Russia and the Soviet Union, terms and concepts

revolution

The forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.

Marxism

The political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism.

revolution

The forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.

Marxism

The political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism.

bourgeoisie

The middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes. In Marxist contexts, the capitalist class who own most of society's wealth and means of production.

proletariat

A term used to describe the working-class people collectively, often used with reference to Marxism and sometimes used to mean the workers in heavy industry in particular.

Provisional Government

The temporary government of Russia established immediately following the abdication of Nicholas II. The intention of this government was the organization of elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and its convention.

Red Army

The army of the Soviet Union, established in 1918 and led to victory by Leon Trotsky in the Russian Civil War 1918-1921.

SOVNARKOM, the Council of People's Commissars

Effectively a cabinet of ministers for the Soviet Union, although the Bolsheviks avoided using those bourgeois-sounding terms, preferring "commissar" over "minister". The first cabinet was formed in November 1917 and contained 17 different commissars, each with a different portfolio or area of responsibility.

commissar

A head of a government department in the former Soviet Union before 1946.

Soviet

A revolutionary council of workers or peasants in Russia before 1917, later becoming an elected local, district, or national council in the former Soviet Union.

War Communism

The name given to the economic system that existed in Russia from 1918 to 1921, introduced by Lenin to combat the economic problems brought on by the Civil War in Russia. It was a combination of emergency measures and communist dogma, most notably including grain requisitioning.

NEP, New Economic Policy

An economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterised the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control," while the "dizzying heights" of the economy (like heavy industry and mining) remained under direct state control.

Comintern

Also known as the Third International, was an international organisation founded in 1919 that advocated world communism, headquartered in Moscow and sponsoring communist movements around the world.

agitprop

Political (specifically communist) propaganda, especially in art or literature.

Cheka 1918-1922

The much-feared Bolshevik security agency, formed in 1918 and superceded in 1922 by the OGPU, to identify and eradicate counter-revolutionary activity. The organisation is sometimes referred to as the Bolshevik 'secret police', though most Russians were well aware of its existence and activities.

OGPU 1922-1934

The successor organisation of the Cheka, in operation from 1922 to 1934 and was succeeded by the NKVD.

NKVD 1934-46

The successor organisation of the OGPU, in operation from 1934 to 1946.

collectivisation

The process by which agriculture in the USSR was transformed into large, industrial farms by combining many small plots of land and herds of livestock into larger units. This began as a voluntary process but was imposed with force by Staln in 1929.

industrialisation

A massive program undertaken by Stalin to modernise and expand the Soviet economy using the methods of central planning.

dekulakisation

The Soviet campaign of political repressions targeting the most prosperous peasants of the country, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of these peasants and their families.

cadre

A group of activists from the communist Party.

25,000ers

The name for those Party members who took part in establishing new kolkhozy and in strengthening the weak ones, conducting political, educational and cultural work among the inhabitants of the rural areas.

Five Year Plans (Pyatiletki)

Plans for the development of the national economy of the USSR, which consisted of a series of nationwide centralised economic plans in the Soviet Union, beginning in the late 1920s.

kolkhoz

Collective farms in the Soviet Union, operated by peasants who were paid on the basis of the labour contributed. Launched in 1929 by Stalin, with opposition from a strong portion of the party (the Right Opposition, which was defeated and later eliminated), the plan was a forced "voluntary" union of peasants.

Politburo

The principal policymaking committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, comprised of between seven and twelve members.

Permanent Revolution

A theory, developed by Leon Trotsky, that in a backward society, such as that of Russia in the early 1900s, a bourgeois revolution would evolve into a proletarian, socialist revolution and would inspire the continuous or permanent outbreak of socialist revolutions internationally. It was the vision for the Soviet Union that Trotsky advocated during the Power Struggle of the 1920s.

"Socialism in one Country"

Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to build and strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally.

Gosplan

The State Planning Committee, the central board that supervised various aspects of the planned economy of the Soviet Union by translating into specific national plans the general economic objectives outlined by the Communist Party and the government.

MTS, Mobile Tractor Stations

A key element of the mechanisation of Soviet agriculture, these stations rented heavy agricultural machinery and skilled personnel to collective farms.

dictatorship

A form of government characterised by a single leader (dictator) or group of leaders that hold government power promised to the people and little or no toleration for political pluralism or independent media.

totalitarianism

A form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control and regulation over public and private life.

apparatchik

An official in a large political organization; and in the context of this topic, an official of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, especially one who carries out the directives of the Party's leadership without question.

Mensheviks

A Russian socialist party that followed the theories of Karl Marx. They began as part of the Social Democratic Labour Party or SDs, but they split from their rivals in 1903 and then evolved to become a more moderate party advocating the attainment of Marxist goals through peaceful and reformist methods.

Bolsheviks

A far-left, revolutionary Marxist faction and then party founded by Vladimir Lenin that split from their rivals in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903 and pursued a hardline policy for attaining Marxist goals through violent revolution, ultimately achieved in 1917.

SRs, Socialist-Revolutionaries

Non-Marxist, agrarian socialists and supporters of a democratic socialist Russian republic. They were eventually destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the years following the 1917 October Revolution.

the Young Pioneers

A mass youth organization of the Soviet Union for children and adolescents aged age 9–15 that existed between 1922 and 1991.

Komsomol

A political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was the final stage of three youth organizations with members up to age 28, graduated at 14 from the Young Pioneers, and at nine from the Little Octobrists.

the Little Octobrists

The name of a youth organization for children in the Soviet Union between 7 and 9 years of age. After the age of nine, in the 3rd grade, members of this group would typically join the Young Pioneer organisation.

kulak

The term which was used to describe peasants who owned over 8 acres (3.2 hectares) of land towards the end of the Russian Empire. In the early Soviet Union, it became a vague term applied to the wealthiest peasants or often simply to any peasant who resisted the Communist government's policies.

Stakhanovites

A term referring to workers who modeled themselves after Alexey Stakhanov. These workers took pride in their ability to produce more than was required, by working harder and more efficiently, thus strengthening the socialist state.

NKVD troika

During the Terror, these were NKVD bodies made up of three officials who issued sentences to people after simplified, speedy investigations and without a public and fair trial.

"social-fascists"

The term used pejoratively to describe social-democratic parties, anti-Comintern and progressive socialist parties and dissenters within Comintern affiliates throughout the interwar period.

Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

The name of the domestic armed struggle between Nationalist and Republican forces in Spain, which became a proxy war for the Fascist powers of Europe (Germany and Italy) which supported the Nationalists and the Communist Soviet Union which supported the Republicans. And what was the timespan?

the Winter War, 1939-40

Also known as the First Soviet-Finnish War, was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. Despite superior military strength, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. And what was the timespan?

the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939

A non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those two powers to partition Poland between them.

the Tenth Party Congress, 1921

The Communist Party congress that introduced a ban on factions within the Party as well as the New Economic Policy. The Kronstadt Rebellion also started halfway through the Congress.

the Thirteenth Party Congress, 1924

This congress was the Russian Communist Party's first to take place after the death of Vladimir Lenin, and represents a transition between the Lenin and Joseph Stalin regimes. It was also the first confrontation between the Left Opposition (led by Leon Trotsky) and the "troika" (led by Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev). Lenin's Testament was also read out during the Congress.

the Left Opposition

A faction within the Russian Communist Party from 1923 to 1927 headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The faction argued that the New Economic Policy had weakened the Soviet Union and wanted the state to adopt a programme of mass industrialisation and to encourage the mechanisation and collectivisation of agriculture.

the New Opposition

A faction formed in the Communist Party in late 1924 and composed of Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and their supporters, which was pitted against Stalin and the Party 'Centre'.

the United Opposition

A faction formed in the Communist Party in early 1926, when the previous faction led by Leon Trotsky merged with the faction led Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev in order to strengthen opposition against the Joseph Stalin led Centre of the Party.

the Right Opposition

A conditional label formulated by Stalin in regards to the opposition against certain measures included within the first five-year plan by Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union that did not follow the so called "general line of the party".

Lenin's final testament

A document supposedly dictated by Vladimir Lenin in the final weeks of 1922 and the first week of 1923. In the document, Lenin gave criticism of Bolshevik leaders Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin, Pyatakov and Stalin, and in a post-script he also suggested that Stalin be removed from his post as General-Secretary.

appeasement

The term most often applied to describe the foreign policy of the British government towards Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy between 1935 and 1939, in which the British government attempted to avoid war by conceeding to the territorial demands of Hitler in Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

League of Nations

An organization for international cooperation, established on January 10, 1920, at the initiative of the victorious Allied powers at the end of World War I.

Munich Conference

An agreement concluded in 1938 by Germany, Britain, France, and Italy, providing "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia and often considered the high point of the British policy of appeasement.

internationalism

Supporters of this worldview generally believe that humans should unite across national, political, cultural or racial boundaries to advance their common interests. In the case of Communism, internationalism holds, but in so far as uniting the interests of the working class of the world across national, political, cultural or racial boundaries.

counter-revolutionary

A label used against anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. In the Soviet Union, the label was applied more losely against anyone who opposed Stalin's regime, including those who still considered themselves loyal Communists.

tainted biography

The term used by historians to describe those people in Soviet society who felt as if they lived under a cloud of suspicion because either a member of their family had been arrested as an "enemy of the people" or because they belonged to one of the ideologically incorrect classes, like the nobility, prior to the revolution.

bureacratisation

Used in the context of the Soviet Union, it is the tendency for the Party to lose its original dynamism and to devlove into an organisation directed from the top and filled with careerist apparatchiks afraid to deviate from the Party line. The Left Opposition, emerging in late 1923, accused the Stalin-led Party of this tendency.

capitalism

An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

CC, Central Committee

The executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress and comprised of between one and two hundred members.

Collective Security

A security arrangement in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and therefore commits to a collective response to threats. It was promoted with little success by Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, especially in response to the rise of Nazi Germany from 1933.

cult of personality

The result of an effort which is made to create an idealised and heroic image of a leader by a government, often through unquestioning flattery and praise and complete with elaborate iconography fashioned through state-sponsored propaganda.

General Secretary

The holder of this office was the de facto leader of the Soviet Union, because the post controlled the Party, the foreign and internal politic of the state and the federal government.

GLAVLIT, Main Administration for Publishing Affairs

The official censorship organ in the Soviet Union.

Pravda

The official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. "Pravda" is Russian for "truth" (that's irony!)

gulag

A system of forced labor camps established during Joseph Stalin's long reign as dictator of the Soviet Union.

League of Militant Atheists

An atheistic and antireligious organisation of workers and intelligentsia that developed in Soviet Russia under influence of the ideological and cultural views and policies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1947.

nomenklatura

In the Soviet Union, the system whereby influential posts in government and industry were filled by Party appointees. Also: those people or the group of people (as in, the Party elite) appointed to posts in government or industry under the nomenklatura system.

blat

In the Soviet Union, a form of corruption, which is a system of informal agreements, exchanges of services, connections, Party contacts, or black market deals to achieve results or get ahead.

socialist-realism

A style of idealised realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country from 1932, which is characterised by the depiction of communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat and the creation of a socialist utopia thanks to the industrialisation campaign of Stalin.

Orgburo

Established during Lenin's reign to make important decisions about organisational work in the Soviet Union.

Popular Front

"Any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social-democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".

grain requisitioning (Prodrazverstka)

A policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal fixed prices according to specified quotas. This practice was implemented under War Communism and later again during the Collectivisation campaign.

purge

The removal from a position or the execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government.

the Great Terror/the Great Purge (Yezhovshchina)

The arrests, executions and impronments that overwhelmed the Communist Party and Soviet society during the years 1936 to 1938, directed by Stalin and the leader of the NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, and aimed at ridding the country of potentially disloyal elements.

show trial

The public trials staged against former oppositionists to Stalin, like Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and Rykov, in which the Soviet authorities had already determined the guilt of the defendants.

smychka

A popular political term in Soviet Russia and Soviet Union, which can be roughly translated as "collaboration in society" and which was understood as the alliance of proletariat and the poor peasantry, effectively, the symbol of the hammer and the sickle.

vidvizhentsy

The name given to a broad group of Party members and managers who received promotions throughout the 1930s and were the main beneficiaries of the transformations taking place under Stalin's leadership. Many were loyal supporters of the regime.

the "Great Retreat"

The term used to describe the shift in the mid-1930s, when the Stalinist regime began to overturn many of the most radical social policies introduced immediately following the 1917 revolution, pushing instead very conservative policies aimed at reviving the traditional family and the role of the father in particular.

avant garde

Work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society, and which is frequently characterised by aesthetic innovation.

Red Terror

A campaign of political repression and executions carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, immediately following the 1917 revolution up to about 1922.

the Lenin Levy

An effort from 1923 to 1925 to enroll more members of the proletariat into the Communist party and incite them to become active in party affairs. In total, over 500,000 were recruited, and many historians have speculated that the levy was orchestrated by Stalin to flood the Party with new members who would be loyal to himself.

the Stakhanovite movement

A movement in the Soviet Union encouraged due to the idea of socialist emulation. It began in the coal industry but later spread to many other industries in the Soviet Union. The movement eventually encountered resistance as the increased productivity led to increased demands on workers.

Treaty of Rapallo

An agreement signed on 16 April 1922 between the German Republic and Soviet Russia under which both renounced all territorial and financial claims against each other and opened friendly diplomatic relations.

the Russian Civil War, 1918-20

A conflict in which the Red Army successfully defended the newly formed Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin against various Russian and interventionist anti-Bolshevik armies, collectively referred to as the "Whites".

power struggle

The situation in which Stalin competed with other rivals, namely Trotsky and Zinoviev, for the control of the Communist Party and Soviet government following the death of Lenin.

central planning

An economic approach where the government will take ownership of the means of production and run the economy in the interest of workers according to a predesigned effect and with the implementation of production quotas as opposed to the mechanisms of the free market.

fifth column

A group of secret sympathisers or supporters of an external enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within a country to help the external enemy prior to or during invasion.

the scissors crisis

A name given in early 1923 by Trotsky to describe a tendency emerging during the New Economic Policy (NEP), when there was a widening gap between industrial and agricultural prices, which he predicted would lead to peasants hording grain and to the starvation of the cities.

the Party rank-and-file

The ordinary members of an organization (in this case, of the Communist Party), as opposed to its leaders or managers.

free enterprise

An economic system in which private business operates in competition and largely free of state control.

Pavlik Morozov

A Soviet youth praised by the Soviet press as a martyr. His story, dated to 1932, is that of a 13-year-old boy who denounced his father to the authorities and was in turn killed by his family. His politicised and mythologised story was used to encourage Soviet children to also inform on their parents.

the Declaration of the 46

The Declaration of 46 was a secret letter sent by a group of 46 leading Soviet communists to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 15 October 1923. The declaration followed Leon Trotsky's letter, which was sent to the Politburo on 8 October and expressed similar concerns and thus laying the foundation for the Left Opposition within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union later that year.

Trofim Lysenko

A Soviet agronomist and pseudo-scientist, who was a favourite of Stalin's. He was a strong proponent of Lamarckism, and rejected Mendelian genetics in favour of his own idiosyncratic, pseudoscientific ideas later termed Lysenkoism.

Lamarckism

The notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. This idea stood in opposition to Darwinian and Mendelian ideas about the biological inheritence of characteristics.

Lysenkoism

A political campaign led by Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko against genetics and science-based agriculture in the mid-20th century, rejecting natural selection in favour of a form of Lamarckism. In time, the term has come to be identified as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically or socially desirable.

Leon Trotksy

A Russian revolutionary, political theorist and Soviet politician, he was instrumental in leading the Red Guards in the seizure of crucial government buildings in Petrograd during the October Revolution and later in leading the Red Army to victory in the Civil War. After unsuccessfully challanging Stalin in the power struggle, he was exiled from the Soviet Union and later assassinated by a Stalinist agent while hiding in Mexico.

Grigory Zinoviev

A Soviet revolutionary and politician. During the 1920s, he was one of the most influential figures in the Soviet leadership and the chairman of the Communist International. In the same decade, he led the New Opposition and later the United Opposition with Trotsky and Kamenev.

Lev Kamenev

A Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He remained close friends and allies with Zinoviev, with whom he formed the New Opposition and later, along with Trotksy, the United Opposition.

Alexei Rykov

A Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. Along with Bukharin and Tomsky, he was one of three most prominent members of the Right Opposition during the 1920s.