Stalin

Lenin

Founded the Communist Party in Russia and set up the world's first Communist Party dictatorship. He led the October Revolution of 1917, in which the Communists seized power in Russia. He then ruled the country until his death in 1924.

Leon Trotsky

Russian revolutionary and Communist theorist who helped Lenin and built up the army

New Economic Policy

Policy proclaimed by Vladimir Lenin in 1924 to encourage the revival of the Soviet economy by allowing small private business and farming using markets instead of communist state ownership. His idea was that the Soviet state would just control "the commanding heights" of the economy like major industry, while allowing ordinary citizens to operate business and property ownership as normal. Joseph Stalin ended this in 1928 and replaced it with greater state ownership, collectivization, and a series of Five-Year Plans.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

A 1918 peace treaty between the Central Powers and Soviet Russia that ended Russia's involvement in World War I, ceding significant territory to Germany.

Bolsheviks

A group of revolutionary Russian Marxists who took control of Russia's government in November 1917

Mensheviks

The party which opposed to the Bolsheviks. Started in 1903 by Martov, after dispute with Lenin. The Mensheviks wanted a democratic party with mass membership.

Left Opposition

Trotsky's group who argued that it was necessary to focus on the spread of revolution to the industrialized nations of western Europe. believed that Communism couldn't survive unless it spread

Right Opposition

Was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s.

Troika

a Russian carriage pulled by three horses abreast

5 year plans

Soviet economic programs for rapid, centralized industrialization, shifting from an agrarian to an industrial power through state control, prioritizing heavy industry (coal, steel, electricity) and forced agricultural collectivization

Collectivization

a system in which private farms are eliminated and peasants work land owned by the government

Dizzy with success

-March 1930

-written by Stalin blaming party leader for the excesses of forced collectivization

-said peasants could leave collective farms; resulted in a mass exodus

Kirov

Old friend and revolutionary companion of Stalin since 1909. Was very popular with the workers and soldiers in Petrograd/Leningrad. Showed signs of appealing to the disaffected. Stalin became very jealous of him. In 1934 he was assassinated in his office - most probably by an agent of Stalin. But Stalin used this assassination as an excuse to strike out at his opponents, real/imagined, and a revival of "terror" ensued. All told, there were about 100+ executions of high-ranking revolutionaries in the 4 year purged that followed. No-one seemed safe. During this time even Stalin's wife, an old Bolshevik revolutionary herself, was driven to "suicide."

Grigory Zinoviev

A prominent member of the Bolshevik Party, closely associated with Lev Kamenev and a close friend of Lenin during Lenin's years in exile. Initially resisting Lenin's call to hold a revolution sooner rather than later, Zinoviev played virtually no role in the October Revolution and temporarily receded from party activities after the revolution. However, he became a member of the Politburo in 1919 and went on to serve in the Soviet government until he was arrested and executed during Stalin's purges in the 1930s.

Lev Kamenev

Kamenev joined the Bolsheviks and was elected to the Politburo in 1917. He, like Zinoviev, had opposed Lenin's call for a second revolution in November, following the revolution in March 1917. He became the leader of the Moscow party organization. As one of the triumvirs, he had supported Stalin immediately after Lenin's death but later joined with Zinoviev in forming a United Opposition with Trotsky. After this was defeated, he made peace with Stalin but was executed in 1936.

Great Terror

From 1936-1938, Stalin carries out Great Purges to remove all memory of the Bolshevik revoltion thereby controlling history.

Show Trials

Old bolsheviks confessed to crimes against the soviet union; Shown to the world- showed Stalin was right

Nikolai Bukharin

Bolshevik revolutionary and political and intellectual thinker for Stalin. Supported the NEP

Alexi Rykov

Alexei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician most prominent as Premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively

Mikhail Tomsky

Trade union leader, favouring NEP, elected to be member of Politburo. He openly criticized Stalin and committed suicide in 1936.

Nazi-Soviet Pact

A secret agreement between the Germans and the Russians that said that they would not attack each other

Pravda

Means truth. The Bolshevik party's newspaper whose offices were shut down by provisional government troops.

Politburo

A seven-member committee that became the leading policy-making body of the Communist Party in Russia

Revolution From above

a process of radical political and social change initiated following the capture of the state by a new modernizing elite

Kulaks

wealthy farmers

Dekulakization

This term refers to the campaign to eradicate the class of better-off peasants as part of the drive to collectivize Russia. This often involved shooting the adult males. Others were sentenced to prison camps. In most cases, whole families were deported to Siberia. About 10 million people were deported to Siberia as a result of this campaign.

Gulag

Russian prison camp for political prisoners

Famine, 1932-1933

Millions of people died and it was after the heavy losses of Russia in WWI.

Carrot and Stick Method

using rewards and penalties

Shakty Trial

In 1928, by Stalin the first of show trials to publicize people that are "against" the soviets. arrest these engineers & noblemen (the bourgeoisie experts) accused of wrecking agriculture. These people are secretly trying to ruin everything, accused of espionage, running machines. (this is made up of course)

Young Communist League

The youth branch of the PCC. This is intended to encourage young people to support Communism.

NKVD

Stalin's secret police

Secret Policy

cult of personality and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party

People's Commissariat for Enlightenment

- Ministry of Culture and Art

- Set up by the Bolsheviks shortly after the 1917 October Revolution

- Aimed to indoctrinate people into socialism through culture

Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact

The Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, also known as the Japanese-Soviet Non-aggression Pact, was a pact between the Soviet Union and Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the brief Soviet-Japanese Border War.