Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (History)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (History)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (History)In the struggle for succession after LENIN's death (1924), STALIN won out over TROTSKY. The NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (1921-28) gave way to full government control of agriculture and industry under the first FIVE-YEAR PLAN (1928-32). By the late 1930s agriculture had been collectivized, largely forcibly; industrialization accelerated; and health and literacy greatly improved. State and party power over all aspects of life was enforced by the SECRET POLICE and bureaucracy; the COMINTERN guided Communist parties abroad. Stalin's purges of the 1930s claimed as victims such Soviet leaders as BUKHARIN, KAMENEV, and ZINOVIEV, and many millions of ordinary citizens. The USSR signed (1939) a nonaggression pact with Germany and, at the start of WORLD WAR II, invaded E Poland, gained a hard-earned victory in the Russo-Finnish War (1939-40), and occupied and forcibly annexed ESTONIA, LATVIA, and LITHUANIA (1940). Following their surprise attack (1941) on the USSR, the Germans overran much of the western part of the country. However, after the Russian triumph (1943) at Stalingrad (now VOLGOGRAD), the USSR began a counteroffensive that ended in Soviet victory. The war left c.20 million Soviet citizens dead. Postwar Soviet relations with the U.S. soon deteriorated into a COLD WAR, and the USSR extended its domination over much of Eastern Europe. After Stalin's death (1953) Soviet domestic and foreign policy became more flexible under Nikita KHRUSHCHEV. In the field of technology the USSR developed (1949) atomic weapons, orbited (1957) the first artificial earth satellite, and launched (1961) the first manned orbital flight. In 1956 revolts against Soviet influence were suppressed in HUNGARY and POLAND. The USSR took part in talks on nuclear DISARMAMENT, but provoked (1962) the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. Khrushchev was replaced in 1964, and by 1970 Leonid BREZHNEV had emerged as the most powerful Soviet leader. After Brezhnev's death in 1982, Yuri ANDROPOV and then Konstantin CHERNENKO served briefly as head of the government. Chernenko's successor was Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985). Gorbachev initiated political and economic reforms intended to liberalize and revitalize Soviet society while preserving central state and party control. The two principles of his policy were perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). Economic perestroika, aimed at decentralizing the command economy and providing limited opportunities for land ownership and free enterprise, produced few discernible results. Shortages of food and consumer goods became more acute than ever. Political perestroika, coupled with glasnost, had the effect of opening the system to more rapid and radical changes. The new Congress of People's Deputies and Supreme Soviet publicly debated, criticized, and investigated government policies. The end of repressive political controls permitted nationalist and separatist movements to arise in the constituent republics, and ethnic hostilities flared. In 1991 Gorbachev reached an agreement on power sharing with the leaders of nine of the republics, but the imminent signing of this agreement provoked a coup attempt (Aug. 1991) by hard-liners in the central government. Opposition to the coup, particularly by the Russian Republic government of Boris YELTSIN, led to its collapse and a rapid shift of power to reformers and the republics. Gorbachev resigned as leader of the Communist party, and the party was stripped of its property and suspended. Constituent republics declared their independence (all had already declared their sovereignty), and a new government was formed that gave far greater power to the republics. One of its first acts was to recognize the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Attempts by Gorbachev to negotiate a new, permanent economic and political union to replace the USSR failed to find a formula satisfactory to the republics. On Dec. 8, 1991, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine agreed to form the COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES, rendering the Gorbachev government superfluous, and Russia began expropriating the ministries and property of the USSR by decree. A new commonwealth agreement was signed (Dec. 21) by 11 republics and replaced the old, centralized union with an association of independent nations; Gorbachev resigned four days later. Fifteen countries and the commonwealth emerged from the collapse of the USSR, but in most respects Russia is the true successor of the Soviet Union.