USSR Full Form

USSR commonly known as the Soviet Union was spread across a total area of 22,402,200 km2. The motto of the Soviet Union was “unite!”. The capital of the Soviet Union was Moscow the largest and the most populous city. The official language of the soviet union is Russian with other recognized regional languages -Ukrainian, Turkmenia, Estonian, Armenian, Latvian, Belarusian and so on.

The Soviet Union has three main ethnic groups as of the year 19889. are as follows –

1. East Slavs contribute to 70% of the population.
2. Turkic contributing 12% of the population.
3. And others 12% of population.

Soviet Russia was a secular state. The population of unions based on the 1989 census was 286,730,819 and the GDP of $2.7 trillion. The currency of the USSR was soviet rubble. It was shown to be a federal union but in reality, was a centralised government and economy with a single party the communist-socialist

Etymology

The word Soviet comes from the Russian word Soviet meaning “council ” or “assembly “. On the other hand, soviet means “councillor”.

Geography

The Soviet Union was the world’s largest country covering an area of about 22,402,200 sq. kilometres. The union covered around one-sixth of the Earth’s surface. similar to Russia it has the world’s longest border measuring around 60,000kilometres. It has around eleven time zones with around five climate zones. The five climate zones are – tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.

 Neighbours

The country has the following neighbours

• Norway
• Finland
• Poland
• Hungary
• Romania
• Turkey
• Iran
• Afghanistan
• Czechoslovakia
• China
• Mongolia
• North Korea 

The Soviet Union is separated from the USA by the Bering strait and la Perouse strait is the separation between Japan

The Highest mountain was communism Peak with a height of 7,495 meters. Some of the world’s largest lakes are the Caspian Sea and the Baikal lake.

History

The history of the Soviet Union dates back to the October Revolution of 1917. The October Revolution was when the Bolsheviks headed by Lenin overthrew the government and they established the Russian Soviet republic. Further tensions between the Bolsheviks Red army and the anti-Bolsheviks came across and a situation of civil war rose. After the violent power struggle, the power shifted to Bolsheviks which ultimately led to the formation of or one can say the unification if the Union of the Soviet socialist republic.

Culture

The culture of the Soviet Union saw transitions in the same way as the government did Post-revolution in the first decade a lot of freedom was given to the artist to experiment and figure out a unique Soviet style or art. Lenin gave people the freedom and accessibility to learning art but on the contrary, many artists were executed and banned as well.

The prevalence of communist writers was seen and also the growth of various schools and institutions of art and literature came into the picture. Due to the poor literacy rate, the government encouraged the film culture.

Coming on to the Stalin’ s period this period saw the imposition of governments’ whims and fancies on the writer’s style and culture. Writers were killed and dominated. Later censorship was removed during Nikita Khrushchev’s time.

Science and technology

The Soviet Union realised the importance of scientific advancement and technology as they believed that to overpass the developed world technology is the key. 

So, they put a great effort into the sector and thereby produced the world’s first space satellite.

They started providing higher education to the masses. According to stats as compared to the United States of America that face around 5% of PhDs in the 1960s the Soviet Union started giving around 49% of PhDs and that too to the women in the country. With enhanced research and development by the year 1989, the Soviet Union has top-class scientists in the fields of medicine and research.

Transport

As mentioned, the Soviet Union was centralised in its economy and its governance due to this many transport enterprises came into the picture. Like the Aeroflot which is an aviation enterprise. The other sectors of development were the railway sector. the Russian railway was the world’s largest across the globe but at the same time the Soviet Union with obsolete infrastructure and lack of money and mismanagement and corruption by the bureaucracy the transport sector struggled.

Environment

During the year 1928 with the first five-year plan into play the concept of environment and its protection. In the phase of industrialisation the country at all costs. Also, post-Stalin’s death the shift to the environment came but the value of protection was not so good. Further, a major role in the lack of awareness about environmental issues and their contamination was due to the media houses who always brag about the large natural resources hub which is indestructible. Further, to avoid the issue of the environment, the socialism card was played.

Conclusion

The decline of the USSR was due to widespread corruption, lack of a democratic government and the ideology of communism that led to a command economy which ultimately led to disintegration in the year 1991.