As part of the Soviet Union, Armenia initially experienced stabilization under the administration of Alexander Miasnikian during Vladimir Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP).

During its seventy-one year history, the republic was transformed from a largely agricultural hinterland to an important industrial production center, while its population almost quadrupled from around 880,000 in 1926 to 3.3 million in 1989 due to natural growth and large-scale influx of Armenian genocide survivors and their descendants.

It was initially "Hayastani Socʼialistakan Xorhrdayin Hanrapetutʼyun" (Հայաստանի Սոցիալիստական Խորհրդային Հանրապետություն, Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia).

[6] Thereafter, direct borrowings of soviet (սովետական, sovetakan) and republic (ռեսպուբլիկա, ṙespublika) were included in the formal name on 22 August 1940, in accordance with a regulation approved by the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment of the Armenian SSR.

Following the collapse of the empire, in May 1918, Armenia, and its neighbors Azerbaijan and Georgia, declared their independence from Russian rule and each established their respective republics.

The policies of the first Soviet Armenian government, the Revolutionary Committee (Revkom), headed by young, inexperienced, and militant communists such as Sarkis Kasyan and Avis Nurijanian, were implemented in a highhanded manner and did not take into consideration the poor conditions of the republic and the general weariness of the people after years of conflict and civil strife.

[17] Convinced that these heavy-handed tactics were the source of the alienation of the native population to Soviet rule, in 1921, Lenin appointed Myasnikyan, an experienced administrator, to carry out a more moderate policy and one better attuned to Armenian national sensibilities.

[20] In Armenia, the Soviet government directed all illiterate citizens up to the age of fifty to attend school and learn to read Armenian, which became the official language of the republic.

In the Caucasus, Stalin's ally in Georgia, Lavrentiy Beria, sought to consolidate his control over the region, resulting in a political struggle with Armenian First Secretary Aghasi Khanjian.

Expressions of "nationalism" were suspect and many leading Armenian intellectuals were executed or imprisoned, including Charents, Bakunts, Gurgen Mahari, Vahan Totovents, Nersik Stepanyan, and others.

[23] In response, in September 1937, he sent Georgy Malenkov, Mikhail Litvin, and later Anastas Mikoyan to oversee a purge of the Communist Party of Armenia.

[27] In addition to the repression of the Church, tens of thousands of Armenians were executed or deported, as with various other ethnic minorities living in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

In 1936, Beria and Stalin worked to deport Armenians to Siberia in an attempt to bring Armenia's population under 700,000 in order to justify an annexation into Georgia.

[32] Another prominent wartime figure was Artem Mikoyan, the younger brother of Anastas and the designer and co-founder of the Soviet MiG fighter jet company.

Armenians living in countries such as Cyprus, France, Greece, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria were primarily the survivors or the descendants of the genocide.

[38][39] Lured by numerous incentives such as food coupons, better housing and other benefits, they were received coldly by the Armenians living in the Republic upon their arrival.

[43] In his "secret speech" "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" that he delivered before the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956, Khrushchev sharply denounced Stalin and his crimes.

During the subsequent Khrushchev Thaw, the Soviet leadership largely loosened political restrictions and put more resources into housing and consumer goods.

In March 1954, two years before Khrushchev denounced Stalin, Mikoyan gave a speech in Yerevan where he encouraged the republication of Raffi and Raphael Patkanian, the rehabilitation of Charents, and the revival of the memory of Miasnikian.

[23] The massive statue of Stalin that towered over Yerevan was pulled down from its pedestal by troops literally overnight in 1962 and replaced in 1967 with that of Mother Armenia.

The Matenadaran, a facility to house ancient and medieval manuscripts was erected in 1959, and important historical studies were prepared by a new cadre of Soviet-trained scholars.

Other famed Soviet Armenians included composers Aram Khachaturian, Arno Babajanian, Konstantin Orbelyan, and Tigran Mansurian; scientists Viktor Hambardzumyan and Artem Alikhanyan; actors Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and Frunzik Mkrtchyan; filmmakers Frunze Dovlatyan, Henrik Malyan, Sergei Parajanov, and Artavazd Peleshyan; artists Minas Avetisyan, Yervand Kochar, Hakob Kojoyan, and Tereza Mirzoyan; singers Georgi Minasyan, Raisa Mkrtchyan, and Ruben Matevosyan; and writers Avetik Isahakyan, Silva Kaputikyan, Hrant Matevosyan, Paruyr Sevak, and Hovhannes Shiraz, among many others.

The reasons largely stemmed from Moscow's perceived indecision on Karabakh, ongoing difficulties with earthquake relief, and the shortcomings of the Soviet economy.

[54][55] On 17 March 1991, Armenia, along with the Baltics, Georgia and Moldova, boycotted the union-wide referendum in which 78% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form.

All officials holding office were mandated to be members of the Communist Party and sessions were convened in the Supreme Soviet building in Yerevan.

Depending on the historical period, Soviet authorities would variously tolerate, co-opt, undermine, or sometimes even attempt to eliminate certain currents within Armenian society, such as nationalism and religion, to strengthen the cohesiveness of the Union.

In the eyes of early Soviet policymakers, Armenians, along with Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, Germans, and Jews were deemed "advanced" (as opposed to "backward") peoples, and were grouped together with Western nationalities.

According to Nikita Khrushchev, the latter became a source of dispute between the Soviet Union and Turkey in the 1950s, when Ankara objected to the inclusion of Mount Ararat, which holds a deep symbolic importance for Armenians but is located on Turkish territory, in the coat of arms.

Beginning in the late 1920s, privately owned farms in Armenia were collectivized and placed under the directive of the state, although this was often met with active resistance by the peasantry.

The economic revolution of the 1930s, however, came at a great cost: it broke up the traditional peasant family and village institution and forced many living in the rural countryside to settle in urban areas.