Autonomous republics and oblasts of the Soviet Union

An autonomous republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, styled Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR, Russian: автономная советская социалистическая республика, АССР, romanized: avtonomnaya sovetskaya sotsialisticheskaya respublika), was a type of administrative unit created for certain ethnic groups to be the titular nations of. The ASSRs had a status lower than the constituent union republics of the USSR, but higher than the autonomous oblasts and the autonomous okrugs.

The level of political, administrative and cultural autonomy ASSRs enjoyed within the USSR varied with time—it was most substantial in the 1920s (Korenizatsiya), in the 1950s after the death of Joseph Stalin, and in the Brezhnev Era (1964–1982). In the Russian SFSR, for example, the various chairmen of the governments of the ASSRs were officially members of the Government of the Russian SFSR.

Autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union were administrative units created for a number of smaller nations, which were given autonomy within the fifteen republics of the USSR.