The Obituary
The Soviet Union grew from the Bolshevik revolution into a superpower that industrialized at brutal speed, defeated Nazi Germany at a cost of some 27 million dead, and matched the United States across four decades of Cold War. Central planning eventually stagnated, and Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms loosened controls faster than the system could absorb. A hardline coup against him in August 1991 collapsed within days, accelerating the breakup. By Christmas Day 1991 the red flag came down over the Kremlin and fifteen republics went their own way.
Worth remembering
- At its height it spanned eleven time zones and one-sixth of the Earth's land surface.
- It put the first satellite, Sputnik, and the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space.
Sources
- USSR founded December 1922 by treaty uniting Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics Wikipedia
- Soviet Union formally dissolved on 26 December 1991 Encyclopaedia Britannica
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.