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Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic Белорусская Советская Социалистическая Республика Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка
← 1920–1991 →
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem Anthem of Byelorussian SSR
Capital	Smolensk, Minsk
Language(s)	Belarusian, Russian (...)
Religion	Secular state
Government	Marxist–Leninist single-party socialist republic
Head of party
- 1920–1923	V. Knorinsh (first)
- 1990–1991	A. Malofeyev (last)
Head of government
- 1920–1924	A. Chervyakov (first)
- 1990–1991	V. Kebich (last)
Head of state
- 1920–1937	A. Chervyakov (first)
- 1990–1991	M. Dzyemyantsyey (last)
Legislature	Congress of Soviets (1920–1938) Supreme Soviet (1938–1991)
Historical era	Russian Civil War, WWII, Cold War
- Republic declared	31 July 1920
- Admitted to USSR	30 December 1922
- Annexation of Western Belarus	15 November 1939
- UN Membership	24 October 1945
- Independence	26 December 1991
- Formalised	25 December 1991
Area
- 1989 census	603,700 km2 (233,090 sq mi)
Population
- 1989 census est.	10,199,709
Density	16.9 /km2  (43.8 /sq mi)

History of Belarus
This article is part of a series
Early East Slavs
Principality of Polotsk
Kievan Rus'
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Russian Empire
Belarusian People’s Republic
Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia
West Belarus
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
Modern Belarus
Belarus Portal v t e

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (abbreviated as Byelorussian SSR or BSSR) (Belarusian: Белару́ская Саве́цкая Сацыялісты́чная Рэспу́бліка, Белару́ская ССР Byelaruskaya Savyetskaya Satsyyalistychnaya Respublika, Byelaruskaya SSR; Russian: Белору́сская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика, Белорусская ССР Belorusskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika, Belorusskaya SSR) was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR).

The Soviet republic, Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (SSRB), in the lands of Belarus was declared on 1 January 1919, but it took a few years to define its status. In 1922, it was one of the four founding members of the Soviet Union, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Byelorussia was one of several Soviet republics occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. The BSSR, along with the Ukrainian SSR and the Soviet Union, were founding members of the United Nations Organization (UN) in 1945. The end of the Soviet Republic occurred in 1991 and the nation became an independent republic.

The country renamed itself as the Republic of Belarus. In earlier time periods, Western Europeans frequently referred to Byelorussian territory as White Russia ("Byelo Russia" literally means "White Russia"). During its early years in the USSR, the republic was sometimes known as the White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.

History[link]

Beginning[link]

Prior to the First World War, Belarussian lands were part of the Russian Empire, which it gained from the Partitions of Poland more than a century earlier. During the War, the Russian Western Front's Great Retreat in August/September 1915 ended with the lands of Grodno and most of Vilno guberniyas occupied by Germany, and a front at 100 kilometres to the west of Minsk.

After the Russian February Revolution in March 1917, the All-Russian council of Soviets created the Western Oblast which consisted of the Vilno, Vitebsk, Mogilev and Minsk guberniyas (or parts unoccupied by German troops) to administer the Belarusian lands in the pre-front zone. On 25 October (7 November), the Minsk Soviet of workers and soldiers deputies took over the administration of the city. A month later, on 26 November (6 December), the executive committee of workers, peasants and soldiers deputies for the Western Oblast was merged with the Western front's executive committee, creating a single Obliskomzap. During the autumn/winter of 1918, the Western Oblast was headed by Aleksandr Myasnikyan as head of the Western Oblast's Military Revolutionary Committee, who passed this duty on to Karl Lander. Myasnikyan took over as chair of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's (RSDRP(b)) committee for Western Oblast and Moisey Kalmanovich as chair of the Obliskomzap.

Due to the failure of the Soviet side to negotiate a deal at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Germans renewed their offensive and seized most of the Western Oblast in February 1918. This forced the Obliskomzap to evacuate to Smolensk. The Smolensk guberniya was passed to the Western Oblast. Four days after the Germans occupied Minsk, they declared the Belarus National Republic was proclaimed as a nominally independent state. It was a de facto puppet government of the German Empire.

Creation[link]

The initial and provisional borders of the SSRB in dark green

After Germany was defeated in the First World War, it announced its evacuation from the occupied territories of Belarus and Ukraine, leaving the puppet national republics to their fates. As the Germans were preparing to depart, the Bolsheviks were keen to enter the territory to re-claim Byelorussia, the Ukraine, and the Baltics to realize Soviet premier Vladimir Lenin's desire to dominate Central Europe and create the world revolution.

On 11 September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council ordered the creation of the Western Defence region in the Western Oblast out of Curtain forces which were stationed there. Simultaneously the Council reorganized the Western Oblast as a Western Commune. On 13 November, Moscow annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Two days later it transformed the Defence region into a Western army. It began an initially bloodless advance westward on the 17th. The Belarusian National Republic barely resisted, evacuating Minsk on 3 December. The Soviets maintained a distance of about 10–15 kilometres (6.2–9.3 mi) between the two armies,^[1] and took Minsk on the 10th.

Encouraged by their success, in Smolensk on 30/31 December 1918, the Sixth Western Oblast Party conference met and announced its split from the RSDRP(b), proclaiming itself as the first congress of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (CPB(b)). The next day, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia was proclaimed in Smolensk, terminating the Western Commune, and on 7 January it was moved to Minsk. Aleksandr Myasnikyan emerged as head of the All-Byelorussian Central Executive Committee and Zmicier Zhylunovich as head of the provisional government.

The new Soviet republic initially consisted of seven districts: Baranovichi, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno, Mogilev and Smolensk. On 30 January, the republic announced its separation from the Russian SFSR and renaming as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia (SSRB). This was conferred by the First Congress of deputies, composed of workers, soldiers and Red Army men, which met on the 2–3 February 1919, to adopt a new Socialist constitution. The Red Army continued its westward advance, capturing the city of Grodno on New Year's Day 1919, Pinsk on 21 January, and Baranovichi on 6 February 1919, thereby enlarging the SSRB.

Litbel[link]

The Litbel, was a Soviet attempt to justify its irredentist ambition by drawing on a historic parallel

The western winter offensive described above was not limited to Byelorussia; Soviet forces similarly moved to the north into Lithuania. On 16 December the Lithuanian Socialist Soviet Republic (LSSR) was proclaimed in Vilnius.

The Lithuanian operation and continuing conquest of Byelorussia were threatened by the rise of the Second Polish Republic after the withdrawal of German forces. However the conflict with Poland did not break out and the Soviet High Command's 12 January directive was to cease advance on the Neman-Bug rivers. However, the region to the east of those lines was historically mixed among a population of Belarusians, Poles and Lithuanians, with a sizeable Jewish minority. The local communities of each respective group wanted to be part of the respective states that were establishing themselves.

After the 1918/1919 winter Soviet conquest of Byelorussia, Ukraine and Lithuania, Russian Soviet forces faced Poland as a competing power in the region

In the Kresy ("Borderland") areas of Lithuania, Belarus and western Ukraine, self-organized militias, the Samoobrona Litwy i Białorusi numbering approximately 2,000 soldiers under General Wejtko, began to fight against the local communist and advancing Bolshevik forces. Each side was trying to secure the territories for its own government. The newly formed Polish Army began sending its organised units to reinforce the militias. On 14 February, the first clash between regular armies took place and a front emerged.

Eager to win support, the Bolshevik government decided to restore the Great Duchy of Lithuania by merging the Lithuanian and Byelorussian republics into the Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, or Litbel on 28 February 1919. Its capital was proclaimed as Vilnius, with five guberniyas: Vilno, Grodno, Kovno, Suwalki and Minsk. The Vitebsk and Mogilev guberniyas were transferred to the Russian SFSR, and were soon joined by the Gomel Governorate, which was created on 26 April.

By the start of spring 1918, the Russian Civil War began to ignite around the rest of the country, and the Soviet government had much more urgent needs for leaders: it reassigned Aleksandr Kolchak on the Volga and Anton Denikin in the south. The operations in Lithuania brought the front close to East Prussia, and the German units that had withdrawn there began to assist the Lithuanian forces to defeat the Soviets; they repelled the Red offensive against Kaunus in February 1919.

In March 1919, Polish units opened an offensive: forces under General Stanisław Szeptycki captured the city of Slonim (2 March) and crossed the Neman, whilst Lithuanian advances forced the Soviets out of Panevėžys. A final Soviet counter-offensive retook Panevėžys and [Grodno in early April, but the Western Army was too thinly spread to fight both the Polish and Lithuanian troops, and the German units assisting them. The Polish offensive quickly gained momentum, and Vilna offensive in April 1919, forced Litbel to evacuate the capital first to Dvinsk (28 April), then to Minsk (28 April), then to Bobruysk (19 May). As the Litbel lost territory, its powers were quickly stripped by Moscow. For example, on 1 June Vtsik's decree put all of Litbel's armed forces under the command of the Red Army. On 17 July, the Defence Soviet was liquidated, and its function was passed to Minsk's Milrevcom. When on 8 August Polish forces captured Minsk, that same day the capital was evacuated to Smolensk. On 28 August Lithuanian forces took Zarasai (the last Lithuanian town held by Litbel) and the same day Bobruysk fell to the Poles.

By late summer of 1919, the Polish advance was also exhausted. The defeat of the Red Army allowed the outbreak of another historic disagreement over territory between Poland and Lithuania; their competition to control the city of Vilnius soon erupted into a military conflict, with Poland winning. Facing Denikin and Kolchak, Soviet Russia could not spare men for the western front. A stalemate with localised skirmishes developed between Poland and Lithuania.

The pawn on a chessboard[link]

The stalemate and the occasional (though fruitless) negotiations gave the RSFSR a much needed pause to concentrate on other regions. During the latter half of 1919 the Red Army successfully defeated Denikin in the South, taking over the Don, North Caucasus and Eastern Ukraine, pushed Kolchak from the Volga, beyond the Ural mountains into Siberia. In autumn of 1919, Nikolai Yudenich's advance on Petrograd was checked, whilst in the far north the Evgeny Miller's army was pushed into the Arctic. On the diplomatic front, on 11 September 1919, the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia, Georgy Chicherin, sent a note to Lithuania with a proposal for a peace treaty. It was a de facto recognition of the Lithuanian state.^[2] Similar negotiations with Estonia and Latvia, gave way for a peace treaty with the former on 2 February 1920 and a cease-fire agreement with the latter a day earlier.

Having secured several frontiers and breaking the "Ring of Fronts" the Soviet government began building up its forces for the massive offensive westwards, bringing the World Revolution to Europe. However the Polish role of preventing this and creating a "buffer zone" at the expense of Belarus was not its sole goal. The new leader Józef Piłsudski rallied the Poles under a nationalist rhetoric to re-create the historic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Międzymorze, which would include Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and push the eastern border as far as possible into Russia.

War continues[link]

After the decisive Polish victory in Warsaw, the Red Army was forced to retreat from Polish territories, but attempts to hold Western Belarus were lost after the Polish victory on the Nieman River

In April 1920 Poland initiated its major offensive. However the Soviet Red Army was much more organised then it was a year earlier, and though Polish troops managed to make several gains in Ukraine, notably the capture of Kiev, in Byelorussia, both of its offensives towards Zhlobin and Orsha were thrown back in May.

In June, the RSFSR was finally ready to open its major Western advance. To preserve the neutrality of Lithuania (though the peace treaty was still being negotiated) on 6 June, the exiled government of Litbel was disbanded. Within a few days, the 3rd Cavalry Corps under command of Hayk Bzhishkyan broke the Polish front, causing a collapse and a retreat. On 11 July Minsk was re-taken, and on 31 July 1920 once again the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belorussia was re-established in Minsk.

As the front moved west, and more Belarusian lands were adjoined to the new republic, the first administrative decrees were issued. The entity was divided into seven uyezds: Bobruysk, Borisov, Igumen, Minsk, Mozyr and Slutsk. (Vitebsk, Gomel and Mogilev remained part of the RSFSR.) This time the leaders were Aleksandr Chervyakov (head of Minsk's milrevcom) and Wilhelm Knorin (as chairmen of the Central Committee of the Belarusian Communist Party). The SSRB sought to join further territories, as the Red Army crossed into Poland, but the decisive Polish victory at the Battle of Warsaw in August ended these ambitions. Once again, the Red Army found itself on the defensive in Belorussia. The Poles were able to successfully break the Russian lines at the Battle of the Niemen River in September 1920. As a result the Soviets were not only forced to abandon their World Revolution targets, but Western Belarus too. However early autumn rains halted the Polish advance, which exhausted itself by October. A cease-fire agreed on 12 October, came into effect on 18 October.

The Slutsk uprising[link]

A Belarusian caricature showing the division of their country by Poles and Bolsheviks

As the negotiations between the Polish Republic and the Russian Bolshevik government took place in Riga, the Soviet side saw the armistice as only a temporary setback in its western advance. Seeing the failure of overcoming the Polish nationalist rhetoric with Communist propaganda, the Soviet government chose a different tactic, by appealing to the minorities of the Polish state, creating a fifth column element out of Belarusians and Ukrainians. During the negotiations, RSFSR offered all of BSSR to Poland in return for concessions in Ukraine, which were rejected by the Polish side. Eventually a compromising armistice line was agreed, which would see the Belarusian city of Slutsk handed over to the Bolsheviks.

News of Belarus' upcoming permanent division angered the population, and using the town's Polish occupation, the local population began self-organising into a militia. On 24th of November the Polish units left the town, and for nearly a month the Slutsk partisans resisted Soviet attempts to re-gain control of the area. Eventually the Red Army had to mobilise two divisions to overcome the resistance, when the last units of Slutsk militia crossed the Moroch River and interned by the Polish border guards.

Early Soviet years[link]

In February 1921, the delegations of the Second Polish Republic and the Russian SFSR finally signed the Treaty of Riga putting an end of hostilities in Europe, and Belarus in particular. Six years of war have left the land neglected and looted, and the endless change of occupying regimes, each worse than the previous have left their mark on the Belarusian people, who were now divided. Almost half (Western Belarus) now belonged to Poland, Eastern Belarus (Gomel, Vitebsk and parts of Smolensk guberniyas) were administered by the RSFSR. The rest was the SSRB, a republic with 52,400 square kilometres and a population of a mere 1,544 million people.

An interesting paradox arose in the status of SSRB within the future Bolshevik state. One one hand its small geographic, population and almost negligent economic indicators did not warrant it much political weight on Soviet affairs. In fact the leader of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (Bolshevik), Alexander Chervyakov would represent Byelorussian communists at seven party congresses in Moscow, but not once be elected into the party's Central Committee. Moreover the weak national sentiment of Belarusian people would've easily allowed SSRB to be disbanded and annexed to the RSFSR, unlike for example Ukraine.

On the other hand, the region's strategic role decided its fate, as a full Union republic within the negotiations upon forming the future state. For one Leo Trotsky and his supporters within the Soviet leadership still supported its World Revolution concept, and as said above, viewed the Treaty of Riga as only a temporary setback to the process, and a future advance would require a prepared bridgehead. This justified giving the SSRB the status of a full union republic within the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR that was signed on 30th of December 1922.

However the politics in Moscow took a different course of events, and eventually the accession of Joseph Stalin saw a new policy adapted Socialism in One Country. In accordance to which, expansionist and irredentist claims were removed from Soviet ideology, which instead would focus on making regions economically viable. Thus on March 1924, by decree of VTsIK, Russia returned most of territories that made up the Vitebsk and Mogilev Governorates, as well as parts of Smolensk. The passing of land that largely survived the destruction of war not only doubled the SSRB's area to 110,600 square kilometres, but also raised the population to 4,2 million people.

SSRB in the mid-1920s[link]

According to its entry in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia,^[3] in 1925 SSRB was a largely rural country. Out of the 4,342,800 people that inhabited it, only 14.5 % lived in urban areas. Administratively it was split into ten districts: Bobruysk, Borisov, Vitebsk, Kalinin (admin centre in the city of Klimovichi), Minsk, Mogilev, Mozyr, Orsha, Polotsk and Slutsk; all of whom contained a total of 100 raions and 1,229 Selsoviets. Only 25 towns and cities and an additional 49 urban settlements (mestechkos)

Trotsky's plan for the SSRB to act as a future magnet for the minorities in the Second Polish Republic is clearly evidenced in the national policies. The republic initially had four official languages: Belarusian, Russian, Yiddish, and Polish, despite the fact that the Poles made up only 2% of the total population (most lived next to the state border in the Minsk and Borisov districts). The most important minority was the Jewish population of Belarus, which in 1925 made up almost 44% of the urban population. Indeed the Soviet Belarusian government went to great lengths in exploiting this potential workforce, and in 1924 created a whole committee - Belkomzet to allocate land to Jewish families, in 1926 a total of 32,700 hectares were given for 6,860 Jewish families. Jews would continue to play a major role in Byelorussian politics, society and economy right up to the Second World War, in fact between 1928 and 1930 the First secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia, was Yakov Gamarnik, a Jew.

Yet, the titular nation of the SSRB were the Belarusians, which made up 82% of the rural population, but less than half of the urban one (40.1%). The Belarusian national sentiment was a lot weaker than that of neghbouring Ukraine, this was greatly exploited by the Bolshevik-Polish power struggle in the Polish-Soviet War. (In fact to avoid being annexed to Poland, at the census of 1920, many chose to be label themselves as Russians. ^[3]). To appeal to the Belarusians of Western Belarus and also to prevent the nationalist element of the exiled Belarusian National Republic from having any influence on the population (i.e. to avoid another Slutsk uprising), a policy of Korenizatsiya was widely implemented. Belarusian language, folklore and culture was put at front of everything else. This went on par with the Soviet policy of liquidation of illiteracy (likbez).

Economically the republic remained largely self-centred, and most of the effort was put into restoring and repairing the war-damaged industry (if in 1923 there was only 226 different fabrics and factories, then by 1926 the number climbed to 246, however the employed manpower jumped from 14 thousand to 21.3 thousand workers). The majority was food industry followed by metal and wood working combines. A lot more was centred in local and private sector, as allowed by the New Economic Policy of the USSR, in 1925 these number 38.5 thousand who employed almost 50 thousand people. Most being textile workshops and lumber yards and blacksmiths.

To further make the republic prosperous and to continue the creating of well-defined national territorial units. On the 6th of December 1926 the SSRB was once again enlarged by passing parts of RSFSR's Gomel Governorate, which included the cities of Gomel and Rechytsa. This increased the area to 126,300 square kilometres and the 1926 Soviet census that was held at the same time reported a population of 4,982,623. Of the latter 83% was rural, and Belarusians made up 80.6% (though only 39.2% of urban, yet 89% of rural).

On the 11th of April 1927, the republic finally adopts its new Constitution, bringing its laws in tie with those of the USSR and changing the name from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic The head of government (chairman of the Soviet of People's Commissars) was taken up Nikolay Goloded, whilst Wilhelm Knorin remained the first secretary of the Communist Party.

The Stalinist years[link]

SSR Byelorussia became a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922 and became known as BSSR.^[4]

In September 1939, the Soviet Union annexed the Polish-held West Belarus during the 1939 invasion of Poland and incorporated it into the BSSR. Part of it, including the city of Vilno, was later transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. During World War II, the territory was governed by the Belarusian Central Rada.

After World War II, the Byelorussian SSR was given a seat in the United Nations General Assembly together with the Soviet Union and Ukrainian SSR, becoming one of the founding members of the UN. This was part of a deal with the United States to ensure a degree of balance in the General Assembly, which, the USSR opined, was unbalanced in favor of the Western Bloc.^{[citation needed]} A Byelorussian, G.G. Tchernouchtchenko, served as President of the United Nations Security Council from January–February 1975.

Dissolution[link]

Following the August Coup, the Supreme Soviet of Belarus declared independence from the Soviet Union on 25 August 1991. The republic was renamed the Republic of Belarus on 19 September 1991. On 8 December 1991 it was a signatory, along with Russia and Ukraine, of the Belavezha Accords, which replaced the Soviet Union with the Commonwealth of Independent States. Belarus received independence on 25 December 1991. A day later the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Belarus is the legal successor of the SSR Byelorussia and in its Constitution is states, "Laws, decrees and other acts which were applied in the territory of the Republic of Belarus prior to the entry into force of the present Constitution shall apply in the particular parts thereof that are not contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus."^[5]

Demographics[link]

According to the 1959 Soviet Census, the population of the republic were made up as follows:

Nationalities (1959):

• Belarusians - 81%
• Poles - 16%
• Lithuanians - 5%
• Ukrainians - about 1%
• Russians - <1%

Other ethnic/religious groups (1959):

• Jews - about 1%

The largest cities were:

• Minsk
• Brest
• Homel
• Hrodna
• Mahilyow
• Vitsebsk
• Babruisk

References[link]

External links[link]

• Byelorussia : speeding towards abundance by Tikhon Kiselev

v t e Republics of the Soviet Union Soviet Union Principal Armenian SSR Azerbaijan SSR Byelorussian SSR Estonian SSR Georgian SSR Kazakh SSR Kirghiz SSR Latvian SSR Lithuanian SSR Moldavian SSR Russian SFSR Tajik SSR Turkmen SSR Ukrainian SSR Uzbek SSR Short-lived Karelo-Finnish SSR Transcaucasian SFSR

v t e Eastern Bloc Soviet Union · Communism Formation The secret protocol of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact · Soviet invasion of Poland · Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina · Occupation of Baltic states · Soviet occupation of Hungary · Soviet occupation of Romania · Soviet occupations · Yalta Conference Annexed as, or into, SSRs Eastern Finland · Estonia · Latvia · Lithuania · Memel · East Prussia · West Belarus · Western Ukraine · Moldavia · Uzbekistan · Kazakhstan · Azerbaijan · Georgia · Tajikstan · Kyrgyzstan · Turkmenistan · Armenia Annexing SSRs Russian SFSR · Ukrainian SSR · Byelorussian SSR Related organizations Cominform · COMECON · Warsaw Pact · WFTU · WFDY Revolts and opposition Welles Declaration · The Goryani Movement · Forest Brothers · Ukrainian Insurgent Army · Operation Jungle · State continuity of the Baltic states · Baltic Legations (1940–1991) · Cursed soldiers · Uprising in Plzeň (1953) · Uprising of 1953 in East Germany · 1956 Georgian demonstrations · Poznań 1956 protests · Hungarian Revolution of 1956 · Novocherkassk massacre · Prague Spring and Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia · 1968 Red Square demonstration · Polish 1970 protests · June 1976 protests · Solidarity, Soviet reaction and Martial law · Reagan Doctrine · Jeltoqsan · April 9 tragedy · Romanian Revolution of 1989 · Black January Conditions Eastern Bloc emigration and defection · Sovietization of the Baltic states  · Eastern Bloc information dissemination · Eastern Bloc politics · Eastern Bloc economies · Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc · List of Eastern Bloc defectors Decline Revolutions of 1989 · Fall of the Berlin Wall  · Fall of communism in Albania · Singing Revolution · Collapse of the Soviet Union · Dissolution of Czechoslovakia · January 1991 events in Lithuania · January 1991 events in Latvia

Soviet Union

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of the Soviet Union

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Atlas  USSR Portal view talk edit

The Republics of the Soviet Union or the Union Republics (Russian: союзные республики, soyuznye respubliki) of the Soviet Union were ethnically-based administrative units that were subordinated directly to the Government of the Soviet Union.^[1] The Soviet Union was a highly centralized state.

Overview[link]

According to the Article 76 of the Soviet Constitution, the sovereign Soviet socialist states united to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that "the sovereign rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR".^[2]

In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR). All of them were considered to be Soviet socialist republics (SSR), and all of them, with the exception of the Russian SFSR (until 1990), had their own Communist parties, part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Outside the territory of the Russian SFSR, the republics were constituted mostly in lands that had formerly belonged to the Russian Monarchy and had been acquired by it between the 1700 Great Northern War and the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907.

In 1944, amendments to the 1936 Soviet Constitution established separate branches of the Red Army for each Soviet Republic. They also established Republic-level commissariats for foreign affairs and defense, allowing them to be recognized as de jure independent states in international law. This allowed for two Soviet Republics, Ukraine and Byelorussia, to join the United Nations General Assembly as founding members in 1945.^[3][4][5]

All of the former Republics are now independent countries, with eleven of them (all except the Baltic states and Georgia) being very loosely organized under the heading of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

However, the Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, do not consider themselves to have ever been part of the USSR. They assert that their incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940 (as the Lithuanian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Estonian SSR) under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was illegal, and that they therefore remained independent countries under Soviet occupation.^[6][7] Their position is supported by the European Union,^[8] the European Court of Human Rights,^[9] the United Nations Human Rights Council^[10] and the United States.^[11] In contrast, the Russian government and state officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate.^[12]

Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a confederation. In accordance with provisions present in the Constitution (versions adopted in 1924, 1936 and 1977), each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, this right was widely considered to be meaningless; however, the corresponding Article 72 of the 1977 Constitution was used in December 1991 to effectively dissolve the Soviet Union, when Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus seceded from the Union.

In practice, the USSR was a highly centralised entity from its creation in 1922 until the mid-1980s when political forces unleashed by reforms undertaken by Mikhail Gorbachev resulted in the loosening of central control and its ultimate dissolution. 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 within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

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.

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. Every republic of the Soviet Union also was awarded with the Order of Lenin.

A hall in Bishkek's Soviet-era Lenin Museum decked with the flags of Soviet Republics

The republics and the dissolution of the Soviet Union[link]

In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics and they were called Soviet republics. The republics played an important role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.^{[clarification needed]} 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. Perestroika allowed the governments of the republics to control economic assets in their republics and withhold funds from the central government. Finally, by December 15th, all 15 republics declared independence.

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.

Map of the Union Republics from 1956-1991
Soviet socialist republic	member since	population (1989)	pop./ USSR pop. (%)	area (km²) (1991)	area/ USSR area (%)	capital	independent state	No.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic	1922	&10000000147386000000000147,386,000	&1000000000000005139999951.40	&1000000001707540000000017,075,400	&1000000000000007662000076.62	Moscow	Russia	1
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic	1922	&1000000005170674600000051,706,746	&1000000000000001803000018.03	&10000000000603700000000603,700	&100000000000000027100002.71	Kiev (Kharkov before 1934)	Ukraine	2
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic	1924	&1000000001990600000000019,906,000	&100000000000000069400006.94	&10000000000447400000000447,400	&100000000000000020099992.01	Tashkent (Samarkand before 1930)	Uzbekistan	4
Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic	1936	&1000000001671190000000016,711,900	&100000000000000058300005.83	&100000000027273000000002,727,300	&1000000000000001224000012.24	Alma-Ata	Kazakhstan	5
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic	1922	&1000000001015180600000010,151,806	&100000000000000035400003.54	&10000000000207600000000207,600	&100000000000000009300000.93	Minsk	Belarus	3
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic	1936	&100000000070379000000007,037,900	&100000000000000024500002.45	&1000000000008660000000086,600	&100000000000000003900000.39	Baku	Azerbaijan	7
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic	1936	&100000000054008410000005,400,841	&100000000000000018799991.88	&1000000000006970000000069,700	&100000000000000003100000.31	Tbilisi	Georgia	6
Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic	1929	&100000000051120000000005,112,000	&100000000000000017800001.78	&10000000000143100000000143,100	&100000000000000006400000.64	Dushanbe	Tajikistan	12
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic	1940	&100000000043376000000004,337,600	&100000000000000015100001.51	&1000000000003384300000033,843	&100000000000000001500000.15	Kishinev	Moldova	9
Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic	1936	&100000000042578000000004,257,800	&100000000000000014800001.48	&10000000000198500000000198,500	&100000000000000008900000.89	Frunze	Kyrgyzstan	11
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic	1940	&100000000036897790000003,689,779	&100000000000000012900001.29	&1000000000006520000000065,200	&100000000000000002900000.29	Vilnius	Lithuania	8
Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic	1924	&100000000035227000000003,522,700	&100000000000000012299991.23	&10000000000488100000000488,100	&100000000000000021899992.19	Ashkhabad	Turkmenistan	14
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic	1936	&100000000032877000000003,287,700	&100000000000000011499991.15	&1000000000002980000000029,800	&100000000000000001300000.13	Yerevan	Armenia	13
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic	1940	&100000000026665670000002,666,567	&100000000000000009300000.93	&1000000000006458900000064,589	&100000000000000002900000.29	Riga	Latvia	10
Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic	1940	&100000000015656620000001,565,662	&100000000000000005500000.55	&1000000000004522600000045,226	&100000000000000002000000.20	Tallinn	Estonia	15