Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( ) abbreviated to USSR ( ) and SU ( ) or shortened to the Soviet Union ( ) , was a Marxist – Leninist state on the Eurasia n continent that existed between 1922 and 1991 . It was governed as a single - party state by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital . A union of multiple subnational Soviet republics , its government and economy were highly centralized . The Soviet Union had its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917 , which overthrew the Russian Empire . The Bolshevik s , the majority faction of the Social Democratic Labour Party , led by Vladimir Lenin , then led a second revolution which overthrew the provisional government and established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic ( renamed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1936 ) , beginning a civil war between pro - revolution Reds and counter - revolution Whites . The Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire , and helped local Communists take power through soviets that nominally acted on behalf of workers and peasants . In 1922 , the Communists were victorious , forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian , Transcaucasian , Ukrainian , and Byelorussian republics . Following Lenin ' s death in 1924 , a troika collective leadership and a brief power struggle , Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid - 1920s . Stalin suppressed political opposition to him , committed the state ideology to Marxism – Leninism ( which he created ) and initiated a centrally planned economy . As a result , the country underwent a period of rapid industrialisation and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort and dominance after World War II . However , Stalin established political paranoia , and introduced arbitrary arrests on a massive scale after which authorities transferred many people ( military leaders , Communist Party members , ordinary citizens alike ) to correctional labour camps or sentenced them to execution . In the beginning of World War II , after the United Kingdom and France rejected an alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany , the U . S . S . R . signed a non - aggression pact with Germany ; the treaty delayed confrontation between the two countries , but was disregarded in 1941 when the Nazis invaded , opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of combat in history . Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the cost of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Stalingrad . Soviet forces eventually drove through Eastern Europe and captured Berlin in 1945 , inflicting the vast majority of German losses . Soviet occupied territory conquered from Axis forces in Central and Eastern Europe became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc . Ideological and political differences with Western Bloc counterparts directed by the United States led to the forming of economic and military pacts , culminating in the prolonged Cold War . Following Stalin ' s death in 1953 , a period of moderate social and economic liberalization ( known as " de - Stalinization " ) occurred under the administration of Nikita Khrushchev . The Soviet Union then went on to initiate significant technological achievements of the 20th century , including launching the first ever satellite and world ' s first human spaceflight , which led it into the Space Race . The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis marked a period of extreme tension between the two superpowers , considered the closest to a mutual nuclear confrontation . In the 1970s , a relaxation of relations followed , but tensions resumed when the Soviet Union began providing military assistance in Afghanistan at the request of its new socialist government in 1979 . The campaign drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results . In the late 1980s the last Soviet leader , Mikhail Gorbachev , sought to reform the Union and move it in the direction of Nordic - style social democracy , introducing the policies of " glasnost " and " perestroika " in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and democratize the government . However , this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements . Central authorities initiated a referendum , boycotted by the Baltic republics , Armenia , Georgia , and Moldova , which resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favour of preserving the Union as a renewed federation . In August 1991 , a coup d ' état was attempted by hardliners against Gorbachev , with the intention of reversing his policies . The coup failed , with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a high - profile role in facing down the coup , resulting in the banning of the Communist Party . On 25 December 1991 , Gorbachev resigned and the remaining twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post - Soviet states . The Russian Federation ( formerly the Russian SFSR ) assumed the Soviet Union ' s rights and obligations and is recognised as its continued legal personality . Geography , climate and environment . With an area of , the Soviet Union was the world ' s largest state , a status that is retained by the Russian Federation . Covering a sixth of the Earth ' s land surface , its size was comparable to that of North America . The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country ' s area , and was the cultural and economic center . The eastern part in Asia extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south , and , except some areas in Central Asia , was much less populous . It spanned over east to west across 11 time zone s , and over north to south . It had five climate zones : tundra , taiga , steppe s , desert , and mountains . The Soviet Union had the world ' s longest boundary , like Russia , measuring over , or circumferences of the Earth . Two - thirds of it were a coastline . Across the Bering Strait was the United States . The Soviet Union bordered Afghanistan , China , Czechoslovakia , Finland , Hungary , Iran , Mongolia , North Korea , Norway , Poland , Romania , and Turkey from 1945 to 1991 . The Soviet Union ' s highest mountain was Communism Peak ( now Ismoil Somoni Peak ) in Tajikistan , at . The Soviet Union also included most of the world ' s largest lake , the Caspian Sea ( shared with Iran ) , and also Lake Baikal , the world ' s largest freshwater and deepest lake , an internal body of water in Russia . History . The last Russian Tsar , Nicholas II , ruled the Russian Empire until his abdication in March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution , due in part to the strain of fighting in World War I , which lacked public support . A short - lived Russian Provisional Government took power , to be overthrown in the October Revolution ( N . S . 7 November 1917 ) by revolutionaries led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin . The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 with the union of the Russian , Ukrainian , Byelorussian , and Transcaucasian Soviet republics , each ruled by local Bolshevik parties . Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics , each with its own political and administrative entities , the term " Soviet Russia " strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republicwas often applied to the entire country by non - Soviet writers and politicians . Revolution and foundation . Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist Revolt of 1825 . Although serfdom was abolished in 1861 , it was done on terms unfavourable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries . A parliament — the State Duma — was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905 , but Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy . Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major Soviet cities . A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd , in response to the wartime decay of Russia ' s economy and morale , culminated in the February Revolution and the toppling of the imperial government in March 1917 . The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government , which intended to conduct elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and to continue fighting on the side of the Entente in World War I . At the same time , workers ' council s , known in Russian as " Soviets " , sprang up across the country . The Bolshevik s , led by Vladimir Lenin , pushed for socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets . On 7 November 1917 , the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd , ending the rule of the Provisional Government and leaving all political power to the Soviets . This event would later be known as the Great October Socialist Revolution . In December , the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers , though by February 1918 , fighting had resumed . In March , the Soviets ended involvement in the war for good and signed the Treaty of Brest - Litovsk . A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites , starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds ' victory . It included foreign intervention , the execution of the former tsar and his family , and the famine of 1921 , which killed about five million . In March 1921 , during a related conflict with Poland , the Peace of Riga was signed , splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia . Soviet Russia had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established Republic of Finland , the Republic of Estonia , the Republic of Latvia , and the Republic of Lithuania . Unification of republics . On 28 December 1922 , a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR , the Transcaucasian SFSR , the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR , forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . These two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations , Mikhail Kalinin , Mikhail Tskhakaya , Mikhail Frunze , Grigory Petrovsky , and Aleksandr Chervyakov , on 30 December 1922 . The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre . On 1 February 1924 , the USSR was recognized by the British Empire . The same year , a Soviet Constitution was approved , legitimizing the December 1922 union . An intensive restructuring of the economy , industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917 . A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees , government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin . One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan , which envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country . The plan was developed in 1920 and covered a 10 to 15 - year period . It included construction of a network of 30 regional power plants , including ten large hydroelectric power plant s , and numerous electric - powered large industrial enterprises . The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five - Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931 . Stalin era . From its creation , the government in the Soviet Union was based on the one - party rule of the Communist Party ( Bolsheviks ) . After the economic policy of " War Communism " during the Russian Civil War , as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country , the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax ( see New Economic Policy ) . The stated purpose of the one - party state was to ensure that capitalist exploitation would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of Democratic Centralism would be most effective in representing the people ' s will in a practical manner . Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin ' s death in 1924 . Initially , Lenin was to be replaced by a " troika " consisting of Grigory Zinoviev of Ukraine , Lev Kamenev of Moscow , and Joseph Stalin of Georgia . On 3 April 1922 , Stalin was named the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers ' and Peasants ' Inspectorate , which gave Stalin considerable power . By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party , Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union and , by the end of the 1920s , established totalitarian rule . In October 1927 , Grigory Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky were expelled from the Central Committee and forced into exile . In 1928 , Stalin introduced the First Five - Year Plan for building a socialist economy . In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution , it aimed to build socialism in one country . In industry , the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization . In agriculture , rather than adhering to the " lead by example " policy advocated by Lenin , forced collectivisation of farms was implemented all over the country . Famines ensued , causing millions of deaths ; surviving kulak s were persecuted and many sent to Gulag s to do forced labour . Social upheaval continued in the mid - 1930s . Stalin ' s Great Purge resulted in the execution or detainment of many " Old Bolsheviks " who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin . According to declassified Soviet archives , in 1937 and 1938 , the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people , of whom 681 , 692 were shot . Over those two years that averages to over one thousand executions a day . According to historian Geoffrey Hosking , " . . . excess deaths during the 1930s as a whole were in the range of 10 – 11 million . " Yet despite the turmoil of the mid - to - late 1930s , the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II . 1930s . The early 1930s saw closer cooperation between the West and the USSR . From 1932 to 1934 , the Soviet Union participated in the World Disarmament Conference . In 1933 , diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established when in November , the newly elected President of the United States , Franklin D . Roosevelt chose to formally recognize Stalin ' s Communist government and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two nations . In September 1934 , the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations . After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936 , the USSR actively supported the Republican forces against the Nationalists , who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany . In December 1936 , Stalin unveiled a new Soviet Constitution . The constitution was seen as a personal triumph for Stalin , who By contrast , Western historians and historians from former Soviet occupied countries have viewed the constitution as a meaningless propaganda document . The late 1930s saw a shift towards the Axis powers . In 1939 , almost a year after the United Kingdom and France had concluded the Munich Agreement with Germany , the USSR dealt with the Nazis as well , both militarily and economically during extensive talks . The two countries concluded the German – Soviet Nonaggression Pact and the German – Soviet Commercial Agreement in August 1939 . The nonaggression pact made possible Soviet occupation of Lithuania , Latvia , Estonia , Bessarabia , northern Bukovina , and eastern Poland . In late November of the same year , unable to coerce the Republic of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border back from Leningrad , Joseph Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland . In the east , the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the Japanese Empire in 1938 and 1939 . However , in April 1941 , USSR signed the Soviet – Japanese Neutrality Pact with the Empire of Japan , recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo , a Japanese puppet state . World War II . Although it has been debated whether the Soviet Union intended to invade Germany once it was strong enough , Germany itself broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 , starting what was known in the USSR as the " Great Patriotic War " . The Red Army stopped the seemingly invincible German Army at the Battle of Moscow , aided by an unusually harsh winter . The Battle of Stalingrad , which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943 , dealt a severe blow to the Germans from which they never fully recovered and became a turning point in the war . After Stalingrad , Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 . The German Army suffered 80 % of its military deaths in the Eastern Front . The same year , the USSR , in fulfillment of its agreement with the Allies at the Yalta Conference , denounced the Soviet – Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945 and invaded Manchukuo and other Japan - controlled territories on 9 August 1945 . This conflict ended with a decisive Soviet victory , contributing to the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of World War II . The Soviet Union suffered greatly in the war , losing around 27 million people . Despite this , it emerged as a superpower in the post - war period . Once denied diplomatic recognition by the Western world , the Soviet Union had official relations with practically every nation by the late 1940s . A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945 , the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council , which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions ( see Soviet Union and the United Nations ) . The Soviet Union maintained its status as one of the world ' s two superpowers for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe , military strength , economic strength , aid to developing countries , and scientific research , especially in space technology and weaponry . Cold War . During the immediate postwar period , the Soviet Union rebuilt and expanded its economy , while maintaining its strictly centralized control . It aided post - war reconstruction in the countries of Eastern Europe , while turning them into satellite states , binding them in a military alliance ( the Warsaw Pact ) in 1955 , and an economic organization ( The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comecon ) from 1949 to 1991 , the latter a counterpart to the European Economic Community . Later , the Comecon supplied aid to the eventually victorious Chinese Communist Party , and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world . Fearing its ambitions , the Soviet Union ' s wartime allies , the United Kingdom and the United States , became its enemies . In the ensuing Cold War , the two sides clashed indirectly using mostly proxies . Khrushchev era . Stalin died on 5 March 1953 . Without a mutually agreeable successor , the highest Communist Party officials opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly . Nikita Khrushchev , who had won the power struggle by the mid - 1950s , denounced Stalin ' s use of repression in 1956 and eased repressive controls over party and society . This was known as de - Stalinization . Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders , and ensured its control of the region by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states . 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 rapprochement with the West and what Mao Zedong perceived as Khrushchev ' s revisionism led to the Sino – Soviet split . This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist – Leninist movement , with the governments in Albania , Cambodia and Somalia choosing to ally with China in place of the USSR . During this period , the Soviet Union continued to realize scientific and technological exploits : Launching the first artificial satellite , Sputnik 1 in 1957 ; a living dog , Laika in 1957 ; the first human being , Yuri Gagarin in 1961 ; the first woman in space , Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 ; Alexey 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 . Khrushchev initiated " The Thaw " ( better known as Khrushchev ' s Thaw ) , a complex shift in political , cultural and economic life in the Soviet Union . This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods , allowing living standards to rise dramatically while maintaining high levels of economic growth . Censorship was relaxed as well . Khrushchev ' s reforms in agriculture and administration , however , were generally unproductive . In 1962 , he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba . An agreement was made between the Soviet Union and the United States to remove enemy nuclear missiles from both Cuba and Turkey , concluding the crisis . This event caused Khrushchev much embarrassment and loss of prestige , resulting in his removal from power in 1964 . Brezhnev era . Following the ousting of Khrushchev , another period of collective leadership ensued , consisting of Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary , Alexei Kosygin as Premier and Nikolai Podgorny as Chairman of the Presidium , lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent Soviet leader . In 1968 , the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring reforms . Brezhnev presided over a period of " détente " with the West ( see SALT I , SALT II , Anti - Ballistic Missile Treaty ) while at the same time building up Soviet military might . In October 1977 , the third Soviet Constitution was unanimously adopted . The prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev ' s death in 1982 was one of aversion to change . The long period of Brezhnev ' s rule had come to be dubbed one of " standstill " , with an aging and ossified top political leadership . Gorbachev era . Two developments dominated the decade that followed : the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union ' s economic and political structures , and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process . Kenneth S . Deffeyes argued in " Beyond Oil " that the Reagan administration encouraged Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit selling their oil , so that the USSR ' s hard currency reserves became depleted . Brezhnev ' s next two successors , transitional figures with deep roots in his tradition , did not last long . Yuri Andropov was 68 years old and Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power ; both died in less than two years . In an attempt to avoid a third short - lived leader , in 1985 , the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev . Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy and party leadership , called " perestroika " . His policy of " glasnost " freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship . Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War . In 1988 , the Soviet Union abandoned its nine - year war in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces . In the late 1980s , , which favored the Revolutions of 1989 . With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East Germany and West Germany pursuing unification , the Iron Curtain came down . In the late 1980s , the constituent republics of the Soviet Union started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories , citing Article 72 of the USSR constitution , which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede . On 7 April 1990 , a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two - thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum . Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990 . Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the " War of Laws " . In 1989 , the Russian SFSR , which was then the largest constituent republic ( with about half of the population ) convened a newly elected Congress of People ' s Deputies . Boris Yeltsin was elected its chairman . On 12 June 1990 , the Congress declared Russia ' s sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR ' s laws . After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania , that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990 . A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics ( the remainder having boycotted the vote ) , with the majority of the population in those nine republics voting for preservation of the Union . The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost . In the summer of 1991 , the New Union Treaty , which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser Union , was agreed upon by eight republics . The signing of the treaty , however , was interrupted by the August Coup — an attempted coup d ' état by hardline members of the government and the KGB who sought to reverse Gorbachev ' s reforms and reassert the central government ' s control over the republics . After the coup collapsed , Yeltsin was seen as a hero for his decisive actions , while Gorbachev ' s power was effectively ended . The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics . In August 1991 , Latvia and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence ( following Lithuania ' s 1990 example ) . Gorbachev resigned as general secretary in late August , and soon afterward the Party ' s activities were indefinitely suspended — effectively ending its rule . By the fall , Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside of Moscow , and he was being challenged even there by Yeltsin , who had been elected President of Russia in July 1991 . Dissolution . The remaining 12 republics continued discussing new , increasingly looser , models of the Union . However , by December , all except Russia and Kazakhstan had formally declared independence . During this time , Yeltsin took over what remained of the Soviet government , including the Kremlin . The final blow was struck on 1 December , when Ukraine , the second most powerful republic , voted overwhelmingly for independence . Ukraine ' s secession ended any realistic chance of the Soviet Union staying together even on a limited scale . On 8 December 1991 , the presidents of Russia , Ukraine and Belarus ( formerly Byelorussia ) , signed the Belavezha Accords , which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States ( CIS ) in its place . While doubts remained over the authority of the accords to do this , on 21 December 1991 , the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia signed the Alma - Ata Protocol , which confirmed the accords . On 25 December 1991 , Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR , declaring the office extinct . He turned the powers that had been vested in the presidency over to Yeltsin . That night , the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time , and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place . The following day , the Supreme Soviet , the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union , voted both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence . This is generally recognized as marking the official , final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state . The Soviet Army originally remained under overall CIS command , but was soon absorbed into the different military forces of the newly independent states . The few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased to function by the end of 1991 . Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991 , Russia was internationally recognized as its legal successor on the international stage . To that end , Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt and claimed overseas Soviet properties as its own . Under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol , Russia also agreed to receive all nuclear weapons remaining in the territory of other former Soviet republics . Since then , the Russian Federation has assumed the Soviet Union ' s rights and obligations . Post - Soviet states . The analysis of the succession of states with respect to the 15 post - Soviet states is complex . The Russian Federation is seen as the legal " continuator " state and is for most purposes the heir to the Soviet Union . It retained ownership of all former Soviet embassy properties , as well as the old Soviet UN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council . The Baltic states are not successor states to the Soviet Union ; they are instead considered to have de jure continuity with their pre - World War II governments through the non - recognition of the original Soviet incorporation in 1940 . The other 11 post - Soviet states are considered newly - independent successor states to the Soviet Union . There are additionally four states that claim independence from the other internationally recognized post - Soviet states , but possess limited international recognition : Abkhazia , Nagorno - Karabakh , South Ossetia , and Transnistria . The Chechnya n separatist movement of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria lacks any international recognition . Politics . There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union : the legislative branch represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the government represented by the Council of Ministers , and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( CPSU ) , the only legal party and the ultimate policymaker in the country . Communist Party . At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee , elected at Party Congresses and Conferences . The Central Committee in turn voted for a Politburo ( called the Presidium between 1952 – 1966 ) , Secretariat and the General Secretary ( First Secretary from 1953 to 1966 ) , the de facto highest office in the USSR . Depending on the degree of power consolidation , it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary , who always was one of the Politburo members , that effectively led the party and the country ( except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin , exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941 ) . They were not controlled by the general party membership , as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism , demanding strict subordination to higher bodies , and elections went uncontested , endorsing the candidates proposed from above . The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state largely through its control over the system of appointments . All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU . Of the party heads themselves , Stalin in 1941 – 1953 and Khrushchev in 1958 – 1964 were Premiers . Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev , the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership , but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , the nominal head of state . The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations . In practice , however , the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy , particularly after the death of Stalin , was far from total , with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party . Nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom , although factions were officially banned . Government . The Supreme Soviet ( successor of the Congress of Soviets and Central Executive Committee ) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history , at first acting as a rubber stamp institution , approving and implementing all decisions made by the party . However , the powers and functions of the Supreme Soviet were extended in the late 1950s , 1960s and 1970s , including the creation of new state commissions and committees . It gained additional powers when it came to the approval of the Five - Year Plans and the Soviet state budget . The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium to wield its power between plenary sessions , ordinarily held twice a year , and appointed the Supreme Court , the Procurator General and the Council of Ministers ( known before 1946 as the Council of People ' s Commissars ) , headed by the Chairman ( Premier ) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society . State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions , although the Russian SFSR , unlike the other constituent republics , for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU , being ruled directly by the union - wide party until 1990 . Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees , local Soviets and executive committees . While the state system was nominally federal , the party was unitary . The state security police ( the KGB and its predecessor agencies ) played an important role in Soviet politics . It was instrumental in the Stalinist terror , but after the death of Stalin , the state security police was brought under strict party control . Under Yuri Andropov , KGB chairman in 1967 – 1982 and General Secretary from 1982 to 1983 , the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers , reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party - state structure , culminating in the anti - corruption campaign targeting high party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s . Separation of power and reform . The Union constitutions , which were promulgated in 1918 , 1924 , 1936 and 1977 , did not limit state power . No formal separation of powers existed between the Party , Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers that represented executive and legislative branches of the government . The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions , and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed . Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Joseph Stalin , as well as after Khrushchev ' s dismissal , itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee . All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office , except Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev , both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party . Between 1988 and 1990 , facing considerable opposition , Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them . The Congress of People ' s Deputies was established , the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989 . The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet , which became a full - time parliament , much stronger than before . For the first time since the 1920s , it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers . In 1990 , Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union , concentrated power in his executive office , independent of the party , and subordinated the government , now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR , to himself . Tensions grew between the union - wide authorities under Gorbachev , reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR , and Communist Party hardliners . On 19 – 21 August 1991 , a group of hardliners staged an abortive coup attempt . Following the failed coup , the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power " in the period of transition " . Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary , only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR . Judicial system . The judiciary was not independent of the other branches of government . The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts ( People ' s Court ) and applied the law as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet . The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts . The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law , where the judge , procurator , and defense attorney collaborate to establish the truth . Administrative divisions . Constitutionally , the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics , which were either unitary states , such as Ukraine or Belarus ( SSRs ) , or federal states , such as Russia or Transcaucasia ( SFSRs ) , all four being the founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922 . In 1924 , during the national delimitation in Central Asia , the Uzbek and Turkmen SSR s were formed from parts of the Russia ' s Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies , the Khorezm and Bukharan SSR s . In 1929 , the Tajik SSR was split off from the Uzbek SSR . With the constitution of 1936 , the Transcaucasian SFSR was dissolved , resulting in its constituent Georgian , Armenian and Azerbaijan SSR s being elevated to Union Republics , while the Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR s were split off from Russian SFSR , resulting in the same status . In August 1940 , the Moldavian SSR was formed from parts of the Ukrainian SSR and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina . The Estonian , Latvian and Lithuanian SSR s were also admitted into the union . The Karelo - Finnish SSR was split off from Russia as a Union Republic in March 1940 and was reabsorbed in 1956 . Between July 1956 and September 1991 , there were 15 union republics ( see map below ) . Although all republics were equal under union law , for its entire existence the Soviet Union was dominated by the Russian republic — by far the largest , in both population and geography , as well as the strongest and most developed economically due to its vast natural resources . For this reason , until the 1980s the Soviet Union was commonly — but incorrectly — referred to as " Russia . " Economy . The Soviet Union became the first country to adopt a planned economy , whereby production and distribution of goods were centralised and directed by the government . The first Bolshevik experience with a command economy was the policy of War Communism , which involved nationalisation of industry , centralized distribution of output , coercive requisition of agricultural production , and attempts to eliminate the circulation of money , as well as private enterprises and free trade . After the severe economic collapse caused by the war , in 1921 Lenin replaced War Communism with the New Economic Policy ( NEP ) , legalising free trade and private ownership of smaller businesses . The economy quickly recovered . Following a lengthy debate among the members of Politburo over the course of economic development , by 1928 – 1929 , upon gaining control of the country , Joseph Stalin abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning , starting forced collectivisation of agriculture and enacting draconian labor legislation . Resources were mobilised for rapid industrialisation , which greatly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s . Preparation for war was one of the main driving forces behind industrialisation , mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalistic world . As a result , the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power , leading the way for its emergence as a superpower after World War II . During the war , the Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation and required extensive reconstruction . By the early 1940s , the Soviet economy had become relatively self - sufficient ; for most of the period until the creation of Comecon , only a very small share of domestic products was traded internationally . After the creation of the Eastern Bloc , external trade rose rapidly . Still the influence of the world economy on the USSR was limited by fixed domestic prices and a state monopoly on foreign trade . Grain and sophisticated consumer manufactures became major import articles from around the 1960s . During the arms race of the Cold War , the Soviet economy was burdened by military expenditures , heavily lobbied for by a powerful bureaucracy dependent on the arms industry . At the same time , the Soviet Union became the largest arms exporter to the Third World . Significant amounts of Soviet resources during the Cold War were allocated in aid to the other socialist states . From the 1930s until its collapse in the late 1980s , the way the Soviet economy operated remained essentially unchanged . The economy was formally directed by central planning , carried out by Gosplan and organized in five - year plans . In practice , however , the plans were highly aggregated and provisional , subject to " ad hoc " intervention by superiors . All key economic decisions were taken by the political leadership . Allocated resources and plan targets were normally denominated in rubles rather than in physical goods . Credit was discouraged , but widespread . Final allocation of output was achieved through relatively decentralized , unplanned contracting . Although in theory prices were legally set from above , in practice the actual prices were often negotiated , and informal horizontal links ( between producer factories etc . ) were widespread . A number of basic services were state - funded , such as education and healthcare . In the manufacturing sector , heavy industry and defense were assigned higher priority than the production of consumer goods . Consumer goods , particularly outside large cities , were often scarce , of poor quality and limited choice . Under command economy , consumers had almost no influence over production , so the changing demands of a population with growing incomes could not be satisfied by supplies at rigidly fixed prices . A massive unplanned second economy grew up alongside the planned one at low levels , providing some of the goods and services that the planners could not . Legalisation of some elements of the decentralised economy was attempted with the reform of 1965 . Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its economic growth difficult to estimate precisely , by most accounts , the economy continued to expand until the mid - 1980s . During the 1950s and 1960s , the Soviet economy experienced comparatively high growth and was catching up to the West . However , after 1970 , the growth , while still positive , steadily declined much more quickly and consistently than in other countries despite a rapid increase in the capital stock ( the rate of increase in capital was only surpassed by Japan ) . Overall , between 1960 and 1989 , the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union was slightly above the world average ( based on 102 countries ) . According to Stanley Fischer and William Easterly , growth could have been faster . By their calculation , per capita income of Soviet Union in 1989 should have been twice as high as it was considering the amount of investment , education and population . The authors attribute this poor performance to low productivity of capital in the Soviet Union . Steven Rosenfielde states that the standard of living actually declined as a result of Stalin ' s despotism , and while there was a brief improvement following his death , lapsed into stagnation . In 1987 , Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reform and revitalize the economy with his program of " perestroika " . His policies relaxed state control over enterprises , but did not yet allow it to be replaced by market incentives , ultimately resulting in a sharp decline in production output . The economy , already suffering from reduced petroleum export revenues , started to collapse . Prices were still fixed , and property was still largely state - owned until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union . For most of the period after World War II up to its collapse , the Soviet economy was the second largest in the world by GDP ( PPP ) , and was 3rd in the world during the middle of the 1980s to 1989 . though in per capita terms the Soviet GDP was behind that of the First World countries . Energy . The need for fuel declined in the Soviet Union from the 1970s to the 1980s , both per ruble of gross social product and per ruble of industrial product . At the start , this decline grew very rapidly but gradually slowed down between 1970 and 1975 . From 1975 and 1980 , it grew even slower , only 2 . 6 percent . David Wilson , a historian , believed that the gas industry would account for 40 percent of Soviet fuel production by the end of the century . His theory did not come to fruition because of the USSR ' s collapse . The USSR , in theory , would have continued to have an economic growth rate of 2 – 2 . 5 percent during the 1990s because of Soviet energy fields . However , the energy sector faced many difficulties , among them the country ' s high military expenditure and hostile relations with the First World ( pre - Gorbachev era ) . In 1991 , the Soviet Union had a pipeline network of for crude oil and another for natural gas . Petroleum and petroleum - based products , natural gas , metals , wood , agricultural products , and a variety of manufactured goods , primarily machinery , arms and military equipment , were exported . In the 1970s and 1980s , the Soviet Union heavily relied on fossil fuel exports to earn hard currency . At its peak in 1988 , it was the largest producer and second largest exporter of crude oil , surpassed only by Saudi Arabia . Science and technology . The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on science and technology within its economy , however , the most remarkable Soviet successes in technology , such as producing the world ' s first space satellite , typically were the responsibility of the military . Lenin believed that the USSR would never overtake the developed world if it remained as technologically backward as it was upon its founding . Soviet authorities proved their commitment to Lenin ' s belief by developing massive networks , research and development organizations . In the early 1960s , the Soviets awarded 40 % of chemistry PhD ' s to women , compared to only 5 % who received such a degree in the United States . By 1989 , Soviet scientists were among the world ' s best - trained specialists in several areas , such as energy physics , selected areas of medicine , mathematics , welding and military technologies . Due to rigid state planning and bureaucracy , the Soviets remained far behind technologically in chemistry , biology , and computers when compared to the First World . Project Socrates , under the Reagan administration , determined that the Soviet Union addressed the acquisition of science and technology in a manner that was radically different from what the US was using . In the case of the US , economic prioritization was being used for indigenous research and development as the means to acquire science and technology in both the private and public sectors . In contrast , the Soviet Union was offensively and defensively maneuvering in the acquisition and utilization of the worldwide technology , to increase the competitive advantage that they acquired from the technology , while preventing the US from acquiring a competitive advantage . However , in addition , the Soviet Union ' s technology - based planning was executed in a centralized , government - centric manner that greatly hindered its flexibility . It was this significant lack of flexibility that was exploited by the US to undermine the strength of the Soviet Union and thus foster its reform . Transport . Transport was a key component of the nation ' s economy . The economic centralization of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure on a massive scale , most notably the establishment of Aeroflot , an aviation enterprise . The country had a wide variety of modes of transport by land , water and air . However , due to bad maintenance , much of the road , water and Soviet civil aviation transport were outdated and technologically backward compared to the First World . Soviet rail transport was the largest and most intensively used in the world ; it was also better developed than most of its Western counterparts . By the late 1970s and early 1980s , Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the burden from the railways and to improve the Soviet state budget . The road network and automobile industry remained underdeveloped , and dirt road s were common outside major cities . Soviet maintenance projects proved unable to take care of even the few roads the country had . By the early - to - mid - 1980s , the Soviet authorities tried to solve the road problem by ordering the construction of new ones . Meanwhile , the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than road construction . The underdeveloped road network led to a growing demand for public transport . Despite improvements , several aspects of the transport sector were still riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure , lack of investment , corruption and bad decision - making . Soviet authorities were unable to meet the growing demand for transport infrastructure and services . The Soviet merchant fleet was one of the largest in the world . Demographics . Excess deaths over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil War ( including the postwar famine ) amounted to a combined total of 18 million , some 10 million in the 1930s , and more than 26 million in 1941 – 5 . The postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million smaller than it would have been if pre - war demographic growth had continued . According to Catherine Merridale , " . . . reasonable estimate would place the total number of excess deaths for the whole period somewhere around 60 million . " The crude birth rate of the USSR decreased from 44 . 0 per thousand in 1926 to 18 . 0 in 1974 , largely due to increasing urbanization and the rising average age of marriages . The crude death rate demonstrated a gradual decrease as well – from 23 . 7 per thousand in 1926 to 8 . 7 in 1974 . In general , the birth rates of the southern republics in Transcaucasia and Central Asia were considerably higher than those in the northern parts of the Soviet Union , and in some cases even increased in the post – World War II period , a phenomenon partly attributed to slower rates of urbanization and traditionally earlier marriages in the southern republics . Soviet Europe moved towards sub - replacement fertility , while Soviet Central Asia continued to exhibit population growth well above replacement - level fertility . The late 1960s and the 1970s witnessed a reversal of the declining trajectory of the rate of mortality in the USSR , and was especially notable among men of working age , but was also prevalent in Russia and other predominantly Slavic areas of the country . An analysis of the official data from the late 1980s showed that after worsening in the late - 1970s and the early 1980s , adult mortality began to improve again . The infant mortality rate increased from 24 . 7 in 1970 to 27 . 9 in 1974 . Some researchers regarded the rise as largely real , a consequence of worsening health conditions and services . The rises in both adult and infant mortality were not explained or defended by Soviet officials , and the Soviet government simply stopped publishing all mortality statistics for ten years . Soviet demographers and health specialists remained silent about the mortality increases until the late - 1980s , when the publication of mortality data resumed and researchers could delve into the real causes . Education . Before 1917 , education was not free in the Russian Empire and was therefore either inaccessible or barely accessible for many children from lower - class working and peasant families . Estimates from 1917 recorded that 75 – 85 percent of the Russian population was illiterate . Anatoly Lunacharsky became the first People ' s Commissar for Education of Soviet Russia . At the beginning , the Soviet authorities placed great emphasis on the elimination of illiteracy . People who were literate were automatically hired as teachers . For a short period , quality was sacrificed for quantity . By 1940 , Joseph Stalin could announce that illiteracy had been eliminated . In the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War , the country ' s educational system expanded dramatically . This expansion had a tremendous effect . In the 1960s , nearly all Soviet children had access to education , the only exception being those living in remote areas . Nikita Khrushchev tried to make education more accessible , making it clear to children that education was closely linked to the needs of society . Education also became important in giving rise to the New Man . The country ' s system of education was highly centralized and universally accessible to all citizens , with affirmative action for applicants from nations associated with cultural backwardness . Citizens directly entering the work force had the constitutional right to a job and to free vocational training . The Brezhnev administration introduced a rule that required all university applicants to present a reference from the local Komsomol party secretary . According to statistics from 1986 , the number of higher education students per the population of 10 , 000 was 181 for the USSR , compared to 517 for the U . S . Ethnic groups . The Soviet Union was a very ethnically diverse country , with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups . The total population was estimated at 293 million in 1991 . According to a 1990 estimate , the majority were Russians ( 50 . 78 % ) , followed by Ukrainians ( 15 . 45 % ) and Uzbeks ( 5 . 84 % ) . All citizens of the USSR had their own ethnic affiliation . The ethnicity of a person was chosen at the age of sixteen by the child ' s parents . If the parents did not agree , the child was automatically assigned the ethnicity of the father . Partly due to Soviet policies , some of the smaller minority ethnic groups were considered part of larger ones , such as the Mingrelians of the Georgian SSR , who were classified with the linguistically related Georgians . Some ethnic groups voluntarily assimilated , while others were brought in by force . Russians , Belarusians , and Ukrainians shared close cultural ties , while other groups did not . With multiple nationalities living in the same territory , ethnic antagonisms developed over the years . Health . In 1917 , before the revolution , health conditions were significantly behind the developed countries . As Lenin later noted , " Either the lice will defeat socialism , or socialism will defeat the lice " . The Soviet principle of health care was conceived by the People ' s Commissariat for Health in 1918 . Health care was to be controlled by the state and would be provided to its citizens free of charge , this at the time being a revolutionary concept . Article 42 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution gave all citizens the right to health protection and free access to any health institutions in the USSR . Before Leonid Brezhnev became head of state , the healthcare system of the Soviet Union was held in high esteem by many foreign specialists . This changed however , from Brezhnev ' s accession and Mikhail Gorbachev ' s tenure as leader , the Soviet health care system was heavily criticised for many basic faults , such as the quality of service and the unevenness in its provision . Minister of Health Yevgeniy Chazov , during the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , while highlighting such Soviet successes as having the most doctors and hospitals in the world , recognised the system ' s areas for improvement and felt that billions of Soviet ruble s were squandered . After the socialist revolution , the life expectancy for all age groups went up . This statistic in itself was seen by some that the socialist system was superior to the capitalist system . These improvements continued into the 1960s , when the life expectancy in the Soviet Union surpassed that of the United States . It remained stable during most years , although in the 1970s , it went down slightly , possibly because of alcohol abuse . At the same time , infant mortality began to rise . After 1974 , the government stopped publishing statistics on this . This trend can be partly explained by the number of pregnancies rising drastically in the Asian part of the country where infant mortality was highest , while declining markedly in the more developed European part of the Soviet Union . The USSR had several centers of excellence , such as the Fyodorov Eye Microsurgery Complex , founded in 1988 by Russian eye surgeon Svyatoslav Fyodorov . Language . The Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin gave small language groups their own writing systems . The development of these writing systems was very successful , even though some flaws were detected . During the later days of the USSR , countries with the same multilingual situation implemented similar policies . A serious problem when creating these writing systems was that the languages differed dialect ally greatly from each other . When a language had been given a writing system and appeared in a notable publication , that language would attain " official language " status . There were many minority languages which never received their own writing system ; therefore their speakers were forced to have a second language . There are examples where the Soviet government retreated from this policy , most notable under Stalin ' s regime , where education was discontinued in languages which were not widespread enough . These languages were then assimilated into another language , mostly Russian . During the Great Patriotic War ( World War II ) , some minority languages were banned , and their speakers accused of collaborating with the enemy . As the most widely spoken of the Soviet Union ' s many languages , Russian " de facto " functioned as an official language , as the " language of interethnic communication " ( ) , but only assumed the " de jure " status as the official national language in 1990 . Religion . The religious made up a significant minority of the Soviet Union prior to break up . In 1990 , the religious makeup was 20 % Russian Orthodox , 10 % Muslim , 7 % Protestant , Georgian Orthodox , Armenian Orthodox , and Roman Catholic , less than 1 % Jewish and 60 % atheist . Christianity and Islam had the greatest number of adherents among the Soviet state ' s religious citizens . Eastern Christianity predominated among Christians , with Russia ' s traditional Russian Orthodox Church being the Soviet Union ' s largest Christian denomination . About 90 percent of the Soviet Union ' s Muslims were Sunni s , with Shiite s concentrated in the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic . Smaller groups included Roman Catholics , Jews , Buddhists , and a variety of Protestant sects . Religious influence had been strong in the Russian Empire . The Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed a privileged status as the church of the monarchy and took part in carrying out official state functions . The immediate period following the establishment of the Soviet state included a struggle against the Orthodox Church , which the revolutionaries considered an ally of the former ruling class es . In Soviet law , the " freedom to hold religious services " was constitutionally guaranteed , although the ruling Communist Party regarded religion as incompatible with the Marxist spirit of scientific materialism . In practice , the Soviet system subscribed to a narrow interpretation of this right , and in fact utilized a range of official measures to discourage religion and curb the activities of religious groups . The 1918 Council of People ' s Commissars decree establishing the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic ( RSFSR ) as a secular state also decreed that " the teaching of religion in all [ places ] where subjects of general instruction are taught , is forbidden . Citizens may teach and may be taught religion privately . " Among further restrictions , those adopted in 1929 , a half - decade into Stalin ' s rule , included express prohibitions on a range of church activities , including meetings for organized Bible study . Both Christian and non - Christian establishments were shut down by the thousands in the 1920s and 1930s . By 1940 , as many as 90 percent of the churches , synagogues , and mosques that had been operating in 1917 were closed . Convinced that religious anti - Sovietism had become a thing of the past , the Stalin regime began shifting to a more moderate religion policy in the late 1930s . Soviet religious establishments overwhelmingly rallied to support the war effort during the Soviet war with Nazi Germany . Amid other accommodations to religious faith , churches were reopened , Radio Moscow began broadcasting a religious hour , and a historic meeting between Stalin and Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Sergius I of Moscow was held in 1943 . The general tendency of this period was an increase in religious activity among believers of all faiths . The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USSR was persecuted . The Soviet establishment again clashed with the churches under General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev ' s leadership in 1958 – 1964 , a period when atheism was emphasized in the educational curriculum , and numerous state publications promoted atheistic views . During this period , the number of churches fell from 20 , 000 to 10 , 000 from 1959 to 1965 , and the number of synagogues dropped from 500 to 97 . The number of working mosques also declined , falling from 1 , 500 to 500 within a decade . Religious institutions remained monitored by the Soviet government , but churches , synagogues , temples , and mosques were all given more leeway in the Brezhnev era . Official relations between the Orthodox Church and the Soviet government again warmed to the point that the Brezhnev government twice honored Orthodox Patriarch Alexy I with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour . A poll conducted by Soviet authorities in 1982 recorded 20 percent of the Soviet population as " active religious believers . " Culture . The culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the USSR ' s 70 - year existence . During the first eleven years following the Revolution ( 1918 – 1929 ) , there was relative freedom and artists experimented with several different styles to find a distinctive Soviet style of art . Lenin wanted art to be accessible to the Russian people . On the other hand , hundreds of intellectuals , writers , and artists were exiled or executed , and their work banned , for example Nikolay Gumilev ( shot for alleged conspiring against the Bolshevik regime ) and Yevgeny Zamyatin ( banned ) . The government encouraged a variety of trends . In art and literature , numerous schools , some traditional and others radically experimental , proliferated . Communist writers Maksim Gorky and Vladimir Mayakovsky were active during this time . Film , as a means of influencing a largely illiterate society , received encouragement from the state ; much of director Sergei Eisenstein ' s best work dates from this period . Later , during Stalin ' s rule , Soviet culture was characterised by the rise and domination of the government - imposed style of socialist realism , with all other trends being severely repressed , with rare exceptions , for example Mikhail Bulgakov ' s works . Many writers were imprisoned and killed . Following the Khrushchev Thaw of the late 1950s and early 1960s , censorship was diminished . During this time , a distinctive period of Soviet culture developed characterized by conformist public life and intense focus on personal life . Greater experimentation in art forms were again permissible , with the result that more sophisticated and subtly critical work began to be produced . The regime loosened its emphasis on socialist realism ; thus , for instance , many protagonists of the novels of author Yury Trifonov concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism . An underground dissident literature , known as " samizdat " , developed during this late period . In architecture the Khrushchev era mostly focused on functional design as opposed to the highly decorated style of Stalin ' s epoch . In the second half of the 1980s , Gorbachev ' s policies of " perestroika " and " glasnost " significantly expanded freedom of expression in the media and press .