History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991)
The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991 spans the period from the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's death until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Due to the years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, and complex systemic problems in the command economy, Soviet output stagnated. Failed attempts at reform, a standstill economy, and the success of the proxies of the United States against the Soviet Union's forces in the war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially in the Soviet-occupied Baltic countries and Eastern Europe.
A photograph of Korean Air Lines HL7442, the airliner shot down by Soviet aircraft after drifting into prohibited airspace during the KAL 007 Flight.
Soviet Union administrative divisions, 1989
Occupation of the Baltic states
The three independent Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in August 1939, immediately before the outbreak of World War II. The three countries were annexed by the Soviet Union as "constituent republics" in August 1940. Most Western countries did not recognise this annexation, and considered it illegal. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and within weeks occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Third Reich incorporated the Baltic territories into its Reichskommissariat Ostland. As a result of the Red Army Baltic Offensive of 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states and trapped the remaining German forces in the Courland Pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945.
A protest sign from the 1970s calling on the United Nations to abolish Soviet colonialism in the Baltic states
Soldiers of the Red Army enter the territory of Lithuania during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940.
Schematics of the Soviet military blockade and invasion of Estonia in 1940 (Russian State Naval Archives)
Soviet propaganda demonstration in Riga, 1940. Posters in Russian say: We demand the full accession to the USSR!.