Soviet Union History

The Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1922-1991) was the world's first communist state — founded on Marxist-Leninist ideology, administered by the Communist Party, and built on central economic planning. At its peak it comprised 15 republics across 22.4 million km² (the world's largest country), had the world's second-largest economy, and possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization. Key periods: Lenin's NEP (limited market reforms, 1921-28); Stalin's industrialization, collectivization, and Terror (1929-53, killing 6-20 million through purges, famine, and gulags); WWII (27 million Soviet deaths, the defining national trauma); Khrushchev's 'thaw' and Cuban Missile Crisis; Brezhnev's 'stagnation'; Gorbachev's glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring, 1985-91). The USSR's collapse (Christmas Day 1991, Gorbachev resigned) was the defining geopolitical event of the late 20th century.