Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR; Russian: Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, romanized: Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika, IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə sɐˈvʲetskəjə fʲɪdʲɪrɐˈtʲivnəjə sətsɨəlʲɪˈsʲtʲitɕɪskəjə rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə] ⓘ), previously known as the Russian Soviet Republic[9] and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic,[10] as well as being unofficially referred to as Soviet Russia,[11] the Russian Federation,[12] or simply Russia, was an independent federal socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR.[13] The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts.[13] Russians formed the largest ethnic group. The capital of the Russian SFSR and the USSR as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Stalingrad, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev. It was the first socialist state in the world.
"Soviet Russia" redirects here. For the former socialist nation as a whole, see Soviet Union. For other uses, see Soviet Russia (disambiguation).
Russian Soviet Federative
Socialist RepublicРоссийская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика
Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika[1]
Socialist Republic
Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika[1]
- 1917–1922:
Sovereign state - 1922–1991:
Union Republic of the Soviet Union - 1990–1991:
Union Republic of the Soviet Union with priority of republican legislation
- Secular state (de jure)
- State atheism (de facto)
- Russian Orthodoxy (majority)
- 1917–1921:
Federal parliamentary socialist soviet directorial republic[3] - 1921–1990:
Federal Marxist–Leninist one-party parliamentary socialist soviet directorial republic[4] - 1990–1991:
Federal multi-party parliamentary republic - July–December 1991:
Federal multi-party semi-presidential republic[5]
- 1917–1938:
VTsIK/Congress of Soviets - 1938–1990:
Supreme Soviet - 1990–1991:
Congress of People's Deputies
7 November 1917
1917–1923
25 January 1918
30 December 1922
19 February 1954
12 June 1990
12 December 1991
25 December 1991
26 December 1991
25 December 1993
17,125,200 km2 (6,612,100 sq mi)
147,386,000
Soviet ruble (Rbl)h (SUR)
(UTC +2 to +12)
The economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. By 1961, it was the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region[14] and Siberia, trailing in production to only the United States and Saudi Arabia.[15] In 1974, there were 475 institutes of higher education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care.[13] The economy, which had become stagnant since the late 1970s under General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, began to be liberalized starting in 1985 under Gorbachev's "perestroika" restructuring policies, including the introduction of non-state owned enterprises (e.g. cooperatives).
On 7 November 1917 [O.S. 25 October], as a result of the October Revolution, the Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed as a sovereign state and the world's first constitutionally socialist state guided by communist ideology. The first constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922, the Russian SFSR signed a treaty officially creating the USSR. The Russian SFSR's 1978 constitution stated that "[a] Union Republic is a sovereign [...] state that has united [...] in the Union"[16] and "each Union Republic shall retain the right freely to secede from the USSR".[17] On 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, established separation of powers (unlike in the Soviet form of government), established citizenship of Russia and stated that the RSFSR shall retain the right of free secession from the USSR. On 12 June 1991, Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007), supported by the Democratic Russia pro-reform movement, was elected the first and only President of the RSFSR, a post that would later become the Presidency of the Russian Federation.
The August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt in Moscow with the temporary brief internment of President Mikhail Gorbachev destabilised the Soviet Union. Following these events, Gorbachev lost all his remaining power, with Yeltsin superseding him as the pre-eminent figure in the country. On 8 December 1991, the heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belovezha Accords. The agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its original founding states (i.e., renunciation of the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR) and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a loose replacement confederation. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet (the parliament of the Russian SFSR); therefore the Russian SFSR had renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR itself and the ties with the other Soviet republics.
On 25 December 1991, following the resignation of Gorbachev as President of the Soviet Union (and former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), the Russian SFSR was renamed the Russian Federation.[18] The next day, after the lowering of the Soviet flag from the top of the Senate building of the Moscow Kremlin and its replacement by the Russian flag, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of the Republics on 26 December, which by that time was the only functioning parliamentary chamber of the All-Union Supreme Soviet (the other house, Soviet of the Union, had already lost the quorum after recall of its members by the several union republics). After the dissolution, Russia took full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations. As such, Russia assumed the Soviet Union's UN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council, nuclear stockpile and the control over the armed forces; Soviet embassies abroad became Russian embassies.[19]
The 1978 constitution of the Russian SFSR was amended several times to reflect the transition to democracy, private property and market economy. The new Russian constitution, coming into effect on 25 December 1993 after a constitutional crisis, completely abolished the Soviet form of government and replaced it with a semi-presidential system.
Geography[edit]
At a total of about 17,125,200 km (6,612,100 sq mi), the Russian SFSR was the largest of the fifteen Soviet republics, with its southerly neighbor, the Kazakh SSR, being second.
The international borders of the RSFSR touched Poland on the west; Norway and Finland of Scandinavia on the northwest; and to its southeast in eastern Asia were the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Mongolian People's Republic (Mongolia) and the People's Republic of China (China, formerly the Republic of China; 1911–1949). Within the Soviet Union, the RSFSR bordered the Slavic states: Ukrainian SSR (Ukraine), Belarusian SSR (Belarus), the Baltic states: Estonian SSR (Estonia), Latvian SSR (Latvia) and Lithuanian SSR (Lithuania) (Included in USSR in 1940) to its west and the Azerbaijan SSR (Azerbaijan), Georgian SSR (Georgia) and Kazakh SSR (Kazakhstan) to the south in Central Asia.[13]
Roughly 70% of the area in the RSFSR consisted of broad plains, with mountainous tundra regions mainly concentrated in the east of Siberia with Central Asia and East Asia. The area is rich in mineral resources, including petroleum, natural gas, and iron ore.[28]
Economy[edit]
In the first years of the existence of the RSFSR, the doctrine of war communism became the starting point of the state's economic activity. In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP (B), the tasks of the policy of "war communism" were recognized by the country's leadership as fulfilled, and a new economic policy was introduced at Lenin's suggestion.
After the formation of the Soviet Union, the economy of the RSFSR became an integral part of the economy of the USSR. The economic program of the RSFSR (NEP) was continued in all union republics. The Gosplan (State General Planning Commission) of the RSFSR, which replaced GOELRO, was reorganized into the Gosplan of the USSR. His early task was to develop a unified national economic plan based on the electrification plan and to oversee the overall implementation of this plan.
Unlike the previous Russian constitutions, the 1978 Constitution devoted an entire chapter (Chapter II) to the description of the economic system of the RSFSR, which defined the types of property and indicated the goals of the economic tasks of the state.[55]
As noted by Corresponding Member RAS RAS V. I. Suslov, who took part in large-scale studies of the relationship between the economies of the republics of the USSR and the RSFSR in the late Soviet era: "The degree of inequality of economic exchange was very high, and Russia was always the losing side. The product created by Russia largely supported the consumption of other union republics".[56]