History of the Soviet Union

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History of the Soviet Union
Background Communism Bolshevism World revolution Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Bolshevik split Bolshevik Party Russian Empire World War I February Revolution
1917–1927: Establishment October Revolution Russian Civil War Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Red Terror War communism New Economic Policy Treaty on the Creation of the USSR National delimitation Death and funeral of Lenin
1927–1953: Stalinism Socialism in one country Collectivization Soviet famine of 1932–1933 Holodomor Kazakhstan famine of 1932–1933 Industrialization Cultural Revolution Great Purge Moscow Trials World War II Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Great Patriotic War Operation Barbarossa Occupation of the Baltic states Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina Battle of Berlin Soviet invasion of Manchuria Soviet deportations Soviet famine of 1946–1947 Cold War Berlin Blockade Korean War First Indochina War Death and funeral of Stalin
1953–1964: Khrushchev Thaw East German uprising of 1953 Virgin Lands campaign 1954 transfer of Crimea Khrushchev Thaw De-Stalinization ""On the Cult of Personality" We will bury you 1956 Georgian demonstrations Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Wage reforms Peaceful coexistence Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution Sino-Soviet split Space program Cuban Missile Crisis
1964–1982: Era of Stagnation Brezhnev Doctrine Era of Stagnation 50th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide protests Six-Day War Détente Vietnam War Laotian Civil War Operation Menu Cambodian Civil War Fall of Saigon Yom Kippur War Prague Spring Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Wars in Africa Angolan War of Independence Angolan Civil War Mozambican War of Independence Mozambican Civil War South African Border War Rhodesian Bush War Cambodian–Vietnamese War Soviet–Afghan War 1980 Summer Olympics Olympic boycotts 1980 Olympic boycott 1984 Olympic boycott Polish strike Death and funeral of Brezhnev
1982–1991: Decline and collapse Invasion of Grenada Glasnost Perestroika Chernobyl disaster Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan Singing Revolution Estonian Sovereignty Declaration Baltic Way Lithuanian independence Economic blockade Latvian independence Revolutions of 1989 Pan-European Picnic Peaceful Revolution Fall of the Berlin Wall Velvet Revolution End of communist rule in Hungary Romanian Revolution German reunification Dissolution of the Soviet Union Jeltoqsan First Nagorno-Karabakh War April 9 tragedy Black January Osh riots War of Laws Dushanbe riots January Events The Barricades Referendum Union of Sovereign States August Coup Ukrainian revolution independence declaration referendum Belovezha Accords Alma-Ata Protocol
Soviet leadership Lenin Stalin Malenkov Khrushchev Brezhnev Andropov Chernenko Gorbachev List of troikas
Related topics Culture Economy Education Geography History Leadership Politics Soviet Empire Russia Soviet republics Post-Soviet states
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Periods Prehistory  • Antiquity  • Early Slavs Rus' people pre-9th century     Rus' Khaganate     Arthania     Garðaríki 879–1240: Ancient Rus' Baptism of Rus' • Russkaya Pravda Rostov-Suzdal 1093–1157     full list... 1240–1480: Feudal Rus' Council of Liubech • Council of Uvetichi • Mongol conquest • Battle of Kulikovo Novgorod Republic 1136–1478 Vladimir-Suzdal 1157–1331 Principality of Moscow 1263–1547     full list... 1480–1917: Tsarist Russia Decembrist Revolt • Emancipation reform • Russo-Japanese War • 1905 Revolution • October Manifesto • Second Patriotic War Russian Manchuria 1900–1905      Uryankhay Krai 1914–1921 1917–1923: Russian Revolution War Communism • USSR • Emigrants Transcaucasian SFSR 1922–1922 Russian State 1918–1920      Provisional Priamurye Govt. 1921–1923     full list... 1923–1991: Soviet Era Crimea transfer • Era of Stagnation • Afghan War • Perestroika • Chernobyl disaster • Karabakh War • Parade of sovereignties (War of Laws ) Karelo-Finnish SSR 1940–1956         full list... Tannu Tuva 1921–1944 since 1991: Modern Russia Sanctions • Mobilization • 2022 annexation ) full list... ^A Not internationally recognized. ^B Not fully controlled.
Timeline 1991–present
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The history of

Before 1922, there were four independent Soviet Republics: the

Tensions with the central government led to constituent republics declaring independence starting in 1988, leading to the complete dissolution of the Soviet Union by 1991.

1917–1927: Establishment

Bolshevik party.

Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army and a key figure in the October Revolution

.

The original philosophy of the state was primarily based on the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In its essence, Marx's theory stated that economic and political systems went through an inevitable evolution in form, by which the current capitalist system would be replaced by a Socialist state.

Displeased by the relatively few changes made by the Tsar after the

The history of the

In the Soviet union, the eleven-year period from the death of

The history of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, referred to as the Brezhnev Era, covers the period of Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This period began with high economic growth and soaring prosperity, but ended with a much weaker Soviet Union facing social, political, and economic stagnation. The average annual income stagnated, because needed economic reforms were never fully carried out.

One of the greatest strengths of Soviet economy was its vast supplies of oil and gas; world oil prices quadrupled during the 1973–74 oil crisis, and rose again in 1979–1981, making the energy sector the chief driver of the Soviet economy, and was used to cover multiple weaknesses. At one point, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin told the head of oil and gas production, "things are bad with bread. Give me 3 million tons [of oil] over the plan."^[9] Former prime minister Yegor Gaidar, an economist looking back three decades, in 2007 wrote:

The hard currency from oil exports stopped the growing food supply crisis, increased the import of equipment and consumer goods, ensured a financial base for the arms race and the achievement of nuclear parity with the United States, and permitted the realization of such risky foreign-policy actions as the war in Afghanistan.^[10]

1982–1991: Reforms and dissolution

The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991, spans the period from

Greater political and social freedoms, instituted by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, created an atmosphere of open criticism of the Soviet government. The dramatic drop of the price of oil in 1985 and 1986 profoundly influenced actions of the Soviet leadership.^[12]

• Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War
• Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
• Bibliography of the post-Stalinist Soviet Union
• Bibliography of Ukrainian history
• Historiography in the Soviet Union

Academic journals

• List of Slavic studies journals

See also

• Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
• Islam in the Soviet Union
• Index of Soviet Union–related articles
• Ukrainian nationalism

References

Further reading

See also:

Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union

• Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties (1973).
• Daly, Jonathan and Leonid Trofimov, eds. "Russia in War and Revolution, 1914–1922: A Documentary History." (Indianapolis and Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company, 2009).
  ISBN 978-0-87220-987-9
  .
• Feis, Herbert. Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin: The War they waged and the Peace they sought (1953).
• Figes, Orlando (1996). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Pimlico.
  ISBN 978-0-8050-9131-1. online no charge to borrow
• Fenby, Jonathan. Alliance: the inside story of how Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill won one war and began another (2015).
• Firestone, Thomas. "Four Sovietologists: A Primer." National Interest No. 14 (Winter 1988/9), pp. 102–107 on the ideas of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stephen F. Cohen, Jerry F. Hough, and Richard Pipes.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. 199 pages. Oxford University Press; (2nd ed. 2001).
  ISBN 0-19-280204-6
  .
• Fleron, F.J. ed. Soviet Foreign Policy 1917–1991: Classic and Contemporary Issues (1991)
• Gorodetsky, Gabriel, ed. Soviet foreign policy, 1917–1991: a retrospective (Routledge, 2014).
• Haslam, Jonathan. Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall (Yale UP, 2011) 512 pages
• Hosking, Geoffrey. History of the Soviet Union (2017).
• Keep, John L.H. Last of the Empires: A History of the Soviet Union, 1945–1991 (Oxford UP, 1995).
• Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Vol. 1: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (2014), 976pp
  • Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 (2017) vol 2
• Lincoln, W. Bruce. Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution, 1914–1918. (New York, 1986). online
• McCauley, Martin. The Soviet Union 1917–1991 (2nd ed. 1993) online
• McCauley, Martin. Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949. (Routledge, 2015).
• McCauley, Martin. Russia, America, and the Cold War, 1949–1991 (1998)
• McCauley, Martin. The Khrushchev Era 1953–1964 (2014).
• Millar, James R. ed. Encyclopedia of Russian History (4 vol, 2004), 1700pp; 1500 articles by experts.
• Nove, Alec. An Economic History of the USSR, 1917–1991. (3rd ed. 1993) online w
• Paxton, John. Encyclopedia of Russian History: From the Christianization of Kiev to the Break-up of the USSR (Abc-Clio Inc, 1993).
• Pipes, Richard. Russia under the Bolshevik regime (1981). online
• Reynolds, David, and Vladimir Pechatnov, eds. The Kremlin Letters: Stalin's Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt (2019)
• Service, Robert. Stalin: a Biography (2004).
• Shaw, Warren, and David Pryce-Jones. Encyclopedia of the USSR: From 1905 to the Present: Lenin to Gorbachev (Cassell, 1990).
• Shlapentokh, Vladimir. Public and private life of the Soviet people: changing values in post-Stalin Russia (Oxford UP, 1989).
• Taubman, William. Khrushchev: the man and his era (2003).
• Taubman, William. Gorbachev (2017)
• Tucker, Robert C., ed. Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation (Routledge, 2017).
• Westad, Odd Arne. The Cold War: A World History (2017)
• Wieczynski, Joseph L., and Bruce F. Adams. The modern encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet and Eurasian history (Academic International Press, 2000).

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to History of the Soviet Union.

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• An on-line archive of primary source materials on Soviet history