The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (\TUSSR\t), otherwise known as the Soviet Union, was the largest country in the world, encompassing one-sixth of the Earth's land surface. Its 22,227,085 sq km (8,582,338 sq mi) made up the eastern half of Europe and the northern third of Asia. As it existed from 1922 to 1990, the Soviet Union was a tightly-controlled Communist state composed of 15 union republics, the largest of which was the \TRussian republic\t. In 1991, after several years of turmoil and uncertainty, the already weakened Soviet Communist party was removed from power. Most of the republics then declared their independence, and at the end of the year 11 of them formed a new non-Communist \TCommonwealth of Independent States\t to replace the old union. The \TUSSR\t was formed on Dec. 30, 1922, and originally consisted of 4 member republics. Through subdivision and annexation, the number of full, or "union," republics increased to 15 by the end of World War II. Within most Soviet republics smaller ethnic groups received territorial representation. Thus, in addition to the 15 union republics, there were 20 autonomous republics, 8 autonomous regions, 10 autonomous districts, 6 territories, and 123 regions. These ethno-territorial units were governed by popularly elected Soviets (Councils) of People's Deputies. For more than six decades, all constituent republics of the \TUSSR\t were subordinated to central institutions based in Moscow. In 1991 this relationship changed dramatically as the republics asserted their independence and made the central government their tool. Virtually from the October Revolution of 1917, the soviets were dominated by the Communist party. According to Article 6 of the 1977 constitution, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) constituted "the leading and directing force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system." In 1990, however, the party was deprived of its dominant position; in 1991, after Communist hard-liners attempted a coup and failed, the various republics disbanded the party and seized its property. Thanks to its immense size, the former \TUSSR\t contained an abundance of raw material, fuel, and power resources, which first began to be extensively exploited during the drive for industrialization in the 1930s. The emphasis was on heavy industry, and this remained the case well into the post-World War II era. In more recent decades, the raw-materials base of the \TUSSR\t shifted eastward. Virtually all substantial industrial enterprises were state owned, though small-scale producer and service cooperatives and joint ownership of industrial enterprises with foreign firms now exist. Despite prodigious advances in certain fields, most notably education and aerospace technology, the \TUSSR\t lagged considerably in the development of newer computer-based technologies and the availability and quality of housing and consumer goods. In agriculture the \TUSSR\t was the world's largest producer of wheat, potatoes, cotton, and sugar. These and other crops were produced primarily on state farms (sovkhozy) and collective farms (kolkhozy). Private garden plots, which constituted less than 4% of arable land, accounted for a much larger proportion of certain vegetable and dairy products. As with the political configuration of the \TUSSR\t, its industrial and agricultural systems were thrown into confusion by the revolutionary upheavals of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Soviet Union was more or less coextensive with the Russian Empire, which was overthrown by the \TRussian Revolutions\t of 1917. A civil war followed in which the \TBolsheviks\t (Communists), led by V.I. \TLenin\t, prevailed. After Lenin's death (1924), Joseph \TStalin\t seized power, defeating in turn the Left Opposition under Leon \TTrotsky\t and the Right Oppositionists, including Nikolai \TBukharin\t. Stalin launched campaigns to collectivize agriculture and develop heavy industry; he provided the country with a modern industrial base, but at the cost of massive social dislocation, violence, and loss of life. No less traumatic was the \TGreat Purge\t of 1936-38, a reign of terror in which millions perished. This was followed by the devastation of World War II, remembered with pride because of the Soviet victory over the German invaders. The death of Stalin in 1953 was followed by a "thaw" in cultural policy and a period of economic and political reform under Nikita S. \TKhrushchev\t. In October 1964, however, Khrushchev was forced to resign because of the failure of his agricultural policies, his shakeup of the party structure, and a series of diplomatic defeats. His successor, Leonid I. \TBrezhnev\t, presided over a period of unprecedented political stability and economic prosperity. His pursuit of \Tdetente\t also led to improved relations with the West. Stability, however, proved detrimental to innovation, and in Brezhnev's last years economic stagnation and social malaise set in. At the same time, detente gave way to renewed East-West tension, particularly after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. Brezhnev's two short-lived successors, Yuri \TAndropov\t (1982-84) and Konstantin \TChernenko\t (1984-85), were followed by Mikhail \TGorbachev\t, who inaugurated a period of reform and innovation unprecedented in Soviet history. Under the watchwords of \Tglasnost\t ("openness") and \Tperestroika\t ("restructuring"), Gorbachev encouraged free discussion of issues, reorganized the government on a more democratic basis, and relaxed the system of strict censorship and political repression that had prevailed under his predecessors. He also renewed friendly relations with the West. Once free of authoritarian control, however, the different nationalities of the \TUSSR\t began to demand greater autonomy, and the republics challenged the supremacy of the central government. Worsening economic conditions aggravated the unrest, and in 1991 Gorbachev had to ally himself with Boris \TYeltsin\t, the powerful president of the Russian republic, in order to salvage what remained of the government's authority. Gorbachev resigned as president of the \TUSSR\t on Dec. 25, 1991, as the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a unified state and the newly-formed Commonwealth of Independent States came into being. LANDS AND RESOURCES The most characteristic feature of the natural landscape is its flatness. The broad Russian (or East European) plain, covering most of the European part of the country, extends from the Baltic Sea to the \TUral Mountains\t and from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the northern coast of the Black Sea. The result of extensive ice age glaciation in the north and water erosion in the south, the plain has an average altitude of 170 m (560 ft) above sea level. Hills with an elevation of about 300-400 m (1000-1300 ft) separate a series of lowland depressions. The plain is bordered in the extreme northwest by the uplands of \TKarelia\t and the mountains of the Kola Peninsula; in the southwest and south by the moderately high \TCarpathian\t and Crimean mountain ranges; in the southeast by the much higher \TCaucasus Mountains\t; and in the east the less formidable Ural Mountains, which run for some 2000 km (1240 mi) from north to south and constitute the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia. To the east of the Urals lies the enormous expanse of \TSiberia\t. This is divided into a flat and largely swampy West Siberian Plain, which is connected in the south to the Turan Lowland; the Central Siberian Plateau, which is bounded by the \TYenisei River\t on the west and the \TLena River\t on the east; and a series of mountain ranges running in arclike fashion between the Lena and the Pacific Ocean. Jutting out from eastern Siberia for nearly 1300 km (800 mi) is the \TKamchatka Peninsula\t, which along with the \TKuril Islands\t lying to its south forms part of the East Asian volcanic arc. The highest mountain ranges lie along the country's southern border. In addition to the Caucasus, which rise to a maximum height of 5,642 m (10,510 ft) at \TMount\t \TElbrus\t, they include the \TPamirs\t on the border with Afghanistan, the \TTien Shan\t on the Chinese frontier, and further to the east, the \TAltai Mountains\t on the border of Mongolia. The highest mountain is \TCommunism Peak\t (Garmo Mountain), with an elevation of 7,495 m (24,590 ft), located in the Pamirs of Tajikistan. The lowest elevation is 132 m (433 ft) below sea level, recorded in the Mangyshliak Peninsula which abuts the eastern shore of the \TCaspian Sea\t. The territory of the former \TUSSR\t included a number of large islands and island groups. In the Pacific, these included the Kuril Islands, \TSakhalin\t, which runs north-south for more than 900 km (560 mi), and the easternmost extension of the Aleutian chain. Arctic islands include \TFranz Josef Land\t, Severnaya Zemlya, the Novosibirskye Islands, \TNovaya Zemlya\t, and \TWrangel Island\t. Soils The country's plains reveal a series of distinct soil belts or zones. Along the Arctic coast, covering about 8% of the national territory, is a band of infertile tundra soil that is more or less permanently frozen. To the south of the tundra lies the gray-brown belt of taiga soils roughly corresponding to the coniferous forest zone and comprising approximately a third of the country. These soils are characterized by intense leaching of the upper strata, leaving a sticky clay (gley) on the surface. Below the surface is an ashy layer, known as podzol (from the Russian "zola," meaning ashes), a term that applies to the entire latitudinal soil belt. Farther still to the south stretches the black-earth (\Tchernozem\t) zone, occupying about 9% of the nation and nearly half the world's area of this soil type. The black earth lies under the grassy vegetation of the steppe and forest steppe. Rich in humus, it is the most fertile zone and the area in which most of the country's grain crops are grown. To the east and beyond the Caspian Sea to the south, the soil contains less moisture and humus, and its color is more that of chestnut. In the semidesert and desert areas of Central Asia, the chestnut soils give way to the gray-earth soils (serozems), which are in many places quite high in salt content. Red-earth soils are present in parts of the Caucasus and the foothills of the Central Asian ranges. Elsewhere in the 31% of national territory consisting of mountainous terrain, vertical bands of soil, generally thin and stony, can be found. Climate With the exception of the southern Far Eastern coast, which has a monsoonal climate and is shrouded in mist and fog for much of the year, and the Black Sea littorals, the climate almost everywhere in the vast country is markedly continental. Continentality increases from west to east and is particularly evident in Central Asia and eastern Siberia, where the temperature range is greatest and precipitation the least. Four latitudinal climatic belts can be discerned. The Far North displays an Arctic climate. Mean temperatures in summer hover around the freezing point and in January reach -50 degrees Centigrade (-58 Fahrenheit) at Verkhoyansk in eastern Siberia, where the world's lowest temperature outside of Antarctica has been recorded. Northern European Russia and Siberia above 60 degrees north latitude are in subarctic belt; the remainder of European Russia and Siberia as well as most of Central Asia are in the temperate belt; and parts of Transcaucasia and the southernmost areas of Central Asia are subtropical. In winter, a cold continental air mass situated over eastern Siberia spreads cold dry air throughout much of the rest of the country. Mean temperatures for January reach a high of 6 degrees Centigrade (43 degrees Fahrenheit) at Batumi on the Black Sea but in most places are below freezing. Precipitation is greatest in the west, where 200 to 300 mm (8 to 12 in) are recorded between October and March, and least in Central Asia and eastern Siberia, where only 50 to 100 mm (2 to 4 in) fall. Winter precipitation is mostly in the form of snow, though warmer temperatures in the \TCrimea\t and Transcaucasia often bring rain. In summer a system of low pressure covers the nation, except the southern Russian plain. Winds are predominantly westerly, bringing moist air from the Atlantic. Consequently, most precipitation falls during the warm half of the year, averaging 500 mm (20 in) in the west but only 150-200 mm (6 to 8 in) in eastern Siberia. The heaviest rainfall--up to 1200 mm (46 in)--occurs in the western Caucasus; the least on the southern Turan plain in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Drainage About half of all rivers drain into the Arctic Ocean. The largest of these are the Northern \TDvina\t and \TPechora\t in European Russia and the OB, Yenisei, Lena, and Kolyma of Siberia. The Pacific Ocean's Bering Sea, Sea of Japan, and Sea of Okhotsk drain all the Far Eastern rivers, the largest of which is the \TAmur\t. The Atlantic Ocean ultimately receives the waters of rivers that empty into the Black Sea (the Danube, \TDnepr\t and \TDnestr\t), the Sea of Azov (\TDon\t and Kuban) and the Baltic Sea (the \TNeva\t). The internal Caspian-Aral drainage basin covers the eastern Caucasus, the southeastern Caucasus, the southeastern part of the Russian plain, the desert and semi-desert areas of the Turan plain and the Pamir and Tien Shan ranges. The \TVolga River\t, the longest in Europe, and the Ural flow into the Caspian; the \TAmu Darya\t and \TSyr Darya\t drain into the \TAral Sea\t. Most rivers are covered with ice for part of the year, the period varying from 8 to 9 months in the extreme north to 1 to 2 months in the south. The former \TUSSR\t contained approximately 270,000 lakes, including five of the world's largest: the Caspian and Aral Seas, Lake \TBaikal\t, whose depth of 1,620 m (5,315 ft) makes it the world's deepest, \Tlake\t \TBalkhash\t, and \Tlake\t \TLadoga\t. Unevenly distributed throughout Soviet territory, the lakes vary considerably in mineral-salt and sulfate content. Diversion of the flow of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya has significantly increased the salinity and lowered the level of the Aral Sea. MARSHLANDS cover nearly 10% of Soviet territory, primarily in the tundra and forest zones where precipitation exceeds evaporation. Vegetation and Animal Life As with soils and climate, natural vegetation follows a latitudinally-based zonal pattern. The northernmost regions of the country are in the \Ttundra\t zone. Vegetation is restricted to mosses, lichens, and scrub covering less than half the soil surface; animal life includes the Arctic fox, reindeer, lemmings, and in summer migratory geese, ducks, and swans. The largest vegetational zone is the \TTaiga\t, in which coniferous forests of fir, pine, and larch harbor elk, deer, brown bear, lynx, sable, squirrels, and foxes. Toward the south, broad leaved trees such as birch, oak, maple, lime, and ash are interspersed with the conifers and in this area are found such representative fauna as deer, wild pig, and mink. A transition zone of forest-steppe gives way farther south to the mixed-grass and grassy steppe, which is now almost entirely under the plow. Trees exist only along river banks or flood plains. The most common animals are burrowing rodents (marmot, jerboa, hamster) and birds such as the kestrel, lark, and eagle. Finally, the southernmost zone consists of semidesert and desert vegetation such as dry grasses, wormwood, and saltwort that support the jackal, lizards, spiders, ravens, and bustards. Vegetation and fauna along parts of the Black Sea coast are of the Mediterranean type. Natural Resources The former Soviet Union had a wide variety of mineral resources. Coal reserves are widely scattered, and large quantities are exported. Oil, which has been produced since the 1880s, is found mainly in the Volga-Urals area as well as in the North Caucasus, western Siberia, and the older fields at \TBaku\t in Azerbaijan. Natural gas, the production of which has greatly increased in recent years, is extracted principally from the Volga-Urals, the Ukraine, and western Siberia. Soviet iron ore reserves account for approximately 40% of the world's total. Among the nonferrous ores, manganese, copper, chromium, and magnesium are produced in large quantities, as are several other major components of steels including nickel and tungsten. Gold production is thought to rank second in the world. Arable land constituted only 10% of Soviet territory, while another 17% consists of meadows and pastures. The agricultural belt stretches from the western border of the country into Siberia south of Omsk and Novosibirsk and north of the Turan Lowland. Some 40% of the country is forested. Water resources are abundant but unevenly distributed. The most water-deprived parts of the country lie in the Central Asian republics, while the soggiest part is the north. PEOPLE Although the number of distinct ethnic or nationality groups in the \TUSSR\t was steadily declining, more than 100 still exist, most of which are associated with a particular republic or lesser political entity. The largest group, the Russians, form most of the population of the Russian republic. Two other Slavic peoples are concentrated in Ukraine and Belarus. The Central Asian republics--Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan--are inhabited mainly by peoples of Turkic or Iranian stock. The peoples of the three \TBaltic States\t--\TEstonia\t, \TLatvia\t, and \TLithuania\t--broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, and did not choose to join the Commonwealth of Independent States. Moldova, in the southwest, has a population related to that of neighboring Romania. Transcaucasian nations--Armenia, Azerbaijan, and \TGeorgia\t--are based on the largest national groups in that region, but their populations are mixed, and all three have been divided by ethnic conflicts. Georgia separated itself from the Soviet Union and chose not to join the Commonwealth of Independent States. Among the largest ethnic groups living either in autonomous republics of their own or scattered among different administrative areas are the Tatars, Bashkirs, Germans, Jews, and Poles. In recent years heavy emigration has depleted the ranks of Jews and Germans. Indigenous Siberian peoples are widely scattered and in some cases number only a few thousand. Languages Russian is the principal language of the Commonwealth of Independent States and is also the native tongue of the largest nationality group. Ukrainian and Belorussian are closely related to Russian and together with it make up the main \TSlavic languages\t spoken within the country by about three-quarters of the population. Other Indo-European languages are the Romance language of the Moldavians (Romanian); Armenian; and the Iranian language of the Tajiks and Ossetes. Four subfamilies of \TUral-Altaic languages\t exist. The Turkic subfamily is represented by Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Turkmen, Uzbek, and Tatar; Kalmyk and Buryat are the main Mongolic languages; and the Tungusic subfamily is spoken by a variety of Siberian peoples. Many ethnic groups use their indigenous language as an official language within their particular national territory. Religion Under the Communist regime the state was hostile to religion. Any attempt to spread religious beliefs was forbidden, and people known to be religious believers suffered discrimination. This policy was relaxed under Gorbachev, and according to the Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms enacted by the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies in September 1991: "Freedom of conscience and religion is guaranteed.... Anyone has the right to freely profess any religion or not to profess any, to propagate religious or atheistic views and to engage in religious or atheistic upbringing of children....The freedom to perform religious rites is guaranteed." It is impossible to determine accurately the number of religious believers or church members, but it has been estimated that some 40% of the population could be included in the former category. Eastern Orthodoxy is the faith of the dominant Slavic groups (except for a minority of Eastern-Rite Catholics in the western Ukraine), and of the Moldavians. The Armenians have their own national Christian church. With the defection of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Baltic nations, Western Christianity is mainly represented by groups of Baptists, Evangelicals, Mennonites, and Pentecostals. Since the removal of restrictions on religious proselytizing, Western Protestant missionaries have become active in the Soviet Union. The Turkic-speaking peoples are mainly Muslims, making Islam the second most important religious faith. Buddhism, the predominant religion among the Mongolic-language groups, and Judaism have smaller, though still significant, numbers of believers. Demography The former \TUSSR\t exhibited a long-term decline in both birth rates and death rates, although the rate of decline in the birthrate was greater in European Russia than in areas such as Central Asia. Since emigration and immigration are statistically negligible, population growth occurred almost entirely as a result of the excess of births over deaths. Soviet history was marked by several demographic catastrophes. The civil war was accompanied by widespread epidemics and a process of deurbanization, followed by a severe famine in 1921-22. Famine struck again in 1932-33 as a result of Stalin's collectivization campaign, particularly in the Ukraine and the North Caucasus. The greatest catastrophe of all was World War II, which cost the \TUSSR\t some 28 million lives, and when indirect losses (fewer births and increased mortality owing to lower standards of living) are taken into account, perhaps as many as 50 million people. Roughly two-thirds of the population live in urban areas. This is in contrast to 1928, when more than four-fifths of the population were rural based. Twenty-one cities have populations in excess of one million. They are: \TMoscow\t, \TSaint Petersburg\t (the former Leningrad), NIZHNY \TNovgorod\t (the former Gorky), \TSamara\t (the former Kuibyshev), and \TKazan\t in European Russia; \TYekaterinburg\t (the former Sverdlovsk), CHELIABINSK, \TPerm\t, and \TUfa\t in the Urals; \TNovosibirsk\t and \TOmsk\t in Siberia; \TKiev\t, \TKharkov\t, \TDnepropetrovsk\t, \TOdessa\t and \TDonetsk\t in Ukraine; \TMensk\t (formerly Minsk) in Belarus; \TBaku\t and \TYerevan\t in Transcaucasia; and \TTashkent\t and \TAlma-Ata\t in Central Asia. Health and Health Care Medical and dental professions are socialized. Medical care is at present essentially free to patients, who may be treated either in clinics attached to their places of work or at district and city hospitals and clinics. Private practice is also permitted. Medical practitioners consist of doctors, who receive six years of specialized training, and paramedics, known as feldshers, who have four years of training. Public health is a sphere in which female employment is predominant; about two-thirds of all doctors are women. Salaries are on average below manual workers' wages. The quality of medical care is the source of much complaint. It tends to be poorest in small towns and rural areas. The country has one of the world's highest physician-patient ratios, although there is considerable regional variation. The ratio is highest in Georgia and lowest in Tadzhikistan. Among permanently disabled individuals, the blind and the deaf have been served by voluntary organizations established in the 1920s. The demand among the physically handicapped for prosthetic devices and wheelchairs exceeds the supply by a wide margin, though here again, the deficit is greatest in rural areas. Science State support for scientific research was extensive in the former Soviet Union. Research was conducted in thousands of institutes throughout the country, now nominally under the authority of the Academy of Sciences and its affiliates. Government ministries and higher educational establishments also sponsored research, as did the All-Union Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences. The fate of science and scientists varied considerably under successive Soviet administrations. In the 1920s the natural sciences were relatively unaffected by the struggles that erupted between Marxists and non-Marxists (as well as among different schools of Marxism) in such fields as agrarian economics, history, and the behavioral sciences. In the Stalin era, scientists were forced to conform to official scientific doctrines laid down by the party, and scientific progress suffered as a result. In more recent decades, Soviet science made great strides in certain fields, but lagged behind the United States and other Western nations in terms of the application of theoretical work. This was particularly the case in the medical sciences, chemistry, and biology, where the application of advanced technology is increasingly important. The computer revolution has begun to penetrate the society, especially since the removal of restrictions on contacts with the West. Arts From the classical refinement of the ballet and impassioned poetry readings to the acrobatics of the Moiseyev dance troupe and the broad, slapstick humor of the circus, the arts play an especially important role. In the past, state support of the arts--through such agencies such as Glavlit, Goskontsert, and Goskino, and the Communists party's ideologically motivated cultural policy--circumscribed the range and themes of artistic expression. But even within those limits, which fluctuated from time to time, Soviet artists made major contributions to modern culture. The arts were swept by several competing movements during the first decade of Soviet rule, as rival schools sought to translate the revolutionary dynamism in politics into a new vision of culture. While poets such as Anna \TAkhmatova\t, Osip \TMandelstam\t, and Boris \TPasternak\t stood aloof from these developments, others, most notably Vladimir \TMayakovsky\t and Sergei \TYesenin\t, were profoundly affected by them, although in different ways. Prose writers, such as Boris \TPilnyak\t, Isaac \TBabel\t, Mikhail \TBulgakov\t, and Mikhail \TZoshchenko\t, vividly and often humorously captured the contradictions of the times in their short stories. The 1920s also saw experimentation in the visual arts, as in the films of Sergei \TEisenstein\t and Dziga \TVertov\t and the graphics of El \TLissitzky\t. All this came to an end during the First Five-Year Plan, when writers and other artists were under heavy pressure from the Communist party to portray the "passion for construction." Construction novels, such as Valentin \TKatayev\t's Time Forward and Nikolai Ostrovsky's How the Steel Was Tempered fulfilled this demand and served as prototypes for the officially prescribed doctrine of socialist realism. Fine arts, music, and architecture felt the impact of socialist realism as well. In painting and sculpture, depictions of muscle-bound workers and smiling collective farmers crowded out other themes, and abstractionism was deemed decadent; in music, the romantic tradition was extolled; and in architecture, neo-romantic monumentality prevailed, as illustrated in Moscow's postwar skyscrapers. Even in the context of such limitation, some Soviet writers and artists managed to enrich Soviet and world culture. Mikhail Sholokhov was awarded (1965) a Nobel prize, largely on the strength of his novel And Quiet Flows the Don. Sergei \TProkofiev\t, Dmitry \TShostakovich\t, and Aram \TKhatchaturian\t each composed a large body of music that has entered the classical repertoire; Soviet ballet maintained its high standards, even while eschewing modern dance. Upon the death of Stalin, literary controls were relaxed. A new generation of poets emerged, among whom Yevgeny \TYevtushenko\t and Andrei \TVoznesensky\t were most prominent. Still, there were restrictions on what could be published. Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (1953) had to be published abroad, setting a precedent that was followed by other authors, including Aleksandr \TSolzhenitsyn\t, who was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in 1973. In addition to tamizdat (works published abroad), many authors resorted to circulating their works in the form of samizdat (Russian for "self-publishing"). In the meantime, the canons of socialist realism were stretched almost to the point of meaninglessness, and censorship appeared increasingly arbitrary and ineffective. Novelists such as Yuri Trifonov, Fedor Abramov, Valerii Rasputin, Sergei Zalygin, Anatoli Rybakov, Fazil Iskander, and Chinghiz Aitmatov have been able to explore a wide range of themes, not all of which affirm the Soviet way of life. Under the policy of glasnost, literature, the cinema, and the theater were enlivened, and the range of cultural discourse has expanded to unprecedented proportions. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY The chief characteristic of the Soviet economic system was the administration of all industry, transportation, construction, wholesale and most retail trade, as well as a substantial part of agricultural production by central state institutions. The only economic activities not directly administered by the state were the collective farms, the family plots belonging to collective farmers, and the collective-farm-market sector of retail trade. With the First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), when this system took shape, the entire economy, including the price structure, was tied to five year plans that were adjusted annually and even quarterly to take account of and correct imbalances. Prior to 1928 the New Economic Policy (\TNep\t) prevailed, under which state ownership was limited to the "commanding heights" of the economy (large-scale industry, banking, and foreign commerce). Full-scale industrialization and forced collectivization ensued, driving millions of peasants to construction sites or into towns and setting back productivity on the land for at least a decade. The emphasis in industry was on developing means of production and armaments rather than consumer goods or housing, and this emphasis continued until after Stalin's death. While the \TUSSR\t enjoyed considerable economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s, the failure of the party and state to effectively administer more complex economic processes and the poor performance of the agricultural and service sectors kept growth rates low in the 1970s and 1980s. After 1985 the Soviet government embarked on an ambitious program of dismantling what Gorbachev called the "administrative command system of economic management." Reforms included the reintroduction of limited private enterprise, a more flexible price structure, and decentralization of economic decision making. Far from enhancing the performance of the economy, however, these reforms merely intensified shortages and increased popular discontent. The old system was not functioning and nothing was there to replace it. In 1990, 1991, and into 1992, the distribution network began increasingly to break down and production dropped in all sectors; inflation and unemployment increased at an alarming rate. After the failure of the hard-line coup of August 1991, communism was finally repudiated and the old union dissolved. Most of the former Soviet republics late in 1991 agreed to form a new economic union, and the Group of Seven (an international consortium of industrial powers) promised to help them establish a Western-style market economy. Manufacturing The \TUSSR\t was a leading producer of pig iron, cement, and steel, and had an important chemical industry whose expansion was aided by a rapid growth of oil and natural gas extraction. The greatest concentration of manufacturing was in Ukraine, near traditional sources of fuel, and in the Central Industrial Region of the Russian republic, extending from Moscow east to Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky). Mining The Soviet Union was long self-sufficient in raw materials and fuels. The Krivoi Rog area in the eastern Ukraine is an iron-mining center. Coal is produced in widely scattered areas, from the Donets basin in Ukraine and the Pechora River region in the northern Russian republic to the \TKuznetsk Basin\t of western Siberia and the Karaganda Basin in Kazakhstan. The Urals are the source for most nonferrous metals, except for gold, which is mined in the Lena River basin, in the far northeast of Siberia, and in the Tien Shan mountains of Central Asia. The Soviet Union was a leading world producer and exporter of petroleum and natural gas. Major petroleum-producing areas include the Volga-Urals region, the Tiumen district of western Siberia, and the Tenghiz oil fields of Kazakhstan. The once-productive Baku region of Azerbaijan is now largely depleted. Coal was once the principal energy source, but its use declined considerably after the 1950s. Petroleum, gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power were developed rapidly after 1960. Gigantic dams built across the \TAngara River\t at Bratsk and on the Kama River provide abundant electricity for nearby industrial plants built in the 1960s and 70s. Nuclear power has been generated, especially in the European part of the country, to offset that area's deficiency of mineral fuels. However, the nuclear power program suffered a major setback in April 1986, when several explosions occurred at the \TChernobyl\t plant north of Kiev. The radiation released into the atmosphere caused the evacuation of several hundred thousand people in the surrounding area and the contamination of much of Ukraine and several neighboring countries. This was the worst accident in the history of nuclear power generation. Fossil-fuel production, particularly in western Siberia, also resulted in devastating environmental damage and a major public-health crisis. Agriculture Soviet agriculture traditionally consisted of three distinct institutional arrangements: state farms, which operated more or less as industrial enterprises, paying wages and salaries to their work force; collective farms, cooperative units that sold a fixed quota of their output to the state at predetermined prices and remunerated their members on the basis of a complex system of labor inputs; and private plots, belonging to collective farmers and workers in industry and the state-farm sector. Recent reforms made possible extended leaseholding, outright purchase and consolidation of farms, and other arrangements. Flax and dairy farming are prominent in the far north. South of this zone, potatoes, rye, and hemp are cultivated, and livestock production is carried out extensively. Farther to the south, in the broad steppe region, wheat, barley, corn, and sunflowers are the principal crops, though in western Ukraine sugar beets are the main crop. The dryer, eastern part of the steppe supports sheep grazing and cotton production. Fruit and vegetables are abundant in the small subtropical areas of the Crimea, the southern Caucasus, and Central Asia. Agriculture was always the Achilles' heel of the Soviet economy. Lack of motivation among state farm workers, whose income was not usually tied to their performance, and collective farmers, who suffered because of the relatively low prices paid by the state for their produce, was certainly a major factor inhibiting productivity. Others factors included the low prestige attached to agricultural work and the relative lack of cultural amenities in the countryside, both of which contributed to the out-migration of talented and skilled youths; inefficient utilization of agricultural machinery and its poor quality; the inadequacy of infrastructure such as paved roads, medical care, and storage facilities; the campaign style of administration--whereby great attention would be devoted to a particular crop or technique for a short time--which led to several disasters in the 1960s; and the vagaries of weather. Unable to provide for its own needs, the \TUSSR\t regularly imported cereal grains from Western countries in the 1970s, 1980s, and later. As agricultural production plummeted in the crisis of 1991, the need for food imports increased sharply as the former Soviet Union endured the grim winter of 1991-92. Forestry The \TUSSR\t ranked as the world's leading producer of timber. The focus of the industry shifted from the depleted forests of central European Russia northward and, later, eastward into Siberia. The processing of the timber into pulp, paper, particle board, and plywood benefited in recent decades from the expansion of the electricity grid and the chemicals industry, but was a major source of water pollution, particularly in Lake Baikal. As in the case of energy and mineral resources, supplies of timber are abundant, but most are located in regions that are remote and can only be tapped at great economic and human costs. Fishing The \TUSSR\t along with Japan had one of the world's largest fishing industries. Soviet trawlers and factory ships regularly cruised the fishing grounds off the North American and African Atlantic coasts as well as the Pacific. Dried and salted fish have long been a feature of the Russian diet, and the \TUSSR\t was the leading producer of caviar (the processed salted roe of sturgeon) culled mainly from the Caspian Sea. As in agriculture and the fur and timber industries, fishing in the Soviet Union was organized along state and cooperative lines. Transportation The nation's immense overland expanses and the spread of its principal production area across several thousand kilometers have placed a premium on the development of a national transportation network. The need for transporting large quantities of bulk items over long distances and the predominant flatness of the terrain have made railroads the principal mode of transport. The \TTrans-Siberian Railroad\t, completed in the early years of this century, opened up Siberia and the Russian Far East to settlement and food and mineral production. During the 1920s the Turksib line was constructed, linking the Central Asian cities of Tashkent and Alma-Ata to the rest of the nation's rail network. The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) was built in the 1970s and early 1980s. The reconstruction of many lines and the introduction of diesel and electrical traction greatly enhanced the efficiency of Soviet railroads. Electrical systems, including both tram and trolley bus services, play a crucial role in urban and suburban passenger conveyance. Underground rails, or subway, systems efficiently serve all the largest cities. Road transport is limited mainly to short-haul movements, connecting farms with railheads. The highway system, densest in the European part of the country, generally has kept pace with increases in automobile and truck production. However, there is much room for improvement in road maintenance and amenities for vehicular traffic. Inland water transport makes up only a small proportion of overall freight movement. The Volga system is the main artery, linking Moscow with the Caspian Sea and the Urals and, via the Volga-Don canal, Ukraine and the Black Sea ports. The Soviet merchant marine was one of the world's largest. In addition to carrying most of the freight destined for export, it connected the Soviet Far East and northern Siberia with the rest of the country through the northern sea route. Air transport is used mostly for passenger travel. Serving more than 3,500 localities within the nation and linking it to countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America, Soviet air transport accounted for approximately one-quarter of the world total by volume of traffic. Trade Under communism, goods were distributed in five different ways. First in terms of total sales were state outlets that sold items at a uniform price throughout the country. These prices were fixed by the State Committee on Prices, and in most cases remained stable for several decades, irrespective of steadily rising production costs in agriculture and falling costs in industry. Second were consumer cooperatives that primarily served rural regions. Prices charged by the cooperatives were generally higher than in state stores, but the quality and variety of produce were better. The third type of retail trade consisted of collective farm markets, where prices were essentially determined by supply and demand. This principle also governed the sale of goods by cooperative stores established as part of Gorbachev's economic reforms. Finally, retail sales occurred informally either by barter arrangement or the private sale of used or contraband goods. On Jan. 2, 1992, however, Russian president Boris Yeltsin ended the traditional system of fixed prices for most consumer goods (except for certain foods, fuel, and other items), and prices began to rise sharply. Foreign trade played a relatively minor role in Soviet economic activity, partly because of the country's rich and diverse economic base and partly because self-sufficiency was long a cardinal principle of economic policy. Until World War II the \TUSSR\t exported raw materials to various European countries in exchange for capital goods. After the war the Eastern European states and China became its main trading partners. The composition of Soviet exports and imports reflected the intermediate level of the country's development. Earnings from the export of raw materials such as oil, timber, coal, and natural gas were used to purchase capital equipment and some consumer goods. Trade with Eastern Europe was roughly balanced. Exchanges with the developing countries showed an excess over imports, while the Soviet Union's need for advanced technology from the industrialized West exceeded its ability to find markets there for its own goods. This system was modified under Gorbachev and disappeared completely with the radical changes that followed the attempted coup of August 1991, when control of trade was taken over by the individual republics. Communications The Soviet mass media were developed as organs of the party and state for the dissemination of information, viewpoints, and entertainment intended to encourage identification with and participation in officially approved activities. Under the glasnost policy of the late 1980s, party and state control over the media was relaxed, and in July 1990 Gorbachev ordered changes in the state-run broadcasting monopoly so as to allow radio and TV outlets to be run "independently of political and social organizations" and provide "impartial and thorough" coverage of news events, in order to encourage genuine political pluralism. Investigative reporting, uncensored accounts of political unrest, crime and accidents occurring within the Soviet Union, revelations about the past, and debates about current issues began to appear regularly. A further step came in May 1991, when the Russian republic under Yeltsin's leadership established its own television station, which operated free of control by the central government. The print media too became freer in the glasnost era, with newspapers like Komsomolskaya Pravda providing a more independent perspective than \TPravda\t, the Communist party's national daily, or the official government newspaper \TIzvestia\t. After the removal of centralized controls following the coup of August 1991, the status of the media varied from one republic to another, but national publications such as Pravda, Izvestia, the Moscow News, and the literary journal Literturnaya Gazeta were freed from government control. Independent news agencies such as Interfax operated alongside \TTass\t, the old official press agency. \Tgovernment\t Soviet government traditionally represented a vast pyramidal structure, with local village, city, and county \Lsoviet\ls (councils) at the base and the Supreme Soviet at the apex. Each soviet consisted of delegates nominated by trade unions, collective farms, party organizations, and other groups, and ratified by the electorate. The soviet in turn chose an executive committee that served as the functioning organ of government at the local, district (raion or okrug), territorial (krai), and regional (oblast) levels. In each republic, executive functions of government were exercised by councils of ministers chosen by the republic soviets. Under reforms enacted by Gorbachev, the Supreme Soviet was chosen by a periodically convened Congress of People's Deputies, which in 1990 created a new executive office, the presidency of the \TUSSR\t, and elected Gorbachev as the first president. His control over the \TUSSR\t, however, was challenged by the growing power of the presidents of the republics, especially Boris Yeltsin, and by leaders of the Soviet Communist party who opposed his reforms. On August 19, 1991, these party hard-liners placed Gorbachev under house arrest and tried to seize control of the government. Their attempt was foiled by Yeltsin, backed by the people of Moscow; Yeltsin emerged from the crisis as the dominant figure on the political scene. When he and his supporters insisted that the Communist party and the old union had to be abolished, Gorbachev and the Congress of People's Deputies were forced to go along. On September 5 the Congress surrendered its authority to an interim government that would hold power until a new union treaty could be concluded. The new interim structure included a State Council consisting of Gorbachev and the presidents of the republics, which was to function as the executive organ; a two-house Supreme Soviet; and an Economic Council with members chosen by the republics. With the signing of a new union treaty in the last days of 1991, the old Soviet national structures gave way to the political arrangements of the 11 constituent republics of the newly-created Commonwealth of Independent States. Political Parties In the Soviet Union as it existed before 1990, the Communist party controlled all aspects of life. The party itself was a highly centralized body with a nucleus consisting of a Moscow-based Central Committee, \Tpolitburo\t, and Secretariat. All-Union Party Congresses, with delegates from republic and regional party organizations, met every five years. The Central Committee of the party had several hundred members, elected by the All-Union Party Congress. Plenary sessions of the Central Committee were held two or three times a year to ratify policy decisions taken by the party leadership. The much smaller Politburo was composed of members chosen from the Central Committee. The Politburo was a collegiate body whose decisions were collective, though not necessarily unanimous. Its meetings were chaired by the general secretary of the party. This office, held by Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, was the most powerful position in the Soviet hierarchy. The Secretariat implemented party policies and controlled all lower branches of the party. The lower branches of the party replicated the central organs in their organizational structure. The lowest level of the party consisted of Primary Party Organizations (PPOs), which existed at places of work. Convened to discuss party assignments and the implementation of decisions reached at higher levels, the PPOs also recruited new party members. All important positions in the party and government were filled by party members who previously had been cleared by higher party bodies. Through this power of nomenklatura, the party apparatus assured itself of control over all state institutions, production enterprises, and public organizations. The other way in which the central apparatus exercised control over lower party organizations and their members was through the policy of "democratic centralism," which required that all decisions of the party's central organs had to be implemented and publicly defended. This system was modified by Mikhail Gorbachev, who wanted to promote political pluralism and make the party more democratic. Party hard-liners, in a last-ditch attempt to preserve the old order, tried to overthrow him in August 1991. In the wake of the failed coup anti-Communist forces all across the \TUSSR\t took action to destroy the party's power for good. Its organizations were shut down and its property confiscated. On August 24 Gorbachev resigned as general secretary of the Communist party, and on August 29 all party activities were suspended by the Supreme Soviet. Many new parties emerged under the perestroika regime, representing a wide variety of political views. The most prominent new political grouping in the Russian republic was the Democratic Reform Movement, or Democratic Russia Movement, whose leadership included Soviet foreign minister Eduard \TShevardnadze\t, Aleksandr Yakovlev, Anatoly Sobchak, the reformist mayor of Saint Petersburg (as Leningrad was renamed in 1991), and Moscow's Mayor Gavril Popov. Many of the new parties represented different national groups. In some republics power was held by the former Communist party under a new name. Law and the Judiciary Under the Communist system the highest judicial body in the \TUSSR\t was the Supreme Court, whose members were appointed by the Supreme Soviet. It had both original and appellate jurisdiction over civil, criminal, and military cases. Below this were the republic and regional-level courts, elected by respective soviets every five years. Most cases were handled by People's Courts, in which a professional judge was assisted by two lay assessors. The judge, nominated by the Communist party, was formally elected by the district's constituents. The assessors, the equivalent of a jury, usually concurred with the judge's decision. Another institution, the Procuracy, had broad powers of supervision over governmental employees, initiated criminal investigations, acted as the prosecuting attorney, and appealed decisions of lower courts to higher courts. Republic procurators were appointed by the procurator general, and they in turn appointed procurators to regional and district courts, subject to confirmation by the procurator general. Completing the court system were military tribunals, which heard cases of espionage, and a separate hierarchy of state arbitration (Gosarbitrazh) tribunals. The latter adjudicated contract disputes between state enterprises. The judicial systems of the Soviet republics will undoubtedly undergo modification as a result of the events of 1991 and early 1992. Just what form they will take within the new commonwealth structure is unclear. Armed Forces The \TUSSR\t was, along with the United States, one of the world's two great military powers. One of the most troubling questions to emerge from the revolutionary upheaval of 1991 involves the status of the Soviet armed forces, and especially the Soviet nuclear arsenal, now that the future of the Soviet central government appears to be in doubt. In the fall of 1991, the interim Soviet authorities led by Mikhail Gorbachev continued to negotiate arms agreements with the West, backed at least by the Russian federation and the republics still associated with it. But the military and naval authorities seemed confused about where their loyalties lay. Some of them backed the coup of 1991, and others opposed it. The agents of the Communist party who were formerly so important in the structure of the armed services have been removed, and the military arm of the \TKGB\t (secret police) has been dismantled. Republics such as Belarus and Ukraine now claim the right to control certain military activities within their own borders. Control of the Black Sea Fleet became an area of serious disagreement between the Russian republic and Ukraine. Some military authorities apparently accept the claims by the individual republics and others do not. In addition, most of the republics no longer wish draftees from their populations to serve outside their borders involuntarily. Lewis Siegelbaum Bibliography: \TGeneral\t: Brown, Archie, et al., eds. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (1982); Cracraft, James, ed., The Soviet Union Today: An Interpretive Guide (1988); Medish, Vadim, The Soviet Union, 4th ed. (1990); Smith, Hedrick, The New Russians (1990). \Tgeography\t: Cole, J.P., Geography of the Soviet Union (1984); Lydolph, Paul E., Geography of the U.S.S.R., 5th ed. (1990). \Thistory\t: Carr, E. H., A History of Soviet Russia, 7 vols. (1951-60); Cohen, S. F., Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History since 1917 (1985); McCauley, M., The Soviet Union since 1917 (1980); Treadgold, D.W., Twentieth Century Russia, 6th ed. (1988). \Teconomics\t: Aganbegyan, Abel, The Economic Challenge of Perestroika (1988); Ashland, Anders, Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform (1989); Jeffries, Francis, Soviet Economic Conversion (1990); Nove, Alec, The Soviet Economic System, 3d ed. (1986). \TForeign\t RELATIONS: Dawisha, Karen, Eastern Europe, Gorbachev, and Reform: The Great Challenge (1990); Geron, Leonard, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy under Perestroika (1991); Pyadyshen, Boris, ed., Russia and the World: New Views on Foreign Policy (1991); Shapiro, Jane, et al., eds., The Gorbachev Generation: Issues in Soviet Foreign Policy (1988). Stubbs, Eric, Soviet Foreign Policy and International Security (1992). \LPolitic\ls AND \Tgovernment\t: Cooper, Leo, Soviet Reforms and Beyond (1991); Eklof, Ben, Soviet Briefing (1989); Gorbachev, Mikhail, Perestroika, New Thinking for Our Country and the World (1987); Hart, Gary, Russia Shakes the World: The Second Russian Revolution and What It Means to Us (1991); Lewin, Moshe, The Gorbachev Phenomenon (1988); White, Stephen, Gorbachev in Power (1990); Yeltsin, Boris, Against the Grain (1990). \Tsocial\t \TLife\t AND \Tcustoms\t: Denber, Rachel, Soviet Nationality Reader (1991); Heller, Mikhail, Cogs in the Wheel: The Formation of Soviet Man, trans. by David Lloyd (1988); Millar, James, Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the \TUSSR\t (1987). See also: \TCommonwealth of Independent States\t; \TCommunism\t; \TRussia/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, history of\t; \TRussian art and architecture\t; \TRussian literature\t; \TRussian music\t; and separate articles on individual former Soviet republics.