Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a country that existed in Earth ' s 20th century , stretching across Europe and Asia . Known by the abbreviation USSR , as well as the shortened name " Soviet Union " , the country was dissolved in the 1990s but again existed in some form by the later half of the 24th century . ( ; " dedication plaque " ) Along with the United States of America , the USSR was involved in mankind ' s earliest space exploration . Government and regions . The USSR was a communist country and , between the 1950s and 1980s , a major rival of the United States of America . The USSR itself spanned across two continents and was comprised of a number of " soviet republics " such as Russia . Major cities included Moscow , Minsk , and Kiev . ( ; ; ) The USSR also maintained a formidable intelligence agency , considered one of the best on Earth , known as the KGB . ( ) History . The Soviet Union was formed in 1917 , after the Bolshevik s and their leader Vladimir Lenin gained power over the nation of Russia . ( ) Joseph Stalin was the ruler of the USSR during World War II . Although the USSR maintained the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact with Adolf Hitler at the onset invasion of Poland , it was later invaded by Germany . Hitler was then forced to fight a two - front war in order to stave off the two superpowers , which he finally lost early in 1945 . ( ; ) " In an alternate timeline created during the Temporal Cold War , the USSR was never formed because of the mysterious assassination of Vladimir Lenin in 1916 . Russia still suffered an invasion from Germany in the 1940s , although Germany was able to easily capture Moscow since the alternate Russia " wasn ' t a threat " as compared to its USSR counterpart . " ( ) After the war , tensions between the United States of America and the USSR led to the Cold War . When Quark traveled back in time to 1947 , he tried to play the Cold War rivals against one another , telling the American general Rex Denning that he would sell Ferengi technology to the Soviets if the United States did not buy it first . ( ) During the Cold War , the Soviet Union built villages similar to American villages to train operatives to infiltrate the United States . ( ) The Cold War was eventually seen as a prelude to World War III , in particular after the Soviet Union tested its first H - bomb , which made headlines in US newspaper s in the year 1953 . ( ) On October 4 , 1957 , the USSR launched the first artificial satellite , the " Sputnik " probe . This turned the attention of the Vulcan s on Humanity ' s development . ( ) Soviet space expansion continued over the next several decades . In 1968 , as part of the nuclear arms race , nuclear warhead platform s were launched into orbit by all the major powers on Earth . The sabotage and subsequent detonation of the US suborbital warhead eventually led to a stronger international agreement to ban such weapons . ( ) This relative time period was used in the plot for the 24th century holoprogram , " Julian Bashir , Secret Agent " , where the Soviets were suspected by MI5 of being involved in the disappearance of three agents working for Great Britain in West Berlin . ( ) The USSR dissolved in 1991 . ( ) Among the last leaders were Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev , the latter of whom met with American President George H . W . Bush . ( ) Maps of the Earth including the USSR were present on the library computer of the in 2254 . ( ) In the 2360s , on stardate 40291 . 7 , the was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in an entity called the " USSR " . ( " dedication plaque " ) ( In real - world politics , there was no way , in 1987 , for writers and showrunners to know that the USSR would be dissolved only four years later . ) Appendices . Background information . The starship , the shuttlepod ' , and the shuttlecraft ' were named after famous Soviet cosmonauts . According to the , the was named after the Soyuz spacecraft of the Soviet space program . The was named after the Soviet space pioneer . The real - world reason behind the " USSR " being written on the dedication plaque is that no one foresaw the fall of the Soviet Union during the making of " The Naked Now " in . The novel " Ghost Ship " , the first TNG novel , also had the " Enterprise " - D encounter a strange creature that had attacked a Soviet aircraft carrier in 1995 . The Soviet name for Saint Petersburg , Leningrad , was also mentioned in several episodes and in the film , suggesting that the USSR existed again already in the 23rd century . The USSR , and its antagonistic relationship with the US , were the original inspiration for the Klingon Empire and its relationship with the Federation . The end of the USSR also served as inspiration for the events of the film , during which many Soviet Republics had declared independence from the union . ( " " , pp . 137 - 138 )