Soviet Union (USSR): origins, structure, and historical legacy

Extent and limits

The Union achieved its greatest expansion, which it retained until the independence of Lithuania on 11 March 1990, in the course of the Second World War with the incorporation of the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Bessarabia, Tuvalu, the northern part of East Prussia and Finnish, Polish, Czechoslovak and Japanese territories. The Soviet Union was thus (apart from the pre-1917 Russian Empire, which also included Finland, parts of Poland, northeastern Turkey, and until 1867 Alaska) the state with the largest contiguous territory in recent human history. It was among the largest dominions in history.

The Soviet Union bordered after 1945:

• in the West on
• Romania (1208 kilometres),
• Hungary (103 kilometers),
• Czechoslovakia (97 kilometres),
• Poland (1258 kilometers),
• the Baltic Sea,
• Finland (1340 kilometres) and
• Norway (196 kilometers);
• to the north of
• the Barents Sea,
• the Kara Sea,
• the Laptev Sea,
• the East Siberian Sea, as well as to
• the Chukchi Sea;
• to the east of
• the Bering Sea,
• the Pacific Ocean,
• the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as to
• the Sea of Japan;
• to the south of
• North Korea (19 kilometers),
• the People's Republic of China (6513 kilometres),
• Mongolia (3485 kilometres),
• Afghanistan (2264 kilometers),
• Iran (2013 kilometers),
• Turkey (529 kilometres) and
• the Black Sea.

The USSR had a combined national border of 19,025 kilometres, about 1000 kilometres less than the much smaller Russia in 2008.

The territory of the USSR covered 22.4 million square kilometers, almost one seventh of the mainland of the Earth. In the west-east direction it stretched from the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean for almost 10,000 kilometers. From north to south it had an extension of almost 5000 kilometers. The Soviet Union touched 11 of the 24 time zones of the earth.

On its territory, the Soviet Union had coal and iron ore as mineral raw materials, oil and natural gas as energy sources and raw materials for the petrochemical industry, non-ferrous and precious metals, hydropower and arable land, including the fertile black earth soils of Ukraine. Thus, the country possessed all the natural resources needed by an industrialized economy.

Natural areas

The natural structure of the Soviet Union ranged from the areas of perpetual ice in the north to the desert regions in Central Asia. The share of ice desert and tundra in the north accounted for 8 percent of the total area, the share of desert and semi-desert in the south for 10 percent of the total area, and that of forest areas for 30 percent.

Almost half of the territory of the Soviet Union was permafrost soil, which in the summer thaws only briefly and relatively shallow. This made the settlement with the construction of houses, the installation of water supply and the construction of infrastructure suitable for the climate complex, expensive and difficult. Twenty-seven percent of the state's land was arable. This was well below that of the United States, whose agricultural land was 45 percent. The share of arable land was 10 percent (USA: 20 percent).

Overview

As of the last census in 1988, the Soviet Union had a population of 286.717 million in its 15 Union republics. The Russian SFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) was the largest Union republic in terms of both area and population, and the dominant one in political and economic terms.

Development

The number of inhabitants increased dramatically in 1940 due to the annexation of the three Baltic states and the Moldavian region, as well as due to the expansion of the Belarusian and Ukrainian territories at the expense of Poland. The very high number of war victims (soldiers as well as civilians) from 1941 to 1945 was the reason for the decrease in the number of inhabitants.

Religion

The state doctrine of the Soviet Union was atheistic. The practice of religion was at times forbidden or subject to extensive state restrictions; for example, there were laws against the public singing of religious songs.

While around 1920 about 90% of the people in the Russian SFSR still belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, by 1940 the number had fallen to less than 30%. Many believers were subjected to reprisals, tortured, shot or exiled to Siberia.

Under Lenin's leadership, the Soviet government issued decrees and laws ("Decree on Freedom of Conscience, Church and Religious Associations" of January/February 1918 and the Liquidation Law of July 27, 1918, presented by People's Commissar for Justice Pyotr Stuchka) that formally granted freedom of worship while expropriating the churches. In fact, the churches were seen as representatives of the old order and their adherents as counter-revolutionaries. As a result, there were mass executions of priests of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Under Joseph Stalin, thousands of priests were deported to labor camps (Gulag). Likewise, in Central Asian republics where Muslims were the majority, most mosques were closed and the practice of religion was also banned.

In Siberia, especially south of Lake Baikal, there are also many Buddhists. Large parts of the Korean minority also professed Buddhism.

During the Second World War, the strict state anti-religious attitude was somewhat relaxed. Some bishops and priests were released from prison. Some ecclesiastical colleges were readmitted, as well as churches and monasteries. After Nikita Khrushchev came to power, a new wave of anti-religious struggle was unleashed. Khrushchev promised to show the last priest of the Soviet Union on television soon. Under Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, state attitudes relaxed again until finally, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, freedom of religion was formally granted. However, this was interpreted in different ways. In 2018, at least five successor republics remain on Open Doors' World Persecution Index of countries with Christian persecution, including Uzbekistan in 16th place (out of 50).