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The term "Soviet empire" collectively refers to the world's territories that theSoviet Union dominated politically, economically, and militarily. This phenomenon, particularly in the context of theCold War, is used bySovietologists to describe the extent of the Soviet Union's hegemony over theSecond World.
In a wider sense, the term refers toSoviet foreign policy during theCold War, which has been characterized asimperialist: the nations which were part of the "Soviet empire" were nominally independent countries with separate governments that set their own policies, but those policies had to stay within certain limits decided by the Soviet Union. These limits were enforced by the threat of intervention by Soviet forces, and later theWarsaw Pact. Major military interventions took place inEast Germany in 1953,Hungary in 1956,Czechoslovakia in 1968,Poland in 1980–81 andAfghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Countries in theEastern Bloc were Sovietsatellite states.
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Although the Soviet Union was not ruled by an emperor, and declared itselfanti-imperialist and apeople's democracy, it exhibited tendencies common to historic empires.[1][2] The notion of "Soviet empire" often refers to a form of "classic" or "colonial" empire with communism only replacing conventional imperial ideologies such asChristianity ormonarchy, rather than creating a revolutionary state. Academically the idea is seen as emerging withRichard Pipes' 1957 bookThe Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923; it has been reinforced, along with several other views, in continuing scholarship.[3]: 41 Several scholars hold that the Soviet Union was a hybrid entity containing elements common to both multinational empires andnation states.[1] The Soviet Union practicedcolonialism similar to conventional imperial powers.[2][4][5][6][7][8][9]
The Soviets pursuedinternal colonialism inCentral Asia. For example, the state's prioritized grain production over livestock inKyrgyzstan, which favoredSlavic settlers over theKyrgyz natives, thus perpetuating the inequalities of thetsarist colonial era.[7] TheMaoists argued that the Soviet Union had itself become an imperialist power while maintaining a socialist façade, orsocial imperialism.[10][11] While Maoists criticized post-Stalin USSR's imperialism from a hardline communist viewpoint,reformist socialist critics of Soviet imperialism, such asJosip Broz Tito andMilovan Djilas, have referred theStalinist USSR's foreign policies, such as the occupation and economic exploitations ofEastern Europe and its aggressive and hostile policy towardsYugoslavia as Soviet imperialism.[12][13] Another dimension of Soviet imperialism iscultural imperialism, theSovietization of culture and education at the expense of local traditions.[14]Leonid Brezhnev continued a policy of culturalRussification as part ofDeveloped Socialism, which sought to assert more central control.[15]Seweryn Bialer argued that the Soviet state had an imperial nationalism.[16]
A notable wave of Sovietization occurred during theRussian Civil War in the territories captured by theRed Army. Later, the territories occupied by theRussian SFSR and the USSR were Sovietized.Mongolia was invaded by the Soviet Union and Sovietized in the 1920s after it became a Soviet satellite state, and after the end of theSecond World War, Sovietization took place in the countries of theSoviet Bloc (Eastern andCentral Europe: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states etc.). In a broad sense, it included the involuntary creation of Soviet-style authorities, imitation of elections held under the control of the Bolsheviks with the removal of opposition candidates, nationalization of land and property, repression against representatives of "class enemies" (kulaks, orosadniks, for instance). Mass executions and imprisoning inGulaglabor camps andexile settlements often accompany that process. This was usually promoted and sped up bypropaganda aimed at creating a common way of life in all states within the Soviet sphere of influence. In modern history, Sovietization refers to the copying of models of Soviet life (the cult of the leader's personality, collectivist ideology, mandatory participation in propaganda activities, etc.).[17]
From the 1930s through the 1950s,Joseph Stalin orderedpopulation transfers in the Soviet Union, deporting people (often entire nationalities) to underpopulated remote areas, with their place being taken mostly by ethnicRussians andUkrainians. The policy officially ended in theKhrushchev era, with some of the nationalities allowed to return in 1957. However,Nikita Khrushchev andLeonid Brezhnev refused the right of return forCrimean Tatars,Russian Germans andMeskhetian Turks.[18] In 1991, theSupreme Soviet of Russia declared the Stalinist mass deportations to be a "policy of defamation and genocide".[19]
The historical relationship between Russia (the dominant republic in the Soviet Union) and these Eastern European countries helps explain their longing to eradicate the remnants of Soviet culture. Poland and the Baltic states epitomize the Soviet attempt to build uniform cultures and political systems. According to Dag Noren, Russia was seeking to constitute and reinforce a buffer zone between itself and Western Europe so as to protect itself from potential future attacks from hostile Western European countries.[16] The Soviet Union had lost approximately 20 million people over the course of the Second World War, although Russian sources are keen on further inflating that figure.[20] To prevent a recurrence of such costly warfare, Soviet leaders believed that they needed to establish a hierarchy of political and economic dependence between neighboring states and the USSR.[16]
During the Brezhnev era, the policy of "Developed Socialism" declared the Soviet Union to be the most complete socialist country—other countries were "socialist", but the USSR was "developed socialist"—explaining its dominant role and hegemony over the other socialist countries.[21] This and the interventionistBrezhnev Doctrine, permitting the invasion of other socialist countries, led to characterisation of the USSR as an empire.[15]
Soviet influence incountries of socialist orientation was mainly political and ideological rather than economic: the Soviet Union pumped enormous amounts of international assistance into them in order to secure influence.[22] The Soviet Union sought a group of countries which would rally to its cause in the event of an attack from Western countries, and support it in the context of the Cold War.[23] After thedissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federationwas recognized as its successor state, inheriting $103 billion of Soviet foreign debt and $140 billion of Soviet assets abroad.[22]
Economic expansion did, however, play a significant role in Soviet motivation to spread influence in its satellite territories. These new territories would ensure an increase in the global wealth which the Soviet Union would have a grasp on.[23]
Soviet officials from theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic intertwined this economic opportunity with a potential for migration. They saw in these Eastern European countries the potential of a great workforce. They offered a welcome to them upon the only condition that they work hard and achieve social success. This ideology was shaped on the model of the meritocratic, 19th-century American foreign policy.[23]
Scholars discussing Soviet empire have discussed it as a formal empire orinformal empire. In a more formal interpretation of "Soviet empire", this meant absolutism, resembling Lenin's description of thetsarist empire as a "prison of the peoples" except that this "prison of the peoples" had been actualized during Stalin's regime after Lenin's death. Thomas Winderl wrote "The USSR became in a certain sense more a prison-house of nations than the old Empire had ever been."[3]: 41–42
Another view sees the Soviet empire as constituting an "informal empire" over nominally sovereign states in theWarsaw Pact due to Soviet pressure and military presence.[24] The Soviet informal empire depended on subsidies from Moscow.[25] The informal empire in the wider Warsaw Pact also included linkages between Communist Parties.[26] Some historians consider a more multinational-oriented Soviet Union emphasizing its socialist initiatives, such asIan Bremmer, who describes a "matryoshka-nationalism" where a pan-Soviet nationalism included other nationalisms.[3]: 48 Eric Hobsbawn argued that the Soviet Union had effectively designed nations by drawing borders.[3]: 45 Dmitri Trenin wrote that by 1980, the Soviet Union had formed both a formal and informal empire.[27]
The informal empire would have included Soviet economic investments,military occupation, andcovert action in Soviet-aligned countries. The studies of informal empire have included Soviet influence onEast Germany[26] and 1930sXinjiang.[28][29] From the 1919Karakhan Manifesto to 1927, diplomats of the Soviet Union would promise to revoke concessions in China, but the Soviets secretly kept tsarist concessions such as theChinese Eastern Railway, as well as consulates, barracks, and churches.[30][31] After theSino-Soviet conflict (1929), the Soviet Union regained theRussian Empire's concession of theChinese Eastern Railway and held it until itsreturn to China in 1952.[31]
Alexander Wendt suggested that by the time of Stalin'sSocialism in one country alignment, socialist internationalism "evolved into an ideology of control rather than revolution under the rubric of socialist internationalism" internally within the Soviet Union. By the start of the Cold War it evolved into a "coded power language" that was once again international, but applied to the Soviet informal empire. At times the USSR signaled toleration of policies of satellite states indirectly, by declaring them consistent or inconsistent with socialist ideology, essentially recreating a hegemonic role. Wendt argued that a "hegemonic ideology" could continue to motivate actions after the original incentives were removed, and argued this explains the "zeal ofEast German Politburo members who chose not to defend themselves against trumped-up charges during the 1950s purges."[26]: 704
Analyzing thedissolution of the Soviet Union, Koslowski andKratochwil argued that a postwar Soviet "formal empire" represented by the Warsaw Pact, with Soviet military role and control over of member states' foreign relations, had evolved into an informalsuzerainty or "Ottomanization" from the late 1970s to 1989. WithGorbachev's relinquishing of theBrezhnev Doctrine in 1989, the informal empire reduced in pressure to a more conventional sphere of influence, resemblingFinlandization but applied to the erstwhileEast Bloc states, until the Soviet fall in 1991. By contrast "Austrianization" would have been arealist model ofgreat power politics by which the Soviets would have hypothetically relied on Western guarantees to keep an artificial Soviet sphere of influence. The speed of reform in the 1989 to 1991 period made both a repeat of Finlandization and Austrianization impossible for the Soviet Union.[32][33]
These countries were the closest allies of the Soviet Union and were also members of theComecon, a Soviet-led economic community founded in 1949. The members of theWarsaw Pact, sometimes called theEastern Bloc, were widely viewed as Sovietsatellite states. These countries were occupied (or formerly occupied) by the Red Army, and their politics, military, foreign and domestic policies were dominated by the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact included the following states:[34][35]
People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1946–1968)[b]
People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990)
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1948–1990)
German Democratic Republic (1949–1990)
Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989)
Polish People's Republic (1947–1989)
Socialist Republic of Romania (1947–1960s)[c]In addition to having a permanent seat in theUnited Nations Security Council, the Soviet Union had two of itsunion republics in theUnited Nations General Assembly:
A special case were Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, three countries occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991 (seeOccupation of the Baltic states):
Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist RepublicThese countries were Marxist-Leninist states who were allied with the Soviet Union, but were not part of the Warsaw Pact.
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978–1991)
People's Republic of Angola (1975–1991)[d]
People's Republic of Benin (1975–1990)
Burkina Faso (1983–1987)
Chinese Soviet Republic (1931–1937)
People's Republic of China (1949–1961)[e]
People's Republic of the Congo (1969–1991)
Republic of Cuba (1959–1991)
Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia, thenPeople's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1974–1991)
People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–1989)
People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada (1979–1983)
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (1948–1991, also allied with China)[36][f]
Lao People's Democratic Republic (1975–1991)
Democratic Republic of Madagascar (1975–1990)
Mongolian People's Republic (1924–1991)
People's Republic of Mozambique (1975–1990)
Tuvan People's Republic (1921–1944)[g]
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1954–1976), thenSocialist Republic of Vietnam (1976–1991)[h]
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (1967–1990)
Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1948)[i]
Some countries in theThird World had pro-Soviet governments during the Cold War. In the political terminology of the Soviet Union, these were "countries moving along the socialist road of development" as opposed to the more advanced "countries ofdeveloped socialism" which were mostly located in Eastern Europe, but that also included Cuba and Vietnam. They received some aid, eithermilitary oreconomic, from the Soviet Union and were influenced by it to varying degrees. Sometimes, their support for the Soviet Union eventually stopped for various reasons and in some cases the pro-Soviet government lost power while in other cases the same government remained in power, but ultimately ended its alliance with the Soviet Union.[38]
Algeria (1962–1991)
People's Republic of Bangladesh (1972–1975)[j]
Burma (1962–1988)[k]
Cape Verde (1975–1990)
Chile (1970–1973)[l][39]
Republic of China (KMT) (1921–1927)[m]
Egypt (1954–1974)[n]
Ghana (1964–1966)[o]
Guinea (1960–1984)[p]
Guinea Bissau (1973–1991)
Equatorial Guinea (1968–1979)[q]
Guyana (1966–1991)
India (1971–1991)
Indonesia (1959–1965)[r]
Iraq (1958–1963;1968–1991)
Israel (1948–1953)[40]
Libya (1969–1991)
Mali (1960–1991)
Mauritania (1961–1984)[s]
Nicaragua (1979–1990)[t]
Peru (1968–1975)[u]
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (1976–1991)
Sao Tome and Principe (1975–1991)
Seychelles (1977–1991)
Somali Democratic Republic (1969–1977)[v]
Sudan (1969–1971)[w]
Syria (1958–1961;1963–1991)
Tanzania (1964–1985)[x]
Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1949)[y]
Turkey (1923–1945)[z]
Uganda (1969–1971)[aa]
Yemen Arab Republic (1962–1972)[ab]
Zambia (1964–1991)
Zimbabwe (1980–1991)Somecommunist states were opposed to the Soviet Union and criticized many of its policies. Although they may have had many similarities to the USSR on domestic issues, they were not considered Soviet allies in international politics. Relations between them and the Soviet Union were often tense, sometimes even to the point of armed conflict.
Albania (1960–1991)[ac]China (1961–1989)[ad]
Romania (1960s–1989)[ae]Somalia (1977–1991)[af]Yugoslavia (1948–1955)[ag]The position ofFinland was complex. The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939, launching theWinter War. The Soviets intended to install theirFinnish Democratic Republicpuppet government intoHelsinki and annex Finland into the Soviet Union.[42][43] Fierce Finnish resistance prevented the Soviets from achieving this objective, and theMoscow Peace Treaty was signed on 12 March 1940, with hostilities ending the following day.
Finland would re-enter the Second World War when theyinvaded the Soviet Union alongside Germany in late June 1941. Finland reclaimed all territory lost in the Winter War, and would proceed tooccupy additional territory inEast Karelia. The SovietVyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive of 1944 pushed Finland out of this territory, but Finland halted the offensive at theBattle of Tali-Ihantala. TheMoscow Armistice brought the Continuation War to an end. Finland retained most of its territory and its market economy, trading on the Western markets and ultimately joining the Westerncurrency system.
Nevertheless, although Finland was considered neutral, theFinno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 significantly limited Finnish freedom of operation in foreign policy. It required Finland to defend the Soviet Union from attacks through its territory, which in practice prevented Finland from joiningNATO, and effectively gave the Soviet Union a veto in Finnish foreign policy. Thus, the Soviet Union could exercise "imperial"hegemonic power even towards a neutral state.[44] Under thePaasikivi–Kekkonen doctrine, Finland sought to maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union, and extensivebilateral trade developed. In the West, this led to fears of the spread of "Finlandization", where Western allies would no longer reliably support the United States and NATO.[45]
