Soviet Russia, Ukraine, and So On: Difference between revisions

''Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik'' (СССР in Cyrillic)- the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Also known as the Soviet Union, the USSR, or (almost always incorrectly) Soviet Russia. The last designation will be our first subject.

 

 

You will hear hundreds of Westerners in [[Cold War]] contexts (even all sorts of people who should and ''do'' know better) calling the place Russia and its inhabitants Russians. In fact, Russia was only one of the fifteen Soviet Republics that comprised the USSR, and was officially called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Yes, the RSFSR was by far the largest state in the USSR, covering over three quarters of the total land area of the Union and containing about 60% of its population. And Russia was dominant politically and culturally. But it was by no means all of the USSR.

* Of course even without Stalin, there was a lot of forced and encouraged relocation of Russians to other SSR states. Without actively forcing Russification, it served to whittle down the majorities of the major ethnic groups. The legacy lives on today in some areas, notably Latvia, where the number of Russians nearly outnumber the actual Latvians. It's considered a bit of a problem.

 

 

(This only covers stuff pre-glasnost, when things changed very quickly)

There were elections in the USSR, but all candidates had to be approved by the CPSU. This was ''how'' the CPSU came to be more powerful than the State: in order to become a State official, you had to be elected... but before you could run for election, you needed CPSU approval. Note that, strictly speaking, candidates did not have to be CPSU ''members''—they just had to be ''approved'' by the CPSU. But, in practice, non-members were almost never approved to run. Also, in practice, the CPSU only approved one candidate to run for each office. So the voters most often had the choice to either vote for the one CPSU candidate or abstain. Strangely enough, the Soviet government sometimes ran propaganda campaigns to ''encourage people to vote''... largely because it looked good and democratic on paper (consider the fact that American elections are often criticized for their low voter turnout). After all, saying that 90% of the population voted for Comrade Ivanov sounds great - even if he was literally the only candidate.

 

 

The CPSU had a youth movement, ''Vsesoyuzny Leninskiy '''Kom'''munisticheskiy '''So'''yuz '''Mol'''odyozhi'' (All-Union Leninist Young Communist League), better known as Komsomol. Age limit was 14-28.

Younger children could join the Young Pioneer movement, found in other Communist countries as well. Nearly all the children of the Soviet era ended up in this one, being rather akin ([[Scout Out|at least in style]]) to the Scouting Movement, which was banned in the USSR. They could be recognised by their red scarves. Quite a number fought against the Nazis in the [[Great Patriotic War]] (the Soviet part of World War 2).

 

 

The fifteen states of the USSR and their independent names-

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Hollywood History]]

[[Category:Useful Notes/Russia]]