Soviet Union (The German Century)

The Soviet Union (Russian: Сове́тский Сою́з,  tr.  Sovetskiy Soyuz]), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик (СССР), Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (SSSR)), also known unofficially as Russia (Russian: Росси́я,  tr.  Rossiya), was a socialistsuperstate in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1984. It was nominally a supranational union of national republics, but its governance and economy were highly centralized in a state that was unitary in most respects. Although each republic had its own communist party, the Union was a one-party state, federal in nature and governed by the all-Union party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Russian republic (which was itself federative) was not privileged by law, but the Russian nation was in some respects culturally dominant. The Union's capital was Moscow.