| Russian: Договор об образовании СССР | |
|---|---|
| Type | Union treaty |
| Signed | 30 December 1922 |
| Location | Moscow, Russian SFSR |
| Expiration | 26 December 1991 Union dissolved at last session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union |
| Signatories | Russian SFSR Ukrainian SSR Byelorussian SSR Transcaucasian SFSR |
The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR is a document that legalized the creation of a union of several Soviet republics in the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Declaration of the Creation of the USSR was also issued; it may be considered a political preamble to the Treaty.
On December 29, 1922, a conference of delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, these two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations[1] - Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Petrovsky, Aleksandr Chervyakov[2] respectively on December 30, 1922.
Successive republics were formed by separate amendments to the treaty.
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The first such examples were the Uzbek and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics, which on October 27, 1924, were separated from Turkestanian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR. Following this, the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, formerly part of the Uzbek SSR was elevated to a union republic on October 16, 1929, becoming the Tajik SSR.
The Transcaucasian SFSR existed until December 5, 1936, when it was broken into Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani SSRs. The same day Turkestanian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR ceased to exist, and its territory was divided between the new Kazakh and Kirghiz SSRs.
In prelude to the World War II, several new republics were created prior to the German invasion of USSR in 1941. First was the Karelo-Finnish SSR, which on March 31, 1940 was elevated to a union republic from the Karelian ASSR, previously part of the RSFSR.
After the annexation of Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were transformed into the Lithuanian SSR (July 13), Latvian SSR (July 21) and Estonian SSR (also July 21), and were formally adjoined to the Soviet Union on August 3, August 5 and August 6, respectively. The final republic was the Moldovian SSR that merged the large territory of Bessarabia with the Moldovian ASSR previously part of the Ukrainian SSR.
After the War, no new republics were established, instead the Karello-Finnish SSR was downgraded into an autonomous republic and re-annexed by the RSFSR on July 16, 1956.
On December 8, 1991, the leaders of the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs, and the RSFSR met to agree on the annulment of the 1922 treaty, which was terminated on December 25, 1991, effectively dissolving the USSR.
On March 15, 1996, the State Duma of the Russian Federation expressed its legal position in relation to the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR "The denunciation of the Treaty establishing the Soviet Union" as the wrongful, unconstitutional act passed by a grave violation of the Constitution of the RSFSR, the norms of international law and then in force legislation. [3]