Declaration of the Creation of the USSR

1922-12-30

Historical document adopted 30 December 1922 by the First Congress of Soviets, which together with the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR formed the constitutional basis of the Soviet Union as a multinational state. It stated the reasons for uniting the existing Soviet republics and stressed that the union was voluntary, with each republic retaining the right to freely secede - a provision later used as the legal basis for republic independence and the Union's 1991 dissolution. The draft was endorsed 29 December 1922 by delegations of the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Transcaucasian Soviet republics.