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.
Soviet Union, in full Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik or Sovetsky Soyuz, former northern Eurasian empire (1917/22–1991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist ...
Soviets (singular: soviet; Russian: сове́т, tr. sovét, Russian pronunciation: [sɐˈvʲet], literally "council" in English) were political organizations and governmental bodies of the former Russian Empire, primarily associated with the Russian Revolution, which gave the name to the latter state of the Soviet Union.
On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.
The Soviet Union—as it is often called—was a communist dictatorship based in Moscow. During World War II, the USSR was ruled by dictator Josef Stalin. The Soviet Union was the result of the collapse of the Russian Empire and of the Russian Civil War (1917–1922).
The Soviet Union (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) existed as a country from 1922 to 1991. In November 1917, Communists (known in Russia as Bolsheviks) came to power via a military coup and established the first socialist state in the world.
The Second World War is still officially remembered in Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945).
In 2020, polls conducted by the Levada Center found that 75% of Russians agreed that the Soviet era was the greatest era in their country's history.
Like other Eastern Bloc countries (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania), Poland was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of influence, but it was never a part of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine officially declared itself an independent state on August 24, 1991, when the communist Supreme Soviet (parliament) of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine would no longer follow the laws of the USSR, and only follow the laws of the Ukrainian SSR, de facto declaring Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union.
The Russian Empire (Российская Империя) was the largest contiguous country in modern times, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union and present-day Russia.
The Russian Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, while many of the other republics emerged from the Soviet Union's collapse as fully independent post-Soviet states. The United States was left as the world's sole superpower.
The term Soviet Union and Russia are not one and the same, but they are closely related to each other. Both the terms are informally used the term, but actually Soviet Union was the term used instead of USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) whereas the term Russia was a statue in it.
The colour red honours the red flag of the Paris Commune of 1871 and the red star and hammer and sickle are symbols of communism and socialism. The hammer symbolises urban industrial workers while the sickle symbolises agricultural workers (peasants)—who together, as the Proletarian class, form the state.
The coat of arms of Russia depicts a golden two-headed eagle on a red background. Above its heads, there are three crowns, symbolizing the sovereignty of the Russian Federation and its regions. The scepter and orb, which the eagle holds in its claws, personify state power and a unified state.
The lands originally inhabited by the Polans became known as Staropolska, or "Old Poland", and later as Wielkopolska, or "Greater Poland", while the lands conquered towards the end of the 10th century, home of the Vistulans (Wiślanie) and the Lendians, became known as Małopolska, or "Lesser Poland."
Yugoslavia remained independent of the U.S.S.R. , as Tito broke with Stalin and asserted Yugoslav independence. Tito went on to control Yugoslavia for 35 years. Under communist rule, Yugoslavia was transformed from an agrarian to an industrial society.
The English name Poland was formed in the 1560s, from German Pole(n) and the suffix -land, denoting a people or nation. Prior to its adoption, the Latin form Polonia was widely used throughout medieval Europe.
Emigration from the USSR had not been permitted, except for a tiny handful, since the early 1920s, although in the aftermath of World War II several hundred thousand Soviet citizens managed to remain in the West.
After a long history of enemy invasions, Soviet leader Josef Stalin wanted to expand its territory and build a buffer between the Soviet Union and Europe. He also wanted control in Central and Eastern European countries that the Soviets had helped liberate.
The number of the union republics of the USSR varied from 4 to 16. From 1956 until its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics.
Significance: Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces who became known as "the man who saved the world from nuclear war" for his role in a 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.
Russians also point to the fact that Soviet forces killed more German soldiers than their Western counterparts, accounting for 76 percent of Germany's military dead.
The Persistence of Conflict: China's War with Japan and Its Impact, Memory, and Legacy, 1931 to the Present. The Second World War in China was the single most wrenching event in modern Chinese history. The conflict is often termed the second Sino-Japanese War, and known in China as the War of Resistance to Japan.