95 Years Ago, The USSR Was Formed. Let’s Look At The Numbers

As America begins preparations for Sunday’s New Year’s Eve festivities, some might be celebrating another holiday — that of the formation of the Soviet Union.

The USSR, established Dec. 30, 1922 by Vladimir Lenin, was born out of the same needless bloodshed that would later define it. Five years prior in 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution began, sparking a civil war that would leave millions dead, many by sheer acts of murder committed by competing factions.

Estimates state that up to 9 million individuals perished during the Russian Revolution — mostly needlessly through famine and various outbreaks of disease. Bolshevik violence became so pervasive that the term “Red Terror” is now scarred into the psyche of many Russians. The secret police of the proto-USSR, the Cheka, are estimated to have murdered 100,000 to 500,000 individuals through forced labor or mass executions from 1917 to 1922.

Things didn’t get much better once the Soviet republic was finally established. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin took the reigns and left his bloody mark on history.

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