How did the Soviet Union actually function? The USSR was a country of contradictions. It was a state purportedly founded to serve the interests of the working proletariat but that was always ruled either by a small elite (the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) or by one man alone, as it was under the dictator Joseph Stalin. In theory, the Soviet people had votes and a voice, but in practice, a group of about 20, the Politburo, made all major government policies and were accountable only to the party.

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Sources Consulted:
“1936 Constitution of the USSR, TOC.” Accessed May 3, 2023. [ Ссылка ].

Derbyshire, Ian. Politics in the Soviet Union: From Brezhnev to Gorbachev. Cambridge: W&R Chambers LTD, 1987.

Marx, Karl & Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Translated by Samuel Moore (1885). Introduction and notes by A J P Taylor. London: Penguin Group, 1985.

Miller, Stuart T. Mastering Modern European History. London: Macmillan Education LTD, 1990.

O’Neil, Patrick H et al. Cases in Comparative Politics: Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Pipes, Richard. The Three Whys of the Russian Revolution. London: Pimlico, 1998.

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