Soviet Union (Fall Grün)
From Alternative History
| Союз Советских Социалистических Республик Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik Union of Soviet Socialist Republics | |
| 1922 – | |
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| Motto Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Translit.: Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes!) | |
| Anthem The Internationale | |
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| Capital | Moscow |
| Official language | Russian (de facto) |
| Government | Socialist republic |
| General Secretary - 1922–1924 - 1927-1939 | President Vladimir Lenin Josif Stalin |
| Premier - 1918-1919 - 1924-1930 - 1930- | Prime Minister Vladimir Lenin Alexey Ivanovich Rykov Vyacheslav Molotov |
| Established | December 30, 1922 |
| Currency | Ruble |
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (abbreviated U.S.S.R., Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, СССР; tr.: Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, SSSR), also called the Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз; tr.: Sovetsky Soyuz), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia which was established in 1922.
Emerging from the Russian Empire following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War of 1918–1921, the USSR was a union of several Soviet republics, but the synecdoche Russia—after its largest and dominant constituent state—continued to be commonly used throughout the state's existence. The government and the political organization of the country were defined by the only political party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
It bordered the nations of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Iran (Persia until 1935), Afghanistan, China, Tannu Tuva, Mongolia, Manchukuo and Japan.
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[edit] History
The Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be the successor of the Russian Empire and of its short-lived successor Provisional Government under Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov and then Alexander Kerensky. The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled until March, 1917 when the Empire was overthrown and a short-lived democratic republic was established, the latter to be overthrown in November 1917 by Vladimir Lenin. From 1917 to 1922, the predecessor to the Soviet Union was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), which was an independent country as well as other Soviet republics at the time. The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 as the union of the Russian (colloquially known as Bolshevist Russia), Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics ruled by Bolshevik parties.
[edit] Revolution and the foundation of a Soviet state
Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, and although serfdom was abolished in 1861, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but the Tzar resisted attempts to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.
[edit] Unification of the Soviet Republics
On December 28, 1922 a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the RSFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations - Mikhail Kalinin, Mikha Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Petrovsky, Aleksandr Chervyakov respectively on December 30, 1922. The first foreign state to recognize the Soviet Union was the Irish Republic. On February 1, 1924 the USSR was recognized by the British Empire.
The intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was performed according to Bolshevik Initial Decrees, documents of the Soviet government, signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, that envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The Plan was developed in 1920 and covered a ten to 15 year period. It included construction of a network of 30 regional power plants, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises. The Plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was basically fulfilled by 1931.
[edit] Stalin's Rule
From its beginning years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks). After the economic policy of War Communism during the Civil War, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax (see New Economic Policy). Soviet leaders argued that one party rule was necessary because it ensured that 'capitalist exploitation' would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of Democratic Centralism would represent the people's will. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating his rivals within the party, Georgian Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s.
In 1928, Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. While encompassing the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the course of the Revolution, it also aimed for building socialism in one country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization; in agriculture collective farms were established all over the country. It met widespread resistance from kulaks and some prosperous peasants, who withheld grain, resulting in a bitter struggle of this class against the authorities and the poor peasants. Famines occurred causing millions of deaths and surviving kulaks were politically persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. A wide range of death tolls has been suggested, from as many as 60 million kulaks being killed suggested by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to as few as 700 thousand by Soviet news sources. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Stalin's Great Purge of the party eliminated many "Old Bolsheviks" who had participated in the Revolution with Lenin. Yet despite the turmoil of the mid- to late 1930s, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II.
The 1930s saw closer cooperation between the West and the USSR. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established. Four years later, the USSR actively supported the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War against the Nationalists, which were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. After Great Britain and France concluded the Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany, the USSR dealt with the latter as well by showing their solidarity with Czechoslovakia. When Czechoslovakia refused to abide by the agreement, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany clashed again when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia on October 1, 1938.
[edit] Politics
The government of the Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society. It implemented decisions made by the leading political institution in the country, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
The de facto leader of the Soviet Union was the First/General Secretary of the CPSU. The head of government was considered the Premier, and the head of state was considered the chairman of the Presidium. The Soviet leader could also have one (or both) of these positions, along with the position of General Secretary of the party.
[edit] Foreign policy
It is possible to detect three distinct phases in Soviet foreign policy between the conclusion of the Russian Civil War and the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, determined in part by political struggles within the USSR, and in part by dynamic developments in international relations and the effect these had on Soviet security.
Although to begin within, and under the partial guidance of the Third International, the government of Lenin attempted to export revolution to the rest of Europe, this effectively came to a halt after the Soviet defeat in the war with Poland in 1921. Thereafter, a policy of peaceful co-existence began to emerge, with Soviet diplomats attempting to end the country's isolation, and concluding bi-lateral arrangements with 'capitalist' governments. Agreement was reached with Germany, Europe's other 'outcast' of the day, in the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.
There were, however, still those in the Soviet government, most notably Leon Trotsky, who argued for the continuation of the revolutionary process, in terms of his theory of Permanent Revolution. After Lenin's death in 1924 Trotsky and the internationalists were opposed by Josef Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin, who developed the notion of Socialism in One Country. The foreign policy counterpart of Socialism in One Country was that of the United Front, with foreign Communists urged to enter into alliances with reformist left-wing parties and national liberation movements of all kinds. The high point of this strategy was the partnership between the Chinese Communist Party and the nationalist Kuomintang, a policy favoured by Stalin in particular, and a source of bitter dispute between him and Trotsky. The United Front policy in China effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek massacred the native Communists and expelled all of his Soviet advisors, notably Mikhail Borodin.
The following year, after having defeated the left-opposition, led by Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev, and the right-opposition, led by Nikolai Bukharin, Stalin began the wholesale collectivisation of Soviet agriculture, accompanied by a major programme of planned industrialisation. This new radical phase was paralleled by the formulation of a new doctrine in the International, that of the so-called Third Period, an ultra-left switch in policy, which argued that Social Democracy, whatever shape it took, was a form of Social fascism, socialist in theory but fascist in practice. All foreign Communist Parties-increasinngly agents of Soviet policy-were to concentrate their efforts in a struggle against their rivals in the working-class movement, ignoring the threat of real Fascism. There were to be no united fronts against a greater enemy. The catastrophic effects of this policy, and the negative effect it had on Soviet security, was to be fully demonstrated by the victory of Hitler in 1933, followed by the destruction of the German Communist Party, the strongest in Europe. The Third Way and Social Fascism were quickly dropped into the dustbin of history. Once again collaboration with other progressive elements was the key, in the form of the Popular Front, which cast the net still wider to embrace moderate bourgeois parties. Soviet-German cooperation, extensive until 1933, has been now limited.
Hand-in-hand with the promotion of Popular Fronts, Maxim Litvinov, Commissar for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1939, aimed at closer alliances with western governments, and placed ever greater emphasis on collective security. The new policy led to the Soviet Union joining the League of Nations in 1934, and the subsequent conclusion of alliances with France and Czechoslovakia. In the League the Soviets were active in demanding action against imperialist aggression, a particular danger to them after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which eventually resulted in the Soviet-Japanese Battle of Khalkhin Gol.
But against the rise of militant fascism and imperialism the League accompanied very little. Indeed, in the end it was only USSR that took a stand in trying to preserve the Second Spanish Republic, and its Popular Front government, from the Fascist rebellion of 1936.
