Republics of the Soviet Union

"Soviet Republic" redirects here. For the type of government, see Soviet republic.

"SFSR" redirects here. For other uses, see SFSR (disambiguation).

In the Soviet Union, a Union Republic (Russian: Сою́зная Респу́блика, romanized: Soyúznaya Respúblika) or unofficially a Republic of the USSR was a constituent federated political entity with a system of government called a Soviet republic, which was officially defined in the 1977 constitution as "a sovereign Soviet socialist state which has united with the other Soviet republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"^[1][2] and whose sovereignty is limited by membership in the Union. As a result of its status as a sovereign state, the Union Republic de jure had the right to enter into relations with foreign states, conclude treaties with them and exchange diplomatic and consular representatives and participate in the activities of international organizations (including membership in international organizations).^[3][4][5] The Union Republics were perceived as national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).^[6]

Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Category	Federated state
Location	Soviet Union
Created by	Treaty on the Creation of the USSR
Created	30 December 1922
Abolished by	• State Council recognition of the Baltic states' independence • Declaration no. 142-Н
Abolished	26 December 1991
Number	15 (as of 1956)
Populations	Smallest: 1,565,662 (Estonian SSR) Largest: 147,386,000 (Russian SFSR)
Areas	Smallest: 29,800 km2 (11,500 sq mi) (Armenian SSR) Largest: 17,075,400 km2 (6,592,800 sq mi) (Russian SFSR)
Government	One-party socialist republics
Subdivisions	Autonomous SSRs, oblasts, Autonomous oblasts

The Soviet Union was formed in 1922 by a treaty between the Soviet republics of Byelorussia, Russian SFSR (RSFSR), Transcaucasian Federation, and Ukraine, by which they became its constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union). For most of its history, the USSR was a one-party state led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Key functions of the USSR were highly centralized in Moscow until its final years, despite its nominal structure as a federation of republics; the light decentralization reforms during the era of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (voice-ness, as in freedom of speech) conducted by Mikhail Gorbachev as part of the Helsinki Accords are cited as one of the factors which led to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 as result of the Cold War and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, a relic of the Soviet-Finnish War (the Winter War), became the only union republic to be deprived of its status in 1956. The decision to downgrade Karelia to an autonomous republic within the Russian SFSR was made unilaterally by the central government without consulting its population.^{[citation needed]} The official basis for downgrading the status of the republic was the changes that had occurred in the national composition of its population (about 80% of the inhabitants were Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians), as well as the need to reduce the state apparatus, the cost of maintaining which in 1955 amounted to 19.6 million rubles.^[7]

Overview

Reverse of the 1-ruble note of the 1961 series, with the value in all the official languages of the Union Republics

See also: National delimitation in the Soviet Union, Korenizatsiya, and Religion in the Soviet Union

Chapter 8 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution is titled as the "Soviet Union is a union state". Article 70 stated that the union was founded on principles "socialist federalism" as a result of free self-determination of nation and volunteer association of equal in rights soviet socialist republics. Article 71 listed all of 15 union republics that united into the Soviet Union.

According to Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, a Union Republic was a sovereign Soviet socialist state that had united with other Soviet Republics in the USSR. Article 78 of the Constitution stated that the territory of the union republic cannot be changed without its agreement. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that "the sovereign rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR".^[8]

In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs). All of them, with the exception of the Russian SFSR (until 1990), had their own local party chapters of the All-Union Communist Party.

In 1944, amendments to the All-Union Constitution allowed for separate branches of the Red Army for each Soviet Republic. They also allowed for 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, (as well as the USSR as a whole) to join the United Nations General Assembly as founding members in 1945.^[9][10][11]

The Soviet currency Soviet ruble banknotes all included writings in national languages of all the 15 union republics.

All of the former Republics of the Union are now independent countries, with ten of them (all except the Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine) being very loosely organized under the heading of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Baltic states assert that their incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940 (as the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian SSRs) under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was illegal, and that they therefore remained independent countries under Soviet occupation.^[12][13] Their position is supported by the European Union,^[14] the European Court of Human Rights,^[15] the United Nations Human Rights Council^[16] and the United States.^[17] In contrast, the Russian government and state officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate.^[18]

Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a federation. In accordance with provisions present in its 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. Although the Union was created under an initial ideological appearance of forming a supranational union, it never de facto functioned as one; an example of the ambiguity is that the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s officially had its own foreign minister, but that office did not exercise any true sovereignty apart from that of the union. The Constitution of the Soviet Union in its various iterations defined the union as a federation with the right of the republics to secede. This constitutional status led to the possibility of the parade of sovereignties once the republic with de facto (albeit not de jure) dominance over the other republics, the Russian one, developed a prevailing political notion asserting that it would be better off if it seceded. The de facto dominance of the Russian republic is the reason that various historians (for example, Dmitri Volkogonov and others) have asserted that the union was a unitary state in fact albeit not in law.^{[19]: 71, 483 [20]}

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 SFSR.

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 Russia until 1990, 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 decorated with the flags of Soviet Republics
• 
  Poster of the unity of the Soviet republics in the late 1930s. All republics, except Russia, are shown with their respective traditional clothes.
• 
  Poster of the unity of the Soviet republics in 1946. Note that the map also points out the Karelo-Finnish SSR capital, Petrozavodsk.

Union Republics of the Soviet Union

See also: Emblem of the Soviet Union

Map of the Union Republics from 1956 to 1991, as numbered by the Soviet Constitution: 1. Russia, 2. Ukraine, 3. Belarus, 4. Uzbekistan, 5. Kazakhstan, 6. Georgia, 7. Azerbaijan, 8. Lithuania, 9. Moldavia, 10. Latvia, 11. Kyrgyzstan, 12. Tajikistan, 13. Armenia, 14. Turkmenistan, 15. Estonia

The number of the union republics of the USSR varied from 4 to 16. From 1956 until its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. (In 1956, the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, created in 1940, was absorbed into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.) Rather than listing the republics in alphabetical order, the republics were listed in constitutional order (which roughly corresponded to their population and economic power when the republics were formed). However, particularly by the last decades of the Soviet Union, the constitutional order did not correspond to order either by population or economic power.

Some of the union republics were autonomous republics before promotion. Soviet historiography considered the establishment of an autonomous republic to be the start of national autonomy and the succeeding union republic a continuation of the same entity in such cases.^[21]

Emblem	Name	Flag	Capital	Official languages	Established	Union Republic status	Sovereignty	Independence	Population (1989)	Pop. %	Area (km2) (1991)	Area %	Post-Soviet and de facto states	No.
	Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic		Yerevan	Armenian, Russian	2 December 1920	5 December 1936	23 August 1990	21 September 1991	3,287,700	1.15	29,800	0.13	Armenia	13
	Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic		Baku	Azerbaijani, Russian	28 April 1920		23 September 1989	18 October 1991	7,037,900	2.45	86,600	0.39	Azerbaijan	7
	Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic		Minsk	Byelorussian, Russian	31 July 1920	30 December 1922	27 July 1990	25 August 1991	10,151,806	3.54	207,600	0.93	Belarus	3
	Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic[a]		Tallinn	Estonian, Russian	21 July 1940[b]	6 August 1940	16 November 1988	8 May 1990	1,565,662	0.55	45,226	0.20	Estonia	15
	Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic		Tbilisi	Georgian, Russian	25 February 1921	5 December 1936	18 November 1989	9 April 1991	5,400,841	1.88	69,700	0.31	Georgia  Abkhazia  South Ossetia	6
	Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic		Alma-Ata	Kazakh, Russian	26 August 1920[c]		25 October 1990	16 December 1991	16,711,900	5.83	2,717,300	12.24	Kazakhstan	5
	Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic		Frunze	Kirghiz, Russian	11 February 1926[d]		15 December 1990	31 August 1991	4,257,800	1.48	198,500	0.89	Kyrgyzstan	11
	Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic[a]		Riga	Latvian, Russian	21 July 1940[b]	5 August 1940	28 July 1989	4 May 1990	2,666,567	0.93	64,589	0.29	Latvia	10
	Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic[a]		Vilnius	Lithuanian, Russian		3 August 1940	18 May 1989	11 March 1990	3,689,779	1.29	65,200	0.29	Lithuania	8
	Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic		Kishinev	Moldavian, Russian	12 October 1924[e]	2 August 1940	23 June 1990	27 August 1991	4,337,600	1.51	33,843	0.15	Moldova  Transnistria	9
	Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic		Moscow	Russian	7 November 1917	30 December 1922	12 June 1990	12 December 1991	147,386,000	51.40	17,075,400	76.62	Russia	1
	Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic		Dushanbe	Tajik, Russian	14 October 1924[f]	5 December 1929	24 August 1990	9 September 1991	5,112,000	1.78	143,100	0.64	Tajikistan	12
	Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic		Ashkhabad	Turkmen, Russian	13 May 1925		27 August 1990	27 October 1991	3,522,700	1.23	488,100	2.19	Turkmenistan	14
	Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic		Kiev	Ukrainian, Russian	10 March 1919	30 December 1922	16 July 1990	24 August 1991	51,706,746	18.03	603,700	2.71	Ukraine	2
	Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic		Tashkent	Uzbek, Russian	5 December 1924		20 June 1990	1 September 1991	19,906,000	6.94	447,400	2.01	Uzbekistan	4

Short-lived Union Republics of the Soviet Union

Emblem	Name	Flag	Capital	Titular nationality	Established	Union Republic status	Abolished	Population	Area (km2)	Soviet successor
	Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic		Petrozavodsk	Karelians, Finns	25 July 1923[g]	31 March 1940	16 July 1956	651,300 (1959)	172,400	Russian SFSR ( Karelian ASSR)
	Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic		Tiflis	Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians	12 March 1922	30 December 1922	5 December 1936	5,861,600 (1926)	186,100	Armenian SSR  Azerbaijan SSR  Georgian SSR

Non-union Soviet republics

Emblem	Name	Flag	Capital	Created	Defunct	Population	Area (km2)	Soviet successor
	Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhaziaa		Sukhumi	1921	1931	201,016	86,000	Georgian SSR ( Abkhaz ASSR)
	Bukharan People's Soviet Republic		Bukhara	1920	1924	2,000,000	182,193	Uzbek SSR
	Khorezm People's Soviet Republic		Khiva	1920	1924	800,000	62,200	Turkmen SSR  Uzbek SSR
	Far Eastern Republic		Verkhneudinsk Chita	1920	1922			Russian SFSR
	Tuvan People's Republic		Kyzyl	1921	1944			Russian SFSR ( Tuvan ASSR)
a Abkhazia's status in relation to the Georgian SSR as a "treaty republic" was never clear or well-defined, making its status as a separate republic disputed.

The Turkestan Soviet Federative Republic was proclaimed in 1918 but did not survive to the founding of the USSR, becoming the short-lived Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR. The Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Socialist Republic of Taurida) was also proclaimed in 1918, but did not become a union republic and was made into an autonomous republic of the RSFSR, although the Crimean Tatars had a relative majority until the 1930s or 1940s according to censuses. When the Tuvan People's Republic joined the Soviet Union in 1944, it did not become a union republic, and was instead established as an autonomous republic of the RSFSR.

The leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, suggested in the early 1960s that the country should become a union republic, but the offer was rejected.^[25][26][27] During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Soviet Union proposed to annex Northern Afghanistan as its 16th union republic in what was to become the Afghan Soviet Socialist Republic.^[28]

Republics not recognized by the Soviet Union

Main article: Parade of sovereignties

Emblem	Name	Flag	Capital	Official languages	Independence from SSR declared	Independence from USSR declared	Population	Area (km2)	Post-Soviet subject
	Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic		Tiraspol	Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan	2 September 1990	25 August 1991	680,000 (1989)	4,163 (1989)	Transnistria

Other defunct Soviet states

• Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets (1917–1918) → Ukrainian Soviet Republic (1918)
• Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919)
• Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia (1919–1920)
• Galician Soviet Socialist Republic (1920)
• Polish Soviet Socialist Republic (1920)
• East Polish Soviet Socialist Republic (1990)

Autonomous Republics of the Soviet Union

See also: Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics

Several of the Union Republics themselves, most notably Russia, were further subdivided into Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs). Though administratively part of their respective Union Republics, ASSRs were also established based on ethnic/cultural lines.

According to the constitution of the USSR, in case of a union republic voting on leaving the Soviet Union, autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okrugs had the right, by means of a referendum, to independently resolve whether they will stay in the USSR or leave with the seceding union republic, as well as to raise the issue of their state-legal status.^[29]

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Further information: Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Starting in the late 1980s, under the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet government undertook a program of political reforms (glasnost and perestroika) intended to liberalise and revitalise the Union. These measures, however, had a number of unintended political and social effects. Political liberalisation allowed the governments of the union republics to openly invoke the principles of democracy and nationalism to gain legitimacy. In addition, the loosening of political restrictions led to fractures within the Communist Party which resulted in a reduced ability to govern the Union effectively. The rise of nationalist and right-wing movements, notably led by Boris Yeltsin in Russia, in the previously homogeneous political system undermined the Union's foundations. With the central role of the Communist Party removed from the constitution, the Party lost its control over the State machinery and was banned from operating after an attempted coup d'état.

Throughout this period of turmoil, the Soviet government attempted to find a new structure that would reflect the increased authority of the republics. Some autonomous republics, like Tatarstan, Checheno-Ingushetia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, Transnistria, Gagauzia sought the union statute in the New Union Treaty. Efforts to found a New Union Treaty, however, proved unsuccessful and the republics began to secede from the Union. By 6 September 1991, the Soviet Union's State Council recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania bringing the number of union republics down to 12. On 8 December 1991, the remaining leaders of the republics signed the Belavezha Accords which agreed that the USSR would be dissolved and replaced with a Commonwealth of Independent States. On 25 December, President Gorbachev announced his resignation and turned all executive powers over to Yeltsin. The next day the Council of Republics voted to dissolve the Union. Since then, the republics have been governed independently with some reconstituting themselves as liberal parliamentary republics and others, particularly in Central Asia, devolving into highly autocratic states under the leadership of the old Party elite.

See also

• Flags of the Soviet Republics
• Emblems of the Soviet Republics
• Commonwealth of Independent States
• Eurasian Economic Union
• National delimitation in the Soviet Union
• Bavarian Soviet Republic
• Hungarian Soviet Republic
• Slovak Soviet Republic
• Limerick Soviet
• Paris Commune
• Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee (Polish SSR)
• Republics of Russia
• Federal subjects of Russia
• Post-Soviet states (former Soviet Republics)

Notes

1. The annexation of the Baltic republics in 1940 is considered an illegal occupation by the current Baltic governments and by a number of foreign countries.^{[12][15][16][17][22][23][24]} The Soviet Union considered the initial annexation legal, but officially recognized their independence on 6 September 1991, three months prior to its final dissolution
2. Not internationally recognized, independent republic continued de jure.
3. As Kazak ASSR.
4. As Kirghiz ASSR.
5. As Moldavian ASSR.
6. As Tajik ASSR.
7. As Karelian ASSR.