a former federal republic in E Europe and central and N Asia: the revolution of 1917 achieved the overthrow of the Russian monarchy and the Soviet Union (the USSR) was established in 1922 as a Communist state. It was the largest country in the world, occupying a seventh of the total land surface. The collapse of Communist rule in 1991 was followed by declarations of independence by the constituent republics and the consequent break-up of the Soviet Union
Official name: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Also called: Russia, Soviet Russia
Abbreviation: USSR
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025
So′viet Un′ion.
- Place NamesSee Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
'Soviet Union' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Allies
- Andropov
- Baltic States
- Barbarossa
- Big Five
- Border States
- Brezhnev
- Brezhnev Doctrine
- Brodsky
- Bukhara
- Bukovina
- Burgess
- Byelorussia
- Cheka
- Chernivtsi
- Chernobyl
- Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
- Crimea
- Cuba
- Czechoslovakia
- East Germany
- East Prussia
- East-West
- Ehrenburg
- Estonia
- Eurocommunism
- Finlandization
- Finno-Russo War
- Five-Year Plan
- Fourth International
- Fuchs
- GPU
- GRU
- GUGB
- Gorbachev
- Gosplan
- Harriman
- Haywood
- INF
- Intourist
- Ismoil Somoni
- KGB
- Kaliningrad
- Karelia
- Karelian Isthmus
- Kaunas
- Komsomol
- Kosygin
- Kremlin
- Kremlinology