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The Soviet Union emerged in the wake of World War I, when the Russian Empire collapsed during the Russian Revolution. After a chaotic period known as the Russian Civil War, Vladimir Lenin, a Bolshevik, gained power over most of the Russian Empire. After Lenin's death, the power eventually went to Josef Stalin, who with his command economy and brutal methods got the country through a large-scale industrialization. The Soviet Union led an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy and attacked a number of countries. After the Soviet Union had attacked Poland, Finland and the Baltic countries in 1939-1940, the Soviet Union itself was attacked in 1941 by Germany, a country the Soviet Union had a non-aggression-pact and divided Poland with. After four years of war, the Soviet Union once again emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, and occupied most of Eastern Europe and installed totalitarian, Soviet-loyal dictatorships there. The postwar period was marked by the cold war, an ideological and political struggle between the USSR and the communist countries on the one side and the United States and the West on the other side.Throughout the 1980s, it became clear that the Soviet bloc had lost this fight, and when Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union in 1985, it was clear that fundamental reforms in the social structure was necessary.

The Soviet Union is regarded as a totalitarian state, and conducted extensive abuse, both against its own citizens and in the occupied countries. Millions were sent to concentration camp, the Gulag and exterminated.The USSR also conducted genocide and ethnic cleansing in various countries in Europe, especially during and after World War II. Estimates of the death toll during Stalin alone are estimated at 20 million people.

The Soviet social system was dominated by the Communist Party, a party based on Marxist-Leninist principles. The Communist Party was the country's state-bearing party, and was the only permitted party. The Secretary of the party was the Soviet Union's most powerful person, and had far more power and influence than the government and parliament. Soviet Union was the world's largest planned economy, where all aspects of economic life were controlled centrally from the capital Moscow, among other things, through the so-called five-year plans. The country was characterized by little political freedom; among other things, the KGB actively oversaw much of the community. The country was in its heyday a well developed social system with a well-developed health care and social support.