The ENTIRE History of the SOVIET UNION in 13 Minutes

It went from women queuing for bread in the snow to the first satellite in space, and then it vanished in a single night without losing a war. 🚀 The Soviet Union lasted almost 69 years. It was born from a starving empire in 1917, survived a civil war, and under Stalin built steel cities on the empty steppe while millions starved and millions more disappeared into the Gulag. It lost 27 million people and still took Berlin, launched Sputnik, put Gagarin in orbit and set off the biggest bomb ever built, yet by 1963 it was buying wheat from Canada. See how a country that could win any race it was ordered to run never learned to put bread on the table, and why it ended in December 1991 with a flag coming down over the Kremlin. Sources used: Encyclopaedia Britannica — the Russian Revolution, Stalin, Khrushchev and the collapse of the Soviet Union J. V. Stalin, "The Tasks of Business Executives", 1931 — the ten-year speech Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 1995 — life at Magnitogorsk NASA History Office — Sputnik and Vostok 1 World Nuclear Association — the Chernobyl accident Chapters: 0:00 — From bread lines to superpower 1:22 — The empire that came before 1:32 — Two revolutions in one year 2:22 — Civil war and a new country 3:10 — Stalin takes the party 3:55 — The Five-Year Plan 4:41 — The price of the miracle 5:47 — The war that nearly ended it 6:55 — The dark side of victory 7:36 — Khrushchev opens the camps 8:11 — Sputnik, Gagarin and the biggest bomb 9:04 — Corn, wheat and Novocherkassk 9:40 — The era of stagnation 10:13 — Gorbachev opens the shutters 10:44 — Three days in August 11:20 — What it all added up to 🔔 Subscribe for more stories of how the world's great nations were made.