Soviet Union (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik), abbreviated to USSR (Russian: СССР SSSR), commonly called as the Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз Sovetsky Soyuz) and rarely as Soviet Russia (Russian: Советский России Sovetsky Rossiya), is a constitutionally socialist state in Eurasia that ruled under one-party government of the Soviet Communist Party and consists of 15 Soviet republics with Moscow as its capital.

The Soviet Union is the largest country in the world and shares land borders with Scandinavia, Finland, Estonia (with the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic), Lithuania and Poland (both with the Königsberg German Autonomous Oblast), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Uyghurstan, Outer Mongolia, Manchuria, and Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japanese island of Karafuto across the Strait of Tartary and with the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms.

Revolution and foundation (1917)
General dissatisfaction over the autocratic Tsarist regime of the Russian Empire and decline of war morale and national economy due to World War I culminated in the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. The Tsar abdicated in March 1917 and was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government presided first by Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov, then Aleksandr Kerensky.

At the same time, the Socialists formed the rival political body: the workers' council, known in Russian as the "Soviet" (Russian: сове́т sovét). The formation of the Petrograd Soviet resulted to the emergence of dual power in the country. The Bolsheviks, under Leon Trotsky, quickly gained the power in the Petrograd Soviet. Returned from his exile in Switzerland, Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, wrote the April Theses that stressed the importance of Russian Revolution as a trigger for the international socialism and the need of the establishment of dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia.

The conflict between two authorities erupted in July 1917 when the industrial workers and soldiers demanded the power be turned over to the Soviets. The demonstration was broken down by the Provisional Government and forced Lenin into hiding. In October 1917, Lenin returned from his hiding in Finland and directing the Red Guards to storm the Winter Palace, the seat of Russian Provisional Government. This event would later be known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. The Council of People's Commissars was established shortly afterward and acted as the highest executive body of Soviet Russia with Lenin as its chairman.

In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers, though by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, Soviet Russia ended involvement in the war for good and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, giving away much of the territories of the former Russian Empire to German Empire, in exchange for peace in World War I. Russia was officially renamed as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in 1918.

Russian Civil War (1917−1923)
Anti-Bolshevik forces from both the right-wing and the left-wing formed a loosely organized White Army and fought against the Bolshevik's Red Army in a long and bloody civil war from 1917 until 1923. In this war, the Red Army not only faced resistance from the White Army, but also from several independence movements in Finland, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Baltic countries and Transcaucasian nations. Soviet Russia successfully defeated this resistances and maintained its own establishment, although had to recognize the sovereignty of Western Ukraine in the Peace of Lwów in August 1920 and other newly independent nations, including Finland, Estonia, and Latvia.

Through the political consolidations such as the decision of the World Congress of the Communist International in 1920 that stated there should be only one Communist Party in every country and the ban on internal factions in the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at the Tenth Party Congress of 1921, the Communist Party gradually became the only legal political party in Soviet Russia, and later in the Soviet Union, by 1922.

On December 28, 1922, the delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belorussian SSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These two documents were confirmed by the first Convocation of the Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Aleksandr Chervyakov on December 30, 1922.

This newly-established union was then internationally recognized first by Germany through the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922 where both the Soviet Union and Germany mutually cancelled all pre-war debts and renounced war claims. This move later followed by the United Kingdom that gave the USSR de jure recognition on February 1, 1924. In the same year, the 1924 Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union.

Nation-building (1920−1926)
As a first step toward economic development, the government of the RSFSR launched the plan for the total electrification of Russia, called the GOELRO plan, in 1920. The plan was implemented for 10 to 15-year period and envisaged a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on electrification, the predominant growth of heavy industry and the rational location of industry over the entire nation. It included construction of a network of 30 regional power plants, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.

After the economic policy of War Communism during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country, the Soviet government instituted the New Economic Policy (Russian: Новая экономическая политика, Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika). Small private enterprises were allowed and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax. The state, on other side, maintained state ownership of heavy industry such as the coal, iron, and metallurgical sectors along with the banking and financial components of the economy.

The New Economic Policy era saw a huge expansion of trade in the hands of full-time merchants, coinciding with rising living standards in both the city and the countryside. The break-up of the quasi-feudal landed estates of the Tsarist-era countryside also gave peasants their greatest incentives ever to maximize production. As a result, Soviet agriculture recovered more rapidly from civil war than its heavy industry. The Soviet Union eventually became the world's greatest producer of grain by 1920s.

Lenin died in January 21, 1924 and the power struggle within the Bolshevik Party followed aftermath. The party soon split between factions that competing for the leadership of the state and the party. Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar of War, was the most likely candidate to succeed Lenin in power at that time. However, the Premier of the USSR, Lev Kamenev, and the Chairman of the Comintern Executive Committee, Grigory Zinoviev, were able to marginalize Trotsky at the 13th Party Conference in 1924.

The New Economic Policy that implemented in 1922 created a class of traders, called the "NEPmen," that viewed as class enemies by the Bolshevik Party. Consequently, the NEP became highly unpopular with some party members who saw it as a betrayal of Communist principles and wanted a fully planned economy instead. Kamenev and Zinoviev were in favor of the abandonment of the New Economic Policy. Between 1925–1927, the Soviet government discontinued majority of contracts with foreign enterprises. In 1926, the New Economic Policy was fully abandoned by the Soviet government. The Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy was introduced; the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization.

Industrialization and collectivization (1926−1939)
A united opposition called New Opposition was formed at the 15th Party Congress in 1927 between party's pro-NEP wings, led by Leningrad party regional leader, Nikolai Bukharin, and Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and statist wings, led by Caucasian party leaders, Grigory Ordzhonikidze and Sergei Kirov. The New Opposition was able to form a majority within the congress and deposed the triumvirate from the Politburo and the Central Committee. Alexei Rykov and Mikhail Tomsky went to replace Kamenev and Zinoviev positions, respectively. Bukharin was likely to consolidate his power at first, but the veteran party leaders favored to support Ordzhonikidze and Kirov instead. Kirov notably was elected to become the head of Party Control Commission and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate.

As the head of Party Control Commission and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, Kirov indirectly controlled the Soviet secret polices and bureaucracy and supervised the Soviet government. Under Kirov, the Control Commission and the Inspectorate became increasingly independent from other party and state organs as well as became more supreme than others. Although the triumvirate was already deposed, the Inspectorate under Kirov decided to keep the Five Year Plan and maximize the agricultural production of collective farming.

The 1930s saw closer co-operation between the West and the USSR. From 1932 to 1934, the Soviet Union participated in the World Disarmament Conference. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established when in November, the newly elected President of the United States, Hiram Johnson chose to formally recognize the Soviet government and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two nations. In September 1934, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations.