Republics of the Soviet Union Republics of the Soviet Union The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics () of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were ethnically based proto-states that were subordinated directly to the Government of the USSR. For most of its history, the USSR was a highly centralized state; the decentralization reforms during the era of "Perestroika" ("Restructuring") and "Glasnost" ("Openness") conducted by Mikhail Gorbachev are cited as one of the factors which led to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. According to Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, a Union Republic was a
Foreign trade of the Soviet Union from these countries was resold to the West for hard currency. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union attempted to increase its exports of nonmilitary goods to these countries. In May 1986, the Soviet Union and Iraq agreed to increase Soviet nonmilitary equipment sales, and in August 1986 an attempt was made to revive Iraqi gas sales. When Mikhail Gorbachev delivered his report on the CPSU's economic policy on June 12, 1985, he noted that growth in exports, particularly machinery and equipment, was slow because the poor quality of Soviet goods prohibited them from being competitive on the world market.