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Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a confederation. In accordance with article 72 of the Soviet constitution adopted in 1977, each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, this right was widely considered to be meaningless, however Article 72 was used in December 1991 to effectively dissolve the Soviet Union, when Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus seceded from the USSR.
In practice, the USSR was a highly centralised entity from its creation in 1922 until the 1980s when political forces unleashed reforms undertaken by Mikhail Gorbachev resulted in the loosening of central control and its ultimate collapse. Under the constitution adopted in 1936 and modified along the way until October 1977, the political foundation of the Soviet Union was formed by the Soviets (Councils) of People's Deputies. These existed at all levels of the administrative hierarchy, with the Soviet Union as a whole under the nominal control of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, located in MoscowMoscow ( Russian: Moskva capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva, and encompassing 878. The city's population is rapidly increasing, with 11. 2 million inhabitants counted in 2004. The city is in the federal district called Central Russia (which is.
Along with the state administrative hierarchy, there existed a parallel structure of party organizations, which allowed the PolitburoThe Politburo ( in Russian: , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The body was made up of the top members of the Central Committee. In theory, it a to exercise large amounts of control over the republics. State administrative organs took direction from the parallel party organs, and appointments of all party and state officials required approval of the central organs of the party. General practice in the republics outside of Russia was that the head of state in a republic was a local official while the party general secretary was from outside the republic.
The republics played an important role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnostGlasnost ( Russian: ) was one of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies introduced to the Soviet Union in 1985. The term is a Russian word for "publicity", "openness". Gorbachev's goal in undertaking glasnost was in part to pressure conservatives within the party w and perestroikaPerestroika is the Russian word (which passed into English) for the economic reforms during Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's initial period ( 1985- 1986) in power modified central planning without making truly fundamental changes. Gorbachev and his team were intended to revive the Soviet Union. However, they had a number of effects which caused the power of the republics to increase. First, political liberalization allowed the governments within the republics to gain legitimacy by invoking democracy, nationalism or a combination of both. In addition, liberalization led to fractures within the party hierarchy which reduced Soviet control over the republics. Finally, peristroika allowed the governments of the republics to control economic assets in their republics and withhold funds from the central government.
Throughout the late 1980s, the Soviet government attempted to find a new structure which would reflect the increasing power of the republics. These efforts proved unsuccessful, and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed as the republic governments seceded. The republics then all became independent states, with the post-Soviet governments in most cases consisting largely of the govenment personnel of the former Soviet republics.