UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

also called Soviet Union, Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, or Sovetsky Soyuz former northern Eurasian empire (1917/221991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 soviet socialist republicsArmenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan (now Kazakstan), Kirgiziya (now Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (now Moldova), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. It also contained 20 autonomous soviet socialist republics16 within Russia, 2 within Georgia, 1 within Azerbaijan, and 1 within Uzbekistan. Its capital was Moscow, then and now the capital of Russia. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, four socialist republics were established on the territory of the former Russian Empire: the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. (The former grand duchies of Finland and Poland became entirely independent, as did the territories of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.) On Dec. 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established by the four constituent republics and effected on July 6, 1923. Subsequently, further constituent union republics were set up over the years (the independent Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania being reintroduced into the empire in 1940). The union republics were administratively divided into autonomous soviet socialist republics (A.S.S.R.'s), oblasts (provinces), and krays (regions). The A.S.S.R.'s were administrative divisions based largely on nationality; their boundaries were drawn to give political recognition to important ethnic groups. The oblast, a purely administrative division, was subdivided into rayons (sectors); subordinate to the rayons were smaller towns and rural soviets. Larger towns were directly subordinate to the oblast authority; the largest towns and cities were divided into urban rayons and came directly under the union republics. The kray was primarily an administrative division but also contained lesser political subdivisions based on nationality groups, autonomous oblasts, and national okrugs (districts). The U.S.S.R. officially came to an end on Dec. 25, 1991, after most of the constituent republics had already declared their independence. Russia assumed the Soviet Union's membership in the United Nations and its permanent membership on the UN Security Council and also took possession of all its embassies and other foreign missions around the world. According to the 1926 census (the first after creation of the U.S.S.R.), the total area was approximately 8,378,000 square miles (21,700,000 square km), and its population was 147,027,915. By the beginning of 1991, the year of its dissolution, the U.S.S.R. had a total area of about 8,582,300 square miles (22,228,200 square km) and an estimated population of 282,086,500. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (U.S.S.R.) also called Soviet Union Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, or Sovetsky Soyuz former northern Eurasian empire (1917/221991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (S.S.R.'s)Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kirgiziya (now Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (now Moldova), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The capital was Moscow, then and now the capital of Russia. During the period of its existence, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was by area the world's largest country. It was also one of the most diverse, with more than 100 distinct nationalities living within its borders. The majority of the population, however, was made up of East Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians); these groups together made up more than two-thirds of the total population in the late 1980s. At its greatest extent, between 1946 and 1991 (the figures and descriptions given below refer to this period), the U.S.S.R. covered some 8,650,000 square miles (22,400,000 square kilometres), seven times the area of India and two and one-half times that of the United States. The country occupied nearly one-sixth of the Earth's land surface, including the eastern half of Europe and roughly the northern third of Asia. The U.S.S.R. extended more than 6,800 miles (10,900 kilometres) from east to west, covering 11 of the world's 24 time zones. The most westerly point was on the Baltic Sea, near Kaliningrad; the easternmost was Cape Dezhnev on the Bering Strait, nearly halfway around the world. From north to south the U.S.S.R. extended some 2,800 miles from Cape Chelyuskin to Kuskha on the Afghan border. Nearly half the territory of the U.S.S.R. was north of 60 N, at the same latitude as Alaska, Baffin Island, and Greenland. In addition to having the world's longest coastline, the U.S.S.R. had the longest frontiers. To the north the country was bounded by the seas of the Arctic Ocean, and to the east were the seas of the Pacific. On the south the U.S.S.R. was bordered by North Korea, Mongolia, China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. On the southern frontier there were three seas: the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland sea, as well as the almost completely landlocked Black Sea and Sea of Azov. Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, and Norway lay to the west. The U.S.S.R. was the successor to the Russian Empire of the tsars. Following the 1917 Revolution, four socialist republics were established on the territory of the former empire: the Russian and Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republics and the Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics. On Dec. 30, 1922, these constituent republics established the U.S.S.R. Additional union republics (Soviet Socialist Republics) were set up in subsequent years: the Turkmen and Uzbek S.S.R.'s in 1924, the Tadzhik S.S.R. in 1929, and the Kazakh and Kirgiz S.S.R.'s in 1936. In that year the Transcaucasian Republic was abolished and its territory was divided between three new republics: the Armenian, Azerbaijan, and Georgian S.S.R.'s. In 1940 the Karelo-Finnish, Moldavian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian S.S.R.'s were established. The Karelo-Finnish S.S.R. became an autonomous republic in 1956, leaving a total of 15 union republics (soyuznye respubliki). In addition to these, the U.S.S.R. as of 1990 was made up of 20 autonomous republics (avtonomnye respubliki), 8 autonomous provinces (avtonomnye oblasti), 10 autonomous districts (avtonomnye okruga), 6 regions (kraya), and 114 provinces (oblasti). Under the constitution adopted in the 1930s and modified down to October 1977, the political foundation of the U.S.S.R. was formed by the Soviets (Councils) of People's Deputies. These existed at all levels of the administrative hierarchy, with the Soviet Union as a whole under the nominal control of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., located in Moscow. This body had two chambersthe Soviet of the Union, with 750 members elected on a single-member constituency basis; and the Soviet of Nationalities, with 750 members representing the various political divisions: 32 from each union republic, 11 from each autonomous republic, 5 from each autonomous region, and 1 from each autonomous district. In elections to these bodies, the voters were rarely given any choice of candidate other than those presented by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), which, until the amendment of Article 6 of the constitution in March 1990, was the leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system. In theory, all legislation required the approval of both chambers of the Supreme Soviet; in practice, all decisions were made by the small group known as the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, itself strongly influenced by the Politburo of the CPSU, and were unanimously approved by the deputies. The role of the soviets in the individual republics and other territories was primarily to put into effect the decisions made by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. The political system was thus authoritarian and highly centralized, and this also applied to the economic system. The economic foundation of the U.S.S.R. was Socialist ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the economy of the entire country was controlled by a series of five-year plans that set targets for all forms of production. Dramatic changes, both political and economic, occurred during the late 1980s and early '90s, ushered in by the adoption of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). On the economic side the planned, highly centralized command economy was to be replaced by the progressive introduction of elements of a market economy, a change that proved difficult to achieve and was accompanied by declining production in many sectors and increasing distribution problems. In the political sphere, amendments to the constitution in 1988 replaced the old Supreme Soviet with the Congress of People's Deputies of the U.S.S.R. The new congress had 2,250 members; one-third of these were elected on a constituency basis, one-third represented the political territories (as in the old Supreme Soviet), and the remaining third came from all-union social organizations such as the trade unions, the CPSU, and the Academy of Sciences. Voters were presented with a choice of candidates, and many non-Communists were elected. The Congress of People's Deputies elected a new Supreme Soviet of 542 members and also chose the chairman of that body, who was to be the executive president of the U.S.S.R. Congresses of People's Deputies were also established in each republic. These congresses could be legitimately described as parliaments, and they engaged in vigorous debate over the economic and political future of the country. From 1989, conflicts developed between the parliament of the U.S.S.R. and those of the individual republics, mainly over the respective powers of the centre (the U.S.S.R. government) and the republics. These conflicts were exacerbated by the resurgence of ethnic nationalism and increasing demands for autonomy and even for full independence. Following the abortive coup of August 1991, in which the CPSU was heavily implicated, the party itself was abolished. By December 1991 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had virtually ceased to exist, and the future of its territories and peoples was uncertain. Three republicsEstonia, Latvia, and Lithuaniahad achieved complete independence and were internationally recognized as sovereign states, and several others were demanding independence. Attempts were made, led by Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, to establish a new Union of Sovereign States with some degree of integration in foreign policy, defense, and economic affairs, but agreement among the remaining 12 republics was not achieved. Whatever the legal position, the union republics had begun to act as if they were sovereign states and were negotiating with each other, bypassing the vestigial central government. This process culminated on Dec. 8, 1991, in the signing of an agreement between the three Slav republics of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus for the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), with an agreed common policy for foreign affairs and defense. The CIS later came to include all the remaining republics except Georgia, but great difficulty was experienced in arriving at agreed policies. The future thus remained uncertain, but there could be no disagreement with the statement by the leaders of the Commonwealth that the U.S.S.R. has ceased to exist as a geopolitical reality. John C. Dewdney This article contains a history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1917 to 1991. For the geography and history of the former Soviet Socialist republics, see the articles Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine. Additional reading General works Extensive reference information on most aspects of Soviet life, especially in historical perspective, is found in Archie Brown et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (1982). Comprehensive surveys of physical and human geography include John C. Dewdney, A Geography of the Soviet Union, 3rd ed. (1979), and The U.S.S.R. in Maps (1982); James S. Gregory, Russian Land, Soviet People: A Geographical Approach to the U.S.S.R. (1968); David Hooson, The Soviet Union: People and Regions (1966); Raymond E. Zickel (ed.), Soviet Union, a Country Study, 2nd ed. (1991); Paul E. Lydolph, Geography of the U.S.S.R., 3rd ed. (1977), a regional analysis, and Geography of the U.S.S.R., 5th ed. (1990), a topical analysis; Roy E.H. Mellor, Geography of the U.S.S.R. (1964); V. Pokshishevsky, Geography of the Soviet Union: Physical Background, Population, Economy, trans. from Russian (1974); Leslie Symons et al., The Soviet Union: A Systematic Geography, 2nd ed. (1990); W.H. Parker, The Soviet Union, 2nd ed. (1983); and Vadim Medish, The Soviet Union, rev. 4th ed. (1991).Authoritative texts on aspects of physical geography include L.S. Berg, Natural Regions of the U.S.S.R. (1950; originally published in Russian, 2nd ed., 1938); S.P. Suslov, Physical Geography of Asiatic Russia (1961; originally published in Russian, 2nd ed., 1954); A.A. Borisov, Climates of the U.S.S.R. (1965; originally published in Russian, 2nd ed., 1959); Paul E. Lydolph, Climates of the Soviet Union (1977); Algirdas Knystautas, The Natural History of the USSR (1987); and D.V. Nalivkin, Geology of the U.S.S.R. (1973; originally published in Russian, 1962). Environmental issues are discussed in I.P. Gerasimov, D.L. Armand, and K.M. Yefron (eds.), Natural Resources of the Soviet Union: Their Use and Renewal (1971; originally published in Russian, 1963); I.P. Gerasimov (ed.), Man, Society, and the Environment: Geographical Aspects of the Uses of Natural Resources and Nature Conservation (1975; originally published in Russian, 1973), a collection of papers; Charles E. Ziegler, Environmental Policy in the USSR (1987); and Philip R. Pryde, Conservation in the Soviet Union (1972), and Environmental Management in the Soviet Union (1991). Numerous aspects of physical as well as economic geography are covered in Robert G. Jensen, Theodore Shabad, and Arthur W. Wright (eds.), Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy (1983). W.H. Parker, An Historical Geography of Russia (1968), discusses human geography; and Michael J. Bradshaw (ed.), The Soviet Union: A New Regional Geography? (1991), traces the geographic impact of the reforms of 198590.Economics-oriented geographic studies are J.P. Cole, Geography of the Soviet Union (1984), emphasizing regional disparities; Judith Pallot and Denis J.B. Shaw, Planning in the Soviet Union (1981); James H. Bater, The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective (1989); and Roy E.H. Mellor, The Soviet Union and Its Geographical Problems (1982). Problems of socialist economics are analyzed in Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism Revisited, 2nd ed. (1991). Historical treatment is found in Alec Nove, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R., 2nd ed. (1989). Comprehensive introductory surveys include Alec Nove, The Soviet Economic System, 3rd ed. (1986); Paul R. Gregory and Robert C. Stuart, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, 4th ed. (1990); David A. Dyker, The Soviet Economy (1976); and Michael Kaser, Soviet Economics (1970). More detailed books on Soviet economic resources and procedures are those by the International Monetary Fund, A Study of Soviet Economy, 3 vol. (1991); Andrew Freris, The Soviet Industrial Enterprise: Theory and Practice (1984); Leslie Symons, Russian Agriculture: A Geographical Survey (1972); Lazar Volin, A Century of Russian Agriculture: From Alexander II to Khrushchev (1970); Zhores A. Medvedev, Soviet Agriculture (1987); Leslie Symons and Colin White (eds.), Russian Transport: An Historical and Geographical Survey (1975); and Robert W. Campbell, Soviet Energy Technologies: Planning, Policy, Research, and Development (1980).Soviet people are the subject of Michael Paul Sacks and Jerry G. Pankhurst (eds.), Understanding Soviet Society (1988), examining social institutions and differences between the U.S.S.R. and other industrial nations; and Basile Kerblay, Modern Soviet Society (1983; originally published in French, 1977). On the relationship between church and state, see Bohdan R. Bociurkiw and John W. Strong (eds.), Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe (1975). For demography, ethnic composition, and population dynamics, see V.V. Bunak, G.F. Debets, and M.G. Levin, Contributions to the Physical Anthropology of the Soviet Union, trans. from Russian (1960); Victor Kozlov, The Peoples of the Soviet Union (1988; originally published in Russian, 2nd ed., 1982); Bernard Comrie, The Languages of the Soviet Union (1981); Robert A. Lewis and Richard H. Rowland, Population Redistribution in the USSR: Its Impact on Society, 18971917 (1979); Robert A. Lewis, Richard H. Rowland, and Ralph S. Clem, Nationality and Population Change in Russia and the USSR: An Evaluation of Census Data, 18971970 (1976); Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (1978); William O. McCagg, Jr., and Brian D. Silver (eds.), Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers (1979); Shirin Akiner, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union: With an Appendix on the Non-Muslim Turkic Peoples of the Soviet Union, 2nd ed. (1986); Benjamin Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority (1988); Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective from Below (1986); Bohdan Nahaylo and Victor Swoboda, Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR (1990); Jeff Chinn, Manipulating Soviet Population Resources (1977); and Leszek A. Kosinski (ed.), Demographic Developments in Eastern Europe (1977). Urban settlement is covered in James H. Bater, The Soviet City: Ideal and Reality (1980); and Chauncy D. Harris, Cities of the Soviet Union: Studies in Their Functions, Size, Density, and Growth (1970). The position of Soviet women is discussed in Gail Warshofsky Lapidus (ed.), Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union, trans. from Russian (1982); and Mary Buckley, Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union (1989).For analysis of the political structure of Soviet society, see Aryeh L. Unger, Constitutional Development in the USSR: A Guide to the Soviet Constitutions (1981); Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union Is Governed (1979); and Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present (1986; originally published in Russian, 1982). On the ruling party, in particular, see Leonard Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged (1970); Ronald J. Hill and Peter Frank, The Soviet Communist Party, 3rd ed. (1986); Archie Brown (ed.), Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (1989); and Michael Voslensky, Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class (1984). On the military and security policies, see Timothy J. Colton, Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority: The Structure of Soviet Military Politics (1979); David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, 2nd ed. (1984); and Amy W. Knight, The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union, rev. ed. (1990).Surveys of the interaction of politics and culture in the Soviet Union are found in works of literary analysis, such as Rgine Robin, Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic (1991; originally published in French, 1986); Victor Erlich, Russian Formalism: History, Doctrine, 3rd ed. (1969, reissued 1981); Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (1990); and Lazar Fleishman, Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics (1990), the last two combining biography with a study of theory and a history of attitudes; and in such broad reviews as Ronald Hingley, Russian Writers and Soviet Society, 19171978 (1979); Edward J. Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution, rev. and enlarged ed. (1982); Deming Brown, Soviet Russian Literature Since Stalin (1978); and N.N. Shneidman, Soviet Literature in the 1980s: Decade of Transition (1989). See also Harold B. Segel, Twentieth-Century Russian Drama: From Gorky to the Present (1979); and Konstantin Rudnitsky, Russian and Soviet Theater, 19051932, trans. from Russian (1988). For a glimpse of the Soviet music world, see Dmitri Shostakovich, Testimony, trans. from Russian, ed. by Solomon Volkov (1979); Malcolm Hamrick Brown (ed.), Russian and Soviet Music (1984); and S. Frederick Starr, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, 19171980 (1983). Major surveys of Soviet experimental art include Camilla Gray, The Great Experiment: Russian Art, 18631922 (1962, reissued as The Russian Experiment in Art, 18631922, 1971); and Angelica Zander Rudenstine (ed.), Russian Avant-Garde Art: The George Costakis Collection (1981). Maurice Friedberg, Russian Culture in the 1980s (1985), is a concise review of intellectual life, popular culture, and mass media. For more on the mass media and public opinion, see Ellen Propper Mickiewicz, Media and the Russian Public (1981). An insightful discussion of the censorship of creativity in the Soviet Union is offered in Marianna Tax Choldin and Maurice Friedberg (eds.), The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars, and Censors in the USSR (1989). On the uneasy relationship between cultural and intellectual life and official ideology, see Yuri Glazov, The Russian Mind Since Stalin's Death (1985); and Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion and Ideology: Mythology and Pragmatism in Interaction (1986), Soviet Ideologies in the Period of Glasnost: Responses to Brezhnev's Stagnation (1988), and Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: The Post- Stalin Era (1990). History General Reference data covering important events, personalities, and institutions is available in Joseph L. Wieczynski (ed.), The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, 46 vol. (197687), with a supplement beginning in vol. 46. The Russian Revolution Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (1990), covers the decline of tsarism from 1899 to the first year of the Bolshevik dictatorship. William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 19171921, 2 vol. (1935, reprinted 1987), provides a dependable, if somewhat outdated, survey of the period from the overthrow of the tsar to the consolidation of Bolshevik power after the civil war. Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, 2 vol. (198892), narrates the first revolutionary upheaval and its suppression. Bernard Pares, The Fall of the Russian Monarchy: A Study of Evidence (1939, reissued 1988), is a more detailed account of events by a historian who witnessed their development. Another detailed analysis of the events that directly led to the breakdown of the established order is given in Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, The February Revolution, Petrograd, 1917 (1981). N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution, 1917: A Personal Record, ed. by Richard Carmichael (1955, reprinted 1984; originally published in Russian, 192223; also published as The Russian Revolution, 1917: Eyewitness Account, 2 vol., 1962), is an abridged and edited version of a memoir by a Menshevik contemporary who was also a brilliant writer. Robert V. Daniels, Red October: The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (1967, reprinted 1984), studies the Bolshevik coup. N.A. Sokolov, Enqute judiciaire sur l'assasinat de la famille impriale Russe (1924), is a collection of information on the murder of Nicholas II and his family written by the head of a commission appointed in 1919 to study the evidence on the spot. Historical biographies of prominent figures throw additional light on the events; see David Shub, Lenin, rev. ed. (1966), written by a Menshevik contemporary; and Isaak Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 18791921 (1954, reprinted 1980), The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 19211929 (1959, reprinted 1980), and The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 19291940 (1963, reprinted 1980), a massive trilogy by an admirer of the political leader, not always reliable in its use of the sources.Leonard Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition to the Soviet State, First Phase, 19171922, 2nd ed. (1977), explores the means by which the communists eliminated the opposition. T.H. Rigby, Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom 19171922 (1979), studies early Soviet political authority. George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police: The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, December 1917 to February 1922 (1981), examines the special political institution that turned into a terror machine. John W. Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918 (1938, reissued 1971), remains the best account of the treaty that ended Russia's involvement in World War I. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (1987), is a succinct account of the internal war and its complex events. L. Kritsman, Geroicheskii period velikoi russkoi revoliutsii (1925), is an insider's account of War Communism. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 19171923, rev. ed. (1964), analyzes the disintegration of the Russian multinational state in 1917 and its restoration under the communist regime. F. Borkenau, The Communist International (1938; also published as World Communism: A History of the Communist International, 1939, reprinted 1962); and Richard H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 19171921, 3 vol. (196172), explore the broader international background of the evolution of the early Soviet state. Winfried Baumgart, Deutsche Ostpolitik 1918: von Brest-Litowsk bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (1966), provides an authoritative account of German relations with the Soviet government in its first year. A fascinating account of the early inner structure of Soviet Russian culture in all its dimensions is presented in Ren Flp-Miller, Geist und Gesicht des Bolschewismus: Darstellung und Kritik des kulturellen Lebens in Sowjet-Russland, 2nd ed. (1928). The U.S.S.R. from the death of Lenin to the death of Stalin Some of the most useful sources for the period are historical biographies, especially of Stalin: Dmitri Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (1991; originally published in Russian, 1989); Boris Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism (1939, reissued 1972; originally published in French, 1935); Adam B. Ulam, Stalin: The Man and His Era (1973, reissued 1989); Ronald Hingley, Joseph Stalin: Man and Legend (1974); Robert H. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler (1988); Alex de Jonge, Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union (1986); Robert C. Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 18791929: A Study in History and Personality (1973), and Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 19281941 (1990); Emil Ludwig, Stalin, trans. from German (1942); Leon Trotsky, Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence, trans. from Russian, new ed. (1967); Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography, 2nd ed. (1967); and Robert Conquest, Stalin: Breaker of Nations (1991). Various aspects of Stalin's career and personality and their historical influence are discussed in Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, trans. from Serbo-Croatian (1962); Aino Kuusinen, The Rings of Destiny: Inside Soviet Russia from Lenin to Brezhnev (also published as Before and After Stalin: A Personal Account of Soviet Russia from the 1920s to the 1960s, 1974; originally published in German, 1972); Walter Laqueur, Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations (1990); Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism, rev. and expanded ed. (1989; originally published in Russian, 2nd ed., 1974); Robert C. Tucker (ed.), Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation (1977); John A. Armstrong, The Politics of Totalitarianism: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present (1961); and Alexander S. Tsipko, Is Stalinism Really Dead?, trans. from Russian (1990). Useful memoirs of Stalin's political contemporaries include Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, trans. from Russian (1970), Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, trans. from Russian (1974), and Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, trans. from Russian (1990); and A.I. Mikoyan, Memoirs of Anastas Mikoyan, trans. from Russian (1988). The period of 192430, during which Stalin won the faction fight and achieved supremacy, is dealt with from a non-Stalinist point of view in Leon Trotsky, My Life (1960, reissued 1970; originally published in Russian, 1930); and Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 18881938 (1980).Collectivization and the struggle with the peasantry in 193033 are studied in Ewald Ammende, Human Life in Russia (1936, reprinted 1984); Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (1986); R.W. Davies, The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 19291930 (1980); Naum Jasny, The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR: Plans and Performance (1949); Jerzy F. Karcz, The Economics of Communist Agriculture (1979); and M. Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization (1968, reprinted 1975; originally published in French, 1966). Industrialization is the subject of Antony C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 3 vol. (196873); Abram Bergson, Planning and Productivity Under Soviet Socialism (1968); G. Warren Nutter, Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union (1962); Eugne Zaleski, Planning for Economic Growth in the Soviet Union, 19181932 (1971; originally published in French, 1962), and Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth, 19331952, trans. from French (1980); Philip Hanson, Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western Relations (1981); David Granick, Job Rights in the Soviet Union: Their Consequences (1987); and Joseph S. Berliner, The Innovation Decision in Soviet Industry (1976). The accompanying political terror is examined in David J. Dallin and Boris I. Nikolaevsky, Forced Labor in Soviet Russia (1947, reprinted 1974); S. Swianiewicz, Forced Labour and Economic Development: An Enquiry into the Experience of Soviet Industrialization (1965, reprinted 1985); Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (1990); dealing largely with the Yezhov period of 193738; and Merle Fainsod, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (1958, reissued 1989), the best analysis of local documents on the pre-World-War-II period.Studies of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin include Max Beloff, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 19291941, 2 vol. (194749, reprinted 196668); Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 191773, 2nd ed. (1974); and George F. Kennan, Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin (1961). On the German-Soviet Nonagression Pact, see Gustav Hilger and Alfred G. Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations, 19181941 (1953, reprinted 1971); and Raymond James Sontag and James Stuart Beddie (eds.), Nazi-Soviet Relations, 19391941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office (1948, reprinted 1976).The 194145 war period and military matters in general are surveyed in John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 19181941 (1962, reprinted 1984), The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin's War with Germany (1975, reprinted 1984), and The Road to Berlin: Continuing the History of Stalin's War with Germany (1983); Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 19411945: A Study of Occupation Policies, 2nd rev. ed. (1981); and Seweryn Bialer (ed.), Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II (1969, reprinted with a new preface, 1984). See also John Barber and Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front, 19411945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II (1991). For the origins and development of the Cold War, see John Lukacs, A New History of the Cold War, 3rd ed., expanded (1966); Steven Merritt Miner, Between Churchill and Stalin: The Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Grand Alliance (1988); Robert Nisbet, Roosevelt and Stalin: The Failed Courtship (1988); and Vojtech Mastny, Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 19411945 (1979); and for internal postwar events, Robert Conquest, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R.: The Study of Soviet Dynastics (1961; published also as Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R.: The Struggle for Stalin's Succession, 19451960, 1967); Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs, trans. from Russian (1990); Yehoshua A. Gilboa, The Black Years of Soviet Jewry, 19391953, trans. from Hebrew (1971); and Louis Rapoport, Stalin's War Against the Jews: The Doctor's Plot and the Soviet Solution (1990). The U.S.S.R. since 1953 Seweryn Bialer, Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability, and Change in the Soviet Union (1980), is a stimulating survey of transitions. On the Khrushchev era, see George W. Breslauer, Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics (1982), a detailed examination of politics at the top; Roy Medvedev, Khrushchev, trans. from Russian (1982), a thoughtful biography by a leading Russian dissident; Sergei Khrushchev, Khrushchev on Khrushchev: An Inside Account of the Man and His Era, trans. from Russian (1990), a fascinating story by Khrushchev's son; Martin McCauley (ed.), Khrushchev and Khrushchevism (1987), a reappraisal of many policy areas of the time; and Martin McCauley, Khrushchev and the Development of Soviet Agriculture: The Virgin Land Programme, 19531964 (1976), an analysis of one of the key policy areas, and Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (1991), a short, brisk biography.For an analysis of the Brezhnev era, see Archie Brown and Michael Kaser (eds.), The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd ed. (1978). On the interregnum, Zhores A. Medvedev, Andropov: His Life and Death, rev. ed. (1984), provides much interesting detail. The first several years of the Gorbachev era are reviewed in Maurice Friedberg and Heyward Isham (eds.), Soviet Society Under Gorbachev: Current Trends and the Prospects for Reform (1987); Martin McCauley (ed.), Gorbachev and Perestroika (1990); and Harley D. Balzer (ed.), Five Years That Shook the World: Gorbachev's Unfinished Revolution (1991). Political restructuring and the ensuing social upheavals are the subject of A. Hewett and Victor H. Winston (eds.), Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka, 2 vol. (1991); Angus Roxburgh, The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin (1991); Stephen White, Gorbachev and After (1991); Anatoly Sobchak, For a New Russia: The Mayor of St. Petersburg's Own Story of the Struggle for Justice and Democracy (1992); Michael Rywkin, Soviet Society Today (1989); Anthony Jones, Walter D. Connor, and David E. Powell (eds.), Soviet Social Problems (1991); David Lane, Soviet Society Under Perestroika (1990); and Alexander Shtromas and Morton A. Kaplan (eds.), The Soviet Union and the Challenge of the Future, 4 vol. (19881989).The economic reforms of the period are examined in Anders slund, Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform, updated and expanded ed. (1991); Padma Desai, Perestroika in Perspective: The Design and Dilemmas of Soviet Reform, updated ed. (1990); Abel Aganbegyan, The Challenge: Economics of Perestroika (1988); Marshall I. Goldman, What Went Wrong with Perestroika (1991); Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov, The Turning Point: Revitalizing the Soviet Economy (1989; originally published in Russian, 1989); Marian Radetzki, USSR Energy Exports After Perestroika, Energy Policy, 19(4):291343 (May 1991); and Ian Jeffries (ed.), Industrial Reform in Socialist Countries: From Restructuring to Revolution (1992).A massive history of Soviet foreign relations, including the final period, is presented in Joseph L. Nogee and Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II, 4th ed. (1992). John C. Dewdney Richard E. Pipes Robert Conquest Martin McCauley The U.S.S.R. from 1953 to 1991 The Khrushchev era The transition Stalin died a slow, angry, and painful death on March 5, 1953. He had suffered a stroke after retiring on the night of March 12, but this was not perceived until the morning because of his concern for personal security. The top leadership gathered around his bedside, but he could only move his little finger. Beria was delighted at his boss's coming demise and showed it. This earned him the undying hostility of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter. Others in the entourage were more circumspect. They found themselves in a predicament: How were they to choose Stalin's successor? How were they to ensure that no one acquired his awesome power? This would put their careers, and even lives, at risk. The country was also confused. Even in death Stalin took some with him. During the elaborate state funeral on March 9, some people were crushed to death in their desire to pay their last respects to the dead dictator. Collective leadership was the only possibility. When the first division of power was agreed to on March 7, the main beneficiaries were Malenkov, who became chairman of the Council of Ministers, or prime minister, and Beria, who stepped up to become first deputy prime minister and also headed the amalgamated Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Internal Affairs. Molotov returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was also a first deputy prime minister. Bulganin became minister of defense. To calm the population Pravda reported that the new collective leadership would prevent any kind of disorder or panic. When Stalin died there was no title that identified the head of the Communist Party. Stalin had given up the title of general secretary of the party in 1934 and was afterward merely described as secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat. Malenkov's name appeared at the top of the list of secretaries on March 7. Hence he had succeeded Stalin as head of government and party. This nice arrangement broke down within a week: there was too much power concentrated in one pair of hands. The main beneficiary was Khrushchev. His name was placed at the top of the list of five secretaries of the secretariat. Khrushchev was now in charge of the party, although he was not formally made first secretary until September 1953. Malenkov, in choosing to remain prime minister, made a grave mistake, even though Lenin and Stalin had both occupied the office. Khrushchev now had a power base from which to attack Malenkov and win precedence for the party over the government. The primary goal of the new leadership was to ensure stability in the country while the power struggle at the top got under way. An amnesty freed prisoners from the labour camps but affected only the elite and their families and friends. Those in exile were allowed to return to the city of their choice. Molotov got his wife back, Mikoyan his son, and Lyubov Khrushcheva, Khrushchev's daughter-in-law, also returned. There was a mood of optimism, and there was a promise to dismantle the worst excesses of the Stalinist legal system. This became known as promoting socialist legality. Malenkov launched the New Course, an economic program that promised higher living standards. If Malenkov was active, so was Beria. He tried to give the security police a better image and spoke up for national elites playing a more active role in their territories. Khrushchev and others became convinced that Beria was preparing a coup. They managed to win over Malenkov, and Beria was arrested in late June 1953. During his cross-examination he was very keen to spill the beans about his political detractors. His evidence ran to 40 volumes, and he obliged Khrushchev by pouring mud over Malenkov and throwing light on the murky Leningrad Affair (see above). He was forthcoming about his role as Stalin's procurer and about his own sexual preferences, and he testified to having personally interrogated many prisoners, delighting in inflicting pain. When Beria was executed in December 1953, he had to be gagged to prevent him from revealing more unsavoury information. The party took revenge on Beria's lieutenants. More than 20 were executed, some of them in 1956. The latter were the last politically motivated killings of the Soviet regime. In 1954 the secret police was reorganized and renamed the KGB (Committee of State Security). The Union