Soviet Union

The Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR) was a communist nation stretching from Eastern Europe to the east coast of North Asia. It was founded by Vladimir Lenin in 1922 and formally dissolved into seventeen separate nations by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

The Soviet Union came into being in the aftermath of World War I, which proved devestating to Russia. With morale at a low ebb, and with the blame focused on Tsar Nicholas II, the country collapsed, and the tsar was forced to abdicate in 1917. The Bolsheviks, adherents of the philosophy of Karl Marx, saw their opportunity to wrest control of the country. After a period of revolution and civil war, the Bolsheviks took power and formed the world's first communist state. Though the Soviets, as Russia's successor state, had been forced to sign the severe Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to extricate themselves from war with Germany, the USSR spent the 1920s and 30s pursuing various aggressive policies against states which had attempted to secede from Russia when the Revolution began, and the country's borders soon incorporated much of the old Russian Empire's.

In 1939, the Soviets publicly signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, though in all likelihood neither Hitler nor Stalin ever took seriously their obligations not to attack one another if a sufficiently advantageous situation arose. At the same time they signed this pact, they reached a second, secret agreement to cooperate in the conquest of Poland. Then, while World War II raged in Western and Central Europe, the USSR relatively quietly waged a series of wars against Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and Japan.

In 1941 Germany violated the non-aggression pact and drew the Soviet Union into World War II. For the duration of the war, the USSR was the most important member of the Allied Forces. At the cost of tens of millions of casualties, they took the lead in the Allied conquest of Germany, and extended the western border of their sphere of influence all the way to the Elbe River. They emerged from the war with their own sovereign territory expanded to the largest dimensions in Russian history, with vassal governments in most Eastern European states, and with extended influence in East Asia, including the northern half of the Korean peninsula, and in world diplomatic affairs.

From 1945 to 1991, the USSR was locked in a Cold War with the world's other superpower, the United States. Their conflict became systemic and found many expressions, including diplomatic disputes, economic warfare, endless proxy wars throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and a nuclear arms race that prevented the two from being able to fight a war directly.

The two sides remained pretty evenly matched throughout the second half of the twentieth century, with circumstances favoring now the one, now the other. But in the 1980s, the USSR suffered, in short succession, a humiliating military defeat in Afghanistan, restlessness and nationalism within many of its vassal states, domestic turmoil around political and economic reform, and an ever-widening economic gap with the far more efficent American bloc. On Christmas Day, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, now claiming the title of President of the Russian Federation, informed the United Nations that the USSR was defunct. The next day, General Secretary Gorbachev verified his claim and formally dissolved the Soviet Union into seventeen successor states. The Cold War was over, and with it, Soviet history.

Soviet Union in A World of Difference
The Soviet Union was one of two countries to send a manned space mission to the planet Minerva. The other was the Soviet Union's rival, the United States. The Soviets found themselves supporting the Skarmer in the Skarmer-Omalo War. Despite the fact that they had become involved only reluctantly (with the exception of KGB agent Oleg Lopatin, who had enthusiastically pushed for Soviet support of the Skarmer), Hogram blamed the Soviets for his grandson's defeat at the hands of Reatur's forces. Relations between the Soviet mission and the Skarmer chilled significantly.

Soviet Union in Crosstime Traffic
The Soviet Union was long gone by the time the secret of Crosstime was discovered in the home timeline. However, it did continue on in other alternates.

In an alternate where nuclear weapons had never been developed, the Soviet Union and the United States of America fought World War VI in the 2090s. Conversely, there were several alternates where an atomic war took place in the 20th Century. Explorers from the home timeline found that in some of these alternates the USSR had started the war whereas in others, the US had fired the first shots.

Soviet Union in The Gladiator
In one alternate visited by Crosstime Traffic, the Soviet Union won the Cold War after the United States backed down during the Cuban Missile Crisis and withdrew its troops from the Vietnam War in 1968. Leftists (mostly communists and socialists) formed popular fronts in the face of the United States perceived weakness. With the USSR's support, these Popular Fronts were able to successfully topple Western Europe's capitalist and democratic governments and establish people's republics. The United States was the last to fall. By the end of the twentieth century, the whole world was communist, with the Soviet Union at the center. Only the People's Republic of China had the clout to stand up to the USSR. The Vatican was not communist; despite communism's taboo on religion, the USSR recognized the importance of religion to most countries' sense of national identity, and left it alone.

Soviet Union in The Valley-Westside War
The Soviet Union, along with the United States, were the two main combatants in the War when the Fire fell. The people in the former US almost always blamed the USSR for starting the war, and vice-versa. However, Crosstimer Liz Mendoza discovered some evidence that the Soviets did in fact start the war. While most people who lived in what once was America knew that the USSR was their enemy, none knew where Russia was, and what communism was.

Soviet Union in Days of Infamy
The Soviet Union was locked in death-struggle with Germany by December, 1941, while Germany's ally Japan attacked and conquered the American territory of Hawaii. Despite their alliance with Germany, Japan remained neutral to the Soviet Union, which in turn was actively allied with the United States. More than a few Japanese military leaders wondered about the wisdom of this decision, as Soviet ships, probably containing supplies and arms, were allowed to flow through Japanese-controlled waters without being molested.

Soviet Union in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
The Soviet Union was a defeated power under the rule of the Greater German Reich following the Second World War. Germany's empire stretched deep into Siberia and included the Caucasus.

The Reich committed genocide against the Slavs along with the other races in Russia considered inferior. The remaining handful of Russians were enslaved by the Reich while the former Russia, now called the Ostlands, were settled by German settlers.

Russians were used along with Polish, Ukrainian, Serbs and Arab slave laborers by German industry for "dirty" or dangerous work, without regard for the safety and well-being of the workers.

Soviet Union in "Joe Steele"
The Soviet Union, under the rule of Leon Trotsky, had sought to reach accommodations with Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s. In 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, beginning the Eastern Front of World War II. United States President Joe Steele, who hated Trotsky, waited six weeks before he began sending arms and finances to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union took most of the Germany war effort, expending the lives of its soldiers in horrifying numbers. Trotsky demanded the U.S. and Britain open up a second front to relieve the pressure. Steele paid lip service to the idea, until the Soviet Union won a decisive victory at Trotskygrad in 1943. From there, Germany fell into a retreat, and it appeared that the Soviet Union might "liberate" occupied Europe. Thus, Steele ordered the Normandy invasion in 1944. The war in Europe ended early in 1945. Later that year, when the United State successfully attacked and invaded its enemy Japan, the Soviet Union invaded the northern island of Hokkaido. It established a communist puppet state informally known as North Japan. The U.S. established South Japan in the territory it occupied.

In 1946, both the United States and Soviet Union learned of the theoretical possibilty of the atomic bomb, and both began projects to build the bomb. In 1948, North Japan's army invaded South Japan, touching off the Japanese War. The war ended a year later after a mutual exchange of atomic bombs.

Soviet Union in "Ready for the Fatherland"
The Soviet Union accepted Germany's offer for peace in 1943 after Erich von Manstein killed Adolf Hitler. Germany was able to redeploy its troops and keep the United States and Britain from invading Europe. When the United States invaded Japan, the Soviet Union also invaded from the north, conquering Hokkadio. In the 1950s, the Soviet government sent a freighter into Tokyo Bay with a sunbomb aboard. The resulting explosion killed thousands. The United States destroyed Vladivostok in response. Erich von Manstein, now Chancellor of Germany, negotiated a peace; Joseph Stalin's death made peace that much easier.

Soviet Union in "The Emperor's Return"
In 2003, the Soviet Union launched a war with Turkey. Its erstwhile ally was Greece, which had adopted a Socialist system. Greece's price for its alliance was the return of Istanbul, formerly in Constantinople.

Soviet Union in The Guns of the South
Some of the AK-47s delivered to the Army of Northern Virginia by Andries Rhoodie carried gunmakers' marks written in an unfamiliar language which Robert E. Lee's staff eventually determined, with some difficulty, to be Russian. When the marks were translated, Lee learned that the guns had been made in the SSSR, but neither Lee nor anyone in the Confederate army or government had any idea what the SSSR might be.

Soviet Union in "The Last Article"
The Soviet Union had been defeated by the Germans during World War II, and their lands had been annexed by both the Germans and Japanese. After the surrender, the German Army was transferred to the Russian Caucasses where they launched an invasion of Iran in order to defeat the last of the British forces in India. When the Army of India finally surrendered in 1947, partisan activities were still taking place within German occupied Russia.

Soviet Union in The Man With the Iron Heart
The Soviet Union had suffered mightly during World War II, and Joseph Stalin and his military commanders were determined that Germany should suffer in kind after the war. The USSR found several communists to help rule their zone of occupation, and repressed all dissent harshly. Nonetheless, the USSR found the German Freedom Front's terrorist actions difficult to snuff out completely.

The Soviet Union had a better sense of what they were dealing with earlier than there allies. NKVD Captain Vladimir Bokov was assigned to find the assassin of Red Army Ivan Koniev, who was killed days after the official end of the war in Europe. Very soon he learned of the "Werewolves". This information was confirmed in July, when a German drove a truck loaded with explosives next to a parade of Red Army troops, and detonated it, killing himself and several troops. Bokov interviewed a witness, Colonel Fyodor Furmanov, who'd been leading the parade, and survived with minor injuries. This incident, coupled with news that a German had blown himself up in a similar fashion in Erlangen in the American occupation zone confirmed what Bokov had learned.

The Soviet authorities wasted no time in rounding up hostages and deporting them. This slowed down the attacks some, but more often than not, it drove the average German into the GFF's camp. Similar actions in the other territories the Soviet Union occupied, such a Poland, simply stoked the GFF's fire. When Bokov went to Poland to investigate GFF activity, he learned that the leader of the GFF, Reinhard Heydrich, had been planning the GFF since 1943.

Despite the fact that the GFF fought all of the allies, the USSR's official policy was no cooperation, particularly with the United States, who had in turn instituted a similar policy. Unfortunately, a more cooperative effort early in 1945 might have destroyed the GFF. Instead, the movement gained momentum. Even the most brutal of reprisals from the Soviets did not stop the GFF, who were able to poison a stubstantial number of Soviet military and occupation officals on New Year's Eve, 1945. The specfic parties responsible were never apprehended.

After the Allies had attempted to try several German officials for war crimes in the American zone (once in Nurmberg in December, 1945, and the second in Frankfurt in mid-1496) and met with disasterous attacks from the GFF, the Soviet Union agreed to try them in Berlin in July, 1947. Instead, a GFF operative crashed a C-47 into the court house before the trial was set to begin.

This last act forced the USSR to reconsider its policy of non-cooperation. The NKVD turned over to the U.S. a DP who'd been used as slave-labor to build Heydrich's underground headquarters. The U.S. then found and killed Heydrich. The GFF did not die with him; Joachim Peiper took over the reins, launching a campaign of airline hijackings. The Soviet Union responded by raiding a hijacked plane in Prague and killing the GFF men aboard. Although two hostages were killed, the USSR deemed this an acceptable loss of life.

In 1948, the USSR watched helplessly as the US pulled out of Germany. Most USSR officials could not understand how its government could not simply silence dissent. The USSR was also quite aware that the US had no intention of letting it simply absorb the entirety of Germany.

Soviet Union in "The Phantom Tolbukhin
The Soviet Union fell to the German invasion during World War II. Moscow was destroyed. However, pockets of resistance fighters remained, including Fyodor Tolbukhin's band.

Soviet Union in The War That Came Early
Following the failure of the Munich Conference, the Soviet Union declared war against Germany. Soviet forces fought alongside Czech soldiers in the defense of their homeland, the only great power to support Czechoslovakia in a meaningful way. However, geography limited the number of troops the USSR could put into Czechoslovakia; Poland and Romania each acted as a buffer between Soviet territory and Czechoslovakia.

After their smaller ally was conquered, the Soviets continued the fight against the Germans from within their own territory, launching bombing raids from Byelorussia on East Prussia. In the last days of 1938, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Poland, claiming that the Rydz-Smigly "regime" and been persecuting the Byelorussians within its border, and that now the USSR would retake territory that the Poles had unjustly stolen in Polish-Soviet War of the 1920s. Although Poland had been making overtures to Germany, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin believed that Germany, now engaged on the Western Front, would be unable to render effective assistance to Poland. Nonetheless, Germany sent troops into Poland, and finally directly engaged the Soviet Union on the field of battle.

Meanwhile, the Soviets were forced to scale back on their support of their puppet state, Mongolia, which encouraged Japan and Manchukuo to become more aggressive. In April 1939, Japan invaded Siberia.

Soviet Union in Worldwar
The Soviet Union was a communist nation established by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.

Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union rapidly industrialized its economy at great cost to the quality of life of the people. This proved fortuitous in World War II when the Soviet Union became one of the world's strongest military powers. Beginning in 1939, the USSR helped Germany divide Poland, then conquered the Baltic states and invaded but did not conquer Finland before being invaded by Germany in 1941. Over the next year, Soviet forces were steadily pushed back. The Soviet Union was nonetheless the most important member of the Allied Forces.

In 1942, World War II came to a halt when the Race's Conquest Fleet arrived. The Race had a particularly difficult time conquering the USSR because of its climate and its geography, and the USSR was thus one of the few countries to survive the Conquest Fleet's initial onslaught. It became a member of the Big Five. Vyacheslav Molotov, foreign commisar of the USSR, met with Atvar aboard the 127th Emperor Hetto and informed him that during the Revolution the Soviets' founding fathers--himself included--had practiced regicide against Tsar Nicholas II. This horrified Atvar and first alerted him to the nature of Tosevite not-empires.

Using plutonium captured by the NKVD in a raid on a destroyed a Race starship, the USSR was able to build the first human atomic bomb, though it could not build its own bombs from scratch until after Germany and the United States had already done so. This technology forced the Race to recognize Soviet independence and invite the Soviets to a peace conference in Cairo in 1944.

After the death of Stalin, Molotov became the new Soviet premier. Under his leadership the Soviet Union embraced its role as one of the leading human powers. Molotov would rule for over thirty years despite an attempted coup by Lavrenty Beria in 1963 and a subsequent rise in influence of Georgy Zhukov.

The Soviet Union did not support Germany in its invasion of Poland and subsequent war with the Race, though Molotov did mediate a ceasefire agreement between the two governments. In 1966, the Soviets, fearful of becoming the only major human power on a Race-dominated globe, vowed support for the United States when it seemed likely that the Race would go to war with that country after discovering that President Earl Warren had ordered nuclear attacks on the Colonization Fleet four years earlier. As the US and the Race came to an agreement which involved the destruction of Indianapolis, the Soviet Union never had to make good on its promise.

In the early 21st century, the Soviet Union launched the starship Molotov on a mission to visit Home and establish a permanent Soviet diplomatic and military presence there.