Vladislav Zubok stated: "The collapse of the Soviet empire was an event of epochal geopolitical, military, ideological and economic significance."
World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.
Russian SFSR as a part of the USSR in 1922.
Russian SFSR as a part of the USSR after 1936 Russian territorial changes.
Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was edited out of the image.
Soviet Union as the most democratic country on earth lived to regret their words. After all, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was adopted on the eve of the Great Terror of the late 1930s; the "thoroughly democratic" elections to the first Supreme Soviet permitted only uncontested candidates and took place at the height of the savage violence in 1937. The civil rights, personal freedoms, and democratic forms promised in the Stalin constitution were trampled almost immediately and remained dead letters until long after Stalin's death.
Winston Churchill confer in Tehran in 1943.
Europe under the Marshall Plan.
Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the power struggle by the mid-1950s. He shortly afterward denounced Stalin's use of repression in 1956 and proceeded to ease Stalin's repressive controls over party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.
Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.
Vienna on 18 June 1979.
Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power; both died in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called perestroika. His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship.
Soviet Union into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics.
Soviet Union staying together even on a limited scale.
Russia in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the Soviet Union.
Country emblems of the Soviet Republics, before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Soviet Union were usually called "Russians", not "Soviets", since "everyone knew who really ran the show".
Federation considered the annexation legal, but officially recognized their independence on September 6, 1991, three months prior to its final dissolution.
Soviet Union in comparison to other countries by GDP (nominal) per capita in 1965 based on a West-German school book (1971).
Joseph Stalin abandoned NEP and pushed for full central planning, starting forced collectivization of agriculture and enacting draconian labor legislation. Resources were mobilized for rapid industrialization, which greatly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s. A main motivation for industrialization was preparation for war, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalistic world. 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 after World War II. The war hugely devastated Soviet economy and infrastructure and they required extensive reconstruction.
Gosplan and organized in five-year plans. However, in practice the plans were highly aggregated and provisional, subject to ad hoc intervention by superiors. All key economic decisions were taken by the political leadership. Allocated resources and plan targets were normally denominated in rubles rather than in physical goods. Credit was discouraged, but widespread. 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 (between producer factories etc.) were widespread. A number of basic services were state-funded, such as education and health care. In the manufacturing sector, heavy industry and defense were prioritized over consumer goods. Consumer goods, particularly outside large cities, were often scarce, of poor quality and limited choice. Under command economy, consumers had almost no influence on production, so the changing demands of a population with growing incomes could not be satisfied by supplies at rigidly fixed prices. 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. Legalization of some elements of the decentralized economy was attempted with the reform of 1965.
Population of the USSR (red) and the post-Soviet states (blue) from 1961 to 2009. And projection (dotted blue) 2010 to 2100.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) 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." Among further restrictions, those adopted in 1929, a half-decade into Stalin's rule, included express prohibitions on a range of church activities, including meetings for organized Bible study. Both Christian and non-Christian establishments were shut down by the thousands in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1940, as many as 90 percent of the churches, synagogues, and mosques that had been operating in 1917 were closed.
Soviet Union at 11 Ice Hockey World Championships, winning 8 gold medals, 2 silvers and 1 bronze.
Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Heinemann. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-435-32719-4. ^ Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
World Anti-Doping Agency named him as a key broker of performance-enhancing drugs in Russia, someone who in recent years injected athletes personally and made a business of covering up drug violations in exchange for money. [...] Dr. Portugalov came to global prominence in 2014 when two Russian whistle-blowers identified him as a linchpin distributor in Russia's state-run doping scheme.
1977 Soviet Constitution "THE NATIONAL-STATE STRUCTURE OF THE USSR"
Asia Studies. 48 (8): 1319–1353. doi:10.1080/09668139608412415. JSTOR 152781.
Bolshevik Regime. (1994). 608 pp. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography (2002), 561pp; standard scholarly biography; a short version of his 3 vol detailed biography Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: Life and Legacy (1994). 600 pp.
JSTOR Reports life expectancy at birth fell to a level as low as ten years for females and seven for males in 1933 and plateaued around 25 for females and 15 for males in the period 1941–44.
Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present. New York: Random House, 1961. Katz, Zev, ed.: Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York: Free Press, 1975). Moore, Jr., Barrington. Soviet politics: the dilemma of power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950. Rizzi, Bruno: The Bureaucratization of the World: The First English edition of the Underground Marxist Classic That Analyzed Class Exploitation in the USSR, New York, NY: Free Press, 1985. Schapiro, Leonard B. The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase 1917–1922. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955, 1966.
Soviet Union (Former) Majority in former Soviet states believe breakup was harmful mistake – poll. RT, 21 December 2013.
Soviet Union officially recognized their independence on September 6, 1991, prior to its final dissolution three months later.
1 Buryat–Mongol until 1958. 2 Kazak ASSR was called Kirghiz ASSR until 1925.