Soviet Union

[[File:Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg|right|thumb|165px|it was a whopper.]][[Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.svg|thumb|165px|right|Flag of the Soviet Union.]]{{Communism}}{{bronze}}{{cquote|In 1492 the [[Spain|first]] global power appeared. In 1992 the last [[European]] global power collapsed.|||George Friedman, ''Flashpoints'', p.41.}}

The '''Soviet Union''' (Russian: Сове́тский Сою́з, ''Sovétskij Sojúz''), officially the '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''' or '''USSR''' (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, ''Sojúz Sovétskix Socialistíčeskix Respúblik'', or '''CCCP''', "SSSR") was a [[Marxist-Leninist]] state and superpower that existed between 1922 and 1991. Nominally a federation,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20211102213527/https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315715551-15/formation-soviet-union-soviet-federal-system-grigol-ubiria The formation of the Soviet Union: the Soviet federal system] (''Warning: Text Wall'')</ref> the USSR was a one-party state that was under [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] rule during the 1930s to the early 1950s. It's often cited as a prime example of [[Communism]]'s many failures but is also irresponsibly used as a [[scapegoat]] by [[right-wingers]]. On the opposite end, its crimes against humanity are defended or denied by [[Stalin apologists]] and Russian nationalists hankering for the [[Good old days|"glory days."]]

== Cliffnote's history ==
=== Revolution and totalitarianism ===
{{cquote|Many who lauded Stalin's Soviet Union as the most democratic country on earth lived to regret their words. After all, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was adopted on the eve of the Great Terror of the late 1930s; the "thoroughly democratic" elections to the first Supreme Soviet permitted only uncontested candidates and took place at the height of the savage violence in 1937. The civil rights, personal freedoms, and democratic forms promised in the Stalin constitution were trampled almost immediately and remained dead letters until long after Stalin's death.|||J. Arch Getty<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2500596 "State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s"]</ref>}}

[[File:Marx Engels Lenin.svg|thumb|right|200px|Marx, Engels, and Lenin, iconic founders of Soviet communism.]]
The Soviet Union began in 1917 when two revolutions occurred in Russia. The [[February Revolution|first]] overthrew the Tsardom while the [[October Revolution|second]] consolidated power under the [[Bolsheviks]]. After a brutal [[civil war]], [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin's]] regime won out by implementing a series of ruthlessly pragmatic policies.<ref>http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/eastern_front_01.shtml</ref>

The first policy was the creation of the Cheka, the not-so-secret police, in 1918 to combat anti-Bolshevik activities. The Cheka used extreme measures of torture, rape, and terror to exercise control over the population and deter desertion from the Red Army.<ref>[https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/cheka History of Cheka]</ref>

The second was known as "war communism" in which the government [[Command economy|expropriated and nationalized industry and agricultural surplus]] leading to the rise of a large but inexperienced bureaucracy to manage it. The policy was successful in halting the advance of the White Movement army and giving breathing room for the Red Army to reconquer most of the former Russian territories. The policy was a disaster in socio-economic terms, leading to a collapse of agricultural surplus, high inflation, and a drop in real wages.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/event/War-Communism Britannica: War Communism]</ref> This led to the Kronstadt Rebellion which [[democracy|demanded free elections]] for socialist parties and an end to the politicization of the military, to which the Bolsheviks responded by brutally crushing them using the thinly-veiled excuse of a memorandum allegedly written by a [[reactionary]] leader.<ref>[https://brewminate.com/the-kronstadt-rebellion-in-the-early-soviet-union/ The Kronstadt Rebellion in the Early Soviet Union]</ref>

The third policy was a response to the Kronstadt Rebellion and widespread discontent, resulting in the Bolsheviks implementing the New Economic Policy (NEP), which bought back some elements of [[capitalism]] by allowing a return of most agriculture, retail, and small-scale light industry to private ownership.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Economic-Policy-Soviet-history Britannica: New Economic Policy]</ref> After the rise of [[Joseph Stalin]], the Soviet government implemented a plan of forced collectivization which was opposed by the peasantry, who reacted by slaughtering the livestock and destroying the equipment. As Stalin was not yet total master of the CPSU, the plan was slowed down in March 1930 which resulted in a vast majority of farmers abandoning the collective farms. Stalin blamed local officials for "overzealously" enforcing the program, which was supposed to be [[Bullshit|voluntary]]. However, the government tried again in the fall of 1930, this time also enacting punitive measures.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/collectivization Britannica: Collectivization]</ref> Afterward, a series of brutal five-year plans were crafted to industrialize the nation, killing millions in the process, but they did successfully make the USSR an industrial powerhouse<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20070916064558/http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/russia/stalinfiveyearplansrev1.shtml</ref> (and, probably saved the USSR from conquest by Nazi Germany later on).

There was a period of thaw in 1934 which came to a halt with the assassination of Sergei Kirov, whom moderates in the party wanted to replace Stalin, in what is believed to be a [[false flag operation]]. Regardless, the assassination gave Stalin the justification to unleash the Yezhovschina<ref group=note> "Period of Yezhov", named after Nikolai Yezhov, the leader of the NKVD</ref> or the Great Purge, as it's known in the West, in which the last remaining political opposition in the Communist Party was killed in show trials.<ref>https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/Industrialization-1929-34#ref42057</ref>

=== Second World War ===
Despite being paranoid and power-hungry, Stalin decided to sign a non-aggression pact with [[Nazi Germany]]. This fell apart in 1941 when Operation Barbarossa got underway.<ref>https://www.britannica.com/event/German-Soviet-Nonaggression-Pact</ref> 

Operation Barbarossa started on June 22, 1941, with a sweeping invasion of Soviet territory, with the Red Army suffering colossal casualties and ultimately millions of soldiers were surrounded, forced to surrender, stripped of supplies, and compelled to walk on "death marches" to labor camps. The invasion also witnessed an escalation of the [[Holocaust]], along with mass reprisals and brutality towards the Soviet civilian population.<ref>[https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210621-hitler-s-war-of-annihilation-operation-barbarossa-80-years-on Hitler's "war of annihilation": Operation Barbarossa, 80 years on]</ref> The war would come to a turning point at the infamous {{wpl|Battle_of_Stalingrad}} which saw an estimate two million casualties, half on either side.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/stalingrad-name-may-return-to-russian-city Stalingrad name may return to city in wave of Second World War patriotism]</ref>

Believing that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", the Western Powers allied themselves with the Soviet Union, emerging victorious in [[World War II]]. This led to the USSR ''de facto'' taking control of Eastern Europe, while the Western Allies took ''de facto'' control of Western Europe.

=== Cold War and collapse ===
Unsurprisingly, this alliance fell apart as soon as the war ended. Indeed, the nuclear bombing of Imperial Japan confirmed the possibility of nuclear explosives, and the Soviets pressed ahead with the development of their nuclear weapons. Thus began the [[Cold War]], a titanic struggle for supremacy between two conflicting ideologies. The two sides competed in every imaginable venue, from [[space exploration]] to fundamental research in the [[Science|sciences]] and [[mathematics]], everything short of direct all-out war. Mainland China fell to communism in 1949 and the Nationalists fled to the Island of Formosa, modern-day [[Taiwan]], and the communist regime started to break away from Moscow's influence due to the Soviet government's desire for peaceful co-existence with capitalism.

With the rest of the industrial world still recovering from World War II until the early 1970s, both sides pretty much had things to themselves. Their power was quickly abused, establishing [[Puppet state|puppet regimes]] throughout the world, such as the US in [[Iran]] and much of [[Latin America]] and the USSR in much of Indochina and North Africa.<ref> [https://web.archive.org/web/20080624210152/http://www.systemicpeace.org/PC2005.pdf Peace and Conflict], archived from the original</ref>

After Stalin's death, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] became the Soviet leader after a brief power struggle. On February 25, 1956, Khrushchev shocked the communist bloc with the {{wpl|Secret Speech}} in which he characterized Stalin as a murderous tyrant who sought a "godhead" status by building a [[cult of personality]].<ref>''[[The New York Times]]'': ''Soviets, After 33 Years, Publish Khrushchev's Anti-Stalin Speech'', originally published April 6, 1989. [https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/06/world/soviets-after-33-years-publish-khrushchev-s-anti-stalin-speech.html Archived] (warning: paywall, as usual)</ref> The report of this speech was later leaked to the West by Israeli intelligence services and politically devastated the organized Left in the Western bloc. The [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party of the United States]] alone lost more than 30,000 members in the weeks following the report's publication.<ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'' op-ed: ''[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/opinion/sunday/when-communism-inspired-americans.html When Communism Inspired Americans]'', originally published April 29, 2017, </ref> This also laid the foundations for the Sino-Soviet split, which came to fruition with the Soviets' refusal to provide China with nuclear weapons.<ref> Britannica: [https://www.britannica.com/topic/20th-century-international-relations-2085155/The-Sino-Soviet-split Sino-Soviet split]</ref>

However, the [[Eastern Bloc]] began to decline in the 1980s. Reformist [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] came to power in 1985 and began to slowly open relations with the West, ending decades of [[censorship]]. Partly as a result of this, revolutions created by disillusioned populations occurred throughout the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. This expanded into the Union itself in 1991. A Russian presidency was established, which brought [[Boris Yeltsin]] to power. In a desperate attempt to keep stability, Gorbachev proposed the Union be replaced with a confederation. Hardline communists tried to stop this in the August Coup which failed and was the final blow to the Union. Members began seceding, and then, on December 25, Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet Union fell, despite the 1991 referendum resulting in most of the population voting to stay in the Union.<ref>{{wpa|Soviet Union referendum, 1991#Results}}</ref>  Nevertheless, modern Russia remains a powerful country, at least militarily due to inheriting the bulk of the Soviet arsenal.

== Atrocities ==
{{main|Stalin apologetics}}

{{cquote| The Stalinist project, as it crystallised in late 1920s Russia, is best seen as a ‘modernising counter-revolution.’ In that it crushed the social and cultural gains of [[October Revolution|1917]], it was counter-revolutionary. [[Civil liberties]], dissent, and intellectual freedoms were stamped out, workers’ organisations were subordinated to the party-state, and oppositionists were exiled or murdered.|||Gareth Dale<ref>[https://www.rs21.org.uk/2017/10/26/revolutonary-reflections-after-1917-civil-war-and-modernising-counter-revolution/ "After 1917:Civil and 'Modernising' counter-revolution"]</ref>}}

Besides the actions taken in the Civil War itself, the Soviet Union was from day one a one-party communist state with an extensive and largely uncontrolled police state. Though there were some gains initially, dissent was increasingly suppressed both within and outside the Communist Party which intensified after Lenin's death. Some of the notable actions of the USSR include:

* The [[Holodomor]] and other famines with an estimated death toll between 4.3 to 9.1 million<ref>Stanislav Kulchytsky, "How many of us perished in Holodomor in 1933", Zerkalo Nedeli, 23–29 November 2002. Available online "in Russian". Archived from the original on 21 July 2006. Retrieved 10 January 2003. and "in Ukrainian". Archived from the original on 5 May 2006. Retrieved 1 February 2003.</ref><ref>Volkava, Elena (2012-03-26). "The Kazakh Famine of 1930–33 and the Politics of History in the Post-Soviet Space". Wilson Center. Retrieved 2015-07-09.</ref><ref>Conquest, Robert (1986), The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, Oxford University Press, p. 306, ISBN 0-19-505180-7.</ref>
* Forced labour in the Gulag system with an estimated death toll between 1,053,829<ref>Pool, The Stalinist Penal System, p. 131</ref> to 6 million<ref>Alexopoulos, Golfo (2017).Illness and Inhumanity in Stalin's Gulag. Yale University Press</ref>
* Ethnic cleansing with a death toll of 790,000<ref>Pohl, J. Otto (1997). The Stalinist Penal System. McFarland. p. 58, 148. ISBN 0786403365. Pohl cites Russian archival sources for the death toll in the special settlements from 1941-49</ref> to 1.5 million<ref>Naimark, Norman M. Stalin's Genocides (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity). Princeton University Press, 2010. p. 131. ISBN 0-691-14784-1</ref>

== Economy ==
{{main|command economy}}
When founded, the USSR was under the policy of "war communism" and after the Kronstadt Revolt, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was implemented which was seen by the Bolsheviks as a necessary evil to rebuild the economy. While mostly successful,<ref>Britannica: [https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Economic-Policy-Soviet-history New Economic Policy]</ref> the NEP was also assailed by the Scissor Crisis in 1923 due to the growth of agricultural production causing the prices of agricultural products to drop. Meanwhile, due to a lack of industrial recovery, the price of industrial consumer goods (such as textiles) grew, and the income of peasants dropped.<ref>Seventeen Moments in Soviet History:[https://web.archive.org/web/20151012002442/http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1924-2/scissors-crisis Scissors Crisis]</ref>

After WWII, the Soviet Union rebuilt its devastated economy thanks to massive reparations from East Germany.<ref>East Germany a case study: [https://archive.org/details/eastgermanycount00bura_0/page/44/mode/2up Post War government and reparations]</ref> In terms of housing, the first thirty years were marked by the dismal tsarist legacy, and the conditions worsened under Stalin with millions living in communal squalor. From the early 1950s, the communist government sought to eliminate the housing crisis by constructing large-scale low-cost concrete apartment buildings nicknamed {{wpl|Khrushchyovka}} that were later exported to the Eastern bloc.<ref>[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668138008411295?journalCode=ceas19 Housing in the Soviet Union: Soviet Studies Vol 32] by Henry W Morton</ref>

{{cquote|The issue of labor discipline lay at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between the Soviet elite and its workforce. That "discipline" was slack in Soviet factories has long been noted by Western and Soviet commentators alike: high labor turnover; absenteeism, closely tied to heavy drinking on and off the job; and, more importantly, a highly irregular pace of work, with periods of intense labor (usually involving forced overtime) interspersed with countless opportunities for time-wasting, slow work, and a general disregard for production quality.|||''Labor discipline, the use of work time, and the decline of the Soviet System, 1928-1991'' by Donald Filtzer<ref>[https://libcom.org/files/Labor%20Discipline%20and%20the%20Decline%20of%20the%20Soviet%20System.pdf "Labor discipline and decline of the Soviet System"]</ref>}}

In the 1970s, the USSR's economy become sluggish, and the period became known as the Era of Stagnation. The reason for this was a prioritization of massive military spending and an inefficient agricultural system, along with the usual pitfalls of command economies in failing to produce consumer goods in great quantities and of high quality. The Soviets were forced to import grain from Western countries to feed their population and suffered from decreasing standards of living which never managed to achieve parity with those in the capitalist bloc.<ref>Alpha History: [https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/stagnation-soviet-union/ Stagnation in the Soviet Union]</ref>

Under Gorbachev, some attempts were made at reforming the ailing Soviet economy starting with Uskroeniye ("acceleration") which was abandoned in 1986 after the explosion of Chernobyl.<ref>Bibliotekar:[http://www.bibliotekar.ru/mihail-gorbachev/64.htm Course towards accelerating socio-economic development](''In Russian'')</ref> Later, Gorbachev created the perestroika ("restructuring") program to attempt to replace it.

Some of these reforms included the Law on State Enterprise, passed in July 1987, which stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Under the law, state enterprises were self-financing and had to cover their own expenses (wages, taxes, and supplies) through revenue instead of the government rescuing unprofitable enterprises from bankruptcy.<ref>New York Times:[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/04/world/new-struggle-in-the-kremlin-how-to-change-the-economy.html?pagewanted=1 New struggle in the Kremlin: How to change the economy], originally published on June 4, 1987. (''warning: paywall'')</ref> These reforms proved incapable of transforming the Soviet economy and growing deficits expanded due to an increase in social benefits, causing an expansion of the money supply and loss of control over monetary policy. Likewise, prices increased by 9.5% in 1989 and 29% in 1990.<ref>Britannica: [https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/Economic-policy Soviet Union Economic Policy in the Gorbachev Era]</ref>

==Member "republics"==
{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="text-align:center;" width="100%"
|- bgcolor="#f0f0f0"
! colspan="5" | The Republics of the Soviet Union (1956 — 1989)
|-
!
! width="53px"|Flag
! Republic
! Capital
! Map of the [[Soviet Union]]
|-
| '''1''' || [[Image:Flag of Armenian SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Armenia]] || Yerevan ||width="320px" rowspan="15"|[[Image:USSR Republics Numbered Alphabetically.png|520px|center|Republics of the Soviet Union]]
|-
| '''2''' || [[Image:Flag of Azerbaijan SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Azerbaijan]] || Baku
|-
| '''3''' || [[Image:Flag of Byelorussian SSR.svg|50px]] || Byelorussia (now [[Belarus]]) || Minsk
|-
| '''4''' || [[Image:Flag of Estonian SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Estonia]] || Tallinn
|-
| '''5''' || [[Image:Flag of Georgian SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] || Tbilisi
|-
| '''6''' || [[Image:Flag of Kazakh SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Kazakhstan]] || Alma-Ata (now Almaty)
|-
| '''7''' || [[Image:Flag of Kyrgyz SSR.svg|50px]] || Kirghizia (now [[Kyrgyzstan]]) || Frunze (now Bishkek)
|-
| '''8''' || [[Image:Flag of Latvian SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Latvia]] || Riga
|-
| '''9''' || [[Image:Flag of Lithuanian SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Lithuania]] || Vilnius
|-
| '''10''' || [[Image:Flag of Moldavian SSR.svg|50px]] || Moldavia (now [[Moldova]]) || Kishinev (now Chişinău)
|-
| '''11''' || [[Image:Flag of Russian SFSR.svg|50px]] || [[Russia]] || Moscow ([[Imperialism|also the capital of the USSR as a whole]])
|-
| '''12''' || [[Image:Flag of Tajik SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Tajikistan]] || Dushanbe
|-
| '''13''' || [[Image:Flag of Turkmen SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Turkmenistan]] || Ashkhabad (now Ashgabat)
|-
| '''14''' || [[Image:Flag of Ukrainian SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Ukraine]] || Kiev (now Kyiv)
|-
| '''15''' || [[Image:Flag of Uzbek SSR.svg|50px]] || [[Uzbekistan]] || Tashkent
|}

(From 1940-1956 there was also a 16th Union Republic, the Karelo-Finnish SSR, which was demoted to "Republic" status as a part of Russia.)<ref>{{wpa|Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic}}</ref>

===Even littler countries===
There were also about twenty "autonomous republics" for the smaller [[ethnic group]]s. Their autonomy didn't extend much beyond having their name on the bit of land they inhabited. The even-smaller-than-that ethnic groups also had counties and districts for them, including a {{wpl|Jewish Autonomous Oblast|Jewish Autonomous Region}} in the ancient [[Biblical]] homeland of, er, [[Siberia]]. The USSR's million or so [[Roma]] got jack-all apart from a newspaper. Russia has encouraged agitation in a number of these little places to hurt the less-little independent countries of today, for instance [[South Ossetia]] against Georgia and [[Transnistria]] against Moldova—as if those places ''need'' to get any littler. There is also the puppet states of "Donetsk People's Republic" and the "Luhansk People's Republic" within [[Ukraine]].

==Satellites==
===Loyal (mostly) commies===
These countries were members of the Warsaw Pact, the mutual defence organization created by the Soviet Union to keep its friends close and its enemies closer. East Germany was reunified with West Germany in 1990; Poland, Hungary, and Czechia are now [[NATO]] allies, much to the great annoyance of Russia. The [[Warsaw Pact]] did not survive the end of the Soviet Union, and none of its former member countries are communist any longer.

*[[Albania]] (withdrew from the pact after the split between [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] and the Soviets, now fiercely pro-[[US]] even by post-Soviet NATO member standards)
*[[Bulgaria]]
*[[Czechoslovakia]] ([[Czechia|broken]] in {{wpl|Slovakia|two}} after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact to make spelling easier)
*[[East Germany]] (DDR)<ref group="note">Nothing to do with rhythm [[video game|gaming]] or [[computer]] memory architectures.</ref> (many older Germans still speak of "the [[Berlin Wall|wall]] in the mind," and there's still a substantial disparity between east and west even now, but by all indications, younger Germans don't get the fuss)
*[[Hungary]] (withdrew from the Warsaw Pact after the 1956 revolution but was forced to join again after the Soviet Union invaded it and crushed the revolution). Hungary took a more liberal approach to communism (known colloquially as "Goulash Communism"), which allowed, among other things, the marketing of the Rubik's Cube in the 1980s.<ref>[http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140331-the-best-puzzle-ever Rubik’s Cube: The best puzzle ever?], [[BBC]]</ref>
*[[Poland]] was permitted a remarkable array of personal freedoms and liberties alien to other countries behind the Iron Curtain, partially due to overt [[West]]ern pressure (hundreds of thousands of Poles fought alongside the Allies against the Nazis) but also because of the continued influence of the [[Catholic Church]] within the country. In the 1980s, Poland formed the biggest threat to the well-being of the entire Soviet [[empire]]: the independent Solidarity [[trade union]] led by Lech Wałęsa, which galvanized an inchoate natural opposition to Soviet hegemony, and [[Pope John Paul II]], a Polish native, provided an inspirational figurehead for the deeply Catholic nation. 
*[[Romania]] pursued its own foreign policy under [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]], which included not invading Czechoslovakia.

''Comecon'' was the communist version of the [[European Union]]. Besides the above, members were:
*[[Mongolia]], the second country to turn communist (in 1925), was among the first to follow [[Gorbachev]]'s reforms and bring in [[democracy]] in early 1990.
*[[Vietnam]] remains a Third World country with a love-hate relationship with her powerful Northern neighbour, Red China.
*[[Cuba]] pretty much seems to think it's still 1984.
*[[Yugoslavia]] and Albania, basically only nominal members for all the difference they made.

===Commies that weren't so loyal===
These were Communist countries that either did not join or withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. 

*[[China|People's Republic of China]]
*[[Yugoslavia]]: [[Josip Broz Tito]] independently set up communism in Yugoslavia after his Yugoslav partisans came out on top in World War II (while helped by the Allies). Stalin didn't like that Tito then wouldn't follow his directives and tried to have him killed several times. Tito, understandably, threatened to have Stalin killed in turn and promised whoever he sent wouldn't fail. Stalin backed off and Yugoslavia stayed independent of Soviet control. Tito established a more democratic form of socialism in the 1950s where state enterprises were run by workers' councils. Yugoslav citizens were also given much more freedom to travel and work abroad than in most communist countries. Both these things helped the Yugoslav economy, which remained far better than most during the Cold War. Tito chose to wisely stay out of the conflict between the US and USSR, placing Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement. Whatever its relative merits, though, ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia resulted in the infamous violent breakup of the place in 1991, with a bloody round of wars following. 
*North [[Vietnam]] and, after 1975, unified Vietnam.
*[[Afghanistan]] (as in, not quite, but bloody and pointless enough)
*[[North Korea]] ([[Kim Il-sung]] was upset at Khrushchev for that whole "peaceful coexistence" thing. North Korean propaganda suddenly became anti-Soviet and denounced Khrushchev as a traitor to communism. [[Mao Zedong]] was Kim's new role model… or at least that was until the Cultural Revolution shocked Kim and prompted him to switch his loyalty back to the Soviets. By this time, the U.S.S.R. was led by Brezhnev, who was more to Kim's liking, though still not quite Stalinist enough for him. Kim would continue to play the Soviets and Chinese against each other for the rest of the [[Cold War]], beginning North Korea's long tradition of being a huge annoyance to its allies.

==OK, comrades.  Time for "Гимн СССР"!==
From 1917 to 1944, the ''Internationale'' served as the Soviet [[national anthem]]. Near the end of the [[World War II|Great Patriotic War]] (as the Soviets called it), the government decided to reinvent the anthem, in the hopes of reinventing the country with it, making references to the Soviets' defeat of the Nazis, to instill pride within the population. 
The original version praised the union forged through "the will of the people."  The chorus implored the Motherland to greatness and its people to follow the red flag to freedom. The second verse praised [[Lenin]] for showing the way and Stalin for leading them on.  The third verse encouraged the army to fight on against the "[[Nazi Germany|daring, despicable invaders]]."  This was changed to "we destroyed the invaders" after the war.

By the 1970s, the first verse and the first half of the second verse remained unchanged.  However, mention of Stalin's leadership in the second verse had been replaced by praise for the people's righteousness.  In the third verse, mention of the military's victory over the Nazis was replaced by praise of communism's "deathless ideal."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIzQm0g4OL4 another national anthem] was commissioned.  But the Rooskies didn't like it.  As bombastic, [[Nationalism|nationalistic]], and over-the-top as Гимн СССР's lyrics were<ref group="note">And completely false, like all of USSR's propaganda was.</ref>, its melody and harmony rank among the most gorgeous of any national anthem ever written.<ref group="note">Seriously, listen to it without paying attention to the words some time.  Particularly one of the versions rendered by a large chorus and full orchestra.  You'll feel patriotic all over even if you're not Russian... until you remember the massacres.</ref>  So about five years later, the Russian Federation reintroduced "Гимн СССР" with new lyrics.  (Although they did keep the first lines of the chorus — "Славься Отечество, наше свободное!" — which (roughly translated) means "Sing to the Fatherland and our freedom!")

Intriguingly, both versions of the USSR national anthem and the post-Soviet Russian Federation anthem were written by the same man, Sergey Mikhalkov (1913-2009), who was a real-life example of a "Vicar of Bray."<ref>[http://www.economist.com/node/14400914?story_id=14400914 Sergei Mikhalkov], ''[[The Economist]]''</ref>
;Audio file of the 1944 version of the anthem of the Soviet Union sung in Russian
[[File:Gimn Sovetskogo Soyuza (1944 Vocal).ogg|center|thumb]]

==Mathematics and science in the Soviet Union==
While the Soviet Union made plenty of internationally recognized contributions to pure [[mathematics]] and the natural [[science]]s, it had a habit of ripping off the scientific and technological achievements of the "corrupt, capitalist West" (most notably in the case of the "atomic spies").

===Space exploration===
When it comes to space exploration, the Soviets were quite advanced, neck-and-neck with the US (give or take). They had a lot of initial successes; however, for a variety of reasons, they were not able to win the Moon Race. Despite it running counter to their economic philosophy, the Soviets did not have a unified space agency until 1974, long after the ouster of Nikita Khrushchev. Instead, rival design companies spent their time squabbling for contracts, which led to a general dilution of the Soviet effort. Adding to this, the primary genius behind the Soviet space program in the 1950s and 1960s, Sergei Korolyov, was in very poor health due to spending WW2 in the [[gulag]]s (thanks, Stalin!) and died young. Khrushchev also refused to consistently and adequately fund the many projects going on, leading to the US not only having all their eggs in one basket but in a much better-appointed basket to boot.

That said, the Soviets were able to accomplish some remarkable things, launching the first satellite, the first probe to land on another planet ([[Venus]]), the first man in space, first in orbit, first spacewalk and more. They also were able to come up with a very economical and reliable launch platform, the Soyuz family, which are very reliant and still significantly cheaper than launching the space shuttle, despite not being reusable. The Soviets also came up with their space shuttle, the Buran, which was arguably more advanced in some aspects than the US model. Unfortunately, its development came right before the fall of the Soviet Union, which left the craft in a dilapidated hangar that eventually collapsed, destroying it.

===General woo===
Also, entire branches of science (such as [[genetics]], cybernetics, and [[sociology]]) were known to fall out of favor with the Party because of [[nepotism]] and ideological bias, being ostracized as "[[bourgeois pseudoscience]]". Instead, the state invested in dubious research such as [[abiotic oil]] and [[Lysenkoism]]. This was especially true under Joseph Stalin; however, these started to fade during the era of Khrushchev. The study of [[parapsychology]], however, continued until at least 1975.<ref>[http://www.scribd.com/doc/250102811/Soviet-and-Czechoslovakian-Parapsychology-Research Soviet and Czechoslovakian parapsychology Research]</ref>{{efn|The US was also [[Project Stargate|guilty]] of [[The Men Who Stare at Goats|this]].}}

==See also==
[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F088809-0038, Berlin, East Side Gallery.jpg|thumb|Probably [[w:Socialist fraternal kiss|the only thing]] you know the possessor of furry eyebrows for.]]
*[[Bolshevik]]
*[[Tankie]]
*[[Containment]]
*[[Vladimir Lenin]]: the man who started it all
*[[Joseph Stalin]]: the absolute worst leader of the Soviet Union
*[[Nikita Khrushchev]]: the guy who wrote [[w:On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|a rant]] about Stalin after he died, causing mass hysteria, heart attacks and suicide attempts - by chance, also the [[w:Khrushchev's Thaw|Thaw]].
*Leonid Brezhnev: another guy with -ev at the end of his name. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IicVlLG6D8s Had eyebrows which would put Stalin's mustache to shame.] He also [[w:Socialist fraternal kiss|liked to French kiss men]], although not because he was [[gay]]. 
*[[Mikhail Gorbachev]]: by far the best leader of the Soviet Union
*[[Burma|Union of Buddhist Socialist Republics]]: A modern country otherwise known as Burma

==External links==
*[http://pigwithfaceofboy.blogspot.ca/2010/08/tetris-lyrics.html Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris] (or, the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umEDct4BoGc epic Red Army Choir cover])
*[http://boingboing.net/2014/06/01/list-of-bands-banned-on-soviet.html List of bands banned on Soviet radio, and why], ''Boing Boing''
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyjNWU18XGs The Soviet National Anthem misheard].
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mh3c0hrt8Q Soviet national anthem in 10 different versions]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}
{{nationbox}}

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Categories: Ableism, Anti-Christian bigotry, Antisemitism, Asian history, Authoritarian regimes, Cold War, Communism, Communist states, Denialism, Empires, European history, Fascism, Genocide, Historical countries, History of communism, Homophobia, Misnomers, Imperialism, Politics, Pseudohistory, Pseudoscience promoting organizations, Racism, Russia, Russian history, Socialism, Totalitarianism, Whataboutism