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Q.The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) came into being after the Socialist Revolution in Russia in (A) 1914 (B) 1917 (C) 1939 (D) 1991

CBSECBSE Class XII Board 2020MCQ· 1mImportance★★★★★
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The USSR was established following the Socialist Revolution of 1917, making (B) 1917 the correct answer.

The question asks when the Soviet Union came into existence, linking it directly to the Socialist Revolution in Russia. To understand this, we need to grasp what happened in that pivotal year and how it led to the creation of a new state.

Russia in 1917 was convulsed by revolutionary upheaval. The country had been battered by World War I, its economy was in ruins, and popular discontent with Tsar Nicholas II's autocratic rule had reached breaking point. In February 1917, mass protests and strikes in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) forced the Tsar to abdicate, ending three centuries of Romanov rule. A Provisional Government took power, but it proved weak and indecisive, choosing to continue the unpopular war.

The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized this moment of chaos. In October 1917 (by the old Russian calendar; November by the modern Gregorian calendar), the Bolsheviks launched an armed insurrection in Petrograd, overthrowing the Provisional Government. This October Revolution—also called the Bolshevik Revolution—brought the communists to power. Lenin's government immediately began transforming Russia along socialist lines: land was redistributed, banks were nationalized, and workers' control over factories was proclaimed.

The formal establishment of the USSR followed in the wake of this revolution. After a brutal civil war between the Bolshevik "Reds" and the anti-communist "Whites" (1918–1922), the victorious Bolsheviks consolidated their control. In December 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was officially proclaimed, uniting Russia with Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasian republics under a federal socialist state.

Note

The other dates in the options mark different milestones: 1914 saw the outbreak of World War I; 1939 marked the start of World War II; and 1991 was the year the USSR dissolved, not when it was created.

The revolution of 1917 was the catalyst. Without the Bolshevik seizure of power that year, there would have been no socialist state to evolve into the Soviet Union. The USSR's entire existence—from its founding principles to its eventual collapse seven decades later—flowed from the events of that revolutionary year.

✓Final answer

In short, the USSR came into being after the Socialist Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks under Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government and established the world's first socialist state.

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