Lesson Plan: Russia and the Baltics

In March 2014 Russia annexed the territory of Crimea from the neighboring nation of Ukraine — and tensions between Russia and the West have been rising ever since. But tensions between Moscow and the United States are nothing new; they date back to the Cold War (1946–1991) between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Formed in 1922 in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the USSR, or Soviet Union, was a confederation of Eastern European republics. These republics were ruled by a communist central government based in Moscow. Joseph Stalin was among the communist revolutionaries who overthrew Russia’s tsarist monarchy in 1917 — and by 1929 he had established himself as dictator of the Soviet Union.

The Russian-dominated Soviet Union grew to encompass — and control — 15 republics: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Separated from the West by a metaphorical Iron Curtain, citizens of the Soviet Union had little contact with the free world. Foreign travel was largely forbidden. Government-run media controlled the flow of information.

During World War II, the United States and Soviet Union were allies, instrumental in defeating Adolf Hitler. But immediately following the war, the USSR began installing pro-Soviet governments in areas it had captured from the Nazis. And in 1948 a Soviet coup overthrew the democratic government of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), installing a communist government in its place.

Determined to stop the spread of communism, the United States and 11 other Western nations banded together in 1949 to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The purpose of NATO — then and now — is to protect member nations against military attack. If one member is attacked, the rest will defend it. Today NATO includes 28 nations.

Six years after NATO formed, the Soviet Union established a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, with its seven communist satellites: Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. In addition to using the Warsaw Pact as a defense against the West, the USSR used the alliance as a way to exercise even tighter control over other communist nations.

For many years the USSR was a superpower, second only to the United States in strength and influence. But by the late 1980s, its state-run economy was collapsing. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev realized that to survive, communist Europe needed better relations with the West. In 1989 he took steps toward that goal by withdrawing Soviet troops from Warsaw Pact nations.

Almost immediately, peaceful democratic revolutions began in several Soviet satellites. In 1991 the Baltic states declared their independence, quickly followed by 11 additional Soviet republics. By December 1991 the once-mighty USSR had dissolved. Its former republics and satellites had begun the transition to capitalism and democracy. Eventually, many joined NATO and the European Union.