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 the Soviet Russia (Russian: Советский России Sovetsky Rossiya), is a constitutionally socialist state in Eurasia that ruled under one-party government of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 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, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Königsberg German Autonomous Oblast), Ukraine, Turkey, Armenia, Iran, Afghanistan, Uyghurstan, 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
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 by Georgy Lvov of Constitutional Democratic Party and later by Alexander Kerensky of Socialist Revolutionary Party.

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 broke down by the Provisional Government and forced Lenin into hiding. Bolsheviks began to be arrested, workers were disarmed and revolutionary military units in Petrograd were disbanded or sent off to the front. Lenin returned from his hiding in Finland and directing the Red Guards to storm the Winter Palace, the seat of Russian Provisional Government, in October 1917. This event would later be known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. The Council of People's Commissars established shortly afterward and acted as the highest executive body of the 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, the 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 officially renamed as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in 1918.

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, 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 Ukraine in the Peace of Lviv in August 1920 and other newly independent nations, including Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Through the political consolidations such as the Communist International World Congress's decision 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 slowly became the only legal political party in Russia, and later in the Soviet Union, by 1922.

Unification of republics
On December 28, 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Turkestan SFSR, 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, and Aleksandr Chervyakov, on December 30, 1922.

This newly-established union was then internationally recognized first by the German Reich through the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922 where both the Soviet Union and German Reich mutually cancelled all pre-war debts and renounced war claims. This move later followed by the British Empire 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. An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917.

First Triumvirate era
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 permitted some private enterprise to co-exist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax.

Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Lenin was replaced by a "troika" consisting of Grigory Zinoviev as the Chairman of the Comintern Executive Committee, Lev Kamenev as the Premier of the USSR, and Alexei Rykov as the Premier of the RSFSR.

The strongest candidate to succeed Lenin in power, Leon Trotsky, was ousted from the Central Committee by the ruling troika and forced into exile in 1928. Majority of the Party leaders sided with the troika and one of them was Sergei Kirov. Kirov was one of the toughest Bolshevik commanders during the Civil War. In 1921, he became manager of the Azerbaijani party organization. The Politburo had appointed Kirov as the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, popularly known as the Rabkrin, in 1925 which paved a way for Kirov to rise to power.

In 1928, the Kamenev government abandoned the New Economic Policy and introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. While encompassing the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it also aimed to build socialism in one country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization. In agriculture, the State Planning Committee under Yevgeni Preobrazhensky implemented the collectivisation of farms all over the country. Famines ensued, causing millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s.

Kirov era
Chaotic conditions followed after the implementation of Preobrazhensky policy led to a new power struggle between Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin and Sergei Kirov. Bukharin allied with Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Georgy Pyatakov while Kirov allied with Grigory Ordzhonikidze and Mikhail Tomsky.

Kirov was the popular leader of the party moderates and recognized by among other cadres for his leadership on the Leningrad party branch since 1927. He seemed unlikely to win during the struggle, until Rykov and Mikhail Kalinin betrayed Kamenev and Zinoviev and supported Kirov, instead of Bukharin at the last minute during the 1934 Party Congress. Kirov's faction successfully forced Kamenev and Zinoviev to resign from their positions in the aftermath while Rykov and Tomsky went to replace their positions, respectively.

The functions of the Orgburo and the Politburo were often interconnected, but the latter was initially the final decision-maker. While the Politburo was mostly concerned with strategic planning and monitoring of the people and status of the country, the Orgburo was tasked with overseeing the party cadre and its assignment to various positions and duties, presumably in furtherance of the government's strategic agenda. However, under Kirov, this mechanism reverted and gave the Orgburo a significant influence over the Soviet politics.

The early 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, Franklin D. Roosevelt 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.

In August 1938, a new Soviet Constitution was introduced. The Constitution re-organized the Soviet political system by centralizing the Bolshevik Party organizations and the national bureaucracy to avoid the eventual breakup of the Union while at the same time retaining the mechanism of democratic centralism and the legality of inner opposition within the Bolshevik Party organizations and the Soviet government institutions.

The Constitution limited the power and reduced the size of the Congress of Soviets and Central Executive Committee, gave the Council of People's Commissars a significant authority, elevated the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate status as a separate government body beside the Council of People's Commissars and the State Planning Committee. The 1938 Constitution also adopted the Nationality Policy of 1935 regarding the national delimination of various Soviet nationalities.

While the Third Reich was mobilizing its armed forces in preparation for invading Poland, the Soviet Union kept its neutrality and signed the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in 1938. In late November 1938, unable to coerce the Kingdom of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border 25 kilometres (16 mi) back from Leningrad, Kirov ordered the invasion of Finland, that known as "Winter War".