History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–1927)
The Soviet Union (USSR) was a federated state, containing ~22,402,200km2 in eastern Europe and western Asia, which existed from 1922 to 1991. Its origins date to the October Revolution of 1917, in which the later leaders of the Soviet Union overthrew the Provisional Government of Russia, which itself had replaced the Romanov tsarist regime earlier in the year. The Soviet Union was officially established on November 30, 1922, and the Union was dissolved on December 26, 1991, by the Supreme Soviet (Supreme Council) of the USSR.
The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and Civil War
During World War I Russia experienced famine and economic collpse. In February 1917, a provisional government was installed, but it maintained its committment to the war. Conditions in urban areas were thus fertile ground for revolution. Russia's terrible World War I quagmire induced famine and economic collpse. The provincial government failed to enact land reforms demanded by the pesantry, who accounted for over 80% of the population. Within the military, mutiny was pervasive among conscripts and the intelligentsia was disaffected over the slow pace of reforms. Poverty, income disparities and inequality were growing while the provisional government grew more autocratic and appeared on the brink of a miliary coup.
During the revolution, the Bolsheviks had adopted the popular slogans, "all power to the Soviets!" (councils; the bodies of direct popular democracy, although they held no official position of power in the Provincial government) and "land, peace, and bread!". Moreover, after the revolution, the party leadership devised a constitution that appeared to recognize the authority of the local Soviets. The highest legislative body was the Supreme Soviet. The highest executive body was the Politburo. (More about the political organization of the USSR can be found on Organization of the Communist Party of the USSR.)
The first leader of the Soviet Union was Vladimir Lenin, who had led the Bolsheviki faction of Communists during the Revolution of 1917. Although one of the first acts of the Communist government was to withdraw from World War I (following the peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviet Union turned over most of the area of the Ukraine and Belarus to Germany).
Immediately, however, supporters of the Czarist regime broke out in revolt, resulting in years of all-out civil war, which lasted until 1922. Known as the "whites", these forces were aided by Western intervention. Allied armies led by the United States, Great Britain, and France, seeking to prevent the spead of Communism or Russia's exit form the war effort, attempted to invade the Soviet Union and support forces hostile to the Bolsheviks with the intention of overthrowing the Soviet regime.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), plagued by a tenuous, precarious hold on power and very little agreement among rank and file over policy issues, quickly became the only legal political party, and gradualy consolidated control over the country. Prior to the revolution, the Bolshevik doctrine of "[[democratic centr