Jump to content

Portal:Soviet Union

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Portal:СССР)

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 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries, and the third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was a flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin, established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally socialist state. The revolution was not accepted by all within the Russian Republic, resulting in the Russian Civil War. The RSFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth but contributed to a famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system of the Gulag was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact, but in 1941, 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, suffering an estimated 27 million casualties, which accounted for most Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war, the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army, forming satellite states, and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower.

Geopolitical tensions with the US 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, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. Neither side 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 Nikita Khrushchev, which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China. During the 1950s, the Soviet Union expanded its efforts in space exploration and took a 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. In 1985, 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 Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to preserve the country as a renewed federation, an attempted coup against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the largest republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede. 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 wielded 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...)
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The Punch-up in Piestany was a bench-clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union during the final game of the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Piešťany, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) on January 4, 1987. The incident resulted in the ejection of both teams, and while the Soviets had already been eliminated from medal contention, the disqualification cost Canada a medal – potentially the gold. The brawl is famous for officials having turned off the arena lights in a desperate attempt to end the 20-minute melee. Much of the blame was placed on Norwegian referee Hans Rønning, who had been selected for the game based on his perceived neutrality rather than experience.

Following the brawl, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended the players involved for 18 months and the coaches for three years. The players' suspensions were later reduced to six months on appeal, allowing several players from both teams to return for the 1988 tournament in Moscow. Both nations won medals in 1988, with Canada taking the gold and the Soviets winning silver. (Full article...)

List of recognized articles

Selected picture

A line of people going into a building
A line of people going into a building
Credit: Bundesarchiv

Lenin's Mausoleum in 1925.

Did you know... - show different entries

  • ... that because Leonid Brezhnev had more than 200 decorations, it was decided to break the Soviet custom of featuring only one decoration on cushions during his funeral?

Selected quote

Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky, talking about the national question

WikiProjects

Selected biography - show another

Smith visiting the Artek pioneer camp in 1983

Samantha Reed Smith (June 29, 1972 – August 25, 1985) was an American peace activist and child actress from Manchester, Maine, who became famous for her anti-war outreaches during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1982, Smith wrote a letter to the newly appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov, and received a personal reply with an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which she accepted.

Smith attracted extensive media attention in both countries as a "Goodwill Ambassador", becoming known as America's Youngest Ambassador and subsequently participating in peacemaking activities in Japan. With the assistance of her father, Arthur (an academic), she wrote a book titled Journey to the Soviet Union, which chronicled her visit to the country. She later became a child actress, hosting a child-oriented special on the 1984 United States presidential election for The Disney Channel and playing a co-starring role in the television series Lime Street. Smith died at the age of 13 in 1985, onboard Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808, which crashed short of the runway on final approach to the Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport in Maine. (Full article...)

General images

The following are images from various Soviet Union-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected anniversaries for November

More Did you know (auto generated)

Recognized content

A-Class articles

Good articles

Former good articles

Good article nominees

Did you know? articles

In the News articles

Picture of the day pictures


(SCROLL)

Main topics

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

Things you can do

Things you can do Привет and welcome! Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If you are interested in the Soviet Union and have some information that can be added to an existing article, please help. Here are some things you can do:

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Soviet Union in the news

No recent news

Wikiproject Russia information

Sources

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache