Republics of the Soviet Union

The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics (Russian: Сою́зные Респу́блики, tr. Soyúznye Respúbliki) were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).[1] The Soviet Union was formed in 1922 by a treaty between the Soviet republics of Byelorussia, Russian Federation, Transcaucasian Federation, and Ukraine, by which they became its constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union).

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Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Category	Federated state
Location	Soviet Union
Created by	Treaty on the Creation of the USSR
Created	30 December 1922
Abolished by	State Council recognition of the Baltic states' independence Declaration no. 142-Н
Abolished	26 December 1991
Number	21 (as of 1933)
Populations	Smallest: 1,565,662 (Estonian SSR) Largest: 147,386,000 (Russian SFSR)
Areas	Smallest: 29,800 km2 (11,500 sq mi) (Armenian SSR) Largest: 17,075,400 km2 (6,592,800 sq mi) (Russian SFSR)
Government	One-party socialist republics
Subdivisions	Autonomous SSRs, oblasts, Autonomous oblasts

Eastern Bloc
Republics of the USSR Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kirghizia Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russia Tajikistan Turkmenia Ukraine Uzbekistan
Allied states Afghanistan Albania (until 1961) Angola Benin Bulgaria China (until 1961) Congo Cuba Czechoslovakia East Germany Ethiopia Grenada Hungary Kampuchea Laos Mongolia Mozambique North Korea Poland (until 1989) Romania Seychelles Somalia (until 1977) South Yemen Vietnam (North Vietnam, PRG) Yugoslavia (until 1948)
Related organizations Warsaw Pact Comecon Cominform World Federation of Trade Unions World Federation of Democratic Youth
Dissent and opposition Anti-Soviet partisans Albania Bulgaria Croatia Poland Romania Serbia Ukraine Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Soviet occupation Estonia Latvia Lithuania Operation Jungle Protests and uprisings Poland 1944–1989 Poznań 1956 1980–89 Plzeň 1953 East Germany 1953 Georgia 1956 Hungary 1956 Novocherkassk 1962 Prague 1968 Invasion Moscow Czechoslovakia 1976–90 Romania 1977 Kazakhstan 1986 Brașov 1987 Tbilisi 1989 Baku 1990 Lithuania 1991 Riga 1991
Cold War events Marshall Plan Czechoslovak coup Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Korean War Secret Speech Sino-Soviet split Albanian–Soviet split De-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War Cuban intervention in Angola Afghan War 1980 Moscow Olympics 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Gulf War
Fall Singing Revolution Polish Round Table Agreement Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall January Events Barricades in Latvia Breakup of Yugoslavia Yugoslav Wars End of the Soviet Union Post-Soviet conflicts Fall of communism in Albania Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
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For most of its history, the USSR was a highly centralized state led by its Communist Party despite its nominal structure as a federation of republics; the light decentralization reforms during the era of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (voice-ness, as freedom of speech) conducted by Mikhail Gorbachev as part of the Helsinki Accords are cited as one of the factors which led to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 as result of the so-called "Cold War" and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

There were two very distinct types of republics in the Soviet Union: the larger union republics, representing the main ethnic groups of the Union and with the constitutional right to secede from it, and the smaller autonomous republics, located within some of the union republics and representing ethnic minorities. Typically, in regard to governance, autonomous republics were subordinate to the union republics they were located in except for few instances such as the Republic of Nakhichevan.

The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, a relic of the Soviet-Finnish War, became the only union republic to be deprived of its status in 1956. The decision to downgrade Karelia to an autonomous republic within the RSFSR was made unilaterally by the central government without consulting its population.^{[citation needed]}