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Republics of the Soviet Union

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The Republics of the Soviet Union were, according to the Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, sovereign Soviet Socialist states that had united with other Soviet Republics in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that "the sovereign rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR".

According to the European Court of Human Rights, the governments of the Baltic countries, the United States, and the European Union, the three Soviet Baltic republics (Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR) were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Russian government and state officials, however, maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate.

In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR), often called simply Soviet Republics. Within the USSR they were also called union republics (союзные республики, soyuznye respubliki). All of them were considered to be socialist republics, and all of them, with the exception of the Russian SFSR, had their own Communist parties, part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. All of the former Republics are now independent countries, with twelve of them (all except the Baltic states) being very loosely organized under the heading of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a federation. In accordance with Article 72 of the 1977 Constitution, each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, this right was widely considered to be meaningless; however, Article 72 was used in December 1991 to effectively dissolve the Soviet Union, when Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus seceded from the Union.

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 collapse. 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.

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. General practice in the republics outside of Russia was that the head of state in a republic was a local official while the party general secretary was from outside the republic.

Each republic had its own unique set of state symbols: a flag, a coat of arms, and, with the exception of the Russian SFSR, an anthem.

The republics and the collapse of the Soviet Union

The republics played an important role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika were intended to revive the Soviet Union. However, they had a number of effects which caused the power of the republics to increase. First, political liberalization allowed the governments within the republics to gain legitimacy by invoking democracy, nationalism or a combination of both. In addition, liberalization led to fractures within the party hierarchy which reduced Soviet control over the republics. Finally, perestroika allowed the governments of the republics to control economic assets in their republics and withhold funds from the central government.

Throughout the late 1980s, the Soviet government attempted to find a new structure which would reflect the increasing power of the republics. These efforts proved unsuccessful, and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed as the republic governments seceded. The republics then all became independent states, with the post-Soviet governments in most cases consisting largely of the government personnel of the former Soviet republics.

Soviet Union in its final state

Republics of the Soviet Union

Independent nations

Other Soviet republics

Timeline

Lists

Sorted by region

In area, Russia is the largest of the fifiteen Soviet Republics as well as the most populated. The next largest in population, are, in order: Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, whereas as Kazakhstan is by far the second largest in area. Armenia was the smallest in area, Estonia - in population.

They are easily remembered by the acronym B.U.M. G.A.A. K.U.T. K.T. (Bum, Gaa, Kut-Kt)

Constitutional order

The order they were mentioned in the Constitution of the USSR (chapter 8, article 71); also the order in which the motto appeared in the USSR Coat of Arms. This roughly corresponds to the population size of the republic when it was created.

Ranked by area

Pos (in world) Republic Area (km²) %
1 1 Russian SFSR 17,075,200 76.62%
2 9 Kazakh SSR 2,727,300 12.24%
3 44 Ukrainian SSR 603,700 2.71%
4 52 Turkmen SSR 488,100 2.19%
5 56 Uzbek SSR 447,400 2.01%
6 84 Byelorussian SSR 207,600 0.93%
7 85 Kirghiz SSR 198,500 0.89%
- - Karelo-Finnish SSR 172,400 0.77%
8 93 Tajik SSR 143,100 0.64%
9 112 Azerbaijan SSR 86,600 0.39%
10 119 Georgian SSR 69,700 0.31%
11 121 Lithuanian SSR 65,200 0.29%
12 122 Latvian SSR 64,589 0.29%
13 130 Estonian SSR 45,226 0.20%
14 135 Moldavian SSR 33,843 0.15%
15 138 Armenian SSR 29,800 0.13%

Ranked by population

According to the 1989 Soviet census:

Pos Republic Population %
1 Russian SFSR 147,386,000 51.40%
2 Ukrainian SSR 51,706,746 18.03%
3 Uzbek SSR 19,906,000 6.94%
4 Kazakh SSR 16,711,900 5.83%
5 Byelorussian SSR 10,151,806 3.54%
6 Azerbaijan SSR 7,037,900 2.45%
7 Georgian SSR 5,400,841 1.88%
8 Tajik SSR 5,112,000 1.78%
9 Moldavian SSR 4,337,600 1.51%
10 Kirghiz SSR 4,257,800 1.48%
11 Lithuanian SSR 3,689,779 1.29%
12 Turkmen SSR 3,522,700 1.23%
13 Armenian SSR 3,287,700 1.15%
14 Latvian SSR 2,666,567 0.93%
15 Estonian SSR 1,565,662 0.55%

Ranked by density

Pos Republic Density
1 Moldavian SSR 128.2
2 Armenian SSR 110.3
3 Ukrainian SSR 85.6
4 Azerbaijan SSR 81.3
5 Georgian SSR 77.5
6 Lithuanian SSR 56.6
7 Byelorussian SSR 48.9
8 Uzbek SSR 44.5
9 Latvian SSR 41.3
10 Tajik SSR 35.7
11 Estonian SSR 34.6
12 Kirghiz SSR 21.4
13 Russian SFSR 8.6
14 Turkmen SSR 7.2
15 Kazakh SSR 6.1

References



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