"Gorbachev Factor"

The federal structure incorporated several different levels of administrative units so as to take into account the size and level of development of the ethnic groups.

At the top was the All-Union (federal) government of the USSR. Then followed governments of union republics. These included the major nationalities (called titular nationalities) that gave their republics their title. When the USSR was established in December 1922, it was comprised of four republics: the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic(comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and the Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics. Additional union republics were set up in subsequent years, bringing the total number to fifteen.

At the next level below the union republics, autonomous soviet socialist republics were set up to take account of ethnic groups located in a given republic and to give them a measure of political recognition and some elements of self-government. An autonomous republic was subordinate to its parent union republic. The overwhelming majority of autonomous republics—sixteen out of twenty—were located within Russia, two within Georgia, one within Azerbaijan, and one within Uzbekistan. The lower levels of this administrative structure incorporated eight autonomous provinces and ten autonomous districts, giving social identity to smaller ethnic groupings or national minorities within republics, such as Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous province within Azerbaijan.

Union Republics of the USSR, 1990

Armenia  Azerbaijan      Belorussia       Estonia          Georgia         Kirgiziya         Kazakhstan    Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russia Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan