Soviet Union History

1917 - 1927
''The history of the Soviet Union has roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, emerged as the main political force in the capital of the former Russian Empire, though they had to fight a long and brutal civil war against the Whites. The Bolsheviks became known as the Russian Communist Party, and their Red Army eventually won the Civil War. From the territories of the former Russian Empire emerged the Russian Soviet Republic, along with the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Transcaucasian republics which were eventually to unite to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.''

1927 - 1953
''The Soviet Union was dominated by Joseph Stalin, who sought to reshape Soviet society with aggressive economic planning, in particular a sweeping collectivization of agriculture and development of industrial power. He also promoted a secret police and a mass mobilization party, which led to millions of deaths as a result of purges and collectivization efforts.

World War II, known as "The Great Patriotic War" in the Soviet Union, devastated much of the USSR with about one out of every three World War II deaths being a citizen of the Soviet Union. After World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied eastern Europe, where Communist governments came to power into the Soviet bloc, whilst in western Europe, democratic governments were established, with the help of aid provided by the United States. The Cold War developed as the USSR and the United States struggled indirectly for influence around the world.''

1953 - 1964
''The period after Joseph Stalin and Khrushchev's ousting was dominated by Cold War politics, as the Soviet Union and the United States struggled both directly and indirectly for the planetary domination of their respective systems and the defense of their established spheres of influence. Although by the late fifties the party disowned the legacy of Stalin, the political culture Stalin established (concentration of power in the hands of the General Secretary, anti-Trotskyism, post-New Economic Policy (NEP) planned economy under Five-Year Plans and the denial of the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) essentially remained in place unchanged until Mikhail Gorbachev.''

1964 - 1982
''The history of the Soviet Union (1964–1982) covers the period of Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or the Brezhnev Era. This period began with high economic growth and soaring prosperity, but ended with a much weaker Soviet Union facing social, political, and economic stagnation. The average annual income stagnated because needed economic reforms were never fully carried out.

Due to Nikita Khrushchev's increasingly erratic behaviour he was ousted as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers on 14 October 1964. Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin replaced him as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Anastas Mikoyan, and later Nikolai Podgorny, became Chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Together with Andrei Kirilenko as organisational secretary and Mikhail Suslov as Chief Ideologue, these people made up the collective leadership, which contrasted in form with the autocracy that characterized Khrushchev's rule.

This collective leadership first set out to stabilise the Soviet Union and calm Soviet society. In this they succeeded. They also tried to speed up economic growth, which had slowed considerably during Khrushchev's last years as ruler. In 1965 Kosygin initiated a reform to decentralise the Soviet economy. This initially succeeded, but hardliners within the Party halted the reform's progress from fear that it would weaken the Party's prestige and power. This reform, while short-lived, successfully increased economic growth. No other radical economic reforms were carried out during the Brezhnev era, and economic growth began to stagnate in the early-to-mid-1970s. By Brezhnev's death in 1982 Soviet economic growth had, according to several historians, nearly come to a standstill.

The stabilisation policy brought about after Khrushchev's ouster established a ruling gerontocracy, and political corruption became a normal phenomenon. Brezhnev never initiated any large-scale anti-corruption campaigns, however. The Brezhnev era saw the Soviet Union evolve from a regional power to became a world superpower. The era ended with Brezhnev' death on 10 November 1982''

1982 - 1991
''history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991, literally from Leonid Brezhnev's death and funeral until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Due to the years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth stagnated. Failed attempts at reform, a standstill economy, and the success of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence against the Soviet Union's forces in the war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially[citation needed] in the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe.

Greater political and social freedoms, instituted by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, created an atmosphere of open criticism of the Moscow regime. The dramatic drop of the price of oil in 1985 and 1986, and consequent lack of foreign exchange reserves in following years to purchase grain profoundly influenced actions of the Soviet leadership.[1]

Several Soviet Socialist Republics began resisting central control, and increasing democratization led to a weakening of the central government. The USSR's trade gap progressively emptied the coffers of the union, leading to eventual bankruptcy. The Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin seized power in the aftermath of a failed coup that had attempted to topple reform-minded Gorbachev.''

2007 - 2011
Coup was temped in January of 2007 on the Russian government and succeeded in a land break away from Russia Federation and the great Soviet Union Kingdom was reformed but with kingdom added under the rule of communist President Al Petrov until March 20, 2011 when he transferred the power and title of president over to his son who is now President Brandon Petrov who has alote of different views then his father