$27.00 DVD
|
(Rus. Soyuz Sovyetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik), former multinational federal state of European and Asian peoples. The world’s first Marxist state, established as a result of the Russian Revolution of November 1917, on the territory of the former Russian Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—generally called the Soviet Union, but also, on occasion, Soviet Russia or Russia—was officially founded on Dec. 30, 1922, and officially dissolved on Dec. 31, 1991. From 1940 through 1990 the USSR comprised 15 constituent republics (see table). Unless otherwise noted, all statistics in this article reflect the Soviet Union as it existed prior to the 1991 crisis.
In geographic extent the Soviet Union was the largest country in the world. It occupied nearly one-sixth of the earth’s land surface and was about 2.4 times the size of the U.S. The total area of the USSR, including its island possessions and the Baltic republics, was about 22,402,200 sq km (about 8,649,500 sq mi). From N to S the country extended more than 5000 km (more than 3100 mi) from the S border in Central Asia to Arctic islands off the coast of E Siberia. From E to W the maximum extent was almost 10,000 km (almost 6200 mi) from the E coast of the Baltic Sea to Ratmanov (Big Diomede) Island in the Bering Strait. The country also spanned two continents; the low Ural Mountains, which extend in a southerly direction from the Arctic Ocean almost to the Caspian Sea, constitute a major part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. The USSR bordered on more countries than any other nation. On the N it was bounded by a number of arms of the Arctic Ocean: the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas. On the E it was bounded by several arms of the Pacific Ocean: the Bering Strait (separating Siberia from Alaska), the Bering Sea, and the seas of Okhotsk and Japan. In the extreme SE the country abutted the NE tip of North Korea. On the S it was bounded by China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran, the Black Sea, and Turkey. It was bounded on the SW by Romania and Hungary, and on the W by Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic Sea, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Gulf of Finland, Finland, and Norway. The principal island possessions of the 15 republics that
formerly constituted the USSR lie in Arctic and Pacific waters.
Farthest N, in the Arctic Ocean, is The Soviet Union comprised four broad geographic regions: European USSR, consisting of the territory lying W of the Ural Mts.; Central Asian USSR (or Soviet Central Asia), including the territory between the Caspian Sea and China; Siberia, stretching E from the Urals almost to the Pacific Ocean; and Far Eastern USSR (or the Soviet Far East), including the extreme SE and the Pacific coastal fringe. LAND AND RESOURCES Much of the former USSR lies N of the 50th parallel and thus compares physically more to Canada than to the U.S. The agricultural resource base is limited by the climate and, to a lesser degree, soils. The vastness of the territory and its varied geologic formations, however, provide a rich mineral resource base unmatched by any other region in the world. Physiographic Regions. The lands that comprised the USSR show a great complexity of geologic structures and surface formations that have evolved separately during different geologic epochs. Very simply, the landmass consists of a vast plain in the W and N, fringed by a discontinuous belt of mountains and plateaus on the S and E; this is the most extensive plain on earth. The upland and mountain regions include most of the former Asian USSR and extend to the margins of the Pacific Ocean. European Plain. The former European USSR is primarily a rolling plain with an average elevation of about 180 m (about 590 ft). The terrain has been formed by millions of years of stream, wind, and glacial action on nearly horizontal strata of sedimentary rocks. In some places the softer sedimentary rocks have been eroded away, and the underlying basement complex of hard igneous and metamorphic rocks has been exposed at the surface; the most notable of these areas are the NW near the border with Finland and some of the more deeply incised river valleys, particularly the lower Dnepr, in S Ukraine. The topography is generally rough in these areas of outcropping, particularly in the N, where a maximum elevation of 1191 m (3906 ft) is reached in the Khibiny Mts. of the central Kola Peninsula. Otherwise, the relief of the European Plain, with minor exceptions, is only modest. Other surface features in the region owe their origins to glaciation. Among these are several broad marshy areas, such as the Pripyats Marshes along the Pripyats R. in S Belarus (formerly Belorussia) and NW Ukraine, as well as the Meshchera Lowland SE of Moscow along the Oka R. These flat, poorly drained areas were previously lakes when glacial ice blocked the streams that now partly drain them. The most recent glacial stage, which ended about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, formed a terminal moraine that runs E through N Belarus, then N of Moscow to the Arctic coast W of the Pechora R. The region to the N of this boundary is poorly drained and has numerous lakes and swamps. Ural Mountains. The European Plain terminates in the E at the Ural Mts. An old, worn-down series of mountain ranges, the Urals are topographically unimpressive. The average elevation is only about 600 m (about 1970 ft), and the highest elevation is in the N in Narodnaya Gora (Russ. “People’s Mt.”), at 1894 m (6214 ft) above sea level. They are, however, important for a wide variety of mineral deposits, ranging from the mineral fuels to iron ore to the nonferrous metals and nonmetallic minerals. West Siberian Lowland. To the E of the Ural Mts. the plain region continues in the West Siberian Lowland. This expansive and extremely flat area is poorly drained and is generally marshy or swampy. Central Asian Lowland. Occupying most of former Soviet Central Asia is a broad lowland region, more varied in terrain than the West Siberian Lowland to the N. In the W is the Caspian Depression, an area that lies below sea level and encircles the N part of the Caspian Sea. The lowest point in the region (132 m/433 ft below sea level) is on the Mangyshlak Peninsula, which extends into the Caspian. Much of the SW portion of the Central Asian Lowland is occupied by the Kara-Kum and Kyzylkum deserts. In the E the land rises to an uneven terrain of low plateaus, with a maximum elevation of more than 1520 m (more than 5000 ft). Central Siberian Platform. Just E of the Yenisey R. begins the rolling upland of the Central Siberian Platform. Elevations here average about 500 to 700 m (about 1650 to 2300 ft) above sea level. In all areas rivers have dissected, or eroded, the surface and in some places have formed deep canyons. The geologic structure of the region is complex; a basement of igneous and metamorphic rocks is topped in many places by thick sedimentary rocks and volcanic lavas. The Central Siberian Platform is rich in a variety of minerals. East Siberian Uplands. To the E of the Lena R. the topography consists of a series of mountains and basins. The higher ranges in this region, such as the Verkhoyansk, Cherskiy, and Kolyma, generally reach maximum elevations of about 2300 to 3200 m (about 7550 to 10,500 ft). To the E, toward the Pacific Ocean, the mountains are higher and steeper, and volcanic activity becomes prevalent. On Kamchatka Peninsula are 120 volcanoes, 23 of which are currently active. The highest cone, Klyuchevskaya Sopka, reaches an elevation of 4750 m (15,584 ft). The volcanic mountain chain of Kamchatka continues southward in the Kuril Islands, which contain about 100 volcanoes, 35 of which are active. Southern mountain systems. The S border of the former USSR is marked by rugged mountain ranges. In the W and the E the ranges are low and discontinuous, but in the center they rise to form an unbroken and formidable barrier to both climatic and human movement. The westernmost of these mountain systems is the Carpathian Mts., which run through SW Ukraine and reach a maximum elevation of 2058 m (6752 ft). Farther E are the Crimean Mts., which plunge abruptly on the SE to the Black Sea at an imposing fault scarp of bare limestone rock. This fault system continues E in the young, seismically active Caucasus Mountains, which extend between the Black and Caspian seas. The Caucasus Mts. comprise two major folded mountain chains divided along their entire extent by a lowland. Geologically complex, the mountain system is composed of limestone and crystalline rocks with some volcanic formations. The lowland is divided into two parts, the subtropical Colchis Lowland on the W and the much drier, and larger, Kura Lowland on the E. To the N of the lowland lie the Great Caucasus, commonly considered the dividing line between Europe and Asia. The Great Caucasus reach a maximum elevation of 5642 m (18,510 ft) on Mt. Elbrus, an extinct volcano that is the highest peak in Europe. To the S of the lowland are the Lesser Caucasus, the peaks of which average between 1500 and 2500 m (4920 and 8200 ft) but reach elevations as high as 3372 m (11,063 ft) just N of the large, high Lake Sevan. Many of the valleys of the Lesser Caucasus have fertile soils derived from volcanic materials. Located to the S is the high, volcanic Armenian Plateau, which continues across the Soviet border into E Turkey and NW Iran. The highest volcanic peak in Armenia is Mt. Aragats (Alagez), with an elevation of 4095 m (13,435 ft). East of the S Caspian Sea, in Central Asia, are the Tien Shan, the Pamirs, and the Alai Mountains. These rugged mountains contain the highest peak on the former Soviet territory, Communism Peak (7498 m/24,599 ft), located in Tajikistan (formerly Tadzhikstan). Also in this region are the next two highest peaks, Mt. Pobeda, or Victory (7439 m/24,406 ft), and Mt. Lenin (7165 m/23,508 ft). Other mountain ranges continue NE along the S border of the lands that formerly constituted the Soviet Union, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Among the mountainous formations in the S border region are the Altai, Sayan, Yablonovy, and Stanovoy ranges. Coastline, Rivers, Lakes, and Seas. The USSR had the longest continuous coastline of any country in the world. It stretched more than 32,180 km (more than 20,000 mi) along the Arctic and Pacific oceans; other coasts lay along the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the S. Because the greater part of its coasts lay in waters frozen for many months of the year, the Soviet Union had few year-round oceanic outlets. Despite these limitations, Soviet shipping and fishing encompassed all the seas. The longest rivers in the former Soviet republics are all
located in Siberia and Far Eastern Russia. The largest single river
system is the Ob-Irtysh; these rivers together flow 5410 km (3362
mi) from W China N through W Siberia to the Arctic Ocean. The second
longest system (4345 km/2700 mi) is the Amur-Shilka-Onon,
which begins in N Mongolia and flows eastward to the Pacific coast.
Among individual streams, the Lena R. is longest; it flows N through
Siberia and Far Eastern Russia for about 4300 km (about 2670 mi)
to the Arctic Ocean. The next longest individual streams are the
Irtysh and the Ob. The fourth longest stream is the Many other streams are of great significance, however, either because they serve as transportation routes or power sources in densely populated areas or because they flow through arid regions where irrigation is essential for agriculture. Outstanding among these are the Dnepr, Don, Southern Bug, and Dnestr rivers, all of which are on the populous S European Plain and drain S to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. On the N European Plain, the Narva, Western Dvina, and Niemen rivers flow NW to the Baltic Sea; and the Pechora, Northern Dvina, Mezen, and Onega rivers flow to the Arctic Ocean and White Sea. The desert areas of Central Asia are watered by a number of rivers that have headstreams in the high mountains to the S. Chief among these are the Amu Darya and the Syrdarya, both of which empty into the Aral Sea; the Ili, which empties into Lake Balkhash; and the Zeravshan, Chu, Murgab, and Tejen rivers, all of which disappear into the sands in the desert. On the North Caucasian Plain the two most important streams for irrigation purposes are the Kuban R., which flows W to the Sea of Azov, and the Terek R., which flows E to the Caspian Sea. The government of the Soviet Union took an active role in building large dams for electrical power, irrigation, flood control, and navigation purposes, and some river basins have been almost completely transformed by the formation of series of huge reservoirs. The most extensive construction has taken place on the Volga-Kama system, the Dnepr R., and the Don R. on the European Plain; and on the upper portions of the Yenisey-Angara system and Ob-Irtysh system in Siberia. In Central Asia major reservoirs have been formed along the Syrdarya and its tributaries as well as on the Ili R. Many natural lakes occur on the territory of the former USSR, particularly in the glaciated NW portion. The largest by far, however, are the Caspian and Aral seas in the S; although called seas, both are actually saline lakes. Each of these lakes occupies a land depression; rivers drain into the lakes, but because of the dry climate the deep basins do not fill up with water and overflow into the sea. Water escapes only through evaporation, and over a period of time salt accumulates. The Caspian Sea has the largest surface area of any lake in the world, about 371,000 sq km (about 143,250 sq mi). Second in size within the former USSR is the Aral Sea, the volume of which has declined drastically since 1960 because its tributaries have been diverted for irrigation; its surface area, measured at 41,383 sq km (15,978 sq mi), continues to shrink. The third largest body of water is Lake Baykal, which has a surface area of 31,468 sq km (12,150 sq mi). Lake Baykal is the deepest freshwater lake in the world, with a maximum depth of 1741 m (5712 ft), and has a greater volume of water (about 23,000 cu km/5520 cu mi) than any other lake in the world; it is estimated that the lake contains about one-fifth of the earth’s fresh surface water. Fourth in size in the former USSR is another salt lake in Central Asia, Lake Balkhash. The next two largest lakes, Ladoga and Onega, lie in the so-called Great Lakes Region of NW European Russia. Both of these are freshwater lakes of glacial origin, and both have outlets to the Gulf of Finland. Climate. The harsh climate prevalent in the lands that comprised the Soviet Union reflect their high latitude and the absence of moderating maritime influences. Except for portions of Central Asia and small lowlands in the Transcaucasus, winters are long and cold, and summers are short and relatively cool. High mountains along the S boundary largely rule out penetration by maritime tropical air masses. During winter the Arctic Ocean is frozen right up to the coast and acts much as a snow-covered, frozen landmass rather than as a relatively warm ocean influence. Because the territory lies in a westerly wind belt, warm influences from the Pacific Ocean do not reach far inland. This is particularly true in winter, when a large, cold high-pressure cell, which is centered in Mongolia, spreads over much of Siberia and Far Eastern Russia. The primary marine influence comes from the Atlantic Ocean in the W, but by the time Atlantic air reaches the former USSR it has crossed the entire W part of the continent of Europe and undergone considerable modification. It penetrates the landmass most easily during summer, when a low-pressure system generally exists over the land. At that time warm, moist Atlantic air may push E well into central Siberia. This is the principal moisture-bearing air mass to reach the former USSR, and most of the territory consequently receives a fairly pronounced summer maximum of precipitation. Only in the shoreline fringes along the E coast of the Black Sea and in the oases of S Central Asia does winter precipitation exceed that of summer. The summer maximum of precipitation is fortunate for agriculture, because in most of the better farming areas the moisture supply is limited. In many areas, however, the distribution of rainfall during the summer is not advantageous—early summer is often subject to drought, and middle and late summer may bring considerable rain and clouds that interfere with the harvest. This is particularly true in Far Eastern Russia, where a monsoonal inflow of Pacific air occurs during middle and late summer. In N regions, especially from Moscow northward, featureless, overcast skies are so frequent, particularly during winter, that the Russians have a special name for the phenomenon, pasmurno, which may be translated “dull, dreary weather.” During December, for instance, Moscow averages 23 days with overcast skies. Annual precipitation in most of the territory is only light to modest, however. Because much of the time the air is cool, it has little capacity to hold water vapor. Across the European Plain, average annual precipitation decreases from about 813 mm (about 32 in) along the Baltic coast to only 203 mm (8 in) along the coast of the Caspian Sea. Annual precipitation continues to decrease to less than 102 mm (4 in) in portions of the deserts of Central Asia. Throughout Siberia and Far Eastern Russia, annual precipitation ranges generally between 508 and 813 mm (20 and 32 in); annual totals may reach 1016 mm (40 in) or more in higher elevations but may be less than 305 mm (12 in) in interior basins. The greatest annual precipitation occurs in the W Transcaucasus region, where Batumi, on the E shore of the Black Sea, receives 2540 mm (100 in). The climate of the republics that formerly constituted the Soviet Union is characterized by temperature extremes. Much of the region experiences bitterly cold winters and relatively cool summers. Only portions of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus experience mild winters and consistently hot summers. The coldest winter temperatures occur in E Siberia; air from the Atlantic Ocean tempers conditions somewhat in the W. Verkhoyansk, located in the extreme NE, has sometimes been called the “cold pole of the world.” During January, temperatures here average –48.9° C (–56° F) and have reached a minimum of –67.8° C (–90° F). Although absolute temperatures during winter are somewhat higher along the Arctic and Pacific coasts, the winds here are strong, and wind chill factors below –150° C (–238° F) have been recorded along portions of the Arctic coast. The same conditions that make for cold temperatures during winter in the NE region—isolation from the sea and narrow valleys between mountains—produce air stagnation in summer, which allows for strong heating under nearly continuous daylight periods at these high latitudes. During July, temperatures in Verkhoyansk average 15° C (59° F) and have reached as high as 35° C (95° F). Verkhoyansk, then, has an absolute temperature range of 102.8° C (185° F), by far the greatest temperature range on earth. The hottest summer temperatures occur in the deserts of S Central Asia, where readings as high as 50° C (122° F) have been recorded. The lands that comprised the USSR encompass numerous distinct climate zones, which, in general, extend across the landmass in E-W belts. Along the Arctic coast a tundra climate prevails, extending S in Far Eastern Russia on upper mountain slopes. To the S of this zone is a broad belt of subarctic climate that extends S to Saint Petersburg; E of the Urals it broadens to envelop almost all of Siberia and Far Eastern Russia. Most of the former European USSR is occupied by the more temperate continental climate. This belt is widest in the W; it stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, then tapers eastward to include a narrow strip of the S West Siberian Lowland; it is also found in the extreme SE portion of Far Eastern Russia. The city of Moscow, which lies within the continental climate zone, has average temperatures of –9.4° C (15° F) in January and 18.9° C (66° F) in July. A broad belt of drier steppe climate with cold winters begins along the Black Sea coast W of the Crimean Peninsula and extends NE across the lower Volga Valley, the S Urals, and the S part of W Siberia. It continues eastward in isolated mountain basins along the extreme fringes of Siberia and Far Eastern Russia. It is also found in the North Caucasian Plain and the Kura Lowland in the E Transcaucasus, and in the foothills of most of the S mountains, where 250 to 500 mm (10 to 20 in) of rain during late winter and spring provide enough moisture for cultivating some crops without irrigation. Much of former Soviet Central Asia, however, including the interior drainage basins of the Aral Sea and Lake Balkhash, is desert. There are also three small areas of humid subtropical climate. These areas are the Colchis Lowland, located at the E end of the Black Sea; the much smaller Lenkoran Lowland in SE Azerbaijan, along the W coast of the Caspian Sea; and the SE shore of the Crimean Peninsula. Natural Vegetation and Soils. The broad zones of natural vegetation and soils of the former USSR correspond closely with the country’s climate zones. In the far N a tundra vegetation of mosses, lichens, and low shrubs grows where the summers are too cool for trees. Permafrost, or permanently frozen subsoil, is found throughout this region. The ground is frozen to great depths, and only a shallow surface layer thaws in summer to provide a limited sustenance to plants. Forests cover more than two-fifths of the lands that formerly constituted the USSR, the greater part lying in Asia. Taken together, these forests account for nearly one-fourth of the world’s forest area. The forest zone is divisible into a large N part, the boreal forest, or taiga, and a much smaller S area, the mixed forest. The taiga is S of the tundra; it occupies the N two-fifths of European Russia and extends to cover much of Siberia and Far Eastern Russia. Much of this region also has permafrost. The vast taiga zone is made up primarily of coniferous trees, but in some places small-leaved trees such as birch, poplar, aspen, and willow add to the diversity of the forest. In the extreme NW part of the European region the taiga is dominated by a variety of pines, but significant numbers of fir, birch, and other trees are also present. Eastward to the W slopes of the Urals, pines are still common, but firs predominate, and in some regions almost pure stands of birch exist. The taiga of the West Siberian Lowland is made up primarily of various species of pine, but along the S fringes of the forest, birch becomes dominant. Throughout much of the Central Siberian Upland and the mountains of Far Eastern Russia, larch, a deciduous coniferous tree, becomes dominant. Throughout the taiga zone, the trees are generally small and rather widely spaced. A considerable amount of land is also devoid of trees, primarily because of poor local drainage; in these areas marsh grasses and bushes form the vegetative cover. The soils of the taiga are podzolic in character and are infertile, having been leached of most of their plant minerals by the abundance of acidic groundwater. A mixed forest, containing both coniferous and broadleaf deciduous trees, occupies the central portion of the E European Plain from St. Petersburg in the N to Kiev in the S. The mixed forest is dominated by coniferous evergreen trees in the N and broadleaf trees in the S. The principal broadleaf species here are oak, beech, maple, and hornbeam. A similar forest of somewhat different species prevails throughout much of S Far Eastern Russia along the middle Amur R. valley and S along the Ussuri R. valley. Gray-brown forest soils are found in the mixed forest zone. They are not as infertile as the soils in the taiga to the N, and with proper farming methods and heavy fertilization they can be kept quite productive. To the S, the mixed forest grades through a narrow zone of forest-steppe before passing into the zone of true steppes. Although now largely under cultivation, the forest-steppe has a natural vegetation of grasslands with scattered groves of trees. Averaging about 150 km (about 95 mi) wide, this zone stretches E from W Ukraine and Moldova (formerly Moldavia), across the middle Volga Valley and S Ural Mts. into the S portions of the West Siberian Lowland. Isolated areas of this zone can be found in the S intermontane basins of E Siberia. True steppe, a mixture of grasses with only a few stunted trees in sheltered valleys, is the natural vegetation of a region that extends across the southwestern republics and includes the S third of Ukraine; the W half of the North Caucasian Plain; and a strip of land extending E across the S Volga Valley, S Urals, N Kazakstan, and adjacent parts of Western Siberia. Like the forest steppe zone, much of the steppe has been put under cultivation. Both the forest-steppe and the steppe have fertile soils and together form a region, known as the black-earth belt, that was the Soviet Union’s agricultural heartland. The forest-steppe has black chernozem soils that are high in humus content and have about the right balance of minerals for the cultivation of most crops. The forest steppe has a better moisture supply than the steppe during the growing season, and consequently is the best agricultural area of the former USSR. The soils of the steppe, known as brownstone soils, are not quite as rich in humus as the chernozems to the N, but are very high in mineral content. A semidesert vegetation characterizes the lowland N of the Caspian Sea and extends E across central Kazakstan. Vegetation here consists of sparse bushes and herbaceous plants that grow after short rainy spells. Deserts are found in S Kazakstan and all of former Soviet Central Asia outside the mountains and foothills. Vegetation in most places is sparse, the deserts here being devoid of cacti. In some places, however, is a cover of saxaul (or saksaul) tree, which grows only in this part of the world. It is a gnarled, stunted tree that in most cases is bushlike with heights of 2 to 4 m (6 to 13 ft), but occasionally reaches heights of 7 m (23 ft). The semidesert and desert soils are rich in minerals and can be made productive for certain crops if irrigation water is available. Animal Life. Animal life is abundant and varied in many of the former Soviet republics. Wildlife in the tundra along the Arctic coast, N Pacific coast, and offshore islands is surprisingly diverse, and includes polar bear, seal, walrus, polar fox, reindeer, and white hare. Birdlife includes white partridges, polar owls, gulls, and loons. Geese, swans, and ducks migrate into the region during summer, which is also then infested with mosquitoes, gnats, and other insects; fish abound in the streams. The taiga forest furnishes a habitat for elk, brown bear, reindeer, lynx, sable, and a variety of forest birds, such as the owl and nightingale. Swamps in this zone have been stocked with muskrat from Canada; along with squirrel, muskrat is now the principal source of pelts trapped in the wild. The broadleaf forests contain boar, deer, wolf, fox, mink, and a variety of birds, snakes, lizards, and tortoises. The forests of S Far Eastern Russia are known for their large Ussuri tigers, as well as leopard, bear, and deer. The steppe is inhabited primarily by rodents such as marmots and hamsters, but also contains a number of hooved animals such as the steppe antelope. The steppe polecat and the Tatar fox are the main beasts of prey here. Birdlife includes the crane, eagle, and kestrel. The Caucasus region and the Crimean Mts. are particularly abundant in wildlife; mountain goats, chamois, Caucasian deer, wild boar, porcupine, leopard, hyena, jackal, squirrel, bear, and such game fowl as the black grouse, turkey hen, and stone partridge are found here. Reptiles and amphibians are also numerous. Mammals living in the arid regions of Central Asia include the Persian gazelle and ground squirrel; birds, such as the bustard and pheasant, as well as snakes and lizards are also common. Mineral Resources. The republics formerly comprising the USSR together contain the greatest mineral resources of any region in the world. They are especially rich in mineral fuels. Estimates suggest that the republics hold at least one-third of the world’s proven coal reserves and two-fifths (according to Soviet figures) of the world’s natural-gas reserves; petroleum reserves are also extremely abundant. Coal deposits are scattered widely; the largest reserves lie in Siberia and Far Eastern Russia, but the most developed fields are in Ukraine, W Siberia, Kazakstan, the NE European region, the Moscow region, and the Urals. The major petroleum deposits are in W Siberia, the Volga-Ural region, and the Caucasus region, particularly around Baku. Smaller deposits, however, are scattered throughout the territory. The principal natural-gas deposits are along the Arctic coast of Siberia, in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (formerly Turkmenia), in Ukraine, in the N Caucasus region, and in the Komi autonomous region of NE European Russia. The former Soviet republics together hold a relatively abundant supply of most metallic ores. According to Soviet figures, they control 50% of the world’s iron ore, 80% of the world’s manganese (the third most important ingredient, after iron ore and coal, in making steel), and about 35% of the world’s chromite (another important iron alloy). The primary iron-ore deposits are found in the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, halfway between Moscow and Ukraine, and in the Krivoy Rog Basin in Ukraine; smaller deposits are scattered throughout former Soviet territory. The principal manganese deposits are in the lower Dnepr R. valley and in the Colchis Lowland of W Georgia; minor deposits are scattered through the Urals and in portions of Kazakstan. Other important iron alloys, such as nickel, tungsten, cobalt, and molybdenum, occur in adequate or even abundant quantities. The former Soviet republics are also well endowed with most of the nonferrous metals except aluminum, which is in relatively short supply. In the 1980s the USSR was able to satisfy only about 60% of its aluminum need from domestic ores. Aluminum ores are found primarily in the Urals, NW European Russia, the Transcaucasus, N central Kazakstan, and SE Siberia. Copper, on the other hand, is abundant; reserves are found in central and E Kazakhstan, the Urals, Uzbekistan, Armenia, the Norilsk area of E Siberia, and the Kola Peninsula. A large deposit E of Lake Baykal became commercially exploitable when the Baykal-Amur Railroad was completed in 1984. Lead and zinc ores are abundant (often found with copper, gold, silver, and a variety of rare metals) in E and S Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, the N Caucasus, Far Eastern Russia, and the W edge of the Kuznetsk Basin in Siberia. The former Soviet republics have some of the world’s largest reserves of gold ore, primarily in the Russian Far East and Siberia, as well as in Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and the Urals. Deposits in Far Eastern Russia provided about half the USSR’s domestic gold supply. Some uranium production takes place in the mountains of Central Asia and in the iron-mining region of Ukraine. Mercury and antimony are found in Kyrgyzstan (formerly Kirgiziya) and in the Donets Basin of E Ukraine. Mercury deposits have also been found in the Transcaucasus SE of Lake Sevan and in Chukchi Autonomous Okrug in extreme NE Russia. Large asbestos deposits exist in the central and S Urals and adjacent Kazakstan and in E Siberia. Raw materials for chemical-manufacturing industries are also abundant. These include potassium and magnesium salt deposits in the Kama R. district of the W Urals, SE Belarus, and the N slopes of the Carpathians in SW Ukraine. Some of the world’s largest deposits of apatite (a mineral from which phosphate is derived) are in the central Kola Peninsula; other types of phosphate ores are found in S Kazakstan and in other republics. Common rock salt can be found in the Donets Basin of E Ukraine, in the SW Urals, SW of Lake Baykal, in Azerbaijan, and in the Carpathian foothills of W Ukraine. Surface deposits of salt are derived from salt lakes along the lower Volga Valley, the E Caspian Sea, the N Aral Sea, and scattered shallow salt lakes of NE Kazakstan. Sulfur is found in the Urals, in the Carpathian foothills, and along the border between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. High-grade limestone, used for the production of cement, is found in many parts of the country, but particularly near Belgorod in central European Russia, along the NE coast of the Black Sea, and in the Zhiguli Hills area of the middle Volga Valley. POPULATION At the time of its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union was, after China and India, the third most populous country in the world. Its population comprised an immense aggregate of nationalities and linguistic groups, exceeded in number only by those of India. Many of the USSR’s national groups had their own administrative territories. Ethnic Composition. The Soviet population was made up of more than 100 recognized ethnic groups. Groups whose national language belongs to the Indo-European family accounted for more than 80% of the entire population. Among these, the Eastern Slavs constituted almost three-fourths of the population. They consisted primarily of the Russians (or Great Russians), who accounted for approximately 51% of the total population and ranked first among nationality groups; the Ukrainians, who accounted for about 15% and ranked second; and the Belarussians (White Russians, or Little Russians), who accounted for about 4% and ranked fourth. Other Slavic groups of note were the Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs, and Slovaks. The Eastern Slavs were concentrated in the European part of the country, their traditional homeland; however, during the 20th century they migrated in large numbers to all parts of the country. Russians, along with smaller numbers of Belarussians and Ukrainians, formed a majority in the population of Siberia, Far Eastern USSR, N Kazakstan, and most of the cities of Central Asian USSR. Other important nationalities within the Indo-European language family included the Moldovans (3.1 million), concentrated in the SW near Romania, Armenians (4.2 million) in the Transcaucasus, Germans (1.2 million), scattered in several parts of the country, and the Tajik (3.1 million) of Central Asia. Groups belonging to the Altaic language family constituted more than 12% of the total population. Among these the Turkic groups were most populous. The most numerous of these were the Azerbaijani (5.9 million) and Karachay in the Caucasus; the Chuvash (1.6 million), Tatars (6 million), and Bashkir (1 million) in the middle Volga Valley; the Kazak (7.1 million), Uzbek (13.6 million), Turkmen (2.2 million), Kyrgyz (2.1 million), and Karakalpak (320,000) in Soviet Central Asia; and the Yakut (350,000) in the Far East. The Uzbek were the third most numerous nationality in the Soviet Union, the Kazak were the fifth, and the Tatars were the sixth most populous nationality. The Uralic family made up about 2% of the Soviet population. This family included such diverse groups as the Mordvin (960,000), Udmurt (600,000), and Mari (600,000) in the middle Volga Valley; the Karelians in the Baltic region; and the Komi (280,000) in the NE part of European USSR. The other large family, the Caucasian, lived primarily in the Caucasus region and included such populous groups as the Georgians (3.9 million) and Chechen (830,000). Other, much smaller groups of Paleo-Asiatic, Uralic, and Oriental peoples were scattered in parts of Siberia and Far Eastern USSR. Population Characteristics. According to the 1979 census, the Soviet Union had a total population of 262,436,227; the 1989 census population was 286,731,000. The 1989 total represented a population increase of 9.3% over the 1979 census figure. In the late 1980s the country’s overall annual growth rate was a relatively low 0.8%. In general, however, the Slavic and Baltic peoples had low birth rates, and the Central Asian peoples had very high birth rates, as, to a lesser extent, did the Azerbaijanis and Armenians in the Transcaucasus. Urbanization has been rapid since the 1920s, when the Soviet government began full-scale modernization of the economy. The proportion of total population classified as urban increased from only 18% in 1913 to 66% in the late 1980s. Women made up about 53% of the population; this was due to past wars (especially World War II) and civil strife, during which more men than women lost their lives. Large discrepancies in the male/female ratio, which by the 1980s were confined entirely to the older age groups, may also be partly attributed to a longer life span for women; in the late 1980s the life expectancy for women in the Soviet Union was 74 years, while that for men was 64 years. Migration into and out of the Soviet Union was minimal until the late 1980s, when emigration policies were liberalized. During the 1960s and ’70s, approximately 250,000 Jews were allowed to leave; Jewish emigration was sharply curtailed in the early 1980s, but by 1990 Soviet Jews were arriving in Israel at a rate of about 20,000 per month. The overall population density of the USSR in 1989 was 12.8 persons per sq km (33.1 per sq mi). The population, however, was unevenly distributed across the country. The population density of a particular area generally reflected the land’s agricultural potential, with localized population nodes occurring at mining and industrial sites. Most of the country’s people were concentrated in the so-called fertile triangle, which has its base along the W border between the Baltic and Black seas and tapers eastward across the S Urals into SW Siberia and N Kazakstan. Important outlying areas of high population density occurred in the Caucasus and the oases of Central Asia. Although the majority of the population remained concentrated in European USSR, the country experienced substantial migration after World War II to Asian USSR, especially to S Siberia and the Soviet Far East. Such migration was strongly encouraged by the Soviet government. Throughout much of rural European USSR the population density averaged about 25 people per sq km (65 per sq mi). The country’s heaviest population densities were in sprawling urbanized areas such as Moscow Oblast and in key agricultural areas such as portions of S Ukraine, much of Moldova, and the irrigated oases of Central Asia. On the other hand, more than a quarter of the country’s territory had fewer than 1 person per sq km (fewer than 2.6 per sq mi). This included huge areas in Siberia and Far Eastern USSR as well as the Central Asian desert lands. More than two-thirds of the country—an area that included most of Siberia, Far Eastern USSR, and much of Central Asia and N European USSR—had a population density of fewer than 5 people per sq km (fewer than 13 per sq mi). Principal Cities. The Soviet Union became a country of large cities despite government restrictions designed to limit the populations of major urban centers. Twenty-three cities in the late 1980s had more than 1 million inhabitants. Most of these were in the European USSR, but several were also in the Caucasus region, W Siberia, and Central Asian USSR. The largest city by far, Moscow, the capital of the former USSR and of Russia, had a population (1989) of about 8.8 million. St. Petersburg served as the national capital from 1712 to 1918; situated on the Gulf of Finland, a leading port and a primary industrial center, it had a population of about 4.5 million. The third largest city, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, had some 2.6 million inhabitants. The fourth largest city, Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and a major metropolis of Central Asia, had a population of nearly 2.1 million. Kharkov, Ukraine, a center for the manufacture of agricultural machinery and railroad locomotives, had a population of about 1.6 million. Minsk, the capital of Belarus, had a population of some 1.6 million. Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorkiy), Russia, the largest city on the Volga R. and a major automotive and shipbuilding center, had a population of about 1.4 million. Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, had a population of about 1.4 million. Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk), Russia, the largest city in the Urals, had a population of some 1.4 million. Samara (formerly Kuybyshev), Russia, a commercial center of the middle Volga region and the primary refining center for the Volga-Urals oil fields, had nearly 1.3 million people. Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, had a population of almost 1.3 million. The following cities also had between 1 and 2 million people: Dnepropetrovsk, the largest industrial city in the Dnepr R. bend area of S Ukraine; Odessa, the busiest port in the USSR, on the N coast of the Black Sea, in SW Ukraine; Chelyabinsk, the second largest urban center in the Urals; Yerevan, the capital of Armenia; Donetsk, the major center of the Donets coal basin in E Ukraine; Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and an important oil-refining center and port on the Caspian Sea; Omsk, the second largest city in W Siberia and the region’s major petrochemical center; Perm, the major industrial center in the Kama R. region on the W slopes of the Urals; Kazan, the capital of the Tatar autonomous region, in the middle of the Volga region; Ufa, an important petrochemical center of the S Urals region; Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata), capital of Kazakstan; and Rostov-na-Donu, a commercial, industrial, and transportation center in S European Russia. Language. Soviet censuses listed 114 languages and more than 300 linguistic
and dialectical denominations spoken within the Soviet Union. The Religion. According to the 1977 constitution, Soviet citizens were guaranteed the “right to profess or not to profess any religion.” Atheism was a fundamental tenet of Communist ideology, however, and suppression of religion was an explicit government policy during the Communist period. The old Russian Empire contained peoples of many major religious faiths, including many denominations. In 1918 the property of all religious faiths and denominations as well was nationalized. Although the Soviet government permitted some churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples to function, all religious instruction was restricted until 1990, when a law was passed forbidding the government to interfere with religious activities. The USSR issued no statistics on religious affiliation; rough
estimates suggest that about half the total Soviet population adhered
to some religious faith. The largest number, mostly Slavs, adhered
to Russian Orthodox Christianity (see EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITY Both education and culture in the Soviet Union were placed under direct government control and were used to foster the goals of national and Communist party policy. Education. The educational system of czarist Russia was poorly developed and was restricted primarily to children of families who could afford boarding schools. Peter the Great, who reigned from 1682 to 1725, established a formalized, state-maintained school system, and Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, expanded the system. A great increase in public primary school education was begun in the 1860s by local governmental authorities. In the 1880s the Russian Orthodox church launched an effort to establish parochial schools, but most of these offered only four years of elementary classes. At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution only 44% of the population between the ages of 9 and 49 was literate. Regional disparities were great, ranging from about 52% literacy in Ukraine to only 3% in Tajikistan. The literacy rate was also considerably higher among men and urban dwellers than among women and rural dwellers. The Bolshevik Revolution brought the school system under the control of the Communist party. Education became a state monopoly, and private schools and colleges were abolished. Schooling became free and compulsory for all children. In most large cities and industrial communities attendance was compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 17. In other places the period of compulsory attendance was sometimes shorter. By the 1980s, nearly 100% of the adult population was literate. In addition to regular primary, secondary, and higher education, the state provided ample opportunity for free continuing education for adults; it also provided nursery (ages 1 to 3) and kindergarten (ages 3 to 6) schools. Primary and secondary schools. In the late 1980s about 134,800 primary, secondary, and vocational schools were attended by about 45.5 million pupils annually. Teachers in these schools numbered more than 3 million. Primary and secondary schools stressed reading and writing, mathematics and science skills, foreign languages, and social studies; the emphasis on ideological training declined in the 1980s. At the age of 6, children in the Soviet Union entered primary school for an intensive 4-year course (grades 1 to 4). Intermediate education began with grade 5 and continued through grade 9. After that, children entered upper-level secondary schools (grades 10–11), specialized secondary schools, or vocational-technical programs, which included on-the-job training. Specialized secondary schools trained skilled and semiprofessional workers such as technicians, nurses, elementary-school teachers, and other specialists who generally functioned as assistants to professional graduates of higher educational institutions. The specialized secondary school program lasted up to four years, and the graduate received the equivalent of a general secondary education as well as specialized technical training. Vocational-technical schools offered 1- to 3-year programs of training in semiskilled and skilled occupations. In these schools a student might complete a general secondary education while obtaining occupational training. Higher education. In the late 1980s the Soviet Union had nearly 900 institutions of higher learning. Of this number, 69 were universities, and the rest, known as institutes, specialized in vocational training. Total enrollment in institutions of higher education was about 5.1 million. Of this total, only about half were enrolled full time; the rest attended on a part-time basis at night or took correspondence courses. Entrance to all institutions of higher education was by standardized competitive examination. Successful entrants were paid state stipends to cover living and educational expenses. Among the country’s major universities were the following: Moscow M. V. Lomonosov State University (1755), St. Petersburg State University (1819), Kiev T. G. Shevchenko State University (1834), Kharkov A. M. Gorkiy State University (1805), Kazan State University (1804), and Novosibirsk State University (1959). Other important universities were located in Tartu, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Odessa, Rostov-na-Donu, Nizhny Novgorod, Minsk, Alma-Ata, Tomsk, Vladivostok, and Voronezh. Undergraduate training in higher educational institutions generally involved a 4- or 5-year course of study, after which students might enroll for graduate training for a 1- to 3-year term. Graduate students who successfully completed their courses of study, comprehensive examinations, and the defense of their dissertations received candidate of sciences degrees, roughly equivalent to Ph.D. degrees in the U.S. A higher degree, the doctor of sciences, was awarded to established scholars who had made outstanding contributions to their disciplines. In addition to the country’s universities and institutes, the Soviet Union also operated a system of advanced training and research through the USSR Academy of Sciences, one of the world’s foremost organizations devoted to scholarly research. The program of the academy was carried out by 60 research institutes, 30 research stations, 30 special laboratories, and 3 astronomical observatories. In addition, the academy directed 234 scientific institutions with a combined professional staff of more than 35,000. The union republics also maintained science academies. Each of the various branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences had research personnel, who did no formalized teaching but might tutor doctoral candidates from universities on an apprentice basis. Cultural Life. The origins of Soviet culture lay to a large extent in Russian
culture, one of the richest in the world; Beginning in the late 1920s the Soviet government imposed strict controls on all the arts. Unions were established for each branch of the arts (for example, the Union of Soviet Writers, founded in 1932). The unions served to exercise government censorship on individual members and to regulate the course and content of each art. An artist’s expulsion from the union generally meant that the artist’s work was banned from the Soviet Union. By 1934 Soviet authorities had decreed that works of art would be judged primarily on the basis of socialist realism, that is, on how well they portrayed contemporary life to depict the perfection of Communist society; henceforth art was to adhere to the Communist party line and was to appeal to the masses. Early socialist realism concentrated on economic themes such as the struggle and ultimate victory in improving agricultural production, the elimination of lagging productivity in industry, and the glory of monumental construction projects. Subsequently, themes approved centered on the problems and aspirations of youth. In addition, the Soviet government was eager to develop the concept of multinationalism, which meant not only extolling the past achievements of Russian culture but also highlighting the considerable diversity manifested by the other major national cultures. Artists among the various nationality groups were exhorted to keep their art nationalist in form but socialist in content. Government control restricted the creativity of many of the artists in the country. Writers were particularly susceptible to government disapproval and censorship. The great tradition of Russian literature was carried on by a few writers of the Soviet period, such as Maksim Gorki, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Other potentially innovative and productive writers were refused publication and in some cases became dissidents, for whom exile (forced or voluntary) was the only recourse. Among the more prominent Soviet writers to be exiled were Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky. Music perhaps suffered the least in its development under the Soviet regime, although composers were also called on to stress national and heroic elements and to avoid “excessive formalism” in their works. Some Soviet composers managed to achieve worldwide acclaim; among them were Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergey Prokofiev, and Aram Khachaturian. In dance the Soviets were primarily content to perform the classics superbly rather than to experiment with modern, innovative dancing. By virtue of its accessibility and appeal to the masses, the cinema became a widespread form of Soviet art. Many films were of a utilitarian nature and aimed only to educate the audience, but some became internationally recognized for their artistic qualities. Nearly 40 movie studios, located in major cities in all parts of the country, produced more than 200 full-length films annually. International film festivals were held biennially in Moscow and Tashkent. Many small theaters were scattered throughout the Soviet Union, and their productions were often of a regional, national character. Also of importance, and with strong historical associations, was the circus, which in the Soviet Union was considered a theatrical performance. Each of the larger cities had a resident circus permanently housed in a round pavilion. Cultural Institutions. In keeping with the long-held doctrine that art is for the masses, the Soviet Union maintained a huge number of museums of all kinds, including outdoor museums of architectural preservation. Most major cultural institutions were in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Best known to tourists were the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, one of the world’s great museums, and the Armory Museum in the Moscow Kremlin. Also in Moscow were the State Tretyakov Gallery, with a collection devoted to Russian art, the State Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, the Folk-Art Museum, the Central Lenin Museum, and the Museum of the Revolution, as well as many other smaller, more specialized collections. The Permanent Exhibition of National Economic Achievements in Moscow offered a large display of contemporary achievements in science, industry, and agriculture. Northeast of Moscow are a string of a half-dozen old kremlin (fortress) towns that served as seats of government for city-states during the Middle Ages. These have been restored as part of a tourist circuit known as the Golden Ring. Central Asian cities such as Samarqand, Bukhara, Tashkent, and Khiva display the mosques and palaces that are the remnants of khanates and empires that dominated the area from ancient times to the 19th century. The country’s larger museums and architectural restorations were state supported, but some smaller collections, particularly in rural areas, were the result of volunteer work by enthusiasts and clubs. Soviet museums, whether large or small, generally provided well-displayed exhibits and were well attended. More than 2000 parks in the Soviet Union combined facilities for recreation with those for cultural events. Many of the theaters, lecture halls, chess-match facilities, and so forth could be found in the parks of the cities throughout the country. Best known among the metropolitan parks were Gorki Central Park, Sokolniki Park, and Izmaylovo Park, all in Moscow, and the Kirov Park in St. Petersburg. The state operated about 326,000 libraries of various kinds. Best known was the State V. I. Lenin Library of the USSR, located in Moscow, which housed more than 30 million volumes in some 250 languages—one of the largest library collections in the world. Other leading libraries included the State M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library in St. Petersburg, with about 28.5 million volumes; the Library of the USSR Academy of Sciences, with about 12 million volumes; and Moscow State University Library, with about 6.6 million volumes. The best-known theaters in Moscow were the Bolshoi (“big”) Theater, the Maly (“small”) Theater, and the Moscow Art Theater. In addition, many of the larger productions of the Bolshoi ballet and opera troupes were presented in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, with seats for 6000 people. Other theaters of note in Moscow were the Moscow Central Children’s Theater, the Moscow Young Spectators Theater, the Moscow Central State Puppet Theater, the Gorki Moscow Art Theater, the Academic Musical Theater, the Operetta Theater, and the Lunacharsky Theater Art Institute. Among the best known in St. Petersburg were the Kirov Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet, the Maly Opera Theater, and the Pushkin Academic Drama Theater. Communications. A network of more than 1500 radio and television stations reached into the homes of almost all inhabitants in the USSR. In the late 1980s about 191.5 million radios and more than 88 million televisions were in use. Communication satellites relayed programs from Moscow to all parts of the country. Programs were broadcast in some 70 languages within the Soviet Union and in more than 75 languages to foreign countries. All broadcasting stations were operated by government agencies. Until the late 1980s, the Soviet press, like Soviet radio and television, almost invariably reflected government views. A press law introduced in 1990 barred political interference in broadcasting and newspapers and proclaimed that “censorship of mass information is not allowed.” The legislation did not, however, address the issue of government control of the media through its monopoly of broadcasting stations and the allocation of newsprint. Traditionally, daily newspapers and other types of literature for public consumption were published by party and government agencies. About 8100 newspapers, including more than 700 dailies, had a combined total circulation in the late 1980s of more than 100 million copies. The leading dailies were Pravda (Truth), the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist party, with a daily circulation of nearly 10 million, and Izvestiya (News), the organ of the national government, with a circulation of about 10.1 million. Other important newspapers were Komsomolskaya Pravda, the organ of the Young Communist League (Komsomol), with a daily circulation of about 17.6 million; and Trud (Labor), the publication of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, with a circulation of about 19.8 million. Hundreds of small, independent journals sprang up in the late 1980s, in keeping with the official policy of glasnost (Rus. “openness”). After the collapse of the August 1991 coup, some publications with ties to the Communist party reorganized as independents. The main organizations for gathering and reporting news in the early 1990s were TASS, the official Soviet telegraph agency; Novosti, which had semiofficial status; and the independent agency Interfax. Each year the Soviet Union published more than 80,000 book titles in about 2.1 billion copies, much more than any other country. In addition to books published for domestic consumption, many books of a propagandistic nature were published in numerous languages for distribution abroad. Most publishing of books, magazines, and newspapers was subsidized heavily by the government; their low prices did not correspond to the costs of producing them. GOVERNMENT After the Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks brought into being the world’s first socialist state based on Marxist doctrine. The first constitution (1918) applied only to the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After a period of civil war, the ethnic territories of the former Russian Empire were incorporated into the new socialist state. A treaty of union, adopted on Dec. 30, 1922, finally founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This document, referred to as a federal constitution, divided power between the union and the individual constituent republics. Actually, it was a confederate constitution that reserved ultimate powers to the constituent republics, even to the point of secession from the union. Subsequent events demonstrated, however, that such considerations were not realistic, and the government of the Soviet Union was long ruled by people, not by laws. Through the 1980s the real power lay not in the constitution of the USSR, or even in the government, but in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The constitution was rewritten in 1936 and increased the number of subdivisions (both national and administrative). The last Soviet constitution, which was adopted on Oct. 7, 1977, changed little if anything in the 1936 constitution, but added material about individual rights and responsibilities and the world mission of Communist ideology. During 1990 and 1991 the executive and legislative institutions of the USSR were in flux, as Soviet leaders sought, without success, to cope with the nation’s deepening political and economic crisis. Until September 1991 the USSR consisted of 15 soviet socialist republics (SSRs), constituted on the basis of the predominant nationality of their populations. Some SSRs were subdivided into autonomous soviet socialist republics (ASSRs), autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okrugs, all of which were also based on nationality groups, as well as krays, oblasts, and rayons, created only for administrative convenience. Between March 1990 and September 1991 virtually all the constituent republics advanced claims of sovereignty, and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania won full international recognition as independent states. The Communist Party. For more than 70 years, until the upheavals of the early 1990s, the Communist party dominated Soviet life. The party was described in the 1977 constitution as the “leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system, of all state organizations and public organizations.” Its reach extended into all branches of government, nearly all sectors of the economy, and foreign as well as domestic policy making. The Communist party originated in 1903 as the Bolshevik (majority) faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party. After they seized power in November 1917, the Bolsheviks became known as the Russian Communist party (Bolshevik). This became known as the All-Union Communist party (Bolshevik) in 1925 and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1952. At the beginning of 1917 the Bolshevik party had a membership of only 24,000; by the late 1980s the CPSU claimed approximately 18.9 million full members. About three-fourths of all party members were recruited from the Komsomol, which enlisted some 32 million people between the ages of 14 and 28. Many of these Komsomol members had graduated from the Young Pioneers, an organization for children between the ages of 10 and 14. The CPSU was structured hierarchically. At its base were the primary party organizations, initially called cells, each with a minimum of three members. These units permeated the nation’s economic, political, military, and cultural organizations. Above these units, in ascending order of power, were a much smaller number of rural, city, district, regional, and republic committees. At the apex of the pyramid were the All-Union Congress, nominally the party’s supreme policy-making body; the Central Committee, elected by the Congress; the Political Bureau (Politburo), chosen by the Central Committee; and the Secretariat. The position of general secretary of the CPSU, the party’s highest office, was created in 1922; it became the most powerful political position in the USSR during the Stalinist period and remained so until 1991. The party’s power began to erode in the late 1980s, when, in an effort to stimulate the ailing Soviet economy, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev instituted a series of reforms that enhanced the powers of the constituent republics at the expense of the party bureaucracy, even as a freer intellectual climate exposed the party’s ideology to intense criticism. The collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe during 1989–90 hastened the Soviet party’s decline, and by mid-1991 its membership had dropped to about 15 million. After the USSR legalized opposition parties in February 1990, freely elected legislatures in some constituent republics began imposing restrictions on Communist party activities. A new party charter proposed in July 1991 marked a sharp departure from Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. Communist hardliners struck back in August, briefly holding Gorbachev under house arrest and ruling through the State Committee for the State of Emergency. The collapse of the coup proved disastrous for the CPSU. Within days, Gorbachev resigned as head of the party, the Central Committee was disbanded, CPSU operations were suspended, and the party’s files were sealed and assets frozen. Executive. Formerly, the titular head of the Soviet Union was the chairperson of the Presidium of the Soviet Union, who, outside the country, was usually known as the president of the USSR. By virtue of this office, the president wielded little power, other than to serve as the chief functionary of the governmental apparatus. The Council of Ministers, headed by a premier, oversaw government operations. The presidency attained greater political significance during the late 1970s and the ’80s, when Leonid Brezhnev and then Mikhail Gorbachev held that title concurrently with the title of general secretary of the CPSU. Government changes introduced by Gorbachev in the late 1980s greatly expanded the president’s authority over domestic and foreign affairs. The revised framework provided for an executive president, limited to two 5-year terms, to be elected by secret ballot of the Congress of People’s Deputies, a representative body that also was to meet annually to rule on matters of national importance. Of the 2250 deputies, all serving concurrent 5-year terms, at least 100 represented the Communist party; 650 were selected by official union, youth, and professional groups; and the remaining 1500 were elected from national and territorial districts. The congress, elected in March 1989, chose Gorbachev as executive president two months later. Subsequently, Gorbachev continued to augment his presidential authority. His real power, however, eroded rapidly, as elected presidents and legislatures in the constituent republics pursued an increasingly independent course. In the wake of the failed coup of August 1991, with the Communist party mortally wounded, the government of the Russian Federation took over most central government functions while leading the effort to reconstitute the USSR as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Legislature. Until 1989 the Soviet legislature, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, consisted of the Soviet of Nationalities and the Soviet of the Union. Each house comprised approximately 750 deputies, directly elected from a single slate of candidates nominated by the Communist party. The legislature met only twice a year, for brief sessions, generally to approve legislation initiated by the Central Committee of the Communist party. In June 1989 the Supreme Soviet was reconstituted as a bicameral body of 542 deputies, elected to overlapping 5-year terms by the Congress of People’s Deputies from among its own number; about 20 percent of the members’ terms were scheduled to expire each year. The Supreme Soviet was divided into two 271-member councils: the Council of the Union, apportioned by population, and the Council of Nationalities, which provided equal representation for the constituent republics and autonomous regions. The Supreme Soviet, empowered to consider all legislative and administrative questions, was authorized to convene twice yearly, in spring and fall, with each session lasting three to four months. Judiciary. A major component of the judicial system was the office of state prosecution, consisting of a procurator-general and a hierarchy of procurators at corresponding lower administrative levels. The procurators prosecuted offenders in the courts, which were organized in a hierarchical structure corresponding to the country’s administrative divisions. The procurator-general was appointed by the Supreme Soviet for a 5-year term. The procurator-general appointed the procurators of the union republics, autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, autonomous okrugs and krays, and approved the appointment, by the procurators of these administrative subdivisions, of the procurators of rural and urban rayons. All procurators served 5-year terms. The highest court was the supreme court, the judges of which were appointed to 5-year terms by the Supreme Soviet. Below this were the supreme courts of the union republics and regional courts, with judges appointed by the appropriate soviet. All supreme court judges served 5-year terms. The base of the judicial system comprised tribunals, known as people’s courts, which handled both criminal and civil cases. The people’s courts normally consisted of one formally trained judge and two lay assessors, all popularly elected to 3-year terms. The lay assessors were selected from a panel and each year served a limited number of days of their elected term. Local Government. Each of the union republics and autonomous republics had its own constitution, legislature, and judicial institutions. Traditionally, the republics’ governmental structure resembled that of the central government of the USSR, but the upheavals of the early 1990s brought increasing divergence from the Soviet pattern. At the lower administrative levels in the late 1980s there were 8 autonomous oblasts, 10 autonomous okrugs, 129 krays (provinces) and oblasts (regions), 3193 rayons (rural districts), 628 urban districts, 4026 urban settlements, 2190 towns, and 42,172 village soviets. Social Services. All health and welfare services in the USSR were fully financed by the government. In addition to clinics and hospitals supported by the state directly, most large factories, farms, and schools had rudimentary health facilities, and private medical cooperatives were authorized in 1987. The Soviet Union had nearly 1.3 million physicians and dentists, more than any other country, and about 80% of them were women. The country had more than 3.9 million hospital beds as well as many sanatoriums, which were built along the Black Sea coast, in the Caucasus Mts., and in other areas. Generally, by the 1980s, sanitation and inoculation programs were good and most serious communicable diseases had been essentially eradicated. A law providing for mandatory testing of suspected acquired immune-deficiency syndrome (AIDS) carriers was enacted in 1987. All able-bodied citizens were guaranteed jobs by the government; so, strictly speaking, the Soviet Union could not be called a welfare state. A state-financed social security system included pensions for old age, permanent disability, and loss of breadwinner, and benefits for pregnancy and maternity care. Old-age pensions were given to men at the age of 60 and women at the age of 55, and at even lower ages in some outlying areas of the country, such as remote portions of Siberia and the Soviet Far East. In the late 1980s about 56.8 million people were receiving such pensions, generally amounting to 60–70% of their average monthly wages during their last year of work. Defense. The USSR and the U.S. were acknowledged to be the greatest military powers on earth. Although each had military strengths and weaknesses, the two were considered by many experts to be roughly equal in overall capability. In the late 1980s the Soviet Union was thought to have a total military force of about 4.3 million, substantially more than that of the U.S. Active military service was compulsory for most Soviet men at the age of 18 or 19 years. The length of active service generally was two years, although it might be up to three years according to branch of service and rank. Reserve service was required up to a maximum age varying from 35 to 50 years. In the late 1980s the army had 1,596,000 personnel; the navy, 437,000; the air force, 448,000; air defense troops, 502,000; strategic nuclear forces, 287,000; and construction, command, and support personnel, 988,000. The Soviet arsenal included 1451 intercontinental nuclear missiles, 53,350 main battle tanks, about 4500 combat aircraft, and about 150 nuclear-powered submarines. How all these forces would be reorganized and controlled was one of the most crucial questions facing the newly independent republics after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. International Organizations. Throughout its history, the USSR has established many bilateral links with other countries through the signing of general agreements on mutual cooperation in economic development and defense. From the end of World War II through the late 1980s, Soviet foreign policy was founded on two multinational instruments: the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON) and the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, commonly known as the Warsaw Pact. CMEA, a trading bloc, was formed in January 1949, in response to the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR. East Germany joined in 1950, the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1962, Cuba in 1972, and Vietnam in 1978. The Warsaw Pact, a military alliance, was established in 1955 by eight Communist countries of Eastern Europe—Albania (which later withdrew), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR—in response to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Political upheavals within the Communist world led to the breakup of both organizations in 1991. The Soviet Union was a founding member of the UN and had a permanent seat and veto power in the UN Security Council. Two Soviet republics, Belorussia and Ukraine, also had seats in the UN. This arrangement arose from a compromise made in the 1940s when Stalin demanded that all 15 union republics have separate seats (because they were nominally independent republics that had voluntarily chosen confederation). ECONOMY The Bolshevik Revolution established a socialist state based on Marxist doctrine, which prescribes government ownership of all means of production, with each individual producing according to ability and remunerated according to the amount and quality of work. The country’s land and banks were immediately nationalized, as was much industry. During the period known as war communism (1917–21), civil war raged in the country, and the central government functioned by combining fundamental Marxism with ad hoc emergency measures. By 1922 the country had been politically consolidated, and a new economic policy (NEP) was launched. During the NEP period, which lasted until 1928, a considerable amount of individual initiative (private capitalism) was allowed to help the economy recover from the ravages of World War I and the ensuing revolutions and civil wars. In late 1928 Stalin began the first of the famous 5-year plans. The initial plan (1928–33) stressed the buildup of heavy industry and defense at the expense of agriculture and consumer welfare. A large rural-to-urban migration was instituted to provide workers for new factories in the rapidly growing cities. To feed city residents and to accumulate capital to finance industrialization and pay for imports, the national government forced the collectivization of agriculture. The Soviet economy grew rapidly during the 1930s, but because of the great destruction inflicted during the years of World War II (1941–45) many of the gains were eliminated. The economy was largely rehabilitated by 1948, and again growth was rapid through the 1950s and ’60s. In subsequent decades, however, the growth rate slowed, and by the late 1980s serious economic weaknesses had become evident: low productivity, shoddy workmanship, inefficient distribution networks, and severe environmental pollution. In October 1990 the Soviet legislature approved a plan to move the country gradually toward a free market system, but the national economy continued to deteriorate. Meanwhile, Soviet efforts to attract massive aid and investment from the industrialized world were hampered by investors’ concerns over the slow pace of economic reform and uncertainty about the nation’s political future. National Output. According to Western estimates, the Soviet Union in the late 1980s had a gross national product (GNP) of $2.5 trillion, or about $8700 per capita. The Soviet government computed national income as net material product (NMP), which was limited to material production and did not include services and government expenditures. According to Soviet figures, the NMP in the late 1980s consisted of mining and manufacturing, 44.8%; agriculture, 20.5%; trade, 16.1%; construction, 12.5%; and transportation and communication, 6.1%. The Soviet Union ranked among world leaders in the annual production of many basic products, such as coal, petroleum, pig iron and steel, mineral fertilizers, railroad locomotives, tractors, timber products, cement, cotton, milk, butter, wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, and sugar beets. The per capita GNP, however, was only about 45% that of the U.S. and less than that of most European countries and Japan. Labor. The Soviet Union guaranteed a job to every able-bodied person in the country; this applied to women between the ages of 16 and 54 and men between the ages of 16 and 59. Thus, the country had no involuntary unemployment but often had overemployment, with jobs of inconsequential nature being created for older, less skilled persons. On the other hand, severe shortages of various types of skilled personnel existed, particularly in the larger cities and in some of the outlying regions, such as parts of Siberia, which offered less desirable living conditions. In such cases, pensioners were urged to continue to work, at least part time. In the late 1980s, the labor force exceeded 130 million people. Of this total about two-fifths were employed in industry and construction, one-fifth in agriculture and forestry, one-sixth in services, one-tenth in transportation and communications, one-twelfth in trade, and the rest in government administration and other pursuits. All workers in the Soviet Union, except for some collective farm workers, were members of labor (or trade) unions. Until a limited right to strike was legalized in October 1989, Soviet workers did not have the right to strike, bargain, or petition for better working conditions. Labor unions were primarily adjuncts to enterprise management, used to aid in fulfilling production quotas, maintaining work standards, and allocating vacations. In 1990 the country’s largest trade union confederation, the 140-million-member All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, voted to dissolve itself, and independent unions began to organize. Agriculture. From the 1920s through the late 1980s, agriculture in the Soviet Union was organized into state farms (sovkhozes) and collective farms (kolkhozes). In both cases the land was owned by the government. On state farms the state owned all means of production and paid the workers’ wages. On collective farms the land was managed and worked cooperatively, and the farmers divided the net income of the farm according to the number of days each worked. Historical background. Collectivization was initiated in the late 1920s to facilitate government control over the distribution of agricultural produce. During the Stalinist era (1928–53) little attention was given to improving agricultural production. The Soviet government would have liked to run agriculture much as industry, with the state controlling all means of production and paying the farm workers standard wages. In the older, established farming regions, however, which had dense rural populations whose traditional attachments to the land were strong, the government adopted the halfway measure of coercing farmers into collectives rather than taking over their operations completely. Thus, in the initial stages, most of the farmland was constituted in collective farms, and new state farms were limited primarily to marginal agricultural areas where rural population density and attachment to the land were not great. Another concession made to the peasantry at this time was allowing individual household plots, averaging about 0.5 ha (about 1.2 acres) in size. Beginning in 1954 and through the early ’60s, the government launched a number of sweeping reforms, conceived to increase total production and productivity as well as to improve the diet of the Soviet people. Corn was introduced as a major fodder crop, the so-called virgin lands of N Kazakstan and Siberia were put under wheat cultivation, and pressures were increased to convert collective farms to state farms and to phase out personal plots. Some of these schemes were notably unsuccessful, and beginning in the mid-1960s the government reduced pressure for converting collectives to state farms and reducing personal plots. Instead, it sought to modernize agriculture by the increased use of fertilizers, mechanization, and irrigation. The use of personal plots was extended to workers on state farms and to industrial workers and other urban dwellers in peripheral areas of cities, where empty land was available for gardens. Beginning in the early 1970s huge specialized state farms were set up near large cities to provide livestock and livestock products to the nearby markets. Also, farms were encouraged to collaborate on the establishment of processing centers to prepare their agricultural produce for marketing directly to the consumer. Modern Soviet agriculture. In the mid-1980s the USSR had approximately 27,000 collective farms, averaging about 3450 ha (about 8525 acres) in communal crop area. In the same period the country had about 23,000 state farms, averaging about 4950 ha (about 12,230 acres) in communal crop area. During the 1980s about 50 million personal plots, each with a size of no more than 0.5 ha (1.2 acres), were cultivated in the Soviet Union. The personal plots of collective and state farmers totaled about 4.1 million ha (about 10.1 million acres), and the smaller holdings of factory and office workers totaled about 3.9 million ha (about 9.6 million acres), together accounting for slightly more than 4% of the farmland of the country. Because a great amount of hand labor was expended on these small plots, they produced disproportionately high yields. In addition to feeding themselves, the people working private plots were allowed to market their produce directly to consumers in the collective farm markets of all cities. The Soviet authorities themselves estimated that this 4% of agricultural land may have produced as much as 27% of the gross agricultural output of the country. The personal plots yielded mainly livestock products and certain high-yielding, high-value vegetables and fruits. They produced significant proportions of the country’s potatoes, eggs, meat, milk, vegetables, and wool. In the early 1980s, the total value of the agricultural production of the Soviet Union was estimated at approximately 85% of that of the U.S. Annual output of principal crops in the late 1980s included (in metric tons) sugar beets, 87.8 million; wheat, 84.5 million; potatoes, 62.7 million; barley, 47 million; oats, 16.5 million; corn, 16 million; rye, 16 million; flax, 323,000; raw cotton, 8.7 million; grapes, 5.6 million; and sunflower seeds, 6.2 million. The Soviet Union was a world leader in dairy farming, annually producing about 106.1 million metric tons of milk, 1.8 million metric tons of butter, and 4.7 million metric tons of eggs. The country lagged badly, however, in the production of meat and poultry products, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables. Livestock in the late 1980s included 140.8 million sheep, 120.6 million cattle, 77.4 million pigs, 6.4 million goats, 5.9 million horses, and 1.1 billion poultry. Livestock production was low in relation to population, mainly because the country lacked a major fodder crop such as corn and a protein crop such as soybeans; the Soviet Union simply did not encompass an area with the necessary long, hot, wet growing season. Farm output in the USSR varied considerably from year to year. Agricultural regions. About 10% of the Soviet Union was suitable for cultivation. The rest was too cold, too poorly drained, too dry, or too mountainous. Even in the best agricultural areas, however, summer rainfall was undependable, and droughts were partly responsible for fluctuating annual crop yields. Most of the country’s farmland lay in the so-called fertile triangle that has its base along the W border stretching from the Baltic region to the Black Sea and tapers eastward to the S Urals, where it narrows to a strip about 400 km (about 250 mi) wide, extending across the SW fringes of Siberia and N Kazakstan. East of the Altai Mts., agriculture is found only in isolated mountain basins along the S fringes of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Outside this fertile wedge lie two other important agricultural areas: the Caucasus and Central Asia, which because of their milder climates specialize in certain crops that cannot be grown in other regions where harsher conditions prevail. Patterns of crop production reflect each republic’s distinctive climate and soil conditions. The N central regions—from Belarus E across the middle Urals, S Siberia, and the Far East—are adapted to hay crops, grains such as oats and rye, potatoes, and flax. Livestock production is especially important here, and nearly all crops are grown to feed livestock; flax is the only major cash crop. Farther S, in the black-earth belt of Ukraine and the N Caucasus region, crops dominate, although large numbers of livestock are also raised. The major crops here are wheat, sugar beets, sunflowers, and corn (primarily for silage). A variety of other crops are grown, such as grapes in S Ukraine and adjacent Moldova. A large portion of the wheat-growing lands now lie E of the Volga in N Kazakstan and SW Siberia. In the sheltered Transcaucasian lowlands a number of subtropical commercial crops are grown. Citrus, tea, and tung nuts are the specialty crops of the Colchis Lowland and surrounding foothills in W Georgia, and irrigated cotton is the big crop in the Kura Lowland of Azerbaijan. Grapes and other fruits and vegetables are also grown in the region. In the irrigated oases of Central Asia, along the foothills of the highest mountains and along some of the major streams, cotton is the major crop wherever the growing season is long enough. Sugar beets, vegetables, fruits, and a number of other crops are also grown here under irrigation. Forestry. The USSR was the world’s second largest producer of wood. In the late 1980s the country produced some 297 million cu m (10.5 billion cu ft) of roundwood annually, amounting to about 12% of the world’s total output. More than 80% of this was softwood, mainly varieties of pine, fir, and larch. The principal commercial hardwood tree was birch. Despite the large production of wood, the Soviet Union never had highly developed wood-products industries. About two-fifths of the roundwood was converted into lumber, and the Soviet Union produced nearly one-fourth of all the world’s lumber. About one-fifth of the total wood cut was used as firewood, mainly in rural one-family cabins. More than 20% was used in unprocessed form, for the construction of log cabins in rural areas, for telephone and electrical poles, and so forth. Only 10% went into pulp and paper industries. The best stands of timber and the largest production of wood were in NW European USSR, on the slopes of the central Urals; in S Siberia; and in S Far Eastern USSR. Fishing. Fish has always been an important source of protein in the Russian diet. During the Soviet period, the per capita consumption of fish rose to about 23 kg (about 50 lb) a year. Formerly, fishing was concentrated on bordering seas and inland lakes and rivers. More recently, however, a great effort was made to expand fishing activities. Soviet fleets began to operate in most of the world’s prime ocean-fishing areas, and fish farming was developed in erosion-control ponds and rural irrigation reservoirs and ditches. Consequently, by the 1980s the USSR ranked second only to Japan in the quantity of fish caught annually. In the late 1980s the annual catch was about 10.9 million metric tons. Marine fisheries accounted for about 92% of the catch and inland fisheries about 8%. Of the inland fisheries, the saltwater Azov-Black, Caspian, and Aral seas accounted for about 60% of the total; and freshwater lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and ponds accounted for the remaining 40%. Outstanding among commercial species in inland waters is the sturgeon of the N Caspian Sea. The main source of the world’s caviar, these fish may live as long as 100 years and attain weights of up to 1.5 metric tons. A single female commonly produces about 25 kg (about 55 lb) of valuable roe. Another huge fish is the Kaluga sturgeon or Amur queen found in the Amur R.; the world’s largest freshwater fish, it may reach 6 m (20 ft) in length and 1 metric ton in weight. About 28% of the Soviet catch was taken in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Much of the Atlantic fishing fleet was based at ports on the Baltic Sea. Kaliningrad (Königsberg) developed into the largest Soviet fishing port on the Baltic; another important Baltic port was St. Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland. The principal commercial species taken in the Baltic Sea were herring and sprat. Murmansk and Arkhangelsk were the outstanding fishing ports on the W Arctic coast. Many fishing ports were located on the coasts of the Black, Azov, and Caspian seas in the S; outstanding among them were Odessa on the Black Sea and Astrakhan on the Caspian. About 60% of the Soviet fish catch was taken in the Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas. Vladivostok was by far the largest fishing port and fish-processing center of the Pacific region; many other fishing ports were scattered along the mainland coast as well as on Sakhalin Island. Because of its cold waters, the Sea of Okhotsk was one of the richest Soviet fishing grounds. This sea is especially known for salmon, but the Kamchatka crab is also world renowned. Other common species taken in the Pacific are herring, flounder, smelt, mackerel, and cod, along with such marine mammals as walrus and seal. During the mid-1980s the Soviet Union led the world’s whaling. Although Soviet commercial whaling in the North Pacific ceased in 1979, whaling was still practiced in the seas surrounding Antarctica. Whaling flotillas were based primarily in Odessa on the Black Sea and Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. The USSR formally ended all commercial whaling activities in 1988. Mining. Mining was a major sector of the Soviet economy and provided the major items for national export. Mineral resources were diverse, abundant, and generally well exploited. The Soviet Union was the world’s leading producer of petroleum, with output (in the late 1980s) of more than 4.5 billion barrels a year. About half the annual Soviet production came from newly developed oil fields in Siberia; one-third of the production came from the Volga-Urals fields; and the rest came from the N Caucasus region, NE European USSR, the old Baku fields of Azerbaijan on the W shore of the Caspian Sea, three different fields on the E shore of the Caspian, N central Ukraine, SE Belarus, NE Georgia, and Sakhalin Island. The Soviet Union led the world in natural gas production, with about 770 billion cu m (27.2 trillion cu ft) per year. About one-third of the production came from the newly developed fields in W Siberia. Other significant areas where natural gas is exploited include Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, NE Ukraine, Komi, Azerbaijan, the N Caucasus region, and the Volga-Urals area, particularly around Orenburg. The Soviet Union was for many years one of the world’s leading coal producers. In the late 1980s the USSR extracted more than 770 million metric tons of coal a year, about one-fifth of which was relatively low-quality lignite. The country’s primary coal-producing regions were the Donets Basin of E Ukraine, the Kuznetsk Basin in W Siberia, the Ekibastuz and Qaraghandy basins of NE Kazakstan, the Kansk-Achinsk Basin of E Siberia, the Pechora Basin of NE European USSR, and the Moscow Basin. Part of the production from the Donets, Kuznetsk, Qaraghandy, and Pechora basins was high-quality coking coal; the other basins produced only lower-grade coals. Many other scattered areas of the country produced smaller quantities. Hard coal reserves in S Yakut autonomous region (in E Siberia), along the Baykal-Amur Railroad, were developed in the 1980s for export to Japan. The Soviet Union was by far the world’s largest producer of iron ore. The annual output amounted to about 248 million metric tons of usable ore. The actual tonnage mined was considerably greater than this, but because much of it was low-grade ore, it had to be reduced. The Krivoy Rog Basin of S central Ukraine produced more than half the country’s iron ore. Other important iron-ore-producing areas included the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly of S central European USSR, the Urals and adjacent N central Kazakstan and Siberia, and the Kola Peninsula. The Soviet Union produced about 2.7 million metric tons of manganese per year, most of it from deposits in Ukraine and in Georgia. It ranked high in the production of other important metallic minerals. It was the world’s largest refiner of zinc (810,000 metric tons per year) and a major producer of chromium ore (3.7 million), nickel (190,000), tungsten concentrates (9200), and molybdenum ore (11,500). The country was also the world’s second largest producer of both refined copper (1.4 million tons) and refined lead (500,000), as well as a major producer of tin and titanium. By the 1980s, the Soviet Union had become the world’s largest producer of refined mercury, with an annual output averaging 67,000 flasks. The Soviet Union ranked second to the U.S. in aluminum production (2.2 million metric tons), although about 40% of the output was made from imported ores. The major aluminum-manufacturing plants worked in conjunction with large hydroelectric plants in E Siberia, Tajikistan, the lower Volga, the lower Dnepr, and NW European USSR. The USSR probably ranked second in the production of silver (1550 metric tons) and third in gold (280 metric tons) and was among the leaders in diamond production. The country was also a major producer of nonmetallic ores, including about 40% of the world’s asbestos (2.6 million metric tons) and about one-third of the world’s potash (11 million metric tons); it also ranked high in the production of mineral fertilizers (37.1 million metric tons), largely from the apatite deposits of the Kola Peninsula. Manufacturing. In planning the industrialization of the USSR the Soviet government devoted particular attention to the geographical location of the vast industrial complexes. Initially, Soviet manufacturing enterprises were concentrated in areas that already had a relative abundance of electric-power facilities and of coal and other mineral resources, notably in Ukraine and in the Moscow and St. Petersburg areas. Simultaneously, work was begun on the electrification of areas in the Urals and in the Caucasus known to have large coal and mineral reserves, and a beginning was made on plans for the electrification of various Siberian regions. As the 5-year plans progressed and as the electric-power areas increased, huge new manufacturing complexes were installed to take maximum advantage of these natural resources. As a result, Soviet production increased in the E regions. This significant expansion was accomplished by developing the new E industrial regions, rather than by reducing the production of the older centers; indeed, the older industrial regions continued to increase their output. Most manufacturing industries developed rapidly during the Soviet period, although the various branches developed unevenly, and in many areas the Soviet Union remained technologically behind the industrialized West and Japan. Nevertheless, on occasion the USSR demonstrated that it could, with concentrated effort, develop the highest technology; for example, it was the first country to put an artificial satellite into orbit and one of the first to develop jet propulsion of commercial aircraft after World War II. Productivity lagged in the 1970s and ’80s, and the quality of manufactured goods was uneven. Under a new management system introduced in January 1988, industrial enterprises were required to show a profit, and workers’ wages were tied to improvements in productive efficiency. The Soviet government placed the greatest emphasis on the machine-building and metalworking industries, because they provided the means for more production. The products of these industries were diversified, ranging from fine tools, instruments, and computers to industrial machines of all sorts, transportation and communication equipment, agricultural machinery, mining equipment, and space vehicles. The machine-building industries were usually located in the largest cities because they were labor intensive. The manufacture of transportation equipment was concentrated in central European USSR. Railroad locomotives were produced at Kolomna, Murom, and Lyudinovo, all of which are located near Moscow, and also at Kharkov and Lugansk (formerly Voroshilovgrad) in E Ukraine. Railroad rolling stock was built in plants at Tver (formerly Kalinin), NW of Moscow, and at Bryansk, SW of Moscow. Subway cars were manufactured in Mytishchi, a N suburb of Moscow; Engels, in the Volga Valley, was the main center for manufacturing trolley buses. A large railroad-car plant was established in the Minusinsk Basin in E Siberia to service the Trans-Siberian and Baykal-Amur railroads. Traditionally, the largest shipbuilding centers have been St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea and Nikolayev at the mouth of the Southern Bug R. on the N coast of the Black Sea. New shipyards were built in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, in Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, and at certain ports on the Pacific coast. Several small shipyards, producing mainly hydrofoils, were developed on the Black and Azov seas at ports such as Batumi, Poti, and Kerch; the Soviet Union pioneered in the development of hydrofoils for rapid transport on rivers and lakes. Most of the country’s river craft were built in the Volga-Kama R. Basin. The oldest, and still the largest, river craft shipyard was located in the city of Nizhny Novgorod; other riverboat manufacturing plants were constructed in Moscow, Rybinsk (formerly Andropov), and Kostroma. Development of the motor-vehicle manufacturing industry was limited in the Soviet Union because the government gave low priority to vehicular traffic as compared with railroads and other forms of transport. During the mid-1960s, however, the government began an effort to increase the production of passenger cars to satisfy the domestic demand. The largest construction project in the entire country during the eighth 5-year plan (1966–70) was the establishment of the Volga Motor Vehicle Plant at Tolyatti (Togliatti). This plant could turn out about 660,000 automobiles a year, or about half the passenger-car production of the country. Other important automobile assembly plants were in Moscow, Izhevsk (formerly Ustinov), Nizhny Novgorod, Zaporozhye, and Lutsk. The largest construction project during the ninth 5-year plan (1971–75) was the Kama River Truck Plant in Naberezhnye Chelny. Trucks were also produced in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Simbirsk (formerly Ulyanovsk) on the Volga, Minsk and Zhodino in Belarus, Kremenchug in central Ukraine, Miass in the Urals, Yerevan in Armenia, and Kutaisi in Georgia. The Zhodino plant E of Minsk manufactured the largest trucks in the Soviet Union. The manufacture of agricultural machinery was a huge industry in the Soviet Union. The country developed into the world’s largest producer of tractors, which it exported in considerable number. Most of the principal producing plants were in European USSR, in such cities as Minsk, Kharkov, Volgograd, Vladimir, Bryansk, and Lipetsk. Chelyabinsk in the Urals and Rubtsovsk in the Altai region of Siberia were also major production centers. Self-propelled combines and other farm machinery were produced in Rostov-na-Donu. The production of consumer durables was formerly limited. By the 1980s, however, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, radios, televisions, bicycles, musical instruments, watches, and a large variety of household gadgets were being produced in great quantities. The Soviet Union led the world in the production of virtually all kinds of textiles. In the late 1980s the annual production of cotton yarn stood at 1.7 million metric tons, well ahead of that of its second-place competitor, the U.S. The country was by far the world’s largest producer of linen fabrics (1.2 billion sq m) and woolen yarn (465,000 metric tons). It was second only to Japan in the production of natural silk woven fabric. The Soviet Union also led in the production of rayon and acetate fibers but lagged in synthetic fibers derived from noncellulosic materials. In general, the country was somewhat behind the rest of the developed world in the technology of synthetic fibers and plastics. The principal textile-producing cities in the Soviet Union were Moscow, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Tver, and Vladimir. Russia had traditionally been a major producer of leather goods, and the Soviet government greatly expanded and dispersed the industry. The USSR ranked as world leader in the production of leather footwear, manufacturing approximately 820 million pairs of shoes and boots each year, as compared with 217.6 million in the U.S. The food industries formed another major manufacturing sector in the Soviet Union. Initially, flour mills were built in the major grain-producing areas, but newer flour mills were generally placed in consuming areas. A considerable portion of the country’s fresh fruits and vegetables were canned or preserved in the growing areas, because transportation and refrigeration facilities were not adequate to market fresh produce at great distances. The Soviet Union was the world’s leading producer of wheat flour and the second largest refined sugar producer. Energy. The Soviet Union was the only large developed country in the world with adequate energy supplies. It was not only self-sufficient in the production of mineral fuels, but also able to export considerable quantities of them. Until 1955, coal accounted for approximately two-thirds of Soviet fuel production, but in subsequent decades the petroleum and natural-gas industries expanded rapidly; in the mid-1980s oil accounted for about 42% of the country’s fuel production, natural gas 33%, coal 23%, and other sources 2%. The country exported about one-sixth of its petroleum production. At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution Russia was so poor
in energy supplies, particularly electricity, that when Lenin assumed
power he coined the famous equation “communism equals Soviet
power plus the electrification of the entire country.” Hence,
much emphasis was placed on massive electrical production, and the
first general plan for the country was one for the development of
electricity-generating capacity. The Soviet Union in the late 1980s
had an installed generating capacity of about 332.2 million kw and
annually produced about 1.7 trillion kwh of electricity, or about
62% of the production of the U.S. More than 75% of this
was produced by thermal stations, which primarily burned petroleum
products, natural gas, and coal. The country had vast waterpower
resources, and waterpower accounted for about 13% of the
total yearly electrical production. Important hydroelectric projects
were constructed on the major rivers of European USSR, notably on
the Volga, Dnepr, and Don. The largest hydroelectric installations,
however, were built on the great rivers of Siberia, particularly
on the Yenisey and Angara. Other major projects were located in
Soviet Central Asia on the Amu Darya and Syrdarya. Nuclear power
accounted formore than 11% of annual Soviet electrical
production, and the government committed itself to a rapid expansion
of nuclear power during the 1980s. In April 1986, a serious accident
at the Transportation. The Soviet transportation network was state-owned and nationally integrated. The overall transport network was much less dense, however, than those of most other developed nations. The Soviet government considered transport expenditures an unproductive but necessary part of the economy. Emphasis was therefore placed on the types of facilities that move the greatest amount of goods and people at the least cost, often sacrificing convenience to the consumer in order to maximize efficiency of the system. The transport network was dominated by railroads; motor traffic played a minor role. A great network of oil and gas pipelines was built to facilitate the rapid expansion of the petroleum and natural-gas industries, and maritime shipping was increased to facilitate the expansion of the country’s foreign trade. Passenger transport has traditionally also been dominated by railroads, but more recently buses have taken over much commuter traffic. Airlines captured a great deal of long-distance travel because airplane tickets were priced comparatively with railroad fares. The Soviet ministry of transport operated about 146,150 km (about 90,810 mi) of rail lines, about half the trackage in the U.S. on 2.4 times the territory; about 35% of Soviet railroads were electrified. The density of the railroad network generally corresponded to the regional population density. The network was relatively dense in most of European USSR south of St. Petersburg and in portions of the Caucasus and Central Asia, but was sparse in Siberia, the Soviet Far East, and the deserts of Central Asia. The Soviet rail lines carried the heaviest freight traffic in the world, averaging more than six times the freight traffic density of the U.S. The heaviest traffic moved between the areas of E Ukraine producing iron ore and coal and between these areas and the central region around Moscow. The densest traffic on a single line, however, occurred on the W Siberian section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad; here trains occasionally ran as frequently as one every three minutes. To relieve some of this traffic, parallel lines were constructed across W Siberia and N Kazakstan. A new line, the Baykal-Amur Mainline (BAM), was built through Siberia and the Soviet Far East to the N of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Soviet government neglected motor transport because of the high costs of constructing and maintaining roads as well as the higher overall shipping costs. The country had only about 1,196,000 km (about 743,200 mi) of hard-surfaced roads, about one-sixth the length of the U.S. system. About half of these roads were surfaced with concrete or asphalt; the rest were gravel. Few of the country’s roads were more than two lanes wide. Like the rail network, the road network was most dense in the European part of the country. In the late 1980s the USSR had only about 8.3 million registered passenger cars, compared with more than 139 million in the U.S. In the late 1980s the merchant fleet of the USSR ranked among the largest in the world, with more than 6700 vessels and an aggregate displacement of 29.2 million deadweight tons. The principal seaports included Odessa (the busiest seaport in the country), Ilichëvsk, Yuzhnyy, Nikolayev, and Novorossiysk, all of which are on the Black Sea; St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea; Nakhodka, Vostochnyy, Vladivostok, and Vanino on the Pacific coast; and Murmansk and Arkhangelsk on the Arctic coast. The Volga R. was the most important inland waterway in the USSR. It carried more than half the river traffic of the country. Navigation on this system was enhanced by the construction of seven major dams as well as the Volga-Don Canal in the S and the Volga-Baltic Waterway in the N. The Volga-Don Canal provides a sea outlet through the Black Sea; the Volga-Baltic Waterway, through the Baltic Sea. Major ports along the Volga R. are Rybinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Volgograd, and Astrakhan. Another major port, Rostov-na-Donu, is located on the Sea of Azov at the mouth of the Don R. The ports of Moscow are provided with connections to the Volga system through the Moscow Canal that runs N from Moscow to the Volga R. Other rivers on the European Plain that are important for navigation are the Dnepr and lower Danube rivers in Ukraine and the Northern Dvina R. in N Russia. In Siberia and Far Eastern Russia, rivers are the only transportation system in areas remote from the railroad. Most Siberian rivers, including the Lena, Yenisey, and Ob, flow N to the Arctic Ocean, thus limiting their importance as transportation means in a region where E-W links are vital. The eastward-flowing Amur R. is the chief navigable stream of the Russian Far East. The only airline in the Soviet Union, the state-owned Aeroflot, operated routes totaling about 1,115,000 km (about 693,000 mi) in length; about 78% of the routes were domestic, and 22% were international. The airline annually carried more than 120 million passengers. The leading airports in the Soviet Union were those in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, Kiev, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Odessa, and Kharkov, all of which were in European USSR. Tashkent, in Soviet Central Asia, and Novosibirsk, in W Siberia, were also important. The Soviet Union had more than 80,000 km (49,700 mi) of petroleum pipelines. The pipeline network ran primarily E-W across the central part of the country to facilitate movement of oil from W Siberia and the Volga-Urals fields to European USSR and (via the Friendship Oil Pipeline system) to the countries of Eastern Europe. Soviet natural-gas pipelines totaled more than 170,000 km (105,600 mi) in length. These pipelines carried gas from producing regions in NW Siberia, NE European USSR, Central Asia, the N Caucasus region, and E Ukraine to the central region around Moscow, where it was dispersed to various parts of the populous European part of the country as well as westward to countries of Eastern and Western Europe. Currency and Banking. The basic monetary unit of the Soviet Union was the ruble, consisting of 100 kopeks. For decades the USSR did not allow the ruble to circulate in world markets, instead setting arbitrary value relative to foreign currencies; the official conversion rate in 1991 was 0.57 ruble per U.S.$1. As of April 1991 the Soviet government established a special rate for foreign tourists and business travelers of 26 rubles per U.S.$1, but the dollar continued to draw even more on the black market. Tentative steps toward true convertibility of the ruble on world currency markets were taken late in 1990, when the USSR also moved to restructure its banking network. The state assumed control of the entire banking system immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution. In the late 1980s the State Bank (Gosbank, est. 1921) functioned as a central clearing bank and was used as an instrument of control over all state economic enterprises. The State Bank issued notes, controlled currency circulation, and executed the government’s financial credit policy. The most widely distributed banking institution was the State Savings Bank, where individual citizens made most of their transactions. Commerce. Three types of retail trade prevailed in the USSR. Approximately one-third of the total retail trade was conducted through facilities owned and operated by consumer cooperatives. State-owned facilities accounted for more than three-fifths of the retail trade. Approximately 3% of retail trade consisted of transactions on the open, or “free,” market. Goods sold in this manner consisted of the produce remaining to collective farms after they had delivered their quotas to the state and had made the normal allotments to their members; produce grown by collective farmers on individually owned plots of ground within the collective farms; and produce grown by individual farmers not belonging to collective farms. In addition to this legitimate retail commerce, the Soviet Union also had a thriving black market, which sold goods illicitly diverted from official channels. Foreign Trade. All Soviet foreign trade was conducted as a government monopoly in accordance with a plan approved by the government. Foreign trade was kept to a minimum; only needed supplies were imported, and generally only enough exports to pay for these imports were generated. In the late 1980s the total annual foreign trade amounted to about $204 billion, or about one-third as much as that of the U.S. and about half that of West Germany. Overall, the Soviet Union generally showed a small positive balance of trade, but from the 1960s through the ’80s the country was plagued by hard-currency trade deficits. These deficits resulted primarily from large grain imports from the U.S. and other countries. From the end of World War II through the mid-1980s, political considerations dictated that the USSR’s principal trading partners be socialist countries, notably those of Eastern Europe. Even before the political upheavals at the close of the 1980s, however, both the Soviet Union and its socialist allies had found it necessary to import more advanced technology from the developed West. By 1987 members of COMECON accounted for 60% of Soviet exports and 64% of imports, while developed countries supplied 23% of Soviet imports and purchased 21% of exports. Among the socialist countries, East Germany was the Soviet Union’s leading trade partner, followed by Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria. The USSR’s main trading partners outside the socialist bloc were West Germany, Italy, and Japan. In the late 1980s the annual value of Soviet exports totaled about $107 billion, and the yearly cost of its imports was $96 billion. By far the most important exports were fuels and electrical energy, accounting for more than half of the total value. Petroleum and its products alone accounted for more than one-third the yearly value of Soviet exports to all countries and for more than half the value of exports to industrialized capitalist countries. Petroleum, natural gas, and electricity were exported in large quantities to Eastern and Western Europe through the Friendship Oil Pipeline, the Brotherhood Gas Pipeline, and the Peace Electrical Grid. In the early 1980s the USSR constructed a major new natural-gas pipeline to Western Europe. Other exports, in order of value, were machinery, ores and metals, chemical products, and timber products. The principal imports in the late 1980s were machinery and transport equipment, which together accounted for about 41% of all imports by value. Food grains and raw sugar made up another 16%, a wide variety of consumer goods about 13%, and various mineral fuels and raw materials 13%. Other imports included chemical products, textile raw materials and fabrics, and wood and paper materials. Tourism. Tourism gradually became a major source of foreign exchange for the Soviet Union, and despite political differences with many Western countries, the Soviet government developed procedures to cater to this activity. A huge state organization, Intourist, handled all touring arrangements, and many beriozka, or hard-currency, stores were established to sell a wide variety of souvenirs to foreign tourists. Student travel was handled by Sputnik, the international youth excursion bureau. Each year about 7 million people visited the Soviet Union; slightly more than half these visitors were from the countries of Eastern Europe. The Soviet government encouraged domestic travel, and each year millions of Soviet citizens visited parts of the country remote from their own homes. The capital city of Moscow, in particular, was the goal of many Soviet vacationers. HISTORY The history of the Soviet Union has two basic aspects: It continues the history of the Russian Empire, presented in the article on Russia; and it chronicles the unique social system described in the preceding sections of this article. AFTER WORLD WAR I Chronologically, Soviet history began on Nov. 7, 1917, when the Russian Revolution culminated in the assumption of state power by the Congress of Soviets, led by the Bolshevik party under Lenin. After proclaiming itself the repository of governmental authority, the congress immediately issued decrees calling for the withdrawal of Russia from World War I, for the nationalization of all land, and for the formation of a Council of People’s Commissars to act as the executive branch of government. On Nov. 15, 1917, the Soviets granted the rights of equality and self-determination to all the numerous national groups inhabiting the territory of the former Russian Empire. The first nation to take advantage of this opportunity was Finland; a Finland national government was established, and its independence from Soviet rule was recognized. In another early decree, the Soviet government proclaimed the separation of church and state; although according religious freedom to the individual, the state itself opposed organized religion. The fundamental policies contained in these and other decrees were incorporated into the first Soviet constitution, adopted in July 1918. Peace Treaty. Peace negotiations with Germany were initiated in December 1917.
The peace terms presented by the Germans at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest)
proved unacceptable, and negotiations were broken off in February
1918 (see The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk led to a schism within the Soviet government. The Left Social Revolutionary party, which had been collaborating with the Bolsheviks, declared the treaty a betrayal of the cause of the revolution and withdrew from the government. Relying upon their traditional methods of political struggle, the Left Social Revolutionaries assassinated the German ambassador in Moscow, in the vain hope of stirring the Germans to renew hostilities. They also made attempts on the lives of several Bolshevik leaders. Lenin was severely wounded by one of the terrorists, receiving an injury that contributed to his early death. The Bolsheviks, in return, launched the so-called Red Terror, suppressing the Left Social Revolutionary party and executing many political opponents. Other minority parties and factions were gradually eliminated by the Bolsheviks, and the Soviet Union emerged as a one-party state. Civil War. Bolshevik political, economic, and social policies led to civil war and foreign intervention. In Siberia, a force of 45,000 Czech former prisoners of war, who had been armed by the czarist government to fight against Germany, launched a campaign against the Soviet authorities. Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, the principal cities of Russia’s far north, were occupied by Allied forces. Japanese forces occupied Vladivostok, and an American expeditionary force landed in that city. White Russia, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus were occupied by the Germans. In the autumn of 1918 Adm. Aleksandr V. Kolchak, commanding a large anti-Bolshevik force, proclaimed himself the “supreme ruler of Russia” and established his capital at Omsk in Siberia. Early in 1919 a powerful attack on the Soviet forces was launched from the Ukraine by a large White (that is, anti-Bolshevik) army commanded by Gen. Anton I. Denikin (1872–1947). Another White army, under Gen. Nikolay N. Yudenich (1862–1933), advanced on Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). Despite a series of initial reverses, the Bolsheviks succeeded in repelling these attacks by early 1920. In April of that year a new campaign was launched by the Polish army, with some help from Belorussian troops commanded by Baron Pyotr N. Wrangel. Two months later the Soviet forces, which had been reorganized and renamed the Red Army early in 1918, began a counteroffensive. The war with Poland ended with the signing in March 1921 of the Treaty of Riga, by which certain western areas of White Russia and of the Ukraine were ceded to Poland. With the expulsion of the Japanese occupation forces from eastern Siberia late in 1922, the period of civil war and foreign intervention came to an end, and the Soviet regime was no longer in immediate danger. The Bolsheviks triumphed in the civil war and against foreign intervention because of their determination, organization, and good leadership, especially that of Lenin and Leon Trotsky, because of disunity among their opponents, and because the peoples of the intervening countries refused to support further fighting. Bolshevik economic policy during the civil war period entailed the rapid nationalization of industry and transport, and the ruthless confiscation of all supplies and equipment needed for military purposes left the national economy completely exhausted. With hostilities ended and Soviet rule consolidated, the government faced the necessity of restoring the economy. Trotsky and certain other leaders favored extending the rigid wartime policies and continuing forced progress toward communism. Lenin chose a different course: reduction of the heavy wartime requisitions of produce from the peasants, in order to stimulate food production, and temporary relaxation of controls over industry and trade, permitting growth of small capitalist enterprises, in order to increase production. Lenin’s policy was adopted in March 1921 by the Russian Communist party, as the Bolsheviks called themselves after 1918. STALIN ERA Lenin’s death early in 1924 occasioned a bitter struggle for power. The principal antagonists were Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, then general secretary of the party, both of whom claimed to be the rightful executors of Lenin’s policies. In contrast to Trotsky, who was primarily an intellectual, a theorist, and a gifted military leader, Stalin was a clever and determined organizer. Through his control of the party apparatus, Stalin succeeded in winning the support of a majority within the party and in consolidating his rule. In November 1927 a party referendum completely repudiated Trotsky’s policies, expelled him from the party, and exiled him, in 1928, to Alma-Ata. The following year he was banished from the Soviet Union. In 1940 he was assassinated in Mexico, presumably by an agent of Stalin. In 1929 Stalin was recognized as the supreme leader of the party and the country. He then began the series of purges that marked his 25 years of rule, turning first against his former allies in the struggle with the Trotskyists. These leaders, notably Nikolay I. Bukharin and Aleksey I. Rykov (1881–1938), were driven from the higher councils of the party. Thereafter, Stalin relied solely on his control of the party and the police and on colleagues he had elevated to power. Important among these were Vyacheslav M. Molotov, Valerian V. Kuybyshev (1888–1937), Grigory K. Ordzhonikidze (1886–1937), and Kliment Y. Voroshilov. Union Constitution and Recognition. During the 1920s sweeping changes were made in governmental administration and marked improvements were achieved in the internal economy and foreign affairs of the country. Up to the end of 1923 the territory which was controlled by the Soviet government comprised the Russian SFSR, the eastern halves of Belorussia and the Ukraine, and the Caucasus. A plan of federation was drawn up under Stalin’s supervision, and in January 1924 a new constitution was promulgated, reorganizing the areas under Soviet control into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The new state was initially composed of the Russian, Ukrainian, Transcaucasian, and Belorussian Soviet Socialist republics. Although a degree of local autonomy was granted to each republic, a tight control over foreign affairs, defense, and economic planning was reserved to the central Soviet government. In later years Transcaucasia was divided into the Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist republics; Kazakstan and Central Asia were separated from the Russian SFSR; and Central Asia was divided into the Turkmen, Uzbek, Tadzhik, and Kirgiz Soviet Socialist republics. By 1924 the major world powers, having initially attempted to isolate the Soviet government, had established diplomatic relations with it, and the Soviet Union was taking part in international conferences. The U.S., the last major power withholding recognition, formally recognized the Soviet government in 1933, during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Economic Transformation. By 1927 the economic policy devised by Lenin, under which a certain measure of capitalism was permitted, had brought about sufficient recovery to warrant an effort to renew the drive toward socialism in accordance with long-range Soviet objectives. Accordingly, a new period of planned economy began in 1928 with the inauguration of the first of the 5-year plans. The basic aims of the 5-year plans were to convert the USSR from a backward agricultural country to a leading industrial power, to effect the complete collectivization of agriculture, and to transform the very nature of society. The Great Purge. Politically, the mid-1930s were marked by a drastic purge from the Communist party and the government of all elements alleged to be in opposition to the policies of Stalin. The purge was touched off by the assassination in December 1934 of Sergey M. Kirov (1888–1934), a supporter of Stalin and member of the party. Between 1935 and 1939 Stalin had all persons suspected of opposition removed from posts of authority; many were imprisoned, exiled to Siberia, or executed. Indeed, between 1934 and 1938 two-thirds of the members of the 1934 Central Committee were sentenced and executed. More than half of the high army officers were purged between 1936 and 1938. In a series of spectacular trials held in Moscow between 1936 and 1938, several of the most prominent party leaders, including Grigory Y. Zinovyev (1883–1936), Bukharin, and Rykov, were accused, convicted, and executed for allegedly conspiring with Germany and Japan to overthrow the Soviet government. In a separate, secret trial, several commanders of the Red Army, including Marshal Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky (1893–1937), were convicted on similar charges and executed. The trials aroused worldwide condemnation of the Soviet system, which was seriously weakened by these great losses. Foreign Affairs. In Moscow’s view, international events in the 1930s increasingly endangered the security of the USSR. In the Far East, Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, and friction gradually mounted between the Japanese occupation armies and the Soviet forces stationed along the Manchurian border. In 1938 the previously sporadic armed clashes developed into serious border warfare. At the same time, Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, with his policy of expansionism and anticommunism, resulted in an even graver threat to Soviet security. While seeking alliances with other powers, especially France and Great Britain, to counter these threats, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations in 1934. During the succeeding five years, the Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, Maksim M. Litvinov, repeatedly urged the members of the league to take concerted action against the successive aggressions of the Fascist powers. The Soviet Union sought also to obtain support for this action, which it called collective security, by encouraging the formation in foreign countries of so-called united-front, or popular-front, governments. The united-front policy called for collaboration of Communist, socialist, and centrist political groups to oppose Fascist movements. In the summer of 1938 a grave crisis arose when the German
government demanded the cession by Czechoslovakia of the Sudetenland,
a border area with a large German minority. The Soviet Union announced
its readiness to support the Czechs in resisting this demand and
called upon France and Great Britain to offer similar aid. The French
and British governments, instead, accepted Hitler’s assurance
that this demand embodied the final territorial acquisition sought
by Germany. The result was the World War II. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government in 1939 began secret negotiations for a nonaggression pact with Germany, meanwhile continuing negotiations, begun earlier, with France and Great Britain for an alliance against Germany. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German pact of friendship and nonaggression. That pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. On September 1, Germany invaded Poland, thereby provoking declarations of war by Great Britain and France and launching World War II. Sixteen days later, the Red Army crossed the Polish frontier, took possession of eastern Poland, and began the Sovietization of the occupied areas. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported to Siberia. On September 29, the German and Soviet governments signed a treaty demarcating their so-called spheres of interest in Poland. The treaty acknowledged the supremacy of each power in its respective sphere and provided for joint resistance to interference from third parties. The pact with Hitler signaled the opening of a new phase in the development of the USSR. In the immediately preceding years the central emphasis of Soviet policy had been on “building socialism,” that is, on the industrialization of the country. The seizure of eastern Poland was the first of a series of territorial annexations that launched a new expansionist phase of Soviet policy. The Polish annexation was soon followed by domination of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Nonaggression pacts, imposed on the Baltic states, gave the Soviet Union the right to station troops on their soil. The winter war with Finland. Also during the fall of 1939, the Soviet government demanded of Finland that it cede territory on the Karelian Isthmus northeast of Leningrad and permit the USSR to establish a naval base on the Finnish shore of the Gulf of Finland. Rejection by the Finnish government of the Soviet demands led to the undeclared Russo-Finnish War, which began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on Nov. 30, 1939. After a valiant but futile resistance, the Finns were overcome by the immensely superior forces of the Soviet Union. The war ended on March 12, 1940. By the treaty terms signed on that day, the Soviet Union acquired the territories it had sought, as well as other strategic and economic advantages. Expansion in the Baltic and the Balkans. Soviet expansion continued during 1940. On June 15–16 the USSR demanded free passage of Soviet troops and the formation of pro-Soviet governments in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Without waiting for acceptance of these demands, the Red Army occupied the countries. Soviet puppet governments were established, and all anti-Soviet elements were suppressed. By decrees of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, issued between August 1 and August 8, the three states were annexed as Union republics. At the same time the Soviet Union was extending its reach to the Balkans. Demands were made on Romania for the cession of Bessarabia, annexed by Romania from Soviet Russia in 1918, and for the surrender of northern Bukovina. Romania complied at the end of June 1940; the ceded territories were later incorporated into the Moldavian SSR. In the fall of 1940 the Germans established a puppet government in Romania and guaranteed the Romanian-Soviet frontier. Still fearful of German intentions, the USSR had an interest in ending hostilities with Japan; on April 13, 1941, the two countries signed a 5-year neutrality pact. German invasion. On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, surprising
Stalin, who had refused to believe that an attack was imminent.
Italy and Romania declared war on the USSR the same day. Instantly
the world military and political alignment was radically transformed,
and the scope of the war began to assume global proportions. Germany
now confronted enemies on both west and east, as in World War I.
As Finland, Hungary, Albania, and other Axis satellites declared
war on the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the U.S. undertook to
extend material aid to the USSR. The U.S. program, known as The Axis assault on the USSR was launched from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. During the late summer and fall of 1941 the Germans plunged deeply into the Soviet Union, striking for Leningrad, Moscow, and the Ukraine. As the Red Army reeled under the stupendous blows of the German armies, Stalin began frantic efforts to remove industrial plants and workers from the path of the invader and relocated them in and behind the Ural Mountains. Much of what could not be removed was laid waste in accordance with a “scorched-earth” policy. For a time the German blitzkrieg appeared successful as millions of Soviet soldiers were encircled and annihilated or captured. In the Baltic states, Belorussia and the Ukraine, the invaders met a friendly reception from those who had suffered most under the Stalinist yoke. The atrocities of the Germans, however, stiffened Soviet resistance. The advance on Leningrad was checked in September 1941, but the city was besieged until January 1944; casualties there ultimately exceeded 1,250,000. The advance on Moscow was stopped in October 1941. The Battle of Stalingrad. In the south the Germans were more successful; they took the
entire Ukraine and pressed on toward the Volga to sever Moscow and
Leningrad from the Caucasus and southwest Asia. They were finally
halted and defeated in the epic Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942
through January 1943). This battle was the turning point of the
Russo-German war and one of the decisive engagements of world history
(see Three months later, in accordance with a secret agreement, the USSR declared war on Japan. In a series of swift moves against crumbling Japanese resistance, Soviet armies occupied most of Manchuria, northern Korea, the Kuril Islands, and the southern part of Sakhalin Island, which had been a Japanese possession. On the basis of these actions the USSR claimed a share in the victory over Japan. Postwar arrangements. By the end of the war, the Soviet Union was recognized as one of the great powers of the world. Stalin participated with the heads of government of the U.S. and Great Britain at the Tehran Conference in 1943 and at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences in 1945 to decide the overall military and political strategy of the war and a common postwar European policy. The USSR also played a leading role in the preliminary international conferences leading to the establishment of the UN in 1945. Instead of making a treaty immediately with defeated and disorganized Germany, the victor nations temporarily designated four occupation zones. The eastern zone was assigned to the USSR. Berlin, surrounded by the Soviet zone, was divided into four sectors; its eastern zone was also assigned to the USSR. The occupied zones were to be administered as parts of one country, with free trade among them. German territory east of a line formed by the Oder and Neisse rivers was assigned to Polish occupancy pending a final peace settlement. The northern part of East Prussia was ceded to the USSR. The Soviet Union, however, set up its own type of government in the areas assigned to it, and by 1947 the so-called iron curtain had been drawn between Eastern and Western Europe. The USSR, having suffered enormous losses, exacted huge reparations in the form of dismantled industrial plants and the output of current production. It also benefited from the forced labor of millions of German prisoners of war. The Cold War Begins. In its approach to postwar problems the Soviet government was motivated by an expansionist policy designed to enlarge the area ruled by Communists loyal to the USSR, to strengthen its security against future aggression, and to utilize the world Communist movement as a means of subverting other countries and bringing them into the Soviet orbit. The new Soviet policy was soon signaled by violations of various wartime agreements. At the Potsdam Conference, held after the victory in Europe, the Soviet government made demands manifestly in excess of the needs of its national security. The demands were rejected by the U.S. and Great Britain to prevent the establishment of a vast Soviet sphere of power. Despite growing acrimony among the Allies, agreement was reached at Potsdam on the general lines of the occupation policy, on various reparations policies, and on the temporary German-Polish and Polish-Soviet boundaries. Utilizing the threat of its military force, the USSR violated these agreements and made a sustained assault on the political, economic, and social structures of the occupied Soviet borderlands. Implementation of Soviet foreign policy generated a globe-girdling political, diplomatic, and economic conflict with the U.S., known as the cold war. Takeover techniques. In the countries in which the influence of the Soviet Union was predominant, namely, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, and East Germany, the politicoeconomic structure was gradually reorganized. Opposing political groups were isolated and then destroyed, large landholdings were expropriated, and (with the exception of Poland) collectivization was instituted; virtually all industry was nationalized. In establishing political domination, the Soviet technique was first to cooperate in coalition governments, in which the Communists were a minority but controlled the ministries directing the police, the armed forces, and the economy. This was followed (beginning in 1947) by the establishment of regimes called people’s democracies, under which the Communists established authoritarian control of the state. In 1948 Czechoslovakia, a country not directly in the Soviet orbit, came under Communist control through subversion of a coalition government. In the same year, however, Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Tito, effectively resisted Soviet efforts to obtain control of the country. Yugoslavia survived heavy pressure only because of its staunch national unity and Western economic aid. These developments alarmed the U.S. and Western Europe and led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. To coordinate the economic activities of those states under Soviet control, the USSR in 1949 established the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON), with Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and East Germany as comembers. Relations with China. Soviet relations with China during this period were conciliatory. In August 1945, the Chinese and Soviet governments concluded a treaty of friendship and alliance granting the USSR economic concessions and defense facilities, as previously agreed upon by the wartime Allies. Although the Soviet Union pledged to respect Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria, Soviet authorities stripped the region of nearly all of its industrial machinery and actively resisted efforts by the Chinese government to reestablish its authority there. Meanwhile, the arms taken from captured Japanese soldiers were given to the Chinese Communists. When the Soviet army eventually withdrew, all Manchuria fell to the Chinese Communists. Subsequently, the victory of the Chinese Communists in 1949 altered the entire balance of power in Asia to the temporary advantage of the Soviet Union. STRUGGLE FOR LEADERSHIP Stalin remained in absolute control until his death in March 1953, when a collective leadership took power. Georgy M. Malenkov, chosen party secretary, also became premier; Molotov, a former premier and foreign minister, became a first deputy premier and foreign minister, and Lavrenty Beria became minister of internal affairs; Voroshilov became president. Nikita Khrushchev succeeded Malenkov as party secretary later in the year. These men, along with two other first deputy premiers, Nikolay A. Bulganin and Lazar M. Kaganovich (1893–1991), were the leaders. A struggle for power was immediately apparent, however. Beria was soon removed for “criminal and antiparty activities,” and in December 1953 it was announced that he had been tried for conspiracy, found guilty, and shot. Several other important officials, friends of Beria, were executed in 1954. (Since that time discredited officials have not been executed.) In 1955 Malenkov was forced to resign, and Marshal Bulganin was promptly elected to succeed him as premier. De-Stalinization. Then, in a startling move at the 20th Party Congress, held in Moscow Feb. 14–25, 1956, several Communist leaders denounced Stalin and repudiated much that he represented. The most violent attack was made by Khrushchev, who condemned Stalin for having replaced the collective leadership proper to Marxism with a cult of himself, which had generated disastrous consequences for the USSR. Khrushchev charged that Stalin had been guilty of “mass arrests and deportations of many thousands of people, execution without trial and without normal investigation. . . of honest and innocent Communists”; that he had not prepared adequate defenses against the German invasion of June 1941, and that he had then mishandled the war effort, thus causing the needless deaths of “hundreds of thousands of our soldiers”; that he had been “sickly suspicious” of his colleagues and that he “evidently had plans to finish off the old members of the Politburo”; that he had been responsible for the break with Yugoslavia and had jeopardized “peaceful relations with other nations.” The attacks on Stalin profoundly shocked many Communists in the USSR and throughout the world. In the de-Stalinization campaign, portraits were removed from public places, institutions and localities bearing his name were renamed, and textbooks were rewritten to deflate his reputation. Khrushchev’s Ascendancy. The struggle for power finally resulted in the triumph of Khrushchev in 1957. He succeeded in ousting Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, and others. When Bulganin was forced to resign in 1958, Khrushchev stepped into the premiership, continuing his party secretaryship, and collective leadership appeared to have ended. By the time of the 21st Party Congress in 1961, Khrushchev was in complete ascendancy, the center of a new cult of personality. He repeated some of his earlier denunciations of the old dictator, had Stalin’s body removed from the mausoleum where it had rested beside that of Lenin, and demanded that the Stalinists who had opposed him in 1957 be expelled from the party. In the following years some of the extreme anti-Stalinism was softened, and Stalin was allowed some credit for building the Communist party and for organizing victory in World War II. Khrushchev’s Fall. Leonid I. Brezhnev, who in 1960 had succeeded the 79-year-old Voroshilov as president, was also assigned to the party secretariat in 1963. In July 1964, at Khrushchev’s proposal, Brezhnev was relieved of the presidency to give full time to party work. Anastas I. Mikoyan, a veteran party functionary, became president. In the fall of that year, Khrushchev was especially ebullient and full of plans after extensive traveling in and out of the USSR. Then, suddenly, on October 14, he was toppled—relieved both of his party secretaryship and the premiership. The reasons for his ouster may have included unsatisfactory progress in agriculture and industry, and foreign policy disasters such as the Cuban crisis in 1962 and the failure of Soviet efforts since 1959 to obtain West Berlin. Some discrediting of the deposed leader followed, but nothing comparable with de-Stalinization. Some of his most intimate colleagues were also removed from office. Brezhnev Gains Power. Following the precedent for succession established when Stalin died, the power was divided. Brezhnev was appointed to the party secretaryship, and Aleksey N. Kosygin became premier. During the next five years these men apparently worked together as a team. Nikolay V. Podgorny was president from 1965 to 1977. By the 1970s, however, while the appearance of collective leadership was retained, Brezhnev had won preeminence. In 1976 he was reappointed Communist party general secretary and after Podgorny was removed, he also became president in 1977. A new constitution was promulgated in 1977. Shortly after Brezhnev died, in late 1982, he was succeeded as general secretary of the party by Yuri Andropov, former head of the Soviet secret police (KGB). ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS Soviet economic development after World War II followed lines worked out in 5-year plans and a 7-year plan (1959–65), although the plans were sometimes not fully announced until they had been operating for a year or two. Agriculture. Agriculture continued to engage much of the population. Khrushchev developed two major plans for increasing grain production: bringing marginal lands, especially in Kazakstan, under cultivation, and raising corn. Neither proved completely successful. In 1958 most of the control was taken from central government agencies and given to 39 area councils. The collectives bought the machinery they had previously rented from tractor stations, and the government paid higher prices for compulsory grain deliveries. Unfavorable weather was largely responsible for poor grain crops in 1963, 1965, 1969, 1972, and 1975. Other causes were the apparent inefficiency of collective farming and a shortage of labor. The crop failures slowed down the economic growth rate and greatly increased the foreign debt because the government, to avert famine, bought large amounts of wheat from the U.S. and Canada. The government took steps to combat the problem by paying a monthly wage to farmers; offering new incentives for superior production; adopting more efficient management techniques; and increasing the use of fertilizer, labor-saving machinery, and irrigation. It reactivated a plan originated by Khrushchev to evacuate the people of many small villages and resettle them in large farming centers. Such measures, combined with favorable weather, resulted in record-high harvests in 1973, 1974, and 1976. Irrigation and reforestation made even the marginal lands of Kazakstan remarkably productive. Nevertheless, agriculture remained a serious problem. Industry. Production of consumer goods had long lagged in the USSR. Total industrial production in 1957 was reported as 33 times that of 1913, but the increase in consumer items was only 13 times higher, compared with an increase of 74 times in heavy industries. The Khrushchev regime promised an increase in consumer goods, but accomplished little. The regional industrial councils were consolidated in 1957 and again in 1962, and industrial enterprises were combined. By 1964 attention centered on the fertilizer, plastics, and rubber industries. Management. Yevsey Liberman (1897–1983) and other Soviet economists had advocated the introduction of some capitalistic features into the framework of Marxism as a means of increasing industrial production, particularly recognizing the profit motive as a stimulus to plant efficiency. Kosygin, Brezhnev, and other officials accepted these ideas, admitting that management methods had fallen behind productive capacities. The correct principle, they stated, was combining centralized general direction with cost accounting, production based on orders, wage incentives, and other capitalist practices. In a pilot project begun in July 1965, 400 clothing and shoe factories based their production on orders received rather than on quotas set by the government. In October the Supreme Soviet adopted legislation applying this policy to industries, farms, transportation, construction, and communications. Working capital was to be assigned to each enterprise, and local management was to determine its use. A total payroll was also to be assigned to each enterprise, but the local management might pay by time or piecework and might pay bonuses based on profits. By mid-1969 enterprises producing one-third of the total industrial output were operating under the new system. Developments in the 1970s, however, brought about the gradual decline of the Liberman approach. Construction. Some industries lagged considerably, particularly construction. The migration of rural population into cities that accompanied rapid industrialization resulted in a housing shortage. New methods for prefabricating walls and even whole rooms were borrowed from the West, but factories for making these products were not built as rapidly as projected, and housing goals were seldom met. Moreover, new housing was not well built and deteriorated rapidly. Minerals Of great importance for the growth of the Soviet economy was the increased development of Siberia. The opening of new fields of oil and natural gas in Tyumen in western Siberia augmented the Soviet Union’s supply of energy sources. Deposits of copper and coal were discovered farther east. The 3218-km (2000-mi) Baykal-Amur Railroad, completed in 1985, runs north of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and thus at a safer distance from the Chinese border. CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS From the mid-20th century the Soviet government tried to enable all citizens of the Soviet Union’s many nationalities to participate fully in the culture of a unified Communist society and at the same time to preserve the traditions of their regional homelands. Tuition-free education in the form of day schools, evening classes, volunteer “people’s universities,” and correspondence courses was available to everyone. Special efforts were made to reach isolated areas where educational opportunities had been few. Instruction was in Russian or in the Soviet Union’s many other languages. Preliterate peoples were provided with their own alphabets, dictionaries, and grammars. As a result, illiteracy (about 70 percent in the Russian Empire) was eliminated, and a large part of the population acquired political awareness and the technical skills needed to develop a modern industrialized state. Soviet cultural achievements in the natural sciences were outstanding. In some areas of chemistry and physics, for example, the Soviets outstripped all other countries. Great attention was paid to nuclear energy and to space exploration. The first earth satellites, Sputnik 1 and 2, were launched in 1957. The first circumnavigation of the earth in a spaceship was made by Yury A. Gagarin in 1961. By the early 1980s Soviet technology had produced more than 30 manned space vehicles, and the USSR had launched more than 1100 spacecraft and numerous satellites. Nor were the arts neglected. Unions were formed for writers, painters, and other creative people. Theaters and concert halls were built, and orchestras and theater and dance companies sent on tour. Local clubs and palaces of culture brought urban and folk arts to the general public, and the government encouraged thousands of amateur groups. State Control. The state insisted, however, that all aspects of Soviet culture foster Communist society. This requirement did relatively little damage to science, although the government’s vacillating attitude toward biologist and agronomist Trofim D. Lysenko shows how political values can affect scientific views. Communist influence tended to hamper the social sciences, which had to be placed in a Marxist context. The Communist attitude toward music was less clear: The composers Sergey Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich were both alternately in and out of favor. After the mid-1960s even jazz and twelve-tone music were officially praised. The fine arts and literature suffered most from communism, which required them to adhere to socialist realism, a secular, optimistic exaltation of the Soviet people, in a style that satisfied popular taste. Avant-garde literature and the paintings of Marc Chagall, Kasimir Malevich, and Wassily Kandinsky were banned. Religion was a complex problem; the government accepted religious toleration in theory but was itself atheistic and opposed organized religion in practice. Religious services were allowed, but believers were denied educational and professional advancement and were subjected to antireligious propaganda. Dissidence. Although such pervasive political guidelines did not disturb the vast majority of the population, a small but persistent current of dissident intellectuals, artists, religious believers, and nationalists wrote open letters, circulated clandestine literature (samizdat), and staged demonstrations in the cause of greater freedom. A “thaw” in government control during the de-Stalinization years from 1955 through 1964 was followed by a return to a more repressive policy, especially after the radical attempts at liberalization in Czechoslovkia in 1968. Hundreds of dissidents were fired, imprisoned, or sent to mental institutions or hard-labor camps, usually for actions considered subversive to the regime. The most distinguished among these dissidents were the writer Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn and the nuclear physicist Andrey D. Sakharov. Solzhenitsyn, who was forbidden to publish in the Soviet Union in 1968, was forcibly expelled from the country in 1974. Sakharov, because of his distinguished scientific reputation, for a long time escaped punishment, but having denounced the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979, he was isolated the following month by banishment in Gorkiy, a city “out of limits” to foreigners, where he was kept under police surveillance bordering on house arrest. (Sakharov was permitted to return to Moscow in December 1986.) Many intellectual dissidents were Jews who wanted to immigrate to Israel but were refused by the government, which did not want to lose expensively trained citizens. Thousands of other Jews, however, were allowed to leave. Religious dissidents also included Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lithuanian Catholics, and Baptists. Prominent among nationalist dissidents were Crimean Tatars and Soviet Germans, moved to Siberia in World War II, who wanted to return home. AFFAIRS ABROAD After World War II the Soviet Union had the closest relations with the Eastern European nations, called its satellites. The CMEA after 1949 attempted to work out Soviet plans for the economic integration of its member nations in the Eastern bloc. Under the plans, each country would produce what it was best prepared for and purchase other products from the other countries. Opposition to this supranational system under Soviet domination developed, notably in Romania, which rejected its assignment as a basically agricultural and oil-producing country. Despite such dissatisfaction, additional economic links were later established, including an International Bank of Economic Collaboration. Pipelines carrying oil and gas from the Volga-Urals region to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany further integrated the economies of these nations with that of the USSR. Relations with Satellites. Yugoslavia, which immediately after World War II seemed interested in cooperation with the Soviet Union, soon broke sharply with it, refusing to accept Moscow’s direction. In the other satellites Soviet domination increased until 1955; in 1952, 80 percent of Soviet trade was with the satellites. In 1954 the USSR granted independence to East Germany, which was freed from further reparations payments but retained a large contingent of Soviet troops. Formation of the Warsaw Pact for military assistance in 1955 was a countermeasure to NATO and served to tighten Soviet control. After the death of Stalin, relations with Yugoslavia improved, only to decline again, especially after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. After 1961 the Soviet Union completely lost control of Albania, which until 1978 remained closely allied with China. Polish and Hungarian crises. Soviet control of the satellites was most seriously threatened in 1956, during the relaxation following de-Stalinization. Popular discontent and demonstrations in Poland in 1956 were followed by an agreement with a new Polish government for “temporary” continuance of Soviet troops in Poland, for cancellation of some Polish debts, and for the granting of additional credits. The Hungarian uprising later in the year was more serious. Demonstrations by workers and students for national independence led to the intervention of Soviet troops, which brutally subdued the independence movement, killing thousands, and also to the formation of a new puppet government under János Kádár. The USSR was condemned by the Western countries and by the UN, but for a long time afterward it maintained a great degree of control in Hungary. Prague Spring. The next crisis, in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968, reflected the more relaxed Soviet system of review after 1960 and the pressure for economic change within the Czechoslovak Communist party, which was dismayed by the stagnant economy and sought to create “socialism with a human face.” Dissatisfaction and clamor for reform led peacefully and gradually to the replacement of Antonín Novotny (1904–75) as head of the party and of the state by Alexander Dub[ccaron]ek and Ludvík Svoboda (1895–1979), both Communists long loyal to the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders were alarmed by the “Prague Spring”—particularly by the ending of censorship and talk of closer economic relations with the West. Pressure was brought to bear in various ways, but when all other means failed, approximately 600,000 Soviet and other Warsaw Pact (except Romanian) troops suddenly invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia on the night of Aug. 20, 1968. Passive resistance was united and most impressive, but the Soviet forces gradually won their way. Dub[ccaron]ek was removed in April 1969, and the hated controls were reimposed. The destruction of the dramatic reform movement in Czechoslovakia was reflected in tightened controls in the USSR and served to reassert Soviet control over all of Eastern Europe except Romania, Yugoslavia, and Albania. It weakened Communist parties outside the Soviet bloc, split the international Communist movement apart, alarmed the West, and delayed all negotiations on disarmament. From the Soviet point of view, it improved the Soviet position in the contest for Europe. By endorsing the territorial status quo in Europe, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Helsinki, Finland, 1975, apparently sanctioned Soviet authority in Eastern Europe. The USSR played a major behind-the-scenes role in halting a drive toward free trade unions and increased democracy in Poland in the early 1980s. Relations with China. In 1949 the Soviet Union fully recognized the Communist government of China under Mao Zedong, became allied with it, and continued to demand that it be seated in the UN in place of the government of Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan. A 30-year treaty was signed in 1950, including provision for Soviet loans to China at 1 percent interest. Both countries supported North Korea in the Korean War (1950–53). At the end of the 1950s relations still seemed close, and Soviet trade with China reached a value of $2 billion annually. In the 1960s, however, relations between the two countries gradually deteriorated. On the surface was an ideological disagreement over the interpretation of Marxism, especially with regard to revolutions in the developing countries. Underneath, however, was the old-fashioned rivalry and mutual fear of two former empires, the leaders of which, despite their vaunted communism, were intensely nationalistic, jealously guarded every inch of their vast territories, and strove for leadership in the rest of the Communist world. This rivalry surfaced in the Soviet refusal after 1959 to assist the Chinese in developing their nuclear power, in Chinese resentment that the Soviet Union still retained territories that had been considered Chinese before a series of treaties in 1858 and 1860, and in the perhaps inevitable squabbling between neighbors sharing a long common border. As it grew in intensity, the conflict even threatened a rift in the peace between the two countries. The clashes of border brigades in 1969 cast a new shadow over all Soviet policies. The 1972 visit to China by the U.S. president, Richard M. Nixon, further alarmed the USSR at the possibility of a realignment of power. Despite Soviet efforts to calm relations after Mao’s death in 1976, Soviet-Chinese rivalry increased. The Chinese encouraged the East European states to seek more independence, recognized the European Common Market, and turned toward the West for military and economic aid. Sino-Soviet talks on improving mutual relations, begun in late 1979, were broken off in early 1980, but were resumed in 1982. Relations with Other Asian Nations. The USSR in 1950 recognized the Communist forces of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. In 1954 it participated in the Geneva Agreement that divided the country into North and South Vietnam, and it continued to support the Communist north. As the Vietnam War escalated during the 1960s, the USSR came into conflict with the U.S. After the North Vietnamese victory, the Soviet Union still supported reunited Vietnam in its conflict with China. Soviet relations with other Asian countries have been both conciliatory and aggressive. Premier Kosygin rendered an outstanding service to world peace in 1966 by mediating a new phase of the quarrel between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. In the 1971 Indian-Pakistani conflict that resulted in the formation of the state of Bangladesh, the USSR supported victorious India, while both China and the U.S. sided with Pakistan. Despite normal relations with Japan, a peace treaty ending World War II was never signed because of the Soviet Union’s refusal to return to Japan four small islands acquired in 1945. In December 1979 the USSR, in order to shore up a faltering Marxist government, sent a large military force across the border into Afghanistan, occupying the country. Amidst condemnation from the rest of the world, the Soviet troops fought to quell nationalist resistance and dug in, apparently for a long duration. Although fighting continued throughout 1982, a new Asian satellite seemed to have joined the Soviet orbit. Penetration of Africa. Soviet attempts to influence African states suffered two notable setbacks in the 1960s. In present-day Congo (Zaire) Soviet-supported Premier Patrice Lumumba was killed in an uprising in 1961, and in Ghana in 1966 Kwame Nkrumah and his Communist government were overthrown and Soviet technicians were expelled. In the 1970s, however, with the aid of Cuban troops, the USSR placed friends in power in Angola and assisted Ethiopia in driving back Somalians. It supported the antigovernment Patriotic Front in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and similar groups in South Africa. These and other developments alarmed the West as a new form of Soviet imperialism and a new approach to increasing Soviet power in the Middle East. Soviet relations with Egypt were close in the 1950s and ’60s. The USSR supported Egypt when it nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, helped it build the Aswan High Dam, and backed it in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; in 1971 the two countries signed a 15-year treaty of friendship. The following year, however, Egypt ordered all Soviet military advisers out of the country. Soviet criticism of Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat’s peacemaking visit to Jerusalem in 1977 further alienated Egypt. In December 1977 Sadat ordered the Soviet Union to close its consulates and cease all cultural activities. Soviet advisers were also ordered to leave Sudan and Somalia. Relations with Western Europe. In 1955 the Soviet Union agreed to the independence and neutrality of Austria. The same year full diplomatic relations were established with West Germany, but the West German “economic miracle”—a “magnet” on the borders of Eastern Europe—and the new Ostpolitik of the West German foreign minister (later chancellor) Willy Brandt increased Soviet misgivings about its position in an Eastern Europe tempted by Western trade, technology, and ideas. The USSR championed East Germany against West Germany and caused repeated crises in the relations of the two Germanys. The problem of West Berlin, surrounded by East German territory, was particularly thorny. The USSR tried to bring all of Berlin under East German control and supported East German pressures for German unification. Relations with West Germany, however, improved at the end of the decade with the advent of a Social Democratic government in the Federal Republic. In August 1970 the Soviet and West German governments signed a treaty renouncing the use of force to settle disputes and accepting existing European frontiers, including the Oder-Neisse boundary between East Germany and Poland. Tensions were further reduced in 1973, when West and East Germany granted each other full diplomatic recognition. Relations with the U.S. Soviet relations with the U.S. since World War II have been marked by alternating periods of crisis and cooperation. In 1962 the USSR and U.S. clashed over Cuba. The USSR had maintained close relations with Fidel Castro’s government, promising help in case of attack by the U.S. In 1962, when the USSR provided Cuban bases with offensive missiles, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy demanded their withdrawal, Premier Khrushchev yielded. The USSR continued to support the faltering Cuban economy through trade, loans, and technical aid, a policy that gave it great influence in Cuban affairs. That influence increased as a result of the cooperation between Soviet and Cuban advisers and soldiers in Africa and Asia after 1976. Arms control. Disarmament was considered of paramount importance, both inside and outside the UN. In 1954 and again in 1959, the Soviet Union suggested complete disarmament, but the proposals failed when the USSR rejected provisions for inspection to verify such an agreement. In 1960 the USSR announced a reduction of about one-third in its military establishment, but again the Western nations would not follow such a lead without stringent inspection provisions. By 1953 the USSR had a hydrogen bomb. In the following years
test explosions, by all the major powers, of increasingly powerful
nuclear bombs seemed to make agreement on limitation imperative.
Little was accomplished, however, until 1963, when the USSR signed
an agreement with the U.S. and Great Britain banning all nuclear
tests except underground. It also joined the U.S. in agreeing to
keep outer space free of all armaments. A series of Détente. The Soviet Union pursued an active foreign policy backed by steadily increasing military strength, but it also showed a marked drive toward détente with the West, especially the U.S. In May 1972, President Nixon visited the Soviet Union. Soviet-U.S. agreements included cooperation on health research, environmental protection, science and technology, space ventures, avoidance of incidents at sea, and arms limitations. Following these came settlement of the Soviet World War II lend-lease debt, a 3-year trade pact, and cultural exchange programs. Efforts to reach a new SALT agreement after 1975 were hampered by such issues as Soviet and East European repression of dissidents, the Soviet involvement in Angola and other African states, and continued Soviet support of the Arab cause against Israel. Despite these sources of tension, Soviet and U.S. negotiators were able to reach an agreement on a new SALT treaty in May 1979, and Brezhnev met with U.S. President Jimmy Carter in Vienna for a formal signing one month later. The Soviet armed intervention in Afghanistan in December of that year, however, doomed ratification of the accord by the U.S. Congress. U.S.-Soviet relations worsened during the early 1980s. The U.S. condemned the Soviet role in the suppression of dissidence in Poland and the September 1983 shooting down of a Korean Air Lines civilian aircraft in Soviet airspace. GORBACHEV ERA Brezhnev died in November 1982. His successor as state president and Communist party general secretary, Yuri V. Andropov, succumbed to prolonged illness in February 1984. Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, who died after only 13 months in office, was followed in March 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev. Glasnost and Perestroika. After consolidating his power by changing the Politburo membership, Gorbachev launched a campaign aimed at reforming Soviet society. His agenda called for perestroika (Rus. “restructuring”) of the nation’s economy and glasnost (Rus. “openness”) in political and cultural affairs. At a conference of the Communist party held in late June 1988, Gorbachev proposed a series of constitutional reforms to shift power from the party to popularly elected legislatures, reduce the party’s role in local economic management, and greatly increase the powers of the presidency. Three months later, Andrey A. Gromyko retired as state president (a post he had held since 1985), and Gorbachev assumed the office. In March 1989, Soviet voters took part in their first nationwide competitive election since 1917, choosing the newly reconstituted Congress of People’s Deputies; the congress convened in May to select the Supreme Soviet and to elect Gorbachev to a 5-year presidential term. Complicating the process of domestic economic reform were, in April 1986, a serious accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, which caused significant environmental damage and revealed major deficiencies in the Soviet nuclear program; and, in December 1988, an earthquake in Armenia that left more than 55,000 dead and at least 400,000 homeless. Foreign Policy Initiatives. An agreement providing for Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was reached in April 1988. Official figures issued in May indicated that 13,310 Soviet soldiers had been killed and 35,478 injured in the fighting. The withdrawal was completed by February 1989; in October, Soviet leaders acknowledged that the intervention in Afghanistan had “violated the norms of proper behavior.” Between 1985 and 1991, Gorbachev held a series of summit conferences with U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. These meetings resulted in agreements to eliminate medium-range and certain shorter-range missiles, cut strategic nuclear weapons, and end production and reduce stockpiles of chemical weapons. Gorbachev’s initiatives in other foreign policy areas were equally striking. In December 1988, at the UN General Assembly, he announced unilateral reductions in conventional forces, notably in Eastern Europe and along the Sino-Soviet border. During Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing in May 1989, China and the USSR agreed to resume normal relations after a 30-year rift. At a meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome in December, Gorbachev promised that the Soviet Union would allow full religious freedom, and the USSR and the Vatican agreed to establish diplomatic ties. Relations with Israel also improved dramatically, as the USSR relaxed emigration restrictions on Soviet Jews. After August 1990, with tensions rising in the Persian Gulf, the USSR generally supported the U.S.-led effort to use economic and military pressure to force Iraq to give up Kuwait. Communism in Crisis. Among the most dramatic departures from past Soviet policy was the refusal of the USSR to intervene in Eastern Europe as, between 1989 and 1991, reform movements ousted Communist governments in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania; Communist East Germany dissolved and became part of the Federal Republic of Germany; and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, two cornerstones of Soviet foreign policy, disbanded. Nor was Soviet Communism immune to the forces that brought down the Eastern European regimes. In February 1990, with the Soviet economy rapidly deteriorating, the Communist party agreed to give up its monopoly on political power. In March, as Gorbachev became executive president, insurgents scored significant gains in local elections. On March 11, Lithuania declared itself a sovereign state, defying Moscow’s sanctions. In June, the Russian SFSR proclaimed its state sovereignty. Nationalist and independence movements also were active in other republics, and outbreaks of ethnic violence were increasingly common. In November, Gorbachev again sought to augment his presidential powers and implement political and economic reforms. Following a referendum in March 1991, the office of president was introduced in the Russian SFSR and, in June, Boris Yeltsin was elected president. Georgia declared its independence in April. Communist hard-liners, who included many of the Soviet government’s
top officials, attempted a coup in August 1991, placing Gorbachev
under house arrest and moving to reimpose centralized Communist
control. In three days, the reformers, led by Russian President
Yeltsin, crushed the coup and began to dismantle the party apparatus.
With the USSR on the verge of collapse, the Congress of People’s
Deputies agreed on September 5 to establish a transitional government
in which a State Council, headed by Gorbachev and including the
presidents of participating republics, exercised emergency powers.
The next day the council recognized the full independence of Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. Ukraine declared its independence on September
7, followed by the remaining republics. Increasingly, Yeltsin’s
influence eclipsed that of Gorbachev, and the Russian government
assumed the powers the Soviet government in Moscow had previously
exercised. On December 21 the USSR formally ceased to exist, as
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (renamed Belarus), Kazakstan, Kirgiziya
(renamed Kyrgyzstan), Moldavia (renamed Moldova), Russia, Tadzhikstan
(renamed Tajikistan), Turkmenia (renamed Turkmenistan), Ukraine,
and Uzbekistan—agreed to form the
For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections
An article from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group. A WRC Media Company. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by
written agreement, uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws are prohibited.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuesday, November 24 at 6 AM CST
Civil War Journal: Pickett's Charge. Tuesday, November 24 at 6 AM CST
Pickett's Charge.. Was it heroism or was it folly? The story of Confederate General George Edward Pickett's desperate charge against Union forces at Gettysburg.
ENCYCLOPEDIA:
UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
The world’s first Marxist state, established as a result of the Russian Revolution of November 1917, on the territory of the former Russian Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—generally . . . ENCYCLOPEDIA: YEMEN, PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC OF,
ENCYCLOPEDIA: GEORGIA, REPUBLIC OF,
This Day in History: 12/30/1922 - USSR established
Video
1:00 min
-
Vladimir Lenin Speaks to Red Army
Video
1:11 min
-
This Day in History: 09/22/1862 - Emancipation Proclamation
Video
1:00 min
-
Norman M. Thomas accepts sixth nomination
Video
0:43 min
-
Dogfights: Sukhoi Su-7
Video
1:37 min
-
This Day in History: 12/30/1922 - USSR established
1:00 min
In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation.
In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation.
Vladimir Lenin Speaks to Red Army
1:11 min
In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established.
In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established.
This Day in History: 09/22/1862 - Emancipation Proclamation
1:00 min
President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.
President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.
Norman M. Thomas accepts sixth nomination
0:43 min
On May 9, 1948, at the Socialist Party Convention, Norman Thomas was nominated for the presidency for the sixth consecutive time.
On May 9, 1948, at the Socialist Party Convention, Norman Thomas was nominated for the presidency for the sixth consecutive time.
Dogfights: Sukhoi Su-7
1:37 min
Imagine traveling at 720 miles per hour thousands of feet in the air. This is exactly what fighter pilots did when flying the Soviet Union aircraft known as the Sukhoi Su-7. Watch this Dog Fights video to learn more about this tactical bomber.
Imagine traveling at 720 miles per hour thousands of feet in the air. This is exactly what fighter pilots did when flying the Soviet Union aircraft known as the Sukhoi Su-7. Watch this Dog Fights video to learn more about this tactical bomber.
ADVERTISEMENT
