Succession, continuity, and legacy of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. It was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945, as well as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, its seat at the United Nations was transferred to the Russian Federation, which is its continuator state.

Background

The Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics officially created the USSR. The Treaty was approved on 30 December 1922 by a conference of delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR. The Treaty and the Declaration were confirmed by the First All-Union Congress of Soviets and signed by heads of delegations – Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, and Grigory Petrovsky, Alexander Chervyakov respectively on December 30, 1922. The treaty provided flexibility to admit new members. Therefore, by 1940 the Soviet Union grew from the founding four (or six, depending on whether 1922 or 1940 definitions are applied) republics to 15 republics.

Transition period and cessation of the existence of the Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union, the transition period was declared by adoption the Law of the USSR "On the bodies of state power and administration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the transition period" which was signed into law on 5 September 1991. It was assumed that the Soviet Union would come out of the transition period with a new name of the Union when all the treaties are signed, ratified, come into force and the new parliament assembled. However, this did not happen.

As the Kommersant newspaper wrote on 7 October 1991, a series of conflicts occurred in the RSFSR government during preparations for the signing of the Treaty on the Economic Community.