR (NEP) was continued in all union republics. The Gosplan (State General Planning Commission) of the RSFSR, which replaced GOELRO, was reorganized into the Gosplan of the USSR. His early task was to develop a unified national economic plan based on the electrification plan and to oversee the overall implementation of this plan. Unlike

7865-408: The SCRF. It has been argued that the coordinating role defined for the Security Council in the National Security Strategy to 2020, published in May 2009, represents a strengthening of the council's influence and importance within Russian governance under its new Secretary Nikolai Patrushev . On 16 January 2020, president Vladimir Putin signed a decree that amended the relevant laws and established

8008-425: The Soviet Army with the rank of major general in August 1946. In May 1946, he was appointed the first secretary of the Zaporizhzhia regional party committee, where his deputy was Andrei Kirilenko , one of the most important members of the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia . After working on reconstruction projects in Ukraine, he returned to Dnipropetrovsk in January 1948 as regional first party secretary. In 1950 Brezhnev became

8151-411: The Soviet Union and reached Vladimir Lenin 's transition stage from socialism to communism. Brezhnev emphasized the advanced technological developments in the USSR with full electrification of the country, the use of nuclear power in production, computer planning, as well as a highly mechanized agriculture. He believed that all social strata within the USSR were closer to each other than ever before due to

8294-400: The Soviet Union fell further and further behind in computer technology, which proved decisive for the Western economies. By 1973 the Era of Stagnation was apparent. The Era of Stagnation , a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev , was attributed to a compilation of factors, including the ongoing "arms race" ; the Soviet Union's decision to participate in international trade (thus abandoning

8437-421: The Soviet Union. However, he was initially forced to govern as part of an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika ) alongside the country's Premier , Alexei Kosygin , and Nikolai Podgorny , a Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and later Chairman of the Presidium . Due to Khrushchev's disregard for the rest of the Politburo upon combining his leadership of the party with that of

8580-402: The Soviet collective leadership to remove him from the Party-State Control Committee before having the body dissolved altogether on 6 December 1965. By the end of 1965, Brezhnev had Podgorny removed from the Secretariat, thereby significantly curtailing the latter's ability to build support within the party apparatus. In the ensuing years, Podgorny's network of supporters was steadily eroded as

8723-420: The Soviet economy was expanding at a faster rate than that of the American economy (albeit by a very small margin). The USSR also kept a steady pace with the economies of Western Europe. Between 1964 and 1973, the Soviet economy stood at roughly half the output per head of Western Europe and a little more than one third that of the U.S. In 1973, the process of catching up with the rest of the West came to an end as

SECTION 60

#1732772036123

8866-425: The Soviet government, a plenum of the Central Committee in October 1964 forbade any single individual from holding both the offices of General Secretary and Premier . This arrangement would persist until the late 1970s when Brezhnev firmly secured his position as the most powerful figure in the Soviet Union. During his consolidation of power, Brezhnev first had to contend with the ambitions of Alexander Shelepin ,

9009-463: The Soviet industry. Government industries such as factories, mines and offices were staffed by undisciplined personnel who put a great effort into not doing their jobs; this ultimately led, according to Robert Service, to a "work-shy workforce". The Soviet Government had no effective counter-measure; it was extremely difficult, if not impossible to replace ineffective workers because of the country's lack of unemployment. While some areas improved during

9152-428: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Many regions in Russia were affected by the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 : Volga , Central Black Soil Region , North Caucasus , the Urals , the Crimea , part of Western Siberia , and the Kazakh ASSR . With the adoption of the 1936 Soviet Constitution on 5 December 1936, the size of the RSFSR was significantly reduced. The Kazakh ASSR and Kirghiz ASSR were transformed into

9295-404: The United States, he went elsewhere, such as to Argentina . Trade was necessary because the Soviet Union's domestic production of fodder crops was severely deficient. Another sector that was hitting the wall was the sugar beet harvest, which had declined by 2% in the 1970s. Brezhnev's way of resolving these issues was to increase state investment. Politburo member Gennady Voronov advocated for

9438-449: The West. Due to the cumbersome procedures of the centralized planning system, Soviet industries were incapable of the innovation needed to meet public demand. This was especially notable in the field of computers. In response to the lack of uniform standards for peripherals and digital capacity in the Soviet computer industry, Brezhnev's regime ordered an end to all independent computer development and required all future models to be based on

9581-433: The denunciation of the union treaty was meaningless since it became invalid in 1924 with the adoption of the first constitution of the USSR . Although the 12 December vote is sometimes reckoned as the moment that the RSFSR seceded from the collapsing Soviet Union, this is not the case. It appears that the RSFSR took the line that it did not need to follow the secession process delineated in the Soviet Constitution because it

9724-403: The division of each farm's workforce into what he called "links". These "links" would be entrusted with specific functions, such as to run a farm's dairy unit. His argument was that the larger the work force, the less responsible they felt. This program had been proposed to Joseph Stalin by Andrey Andreyev in the 1940s and had been opposed by Khrushchev before and after Stalin's death. Voronov

9867-404: The dominant leader of Soviet foreign policy in the Politburo. Within the same timeframe, Kosygin was also in charge of economic administration in his role as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. However, his position was weakened following his enactment of several economic reforms in 1965 that collectively came to be known within the Party as the " Kosygin reforms ". Due largely to coinciding with

10010-476: The effects of seven years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths. Coal production decreased from 27.5 million tons (1913) to 7 million tons (1920), while overall factory production also declined from 10,000 million roubles to 1,000 million roubles. According to the noted historian David Christian, the grain harvest was also slashed from 80.1 million tons (1913) to 46.5 million tons (1920). On 30 December 1922,

10153-641: The eighteen years that Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union, average income per head increased by half; three-quarters of this growth came in the 1960s and early 1970s. During the second half of Brezhnev's premiership, the average income per head grew by one-quarter. In the first half of the Brezhnev period, income per head increased by 3.5% per annum; slightly less growth than what it had been the previous years. This can be explained by Brezhnev's reversal of most of Khrushchev's policies. Consumption per head rose by an estimated 70% under Brezhnev, but with three-quarters of this growth happening before 1973 and only one-quarter in

10296-559: The electricity produced in the Soviet Union. By 1961, it was the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing in production to only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of higher education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care. The economy, which had become stagnant since

10439-482: The ending of schemes. When Khrushchev left the public spotlight, there was no popular commotion, as most Soviet citizens, including the intelligentsia , anticipated a period of stabilization , steady development of Soviet society and continuing economic growth in the years ahead. Political scientist George W. Breslauer has compared Khrushchev and Brezhnev as leaders. He argues they took different routes to build legitimate authority, depending on their personalities and

10582-542: The first time industrial consumer products out-produced industrial capital goods. Consumer goods such as watches, furniture and radios were produced in abundance. The plan still left the bulk of the state's investment in industrial capital-goods production. This outcome was not seen as a positive sign for the future of the Soviet state by the majority of top party functionaries within the government; by 1975 consumer goods were expanding 9% slower than industrial capital-goods. The policy continued despite Brezhnev's commitment to make

10725-459: The first years of the existence of the RSFSR, the doctrine of war communism became the starting point of the state's economic activity. In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP (B), the tasks of the policy of "war communism" were recognized by the country's leadership as fulfilled, and a new economic policy was introduced at Lenin's suggestion. After the formation of the Soviet Union, the economy of

10868-667: The formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Tenth All-Russian Congress of Soviets , the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, being a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, devolves to the Union the powers which according to Article 1 of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are included within the scope of responsibilities of the government bodies of

11011-561: The former chairman of the KGB and current head of the Party-State Control Committee . In early 1965, Shelepin began calling for the restoration of "obedience and order" within the Soviet Union as part of his own bid to seize power. Towards this end, he exploited his control over both state and party organs to leverage support within the regime. Recognizing Shelepin as an imminent threat to his position, Brezhnev mobilized

11154-527: The founding state of the German Empire (1871–1918) and later the German province of East Prussia including the capital and Baltic seaport city of Königsberg – was annexed by the Soviet Union and made part of the Russian SFSR. After the death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March 1953, Georgy Malenkov became the new leader of the USSR. In January 1954, Malenkov transferred Crimea from the Russian SFSR to

11297-603: The growing Soviet food crisis. Brezhnev was recalled to Moscow in 1956. The harvest in the years following the Virgin Lands Campaign was disappointing, which would have hurt his political career had he remained in Kazakhstan. In February 1956 Brezhnev returned to Moscow and was made candidate member of the Politburo assigned in control of the defence industry, the space program including the Baykonur Cosmodrome , heavy industry , and capital construction. He

11440-399: The growing shortage of skilled workers, a wrecked rural culture, the payment of workers in proportion to the quantity rather than the quality of their work, and too large farm machinery for the small collective farms and the roadless countryside. In the face of this, Brezhnev's only options were schemes such as large land reclamation and irrigation projects, or of course, radical reform. Over

11583-413: The highly developed productive force in the country. Therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat has, according to Brezhnev, moved towards a people's government. Brezhnev believed that all socialist countries would go through the same socialist development and social transformation of the Soviet model regardless of their national and material conditions. Brezhnev's stabilization policy included ending

11726-505: The idea of economic isolation) while ignoring changes occurring in Western societies; increased authoritarianism in Soviet society; the invasion of Afghanistan ; the bureaucracy's transformation into an undynamic gerontocracy ; lack of economic reform; pervasive political corruption, and other structural problems within the country. Domestically, social stagnation was stimulated by the growing demands of unskilled workers, labor shortages and

11869-631: The interim Russian Provisional Government headed by Alexander Kerensky , which governed the Russian Republic , was overthrown in the October Revolution , the second of the two Russian Revolutions . The state it governed, which did not have an official name, would be unrecognized by neighboring countries for another five months. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties . On 18 January 1918,

12012-411: The largest ethnic group . The capital of the Russian SFSR and the Soviet Union as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad (Petrograd until 1924), Stalingrad (Volgograd after 1961), Novosibirsk , Sverdlovsk , Gorky and Kuybyshev . It was the first socialist state in history. The economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of

12155-571: The late 1970s under General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev , began to be liberalized starting in 1985 under Gorbachev's " perestroika " restructuring policies, including the introduction of non-state owned enterprises (e.g. cooperatives). On 7 November 1917 ( O.S. 25 October), as a result of the October Revolution , the Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed as a sovereign state and the world's first constitutionally socialist state guided by communist ideology . The first constitution

12298-503: The late 1970s, while rationing of staple food products returned to Sverdlovsk for instance. The state provided recreation facilities and annual holidays for hard-working citizens. Soviet trade unions rewarded hard-working members and their families with beach vacations in Crimea and Georgia . Social rigidification became a common feature of Soviet society. During the Stalin era in

12441-499: The massive arms buildup and widespread military interventionism under Brezhnev's leadership substantially expanded Soviet influence abroad, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. By the mid-1970s, numerous observers argued the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States to become the world's strongest military power. Conversely, Brezhnev's disregard for political reform ushered in an era of socioeconomic decline referred to as

12584-482: The mid-1970s, there were an estimated 5,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union, living in grievous conditions and suffering from malnutrition. Many of these prisoners were considered by the Soviet state to be mentally unfit and were hospitalized in mental asylums across the Soviet Union. Under Brezhnev's rule, the KGB infiltrated most, if not all, anti-government organisations, which ensured that there

12727-411: The ministries. With Kosygin's death in 1980, and due to his successor Nikolai Tikhonov 's conservative approach to economics, very little of the reform was actually carried out. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union delivered a disappointing result: a change in growth from 5 to 4%. During the earlier Tenth Five-Year Plan , there had been target of 6.1% growth, but this was not met. Brezhnev

12870-620: The nascent state of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. Speakers of colloquial English coined the term "Bololand" to refer to the land of the Bolos (a term identified from 1919 onwards with the Bolsheviks). On 25 January 1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets proclaimed the establishment of the Russian Soviet Republic . In July 1918, the fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted both

13013-454: The new name, Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), and the Constitution of the Russian SFSR . Internationally, the Russian SFSR was recognized as an independent state in 1920 only by its bordering neighbors ( Estonia , Finland , Latvia and Lithuania ) in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic of 1919–1922 in Ireland. On 30 December 1922, with

13156-494: The newly elected Constituent Assembly issued a decree, proclaiming Russia a democratic federal republic under the name "Russian Democratic Federal Republic". However, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Assembly on the following day and declared its decrees null and void. Conversely, the Bolsheviks also reserved a number of vacant seats in the Soviets and Central Executive for the opposition parties in proportion to their vote share at

13299-804: The northwest; and to its southeast in eastern Asia were the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( North Korea ), Mongolian People's Republic ( Mongolia ) and the People's Republic of China (China, formerly the Republic of China ; 1911–1949). Within the Soviet Union, the RSFSR bordered the Slavic states: Ukrainian SSR ( Ukraine ), Belarusian SSR ( Belarus ), the Baltic states: Estonian SSR ( Estonia ), Latvian SSR ( Latvia ) and Lithuanian SSR ( Lithuania ) (Included in USSR in 1940) to its west and

13442-581: The office of First Secretary but retain him as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers , the majority, headed by Brezhnev, wanted to remove him from active politics altogether. Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him of voluntarism and immodest behavior. Influenced by Brezhnev's allies, Politburo members voted on 14 October to remove Khrushchev from office. Some members of

13585-435: The opinion of several Central Committee members. After some false starts, fellow conspirator Mikhail Suslov phoned Khrushchev on 12 October and requested that he return to Moscow to discuss the state of Soviet agriculture . Finally, Khrushchev understood what was happening, and said to Mikoyan, "If it's me who is the question, I will not make a fight of it." While a minority headed by Mikoyan wanted to remove Khrushchev from

13728-538: The parties agreed to the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States . On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR by an overwhelming majority: 188 votes for, 6 against and 7 abstentions. The legality of this ratification raised doubts among some members of the Russian parliament, since according to the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1978 consideration of this document

13871-573: The period 1941–1945 (culminating in cash, material and equipment deliveries for military and industrial purposes) had allowed the Russians to leapfrog many Western economies in the development of advanced technologies, particularly in the fields of nuclear technology, radio communications, agriculture and heavy manufacturing. By the early 1970s, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest industrial capacity, and produced more steel, oil, pig-iron , cement and tractors than any other country. Before 1973,

14014-608: The plot, went on holiday in Pitsunda resort on the Black Sea . Upon his return, his Presidium officers congratulated him for his work in office. Anastas Mikoyan visited Khrushchev, hinting that he should not be too complacent about his present situation. Vladimir Semichastny , head of the KGB , was a crucial part of the conspiracy, as it was his duty to inform Khrushchev if anyone was plotting against his leadership. Nikolay Ignatov , whom Khrushchev had sacked, discreetly requested

14157-563: The position of its ruling party at home. Whereas Khrushchev regularly enacted policies without consulting the Politburo, Brezhnev was careful to minimize dissent among the party elite by reaching decisions through consensus thereby restoring the semblance of collective leadership . Additionally, while pushing for détente between the two Cold War superpowers, he achieved nuclear parity with the United States and strengthened Moscow's dominion over Central and Eastern Europe . Furthermore,

14300-533: The post of President of the RSFSR and on 12 June, Boris Yeltsin was elected president by popular vote . During the unsuccessful 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt of 19–21 August 1991 in Moscow , the capital of the Soviet Union and Russia, Yeltsin strongly supported the President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. On 23 August, Yeltsin, in the presence of Gorbachev, signed a decree suspending all activity by

14443-488: The powers it had enjoyed under Stalin, although there was no return to the purges of the 1930s and 1940s, and Stalin's legacy remained largely discredited among the Soviet intelligentsia . Between 1960 and 1970, Soviet agriculture output increased by 3% annually. Industry also improved: during the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966–1970), the output of factories and mines increased by 138% compared to 1960. While

14586-509: The president of Russia, also saying that the status of the SCRF is to be defined by a federal law . The 2010 Law on Security defines the legal status of the SCRF as a "constitutional consultative body" concerned with elaboration of decisions by the president in the fields of Russia's defence and national security. The SCRF comprises its chairman (the president of Russia), the Secretary of the SCRF, its full members, and members, as appointed by

14729-481: The president. Under the law, the Secretary of the SCRF is appointed by the president and reports directly to him. Decisions of the SCRF are adopted by its full members and approved by the president, who may issue decrees or orders for the purpose of implementing them. The Presidential Decree of 6 May 2011 enacted the Statute of the SCRF as well as a host of other statutes pertaining to the structure and composition of

14872-413: The previous March (Old Style: February). The October Revolution was thus the second of the two Russian Revolutions of the turbulent year of 1917. Initially, the new Soviet state did not have an official name and was not recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Anti-Bolsheviks soon suggested new names, however. By 1919 they had coined the mocking label Sovdepia ( Russian : Совдепия ) for

15015-482: The previous Russian constitutions, the 1978 Constitution devoted an entire chapter (Chapter II) to the description of the economic system of the RSFSR, which defined the types of property and indicated the goals of the economic tasks of the state. Leonid Brezhnev First , then General Secretary of the CPSU 1964–1982 Brezhnev Era Foreign policy [REDACTED] Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982)

15158-403: The price of produce were offset by rises in the cost of oil and other resources. By 1977, oil cost 84% more than it did in the late 1960s. The cost of other resources had also climbed by the late 1970s. Brezhnev's answer to these problems was to issue two decrees, one in 1977 and one in 1981, which called for an increase in the maximum size of privately owned plots within the Soviet Union to half

15301-474: The protégés he cultivated in his rise to power were removed from the Central Committee. By 1977, Brezhnev was secure enough in his position to replace Podgorny as head of state and remove him from the Politburo. After sidelining Shelepin and Podgorny as threats to his leadership in 1965, Brezhnev directed his attentions to his remaining political rival, Alexei Kosygin. In the 1960s, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger initially perceived Kosygin to be

15444-525: The real power resided with Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Premier. Khrushchev's position as Party leader was secure until about 1962, but as he aged, he grew more erratic and his performance undermined the confidence of his fellow leaders. The Soviet Union's mounting economic problems also increased the pressure on Khrushchev's leadership. Brezhnev remained outwardly loyal to Khrushchev, but became involved in

15587-480: The regime's sustained prioritization of heavy industry and military spending over consumer goods . Additionally, Soviet agriculture was unable to feed the urban population, let alone provide for a rising standard of living which the government promised as the fruits of "mature socialism" and on which industrial productivity depended. Ultimately, the GNP growth rate slowed to 1% to 2% per year. As GNP growth rates decreased in

15730-541: The rights and obligations of the Soviet Union under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations. As such, Russia assumed the Soviet Union's UN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council , nuclear stockpile and the control over the armed forces; Soviet embassies abroad became Russian embassies. The 1978 constitution of the Russian SFSR was amended several times to reflect

15873-405: The rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations, and assumed control over its nuclear stockpile and the armed forces; Soviet embassies abroad became Russian embassies. On 25 December – just hours after Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union – the Russian SFSR was renamed the Russian Federation (Russia), reflecting that it

16016-512: The same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700 to 1721. The RSFSR dominated the Soviet Union to a significant extent. For most of its existence, the Soviet Union was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as "Russia". While the RSFSR itself was only one republic within the larger union, it was the largest, most powerful and most highly developed of the 15 republics. According to Matthew White it

16159-533: The second half of his rule. Most of the increase in consumer production in the early Brezhnev era can be attributed to the Kosygin reform . When the USSR's economic growth stalled in the 1970s, the standard of living and housing quality improved significantly. Instead of paying more attention to the economy, the Soviet leadership under Brezhnev tried to improve the living standard in the Soviet Union by extending social benefits . This led to an increase, though

16302-403: The state of public opinion. Khrushchev worked to decentralize the government system and empower local leadership, which had been wholly subservient; Brezhnev sought to centralize authority, going so far as to weaken the roles of the other members of the Central Committee and the Politburo. Upon replacing Khrushchev as the party's First Secretary, Brezhnev became the de jure supreme authority of

16445-630: The surrender of the last German troops near the Volga River , ultimately pushing German forces out of Russia by 1944. In 1943, Karachay Autonomous Oblast was dissolved by Joseph Stalin (1878–1953), General Secretary of the Communist Party , later Premier, when the Karachays were exiled to Central Asia for their alleged collaboration with the invading Germans in the Great Patriotic War ( World War II , 1941–1945), and territory

16588-491: The temporary brief internment of President Mikhail Gorbachev destabilised the Soviet Union. Following these events, Gorbachev lost all his remaining power, with Yeltsin superseding him as the pre-eminent figure in the country. On 8 December 1991, the heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belovezha Accords . The agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its original founding states (i.e., renunciation of

16731-499: The third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets , the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) was proclaimed. On 3 March 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, giving away much of the westernmost lands of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire , in exchange for peace on the Eastern Front of World War I. In July 1918, the fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted

16874-595: The ties with the other Soviet republics. On 25 December 1991, following the resignation of Gorbachev as President of the Soviet Union (and former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ), the Russian SFSR was renamed the Russian Federation . The next day, after the lowering of the Soviet flag from the top of the Senate building of the Moscow Kremlin and its replacement by

17017-457: The transition to democracy, private property and market economy. The new Russian constitution , coming into effect on 25 December 1993 after a constitutional crisis , completely abolished the Soviet form of government and replaced it with a semi-presidential system . Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) and Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), the Bolshevik communists established

17160-706: The treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union , Russia (the RSFSR), alongside the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR, formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . The final Soviet name for the constituent republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the later Soviet Constitution of 1936 . By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly

17303-578: Was Nikita Khrushchev , who had supported Brezhnev's career since the prewar years. Brezhnev had met Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the Party, and as he continued his rise through the ranks, he became Khrushchev's protégé. At the end of the war in Europe, Brezhnev was chief political commissar of the 4th Ukrainian Front , which entered Prague in May 1945, after the German surrender . Brezhnev left

17446-500: Was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin 's in duration. Brezhnev was born to a working-class family in Kamenskoye (now Kamianske, Ukraine ) within

17589-487: Was a joint decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers named "Improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work", more commonly known as the 1979 reform . The reform, in contrast to the 1965 reform, sought to increase the central government's economic involvement by enhancing the duties and responsibilities of

17732-489: Was a record-high state investment in farming during the 1970s, the evaluation of agricultural output continued to focus on the grain harvest. Despite some improvement, there were still problems such as insufficient domestic production of fodder crops and a declining sugar beet harvest. Brezhnev attempted to address these issues by increasing state investment and allowing privately owned plots to be larger. However, these actions were not effective in solving fundamental problems like

17875-658: Was able to defer economic collapse by trading with Western Europe and the Arab World . The Soviet Union still outproduced the United States in the heavy industry sector during the Brezhnev era. Another dramatic result of Brezhnev's rule was that certain Eastern Bloc countries became more economically advanced than the Soviet Union. Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced traditional ways of organizing collective farms and enforced output quotas centrally. Although there

18018-521: Was adopted in 1918. In 1922, the Russian SFSR signed a treaty officially creating the Soviet Union. The Russian SFSR's 1978 constitution stated that "[a] Union Republic is a sovereign [...] state that has united [...] in the Union" and "each Union Republic shall retain the right freely to secede from the USSR". On 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty , established separation of powers (unlike in

18161-566: Was also unsuccessful; Brezhnev turned him down, and in 1973 he was removed from the Politburo. Experimentation with "links" was not disallowed on a local basis, with Mikhail Gorbachev , the then First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, experimenting with links in his region. In the meantime, the Soviet government's involvement in agriculture was, according to Robert Service, otherwise "unimaginative" and "incompetent". Facing mounting problems with agriculture,

18304-563: Was an independent federal socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the Soviet Union. The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics , five autonomous oblasts , ten autonomous okrugs , six krais and forty oblasts . Russians formed

18447-406: Was an open secret that the country's federal structure was "window dressing" for Russian dominance. On 25 December 1991, during the collapse of the Soviet Union , which concluded on the next day, the RSFSR's official name was changed to the Russian Federation , which it remains to this day. This name and "Russia" were specified as the official state names on 21 April 1992, in an amendment to

18590-405: Was continued by Brezhnev, because he shared Khrushchev's belief that bigger kolkhozes would increase productivity. Brezhnev pushed for an increase in state investments in farming, which amounted to an all-time high in the 1970s of 27% of all state investment – this figure did not include investments in farm equipment. In 1981 alone, 33 billion U.S. dollars (by contemporary exchange rate)

18733-464: Was demoted to first deputy head of the political directorate of the Army and Navy. Brezhnev's patron Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as General Secretary, while Khrushchev's rival Georgy Malenkov succeeded Stalin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers . Brezhnev sided with Khrushchev against Malenkov, but only for several years. In February 1954, he was appointed second secretary of the Communist Party of

18876-565: Was given as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, and Russian in others. A statement confirming that he regarded himself as a Russian can be found in his book Memories (1979), where he wrote: "And so, according to nationality, I am Russian, I am a proletarian, a hereditary metallurgist." Like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 , he received a technical education , at first in land management and then in metallurgy . He graduated from

19019-428: Was in the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR . However, by this time the Soviet government had been rendered more or less impotent, and was in no position to object. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and recalled all Russian deputies from the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. A number of lawyers believe that

19162-704: Was incorporated into the Georgian SSR . On 3 March 1944, on the orders of Stalin, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was disbanded and its population forcibly deported upon the accusations of collaboration with the invaders and separatism . The territory of the ASSR was divided between other administrative units of Russian SFSR and the Georgian SSR. On 11 October 1944, the Tuvan People's Republic

19305-493: Was invested into agriculture. Agricultural output in 1980 was 21% higher than the average production rate between 1966 and 1970. Cereal crop output increased by 18%. These improved results were not encouraging. In the Soviet Union the criterion for assessing agricultural output was the grain harvest. The import of cereal, which began under Khrushchev, had in fact become a normal phenomenon by Soviet standards. When Brezhnev had difficulties sealing commercial trade agreements with

19448-554: Was joined with the Russian SFSR as the Tuvan Autonomous Oblast , becoming an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1961. After reconquering Estonia and Latvia in 1944, the Russian SFSR annexed their easternmost territories around Ivangorod and within the modern Pechorsky and Pytalovsky Districts in 1944–1945. At the end of World War II Soviet troops of the Red Army occupied southern Sakhalin Island and

19591-409: Was little to no opposition against him or his power base. However, Brezhnev refrained from the all-out violence seen under Stalin's rule. The trial of the writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky in 1966, the first such public trials since Stalin's reign, marked the reversion to a repressive cultural policy. Under Yuri Andropov the state security service (in the form of the KGB ) regained some of

19734-586: Was not possible to secede from a country that no longer existed. On 24 December, Yeltsin informed the Secretary-General of the United Nations that by agreement of the member states of the CIS the Russian Federation would assume the membership of the Soviet Union in all UN organs (including the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the UN Security Council ). Russia took full responsibility for all

19877-540: Was now a senior member of Khrushchev's entourage, and in June 1957 he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with Malenkov's Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called " Anti-Party Group ". Following the Stalinists' defeat, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo. In May 1960, he was promoted to the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , making him the nominal head of state, although

20020-437: Was now a sovereign state with Yeltsin assuming the Presidency . That same night, the Soviet flag was lowered and replaced with the tricolor . The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist the next day. The change was originally published on 6 January 1992 ( Rossiyskaya Gazeta ). According to law, during 1992, it was allowed to use the old name of the RSFSR for official business (forms, seals, and stamps). On 21 April 1992,

20163-420: Was reached in 1931. National power output continued to increase significantly. It reached 13.5 billion kWh by the end of the first five-year plan in 1932, 36 billion kWh by 1937, and 48 billion kWh by 1940. Paragraph 3 of Chapter 1 of the 1925 Constitution of the RSFSR stated the following: By the will of the peoples of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, who decided on

20306-552: Was retained as head of state . Brezhnev and his companions supported the general party line taken after Stalin's death but felt that Khrushchev's reforms had removed much of the Soviet Union's stability. One reason for Khrushchev's ouster was that he continually overruled other party members, and was, according to the plotters, "in contempt of the party's collective ideals". The Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote of new enduring themes such as collective leadership , scientific planning, consultation with experts, organisational regularity and

20449-416: Was taken in 1970 under the leadership of Edward Gierek ; he believed that the government needed Western loans to facilitate the rapid growth of heavy industry. The Soviet leadership gave its approval for this, as the Soviet Union could not afford to maintain its massive subsidy for the Eastern Bloc in the form of cheap oil and gas exports. The Soviet Union did not accept all kinds of reforms, an example being

#122877