(USSR, Soviet Union), state that existed in 1922–91 in most of the territory of the former Russian Empire.
- Byelorussian SSR (BSSR),
- Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR),
- Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (TSFSR), which included the Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR, Georgian SSR ( since 1936 were part of the USSR as independent union republics),
- Ukrainian SSR (UkrSSR).
Subsequently the following were formed:
- Uzbek SSR, Turkmen SSR ( 1925 ),
- Tajik SSR ( 1929 ),
- Kazakh SSR ( 1936 ),
- Kirghiz SSR ( 1936 ),
- Moldavian SSR ( 1940 ),
- Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Estonian SSR ( 1940 ),
- Karelo-Finnish SSR ( 1940; since 1956 Karelian ASSR as part of the RSFSR).
From the beginning of the 20s, and especially after the death of V.I. Lenin (see Vladimir Ilyich Lenin), a sharp political struggle for power unfolded in the country's leadership. Authoritarian methods of leadership, used by I.V. Stalin to establish a regime of individual power, took hold.
From the mid-20s. The New Economic Policy (NEP) began to be rolled back, and then accelerated industrialization and forced collectivization began. The Communist Party has completely subjugated government agencies. A strictly centralized and militarized social system was created in the country, the purpose of which was to quickly modernize the country and support the revolutionary movement in other countries. Massive repressions, especially after 1934, affected all sectors of society; Forced labor took on unprecedented proportions in the Gulag system. By the end of the 30s. A developed industry was created in the country, focused primarily on defense needs.
At the end of the 30s. There were sharp changes in the country's foreign policy, a departure from the course of collective security. Soviet-German treaties were concluded in 1939, according to which later the USSR included Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, in 1940 - the Baltic countries, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
Once, while communicating with an acquaintance from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the conversation turned to the great history of the USSR. My interlocutor advised me to “Google” the title of this post. I didn’t pay much attention to this, but a couple of days later I remembered the conversation and followed the advice...
At first, everything seemed like some kind of nonsense to me, and only the title of my friend and my personal attitude towards him made me read into it more carefully. Within a few hours, I doubted my citizenship.
They decided everything for us.
The signing in Belovezhskaya Pushcha of a 3-party Agreement on the creation of the CIS (December 8, 1991), in which it was announced that the USSR “ceases to exist,” did not correspond to the legislation in force at that time and contradicted the will of the people, when 76.4% of Soviet citizens voted for preservation of the USSR. In addition, the existence of an inter-republican CIS does not abolish the USSR. The Soviet Union's membership in the United Nations was not legally terminated. The Bialowieza Agreement was not properly ratified and was not submitted to the UN Secretariat as required.
Inviolability and integrity state territory The USSR was enshrined and has not yet been abolished in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1.09.1975): “The participating states believe that their borders can be changed, in accordance with international law, peacefully and by agreement... States - the participants consider as inviolable all the borders of each other, as the borders of all states in Europe ... they will accordingly refrain from any demands or actions aimed at seizing and usurping part or all of the territory of any participating state.”
So, there are no legal obstacles to the existence and revival of the USSR. Moreover, the Constitution of Russia, adopted in a referendum, does not contain any provisions banning the existence of the USSR and proclaims the people to be the only source of power in Russia. And since this source never spoke out for the collapse of the USSR, the stated opinion has not yet been refuted by anyone. What do you think about numerous lawyers – and not only lawyers?
Legally, the USSR remains in existence. The annulment of the 1922 Union Treaty is nonsense, since the treaty itself was annulled by the adoption of the 1936 Constitution.
The referendum on March 17, 1991 (here it is, the will of the people, which political demagogues love to refer to!) confirmed that the overwhelming majority of Soviet people still consider historical Russia their homeland. The Belovezhsky Accords were ratified by the Supreme Council of Russia, which was abolished after Yeltsin’s Decree 1400 of September 22, 1993 (which automatically made the decisions of the Supreme Court illegal). However, the Belovezhskaya Agreements themselves were annulled by the State Duma on March 16, 1996. Although our “free” press prefers to remain silent on this matter, the fact remains that the USSR continues to exist precisely as a subject of international law.
But not only was the opinion of the people completely ignored, but the constitutional procedure for secession from the Union was violated. In accordance with the law, it was required: to hold a referendum as an application for exit; negotiations on the border, division of property, army, etc. within 5 years; in the event of a mutually acceptable outcome of the negotiations, a second referendum. The signatories themselves asserted in the statement that they “have the right” to dissolve the USSR, since the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR and BSSR were the founders of the Union, who signed the treaty in 1922. However, among the founders were the Transcaucasian Federation, which then included Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Therefore, at least for the appearance of legitimacy, it was necessary to invite representatives of these republics.
Thus, citizen Shushkevich S.S. in conspiracy with citizens Yeltsin B.N. and Kravchuk L.M. on the night of December 8, 1991, in Viskuli (Belovezhskaya Pushcha of the Belarusian USSR), they trampled on the will of the people expressed on March 17, 1991 during the All-Union referendum on the preservation of the USSR, grossly violated the Constitution and laws of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, exceeded their powers: dissolved the union Treaty of 1922 and announced the dissolution of the USSR, transferring the powers of the Union to the ruling elite of the Russian Federation.
The creation of the Russian Federation has many violations. For example, not a single Act on the transfer of assets from the USSR Pension Fund to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation has yet been discovered, the same for Social Security, the passport office and military registration. Yeltsin simply changed the sign from the State of the USSR to the Private Business Corporation LLC RF, without having any authority.
On October 15, 1993, B. Yeltsin committed another malfeasance by replacing the referendum with a popular vote - he held a vote for the adoption of the DRAFT Constitution of the Russian Federation. Further, by replacing the name of the country of the RSFSR with the Russian Federation in the Law on Citizenship No. 1848-1 of November 28, 1991, misleading people, he transfers them from the USSR to the Russian Federation.
USSR Shrugged (Revolver ITV) - 07/25/2016. Interview with an independent expert on anti-corruption activities and (you will be surprised) the acting Head of the Sverdlovsk Region of the RSFSR
Karma doesn't allow me to post a video. Who is interested: www.youtube. com/watch?v=IVlu7DH3JbQ
What is most interesting is that people who do not accept Russian passports (there are several hundred of them in the Nizhny Novgorod region) and sue officials who refuse to accept Soviet passports ALWAYS WIN their cases in court.
"Government of Russia" (DUNS - 531298725) is registered by D&B in the USA. Legal entity of the Russian Federation (Russian Federation) - officially registered in the world register of legal entities as a commercial organization, the executive director of the company is a citizen of the USSR D. A. Medvedev.
Here you can see the form of the document, which is a legal argument in defending our Soviet citizenship.
About the passport
The Russian Federation passport is an illegal document issued to citizens of the USSR outside the Law, since the Russian Federation Law “On the Russian Federation Passport” does not exist (is absent). USSR passports of the 1974 model were confiscated from citizens of the USSR illegally and fraudulently. The RF insert in the USSR Passport confirms an obvious act of fraud. It was with him that citizens of the USSR began to be charged with non-existent citizenship of the Russian Federation by persons abusing their official powers. And then they completely stole our USSR passports
What do we know about the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation? That this is a company registered as “health care administration” by type of activity. This is a business qualification awarded to them by the US. Therefore, in violation of all norms, the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation has nothing to do with resolving issues related to migration and conferring Russian citizenship on anyone who has a birth certificate in the USSR.
Constitutional fraud!
In the Russian Federation, no one has ever even raised the question of citizens of the USSR voting for the Constitution of the Russian Federation, since they voted for the DRAFT Constitution of the Russian Federation!
The Constitution of the Russian Federation is an illegal and invalid declaration, because citizens of the Russian Federation did not exist at the time of the “adoption” of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, just as citizens of the Russian Federation still do not exist in the quantities declared based on the voting results. The draft Constitution of the Russian Federation still had to go through 3 stages: discussion, amendments to the text and submission of the final version to a popular vote, and only citizens of the Russian Federation could vote for the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which, as we have already indicated, does not exist.
The legality of USSR citizenship is determined by the USSR Law “On Citizenship of the USSR”, which has not been repealed. A person's citizenship is determined by the citizenship of his parents and is confirmed by a Birth Certificate, or an identity card of a citizen of the USSR: a Passport, a Military Card or an ID card of an officer of the USSR. Reason: Articles 13, 14, Law of the USSR of May 23, 1990 N 1518-1 “On Citizenship of the USSR.” The grounds for loss, termination, renunciation of citizenship, or deprivation of USSR citizenship are reflected in Section III of the Law.
Yeltsin B.N., signing the Decree on a form with the coat of arms of the RSFSR, was in the position of President of the RSFSR. However, he declared himself the president of the still non-existent Russian Federation, abusing his official position and committing legal forgery (fraud), that is, committing a crime!
USSR citizenship will help you to be completely free from paying loans, taxes, fines and other unreasonable payments in favor of foreign jurisdictions on the territory of the USSR, since citizens of the USSR are not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of the Russian Federation or other foreign jurisdictions operating on the territory of the USSR.
Citizens of the RSFSR, the USSR, who did not leave the sovereignty of the USSR state either voluntarily, or according to documents, or as a result of a popular vote, remain such to this day and we warn you that any actions are outside the jurisdiction of the laws, decrees and documents of the Russian Federation (“Russian Federation", registered in Bisnode D&B Deutschland, Robert-Bosch-Strabe 11, 64293 Darmstadt, DUNS company number 531 298 725) in relation to the rights and freedoms of citizens of the USSR is illegal, illegal, illegitimate and falls under Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR "Treason to the Motherland" .
Taking into account that the establishment of constitutional law and order is impossible without the restoration of government and management bodies, as well as other bodies government controlled The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which, for one reason or another, fictitious subjects of law found themselves at the disposal of foreign subjects of law, but with the restoration of the authorities and management of the USSR, demands the return to the state of the USSR of everything that it had before the collapse of the authorities and management, starting with citizens USSR and ending with everything illegally exported, sold or destroyed.
Is a citizen of the USSR obliged to repay the loan to the RF Bank?
The conflict is that no one repealed Soviet laws, no one deprived USSR citizenship, and the Russian Federation cannot refuse to recognize the laws of the USSR as valid, since there is not a single legal basis for this. Moreover, even raising a discussion of such an issue is disastrous for the Russian Federation, since there are the results of the all-Union referendum of March 17, 1991 on the preservation of the USSR.
But the situation becomes even more ridiculous for banks, since the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation itself also established the priority of the laws of the USSR over the laws of the Russian Federation in the fundamentals of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation - paragraph 4 of Art. 15, since the Union Treaty is international for the Russian Federation, and international treaties have established priority over the laws of the Russian Federation.
Thus, the banks fell into the trap of the priority of the laws of the USSR and banks cannot prove that these laws have been repealed or have lost their legal force, no matter how much they fantasize.
The Russians have come up with a way not to pay loans - according to Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation...
08-01-2016
Residents of the Nyurbinsky district of Yakutia were the first to come up with such an initiative. Several people immediately embarrassed employees of the regional department of the FSB by sending them letters with competent explanations of why they refused to pay the loan. Such information, with reference to media2, is quickly spread by bloggers.
“I, so-and-so, took out a loan from the bank, but then I didn’t know that the bank’s founders were foreign companies whose head offices were located in NATO member countries. “I am not against repaying the loan, but I cannot, since these acts fall under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, namely, providing financial assistance to a foreign state, international or foreign organization or their representatives in activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation.”
The following is a note that, according to the law, persons who have committed crimes under this article are exempt from criminal liability if they notify the authorities about this. All this is written out on four pages, with detailed justification. Now the FSB is thinking about what to do with these statements.
As noted, the letters were written very competently. Moreover, it turns out that the applicants are formally right. On the other hand, if a precedent is created, a major scandal may break out. Counterintelligence officers have ten days to make a decision.
“If we consider that the founders of network companies are registered in Cyprus, the Cayman Islands, etc. (but not in Russia) - soon we will be able not to pay for utilities. There is no point in helping enemies,” this is the spirit of commentary on this news on social networks, which seems to have found universal approval among the residents of the country.
Secrets of the Russian passport. What do Russian citizens not know?
Russian citizenship is a fiction. How did we become migrants in our own country, the USSR?
A camouflage passport is a passport issued on behalf of a non-existent country or legal entity whose legitimacy is not supported by documents. The only thing that distinguishes them from fake passports is that these passports are printed on real, but obsolete forms. A camouflage passport can be issued on behalf of a defunct state (for example, South Vietnam), on behalf of a state that has changed its name (for example, Upper Volta is now called Burkina Faso), on behalf of a real state that never issued passports, or from a fictitious state (for example, the Russian Federation or other legal entities created on the territory of the USSR after the All-Union referendum on the preservation of the USSR on March 17, 1991).
Citizens do not become citizens upon reaching the age at which “Russian Federation citizen” certificates are issued, in which there is NO birth information. Citizens become citizens AT THE PLACE OF BIRTH, FROM THE MOMENT OF BIRTH. Any person, from any country, born in the United States is automatically a US citizen. Anyone born on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, automatically. The citizenship of the parents DOES NOT matter. A birth certificate is a certificate of citizenship! Only a birth certificate CONFIRMS the fact of your citizenship! NOT A PASSPORT!
The absence of the OGRN on the STAMP SEAL in the “Passport of the Russian Federation” indicates the falsity and INVALIDITY of this stamp. Lack of OGRN “department of the Federal Migration Service, division code......? speaks of the lack of status allowing the issuance of LEGITIMATE documents. It is for this reason that you are prohibited from traveling outside the occupied lands of the USSR with your Ausweiss. To do this, you need to obtain another document - “foreign. passport". Because it contains at least one essential feature, without which you are not a CITIZEN of the Russian Federation, because there is no such country in the UN register. This sign is the PLACE OF BIRTH. Foreign passports say USSR. We translate into ours - USSR!!!
Russian passports have a RED stamp with a diameter of 30 mm. According to GOST, 40 and 50 mm are acceptable - clause 3.2. Read clause 3.9 from which you will learn that only persons who are NOT legal entities can reproduce the coat of arms of the Russian Federation WITHOUT indicating the TIN and OGRN. But there is one catch: the status legal entity means GIVING UP YOUR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS. This is worth thinking about in terms of the status of the FMS bodies in relation to the Russian Federation.
Federal Migration Service (FMS of Russia) - federal body executive power, who implemented state policy in the field of migration and carried out law enforcement functions, functions of control, supervision and provision of public services in the field of migration. Was subordinate to the Government of the Russian Federation.
The FMS of Russia in its current form was created by paragraph 13 of Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated March 9, 2004 No. 314 “On the system and structure of federal executive bodies.”
On January 1, 2006, territorial bodies of the Federal Migration Service of Russia were created, uniting the divisions of the passport and visa service and the divisions for migration affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the Main Internal Affairs Directorate, and the Department of Internal Affairs of the constituent entities of the federation, with their withdrawal into a separate structure of direct subordination.
On April 5, 2016, by Decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Federal Migration Service was abolished, and its functions and powers were transferred to the Main Directorate for Migration Issues of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. On April 13, 2016, Colonel of the Internal Service Olga Evgenievna Kirillova was appointed head of the Main Directorate.
How can a citizen of the USSR talk to a policeman, a traffic police inspector of the Russian Federation, etc.
What is an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and how to work with it in practice.
As we already know, the commercial company "Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation" is registered (DUNS - 683530373), as well as the "Government of Russia" (DUNS - 531298725) by D&B in the USA. And once you recognize yourself as a citizen of the USSR, there is little point in paying attention to the illegitimate laws of the Russian Federation. The fact is that as soon as you know how to correctly declare your rights to anyone, from that moment you become out of their reach.
Before they demand anything from you, they must present documents. And in all of their documents, the seal does not correspond to their own GOSTs. Therefore, ask to bring the seal into compliance, and then make some demands. Calmly, correctly, without conflict.
And who are you? Show your documents. A document proving your identity is a passport, military ID, sea passport, prosecutor's ID. A certificate is just a pass through your checkpoint. It may be counterfeit or expired. As it turns out, all police licenses of the Russian Federation have stamps with the coat of arms of the Russian Federation, but without indicating the INN and OGRN, the diameter does not correspond to GOST R 51511-2001), i.e. the seals are false and the documents are worthless.
Show your passport. I must identify you. Let's say the passport is shown. We open an extract to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Is this your department? Do you work for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation? The Ministry of Internal Affairs is located in Moscow, st. Zhitnaya, 16? Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kolokoltsev is your superior officer?
I took this document from the tax office, this is what it says (between 30 and 31): only Kolokoltsev V.A. may act on behalf of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation without a power of attorney. Show me the power of attorney, please, from V.A. Kolokoltsev. that he authorized you to carry out such and such actions within such and such a period of time in such and such territory. Is there such a power of attorney? No? You have no authority. Who are you?
I am not obliged to show you anything until you confirm your credentials. No passport, no birth certificate.
If they make a decision, never sign anything. We are in different legal jurisdictions. I live in the USSR. They are located on my territory, for which there are documents, there is a certificate of my birth. They came to visit us and occupied us. And they still impose rules on us. They do not have the right to influence us with their laws. For them to have such a right, there must be an international treaty between the USSR and the Russian Federation, which does not exist. Therefore, if there are such agreements, we are not subject to jurisdiction (neither the courts, nor the bailiffs, nor the police, nor anyone).
Before talking to anyone and building a defense, you need to order an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and study who is who.
Next, according to the extract, we look at the branches. If there is a Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow, then in all tax regions the regional Main Internal Affairs Directorate - state institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - must be registered. And this extract must indicate the branch. But he's not there! The Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not registered in any city or region.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs works without documents in order to act within the legal framework of the Russian Federation. No registration, no power of attorney.
What types of activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are indicated in the extract? From lines 37 to 66. Only 1 license – 67-73.
Accordingly, since this institution is not registered with the tax office, it falls under at least 16 violations of the Tax Code:
- Failure to submit reports.
- Not legal business activity.
- Work without legal education. faces, etc.
Facts and circumstances:
The plaintiff is a citizen of the USSR and is a party to the social-public contract - the 1977 Constitution of the USSR as amended on October 7, 1977 and December 12, 2015;
The international treaty of December 4, 1991 on succession in relation to the external public debt and assets of the USSR became an act of intervention by third parties in the civil legal relationship between the USSR and citizens of the USSR.
EU Member States stated on 23 December 1991 “noting that international rights and obligations former USSR, including rights under the UN Charter, will continue to be exercised by Russia.”
In a Message dated December 24, 1991, the President of Russia notified the UN Secretary General that Russia remains responsible for all rights and obligations of the USSR in accordance with the UN Charter.
The UN Secretary General sent a message to all UN members with an accompanying comment that it “states reality and does not require formal approval from the UN” (Diplomatic Bulletin, 1992, No. 2-3. P. 28).
The plaintiff considers the EU statement as an offer to the leadership of the USSR and the RSFSR to organize a management company with the name “Russia”.
The International Fund, the Paris Club, and the EU allocated “investments” to the leadership of the Soviet Union and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic for the creation of a management company with the name “Russia”.
At the time of the proposal by the EU, such a structure as “Russia” and/or the “Russian Federation” did not exist legally and in fact, therefore it is the EU countries that allocated funds for the creation of this structure that are the founders of the “Russian Federation”.
The founders formed the “Russian Federation” by renaming the “Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic” on December 25, 1991, and on December 12, 1993 they adopted their internal document “The Constitution of the Russian Federation”.
The plaintiff notifies that on June 12, 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic seceded from the Soviet Union.
At the time of the declaration of independence, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic did not have citizens of the republic and its own territory, as well as an agreement with other republics and the Soviet Union on the settlement of issues of dual or triple citizenship on the territory of the USSR.
The Law on Citizenship of the Soviet Union allowed citizens of the USSR to have citizenship of the republics, however, none of the republics adopted a republican law on citizenship and none of the citizens of the USSR expressed their desire to obtain citizenship of the republic.
The decree of November 11 (24), 1917 on the abolition of estates and civil ranks established a single citizenship of the Russian Republic for subjects of the Russian Empire.
The Russian Republic came into existence on September 1, 1917. and is the legal successor of the Russian Empire. The territory of the Russian Republic became the entire territory of the Russian Empire with the exception of the territory of Finland.
On the territory of the Russian Republic, management of all state affairs were engaged on the basis of trust management through the organization of the Soviet Union.
The founder of the Soviet Union, as well as the Ukrainian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Belarusian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, was the Russian Republic through the adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Republic (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic) in 1918 and the Constitution of the USSR in 1924.
There are no documents on the reorganization or termination of the Ukrainian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Belarusian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Russian Republic (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic).
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic arose on the basis of the proclamation of the 1936 Constitution of the USSR in 1937. The task of the new republic was to manage public property on part of the territory of the Russian Republic within the boundaries of the territory administered by the Soviet Union.
The territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is significantly smaller than the territory of the Russian Republic, and the republic itself did not and could not have territory and citizens, since all citizens of the USSR became co-owners of public property and the entire territory. The allocation of the territory of the Russian Republic, which was included in the national property on the basis of the Decree on Land, is illegal.
At the time of the renaming of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on December 25, 1991 to the Russian Federation, the republic had no citizens.
The Constitution of the RSFSR of 1978 established that only citizens of the republic can elect and be elected to the Supreme Council of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
In the absence of citizens in the republic, all elections to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR are insignificant.
At the time of voting for the adoption of the draft Constitution of the Russian Federation on December 12, 1991, citizens of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, as well as citizens of the Russian Federation, were absent.
Currently, I claims that all deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation since 1991 have been carrying out illegal legislative activities, since any decisions based on the results of the elections are void.
Election results in State Duma are void due to the absence of citizens of the Russian Federation in the Russian Federation.
According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation (if you do not take into account its insignificance), the number of subjects of the Russian Federation includes territories, while citizens of the Russian Federation are not listed as subjects of the Russian Federation.
The Law on Citizenship of the RSFSR was allegedly signed on November 28, 1991.
A month later, the RSFSR was renamed the Russian Federation.
There is no resolution of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR on the enactment of the citizenship law.
Resolution of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR dated January 23, 1992 No. 2240-1 signed by the “Chairman Supreme Council Russian Federation" (elections of such a chairman were not held), the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation decided "taking into account the comments of the President of the Russian Federation, to introduce editorial changes to the RSFSR law “on citizenship of the RSFSR” related to the cessation of the existence of the USSR.” Despite the change in the name of the RSFSR to the Russian Federation, the law on citizenship was published on February 6, 1992 in the Russian Newspaper without the name “Russian Federation”.
Citizenship is a stable political and legal connection between the state and the citizen.
The absence of expressions of will of citizens of the USSR to acquire citizenship of the Russian Federation indicates the lack of voluntariness in creating such a connection between citizens of the USSR and the Russian Federation.
the federal law dated November 12, 2012 N 182-FZ "On Amendments to the Federal Law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation" provided citizens of the Russian Federation who received a primary passport of the Russian Federation to acquire citizenship of the Russian Federation.
There is no information in the official press that State Duma deputies acquired citizenship of the Russian Federation in accordance with this law.
Candidates for State Duma deputies, employees of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, judges of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation did not undergo the procedure for citizenship of the Russian Federation after receiving their primary passport of the Russian Federation, and therefore, any of their actions in the legal field of the Russian Federation are illegal.
Agreement on accession to the Agreement on interaction dated December 29, 2009 of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation and the Federal Migration Service dated October 15, 2015 (signed, bound and numbered on January 7, 2016, sent by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation via email from the postal address [email protected] January 18, 2016) was adopted by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.
As a party to the Agreement on Cooperation, I has every reason to receive information about persons registered as voters at polling stations and candidates for State Duma deputies.
To date, the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation has not provided any information about the participants in the 2016 election campaign, including data on the citizenship of voters and candidates for deputies, as well as the financial status of candidates for deputies.
And he declares that candidates for deputies of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation are registered as deputies in violation of the law on citizenship of the Russian Federation, and voters are included in the voter lists illegally.
And he points out that multi-step scams aimed at covering up primary crimes against the legitimate people’s power cannot serve as a basis for recognizing in the future the legality of primary criminal acts.
And as a side note, did you know that judges in the Russian Federation are appointed by the president, by decree, which does not contain any data other than their full name, i.e. if Vasya Ivanov was appointed as a judge, you can change your full name to Ivanov and claim that you are that judge.
In the end, I would like to emphasize the following: I am NOT calling for civil disobedience, I am NOT calling for rebellion, revolution, etc., etc. I want to understand: I am a citizen of the Russian Federation or the USSR.
USSR
the former largest state in the world by area, second by economic and military power and third by population. The USSR was created on December 30, 1922, when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) merged with the Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republics and the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. All these republics arose after the October Revolution and the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917. From 1956 to 1991, the USSR consisted of 15 union republics. In September 1991, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia left the union. On December 8, 1991, the leaders of the RSFSR, Ukraine and Belarus at a meeting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha declared that the USSR had ceased to exist and agreed to form a free association - the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). On December 21, in Almaty, the leaders of 11 republics signed a protocol on the formation of this commonwealth. On December 25, USSR President M.S. Gorbachev resigned, and the next day the USSR was dissolved.
Geographical location and boundaries. The USSR occupied the eastern half of Europe and the northern third of Asia. Its territory was located north of 35° N latitude. between 20°E and 169°W The Soviet Union was bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, which was frozen for most of the year; in the east - Bering, Okhotsk and Seas of Japan, freezing in winter; in the southeast it bordered on land with the DPRK, the People's Republic of China and Mongolia; in the south - with Afghanistan and Iran; in the southwest with Turkey; in the west with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Finland and Norway. Occupying a significant part of the coast of the Caspian, Black and Baltic seas, the USSR, however, did not have direct access to the warm open waters of the oceans.
Square. Since 1945, the area of the USSR has been 22,402.2 thousand square meters. km, including the White Sea (90 thousand sq. km) and the Sea of Azov (37.3 thousand sq. km). As a result of the collapse of the Russian Empire during the First World War and the Civil War of 1914-1920, Finland, central Poland, the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, the southern part of Armenia and the Uriankhai region (in 1921 became a nominally independent Tuvan People's Republic) were lost. Republic). At the time of its founding in 1922, the USSR had an area of 21,683 thousand square meters. km. In 1926, the Soviet Union annexed the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. As a result of World War II, the following territories were annexed: the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus (from Poland) in 1939; Karelian Isthmus(from Finland), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, as well as Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (from Romania) in 1940; the Pechenga region, or Petsamo (since 1940 in Finland), and Tuva (as the Tuva Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1944; the northern half of East Prussia (from Germany), southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands (from 1905 in Japan) in 1945.
Population. In 1989, the population of the USSR was 286,717 thousand people; There were more only in China and India. During the 20th century. it almost doubled, although the rate of overall growth lagged behind the world average. The famine years of 1921 and 1933, World War I and the Civil War slowed population growth in the USSR, but perhaps the main reason for the lag is the losses suffered by the USSR in World War II. Direct losses alone amounted to more than 25 million people. If we take into account indirect losses - a decrease in the birth rate during wartime and an increased mortality rate from harsh conditions life, the total figure probably exceeds 50 million people.
National composition and languages. The USSR was created as a multinational union state, which consisted (from 1956, after the transformation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR into the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, until September 1991) of 15 republics, which included 20 autonomous republics, 8 autonomous regions and 10 autonomous okrugs - all of them were formed according to nationality. More than a hundred ethnic groups and peoples were officially recognized in the USSR; more than 70% of the total population were Slavic peoples, mainly Russians, who settled throughout the vast territory of the state during the 12th century.
19th centuries and until 1917 they occupied a dominant position even in those areas where they did not constitute a majority. Non-Russian peoples in this area (Tatars, Mordovians, Komi, Kazakhs, etc.) gradually assimilated in the process of interethnic communication. Although national cultures were encouraged in the republics of the USSR, the Russian language and culture remained a necessary condition almost every career. The republics of the USSR received their names, as a rule, according to the nationality of the majority of their population, but in two union republics - Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - Kazakhs and Kyrgyz made up only 36% and 41% of the total population, and in many autonomous entities and even less. The most homogeneous republic in terms of national composition was Armenia, where more than 90% of the population were Armenians. Russians, Belarusians and Azerbaijanis made up more than 80% of the population in their national republics. Changes in uniformity ethnic composition population of the republics occurred as a result of migration and unequal population growth of various national groups. For example, peoples Central Asia, with their high birth rate and low mobility, absorbed a mass of Russian immigrants, but maintained and even increased their quantitative superiority, while approximately the same influx into the Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia, which had a low birth rate of their own, upset the balance not in favor of the indigenous nationality.
Slavs. This language family consists of Russians (Great Russians), Ukrainians and Belarusians. The share of Slavs in the USSR gradually decreased (from 85% in 1922 to 77% in 1959 and to 70% in 1989), mainly due to the low rate of natural growth compared to the peoples of the southern outskirts. Russians made up 51% of the total population in 1989 (65% in 1922, 55% in 1959).
Central Asian peoples. The largest non-Slavic group of peoples in the Soviet Union was the group of peoples of Central Asia. Most of these 34 million people (1989) (including Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Turkmens) speak Turkic languages; Tajiks, numbering more than 4 million people, speak a dialect of the Iranian language. These peoples traditionally adhere to the Muslim religion, engage in agriculture and live in overpopulated oases and dry steppes. The Central Asian region became part of Russia in the last quarter of the 19th century; Previously, there were emirates and khanates that competed and were often at war with each other. In the Central Asian republics in the mid-20th century. there were almost 11 million Russian immigrants, most of whom lived in cities.
Peoples of the Caucasus. The second largest group of non-Slavic peoples in the USSR (15 million people in 1989) were peoples living on both sides Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian seas up to the borders with Turkey and Iran. The most numerous of them are Georgians and Armenians with their forms of Christianity and ancient civilizations, and the Turkic-speaking Muslims of Azerbaijan, related to the Turks and Iranians. These three peoples made up almost two-thirds of the non-Russian population in the region. The rest of the non-Russians included a large number of small ethnic groups, including Iranian-speaking Orthodox Ossetians, Mongol-speaking Buddhist Kalmyks and Muslim Chechen, Ingush, Avar and other peoples.
Baltic peoples. Along the coast Baltic Sea lives approx. 5.5 million people (1989) of three main ethnic groups: Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. Estonians speak a language close to Finnish; Lithuanian and Latvian languages belong to the group of Baltic languages, close to Slavic. Lithuanians and Latvians are geographically intermediate between Russians and Germans, who, along with the Poles and Swedes, have had a great cultural influence on them. The rate of natural population increase in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which seceded from the Russian Empire in 1918, existed as independent states between the world wars and regained independence in September 1991, is about the same as that of the Slavs.
Other peoples. The remaining national groups constituted less than 10% of the USSR population in 1989; these were a variety of peoples who lived within the main zone of settlement of the Slavs or were dispersed among the vast and desert spaces of the Far North. The most numerous among them are the Tatars, after the Uzbeks and Kazakhs - the third largest non-Slavic people of the USSR (6.65 million people in 1989). The term "Tatar" has been applied throughout Russian history to various ethnic groups. More than half of the Tatars (Turkic-speaking descendants of the northern group of Mongolian tribes) live between the middle Volga and the Urals. After the Mongol-Tatar yoke, which lasted from the mid-13th to the end of the 15th century, several groups of Tatars troubled the Russians for several more centuries, and the large Tatar people on the Crimean Peninsula were conquered only at the end of the 18th century. Other large national groups in the Volga-Ural region are the Turkic-speaking Chuvash, Bashkirs and Finno-Ugric Mordovians, Mari and Komi. Among them, the natural process of assimilation in a predominantly Slavic community continued, partly due to the influence of increasing urbanization. This process did not proceed so quickly among traditionally pastoral peoples - the Buddhist Buryats living around Lake Baikal, and the Yakuts inhabiting the banks of the Lena River and its tributaries. Finally, there are many small northern peoples, engaged in hunting and cattle breeding, scattered in the northern part of Siberia and regions of the Far East; there are approx. 150 thousand people.
National question. In the late 1980s, the national question came to the fore political life. The traditional policy of the CPSU, which sought to eliminate nations and ultimately create a homogeneous “Soviet” people, ended in failure. Interethnic conflicts broke out, for example, between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Ossetians and Ingush. In addition, anti-Russian sentiments emerged - for example, in the Baltic republics. Ultimately, the Soviet Union disintegrated along the borders of national republics, and many ethnic antagonisms fell to the newly formed countries that retained the old national-administrative divisions.
Urbanization. The pace and scale of urbanization in the Soviet Union since the late 1920s is probably unparalleled in history. In both 1913 and 1926, less than one-fifth of the population lived in cities. However, by 1961, the urban population in the USSR began to exceed the rural population (Great Britain reached this ratio around 1860, the USA - around 1920), and in 1989 66% of the USSR population lived in cities. The scale of Soviet urbanization is evidenced by the fact that urban population The Soviet Union increased from 63 million people in 1940 to 189 million in 1989. In its final years, the USSR had approximately the same level of urbanization as Latin America.
The growth of cities. Before the start of the industrial, urbanization and transport revolutions in the second half of the 19th century. Most Russian cities had small populations. In 1913, only Moscow and St. Petersburg, founded respectively in the 12th and 18th centuries, had a population of more than 1 million people. In 1991, there were 24 such cities in the Soviet Union. The first Slavic cities were founded in the 6th-7th centuries; during the Mongol invasion of the mid-13th century. most of them were destroyed. These cities, which arose as military-administrative strong points, had a fortified Kremlin, usually near the river on an elevated place, surrounded by craft suburbs (posads). When did trade begin important look activities of the Slavs, cities such as Kyiv, Chernigov, Novgorod, Polotsk, Smolensk, and later Moscow, which were located at the crossroads of waterways, quickly increased their size and influence. After the nomads blocked the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks in 1083 and the destruction of Kyiv by the Mongol-Tatars in 1240, Moscow, located in the center river system northeastern Rus', gradually turned into the center of the Russian state. Moscow's position changed when Peter the Great moved the country's capital to St. Petersburg (1703). In its development, St. Petersburg by the end of the 18th century. overtook Moscow and remained the largest Russian city until the end of the Civil War. The foundations for the growth of most major cities of the USSR were laid in the last 50 years of the tsarist regime, during a period of rapid industrial development, construction of railways and the development of international trade. In 1913, Russia had 30 cities with a population exceeding 100 thousand people, including commercial and industrial centers in the Volga region and Novorossia, such as Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Odessa, Rostov-on-Don and Yuzovka (now Donetsk). Rapid growth of cities in Soviet period can be divided into three stages. During the period between the world wars, the development of heavy industry was the basis for the growth of cities such as Magnitogorsk, Novokuznetsk, Karaganda and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. However, cities in the Moscow region, Siberia and Ukraine grew especially rapidly at this time. Between the 1939 and 1959 censuses there was a noticeable shift in urban settlement. Two-thirds of all cities that had a population of over 50 thousand people, which doubled during this time, were located mainly between the Volga and Lake Baikal, mainly along the Trans-Siberian Railway. From the late 1950s to 1990, growth Soviet cities slowed down; Only the capitals of the Union republics showed faster growth.
Largest cities. In 1991, there were 24 cities in the Soviet Union with a population of more than one million inhabitants. These included Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Nizhny Novgorod, Kharkov, Kuibyshev (now Samara), Minsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Kazan, Perm, Ufa, Rostov-on-Don, Volgograd and Donetsk in the European part; Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) and Chelyabinsk - in the Urals; Novosibirsk and Omsk - in Siberia; Tashkent and Alma-Ata - in Central Asia; Baku, Tbilisi and Yerevan are in Transcaucasia. Another 6 cities had a population of 800 thousand to one million inhabitants and 28 cities - more than 500 thousand inhabitants. Moscow, with a population of 8967 thousand people in 1989, is one of the largest cities in the world. It grew up in the center of European Russia and became the main hub of a highly centralized country's network of railways, roads, airlines and pipelines. Moscow is the center of political life, the development of culture, science and new industrial technologies. St. Petersburg (from 1924 to 1991 - Leningrad), which in 1989 had a population of 5,020 thousand people, was built at the mouth of the Neva by Peter the Great and became the capital of the empire and its main port. After the Bolshevik Revolution, it became a regional center and gradually fell into decline due to the increased development of Soviet industry in the east, a decrease in foreign trade volumes and the transfer of the capital to Moscow. St. Petersburg suffered greatly during World War II and reached its pre-war population only in 1962. Kyiv (2,587 thousand people in 1989), located on the banks of the Dnieper River, was the main city of Rus' until the capital was moved to Vladimir (1169). The beginning of it modern growth dates back to the last third of the 19th century, when the industrial and agricultural development of Russia was proceeding at a rapid pace. Kharkov (with a population of 1,611 thousand people in 1989) is the second largest city in Ukraine. Until 1934 the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, it was formed as an industrial city at the end of the 19th century, being an important railway junction connecting Moscow and heavy industrial areas in southern Ukraine. Donetsk, founded in 1870 (1,110 thousand people in 1989) was the center of a large industrial agglomeration in the Donetsk coal basin. Dnepropetrovsk (1,179 thousand people in 1989), which was founded as the administrative center of Novorossiya in the second half of the 18th century. and formerly called Ekaterinoslav, was the center of a group of industrial cities in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. Odessa, located on the Black Sea coast (population 1,115 thousand people in 1989), grew rapidly at the end of the 19th century. as the main southern port of the country. It still remains an important industrial and cultural center. Nizhny Novgorod (from 1932 to 1990 - Gorky) - the traditional venue for the annual All-Russian Fair, first held in 1817 - is located at the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers. In 1989, 1,438 thousand people lived in it, and it was the center of river navigation and the automobile industry. Below the Volga is Samara (from 1935 to 1991 Kuibyshev), with a population of 1257 thousand people (1989), located near the largest oil and gas fields and powerful hydroelectric power stations, in the place where the Moscow-Chelyabinsk railway line crosses the Volga. A powerful impetus for the development of Samara was given by the evacuation of industrial enterprises from the west after the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. 2,400 km to the east, where the Trans-Siberian Railway crosses another major river - the Ob, is Novosibirsk (1,436 thousand people in 1989), which is the largest young (founded in 1896) among the top ten largest cities of the USSR. These are transport, industrial and science Center Siberia. To the west of it, where the Trans-Siberian Railway crosses the Irtysh River, is Omsk (1,148 thousand people in 1989). Having given up the role of the capital of Siberia in Soviet time Novosibirsk, it remains the center of an important agricultural region, as well as a major center for aircraft manufacturing and oil refining. West of Omsk is Yekaterinburg (from 1924 to 1991 - Sverdlovsk), with a population of 1,367 thousand people (1989), which is the center of the metallurgical industry of the Urals. Chelyabinsk (1,143 thousand people in 1989), also located in the Urals, south of Yekaterinburg, became the new “gateway” to Siberia after the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began from here in 1891. Chelyabinsk, a center of metallurgy and mechanical engineering, which had only 20 thousand inhabitants in 1897, developed faster than Sverdlovsk during the Soviet period. Baku, with a population of 1,757 thousand people in 1989, located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, is located near oil fields, which for almost a century were the main source of oil in Russia and the Soviet Union, and at one time in the world. The ancient city of Tbilisi (1,260 thousand people in 1989) is also located in Transcaucasia, an important regional center and capital of Georgia. Yerevan (1199 people in 1989) is the capital of Armenia; its rapid growth from 30 thousand people in 1910 testified to the process of revival of Armenian statehood. In the same way, the growth of Minsk - from 130 thousand inhabitants in 1926 to 1589 thousand in 1989 - is an example of the rapid development of the capitals of national republics (in 1939 Belarus regained the borders that it had as part of the Russian Empire). The city of Tashkent (population in 1989 - 2073 thousand people) is the capital of Uzbekistan and the economic center of Central Asia. The ancient city of Tashkent was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1865, when the Russian conquest of Central Asia began.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL SYSTEM
Background of the issue. The Soviet state arose as a result of two coups that took place in Russia in 1917. The first of them, the February Revolution, replaced the tsarist autocracy with an unstable political structure in which power, due to the general collapse of state power and law and order, was divided between the Provisional Government, consisting of members of the former legislative assembly (Duma), and councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies elected in factories and military units. At the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 25 (November 7), Bolshevik representatives announced the overthrow of the Provisional Government as unable to resolve crisis situations arising from failures at the front, famine in the cities and expropriation of property from landowners by peasants. The governing bodies of the councils overwhelmingly consisted of representatives of the radical wing, and the new government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) - was formed by the Bolsheviks and left socialist revolutionaries (SRs). The Bolshevik leader V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin) stood at the head (of the Council of People's Commissars). This government proclaimed Russia the world's first socialist republic and promised to hold elections to the Constituent Assembly. Having lost the elections, the Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly (January 6, 1918), established a dictatorship and unleashed terror, which led to a civil war. Under these circumstances, the councils lost their real significance in the political life of the country. The Bolshevik Party (RKP(b), VKP(b), later CPSU) led the punitive and administrative bodies created to govern the country and the nationalized economy, as well as the Red Army. The return to a more democratic order (NEP) in the mid-1920s gave way to campaigns of terror, which were associated with the activities of the General Secretary of the CPSU (b) I.V. Stalin and the struggle in the leadership of the party. The political police (Cheka - OGPU - NKVD) turned into a powerful institution political system, which contained a huge system of labor camps (GULAG) and extended the practice of repression to the entire population, from ordinary citizens to leaders of the Communist Party, which claimed the lives of many millions of people. After Stalin's death in 1953, the power of the political intelligence services was weakened for some time; Formally, some power functions of the councils were also restored, but in fact the changes turned out to be insignificant. Only in 1989, a number of constitutional amendments made it possible to hold alternative elections for the first time since 1912 and modernize the state system, in which democratic authorities began to play a much larger role. A constitutional amendment in 1990 eliminated the monopoly on political power established by the Communist Party in 1918 and established the post of President of the USSR with broad powers. At the end of August 1991, the supreme power in the USSR collapsed following a failed state coup organized by a group of conservative leaders of the Communist Party and government. On December 8, 1991, the presidents of the RSFSR, Ukraine and Belarus at a meeting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha announced the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a free interstate association. On December 26, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to dissolve itself, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
State structure. Since its creation in December 1922 on the ruins of the Russian Empire, the USSR has been a totalitarian one-party state. The party-state exercised its power, called the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” through the Central Committee, the Politburo and the government controlled by them, the system of councils, trade unions and other structures. The monopoly of the party apparatus on power, the total control of the state over the economy, public life and culture led to frequent mistakes in state policy, the gradual lag and degradation of the country. The Soviet Union, like other totalitarian states of the 20th century, turned out to be unviable and at the end of the 1980s was forced to begin reforms. Under the leadership of the party apparatus, they acquired a purely cosmetic character and were unable to prevent the collapse of the state. The following describes the state structure of the Soviet Union, taking into account the changes that occurred in recent years before the collapse of the USSR.
Presidency. The post of president was established by the Supreme Soviet on March 13, 1990, at the proposal of its chairman M.S. Gorbachev after the Central Committee of the CPSU agreed to this idea a month earlier. Gorbachev was elected president of the USSR by secret ballot at the Congress of People's Deputies after the Supreme Soviet concluded that direct popular elections would take time and could destabilize the country. The President, by decree of the Supreme Council, is the head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He assists in organizing the work of the Congresses of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council; has the authority to issue administrative decrees that are binding throughout the Union, and to appoint a number of senior officials. These include the Constitutional Oversight Committee (subject to approval by the Congress), the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Chairman of the Supreme Court (subject to approval by the Supreme Council). The President can suspend decisions of the Council of Ministers.
Congress of People's Deputies. The Congress of People's Deputies was defined in the constitution as "the highest body of state power of the USSR." The 1,500 deputies of the Congress were elected in accordance with the threefold principle of representation: from the population, national entities and from public organizations. All citizens aged 18 and over had the right to vote; all citizens over 21 years of age had the right to be elected deputies to the Congress. The nomination of candidates in the districts was open; their number was not limited. The congress, elected for a term of five years, was to meet annually for several days. At its first meeting, the congress elected by secret ballot from among its members the Supreme Council, as well as the chairman and first deputy chairman of the Supreme Council. The congress considered the most important state issues, such as the national economic plan and budget; amendments to the constitution could be adopted by two-thirds of the vote. He could approve (or repeal) laws passed by the Supreme Council, and had the power, by a majority vote, to overturn any government decision. At each of its annual sessions, the Congress was obliged to rotate one fifth of the Supreme Council by voting.
The Supreme Council. The 542 deputies elected by the Congress of People's Deputies to the Supreme Soviet constituted the current legislative body of the USSR. It was convened annually for two sessions, each lasting 3-4 months. It had two chambers: the Council of the Union - from among deputies from national public organizations and from majoritarian territorial districts - and the Council of Nationalities, where deputies elected from national-territorial districts and republican public organizations sat. Each chamber elected its own chairman. Decisions were made by a majority of deputies in each chamber, disagreements were resolved with the help of a conciliation commission consisting of members of the chambers, and then at a joint meeting of both chambers; when it was impossible to reach a compromise between the chambers, the issue was referred to the Congress. Laws adopted by the Supreme Council could be monitored by the Constitutional Supervision Committee. This Committee consisted of 23 members who were not deputies and did not hold other positions. government positions. The Committee could act on its own initiative or at the request of legislative and executive authorities. He had the power to temporarily suspend laws or those administrative regulations that were contrary to the constitution or other laws of the country. The committee transmitted its conclusions to the bodies that passed laws or issued decrees, but did not have the power to repeal the law or decree in question. The Presidium of the Supreme Council was a collective body consisting of a chairman, first deputy and 15 deputies (from each republic), chairmen of both chambers and standing committees of the Supreme Council, chairmen of the Supreme Councils of the union republics and the chairman of the Committee people's control. The Presidium organized the work of the Congress and the Supreme Council and its standing committees; he could issue his own decrees and hold national referendums on issues raised by the Congress. He also gave accreditation to foreign diplomats and, in the intervals between sessions of the Supreme Council, had the right to decide issues of war and peace.
Ministries. The executive branch of government consisted of almost 40 ministries and 19 state committees. Ministries were organized along functional lines - foreign affairs, agriculture, communications, etc. - while state committees carried out cross-functional communications, such as planning, supply, labor and sports. The Council of Ministers included the chairman, several of his deputies, ministers and heads of state committees (all of them were appointed by the chairman of the government and approved by the Supreme Council), as well as the chairmen of the Councils of Ministers of all union republics. The Council of Ministers carried out foreign and domestic policies and ensured the implementation of state economic plans. In addition to its own resolutions and orders, the Council of Ministers developed legislative projects and sent them to the Supreme Council. The general part of the work of the Council of Ministers was carried out by a government group consisting of the chairman, his deputies and several key ministers. The Chairman was the only member of the Council of Ministers who was a member of the deputies of the Supreme Council. Individual ministries were organized according to the same principle as the Council of Ministers. Each minister was assisted by deputies who supervised the activities of one or more departments (headquarters) of the ministry. These officials constituted a collegium that functioned as the collective governing body of the ministry. Enterprises and institutions subordinate to the ministry carried out their work on the basis of the tasks and instructions of the ministry. Some ministries operated at the all-Union level. Others, organized along the union-republican principle, had a structure of dual subordination: the ministry at the republican level was accountable both to the existing union ministry and to the legislative bodies (the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council) of its own republic. Thus, the Union Ministry exercised general management of the industry, and the Republican Ministry, together with regional executive and legislative bodies, developed more detailed measures for their implementation in its republic. As a rule, union ministries managed industries, and union-republican ministries managed the production of consumer goods and the service sector. Union ministries had more powerful resources, better provided their workers with housing and wages, and had greater influence in carrying out national policy than union-republican ministries.
Republican and local government. The Union republics that made up the USSR had their own state and party bodies and were formally considered sovereign. The constitution gave each of them the right to secede, and some even had their own foreign ministries, but in reality their independence was illusory. Therefore, it would be more accurate to interpret the sovereignty of the republics of the USSR as a form of administrative government that took into account the specific interests of the party leadership of a particular national group. But during 1990, the Supreme Councils of all republics, following Lithuania, re-proclaimed their sovereignty and adopted resolutions that republican laws should have priority over all-Union laws. In 1991 the republics became independent states. The management structure of the union republics was similar to the management system at the union level, but the Supreme Councils of the republics each had one chamber, and the number of ministries in the republican Councils of Ministers was less than in the union. The same organizational structure, but with an even smaller number of ministries, was in the autonomous republics. The larger union republics were divided into regions (the RSFSR also had regional units of less homogeneous national composition, which were called territories). The regional administration consisted of a Council of Deputies and an Executive Committee, which were under the jurisdiction of their republic in much the same way that the republic was connected with the all-Union government. Elections to regional councils were held every five years. City and district councils and executive committees were created in each region. These local authorities authorities were subordinate to the corresponding regional (territorial) bodies.
Communist Party. The ruling and only legitimate political party in the USSR, before its monopoly on power was undermined by perestroika and free elections in 1990, was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU justified its right to power on the basis of the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of which it considered itself the vanguard. Once a small group of revolutionaries (in 1917 it numbered about 20 thousand members), the CPSU eventually became a mass organization with 18 million members. At the end of the 1980s, approximately 45% of party members were employees, approx. 10% are peasants and 45% are workers. Membership in the CPSU was usually preceded by membership in the party's youth organization - the Komsomol, whose members in 1988 were 36 million people. aged 14 to 28 years. People usually joined the party at the age of 25. To become a party member, the applicant had to receive a recommendation from party members with at least five years of experience and demonstrate dedication to the ideas of the CPSU. If members of the local party organization voted to admit the applicant, and the district party committee approved this decision, then the applicant became a candidate member of the party (without the right to vote) with a probationary period of one year, after the successful completion of which he received the status of party member. According to the charter of the CPSU, its members were required to pay membership fees, attend party meetings, be an example for others at work and in personal life, and also propagate the ideas of Marxism-Leninism and the CPSU program. For lapses in any of these areas, a party member was reprimanded, and if the matter turned out to be serious enough, he was expelled from the party. However, the party in power was not a union of sincere like-minded people. Since promotion was dependent on party membership, many used the party card for career purposes. The CPSU was the so-called a new type of party, organized on the principles of “democratic centralism”, according to which all higher bodies in the organizational structure were elected by lower ones, and all lower bodies, in turn, were obliged to carry out the decisions of higher authorities. Until 1989, the CPSU existed approx. 420 thousand primary party organizations (PPO). They were formed in all institutions and enterprises where at least 3 party members or more worked. All PPOs elected their leader - a secretary, and those in which the number of members exceeded 150 were headed by secretaries who were relieved of their main work and occupied only with party affairs. The released secretary became a representative of the party apparatus. His name appeared in the nomenklatura, one of the lists of positions that party authorities approved for all management positions in the Soviet Union. The second category of party members in the PPO included “activists.” These people often held responsible positions - for example, as members of the party bureau. In total, the party apparatus consisted of approx. 2-3% members of the CPSU; activists made up about another 10-12%. All PPOs within a given administrative region elected delegates to the district party conference. Based on the nomenklatura list, the district conference elected a district committee (district committee). The district committee consisted of leading officials of the district (some of them were party officials, others headed councils, factories, collective and state farms, institutions and military units) and party activists who did not hold official positions. The district committee elected, on the basis of recommendations from higher authorities, a bureau and a secretariat of three secretaries: the first was fully responsible for party affairs in the region, the other two oversaw one or more areas of party activity. The departments of the district committee - personal accounting, propaganda, industry, agriculture - functioned under the control of secretaries. The secretaries and one or more heads of these departments sat at the bureau of the district committee along with other top officials of the district, such as the chairman of the district council and the heads of large enterprises and institutions. The bureau represented the political elite of the corresponding region. Party bodies above the district level were organized similar to district committees, but selection for them was even stricter. District conferences sent delegates to the regional (in large cities - city) party conference, which elected the regional (city) party committee. Each of the 166 elected regional committees thus consisted of the elite of the regional center, the elite of the second echelon and several regional activists. The regional committee, based on the recommendations of higher authorities, selected the bureau and secretariat. These bodies controlled the district-level bureaus and secretariats reporting to them. In each republic, delegates elected by party conferences met once every five years at party congresses of the republics. The congress, after hearing and discussing the reports of the party leaders, adopted a program that outlined the party's policy for the next five years. Then the governing bodies were re-elected. At the national level, the CPSU Congress (approximately 5,000 delegates) represented the highest authority in the party. According to the charter, the congress was convened every five years for meetings lasting about ten days. The reports of senior leaders were followed by short speeches by party workers at all levels and several ordinary delegates. The Congress adopted a program that was prepared by the secretariat, taking into account changes and additions made by the delegates. However, the most important act was the election of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which was entrusted with the management of the party and the state. The Central Committee of the CPSU consisted of 475 members; almost all of them held leadership positions in the party, state and public organizations. At its plenary sessions, held twice a year, the Central Committee formulated party policy on one or more issues - industry, agriculture, education, the judiciary, international relations, etc. In the event of disagreements among members of the Central Committee, he had the authority to convene all-Union party conferences. The Central Committee entrusted control and management of the party apparatus to the secretariat, and responsibility for coordinating policies and solving major problems was assigned to the Politburo. The secretariat was subordinate to the general secretary, who supervised the activities of the entire party apparatus with the help of several (up to 10) secretaries, each of whom controlled the work of one or more departments (about 20 in total) that made up the secretariat. The Secretariat approved the nomenclature of all leadership positions at the national, republican and regional levels. Its officials controlled and, if necessary, directly intervened in the affairs of state, economic and public organizations. In addition, the secretariat directed the all-Union network of party schools, which trained promising workers for advancement in the party and in the government field, as well as in the media.
Political modernization. In the second half of the 1980s, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M.S. Gorbachev began implementing a new policy known as “perestroika.” The main idea of the perestroika policy was to overcome the conservatism of the party-state system through reforms and adapt the Soviet Union to modern realities and problems. Perestroika included three main changes in political life. Firstly, under the slogan of glasnost, the boundaries of freedom of speech expanded. Censorship has weakened and the old atmosphere of fear has almost disappeared. A significant part of the long-hidden history of the USSR was made accessible. Party and government sources of information began to report more openly on the state of affairs in the country. Secondly, perestroika revived ideas about grassroots self-government. Self-government involved members of any organization - factory, collective farm, university, etc. - in the process of making key decisions and implied the manifestation of initiative. The third feature of perestroika, democratization, was related to the previous two. The idea here was that full information and free exchange of views will help society make decisions on a democratic basis. Democratization made a sharp break with previous political practice. After leaders began to be elected on an alternative basis, their responsibility to the electorate increased. This change weakened the dominance of the party apparatus and undermined the cohesion of the nomenklatura. As perestroika moved forward, the struggle between those who preferred the old methods of control and coercion and those who advocated new methods of democratic leadership began to intensify. This struggle reached its climax in August 1991, when a group of party and state leaders attempted to seize power through a coup d'etat. The putsch failed on the third day. Soon after this, the CPSU was temporarily banned.
Legal and judicial system. The Soviet Union inherited nothing from the legal culture of the Russian Empire that preceded it. During the years of revolution and civil war, the communist regime viewed law and courts as weapons of struggle against class enemies. The concept of “revolutionary legality” continued to exist, despite the weakening of the 1920s, until Stalin’s death in 1953. During the Khrushchev “thaw”, the authorities tried to revive the idea of “socialist legality”, which arose in the 1920s. The arbitrariness of the repressive authorities was weakened, the terror was stopped, and stricter judicial procedures were introduced. However, from the point of view of law, order and justice, these measures were insufficient. The legal ban on “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation,” for example, was interpreted extremely broadly. Based on these pseudo-legal provisions, people were often found guilty in court and sentenced to prison, forced labor, or sent to mental hospitals. Extrajudicial punishments were also applied to persons accused of “anti-Soviet activities.” A.I. Solzhenitsyn, the world-famous writer, and the famous musician M.L. Rostropovich were among those who were deprived of citizenship and deported abroad; many were expelled from educational institutions or fired from their jobs. Legal abuses took many forms. Firstly, the activities of repressive bodies based on party instructions narrowed or even eliminated the scope of legality. Secondly, the party actually remained above the law. The mutual responsibility of party officials prevented the investigation of crimes of high-ranking party members. This practice was complemented by corruption and the protection of those who broke the law under the cover of party bosses. Finally, party bodies exercised strong unofficial influence on the courts. The policy of perestroika proclaimed the rule of law. In accordance with this concept, the law was recognized as the main instrument for regulating social relations - above all other acts or decrees of the party and government. The implementation of the law was the prerogative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Committee state security(KGB). Both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB were organized according to the union-republican principle of double subordination, with departments from the national to the district level. Both of these organizations included paramilitary units (border guards in the KGB system, internal troops and special purpose police OMON - in the Ministry of Internal Affairs). As a rule, the KGB dealt with problems in one way or another related to politics, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs dealt with criminal crimes. The internal functions of the KGB were counterintelligence, protection state secrets and control over the “subversive” activities of oppositionists (dissidents). To carry out its tasks, the KGB worked through both " special departments ", which he organized in large institutions, and through a network of informants. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was organized into departments that corresponded to its main functions: criminal investigation, prisons and correctional labor institutions, control of passports and registration, investigation of economic crimes, traffic regulation and road -transport inspection and patrol service. Soviet judicial law was based on the code of laws of the socialist state. At the national level and in each of the republics there were criminal, civil and criminal procedural codes. The structure of the court was determined by the concept of “people's courts”, which operated in each region of the country. District judges were appointed for five years by the regional or city council. "People's assessors", formally equal to the judge, were elected for terms of two and one and a half years at meetings held at the place of work or residence. Regional courts consisted of judges appointed Supreme Councils of the respective republics. Judges of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Supreme Courts of union and autonomous republics and regions were elected by the Councils of People's Deputies at their levels. Both civil and criminal cases were heard first in the district and city people's courts, the verdicts of which were made by a majority vote of the judge and people's assessors. Appeals were sent to higher courts at the regional and republican levels and could reach all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had significant powers of supervision over lower courts, but did not have the power to review judicial decisions. The main body for monitoring compliance with the rule of law was the prosecutor's office, which exercised overall legal supervision. The Prosecutor General was appointed by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In turn, the Prosecutor General appointed the heads of his staff at the national level and prosecutors in each of the union republics, autonomous republics, territories and regions. Prosecutors at the city and district levels were appointed by the prosecutor of the corresponding union republic, reporting to him and the Prosecutor General. All prosecutors held office for a five-year term. In criminal cases, the accused had the right to use the services of a defense lawyer - his own or assigned to him by the court. In both cases, legal costs were minimal. Lawyers belonged to parastatal organizations known as "colleges", which existed in all cities and regional centers. In 1989, an independent lawyer association, the Union of Lawyers, was also organized. The lawyer had the right to review the entire investigative file on behalf of the client, but rarely represented his client during the preliminary investigation. Criminal codes in the Soviet Union used a "public danger" standard to determine the seriousness of offenses and set appropriate penalties. For minor violations, suspended sentences or fines were usually applied. Those found guilty of more serious and socially dangerous offenses could be sentenced to work in a labor camp or up to 10 years in prison. The death penalty was imposed for serious crimes such as premeditated murder, espionage and Act of terrorism. State security and international relations. The objectives of Soviet state security underwent a number of fundamental changes over time. At first, the Soviet state was conceived as a result of the world proletarian revolution, which the Bolsheviks hoped would end the First World War. The Communist (III) International (Comintern), whose founding congress took place in Moscow in March 1919, was supposed to unite socialists around the world in support revolutionary movements. Initially, the Bolsheviks did not even imagine that it was possible to build a socialist society (which, according to Marxist theory, corresponds to a more advanced stage social development- more productive, more free, with higher levels of education, culture and social well-being - compared to the developed capitalist society that should precede it) in a huge peasant Russia. The overthrow of the autocracy opened the path to power for them. When the post-war leftist movements in Europe (in Finland, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy) collapsed, Soviet Russia found herself in isolation. The Soviet state was forced to abandon the slogan of world revolution and follow the principle of peaceful coexistence (tactical alliances and economic cooperation) with its capitalist neighbors. Along with the strengthening of the state, the slogan of building socialism in one particular country was put forward. Having led the party after Lenin's death, Stalin took control of the Comintern, purged it, got rid of factionalists ("Trotskyists" and "Bukharinites") and transformed it into an instrument of his politics. Stalin's foreign and domestic policies are encouraging German National Socialism and accusing German Social Democrats of “social fascism,” which made it much easier for Hitler to seize power in 1933; dispossession of peasants in 1931-1933 and the extermination of the command staff of the Red Army during the “Great Terror” of 1936-1938; alliance with Nazi Germany in 1939-1941 - they brought the country to the brink of destruction, although ultimately the Soviet Union, at the cost of mass heroism and enormous losses, managed to emerge victorious in World War II. After the war, which ended with the establishment of communist regimes in most countries of Eastern and Central Europe, Stalin declared the existence of “two camps” in the world and took over the leadership of the countries of the “socialist camp” to fight the irreconcilably hostile “capitalist camp”. The appearance of nuclear weapons in both camps confronted humanity with the prospect of universal destruction. The arms burden became unbearable, and in the late 1980s the Soviet leadership reformulated the basic principles of its foreign policy, which came to be called “new thinking.” The central idea of the “new thinking” was that in the nuclear age, the security of any state, and especially countries with nuclear weapons, can only be based on the mutual security of all parties. In accordance with this concept, Soviet policy gradually reoriented toward global nuclear disarmament by 2000. To this end, the Soviet Union replaced its strategic doctrine of nuclear parity with perceived adversaries with a doctrine of "reasonable sufficiency" in order to prevent attack. Accordingly, it reduced its nuclear arsenal as well as its conventional military forces and began to restructure them. The transition to “new thinking” in international relations entailed a number of radical political changes in 1990 and 1991. At the UN, the USSR put forward diplomatic initiatives that contributed to the resolution of both regional conflicts and a number of global problems. The USSR changed its relations with former allies in Eastern Europe, abandoned the concept of a "sphere of influence" in Asia and Latin America, and stopped interfering in conflicts arising in Third World countries.
ECONOMIC HISTORY
Compared to Western Europe, Russia throughout its history has been an economically backward state. Due to the vulnerability of its southeastern and western borders, Russia was often subject to invasions from Asia and Europe. The Mongol-Tatar yoke and Polish-Lithuanian expansion depleted the resources of economic development. Despite its backwardness, Russia made attempts to catch up with Western Europe. The most decisive attempt was made by Peter the Great at the beginning of the 18th century. Peter vigorously encouraged modernization and industrialization - mainly to increase Russia's military power. The policy of external expansion was continued under Catherine the Great. Tsarist Russia's last push towards modernization came in the second half of the 19th century, when serfdom was abolished and the government implemented programs that stimulated the country's economic development. The state encouraged agricultural exports and attracted foreign capital. An ambitious railway construction program was launched, financed by both the state and private companies. Tariff protectionism and concessions stimulated the development of domestic industry. Bonds issued to landowners-nobles as compensation for the loss of their serfs were repaid with “redemption” payments by the former serfs, thereby forming an important source of accumulation of domestic capital. Forcing peasants to sell most of their produce for cash in order to make these payments, plus the fact that the nobles retained the best land, allowed the state to sell agricultural surpluses on foreign markets.
The consequence of this was a period of rapid industrial
development, when the average annual increase in industrial production reached 10-12%. Russia's gross national product increased threefold over the 20 years from 1893 to 1913. After 1905, the program of Prime Minister Stolypin began to be implemented, aimed at encouraging large peasant farms using hired labor. However, by the beginning of the First World War, Russia did not have time to complete the reforms it had begun.
The October Revolution and the Civil War. Russia's participation in the First World War ended with the revolution in February - October (new style - March - November) 1917. Driving force This revolution was the desire of the peasantry to stop the war and redistribute the land. The provisional government, which replaced the autocracy after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917 and consisted mainly of representatives of the bourgeoisie, was overthrown in October 1917. The new government (Council of People's Commissars), headed by left-wing Social Democrats (Bolsheviks) who returned from emigration, proclaimed Russia the world's first socialist republic. The very first decrees of the Council of People's Commissars proclaimed the end of the war and the lifelong and inalienable right of peasants to use the land taken from the landowners. The most important economic sectors were nationalized - banks, grain trade, transport, military production and the oil industry. Private enterprises outside this "state-capitalist" sector were subject to workers' control through trade unions and factory councils. By the summer of 1918, the Civil War broke out. Most of the country, including Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Siberia, fell into the hands of opponents of the Bolshevik regime, the German occupation army and other foreign interventionists. Not believing in the strength of the Bolsheviks' position, industrialists and intellectuals refused to cooperate with the new government.
War communism. In this critical situation, the communists found it necessary to establish centralized control over the economy. In the second half of 1918, all large and medium-sized enterprises and most of the small enterprises were nationalized. To avoid starvation in the cities, the authorities requisitioned grain from the peasants. The "black market" flourished - food was exchanged for household items and industrial goods, which workers received as payment instead of depreciated rubles. Industrial and agricultural production fell sharply. The Communist Party in 1919 openly recognized this situation in the economy, defining it as “war communism”, i.e. "systematic regulation of consumption in a besieged fortress." The authorities began to view War Communism as the first step towards a truly communist economy. War communism enabled the Bolsheviks to mobilize human and industrial resources and win the Civil War.
New economic policy. By the spring of 1921, the Red Army had largely defeated its opponents. However, the economic situation was catastrophic. Industrial production was barely 14% of pre-war levels, and most of the country was starving. On March 1, 1921, the sailors of the garrison in Kronstadt, a key fortress in the defense of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), rebelled. The most important goal of the party's new course, soon called the NEP (new economic policy), was to increase labor productivity in all spheres of economic life. The forced seizure of grain stopped - the surplus appropriation system was replaced by a tax in kind, which was paid as a certain share of the products produced by the peasant farm in excess of the consumption rate. After deducting the tax in kind, surplus food remained the property of the peasants and could be sold on the market. This was followed by the legalization of private trade and private property, as well as the normalization of monetary circulation through a sharp reduction in government spending and the adoption of a balanced budget. In 1922, the State Bank issued a new stable monetary unit, backed by gold and goods, the chervonets. The “commanding heights” of the economy - the fuel, metallurgical and military production, transport, banks and foreign trade - remained under the direct control of the state and were financed from state budget. All other large nationalized enterprises were to operate independently on a commercial basis. These latter were allowed to unite into trusts, of which there were 478 by 1923; they worked approx. 75% of all employed in industry. Trusts were taxed on the same basis as the private economy. The most important trusts of heavy industry were provided with state orders; The main lever of control over the trusts was the State Bank, which had a monopoly on commercial credit. The new economic policy quickly brought successful results. By 1925, industrial production had reached 75% of pre-war levels, and agricultural production had been almost completely restored. However, the successes of the NEP confronted the Communist Party with new complex economic and social problems.
Discussion about industrialization. The suppression of revolutionary uprisings of leftist forces throughout Central Europe meant that Soviet Russia had to begin socialist construction in an unfavorable international environment. Russian industry, ruined by the world and civil wars, lagged far behind the industry of the then advanced capitalist countries of Europe and America. Lenin defined the social basis of the NEP as a bond between a small (but led by the Communist Party) urban working class and a large but dispersed peasantry. In order to move towards socialism as far as possible, Lenin proposed that the party adhere to three fundamental principles: 1) encourage in every possible way the creation of production, marketing and purchasing peasant cooperatives; 2) consider the electrification of the entire country to be the primary task of industrialization; 3) maintain a state monopoly on foreign trade in order to protect domestic industry from foreign competition and use export proceeds to finance high-priority imports. Political and state power remained with the Communist Party.
"Price scissors". In the fall of 1923, the first serious economic problems of the NEP began to appear. Due to the rapid recovery of private agriculture and the lagging state industry, prices for industrial products rose faster than for agricultural goods (graphically represented by diverging lines resembling open scissors). This necessarily had to lead to a decline in agricultural production and a decrease in prices for industrial goods. 46 leading party members in Moscow published open letter, which contained a protest against this line in economic policy. They believed that it was necessary to expand the market in every possible way by stimulating agricultural production.
Bukharin and Preobrazhensky. Statement 46 (soon to become known as the “Moscow opposition”) marked the beginning of a broad internal party discussion that affected the foundations of the Marxist worldview. Its initiators, N.I. Bukharin and E.N. Preobrazhensky, were in the past friends and political associates (they were co-authors of the popular party textbook “The ABC of Communism”). Bukharin, who led the right-wing opposition, promoted a course of slow and gradual industrialization. Preobrazhensky was one of the leaders of the left (“Trotskyist”) opposition, which advocated accelerated industrialization. Bukharin assumed that the capital needed to finance industrial development would come from the growing savings of peasants. However, the vast majority of peasants were still so poor that they lived mainly by subsistence farming, used all their meager cash income for its needs and had almost no savings. Only the kulaks sold enough meat and grain to allow themselves to create large savings. Grain that was exported brought cash only for small-scale imports of engineering products - especially after expensive consumer goods began to be imported for sale to wealthy townspeople and peasants. In 1925, the government allowed the kulaks to rent land from poor peasants and hire farm laborers. Bukharin and Stalin argued that if the peasants enriched themselves, then the amount of grain for sale would increase (which would increase exports) and cash deposits in the State Bank. As a result, they believed, the country should industrialize, and the kulak should “grow into socialism.” Preobrazhensky stated that a significant increase in industrial production would require large investments in new equipment. In other words, if measures are not taken, production will become even more unprofitable due to equipment wear and tear, and overall production volume will decrease. To get out of the situation, the left opposition proposed to begin accelerated industrialization and introduce a long-term state economic plan. The key question remained how to find the capital investment needed for rapid industrial growth. Preobrazhensky's response was a program he called "socialist accumulation." The state had to use its monopoly position (especially in the area of imports) to increase prices as much as possible. Progressive system taxation was supposed to guarantee large cash receipts from the kulaks. Instead of providing loans preferentially to the richest (and therefore most creditworthy) peasants, the State Bank should give preference to cooperatives and collective farms made up of poor and middle peasants who will be able to purchase agricultural equipment and quickly increase yields by introducing modern methods housekeeping.
International relationships. The question of the country's relations with the leading industrial powers of the capitalist world was also of decisive importance. Stalin and Bukharin expected that the economic prosperity of the West, which began in the mid-1920s, would continue for a long period - this was a basic precondition for their theory of industrialization financed by ever-increasing grain exports. Trotsky and Preobrazhensky, for their part, assumed that in a few years this economic boom would end in a deep economic crisis. This position formed the basis of their theory of rapid industrialization, financed by the immediate large-scale export of raw materials at favorable prices - so that when the crisis struck, there would already be an industrial base for the accelerated development of the country. Trotsky advocated attracting foreign investment (“concessions”), which Lenin also spoke for at one time. He hoped to use the contradictions between the imperialist powers to break out of the regime of international isolation in which the country found itself. The leadership of the party and state saw the main threat in a likely war with Great Britain and France (as well as with their Eastern European allies - Poland and Romania). To protect themselves from such a threat, even under Lenin they established diplomatic relations with Germany (Rapallo, March 1922). Later, under a secret agreement with Germany, German officers were trained, and new types of weapons were tested for Germany. In turn, Germany provided the Soviet Union with significant assistance in the construction of heavy industrial enterprises intended for the production of military products.
The end of NEP. By the beginning of 1926, the freezing of wages in production, coupled with the growing prosperity of party and government officials, private traders and wealthy peasants, caused discontent among the workers. The leaders of the Moscow and Leningrad party organizations L.B. Kamenev and G.I. Zinoviev, speaking out against Stalin, formed a united left opposition in a bloc with the Trotskyists. Stalin's bureaucratic apparatus easily dealt with the oppositionists, concluding an alliance with Bukharin and other moderates. The Bukharinists and Stalinists accused the Trotskyists of “excessive industrialization” through the “exploitation” of the peasantry, of undermining the economy and the union of workers and peasants. In 1927, in the absence of investment, the cost of producing manufactured goods continued to rise and living standards declined. The growth of agricultural production stopped due to the emerging commodity shortage: peasants were not interested in selling their agricultural products at low prices. In order to accelerate industrial development, the first five-year plan was developed and approved in December 1927 by the 15th Party Congress.
Bread riots. The winter of 1928 was the threshold of an economic crisis. Purchasing prices for agricultural products were not increased, and the sale of grain to the state fell sharply. Then the state returned to direct expropriation of grain. This affected not only the kulaks, but also the middle peasants. In response, peasants reduced their crops and grain exports virtually ceased.
Turn left. The government's response was a radical change in economic policy. To provide resources for rapid growth, the party began to organize the peasantry into a system of collective farms under state control.
Revolution from above. In May 1929, the party opposition was crushed. Trotsky was deported to Turkey; Bukharin, A.I. Rykov and M.P. Tomsky were removed from leadership positions; Zinoviev, Kamenev and other weaker oppositionists capitulated to Stalin, publicly renouncing their political views. In the fall of 1929, immediately after the harvest, Stalin gave the order to begin the implementation of complete collectivization.
Collectivization of agriculture. By the beginning of November 1929, approx. 70 thousand collective farms, which included almost only poor or landless peasants, attracted by promises of state assistance. They made up 7% of the total number of all peasant families, and they owned less than 4% of the cultivated land. Stalin set the party the task of accelerated collectivization of the entire agricultural sector. Resolution Central Committee at the beginning of 1930 it was installed deadline - by the autumn of 1930 in the main grain-producing regions, and by the autumn of 1931 - in the rest. At the same time, through representatives and in the press, Stalin demanded to speed up this process, suppressing any resistance. In many areas, complete collectivization was carried out by the spring of 1930. During the first two months of 1930, approx. 10 million peasant farms were united into collective farms. The poorest and landless peasants viewed collectivization as a division of the property of their richer countrymen. However, among the middle peasants and kulaks, collectivization caused massive resistance. Widespread slaughter of livestock began. By March, the cattle population had decreased by 14 million heads; Large numbers of pigs, goats, sheep and horses were also slaughtered. In March 1930, in view of the threat of failure of the spring sowing campaign, Stalin demanded a temporary suspension of the collectivization process and accused local officials of “excesses.” Peasants were even allowed to leave collective farms, and by July 1, approx. 8 million families left collective farms. But in the fall, after the harvest, the collectivization campaign resumed and did not stop thereafter. By 1933, more than three-quarters of the cultivated land and more than three-fifths of peasant farms were collectivized. All wealthy peasants were “dispossessed,” their property and crops were confiscated. In cooperatives (collective farms), peasants had to supply the state with a fixed volume of products; payment was made depending on the labor contribution of each person (the number of “workdays”). The purchasing prices set by the government were extremely low, while the required supplies were high, sometimes exceeding the entire harvest. However, collective farmers were allowed to have personal plots of 0.25-1.5 hectares in size, depending on the region of the country and the quality of the land, for their own use. These plots, the products from which were allowed to be sold at collective farm markets, provided a significant part of the food for city residents and fed the peasants themselves. There were much fewer farms of the second type, but they were allocated better land and were better provided with agricultural equipment. These state farms were called state farms and functioned as industrial enterprises. Agricultural workers here received wages in cash and did not have the right to a plot of land. It was obvious that collectivized peasant farms would require a significant amount of equipment, especially tractors and combines. By organizing machine and tractor stations (MTS), the state created an effective means of control over collective peasant farms. Each MTS served a number of collective farms on a contractual basis for payment in cash or (mainly) in kind. In 1933 in the RSFSR there were 1,857 MTS, with 133 thousand tractors and 18,816 combines, which cultivated 54.8% of the sown areas of collective farms.
Consequences of collectivization. The first five-year plan envisaged increasing agricultural production by 50% from 1928 to 1933. However, the collectivization campaign that resumed in the fall of 1930 was accompanied by a decline in production and the slaughter of livestock. By 1933, the total number of cattle in agriculture had decreased from more than 60 million heads to less than 34 million. The number of horses decreased from 33 million to 17 million; pigs - from 19 million to 10 million; sheep - from 97 to 34 million; goats - from 10 to 3 million. Only in 1935, when tractor factories were built in Kharkov, Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk, the number of tractors became sufficient to restore the level of total draft power that peasant farms had in 1928. The total grain harvest, which in 1928 exceeded the level of 1913 and amounted to 76.5 million tons, by 1933 it decreased to 70 million tons, despite the increase in the area of cultivated land. Overall, agricultural production fell by approximately 20% from 1928 to 1933. The consequence of rapid industrialization was a significant increase in the number of city dwellers, which necessitated a strictly rationed distribution of food. The situation was made worse by the global economic crisis that began in 1929. By 1930, grain prices on the world market had fallen sharply - just when large quantities of industrial equipment had to be imported, not to mention the tractors and combines needed for agriculture (mainly from the USA and Germany). To pay for imports, it was necessary to export grain in huge quantities. In 1930, 10% of the collected grain was exported, and in 1931 - 14%. The result of grain exports and collectivization was famine. The situation was worst in the Volga region and Ukraine, where peasant resistance to collectivization was strongest. In the winter of 1932-1933, more than 5 million people died of hunger, but even more were sent into exile. By 1934, violence and hunger finally broke the resistance of the peasants. The forced collectivization of agriculture led to fatal consequences. The peasants no longer felt like masters of the land. Significant and irreparable damage to the culture of management was caused by the destruction of the wealthy, i.e. the most skilled and hardworking peasantry. Despite the mechanization and expansion of sown areas through the development of new lands in the virgin lands and in other areas, the increase in purchase prices and the introduction of pensions and other social benefits for collective farmers, labor productivity on collective and state farms lagged far behind the level that existed on personal plots and so on. more in the West, and gross agricultural production increasingly lagged behind population growth. Due to the lack of incentives to work, agricultural machinery and equipment on collective and state farms were usually poorly maintained, seeds and fertilizers were used wastefully, and harvest losses were enormous. Since the 1970s, despite the fact that approx. 20% of the labor force (in the USA and Western European countries - less than 4%), the Soviet Union became the world's largest importer of grain.
Five-year plans. The justification for the costs of collectivization was the construction of a new society in the USSR. This goal undoubtedly aroused the enthusiasm of many millions of people, especially the generation that grew up after the revolution. During the 1920s and 1930s, millions of young people found education and party work as the key to moving up the social ladder. Through the mobilization of the masses, an unprecedented fast growth industry just at a time when the West was experiencing an acute economic crisis. During the first five-year plan (1928-1933), approx. 1,500 large factories, including metallurgical plants in Magnitogorsk and Novokuznetsk; agricultural machinery and tractor factories in Rostov-on-Don, Chelyabinsk, Stalingrad, Saratov and Kharkov; chemical plants in the Urals and a heavy engineering plant in Kramatorsk. New centers of oil production, metal production and weapons production arose in the Urals and Volga region. The construction of new railways and canals began, in which the forced labor of dispossessed peasants played an increasingly important role. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan. During the period of accelerated implementation of the second and third five-year plans (1933-1941), many mistakes made during the implementation of the first plan were taken into account and corrected. During this period of mass repression, the systematic use of forced labor under the control of the NKVD became important part economy, especially in the forestry and gold mining industries, as well as in new buildings in Siberia and the Far North. The economic planning system as it was created in the 1930s lasted without fundamental changes until the late 1980s. The essence of the system was planning carried out by the bureaucratic hierarchy using command methods. At the top of the hierarchy were the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which led the highest body of adoption economic decisions- State Planning Committee (Gosplan). More than 30 ministries were subordinated to the State Planning Committee, subdivided into “main departments” responsible for specific types of production, combined into one industry. At the base of this production pyramid were the primary production units - plants and factories, collective and state agricultural enterprises, mines, warehouses, etc. Each of these units was responsible for the implementation of a specific part of the plan, determined (based on the volume and cost of production or turnover) by higher-level authorities, and received its own planned quota of resources. This pattern was repeated at each level of the hierarchy. Central planning agencies set target figures in accordance with a system of so-called “material balances”. Each production unit at each level of the hierarchy agreed with a higher authority about what its plans would be for the coming year. In practice, this meant shaking up the plan: everyone below wanted to do the minimum and receive the maximum, while everyone above wanted to get as much as possible and give as little as possible. From the compromises reached, a “balanced” overall plan emerged.
The role of money. Check digits plans were presented in physical units (tons of oil, pairs of shoes, etc.), but money also played an important, albeit subordinate, role in the planning process. With the exception of periods of extreme shortages (1930-1935, 1941-1947), when basic consumer goods were rationed, all goods usually went on sale. Money was also a means for non-cash payments - it was assumed that each enterprise should minimize the cash costs of production so as to be conditionally profitable, and the State Bank should allocate limits for each enterprise. All prices were tightly controlled; Money was thus assigned an exclusively passive economic role as a means of accounting and a method of rationing consumption.
Victory of socialism. At the 7th Congress of the Comintern in August 1935, Stalin declared that “in the Soviet Union, complete and final victory socialism." This statement - that the Soviet Union built a socialist society - became an unshakable dogma of Soviet ideology.
Great terror. Having dealt with the peasantry, taking control of the working class and raising an obedient intelligentsia, Stalin and his supporters, under the slogan of “exacerbating the class struggle,” began to purge the party. After December 1, 1934 (on this day S.M. Kirov, secretary of the Leningrad party organization, was killed by Stalin’s agents), several political processes, and then almost all the old party cadres were destroyed. With the help of documents fabricated by German intelligence services, many representatives of the high command of the Red Army were repressed. Over 5 years, more than 5 million people were shot or sent to forced labor in NKVD camps.
Post-war reconstruction. The Second World War led to devastation in western regions Soviet Union, but accelerated the industrial growth of the Ural-Siberian region. The industrial base was quickly restored after the war: this was facilitated by the removal of industrial equipment from East Germany and Soviet-occupied Manchuria. In addition, the Gulag camps again received multimillion-dollar replenishment from German prisoners of war and former Soviet prisoners of war accused of treason. Heavy and military industries remained top priorities. Particular attention was paid to the development nuclear power, primarily for weapons purposes. The pre-war level of supply of food and consumer goods was already achieved in the early 1950s.
Khrushchev's reforms. Stalin's death in March 1953 put an end to terror and repression, which were becoming increasingly widespread, reminiscent of pre-war times. The softening of party policy during the leadership of N.S. Khrushchev, from 1955 to 1964, was called the “thaw.” Millions of political prisoners have returned from Gulag camps; most of them were rehabilitated. Significantly greater attention in the five-year plans began to be paid to the production of consumer goods and housing construction. The volume of agricultural production increased; wages grew, mandatory supplies and taxes decreased. In order to increase profitability, collective and state farms were enlarged and disaggregated, sometimes without much success. Large large state farms were created during the development of virgin and fallow lands in Altai and Kazakhstan. These lands produced crops only in years with sufficient rainfall, about three out of every five years, but they allowed a significant increase in the average amount of grain harvested. The MTS system was liquidated, and collective farms received their own agricultural equipment. The hydroelectric, oil and gas resources of Siberia were developed; Large scientific and industrial centers arose there. Many young people went to the virgin lands and construction sites of Siberia, where bureaucratic orders were comparatively less rigid than in the European part of the country. Khrushchev's attempts to accelerate economic development soon encountered resistance from the administrative apparatus. Khrushchev tried to decentralize ministries by transferring many of their functions to new regional economic councils (economic councils). A debate broke out among economists about developing a more realistic pricing system and giving real autonomy to industrial directors. Khrushchev intended to carry out a significant reduction in military spending, which followed from the doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” with the capitalist world. In October 1964, Khrushchev was removed from his post by a coalition of conservative party bureaucrats, representatives of the central planning apparatus and the Soviet military-industrial complex.
Period of stagnation. New Soviet leader L.I. Brezhnev quickly nullified Khrushchev's reforms. With the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he destroyed any hope for the centralized economies of Eastern Europe to develop their own models of society. The only area of rapid technological progress was in industries related to the military industry - manufacturing submarines, missiles, aircraft, military electronics, space program. As before, no special attention was paid to the production of consumer goods. Large-scale land reclamation has led to catastrophic consequences for the environment and public health. For example, the cost of introducing cotton monoculture in Uzbekistan was the severe shallowing of the Aral Sea, which until 1973 was the fourth largest inland body of water in the world.
Slowing economic growth. During the leadership of Brezhnev and his immediate successors, the development of the Soviet economy slowed down extremely. And yet, the bulk of the population could firmly count on small but guaranteed salaries, pensions and benefits, control over prices for basic consumer goods, free education and healthcare and practically free, although always in short supply, housing. To maintain minimum life support standards, they were imported from the West. large quantities grain and various consumer goods. Since the main Soviet exports - mainly oil, gas, timber, gold, diamonds and weapons - provided insufficient amounts of hard currency, the Soviet foreign debt reached $6 billion by 1976 and continued to increase rapidly.
The period of collapse. In 1985, M. S. Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. He took up this post fully aware that radical economic reforms, which he launched under the slogan of “restructuring and acceleration.” To increase labor productivity - i.e. to use the fastest way to ensure economic growth, he authorized an increase in wages and limited the sale of vodka in the hope of stopping the rampant drunkenness of the population. However, proceeds from the sale of vodka were the main source of income for the state. The loss of this income and higher wages increased the budget deficit and increased inflation. In addition, the ban on the sale of vodka revived the underground trade in moonshine; Drug use has increased sharply. In 1986, the economy experienced a terrible shock after the explosion at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which led to radioactive contamination of large areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Until 1989-1990, the economy of the Soviet Union was closely linked through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) with the economies of Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hungary, Romania, Mongolia, Cuba and Vietnam. For all these countries, the USSR was the main source of oil, gas and industrial raw materials, and in return it received from them mechanical engineering products, consumer goods and agricultural products. The reunification of Germany in mid-1990 led to the destruction of the Comecon. By August 1990, everyone already understood that radical reforms aimed at encouraging private initiative were inevitable. Gorbachev and his main political opponent, President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin, jointly put forward the “500 days” structural reform program developed by economists S.S. Shatalin and G.A. Yavlinsky, which involved liberation from under state control and privatization of most of the national economy in an organized manner, without reducing the standard of living of the population. However, in order to avoid confrontation with the apparatus of the central planning system, Gorbachev refused to discuss the program and its implementation in practice. In early 1991, the government tried to curb inflation by limiting the money supply, but the huge budget deficit continued to increase as the union republics refused to transfer taxes to the center. At the end of June 1991, Gorbachev and the presidents of most of the republics agreed to conclude a union treaty to preserve the USSR, giving the republics new rights and powers. But the economy was already in a hopeless state. The size of external debt was approaching $70 billion, production was declining by almost 20% per year, and inflation rates exceeded 100% per year. The emigration of qualified specialists exceeded 100 thousand people per year. To save the economy, the Soviet leadership, in addition to reforms, needed serious financial assistance from Western powers. At the July meeting of the leaders of seven leading industrial developed countries Gorbachev turned to them with a request for help, but found no response.
CULTURE
The leadership of the USSR attached great importance the formation of a new, Soviet culture - “national in form, socialist in content.” It was assumed that the ministries of culture at the union and republican levels should subordinate the development of national culture to the same ideological and political guidelines that prevailed in all sectors of economic and social life. This task was not easy to cope with in a multinational state with more than 100 languages. Having created national-state formations for the majority of the peoples of the country, the party leadership stimulated development in the right direction national cultures; in 1977, for example, 2,500 books were published in Georgian with a circulation of 17.7 million copies. and 2200 books in Uzbek with a circulation of 35.7 million copies. A similar state of affairs existed in other union and autonomous republics. Due to the lack of cultural traditions, most books were translations from other languages, mainly from Russian. The task of the Soviet regime in the field of culture after October was understood differently by two competing groups of ideologists. The first, which considered itself the promoters of a general and complete renewal of life, demanded a decisive break with the culture of the “old world” and the creation of a new, proletarian culture. The most prominent herald of ideological and artistic innovation was the futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), one of the leaders of the avant-garde literary group Left Front (LEF). Their opponents, who were called “fellow travelers,” believed that ideological renewal did not contradict the continuation of the advanced traditions of Russian and world culture. The inspirer of the supporters of proletarian culture and at the same time the mentor of “fellow travelers” was the writer Maxim Gorky (A.M. Peshkov, 1868-1936), who gained fame in pre-revolutionary Russia. In the 1930s, the party and state strengthened their control over literature and art by creating unified all-Union creative organizations. After Stalin's death in 1953, a careful and increasingly in-depth analysis of what had been done under Soviet power to strengthen and develop Bolshevik cultural ideas, and the following decade witnessed ferment in all spheres Soviet life. Names and works of victims of ideological and political repression came out of total oblivion, the influence of foreign literature increased. Soviet culture began to come to life during the period collectively called the “thaw” (1954-1956). Two groups of cultural figures emerged - "liberals" and "conservatives" - who were represented in various official publications.
Education. The Soviet leadership paid a lot of attention and resources to education. In a country where more than two-thirds of the population could not read, illiteracy was virtually eliminated by the 1930s through several mass campaigns. In 1966, 80.3 million people, or 34% of the population, had specialized secondary education, incomplete or completed higher education; if in 1914 there were 10.5 million people studying in Russia, then in 1967, when universal compulsory secondary education was introduced, there were 73.6 million. In 1989, there were 17.2 million pupils in nurseries and kindergartens in the USSR, 39, 7 million primary school students and 9.8 million secondary school students. Depending on the decisions of the country's leadership, boys and girls studied in secondary schools, sometimes together, sometimes separately, sometimes for 10 years, sometimes for 11. The schoolchildren, almost entirely covered by the Pioneer and Komsomol organizations, had to fully monitor the progress and behavior of everyone. In 1989, there were 5.2 million full-time students and several million part-time or evening students in Soviet universities. The first academic degree after graduation was a Ph.D. To obtain it, it was necessary to have a higher education, gain some work experience, or complete graduate school and defend a dissertation in your specialty. Higher academic degree, Doctor of Science, was usually achieved only after 15-20 years professional work and if available large quantity published scientific works.
Science and academic institutions. In the Soviet Union, significant advances were made in some natural sciences and in military technology. This happened despite the ideological pressure of the party bureaucracy, which banned and abolished entire branches of science, such as cybernetics and genetics. After World War II, the state directed its best minds to the development of nuclear physics and applied mathematics and their practical applications. Physicists and rocket scientists could rely on generous financial support for their work. Russia has traditionally produced excellent theoretical scientists, and this tradition continued in the Soviet Union. Intensive and multilateral research activities were ensured by a network of research institutes that were part of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Academies of the Union Republics, covering all areas of knowledge - both natural sciences and the humanities.
Traditions and holidays. One of the first tasks of the Soviet leadership was the elimination of old holidays, mainly church ones, and the introduction of revolutionary holidays. At first, even Sunday and New Year were cancelled. The main Soviet revolutionary holidays were November 7 - the holiday of the October Revolution of 1917 and May 1 - the day of international workers' solidarity. Both of them were celebrated for two days. Mass demonstrations were organized in all cities of the country, and in large administrative centers- military parades; The largest and most impressive was the parade in Moscow on Red Square. See below
On December 30, 1922, at the First All-Union Congress of Soviets, the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was approved.
In December the Union, in July - the government.
The agreement on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was signed on December 29, 1922 at a conference of delegations from the Congresses of Soviets of the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, BSSR and ZSFSR and approved by the First All-Union Congress of Soviets. December 30 is considered the official date of the formation of the USSR, although the government of the USSR and the Union ministries were created only in July 1923.
From 4 to 16.
Over the years, the number of union republics within the USSR ranged from 4 to 16, but for the longest time the Soviet Union consisted of 15 republics - the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR, the Moldavian SSR, the Armenian SSR, the Georgian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR, the Kazakh SSR, the Uzbek SSR SSR, Kirghiz SSR, Turkmen SSR, Tajik SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR and Estonian SSR.
Three Constitutions in 69 years.
Over the nearly 69 years of its existence, the Soviet Union has replaced three Constitutions, which were adopted in 1924, 1936 and 1977. According to the first, the highest body of state power in the country was the All-Union Congress of Soviets, according to the second, the bicameral Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In the third constitution, initially there was also a bicameral parliament, which, in the 1988 edition, gave way to the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.
Kalinin led the USSR the longest.
Legally, the head of state in the Soviet Union in different years was considered the Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the President of the USSR. Formally, the longest-serving head of the USSR was Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, who for 16 years served as Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee, and then for eight years was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
The flag was approved later by the Constitution.
The Treaty on the Formation of the USSR stipulated that the new state had its own flag, but no clear description was given of it. In January 1924, the first Constitution of the USSR was approved, however, it did not indicate what the flag looks like new country. And only in April 1924, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR approved a scarlet cloth with a red five-pointed star, hammer and sickle as the flag.
In America - stars, in the USSR - slogans.
In 1923, the coat of arms of the Soviet Union was approved - an image of a hammer and sickle against the backdrop of the globe, in the rays of the sun and framed by ears of corn, with the inscription in the languages of the union republics “Workers of all countries, unite!” The number of inscriptions depended on the number of republics within the USSR, just as the number of stars on the US flag depends on the number of states.
Universal anthem.
From 1922 to 1943, the anthem of the Soviet Union was “The Internationale” - a French song with music by Pierre Degeyter and lyrics by Eugene Potier translated by Arkady Kotz. In December 1943, a new national anthem was created and approved with text by Sergei Mikhalkov and Gabriel El-Registan and music by Alexander Alexandrov. Alexandrov's music with modified text by Mikhalkov is currently the anthem of Russia.
The country is the size of a continent.
The Soviet Union occupied a territory of 22,400,000 square kilometers, being by this indicator the largest big country on the planet. The size of the USSR was comparable to the size of North America, including the territories of the USA, Canada and Mexico.
The border is one and a half equators.
The Soviet Union had the longest border in the world, over 60,000 kilometers, and bordered 14 states. It is curious that the length of the border of modern Russia is almost the same - about 60,900 km. At the same time, Russia borders on 18 states - 16 recognized and 2 partially recognized.
The highest point of the Union.
The highest point of the Soviet Union was a mountain in the Tajik SSR with a height of 7495 meters, which in different years was called Stalin Peak and Communism Peak. In 1998, the Tajik authorities gave it a third name - Samani Peak, in honor of the emir who founded the first Tajik state.
A unique capital.
Despite the tradition in the USSR of renaming cities in honor of prominent Soviet figures, this process did not actually affect the capitals of the union republics. The only exception was the capital of the Kirghiz SSR, the city of Frunze, renamed in honor Soviet military leader Mikhail Frunze, who was a local native. At the same time, the city was first renamed and then became the capital of the union republic. In 1991, Frunze was renamed Bishkek.
In the mid-1950s – early 1960s, the Soviet Union accomplished a kind of “scientific and technical hat-trick” - in 1954 it created the world’s first nuclear power plant, in 1957 it launched the world’s first nuclear power plant into orbit. artificial satellite Earth, and in 1961 launched the world's first spaceship with a person on board. These events occurred respectively 9, 12 and 15 years after the end of the Great Patriotic War, in which the USSR suffered the greatest material and human losses from the participating countries.
The USSR did not lose wars.
During its existence, the Soviet Union officially participated in three wars - Soviet-Finnish war 1939–1940, the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 and the Soviet-Japanese War of 1945. All these armed conflicts ended in victory for the Soviet Union.
1204 Olympic medals.
During the existence of the USSR, athletes of the Soviet Union took part in 18 Olympics (9 summer and 9 winter), winning 1204 medals (473 gold, 376 silver and 355 bronze). According to this indicator, the Soviet Union still ranks second, second only to the United States. For comparison, Great Britain, which is third, has 806 Olympic medals with 49 participations in the Olympic Games. As for modern Russia, it ranks 9th - 521 medals after 11 Olympics.
The first and last referendum.
In the entire history of the USSR, the only all-Union referendum was held, which took place on March 17, 1991. It raised the question of the continued existence of the USSR. More than 77 percent of referendum participants were in favor of preserving the Soviet Union. In December of the same year, the heads of the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR announced the termination of the existence of a single country.
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