Global InformationRepublics of the Soviet Union information
| Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics | |
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| Category | Federated state |
| Location |  Soviet Union |
| Created by | Treaty on the Creation of the USSR |
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| Abolished |
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| Number | 21 (as of 1933) |
| Populations | Smallest: 1,565,662 (Estonian SSR) Largest: 147,386,000 (Russian SFSR) |
| Areas | Smallest: 29,800 km2 (11,500 sq mi) (Armenian SSR) Largest: 17,075,400 km2 (6,592,800 sq mi) (Russian SFSR) |
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| Eastern Bloc |
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The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics (Russian: Сою́зные Респу́блики, tr. Soyúznye Respúbliki) were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).[1] The Soviet Union was formed in 1922 by a treaty between the Soviet republics of Byelorussia, Russian SFSR (RSFSR), Transcaucasian Federation, and Ukraine, by which they became its constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union).
For most of its history, the USSR was a highly centralized state led by its Communist Party despite its nominal structure as a federation of republics; the light decentralization reforms during the era of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (voice-ness, as freedom of speech) conducted by Mikhail Gorbachev as part of the Helsinki Accords are cited as one of the factors which led to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 as result of the Cold War and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
There were two very distinct types of republics in the Soviet Union: the larger union republics, representing the main ethnic groups of the Union and with the constitutional right to secede from it, and the smaller autonomous republics, located within some of the union republics and representing ethnic minorities. Typically, in regard to governance, autonomous republics were subordinate to the union republics they were located in except for few instances such as the Republic of Nakhichevan.
The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, a relic of the Soviet-Finnish War, became the only union republic to be deprived of its status in 1956. The decision to downgrade Karelia to an autonomous republic within the RSFSR was made unilaterally by the central government without consulting its population.[citation needed] The official basis for downgrading the status of the republic was the changes that had occurred in the national composition of its population (about 80% of the inhabitants were Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians), as well as the need to reduce the state apparatus, the cost of maintaining which in 1955 amounted to 19.6 million rubles.[2]
- ^ Hough, Jerry F (1997). Democratization and revolution in the USSR, 1985-1991. Brookings Institution Press. p. 214. ISBN 0-8157-3749-1.
- ^ Карелия во второй половине 1940-х — в 1960-е (Karelia in the second half of 1940s - 1960s) (in Russian)