page_title: History of Russia
section_title: Creation of the Soviet Union
hierarchical_section_title: History of Russia / Soviet Union (1922–1991) / Creation of the Soviet Union
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the several photographs (File:19220900-lenin stalin gorky-02.jpg, File:19220901-lenin stalin at gorki.jpg) of Lenin and Stalin in Gorki in September 1922, taken by Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova.
context_page_description: The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start-date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' state in the north in 862 ruled by Vikings. Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finno-Ugrians. In 882 Prince Oleg of Novgorod seized Kiev, thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one authority. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Orthodox Slavic culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240 along with the resulting deaths of about half the population of Rus'.
  After the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center. The territories of the Grand Duchy of Moscow became the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. In 1721 Tsar Peter the Great renamed his state as the Russian Empire, hoping to associate it with historical and cultural achievements of ancient Rus' – in contrast to his policies oriented towards Western Europe.
context_section_description: The history of Russia between 1922 and 1991 is essentially the history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union. This ideologically based union, established in December 1922 by the leaders of the Russian Communist Party, was roughly coterminous with Russia before the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. At that time, the new nation included four constituent republics: the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR.
  The constitution, adopted in 1924, established a federal system of government based on a succession of soviets set up in villages, factories, and cities in larger regions. This pyramid of soviets in each constituent republic culminated in the All-Union Congress of Soviets. However, while it appeared that the congress exercised sovereign power, this body was actually governed by the Communist Party, which in turn was controlled by the Politburo from Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, just as it had been under the tsars before Peter the Great.
caption: Lenin and Stalin at Gorki (1922)
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "394", "Image ImageLength": "452", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:09:26 13:08:27", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "394", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "452"}