Soviet Times

Light Green-1922 Dark Green-1924 Pink-1929 Blue-1936 Orange-1940

Soviet Beginnings• Began with two revolutions: February and October Revolutions

• Result was the overthrow of the monarchy

October Revolution• Relatively bloodless revolution

• Revolution of armed workers, solders, and sailors

• Established the Soviet Union with the uniting of the Russian Empire’s territories

Soviet Government• Governed by select group of ministers

• Very few checks and balances in the Soviet Government

• Government had allot of power

Soviet Union after WWII• Not very open to outsiders

• Controlled many eastern European nations and East Germany

• Established Warsaw Pact and isolated itself from the West

• Winston Churchill referred to this as the Iron Curtain

• Not only a political isolation but also isolation from Western ideas

• Iron Curtain(1939-1945) was a time of censorship and restrictions on travel

KGB

• Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (State Security Committee)

• 1954 – 1991

• Also responsible for guarding Soviet borders, protecting party and government leaders, and enforcing security in the Soviet armed forces

• Domestic function: monitoring soviet citizens an suppressing political discontent

• The largest and most active foreign intelligence apparatus in the world. Estimated at 400,000 to 700,000 full-time employees

Soviet Citizen Liberties• Citizens had very few liberties

• Initially there were restrictions on speech and religion

• Eventually religion was banned

Soviet Advancements• First to put a satellite (sputnik) into orbit

• First to put a man into orbit

• Instrumental in developing the small pox vaccine

Soviet Union Dissolution

• Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991

• Arms race with the United States had drained the Soviet economy