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World War II, known as "the Great Patriotic War" by Soviet historians, devastated much of the USSR, with about one out of every three World War II deaths representing a citizen of the Soviet Union. In the course of World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied Eastern Europe, where they established or supported Communist puppet governments.
Throughout the 20th century communism spread to various parts of the world, largely as a result of Soviet influence, often through revolutionary movements and post-World War II geopolitical shifts. The Cold War period saw a global ideological struggle between the communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union, and the capitalist West, led by the ...
Predictions of the Soviet Union's impending demise were discounted by many Western academic specialists, [7] and had little impact on mainstream Sovietology. [8] For example, Amalrik's book "was welcomed as a piece of brilliant literature in the West" but "virtually no one tended to take it at face value as a piece of political prediction."
On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which included a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. [2] Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II.
The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II, but at a tremendous human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict. The Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, leading the Eastern Bloc in opposition to the Western Bloc during the Cold War.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [r] (USSR), [s] commonly known as the Soviet Union, [t] was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. . During its existence, it was the largest country by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries, and the third-most populous co
The collapse of the Soviet Union was also aided by political pressure from capitalist powers, loans from world banks, and pressure for liberal democracy and increased consumerism within the Soviet Bloc. [173] U.S. monetary and fiscal policy raised interest rates, making borrowing money very difficult for the Soviet Union. [174]
It promised the workers would rise, destroy capitalism, and create a socialist society under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The awkward problem, regarding Marxist revolutionary theory, was the small proletariat , in an overwhelmingly peasant society with limited industry and a very small middle class .