The initial composition of the USSR was determined based on the fact that by the end of the Civil War in a number of regions of the former Russian Empire, the power of the Bolsheviks was established. This created certain prerequisites for the unification of several regions into a single state. The formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics took place on 1922-12-30, when the All-Union Congress approved the agreement on the formation of this state, signed on 1922-12-29
The first part of the USSR included the RSFSR, Belarus, Ukraine and the republics of Transcaucasia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia). All of them were considered independent and could theoretically leave the union at any time. In 1924, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan joined the above republics, in 1929 - Tajikistan.
The territories of today's Kazakhstan from the 18th century were part of the Russian Empire on an unofficial basis. However, there was no state as such. The social system was represented by individual tribes (hordes). In 1936, the territories of Kazakhstan became part of the USSR in the format of the Kazakh ASSR. At the same time, the lands of Kyrgyzstan joined the union.
The path of the other republics to the USSR was longer and less simple. In 1940, Moldova (Bessarabia), which was part of Romania, was transferred to the USSR after the Molotov-Ribentrop Pact was signed. In the same year, the Lithuanian Seimas decided to join the USSR, and the Estonian parliament adopted a declaration on the republic's entry into the union. Latvia was added to the union at the same time.
Thus, we can say which republics were part of the USSR at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War - Ukrainian, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Russian, Moldavian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Estonian, Belarusian, Armenian and Azerbaijan.
All of them made up the most powerful state that won the Second World War, occupying one sixth of the land, on the territory of which almost all climatic zones, natural resources and a wide variety of cultures were represented. The USSR actively promoted communist ideas in all parts of the world and many nations remember the cooperation of that period as a time without internecine wars, but with active construction, the flourishing of education, construction and culture.
Countries that were part of the USSR exercised the right to withdraw fromunification in 1990-1991 with the formation of 15 states. As time has shown, this decision, partly due to the economic decline caused by the artificial fall in oil prices, was most likely the wrong one. As a state, the USSR was a well-oiled economic system that collapsed in the first place, causing even greater poverty in the territory of disparate states and a number of wars in which many people died.
Today, attempts are being made to close cooperation between the former republics of the collapsed empire - such a structure as the commonwe alth of independent states and the customs union, which includes Russia, the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Kazakhstan, has been created.
