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The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.), (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик Советский Союз, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik Sovetsky Soyuz) abbreviated to USSR (Russian: CCCP, tr. SSSR) also known as the Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), is a pre-war, constitutional socialist state in Eurasia, consisting of 15 Soviet republics. The USSR is a recognized global superpower, and existed well into the 21st century. Between 1924 and 1991, the Soviet Union was ruled as a single-party state by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. Since 1991, USSR is ruled as a multi-party democraty with a well-developed and stable socialist-oriented market economy. Soviet Union has been the world's most dominated world superpower since the late 20th century.
The Soviet Union has a consular service and a foreign service, and has strong consular relations with the United States of America. There was a Soviet consulate in Los Angeles (the one the grandfather of Natalia worked at), suggesting that Soviet-American relations were good enough in 2077 that American and Soviet citizens were able to visit each other's countries. However, in propaganda, the Soviet Union was still being portrayed as a communist enemy.
During the Resource Wars, the Soviet Union was in no direct conflict with the United States, although it is unknown what role they played in the Great War. It is known that the USSR survived the nuclear blasts, and was left as the sole world superpower with an abundance of natural and energy resources, with the Soviets used to rebuild the country. USSR fully recovered from the ruins in the early 22rd century, and began to help other countries worldwide to recover from the Great War.
The Soviet Union was first formed in 1922, but had its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which deposed Nicholas II, ending three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd (Present-day Leningrad and overthrew the Russian provisional government. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was established and the civil war began. The Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire and helped local communists seize power. In 1922, the Bolsheviks were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid 1920s. Stalin committed the state ideology to Marxism-Leninism and initiated a centrally planned economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialisation and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort and dominance after World War II. However, Stalin repressed both Communist Party members and elements of the population through his authoritarian rule.
During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history and violating an earlier non-aggression pact between the two countries. The Soviet Union suffered the largest loss of life in the war, but halted the Axis Powers advance at intense battles such as Battle of Stalingrad, eventually driving through Eastern Europe and capturing Berlin in 1945. Having played the decisive role in the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union established the Eastern Bloc in much of Central and Eastern Europe and emerged as one of the world's two superpowers after the war. Together with new socialist satellite states, through which the Soviet Union established economic and military pacts, it became involved in the Cold War, a prolonged ideological and political struggle against the Western Bloc, and in particular the other superpower, the United States of America.
A de-Stalinisation period followed Stalin's death, reducing the harshest aspects of society. The Soviet Union then went on to initiate significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including launching the first ever satellite and world's first human spaceflight, which led it into the Space Race. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 marked a period of extreme tension between the two superpowers, considered the closest to a mutual nuclear confrontation. In the 1970s, a relaxation of relations followed, but tensions resumed when, after a Communist-led revolution in Afghanistan, 100,000 Soviet troops entered the country by request of the new regime. The occupation drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results.
In the late 1980s the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, also sought succesful reforms in the Union, introducing the policies of glasnost and perestroika in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and democratize the government. However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. By 1991, the country was in turmoil as the Baltic republics began to secede. A referendum resulted in the vast majority of participating citizens voting in favour of preserving the Union as a renewed federation. In August 1991, the New Union Treaty took place, which preserved the union. Since 1991, succesfully economic reforms and military build-up had changed USSR forever. It helped the Soviet Union to emerge to the pre-stagnation levels, and with nominal GDP of $29 trillon in the 22rd century, it is now the world's largest economy.
The Soviet Armed Forces are divided into four main military service branches, the Soviet Army, Soviet Navy, Soviet Air Forces, and the Soviet Air Defense Forces. There are also three independence military service branches, the Soviet Strategic Missile Troops, the Soviet Airborne Forces, and the Soviet Space Forces. The Soviet Army numbers 4,000,000-5,200,000 men, the Soviet Air Forces operates more than 10,000 aircraft and the Soviet Air Defense Forces operates 2,500 aircraft, and the Soviet Navy operates 1,500 warships, its air arm the Soviet Naval Aviation operates 6,000 aircraft. Soviet Union is an nuclear weapons state and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the world, with over 45,000 nuclear warheads despite the devastation of the Great War.