- Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 contributed to the Revolution of 1905, which resulted in the formation of a parliament and other reforms. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the imperial household. The communists under Vladimir LENIN seized power soon after and formed the USSR. The brutal rule of Iosif STALIN (1928-53) strengthened communist rule and Russian dominance of the Soviet Union at a cost of tens of millions of lives. After defeating Germany in World War II as part of an alliance with the US (1939-1945), the USSR expanded its territory and influence in Eastern Europe and emerged as a global power. The USSR was the principal adversary of the US during the Cold War (1947-1991). The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the decades following Stalin’s rule, until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into Russia and 14 other independent republics.
- 142,355,415- population ranked 10
- Economy recovering from loss, gdp fell to almost 4% in 2015, gdp per capita in 2016 $26,100, 73 in the world
- 8.2% (2016 est.) 5.6% (2015 est.) country comparison to the world: 93
- Oil, gas, mining, processing materials, aircraft building, aerospace production, military machinery production, electric engineering, pulp and paper production, automotive industry, transport, road, and agriculture
- semi-presidential federation- A semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state.
- Moscow
- Oblasts, republics,
- Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on June 12th, 1990
- several previous (during Russian Empire and Soviet eras); latest drafted 12 July 1993, adopted by referendum 12 December 1993, effective 25 December 1993; amended 2008, 2014 (2016)
- During the Soviet period, Russian law was considered to be socialist law. Since the fall of the Soviet Union that is no longer the case, and most scholars have classified the Russian legal system as a civil law system. Some legal branches could be considered as the mix of civil law and common law.
- 18
- Chief of state vladimir putin, elected by absolute majority popular vote in 2 rounds for a 6 year term
- A. bicameral Federal Assembly or Federalnoye Sobraniye consists of the Federation Council or Sovet Federatsii (166 seats; 2 members in each of the 83 federal administrative units - oblasts, krays, republics, autonomous okrugs and oblasts, and the federal cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg - appointed by the top executive and legislative officials; members serve 4-year terms) and the State Duma or Gosudarstvennaya Duma (450 seats; as of February 2014, the electoral system reverted to a mixed electoral system for the 2016 election in which one-half of the members are directly elected by simple majority vote and one-half directly elected by proportional representation vote; members serve 5-year terms. B. State Duma Every 5 years
- Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (consists of 170 members organized into the Judicial Panel for Civil Affairs, the Judicial Panel for Criminal Affairs, and the Military Panel)