Russia under the USSR
1924 Bronze 2 Kopeks 23mm (6.58 grams) 'Reeded Edge'
Reference: Y# 77
2 KOПEЙKИ 1924 within wheat wreath.
ПРОΛЕТАРИИ ВСЕХ СТРАН, СОЕДИНЯИТЕСЬ!  "Proleteriat of all Countries, Unite!"-  around USSR State Emblem, C.C.C.P. in exergue.

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The  Soviet Union,  officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Sojuz Sovetskich  Socialističeskich Respublik;, abbreviated to USSR (Russian: СССР, tr. SSSR), was a socialist state on the Eurasian continent that existed between 1922  and 1991. A union of multiple subnational Soviet republics , its government and economy were highly centralized. The Soviet  Union was a one-party state , governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital.

The  Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks , headed by Vladimir Lenin , overthrew the provisional government that had replaced the Tsar. They established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet  Republic (renamed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in  1936), beginning a civil war between the revolutionary "Reds" and  the counter-revolutionary "Whites." The Red Army entered several territories of the  former Russian Empire and helped local Communists take  power through soviets , which nominally acted on behalf of  workers and peasants. In 1922, the Communists were victorious, forming the  Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian , Ukrainian , and Byelorussian republics. Following Lenin's death  in 1924, a troika and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s.  Stalin suppressed all political opposition to his rule, committed the state  ideology to Marxism–Leninism (which he created), and  initiated a centrally planned economy . As a result, the country  underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for  its victory in World War II and post-war dominance of Eastern Europe . Stalin also fomented political  paranoia, and conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents of his from the Communist Party through the mass arbitrary  arrest of many people (military leaders, Communist Party members, and ordinary  citizens alike) who were then sent to correctional labor camps or sentenced to death.

At the beginning of World War II , Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler's Germany ; the treaty delayed  confrontation between the two countries. In June 1941 the Germans invaded , opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in  history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest  proportion of the conflict in the cost of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Stalingrad . Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945. The territory  overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc . The Cold War emerged in 1947 as the Soviet bloc  confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949.

Following Stalin's death in 1953, a period of political and economic  liberalization, known as "de-Stalinization"  and "Khrushchev's  Thaw", occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev . The country developed  rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR  took an early lead in the Space Race with the first ever satellite and the first human spaceflight . In the 1970s, there  was a brief détente of relations with the United  States, but tensions resumed when the Soviet Union deployed troops in Afghanistan in 1979. The war  drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military  aid to Mujahideen fighters.

In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev , sought to further reform and  liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost and perestroika . The goal was to preserve the  Communist Party while reversing economic stagnation . The Cold War ended during  his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew  their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist  and separatist movements inside the USSR as well. Central authorities initiated  a referendum —boycotted by the Baltic republics,  Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova—which resulted in the majority of participating  citizens voting in favor of preserving the Union as a renewed federation . In August 1991, a coup d'état was attempted by Communist Party  hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in  facing down the coup, resulting in the banning of the Communist Party. On 25  December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the remaining twelve constituent republics  emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states . The Russian Federation (formerly the Russian SFSR)  assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and is recognized as its  continued legal personality.