Soviet Union

Союз Советских Социалистических Республик
Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Other names
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1922–1991 ↓



Flag State Emblem


Motto
Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!
(Translit.: Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes'!)
English: Workers of the world, unite!
Anthem
The Internationale (1922–1944)
Hymn of the Soviet Union (1944–1991)
The Soviet Union after World War II
Capital Moscow
Language(s) Russian, many others
Religion None
Government Federal socialist republic, single-party communist state
General Secretary
 - 1922–1953 (first) Joseph Stalin
 - 1985–1991 (last) Mikhail Gorbachev
Premier
 - 1923–1924 (first) Vladimir Lenin
 - 1991 (last) Ivan Silayev
History
 - Established December 30, 1922
 - Disestablished December 26, 1991
Area
 - 1991 22,402,200 km² (8,649,538 sq mi)
Population
 - 1991 est. 293,047,571 
     Density 13.1 /km²  (33.9 /sq mi)
Currency Soviet ruble (руб) (SUR)
Internet TLD .su²
Calling code +7
Preceded by Succeeded by
Russian SFSR
Transcaucasian SFSR
Ukrainian SSR
Byelorussian SSR

Russia
Georgia
Ukraine
Moldova
Belarus
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Estonia³
Latvia³
Lithuania<sup>3




1</sup>On December 21, 1991, eleven of the former socialist republics declared in Alma-Ata (with the 12th republic – Georgia – attending as an observer) that with the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceases to exist.

²Assigned on September 19, 1990, existing onwards.
³The governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania view themselves as continuous and unrelated to the respective Soviet republics.
Russia views the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian SSRs as legal constituent republics of the USSR and predecessors of the modern Baltic states.
The Government of the United States and a number of other countries did not recognize the invasion of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the USSR as legal inclusion.

Part of a series on
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɨəlʲɪˈstʲiʨɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk]  ( listen), abbreviated СССР, SSSR), informally known as the Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz) or Soviet Russia, was a constitutionally socialist state that existed on the territory of most of the former Russian Empire in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.

The Soviet Union had a single-party political system dominated by the Communist Party. Although the USSR was nominally a union of Soviet republics (of which there were 15 after 1956) with the capital in Moscow, it was in actuality a highly centralized state with a planned economy. Much of Soviet society was overseen by national security agencies such as the KGB (which was active from 1954.)

The Soviet Union was founded in December 1922 when the Russian SFSR, which formed during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and emerged victorious in the ensuing Russian Civil War, unified with the Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs. After the death of Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet leader, power was eventually consolidated by Joseph Stalin, who led the country through a large-scale industrialization with command economy and political repression. During World War II, in June 1941, the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany, a country it had signed a non-aggression pact with. After four years of warfare, the Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, extending its influence into much of Eastern Europe and beyond.