Soviet Union. The rise of the USSR and the fall of the USSR. Lenin. Gorbachev

Posted On: December 30, 2022

The Soviet Union was created on December 30, 1922, but the path to its creation began already in 1917, with the Bolshevik October Revolution. The official dissolution of the USSR took place on December 26, 1991, almost exactly 69 years later.

The birth of the Soviet Union

Following the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia. In a short time, they took control of a large part of the country and systematically extended their influence to other regions. Workers’ and soldiers’ councils began to be established in other towns. The symbolic and final end of Tsarism was the murder of the ruling family, i.e. Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and children, as well as many members of the House of Romanov, which took place in July 1918 .

The march of the Bolsheviks to the West – because it was about the conquest of the West, that is, of Germany and England, which Lenin wanted (Marx wrote on the proletarian revolution in the rich West, not in backward Russia) – was stopped by Poland in 1920. Our country thwarted all plans of the Bolsheviks, defeating them in the Battle of Warsaw. Lenin abandoned the western direction, strengthening in the east.

In 1920, the Bolsheviks had already occupied a huge territory, where soon after they began to arise almost– country dependent on Moscow. These were the Soviet Socialist Republics of Byelorussia, Ukraine and Transcaucasia. Other countries conquered by the Red Army were, among others, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan.

At the same time, in many regions of Russia, the “whites”, that is, the commanders who did not recognize the power of the Bolsheviks and favored the restoration of the power of the tsar, were still fighting. The fights with the “whites” lasted until 1922, when Lenin wanted his country to be recognized on the international scene and to give the Bolsheviks a “mandate” to govern Russia.

Initially, European leaders were terrified of the Bolsheviks and treated them as a sort of temporary military junta. The clever diplomacy of the Communists, however, meant that they were accepted rather quickly, and about the Romanov dynasty, In factforget it.

Lenin, however, could not count on the recognition of Bolshevik Russia as a state equal to other states as long as the civil war continued on its territory. A clever plan was therefore drawn up. The state ruled by the Bolsheviks received a name Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republicand the Far East region, where fighting with the “whites” continued, declared independence at that time as Far Eastern Republiconly allied with Bolshevik Russia.

It was an obvious prank, but it worked, and the Bolsheviks soon signed the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany. Russia was thus recognized as a “civilized” country, worthy of a normal international policy.

On October 5, 1922, Vladivostok was occupied by the People’s Revolutionary Army. The Bolsheviks already controlled all of Russia. Only ten days later, on November 15, 1922, the Far Eastern Republic was incorporated into the Russian SFSR as it was no longer needed.

Lenin achieved many of his goals. He controlled areas from the Baltic Sea to the Bering Strait, from the Arctic Sea to Mongolia. By the end of 1922, the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power.

The world passively watched the events in Russia. Despite the initial horror evoked by the Bolsheviks, virtually nothing was done to save Russian tsarism. Even Józef Piłsudski was of the opinion that the Bolsheviks who at least accept the independence of Poland would be better than the “whites” who do not even want to hear about the independence of the Republic of Poland.

On December 30, 1922, the First Congress of Soviets in Moscow approved the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The most criminal regime in the history of the world.

The collapse of the Soviet Union

When Mikhail Gorbachev became Communist Party Secretary in 1985 and President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1988, he began to implement many reforms. They are generally known as perestroika, that is, the restructuring of the economy, and glasnost, the opening of diplomacy, which has led to improved relations with the United States and the Western countries.

Within the Soviet Union itself, Mikhail Gorbachev faced strong criticism from the circle of senior officials and the military, who felt that the president was leading the Soviets to collapse and marginalizing the USSR on the international scene.

In August 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev and his family vacationed at a dacha in Foros, Crimea. Then a group of high-ranking Communist Party members launched a coup. Telephone lines to Gorbachev’s dacha were cut. They arrived at the place of Valery Boldin and Oleg Shenin, who informed the President of the USSR about the seizure of power. The putschists demanded that Gorbachev declare a state of emergency, but he refused, so (August 18) it was declared that the president had been “sentenced” by them to house arrest, and the vice president , Gennady Yanayev, seized power in the USSR.

At the same time, Boris Yeltsin, having learned of Gorbachev’s house arrest, entered the White House in Moscow (seat of the government and of the Prime Minister), which prevented the putschists from taking control of the building. On August 21, Gorbachev returned to Moscow and thanked Yeltsin for his help. At a press conference, he promised to deepen state reforms, and on August 24 he resigned from his post as General Secretary of the CPSU and called on the Central Committee to be dissolved.

Yeltsin, however, had no intention of continuing his cooperation with Gorbachev. He soon launched a campaign against him, criticizing him for his slowness in reforms and for his leniency towards those who had carried out the coup. Yeltsin also suspended the activities of the Russian Communist Party and on November 6 banned it altogether. On Red Square, next to the flag of the USSR, the tricolor of Russia hung.

Since the coup, Gorbachev has lost, In factany influence on the power of the state. By December, Yeltsin had already taken complete power in Russia. Gorbachev also attempted to salvage the “idea” of a federal state, but this was met with opposition from circles associated with Yeltsin, as well as opposition from the union states, which sought to break free from dependence on Moscow.

Unbeknownst to Gorbachev, on December 8, Boris Yeltsin met with Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk and Belarusian President Stanislav Shushkevich in the Bialowieza Forest near Brest, Belarus, and signed the “Bialowieza Agreement”. The declaration stated that the Soviet Union would cease to exist and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) would be created in its place. Gorbachev only found out when Shushkiewicz called him. The President of the USSR (he still was formally) could not do anything. He still hoped that the Russians would oppose this declaration, but in vain. The Supreme Soviets of Ukraine and Belarus have ratified the agreement

On December 20, the leaders of 11 of the remaining 12 republics – all but Georgia – met in Alma-Ata and signed the Protocol of Alma-Ata, agreeing to the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the formal establishment of the IEC.

Of course, Gorbachev’s reforms did not contribute solely or even most to the collapse of the Soviets. The communist state was already severely weakened in the 1980s. The Soviets had long been engaged militarily in many parts of the globe, they wanted to compete with the Americans both for world domination and to overtake them technologically in space. The inefficient economy did not allow this. The opposition’s apparatus of repression and persecution also made more and more people in the Soviet Union tired of the power of the Kremlin. The absence of appropriate reforms must have led to the collapse of the state.

At the end of 1991, Gorbachev found himself faced with a fait accompli. He reached an agreement with Yeltsin and on December 25, 1991, he announced his resignation as President of the Soviet Union. The next day, the Council of Republics, the upper house of the Supreme Soviet, officially voted to liquidate the USSR.

On December 26, the decision to dissolve the Soviet Union came into effect. Under international law, the USSR ceased to exist at midnight on December 31, 1991.