title: Taylor Swift

text: After a one-year hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, "Reputation". The single was Swift's first U.K. number-one single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S. "Reputation" was released on November 10, 2017. It incorporated a heavy electropop sound, along with hip hop, R&B, and EDM influences. Reviewers praised Swift's mature artistry, but some denounced the themes of fame and gossip. The album debuted atop the "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada, and had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Swift launched the short-lived The Swift Life mobile app for fans in late 2017. "Reputation" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston. In April 2018, Swift featured on country duo Sugarland's "Babe". In support of "Reputation", she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking many records, the most prominent being the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. It grossed $345.7 million worldwide. It was followed up with an accompanying concert film on Netflix.


title: Taylor Swift

text: "Reputation" was Swift's last album with Big Machine. In November 2018, she signed a new deal with the Universal Music Group; her subsequent releases were promoted by Republic Records. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her masters. In addition, in the event that Universal sold any part of its stake in Spotify, it agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. "Vox" called it a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift released her seventh studio album, "Lover", on August 23, 2019. Besides Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. "Lover" made Swift the first female artist to have a sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. Critics commended the album's free-spirited mood and emotional intimacy. The lead single, "Me!", peaked at number two on the Hot 100. Other singles from "Lover" were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man". "Lover" was the world's best-selling album by a solo artist of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. "Lover" and its singles earned nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.


title: Taylor Swift

text: While promoting "Lover", Swift became embroiled in a public dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and Big Machine over the purchase of the masters of her back catalog. Swift said she had been trying to buy the masters, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged one new album for each older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Besides music, she played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats" (2019), for which she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Critics panned the film but praised Swift's performance. The documentary "Miss Americana", which chronicled parts of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Swift signed a global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group in February 2020 after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV expired.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift released two surprise albums: "Folklore" on July 24, and "Evermore" on December 11, 2020. Both explore indie folk and alternative rock with a more muted production compared to her previous upbeat pop songs. Swift wrote and recorded the albums with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The albums garnered widespread critical acclaim. "The Guardian" and "Vox" opined that "Folklore" and "Evermore" emphasized Swift's work ethic and increased her artistic credibility. Three singles supported each of the albums, catering the U.S. mainstream radio, country radio, and triple A radio. The singles, in that order, were "Cardigan", "Betty", and "Exile" from "Folklore," and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime", and "Coney Island" from "Evermore". Swift became the first artist to debut a U.S. number-one album and a number-one song at the same time with "Folklore"'s "Cardigan" and "Evermore"'s "Willow". "Folklore" was 2020's best-selling album in the U.S. with 1.2 million copies. It won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman to win the award thrice. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. She was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and the world's highest-paid solo musician.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Following the masters dispute, Swift released two re-recorded albums in 2021, to critical appraisal centering on Swift's vocals. The first, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)", peaked atop the "Billboard" 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single reach number one on the Hot Country Songs chart. The second re-recording "Red (Taylor's Version)" was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. The film received highly positive reviews of Swift's direction. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, and both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the top 10 best-sellers of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association. "Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version)" and "This Love (Taylor's Version)" were released on September 17, 2021, and May 6, 2022.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She released "Carolina" as part of the soundtrack of the film "Where the Crawdads Sing", and played a brief role in the period comedy "Amsterdam". She received four nominations at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, including "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" for Song of the Year and "Carolina" for Best Song Written for Visual Media. At the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, Swift won Video of the Year (for "All Too Well: The Short Film") for a record-breaking third time. A feature film written and directed by Swift for Searchlight Pictures was announced on December 9, 2022.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Her tenth studio album, "Midnights", was released on October 21, 2022. Swift experimented with electronica and chill-out music styles on it. "Rolling Stone" critics dubbed the album an "instant classic". "Billboard" described "Midnights" as an amalgam of all of Swift's "eras". Breaking a string of records, "Midnights" and its lead single, "Anti-Hero", became Spotify's most-streamed album and song in one day with 185million and 17.4million plays, respectively. The fastest-selling album of 2022 in the US, "Midnights" debuted atop the "Billboard" 200 with 1.57million units and marked Swift's fifth album to open with over one million copies sold. She tied Barbra Streisand for the most number-one albums among women (11). Swift became the first artist to occupy the Hot 100's entire top 10, with "Anti-Hero", "Lavender Haze", "Maroon", and "Snow on the Beach" featuring Lana Del Rey occupying the top four spots. Swift will embark on the Eras Tour in 2023; it broke the record for most concert tickets ever sold in a single day. However, Ticketmaster was widely castigated for handling the tour's sale poorly, triggering government investigations into the company.


title: Taylor Swift

text: One of Swift's earliest memories of music is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own." Swift said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model, and she would often imitate her. She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the last of whom she believes is exemplary to female songwriters, and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell, citing especially how Mitchell's autobiographical lyrics convey the deepest emotions; "I think ["Blue"] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply."


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, the Rolling Stones, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. She likes Springsteen and the Stones for remaining musically relevant for a long time and credits the Stones with being "a huge influence on my entire outlook on my career." As she grows older, Swift aspires to be like Harris and prioritize music over fame. Her synth-pop album "1989" was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins, and Madonna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style and Fall Out Boy's lyrics as major influences.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift is known for venturing into various music genres, having been described as a "music chameleon". She self-identified as a country musician until 2012, when she released her fourth studio album, "Red". Her albums were promoted to country radio, but music critics noted wide-ranging styles of pop and rock. After 2010, they observed that Swift's melodies are rooted in pop music, and the country music elements are limited to instruments such as banjo, mandolin, and fiddle, and her slight twang; some commented that her country music identity was an indicator of her narrative songwriting rather than musical style. Although the Nashville music industry was receptive of Swift's status as a country musician, critics accused her of abandoning the legitimate roots of country music in favor of crossover success in the mainstream pop market. "Red" eclectic pop, rock, and electronic styles intensified the critical debate, to which Swift responded, "I leave the genre labeling to other people."


title: Taylor Swift

text: Music journalist Jody Rosen commented that by originating her musical career in Nashville, Swift made a "bait-and-switch maneuver... planting roots in loamy country soil, then pivoting to pop". She abandoned her country-music identity in 2014 with the release of her synth-pop fifth studio album, "1989". Swift described this as her first "documented, official pop album". Her albums "Reputation" (2017) and "Lover" (2019) have an upbeat pop production; the former incorporates hip hop and trap elements. Although reviews of Swift's pop albums were generally positive, some critics lamented that the pop music production indicated Swift's pursuit of mainstream success, eroding her authenticity as a songwriter nurtured by her country music background—a criticism that has been retrospectively described as rockist. Musicologist Nate Sloan remarked that Swift's pop music transition was rather motivated by her need to expand her artistry. Swift eschewed mainstream pop in favor of alternative styles like indie rock with her 2020 studio albums, "Folklore" and "Evermore". "Clash" said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and a generally soft timbre. During her career as a country singer, her vocals were criticized by some as weak and strained compared to those of her contemporaries. Swift admitted her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and has worked hard to improve. After transitioning to pop music with "1989", reviews of her vocals remained mixed; critics complained that she lacks proper technique but appreciated her usage of her voice to communicate her feelings to the audience, prioritizing "intimacy over power and nuance". They also praised her for refraining from correcting her pitch with Auto-Tune. "Los Angeles Times" remarked in 2010 that Swift's defining vocal feature is her attention to detail to convey an exact feeling—"the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow".


title: Taylor Swift

text: Reviews of Swift's later albums were more appreciative of her vocals, finding them less nasal, richer, and more resonant. With "Folklore" and "Evermore," critics complimented her sharp and agile yet translucent and controlled vocals. "Pitchfork" noted her as a "versatile, expressive vocalist". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna said Swift's timbre is "breathy and bright" in the upper register and "full and dark" in the lower. With her 2021 re-recorded albums, critics began to praise the mature, deeper and "fuller" tone of her voice. An "i" review said Swift's voice is "leagues better now" with her new-found vocal furniture. "The Guardian" highlighted "yo-yoing vocal yelps" and passionate climaxes as the trademarks of Swift's voice, and that her country twang has faded away. "Midnights" received acclaim for her nuanced vocals.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by several publications. She told "The New Yorker" in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective, were dominant themes. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on "Red", and embraced nostalgia and post-romance positivity on "1989". "Reputation" was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and "Lover" detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Other themes in Swift's music include family dynamics, friendship, alienation, self-awareness, and tackling vitriol, especially sexism.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Her confessional lyrics received positive reviews from critics; they highlighted its vivid details and emotional engagement, which they found uncommon in pop music. Critics praised her melodic songwriting; "Rolling Stone" described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". NPR remarked that Swift's songs offer emotional engagement because "the wit and clarity of her arrangements turn them from standard fare to heartfelt disclosures". Despite the positive reception, "The New Yorker" stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of her songs with her ex-lovers, a practice reviewers and Swift herself criticized as sexist. Aside from clues in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about the subjects of her songs.


title: Taylor Swift

text: On her 2020 albums "Folklore" and "Evermore", Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success. According to "Spin", she explored complex emotions with "precision and devastation" on "Evermore". "Consequence" stated her 2020 albums provided a chance to convince skeptics of Swift had "songwriting power", noting her transformation from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult".


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift categorizes her songwriting into three types: "quill lyrics", referring to songs rooted in antiquated poeticism; "fountain pen lyrics", based on modern and vivid storylines; and "glitter gel pen lyrics", which are lively and frivolous. Critics note the fifth track of every Swift album as the most "emotionally vulnerable" song of the album. Swift's bridges are often underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs, earning her the title "Queen of Bridges" from "Time". Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. "The Week" deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International named her Songwriter-Artist of the Decade in 2022. Carole King considers Swift her "professional grand daughter" and thanked Swift for "carrying the torch forward." Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music making process. She has collaborated with different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She developed the concept and treatment for "Mean" and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White said that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."


title: Taylor Swift

text: From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums "1989" and "Reputation". Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app "AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience", for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. Swift produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Her production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., is credited with producing all of her visual media starting with her 2018 concert documentary "Reputation Stadium Tour". She continued to co-direct music videos for the "Lover" singles "Me!" with Dave Meyers, and "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch, but also ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan", "Willow", "Anti-Hero" and "Bejeweled". After "," Swift debuted as a filmmaker with "All Too Well: The Short Film", which won her the MTV award for Best Direction for the second time. Swift has cited Chloé Zhao, Greta Gerwig, Nora Ephron, Guillermo del Toro, John Cassavetes and Noah Baumbach as her filmmaking influences.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the UNICEF Tap Project and MusiCares. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. After the COVID-19 pandemic began, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during the "One World: Together At Home" television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift refrained from discussing politics early in her career, fearing it might influence people. Critics took issue with her previously apolitical stance despite her wealth and celebrity. Swift publicly voiced her political opinion for the first time in the 2018 United States elections, when she endorsed Democratic candidates in her home state, Tennessee. In 2019, Swift told "The Guardian" that when she started her country music career, she was advised against discussing politics by her label executives because of the consequences of the Dixie Chicks controversy, but finally decided to speak up after she became disillusioned with contemporary American politics and moved out of Big Machine.


title: Taylor Swift

text: She identifies as a pro-choice feminist, and is one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. She criticized the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn "Roe v. Wade" (1973) and end federal abortion rights in 2022. Swift advocates for LGBT rights, and has called for the passing of the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. "The New York Times" cited her music video for the single "Mean" to note her as a musician having a positive impact on the LGBTQ+ community. Swift performed during WorldPride NYC 2019 at the Stonewall Inn, frequently cited as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement. She has donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.


title: Taylor Swift

text: In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election. Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S., and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. In the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement, called for the removal of Confederate monuments in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.


title: Taylor Swift

text: During the "Fearless" era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's "Super Saturday Night" event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Music critics Sam Sanders and Ann Powers regard Swift as a "surprisingly successful composite of megawatt pop star and bedroom singer-songwriter." "i-D" described her immense popularity as the kind of fame "unseen" since the 20th century.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Journalists have written about her polite and "open" personality, calling her a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". Awarding her for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish". Swift was labeled by the media in her early career as "America's Sweetheart" for her likability and girl-next-door image. YouGov surveys ranked her as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life, believing it to be "a career weakness", it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. "Clash" described Swift as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. "The New York Times" asserted in 2013 that her "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis". Critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming to which Swift's life and career have been subject. "Glamour" opined Swift is an easy target for male derision, triggering "fragile male egos". "The Daily Telegraph" said her antennae for sexism are crucial for the industry.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businesswoman. "Inc." describes her as an "incredible flywheel" of social media buzz and virtual word-of-mouth, and "The Ringer" said she is an omnipresent "musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability." Swift is also known for her traditional album rollouts, consisting of a variety of promotional activities, which "Rolling Stone" described as an inescapable "multimedia bonanza". Easter eggs and cryptic teasers became a common practice in contemporary pop music because of Swift. Publications describe her discography as a musical "universe" analyzed by fans and media outlets. Swift maintains an active presence on social media and a close relationship with fans, to which many journalists attribute her success. The rising popularity of Swift-themed dance parties in clubs have been noted by various publications. Economist Alan Krueger devised his concept "rockonomics"—a microeconomic analysis of the music industry—using Swift, who he regarded an "economic genius". Study of her music and career has been referred to as "Swiftology" in the media.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift's fashion appeal has been picked up by publications such as "People", "Elle", "Vogue", and "Maxim". Her street style has received acclaim. "Vogue Australia" regards her as an influential figure in sustainable fashion. She co-chaired the 2016 Met Gala. She has reinvented her image and style throughout her career, with each of her album cycles characterized by its own aesthetic and fashion. "Consequence" opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade". Swift further popularized Polaroid motifs with "1989", and cottagecore with "Folklore" and "Evermore". She is also known for her admiration for cats, sometimes featuring in her lyrics and videos.


title: Taylor Swift

text: As one of the leading music artists of the 21st century, Swift has influenced the music industry in many aspects. Business journalist Greg Jericho describes her as a "cultural vitality". "Billboard" noted only a few artists have had Swift's chart success, critical acclaim, and fan support, enabling her to have a wide-reaching impact.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift helped shape the modern country music scene. Rosen described Swift as the first country act whose fame has reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extends to Asia and the UK, where country music was not previously popular. She is one of the first country acts to use the internet as a marketing tool, promoting her work through MySpace. Following her rise to fame, country labels became interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical songs about romance and heartbreak, Swift introduced the country genre to a younger generation who can relate. Critics have since noted her musical style resonating in albums released by female country singers like Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. "Rolling Stone" listed Swift's country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music, and ranked her 80th in their 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time list.Her onstage guitar performances contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which upsurge in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. "Pitchfork" opined, Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. "Clash" stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. "Billboard" credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music, as she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit". Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to "The Guardian", Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st century with her ambitious artistic vision.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated industry following the end of the album era in the 2010s. Hence, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have five albums sell over a million copies in a week in the history of Luminate Data. To "New York" magazine, her sales figures prove she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". "The Atlantic" notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is regarded as a champion of independent record shops, contributing to the 21st-century vinyl revival. "Variety" dubbed Swift the "Queen of Stream" after she achieved multiple streaming feats as well.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift has influenced numerous mainstream and indie music artists, authors, screenwriters and filmmakers. According to "Billboard", "Business Insider", and "The New York Times", her albums have inspired an entire generation of singers and songwriters. Journalists praise her ability to change industry practices, noting how her actions reformed policies of streaming platforms, prompted awareness of intellectual property among upcoming musicians, and reshaped the concert ticketing model. Various sources deem Swift's music a paradigm representing the millennial generation; "Vox" called her the "millennial Bruce Springsteen", and "The Times" named her "the Bob Dylan of our age". Swift earned the title Woman of the Decade (2010s) from "Billboard" and the Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world".


title: Taylor Swift

text: She is a subject of academic study; The University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and Queen's University at Kingston offer courses on Swift's discography in literary and sociopolitical contexts. Professor Elizabeth Scala said Swift bridges the gap between contemporary and historical fiction. Conservation scientist Jeff Opperman opined in "The New York Times" that Swift's songs are "filled with the language and images of the natural world", reviving nature in popular culture after a reported decline in nature-themed words. Her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies. In 2022, entomologists named a new millipede species, "Nannaria swiftae", in her honor.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three for Album of the Year—tying for the most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards (the most won by an artist), 29 "Billboard" Music Awards (the most won by a woman), 84 Guinness World Records, 14 MTV Video Music Awards (including three Video of the Year wins—the most by an act), 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on "Rolling Stone" list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient.


title: Taylor Swift

text: From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million single sales, and 114 million units in album consumption globally, including 78 billion streams. She has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist this millennium, and earned the highest income for an artist on Chinese digital music platforms—. Swift is the most streamed female act on Spotify, and the only artist to have received more than 200 million streams in one day (228 million streams on October 21, 2022). The most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the "Billboard" Global 200, with 94 and 31 songs, respectively, are among her feats. Her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) is the highest-grossing North American tour ever, and she was the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. Beginning with "Fearless", all of her studio albums sold over a million units globally in their opening weeks.


title: Taylor Swift

text: In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when "Billboard" placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. Nine of her songs have topped the "Billboard" Hot 100. She is the longest-reigning act of "Billboard" Artist 100 (52 weeks), the soloist with the most cumulative weeks (56) atop the "Billboard" 200, the woman with the most Hot 100 entries (188), top-ten songs (40), and weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98), and the act with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23) and consecutive number-one "Billboard" 200 debuts (11). Swift is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the U.S., with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first woman to have both an album ("Fearless") and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift has appeared in various power listings. "Time" included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as "Time" Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. In 2014, she was named to "Forbes" 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. Swift became the youngest woman to be included on "Forbes" list of the 100 most powerful women in 2015, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician in 2019 and most googled musician overall in 2022. Swift received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from New York University and served as its commencement speaker on May 18, 2022.


title: Taylor Swift

text: Swift's net worth is $570 million, per a 2022 estimate by "Forbes". Additionally, her publication rights over her first six albums are valued at $200 million. From 2011 to 2020, she appeared in the top three of the "Forbes" Top-Earning Women in Music list, topping it in 2016 and 2019. She was the highest-paid celebrity of 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the "Guinness World Records" as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed with $185 million in 2019. Overall, Swift was the highest paid female artist of the 2010s decade, earning $825 million. She has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million, including the Samuel Goldwyn Estate in Beverly Hills, California; the High Watch in Watch Hill, Rhode Island; and multiple adjacent purchases in Tribeca, Manhattan, nicknamed as "Taybeca" by local realtors.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk (Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones.


title: Soviet Union

text: The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government that had earlier replaced the House of Romanov of the Russian Empire. The Bolshevik coup led to the establishment of the Russian Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally guaranteed socialist state. Persisting internal tensions escalated into the Russian Civil War. By 1922 the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin had emerged victorious, forming the Soviet Union. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin inaugurated a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930–1933 that killed millions. The labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove his actual and perceived opponents. After the outbreak of World War II, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The combined Soviet civilian and military casualty count—estimated to be around 27 million people—accounted for the majority of losses of Allied forces. In the aftermath of World War II, the territory taken by the Red Army formed various Soviet satellite states.


title: Soviet Union

text: The beginning of the Cold War saw the Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union confront the Western Bloc of the United States, with the latter grouping becoming largely united in 1949 under NATO and the former grouping becoming largely united in 1955 under the Warsaw Pact. Following Stalin's death in 1953, a period known as de-Stalinization occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviets took an early lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, and the first probe to land on another planet (Venus). In the 1970s, there was a brief "détente" in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions resumed following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country through his policies of "glasnost" and "perestroika". In 1989, during the closing stages of the Cold War, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, which was accompanied by the outbreak of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, Gorbachev initiated a national referendum—boycotted by the Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova—that resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favour of preserving the country as a renewed federation. In August 1991, hardline members of the Communist Party staged a coup d'état against Gorbachev; the attempt failed, with Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in facing down the unrest, and the Communist Party was subsequently banned. All of the republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as fully independent post-Soviet states.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy, and the Soviet Armed Forces comprised the largest standing military in the world. An NPT-designated state, it possessed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Before the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military and economic strengths, aid to developing countries, and scientific research.


title: Soviet Union

text: The word "soviet" is derived from the Russian word (), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice', ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of ('to inform'), related to Slavic ('news'), English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or" (which came to English through French), or the Dutch ('to know'; compare meaning 'science'). The word "sovietnik" means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called "council" (). In the Russian Empire, the State Council which functioned from 1810 to 1917 was referred to as a Council of Ministers.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the Russian revolution of 1905. Although they were quickly suppressed by the imperial government, the Soviets re-emerged across the country after the February revolution of 1917, and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, used the slogan "all power to the Soviets" to oppose the Provisional Government, and seized power from it with the October coup of 1917. In January 1918, at the third All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR).


title: Soviet Union

text: During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the RSFSR and other national Soviet republics to form a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (). Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, although with Lenin's agreement changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all the republics began as "socialist soviet" and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the national languages of several republics, the word "council" or "conciliar" in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian "soviet" and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR.


title: Soviet Union

text: In English language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. In other European languages, the locally translated short forms and abbreviations are usually used such as and in French, or and in German. In the English-speaking world, the Soviet Union was also informally called Russia and its citizens Russians, although that was technically incorrect since Russia was only one of the republics of the USSR. Such misapplications of the linguistic equivalents to the term "Russia" and its derivatives were frequent in other languages as well.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union covered an area of over , and was the world's largest country, a status that is retained by its successor state, Russia. It covered a sixth of Earth's land surface, and its size was comparable to the continent of North America. Its western part in Europe accounted for a quarter of the country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia, was much less populous. It spanned over east to west across eleven time zones, and over north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union, similarly to Russia, had the world's longest border, measuring over , or circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it was a coastline. The country bordered (from 1945 to 1991): Norway, Finland, the Baltic Sea, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, the Black Sea, Turkey, Iran, the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. The Bering Strait separated the country from the United States, while the La Pérouse Strait separated it from Japan.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak) in Tajik SSR, at . It also included most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran), and Lake Baikal in Russia, the world's largest and deepest freshwater lake.


title: Soviet Union

text: Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the 1825 Decembrist revolt. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done on terms unfavourable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to a constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.


title: Soviet Union

text: A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the February Revolution and the toppling of Nicholas II and the imperial government in March 1917. The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government, which intended to conduct elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and to continue fighting on the side of the Entente in World War I.


title: Soviet Union

text: At the same time, workers' councils, known in Russian as ‘Soviets’, sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, pushed for socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets. On 7 November 1917, the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, ending the rule of the Provisional Government and leaving all political power to the Soviets. This event would later be officially known in Soviet bibliographies as the Great October Socialist Revolution. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers, though by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets ended involvement in the war and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.


title: Soviet Union

text: A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It included foreign intervention, the execution of the former tsar and his family, and the famine of 1921, which killed about five million people. In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established republics of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania.


title: Soviet Union

text: On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These two documents were confirmed by the first Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations, Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Alexander Chervyakov, on 30 December 1922. The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.


title: Soviet Union

text: An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees, government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, which envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931. After the economic policy of ‘War communism’ during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s, and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax.


title: Soviet Union

text: From its creation, the government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The stated purpose was to prevent the return of capitalist exploitation, and that the principles of democratic centralism would be the most effective in representing the people's will in a practical manner. The debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin was to be replaced by a ‘troika’ consisting of Grigory Zinoviev of the Ukrainian SSR, Lev Kamenev of the Russian SFSR, and Joseph Stalin of the Transcaucasian SFSR.


title: Soviet Union

text: On 1 February 1924, the USSR was recognized by the United Kingdom. The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union.


title: Soviet Union

text: According to Archie Brown the constitution was never an accurate guide to political reality in the USSR. For example the fact that the Party played the leading role in making and enforcing policy was not mentioned in it until 1977. The USSR was a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities. However, the term ‘Soviet Russia’strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republicwas often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers.


title: Soviet Union

text: On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the country and, by the end of the 1920s, established a totalitarian rule. In October 1927, Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky were expelled from the Central Committee and forced into exile.


title: Soviet Union

text: In 1928, Stalin introduced the first five-year plan for building a socialist economy. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization. In agriculture, rather than adhering to the ‘lead by example’ policy advocated by Lenin, forced collectivization of farms was implemented all over the country.


title: Soviet Union

text: Famines ensued as a result, causing deaths estimated at three to seven million; surviving kulaks were persecuted, and many were sent to Gulags to do forced labor. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Despite the turmoil of the mid-to-late 1930s, the country developed a robust industrial economy in the years preceding World War II.


title: Soviet Union

text: Closer cooperation between the USSR and the West developed in the early 1930s. From 1932 to 1934, the country participated in the World Disarmament Conference. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established when in November, the newly elected President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, chose to recognize Stalin's Communist government formally and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two countries. In September 1934, the country joined the League of Nations. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the Republican forces against the Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.


title: Soviet Union

text: In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new constitution that was praised by supporters around the world as the most democratic constitution imaginable, though there was some skepticism. Stalin's Great Purge resulted in the detainment or execution of many ‘Old Bolsheviks’ who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. According to declassified Soviet archives, the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people in 1937 and 1938, of whom 681,692 were shot. Over those two years, there were an average of over one thousand executions a day.


title: Soviet Union

text: In 1939, after attempts to form a military alliance with Britain and France against Germany failed, the Soviet Union made a dramatic shift towards Nazi Germany. Almost a year after Britain and France had concluded the Munich Agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union made agreements with Germany as well, both militarily and economically during extensive talks. The two countries concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the on 23 August 1939. The former made possible the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and eastern Poland.


title: Soviet Union

text: On 1 September, Germany invaded Poland and on the 17th the Soviet Union invaded Poland as well. On 6 October, Poland fell and part of the Soviet occupation zone was then handed over to Germany.


title: Soviet Union

text: On 10 October, the Soviet Union and Lithuania signed an agreement whereby the Soviet Union transferred Polish sovereignty over the Vilna region to Lithuania, and on 28 October the boundary between the Soviet occupation zone and the new territory of Lithuania was officially demarcated.


title: Soviet Union

text: In late November, unable to coerce the Republic of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border back from Leningrad, Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland. On 14 December 1939, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland. In the east, the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the Empire of Japan in 1938 and 1939. However, in April 1941, the USSR signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with Japan, recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state.


title: Soviet Union

text: Germany broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 starting what was known in the USSR as the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army stopped the seemingly invincible German Army at the Battle of Moscow. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, dealt a severe blow to Germany from which they never fully recovered and became a turning point in the war. After Stalingrad, Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945. The German Army suffered 80% of its military deaths in the Eastern Front. Harry Hopkins, a close foreign policy advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, spoke on 10 August 1943 of the USSR's decisive role in the war.


title: Soviet Union

text: In the same year, the USSR, in fulfilment of its agreement with the Allies at the Yalta Conference, denounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945 and invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories on 9 August 1945. This conflict ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.


title: Soviet Union

text: The USSR suffered greatly in the war, losing around 27 million people. Approximately 2.8 million Soviet POWs died of starvation, mistreatment, or executions in just eight months of 1941–42. During the war, the country together with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four Allied powers, and later became the Four Policemen that formed the basis of the United Nations Security Council. It emerged as a superpower in the post-war period. Once denied diplomatic recognition by the Western world, the USSR had official relations with practically every country by the late 1940s. A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945, the country became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions.


title: Soviet Union

text: During the immediate post-war period, the Soviet Union rebuilt and expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. It took effective control over most of the countries of Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia and later Albania), turning them into satellite states. The USSR bound its satellite states in a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955, and an economic organization, Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comecon, a counterpart to the European Economic Community (EEC), from 1949 to 1991. The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Later, the Comecon supplied aid to the eventually victorious Chinese Communist Party, and its influence grew elsewhere in the world. Fearing its ambitions, the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, became its enemies. In the ensuing Cold War, the two sides clashed indirectly in proxy wars.


title: Soviet Union

text: Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Without a mutually agreeable successor, the highest Communist Party officials initially opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly through a troika headed by Georgy Malenkov. This did not last, however, and Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the ensuing power struggle by the mid-1950s. In 1956, he denounced Joseph Stalin and proceeded to ease controls over the party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.


title: Soviet Union

text: Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a critically vital buffer zone for the forward defence of its western borders, in case of another major invasion such as the German invasion of 1941. For this reason, the USSR sought to cement its control of the region by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states, dependent upon and subservient to its leadership. As a result, Soviet military forces were used to suppress an anti-communist uprising in Hungary in 1956.


title: Soviet Union

text: In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the Soviet rapprochement with the West, and what Mao Zedong perceived as Khrushchev's revisionism, led to the Sino–Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist–Leninist movement, with the governments in Albania, Cambodia and Somalia choosing to ally with China.


title: Soviet Union

text: During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the USSR continued to realize scientific and technological exploits in the Space Race, rivaling the United States: launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966; and the first Moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.


title: Soviet Union

text: Khrushchev initiated ‘The Thaw’, a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the country. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing a dramatic rise in living standards while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. In 1962, he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. An agreement was made with the United States to remove nuclear missiles from both Cuba and Turkey, concluding the crisis. This event caused Khrushchev much embarrassment and loss of prestige, resulting in his removal from power in 1964.


title: Soviet Union

text: Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of collective leadership ensued, consisting of Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary, Alexei Kosygin as Premier and Nikolai Podgorny as Chairman of the Presidium, lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent Soviet leader.


title: Soviet Union

text: In 1968, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring reforms. In the aftermath, Brezhnev justified the invasion and previous military interventions as well as any potential military interventions in the future by introducing the Brezhnev Doctrine, which proclaimed any threat to socialist rule in a Warsaw Pact state as a threat to all Warsaw Pact states, therefore justifying military intervention.


title: Soviet Union

text: Brezhnev presided throughout "détente" with the West that resulted in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) while at the same time building up Soviet military might.


title: Soviet Union

text: In October 1977, the third Soviet Constitution was unanimously adopted. The prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of ‘standstill’, with an ageing and ossified top political leadership. This period is also known as the Era of Stagnation, a period of adverse economic, political, and social effects in the country, which began during the rule of Brezhnev and continued under his successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.


title: Soviet Union

text: In late 1979, the Soviet Union's military intervened in the ongoing civil war in neighboring Afghanistan, effectively ending a détente with the West.


title: Soviet Union

text: Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in "Beyond Oil" that the Reagan administration encouraged Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit selling their oil, and resulted in the depletion of the country's hard currency reserves.


title: Soviet Union

text: Brezhnev's next two successors, transitional figures with deep roots in his tradition, did not last long. Yuri Andropov was 68 years old and Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power; both died in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev. He made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called "perestroika". His policy of "glasnost" freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the USSR abandoned its war in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces. In the following year, Gorbachev refused to interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet satellite states, which paved the way for the Revolutions of 1989. In particular, the standstill of the Soviet Union at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 then set a peaceful chain reaction in motion at the end of which the Eastern Bloc collapsed. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East and West Germany pursuing unification, the Iron Curtain between the West and Soviet-controlled regions came down.


title: Soviet Union

text: At the same time, the Soviet republics started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing the freedom to secede in Article 72 of the USSR constitution. On 7 April 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum. Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the ‘War of Laws’. In 1989, the Russian SFSR convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was elected its chairman. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the Soviet laws. After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990.


title: Soviet Union

text: A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics (the remainder having boycotted the vote), with the majority of the population in those republics voting for preservation of the Union. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost. In the summer of 1991, the New Union Treaty, which would have turned the country into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics. The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup—an attempted coup d'état by hardline members of the government and the KGB who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin was seen as a hero for his decisive actions, while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence (following Lithuania's 1990 example). Gorbachev resigned as general secretary in late August, and soon afterwards, the party's activities were indefinitely suspended—effectively ending its rule. By the fall, Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside Moscow, and he was being challenged even there by Yeltsin, who had been elected President of Russia in July 1991.


title: Soviet Union

text: The remaining 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. However, by December all except Russia and Kazakhstan had formally declared independence. During this time, Yeltsin took over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Moscow Kremlin. The final blow was struck on 1 December when Ukraine, the second-most powerful republic, voted overwhelmingly for independence. Ukraine's secession ended any realistic chance of the country staying together even on a limited scale.


title: Soviet Union

text: On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (formerly Byelorussia), signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place. While doubts remained over the authority of the accords to do this, on 21 December 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the accords. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that had been vested in the presidency over to Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolour was raised in its place.


title: Soviet Union

text: The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body, voted both itself and the country out of existence. This is generally recognized as marking the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state, and the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Army initially remained under overall CIS command but was soon absorbed into the different military forces of the newly independent states. The few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased to function by the end of 1991.


title: Soviet Union

text: Following the dissolution, Russia was internationally recognized as its legal successor on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt and claimed Soviet overseas properties as its own. Under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, Russia also agreed to receive all nuclear weapons remaining in the territory of other former Soviet republics. Since then, the Russian Federation has assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations. Ukraine has refused to recognize exclusive Russian claims to succession of the USSR and claimed such status for Ukraine as well, which was codified in Articles 7 and 8 of its 1991 law On Legal Succession of Ukraine. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has continued to pursue claims against Russia in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the USSR.


title: Soviet Union

text: The dissolution was followed by a severe drop in economic and social conditions in post-Soviet states, including a rapid increase in poverty, crime, corruption, unemployment, homelessness, rates of disease, infant mortality and domestic violence, as well as demographic losses, income inequality and the rise of an oligarchical class, along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income. Between 1988 and 1989 and 1993–1995, the Gini ratio increased by an average of 9 points for all former socialist countries. The economic shocks that accompanied wholesale privatization were associated with sharp increases in mortality. Data shows Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia saw a tripling of unemployment and a 42% increase in male death rates between 1991 and 1994. In the following decades, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the fall of the Soviet Bloc.


title: Soviet Union

text: In summing up the international ramifications of these events, Vladislav Zubok stated: ‘The collapse of the Soviet empire was an event of epochal geopolitical, military, ideological, and economic significance.’ Before the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers for four decades after World War II through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, economic strength, aid to developing countries, and scientific research, especially in space technology and weaponry.


title: Soviet Union

text: The analysis of the succession of states for the 15 post-Soviet states is complex. The Russian Federation is seen as the legal "continuator" state and is for most purposes the heir to the Soviet Union. It retained ownership of all former Soviet embassy properties, and also inherited the Soviet Union's UN membership, with its permanent seat on the Security Council.


title: Soviet Union

text: Of the two other co-founding states of the USSR at the time of the dissolution, Ukraine was the only one that had passed laws, similar to Russia, that it is a state-successor of both the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR. Soviet treaties laid groundwork for Ukraine's future foreign agreements as well as they led to Ukraine agreeing to undertake 16.37% of debts of the Soviet Union for which it was going to receive its share of USSR's foreign property. Although it had a tough position at the time, due to Russia's position as a ‘single continuation of the USSR’ that became widely accepted in the West as well as a constant pressure from the Western countries, allowed Russia to dispose state property of USSR abroad and conceal information about it. Due to that Ukraine never ratified ‘zero option’ agreement that Russian Federation had signed with other former Soviet republics, as it denied disclosing of information about Soviet Gold Reserves and its Diamond Fund. The dispute over former Soviet property and assets between the two former republics is still ongoing:


title: Soviet Union

text: Similar situation occurred with restitution of cultural property. Although on 14 February 1992 Russia and other former Soviet republics signed agreement ‘On the return of cultural and historic property to the origin states’ in Minsk, it was halted by Russian State Duma that had eventually passed ‘Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation’ which made restitution currently impossible.


title: Soviet Union

text: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania consider themselves as revivals of the three independent countries that existed prior to their occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940. They maintain that the process by which they were incorporated into the Soviet Union violated both international law and their own law, and that in 1990–1991 they were reasserting an independence that still legally existed.


title: Soviet Union

text: There are additionally six states that claim independence from the other internationally recognized post-Soviet states but possess limited international recognition: Abkhazia, Artsakh, Donetsk, Luhansk, South Ossetia and Transnistria. The Chechen separatist movement of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the Gagauz separatist movement of the Gagauz Republic and the Talysh separatist movement of the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic lack any international recognition.


title: Soviet Union

text: During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or by the party's highest body the Politburo. Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions.


title: Soviet Union

text: During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it was the Soviet responsibility to assist them. The Comintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic—lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help.


title: Soviet Union

text: By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became the duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the USSR.


title: Soviet Union

text: Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and "de facto" diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924. All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of a new profitable market.


title: Soviet Union

text: In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labor unions or other organizations on the left. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with the Popular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all anti-Fascist political, labor, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism, especially of the Nazi variety.


title: Soviet Union

text: In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement, the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain. Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in the partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II.


title: Soviet Union

text: Up until his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during the interwar period. Despite the increasing build-up of Germany's war machine and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path. However, after Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with the United Kingdom, Vyacheslav Molotov dropped his post war border demands.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which began following World War II in 1945. The term "cold war" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race.


title: Soviet Union

text: There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the government represented by the Council of Ministers, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only legal party and the final policymaker in the country.


title: Soviet Union

text: At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966), Secretariat and the general secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the "de facto" highest office in the Soviet Union. Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over the system of appointments. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of state. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations.


title: Soviet Union

text: However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party. Nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including the creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the government budget. The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium (successor of the Central Executive Committee) to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court, the Procurator General and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society. State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees, local Soviets and executive committees. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.


title: Soviet Union

text: The state security police (the KGB and ) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Great Purge, but was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov, the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


title: Soviet Union

text: The constitution, which was promulgated in 1924, 1936 and 1977, did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal, itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee. All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party.


title: Soviet Union

text: Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since the 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union, concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, to himself.


title: Soviet Union

text: Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt. The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power ‘in the period of transition’. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR.


title: Soviet Union

text: The judiciary was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts (People's Court) and applied the law as established by the constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law, where the judge, procurator, and defence attorney collaborate to establish the truth.


title: Soviet Union

text: Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs), all four being the founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan SSRs. In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status. In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of Ukraine and Bessarabia and Ukrainian SSR. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (SSRs) were also admitted into the union which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation. Karelia was split off from Russia as a Union Republic in March 1940 and was reabsorbed in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below).


title: Soviet Union

text: While nominally a union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians. The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as ‘Russia’. While the RSFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and area), most powerful, and most highly developed. The RSFSR was also the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was ‘window dressing’ for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were usually called ‘Russians’, not ‘Soviets’, since ‘everyone knew who really ran the show’.


title: Soviet Union

text: Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Land Forces, the Air Force, the Navy, Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the Internal Troops. The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the NKVD, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in the official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force Fourth, and Navy Fifth).


title: Soviet Union

text: The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis, under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov, it expanded significantly. It became known for battlecruisers and submarines. In 1989 there served 500 000 men. The Soviet Air Force focused on a fleet of strategic bombers and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers.


title: Soviet Union

text: In the post-war period, the Soviet Army was directly involved in several military operations abroad. These included the suppression of the uprising in East Germany (1953), Hungarian revolution (1956) and the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). The Soviet Union also participated in the war in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.


title: Soviet Union

text: At the end of the 1950s, the USSR constructed the first satellite – Sputnik 1, which marked the beginning of the Space Race, a competition to achieve superior spaceflight capability with the United States. This was followed by other successful satellites, most notably Sputnik 5, where test dogs were sent to space. On 12 April 1961, the USSR launched Vostok 1, which carried Yuri Gagarin, making him the first human to ever be launched into space and complete a space journey. At that time, the first plans for space shuttles and orbital stations were drawn up in Soviet design offices, but in the end personal disputes between designers and management prevented this.


title: Soviet Union

text: As for Lunar space program; USSR only had a program on automated spacecraft launches; with no crewed spacecraft used; passing on the ‘Moon Race’ part of Space Race.


title: Soviet Union

text: In the 1970s, specific proposals for the design of the space shuttle began to emerge, but shortcomings, especially in the electronics industry (rapid overheating of electronics), postponed the program until the end of the 1980s. The first shuttle, the Buran, flew in 1988, but without a human crew. Another shuttle, "Ptichka", eventually ended up under construction, as the shuttle project was canceled in 1991. For their launch into space, there is today an unused superpower rocket, Energia, which is the most powerful in the world.


title: Soviet Union

text: In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union managed to build the "Mir" orbital station. It was built on the construction of "Salyut" stations and its only role was civilian-grade research tasks.


title: Soviet Union

text: Mir was the only orbital station in operation from 1986 to 1998. Gradually, other modules were added to it, including American ones. However, the station deteriorated rapidly after a fire on board, so in 2001 it was decided to bring it into the atmosphere where it burned down.


title: Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union adopted a command economy, whereby production and distribution of goods were centralized and directed by the government. The first Bolshevik experience with a command economy was the policy of War communism, which involved the nationalization of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, private enterprises and free trade. After the severe economic collapse, Lenin replaced war communism by the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, legalizing free trade and private ownership of small businesses. The economy quickly recovered as a result.


title: Soviet Union

text: After a long debate among the members of the Politburo about the course of economic development, by 1928–1929, upon gaining control of the country, Stalin abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning, starting forced collectivization of agriculture and enacting draconian labor legislation. Resources were mobilized for rapid industrialization, which significantly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s. The primary motivation for industrialization was preparation for war, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalist world. As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power, leading the way for its emergence as a superpower after World War II. The war caused extensive devastation of the Soviet economy and infrastructure, which required massive reconstruction.