Questions tagged [soviet-union]
The Soviet Union or USSR (1922–1991) was a socialist state in Eurasia. After the 1924 death of founding leader Lenin (who led the October Revolution in 1917), Stalin established a planned economy and suppressed political opposition. After World War II, the Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, opposing the USA in the Cold War. 1980s leader Gorbachev attempted reform with perestroika and glasnost but the country collapsed in 1991.
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Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
During World War 2, Hitler was fighting a war with Great Britain and her colonies, but while fighting that war, he attacked the Soviet Union even though they had a non-aggression pact. Everyone knows ...
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Why did Stalin deem Quantum Mechanics 'counter-revolutionary'?
I've read that in the late 1940s Stalin planned to hold a conference to discuss the ideological difficulties of physics in the Soviet Union, but called it off (presumably because of the successful ...
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Were there in the USSR monasteries decorated with Soviet orders?
Were there in the USSR monasteries decorated with Soviet decorations, particularly, the Order of the Red Banner?
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Why didn't Imperial Japan attack the Soviet Union during World War 2?
Japan and the Soviet Union shared a common border in Manchuria and the German invasion of the Soviet Union weakened the Soviets greatly. In view of the advantages to Japan in seeing the Soviet Union ...
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What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
One reason it was so hard for Germany to invade Russia/the Soviet Union in World War II (and I) was because the Russians had a different (wider) railroad gauge than that of most of the rest of Europe, ...
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Did Churchill and Roosevelt know about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the following secret pacts between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany prior to, and during WWII. It seems that the actions of the two countries after the invasion of Poland ...
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What was the ratio of German to Soviet losses on Eastern front during different stages of the war?
I've read somewhere that the ratio of Soviet to German casualties on the Eastern front was 1.4 for the whole war. But what about data for different stages of the war? (this ratio wasn't constant after ...
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How dependent were the Germans on horse transport in their invasion of the Soviet Union?
The Germans were very sophisticated in "combined" operations, that is, in using airpower and tanks to attack behind the Soviet lines. That's what gave them the advantage in the early part of the war.
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How credible is Antony Beevor's work? [closed]
Some sources claim that Beevor is revisionist and anti-Soviet propagandist. What is the basis for this criticism? How credible is Beevor? What bias/influence should readers of Beevor's work keep in ...
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Why didn't the discrepancy in the Kursk casualty ratio work against the Soviets?
According to conventional wisdom, Soviet to German loss ratio at Kursk and immediately after in Soviet offensives was around 3:1 in men, and 5:1 (or more) in armored vehicles (tanks and self-propelled ...
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How did the Czech Legion get home?
The Czech Legion was allied with the Russian Tsars just prior to the Russian revolution. After the Bolsheviks took power, they were unable to return via Europe. So they crossed the whole of Eurasia ...
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Why did the USSR give Crimea to Ukraine?
In 1954 Soviets transferred Crimea from Russian Soviet Republic to Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
Why is this strange?
The whole act, at least officially, was meant to be "a gift", a token of friendship....
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Did the Soviets excel in one area of weaponry during World War II?
The Germans had some of the best machine guns and tanks during World War II. Likewise, the Americans had a big advantage with the M1 Garand (which Patton famously called "The greatest battle implement ...
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Did Stalin believe Israel would go communist?
In Anne Applebaum's recent book Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956, she claims the USSR supported the new state of Israel and states
Stalin believed Israel would quickly join the ...
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How true is the statement "Soviet troops got into Berlin riding American trucks, walking in American boots and using American trains"?
In other words, how significant was American lend-lease in helping the Soviet front? Would the Soviets be suffering a lot more had lend-lease not happen, or was it not as significant as people make ...
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Did NATO promise Gorbachev not to accept membership applications from former Warsaw Pact nations?
There have been several claims that there was an agreement between NATO and USSR at the end of the Cold War. This agreement supposedly required NATO to reject any membership applications from the ...
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Could the Soviet Union have continued fighting World War II without Caucasus oil?
In 1942, Germany's Fall Blau was initially aimed at capturing or interdicting shipments of oil from the Caucasus to the rest of the Soviet Union. Even though armies were diverted to Stalingrad and ...
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Why was Stalin surprised by the German attack in June 1941?
Although he was warned by many, including Churchill, of the forthcoming German attack on 22 June, Stalin did not believe those warnings and was surprised when the attack started. I believe the ...
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Why did the USSR preserve the national republics?
Ever since the inception of the Soviet Union, the central government continued to maintain the existence of national republics such as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.
What was the reason behind ...
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Austria and Iron Curtain during Cold War
Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech from 1946 contains the following famous passage:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain
has descended across the Continent. ...
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How to explain the Khalkhin Gol outcome in view of Soviet weakness and Japanese strength at that time?
Conventional wisdom says that the USSR was very weak in 1939/40/41, in large part due to the purges of the 1930s, ideological interference in the armed forces, and lack of equipment, preparation and ...
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How did residents of Estonia and Latvia prove that their family settled in the country prior to 1940, in order to become citizens in 1989?
In a related question, @defaultlocale posted this excerpt:
Article 2. Possession of Latvia citizenship Citizens of Latvia are:
persons who were citizens of Latvia on June 17, 1940 and their ...
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Was there any terrorism in the Soviet Union?
Did terrorist attacks ever occur within the borders of the USSR?
By this, I do not mean:
terrorist acts committed by the USSR against its own people
terrorists abroad sponsored by the USSR
acts of ...
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Has there ever been a mass migration of factories comparable to the USSR's in WW2?
When the Soviet Union was invaded in 1941, the authorities quickly decided to move their factories east across the Urals in anticipation of the Blitzkrieg. This saved a lot of production capacity and ...
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What is the historical evidence behind the claim that the Soviets perpetrated mass rapes during their occupation of Germany?
Besides accounts from Anthony Beevor's book and research done by Sander & Johr, which some members of the amateur historian community dismiss as biased and revisionist, are there any other source ...
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Why did the Soviet Union's economy grow fast in the 1950's-1960's?
Communist economic systems self-implode. Today it has been recognized that Communism is bad for economic progress. There is no dispute that Communism makes countries poor based on what has happened in ...
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How many people were affected by the Holodomor [Famine-Genocide in Ukraine]
How many people were affected during the famine? Are there any sources for Soviet records on the Holodomor?
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What was the Soviet reasoning for developing their Airborne Forces (VDV) into a powerful military branch?
The Soviet Airborne Forces (the VDV, or the Воздушно-десантные войска, or the Aerial Descent Force as a more precise translation) were one of the more prestigious units in the Soviet military (see '...
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Effects of the successful defense of the Soviet Union against Germany on the opening of the western front in WW2
I remember reading somewhere that the Allies (USA/UK) was not really keen on opening a second front to help the Soviet Union until the Soviets started to make progress in defeating Germany around 1942,...
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To what extent were practitioners of Judaism persecuted during the Soviet Union?
I know that as a result of the policy that atheism was to be the only public religion, the Soviet Union did their best to attack Christianity. However, I am interested in knowing the extent that ...
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During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
The politics and economics of the Soviet Union caused large numbers of people to be transplanted from one region to another, for example:
The Crimean Tatars were deported to Central Asia;
Ethnic ...
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In the Soviet Union, why was the Cheka renamed so many times?
The Cheka was the secret police of the USSR. Wikipedia maintains a list of the Cheka and its subsequent renamings:
1917: Cheka
1922: GPU
1923: OGPU
1934: NKVD
1941: NKGB
1941: NKVD (again)
1943: NKGB ...
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Was the Wehrmacht a mechanized army?
I read random descriptions of Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, and I got the impression that besides tanks, the armies carried with them millions of horses and that the bulk of the soldiers were ...
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What was the role of the Soviet Navy during WWII?
Most books about WWII speak of the naval battles of Allied and Axis powers during the war, but none about the Soviet Navy. The Soviets had an active fleet at the time - why did it not engage the ...
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Why did the Soviet Union close its borders and restrict travel abroad?
It was virtually impossible for citizens of Soviet Union to move or travel abroad. Only some ethnic minorities (e.g. Jewish) with family members abroad could move out, yet with great difficulty.
Why ...
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How popular was the Soviet Union?
How much popular support was there in the Soviet Union? How did this popular support increase and decrease with time?
Here is an infographic that sort of summarizes my question. It shows that even at ...
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Why was Kaliningrad placed under the Russian SFSR rather than the Lithuanian SSR?
Kaliningrad was (and still is) Russia's only (non-trivial*) exclave. Why did Stalin and the Soviet leaders transfer Kaliningrad to the Russian SFSR rather than the Lithuanian SSR (with which ...
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Why did the Soviet Union get 3 seats in the UN?
Even before the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Belarus (which were then officially part of the Soviet Union) had independent seats at the United Nations. Why didn't the US or the UK get the ...
user39
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How was titanium transported from Soviet Union to Area 51 for Oxcart?
Oxcart was one of its kind, a sophisticated aircraft designed during the Cold-War era. Its body was made up of titanium. Titanium was only found in substantial quantities in the then Soviet Union. The ...
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Why did Stalin keep the famine of 1932 a secret?
The famine of 1932 took millions of lives, before the Soviet authorities took some measures to alleviate the lives of the peasants. During the whole time, and for decades afterwards, the affair was ...
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When planning Barbarossa, did Germany conceive of the Soviet migration of heavy industry?
Wikipedia has a very tiny article on this. Basically, when Barbarossa was launched, the Soviet Union started evacuating the factories. They were migrated to places beyond the Ural Mountains.
I'm ...
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Was Kaliningrad offered to the Lithuanian SSR; was this offer rejected; and if so, why?
This is a follow up to this other question Why was Kaliningrad placed under the Russian SFSR rather than the Lithuanian SSR?
Semaphore's answer states:
... a similar offer was made to give ...
user29153
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What happened to US's Lend-Lease machinery given to the Soviet Union?
Although most sources say that the Russians were supplied with great amounts of equipment and food as part of Lend-Lease program, I have not in all my years living in Russia seen US labeled machinery. ...
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Was public transportation free in the Soviet Union?
Was public transportation free in the Soviet Union? I'm interested in the metros and buses. If not, what did they cost?
I'm most interested in the period around the late 1950's, early 1960's, but it ...
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Were there any attempts to assassinate Joseph Stalin?
Were there any attempts to assassinate Stalin? I haven't learned of any attempt to kill him, was he so brutal that no one tried to kill him?
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Is there any evidence to support the claim that the US Strategic Defense Initiative played any significant role in undermining the USSR?
I have been reading Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson, and one of the things that stuck me was a quote by Soviet hydrogen bomb creator Andrei Sakharov who was released from political imprisonment ...
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Did American policymakers seriously consider scaling down Lend Lease Aid to the Soviet Union after the battle of Kursk?
In 1941, Senator (and future President) Harry Truman famously said, "If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany." ...
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Did the US and Soviet navies really come close to blows in the Indian Ocean in 1971?
In December 1971, Pakistan and India were at war over what would become Bangladesh. President Nixon ordered Task Force 74, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and ...
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How did the Soviets decide what to annex in WW2?
During and after World War II Soviet Union annexed some countries while others eventually became member states of the Warsaw Pact.
What is known about how the Soviets made the decisions about which ...
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Why did the Germans forbid the possession of pet pigeons in Rostov-on-Don in 1941?
Photograph made by Max Alpert shows a dead boy holding a pigeon. It seems that the child has been tortured before he was killed.
Source: Federal Archive Agency of Russia, Russian state archive of ...
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