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When the World War I started, Russia was not in a very comfortable place as the defeats of the Russian-Japanese War, The Crimean War and the Bosnia Crisis were recent memories. As a result, tzar Nicholas II felt obliged to enter the war in 1914.
The intention of Russia was to sustain serbia against Hungary, but this also ment that Germany was its opponent. Although Russia joined the war with the biggest army that reached about five million soldiers, these were nor prepared enough, nor armed satissfactorily.
The first battle that proved to be extremely important was that from Tannenberg. First, Germans seemed to take the lead in the battle as they were better organized. Half of the Russian forces were butchered, but then Russia regained some terrain. However, the final result was another defeat for Russia.
At this moment, Russia was unprotected in Poland and that meant ammunition could not reach the Russian soldiers. One more thing that could not be transported from one place to another was food. In 1915, Russia’s situation was quite desperate and hunger was a common thing all over its territory, although food resources were available at farms.
Nicholas II took all the responsibily of war over himself, so the people were even more neglected. That also meant all the victories and defeats were directly related to him. Things never got better for Russia duirng World War I, so when it ended, in 1916, Russia had to pay a lot for war losses, never taking into consideration all the lives lost. Moreover, in 1917, Nicholas II as well as his son had to abdicate.
Although the Nazists never liked the Russians, a non-agression pact was necessary so that each nation could make its own conquest during the war, so this was signed on 23 August 1943. Russia used it and first attacked Finland. And in 1940 Finland surrended. The Baltic stated were next.
In 1941, URSS signed another pact this time with Japan, that assured neutrality.
In the same year, after defeating almost the whole Europe, Germany started the attack against URSS. Soon afterwards, Italy and Romania also declared war to Russia, followed by Finland, Hungary and Slovakia.
Germany sieged Leningrad, which will remain in this situation until 1944 and then marshed to Moscow. However, in this time, URSS got some help from USA. When Germany renounced at this attack, the Soviet troops counterattacked and in 1943, 90,000 Germa soldiers surrended at Stalingrad. This was the point when the result of the war was decided.
While the Western Allies started an attack in the occupied France, Russia started another one in the East.. In 1943, 23 April the URSS troops reached Berlin and then met with The Allies at the Elbe River. While the Soviet were on the streets of Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide.
On May2, 1945 the war in Europe was over, but the Soviet troops also took part in the battle against Japan, helping USA winning the Pacific war.
Soon, the . Cold War was about to begin.
Soviet Russia information
After the October Revolution in 1917 resulting with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and his son, Russia became a republic and the soviet regime was established. Until 1918, when the Constitution was adopted, the country was reffered to as The Russian republic, Russian Soviet Republic or just Soviet Republic. The name that appeared in the Constitution was Russian Socialist Federative Saviet Republic. From 1917 to 1922, Bolshevist Russia and Soviet Russia wre the terms most commonly used.
The name of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is ofetn shorthen to Russian SFSR or just RSFSR. This was the largest republic of the Soviet Union that had the greatest population. It was also the biggest sub-national entity by its area in the whole world and the second one if population is concerned after the Indian state Uttar Pradesh. The capital of the Soviet Russia was Moscow.
On 30 December 1922, the SFSR formed the Soviet Union together woth other three Soviet republics. It was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic that dominated the union for all its 69 years of exsitence. The Saoviet Union was often incorrectly referred to as Russia, but when it comes to what it actually represented, Russia powering other peoles the name does not seem so wrong anymore.
From 1922 to 1991, it was the Communist Party that led the Soviet Union. After Lenindied in 1924, Joseph Stalin was elected Genera; Secretary of the Communist Party and he succeeded to consolidate all the power in Russia in his hands. All his important oppenents were either exiled or imprisuned, most commonly followed by death. The period of 1937-1938 was called the Great Purge and it was then when hundreds of thousand of people were killed in order to accomplish the idea of socialism.
Stalin was the one to lead the soviet Union in the Worls War II which is known in Russia as the Great Patrriotic war. After the end of it, the Russian army occupied most of the eastern Europe, insclusively the eastern Germany.Governmens coordinated by the Soviet Union were installed in the so-calles satellite states and communism was enable to spread.
When Stalin died, he was followed by Nikita Hrushchev, who denounced Stalin’s policy and cult of personality that had reached incredible dimensions. The Gulag camps were no longer an alternative and many political prisoners were released.
Hrushchev was followed by Leonid Brezhnev, who tried to broaden the views of the communist political leaders. It was concious of the fact that the heavy industry present in Russia will no longer be lucrative and tried to change its direction to comsumption gods, but he was not let.
After the revolutions that have taken place in many Soviet states in late 80s and early 90, in 1991, the existence of the Soviet Union, led by Gorbachev, was no longer logical and Russia regained the same of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. A declaration was signed and the existence of communist parties over the territory od RSFSR was banned.
