Soviet Union - Unión Soviética

Introduction The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wave USSR (in Russian, Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, Soyuz Sovétskij Sotsialistícheskij Respublik) was a state that existed between 1922 and 1991 in much of Eastern Europe and the north of Asia. Despite its dissolution several decades ago, the existence of the Soviet Union continues to be of great influence in the 15 countries that were born from its bosom.

Capital Moscow Idiom Russian Surface 22 402 200 km² Population 293 047 571 (1991) Currency ruble Time zone UTC 2 to UTC 12 Telephone prefix 7

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ), or Soviet Union , was dissolved in 1991. Many, but not all, former Soviet republics are now part of a more flexible union called the Commonwealth of Independent States. With more than 22 million km ² (8.5 million of my ² ), was by far the largest state on Earth during its existence, covering more than one sixth of the planet's land surface. One of its successor states, Russia, remains the largest at about 15 million km ² .

Today many traces of this superpower can be seen, and many of its former citizens have strong feelings both for and against.

Understand

History

The Russian Revolution was actually three events: the 1905 revolution, which led to limited reforms, was replaced by a tenuous "dual government" of the elected Duma and workers' councils (called "Soviets" in Russian) in February 1917. However, it was the October Revolution of 1917 that brought the Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to power. The people of the imperial capital, Petrograd (Saint Petersburg), were tired of the government's involvement in World War I, and an early decision of the Bolshevik government was a truce with the central powers, led by Germany. Both the remnants of the Tsarist and provisional "bourgeois" regime were quickly eliminated (including the execution of the Tsar, his wife and children), but this met resistance that led to a civil war.

The Russian Soviet Republic was attacked by the Whites, an alliance of counterrevolutionaries (of all shades, from moderate left Social Revolutionaries to Tsarists and ultranationalists) and foreign armies. This war was called the Russian Civil War. Finland and the Baltic states became independent during the war, but Belarus, Ukraine, and other republics joined the Soviet Union. Lenin died in 1924; His eventual successor, Joseph Stalin, enforced the five-year plans for industrialization and collectivization of farms that were followed by famine, especially in Ukraine, where he is known as the Holodomor .

WWII

The people of the Soviet Union were again decimated during World War II. Soviet losses of more than 25 million exceeded the deaths of all other European and American citizens in total. In secret collusion with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union annexed Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and eastern Poland in 1939. The Germans broke the pact in 1941, invaded Soviet territory, and carried out the Holocaust, a campaign to exterminate the Jews. and other alleged enemies of the Nazi regime. After millions of casualties on both sides, the Soviet army stopped the invasions in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Moscow, and the infamous and bloody battle at Stalingrad (now Volgograd). This turned the tide of the war and the Soviets managed to liberate much of Central Europe and the Balkans from the Nazis.

Cold War

When the war ended in 1945, the Soviet Union became a superpower, controlling most of Eastern Europe: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia (which became neutral in 1949), Romania, and Bulgaria, just as Mongolia in Asia were Soviet. satellite states. While North Korea and East Germany came under Soviet influence in opposition to the United States-backed South Korea and West Germany, the socialist revolutions that followed the Soviets occurred in parts of the developing world, such as China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yemen, Angola and Mozambique. These states were generally aligned with the Soviet Union in international politics, although China broke away from the Soviet sphere of influence in 1961, even aligning itself with the United States against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

The following decades were called Cold War , where the Soviet Union competed against the United States and its allies in a nuclear arms race and the Space Race. The Soviets were successful and put the first satellite into orbit in 1957 and the first man in space in 1961. Later, the United States and its Western allies took advantage, sending a manned expedition to the Moon in 1969; a total of 12 Americans landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Eventually, the Soviet Union scrapped its lunar program and focused on its (hugely successful) space stations, claiming that had been its intention from the beginning. The Soviet Union would also proceed to dominate the Olympics alongside the United States, with both nations fighting for bragging rights by topping the medal tables. During the era of official amateurism, the Soviet Union dominated even some sports in which Western European nations often excel because they officially do not have professional athletes. In general, the Soviets and many of their satellites also engaged in large-scale systematic doping.

The Soviet Union stagnated during the 1970s and became unstable during the 1980s. The failed war in Afghanistan, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, and the glasnost and the perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev reform programs, as well as falling prices for oil and other commodities (which make up much of the Soviet economy) and the increasing penetration of Western information, culture, and propaganda sparked a wave of revolutions across the globe. the Eastern Bloc from 1989. In In 1991, a referendum was held on the preservation of the Soviet Union. The Baltic states, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia boycotted the referendum, as they were holding their own independence referendums around the same time. All other participating republics voted to stay, but despite this, the USSR was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991.

Consequences

Although the dismantling of the Soviet Union was widely hailed as a triumph of freedom, democracy and human rights among Western allies, the reality on the ground is much more complex. While the Baltic states saw their living standards rise rapidly to Western European standards after independence, the opposite has happened in some other areas such as Moldova and Belarus, leading many people to feel nostalgic for the era. Soviet. The fall of the Soviet Union also brought to the surface many latent ethnic conflicts, resulting in civil wars, ethnic cleansings, genocides, terrorism, and disputed borders that have never been resolved. Similarly, some of the gains made in women's rights and gay rights have receded in some of the former Soviet republics.

Countries

Location of the countries that succeeded the Soviet Union (numbers according to the list of countries).

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, 15 countries emerged from its territory and that corresponded to the different autonomous republics that made up the Union.

1. Armenia
2. Azerbaijan
3. Belarus
4. Estonia
5. Georgia
6. Kazakhstan
7. Kyrgyzstan
8. Latvia
9. Lithuania
10. Moldova
11. Russia
12. Tajikistan
13. Turkmenistan
14. Ukraine
15. Uzbekistan

The Soviet Union was made up of fifteen Soviet republics, which are now independent countries. More than two decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many conflicts in the region remain unresolved and there are four independent states de facto , largely unrecognized, shown in italic a continuation.

Russia

Russia was the dominant republic of the Soviet Union and its natural successor, with half its population and most of its land area, and the country still has some political and cultural influence in most other ex-Soviet countries. Russia itself is, and was, a federation of sub-national republics and oblasts (counties / provinces), many of them with mother tongues other than Russian. However, power has always been centralized in Moscow since the government withdrew from Saint Petersburg in 1924. There are more or less violent secessionist movements within Russia, especially in Chechnya, in the North Caucasus. Ethnic Russians tend to be very proud of the Soviet Union's military achievements and view that time with a degree of nostalgia, and they tend to be fervent supporters of Vladimir Putin, as he has pledged to restore the glory days of the former Soviet Union.

• Crimea (including the Federal City of Sevastopol) is disputed between Russia and Ukraine, but since 2014 it is controlled de facto by Russia. Since Soviet times, the majority population has been Russian and the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based here.
• Kaliningrad Oblast it is a Russian enclave in Central Europe. At the end of World War II, the Russian SFSR annexed the northern part of the German province of East Prussia, with its capital Königsberg, renamed Kaliningrad. When the Soviet Union dissolved, Kaliningrad was cut off from the rest of Russia, on the border with Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. While the city is one of the most cosmopolitan in Russia and the territory is indisputable, the border situation complicates travel to and from neighboring countries, as well as mainland Russia.

Belarus

With close cultural ties to Russia, Minsk has primarily been Moscow's closest ally. Today it is led by Alexander Lukashenko, a man considered the last dictator in Europe. Many of the aesthetics and values ​​of the Soviet Union are still alive here.

Ukraine

Kiev was the capital of the Russian nation, considered the predecessor of Russia. However, Ukraine's relations with Muscovy (which later became Russia) have been strained for centuries. Ukraine tried hard during the Soviet era; devastated by two world wars and the Holodomor famine during the 1930s, though it was the most fertile farmland in Europe, followed by the Holocaust during the German occupation. Perhaps the most far-reaching Soviet legacy can be seen in the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant, infamous for the 1986 collapse. Despite its vast natural resources, Ukraine remains one of the poorest countries in Europe. While the current Ukrainian government has rebelled against Russian influence and taken steps towards the European Union, much of the population of eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians, with some of them nostalgic for the Soviet era. Since 2014, Russia has occupied and later annexed Crimea and supported an armed insurrection in eastern Ukraine.

Baltic states

The three Baltic states became independent in the last year of the First World War. The area that today constitutes the Baltic states was previously divided into governorates of the Russian Empire, and the Russian Revolution of 1917 had an immense influence on the independence process of the Baltic states. . The Baltic states enjoyed independence until World War II, when they were invaded three times; by the Soviet Union in 1940, by Nazi Germany in 1941, and again by the Soviet Union in 1944-45. They maintained a strong national identity throughout the Soviet era, with a resistance movement against Soviet occupation called Forest Brothers for decades, and were the first Soviet republics to break away, staying outside the CIS.

Today they are members of the European Union and NATO, and are more integrated with Western Europe than any other ex-Soviet country. They also generally have the highest living standards among former Soviet republics, and they are the only ones to have been recognized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for having successfully advanced to developed country status. Relations with Russia and with its Russian-speaking national minorities are strained, especially since the 2014 Ukrainian crisis. All three Baltic states consider their independence to be de jure It continues with the proclamation of independence in 1918.

Since 2015, all three Baltic states have used the euro as their currency.

• Estonia Due to its strategic location on the Gulf of Finland, parts of the country, such as Paldiski and eastern Estonia, are littered with various abandoned Soviet military and industrial facilities. Estonian is closely related to Finnish and during the Cold War many Estonians tuned in to Finnish radio.
• Latvia. The destination of most of the Russian immigration to the Baltic countries during the Soviet period, almost half of the population of some of Latvia's largest cities, including the capital, Riga, is Russian-speaking.
• Lithuania. The most religious of the trio, where the Soviets failed to destroy the Hill of Crosses despite various attempts, Catholic Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to regain its independence from the Union.

Central Asia

This region was taken over by Imperial Russia in the 19th century, despite fierce resistance. There was considerable immigration of ethnic Russians (some of whom left after independence) and the Russian language is widespread, but the local languages, culture, and Islamic religion are alive and well. As a result of the history of atheistic Soviet rule, Muslims in Central Asia tend to be more secular and relaxed in their religious practices than those in the Middle East. These countries maintain close ties with Russia, some more than others.

• Kazakhstan - The largest country in Central Asia in terms of land area. Home to Soviet projects that caused major environmental disruption, such as the "wilderness campaign" (which caused natural steppe landscapes to be plowed into cereal fields, leading to huge dust storms), drainage of the Aral Sea, the cosmodrome at Baikonur, which put Gagarin in orbit and is still used as Russia's space launch pad, and a site the size of Wales where many of the Soviet nuclear program tests were carried out, this is the most prosperous nation in post-Soviet Central Asia, thanks to its large hydrocarbon reserves.
• Kyrgyzstan has a volatile political climate in which the national government changes hands between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions that feud fiercely from time to time, though things rarely rise to the level of posing security risks to the traveler. average. Despite being the most attractive country for tourists in Central Asia, independent travel is still something of an adventure in the country.
• Tajikistan - A mountainous meeting point of Persian and Russian influences and the poorest republic in the Union, Tajikistan bears the scars of years of civil war (characterized by clan loyalties that even the Russians were unable to suppress) and remains one of the poorest nations of the world . Nonetheless, visitors are greeted with the characteristic warmth of Tajikistan and miles of some of the most breathtaking scenery on the planet.
• Turkmenistan: The strange cult of personality around the president for life and "father of all Turkmen" Turkmenbashi (died 2006) may remind you of Stalinism, the book 1984 or the portrait of a fictional banana republic. The current regime has softened tourism slightly, but human rights abuses and political repression remain widespread.
• Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan, once featured on Soviet tourist billboards for its "exotic" appeal on the Silk Road, is ruled by an authoritarian government (albeit in a less peculiar way than neighboring Turkmenistan) that is wary of Western tourists. with a Soviet-style bureaucracy still in place. It has the largest population and the second-largest economy after Kazakhstan among Central Asian countries, and is locked in a heated rivalry with its northern neighbor on various fronts, including sports. However, as of 2019, travel restrictions are easing and more of the country is opening up to curious tourists. Ironically, the remote desert town of Nukus in western Uzbekistan, far from the main focal points of Soviet politics, was where painter Igor Savitsky found freedom for his avant-garde art at a time when deviants from officially sanctioned socialist realism were Condemned as "enemies of the people."

Caucasus

Due in part to its difficult geography, the Caucasus has always been ethnically diverse, and the Soviet policy of relocating large groups of people (sometimes forced, sometimes voluntarily) has exacerbated some of the ethnic conflicts that some countries face to this day. today. The Caucasus is involved in an ongoing conflict between Russia and Turkey, who are wary of past events (notably the Armenian genocide in 1915 and the Russian atrocities under Stalin) in the region.

• Armenia: The 1915 genocide, as well as the Armenian diaspora that was one of the results of this sad event, still dictate foreign policy (for example, strained relations with Turkey) as does the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
• Azerbaijan: Relations with Armenia are tense, but relations with Turkey tend to be cordial. Anti-Armenian sentiment is so high that entry is prohibited not only for Armenian citizens, but also for anyone of Armenian descent, regardless of their country of birth or citizenship.
  • Nagorno-Karabakh : predominantly ethnic Armenian, only accessible via Armenia, de facto independent but internationally considered part of Azerbaijan, small-scale skirmishes frequently occur between local forces and the Azerbaijani army in the border areas of this region, where many Communities once inhabited by Azeris are little more than ghost towns.
• Georgia: Stalin's birthplace is now one of the most anti-Russian (and increasingly pro-Western European) countries in the region since Russia supported the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, including through military intervention in 2008 .
  • Abkhazia Although Russian tourists have started to return to this "Soviet Riviera" in great numbers, many cities and resorts in this self-proclaimed republic have empty and abandoned parts due to ethnic cleansing and forced relocation of local Georgians carried out during the first Abkhaz-Georgian war that took place in the early 1990s, within the broader context of Soviet disintegration.
  • South ossetia Sharing the same nation with the Russian autonomous republic of North Ossetia just to the north, this is now one of the least populated and least accessible "countries" in the former Soviet Union.

Balkans

• Moldova: the majority population is culturally and linguistically similar to Romania, but has significant Russophone and Turkish minorities. It is one of the poorest countries in Europe.
  • Transnistria it is a nation-state with limited recognition, where much of the Soviet aesthetic still survives. The independence movement and the continuation of the existence de facto they are mainly due to Russian support and the markedly different ethnic composition of Moldova (large Russian and Ukrainian minorities). Transnistria is or was the seat of most of the heavy industries in the region.

Talk

The Russian was the lingua francaof the Soviet Union. Most people born before 1980 have studied Russian in school and many countries have a Russian-speaking minority. However, most ex-Soviet countries have a complicated relationship with Russia and the Russian-speaking national minority. Although Ukrainian and Belarusian are mutually intelligible with Russian, most Soviet republics are increasingly isolated linguistically from Russia. In some cases, it may make sense to ask in the local language if someone speaks Russian to try to avoid the complicated relationship many people have with the Russian language and what it means. In areas where anti-Russia sentiment is high, such as the Baltic states and Georgia, English has largely supplanted Russian as the main foreign language among the younger generation.

Even in Russia itself, many ethnic groups have a mother tongue other than Russian. Historically, many countries in the region also had German-speaking minorities, as well as people who spoke German as a second language, but after the Cold War ended, almost all ethnic Germans who were not expelled in the 1940s dropped out. the language area and policy has largely shifted towards English and German is hardly taught in schools anymore.

Watch

• Architecture: Buildings built during the Soviet Union often have a distinctive style, and many still stand today. Spectacular Stalinist architecture can be seen in buildings especially in Moscow, such as the Moscow State University. Monolithic concrete apartment blocks are common in smaller cities established or developed during the Soviet Union. Metro stations in larger cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg are also known for their great architectural styles.
• Monuments: There are countless statues and monuments of Lenin and Stalin around the former USSR, including the huge head of Lenin in Ulan-Ude. Monuments in Eastern bloc countries that were not actually part of the Soviet Union tend to be less positive, often commemorating victims of Stalinism, famine, or simply showing Soviet monuments in a more historical context. Notable monuments include the Monument to the Victims of Communism in Prague and the Memento Park in Budapest.
• Stalin's hometown, Gori, It contains a museum dedicated to him and some other notable sights related to the (in) famous Georgian leader.
• Gulags: These Stalin-era forced labor camps were common throughout the USSR, but most closed after the 1950s. The Dneprovsky Mine in Russia's Far East is a well-preserved gulag open to visitors as a museum. There is also the most accessible Gulag State Museum in Moscow.
• Transnistria: This little unrecognized republic has a Russian ethnic plurality and never really abandoned its Soviet roots. Cold War-era propaganda posters, images of Stalin and Lenin, and pro-Russian sentiment are more common here than in other post-Soviet states.
• Soviet chic: many bars, cafes and hotels never changed or adopted Soviet-style decorations to attract communist nostalgia and tourists.

Do

• Going by train from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian would be an obvious proposition. The Baikal Amur Main Line, built in Soviet times as a "back-up" to the Trans-Siberian, which is uncomfortably close to China from Moscow's point of view, is a less obvious activity, with a lot of Soviet flair. Truly tough adventurous travelers can consider missions like Kolyma Highway and Sakhalin Island.

See also

• Trans-Siberian Train

external links

• Wikipedia has an article on Soviet Union.w: Soviet Union
• Wikimedia Commons houses multimedia content about Soviet Union. Commons