With the exception of the CIS – an intergovernmental organization and legal successor to the union itself – only states that are former Soviet republics, now members of the United Nations, are listed as successors.
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953
The wordsoviet is derived from theRussian wordsovet (Russian:совет), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice',[z] ultimately deriving from theproto-Slavic verbal stem of*vět-iti ('to inform'), related to Slavicvěst ('news'), Englishwise. The wordsovietnik means 'councillor'.[9] Some organizations in Russian history were calledcouncil (Russian:совет). In theRussian Empire, theState Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers.[9]
During theGeorgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national soviet republics to form a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian:Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии,romanized: Soyuz Sovyetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii).[16]Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began associalist soviet and did not change to the other order until1936. In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the wordcouncil orconciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russiansoviet and never in others, e.g.Ukrainian SSR.
СССР (in the Latin alphabet:SSSR) is the abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR, as written inCyrillic letters. The soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this, the most common Russian initialization isСоюз ССР (transliteration:Soyuz SSR) which essentially translates toUnion of SSRs in English. In addition, the Russian short form nameСоветский Союз (transliteration:Sovyetsky Soyuz, which literally meansSoviet Union) is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of theGreat Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating the Russian name of the Soviet Union asСС has been taboo, the reason being thatСС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is associated with the infamousSchutzstaffel ofNazi Germany, asSS is in English.
In English-language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that, for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it was colloquially, but incorrectly, referred to asRussia.
The history of the Soviet Union began with the ideals of theBolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following theRussian Civil War, the Soviet Union quickly became a one-party state under theCommunist Party. Its early years underLenin were marked by the implementation of socialist policies and theNew Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for market-oriented reforms.
The rise ofJoseph Stalin in the late 1920s ushered in an era of intense centralization and totalitarianism. Stalin's rule was characterized by the forcedcollectivization of agriculture, rapidindustrialization, and theGreat Purge, which eliminated perceived enemies of the state. The Soviet Union, one of theBig Four Allied powers[17] alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, and China, played a crucial role in theAllied victory inWorld War II, but at a tremendous human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict.
The Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, leading theEastern Bloc in opposition to theWestern Bloc during theCold War. This period saw the USSR engage in an arms race, theSpace Race, andproxy wars around the globe. The post-Stalin leadership, particularly underNikita Khrushchev, initiated ade-Stalinization process, leading to a period of liberalization and relative openness known as theKhrushchev Thaw. However, the subsequent era underLeonid Brezhnev, sometimes referred to as theEra of Stagnation, was marked by economic decline, political corruption, and a rigidgerontocracy. Despite efforts to maintain the Soviet Union's superpower status, the economy struggled due to its centralized nature, technological backwardness, and inefficiencies. The vast military expenditures and burdens of maintaining the Eastern Bloc, further strained the Soviet economy.
In the 1980s,Mikhail Gorbachev's policies ofGlasnost (openness) andPerestroika (restructuring) aimed to revitalize the Soviet system but instead accelerated its unraveling. Nationalist movements gained momentum across theSoviet republics, and the control of the Communist Party weakened. The failedcoup attempt in August 1991 against Gorbachev by hardline communists hastened theend of the Soviet Union, which formally dissolved on 26 December 1991, ending nearly seven decades of Soviet rule.
With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country,[18] a status that is retained by theRussian Federation.[19] Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that ofNorth America.[20] Two other successor states,Kazakhstan andUkraine, rank among the top 10 countries by land area, and the largest country entirely in Europe, respectively. TheEuropean portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part inAsia extended to thePacific Ocean to the east andAfghanistan to the south, and, except some areas inCentral Asia, was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones:tundra,taiga,steppes,desert andmountains.
The country's highest mountain was Communism Peak (nowIsmoil Somoni Peak) inTajikistan, at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The USSR also included most of the world's largest lakes; theCaspian Sea (shared withIran), andLake Baikal, the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia.
Military parade on theRed Square in Moscow, 7 November 1964
At the top of the Communist Party was theCentral Committee, elected atParty Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for aPolitburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966),Secretariat and thegeneral secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), thede facto highest office in the Soviet Union.[22] Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country[23] (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941).[24] They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization wasdemocratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.[25]
The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over thesystem of appointments. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership,[26] but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly ceremonial position ofChairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominalhead of state. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted byprimary party organizations.[27]
However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over thestate bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party,[28] nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, althoughfactions were officially banned.[29]
The Supreme Soviet (successor of theCongress of Soviets) was nominally thehighest organ of state authority for most of the Soviet history,[30] at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including the creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of theFive-Year Plans and thegovernment budget.[31] The Supreme Soviet elected aPresidium (successor of theCentral Executive Committee) to wield its power between plenary sessions,[32] ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed theSupreme Court,[33] theProcurator General[34] and theCouncil of Ministers (known before 1946 as theCouncil of People's Commissars), headed by theChairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society.[32] State and party structures of theconstituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise intoparty committees,local Soviets andexecutive committees. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.[35]
The state security police (theKGB andits predecessor agencies) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in theRed Terror andGreat Purge,[36] but was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. UnderYuri Andropov, the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure,[37] culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[38]
Theconstitution, which was promulgated in1924,1936 and1977, did not limit state power.[39] Noseparation of powers existed in the Soviet Union, as the state system was based on theunified state power of thehighest organ of state authority, that is, theAll-Union Supreme Soviet which worked under the party's leadership.[40] The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin[41] and Stalin,[42] as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal,[43] itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee.[44] All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, exceptGeorgy Malenkov[45] and Khrushchev, who were both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party.[44]
Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition,Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. TheCongress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989, the first in Soviet history. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since the 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers.[46] In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of thePresident of the Soviet Union, concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government,[47] now renamed theCabinet of Ministers of the USSR, to himself.[48]
Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia byBoris Yeltsin and controlling the newly electedSupreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged acoup attempt. The coup failed, and theState Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power 'in the period of transition'.[49] Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR.[50]
The judiciary was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts (People's Court) and applied the law as established by the constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used theinquisitorial system ofRoman law, where the judge,procurator, and defence attorney collaborate to "establish the truth".[51]
Sergei Kovalev recalled "the famous article 125 of the Constitution which enumerated all basic civil and political rights" in the Soviet Union. But when he and other prisoners attempted to use this as a legal basis for their abuse complaints, their prosecutor's argument was that "the Constitution was written not for you, but for American Negroes, so that they know how happy the lives of Soviet citizens are".[69]
Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, instead, it was determined as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example,a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as acounter-revolutionary activity punishable by death.[60]The liquidation and deportation of millions of peasants in 1928–31 was carried out within the terms of the Soviet Civil Code.[60] Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt.[60]Martin Latsis, chief ofSoviet Ukraine'ssecret police explained: "Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to whichclass he belongs, what is his background, hiseducation, hisprofession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of theRed Terror."[70]
The purpose ofpublic trials was "not to demonstrate the existence or absence of a crime – that was predetermined by the appropriateparty authorities – but to provide yet another forum forpolitical agitation and propaganda for the instruction of the citizenry (seeMoscow Trials for example). Defense lawyers, who had to beparty members, were required to take their client's guilt for granted..."[60]
Comintern (1919–1943), orCommunist International, was an international communist organization based in the Kremlin that advocatedworld communism. The Comintern intended to 'struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state'.[72] It was abolished as a conciliatory measure toward Britain and the United States.[73]
Comecon, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Russian:Совет Экономической Взаимопомощи,Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi,СЭВ,SEV) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under Soviet control that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with several communist states elsewhere in the world. Moscow was concerned about theMarshall Plan, and Comecon was meant to prevent countries in the Soviets' sphere of influence from moving towards that of the Americans and Southeast Asia. Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation in Western Europe of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation (OEEC),[74][75]
TheWarsaw Pact was acollective defence alliance formed in 1955 among the USSR and itssatellite states in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.[76][77] The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Comecon, the regional economic organization for thesocialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration ofWest Germany intoNATO.[78][76] Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard theSoviet Union's hegemony over itsEastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away.[79][76][80]
TheCominform (1947–1956), informally the Communist Information Bureau and officially the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties, was the first official agency of the international Marxist-Leninist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. Its role was to coordinate actions between Marxist-Leninist parties under Soviet direction. Stalin used it to order Western European communist parties to abandon their exclusively parliamentarian line and instead concentrate on politically impeding the operations of theMarshall Plan, the U.S. program of rebuilding Europe after the war and developing its economy.[81] It also coordinated international aid to Marxist-Leninist insurgents during the Greek Civil War in 1947–1949.[82] It expelled Yugoslavia in 1948 afterJosip Broz Tito insisted on an independent program. Its newspaper,For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!, promoted Stalin's positions. The Cominform's concentration on Europe meant a deemphasis on world revolution in Soviet foreign policy. By enunciating a uniform ideology, it allowed the constituent parties to focus on personalities rather than issues.[83]
The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions.[84]
During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it was the Russian responsibility to assist them. TheComintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—theHungarian Soviet Republic—lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help.
By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became the duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with theTreaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the USSR.[85]
Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings ofWinston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations andde facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the newLabour Party came to power in 1924.[86] All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations.Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of a new profitable market.[87]
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labour unions or other organizations on the left, which they labelledsocial fascists. In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, the epithetfascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually anyanti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion.[88] Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with thePopular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with allanti-Fascist political, labour, and organizational forces that were opposed tofascism, especially of theNazi variety.[89][90]
The rapid growth of power in Nazi Germany encouraged both Paris and Moscow to form a military alliance, and theFranco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed in May 1935. A firm believer in collective security, Stalin's foreign ministerMaxim Litvinov worked very hard to form a closer relationship with France and Britain.[91]
In 1939, half a year after theMunich Agreement, the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain.[92]Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in the partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning ofWorld War II.[93]
Up until his death in 1953,Joseph Stalin controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during theinterwar period. Despite the increasing build-up ofGermany's war machine and the outbreak of theSecond Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path.[94] However, afterOperation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with theUnited Kingdom,Vyacheslav Molotov dropped his post war border demands.[95]
TheCold War was a period ofgeopolitical tension between theUnited States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, theWestern Bloc and theEastern Bloc, which began followingWorld War II in 1945. The termcold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the twosuperpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known asproxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporaryalliance andvictory againstNazi Germany in 1945. Aside from thenuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such aspsychological warfare, propaganda campaigns,espionage, far-reachingembargoes, rivalry atsports events and technological competitions such as theSpace Race.
A medium-rangeSS-20 non-ICBM ballistic missile, the deployment of which by the Soviet Union in the late 1970s launched a newarms race in Europe when NATO responded by deployingPershing II missiles inWest Germany, among other things
Under the Military Law of September 1925, theSoviet Armed Forces consisted of theLand Forces, theAir Force, theNavy,Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and theInternal Troops.[98] The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined theNKVD secret police, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II,Strategic Missile Forces (1959),Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in the official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force fourth, and Navy fifth).
The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after theCaribbean crisis, under the leadership ofSergei Gorshkov, it expanded significantly. It became known forbattlecruisers and submarines. In 1989, there served 500 000 men. TheSoviet Air Force focused on a fleet ofstrategic bombers and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number offighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers.
The Soviet Union adopted acommand economy, whereby production and distribution of goods were centralized and directed by the government. For the overwhelming majority of its existence, the USSR did not use GDP or GNP to measure its economy, instead relying on theMaterial Product System. The first Bolshevik experience with a command economy was the policy ofwar communism, which involved the nationalization of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive or forced requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, private enterprises andfree trade. Thebarrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population.[102] After the severe economic collapse, Lenin replaced warcommunism by theNew Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, legalizing free trade and private ownership of small businesses. The economy steadily recovered as a result.[103]
After a long debate among the members of the Politburo about the course of economic development, by 1928–1929, upon gaining control of the country, Stalin abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning, startingforced collectivization of agriculture and enacting draconian labour legislation. Resources were mobilized forrapid industrialization, which significantly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s.[103] The primary motivation for industrialization was preparation for war, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalist world.[104] As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power, leading the way for its emergence as a superpower afterWorld War II.[105] The war caused extensive devastation of the Soviet economy and infrastructure, which required massive reconstruction.[106]
TheDneproGES, one of manyhydroelectric power stations in the Soviet Union and a symbol of Soviet economic progress
By the early 1940s, the Soviet economy had become relativelyself-sufficient; for most of the period until the creation ofComecon, only a tiny share of domestic products was traded internationally.[107] After the creation of the Eastern Bloc, external trade rose rapidly. However, the influence of theworld economy on the USSR was limited by fixed domestic prices and a state monopoly onforeign trade.[108] Grain and sophisticated consumer manufactures became major import articles from around the 1960s.[107] During thearms race of the Cold War, the Soviet economy was burdened by military expenditures, heavily lobbied for by a powerful bureaucracy dependent on the arms industry. At the same time, the USSR became the largest arms exporter to theThird World. A portion of Soviet resources during the Cold War wereallocated in aid to the Soviet-aligned states.[107] The Soviet Union'smilitary budget in the 1970s was gigantic, forming 40–60% of the entire federal budget and accounting to 15% of the USSR's GDP (13% in the 1980s).[109]
From the 1930s until its dissolution in late 1991, the way the Soviet economy operated remained essentially unchanged. The economy was formally directed bycentral planning, carried out byGosplan and organized infive-year plans. However, in practice, the plans were highly aggregated and provisional, subject toad hoc intervention by superiors. All critical economic decisions were taken by the political leadership. Allocated resources and plan targets were usually denominated inrubles rather than in physical goods.Credit was discouraged, but widespread. The final allocation of output was achieved through relatively decentralized, unplanned contracting. Although in theory prices were legally set from above, in practice they were often negotiated, and informal horizontal links (e.g. between producer factories) were widespread.[103]
A number of basicservices were state-funded, such aseducation and health care. In the manufacturing sector, heavy industry and defence were prioritized overconsumer goods.[110] Consumer goods, particularly outside large cities, were often scarce, of poor quality and limited variety. Under the command economy, consumers had almost no influence on production, and the changing demands of a population with growing incomes could not be satisfied by supplies at rigidly fixed prices.[111] A massive unplanned second economy grew up at low levels alongside the planned one, providing some of the goods and services that the planners could not. The legalization of some elements of the decentralized economy was attempted with thereform of 1965.[103]
Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its economic growth difficult to estimate precisely,[112][113] by most accounts, the economy continued to expand until the mid-1980s. During the 1950s and 1960s, it had comparatively high growth and was catching up to the West.[114] However, after 1970, the growth, while still positive,steadily declined much more quickly and consistently than in other countries, despite a rapid increase in the capitalstock (the rate of capital increase was only surpassed by Japan).[103]
Overall, the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1989 was slightly above the world average (based on 102 countries).[115] A 1986 study published in theAmerican Journal of Public Health claimed that, citingWorld Bank data, the Soviet model provided a betterquality of life andhuman development than market economies at the same level of economic development in most cases.[116] According toStanley Fischer andWilliam Easterly, growth could have been faster. By their calculation, per capita income in 1989 should have been twice higher than it was, considering the amount of investment, education and population. The authors attribute this poor performance to the low productivity of capital.[117] Steven Rosefielde states that thestandard of living declined due to Stalin's despotism. While there was a brief improvement after his death, it lapsed into stagnation.[118]
In 1987,Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to reform and revitalize the economy with his program ofperestroika. His policies relaxed state control over enterprises but did not replace it by market incentives, resulting in a sharp decline in output. The economy, already suffering fromreduced petroleum export revenues, started to collapse. Prices were still fixed, and the property was still largely state-owned until after the country's dissolution.[103][111] For most of the period after World War II until its collapse, Soviet GDP (PPP) wasthe second-largest in the world, and third during the second half of the 1980s,[119] although on aper-capita basis, it was behind that ofFirst World countries.[120] Compared to countries with similar per-capita GDP in 1928, the Soviet Union experienced significant growth.[121]
In 1990, the country had aHuman Development Index of 0.920, placing it in the 'high' category of human development. It was the third-highest in the Eastern Bloc, behindCzechoslovakia andEast Germany, and the 25th in the world of 130 countries.[122]
The need for fuel declined in the Soviet Union from the 1970s to the 1980s,[123] both per ruble of gross social product and per ruble of industrial product. The decline was very rapid between 1965 and 1970, then slowed between 1970 and 1975. From 1975 to 1980, the decline continued at an even slower rate, with fuel requirements per ruble of gross social product decreasing by only 2.6%.[124] David Wilson, a historian, believed that the gas industry would account for 40% of Soviet fuel production by the end of the century. His theory did not come to fruition because of the USSR's collapse.[125] According to Wilson, the Soviet Union was, in theory, well-positioned to avoid an energy crisis and could have sustained economic growth rates of 2–2.5% during the 1990s, supported by its energy resources.[126] However, the energy sector faced many difficulties, among them the country's high military expenditure and hostile relations with theFirst World.[127]
In 1991, the Soviet Union had apipeline network of 82,000 kilometres (51,000 mi) forcrude oil and another 206,500 kilometres (128,300 mi) for natural gas.[128] Petroleum and petroleum-based products, natural gas, metals, wood, agricultural products, and a variety of manufactured goods, primarily machinery, arms and military equipment, were exported.[129] In the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR heavily relied on fossil fuel exports to earnhard currency.[107] At its peak in 1988, it was the largest producer and second-largest exporter of crude oil, surpassed only bySaudi Arabia.[130]
The Soviet Union placed great emphasis onscience and technology.[131][132] Lenin believed the USSR would never overtake the developed world if it remained as technologically backward as it was upon its founding. Soviet authorities proved their commitment to Lenin's belief by developing massive networks and research and development organizations. In the early 1960s, 40% of chemistry PhDs in the Soviet Union were attained by women, compared with only 5% in the United States.[133] By 1989, Soviet scientists were among the world's best-trained specialists in several areas, such as energy physics, selected areas of medicine, mathematics, welding, space technology, and military technologies. However, due to rigid state planning andbureaucracy, the Soviets remained far behind theFirst World in chemistry, biology, and computer science. Under Stalin, the Soviet government persecutedgeneticists in favour ofLysenkoism, apseudoscience rejected by the scientific community in the Soviet Union and abroad but supported by Stalin's inner circles. Implemented in the USSR and China, it resulted in reduced crop yields and is widely believed to have contributed to theGreat Chinese Famine.[134] In the 1980s, the Soviet Union had morescientists andengineers relative to the world's population than any other major country, owing to strong levels of state support.[135] Some of its most remarkable technological achievements, such as launching theworld's first space satellite, were achieved through military research.[110]
Under theReagan administration,Project Socrates determined that the Soviet Union addressed the acquisition of science and technology in a manner radically different to the United States. The US prioritized indigenousresearch and development in both the public and private sectors. In contrast, the USSR placed greater emphasis on acquiring foreign technology, which it did through bothcovert and overt means. However, centralized state planning kept Soviet technological development greatly inflexible. This was exploited by the US to undermine the strength of the Soviet Union and thus foster its reform.[136][137][138]
At the end of the 1950s, the USSR constructed the firstsatellite—Sputnik 1, which marked the beginning of theSpace Race—a competition to achieve superior spaceflight capability with the United States.[139] This was followed by other successful satellites, most notablySputnik 5, where test dogs were sent to space. On 12 April 1961, the USSR launchedVostok 1, which carriedYuri Gagarin, making him the first human to ever be launched into space and complete a space journey.[140] The first plans forspace shuttles and orbital stations were drawn up in Soviet design offices, but personal disputes between designers and management prevented their development.
In terms of theLuna program, the USSR only had automated spacecraft launches with no crewed spacecraft. TheN1—aSuper heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to match the AmericanSaturn V for a Soviet manned moon landing—failed all four of its test launches, and the 'Moon' part ofSpace Race waswon by the Americans. The Soviet public's reaction to the American moon-landing was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about it, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it attention, and another portion was angered.[141][142]
In the 1970s, specific proposals for the design of a space shuttle emerged, but shortcomings, especially in the electronics industry (rapid overheating of electronics), postponed it till the end of the 1980s. The first shuttle, theBuran, flew in 1988, but without a human crew. Another,Ptichka, endured prolonged construction and was canceled in 1991. For their launch into space, there is today an unused superpower rocket,Energia, which is the most powerful in the world.[143]
In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union built theMir orbital station. It was built on the construction ofSalyut stations and its only role was civilian-grade research tasks.[144][145] Mir was the only orbital station in operation from 1986 to 1998. Gradually, other modules were added to it, including American modules. However, the station deteriorated rapidly after a fire on board and was deorbited in 2001, burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.[144]
Aeroflot's flag during the Soviet eraNuclear IcebreakerLenin
Transport was a vital component of the country's economy. Theeconomic centralization of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure on a massive scale, most notably the establishment ofAeroflot, an aviation enterprise.[146] The country had a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air.[128] However, due to inadequate maintenance, much of the road, water and Soviet civil aviation transport were outdated and technologically backward compared to the First World.[147]
Soviet rail transport was the largest and most intensively used in the world;[147] it was also better developed than most of its Western counterparts.[148] By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the burdens from the railways and to improve the Sovietgovernment budget.[149] Thestreet network andautomotive industry[150] remained underdeveloped,[151] anddirt roads were common outside major cities.[152] Soviet maintenance projects proved unable to take care of even the few roads the country had. By the early-to-mid-1980s, the Soviet authorities tried to solve the road problem by ordering the construction of new ones.[152] Meanwhile, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than road construction.[153] The underdeveloped road network led to a growing demand for public transport.[154]
Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still[when?] riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making. Soviet authorities were unable to meet the growing demand for transport infrastructure and services.[155]
Population of the Soviet Union (red) and thepost-Soviet states (blue) from 1961 to 2009 as well as projection (dotted blue) from 2010 to 2100
Excess deaths throughoutWorld War I and theRussian Civil War (including thefamine of 1921–1922 that was triggered by Lenin'swar communism policies)[156] amounted to a combined total of 18 million,[157] some 10 million in the 1930s,[158] and more than 20 million in 1941–1945. The postwarSoviet population was 45 to 50 million smaller than it would have been if pre-war demographic growth had continued.[159] According toCatherine Merridale, '...reasonable estimate would place the total number of excess deaths for the whole period somewhere around 60 million.'[160]
Thebirth rate of the USSR decreased from 44.0 per thousand in 1926 to 18.0 in 1974, mainly due to increasing urbanization and the rising average age of marriages. Themortality rate demonstrated a gradual decrease as well—from 23.7 per thousand in 1926 to 8.7 in 1974. In general, the birth rates of the southern republics in Transcaucasia and Central Asia were considerably higher than those in the northern parts of the Soviet Union, and in some cases even increased in the post–World War II period, a phenomenon partly attributed to slower rates of urbanization and traditionally earlier marriages in the southern republics.[161] Soviet Europe moved towardssub-replacement fertility, whileSoviet Central Asia continued to exhibit population growth well above replacement-level fertility.[162]
The late 1960s and the 1970s witnessed a reversal of the declining trajectory of the rate of mortality in the USSR, and was especially notable among men of working age, but was also prevalent in Russia and other predominantly Slavic areas of the country.[163] An analysis of the official data from the late 1980s showed that after worsening in the late-1970s and the early 1980s, adult mortality began to improve again.[164] The infant mortality rate increased from 24.7 in 1970 to 27.9 in 1974. Some researchers regarded the rise as mostly real, a consequence of worsening health conditions and services.[165] The rises in both adult and infant mortality were not explained or defended by Soviet officials, and theSoviet government stopped publishing all mortality statistics for ten years. Soviet demographers and health specialists remained silent about the mortality increases until the late-1980s, when the publication of mortality data resumed, and researchers could delve into the real causes.[166]
Largest cities of the USSR according to the 1989 census
The Soviet Union imposed heavy controls on city growth, preventing some cities from reaching their full potential while promoting others.[167][168]
For the entirety of the Soviet Union's existence, the most populous cities wereMoscow andLeningrad (both inRussian SFSR), with the third far place taken byKiev (Ukrainian SSR). At the USSR's inception, the fourth and fifth most populous cities wereKharkov (Ukrainian SSR) andBaku (Azerbaijan SSR), but, by the end of the century,Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), which had assumed the position of capital of Soviet Central Asia, had risen to fourth place.Minsk (Byelorussian SSR) saw rapid growth during the 20th century, rising from the 32nd most populous in the union to the 7th.[168][169][170]
Women and fertility
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, visiting theLvov confectionery, Ukrainian SSR, 1967
Under Lenin, the state made explicit commitments to promote the equality of men and women. Many early Russian feminists and ordinary Russian working women actively participated in the Revolution, and many more were affected by the events of that period and the new policies. Beginning in October 1918, Lenin's government liberalized divorce and abortion laws, decriminalized homosexuality (re-criminalized in 1932), permitted cohabitation, and ushered in a host of reforms.[171] However, withoutbirth control, the new system produced many broken marriages, as well as countless out-of-wedlock children.[172] The epidemic of divorces and extramarital affairs created social hardships when Soviet leaders wanted people to concentrate their efforts on growing the economy. Giving women control over their fertility also led to a precipitous decline in the birth rate, perceived as a threat to their country's military power. By 1936, Stalin reversed most of the liberal laws, ushering in apronatalist era that lasted for decades.[173]
By 1917, Russia became the firstgreat power to grant women the right to vote.[174] After heavy casualties in World Wars I and II, women outnumbered men in Russia by a 4:3 ratio;[175] this contributed to the larger role women played in Russian society compared to other great powers at the time.
LGBT rights
The Soviet Union repressedhomosexuality. Even during the period when homosexuality was officially legal after the abolition of the Tsarist penal code criminalising it, Soviet courts attempted to repress non-traditional forms of sexuality, which were widely viewed by Russian revolutionaries as a form of capitalist decadence despite more liberal views on homosexuality from Soviet academic sexologists. After Stalin's consolidation of power, homosexuality became officially recriminalised in 1934.[176] The increased homophobia during this time interval was driven by the economic demands of the First Five-Year Plan, as well as the NKVD's view of homosexuals as "socially harmful elements", although even during this heightened period of repression, a clandestine homosexual subculture was able to persist.[177] Homosexuality remained a criminal offence throughout the remainder of the Soviet Union's existence.[176]
Young Pioneers at a Young Pioneer camp in the Kazakh SSR
Anatoly Lunacharsky became the firstPeople's Commissar for Education of Soviet Russia. In the beginning, the Soviet authorities placed great emphasis on theelimination of illiteracy. All left-handed children were forced to write with their right hand in the Soviet school system.[178][179][180][181] Literate people were automatically hired as teachers.[citation needed] For a short period, quality was sacrificed for quantity. By 1940, Stalin could announce that illiteracy had been eliminated. Throughout the 1930s,social mobility rose sharply, which has been attributed to reforms in education.[182] In the aftermath of World War II, the country's educational system expanded dramatically, which had a tremendous effect. In the 1960s, nearly all children had access to education, the only exception being those living in remote areas.Nikita Khrushchev tried to make education more accessible, making it clear to children that education was closely linked to the needs of society. Education also became important in giving rise to theNew Man.[183] Citizens directly entering the workforce had the constitutional right to a job and to freevocational training.
Theeducation system was highly centralized and universally accessible to all citizens, withaffirmative action for applicants from nations associated withcultural backwardness. However, as part of a generalantisemitic policy, an unofficialJewish quota was applied[when?] in the leading institutions of higher education by subjecting Jewish applicants to harsher entrance examinations.[184][185][186][187] The Brezhnev era also introduced a rule that required all university applicants to present a reference from the localKomsomol party secretary.[188] According to statistics from 1986, the number of higher education students per the population of 10,000 was 181 for the USSR, compared to 517 for the US.[189]
The Soviet Union was an ethnically diverse country, with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups. The total population of the country was estimated at 293 million in 1991. According to a 1990 estimate, the majority of the population wereRussians (50.78%), followed byUkrainians (15.45%) andUzbeks (5.84%).[190] Overall, in 1989 the ethnic demography of the country showed that 69.8% wasEast Slavic, 17.5% wasTurkic, 1.6% wereArmenians, 1.6% wereBalts, 1.5% wereUralic, 1.5% wereTajik, 1.4% wereGeorgian, 1.2% wereMoldovan and 4.1% were of other various ethnic groups.[191]
All citizens of the USSR had their own ethnic affiliation. The ethnicity of a person was chosen at the age of sixteen by the child's parents.[192] If the parents did not agree, the child was automatically assigned the ethnicity of the father. Partly due to Soviet policies, some of the smaller minority ethnic groups were considered part of larger ones, such as theMingrelians ofGeorgia, who were classified with the linguistically relatedGeorgians.[193] Some ethnic groups voluntarily assimilated, while others were brought in by force. Russians,Belarusians, and Ukrainians, who were all East Slavic and Orthodox, shared close cultural, ethnic, and religious ties, while other groups did not. With multiple nationalities living in the same territory,ethnic antagonisms developed over the years.[194][neutrality isdisputed]
Members of various ethnicities participated in legislative bodies. Organs of power like the Politburo, the Secretariat of the Central Committee etc., were formally ethnically neutral, but in reality, ethnic Russians were overrepresented, although there were also non-Russian leaders in theSoviet leadership, such asJoseph Stalin,Grigory Zinoviev,Nikolai Podgorny orAndrei Gromyko. During the Soviet era, a significant number of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians migrated to other Soviet republics, and many of them settled there. According to the last census in 1989, the Russian 'diaspora' in the Soviet republics had reached 25 million.[195]
Ethnographic map of the USSR, 1930
European Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) Ethnic Groups, before 1939
Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union, 1941
Ethnic composition of the Soviet Union in 1949
Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union, 1970
Map of the ethnic groups living in USSR, 1970
Ethnic Groups in the Soviet Union, 1979
Comparative Soviet Nationalities by Republic, 1989
An early Soviet-era poster discouraging unsafe abortion practices
In 1917, before the revolution, health conditions were significantly behind those of developed countries. As Lenin later noted, "Either the lice will defeat socialism, or socialism will defeat the lice".[196] The Soviet health care system was conceived by thePeople's Commissariat for Health in 1918. Under theSemashko model, health care was to be controlled by the state and would be provided to its citizens free of charge, a revolutionary concept at the time. Article 42 of the1977 Soviet Constitution gave all citizens theright to health protection and free access to any health institutions in the USSR. BeforeLeonid Brezhnev became general secretary, the Soviet healthcare system was held in high esteem by many foreign specialists. This changed, however, from Brezhnev's accession andMikhail Gorbachev's tenure as leader, during which the health care system was heavily criticized for many basic faults, such as the quality of service and the unevenness in its provision.[197]Minister of HealthYevgeniy Chazov, during the19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while highlighting such successes as having the most doctors and hospitals in the world, recognized the system's areas for improvement and felt that billions ofrubles were squandered.[198]
After the revolution, life expectancy for all age groups went up. These improvements continued into the 1960s when statistics indicated that the life expectancy briefly surpassed that of the United States;[citation needed] life expectancy started to decline in the 1970s, possibly because ofalcohol abuse.[citation needed] At the same time, infant mortality began to rise. After 1974, the government stopped publishing statistics on the matter. This trend can be partly explained by the number of pregnancies rising drastically in the Asian part of the country where infant mortality was the highest while declining markedly in the more developed European part of the Soviet Union.[199]
Dentistry
Soviet dental technology and dental health were considered extremely bad;[200] in 1991, the average 35-year-old had 12 to 14 cavities, fillings or missing teeth. Toothpaste was often not available, and toothbrushes did not conform to standards of modern dentistry.[201]
Under Lenin, the government gave small language groups their own writing systems.[202] The development of these writing systems was highly successful, even though some flaws were detected. During the later days of the USSR, countries with the samemultilingual situation implemented similar policies. A serious problem when creating these writing systems was that the languages differeddialectally greatly from each other.[203] When a language had been given a writing system and appeared in a notable publication, it would attain 'official language' status. There were many minority languages which never received their own writing system; therefore, their speakers were forced to have asecond language.[204] There are examples where the government retreated from this policy, most notably under Stalin where education was discontinued in languages that were not widespread. These languages were then assimilated into another language, mostly Russian.[205] During World War II, some minority languages were banned, and their speakers accused of collaborating with the enemy.[206]
As the most widely spoken of the Soviet Union's many languages, Russiande facto functioned as an official language, as the 'language of interethnic communication' (Russian:язык межнационального общения), but only assumed thede jure status as the official national language in 1990.[207]
Religious influence had been strong in the Russian Empire. The Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed a privileged status as the church of the monarchy and took part in carrying out official state functions.[209] The immediate period following the establishment of the Soviet state included a struggle against the Orthodox Church, which the revolutionaries considered an ally of the formerruling classes.[210]
In Soviet law, the 'freedom to hold religious services' was constitutionally guaranteed, although the ruling Communist Party regarded religion as incompatible with theMarxist spirit ofscientific materialism.[210] In practice, the Soviet system subscribed to a narrow interpretation of this right, and in fact used a range of official measures to discourage religion and curb the activities of religious groups.[210]
The 1918Council of People's Commissars decree establishing the Russian SFSR as a secular state also decreed that 'the teaching of religion in all [places] where subjects of general instruction are taught, is forbidden. Citizens may teach and may be taught religion privately.'[211] Among further restrictions, those adopted in 1929 included express prohibitions on a range of church activities, including meetings for organizedBible study.[210] Both Christian and non-Christian establishments were shut down by the thousands in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1940, as many as 90% of the churches, synagogues, and mosques that had been operating in 1917 were closed; the majority of them were demolished or re-purposed for state needs with little concern for their historic and cultural value.[212]
More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.[213] Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.[214] In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in Russia fell from 29,584 to less than 500 (1.7%).[215]
The Soviet Union was officially asecular state,[216][217] but a 'government-sponsored program of forced conversion toatheism' was conducted under the doctrine ofstate atheism.[218][219][220] The government targeted religions based on state interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools.[221] In 1925, the government founded theLeague of Militant Atheists to intensify the propaganda campaign.[222] Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the formal structures and mass media, and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious. While persecution accelerated following Stalin's rise to power, a revival of Orthodoxy was fostered by the government during World War II and the Soviet authorities sought to control the Russian Orthodox Church rather than liquidate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled. Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were closed, and the publication of most religious material was prohibited. By 1941, only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in existence before World War I.
Convinced that religiousanti-Sovietism had become a thing of the past, and with the looming threat of war, the Stalin administration began shifting to a more moderate religion policy in the late 1930s.[223] Soviet religious establishments overwhelmingly rallied to support the war effort during World War II. Amid other accommodations to religious faith after the German invasion, churches were reopened.Radio Moscow began broadcasting a religious hour, and a historic meeting between Stalin and Orthodox Church leaderPatriarch Sergius of Moscow was held in 1943. Stalin had the support of the majority of the religious people in the USSR even through the late 1980s.[223] The general tendency of this period was an increase in religious activity among believers of all faiths.[224]
UnderNikita Khrushchev, the state leadership clashed with the churches in 1958–1964, a period whenatheism was emphasized in the educational curriculum, and numerous state publications promoted atheistic views.[223] During this period, the number of churches fell from 20,000 to 10,000 from 1959 to 1965, and the number of synagogues dropped from 500 to 97.[225] The number of working mosques also declined, falling from 1,500 to 500 within a decade.[225]
Religious institutions remained monitored by the Soviet government, but churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques were all given more leeway in theBrezhnev era.[226] Official relations between the Orthodox Church and the government again warmed to the point that the Brezhnev government twice honored Orthodox PatriarchAlexy I with theOrder of the Red Banner of Labour.[227] A poll conducted by Soviet authorities in 1982 recorded 20% of the Soviet population as 'active religious believers.'[228]
The 'Enthusiast's March', a 1930s song famous in the Soviet UnionSoviet singer-songwriter, poet and actorVladimir Vysotsky in 1979
The culture of the Soviet Union evolved through several stages during its existence. During the first decade following the revolution, there was relative freedom and artists experimented with several different styles to find a distinctive Soviet style of art. Lenin wanted art to be accessible to the Russian people. On the other hand, hundreds of intellectuals, writers, and artists were exiled or executed, and their work banned, such asNikolay Gumilyov who was shot for alleged conspiracy against the Bolsheviks, andYevgeny Zamyatin.[229]
The government encouraged a variety of trends. In art and literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental, proliferated. Communist writersMaxim Gorky andVladimir Mayakovsky were active during this time. As a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, films received encouragement from the state, and much of directorSergei Eisenstein's best work dates from this period.
During Stalin's rule, the Soviet culture was characterized by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style ofsocialist realism, with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions, such asMikhail Bulgakov's works. Many writers were imprisoned and killed.[230]
Following theKhrushchev Thaw, censorship was diminished. During this time, a distinctive period of Soviet culture developed, characterized by conformist public life and an intense focus on personal life. Greater experimentation in art forms was again permissible, resulting in the production of more sophisticated and subtly critical work. The government loosened its emphasis on socialist realism; thus, for instance, many protagonists of the novels of authorYury Trifonov concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. Underground dissident literature, known assamizdat, developed during this late period. In architecture, the Khrushchev era mostly focused on functional design as opposed to the highly decorated style of Stalin's epoch. In music, in response to the increasing popularity of forms of popular music likejazz in the West, many jazz orchestras were permitted throughout the USSR, notably the Melodiya Ensemble, named after the principle record label in the USSR.
On 13 July 1925 theCentral Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a statement "About the party's tasks in sphere of physical culture". In the statement was determined the role of physical culture in Soviet society and the party's tasks in political leadership of physical culture movement in the country.
TheSoviet Olympic Committee formed on 21 April 1951, and theIOC recognized the new body in its45th session. In the same year, when the Soviet representative Konstantin Andrianov became an IOC member, the USSR officially joined theOlympic Movement. The1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki thus became first Olympic Games for Soviet athletes. The Soviet Union was the biggest rival to the United States at the Summer Olympics, winningsix of its nine appearances at the games and also topping the medal tally at the Winter Olympics six times. The Soviet Union's Olympics success has been attributed to its large investment in sports to demonstrate its superpower image and political influence on a global stage.[232]
The Soviet Olympic team was notorious for skirting the edge of amateur rules. All Soviet athletes held some nominal jobs, but were in fact state-sponsored and trained full-time. According to many experts, that gave the Soviet Union a huge advantage over theUnited States and other Western countries, whose athletes were students or real amateurs.[233][234] Indeed, the Soviet Union monopolized the top place in the medal standings after 1968, and, until its collapse, placed second only once, in the1984 Winter games, after another Eastern bloc nation, theGDR. Amateur rules were relaxed only in the late 1980s and were almost completely abolished in the 1990s, after thefall of the USSR.[232][235]
According to British journalistAndrew Jennings, aKGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) to underminedoping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".[236][237] Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements.[238]
In the late 1980s, the government was persuaded to fund construction of a racing yacht specifically to take part in the1989–1990 Whitbread Round the World Race with a Soviet crew. The 25 metre sloopFazisi was built in 1989 to the design of Vladislav Murnikov in Poti, Georgia. She came a creditable 11th in a field of 23 boats, but the project was not repeated.[239]
Environment
Landscape nearKarabash, Chelyabinsk Oblast, an area that was previously covered with forests until acid rainfall from a nearby copper smelter killed all vegetationOne of the many impacts of the approach to the environment in the USSR and post-Soviet states is theAral Sea. (See status in 1989 and 2014)[240]
Neighbouring countries were aware of the high levels of pollution in the Soviet Union[241][242] but after thedissolution of the Soviet Union it was discovered that its environmental problems were greater than what the Soviet authorities admitted.[243] The Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. In 1988, total emissions in the Soviet Union were about 79% of those in the United States. But since the SovietGNP was only 54% of that of the United States, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the United States per unit of GNP.[244]
TheChernobyl disaster in the Ukrainian SSR in 1986 was the first major accident at a civiliannuclear power plant.[245][246][247] Unparalleled in the world, it resulted in a large number of radioactive isotopes being released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses were scattered relatively far.[248] Although long-term effects of the accident were unknown, 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer which resulted from the accident's contamination were reported at the time of the accident, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005).[249] Another major radioactive accident was theKyshtym disaster.[250]
TheKola Peninsula was one of the places with major problems.[251] Around the industrial cities ofMonchegorsk andNorilsk, wherenickel, for example, is mined, all forests have been destroyed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions.[252] During the 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissionednuclear submarines, and the processing ofnuclear waste orspent nuclear fuel.[253][254] It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to theBarents Sea andKara Sea, which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of theK-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in the west further raised concerns.[255] In the past, there were accidents involving submarinesK-19,K-8, aK-129,K-27,K-219 andK-278 Komsomolets.[256][257][258][259]
The legacy of the USSR remains a controversial topic. The socio-economic nature ofcommunist states such as the USSR, especially under Stalin, has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form ofbureaucratic collectivism,state capitalism,state socialism, or a totally uniquemode of production.[260] The USSR implemented a broad range of policies over a long period of time, with a large amount of conflicting policies being implemented by different leaders. Some have a positive view of it whilst others are critical towards the country, calling it a repressiveoligarchy.[261] The opinions on the USSR are complex and have changed over time, with different generations having different views on the matter as well as on Soviet policies corresponding to separate time periods during its history.[262]
Western academicians published various analyses of the post-Soviet states' development, claiming that the dissolution was followed by a severe drop in economic and social conditions in these countries,[263][264] including a rapid increase in poverty,[265][266][267][268] crime,[269] corruption,[270][271] unemployment,[272][273] homelessness,[274][275] rates of disease,[276][277][278] infant mortality and domestic violence,[279] as well as demographic losses,[280] income inequality and the rise of anoligarchical class,[281][265] along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income.[282] Between 1988–1989 and 1993–1995, theGini ratio (a measure of inequality) increased by an average of 9 percentage points for all former Soviet republics.[265] According to Western analysis, the economic shocks that accompanied wholesaleprivatization were associated with sharp increases in mortality,[283] Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia saw a tripling of unemployment and a 42% increase in male death rates between 1991 and 1994,[284][285] and in the following decades, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the fall of the Soviet Bloc.[286][287] As of 2011, the experience of the former Soviet republics was mixed, with some having recovered in terms ofgross domestic product and others not.[288] There are large wealth disparities, and many post-soviet economies are described as oligarchic.[289]
Since thedissolution of the Soviet Union, annual polling by theLevada Center has shown that over 50% of Russia's population regretted this event, with the only exception to this being in 2012 when support for the Soviet Union dipped below 50 percent.[290] A 2018 poll showed that 66% ofRussians regretted the fall of the Soviet Union, setting a 15-year record, and the majority of these regretting opinions came from people older than 55.[290][291] In 2020, polls conducted by the Levada Center found that 75% of Russians agreed that the Soviet era was the greatest era in their country's history.[292]
According to the New Russia Barometer (NRB) polls by the Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 50% of Russian respondents reported a positive impression of the Soviet Union in 1991.[293] This increased to about 75% of NRB respondents in 2000, dropping slightly to 71% in 2009.[293] Throughout the 2000s, an average of 32% of NRB respondents supported the restoration of the Soviet Union.[293]
In a 2021 poll, a record 70% of Russians indicated they had a mostly/very favourable view ofJoseph Stalin.[294] InArmenia, 12% of respondents said the USSR collapse did good, while 66% said it did harm. InKyrgyzstan, 16% of respondents said the collapse of the USSR did good, while 61% said it did harm.[295] In a 2018Rating Sociological Group poll, 47% ofUkrainian respondents had a positive opinion of Soviet leaderLeonid Brezhnev, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, while viewingLenin, Stalin, andGorbachev very negatively.[296] A 2021 poll conducted by the Levada Center found that 49% of Russians prefer the USSR's political system, while 18% prefer the current political system and 16% would prefer aWestern democracy. A further 62% of people polled preferred the Soviet system of central planning, while 24% prefer a market-based system.[297] According to the Levada Center's polls, the primary reasons cited for Soviet nostalgia are the advantages of the shared economic union between the Soviet republics, including perceived financial stability.[298] This was referenced by up to 53% of respondents in 2016.[298] At least 43% also lamented the loss of the Soviet Union's global political superpower status.[298] About 31% cited the loss of social trust and capital.[299] The remainder of the respondents cited a mix of reasons ranging from practical travel difficulties to a sense of national displacement.[298]
The 1941–1945 period of World War II is still known in Russia as the 'Great Patriotic War'. The war became a topic of great importance in cinema, literature, history lessons at school, the mass media, and the arts. As a result of themassive losses suffered by the military and civilians during the conflict,Victory Day celebrated on 9 May is still one of the most important and emotional dates in Russia.[300] Catherine Wanner asserts that Victory Day commemorations are a vehicle for Soviet nostalgia, as they "kept alive a mythology of Soviet grandeur, of solidarity among theSovietskii narod, and of a sense of self as citizen of a superpower state".[301]
In some post-Soviet republics, there is a more negative view of the USSR, although there is no unanimity on the matter.[306] In large part due to theHolodomor, ethnicUkrainians have a negative view of the Soviet Union.[307]Russian-speaking Ukrainians of Ukraine's southern and eastern regions have a more positive view of the USSR. In some countries with internal conflict, there is also nostalgia for the USSR, especially forrefugees of thepost-Soviet conflicts who have been forced to flee their homes and have been displaced. The many Russian enclaves in the former USSR republics such asTransnistria have in a general a positive remembrance of it.[308]
The left's view of the USSR is complex.[citation needed] While some leftists regard the USSR as an example of state capitalism or that it was an oligarchical state, other leftists admireVladimir Lenin and theRussian Revolution.[309]Council communists generally view the USSR as failing to createclass consciousness, turning into a corrupt state in which the elite controlled society.
Trotskyists believe that the ascendancy of the Stalinist bureaucracy ensured adegenerated ordeformed workers' state, where the capitalist elite have been replaced by an unaccountable bureaucratic elite and there is no true democracy or workers' control of industry.[310] In particular, American TrotskyistDavid North noted that the generation ofbureaucrats that rose to power under Stalin's tutelage presided over thestagnation andbreakdown of the Soviet Union.[311]
Anarchists are also critical of the country, labeling the Soviet system asred fascism. Factors contributing to the anarchist animosity towards the USSR included the Soviet destruction of theMakhnovist movement after an initial alliance, the suppression of the anarchistKronstadt rebellion, and the defeat of the rival anarchist factions by the Soviet-supported Communist faction during theSpanish Civil War.[312]
Maoists also have a mixed opinion on the USSR, viewing it negatively during theSino-Soviet Split and denouncing it as revisionist and reverted to capitalism. The Chinese government in 1963 articulated its criticism of the USSR's system and promoted China's ideological line as an alternative.[313][314]
Noam Chomsky called the collapse of the Soviet Union "a small victory for socialism, not only because of the fall of one of the most anti-socialist states in the world, where working people had fewer rights than in the West, but also because it freed the term 'socialism' from the burden of being associated in the propaganda systems of East and West with Soviet tyranny—for the East, in order to benefit from the aura of authentic socialism, for the West, in order to demonize the concept."[316] Some scholars on the left have posited that the end of the Soviet Union andcommunism as a global force allowedneoliberalcapitalism to become a global system, which has resulted in risingeconomic inequality.[317][318][319][320]
^Statistics surrounding Soviet GDP are only estimates as the Soviet Union did not use Gross Domestic Product or Gross National Product to measure its economy until 1990, before which it utilised a system known as theMaterial Product System
^Statistics surrounding Soviet GDP are only estimates as the Soviet Union did not use Gross Domestic Product or Gross National Product to measure its economy until 1990, before which it utilised a system known as theMaterial Product System
^Rutland, Peter (1993). The Politics of Economic Stagnation in the Soviet Union: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management.Cambridge University Press. 1993. p. 9.ISBN978-0-521-39241-9.after 1953 ...This was still an oppressive regime, but not a totalitarian one."
^Krupnik, Igor (1995). "4. Soviet Cultural and Ethnic Policies Towards Jews: A Legacy Reassessed". In Ro'i, Yaacov (ed.). Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-714-64619-0. "The era of 'social engineering' in the Soviet Union ended with the death of Stalin in 1953 or soon after; and that was the close of the totalitarian regime itself.".
^von Beyme, Klaus (2014). On Political Culture, Cultural Policy, Art and Politics. Springer. 19 November 2013. p. 65.ISBN978-3-319-01559-0.The Soviet Union after the death of Stalin moved from totalitarianism to authoritarian rule.
^Lambelet, Doriane. "The Contradiction Between Soviet and American Human Rights Doctrine: Reconciliation Through Perestroika and Pragmatism." 7Boston University International Law Journal. 1989. pp. 61–62.
^Oleg Pshenichnyi (22 August 2015)."Засчитать поражение". Grani.ru. Retrieved23 August 2015.
^Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick.The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia – Past, Present, and Future, 1994.ISBN0-374-52738-5.
^Ulam, Adam B. (1974).Expansion and coexistence: the history of Soviet foreign policy, 1917–73.
^Michał Jerzy Zacharias, "The Beginnings of the Cominform: The Policy of the Soviet Union towards European Communist Parties in Connection with the Political Initiatives of the United States of America in 1947."Acta Poloniae Historica 78 (1998): 161–200.ISSN0001-6829
^Ulam,Expansion and Coexistence (1974) pp. 111–179.
^Mueller, Gordon H. (1976). "Rapallo Reexamined: A New Look at Germany's Secret Military Collaboration with Russia in 1922".Military Affairs.40 (3):109–117.doi:10.2307/1986524.JSTOR1986524.
^Christine A. White,British and American Commercial Relations with Soviet Russia, 1918–1924 (UNC Press Books, 2017).
^Richter, Michael (2006). "Die doppelte Diktatur: Erfahrungen mit Diktatur in der DDR und Auswirkungen auf das Verhältnis zur Diktatur heute" [The double dictatorship: Experiences with dictatorship in the GDR and effects on the relationship to dictatorship today]. In Besier, Gerhard; Stoklosa, Katarzyna (eds.).Lasten diktatorischer Vergangenheit – Herausforderungen demokratischer Gegenwart [Burdens of a dictatorial past – challenges of a democratic present] (in German). LIT Verlag. pp. 195–208.ISBN978-3-8258-8789-6.
^Chris Ward,Stalin's Russia (2nd ed. 1999) pp. 148–188.
^Barbara Jelavich,St.Petersburg and Moscow: Czarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974 (1974) pp. 342–346.
^Haslam, Jonathan (1984).The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1939. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 52–53.ISBN978-0-333-30050-3
^Harrison, Mark (1993). "Soviet Economic Growth Since 1928: The Alternative Statistics of G. I. Khanin".Europe-Asia Studies.45 (1):141–167.doi:10.1080/09668139308412080.
^Rosefielde, Steven (1996). "Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s".Europe-Asia Studies.48 (6):956–987.doi:10.1080/09668139608412393.JSTOR152635.The new evidence shows that administrative command planning and Stalin's forced industrialization strategies failed in the 1930s and beyond. The economic miracle chronicled in official hagiographies and until recently faithfully recounted in Western textbooks has no basis in fact. It is the statistical artefact not of index number relativity (the Gerschenkron effect) but of misapplying to the calculation of growth cost prices that do not accurately measure competitive value. The standard of living declined during the 1930s in response to Stalin's despotism, and after a brief improvement following his death, lapsed into stagnation. Glasnost and post-communist revelations interpreted as a whole thus provide no basis for Getty, Rittersporn & Zemskov's relatively favorable characterization of the methods, economic achievements and human costs of Stalinism. The evidence demonstrates that the suppression of markets and the oppression of vast segments of the population were economically counterproductive and humanly calamitous, just as anyone conversant with classical economic theory should have expected.
^Allen, Robert (26 July 2009).Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution. Princeton University Press. pp. 6–10.ISBN978-0691144313.
^Anderson, Barbara A. (1990).Growth and Diversity of the Population of the Soviet Union. Vol. 510. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. pp. 155–77.
^Vallin, J.; Chesnais, J.C. (1970).Recent Developments of Mortality in Europe, English-Speaking Countries and the Soviet Union, 1960–1970. Vol. 29. Population Studies. pp. 861–898.
^Davis, Christopher;Feshbach, Murray.Rising Infant Mortality in the USSR in the 1970s. Washington, D.C.: United States Census Bureau. p. 95.
^Krimins, Juris (3–7 December 1990).The Changing Mortality Patterns in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: Experience of the Past Three Decades. Paper presented at the International Conference on Healthy, Morbidity and Mortality by Cause of Death in Europe.
^Wendy Z. Goldman,Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1993
^Richard Stites,The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (1978)
^Rebecca Balmas Neary, "Mothering Socialist Society: The Wife-Activists' Movement and the Soviet Culture of Daily Life, 1934–1941",Russian Review (58) 3, July 1999: 396–412
^А. П. Чуприков, В. Д. Мишиев. // Латеральность населения СССР в конце 70-х и начале 80-х годов. К истории латеральной нейропсихологии и нейропсихиатрии. Хрестоматия. Донецк, 2010, 192 с.
^А. П. Чуприков, Е. А. Волков. // Мир леворуких. Киев. 2008.
^Dinkel, R.H. (1990). "The Seeming Paradox of Increasing Mortality in a Highly Industrialized Nation: the Example of the Soviet Union".Population Studies.39 (1):155–177.doi:10.1080/0032472031000141296.PMID11611752.
^York, Geoffrey (9 March 2001)."Johnson's Russia List #5141 - Why father of glasnost is despised in Russia".The Globe and Mail (Canada). Archived fromthe original on 20 January 2012 – via CDI.In his new book, Maelstrom of Memory, Mr. Yakovlev lists some of the nightmares uncovered by his commission. More than 41 million Soviets were imprisoned from 1923 to 1953. More than 884,000 children were in internal exile by 1954. More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.
^D. Pospielovsky,The Russian Orthodox Church under the Soviet Regime, vol. 1, p. 175.
^Dimitry V. Pospielovsky.A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988)
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^Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival, by Christopher Marsh, page 47. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.
^Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History, by Dilip Hiro. Penguin, 2009.
^Adappur, Abraham (2000).Religion and the Cultural Crisis in India and the West. Intercultural Publications.ISBN978-81-85574-47-9.Archived from the original on 14 March 2017. Retrieved14 July 2016.Forced Conversion under Atheistic Regimes: It might be added that the most modern example of forced "conversions" came not from any theocratic state, but from a professedly atheist government—that of the Soviet Union under the Communists.
^Targ, Harry (2006).Challenging Late Capitalism, Neoliberal Globalization, & Militarism.
^Theodore P. Gerber & Michael Hout, "More Shock than Therapy: Market Transition, Employment, and Income in Russia, 1991–1995", AJS Volume 104 Number 1 (July 1998): 1–50.
^Hudson, Michael; Sommers, Jeffrey (20 December 2010)."Latvia provides no magic solution for indebted economies".The Guardian.Archived from the original on 25 October 2017. Retrieved24 October 2017.Neoliberal austerity has created demographic losses exceeding Stalin's deportations back in the 1940s (although without the latter's loss of life). As government cutbacks in education, healthcare and other basic social infrastructure threaten to undercut long-term development, young people are emigrating to better their lives rather than suffer in an economy without jobs. More than 12% of the overall population (and a much larger percentage of its labour force) now works abroad.
^David Stuckler, Lawrence King, and Martin McKee. "Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis: a cross-national analysis."The Lancet 373.9661 (2009): 399–407.
^abcRose, Richard; Mishler, William; Munro, Neil (2011).Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime: The Changing Views of Russians. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 92–93.ISBN978-0-521-22418-5.
^Wanner, Catherine (1998).Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 70,160–167.ISBN978-0-271-01793-8.
^Taaffe, Peter (October 1995). "Preface, and Trotsky and the Collapse of Stalinism".The Rise of Militant. Bertrams.ISBN978-0906582473.Archived from the original on 17 December 2002.The Soviet bureaucracy and Western capitalism rested on mutually antagonistic social systems.
^Berkman, Alexander (2006) [1942].ABC of Anarchism(PDF). Freedom Press.ISBN978-0-900384-03-5.Archived(PDF) from the original on 5 November 2020. Retrieved8 October 2020 – via Zine Distro.
^Ghodsee, Kristen (2018).Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism.Vintage Books. pp. 3–4.ISBN978-1568588902.Without the looming threat of a rival superpower, the last thirty years of global neoliberalism have witnessed a rapid shriveling of social programs that protect citizens from cyclical instability and financial crises and reduce the vast inequality of economic outcomes between those at the top and bottom of the income distribution.
^Gerstle, Gary (2022).The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era.Oxford University Press. pp. 10–12, 149.ISBN978-0-19-751964-6.The collapse of communism, then, opened the entire world to capitalist penetration, shrank the imaginative and ideological space in which opposition to capitalist thought and practices might incubate, and impelled those who remained leftists to redefine their radicalism in alternative terms, which turned out to be those that capitalist systems could more, rather than less, easily manage. This was the moment when neoliberalism in the United States went from being a political movement to a political order.
Habibov, Nazim (June 2013). "Who Wants to Redistribute? An Analysis of 14 Post-Soviet Nations".Social Policy & Administration.47 (3):262–286.doi:10.1111/j.1467-9515.2011.00834.x.
Libman, Alexander; Obydenkova, Anastassia V. (2019). "Historical Legacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Inequality: Evidence from Post-Communist Regions".Post-Communist Economies.31 (6):699–724.doi:10.1080/14631377.2019.1607440.hdl:10261/201912.
Michalski, Tomasz; Hlynskyy, Nazar (2009). "Economic transformation disparity in European post-Soviet countries in the period of transformation". In Palmowski, Tadeusz; Vaitekūnas, Stasys (eds.).The Problems of Development and International Cooperation in the Region of the Southern Baltic. Wydawnictwo "Bernardinum. pp. 134–143.ISBN978-83-7380-819-5.
Ovcharova, Lilia; Biryukova, Svetlana (2018). "Poverty and the Poor in Post-Soviet Russia". In Rauhut, Daniel; Hatti, Neelambar (eds.).Poverty, Politics and the Poverty of Politics. B.R. Publishing Corporation. pp. 157–183.
Stewart, Susan; Klein, Margarete; Schmitz, Andrea; Schröder, Hans-Henning (2012). "Introduction". In Stewart, Susan; Klein, Margarete; Schröder, Hans-Henning (eds.).Presidents, Oligarchs and Bureaucrats: Forms of Rule in the Post-Soviet Space.Ashgate Publishing. pp. 1–14.ISBN9781138278790.
White, James D. (2001).Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution. European History in Perspective. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave.ISBN978-0-333-72157-5.
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