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USSR

USSR (this article is in Russian - СССР) — Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) — the nation^[ru], which existed from December 30, 1922 until the end of 1991 in most of the territory of the former Russian Empire; The capital city is Moscow.

The predecessor of the USSR was the RSFSR. Treaty on the formation of the USSR on December 27, 1922 signed the RSFSR, Ukraine^[ru], Byelorussia and the Transcaucasian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. Along with the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR, the treaty was approved by the First Congress of Soviets of the USSR on December 30, 1922. Later on, the USSR entered the USSR - in 1925 - Uzbekistan (Uzbek SSR), Turkmenistan (Turkmen SSR), in 1929 - Tajikistan (Tajik SSR). In 1936, the ZFSFR was disbanded and the union republics - Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan SSR), Armenia (Armenian SSR), Georgia (Georgian SSR) became part of the USSR directly. In the same year 1936, the Union republics of the USSR were Kazakhstan (the Kazakh SSR) and Kirghizia (the Kirghiz SSR); In 1940 - Moldavia (Moldavian SSR), Latvia (Latvian SSR), Lithuania (Lithuanian SSR) and Estonia (Estonian SSR).

The number of republics entering the USSR initially grew quite rapidly. October 27, 1924 two republics were added to the two republics - in the territory of the Turkestan ASSR, which was part of the RSFSR, the Uzbek and Turkmen SSR were formed. December 5, 1929 - The Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was part of the Uzbek SSR, was transformed into a union republic. On December 5, 1936, the ZSFSR was abolished, and the three republics that made up it (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) became members of the USSR directly; The Kazakh and Kyrgyz ASSR, which were part of the RSFSR, were transformed into union republics. Thus, the Constitution of the USSR in 1936 consolidated in the USSR already 11 republics.

Further growth in the number of union republics was associated with the Soviet-Finnish and World War II^[ru]. After the end of the war with Finland, a significant part of its territory (Karelian Isthmus, part of the coast of Lake Ladoga, part of the Rybachiy peninsula), moving to the USSR, was annexed to the Karelian ASSR, which was part of the RSFSR, resulting in the creation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR on March 31. In the autumn of 1939, under the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Soviet troops invaded Poland and annexed the USSR to Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, formerly part of the Russian Empire and lost as a result of the Soviet-Polish war and the 1921 treaty of Bessarabia, which was with Romania in 1918, On August 2, 1940, the Moldavian SSR was established. Before that, the Moldavian ASSR was part of the Ukrainian SSR.

After the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of the Baltic republics and the organization of "socialist revolutions", the number of union republics was supplemented by three more: on 21 July 1940, the Estonian Republic was established, August 3, 1940 - Lithuanian, and August 5 - the Latvian Union republics. Now there are 16. The insignificant increase in the territory of the USSR in subsequent years did not lead to the creation of new union republics. Moreover, on June 16, 1956, the Karelian-Finnish SSR was transformed into the Karelian ASSR as part of the RSFSR.

On June 26, 1946, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved a sample of the coat of arms of the USSR, 16 turns of ribbon.

The national flag of the USSR

The national flag of the USSR 1924-1991 - for its image, see the beginning of the article. The flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was first published in 1924. Before that, it was proposed to make the Soviet flag a red cloth with a coat of arms in the center. The flip side of the USSR flag was to be purely red.

Coat of arms of the USSR

The arms of the USSR, adopted in 1923, later underwent a number of changes. In 1980, the final version of the coat of arms was approved.

Hymn of the Soviet Union

The hymn (Greek hymnos) is a solemn song. Hymns known state, revolutionary, military, religious, in honor of certain events.

From 1944 to 1956, the anthem was performed in a version that included the mention of Stalin. From 1956 to 1970 the hymn was performed without words. In 1970, a writer, poet, fabulist, playwright, publicist, war correspondent, scriptwriter, public figure Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalkov prepared a revised version of the hymn text. From 1971 to 1991, the anthem was performed in a new edition, subsequently approved by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 27, 1977.

Since November 23, 1990, the anthem has become exclusively allied, since the last republic, which did not have its own anthem, the RSFSR, approved its own hymn ("Patriotic Song" by composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka). The last time as a national anthem was performed on December 26, 1991 - on the last day of the existence of the USSR.

The national anthem of the USSR is the anthem of the Soviet Union, adopted in 1943, which replaced the International.

Text of the USSR Hymn

State apparatus of the USSR

The state apparatus of the USSR was determined mainly by the Constitutions, which were adopted for all the years of its existence three: 1924, 1936, 1977. According to the Constitution of 1924 the supreme authorities in the country were the Congress of Soviets of the USSR, convened until 1927 times a year, and then every two Year, and the bicameral Central Executive Committee (CEC) as a permanent body between the convocations of the Congresses. Between sessions of the Central Executive Committee was acting its Presidium, formally playing the role of collective head of state. The Congress of Soviets of the USSR was formed on the basis of multistage, unequal (for city and rural voters) elections by open voting, mainly on the basis of production principle. Elections were considered universal, although the electoral rights, as before, were deprived of seven categories of citizens.

Heads of People's Commissariats (People's Commissariats) and other central departments, the number of which constantly grew, were members of the government - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Sovnarkom, SNK). The judicial system was headed by the Supreme Court of the USSR, property disputes were resolved in the system of arbitration courts, supervision of the legality was entrusted to the prosecution authorities. The system of republican authorities was formed in accordance with the Constitution of the USSR and its own constitutions practically in the likeness of the Union.

On the ground, there were Soviets and their executive committees (executive committees). Over time, they lost even the elements of self-government, there was a merging of the executive apparatus with the party apparatus, which then became a reality. The executive committees pushed the Soviets back to the fore and carried out their activities, like the entire state apparatus of the USSR, under the direct guidance and control of the party organs. The Soviet system survived the USSR and ceased to exist in late 1993.

The Constitution of the USSR in 1936 replaced the Congresses of Soviets of the USSR and republics by the Supreme Soviets (in the USSR it was bicameral), between which their presidiums acted, and made changes in the electoral system. In March 1946, the People's Commissariats were renamed ministries, and the government became known as the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In 1957, a transition was made from the branch to the territorial system of management of industry and construction - instead of ministries in the administrative and territorial regions, Soviets of the national economy (Sovnarkhozy) were established. In 1965, the territorial system is replaced by an industrial one, the ministries are again the main link in the administration.

The Constitution of the USSR of 1977 did not introduce changes into the system of state bodies. In connection with the adoption in 1988-1991 of a number of laws in the USSR, the following structure of government bodies was established: the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the President of the USSR, the Federation Council, the Government (the Cabinet of Ministers), the Committee for Constitutional Oversight. September 5, 1991 V Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR adopted laws defining the system of federal authorities and management in the "transition period" - the supreme representative body in the country once again became a bicameral Supreme Council, on the inter-republican basis, the State Council and the Inter-Republican Economic Committee were created. At various times in the USSR there were extraordinary bodies whose activities were of the federal (for example, the State Defense Committee in 1941-1945) or regional (for example, the Special Management Committee of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region in 1989).

Economic and geographical position of the USSR

May 4, 1966 Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin signed a Protocol on the participation of the Italian concern "Fiat" in the construction of a car factory in the USSR.

On the territory inherited mainly from the Russian Empire, the USSR was the largest state in the world, occupying one sixth of the land area. It was located in most of Europe, occupying its eastern part, and in the northern and middle parts of Asia. Natural (plains, lowlands, mountain ranges, plateaus, forests, deserts and tundra) and climatic conditions (from the Arctic regions with permafrost to almost year-round summits) were quite diverse. On its territory there were a large number of rivers, including the largest (Volga, Ob, Lena), lakes, among them the deepest in the world - Lake Baikal, and even two sea-lakes - the Aral and Caspian. By population, it was second only to China and India. At the beginning of 1989, 287.6 million people lived in the USSR, over a hundred large and small peoples, different in language, culture, and peculiarities of everyday life, but closely related to the commonality of historical destinies. About half the population was Russian.

As a result of the acute political struggle for power in the USSR, authoritarian methods of leadership were established by the end of the 1920s, complicated by the ugliest cult of the personality of Stalin. An anti-democratic, one-party, centralized and largely militarized socio-political system was created in the country, whose purpose was to modernize in the country through extensive methods, and in foreign policy to support revolutionary movements, wherever they occurred. The collapse of NEP, the liquidation of even the elements of market relations both in the city and in the countryside, the barbaric methods of industrialization and collectivization, provoked by the policy of the party leadership and the country's famine of the early 1930s, mass political repressions, deportations of entire peoples, the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945^[ru] with colossal sacrifices, the "cold war" for many years, the desire for military parity with the most developed countries and much more contributed to the country's slipping to a socio-economic crisis.

October 17, 1945, following the decisions of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, Koenigsberg with adjacent lands was included in the USSR.

April 6, 1946 part of East Prussia became part of the USSR as the Kaliningrad region.

Attempts by Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev to update the existing system were inconsistent and failed. The USSR was a country with a rich economic potential, occupied the leading place in the world in explored reserves of coal, natural gas, oil, iron and manganese ores, nonferrous metal ores, potassium salts, asbestos, phosphate raw materials and other minerals, the country of the richest cultural and other traditions , But its possibilities were largely not realized, although for almost seventy-five years of its existence it has changed beyond recognition. From an essentially agrarian monarchy, it turned into an industrial power with a military-industrial complex (the term belongs to the 34th US^[ru] president, Dwight Eisenhower), with a rich intellectual and scientific potential.

The USSR became a country that provided the population with social security, free education and medical care, and certain confidence in the future. But neither the housing nor food issues the Soviet state for all the years of its existence has not been resolved. And most importantly, the standard of living in the USSR in comparison with the developed countries remained very low.

The price of the achievements of the socialist way of life turned out to be prohibitively high: the administrative methods of managing the economy could not provide economic growth, the economic system proved to be ineffective, from the country of the peasant it turned into a country without the peasantry, huge damage was done to natural resources, the ideology imbedded from above completely diverged from the real Reality.

In the late 1980s, the economic crisis was supplemented by the political crisis, the core role of the CPSU weakened. In the crisis there was also a form of state structure - the Baltic republics demanded withdrawal from the USSR, others declared their sovereignty. The country's leadership responded with an economic blockade of some republics, the introduction of troops into the capitals of others.

In March 1991, in a referendum, the majority of the country's population (including 71% of the RSFSR citizens who participated in it) spoke in favor of the "renewed federation of equal sovereign republics", but Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts, the first and last President of the USSR, sign a new union treaty extending Rights of the republics, were not crowned with success. The August 1991 events in Moscow only accelerated the process of the disintegration of the USSR.

On December 8, 1991 the heads of the republics of the Russian Federation^[ru], Ukraine and Belarus signed an agreement on the "termination of the existence" of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). December 25 M.S. Gorbachev resigned as president. The USSR ceased to exist, its legal successor was the Russian Federation. (T.G. Arkhipova)

Andrey Dmitrievich Dementiev (2011):

I am amazed at the insignificance of power.
The one who suddenly ruined the country.
And now it 's only partially
I'll take a chance to rank among the great ones.

I am amazed by the short-sightedness of the authorities.
It is necessary to deprive the people so,
That now it is divided into parts:
Someone is empty, like fields in a nedorod.

Someone is full of wealth and swagger.
Looks past misfortunes and friendship.
The great brotherhood is forgotten
And peoples, and kindred spirits.

I'm not a scoop at all. I'm normal.
Like you, he is surrounded by vanity.
We are all formally free now.
And in fact - under the imperious heel.

Maybe we will wait sometime
We want real freedom for a circle...
so that the country is not to blame
The fact that we suddenly lost faith.