SOVIET UNION A History from Beginning to End (Russian History: Soviet Union by Hourly History).

................................................................................................

SOVIET UNION

A History from Beginning to End

Russian History: Soviet Union

by Hourly History.

Russian History: Soviet Union, Russian Civil War,

Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, Crimean War

by Hourly History.

................................................................................................

"At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian Empire appeared to be one of the most powerful nations in the world, yet this apparent power concealed serious internal weakness. The bulk of the Russian population were peasants who lived in conditions little better than slavery. There were large and growing movements for reform, but the tsar refused to countenance change. Then came two disastrous wars."

"After the Russian Revolution came two years of bloody civil war in which various factions fought for control. The Bolsheviks emerged from this war as the victors, and they established a confederation of republics that represented a bold new social and political experiment, which grew not from nationalism or religion but from a new political movement: communism. Communism, it was claimed, would lead to a utopian state run not for the benefit of a wealthy elite but for every person within that state. It would not be ruled by a hereditary leader such as a tsar or king but would instead be a federation ruled by the people themselves. It was this revolutionary idea that would lead to the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the birth of Soviet Russia."

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"The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (more commonly known as the Soviet Union or the USSR) was created in December 1922 with the signature of a treaty formally linking four socialist republics that had been created from territory previously controlled by the Russian Empire: the Soviet Federated Socialist Republics of Russia and Transcaucasia (present-day Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan), and the Soviet Socialist Republics of Ukraine and Belarus."

But wasn't Siberia, or all of North Asia - north of India, China and Mongolia, and too, Persia - too, always ruled by Russia - and therefore, subsequently, by USSR?

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" ... During the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1920, the Bolsheviks became increasingly powerful until, by the time of the creation of the USSR, the Mensheviks had been completely crushed. As a result, the new union was to be entirely communist. ... "

"From its inception, the USSR claimed to represent a classless, egalitarian, and conflict-free society that was radically different from anything else existing in the world at that time. Of course, there were those both inside and out who didn’t agree and who sought to undermine the USSR. To fight against these “reactionary” forces, it was deemed necessary to have an army—a secret police—willing to suppress its own people. Most people believed that once opposition was crushed and the true benefits of communism became apparent, things would be very different. In The ABC of Communism, published in 1920 and soon to become widely published in the USSR, it was said that very soon, there would be no need for police, prisons, or even laws because, within the new society of the USSR, every citizen would work for the good of the nation. This belief accorded with Marxist teaching, which claimed that after revolution, the state would simply “wither away.”

"The reality was quite different. By 1921, the chaos of the civil war had brought Russia close to collapse. Up to six million peasants had died of starvation, riots broke out in cities controlled by the communists, and there was even a mutiny amongst naval units in the city of Kronstadt. Several hundred people were executed and many hundreds more arrested before the communists were able to regain control, but even Lenin recognized that fundamental changes were needed if the new state was to be able to survive. This led in 1921 to the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), under which the state would control industry, but some level of private ownership of agriculture and trade would be permitted. In particular, rather than having their entire crop requisitioned, farmers would be required to give 10% of what they grew to the state but would be permitted to sell any surplus they produced."

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"“True courage consists in being strong enough to master and overcome oneself and subordinate one’s will to the will of the collective.”

"—Joseph Stalin"

No wonder Mother said they had nothing to teach India - that quote couldbe straight from a grandmother-in-law or a father-in-law to the young new bride, or even to her bridegroom!

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"In 1927, Stalin was forced to address another pressing problem: a grain shortage in the Soviet Union. Grain was a central part of the diet in the region, but the harvest in 1927 was less than 70% of the harvest the previous year. This decrease led to a very real threat of starvation within the Soviet Union but also to the prospect of a complete lack of grain exports, one of the very few sources of foreign currency. ... "

" ... Kulak became an extremely negative term, and Kulaks were increasingly (and unjustly) blamed for the grain shortage. It was said that wealthy Kulaks were hoarding grain and that this was the cause of the shortages."

" ... In 1928, Stalin traveled to Siberia and announced, without consulting the Politburo, that he had discovered Kulaks with hoards of grain, and because of this, the grain owned by Kulaks was to be seized. Grain Procurement Squads were mobilized across Siberia and the Urals and began to seize any stocks of grain they could find, leading to violent clashes in some places and to serious food shortages in others."

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"During the Great Terror, Stalin had become convinced that within the leadership of the Red Army, there were counter-revolutionary groups plotting to remove him from power. There is little evidence that this was true, but from 1937, the focus of the purge switched from politicians to soldiers. In all, 25,000 men were removed from the Red Army, with most being executed or sent to labor camps. These were invariably senior officers, the most experienced, veteran troops that the Soviet Union had (three of the five most senior commanders, marshals of the Soviet Union, were executed during the purge). As a result, army officers became very wary of displaying any independence of thought or action and instead took the safest route: slavish obedience to orders, no matter how absurd they might be."

Why the authors here refuse to acknowledge or mention the cause of this horror, namely, falsehoods planted by nazi regime against the best of Russia, is unclear.

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"In 1964, there were 24,000 US “military advisors” in Vietnam. By the following year, there were almost 200,000 US troops in South Vietnam supported by naval and air force units. The Vietnam War would prove costly to America in human terms—60,000 US soldiers would die in the conflict—and it would be ruinously expensive and deeply unpopular at home. Combined with the Space Race, a technological battle with the Soviet Union to gain supremacy in space exploration that was also extremely expensive, it was becoming clear that the cost of maintaining the Cold War was unsustainable."

" ... A series of subsequent meetings between Brezhnev and Nixon and later US Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter led to a new period of improved relations between the US and the Soviet Union that became known as détente."

"In 1978, a revolution saw a communist government installed in Afghanistan. Despite a brutal campaign of repression that involved thousands of people being executed without trial, large parts of the country erupted in a rebellion against the new Soviet-supported regime. In September 1979, Afghanistan’s leader, Nur Mohammad Taraki, was assassinated in a coup planned by his rival, Hafizullah Amin. Amin was much less sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and there were fears in Moscow that he might be about to switch allegiance to the US. Given that Afghanistan shared a border with the Soviet Union, this was seen as representing a major threat. Thus, on December 24, 1979, Soviet forces moved across the border and rapidly took the city of Kabul. Amin was executed and replaced by a Soviet supporter, Babrak Karmal, as the new leader of the country."

The authors omit the fact that it was a legitimate Afghanistan government that had requested help from USSR, to deal with the instability due to Islamic terrorism sponsored actively by the neighbour, pakis, encouraged by US as part of strategy to surround USSR with 'green crescent'.

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SOVIET UNION

A History from Beginning to End

Russian History: Soviet Union

by Hourly History.

Russian History: Soviet Union, Russian Civil War,

Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, Crimean War

by Hourly History.

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July 27, 2024 - July , 2024.

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Format 317 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 2, 2024 by Hourly History

ASIN:- B0CRDM474L

Language English

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Table of Contents

SOVIET UNION

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Introduction

Birth of the Soviet Union

Stalin: A New Leader

Collectivization, Famine, and Purges

An Unlikely Alliance

The Great Patriotic War

The Cold War

Détente and a New War

Chernobyl

Glasnost and Perestroika

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

Conclusion

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REVIEW

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Introduction

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July 28, 2024 - July 28, 2024.

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1. Birth of the Soviet Union

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But wasn't Siberia, or all of North Asia - north of India, China and Mongolia, and too, Persia - too, always ruled by Russia - and therefore, subsequently, by USSR?

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July 28, 2024 - July 28, 2024.

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2. Stalin: A New Leader

................................................................................................

"“True courage consists in being strong enough to master and overcome oneself and subordinate one’s will to the will of the collective.”

"—Joseph Stalin"

No wonder Mother said they had nothing to teach India - that quote couldbe straight from a grandmother-in-law or a father-in-law to the young new bride, or even to her bridegroom!

................................................................................................

" ... “Left Opposition,” was led by Leon Trotsky, also a member of the Politburo. By 1926, this had expanded to become the “United Opposition,” led by Trotsky but joined by other leading members of the party, including Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev. Since Stalin and his supporters believed that abruptly abandoning the NEP would plunge the USSR back into chaos, the opposition accused Stalin of being a “rightist” who planned to bring back capitalism. The situation became so serious that the United Opposition was able to organize large-scale demonstrations against Stalin in Moscow and to produce documents that seemed to suggest that Lenin had favored Trotsky, not Stalin, as his successor."

" ... In October 1926, Stalin’s support had grown sufficiently strong that he was able to have Trotsky voted off the Politburo. Then, the following year, Stalin was able to have membership in the United Opposition declared to be incompatible with membership in the Communist Party. Trotsky and his supporters were thereby expelled from the party as well. From this point on, there was little organized or coherent opposition to Stalin within the Communist Party or the Soviet Union as a whole. However, the experience of dealing with this opposition would leave Stalin distrustful and suspicious. As his power grew, he would later take brutal revenge against those who had opposed him in 1926 and 1927, and for the rest of his time in power, he would continually look for and attempt to destroy real or imagined threats to his position."

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July 28, 2024 - July 28, 2024.

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3. Collectivization, Famine, and Purges

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"One of the most pressing concerns affecting the Soviet Union in its early years was the fact that industry and agriculture were relatively primitive compared to Western Europe. Stalin told a meeting of the leaders of Soviet industry that “we are 50–100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us.”"

"Improving industry meant that a proportion of the population had to be persuaded to move from rural to urban areas to provide the required industrial workforce. To achieve this, a new, more efficient means of agricultural production was needed that required fewer workers. This led to the policy of collectivization, which instead of improving agricultural efficiency, would lead to starvation and the death of millions of people."

"The policy of collectivization had some fundamental flaws. The kulaks, now identified as criminals, were often the most knowledgeable and efficient farmers. Taking them out of the system immediately affected production. Even worse, any surplus produced by any farm was simply seized by the state, providing no incentive for workers to do anything but produce the minimum required to fulfill their allotted quota. This situation quickly led to grain shortages. In 1928, there was a shortfall of around two million tons of grain, but much worse was to come."

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" ... Soviet Union relied on grain exports to provide the foreign currency required to buy the materials and equipment needed to support industrialization. Even as starvation spread across the Soviet Union due to grain shortages, these exports continued. No one is entirely certain how many people died as a direct result of famine and disease in the period from 1928 to 1932, but most estimates suggest at least four million. Most of these deaths occurred in rural areas, and these, in turn, caused a shortage of agricultural workers that led to more grain shortages."

" ... news of the famine leaked out and caused many people to begin to doubt Stalin’s leadership. Trotsky, though in exile, became the main spokesman for this group. Soon, Stalin began to feel under threat again and reacted with a wave of brutal repression that became known as the Great Terror.

"In 1936, the secret police of the Soviet Union, the NKVD, began a wave of arrests across the Soviet Union. These started with the people Stalin saw as political rivals, then moved on to the Red Army and to ethnic minorities within the Soviet Union. The NKVD used imprisonment without trial, torture, and arbitrary executions to crush the threat perceived by Stalin. During a period of two years, hundreds of thousands of people were arrested. Some were subject to show trials where confessions extracted under torture were used to secure conviction and execution."

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July 28, 2024 - July 29, 2024.

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4. An Unlikely Alliance

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Why the authors here refuse to acknowledge or mention the cause of this horror, namely, falsehoods planted by nazi regime against the best of Russia, is unclear.

................................................................................................

"Even before the Winter War provided a graphic illustration of just how much the Red Army had been weakened by the purges of 1936-1938, there were concerns within the Soviet Union about whether it was capable of fighting off an attack by another nation. These concerns were heightened by a threatening international situation. Britain, France, Japan, and America had all provided troops and materials to support the Whites (the anti-Bolshevik faction) in the Russian Civil War. This led to a lingering distrust within the Soviet Union of these nations and a general antipathy on their part toward the Soviet Union. Then, the rise of a new political movement in Europe in the 1930s destabilized the existing balance of power and raised a new threat to the Soviet Union."

"In the summer of 1939, Britain sent a delegation to the Soviet Union to discuss the possibility of a military alliance. This was led by a man with the unlikely name of Reginald Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, but his mission was hampered from the start by the fact that the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, detested communism and deeply distrusted Stalin. The Anglo-French talks dragged on for several weeks, and Stalin (rightly) suspected that the only reason these nations were talking to him was in the hope that the Soviet Union and Germany would go to war over Poland. While Stalin was well aware of Hitler’s antipathy to the Soviet Union, he also understood how weak the combat efficiency of the Red Army was following the purges."

"Just nine days after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany, though they did not declare war on the Soviet Union even after Soviet troops marched into eastern Poland three weeks later. World War II had begun, but for the moment, it did not involve the Soviet Union."

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July 29, 2024 - July 29, 2024.

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5. The Great Patriotic War

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"“This perfidious aggression against our country is a treachery without precedent in the history of civilized nations.”

"—Vyacheslav Molotov"

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"For more than 18 months at the beginning of World War II (known within the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War), Nazi Germany seemed unstoppable. First Poland, then Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, parts of Yugoslavia, and France were all invaded and rapidly defeated and occupied by German forces. Only Britain remained to fight Germany, but the only land combat between these two nations took place in North Africa, where Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps pushed British forces back into Egypt.

"During this period of Nazi military domination, its ally the Soviet Union was also acquiring new territory. The eastern half of Poland was subject to brutal occupation by Soviet forces from October 1939. Soviet troops occupied the three Baltic states Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania soon after, and all three were forced to join the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1940, as Nazi panzers were rolling into Belgium and France, the Soviet Union annexed the Romanian territories of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Only military defeat in the Winter War with Finland prevented the Soviet Union from also acquiring that territory in 1940.

"Up to June 1941, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both independently and separately enlarged the territory under their control through conquest. Then, on June 22, everything changed. Hitler turned on his previous ally and launched Operation Barbarossa, in which millions of German troops supported by thousands of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and combat aircraft began one of the largest military operations ever seen against the Soviet Union. Most people expected a rapid German victory; the US War Department warned President Roosevelt that the defeat of the Soviet Union might take as little as six weeks. After all, German military units had proved victorious in every military campaign they had undertaken, while the Soviet Union had been defeated in the only active war it attempted against Finland."

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"Russian losses during the early stages of Operation Barbarossa were vast. On the first day of the operation alone, more than 1,800 military aircraft were destroyed. By December 1941, German troops had reached the suburbs of Moscow. By that point, the Soviet Union had lost almost 2.5 million troops taken prisoner and hundreds of thousands more killed or seriously wounded. The Red Air Force had taken losses on a huge scale, and no one is certain how many tanks had been lost. The Germans occupied more than 200 million square miles (500 million square kilometers) of Soviet territory. To most outside observers, it seemed only a matter of time before Moscow fell and Russia surrendered. But that wasn’t how it worked out.

"The truth was that German supply lines were stretched over hundreds of miles of dirt roads made impassible first by rain that turned them into quagmires and then by brutal cold that left many German vehicles and aircraft inoperable. Thanks to this, in late December, the Red Army was able to mount a counter-offensive that drove the Germans back from Moscow. Meanwhile, events elsewhere in the world had changed the course of the war and had turned it into a truly global conflict."

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" ... For the next three years of bloody and brutal combat, it was the courage and tenacity of Soviet troops that first stopped and then began to drive back the Nazi invaders.

"The Battle of Stalingrad (from August 1942 to February 1943) marked a turning point on the Eastern Front. A German attempt to take the city was repulsed, and a Soviet counter-attack finally began to drive the Germans back to the west. There would only be one more large German offensive—at Kursk in the summer of 1943. This, too, was stopped, and another Soviet counter-offensive began to drive the Germans even further out of previously captured territory. In June 1944, the Soviet Union launched Operation Bagration, a vast attack on German forces in Belarus. By April 1945, Soviet forces had besieged the city of Berlin. Hitler committed suicide soon after, and Germany surrendered on May 8.

"The Soviet Union emerged victorious from a four-year war that many had expected to last only a few weeks. The human cost was simply staggering. Later estimates suggested that up to 9 million Soviet troops died during this conflict and up to 18 million civilians. This level of casualties was unprecedented in warfare, but somehow, the Soviet Union emerged from World War II not weakened but as an emerging superpower."

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July 29, 2024 - July 29, 2024.

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6. The Cold War

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" ... The western countries feared further Soviet expansion and the spread of communism, while the Soviet Union feared further aggression that might lead to another invasion. The two power blocs faced one another in a heavily-armed stand-off that became known as the Cold War.

"In 1948, this conflict escalated when the Soviet Union attempted to blockade West Berlin, the part of Berlin controlled by the US, France, and Britain. This blockade led to the Berlin Airlift, the successful re-supply of the city by air, but it increased tensions between east and west. Although Europe was the center of the Cold War, it also had an impact on other continents. For example, the Korean War (from 1950 to 1953) was fought between South Korea (supported by America) and North Korea (supported by the Soviet Union). Although the outcome was indecisive, the conflict led to the death of over two million people, mainly civilians."

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" ... Khrushchev’s leadership was different, seeming to herald a less repressive regime within the Soviet Union. In 1956, he gave a speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was, at the time, shocking. He denounced the leadership of Stalin, criticized the purges, and even suggested that by becoming an autocratic dictator, Stalin had betrayed the ideals of communism. It appeared that the Soviet Union was entering a new phase, but nevertheless, while under the control of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union came to the very brink of war with the United States."

"In 1961, America secretly stationed ICBMs in Turkey, from which location they could reach many important Soviet cities. In the same year, America sponsored a failed invasion of the main Soviet ally in the Caribbean, Cuba. In a series of secret meetings, Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro, met with Khrushchev and agreed that Soviet ICBMs could be stationed in Cuba, from where they would be within range of many American cities. For Castro, this seemed to provide a deterrent against any future American invasion. For Khrushchev, it provided a response to the American missiles in Turkey."

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"In the almost 20 years that Brezhnev would rule the Soviet Union, a new and more hopeful word entered the lexicon of international relations: détente."

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July 29, 2024 - July 30, 2024.

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7. Détente and a New War

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" ... What the Soviet Union had hoped would be a short military intervention would drag on for nine years and result in more than 15,000 deaths among troops of the Soviet Union. Although Soviet forces controlled most of the major Afghan cities, the mujahideen were never eliminated in rural and mountainous areas. These guerrilla fighters were supplied with arms and supplies by America via its ally Pakistan, which also shared a border with Afghanistan. In particular, the supply of anti-aircraft missiles by America helped the mujahideen to overcome the most potent weapon available to the Soviet Union: air power.

"Meanwhile, in 1982, Leonid Brezhnev died and was replaced by the former head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. Just three months later, Andropov suffered total kidney failure and was admitted to hospital, where he eventually died in February 1984. He was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko, who lasted just 13 months as leader of the Soviet Union before his death in March 1985. This short-lived succession of leaders had ruled a Soviet Union that was suffering a series of economic crises caused by the war in Afghanistan and the economic sanctions that followed. Chernenko was finally replaced by another new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1985."

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July 30, 2024 - July 30, 2024.

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8. Chernobyl

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"On the night of April 25, 1986, there was an explosion at Reactor 4 in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the town of Pripyat in Ukraine, at that time one of the 16 republics that constituted the Soviet Union. The explosion killed many workers and exposed others to deadly levels of radiation. Soon, a cloud of radiation was released into the air and began to drift over the surrounding countryside. In Pripyat, people woke the next morning to find they were having difficulty breathing."

" ... secrecy proved impossible to maintain; within days of the explosion at Chernobyl, high radiation levels were being detected as far away as Sweden. By April 29, western newspapers were carrying reports of a “huge nuclear leak” in Ukraine, but within the Soviet Union, it was claimed that this was not a large-scale incident. May Day parades in the nearby city of Kiev, just 30 miles (50 kilometers) to the south, were permitted to go ahead even though radiation levels in the air were dangerously high."

" ... When the people of the Soviet Union later discovered that western reports had been accurate and it was the Soviet claims which minimized the dangers involved that were untrue, this further undermined trust in the rulers of the Soviet Union."

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July 30, 2024 - July 30, 2024.

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9. Glasnost and Perestroika

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" ... By 1986, more than 100,000 Soviet troops were permanently stationed in Afghanistan. In a planned economy such as the Soviet Union, it is very difficult to assess the direct costs of any military action in the same way as can be done for a capitalist nation. However, the cost to keep this large army fed and supplied with weapons and ammunition, as well as the need to replace tanks, vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft lost in combat, must have been substantial."

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"In the short term, perestroika had little impact. Businesses that had been state-controlled and subsidized for over 50 years could not simply transform themselves into profitability overnight, and a lack of investment over previous decades meant that many were using relatively antiquated techniques and machinery. For the five years that it was in place, perestroika led to little concrete improvement in the Soviet economy, added a measure of confusion in many sectors, and failed to attract foreign investment. However, perestroika was only one of two new approaches that Gorbachev introduced.

"In 1986, Gorbachev told his advisors to begin using a new slogan: glasnost (“openness”). The purpose of this new policy was to introduce a measure of transparency to major Soviet institutions and, critically, to allow Soviet citizens to publicly and openly discuss problems in the system and to suggest ways of improving it. This, in turn, led to less direct censorship of the press—previously, all newspapers in the Soviet Union were subject to official scrutiny and censorship before they were published.

"However, almost as soon as it was introduced, glasnost led to problems. The accident at Chernobyl led to open criticism of the leadership of the Soviet Union, including Gorbachev, both for failing to be honest about the scale of the disaster and the dangers it posed and for failing to ensure that those involved in rescue and remediation work were kept safe.

"Glasnost also allowed for the first time open discussion of past events. It was only after 1986 that most Soviet citizens learned, for example, of the true scale of the purges undertaken during Stalin’s period as leader. It seems that Gorbachev had hoped that glasnost would be linked with perestroika to promote a new, vibrant, and efficient socialist society. Instead, it increased dissatisfaction. Soviet citizens were now more widely permitted to travel outside the Soviet Union, and many returned with news of how the lives of those in capitalist countries were very different. The press was able to report for the first time on widespread corruption and inefficiency in all levels of business activity within the Soviet Union and to give candid reports on the actual progress (or lack of progress) in Afghanistan."

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July 30, 2024 - July 30, 2024.

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10. The Collapse of the Soviet Union

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"“People in Russia say that those who do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union have no heart, and those that do regret it have no brain.”

"—Vladimir Putin"

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"Glasnost had inadvertently allowed independence movements in many of the republics and satellite states that formed the Soviet Union to grow and organize. These began as early as 1986 with large-scale student demonstrations in the Republic of Kazakhstan. However, it was a wave of mass strikes in Poland that led the movement which culminated in the fall of the Soviet Union."

" ... Virtually overnight, Poland was no longer a communist state. The Soviet Union made no attempt to intervene in Poland, and soon, a wave of anti-communist movements erupted across Eastern Europe.

"In January 1989, Hungary elected a new government which promptly enacted a “democracy package,” introducing a new constitution and freedom of the press. Crucially, Hungary also began to dismantle the barrier that had defined its border with Austria. Across Europe, borders between nations of the Warsaw Pact and NATO were generally guarded and marked by lines of barbed wire, mines, armed troops, and watchtowers. Officially, the Soviet Union claimed this was to stop westerners flooding into communist countries. In reality, this barrier was intended to stop an exodus of people from communist countries moving to the west. With the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria, people living within the Soviet Union were suddenly able to travel freely. Thousands did so, and other border barriers would soon also be torn down.

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"By September 1989, after more than 30,000 people had left East Germany by traveling into Hungary and then into the west, the East German authorities closed their border with Hungary. Demonstrations in East Germany in September and October grew in size until, on November 9, they culminated in the gathering of hundreds of thousands of people in East Berlin who believed that the Berlin Wall, the barrier between East and West, was about to be opened. Although this wasn’t true, the overwhelmed border guards opened the gates. Thousands of East Germans traveled to the west, many for the first time, and in a short space of time, the Berlin Wall itself was destroyed. Soviet troops stationed in East Germany made no move to intervene."

" ... On November 28, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced that it would give up power and abandon the policy of a one-party state. On December 11, the Communist Party of Bulgaria announced that it, too, would give up its rule and that democratic elections would be held as soon as possible. Just before Christmas, the leader of the Romanian Communist Party, Nicolae Ceausescu, was executed by firing squad after an uprising by armed citizens. An interim government announced that democratic elections would be held as soon as possible. In January 1990, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia effectively relinquished power, and the first multi-party elections were held in that country later the same year. Even in Soviet republics as far distant as Mongolia, there were large-scale protests and growing independence movements. In the space of less than one year, the Soviet Union had begun to, in the memorable words of Gorbachev, “crumble like a dry saltine cracker.”"

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" ... Boris Yeltsin, a former head of the Communist Party in Moscow, was elected head of the Russian parliament, and in 1990, that parliament voted through new legislation that made Russian (as opposed to Soviet) law effective across Russia, a direct contravention of the constitution of the Soviet Union. In January 1991, there was a bloody confrontation between Soviet troops and protestors in the Baltic city of Vilnius. Yeltsin responded by ordering that, in the future, Russian troops should not, under any circumstances, open fire on unarmed protestors. These moves effectively ended attempts by Gorbachev to create a new and more open replacement for the Soviet Union, the Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics.

"In August 1991, members of the KGB, hardline communists, and others attempted to stage a coup in Moscow. Gorbachev and his family were placed under house arrest, and for three days, there was a tense armed confrontation in Moscow between those who wished to see the restitution of the old Soviet Union and supporters of Boris Yeltsin. The plotters were defeated, and Yeltsin remained in power in Moscow. Gorbachev returned, but his authority was fatally undermined. Soon after, the Republics of Ukraine and Belarus announced that they, too, intended to leave the Soviet Union."

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" ... On December 25, Gorbachev announced his resignation as president of the Soviet Union. Later the same day, the Hammer and Sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. The following day, it was replaced by the Russian tricolor. The Soviet Union was no more."

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July 30, 2024 - July 31, 2024.

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Conclusion

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"Although it lasted for less than 70 years, at its peak, the Soviet Union was one of the most powerful polities in the world. It covered over 8.5 million square miles (22 million square kilometers) and ruled a population of over 290 million people."

"During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the Soviet Union remained one of the two superpowers that effectively controlled a large part of the globe. ... "

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July 31, 2024 - July 31, 2024.

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SOVIET UNION

A History from Beginning to End

Russian History: Soviet Union

by Hourly History.

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July 27, 2024 - July 31, 2024.

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Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

SOVIET UNION A History from Beginning to End (Russian History: Soviet Union by Hourly History).

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