How many Soviet republics were there?

These figures were taken by me from a textbook on history, authored by Doctors of Historical Sciences, Isupov and Kuznetsov. I know both of them personally; they are professional historians from the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and teach at Novosibirsk State University. I prefer to believe their data because you have not provided any other data.
My great-grandfather fought in the war, was captured, and escaped. And no one put him in a camp afterward; on the contrary, he was awarded. So, not everyone was imprisoned.
The question of the ideological essence of the USSR is very interesting. But the main thing that is often forgotten is that the ideology was not static but constantly changing. Take, for example, the dominant ideas of 1924, 1933, 1939, 1945, 1953, and 1956. They are radically different. As a rule, when analyzing the USSR, only data from the period of 1982-1989 is used. But this is a period of the most severe crisis. Let's then talk about the USA only during the Great Depression; that would be more objective. And here, take the data for the same year 1937: there was everything in the stores.
And one more question for you: who unleashed the repressions, and who was most involved in them?