20 Countries That No Longer Exist

The Soviet Union was one of the 20th century’s defining superpowers: communist, enormous, nuclear-armed, and ideologically opposed to the United States for nearly half a century. It launched satellites, crushed uprisings, built industries, censored dissent, and governed across 15 republics. By 1991, economic crisis, reform pressures, nationalism, and political collapse broke it apart. The red flag came down over the Kremlin, and a superpower became history almost overnight.