Chapter 8.2 The Formation of the Soviet Union
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe the Soviet Union’s early years and the structure of its government
- Analyze the effects of Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan on the Soviet economy
- Describe life in the Soviet Union under Stalin
Russia underwent massive political upheaval during the Bolshevik takeover in 1917. Russia was then reorganized as the Soviet Union in the early 1920s. Lenin’s early death created an opening exploited by Joseph Stalin, an autocrat who reshaped the “worker’s paradise” of the Soviet Union to bring it fully under his authoritarian control.
The Birth of the Soviet Union and the Rise of Stalin
After the Bolshevik seizure of the government and Russia’s hasty departure from World War I, Lenin moved to consolidate power in Russia. Civil war raged from 1918 to 1921 between the Red Army of the Bolsheviks and the White Army representing all the groups that opposed them, including the Russian upper classes, forces loyal to the monarchy, and Lenin’s enemies within the Russian Social Democrats, such as the Menshevik faction. Members of the White Army disagreed on whether they sought an anti-Bolshevik communist government or the return of a tsarist government. The Red Army, though smaller, had a focused goal and was better organized.
British, French, Japanese, and U.S. troops all invaded Russia in support of the White Army and stayed until 1920, but they were unable to stop the Bolsheviks from seizing control. The civil war ended in 1921 with the Bolsheviks in control. Approximately 1.5 million soldiers had died in the fighting, but the civilian death toll was substantially higher—about eight million.
During the civil war, Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership also sought to take over lands outside Russia that had been controlled by the now-deposed tsar. Lenin approached these regions with the goal of creating a federal state of republics governed by a soviet, an elected committee of workers’ representatives. Each republic in this new “Soviet Union” would represent an ethnicity and be nominally independent but ultimately under the central government’s control. Many of these areas fiercely resisted incorporation by the Bolsheviks.
In 1919, for example, the Red Army invaded Ukraine and faced strong resistance, but by 1920, the Bolsheviks had taken control. Belarus was also established as a Soviet republic fairly easily. Both Ukraine and Belarus had some autonomy but had to rely on Lenin’s government to direct foreign policy. Other areas, like the Caucasus, proved more contentious. Azerbaijan and Armenia were incorporated by the Bolsheviks in 1920. The government in Georgia was heavily Menshevik and resisted Bolshevik rule, but in 1921 the Red Army took control of this region as well. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. It incorporated the country of Russia and the regions Russia had absorbed as soviet republics under