page_title: Soviet Union
section_title: Khrushchev era
hierarchical_section_title: Soviet Union / History / Khrushchev era
caption_attribution_description: English: Map showing the maximum territorial extent of countries under the direct influence of the Soviet Union&#160;:*Between the Cuban Revolution/21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union/Sino-Soviet split.
context_page_description: The Soviet Union was a single-party Marxist–Leninist state. It existed for 69 years, from 1922 until 1991. It was the first country to declare itself socialist and build towards a communist society. It was a union of 14 Soviet socialist republics and one Soviet federative socialist republic.
  The Soviet Union was created about five years after the Russian Revolution. It was announced after Vladimir Lenin overthrew Alexander Kerensky as Russian leader. The communist government developed industry and over time became a major, powerful union. The largest country in the Union was Russia, and Kazakhstan was the second. The capital city of the Soviet Union was Moscow. The Soviet Union expanded its political control greatly after World War II. It took over the whole of Eastern Europe. Those countries were not made part of the Soviet Union, but they were controlled by the Soviet Union indirectly. These countries, like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, were called satellite states.
  The top-level committee which made the laws was the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
context_section_description: Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the following power struggle by the mid-1950s. In 1956 he denounced Stalin's repression and eased controls over party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.
  Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a very vital buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders. For this reason, the USSR sought to strengthen its control of the region. It did this by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states, dependent upon and obedient to its leadership. Soviet military force was used to suppress anti-Stalinist uprisings in Hungary and Poland in 1956.
  In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the USSR's policies led to the Sino–Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist–Leninist movement. The governments in Albania, Cambodia and Somalia chose to ally with China instead of the USSR.
  During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union continued to make progress in the Space Race. It rivalled the United States. The USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966; and the first Moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.
caption: Map showing greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and its allies in 1960, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961
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