Alternative History
Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics
Союз Советских Cуверенных Республик
Soyuz Sovyetskikh Suvyeryennykh Ryespublik
Flag of the Soviet Union State Emblem of the Soviet Union
Motto"Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!"
Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes'!
("Workers of the world, unite!")
Anthem
Gosudarstvennyy Gimn Sovetskogo Soyuza
State Anthem of the Soviet Union
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection)
CapitalMoscow
Official languages Russian
Recognised regional languages Ukrainian • Belarusian • Uzbek • Kazakh • Azerbaijani • Kyrgyz • Tajik • Armenian • Turkmen
Demonym Soviet
Government 1922–1990:
Federal Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic
Since 1990:
Federal Marxist–Leninist dominant-party semi-presidential republic
 •  President Vladimir Putin
 •  Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin
 •  Speaker of the Supreme Soviet Valentina Matviyenko
Legislature Supreme Soviet
 •  Upper House Soviet of Nationalities
 •  Lower House Soviet of the Union
Formation
 •  Kievan Rus' 879 
 •  Duchy of Moscow 1283 
 •  Tsardom of Russia 16 January 1547 
 •  Russian Empire 22 October 1721 
 •  October Revolution 7 November 1917 
 •  Treaty on the Creation of the USSR 30 December 1922 
 •  Victory in World War II 9 May 1945 
 •  Multi-party system 14 March 1990 
 •  New Union Treaty 20 August 1991 
 •  Current constitution 29 June 1992 
Currency Soviet ruble (руб) (SUR)
Time zone (UTC+2 to +12)
Drives on the right
Internet TLD .su
Calling code +7

The The Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics (Russian: Союз Советских Cуверенных Республик, tr. Soyuz Sovyetskikh Suvyeryennykh Ryespublik) abbreviated to USSR (Russian: СССР, tr. SSSR) or shortened to the Soviet Union (Russian: Сове́тский Сою́з, tr. Sovetskij Soyuz), is a Marxist–Leninist federative state on the Eurasian continent. A federation of 13 Soviet republics with Moscow as its capital, the USSR is the largest nation in area and one of the two global superpowers (along with the United States). From its formation up until the 1991 the Soviet Union was a single-party Communist state, officially named Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik). While the Soviet Union has been a multi-party republic since then, the Communist Party is still the dominant party. The capital and largest city is Moscow; other major urban areas include Saint Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk, Template:Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Almaty and Baku.

The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The medieval state of Rus' arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states, until it was finally reunified by the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the 15th century. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which became a major European power, and the third-largest empire in history, stretching from Norway on the west to Canada on the east.

The Soviet Union has its roots in 1917 when the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin, led the October Revolution which overthrew the provisional government that had replaced the Tsar. They established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (renamed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1936), beginning a civil war between pro-revolution Reds and counter-revolution Whites. The Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire, and helped local Communists take power through soviets that nominally acted on behalf of workers and peasants. In 1922, the Communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian republics. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed political opposition to him, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism (which he created) and initiated a centrally planned economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the basis for its later war effort and dominance after World War II. However, Stalin established political paranoia, and introduced arbitrary arrests on a massive scale after which the authorities transferred many people (military leaders, Communist Party members, ordinary citizens alike) to correctional labour camps or sentenced them to death.

In the beginning of World War II, Stalin along with France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany in response to their invasion of Czechoslovakia. Poland, however, was not willing to grant the Soviet Union access through their territory, which, along with their annexation of the Těšín region, prompted a Soviet invasion in October 1938. The war ended in a stalemate, and in June 1940 the Germans invaded, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the cost of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Moscow and Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually defeated Germany and their allies in 1945. The territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged about 1947 as the Soviet bloc formed the Warsaw Pact and confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. However the USSR did not itself engage in any "hot wars".

Following Stalin's death in 1953, some political and economic liberalization, known as "de-Stalinization" and "Khrushchev Thaw", occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The country grew rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The Space Race was emphasized, as the USSR took an early lead with the first ever satellite and world's first human spaceflight. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis marked a period of high tension between the two superpowers, but it was resolved. In the 1970s, détente emerged briefly but tensions resumed when the Soviet Union deployed troops in Afghanistan in 1979. The war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military strength.

In the mid-1980s, the new leader Mikhail Gorbachev sought to reform the political system and economy and open it up more through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation. The economic reforms described as "socialist market economy" involved the de-collectivization of agriculture, the opening up of the country to foreign investment, permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses and privatization and contracting out of much state-owned industry under some state control. He achieved the ending of the Cold War, and in 1989 allowed the satellite countries of Eastern Europe to break free and overthrow their communist regimes. However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR. Central authorities initiated a referendum, boycotted by the Baltic republics, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova, which resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favor of preserving the Union as a renewed federation, in which a multi-party system was established. The New Union treaty was signed in 1991, and a new constitution was adopted in 1992. Under the rule of Vladimir Putin, the 2000s brought the USSR back into global dominance following their involvement in the War on Terrorism. Political dissidents and human rights groups have denounced and criticized the Soviet government for widespread human rights abuses, including suppression of religious and ethnic minorities, censorship, mass surveillance, and cracking down on protests.

The Soviet economy ranks as the seventh-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by PPP. The Soviet Union's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the leading producers of oil and natural gas globally. The country is one of the five recognised nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads. The Soviet Union was the world's second biggest exporter of major arms in 2010-14. The Soviet Union is one of the world's two superpowers, the other being the United States. The Soviet Armed Forces have been ranked as the world's second most powerful, and the most powerful in Europe. Russia hosts the world's ninth-greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and is among the world's most popular tourist destinations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and an active global partner of ASEAN, as well as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the International Investment Bank (IIB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as being a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

History[]

Stalin era (1927–1953)[]

De-Stalinization and Khrushchev era (1953–1964)[]

Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Without a mutually agreeable successor, the highest Communist Party officials initially opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly through collective leadership. Malenkov temporarily emerged as the Soviet leader's undisputed successor by replacing Stalin as both Chairman of the Council of Ministers (or Premier) and head of the party apparatus. However, only 9 days later, the Politburo (then known as the Presidium) forced him to relinquish control over the party apparatus in exchange for remaining Premier and first among equals within the Soviet collective leadership. He then became embroiled in a power struggle with the party's First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, in which Khrushchev emerged victorious. Malenkov was forced to resign the premiership on 8 February 1955, and after later organizing a failed palace coup against Khrushchev in 1957, Malenkov was expelled from the Presidium and exiled to Kazakhstan.

On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", which denounced Stalin's purges and ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. Afterwards, Khrushchev eased control over the party and restrictions over society, freeing over a million prisoners from the Gulag. This was known as de-Stalinization. Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a critically vital buffer zone for the forward defence of its western borders, in case of another major invasion such as the German invasion of 1940. For this reason, the USSR sought to cement its control of the region by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states, dependent upon and subservient to its leadership. As a result, Soviet military forces were used to suppress an anti-communist uprising in Hungary in 1956.

In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the Soviet rapprochement with the West, and what Mao Zedong perceived as Khrushchev's revisionism, led to the Sino–Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist–Leninist movement, with the governments in Albania, Cambodia and Somalia choosing to ally with China.

During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the USSR continued to realize scientific and technological exploits in the Space Race, rivaling the United States: launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966; and the first Moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.

Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw", a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the country. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing a dramatic rise in living standards while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's time in office saw the tensest years of the Cold War. In 1962, he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. An agreement was made with the United States to remove nuclear missiles from both Cuba and Turkey, concluding the crisis. This event caused Khrushchev much embarrassment and loss of prestige.

Khrushchev enjoyed strong support during the 1950s thanks to major victories like the Suez Crisis, the launching of Sputnik, the Syrian Crisis of 1957, and the 1960 U-2 incident. By the early 1960s however, Khrushchev's popularity was eroded by flaws in his policies, as well as his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This emboldened his potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed him in October 1964.

Brezhnev-Kosygin era (1964–1979)[]

The collective leadership of the Soviet Union, 1964–1977
Leonid Brezhnev Kosygin Nikolai Podgorny
Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (center) and (right). Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Nikolai Podgorny, Chairman of the Presidium

of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of collective leadership ensued, consisting of Leonid Brezhnev as first secretary of the CPSU, Alexei Kosygin as Premier and Nikolai Podgorny as Chairman of the Presidium. The new Politburo adopted a more conservative outlook than that under Khrushchev's rule, where Kosygin, Podgorny and Andrei Kirilenko were the most reformist members, Brezhnev and Arvīds Pelše belonged to the moderate faction while Mikhail Suslov retained his leadership of the party's Stalinist wing. As first secretary, Brezhnev became the de jure supreme authority of the Soviet Union, but Kosygin initially emerged as the most influential figure in Soviet policy-making due to his role of managing the Soviet economy, leading arms control talks with the U.S. and overseeing relations with other communist countries. After Brezhnev had sidelined Shelepin and Podgorny as threats to his leadership in 1965, a power struggle emerged between Brezhnev and Kosygin and their respective supporters.

Like Khrushchev, Kosygin wanted to reform the command economy within a socialist framework. In 1965 Kosygin initiated an economic reform widely referred to as the "Kosygin-Liberman reform". Largely influenced by the works of Soviet economist Evsei Liberman, the reforms sought to make Soviet industry more efficient by adopting some market measures common in the First World as rentabelnost' ("profitability", Russian: рентабельность) and realizatsiya ("sales", Russian: реализация). Enterprises became the main economic units, the number of policy targets was reduced from 30 to 9, while wholesale sales prices now had to be profitable. The reform also tried to increase quantity of production, increase incentives for managers and workers, and freeing managers from centralized state bureaucracy. The reform had been proposed to Khrushchev in 1964, who evidently liked it and took some preliminary steps to implement it. Brezhnev allowed the reform to proceed because the Soviet economy was entering a period of low growth. The reforms, coincided with the Eighth Five-Year Plan, led to increased growth of the Soviet economy as well as increasing wages and consumption of household goods. 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. 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. Between 1964 and 1973, the Soviet economy was expanding at a faster rate than that of the American economy (albeit by a very small margin) and stood at roughly half the output per head of Western Europe and a little more than one third that of the U.S.

The Kosygin reforms
RIAN archive 901609 Bolshevichka garment factory RIAN archive 878967 AvtoVAZ- Volga automaking plant in Togliatti, the Samara Region
Day-to-day operations in 1967 at the economically reformed Bolshevichka clothing factory in Moscow — a pioneer of the new economic policy. Working on a vehicle in 1969 at the new AvtoVAZ plant in Tolyatti, one of the Special Economic Zones open for foreign investors.

The success of Kosygin’s reforms and his foreign policy successes ensured that the reformist faction was firmly entrenched in power by the early 1970s. The 1971 agricultural reform allowed collective farms (kolkhoz) to sell their produce on local markets for prices determined by themselves rather than the state. The 1973 Soviet economic reform implemented a series of Special Economic Zones in Leningrad, Sevastopol, Baku, Tolyatti and Vladivostok modeled after the New Economic Policy (NEP). In these special economic zones, free enterprise in the field of light industry was permitted and foreign investment and market liberalization were encouraged. This marked the beginning of the transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open-market environment.

In foreign policy, Kosygin and Brezhnev presided throughout détente (Russian: разрядка, razryadka, loosely meaning "relaxation of tension"), a period of easing of geopolitical tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. The period of détente resulted in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty). However, the Soviet military intervention in the ongoing civil war in neighboring Afghanistan effectively ended the détente with the West.

In January 1976 Brezhnev suffered a stroke which temporarily left him clinically dead. As Brezhnev's ability to govern was impaired, Kosygin effectively dominated Soviet policymaking alongside Kirilenko, KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko until 1979. In the fortnight between 18 April and 1 May 1979, Brezhnev, reportedly ill with a serious inflammation of the lungs, missed meetings of the Supreme Soviet Presidium, the Concils of Elders of the two Supreme Soviet chambers, and the Lenin Anniversary celebration. Despite Brezhnev's deteriorating health it was possible for him maintain his role as long as he could adequately perform his duties, but now he could no longer be counted upon this. When Andropov and Gromyko visited him, Brezhnev asked them whether it might not be better if he retired. Despite the lack of precedent or procedures existing for the voluntary retirement of a general secretary, a contincency plan was developed in which Kirilenko was appointed general secretary, Kosygin would remain premier, while Podgorny would remain Chairman of the Presidium. Brezhnev would be appointed honorary chairman of the CPSU. On 22 November 1979, Brezhnev announced to the the plenum of the Central Committee his request to retire from his offices for reasons of "advanced age and ill health." The Presidium and the Central Committee each voted to accept Brezhnev's resignation and elected Kirilenko to the position of General Secretary, while Kosygin and Podgorny remained in their positions.

In July 1980, the Soviet Union hosted the Summer Olympics in Moscow, the first games to be held in a socialist state. The games, however, were overshadowed by the US-led boycot of 66 countries in response to the Soviet–Afghan War.

Kirilenko and Andropov interregnums (1979–1984)[]

In October 1980, Kosygin was hospitalized, and he died on 18 December 1980. As an avid supporter of Kosygin's economic reforms, CPSU General Secretary Kirilenko quickly consolidated his power and continued many of the economic reforms. Together with Andropov, he was influential in bringing to the fore a new generation of young reformers into the Politburo, including Yegor Ligachyov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1981, he appointed Ryzhkov the head of the Economic Department of the Central Committee, where he was responsible for overseeing major planning and financial organs. The CPSU would also lessen its restrictions on mass media.

However, Kirilenko's health problems would eventually lead to his resignation on 26 May 1982. Although Ryzhkov was considered Kirilenko's designated successor, Andropov won a two-day power struggle and succeeded Kirilenko as General Secretary, and, by extension, as the leader of the Soviet Union. During his short tenure, Andropov sought to eliminate corruption and inefficiency in the country by criminalizing truancy in the workplace and investigating longtime officials for violations of party discipline. Five new special economic zones were established, of which the most important was the Zelenograd SEZ outside of Moscow. Because the Soviets lagged behind the West in computer technology, the Soviet Union now opened Zelenograd up for foreign investment from IT companies like IBM and Microsoft, which got permission to build factories. Zelenograd quickly became a center of electronics, microelectronics and computer industry and the nickname as the "Soviet Silicon Valley".

In foreign policy, the Soviet Union faced a series of foreign policy crises: the continuing war in Afghanistan, the threat of revolt in Poland, growing animosity with China, the polarization threat of war in the Middle East, and troubles in Ethiopia and South Africa. In Afghanistan, the war continued even though Andropov, who now felt the invasion was a mistake, half-heartedly explored options for a negotiated withdrawal. Andropov's rule was also marked by deterioration of relations with the United States. On 8 March 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire". The same month, on 23 March, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, claiming this research program into ballistic missile defense would be "consistent with our obligations under the ABM Treaty". US−Soviet relations deteriorated rapidly especially after March 1983, when Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union an "evil empire". The official press agency TASS accused Reagan of "thinking only in terms of confrontation and bellicose, lunatic anti-communism". Further Soviet outrage was directed at Reagan's stationing of intermediate-range Pershing II nuclear missiles in Western Europe. In Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, under the Reagan Doctrine, the US began undermining Soviet-supported governments by supplying arms to anti-communist resistance movements in these countries.

Andropov's health declined rapidly during the tense summer and fall of 1983, and he became the first Soviet leader to miss the anniversary celebrations of the 1917 revolution that November. He died on 9 February 1984 of kidney failure after disappearing from public view for several months.

Gorbachev era (1984–2000)[]

In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, the Politburo turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev as Secretary-General upon Andropov's death in 1984. Although the Soviet economy had seen an improvement from the late 1970s and early 1980s, the prolonged war in Afghanistan led to increased public dissatisfaction with the Communist regime. Also, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 added motive force to Gorbachev's reforms.

Gorbachev instituted significant reforms in the economy and the party leadership, called perestroika. He immediately began appointing younger men of his generation to important party posts, including appointing Ryzhkov as Premier, Viktor Cherbrikov as KGB Chief, Eduard Shevardnadze as Foreign Minister (replacing the 75-year-old Gromyko) and Lev Zaikov as Secretary of Defense Industries. Removed from the Politburo and Secretariat was Grigory Romanov, who had been Gorbachev's most significant rival for the position of General Secretary. His policy of glasnost ("openness") allowed for a limited enhancement in public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. The Soviets also relaxed border and travel restrictions. On 7 February 1990, the CPSU established a presidency on 7 February 1990, and Gorbachev was elected president on 14 March 1990. He was subsequently reelected to a second term in the 1992 presidential election with 54.85% of the vote, which was held by popular vote for the first time.

The Law on Cooperatives enacted in May 1986 was the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. The law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene, while heavy industry, mining, the petroleum and natural gas sector, armaments production, the aerospace industry and also healthcare, education and public transportation remained under state control. Agricultural collectivization was dismantled and farmlands privatized as the 1988 reforms privatized state farms (sovkhoz) and turned collective farms (kolkhoz) into cooperative farms with the same freedom as the former sovkhozes. They were now no longer subjected to state planning of any kind, were now completely free to use material incentives to boost productivity and were free to sell their products to private distributors of their own choosing.

A significant economic debate during this period concerned the approach to price liberalization and whether the Soviet Union should adopt an approach consistent with shock therapy as presented by Grigory Yavlinsky 500 Days programme - sudden price liberalization – or a more gradual approach. But in 1987, the latter approach won out. "Confronted with the diverse, authoritative warnings about the unforeseeable risks of imposing the shock of price reform and the uncertainty about its benefits," Gorbachev and the leadership ultimately rejected shock price reform and instead opted for a gradual reform. In November 1990 the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) was opened. Gorbachev helped preserve the economy by preventing policies that would have damaged the interests of special interest groups in the government bureaucracy. In 1990, the Supreme Soviet adopted the landmark Corporation Law, providing that in state owned enterprises, the state is no more than an investor and controller of stock and assets, while private and foreign investment in such enterprises were required to be below 49%. The law also permitted state firms to declare bankruptcy in the event of business failure. Privatizations began to accelerate after 1992, and the private sector grew as a percentage of GDP. The Soviet government slowly expanded recognition of the private economy, first as a "complement" to the state sector (1986) and then as an "important component" (1993) of the socialist market economy.

Gorbachev's tenure oversaw a remarkable improvement in relations between the USSR and the West in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In February 1988, Gorbachev announced the full withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was completed the following year. An estimated 28,000 Soviets were killed between 1979 and 1989 as a result of the Afghanistan War. In 1989, Gorbachev refused to interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet satellite states, which paved the way for the Revolutions of 1989. In particular, the standstill of the Soviet Union at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 then set a peaceful chain reaction in motion, at the end of which the Eastern Bloc collapsed. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East and West Germany pursuing re-unification, the Iron Curtain between the West and Soviet-occupied regions came down. However, tensions between the Soviet Union and the newly independent republics of Georgia and Moldova escalated into open conflict in 1992.

New Union Treaty[]

At the same time, the Soviet republics started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing the freedom to secede in Article 72 of the 1977 USSR constitution. On 7 April 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum. Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the 'War of Laws'. In 1989, the Russian SFSR convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the Soviet laws. After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990, citing the illegality of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. Soviet forces attempted to halt the secession by crushing popular demonstrations in Lithuania (Bloody Sunday) and Latvia (The Barricades), as a result of which numerous civilians were killed or wounded. However, these actions only bolstered international support for the secessionists.


The New Union Treaty was ratified by the republics
in the following order:
# Date State
1 20 August 1991 Flag of Russia (1991–1993) Russia
2 20 August 1991 Flag of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic Kazakhstan
3 20 August 1991 Flag of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (1952–1991) Uzbekistan
4 3 September 1991 Flag of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1951–1991) Belarus
5 17 September 1991 Flag of Azerbaijan Azerbaijan
6 17 September 1991 Flag of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic Tajikistan
7 1 October 1991 Flag of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (1973–1991) Turkmenistan
8 1 October 1991 Flag of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic Kyrgyzstan
9 18 December 1991 Flag of Ukraine (Soviet shades) Ukraine

Faced with growing separatism and wanting to preserve the Union, Gorbachev sought to restructure the Soviet Union into a less centralized state. A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia boycotted the vote), with 76.4% of the population in those republics voting for preservation of the Union in the form of a new federation. The majority of residents of Ukraine supported joining the Union only if Ukraine declared itself a sovereign state. On 23 April Gorbachev and the leaders of nine Soviet republics signed the so-called 9+1 Agreement in Novo-Ogaryovo, which would converted the Soviet Union into a confederation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy, and military. Negotiations took place to decide what form the new constitution would take, bringing together Gorbachev and Ryzhkov in discussion.

On 20 August 1991, Gorbachev, Ryzhkov (President of Russia), Nursultan Nazarbayev (Vice President of the Soviet Union and President of Kazakhstan) and the Islam Karimov (President of Uzbekistan) signed the New Union Treaty in Moscow. The treaty stated that jurisdiction over most industries and resources, and control over taxation and public expenditures would be turned to those republics that were signing it, and their sovereignty would be recognized, and those which wouldn't sign would be allowed to go their own way. The central government would retain control of the country's armed forces and security services, but with a reduced size and subjected to oversight by the republican legislatures, along with issuing currency, Soviet Ruble and control of its gold and diamond resources, although the republics would have the right to share them. The republics and the central government would jointly determine military and foreign policy and work out policies on the economy, fuel, and energy resources. The Congress of People's Deputies would be disbanded. The number of government ministries would be reduced, some ministries having their responsibilities transferred to the republics, some having to reduce staff or abolished, or turned into small coordinating bodies which would support republican ministries. The republics would also be given ownership of almost all their natural resources, including mineral deposits on their territories, along with the right to establish direct diplomatic and trade relations with foreign states. A new constitutional court would have also been established to resolve questions between republics and the center. Lastly, republican law would take precedence over All-Union law.

By October, Belarus (3 September), Azerbaijan and Tajikistan (17 September), and Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan on (1 October), had approved the New Union Treaty. Ukraine, meanwhile, had reservations on the terms of the Treaty and calling on 14 October that for a referendum over the issue of declaring independence from the Soviet Union. The Russian ethnic majority in Crimea declared on boycotting the independence referendum on the desire to remain in the Union. On 1 December a majority of 58.2% of voters voted in favor of remaining in the union and rejected independence. On 8 December 1991, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed the Treaty. On 6 October the Soviet Union formally recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia, who had boycotted the referendum in March.

Constitution of 1992[]

After the nine republics had signed the New Union Treaty, the Constitutional Conference of the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics convened in Moscow on 3 January 1992, under the auspices of Anatoly Sobchak (Russian), Leonid Yazkov (Ukrainian) and Maqsūt Närıkbaev (Kazakh). Some 800 representatives at the conference ultimately adopted a draft constitution on 25 April that envisaged a bicameral federal legislature, and the dissolution of the congress. But because the convention's draft of the constitution would dissolve the congress, there was little likelihood that the congress would vote itself out of existence. The Supreme Soviet approved by the Supreme Soviet on 29 April. After the last Supreme Soviet of the nine republics had ratified the constitution on , Gorbachev decreed on 12 ________ that a popular referendum to be held on the new constitution and elections to both houses of the Supreme Soviet in December if voters approved the constitution.

Putin era (2000–present)[]

Government and politics[]

The Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, according to the 1993 constitution, is a federal republic of 10 republics with a presidential system, wherein the president is both the head of state and head of government. The USSR is structured as a multi-party representative democracy, officially terms itself as a "sovereign federal democratic state", formed as a result of the association of equal republics and exercising state power within the limits of its powers, which are voluntarily vested in it by the parties to the treaty.

According to the constitution, the republics forming the USSR are entitled to dictate their domestic affairs in the manner of a sovereign state. As such, each republic has the jurisdiction over most of industries and resources and control over taxation and public expenditures. The federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over the creation of a single economic space and legal foundations for a common market, issuing currency (the ruble) and the Soviet Armed Forces and security services, subjected to oversight by the republican legislatures. The republics and the federal government jointly determine military and foreign policy and work out policies on the economy, fuel, and energy resources.

From 1922 to 1989, the Soviet Union was a federal Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic dominated by three power hierarchies: 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), the only legal party and the final policymaker in the country. The period from 1924 to 1953 has been referred to as a Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship. Following a decade of limited democratication in the 1990s under the administrations of Mikhail Gorbachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Soviet Union has become increasingly associated with democratic backsliding under the administrations of Vladimir Putin and has become an authoritarian state under a dictatorship, with Putin's policies being referred to as Putinism. The Soviet Union has among the heaviest restrictions worldwide in many areas, most notably against freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and free access to the Internet.

The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies) plays an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Red Terror and Great Purge, but 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 government, regulated by a system of separation of powers as defined by the constitution of the Soviet Union, comprises three branches:

  • Legislative – The legislative power of the Union is exercised by the Supreme Soviet, which consists of the 450-member Soviet of the Union (lower house) and the and 255-member Soviet of Republics (upper house). The Supreme Soviet make changes to the constitution; adopts federal laws; examines questions of relations between the republics; ratifies international treaties; gives consent to the appointment of the Cabinet of Ministers; admit new states to the USSR; determine the fundamental principles of Union domestic and foreign policy, approve the Union budget; declare war and conclude peace; and approve changes to Union borders.
  • Executive – The president is the commander-in-chief of the military and exercises supreme executive and administrative power. The president can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to parliamentary override), can issue presidential decrees on matters regarding executive power with the exception of fundamental rights, and appoints the members of the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
  • Judicial – Judicial power is exercised by the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Arbitration, and courts in the Union Armed Forces. All judges are appointed by the Supreme Soviet on the recommendation of the President and their primary function is to interpret laws and to overturn laws deemed unconstitutional.

Parties and elections[]

Law[]

Foreign relations[]

Military[]

Human rights[]

Administrative divisions[]

No. Emblem Name Flag Capital Official languages Joined New Union Treaty Population Pop.
%
Area (km2) Area
%
President
1 Emblem of Russia (WFAC) Russia
Russian Federation
Flag of Russia Moscow Russian 1922 20 August 1991 &0000000147386000000000147,386,000 &000000000000005139999951.40 &000000001707540000000017,075,400 &000000000000007662000076.62 Andrey Belousov
CPSU
2 Emblem of Ukraine (WFAC) Ukraine
Republic of Ukraine
Flag of Ukraine Kyiv Ukrainian, Russian 1922 18 December 1991 &000000005170674600000051,706,746 &000000000000001803000018.03 &0000000000603700000000603,700 &00000000000000027100002.71 Viktor Yanukovych
CPSU
3 Coat of arms of Belarus (2020–present) Belarus
Republic of Belarus
Flag of Belarus Minsk Byelorussian, Russian 1922 3 September 1991 &000000001015180600000010,151,806 &00000000000000035400003.54 &0000000000207600000000207,600 &00000000000000009300000.93 Alexander Lukashenko
CPSU
4 Emblem of Uzbekistan (WFAC) Uzbekistan
Republic of Uzbekistan
Flag of Uzbekistan Tashkent Uzbek,
Russian
1924 20 August 1991 &000000001990600000000019,906,000 &00000000000000069400006.94 &0000000000447400000000447,400 &00000000000000020099992.01 Ilham Aliyev
CPSU
5 Emblem of Kazakhstan (WFAC) Kazakhstan
Republic of Kazakhstan
Republic of Kazakhstan Alma-Ata Kazakh, Russian 1936 20 August 1991 &000000001671190000000016,711,900 &00000000000000058300005.83 &00000000027173000000002,717,300 &000000000000001224000012.24 Jambyl Ahmetbekov
CPSU
6 Emblem of Azerbaijan (WFAC) Azerbaijan
Republic of Azerbaijan
Flag of Azerbaijan Baku Azerbaijani, Russian 1922 17 September 1991 &00000000070379000000007,037,900 &00000000000000024500002.45 &000000000008660000000086,600 &00000000000000003900000.39 Ilham Aliyev
CPSU
7 File:Emblem of Kyrgyzstan (WFAC).svg Kyrgyzstan
Socialist Republic of Kyrgyzstan
Flag of Kyrgyzstan SSR Bishkek Kirghiz, Russian 1936 1 October 1991 &00000000042578000000004,257,800 &00000000000000014800001.48 &0000000000198500000000198,500 &00000000000000008900000.89 Sooronbay Jeenbekov
CPSU
8 Emblem of Tajikistan (WFAC) Tajikistan
Republic of Tajikistan
Flag of Tajikistan Dushanbe Tajik,
Russian
1929 17 September 1991 &00000000051120000000005,112,000 &00000000000000017800001.78 &0000000000143100000000143,100 &00000000000000006400000.64 Sooronbay Jeenbekov
CPSU
9 Emblem of Turkmenistan Turkmenistan
Republic of Turkmenistan
Flag of Turkmenistan Ashkhabad Turkmen, Russian 1924 1 October 1991 &00000000035227000000003,522,700 &00000000000000012299991.23 &0000000000488100000000488,100 &00000000000000021899992.19 Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow
CPSU
10 Coat of arms of Transnistria Transnistria
Pridnestrovian Republic
Flag of Transnistria Tiraspol Moldavian, Russian 1940 N/A &00000000043376000000004,337,600 &00000000000000015100001.51 &000000000003384300000033,843 &00000000000000001500000.15 Oleg Khorzhan
CPSU

See also[]

  • List of Countries (WFAC)