TERRITORIAL-ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established on December 30, 1922, on the basis of a union treaty that was subsequently incorporated into the USSR constitution of January 31, 1924. The new federal state consisted of a complicated hierarchy of territorial-administrative units. This hierarchy was subsequently modified by amendment, by the adoption of new constitutions in 1936 and 1977, and by federal law. By the time Mikhail S. Gorbachev became Soviet leader in 1985, the hierarchy consisted of 15 Soviet socialist republics (SSRs, or union republics), 20 autonomous Soviet socialist republics (ASSRs), 8 autonomous oblasts (AOs), and 10 autonomous districts (okruga ), for a total of 53 ethnically defined administrative units. There were in addition 120 nonethnically defined administrative units—the oblasts and 7 kraya. In addition, Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg) were designated federal cities with an administrative status equal to that of the oblasts and kraya. With the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the fifteen union republics became independent states.

The Soviet successor state with by far the greatest number of territorial-administrative units within it was Russia (known in the Soviet period as the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or RSFSR, and renamed the Russian Federation in late 1991). Russia, which was also the only Soviet successor state that was formally designated a federation, included 31 ethnically defined administrative units—16 autonomous republics, 5 autonomous oblasts, and 10 autonomous okruga—which together covered approximately one-half of the territory of the RSFSR. In addition, the Russian Federation was made up of 49 oblasts, 6 kraya, and the federal cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Transforming Russia into a genuine federation with a well-designed and constitutionally protected division of powers between the federal government and the subjects of the federation has significantly complicated Russia's transition from Soviet socialism. In 1991, the 16 autonomous republics and 4 of the 5 autonomous oblasts were given the status of republics. The remaining subjects of the federation—the 49 oblasts, 7 kraya, the federal cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Jewish autonomous oblast, and the 10 autonomous okruga—were in effect equalized under law and became known as Russia's regions. In April 1992, the Russian legislature recognized the division of Checheno-Ingushetia into separate Chechen and Ingush republics, which brought the total number of republics under Russian law to twenty-one. However, the refusal of Chechnya to accept its status as a constituent unit of the federation, and Chechnya's insistence on recognition as an independent state, helped precipitate a war between Chechen independence supporters and the federal government in 1994 and again in 1999.

See also: chechnya and chechens; russian federation; union of soviet socialist republics

bibliography

Constitution of the Russian Federation: With Commentaries and Interpretations by American and Russian Scholars, eds. Vladimir V. Belyakov and Walter J. Raymond.(1994). Lawrenceville, VA: Brunswick Publishing Company, and Moscow: Russia's Information Agency-Novosti.

Gleason, Gregory. (1990). Federalism and Nationalism: The Struggle for Republican Rights in the USSR. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Kaiser, Robert J. (1994). The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Lapidus, Gail W., and Walker, Edward W. (1995). "Nationalism, Regionalism, and Federalism: Center-Periphery Relations in Post-Communist Russia." In The New Russia: Troubled Transformation, ed. Gail W. Lapidus. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Unger, Aryeh L. (1981). Constitutional Development in the USSR: A Guide to the Soviet Constitutions. New York: Pica Press.

Edward W. Walker