Written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership,[3] the song is a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." and the Beach Boys' "California Girls".

The Beatles recorded "Back in the U.S.S.R." as a three-piece after Ringo Starr temporarily left the group, in protest at McCartney's criticism of his drumming and the tensions that typified the sessions for the White Album.

Released three months after the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Beatles' sympathetic portrayal of the USSR prompted condemnation in the West from both the New Left and the political right.

[4] Donovan, the Scottish singer-songwriter who joined the Beatles in India, said that "Back in the U.S.S.R." was one of the "funny little ditties" that McCartney regularly played at the ashram, adding that "of course, melodious ballads just poured out of him".

[9] In a November 1968 interview for Radio Luxembourg, McCartney said the song was inspired by Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." and was written from the point of view of a Russian spy returning home to the USSR after an extended mission in the United States.

[14][nb 1] In his 1984 interview with Playboy magazine, McCartney said he wrote it as "a kind of Beach Boys parody" based on "Back in the U.S.A." He added: I just liked the idea of Georgia girls and talking about places like the Ukraine as if they were California, you know?

[18] The effect also appears partway through the recording and represents an "aural cartoon", according to music critic Tim Riley, who says the song is "offered as a hoot and delivered as such".

[23] According to Riley, while "Back in the U.S.S.R." is usually viewed as a Beach Boys parody – specifically, a "send-up" of "California Girls" and "Surfin' U.S.A." – its "more direct association" is with Berry's track.

[26] While rehearsing "Back in the U.S.S.R.", on 22 August 1968, Ringo Starr became tired of McCartney's criticism of his drumming on the song, and of the bad atmosphere generally,[27][28][29] and walked out, intent on quitting the group.

[18][nb 4] Five takes were recorded of the basic track, featuring McCartney on drums, George Harrison on electric guitar, and John Lennon on Fender Bass VI.

[18][30] After the other Beatles urged him to return, Starr rejoined the group on 4 September to participate in the filming of a promotional clip for their "Hey Jude" single.

"[53] Record Mirror's initial reviewer wrote: "The LP begins with a rock based, falsetto backed number called 'Back In The USSR' concerning the attributes of Russian women.

[55]Writing in Partisan Review, Geoffrey Cannon said that The Beatles showed the band failing to engage with the contemporary rock audience in the manner that the Rolling Stones had done on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet.

"[56] In his review for The New York Times, Nik Cohn similarly complained that "they hide behind send-up: the middle eight of 'Back in the U.S.S.R.,' for instance, is pure surf-age Beach Boys but it's all half-hearted and limp".

[57] Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone described "Back in the U.S.S.R." as the "perfect example" of the Beatles' ability to quote from others' work and "expand the idiom, but ... [also] to penetrate it and take it further" in a way that recent satirical albums by the Turtles and Frank Zappa had failed to do.

He added: "It would be too simple to say that 'Back In the USSR' is a parody, because it operates on more levels than that: it is fine contemporary rock and roll and ... also a superb commentary on the United States S. R., hitting every insight – 'honey, disconnect the phone.'

"[58][nb 8] Richard Goldstein of The New York Times praised the double album's "burlesque of musical forms", saying that it represented "almost a mock-history of pop" in which "Back in the U.S.S.R." was "a rock primer, quoting the Jefferson Airplane, the Beach Boys, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles".

[60] Tim Riley describes "Back in the U.S.S.R." as "Brian Wilson with sex appeal" and an example of how, further to "Lady Madonna", several of McCartney's 1968 compositions "straddle the ironic distance between genre treatments and fresh, inventive material that stands well on its own".

[68] In his commentary for the magazine, English singer Billy Bragg said that 1968 was when "our love affair with all things American began to turn sour", with the year marked by reports of US atrocities in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the gesture of African-American athletes introducing Black Power politics at the Mexico Olympic Games, and Richard Nixon's victory in the US presidential race.

Bragg added: "By opening [the White Album] with this wonderful inversion of Chuck Berry's "Back In The USA", The Beatles made clear whose side they were on ... Subversive or just mischievous?

[73] In Riley's view, the song's mocking tone and communist setting thereby had "the desired effect of inciting the [ire]" of the John Birch Society, who misunderstood the lyrics' "sympathetic socialism".

[24] Ian MacDonald described the song as "a rather tactless jest", given that the Soviet Army had recently invaded Czechoslovakia and thwarted that country's attempt to introduce democratic reforms.

He says that, just as the Beatles provided a source of unity with the West for contemporary Russian music fans, the band set out to mock the "new Western narrative" presented by both McCarthyism and the New Left.

[72] Although the Beatles never performed in the USSR, Elton John was permitted to visit the country in 1979 in a historic concert tour, which Billboard magazine referred to as the first there by an "out-and-out rock artist".