UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union 1
The flag of the Soviet Union The
Soviet Union , officially the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (
USSR ), was a
transcontinental country that spanned much of
Eurasia from 1922 until
its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's
third-most populous country , the
largest by area , and
bordered twelve countries . A diverse
multinational state , it was organized as a
federal union of
national republics , with the largest and most populous being the
Russian SFSR . In practice, its
government and
economy were
highly centralized . As a
one-party state governed by the
Communist Party , it was the flagship
communist state . Its capital and largest city was
Moscow .
The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin , established the Russian SFSR, the world's first constitutionally communist state. Following the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War , the Russian SFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, initiating rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant growth but contributed to a devastating famine in the 1930s that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system, known as the Gulag , was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to eliminate opposition, resulting in deportations , executions , and the Moscow trials . Failing to build an anti-Nazi coalition in Europe, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. However, in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II . The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers as part of the Allies , while liberating much of Central and Eastern Europe . With around 27 million casualties , it suffered the most deaths of any country in World War II . In the war's aftermath , the Soviet Union consolidated the territories occupied by the Red Army into satellite states and undertook rapid economic development , cementing its status as a superpower .
Geopolitical tensions with the United States led to the Cold War . The US-led Western Bloc coalesced into the NATO military alliance in 1949, prompting the Eastern Bloc to form the Warsaw Pact in 1955. With little direct combat , the blocs engaged in ideological and proxy wars . In 1953, following Stalin's death , Nikita Khrushchev initiated a campaign of de-Stalinization , which led to ideological tensions with communist China , under Mao Zedong , and culminated in an acrimonious split . The Soviet military suppressed uprisings in East Germany , Hungary and Czechoslovakia , while the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis narrowly averted a global conflict . Under Leonid Brezhnev , prosperity shifted toward stagnation , although relations with the US eased . In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev sought reform through his policies of glasnost perestroika overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes , effectively ending the Eastern Bloc. Nationalist movements across the Soviet republics declared sovereignty , and in 1991, a successful referendum to establish a renewed federation was followed by a failed coup by hardliners . This prompted Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to secede . On 26 December, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin , president of the Russian SFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation , the Soviet Union's successor state . All fifteen republics became independent states ; all except the Baltic states joined the Commonwealth of Independent States . The post-Soviet states experienced a humanitarian disaster .
The Soviet Union was one of the world's two superpowers, with
hegemony in Eastern Europe ,
global diplomacy , ideological influence (particularly in the
Global South ), military might, economic strength, and
scientific and technological accomplishments .
Its space program made
significant achievements in the
Space Race . It
had the world's second-largest economy and the largest
standing military . As a
nuclear state , it wielded the
largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world . As an Allied nation, it was a
founding member of the
United Nations and one of
five permanent members of its
Security Council . (
Full article... )
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards. Mass grave of Polish officers in Katyn Forest, exhumed by Germany in 1943
The Katyn massacre mass executions of Poles carried out by the Soviet Union between April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the NKVD prisons in Kalinin , Kharkiv and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest , where some of the mass graves were first discovered by Nazi German forces in 1943. Nearly 22,000 Polish military and police officers , border guards , intelligentsia , and prisoners of war were executed by the NKVD (Soviet secret police), on Joseph Stalin 's orders.
The massacre is qualified as a crime against humanity , a crime against peace , a war crime and (within the Polish Penal Code ) a Communist crime . According to a 2009 resolution of the Polish parliament's Sejm , it bears the hallmarks of a genocide . (Full article...
“
I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.
”
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev O.S. 3 April] 1894 – 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. As leader of the Soviet Union , he stunned the world by denouncing his predecessor Joseph Stalin , embarking on a campaign of de-Stalinization , and presiding over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Nikita Khrushchev was born in a village in western Russia on 15 April 1894. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth and was a political commissar in the Russian Civil War . Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich , Khrushchev rose through the ranks of the Soviet hierarchy. During Stalin's rule, he actively supported the Great Purge and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR , and he continued the purges there. During World War II , Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. He was also present at the defense of Stalingrad , a fact in which he took great pride. After the war, Khrushchev returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers. (Full article...
The following are images from various Soviet Union-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1 Murder of the Romanov family,
Le Petit Journal (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 2 Red Guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917 (from
October Revolution )
Image 3 The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on 6 January 1918. The
Tauride Palace is locked and guarded by
Trotsky ,
Sverdlov ,
Zinoviev , and
Lashevich . (from
October Revolution )
Image 4 Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev (left) with US President
John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 5 The
Russian famine of 1921–22 killed an estimated 5 million people.
(from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 6 The
Battle of Stalingrad , considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 7 Soviet general secretary
Leonid Brezhnev and US President
Jimmy Carter sign the
SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979. (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 8 Lenin ,
Trotsky , and
Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the
October Revolution (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 9 Provisional Government 's volunteer soldiers secure Petrograd's
Palace Square with the
Austin Armoured Car , summer 1917. (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 10 "Pogrom in the Winter Palace" by
Ivan Vladimirov (from
October Revolution )
Image 11 Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from
Nagorno-Karabakh , 1993 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 12 Map showing the greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the sovereign states that it dominated politically, economically and militarily in 1960, after the
Cuban Revolution of 1959 but before the official
Sino-Soviet split of 1961 (total area: c. 35,000,000 km
2 ) (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 13 A revolutionary meeting of Russian soldiers in March 1917 in Dalkarby of
Jomala ,
Åland (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 14 The dissolution of the
Constituent Assembly on 6 January 1918. The
Tauride Palace is locked and guarded by
Trotsky ,
Sverdlov ,
Zinoviev and
Lashevich . (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 15 Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 16 European theatre of the
Russian Civil War in 1918 (from
October Revolution )
Image 17 American, British, and Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support to the White Army. (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 20 Revolutionaries protesting in February 1917 (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 21 Residents of Leningrad leave their homes destroyed by German bombing. About 1 million civilians died during the 871-day
Siege of Leningrad , mostly from starvation. (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 22 Russian Civil War in the European part of Russia (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 23 Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President
Ronald Reagan (
left ), 1985 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 24 Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 25 Petrograd
Milrevcom proclamation about the deposing of the
Russian Provisional Government (from
October Revolution )
Image 27 Bolshevik (1920) by
Boris Kustodiev (from
October Revolution )
Image 28 The 2nd Moscow Women Death Battalion protecting the Winter Palace as the last guards of the stronghold (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 29 The New York Times headline from 9 November 1917 (from
October Revolution )
Image 30 Russian troops in trenches awaiting a German attack (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 32 Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 33 Stalin and
Lavrentiy Beria with Stalin's daughter,
Svetlana , on his lap. As head of the NKVD, Beria was responsible for many
political repressions in the Soviet Union . (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 35 Russian troops meeting German troops in No Man's Land (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 36 Lenin ,
Trotsky and
Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution (from
October Revolution )
Image 38 Cruiser
Aurora (from
October Revolution )
Image 39 From left to right, the Soviet General Secretary
Joseph Stalin , US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill confer in Tehran, 1943 (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 40 Forward gun of
Aurora that fired the signal shot (from
October Revolution )
Image 41 Anniversary of October Revolution in
Riga , Soviet Union in 1988 (from
October Revolution )
Image 42 On 21 December 1991, the leaders of 11 former Soviet republics, including Russia and Ukraine, agreed to the
Alma-Ata Protocols , formally establishing the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 43 A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters. (from
October Revolution )
Image 44 Soldiers marching in
Petrograd , March 1917 (from
Russian Revolution )
Image 45 Country emblems of the Soviet Republics before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the
Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and the emblem is unofficial.) (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 46 The
Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the Hungarian-Austrian border. (from
History of the Soviet Union )
Image 47 The elections to the
Constituent Assembly took place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks won 24% of the vote. (from
October Revolution )
International Labor Day Radio Day commemoration of the development of radio in Russia.Victory Day
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs ) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{ WikiProject Soviet Union }} ) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.
2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515
Alexei Leonov
Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration
German instrument of surrender2
Instrument of surrender Japan2
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War
Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1
Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09
Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2
RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01
Raising a flag over the Reichstag - Restoration
Russian Imperial Family 1913
USS Yorktown collision
Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W)
Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration
Yury Pen - Portrait of Marc Chagall
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German instrument of surrender2 (2009-05-07)
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Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1 (2013-03-28)
Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration (2020-03-09)
Alexei Leonov (2020-03-18)
Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration (2020-05-08)
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Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09 (2022-02-26)
Russian Imperial Family 1913 (2022-07-17)
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War (2022-09-02)
2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515 (2023-04-18)
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Raising a flag over the Reichstag - Restoration (2025-05-02)
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