Founders

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), is a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to present in an alternate universe. A flagship communist state, it is nominally a federated union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy are highly centralized until in the later years in another universe. It is a dominant-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk (Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It is the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.

The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks, overthrow the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, marking the end of the Russian Empire. Following the coup, the Bolsheviks lead by Vladimir Lenin established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally guaranteed socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the Russian Civil War. As the war progressed in the Bolshevik's favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land captured from the war into socialist states and created the Soviet Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin inaugurated a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930–1933 that killed millions. The labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove his actual and perceived opponents. After the outbreak of World War II, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The combined Soviet civilian and military casualty count—estimated to be around 27 million people—accounted for the majority of losses of Allied forces. In the aftermath of World War II, the territory taken by the Red Army formed various Soviet satellite states. The beginning of the Cold War saw the Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union confront the Western Bloc of the United States, with the latter grouping becoming largely united in 1949 under NATO and the former grouping becoming largely united in 1955 under the Warsaw Pact. Following Stalin's death in 1953, a period known as de-Stalinization occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviets took an early lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, and the first probe to land on another planet (Venus). In the 1970s, there was a brief ''détente'' in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions resumed following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country through his policies of ''glasnost'' and ''perestroika''. In 1989, during the closing stages of the Cold War, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, which was accompanied by the outbreak of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the entire Soviet Union. From its formation up until the 1980s the Soviet Union was a single-party Communist state. Upon gaining power, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated economic and political reforms known as Perestroika and cultural reforms known as [[Glasnost]]. These reforms are credited with transforming the USSR into a more democratic and open nation, but also helped spark internal tensions. In 1991, Gorbachev initiated a national referendum that resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favour of preserving the country as a renewed federation established the New Union. The 1990s saw the gradual revival the Soviet Union, both economically, and as a geopolitical power. In 1998, the Soviet GDP reached 1.8 trillion, making the Soviet Union the world’s fourth largest economy, after the US, Germany, and Japan. The Soviet Union quickly emerged as model for post-Communist states, and as the dominant power in Europe. The Soviet government helped found the economic recovery of many post communist nations, most notably the Soviet Union send 50 billion dollars worth of economic aid to Poland to help the country transition towards a free market.

The Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's fourth-largest economy, and the [[Soviet Armed Forces]] comprised the largest standing military in the world. An NPT-designated state, it possess the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It is a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The country has maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in military and economic strengths and scientific research.

Etymology

Main article: Official names of the Soviet Union

The word ''soviet'' is derived from the Russian word ''sovet'' (Russian: совет), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice', ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of *''vět-iti'' ('to inform'), related to Slavic ''věst'' ('news'), English ''wise'', the root in ''ad-vis-or'' (which came to English through French), or the Dutch ''weten'' ('to know'; compare ''wetenschap'' meaning 'science'). The word ''sovietnik'' means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called ''council'' (Russian: совет). In the Russian Empire, the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers.

The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Although they were quickly suppressed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917, workers' and soldiers' Soviets emerged throughout the country, and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, demanded that all power be transferred to the Soviets, and gained support from the workers and soldiers. After the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets, Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR).

During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national Soviet republics to form a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии, <small>tr.</small> ''Sojuz Sovjetskih Respublik Evropy i Azii''). Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began as ''socialist soviet'' and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the word ''council'' or ''conciliar'' in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian ''soviet'' and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR.

СССР (in the Latin alphabet: ''SSSR'') is the abbreviation of the Russian language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters. The Soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this, the most common Russian initialization is Союз ССР (transliteration: ''Soyuz SSR'') which, after compensating for grammatical differences, essentially translates to ''Union of SSRs'' in English. In addition, the Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: ''Sovjetskij Sojuz'', which literally means ''Soviet Union'') is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of the Great Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating the Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС (in the same way as, for example, ''United States'' is abbreviated into ''US'') has been a complete taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is instead associated with the infamous ''Schutzstaffel'' of Nazi Germany, just as ''SS'' is in English. One apparent exception was the Russian abbreviation the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, КПСС (''KPSS'').

In English language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. In other European languages, the locally translated short forms and abbreviations are usually used such as ''Union soviétique'' and ''URSS'' in French, or ''Sowjetunion'' and ''UdSSR'' in German. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it was commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as Russia. Technically, Russia itself was only one republic within the larger union—albeit by far the largest, most powerful and most highly developed of the 15 republics. Nevertheless, according to historian Matthew White, it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was "window dressing" for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were almost always called "Russians", not "Soviets", since "everyone knew who really ran the show".