Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

> How, then, can anyone oppose the transfer of all power in the state to the Soviets? Such opposition means nothing but renouncing democracy! It means no more no less than imposing on the people a government which admittedly can neither come into being nor hold its ground democratically, i.e., as a result of truly free, truly popular elections.
>
> Premier of the Soviet Union, **Vladimir Ilyich Lenin**, 1917

## Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

The Rotting Corpse of the Revolution

**1922-1942**

### Head of State

Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets
* Mikhail Kalinin (1917-1929)
* Nikolai Shvernik (1929-1942)

### Head of Government

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
* Vladimir Lenin (1922-1924)
* Alexei Rykov (1924-1929)
* Leon Trotsky (1929-1942)
* Andrei Bubnov (1942)

### Capital

* Moscow
* Arkhangelsk (1941)
* Novosibirsk (1942)

### Official Languages

Russian (official)
 Ukrainian
 Belarusian
 Uzbek
 Kazakh
 Georgian
 Azerbaijani
 Lithuanian
 Moldavian
 Latvian
 Kirghiz
 Tajik
 Armenian
 Turkmen
 Estonian

### State Religion(s)

State Atheism [de facto]
State Secularism [de jure]

### Government System

Federal Bolshevik-Leninist one-party socialist republic

### Ethnicities

East Slavs [Majority]
 Turkic
 Others

### Military Command

General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR

### Military Forces

Workers' and Peasants' Red Army
 Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR
 Military Air Forces
 Anti-Air Defence Troops

The **Soviet Union**, officially known as the **Union of Soviet Socialist Republics** (USSR), was a socialist state that spanned from Europe to Asia which existed from 1922 to 1942. It was a federal union of multiple national republics which considered itself as the birthplace of the Communist World Revolution, and as the vanguard of the International Communist Movement. The Soviet Union was primarily led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets as its primary position for Head of State, and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union as its primary position for Head of Government. The Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets, despite being the semi-official head of state, held little power compared to the Chairman of the Council of the People's Commissars. The socialist state had Moscow as its capital and was the largest country in the world until its collapse.

The Soviet Union's origins began during the 1917 October Revolution, when the Bolsheviks headed by Vladimir Lenin overthrew Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government of the Russian Republic, which had earlier overthrown the House of Romanov and dissolved the Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks established the Russian Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutional socialist state, which inspired socialist revolutions around the world. The rule of the Bolsheviks had incited tensions within the former Russian Empire, and several dissenting movements rose up especially among former Tsarist Generals leading to the emergence of the White Army.

With the outbreak of conflict between the White Guard and the Bolsheviks, the Russian Civil War formally began, much to the surprise of international observers such as the Entente. The Red Army was established by the Russian Soviet Republic, liberating territories under the control of anti-Bolshevik forces placing Soviet councils in charge of local areas. By 1922, with the defeat of Generals Kornilov, Denikin, Wrangel, Yudenich, Semyonov, Miller, and Admiral Kolchak, the Red Army emerged as a clear winner in the conflict and began a total restructuring of the Soviet government. Most notable of these reforms, was the creation of the New Economic Policy enacted by Vladimir Lenin, which resulted in an economic recovery due to the re-establishment of a partial free market and private property. The New Economic Policy, known as the NEP, became a source of contention between the leaders of the Communist Party later on.

Following Lenin's death in 1924, one of his last letters was revealed to the Party, leading to the exile of then General-Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Iosif Dzhugashvili from the Soviet Union. Dzhugashvili was considered a threat by much of the democratic centralist elements within the Party, who feared the centralization of power within the General-Secretariat. In spite of the interim rule led by Vyacheslav Molotov from 1924 to 1929, real power came from the emerging troika led by Lev Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, and Nikolai Bukharin, the leaders of the Left Opposition, the New Opposition, and the Right Opposition respectively. With Dzhugashvili removed, the Soviet Union continued to adhere to the principle of democratic centralism, a practice in which political decisions reached by democratic voting processes are centrally binding upon all members of the political body.

With Lev Trotsky's ascension to the position of General-Secretary in 1929, the Left Communists became the most powerful political body within the Soviet Union. With the support of the Red Army, the Communist Party, and the NKVD under Alexander Beloborodov, Trotsky repealed the New Economic Policy, and established the Permanent Revolution as the core doctrine of the Soviet Union for the rest of its existence. Under Beloborodov's NKVD, opposition to the Permanent Revolution was punished severely, and the Communist Party used its practice of democratic centralism to justify its party authoritarianism. Among these purges was the purge of those who opposed Trotskyist elements within the Red Army, most notable of whom were the Frunzeites.

On August 23, 1939, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Christian Rakovsky and Reichsminister of Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Rakovsky-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression pact informally dividing Europe into two spheres of influence, the Soviet sphere and the German sphere respectively. After the start of Germany's Invasion of Poland, Fall Weiss, the Soviet Union began to invade and annex territories in Eastern Europe, much to the fear of the Western Powers.

On June 22, 1941, underestimating Germany's capabilities, the Red Army suffered a series of defeats on the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa, and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Most of its border forces were encircled and subsequently destroyed. The Soviet Union's antagonistic attitudes towards the Western Powers due to its policy of Permanent Revolution led to international support for the Soviets being virtually non-existent.

The German-Soviet War, later remembered as the Great Patriotic War, was the bloodiest conflict in all of history. As the Germans reached the outskirts of Moscow, the city was evacuated and its offices and industry moved East. However, the Germans refused to occupy the scorched city and merely destroyed its railway systems connecting most of the Western Lands of the Soviet Union. The Wehrmacht later sieged the City of Leningrad, leading to its subsequent surrender. On June 28, 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the infamous Case Blue (Fall Blau), a strategic summer offensive campaign which led to the loss of the Caucasus, the main supply of oil for the Soviet Armed Forces. As the Red Army began to collapse due to its terrible logistical situation and its low morale, the Wehrmacht pushed towards the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line, its goal for Operation Barbarossa.

After the Red Army was rendered incapable of a counter-offensive, Mikhail Tukhachevsky assumed control of what was left of the Soviet Armed Forces and enacted a coup against the Communist Party. General-Secretary Lev Trotsky was exiled, and most Old Bolsheviks either fled or were executed. Mikhail Tukhachevsky dissolved the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics the following month, establishing the Provisional Government of the Former Soviet Union. On the 8th of March, 1947, the Novosibirsk Provisional Council voted for the establishment of The Former Soviet Republic of the Russian Union, which today assumes the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and is recognized as its continued legal personality in international affairs.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is commemorated as the birthplace of the communist revolution, but it is also remembered as the world's last line of defense against National Socialist Germany's New World Order. During its existence, it was regarded as one of the world's most influential powers, and boasted one of the fastest growing economies in the world as well as the largest armed forces before its dissolution.