History of the Soviet Union in the context of "Sheila Fitzpatrick"

The Russian Far East (Russian: Дальний Восток России, IPA: [ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ]) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Eastern Federal District, which encompasses the area between Lake Baikal and the Pacific Ocean. The area's largest city is Khabarovsk, followed by Vladivostok. The region shares land borders with the countries of Mongolia, China, and North Korea to its south, as well as maritime boundaries with Japan to its southeast, and with the United States along the Bering Strait to its northeast.

Although foreign sources often consider the Russian Far East to be a part of Siberia, it has been historically categorized separately from Siberia in Russian regional schemes (and previously during the Soviet era when it was called the Soviet Far East).

The Russian Federation continued (see Succession, continuity and legacy of the Soviet Union) to use the Soviet Union's seat, including its permanent membership on the Security Council in the United Nations after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which originally co-founded the UN in 1945. The continuity was supported by the USSR's former members and was not objected to by the UN membership; Russia accounted for more than 75% of the Soviet Union's economy, the majority of its population and 75% of its land mass; in addition, the history of the Soviet Union began in Russia with the October Revolution in 1917 in Petrograd. If there was to be a continuator to the Soviet seat on the Security Council among the former Soviet republics, these factors made Russia seem a logical choice.

The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953, commonly referred to as the Stalin Era or the Stalinist Era, covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin sought to destroy his enemies while transforming Soviet society with central planning, in particular through the forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin consolidated his power within the party and the state and fostered an extensive cult of personality. Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization of the Communist Party served as Stalin's major tools in molding Soviet society. Stalin's methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, ethnic cleansings, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps and during famine.

World War II, known as "the Great Patriotic War" by Soviet historians, devastated much of the USSR, with about one out of every three World War II deaths representing a citizen of the Soviet Union. In the course of World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied Eastern Europe, where they established or supported Communist puppet governments. By 1949, the Cold War had started between the Western Bloc and the Eastern (Soviet) Bloc, with the Warsaw Pact (created 1955) pitched against NATO (created 1949) in Europe. After 1945, Stalin did not directly engage in any wars, continuing his totalitarian rule until his death in 1953.

During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a de facto leader who would not always necessarily be head of state or even head of government but almost always held office as Communist Party General Secretary. The office of the chairman of the Council of Ministers was comparable to a prime minister in the First World whereas the office of the chairman of the Presidium was comparable to a president. According to Marxist-Leninist ideology, the head of the Soviet state was a collegiate body of the vanguard party (as described in Lenin's What Is to Be Done?).

Following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the late 1920s, the post of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union, because the post controlled both the Communist Party and (via party membership) the Soviet government. Often the general secretary also held high positions in the government. Since the post of general secretary lacked clear guidelines of succession, the office's successor needed the support of the Political Bureau (Politburo), the Central Committee, or another government or party apparatus to consolidate power. The President of the Soviet Union, an office created in March 1990, replaced the general secretary as the highest Soviet political office.

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, tens of millions of people suffered political repression, which was an instrument of the state since the October Revolution. It culminated during the Stalin era, then declined, but it continued to exist during the "Khrushchev Thaw", followed by increased persecution of Soviet dissidents during the Brezhnev era, and it did not cease to exist until late in Mikhail Gorbachev's rule when it was ended in keeping with his policies of glasnost and perestroika.

The People's Commissariat of Nationalities of the RSFSR (Russian: Народный комиссариат по делам национальностей РСФСР, Narodny komissariat po delam natsional'nostey RSFSR), abbreviated NKNats (Russian: НКНац) or Narkomnats (Russian: Наркомнац), an organization functioning from 1917 to 1924 in the early Soviet period of Russian and Soviet history, tasked with dealing with non-Russian nationalities. Its head, Joseph Stalin, as the chairman of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities (1917–23), served as a member of the Council of People's Commissars.