Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
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The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed by the inititive of the R.S.F.S.R. on December 30, 1922 (ironically the same day Lenin, who was in isolation from government affairs, wrote one of his last letters, on The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation). Five nations joined the union with the R.S.F.S.R. in late 1922 after the 10th Congress of Soviets approved: Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia, five years after they had been made independent from the Russian empire by the Russian Soviet government for the first time in their history.
The governing body of the Soviet Union was the Soviet government, elected by the Congress of Soviets, which in turn was elected by local Soviet's. The executive body of the USSR was the Central Executive Committee , comprised of 101 members. The legislative body of the USSR was the Council of People's Commissars. In the first decade after the October Revolution, these members were elected by the Congress of Soviets to these branches from various political parties, from Mensheviks to Anarchists to Bolsheviks. A decade later, only Communist Party members were elected to the Central Executive Committee or Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union, and elected from the top-down, not the bottom up.
By the 1930s, the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Russian Communist Party transformed from being the executive body of the Communist Party to being the supreme executive body over the entire U.S.S.R., with Stalin at its head. Local Soviets lost their power as centralized planning meant an autocracy and domination by the center.
By 1946 the Soviet Union was comprised 15 soviet federated socialist republics (S.F.S.R.), including 6 territories, 123 regions, 20 autonomous republics, 8 autonomous regions and 10 autonomous districts.
In 1990, the population of the Soviet Union was 290,122,000 people, representing more than 100 different national cultures. The population had been projected to grow to 333,000,000 by the year 2010. The average life expectancy throughout the Soviet Union was 75 years. Further Reading: Statistics of the Soviet Union
Since the break-up of the union, each of the republics has plumetted into economic disaster and social breakdown. Russia, once one of the most prosperous nations of the world, has a nation-wide population that is plummetting. From the Socialist period of 1950 to 1990, the average population increase of the Russian Socialist Republic was 1.15 million people every year. After the overthrow of Socialism, from 1990 - 1995, the total population of Russia decreased by 40,000 people every year. In the year 2000 the population of Russia was 146 million people (a total decrease of 1.6 million since 1990), and it is catastrophically falling: by the year 2050 Russia's population could be as low as 102 million people; a decline of one-third. Such an event is unparalleled in human history.
