Republics of the Soviet Union

This article deals with the Soviet republics of the Soviet Union. For other Soviet republics, see Soviet Republic. In its final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR), often called simply Soviet republics. Within the USSR they were also called union republics. All of them were socialist republics, and all of them, with the exception of Russia had their own Communist parties. They are all independent countries now; 12 of them (all except the Baltic states) are very loosely organized under the heading Commonwealth of Independent States.

Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a confederation. In accordance with article 72 of the Soviet constitution adopted in 1977, each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, this right was widely considered to be meaningless, however Article 72 was used in December 1991 to effectively dissolve the Soviet Union, when Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus seceded from the USSR.

In practice, the USSR was a highly centralised entity from its creation in 1922 until the mid-1980s when political forces unleashed reforms undertaken by Mikhail Gorbachev resulted in the loosening of central control and its ultimate collapse. Under the constitution adopted in 1936 and modified along the way until October 1977, the political foundation of the Soviet Union 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 USSR, located in Moscow.

Along with the state administrative hierarchy, there existed a parallel structure of party organizations, which allowed the Politburo to exercise large amounts of control over the republics. State administrative organs took direction from the parallel party organs, and appointments of all party and state officials required approval of the central organs of the party. General practice in the republics outside of Russia was that the head of state in a republic was a local official while the party general secretary was from outside the republic.

Each republic had its own unique set of state symbols: a flag, a coat of arms, and, with the exception of the Russian SFSR, an anthem.

The Republics and the Collapse of the Soviet Union

The republics played an important role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika were intended to revive the Soviet Union. However, they had a number of effects which caused the power of the republics to increase. First, political liberalization allowed the governments within the republics to gain legitimacy by invoking democracy, nationalism or a combination of both. In addition, liberalization led to fractures within the party hierarchy which reduced Soviet control over the republics. Finally, perestroika allowed the governments of the republics to control economic assets in their republics and withhold funds from the central government.

Throughout the late 1980s, the Soviet government attempted to find a new structure which would reflect the increasing power of the republics. These efforts proved unsuccessful, and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed as the republic governments seceded. The republics then all became independent states, with the post-Soviet governments in most cases consisting largely of the government personnel of the former Soviet republics.

Soviet Union in its final state

Soviet Republics

Independent Countries

Sorted by region

Russian SFSR

The Baltic Republics

The Caucasus (Transcaucasian Republics)

Republics of Central Asia

The West

In area, Russia is the largest of the fifiteen Soviet Republics as well as the most populated. The next largest in population, are, in order: Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Other Soviet republics

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were from 1922 until 1936 organized in the Transcaucasian SFSR.
The Karelo-Finnish SSR existed between March 31, 1940 and July 16, 1956.
Under the threat of intervention, the formally independent Far Eastern Republic was carved out of Russian territory to become a buffer state on April 6, 1920, and was again merged with Russia on November 15, 1922. Its capital was Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude) before October 1920, and then Chita.
An attempt to declare the Polish Soviet Socialist Republic was made during the Soviet assault in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1922, by the Polish Provisional Revolutionary Committee headed by Julian Marchlewski in Bialystok.

Timeline

1922 - Soviet Union formed from Russian SFSR, Transcaucasian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR
1924 - Turkmen SSR and Uzbek SSR split from Turkestan ASSR
1929 - Tajik SSR split from Uzbek SSR
1936 - in compliance with 1936 Soviet Constitution Kazakh ASSR and Kirghiz ASSR were split from RSFSR and transformed into Kazakh SSR and Kirghiz SSR
1936 - Transcaucasian SFSR split into Georgian SSR, Armenian SSR and Azerbaijan SSR.
1939 - Part of Poland (known as Kresy) annexed and added to Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR.
1940 - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania conquered, transformed into Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR. Gunnar Alexandersson The Baltic Straits, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982, ISBN: 902472595X, p. 44.
1940 - Karelo-Finnish SSR created from Karelian ASSR in Russia
1940 - Part of Ukraine's Moldavan ASSR made into Moldavian SSR along with territory annexed from Romania
1941 - Lithuania revolts and proclaims independence but is soon occupied by Germany. * Gediminas Zemlickas. Apie Birželio sukilimą ir Lietuvos laikinąją vyriausybę (Interview with Algimantas Liekis on June Uprising and Provisional Government of Lithuania). Mokslo Lietuva, Part I March 9, 2000, No. 5 (207) and Part II April 6-19, 2000, No. 7 (209)

1944 - The Soviet Union annexes the Tuvinian People's Republic, which is then made a part of the Russian SFSR.
1944 - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia re-occupied by Soviet Union.
1944 - repressions to Caucasus and Crimea peoples, deportations, all AO and ASSR reorganized
1945 - Part of East Prussia annexed from Germany and added to Russian SFSR as the Kaliningrad oblast exclave
1945 - Crimea ASSR transformed to Crimea Oblast, remaining in RSFSR
1945 - Kuril islands and the southern part of Sakhalin added to Russian SFSR
1945 - Carpathian Ruthenia ceded by Czechoslovakia and integrated into the Ukrainian SSR
1954 - Crimea transferred from Russian SFSR to Ukrainian SSR
1956 - Karelo-Finnish SSR became the Karelian ASSR in Russia again
1990 - Lithuania and Latvia declare independence Pernille Hohnen. Market Out of Place?: Remaking Economic, Social, and Symbolic Boundaries in Post-Communist Lithuania, Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0199267626, 2004, p. 10.David J Smith, Artis Pabriks, Aldis Purs, Thomas Lane. The Baltic States. ISBN: 0415285801, Routledge (UK), 2002, p. 61..
1991 - Soviet military attempt to crackdown Lithuanian independence. 1991: Bloodshed at Lithuanian TV station, BBC, accessed on 12 July, 2006.
1991 - Estonia declares independence.

References

Subdivisions of the Soviet Union | Soviet state

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