Leonid Kravchuk, Stanislav Shushkevich and Boris Yeltsin (left to right) after signing the Belavezha accords
© Dmitry Sokolov/TASS
TASS-DOSSIER /Kirill Titov/. Formed in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was created by the leadership of the Russian Communist party (Bolsheviks) as a base for future world revolution. In the Declaration it stated that the Union would be “a decisive step towards the unification of workers of all countries into a World Socialist Soviet Republic”.
To attract part of the Soviet Union as many socialist republics in the first Soviet Constitution (and all subsequent) for each of them was enshrined the right freely to secede from the Soviet Union. In particular, the last fundamental law of the USSR Constitution 1977, this rule was enshrined in article 72. Beginning in 1956 in part of the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet republics.
The reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union