1.
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Molotov served as Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars from 1930 to 1941, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956. He served as First Deputy Premier from 1942 to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev, Molotov retired in 1961 after several years of obscurity. He was aware of the Katyn massacre committed by the Soviet authorities during this period, after World War II, Molotov was involved in negotiations with the Western allies, in which he became noted for his diplomatic skills. He retained his place as a leading Soviet diplomat and politician until March 1949, Molotovs relationship with Stalin deteriorated further, with Stalin criticising Molotov in a speech to the 19th Party Congress. However, after Stalins death in 1953, Molotov was staunchly opposed to Khrushchevs de-Stalinisation policy, Molotov defended Stalins policies and legacy until his death in 1986, and harshly criticised Stalins successors, especially Khrushchev. Molotov was born Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin in the village of Kukarka, Yaransk Uyezd, Vyatka Governorate, contrary to a commonly repeated error, he was not related to the composer Alexander Scriabin. Throughout his teen years, he was described as shy and quiet and he was educated at a secondary school in Kazan, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, soon gravitating toward that organisations radical Bolshevik faction, headed by V. I. Skryabin took the pseudonym Molotov, derived from the Russian word молот molot for his political work owing to the names vaguely industrial ring and he was arrested in 1909 and spent two years in exile in Vologda. In 1911 he enrolled at St Petersburg Polytechnic, Molotov joined the editorial staff of a new underground Bolshevik newspaper called Pravda, meeting Joseph Stalin for the first time in association with the project. This first association between the two future Soviet leaders proved to be brief, however, and did not lead to a close political association. Molotov worked as a professional revolutionary for the next several years, writing for the party press. He moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1914 at the time of the outbreak of World War I and it was in Moscow the following year that Molotov was again arrested for his party activity, this time being deported to Irkutsk in eastern Siberia. In 1916 he escaped from his Siberian exile and returned to the city, now called Petrograd by the Tsarist regime. Molotov became a member of the Bolshevik Partys committee in Petrograd in 1916, when the February Revolution occurred in 1917, he was one of the few Bolsheviks of any standing in the capital. Under his direction Pravda took to the left to oppose the Provisional Government formed after the revolution, when Joseph Stalin returned to the capital, he reversed Molotovs line, but when the party leader Lenin arrived, he overruled Stalin. Despite this, Molotov became a protégé of and close adherent to Stalin, Molotov became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee which planned the October Revolution, which effectively brought the Bolsheviks to power. In 1918, Molotov was sent to Ukraine to take part in the war then breaking out. Since he was not a man, he took no part in the fighting
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Vyacheslav Molotov Вячеслав Молотов
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Molotov in his youth
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Molotov's birth house in
Sovetsk, Kirov Oblast
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
A list from the
Great Purge signed by Molotov, Stalin,
Voroshilov,
Kaganovich and
Zhdanov
2.
Stalin
–
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
Stalin
–
Stalin at the
Tehran Conference in 1943.
Stalin
–
Prior to the revolution of 1917, Stalin played an active role in fighting the Russian government. Here he is shown on a 1911 information card from the files of the Russian police in Saint Petersburg.
Stalin
–
A group of participants in the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, 1919. In the middle are Stalin,
Vladimir Lenin, and
Mikhail Kalinin.
3.
Alexander Poskrebyshev
–
Alexander Nikolaevich Poskrebyshev was a Soviet politician and a state and Communist Party functionary. A member of the Communist Party since March 1917, he was chief of the department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Poskrebyshev was born on 7 August 1891, in the village of Uspenskoe near the city of Vyatka in the Russian Empire and he had one brother, Ivan, and two sisters, Olga and Alexandra. He studied to become an assistant, graduating in 1918. Poskrebyshev was involved at a stage in the activities of the Communist Party. He was elected secretary of the division of the Bolshevik party soon after joining the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He moved to Moscow in 1922 within the Central Committee of the CPSU, from 1924 on he worked with Stalin, when he was assigned to the Kremlin. He became an administrator in the Secret Section of the Central Committee shortly thereafter, between 1924 and 1929 he was a Manager of the office of General Secretary of Central Committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1927 Poskrebyshev graduated in Law and Economics from the Department of Administration, in May 1929, Poskrebyshev became a Deputy of Ivan Tovstukha, Chief of the Secret Section of the Central Committee of the CPSU. On July 22,1930 Poskrebyshev was promoted to Chief of the Secret Section, in 1934 the Secret Section was reorganized as the Special Section of the Central Committee, and on March 10,1934 Poskrebyshev became the Chief of the Special Section. In 1934, Poskrebyshev was elected a member of the Central Committee at the 17th Congress of the CPSU. At the next two Congresses, he was made a full member, in 1935 Poskrebyshev became the Director of Administration of the General Secretary of Central Committee of CPSU, replacing Ivan Tovstukha, who died of tuberculosis. On the basis of Stalins short thesis, Poskrebyshev wrote texts called the Constitution of Soviet Union, since 1938 he was elected as a delegate to the first, and later of the second and third Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He stayed in Moscow, working with Stalin, during the Second World War, Poskrebyshev was also involved in planning of military operations. He prepared documents for the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, according to his daughter Natalia, Poskrebyshev worked almost 24 hours a day during the Second World War. He came home at 5 am and returned to work at 10 am, people who knew Poskrebyshev called him the living encyclopedia. He always had the answer to anything, after the Second World War Poskrebyshev actively participated in the rebuilding of the economy of the Soviet Union. The apex of Poskrebyshevs political career came in 1952, when he was appointed Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee, at the 19th Party Congress that year, Poskrebyshev was a keynote speaker, and he headed the Secretariat of the Congress
Alexander Poskrebyshev
–
Alexander Poskrebyshev and two daughters, Natasha (right) and Galya (left), 1940.
Alexander Poskrebyshev
–
Molotov,
Stalin and Poskrebyshev at the
17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party
4.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as the Soviet leader. His rule is best known for his liberalization of political and social life, and the end of terror as a means of social control
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
The Brezhnev era is commonly referred to by historians as the
Era of Stagnation, a term coined by CPSU General Secretary Gorbachev
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
Gorbachev, the last leader of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, as seen in 1986
5.
First Five-Year Plan
–
The first five-year plan of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals, created by General Secretary Joseph Stalin and based on his policy of Socialism in One Country. It was implemented between 1928 and 1932, in 1929, Stalin edited the plan to include the creation of kolkhoz collective farming systems that stretched over thousands of acres of land and had hundreds of peasants working on them. This disruption led to a famine in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan as well as areas of the Northern Caucasus. Despite the ruinous loss of life, the introduction of collective farms allowed peasants to use tractors to farm the land, unlike before when most had been too poor to own a tractor. Public machine and tractor stations were set up throughout the USSR, peasants were allowed to sell any surplus food from the land. However, the government planners failed to notice of local situations. In 1932, grain production was 32% below average, to add to this problem, agricultural production was so disrupted that famine broke out in several districts. Because of the reliance on rapid industrialization, major cultural changes had to occur in tandem. As this new social structure arose, conflicts occurred among some of the majority of the populations, in Turkmenistan, for example, the Soviet policy of collectivization shifted their production from cotton to food products. Prior to the enactment of the first Soviet five-year plan, the Soviet Union had been experiencing threats from external sources. The first war threat emerged from the East in 1924 and this war scare arose when Western nations, like Great Britain, began cutting off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. This created fear among the Soviets that the West was preparing to attack the Soviet Union again, during the Russian Civil War, foreign powers had occupied portions of Soviet territory. The fear of invasion from the west left the Soviets feeling a need for rapid industrialization to increase Soviet war making potential, at the same time as the war scare of 1927, dissatisfaction among the peasantry was emerging in the Soviet Union. This dissatisfaction arose from the famine of the early 1920s, as well as a growing mistreatment of the peasants, also during this time the secret police or the NKVD had begun rounding up political dissenters in the Soviet Union. The central aspect of the first Soviet five-year plan was the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union, the need for rapid industrialization was once again out of the fear of impending war from the West. If war were to break out between the Soviet Union and the West, the Soviets would be fighting against some of the most industrialized nations in the world, the rapid industrialization would inhibit fears of being left unprotected if War between the Soviets and the West were to occur. To meet the needs of a war, the Soviet leaders set unrealistic quotas for production. To meet those needs, the facilities had to be constructed to quickly facilitate material production before goods could be produced
First Five-Year Plan
–
Propaganda stand dedicated to the first five-year plan in
Moscow. 1931 colour photo by Branson DeCou.
First Five-Year Plan
–
Industrialization poster for the first five-year plan made by
Gustavs Klucis
6.
Joseph Stalin
–
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
Joseph Stalin
–
Stalin at the
Tehran Conference in 1943.
Joseph Stalin
–
Prior to the revolution of 1917, Stalin played an active role in fighting the Russian government. Here he is shown on a 1911 information card from the files of the Russian police in Saint Petersburg.
Joseph Stalin
–
A group of participants in the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, 1919. In the middle are Stalin,
Vladimir Lenin, and
Mikhail Kalinin.
7.
Sergei Kirov
–
Sergei Mironovich Kirov, born Kostrikov, was a prominent early Bolshevik leader in the Soviet Union. Kirov rose through the Communist Party ranks to head of the party organization in Leningrad. On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot and killed by a gunman at his offices in the Smolny Institute, some historians place the blame for his assassination at the hands of Joseph Stalin and believe the NKVD organized his execution, but conclusive evidence for this claim remains lacking. Complicity in Kirovs assassination was a charge to which the accused confessed in the show trials of the period. The cities of Kirov, Kirovohrad, Kirovakan, and Kirovabad, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kirovakan and Kirovabad returned to their original names, Vanadzor and Ganja, respectively. In order to comply with decommunization laws Kirovohrad was renamed in July 2016 by the Ukrainian parliament to Kropyvnytskyi, miron, an alcoholic, abandoned the family around 1890. In 1893, Yekaterina died of tuberculosis, through her connections, she succeeded in having Sergey placed in an orphanage, but he saw his sisters and grandmother regularly. In 1901 a group of wealthy benefactors provided a scholarship for him to attend a school at Kazan. After gaining his degree in engineering he moved to Tomsk in Siberia, Kirov became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1904. Kirov took part in the Russian Revolution of 1905, and was arrested and he joined with the Bolsheviks soon after being released from prison. In 1906, Kirov was arrested again, but this time jailed for over three years, charged with printing illegal literature. Soon after his release, he took part in revolutionary activity. Once again being arrested for printing illegal literature, after a year of custody, Kostrikov moved to the Caucasus, where he stayed until the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. By this time, Sergei Kostrikov had changed his name to Kirov in order to make his name easier to remember, kostrikove began using the pen name Kir, first publishing under the pseudonym Kirov on April 26,1912. One account states that he chose the name Kir, after a Christian martyr in third-century Egypt from an Orthodox calendar of saints days, a second story is that he based it on the name of the Persian king Cyrus. Kirov became commander of the Bolshevik military administration in Astrakhan, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he fought in the Russian Civil War until 1920. Simon Sebag Montefiore writes, During the Civil War, Kirov was one of the swashbuckling commissars in the North Caucasus beside Ordzhonikidze, in Astrakhan he enforced Bolshevik power in March 1919 with liberal bloodletting, more than 4,000 were killed. When a bourgeois was caught hiding his own furniture, Kirov ordered him shot, in 1921, he became manager of the Azerbaijan party organization
Sergei Kirov
–
Sergei Kirov Серге́й Миро́нович Ки́ров
Sergei Kirov
–
Kirov with
Sergo Ordzhonikidze in Leningrad factory
Sergei Kirov
–
Milda Draule and
Leonid Nikolayev
Sergei Kirov
–
The monument to Sergey Kirov in
Kirovohrad (
Ukraine)
8.
Leon Trotsky
–
Trotsky initially supported the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks just before the 1917 October Revolution, and he was, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov, one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution. He was a figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union from exile, on Stalins orders, he was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940 by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent. Trotskys ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a school of Marxist thought that opposes the theories of Stalinism. He was written out of the books under Stalin, and was one of the few Soviet political figures who was not rehabilitated by the government under Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s. It was not until the late 1980s that his books were released for publication in the Soviet Union and his parents were David Leontyevich Bronstein and his wife Anna Lvovna. The family was of Jewish origin, the language they spoke at home was Surzhyk, a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Trotskys younger sister, Olga, who grew up to be a Bolshevik. Many anti-Communists, anti-semites, and anti-Trotskyists have noted Trotskys original surname, some authors, notably Robert Service, have also claimed that Trotskys childhood first name was the Yiddish Leiba. The American Trotskyist David North said that this was an apparent attempt to emphasize Trotskys Jewish origins but, contrary to Services claims and he says that it is highly improbable that the family was Jewish, as they did not speak Yiddish, the common language among eastern European Jews. Both North and Walter Laqueur in their books say that Trotskys childhood name was Lyova, when Trotsky was nine, his father sent him to Odessa to be educated in a Jewish school. He was enrolled in a German-language school, which became Russified during his years in Odessa as a result of the Imperial governments policy of Russification. As Isaac Deutscher notes in his biography of Trotsky, Odessa was then a cosmopolitan port city. This environment contributed to the development of the young mans international outlook, although Trotsky said in his autobiography My Life that he was never perfectly fluent in any language but Russian and Ukrainian, Raymond Molinier wrote that Trotsky spoke French fluently. Trotsky became involved in activities in 1896 after moving to the harbor town of Nikolayev on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. At first a narodnik, he initially opposed Marxism but was won over to Marxism later that year by his future first wife, instead of pursuing a mathematics degree, Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name Lvov, he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets, in January 1898, more than 200 members of the union, including Trotsky, were arrested
Leon Trotsky
–
Trotsky in 1921
Leon Trotsky
–
8-year-old Lyova Bronshtein, 1888
Leon Trotsky
–
Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, 1897
Leon Trotsky
–
Leon Trotsky with his daughter Nina in 1915
9.
Sovnarkom
–
The Council of Peoples Commissars was a government institution formed shortly after the October Revolution in 1917. Created in the Russian Republic, the council laid foundations in restructuring the country to form the Soviet Union and it evolved to become the highest government authority of executive power in the government of the Soviet Union. The chairman of council was thus the head of government. The constitution enabled the Sovnarkom to issue decrees carrying the force of law when the Congress was not in session. The Congress then routinely approved these decrees at its next session, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established in December 1922, the USSR Sovnarkom was modelled on the RSFSR Sovnarkom. It was transformed in 1946 into the Council of Ministers, the first council elected by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was composed as follows. Upon the creation of the USSR in 1922, the Unions government was modelled after the first Sovnarkom, the Soviet republics retained their own governments which dealt with domestic matters. In 1946, the Sovnarkoms were transformed into the Council of Ministers at both all-Union and Union Republic level
Sovnarkom
–
A Sovnarkom session between December 1917 and January 1918, with (from the left)
Isaac Steinberg,
Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov,
Boris Kamkov,
Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, V. E. Trutovsky,
Alexander Shlyapnikov, P. P. Proshyan,
Lenin,
Stalin,
Alexandra Kollontai,
Pavel Dybenko, E. K. Kosharova,
Nikolai Podvoisky,
Nikolai Gorbunov, V. I. Nevsky, Alexander Shotman,
Georgy Chicherin
Sovnarkom
–
Lenin and Stalin in 1922
10.
Great Purge
–
The Great Purge or the Great Terror was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union which occurred from 1936 to 1938. In Russian historiography, the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina, after Nikolai Yezhov and it has been estimated between 600,000 and 3 million people died at the hands of the Soviet government during the Purge. In the Western world, Robert Conquests 1968 book The Great Terror popularized that phrase, Conquests title was in turn an allusion to the period called the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. The term repression was used to describe the prosecution of people considered counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people by the leadership of the Soviet Union. The purge was motivated by the desire to remove dissenters from the Communist Party, most public attention was focused on the purge of the leadership of the Communist Party, as well as of government bureaucrats and leaders of the armed forces, most of whom were Party members. The campaigns also affected many other categories of the society, intelligentsia, peasants and especially those branded as too rich for a peasant, a series of NKVD operations affected a number of national minorities, accused of being fifth column communities. Due legal process, as defined by Soviet law in force at the time, was largely replaced with summary proceedings by NKVD troikas. Hundreds of thousands of victims were accused of political crimes, they were quickly executed by shooting. Many died at the labor camps of starvation, disease, exposure. Other methods of dispatching victims were used on an experimental basis, one secret policeman, for example, gassed people to death in batches in the back of a specially adapted airtight van. The campaigns were carried out according to the line, and often by direct orders. The threat of war heightened Stalins perception of marginal and politically suspect populations as the source of an uprising in case of invasion. He began to plan for the elimination of such potential recruits for a mythical fifth column of wreckers, terrorists. The term purge in Soviet political slang was an abbreviation of the purge of the Party ranks. In 1933, for example, the Party expelled some 400,000 people, but from 1936 until 1953, the term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment, and often execution. Stalins opponents on both sides of the political spectrum chided him as undemocratic and lax on bureaucratic corruption and these tendencies may have accumulated substantial support among the working class by attacking the privileges and luxuries the state offered to its high-paid elite. The Ryutin Affair seemed to vindicate Stalins suspicions and he enforced a ban on party factions and banned those party members who had opposed him, effectively ending democratic centralism. In the new form of Party organization, the Politburo, and this required the elimination of all Marxists with different views, especially those among the prestigious old guard of revolutionaries
Great Purge
–
Partial view of a plaque with photos of victims of the Great Purge who were shot in the
Butovo firing range near Moscow. The photos were taken after the arrest of each victim.
Great Purge
–
Excerpt of
NKVD Order No. 00447
Great Purge
–
A list from the Great Purge signed by
Stalin,
Molotov,
Kaganovich,
Voroshilov,
Mikoyan, and
Chubar.
Great Purge
–
Leon Trotsky, in 1929, shortly before being driven out of the Soviet Union.
11.
Mikhail Vladimirsky
–
Mikhail Fyodorovich Vladimirsky was a Soviet politician and for a short period of time, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. He was in office from March 16,1919 to March 30,1919 and he was also Deputy of Chairman of Gosplan of the USSR in 1926-1927 and Peoples Commissar of Public Healthcare of the RSFSR in 1930-1934. Vladimirsky was the son of a priest
Mikhail Vladimirsky
–
Mikhail Vladimirsky Михаи́л Влади́мирский
12.
Valerian Kuybyshev
–
Valerian Vladimirovich Kuybyshev was a Russian revolutionary, Red Army officer, and prominent Soviet politician. Kuybyshev was born in Omsk in the Russian Empire on 6 June 1888 and he studied at the Omsk Military Cadet School. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904, the following year, he entered a military medical academy, but was expelled in 1906 for controversial political activities. In May 1912 he fled and returned to Omsk, where he was arrested the next month, during the Russian Civil War he chaired the revolutionary committee of Samara province and became a political commissar in the First and Fourth Red Armies. In 1920 Kuybyshev was elected a member of Presidium of the Red International of Trade Unions, from 6 July 1923 to 5 August 1926 he was the first economical inspector of the USSR. From 1926 to 1930 he chaired the Supreme Council of the National Economy, from 1930 to 1934 he directed Gosplan, as a principal economic advisor to Joseph Stalin, he was one of the most influential members in the Communist Party. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, Kuybyshev was one of the initiators of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia and was a member of its chief editorial board. Kuybyshev died in Moscow on 25 January 1935 of heart failure, in 1938, at the height of the Great Purge, his former wife and brother were executed under obscure charges. As Bolshevik tradition had established, he was buried outside the Kremlin walls, Kuybyshev married twice, but never had any children. He was a musician and poet. One of his wives was the niece of Yevgenia Bosch, Galina Aleksandrovna Troyanovskaya, the city of Samara, the town of Bolgar, and the town of Haghartsin, Armenia were all renamed Kuybyshev during the period between 1935 and 1991. The towns of Kuybyshev in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, and Kuybyshev, Armenia, media related to Valerian Kuybyshev at Wikimedia Commons Biography page page page
Valerian Kuybyshev
–
Valerian Kuybyshev Валериан Куйбышев
13.
Lazar Kaganovich
–
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin. At his death in 1991, he was the last surviving Old Bolshevik, the Soviet Union itself outlived him by a mere five months. Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, early in his political career, in 1915, Kaganovich became a Communist organizer at a shoe-factory where he worked. Circa 1911 he entered the Bolshevik party, in 1915 Kaganovich was arrested and sent back to Kabany. During March–April 1917 he served as the Chairman of the Tanners Union, in May 1917 he became the leader of the military organization of Bolsheviks in Saratov, and in August 1917, he became the leader of the Polessky Committee of the Bolshevik party in Belarus. During the October Revolution of 1917 he led the revolt in Gomel, in 1918 Kaganovich acted as Commissar of the propaganda department of the Red Army. From May 1918 to August 1919 he was the Chairman of the Ispolkom of the Nizhny Novgorod gubernia, in 1919–1920, he served as governor of the Voronezh gubernia. In May 1922, Stalin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party and this department was responsible for all assignments within the apparatus of the Communist Party. Working there, Kaganovich helped to place Stalins supporters in important jobs within the Communist Party bureaucracy, in this position he became noted for his great work capacity and for his personal loyalty to Stalin. He stated publicly that he would execute any order from Stalin. In 1924 Kaganovich became a member of the Central Committee, from 1925 to 1928, Kaganovich was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR. He was given the task of ukrainizatsiya - meaning at that time the building up of Ukrainian communist popular cadres and he also had the duty of implementing collectivization and the policy of economic suppression of the kulaks. He opposed the more moderate policy of Nikolai Bukharin, who argued in favor of the integration of kulaks into socialism. As Secretary, he endorsed Stalins struggle against the so-called Left and Right Oppositions within the Communist Party, in 1934, at the XVII Congress of the Communist Party, Kaganovich chaired the Counting Committee. He falsified voting for positions in the Central Committee, deleting 290 votes opposing the Stalin candidacy and his actions resulted in Stalins being re-elected as the General Secretary instead of Sergey Kirov. By the rules, the candidate receiving fewer opposing votes should become the General Secretary, before Kaganovichs falsification, Stalin received 292 opposing votes and Kirov only three. However, the result saw Stalin with just two opposing votes. In 1930 Kaganovich became a member of the Soviet Politburo and the First Secretary of the Moscow Obkom of the Communist Party and he later headed the Moscow Gorkom of the Communist Party
Lazar Kaganovich
–
Kaganovich on the tribune
Lazar Kaganovich
–
From left to right: Kaganovich,
Stalin,
Postyshev,
Voroshilov
Lazar Kaganovich
–
May Day Parade 1957. Left to right:
Georgy Zhukov,
Nikita Khrushchev,
Nikolai Bulganin, Kaganovich,
Georgy Malenkov,
Vyacheslav Molotov and
Anastas Mikoyan
Lazar Kaganovich
–
Kaganovich and his wife M. Privorotskaya during WW1
14.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
–
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias. Published by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 by Russia, the GSE claimed to be the first Marxist-Leninist general-purpose encyclopedia. The idea of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia emerged in 1923 on the initiative of Otto Schmidt, also involved was Anatoly Lunacharsky, Commissar of Enlightenment, who had previously been involved with a proposal by Alexander Bogdanov and Maxim Gorky to produce a Workers Encyclopedia. The first edition of 65 volumes was published during 1926–1947, the editor being Otto Schmidt. The second edition of 50 volumes was published in 1950–1958, chief editors, Sergei Vavilov and Boris Vvedensky, the third edition of 1969–1978 contains 30 volumes. Volume 24 is in two books, one being a book about the USSR, all with about 21 million words. In the third edition, much attention was paid to the problems of natural sciences, physical and chemical sciences. From 1957 to 1990, the Yearbook of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was released annually with up-to-date articles about the Soviet Union, the first online edition, an exact replica of text and graphics of the third edition, was published by Rubricon. com in 2000. With exhaustive completeness it must show the superiority of socialist culture over the culture of the capitalist world, operating on Marxist-Leninist theory, the encyclopedia should give a party criticism of contemporary bourgeois tendencies in various provinces of science and technics. The third edition of the GSE subsequently expanded on the role of education, Education is essential to preparing for life and it is the basic means by which people come to know and acquire culture, and it is the foundation of cultures development. A. Vvedensky stating their compliance with the 1949 decree of the Council of Ministers and they are working under a government directive that orders them to orient their encyclopedia as sharply as a political tract. The encyclopedia was planned to provide the intellectual underpinning for the Soviet world offensive in the duel for mens minds. The Soviet government ordered it as a propaganda weapon. And the government attaches such importance to its political role that its board of editors is chosen by and is only to the high Council of Ministers itself. The third edition was translated and published into English in 31 volumes between 1974 and 1983 by Macmillan Publishers, not all entries were translated into English, these are indicated in the index. Articles from the English edition are available online by TheFreeDictionary. com. The third edition was translated into Greek and published in 34 volumes between 1977 and 1983, all articles that were related to Greece or Greek history, culture and society were expanded and hundreds of new ones were written especially for the Greek edition. Thus the encyclopedia contains, for example, both the Russian entry on Greece as well as a larger one prepared by Greek contributors
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
–
Большая советская энциклопедия
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
–
Complete set of an English-language version of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
15.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
International Standard Book Number
–
A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
16.
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is generally conceived as also covering that of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which it evolved. The history of the regional and republican branches of the party does however differ from the all-Russian, over twenty Party organizations were represented. In the eyes of the Bolsheviks the conference had, therefore, moreover, the conference declared the Mensheviks expelled from the party. Stalin and Sverdlov won election to the Central Committee despite their non-attendance at the conference, the elected alternate members of the Central Committee included Mikhail Kalinin. For the direction of work in Russia a practical center was set up, with Stalin at its head. Sverdlov, Spandaryan, S. Ordzhonikidze, M. Kalinin and Goloshchekin, I hope you will rejoice with us over the fact. In the summer of 1912, Lenin moved from Paris to Galicia in order to be nearer to Russia. An important instrument used by the Bolshevik Party to strengthen its organizations and to spread its influence among the masses was the Bolshevik daily newspaper Pravda and it was founded, according to Lenins instructions, on the initiative of Stalin, Olminsky and Poletayev. Pravda was intended as a legal, mass working-class paper founded simultaneously with the new rise of the revolutionary movement and its first issue appeared on May 51912. Previous to the appearance of Pravda, the Bolsheviks already had a newspaper called Zvezda. Zvezda had played an important part at the time of the Lena events and it printed a number of political articles by Lenin and Stalin. But the Party felt that with the revolutionary upsurge, a weekly newspaper no longer met the requirements of the Bolshevik Party, according to the analysis of the Party leadership, a daily mass political newspaper designed for the broadest sections of the workers was needed. Whilst the average circulation of Pravda was 40,000 copies per day, the circulation of Luch, in Moscow, the party launched Nash Put as a workers newspaper in September 1913. It was banned after just a few editions were published, another legally functioning central organ of the Party was the Bolshevik group in the Fourth State Duma. In 1912 the government decreed elections to the Fourth Duma, the RSDLP decided to participate in the elections. The RSDLP acted independently, under its own slogans, in the Duma elections, the slogans of the Bolsheviks in the election campaign were a democratic republic, an 8-hour day and the confiscation of the landed estates. The elections to the Fourth Duma were held in the autumn of 1912, in reply, the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP, on Stalins proposal, called upon the workers of the large factories to declare a one-day strike. Placed in a position, the government was forced to yield
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
RCP(b) Party Programme, adopted at the 8th Party Congress
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
16th Congress poster
17.
Komsomol
–
The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although it was officially independent and referred to as the helper. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918, during the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Young Communist League, or RKSM. During 1922, with the unification of the USSR, it was reformed into an all-union agency and 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. Before the February Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks did not display any interest in establishing or maintaining a youth division, after the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922 ended, the Soviet government under Lenin introduced a semi-capitalist economic policy to stabilize Russia’s floundering economy. This reform, the New Economic Policy, introduced a new policy of moderation and discipline. Lenin himself stressed the importance of education of young Soviet citizens in building a new society. The first Komsomol Congress met in 1918 under the patronage of the Bolshevik Party, Party intervention in 1922-1923 proved marginally successful in recruiting members by presenting the ideal Komsomolets as a foil to the bourgeois NEPman. However, the party was not very successful overall in recruiting Russian youth during the NEP period and this came about because of conflict and disillusionment among Soviet youth who romanticised the spontaneity and destruction characteristic of War Communism and the Civil War period. They saw it as their duty, and the duty of the Communist Party itself, however, the NEP had the opposite effect, after it started, many aspects of bourgeois social behavior began to reemerge. The contrast between the Good Communist extolled by the Party and the bourgeois capitalism fostered by NEP confused many young people, as a result, there was a major slump in interest and membership in the Party-oriented Komsomol. In March 1926, Komsomol membership reached a NEP-period peak of 1,750,000 members, only when Stalin came to power and abandoned the NEP in the first Five Year Plan did membership increase drastically. The youngest people eligible for Komsomol membership were fourteen years old, the upper age-limit for ordinary personnel was twenty-eight, but Komsomol functionaries could be older. Younger children joined the allied Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, while membership was nominally voluntary, those who failed to join had no access to officially sponsored holidays and found it very difficult to pursue higher education. The Komsomol also served as a pool of labor and political activism. Active members received privileges and preferences in promotion, for example, Yuri Andropov, CPSU General Secretary in succession to Leonid Brezhnev, achieved political importance through work with the Komsomol organization of Karelia in 1940-1944. At its largest, during the 1970s, the Komsomol had tens of millions of members, the government, unions and the Komsomol jointly introduced Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity for Youth. At the same time, many Komsomol managers joined and directed the Russian Regional, folklore quickly coined a motto, The Komsomol is a school of Capitalism, hinting at Vladimir Lenins Trade unions are a school of Communism
Komsomol
–
1933 Komsomol poster. Caption says "Prepare for worthy successors to the Leninist Komsomol"
Komsomol
–
All-Union Leninist Young Communist League Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи
Komsomol
–
Komsomol poster urging youth to become pilots.
Komsomol
–
Monument to Courage, Firmness and Faithfulness of Members of the Komsomol in
Sevastopol
18.
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
–
The Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization was a mass youth organization of the Soviet Union for children of age 10–15 that existed between 1922 and 1991. Similar to the Scouting organisations of the Western world, Pioneers learned skills of social cooperation, after the October Revolution of 1917, some Scouts took the Bolsheviks side, which would later lead to the establishment of ideologically altered Scoutlike organizations, such as ЮК and others. During the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1921, most of the Scoutmasters and many Scouts fought in the ranks of the White Army and those Scouts who did not wish to accept the new Soviet system either left Russia for good or went underground. However, clandestine Scouting did not last long, Komsomol persistently fought with the remnants of the Scout movement. This organization would properly educate children with Communist teachings, on behalf of the Soviet Government Nadezhda Krupskaya was one of the main contributors to the cause of the Pioneer movement. In 1922, she wrote an essay called Russian Union of the Communist Youth and boy-Scoutism. as the organizational motto and slogan. Thereby they suggested to use the system as a foundation of the new communist organization for children. The main contribution of the scoutmasters was the introduction of the new expression system scouting into the discourse on communist childrens, by doing so they avoided the dissolution of the scout organization as it would happen sooner or later to any organization opposed to the Komsomol. May 19,1922 was later on considered the birthday of the All-Union Pioneer Organization, by October 1922 pioneer units nationwide were united to form the Spartak Young Pioneers Organization, which was named after V. I. Lenin by a decision of the Central Committee of Komsomol of January 21,1924, since March 1926 it bore the name Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. By the middle of 1923 it had 75,000 members, among other activities, Young Pioneer units, helped by the Komsomol members and leadership at all levels, played a great role in the eradication of illiteracy since 1923. Membership was at 161,000 in the beginning of 1924,2 million in 1926,13.9 million in 1940, and 25 million in 1974. Many Young Pioneer Palaces were built, which served as community centers for the children, with rooms dedicated to various clubs, thousands of Young Pioneer camps were set up where children went during summer vacation and winter holidays. All of them were free of charge, sponsored by the government, during World War Two the Pioneers worked hard to contribute to the war effort at all costs. One of them widely known, for his resistance in Kerch. Its main grouping of members until 1942 was the Young Pioneer detachment, from 1942 to October 1990 the detachment was made up of children belonging to the same class within a school, while a school was referred to as a Young Pioneer group. At age 15, Young Pioneers could join Komsomol, with a recommendation from their Young Pioneer group, the main governing body was the Central Soviet of the Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union, which worked under the leadership of the main governing body of Komsomol. Its official newspaper was Pionerskaya Pravda, there were two major revisions of them, in 1967 and 1986
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
–
Samantha Smith with Young Pioneers, 1983.
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
–
Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organisation Всесоюзная Пионерская организация имени Владимира Ленина
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
–
50 years, Stamp, 1972
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
–
Member pin. The inscription reads "Always Ready!" (
Russian: Всегда готов!)
19.
Pravda
–
The newspaper began publication on 5 May 1912 in the Russian Empire, but was already extant abroad in January 1911. It emerged as a newspaper of the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. The newspaper was an organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU between 1912 and 1991, in 1996 there was an internal dispute between the owners of Pravda International and some of the Pravda journalists which led to Pravda splitting into different entities. After a legal dispute between the parties, the Russian court of arbitration stipulated that both entities would be allowed to continue using the Pravda name. Though Pravda officially began publication on 5 May 1912, the anniversary of Karl Marxs birth, its origins back to 1903 when it was founded in Moscow by a wealthy railway engineer. Pravda had started publishing in the light of the Russian Revolution of 1905, during its earliest days, Pravda had no political orientation. Kozhevnikov started it as a journal of arts, literature and social life, Kozhevnikov was soon able to form up a team of young writers including A. A. Bogdanov, N. A Rozhkov, M. N Pokrovsky, I. I Skvortsov-Stepanov, P. P Rumyantsev, lunts, who were active contributors on social life section of Pravda. Later they became the board of the journal and in the near future also became the active members of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Because of certain quarrels between Kozhevnikov and the board, he had asked them to leave and the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP took over as Editorial Board. But the relationship between them and Kozhevnikov was also a bitter one, the Ukrainian political party Spilka, which was also a splinter group of the RSDLP, took over the journal as its organ. Leon Trotsky was invited to edit the paper in 1908 and the paper was moved to Vienna in 1909. By then, the board of Pravda consisted of hard-line Bolsheviks who sidelined the Spilka leadership soon after it shifted to Vienna. Trotsky had introduced a format to the newspaper and distanced itself from the intra-party struggles inside the RSDLP. During those days, Pravda gained an audience among Russian workers. By 1910 the Central Committee of the RSDLP suggested making Pravda its official organ, finally, at the sixth conference of the RSDLP held in Prague in January 1912, the Menshevik faction was expelled from the party. The party under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin decided to make Pravda its official mouthpiece, the paper was shifted from Vienna to St. Petersburg and the first issue under Lenins leadership was published on 5 May 1912. It was the first time that Pravda was published as a political newspaper
Pravda
–
The front page of Pravda on
June 23, 1941, including a printed radio speech by
Molotov
Pravda
–
Vladimir Lenin in his study inside the Kremlin, reading Pravda. Circa 1918.
Pravda
–
A delegate at
17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) holding Pravda newspaper (1934)
Pravda
–
A soldier reading Pravda during WWII. October -December 1941-RIAN
20.
Vladimir Lenin
–
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism, born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brothers execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empires Tsarist regime and he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, after his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, Lenins government was led by the Bolsheviks—now renamed the Communist Party—with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services, tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies, established by both right and left-wing groups, were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. Seeking to promote world revolution, Lenins government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, in increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his Gorki mansion. He became a figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. Lenins father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs, his origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility, Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a German–Swedish woman. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the governments plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, the couple had two children, Anna and Alexander, before Lenin—who would gain the childhood nickname of Volodya—was born in Simbirsk on 10 April 1870, and baptised several days later. They were followed by three children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy, Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a Lutheran – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Every summer they holidayed at a manor in Kokushkino
Vladimir Lenin
–
Lenin in 1920
Vladimir Lenin
–
"Volodya", aged four.
Vladimir Lenin
–
Lenin, c. 1887.
Vladimir Lenin
–
Lenin (left) in December 1895 and his wife Nadezhda.
21.
Nikita Khrushchev
–
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, Khrushchevs party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Khrushchev was born in the village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar, with the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalins purges, and approved thousands of arrests, in 1938, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalins close advisers, in the power struggle triggered by Stalins death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the Secret Speech, denouncing Stalins purges and his domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchevs rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, flaws in Khrushchevs policies eroded his popularity and emboldened potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed the premier in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the fate of previous losers of Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970, Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease. Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russias Kursk Oblast and his parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin, and had a daughter two years Nikitas junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, Kalinovka was a peasant village, Khrushchevs teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age and he was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenkos tutelage in Kalinovkas state school. She urged Nikita to seek education, but family finances did not permit this. In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka, fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after
Nikita Khrushchev
–
Khrushchev in
East Berlin, 1963
Nikita Khrushchev
–
Khrushchev in 1916
Nikita Khrushchev
–
NKVD chief
Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting the construction of the
Moscow-Volga canal, 1935. Khrushchev is left behind Yagoda.
Nikita Khrushchev
–
Nestor Lakoba, Khrushchev,
Lavrenti Beria and
Aghasi Khanjian during opening of the
Moscow Metro
22.
Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration, during Brezhnevs rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic, Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye into a Russian workers family in 1906. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became an engineer in the iron and steel industry. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became a member of the CPSU. He was drafted into military service during World War II. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. However, in December 1981 he decided not to intervene in Poland, instead allowing the countrys government to impose martial law. After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Brezhnev had fostered a cult of personality, although not nearly to the degree as Stalin. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would lead the USSR from 1985 to 1991, denounced his legacy, in spite of this, opinion polls in Russia show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamianske in Ukraine, to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife and his parents used to live in Brezhnevo before moving to Kamenskoe. Brezhnevs ethnicity was specified as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a technical education, at first in land management where he started as a land surveyor and then in metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became an engineer in the iron. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth organisation, the Komsomol, in 1923, in 1935 and 1936, Brezhnev served his compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in a tank factory. Later in 1936, he director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum. In 1936, he was transferred to the center of Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk. As a survivor of Stalins Great Purge of 1937–39, he was able to quickly as the purges created numerous openings in the senior and middle ranks of the Party
Leonid Brezhnev
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Brezhnev in
East Berlin in 1967
Leonid Brezhnev
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Young Brezhnev with his wife
Victoria
Leonid Brezhnev
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Brezhnev with
Nikita Khrushchev during the war
Leonid Brezhnev
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Khrushchev in 1963, one year before his ousting
23.
Yuri Andropov
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Later in 1982, he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a position he held until his death fifteen months later. Andropov was born in Nagutskaya, Stavropol Region, Russian Empire, Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College and graduated in 1936. Both of his parents died early, leaving Yuri an orphan at the age of thirteen, as a teenager he worked as a loader, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for the Volga steamship line. At 16, Yuri Andropov, then a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, was a worker in the town of Mozdok in the North Ossetian ASSR, during World War II, Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work, between 1946 and 1951, he studied at the university of Petrozavodsk. In 1947, he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, in 1951 Andropov was transferred, by the decision of the CPSU Central Committee, to its staff. He was appointed an inspector and then the head of a subdepartment of the Committee, in July 1954 he was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Hungary and held this position during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Andropov played a key role in crushing the Hungarian uprising and he convinced a reluctant Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary. He is known as ‘The Butcher of Budapest’ for his ruthless suppression of the Hungarian uprising, the Hungarian leaders were arrested and Imre Nagy and others executed. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple. In 1957 Andropov returned to Moscow from Budapest in order to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers Parties in Socialist Countries, in 1961, he was elected full member of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962. He gained additional powers in 1973, when he was promoted to member of the Politburo. During the Prague Spring events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Andropov was the proponent of the extreme measures. The KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to NATO aggression or to a coup, however his message was destroyed because it contradicted the conspiracy theory fabricated by Andropov. Andropov ordered a number of measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS. After the assassination attempt against Brezhnev in January 1969, Andropov led the interrogation of the captured gunman, Ilyin was pronounced insane and sent to Kazan Psychiatric Hospital. On 3 July 1967, he made a proposal to establish for dealing with the opposition the KGBs Fifth Directorate. At the end of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents including Andrei Sakharov, the proposal by Andropov to use psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented
Yuri Andropov
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Andropov c. 1983
Yuri Andropov
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Identity cards The Chairman of the
KGB of the USSR Yuri Andropov.
Yuri Andropov
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Andropov and
Wojciech Jaruzelski, General Secretary of the
Polish United Workers' Party
Yuri Andropov
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Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
24.
Konstantin Chernenko
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Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, Chernenko was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death. Chernenko was born to a family in the village of Bolshaya Tes on 24 September 1911. His father, Ustin Demidovich, worked in mines and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work. Chernenko joined the Komsomol in 1929, and became a member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet-Chinese border, after completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee, a few years later he was promoted to head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. It was in the 1940s that Chernenko established a relationship with Fyodor Kulakov. In 1945, he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow, the turning point in Chernenko’s career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party’s propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev, Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960, after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, in 1964 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, and succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev. During Brezhnevs tenure as Party leader, Chernenkos career continued successfully and he also monitored telephone wiretaps and covert listening devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another one of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department. In 1971 Chernenko was promoted to membership in the Central Committee, Overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau. In 1976 he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau, in 1977 he became Candidate, and in 1978 full member of the Politburo, serving second to the General Secretary in terms of Party hierarchy. In 1979 he took part in the Vienna arms limitation talks, yuri Andropov died in February 1984, after just 15 months in office. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov, despite concerns over his own ailing health, yegor Ligachev writes in his memoirs that Chernenko was elected general secretary without a hitch. At Andropovs funeral, he could read the eulogy
Konstantin Chernenko
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Konstantin Chernenko
25.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, Privolnoye, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Gorbachev in 1987
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Gorbachev in 1966
Mikhail Gorbachev
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U.S. President
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands at the American-Soviet summit in Washington, D.C., in 1987
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Gorbachev at the
Brandenburg Gate in 1986 during a visit to
East Germany
