Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика Rossijskaja Sovetskaja Federativnaja Socialističeskaja Respublika | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1917–1991 | |||||||||
 The Russian SFSR (red) within the Soviet Union (red and white) between 1956 and 1991 | |||||||||
| Status |
| ||||||||
| Capital | |||||||||
| Largest city | Moscow | ||||||||
| Official languages | Russian | ||||||||
| Recognised languages | See Languages of Russia | ||||||||
| Religion |
| ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Russian | ||||||||
| Government |
| ||||||||
| Head of state | |||||||||
• 1917 (first) | Lev Kamenev | ||||||||
• 1990–1991 (last) | Boris Yeltsin | ||||||||
| Head of government | |||||||||
• 1917–1924 (first) | Vladimir Lenin | ||||||||
• 1990–1991 | Ivan Silayev | ||||||||
• 1991 (last) | Boris Yeltsin | ||||||||
| Legislature |
| ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| 7 November 1917 | |||||||||
| 1917–1923 | |||||||||
• Soviet republic proclaimed | 25 January 1918 | ||||||||
| 30 December 1922 | |||||||||
| 19 February 1954 | |||||||||
| 12 June 1990 | |||||||||
| 12 December 1991 | |||||||||
• Russian SFSR renamed into the Russian Federation | 25 December 1991 | ||||||||
| 26 December 1991 | |||||||||
| 25 December 1993 | |||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
| 1956[citation needed] | 17,125,200 km2 (6,612,100 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1989[citation needed] | 147,386,000 | ||||||||
| Currency | Soviet ruble (SUR) | ||||||||
| Time zone | (UTC +2 to +12) | ||||||||
| Calling code | +7 | ||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | RU | ||||||||
| Internet TLD | .su | ||||||||
| |||||||||
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The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic[a] (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Soviet Republic[2] and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic,[3] and unofficially as Soviet Russia,[4] 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.[5] The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts.[5] 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 (Petrograd until 1924), Stalingrad (Volgograd after 1961), Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev. It was the first socialist state in history.
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[6] and Siberia, trailing in production to only the United States and Saudi Arabia.[7] 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.[5] 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"[8] and "each Union Republic shall retain the right freely to secede from the USSR".[9] 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.[10] 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.[11]
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.
- ^ After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks, the Left SRs, and the Menshevik-Internationalists formed a Socialist coalition government that lasted until March 1918 (Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution. J. Davis. p. 58); the Mensheviks were allowed to legally hold a congress in 1920 and continued to be elected to the Congress of Soviets until being outlawed in 1921 (Lenin's Legacy. R. Wesson, 1978).
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
autogenerated1was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Besier, Gerhard; Stokłosa, Katarzyna (2014). European Dictatorships: A Comparative History of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 67. ISBN 9781443855211.
- ^ Declaration of Rights of the laboring and exploited people (original VTsIK variant Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine, III Congress revision), article I.
- ^ a b c The Free Dictionary Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic Archived 13 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved on 22 June 2011.
- ^ Peterson, James A.; Clarke, James W. "Petroleum Geology and Resources of the Volga-Ural Province, U.S.S.R." (PDF). Pubs.USGS.gov. 1983, U.S. Department of the Interior – U.S. Geological Survey. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
- ^ Sokolov, Vasily Andreevich (2002). Petroleum. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific. p. 183. ISBN 0898757258. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
- ^ Article 76
- ^ Article 72
- ^ The names Russian Federation and Russia have been equal since 25 December 1993
- ^ Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations from the President of the Russian Federation
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