Soviet Union was a social, single party state. Its existence is determined within the time frame of 1922 – 1991. The territory stretched from Baltics to the Pacific Ocean, whilst existing, it was the largest country in the world. It consisted of 15 socialistic countries, but the capital was held in Moscow. Moreover, it had more than 100 nationalities within the boundaries, but the majority of population consisted of Eastern Slavs (Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians). Speaking of the territorial extension it spread for more than 8,650,000 square miles,
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was one of superpowers that influenced the world, the second one is United States. The U.S.S.R. was created as a successor to the Russian. Shortly after the 1917 Revolution, four new socialist republics were created on the territory of collapsed empire: Russia, Transcaucasian Soviet Republics, and the Ukrainian and Belorussian Republics as well.
On Dec. 30, 1922, these republics established the U.S.S.R. by signing in an agreement. Many other republics did join the Union shortly: Uzbek, Turkmen, Tadzhik, Estonian, Latvian, Moldovian, Lithuanian S.S.R.’s and many others. During 1929 – 1990 The super power comprised of twenty autonomous republics, eight provinces as well as ten districts and 114 provinces
The next step in putting down roots and unification was the constitution which was adopted in the 1930s and significantly modified in October 1977.
Speaking of the political system it was rather authoritarian and highly centralized, with the center in Moscow, and the same thing was with the economic system. Economic plans were implemented in a sets of five-year plans, with specific targets for all forms of production.
The country did successfully recover after the World war II, and shortly after entered the cold war and everything seemed to be pretty stable, there were rough times when people were not satisfied with such rule, uprisings appeared but they were put down immediately, the population was held in fear all the time. The tremendous tragedy was an artificial famine held by the Stalin rule (1932-1933) as a result of that millions of people died in Ukraine, Belarus. It was just the way soviet nomenclature ruled the Empire. It implemented hard centralization of everything: Political power, economic planning, pre and after war planning. As a result of such totalitarian regime the country showed huge technological progress and was one of the most influential in the world.
However, dramatic changes, occurred in the late 1980s early 1990s which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. What where they?
Significant changes in policy and economy occurred as a direct consequence of the adoption of perestroika(“restructuring”) regime and glasnost (“openness”) was within it as a compound. Speaking about economy – strict planning and centralization were to be replaced by the market economy, As for the political sphere – special amendments were added to the constitution in 1988, which basically replaced the old Supreme Soviet with the Congress of People’s Deputies of the U.S.S.R which included 2,250 members; 1/3 of these were elected, another 1/3 were the representatives of the political territories, and the remaining third was made up by social organizations such as CPSU, the Academy of Sciences and others. the CPSU, and the Academy of Sciences. Another huge change was the actual president of the Soviet Union.
With the implemention of “glasnost” many vigorous debates began about the future of the country, strict censorship which was before in all means of Mass media was slightly softened- as a result, the population started to express their thoughts as well as negative ones about the situation in the country. Furthermore, from 1989, different conflicts appeared between the parliament of the U.S.S.R. and between the parliaments of the individual republics, mainly over the respective powers of the centre and the republics. These conflicts were deepened by the huge diversity in ethnic nationalism, people began to increase their demands for autonomy and even for full independence. After the abortive coup in August 1991, in which the CPSU was heavily involved, the party was abolished. In December 1991 the Union almost ceased to exist, people were unknown of what the future will bring but ideas for independence started to spread fast. The first three republics to achieve full independence were Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, they were also recognized internationally. Attempts were made to preserve the country by the president Mikhail Gorbachev, which were aimed at the creation of new “Union of Sovereign States” with integration of foreign policies, defense, and economic affairs, but the remaining republics did not will to get in the Union. After that the republics were acting like independent ones and did not obey the Unions legal norms.
Overall, the Collapse was inevitable, due to the following reasons: The country consisted of more than 20 different nationalities, it is hard to control and govern them efficiently. From the world history we know that the Totalitarian form of rule does not appear to be successful. Living standards were really low in the republics in comparison with other Western countries, inflation and lack of goods of high quality. Furthermore, the government was corrupt. With all these facts the population was fed up. Dramatic changes in the country were not imminent.
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