Early years (1917–1920) The Soviet government first came to power on 7 November 1917, immediately after the interim
Russian Provisional Government headed by
Alexander Kerensky, which governed the
Russian Republic, was overthrown in the
October Revolution, the second of the two
Russian Revolutions. The state it governed, which did not have an official name, would be unrecognized by neighboring countries for another five months. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on
Petrograd occurred largely without any human
casualties. On 18 January 1918, the newly elected
Constituent Assembly issued a decree, proclaiming Russia a democratic federal republic under the name "Russian Democratic Federal Republic". However, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Assembly on the following day and declared its decrees null and void. Conversely, the Bolsheviks also reserved a number of vacant seats in the Soviets and
Central Executive for the opposition parties in proportion to their vote share at the Congress. At the same time, a number of prominent members of the
Left Socialist Revolutionaries had assumed positions in Lenin's government and lead commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture (
Kolegaev), property (
Karelin), justice (
Steinberg), post offices and telegraphs (
Proshian) and local government (Trutovsky). Lenin's government also instituted a number of progressive measures such as
universal education,
healthcare and
equal rights for women. On 25 January 1918, at the third meeting of the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was proclaimed. The economic impact of the Civil War was devastating. A
black market emerged in Russia, despite the threat of
martial law against profiteering. The
ruble collapsed, with
barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money. 70% of locomotives were in need of repair, and food requisitioning, combined with the effects of seven years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths. Coal production decreased from 27.5 million tons (1913) to 7 million tons (1920), while overall factory production also declined from 10,000 million roubles to 1,000 million roubles. According to the noted historian David Christian, the grain harvest was also slashed from 80.1 million tons (1913) to 46.5 million tons (1920). On 30 December 1922, the
First Congress of the Soviets of the USSR approved the
Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, by which Russia was united with the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and
Transcaucasian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic into a single federal state, the Soviet Union. The treaty was included in the
1924 Soviet Constitution, adopted on 31 January 1924 by the
Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR. One of the early ambitious economic plans of the Soviet government was
GOELRO, Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (Государственная комиссия по электрификации России), which sought to achieve total
electrification of the entire country. Soviet propaganda declared the plan was basically fulfilled by 1931. The national power output per year stood at 1.9 billion
kWh in
Imperial Russia in 1913, and Lenin's goal of 8.8 billion kWh was reached in 1931. National power output continued to increase significantly. It reached 13.5 billion kWh by the end of the
first five-year plan in 1932, 36 billion kWh by 1937, and 48 billion kWh by 1940. Paragraph 3 of Chapter 1 of the 1925 Constitution of the RSFSR stated the following:
1930s Many regions in Russia were affected by the
Soviet famine of 1932–1933:
Volga,
Central Black Soil Region,
North Caucasus, the
Urals,
the Crimea, part of
Western Siberia, and the
Kazakh ASSR. With the adoption of the
1936 Soviet Constitution on 5 December 1936, the size of the RSFSR was significantly reduced. The Kazakh ASSR and
Kirghiz ASSR were transformed into the
Kazakh SSR (now
Kazakhstan) and
Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (
Kyrgyzstan). The former
Karakalpak Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic was transferred to the
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (
Uzbekistan). The final name for the republic during the Soviet era was adopted by the Russian Constitution of 1937, which renamed it the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR).
1940s Just four months after
Operation Barbarossa, the
Wehrmacht was quickly advancing through the Russian SFSR, and was approximately away from Moscow. However, after the defeat in the
Battle of Moscow and the
Soviet winter offensive, the Germans were pushed back. In 1942, the Wehrmacht entered
Stalingrad. Despite a deadly
five-month battle in which the Soviets suffered over 1,100,000 casualties, they achieved victory following the surrender of the last German troops near the
Volga River, ultimately pushing German forces out of Russia by 1944. In 1943,
Karachay Autonomous Oblast was dissolved by
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953), General Secretary of the
Communist Party, later Premier, when the
Karachays were exiled to Central Asia for their alleged collaboration with the invading
Germans in the
Great Patriotic War (
World War II, 1941–1945), and territory was incorporated into the
Georgian SSR. On 3 March 1944, on the orders of Stalin, the
Chechen-Ingush ASSR was disbanded and its
population forcibly deported upon the accusations of
collaboration with the invaders and
separatism. The territory of the ASSR was divided between other administrative units of Russian SFSR and the Georgian SSR. On 11 October 1944, the
Tuvan People's Republic was joined with the Russian SFSR as the
Tuvan Autonomous Oblast, becoming an
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1961. After
reconquering Estonia and Latvia in 1944, the Russian SFSR annexed their easternmost territories around
Ivangorod and within the modern
Pechorsky and
Pytalovsky Districts in 1944–1945. , considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II At the end of World War II Soviet troops of the
Red Army occupied southern
Sakhalin Island and the
Kuril Islands off the coast of East Asia, north of
Japan, making them part of the RSFSR. The status of the southernmost Kurils, north of
Hokkaido of the Japanese home islands remains in dispute with Japan and the United States following the peace treaty of 1951 ending the state of war. On 17 April 1946, the
Kaliningrad Oblast – the north-eastern portion of the former
Kingdom of Prussia, the founding state of the
German Empire (1871–1918) and later the
German province of
East Prussia including the capital and
Baltic seaport city of
Königsberg – was annexed by the Soviet Union and made part of the Russian SFSR.
1950s After the death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March 1953,
Georgy Malenkov became the new leader of the USSR. In January 1954, Malenkov (via Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issuing a decree)
transferred the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the
Ukrainian SSR. On 8 February 1955, Malenkov was officially demoted to deputy Prime Minister. As First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party,
Nikita Khrushchev's authority was significantly enhanced by Malenkov's demotion. Under Khrushchev's leadership of the country, the
Karelo-Finnish SSR was transferred back to the RSFSR as the
Karelian ASSR in 1956. On 9 January 1957, Karachay Autonomous Oblast and
Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were restored by Khrushchev and they were transferred from the Georgian SSR back to the
Russian SFSR.
1960s–1980s In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from his position of power and replaced with
Leonid Brezhnev. Under his rule, the Russian SFSR and the rest of the Soviet Union went through a mass
era of stagnation. Even after Brezhnev's death in 1982, the era did not end until
Mikhail Gorbachev took power in March 1985 and introduced liberal reforms in Soviet society. On 12 April 1978, a new
Constitution of Russia was adopted.
Early 1990s On 29 May 1990, at his third attempt, Boris Yeltsin was
elected the chairman of the
Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR. The
Congress of People's Deputies of the Republic adopted the
Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian SFSR on 12 June 1990, which was the beginning of the "
War of Laws", pitting the Soviet Union against the Russian Federation and other constituent republics. On 17 March 1991, an
all-Russian referendum created the post of
President of the RSFSR and on 12 June,
Boris Yeltsin was elected president by
popular vote. During the unsuccessful
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt of 19–21 August 1991 in
Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union and Russia, Yeltsin strongly supported the President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. On 23 August, Yeltsin, in the presence of Gorbachev, signed a decree suspending all activity by the
Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in the territory of Russia. On 6 November, he went further, banning the Communist Parties of the USSR and the RSFSR in the RSFSR. In the meantime, Yeltsin began taking over what remained of the Soviet government. On 8 December 1991, at
Viskuli near
Brest (Belarus), Yeltsin, Ukrainian President
Leonid Kravchuk and Belarusian leader
Stanislav Shushkevich signed the "Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States", known in media as the
Belovezh Accords. The document, consisting of a preamble and fourteen articles, began with a declaration that the Soviet Union no longer existed "as a subject of
international law and geopolitical reality". However, based on the historical community of peoples and relations between the three states, as well as bilateral treaties, the desire for a democratic rule of law, the intention to develop their relations based on mutual recognition and respect for state sovereignty, the parties agreed to the formation of the
Commonwealth of Independent States. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the
Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR by an overwhelming majority: 188 votes for, 6 against and 7 abstentions. The legality of this ratification raised doubts among some members of the Russian parliament, since according to the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1978 consideration of this document was in the exclusive jurisdiction of the
Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR denounced the
Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and recalled all Russian deputies from the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. A number of lawyers believe that the denunciation of the union treaty was meaningless since it became invalid in 1924 with the adoption of the
first constitution of the USSR. While the Soviet Constitution did not allow a republic to unilaterally recall its deputies, what was left of the Soviet government had been rendered impotent, and was in no position to object. Although the 12 December vote is sometimes reckoned as the moment that the RSFSR seceded from the collapsing Soviet Union, this is not the case. It appears that the RSFSR took the line that it did not need to follow the secession process delineated in the Soviet Constitution because it was not possible to secede from a country that no longer existed. On 24 December, Yeltsin informed the
Secretary-General of the United Nations that by agreement of the member states of the CIS the Russian Federation would assume the membership of the Soviet Union in all UN organs (including the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the
UN Security Council). Russia took full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations, and assumed control over its nuclear stockpile and the armed forces; Soviet embassies abroad became Russian embassies. That same night, the
Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time, and replaced with the
tricolor. The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist the next day. The change was originally published on 6 January 1992 (). According to law, during 1992, it was allowed to use the old name of the RSFSR for official business (forms, seals, and stamps). On 21 April 1992, the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia approved the renaming of the RSFSR into the Russian Federation, by making appropriate amendments to the Constitution, which entered into force since publication on 16 May 1992. ==Government==