The Soviet Union,[t] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[u] (USSR),[v] was

a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The country was a
successor state to the Russian Empire; it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national
republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR,[w] but in practice
both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. As a one-party
state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was a flagship communist state.
The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks overthrow
the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February
Revolution that had dissolved the Russian Empire. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin,
established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR),[x] the world's first
constitutionally socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the brutal Russian Civil
War. As the war progressed in the Bolsheviks' favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land
acquired from the war into nominally independent states, which were merged into the Soviet
Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin
inaugurated a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant
economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930–1933 that killed millions. The forced
labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. During the late 1930s, Stalin
conducted the Great Purge to remove his actual and perceived opponents. In 1939 the USSR
and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact which sought to bring peaceful relations
to the respective countries, despite their ideological incongruence. Nonetheless, in 1941, Nazi
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern
Front of World War II. The Soviet civilian and military casualties of the war – estimated at 27
million people – accounted for the majority of Allied losses. In the aftermath of World War II, the
Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army, forming various Soviet satellite
states and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower.
Following World War II, ideological tensions with the United States eventually led to the Cold
War. The Western Bloc, led by the United States, coalesced into NATO in 1949; this development
prompted the Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, commonly known as the Warsaw
Pact, in 1955. During this period, there was no direct military confrontation between the two
organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. In
1953, following Stalin's death, the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under
the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This
campaign caused tensions with Communist China. During the 1950s, the Soviet Union rapidly
expanded its efforts in space exploration and took an early lead in the Space Race with the first
artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, the first space station, and the first probe to land on
another planet (Venus).
In 1968, the Warsaw Pact saw its largest military engagement: the invasion of Czechoslovakia, a
Warsaw Pact member state. The aftermath of the invasion led to the establishment of
the Brezhnev Doctrine. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente in the Soviet Union's relationship
with the United States, but tensions emerged again following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country
through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, various countries of the Warsaw
Pact overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, and nationalist and separatist movements erupted
across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, Gorbachev initiated a national referendum, boycotted by
six Soviet republics. In the referendum, citizens voted in favour of preserving the country as a
renewed federation. In August 1991, hardline members of the Communist Party staged a coup
d'état against Gorbachev; however, the attempt failed, leading to the subsequent banning of the
Communist Party. Following this development, the three Soviet constituent republics (Ukraine,
Russia, and Belarus) with the largest economies and populations voted to secede from the
Union. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet
Union. Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian
Federation, which became the Soviet Union's successor state. All other republics emerged as
fully independent post-Soviet states.
During its existence, the Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological
achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing
military. An NPT-designated state, it housed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world.
As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Before the dissolution, the country
had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern
Europe, military and economic strengths and scientific research.