Portal:Soviet Union

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UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

Introduction

Coat of arms of the Soviet Union 1
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union 1
The flag of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. It was a successor state to the Russian Empire that was nominally organized as a federal union of fifteen national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR; in practice both its government and economy were highly centralized until its final years. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was a flagship communist state.

The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February Revolution that had dissolved the Russian Empire. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin, established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the brutal Russian Civil War. As the war progressed in the Bolsheviks' favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land acquired from the war into nominally independent states, which were merged into the Soviet Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930 to 1933 that killed millions. The forced labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. During the late 1930s, Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove actual and perceived opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact despite their ideological incongruence; nonetheless, in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers in 1945, suffering an estimated 27 million casualties, which accounted for the majority of Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war, the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army, forming various satellite states, and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower.

Following World War II, ideological tensions with the United States eventually led to the Cold War. The American-led Western Bloc coalesced into NATO in 1949, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, commonly known as the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. Neither side ever engaged in direct military confrontation, and instead fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. In 1953, following Stalin's death, the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China. During the 1950s, the Soviet Union rapidly expanded its efforts in space exploration and took an early lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, the first space station, and the first probe to land on another planet (Venus). The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.

The 1970s saw a brief détente in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions emerged again following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes, and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to reform and preserve the country as a renewed federation, an attempted coup d'état against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the three most populous and economically developed republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede from the Union. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation, which became the Soviet Union's successor state; all other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states.

During its existence, the Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An NPT-designated state, it housed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Before its dissolution, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomatic and ideological influence (particularly in the Global South), military and economic strengths, and scientific accomplishments. (Full article...)

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T-34-85 medium tank

The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank from World War II. When introduced, its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was more powerful than its contemporaries, and its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against anti-tank weapons. The T-34 had a profound effect on the conflict on the Eastern Front, and had a long-lasting impact on tank design. The tank was praised by multiple German generals when encountered during Operation Barbarossa, although its armour and armament were surpassed later in the war. Its main strength was its cost and production time, meaning that German panzer forces would often fight against Soviet tank forces several times their size. The T-34 is also a critical part of the mechanized divisions that form the backbone of the Deep Battle Strategy.

The T-34 was the mainstay of the Soviet Red Army armoured forces throughout the war. Its general specifications remained nearly unchanged until early 1944, when it received a firepower upgrade with the introduction of the greatly improved T-34-85 variant. Its production method was continuously refined and rationalized to meet the needs of the Eastern Front, making the T-34 quicker and cheaper to produce. The Soviets ultimately built over 80,000 T-34s of all variants, allowing steadily greater numbers to be fielded despite the loss of tens of thousands in combat against the German Wehrmacht. (Full article...)
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A line of people going into a building
A line of people going into a building
Credit: Bundesarchiv

Lenin's Mausoleum in 1925.

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Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky, talking about the national question

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Lissitzky in a 1924 self-portrait

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (Russian: Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, listen; 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1890 – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (Russian: Эль Лиси́цкий; Yiddish: על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.

Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation). Lissitzky, of Lithuanian Jewish оrigin, began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia. When only 15 he started teaching, a duty he would maintain for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany. In 2014, the heirs of the artist, in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum and leading worldwide scholars on the subject, established the Lissitzky Foundation in order to preserve the artist's legacy and to prepare a catalogue raisonné of the artist's oeuvre. (Full article...)

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    2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515
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    Alexei Leonov
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    Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration
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    German instrument of surrender2
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    Instrument of surrender Japan2
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    Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War
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    Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1
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    Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09
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    Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2
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    RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01
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    Russian Imperial Family 1913
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    USS Yorktown collision
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    Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W)
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    Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration

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  • German instrument of surrender2 (2009-05-07)
    German instrument of surrender2 (2009-05-07)
  • Instrument of surrender Japan2 (2009-09-02)
    Instrument of surrender Japan2 (2009-09-02)
  • Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W) (2010-05-08)
    Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W) (2010-05-08)
  • USS Yorktown collision (2011-02-12)
    USS Yorktown collision (2011-02-12)
  • Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1 (2013-03-28)
    Maxim Gorky LOC Restored edit1 (2013-03-28)
  • Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration (2020-03-09)
    Yuri Gagarin (1961) - Restoration (2020-03-09)
  • Alexei Leonov (2020-03-18)
    Alexei Leonov (2020-03-18)
  • Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration (2020-05-08)
    Field Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin 8 May 1945 - Restoration (2020-05-08)
  • RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01 (2020-06-08)
    RUS-2016-Murmansk-Icebreaker Lenin 01 (2020-06-08)
  • Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09 (2022-02-26)
    Moscow Elektrozavodskaya metro station asv2018-09 (2022-02-26)
  • Russian Imperial Family 1913 (2022-07-17)
    Russian Imperial Family 1913 (2022-07-17)
  • Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War (2022-09-02)
    Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the Second World War (2022-09-02)
  • 2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515 (2023-04-18)
    2020-09-16 165855 Soviet submarine B-515 (2023-04-18)
  • Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2 (2023-07-25)
    Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2 (2023-07-25)


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