The Origins and Evolution of the Soviet State
The Soviet state was born in 1917. That year, the revolutionary
Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian czar and established a socialist state
in the territory that had once belonged to the Russian empire. In 1922,
Russia proper joined its far-flung republics in the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics. The first leader of this Soviet state was the
Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
<span>Did You Know? In 1988, Time magazine
selected Mikhail Gorbachev to be its “Man of the Year” for his work
toward ending the Cold War. The next year, it named him its “Man of the
Decade.” In 1990, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize.</span>
The
Soviet Union was supposed to be “a society of true democracy,” but in
many ways it was no less repressive than the czarist autocracy that
preceded it. It was ruled by a single party–the Communist Party–that
demanded the allegiance of every Russian citizen. After 1924, when the
dictator Joseph Stalin
came to power, the state exercised totalitarian control over the
economy, administering all industrial activity and establishing
collective farms. It also controlled every aspect of political and
social life. People who argued against Stalin’s policies were arrested
and sent to labor camps or executed.
