In the Scandinavian sagas, Ancient Rus', which had not yet experienced the pogrom of the Tatar-Mongol invasion, was called Gardarikia - the country of cities. Nowadays the Soviet Union is rightly called the country of new cities. Young cities are growing next to veterans - Novgorod, Kiev, Moscow, Minsk, Yerevan, Samarkand and the like. Now more than half of all cities in the USSR were formed after 1917. Their emergence occurred in two ways: by maturing from rural settlements and by creating them in a clean place.
Cities that arose from scratch began from scratch. Their names - Magnitogorsk, Komsomolsk, Norilsk, Angarsk, Bratsk, Rustavi, Sumgait... - sound like a hymn to selfless work.
The emergence of new cities is natural, since it is associated with the development of new areas and new resources. After all, old cities most often cannot be miners due to their distance from mineral deposits.
In addition, they make it difficult for city planners to act. With the help of new standard cities, we seem to be looking into the future.
The birth of a city is a significant event. Previously, when laying it, they fired from cannons. Nowadays, the custom of installing a memorial stone with an inscription in honor of this has become part of life. Many cities that arose during the pre-war five-year plans began with tents. For example, the monument to the first tent erected in Magnitogorsk reminds us of this. These are different times: the cities of Novaya Kakhovka and Volzhsky immediately received major development, Zelenograd near Moscow does not know barracks.
There are exactly 11 years between the two population censuses - 1959 and 1970. During this time, 274 new names appeared on the lists of cities. Dozens of settlements, having passed the stage of an urban-type settlement, as if successfully completing their “candidate's experience”, entered the ranks of cities. The names of some “newcomers” sometimes betray their rural origin: Sergeevka, Zimogorye, Nosovka, Alekseevka, Berezovka, Snegirevka, Chernushka, Zhukovka, Kovylkino, Shemonaikha... Other of the emerging cities took care of new names: Suetikha became Biryusinsky, and the workers’ village The Mikhailovsky farm is the town of Druzhba.
Among the new cities there are also those experiencing a rebirth. For example, quiet, green Oster in the Chernigov region in 1961 again became a city, and its first birth dates back to 1008; then, under Vladimir Monomakh, it was known as a formidable fortress. But perhaps the most famous of these cities is Surgut, which was in the 16th century. an active city on the main route from the capital Siberian Tobolsk to the east to the legendary Mangazeya, Tomsk, Yeniseisk, Irkutsk and which played an outstanding role in the era of the annexation of Siberia. But already from the middle of the 17th century. it discovered its economic irrelevance and two centuries later ceased to be a city. In our time, with the discovery of West Siberian oil, Surgut has bright prospects. The Ust-Balyk - Tyumen - Omsk oil pipeline begins nearby; the railway from the city of Tobolsk comes here, making its way through forest thickets and swamps.
Among the young cities there are also those that grew out of ancient industrial centers, which for decades, and sometimes centuries, lived as a factory or plant. One of them is Abaza, which became a city in 1966. This is an old village that arose in 1867 at the Abakan Metallurgical Plant. His name Abaza was made up of the first syllables of the name “Abakan Plant”.
The professions of the new cities are diverse. Most of them begin their lives in industrial centers. Among them there are especially many so-called resource cities, the location of which is determined by the geography of resources. Therefore, some of them climb high into the mountains, others cling to the sea coasts, and others bravely walk into the taiga or into the sultry desert.
Many new cities arose near mineral deposits. Others were based on powerful hydraulic and thermal power plants. Thus, the city of Stuchka arose with the largest hydroelectric power station on the Daugava, the Bukhtarma hydroelectric station on the Irtysh, and Serebryansk, the most powerful in the world, the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, with Divnogorsk.
A special kind of resources contributed to the emergence of new resort towns: Jurmala on the coast of the Gulf of Riga, Neringa on the Curonian Spit, Birštonas on the banks of the Neman. New resort towns have appeared in Transcarpathia - Yaremcha, in Armenia - Jermuk, in the North Caucasus - Krasnaya Polyana.
Along with resource cities, there is a significant group of new-build cities based on the manufacturing industry. Some of them gravitate towards large economic centers, becoming their satellites. Among such cities, Zelenograd should be especially noted. It began to be built in 1960, 40 km from Moscow, and 10 years later it already had 73 thousand inhabitants. Currently, a satellite city of the capital of the Soviet Union - Moscow - Zelenograd is developing as a center of progressive branches of science. Its production part is separated from the residential part by green space. New building materials - aluminum alloys and plastic - are widely used in Zelenograd. The city is not separated from nature. The once tiny Skhodnya has been transformed with the help of a dam into a large reservoir. Satellite cities also include Olaine (near Riga), Zavolzhye (near Gorky), Zhodino (near Minsk), etc.
Chemistry also served as the basis for the emergence of cities. For example, Kirishi near Leningrad and Novopolotsk in Belarus grew up near new giant oil refineries. Coke chemistry laid the foundation for the town of Vidnoe near Moscow. In different regions of the country, new cities emerged, large centers for the production of cement - the “bread of construction”: Akhangaran in Uzbekistan, Bezmein in Turkmenistan, Naueyi-Akmyan in Lithuania, Gornozavodsk in the Urals.
The role of transport is also great in the birth of cities. With its development, more and more nodal points with city-forming potential appear. Such are Oktyabrsk, located at the intersection of the roads Guryev - Orsk and Orenburg - Tashkent, Yesil, where the path to the bauxite mines of Arkalyk branches off from Yuzhsib. Ob, Lenek, Anadyr, Pevek, Sovetabad, Grebenka, Rybnoye, Chu, Vorozhba, Druzhba are also transport cities.
Due to their youth, new cities tend to have one profession. However, such highly specialized centers have some disadvantages. Therefore, they gradually strive for “part-time work”, acquiring additional professions. Vivid examples of this are the city of Tchaikovsky, born of the Botkin hydroelectric power station, where a silk fabric factory was built and a synthetic rubber plant was being built, as well as Charentsavan, which arose at the Gyumush hydroelectric power station and at the same time became a center for the production of machine tools, tools and the construction materials industry. The most numerous among new cities are city-regional centers that directly interact with their rural district. They are a kind of “jack of all trades” who serve the surrounding area. Reflecting the economic appearance of their region, they often form regional types. Pallasovka and Krasny Kut in the Saratov Trans-Volga region, Izobilny in the North Caucasus mainly provide bread. In the Moldovan cities of Edinet and Kotovsk, surrounded by gardens and vineyards. Winemaking and canning of vegetables and fruits are developed. And located in the fertile Kakheti region, Kvareli is a wine-growing city. It houses a huge wine storage facility: 13 tunnels, each half a kilometer long, where about 2 million deciliters of wine are aged.
New cities are pushing the boundaries of the developed territory. In the Far North, in the deserts of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, and the mountains of Southern Siberia, they continue the work begun by Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Norilsk, Magadan.
One of the remarkable features of the territorial distribution of new cities that have arisen in recent years is their more intensive formation in the southern regions of the country, which, as a rule, have better natural conditions for settlement.
New cities are rising as milestones on the path of our Motherland's movement towards communism - centers of science and large-scale industry, health resorts and transport hubs, satellites of large cities. The Soviet Union entered the 9th Five-Year Plan. Behind the lines of the Directives of the XXIV Congress of the Communist Party are new cities that will appear in the coming years.
USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or Soviet Union for short)
- a former state that existed in Eastern Europe and Asia.
The USSR was a superpower-empire (in a figurative sense), a stronghold of socialism in the world.
The country existed from 1922 to 1991.
The Soviet Union occupied one-sixth of the total surface area of the Earth. It was the largest country in the world.
The capital of the USSR was Moscow.
There were many large cities in the USSR: Moscow, Leningrad (modern St. Petersburg), Sverdlovsk (modern Yekaterinburg), Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Ufa, Kuibyshev (modern Samara), Gorky (modern Nizhny Novgorod), Omsk, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Saratov, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkov, Minsk, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Baku, Alma-Ata.
The population of the USSR before its collapse was about 250 million people.
The Soviet Union had land borders with Afghanistan, Hungary, Iran, China, North Korea, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Finland, and Czechoslovakia.
The length of the land borders of the Soviet Union was 62,710 kilometers.
By sea, the USSR bordered the USA, Sweden and Japan.
The size of the former empire of socialism was impressive:
a) length - more than 10,000 km from the extreme geographical points (from the Curonian Spit in the Kaliningrad region to Ratmanov Island in the Bering Strait);
b) width - more than 7,200 km from the extreme geographical points (from Cape Chelyuskin in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug of the Krasnoyarsk Territory to the city of Kushka in the Mary region of the Turkmen SSR).
The shores of the USSR were washed by twelve seas: the Kara, Barents, Baltic, Laptev Sea, East Siberian, Bering, Okhotsk, Japanese, Black, Caspian, Azov, Aral.
There were many mountain ranges and systems in the USSR: the Carpathians, the Crimean Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, the Pamir Range, the Tien Shan Range, the Sayan Range, the Sikhote-Alin Range, the Ural Mountains.
The Soviet Union had the largest and deepest lakes in the world: Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega, Lake Baikal (the deepest in the world).
There were as many as five climate zones on the territory of the Soviet Union.
On the territory of the USSR there were areas where there was a polar day and a polar night for four months a year and only polar moss grew in the summer, and areas where there was never snow all year round and palm trees and citrus trees grew.
The Soviet Union had eleven time zones. The first zone differed from universal time by two hours, and the last by as much as thirteen hours.
The administrative-territorial division of the USSR rivaled in its complexity only the modern administrative-territorial division of Great Britain. The administrative units of the first level were the union republics: Russia (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), Belarus (Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic), Ukraine (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), Kazakhstan (Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic), Moldova (Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic), Georgia (Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic), Armenia (Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic), Turkmenistan (Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic), Tajikistan (Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic), Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic), Uzbekistan (Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic), Lithuania (Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic), Latvia (Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic), Estonia (Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic).
The republics were divided into administrative units of the second level - autonomous republics, autonomous okrugs, autonomous regions, territories and regions. In turn, autonomous republics, autonomous okrugs, autonomous regions, territories and regions were divided into administrative units of the third level - districts, and those, in turn, were divided into administrative units of the fourth level - city, rural and township councils. Some republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Armenia, Moldova) were immediately divided into second-level administrative units - into districts.
Russia (RSFSR) had the most complex administrative-territorial division. It included:
a) cities of union subordination - Moscow, Leningrad, Sevastopol;
b) autonomous Soviet socialist republics - Bashkir ASSR, Buryat ASSR, Dagestan ASSR, Kabardino-Balkarian ASSR, Kalmyk ASSR, Karelian ASSR, Komi ASSR, Mari ASSR, Mordovian ASSR, North Ossetian ASSR, Tatar ASSR, Tuva ASSR, Udmurt ASSR, Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic;
c) autonomous regions - Adygea Autonomous Okrug, Gorno-Altai Autonomous Okrug, Jewish Autonomous Okrug, Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Okrug, Khakass Autonomous Okrug;
d) regions - Amur, Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Vladimir, Volgograd, Vologda, Voronezh, Gorky, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Kalinin, Kaluga, Kamchatka, Kemerovo, Kirov, Kostroma, Kuibyshev, Kurgan, Kursk, Leningrad, Lipetsk Magadan, Moscow, Murmansk, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Oryol, Penza, Perm, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan Saratov, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Tambov, Tomsk, Tula, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Chita, Yaroslavl:
e) autonomous districts: Aginsky Buryat Autonomous District, Komi-Permyak Autonomous District, Koryak Autonomous District, Nenets Autonomous District, Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous District, Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous District, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, Chukotka Autonomous District, Evenki Autonomous District, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
f) territories - Altai, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Primorsky, Stavropol, Khabarovsk.
Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR) included only regions. Its members included: Vinnitskaya. Volyn, Voroshilovgrad (modern Lugansk), Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zhitomir, Transcarpathian, Zaporozhye, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kiev, Kirovograd, Crimean (until 1954 part of the RSFSR), Lviv, Nikolaev, Odessa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil , Kharkov, Kherson, Khmelnitsky, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv regions.
Belarus (BSSR) consisted of regions. It included: Brest, Minsk, Gomel, Grodno, Mogilev, Vitebsk regions.
Kazakhstan (KazSSR) consisted of regions. It included: Aktobe, Alma-Ata, East Kazakhstan, Guryev, Dzhambul, Dzhezkazgan, Karaganda, Kzyl-Orda, Kokchetav, Kustanai, Mangyshlak, Pavlodar, North Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk, Taldy-Kurgan, Turgai, Ural, Tselinograd , Shymkent region.
Turkmenistan (TurSSR) included five regions: Chardzhou, Ashgabat, Krasnovodsk, Mary, Tashauz;
Uzbekistan (UzSSR) included one autonomous republic (Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), the city of republican subordination of Tashkent and the regions: Tashkent, Fergana, Andijan, Namangan, Syrdarya, Surkhandarya, Kashkadarya, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khorezm.
Georgia (GrSSR) consisted of the city of republican subordination of Tbilisi, two autonomous republics (Abkhazian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and Adjarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) and one autonomous region (South Ossetian Autonomous Okrug).
Kyrgyzstan (KyrSSR) consisted of only two regions (Osh and Naryn) and the city of republican subordination of Frunze.
Tajikistan (Tad SSR) consisted of one autonomous region (Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Okrug), three regions (Kulyab, Kurgan-Tube, Leninabad) and the city of republican subordination - Dushanbe.
Azerbaijan (AzSSR) consisted of one autonomous republic (Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), one autonomous region (Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Okrug) and the city of republican subordination of Baku.
Armenia (Armenian SSR) was divided only into districts and a city of republican subordination - Yerevan.
Moldova (MSSR) was divided only into districts and the city of republican subordination - Chisinau.
Lithuania (Lithuanian SSR) was divided only into districts and the city of republican subordination - Vilnius.
Latvia (LatSSR) was divided only into districts and the city of republican subordination - Riga.
Estonia (ESSR) was divided only into districts and the city of republican subordination - Tallinn.
The USSR has gone through a difficult historical path.
The history of the empire of socialism begins with the period when the autocracy collapsed in tsarist Russia. This happened in February 1917, when a Provisional Government was formed in place of the defeated monarchy.
The provisional government failed to restore order in the former empire, and the ongoing First World War and the failures of the Russian army only contributed to the further escalation of unrest.
Taking advantage of the weakness of the Provisional Government, the Bolshevik Party led by V.I. Lenin organized an armed uprising in Petrograd at the end of October 1917, which led to the elimination of the power of the Provisional Government and the establishment of Soviet power in Petrograd.
The October Revolution led to an escalation of violence in a number of regions of the former Russian Empire. A bloody Civil War began. The fire of war engulfed all of Ukraine, the western regions of Belarus, the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, the Caucasus and Turkestan. For about four years, Bolshevik Russia waged a bloody war against supporters of the restoration of the old regime. Part of the territories of the former Russian Empire was lost, and some countries (Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) declared their sovereignty and unwillingness to accept the new Soviet government.
Lenin pursued the single goal of creating the USSR - the creation of a powerful power capable of resisting any manifestation of counter-revolution. And such a power was created on December 29, 1922 - Lenin’s Decree on the formation of the USSR was signed.
Immediately after the formation of the new state, it initially included only four republics: Russia (RSFSR), Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR), Belarus (BSSR) and Transcaucasia (Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (ZSFSR)).
All government bodies of the USSR came under the strict control of the Communist Party. No decision was made on the spot without the approval of the party leadership.
The highest authority in the USSR during the time of Lenin was the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
After Lenin's death, a struggle for power in the country broke out in the highest echelons of power. With equal success, I.V. Stalin, L.D. Trotsky,
G.I. Zinoviev, L.B. Kamenev, A.I. Rykov. The future dictator-tyrant of the totalitarian USSR, J.V. Stalin, turned out to be the most cunning of all. Initially, in order to destroy some of his competitors in the struggle for power, Stalin teamed up with Zinoviev and Kamenev into the so-called “troika”.
At the XIII Congress, the question of who would become the leaders of the Bolshevik Party and the country after Lenin’s death was decided. Zinoviev and Kamenev managed to rally most of the communists around themselves and most of them voted for I.V. Stalin. So a new leader appeared in the country.
Having led the USSR, Stalin first began to strengthen his power and get rid of his recent supporters. This practice was soon adopted by the entire Stalinist circle. Now, after the elimination of Trotsky, Stalin took Bukharin and Rykov as his allies in order to jointly oppose Zinoviev and Kamenev.
This struggle of the new dictator continued until 1929. This year, all of Stalin’s strong competitors were exterminated; there were no more competitors to him in the struggle for power in the country.
In parallel with the internal party struggle, until 1929, Lenin’s NEP (New Economic Policy) was carried out in the country. During these years, private enterprise was not yet completely prohibited in the country.
In 1924, the new Soviet ruble was introduced into circulation in the USSR.
In 1925, at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a course was set for collectivization and industrialization of the entire country. The first five-year plan is being developed. Dispossession of lands began, millions of kulaks (rich landowners) were exiled to Siberia and the Far East, or were driven away from good fertile lands and received in return waste lands that were not suitable for agriculture.
Forced collectivization and dispossession caused an unprecedented famine in 1932-1933. Ukraine, the Volga region, Kuban, and other parts of the country were starving. Cases of theft in the fields have become more frequent. A notorious law was adopted (popularly called the “Law of Three Ears”), according to which anyone caught with even a handful of grain was sentenced to long prison terms and long-term exile to the regions of the Far North, Siberia and the Far East.
1937 was marked by a year of mass repressions. The repressions primarily affected the leadership of the Red Army, which seriously weakened the country's defense in the future and allowed the army of Nazi Germany to reach almost unhindered almost all the way to Moscow.
The mistakes of Stalin and his leadership cost the country dearly. However, there were also positive aspects. As a result of industrialization, the country has reached second place in the world in terms of industrial production.
In August 1939, just before the start of World War II, a non-aggression treaty and the division of Eastern Europe (the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) was concluded between Nazi Germany and the USSR.
After World War II began, the USSR and Germany divided the territory of Poland between themselves. The USSR included Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, and subsequently Bessarabia (became part of the Moldavian SSR). A year later, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were included in the USSR, which were also turned into union republics.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany, violating the non-aggression pact, began bombing Soviet cities from the air. Hitler's Wehrmacht crossed the border. The Great Patriotic War began. The main production facilities were evacuated to the Far East, Siberia and the Urals, and the population was evacuated. At the same time, a complete mobilization of the male population into the active army was carried out.
The initial stage of the war was affected by the strategic mistakes made by the Stalinist leadership in previous years. There were few new weapons in the army, and the fact that
there was, inferior in its characteristics to the German. The Red Army was retreating, many people were captured. Headquarters threw more and more units into battle, but this did not have much success - the Germans stubbornly advanced towards Moscow. In some sectors of the front, the distance to the Kremlin was no more than 20 kilometers, and on Red Square, according to eyewitnesses of those times, artillery cannonade and the roar of tanks and airplanes could already be heard. German generals could observe the center of Moscow through their binoculars.
Only in December 1941 did the Red Army go on the offensive and push the Germans back 200-300 kilometers to the west. However, by spring, the Nazi command managed to recover from defeat and changed the direction of the main attack. Now Hitler’s main goal was Stalingrad, which opened up further advance to the Caucasus, to the oil fields in the area of Baku and Grozny.
In the summer of 1942, the Germans came close to Stalingrad. And by the end of autumn, fighting was already taking place in the city itself. However, the German Wehrmacht was unable to advance beyond Stalingrad. In the middle of winter, a powerful offensive of the Red Army began, a 100,000-strong group of Germans under the command of Field Marshal Paulus was captured, and Paulus himself was captured. The German offensive failed, moreover, it ended in complete defeat.
Hitler planned to take his last revenge in the summer of 1943 in the Kursk region. The famous tank battle took place near Prokhorovka, in which a thousand tanks from each side took part. The Battle of Kursk was lost again, and from that moment the Red Army began its rapid advance westward, liberating more and more territories.
In 1944, all of Ukraine, the Baltic states and Belarus were liberated. The Red Army reached the state border of the USSR and rushed to Europe, to Berlin.
In 1945, the Red Army liberated most of the countries of Eastern Europe from the Nazis and entered Berlin in May 1945. The war ended with the complete victory of the USSR and their allies.
In 1945, Transcarpathia became part of the USSR. A new Transcarpathian region was formed.
After the war, the country was again gripped by famine. Factories and factories did not work, schools and hospitals were destroyed. The first five post-war years were very difficult for the country, and only in the early fifties the situation in the country of the Soviets began to improve.
In 1949, the atomic bomb was invented in the USSR as a symmetrical response to the US attempt at nuclear dominance in the world. Relations with the United States deteriorate and the Cold War begins.
In March 1953, J.V. Stalin dies. The era of Stalinism in the country is ending. The so-called “Khrushchev thaw” is coming. At the next party congress, Khrushchev sharply criticized the former Stalinist regime. Tens of thousands of political prisoners are being released from numerous camps. Mass rehabilitation of the repressed begins.
In 1957, the world's first artificial Earth satellite was launched in the USSR.
In 1961, the world's first manned spacecraft was launched in the USSR with the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
During the time of Khrushchev, in contrast to the NATO bloc created by Western countries, the Warsaw Pact Organization was created - a military alliance of Eastern European countries that had taken the socialist path of development.
After Brezhnev came to power, the first signs of stagnation began to appear in the USSR. Industrial production growth has slowed. The first signs of party corruption began to appear in the country. The Brezhnev leadership and Brezhnev himself did not realize that the country was facing the need for fundamental changes in politics, ideology, and economics.
With Mikhail Gorbachev coming to power, the so-called “perestroika” began. A course was taken towards the wholesale eradication of domestic drunkenness, towards the development of private
entrepreneurship. However, all the measures taken did not produce positive results - in the late eighties it became clear that the huge empire of socialism had cracked and was beginning to fall apart, and the final collapse was only a matter of time. In the Union republics, especially in the Baltic states and Ukraine, a massive growth of nationalist sentiments began, associated with the declaration of independence and separation from the USSR.
The first impetus for the collapse of the USSR was the bloody events in Lithuania. This republic was the first of all the union republics to declare its secession from the USSR. Lithuania was then supported by Latvia and Estonia, which also declared their sovereignty. Events in these two Baltic republics developed more peacefully.
Then Transcaucasia began to boil. Another hot spot has emerged - Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia announced the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan responded by launching a blockade. A war began that lasted for five years, now the conflict is frozen, but tensions between the two countries remain.
Around the same time, Georgia separated from the USSR. A new conflict begins on the territory of this country - with Abkhazia, which wished to secede from Georgia and become a sovereign country.
In August 1991, a putsch begins in Moscow. The so-called State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) was created. This was the last attempt to save the dying USSR. The putsch failed, Gorbachev was actually removed from power by Yeltsin. Immediately after the failure of the putsch, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the Central Asian republics and Moldova declared their independence and were proclaimed sovereign states. The most recent countries to proclaim their sovereignty are Belarus and Russia.
In December 1991, a meeting of the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, held in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus, stated that the USSR as a state no longer exists and annulled Lenin’s decree on the formation of the USSR. An agreement was signed to create the Commonwealth of Independent States.
So the empire of socialism ceased to exist, just one year short of its 70th anniversary.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union) is a state that existed from December 1922 to December 1991 on the territory of the former Russian Empire. Was the largest state in the world. Its area was equal to 1/6 of the land. Now on the territory of the former USSR there are 15 countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova and Turkmenistan.
The country's territory was 22.4 million square kilometers. The Soviet Union occupied vast territories in Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia, stretching from west to east for almost 10 thousand km and from north to south for almost 5 thousand km. The USSR had land borders with Afghanistan, Hungary, Iran, China, North Korea, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Finland, Czechoslovakia and only sea borders with the USA, Sweden and Japan. The Soviet Union's land border was the longest in the world, measuring over 60,000 km.
The territory of the Soviet Union had five climate zones and was divided into 11 time zones. Within the USSR there was the largest lake in the world - the Caspian and the deepest lake in the world - Baikal.
The natural resources of the USSR were the richest in the world (their list included all the elements of the periodic table).
Administrative division of the USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics positioned itself as a single union multinational state. This norm was enshrined in the 1977 Constitution. The USSR included 15 allied - Soviet socialist - republics (RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, BSSR, Uzbek SSR, Kazakh SSR, Georgian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Moldavian SSR, Latvian SSR, Kirghiz SSR, Tajik SSR, Armenian SSR, Turkmen SSR , Estonian SSR), 20 autonomous republics, 8 autonomous regions, 10 autonomous okrugs, 129 territories and regions. All of the above administrative-territorial units were divided into districts and cities of regional, regional and republican subordination.
The population of the USSR was (millions):
in 1940 - 194.1,
in 1959 - 208.8,
in 1970 - 241.7,
in 1979 - 262.4,
in 1987 -281.7.
The urban population (1987) was 66% (for comparison: in 1940 - 32.5%); rural - 34% (in 1940 - 67.5%).
More than 100 nations and nationalities lived in the USSR. According to the 1979 census, the most numerous of them were (in thousands of people): Russians - 137,397, Ukrainians - 42,347, Uzbeks - 12,456, Belarusians - 9463, Kazakhs - 6556, Tatars - 6317, Azerbaijanis - 5477, Armenians - 4151, Georgians - 3571, Moldovans - 2968, Tajiks - 2898, Lithuanians - 2851, Turkmens - 2028, Germans - 1936, Kyrgyz - 1906, Jews - 1811, Chuvash - 1751, peoples of the Republic of Dagestan - 1657, Latvians - 1439 , Bashkirs - 1371, Mordovians - 1192, Poles - 1151, Estonians - 1020.
The 1977 Constitution of the USSR proclaimed the formation of “a new historical community - the Soviet people.”
The average population density (as of January 1987) was 12.6 people. per 1 square km; in the European part the density was much higher - 35 people. per 1 square km., in the Asian part - only 4.2 people. per 1 square km. The most densely populated regions of the USSR were:
- Center. areas of the European part of the RSFSR, especially between the Oka and Volga rivers.
- Donbass and Right Bank Ukraine.
- Moldavian SSR.
- Certain regions of Transcaucasia and Central Asia.
The largest cities of the USSR
The largest cities of the USSR, the number of inhabitants in which exceeded one million people (as of January 1987): Moscow - 8815 thousand, Leningrad (St. Petersburg) - 4948 thousand, Kiev - 2544 thousand, Tashkent - 2124 thousand, Baku - 1741 thousand, Kharkov - 1587 thousand, Minsk - 1543 thousand, Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) - 1425 thousand, Novosibirsk - 1423 thousand, Sverdlovsk - 1331 thousand, Kuibyshev (Samara) - 1280 thousand, Tbilisi - 1194 thousand, Dnepropetrovsk - 1182 thousand, Yerevan - 1168 thousand, Odessa - 1141 thousand, Omsk - 1134 thousand, Chelyabinsk - 1119 thousand, Almaty - 1108 thousand, Ufa - 1092 thousand, Donetsk - 1090 thousand, Perm - 1075 thousand, Kazan - 1068 thousand, Rostov-on-Don - 1004 thousand.
Throughout its history, the capital of the USSR was Moscow.
Social system in the USSR
The USSR declared itself as a socialist state, expressing the will and protecting the interests of the working people of all nations and nationalities inhabiting it. Democracy was officially declared in the Soviet Union. Article 2 of the 1977 USSR Constitution proclaimed: “All power in the USSR belongs to the people. The people exercise state power through the Soviets of People's Deputies, which form the political basis of the USSR. All other government bodies are controlled and accountable to the Councils of People’s Deputies.”
From 1922 to 1937, the All-Union Congress of Soviets was considered the collective governing body of the state. From 1937 to 1989 Formally, the USSR had a collective head of state - the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In the intervals between its sessions, power was exercised by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1989-1990 The head of state was considered the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR; in 1990-1991. - President of the USSR.
Ideology of the USSR
The official ideology was formed by the only party allowed in the country - the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), which, according to the 1977 Constitution, was recognized as “The leading and directing force of Soviet society, the core of its political system, state and public organizations.” The leader - the General Secretary - of the CPSU actually owned all the power in the Soviet Union.
Leaders of the USSR
The actual leaders of the USSR were:
- Chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars: V.I. Lenin (1922 - 1924), I.V. Stalin (1924 - 1953), G.M. Malenkov (1953 - 1954), N.S. Khrushchev (1954-1962).
- Chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Council: L.I. Brezhnev (1962 - 1982), Yu.V. Andropov (1982-1983), K.U. Chernenko (1983 - 1985), M.S. Gorbachev (1985-1990).
- President of the USSR: M.S. Gorbachev (1990 - 1991).
According to the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR, signed on December 30, 1922, the new state included four formally independent republics - the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan);
In 1925, the Turkestan ASSR was separated from the RSFSR. On its territories and on the lands of the Bukhara and Khiva People's Soviet Republics the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR were formed;
In 1929, the Tajik SSR, which had previously been an autonomous republic, was separated from the Uzbek SSR as part of the USSR;
In 1936, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was abolished. The Georgian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, and Armenian SSR were formed on its territory.
In the same year, two more autonomies were separated from the RSFSR - the Cossack Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. They were transformed, respectively, into the Kazakh SSR and the Kirghiz SSR;
In 1939, Western Ukrainian lands (Lvov, Ternopil, Stanislav, Dragobych regions) were annexed to the Ukrainian SSR, and Western Belarusian lands (Grodno and Brest regions), obtained as a result of the division of Poland, were annexed to the BSSR.
In 1940, the territory of the USSR expanded significantly. New union republics were formed:
- Moldavian SSR (created from part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was part of the Ukrainian SSR, and part of the territory transferred to the USSR by Romania),
- Latvian SSR (formerly independent Latvia),
- Lithuanian SSR (formerly independent Lithuania),
- Estonian SSR (formerly independent Estonia).
- Karelo-Finnish SSR (formed from the Autonomous Karelian ASSR, which was part of the RSFSR, and part of the territory annexed after the Soviet-Finnish War);
- The territory of the Ukrainian SSR increased due to the inclusion of the Chernivtsi region, formed from the territory of Northern Bukovina transferred by Romania, into the republic.
In 1944, the Tuva Autonomous Region (formerly independent Tuva People's Republic) became part of the RSFSR.
In 1945, the Kaliningrad region (East Prussia, separated from Germany) was annexed to the RSFSR, and the Transcarpathian region, voluntarily transferred by socialist Czechoslovakia, became part of the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1946, new territories became part of the RSFSR - the southern part of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands, conquered from Japan.
In 1956, the Karelo-Finnish SSR was abolished, and its territory was again included in the RSFSR as the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
Main stages of the history of the USSR
1. New economic policy (1921 - 1928). The reform of state policy was caused by a deep socio-political crisis that gripped the country as a result of miscalculations in the policy of “war communism”. X Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1921 on the initiative of V.I. Lenin decided to replace the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind. This marked the beginning of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Other reforms include:
- small industry was partially denationalized;
- private trade is allowed;
- free hiring of labor in the USSR. In industry, labor conscription will be abolished;
- reform of economic management - weakening of centralization;
- transition of enterprises to self-financing;
- introduction of the banking system;
- monetary reform is being carried out. The goal is to stabilize the Soviet currency against the dollar and pound sterling at the gold parity level;
- cooperation and joint ventures based on concessions are encouraged;
- In the agricultural sector, renting land using hired labor is allowed.
The state left only heavy industry and foreign trade in its hands.
2. “The Great Leap Forward Policy” of I. Stalin in the USSR. Late 1920-1930s Includes industrial modernization (industrialization) and collectivization of agriculture. The main goal is to rearm the armed forces and create a modern, technically equipped army.
3. Industrialization of the USSR. In December 1925, the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) proclaimed a course towards industrialization. It provided for the start of large-scale industrial construction (power plants, Dnieper hydroelectric power station, reconstruction of old enterprises, construction of giant factories).
In 1926-27 - gross output exceeded the pre-war level. Growth of the working class by 30% compared to 1925
In 1928, a course towards accelerated industrialization was proclaimed. The 1st 5-year plan was approved in its maximum version, but the planned increase in production of 36.6% was fulfilled by only 17.7%. In January 1933, the completion of the first 5-year plan was solemnly announced. It was reported that 1,500 new enterprises were put into operation and unemployment was eliminated. The industrialization of industry continued throughout the history of the USSR, but it was accelerated only during the 1930s. It was as a result of the successes of this period that it was possible to create a heavy industry, which in its indicators exceeded those of the most developed Western countries - Great Britain, France and the USA.
4. Collectivization of agriculture in the USSR. Agriculture lagged behind the rapid development of industry. It was the export of agricultural products that the government considered as the main source of attracting foreign currency for industrialization. The following measures have been taken:
1) On March 16, 1927, a decree “On collective farms” was issued. The need to strengthen the technical base on collective farms and eliminate equalization in wages was declared.
2) Exemption of the poor from agricultural taxes.
3) Increase in the amount of tax for kulaks.
4) The policy of limiting the kulaks as a class, and then its complete destruction, a course towards complete collectivization.
As a result of collectivization in the USSR, a failure was recorded in the agro-industrial complex: the gross grain harvest was planned at 105.8 million poods, but in 1928 it was possible to collect only 73.3 million, and in 1932 - 69.9 million.
Great Patriotic War 1941-1945
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. On June 23, 1941, the Soviet leadership established the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. On June 30, the State Defense Committee was created, headed by Stalin. During the first month of the war, 5.3 million people were drafted into the Soviet army. In July they began to create units of the people's militia. A partisan movement began behind enemy lines.
At the initial stage of the war, the Soviet army suffered defeat after defeat. The Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine were abandoned, and the enemy approached Leningrad and Moscow. On November 15, a new offensive began. In some areas, the Nazis came within 25-30 km of the capital, but were unable to advance further. On December 5-6, 1941, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive near Moscow. At the same time, offensive operations began on the Western, Kalinin and Southwestern fronts. During the offensive in the winter of 1941/1942. The Nazis were thrown back in a number of places to a distance of up to 300 km. from the capital. The first stage of the Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 - December 5-6, 1941) ended. The plan for a lightning war was thwarted.
After an unsuccessful offensive near Kharkov at the end of May 1942, Soviet troops soon left Crimea and retreated to the North Caucasus and Volga. . On November 19-20, 1942, the counter-offensive of Soviet troops began near Stalingrad. By November 23, 22 fascist divisions numbering 330 thousand people were surrounded at Stalingrad. On January 31, the main forces of the encircled German troops, led by Field Marshal Paulus, surrendered. On February 2, 1943, the operation to completely destroy the encircled group was completed. After the victory of the Soviet troops at Stalingrad, a great turning point in the Great Patriotic War began.
In the summer of 1943, the Battle of Kursk took place. On August 5, Soviet troops liberated Oryol and Belgorod, on August 23, Kharkov was liberated, and on August 30, Taganrog. At the end of September, the crossing of the Dnieper began. On November 6, 1943, Soviet units liberated Kyiv.
In 1944, the Soviet Army launched an offensive on all sectors of the front. On January 27, 1944, Soviet troops lifted the blockade of Leningrad. In the summer of 1944, the Red Army liberated Belarus and most of Ukraine. The victory in Belarus opened the way for an offensive into Poland, the Baltic states and East Prussia. On August 17, Soviet troops reached the border with Germany.
In the fall of 1944, Soviet troops liberated the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. On September 4, Germany's ally Finland withdrew from the war. The result of the offensive of the Soviet Army in 1944 was the complete liberation of the USSR.
On April 16, 1945, the Berlin operation began. On May 8, Germany capitulated. The hostilities in Europe ended.
The main result of the war was the complete defeat of Nazi Germany. Humanity was freed from slavery, world culture and civilization were saved. As a result of the war, the USSR lost a third of its national wealth. Almost 30 million people died. 1,700 cities and 70 thousand villages were destroyed. 35 million people were left homeless.
The restoration of Soviet industry (1945 - 1953) and the national economy took place in the USSR under difficult conditions:
1) Lack of food, difficult working and living conditions, high morbidity and mortality rates. But an 8-hour working day, annual leave were introduced, and forced overtime was abolished.
2) Conversion was completely completed only by 1947.
3) Labor shortage in the USSR.
4) Increased migration of the population of the USSR.
5) Increased transfer of funds from villages to cities.
6) Redistribution of funds from the light and food industries, agriculture and social sphere in favor of heavy industry.
7) The desire to implement scientific and technical developments in production.
There was a drought in the village in 1946, which led to large-scale famine. Private trade in agricultural products was allowed only to those peasants whose collective farms fulfilled state orders.
A new wave of political repression began. They affected party leaders, the military, and the intelligentsia.
Ideological thaw in the USSR (1956 - 1962). Under this name, the reign of the new leader of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, went down in history.
On February 14, 1956, the 20th Congress of the CPSU took place, at which the personality cult of Joseph Stalin was condemned. As a result, partial rehabilitation of the enemies of the people was carried out, and some repressed peoples were allowed to return to their homeland.
Investments in agriculture increased 2.5 times.
All debts from collective farms were written off.
MTS - material and technical stations - were transferred to collective farms
Taxes on personal plots are increasing
The course for the development of the Virgin Lands is 1956; it is planned to develop and sow grain on 37 million hectares of land in Southern Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan.
The slogan appeared - “Catch up and overtake America in the production of meat and milk.” This led to excesses in livestock farming and agriculture (the sowing of large areas with corn).
1963 - The Soviet Union purchases grain for gold for the first time since the revolutionary period.
Almost all ministries were abolished. The territorial principle of management was introduced - the management of enterprises and organizations was transferred to economic councils formed in economic administrative regions.
Period of stagnation in the USSR (1962 - 1984)
Followed Khrushchev's thaw. Characterized by stagnation in socio-political life and lack of reforms
1) A steady decline in the rate of economic and social development of the country (industrial growth decreased from 50% to 20%, in agriculture - from 21% to 6%).
2) Stage lag.
3) A slight increase in production is achieved by increasing the production of raw materials and fuel.
In the 70s, there was a sharp lag in agriculture, and a crisis in the social sphere was emerging. The housing problem has become extremely acute. There is a growth of the bureaucratic apparatus. The number of all-Union ministries increased from 29 to 160 over 2 decades. In 1985, they employed 18 million officials.
Perestroika in the USSR (1985 - 1991)
A set of measures to solve the accumulated problems in the Soviet economy, as well as the political and social system. The initiator of its implementation was the new General Secretary of the CPSU M.S. Gorbachev.
1.Democratization of public life and the political system. In 1989, elections of people's deputies of the USSR took place, in 1990 - elections of people's deputies of the RSFSR.
2.Transition of the economy to self-financing. Introduction of free market elements in the country. Permit for private entrepreneurship.
3. Glasnost. Pluralism of opinions. Condemnation of the policy of repression. Criticism of communist ideology.
1) A deep socio-economic crisis that has engulfed the entire country. Economic ties between republics and regions within the USSR gradually weakened.
2) The gradual destruction of the Soviet system on the ground. Significant weakening of the union center.
3) The weakening of the influence of the CPSU on all aspects of life in the USSR and its subsequent ban.
4) Exacerbation of interethnic relations. National conflicts undermined state unity, becoming one of the reasons for the destruction of the union statehood.
The events of August 19-21, 1991 - the attempted coup d'etat (GKChP) and its failure - made the process of collapse of the USSR inevitable.
The V Congress of People's Deputies (held on September 5, 1991) surrendered its powers to the USSR State Council, which included the highest officials of the republics, and the Supreme Council of the USSR.
September 9 - The State Council officially recognized the independence of the Baltic states.
On December 1, the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian population approved the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine in a national referendum (August 24, 1991).
On December 8, the Belovezhskaya Agreement was signed. The Presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk and S. Shushkevich announced the unification of their republics into the CIS - the Commonwealth of Independent States.
By the end of 1991, 12 former republics of the Soviet Union joined the CIS.
On December 25, 1991, M. Gorbachev resigned, and on December 26, the Council of Republics and the Supreme Council officially recognized the dissolution of the USSR.
Occupied a sixth of the planet. The area of the USSR is forty percent of Eurasia. The Soviet Union was 2.3 times larger than the United States and quite a bit smaller than the continent of North America. The area of the USSR is most of northern Asia and eastern Europe. About a quarter of the territory was in the European part of the world, the remaining three quarters lay in Asia. The main area of the USSR was occupied by Russia: three quarters of the entire country.
The largest lakes
In the USSR, and now in Russia, there is the deepest and cleanest lake in the world - Baikal. This is the largest fresh water reservoir created by nature, with unique fauna and flora. It’s not for nothing that people have long called this lake the sea. It is located in the center of Asia, where the border of the Republic of Buryatia and the Irkutsk region passes, and stretches for six hundred and twenty kilometers like a giant crescent. The bottom of Lake Baikal is 1167 meters below ocean level, and its surface is 456 meters higher. Depth - 1642 meters.
Another Russian lake, Ladoga, is the largest in Europe. It belongs to the Baltic (sea) and Atlantic (ocean) basins, its northern and eastern shores are in the Republic of Karelia, and its western, southern and southeastern shores are in the Leningrad region. The area of Lake Ladoga in Europe, like the area of the USSR in the world, has no equal - 18,300 square kilometers.
The largest rivers
The longest river in Europe is the Volga. It is so long that the peoples who inhabited its shores gave it different names. It flows in the European part of the country. This is one of the largest waterways on earth. In Russia, a huge part of the territory adjacent to it is called the Volga region. Its length was 3690 kilometers, and its drainage area was 1,360,000 square kilometers. On the Volga there are four cities with a population of more than a million people - Volgograd, Samara (in the USSR - Kuibyshev), Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod (in the USSR - Gorky).
In the period from the 30s to the 80s of the twentieth century, eight huge hydroelectric power stations were built on the Volga - part of the Volga-Kama cascade. The river flowing in Western Siberia, the Ob, is even fuller, although a little shorter. Starting in Altai, it runs across the entire country into the Kara Sea for 3,650 kilometers, and its drainage basin is 2,990,000 square kilometers. In the southern part of the river there is the man-made Ob Sea, formed during the construction of the Novosibirsk hydroelectric power station, an amazingly beautiful place.
Territory of the USSR
The western part of the USSR occupied more than half of all Europe. But if we take into account the entire area of the USSR before the collapse of the country, then the territory of the western part was barely a quarter of the entire country. The population, however, was significantly higher: only twenty-eight percent of the country's inhabitants settled throughout the vast eastern territory.
In the west, between the Ural and Dnieper rivers, the Russian Empire was born and it was here that all the prerequisites for the emergence and prosperity of the Soviet Union appeared. The area of the USSR changed several times before the collapse of the country: some territories were annexed, for example, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Baltic states. Gradually, the largest agricultural and industrial enterprises were organized in the eastern part, thanks to the presence of diverse and rich mineral resources there.
Borderland in length
The borders of the USSR, since our country is now, after the separation of fourteen republics from it, the largest in the world, are extremely long - 62,710 kilometers. From the west, the Soviet Union stretched eastward for ten thousand kilometers - ten time zones from the Kaliningrad region (Curonian Spit) to Ratmanov Island in the Bering Strait.
From south to north, the USSR ran for five thousand kilometers - from Kushka to Cape Chelyuskin. It had to border on land with twelve countries - six of them in Asia (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China and North Korea), six in Europe (Finland, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania). The territory of the USSR had maritime borders only with Japan and the USA.
The borderland is wide
From north to south, the USSR stretched for 5000 km from Cape Chelyuskin in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug of the Krasnoyarsk Territory to the Central Asian city of Kushka, Mary region of the Turkmen SSR. The USSR bordered by land with 12 countries: 6 in Asia (North Korea, China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey) and 6 in Europe (Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway and Finland).
By sea, the USSR bordered on two countries - the USA and Japan. The country was washed by twelve seas of the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The Thirteenth Sea is the Caspian, although in all respects it is a lake. That is why two-thirds of the borders were located along the seas, because the area of the former USSR had the longest coastline in the world.
Republics of the USSR: unification
In 1922, at the time of the formation of the USSR, it included four republics - the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR. Then there were disengagements and replenishments. In Central Asia, the Turkmen and Uzbek SSRs were formed (1924), and there were six republics within the USSR. In 1929, the autonomous republic located in the RSFSR was transformed into the Tajik SSR, of which there were already seven. In 1936, Transcaucasia was divided: three union republics were separated from the federation: the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Georgian SSR.
At the same time, two more Central Asian autonomous republics, which were part of the RSFSR, were separated as the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR. There were eleven republics in total. In 1940, several more republics were admitted to the USSR, and there were sixteen of them: the Moldavian SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Latvian SSR and Estonian SSR joined the country. In 1944, Tuva joined, but the Tuva Autonomous Region did not become an SSR. The Karelo-Finnish SSR (ASSR) changed its status several times, so there were fifteen republics in the 60s. In addition, there are documents according to which in the 60s Bulgaria asked to join the ranks of the union republics, but Comrade Todor Zhivkov’s request was not granted.
Republics of the USSR: collapse
From 1989 to 1991, the so-called parade of sovereignties took place in the USSR. Six of the fifteen republics refused to join the new federation - the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics and declared independence (Lithuanian SSR, Latvian, Estonian, Armenian and Georgian), and the Moldavian SSR declared the transition to independence. Despite all this, a number of autonomous republics decided to remain part of the union. These are Tatar, Bashkir, Checheno-Ingush (all Russia), South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Georgia), Transnistria and Gagauzia (Moldova), Crimea (Ukraine).
Collapse
But the collapse of the USSR took on a landslide character, and in 1991 almost all the union republics declared independence. It was also not possible to create a confederation, although Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Belarus decided to conclude such an agreement.
Then Ukraine held a referendum on independence and the three founding republics signed the Belovezhskaya agreements to dissolve the confederation, creating the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) at the level of an interstate organization. The RSFSR, Kazakhstan and Belarus did not declare independence and did not hold referendums. Kazakhstan, however, did this later.
Georgian SSR
It was formed in February 1921 under the name of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since 1922, it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR as part of the USSR, and only in December 1936 directly became one of the republics of the Soviet Union. The Georgian SSR included the South Ossetian Autonomous Region, the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Adjarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In the 70s, the dissident movement under the leadership of Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Mirab Kostava intensified in Georgia. Perestroika brought new leaders to the Georgian Communist Party, but they lost the elections.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared independence, but Georgia was not satisfied with this, and the invasion began. Russia took part in this conflict on the side of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2000, the visa-free regime between Russia and Georgia was abolished. In 2008 (August 8), a “five-day war” occurred, as a result of which the Russian President signed decrees recognizing the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as sovereign and independent states.
Armenia
The Armenian SSR was formed in November 1920, at first it was also part of the Transcaucasian Federation, and in 1936 it was separated and directly became part of the USSR. Armenia is located in the south of Transcaucasia, bordering Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. The area of Armenia is 29,800 square kilometers, the population is 2,493,000 people (1970 census). The capital of the republic is Yerevan, the largest city among twenty-three (by comparison with 1913, when there were only three cities in Armenia, one can imagine the volume of construction and the scale of development of the republic during its Soviet period).
In addition to cities, twenty-eight new urban-type settlements were built in thirty-four districts. The terrain is mostly mountainous and harsh, so almost half of the population lived in the Ararat Valley, which makes up only six percent of the total territory. The population density is very high everywhere - 83.7 people per square kilometer, and in the Ararat Valley - up to four hundred people. In the USSR, there was greater crowding only in Moldova. Also, favorable climatic and geographical conditions attracted people to the shores of Lake Sevan and the Shirak Valley. Sixteen percent of the territory of the republic is not covered by a permanent population at all, because it is impossible to live for a long time at altitudes above 2500 above sea level. After the collapse of the country, the Armenian SSR, already a free Armenia, experienced several very difficult (“dark”) years of blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, the confrontation with which has a centuries-old history.
Belarus
The Belarusian SSR was located in the west of the European part of the USSR, bordering on Poland. The area of the republic is 207,600 square kilometers, the population is 9,371,000 people as of January 1976. National composition according to the 1970 census: 7,290,000 Belarusians, the rest was divided into Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and a very small number of people of other nationalities.
Density - 45.1 people per square kilometer. The largest cities: the capital - Minsk (1,189,000 inhabitants), Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Grodno, Bobruisk, Baranovichi, Brest, Borisov, Orsha. In Soviet times, new cities appeared: Soligorsk, Zhodino, Novopolotsk, Svetlogorsk and many others. In total, there are ninety-six cities and one hundred and nine urban-type settlements in the republic.
The nature is mainly of the flat type, in the north-west there are moraine hills (Belarusian ridge), in the south under the swamps of the Belarusian Polesie. There are many rivers, the main ones are the Dnieper with Pripyat and Sozh, Neman, Western Dvina. In addition, there are more than eleven thousand lakes in the republic. The forest occupies a third of the territory, mostly coniferous.
History of the Byelorussian SSR
It was established in Belarus almost immediately after the October Revolution, after which occupation followed: first German (1918), then Polish (1919-1920). In 1922, the BSSR was already part of the USSR, and in 1939 it was reunited with Western Belarus, separated from Poland in connection with the treaty. In 1941, the socialist society of the republic fully rose up to fight the Nazi-German invaders: partisan detachments operated throughout the territory (there were 1,255 of them, almost four hundred thousand people took part in them). Since 1945, Belarus has been a member of the UN.
Communist construction after the war was very successful. The BSSR was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of Friendship of Peoples and the Order of the October Revolution. From an agrarian poor country, Belarus has transformed into a prosperous and industrial one, having established close ties with the rest of the union republics. In 1975, the level of industrial production exceeded the level of 1940 by twenty-one times, and the level of 1913 by one hundred and sixty-six. Heavy industry and mechanical engineering developed. The following power stations were built: Berezovskaya, Lukomlskaya, Vasilevichskaya, Smolevichskaya. Peat (the oldest in the industry) has grown into oil production and processing.
Industry and standard of living of the population of the BSSR
By the seventies of the twentieth century, mechanical engineering was represented by machine tool building, tractor manufacturing (the well-known Belarus tractor), automobile manufacturing (the giant Belaz, for example), and radio electronics. The chemical, food, and light industries developed and strengthened. The standard of living in the republic has increased steadily; in the ten years since 1966, national income has grown two and a half times, and real income per capita has almost doubled. Retail turnover of cooperative and state trade (including public catering) has increased tenfold.
In 1975, the amount of deposits reached almost three and a half billion rubles (in 1940 it was seventeen million). The republic has become educated, moreover, education has not changed to this day, since it has not departed from the Soviet standard. The world highly appreciated such fidelity to principles: colleges and universities of the republic attract a huge number of foreign students. Two languages are used here equally: Belarusian and Russian.
According to official sources of information, the population of the USSR was constantly increasing, the birth rate was rising, and the death rate was falling. It’s like a demographic paradise in one country. But, in fact, everything was not so simple.
Population censuses in the USSR and initial demographic data
During Soviet times, seven all-Union censuses were conducted, covering the entire population of the state. The 1939 census was “superfluous”; it was carried out instead of the 1937 census, the results of which were considered incorrect, since only the actual population was taken into account (the number of people who are in a certain locality on the day of the census). On average, the population census of the republics of the Soviet Union was carried out every ten years.
According to the general census conducted back in 1897 in the then Russian Empire, the population was 129.2 million people. Only men, representatives of tax-paying classes, were taken into account, so the number of persons from non-tax-paying classes and females is unknown. Moreover, a certain number of people from the tax-paying classes hid in order to avoid the census, so the data is underestimated.
Population census of the Soviet Union 1926
In the USSR, the population size was first determined in 1926. Before this, there was no well-established system of state demographic statistics in Russia at all. Some information, of course, was collected and processed, but not everywhere, and only bit by bit. The 1926 census became one of the best in the USSR. All data was openly published, analyzed, forecasts were developed, and research was conducted.
The reported population of the USSR in 1926 was 147 million. The majority were rural residents (120.7 million). About 18% of citizens, or 26.3 million people, lived in cities. Illiteracy was more than 56% among people aged 9-49 years. There were less than one million unemployed. For comparison: in modern Russia with a population of 144 million people (of which 77 million are economically active), 4 million are officially unemployed, and almost 19.5 million are not officially employed.
The majority of the population of the USSR (according to years and statistics, demographic processes can be observed, some of which will be discussed in detail below) were Russians - almost 77.8 million people. Further: Ukrainians - 29.2 million, Belarusians - 47.4 million, Georgians - 18.2 million, Armenians - 15.7 million. There were also Turks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Chuvashs, Bashkirs in the USSR, Yakuts, Tajiks, Ossetians and representatives of many other nationalities. In a word, it is truly a multinational state.
Dynamics of the population of the USSR by year
It can be said that the total population of the Union grew year by year. There was a positive trend, which, according to statistics, was overshadowed only by the Second World War. Thus, the population of the USSR in 1941 was 194 million people, and in 1950 - 179 million. But is everything really so rosy? In fact, demographic information (including the population of the USSR in 1941 and previous years) was kept secret, even to the point of falsification. As a result, in 1952, after the death of the leader, demographic statistics and demography were literally a scorched desert.
But more on that later. For now, let’s observe general demographic trends in the Land of Soviets. Here is how the population of the USSR changed over the years:
- 1926 - 147 million people.
- 1937 - the census was declared “sabotage”, the results were seized and classified, and the workers who carried out the census were arrested.
- 1939 - 170.6 million
- 1959 - 208.8 million.
- 1970 - 241.7 million
- 1979 - 262.4 million.
- 1989 - 286.7 million
This information is unlikely to make it possible to determine demographic processes, but there are also intermediate results, research, and accounting data. In any case, the population of the USSR by year is an interesting field for research.
Classification of demographic data since the early 30s
The classification of demographic information has been going on since the early thirties. Demographic institutes were liquidated, publications disappeared, and repression fell upon the demographers themselves. In those years, even the total population of the USSR was not known. 1926 was the last year in which statistics were collected more or less clearly. The results of 1937 did not suit the country's leadership, but the results of 1939, apparently, turned out to be more favorable. Only six years after Stalin’s death and 20 years after the 1926 census, a new census was carried out; according to these data, one can judge the results of Stalin’s rule.
The decline in the birth rate in the USSR under Stalin and the ban on abortion
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Russia had a really high birth rate, but by the mid-1920s it had decreased very significantly. The rate of decline in the birth rate accelerated even more after 1929. The maximum depth of the fall was reached in 1934. To normalize the numbers, Stalin banned abortion. The years following this were marked by some increase in the birth rate, but insignificant and short-lived. Then - war and a new fall.
According to official estimates, the population of the USSR grew over the years due to a fall in mortality and an increase in the birth rate. With the birth rate, it is already clear that everything was completely different. But as for mortality, by 1935 it had decreased by 44% compared to 1913. But many years had to pass for researchers to get to real data. In fact, the mortality rate in 1930 was not the declared 16 ppm, but about 21.
The main causes of demographic catastrophes
Modern researchers identify several demographic catastrophes that overtook the USSR. Of course, one of them was the Second World War, in which, according to Stalin, losses amounted to “about seven million.” Now it is believed that approximately 27 million died in battles and battles, which amounted to about 14% of the population. Other demographic catastrophes included political repression and famine.
Some events of demographic policy in the USSR
In 1956, abortion was allowed again, in 1969 a new Family Code was adopted, and in 1981 new child care benefits were established. In the country from 1985 to 1987. An anti-alcohol campaign was carried out, which somewhat contributed to the improvement of the population situation. But in the nineties, due to the deepest economic crisis, practically no actions were taken in the field of demography at all. The population of the USSR in 1991 was 290 million people.