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 the principles of "socialist federalism" as a result of the free
self-determination of
nations and the voluntary association of equal Soviet Socialist Republics. Article 71 listed all fifteen union republics that united into the Soviet Union. According to Article 76 of the
1977 Soviet Constitution, a union republic was defined as a sovereign Soviet socialist state that had united with other Soviet Republics into the USSR. Article 78 of the Constitution stated that the territory of a union republic may not be altered without its consent. The boundaries between republics may be altered by mutual agreement of the republics concerned, if the rest of the union agreed. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that "the sovereign rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR". 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. 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. Their position is supported by the
European Union, the
European Court of Human Rights, the
United Nations Human Rights Council and the
United States. In contrast, the
Russian government and state officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the
Baltic states was legitimate. 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. 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. File:E7901-Bishkek-museum-Lenin-carpet.jpg|A hall in
Bishkek's Soviet-era Lenin Museum decorated with the flags of
Soviet Republics File:USSRRepublicsPoster.jpg|Poster of the unity of the Soviet republics in the late 1930s. All republics are shown with their respective traditional clothes, while
Russian shown in modern clothes. File:Ltsr plakatas 1946 tsrs.jpg|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 ==