1.
Tiflis Governorate
–
Tiflis Governorate was one of the guberniyas of the Russian Empire with its centre in Tiflis. In 1897 it constituted 44,607 sq. kilometres in area and had a population of 1,051,032 inhabitants, the governorate used to border Elisabethpol Governorate, Erivan Governorate, Kutaisi Governorate, Zakatali okrug, Dagestan Oblast, Terek Oblast, and Kars Oblast. It covered present southeastern Georgia, northern Armenia and northwestern Azerbaijan, Tiflis Governorate was established in 1846 along with the Kutaisi Governorate, after the dissolution of the Georgia-Imeretia Governorate. It was initially formed from uyezds of Tiflis, Gori, Telavi, Signakh, Yelizavetpol, Erivan, Nakhichevan and Alexandropol and okrugs of Zakataly, in 1849, uyezds of Erivan, Nakhichevan and Alexandropol were attached to Erivan Governorate. In 1859 Ossetian okrug became part of Gori district and Tushino-pshaw-Khevsurian okrug was renamed to Tionets, in 1868 Yelizavetpol uyezd was part of Elisabethpol Governorate. In 1874, the part of Akhaltsikhe uyezd was to become Akhalkalaki one. Finally southern part of Tiflis Uyezd was to become Borchali Uyezd, the governorate lasted in these boundaries for 50 years, until the Democratic Republic of Georgia was founded. Ethnic Georgians constituted 44. 3% of the population, followed by Armenians, Azeris, Russians, Ossetians, Avars, Greeks, Turks, more than half of the population adhered to Eastern Orthodox Christianity with significant Muslim, Catholic and Jewish minorities. The administration tasks in the governorate were executed by a governor, sometimes, a military governor was appointed as well. William Henry Beable, Governments or Provinces of the Former Russian Empire, Tiflis, Russian Gazetteer and Guide, London, Russian Outlook – via Open Library
Tiflis Governorate
–
Tiflis Governorate (English) Тифлисская губерния (Modern Russian) Тифлисская губернія (Pre-1918 Russian)
2.
Russian Empire
–
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
Russian Empire
–
Peter the Great officially renamed the Tsardom of Russia the Russian Empire in 1721, and himself its first emperor. He instituted the
sweeping reforms and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power.
Russian Empire
–
Flag
Russian Empire
–
Empress
Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an
enlightened absolutist, she played a key role in the
Russian Enlightenment.
Russian Empire
–
Catherine II Sestroretsk Rouble (1771) is made of solid copper measuring 77 millimetres (3 3 ⁄ 100 in) (diameter), 26 millimetres (1 1 ⁄ 50 in) (thickness), and weighs 1.022 kg (2.25 lb). It is the largest copper coin ever issued.
3.
Tbilisi
–
Tbilisi, commonly known by its former name Tiflis, is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of roughly 1.5 million inhabitants. Founded in the 5th century by the monarch of Georgias ancient precursor the Kingdom of Iberia, Tbilisi has since served, with intermissions, as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics. Under Russian rule, from 1801 to 1917 Tiflis was the seat of the Imperial Viceroy governing both sides of the entire Caucasus. Tbilisis varied history is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval, classical, Middle Eastern, Art Nouveau, historically, Tbilisi has been home to people of diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, though it is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox Christian. Archaeological studies of the region have indicated human settlement in the territory of Tbilisi as early as the 4th millennium BC, according to an old legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the legend of Tbilisis founding states that King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of Georgia went hunting in the wooded region with a falcon. The Kings falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to cut down the forest and build a city on the location. The name Tbilisi derives from Old Georgian Tbilisi, and further from Tpili, the name Tbili or Tbilisi was therefore given to the city because of the areas numerous sulphuric hot springs that came out of the ground. King Dachi I Ujarmeli, who was the successor of Vakhtang I Gorgasali, Tbilisi was not the capital of a unified Georgian state at that time and did not include the territory of Colchis. It was, however, the city of Eastern Georgia/Iberia. During his reign, King Dachi I oversaw the construction of the wall that lined the citys new boundaries. From the 6th century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the favourable and strategic location which placed the city along important trade. Tbilisis favourable and strategic location did not necessarily bode well for its existence as Eastern Georgias/Iberias capital, in the year 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the Byzantine/Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II Ibn-Muhammad. After this point, the Arabs established an emirate centered in Tbilisi, in 764, Tbilisi, still under Arab control was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 853, the armies of Arab leader Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to Abbasid allegiance, the Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1068, the city was again sacked, only this time by the Seljuk Turks under Sultan Alp Arslan. In 1122, after fighting with the Seljuks that involved at least 60,000 Georgians and up to 300,000 Turks. After the battles for Tbilisi concluded, David moved his residence from Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified Georgian State, from 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a dominant regional power with a thriving economy and a well-established social system/structure
Tbilisi
–
Historical center of Tbilisi
Tbilisi
–
Detail from the Nautical chart by
Angelino Dulcert, depicting Georgian Black Sea coast and Tiflis, 1339.
Tbilisi
–
View of Tbilisi by French traveler
Jean Chardin, 1671.
Tbilisi
–
Mikhail Lermontov, Tiflis, 1837.
4.
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.
5.
Eastern Orthodox Church
–
The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
Eastern Orthodox Church
–
Orthodox liturgy
Eastern Orthodox Church
–
An
icon of
John the Baptist, 14th century, Macedonia
6.
Peasant
–
A peasant is a member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms, especially in the Middle Ages under feudalism, or more generally, in any pre-industrial society. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their status, slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold. The implication of the term is that the peasant is uneducated, ignorant, the word peasant is also commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and under-developed countries of the world. The word peasant is derived from the 15th century French word païsant, meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, Peasants typically made up the majority of the agricultural labour force in a pre-industrial society. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants, more generally, the word peasant is sometimes used to refer pejoratively to those considered to be lower class, perhaps defined by poorer education and/or a lower income. The open field system of agriculture dominated most of northern Europe during medieval times, under this system, peasants lived on a manor presided over by a lord or a bishop of the church. Peasants paid rent or labor services to the lord in exchange for their right to cultivate the land, fallowed land, pastures, forests, and wasteland were held in common. The open field system required cooperation among the peasants of the manor and it was gradually replaced by individual ownership and management of land. This process happened in a pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries, even before emancipation in 1861, serfdom was on the wane in Russia. The proportion of serfs within the empire had decreased from 45-50 percent at the end of the eighteenth century. In Germany, peasants continued to center their lives in the well into the 19th century. They belonged to a body and helped to manage the community resources. In the East they had the status of serfs bound permanently to parcels of land, a peasant is called a Bauer in German and Bur in Low German. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents, Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange marriages for his children. Much of the communal life centered on church services and holy days
Peasant
–
Young women offer berries to visitors to their
izba home, 1909. Those who had been
serfs among the Russian peasantry were officially
emancipated in 1861. Photograph by
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.
Peasant
–
A farm in 1794
Peasant
–
" Feiernde Bauern " ("Celebrating Peasants"), artist unknown, 18th or 19th century
Peasant
–
Portrait sculpture of 18th-century French peasants by artist
George S. Stuart, in the permanent collection of the Museum of Ventura County,
Ventura,
California
7.
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the homonymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora, that is, heap, Gori was an important military stronghold in the Middle Ages and maintains a strategic importance due to its location on the principal highway connecting eastern and western parts of Georgia. In the course of its history, Gori has been invaded by the armies of regional powers several times, the city was occupied by Russian troops during the 2008 Russia–Georgia war. Gori is also known as the birthplace of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, ballistic missile designer Alexander Nadiradze, Gori is located 86 kilometers west of Georgias capital Tbilisi, at the confluence of the rivers Mtkvari and Greater Liakhvi,588 meters above sea level. The climate is transitional from moderately warm steppe to moderately humid, the average annual temperature is 10.6 °C, minimal in January and maximal in July and August. The maximum precipitation falls in May and minimum in February, the territory of Gori has been populated since the early Bronze Age. According to medieval Georgian chronicles, the town of Gori was founded by King David IV who settled refugees from Armenia there. However, the fortress of Gori appears to have been in use already in the 7th century, in 1299, Gori was captured by the Alan tribesmen fleeing the Mongol conquest of their original homeland in the North Caucasus. The Georgian king George V recovered the town in 1320, pushing the Alans back over the Caucasus mountains and it was first taken and sacked by Uzun Hassan of the Ak Koyunlu in 1477, followed by Tahmasp I of Persia in the mid-16th century. The town was again garrisoned by the Persians under Shah Abbas I in 1614. Following the Russian annexation of Georgia, Gori was granted the status of a town within the Tiflis Governorate in 1801 and it grew in size and population throughout the 19th century but was destroyed in the 1920 earthquake. An important industrial center in Soviet times, Gori suffered from an economic collapse, Gori is close to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone. It is connected to breakaway South Ossetias capital Tskhinvali via a spur which has been defunct since the early 1990s. Since the 2000s, Georgia has increased the military infrastructure in, thus, the Central Military Hospital was relocated from Tbilisi to Gori and re-equipped in October 2006. On January 18,2008, Georgia’s second NATO-standard base to accommodate the 1st Infantry Brigade of the Georgian Ground Forces was established at Gori, the Georgian Agrarian Science Academy Branch was established in the city in 1995, this became Sukhishvili University in 2003. Human Rights Watch claimed that Russian forces had indiscriminately deployed cluster bombs in areas around Gori. According to HRW, on August 12 Russian forces dropped bombs in the center of Gori, killing 11 civilians. Russian military officials deny using cluster munitions in the conflict, calling the HRW assertion slanderous, numerous unexploded bomblets have been found by locals and HRW employees
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori გორი
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori Fortress as of 1642, by an
Italian missionary
Cristoforo Castelli
Gori, Georgia
–
Gori Fortress on the hilltop
Gori, Georgia
–
A damaged apartment building in Gori.
8.
Ananuri
–
Ananuri is a castle complex on the Aragvi River in Georgia, about 45 miles from Tbilisi. Ananuri was a castle and seat of the eristavis of Aragvi, the castle was the scene of numerous battles. In 1739, Ananuri was attacked by forces from a rival duchy, however, four years later, the local peasants revolted against rule by the Shamshe, killing the usurpers and inviting King Teimuraz II to rule directly over them. However, in 1746, King Teimuraz was forced to another peasant uprising. The fortress remained in use until the beginning of the 19th century, in 2007, the complex has been on the tentative list for inclusion into the UNESCO World Heritage Site program. The fortifications consist of two joined by a crenellated curtain wall. The upper fortification with a square tower, known as Sheupovari, is well preserved and is the location of the last defense of the Aragvi against the Shamshe. The lower fortification, with a tower, is mostly in ruins. Within the complex, amongst other buildings, are two churches, the older Church of the Virgin, which abuts a tall square tower, has the graves of some of the Dukes of Aragvi. It dates from the first half of the 17th century, and was built of brick, the interior is no longer decorated, but of interest is a stone baldaquin erected by the widow of the Duke Edishera, who died in 1674. The larger Church of the Assumption, built in 1689 for the son of Duke Bardzem and it is a central dome style structure with richly decorated façades, including a carved north entrance and a carved grapevine cross on the south façade. It also contains the remains of a number of frescoes, most of which were destroyed by the fire in the 18th century, Georgia, A Sovereign Country of the Caucasus. ISBN 962-217-748-4 Georgian government site Pictures of Ananuri UNESCO site International Association of Tourists and Travelers Paragliding in Ananuri
Ananuri
–
Ananuri
Ananuri
Ananuri
–
East façade of Church of the Assumption, Ananuri
Ananuri
–
View from the tower
9.
Aragvi River
–
The Aragvi River and its basin are in Georgia on the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. The river is 112 kilometres long, and its covers a area of 2,724 square kilometres. The ground strata are mostly sandstone, slate, and limestone, given its etymology, the exact course of the Aragvi River is the source of some confusion. See არაგვი for the origin of the name, the 102-metre high dam by Jinvali is one of the largest in Georgia. Besides generating up to 130 MW of electricity, the waters of the Aragvi feed down a 36. 7-kilometre pipe to provide drinking water in Tbilisi and to irrigate fields
Aragvi River
–
The Aragvi (right) meets the
Mtkvari at
Mtskheta
Aragvi River
–
Zhinvali reseroir
Aragvi River
–
Ananuri castle
Aragvi River
–
Hydro-electric dam on the Aragvi
10.
Serf
–
Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe, serfs were often required not only to work on the lords fields, but also his mines, forests and roads. The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the Black Death, Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe after the Renaissance, but conversely, it grew strong in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common. In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century, in the Austrian Empire serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent, corvée continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in the 1860s, in Finland, Norway and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist, however, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both Denmark and its vassal Iceland. According to Joseph R. Strayer, the concept of feudalism can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Muslim India, China, james Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing dynasty as also maintaining a form of serfdom. Tibet is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had serfdom until 1959, bhutan is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing serfdom officially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold situations. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a form of slavery, the word serf originated from the Middle French serf and can be traced further back to the Latin servus. In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages, what are now called serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni. As slavery gradually disappeared and the status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni. Serfs had a place in feudal society, as did barons and knights, in return for protection. Thus the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity, one rationale held that a serf worked for all while a knight or baron fought for all and a churchman prayed for all, thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and rewarded, but at least he had his place and, unlike slaves, had rights in land. A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves and this unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, a freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners into dependency, often a few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case he could strike a bargain with a lord of a manor, in exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or labour, or a combination of all. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract, to become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serfs life
Serf
–
Reeve and serfs in
feudal England, ca. 1310
Serf
–
Slavery
Serf
–
Punishment with a
knout. Whipping was a common punishment for
Russian serfs.
Serf
–
The proclamation by count
Josip Jelačić abolishing serfdom in the
Kingdom of Croatia, dated 25 April 1848
11.
Russian ruble
–
The Russian ruble is the currency of the Russian Federation, the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the two unrecognized republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The ruble is subdivided into 100 kopeks, the ruble was the currency of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union. Today apart from Russia, Belarus and Transnistria uses currencies with the same name, the ruble was the worlds first decimal currency, it was decimalised in 1704 when the ruble became legally equal to 100 kopeks. In 1992 the Soviet ruble was replaced with the Russian ruble at the rate 1 SUR =1 RUR. In 1998 following the crisis, the Russian ruble was redenominated with the new code RUB. Today, although RUB being the code of the Russian ruble. The ruble is the oldest national currency after the Pound sterling in the world, the ruble has been used on the Russian territories since the 13th century. The modern Russian ruble actually appeared in December 1991 in parallel with the Soviet ruble, following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Soviet ruble remained the currency of the Russian Federation until 1992. A new set of coins was issued in 1992 and a new set of banknotes was issued in the name of Bank of Russia in 1993. The Russian ruble with the ISO4217 code is RUR and number 810 replaced the Soviet ruble at the rate 1 SUR =1 RUR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation introduced new coins in 1992 in denominations of 1,5,10,20,50 and 100 rubles, the coins depict the double-headed eagle without a crown, sceptre and globus cruciger above the legend Банк России. It is exactly the same eagle, that the artist Ivan Bilibin painted after the February Revolution as a coat of arms for the Russian Republic. The 1 and 5 ruble coins were minted in brass-clad steel, the 10 and 20 ruble coins in cupro-nickel, in 1993, aluminium-bronze 50 ruble coins and cupro-nickel-zinc 100 ruble coins were issued, and the material of 10 and 20 ruble coins s was changed to nickel-plated steel. In 1995 the material of 50 ruble coins was changed to brass-plated steel, as high inflation persisted, the lowest denominations disappeared from circulation and the other denominations became rarely used. During this period the commemorative one ruble coin was regularly issued and it was practically identical in size and weight to a 5 Swiss franc coin. For this reason, there have been instances of ruble coins being used on a large scale to defraud automated vending machines in Switzerland. In 1961, new State Treasury notes were introduced for 1,3 and 5 rubles, along with new State Bank notes for 10,25,50 and 100 rubles. In 1991, the State Bank took over production of 1,3 and 5 ruble notes and also introduced 200,500 and 1,000 ruble notes, although the 25 ruble note was no longer issued
Russian ruble
–
5,000 rubles (2006)
Russian ruble
Russian ruble
–
Russian ruble
Russian ruble
–
Five hundred rubles featuring
Peter the Great and a
personification of
Mother Russia, 1912
12.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
Soviet Union
–
Vladimir Lenin addressing a crowd with Trotsky, 1920
Soviet Union
–
Flag
Soviet Union
–
Stalin and
Nikolai Yezhov, head of the
NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was
edited out of the image.
Soviet Union
13.
Batumi
–
Batumi is the second largest city of Georgia, located on the coast of the Black Sea in the countrys southwest. Much of Batumis economy revolves around tourism and gambling, but the city is also an important sea port and includes industries like shipbuilding, food processing and light manufacturing. Since 2010, Batumi has been transformed by the construction of modern high-rise buildings, Batumi is located on the site of the ancient Greek colony in Colchis called Bathus or Bathys – derived from the Greek phrase βαθύς λιμεν bathus limen or βαθύς λιμήν bathys limin meaning deep harbor. Under Hadrian, it was converted into a fortified Roman port, from 1010, it was governed by the eristavi of the king of Georgia. In the late 15th century, after the disintegration of the Georgian kingdom, Batumi passed to the princes of Guria, de Thoisy was taken captive and released through the mediation of the emperor John IV of Trebizond. In the 15th century in the reign of the prince Kakhaber Gurieli and they returned to it in force a century later and inflicted a decisive defeat on the Georgian armies at Sokhoista. Batumi was recaptured by the Georgians several times, first in 1564 by prince Rostom Gurieli, who lost it soon afterwards, in 1723, Batumi again became part of the Ottoman Empire. It was the last Black Sea port annexed by Russia during the Russian conquest of that area of the Caucasus, in 1878, Batumi was annexed by the Russian Empire in accordance with the Treaty of San Stefano between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Occupied by the Russians on August 28,1878, the town was declared a port until 1886. It functioned as the center of a military district until being incorporated in the Government of Kutaisi on June 12,1883. Finally, on June 1,1903, with the Okrug of Artvin, it was established as the region of Batumi, the expansion of Batumi began in 1883 with the construction of the Batumi-Tiflis-Baku railway and the finishing of the Baku-Batumi pipeline. Henceforth, Batumi became the chief Russian oil port in the Black Sea, the town expanded to an extraordinary extent and the population increased rapidly, from 8,671 inhabitants in 1882 to 12,000 in 1889. By 1902 the population had reached 16,000, with 1,000 working in the refinery for Baron Rothschilds Caspian, in the late 1880s and after, more than 7400 Doukhobor emigrants sailed for Canada from Batumi, after the government agreed to let them emigrate. Canada settled them in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, during 1901, sixteen years prior to the October Revolution, Joseph Stalin, the future leader of the Soviet Union, lived in the city organizing strikes. Kemal Atatürk ceded the area to the Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union on the condition that it be granted autonomy, when the USSR collapsed in 1989, Aslan Abashidze was appointed head of Adjaras governing council and subsequently held onto power throughout the unrest of the 1990s. Whilst other regions, such as Abkhazia, attempted to break away from the Georgian state, Abashidze exploited the central governments weaknesses and ruled the area as a personal fiefdom. In May 2004, he fled to Russia because of protests in Tbilisi sparked by the Rose Revolution. Batumi today is one of the port cities of Georgia
Batumi
–
Batumi
Batumi
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Coat of arms
Batumi
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Detail from a map of Antonio Zatta, 1784, depicting Georgian principality of Guria and its major town Batumi.
Batumi
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Port of Batumi in 1881
14.
Tiflis
–
Tbilisi, commonly known by its former name Tiflis, is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of roughly 1.5 million inhabitants. Founded in the 5th century by the monarch of Georgias ancient precursor the Kingdom of Iberia, Tbilisi has since served, with intermissions, as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics. Under Russian rule, from 1801 to 1917 Tiflis was the seat of the Imperial Viceroy governing both sides of the entire Caucasus. Tbilisis varied history is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval, classical, Middle Eastern, Art Nouveau, historically, Tbilisi has been home to people of diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, though it is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox Christian. Archaeological studies of the region have indicated human settlement in the territory of Tbilisi as early as the 4th millennium BC, according to an old legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the legend of Tbilisis founding states that King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of Georgia went hunting in the wooded region with a falcon. The Kings falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to cut down the forest and build a city on the location. The name Tbilisi derives from Old Georgian Tbilisi, and further from Tpili, the name Tbili or Tbilisi was therefore given to the city because of the areas numerous sulphuric hot springs that came out of the ground. King Dachi I Ujarmeli, who was the successor of Vakhtang I Gorgasali, Tbilisi was not the capital of a unified Georgian state at that time and did not include the territory of Colchis. It was, however, the city of Eastern Georgia/Iberia. During his reign, King Dachi I oversaw the construction of the wall that lined the citys new boundaries. From the 6th century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the favourable and strategic location which placed the city along important trade. Tbilisis favourable and strategic location did not necessarily bode well for its existence as Eastern Georgias/Iberias capital, in the year 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the Byzantine/Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II Ibn-Muhammad. After this point, the Arabs established an emirate centered in Tbilisi, in 764, Tbilisi, still under Arab control was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 853, the armies of Arab leader Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to Abbasid allegiance, the Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1068, the city was again sacked, only this time by the Seljuk Turks under Sultan Alp Arslan. In 1122, after fighting with the Seljuks that involved at least 60,000 Georgians and up to 300,000 Turks. After the battles for Tbilisi concluded, David moved his residence from Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified Georgian State, from 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a dominant regional power with a thriving economy and a well-established social system/structure
Tiflis
–
Historical center of Tbilisi
Tiflis
–
Detail from the Nautical chart by
Angelino Dulcert, depicting Georgian Black Sea coast and Tiflis, 1339.
Tiflis
–
View of Tbilisi by French traveler
Jean Chardin, 1671.
Tiflis
–
Mikhail Lermontov, Tiflis, 1837.
15.
Telavi
–
Telavi is the main city and administrative center of Georgias eastern province of Kakheti. Its population consists of some 21,800 inhabitants, the city is located on foot-hills of Tsiv-Gombori Range at 500–800 meters above the sea level. The first archaeological findings from Telavi date back to the Bronze Age, one of the earliest surviving accounts of Telavi is from the 2nd century AD, by Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus, who mentions the name Teleda. Telavi began to transform into an important and large political. Speaking about the population of Telavi, Al-Muqaddasi points out that for the most part it consisted of Christians, from the 10th until the 12th century AD, Telavi served as the capital of the Kingdom of Kakheti and later Kingdom of Kakhet-Hereti. During the so-called Golden Era of the Georgian State, Telavi turned into one of the most important political and economic centers of the Georgian State. After the disintegration of the united Georgian Kingdom in the 15th century, the role of Telavi started to decline, Telavi re-gained its political importance in the 17th century when it became a capital of the kingdom of Kakheti. By 1762, it turned into the capital of the united Eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti. The reign of King Erekle II, who was born and died in this city, was an epoch in the history of Telavi. During this period it grew into a strategic and cultural centre, erakle II established there a theological seminary and founded a theatre. Erekle IIs reforms touched upon all aspects of life in the country and they changed fundamentally the political, economical and cultural orientation of Kartli-Kakheti and, subsequently of the whole Georgia. His name became a symbol of freedom and national independence of the Georgian people, erakle II is still called affectionately Patara Kakhi, and his heroic deeds are described in folk literature. In 1801, after the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti was annexed by the Russian Empire, in the 19th century, the city was given the status of an administrative center of an uyezd within the Tbilisi Gubernyia. During that period, the economy of the city was composed of small-scale industries, commerce. The towns population was about 12,000 in the end of the 19th century, Telavi and its surroundings are rich in historical, architectural and natural monuments. Due to this reason, architects, scholars and art historians consider Telavi as the most medieval city in the country, another curious sight in Telavi is a 900-year-old sycamore. The landscape of Telavi is scenic, the city is wrapped in picturesque landscapes from all sides. Telavi faces the Tsiv-Gombori Range to the south and south-west and borders on the Alazani Valley to the north, the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range, which runs to the north of the Alazani Valley, can be seen from most of Telavi
Telavi
–
Telavi თელავი
Telavi
–
Ikalto (ca. 800)
Telavi
–
The Alazani River Plain, with the Caucasus Mountains in the background, view from Telavi
Telavi
16.
Georgian language
–
Georgian is a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians. It is the language of Georgia. Georgian is written in its own writing system, the Georgian script, Georgian is the literary language for all regional subgroups of Georgians, including those who speak other Kartvelian languages, Svans, Mingrelians and the Laz. Georgian is the most pervasive of the Kartvelian languages, a family that also includes Svan and Megrelian and Laz. Dialects of Georgian are from Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi, Guria, Adjara, Imerkhevi, Kartli, Kakheti, Saingilo, Tusheti, Khevsureti, Khevi, Pshavi, Fereydan, Mtiuleti and Meskheti. Georgian as separate from the other Kartvelian languages would have emerged in the 1st millennium BC in the area known later as the Kingdom of Iberia, the evolution of Georgian into a written language was a consequence of the conversion of the Georgian elite to Christianity in the mid-4th century. The first Georgian texts are inscriptions and palimpsests dating to the 5th century, Georgian has a rich literary tradition. The oldest surviving work in Georgian is the 5th century Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik by Iakob Tsurtaveli. In the 11th century, Old Georgian gives rise to Middle Georgian, the Georgian national epic, Shota Rustavelis The Knight in the Panthers Skin, dates from the 12th century. This marked the beginning of the modern Georgian language, symbols on the left are those of the IPA and those on the right are of the modern Georgian alphabet. Opinions also differ on the aspiration of /t͡sʰ, t͡ʃʰ/, as it is non-contrastive, a former distinction between /x/ and /qʰ/ has been lost. Prosody in Georgian involves stress, intonation, and rhythm, stress is very weak, and linguists disagree as to where stress occurs in words. Jun, Vicenik, and Lofstedt have proposed that Georgian stress and intonation are the result of pitch accents on the first syllable of a word, the rhythm of Georgian speech is syllable-timed. Georgian contains many harmonic clusters involving two consonants of a type which are pronounced with only a single release, e. g. ბგერა bgera, ცხოვრება tskhovreba. There are also frequent consonant clusters, sometimes involving more than six consonants in a row, as may be seen in words like გვფრცქვნი gvprtskvni and მწვრთნელი mtsvrtneli. Vicenik has observed that Georgian vowels following ejective stops have creaky voice, Georgian has been written in a variety of scripts over its history. Currently the Mkhedruli or Military script is almost completely dominant, the others are used mostly in religious documents, Mkhedruli has 33 letters in common use, a half dozen more are obsolete in Georgian, though still used in other alphabets, like Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan. The letters of Mkhedruli correspond closely to the phonemes of the Georgian language, however, the first examples of a Georgian script date from the 5th century AD
Georgian language
–
The Kartvelian people
Georgian language
–
Georgian
Georgian language
–
Calligraphy
Georgian language
–
Road sign in Latin and Georgian
17.
Julian calendar
–
The Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on 1 January 45 BC, by edict, the Julian calendar gains against the mean tropical year at the rate of one day in 128 years. For the Gregorian the figure is one day in 3,030 years, the difference in the average length of the year between Julian and Gregorian is 0. 002%. The Julian calendar has a year of 365 days divided into 12 months. A leap day is added to February every four years, the Julian year is, therefore, on average 365.25 days long. It was intended to approximate the tropical year, as a result, the calendar year gains about three days every four centuries compared to observed equinox times and the seasons. This discrepancy was corrected by the Gregorian reform of 1582, consequently, the Julian calendar is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. Egypt converted on 20 December 1874/1 January 1875, turkey switched on 16 February/1 March 1917. Russia changed on 1/14 February 1918, Greece made the change for civil purposes on 16 February/1 March 1923 - the national day, which was a religious holiday, was to remain on the old calendar. Most Christian denominations in the west and areas evangelised by western churches have replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian as the basis for their liturgical calendars. However, most branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church still use the Julian calendar for calculating the date of Easter, some Orthodox churches have adopted the Revised Julian calendar for the observance of fixed feasts, while other Orthodox churches retain the Julian calendar for all purposes. The Julian calendar is used by the Berbers of the Maghreb in the form of the Berber calendar. In the form of the Alexandrian calendar, it is the basis for the Ethiopian calendar, during the changeover between calendars and for some time afterwards, dual dating was used in documents and gave the date according to both systems. In contemporary as well as texts that describe events during the period of change. The ordinary year in the previous Roman calendar consisted of 12 months, in addition, a 27- or 28-day intercalary month, the Mensis Intercalaris, was sometimes inserted between February and March. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, some say the mensis intercalaris always had 27 days and began on either the first or the second day after the Terminalia. According to the later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, the ideal intercalary cycle consisted of ordinary years of 355 days alternating with intercalary years, alternately 377 and 378 days long. In this system, the average Roman year would have had 366 1⁄4 days over four years, Macrobius describes a further refinement whereby, in one 8-year period within a 24-year cycle, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days
Julian calendar
–
Russian icon of the
Theophany (the baptism of
Jesus by
John the Baptist) (6 January), the highest-ranked feast which occurs on the fixed cycle of the
Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.
Julian calendar
–
This is a visual example of the official date change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian
Julian calendar
–
Key concepts
18.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
–
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian, television presenter and award-winning author of popular history books and novels. Simon Montefiore was born in London and his father was Stephen Eric Sebag Montefiore and his brother is Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. They are descended from a line of wealthy Sephardi Jews who were diplomats and bankers all over Europe, at the start of the 19th century, his great-great-uncle, Sir Moses Montefiore, was an international financier who worked with the Rothschild family and who became a philanthropist. His mother, Phyllis April Jaffé, comes from a Lithuanian Jewish family of scholars and her parents fled the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. They bought tickets for New York City, but were cheated, being dropped off at Cork. Due to the Limerick boycott in 1904 his grandfather Henry Jaffé left the country and moved to Newcastle, Montefiore was educated at Ludgrove School and Harrow School. He read history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge where he received his Doctorate of Philosophy and he won an Exhibition to Caius College. Montefiore worked as a banker, a foreign affairs journalist, montefiores book Catherine the Great & Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Marsh Biography Award. Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar won History Book of the Year at the 2004 British Book Awards, jerusalem, The Biography was a number one non-fiction Sunday Times bestseller and a global bestseller and won The Book of the Year Prize from the Jewish Book Council. His latest history is The Romanovs, 1613–1918, montefiores debut novel Kings Parade was published in 1991. The Spectator called the book embarrassing and extremely silly, Montefiore is also the author of the acclaimed novels Sashenka and One Night in Winter. One Night in Winter won the Political Novel of the Year Prize and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Visiting Professor of Humanities at the University of Buckingham. Montefiore lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children
Simon Sebag Montefiore
–
Simon Sebag-Montefiore in 2010.
19.
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
20.
Early life of Joseph Stalin
–
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century, was born on 18 December 1878 to a Georgian cobbler in Gori, Georgia. After leaving school, he embraced Marxism and became a follower of Vladimir Lenin. After being marked by Russian secret police for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and he became one of the Bolsheviks chief operatives in the Caucasus, organizing paramilitaries, spreading propaganda, raising money through bank robberies, and kidnappings and extortion. He was captured and exiled to Siberia numerous times, but often escaped and he became one of Lenins closest associates, which helped him rise to the heights of power after the Russian Revolution. Stalins birth name in Georgian was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili and he was born an ethnic Georgian, but Georgia at the time was part of the Russian Empire. The Russian version of his name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Stalin was born in Gori in the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire, to Besarion Jughashvili, a Georgian cobbler who owned his own workshop, and Ekaterine Geladze and he was the youngest of their three boys, their two previous sons died in infancy. Initially, the Jughashvili family prospered, but Josephs father became an alcoholic, as their financial situation grew worse, Stalins family moved homes at least nine times in Stalins first ten years of life. The town where Joseph grew up was a violent and lawless place and it had only a small police force and a culture of violence that included gang warfare, organized street brawls and wrestling tournaments. Joseph was frequently involved in brawls with other children, at the age of seven, Joseph fell ill with smallpox and his face was badly scarred by the disease. He later had photographs retouched to make his pockmarks less apparent, Josephs native tongue was Georgian, he did not start learning Russian until he was eight or nine years old, and he never lost his strong Georgian accent. At the age of ten, Joseph received a scholarship to the Gori Theological School and his peers were mostly the sons of affluent priests, officials, and merchants. He and most of his classmates at Gori were Georgians and spoke mostly Georgian, however, at school they were forced to speak Russian. Ioseb proved one of the best students in the class, earning top marks across the board and he became a very good choir-singer and was often hired to sing at weddings. He also began to write poetry, something he would develop in later years, Iosebs father had always wanted his son to train as a cobbler rather than become educated. He was infuriated when the boy was accepted into the school, in a drunken rage he smashed the windows of the local tavern, and later attacked the town police chief. Out of compassion for Iosebs mother, the chief did not arrest Besarion. He moved to Tiflis where he work in a shoe factory
Early life of Joseph Stalin
–
Joseph Stalin in 1902, 23 years of age
Early life of Joseph Stalin
–
Stalin's father,
Besarion, and mother,
Ketevan
Early life of Joseph Stalin
Early life of Joseph Stalin
–
Stalin's birth house in
Gori,
Georgia, within the shrine complex built over it in the 1930s. Currently
Joseph Stalin Museum
21.
Rise of Joseph Stalin
–
Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unions Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following Lenins death in 1924, he rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union, after growing up in Georgia, Stalin conducted activities for the Bolshevik Party for twelve years before the Russian Revolution of 1917. After participating, Stalin took military leadership positions in the Russian Civil War, Stalin was one of the Bolsheviks chief operatives in the Caucasus and grew very close to Lenin, who saw him as a capable and loyal follower. Stalin played a role in engineering the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. His connections helped him attain high positions in the new Soviet government, Lenin grew critical of Stalin, and many other Bolsheviks at this time, but in 1922 a stroke forced Lenin into semi-retirement. Thereafter, Stalin politically isolated his major enemies, such as arch-rival Leon Trotsky and this eventually led him to be the sole uncontested leader of the Party and the Soviet Union. He eventually earned a place in Lenins inner circle and the highest echelons of the Bolshevik hierarchy, in 1917, he participated in the Bolshevik uprising in the Russian capital of Petrograd. His pseudonym, Stalin, means man of the steel hand, in the civil war that followed, Stalin forged connections with various Red Army generals and eventually acquired military powers of his own. He brutally suppressed counter-revolutionaries and bandits, after winning the civil war, the Bolsheviks moved to expand the revolution into Europe, starting with Poland, which was fighting the Red Army in Ukraine. As joint commander of an army in Ukraine, Stalins actions in the war were later criticized by many, in late 1920, Trotsky argued for a ban on trade unions and a formal imposition of Party dictatorship over the industrial sectors. Fearing a backlash from the unions, Lenin asked Stalin to build a base for him against Trotsky. Lenins faction eventually prevailed at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, frustrated by the squabbling factions within the Party during what he saw as a time of crisis, Lenin convinced the Tenth Congress to pass a ban on any opposition to official Central Committee policy. Lenin still, however, encountered difficulties pushing his policies through and decided to give his ally, Stalin. With the help of Kamenev, Lenin successfully had Stalin appointed to the post of General Secretary on April 3,1922. Stalin still held his posts in the Orgburo, the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate, with this power, he would steadily place his supporters in positions of authority. It was in the Georgian affairs that Stalin first began to play his own hand, Lenin, however, disliked Stalins policy towards Georgia, as he believed all the Soviet states should be on equal standing with Russia rather than be absorbed and subordinated to it. On May 25,1922, Lenin suffered a stroke while recovering from surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his neck since a failed attempt in August 1918. Severely debilitated, he went into semi-retirement and moved to his dacha in Gorki, after this, Trotsky and Stalin were concerned about who was going to be the next successor
Rise of Joseph Stalin
–
Stalin visiting the ailing
Lenin at his dacha in
Gorki.
Rise of Joseph Stalin
–
Stalin birthday in 1929. Left to right:
Mikhail Kalinin,
Lazar Kaganovich,
Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov (obscured),
Sergei Kirov.
22.
August Uprising
–
The August Uprising was an unsuccessful insurrection against Soviet rule in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic from late August to early September 1924. The August uprising was one of the last major rebellions against the early Soviet government, the Red Army proclaimed Georgia a Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 February 1921, when they took control of Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, and forced the Menshevik government into exile. Loyalty of the Georgian population to the new regime did not come easily, the 1918–1921 independence, though short-lived, had played a crucial role in the national awakening of Georgia, winning a popular support to the ruling Georgian Social Democratic Party. The new Bolshevik government, led by the Georgian Revkom, enjoyed so little support among the population that it faced the prospect of insurrection. The Bolsheviks had limited ties with the Georgian peasantry, which was opposed to collectivization and dissatisfied over land shortages. The situation in the country was further aggravated by a famine prevailing in areas and the summer 1921 outbreak of cholera. The desperate shortage of food and the breakdown of medical services resulted in heavy mortality, public discontent within the Georgian society indirectly reflected in a bitter struggle among Bolsheviks about the way to achieve social and political transformation in Georgia. The crisis known as the Georgian Affair lasted throughout 1922 and ended with the hardliners’ victory, as a result, Georgia merged with the Armenian and Azerbaijan republics into the Transcaucasian SFSR—a heavy blow to Georgian national pride. With the defeat of national deviationists, the Bolsheviks became more assertive, between April 1922 and October 1923, parties that still retained legal status were forced to announce their dissolution and declare official loyalty to the Soviet authorities. Those who continued to operate did so as underground organizations, the Soviets also persecuted the Georgian Orthodox Church, closing or demolishing over 1,500 churches and monasteries. In the course of the Red Army invasion, part of the defeated Georgian forces withdrew into the mountains, from 1921 to 1922, guerrilla warfare broke out in several regions of Georgia. In May 1921, the highlanders of Svaneti, northwestern Georgia, led by Mosestro Dadeshkeliani, Nestor Gardapkhadze and Bidzina Pirveli, after a resistance of six months, the revolt was put down and its leaders were purged. In early 1922, the rebellion against the Soviet rule broke out in Khevsureti, another mountainous district, Soviet troops using aviation managed to stop this rebellion from spreading, but could not crush it completely. The local militsiya chief Levan Razikashvili was arrested and later shot for having sympathized with the rebellion, still, these revolts were local and spontaneous and did not attract large masses. Within the period of 1922–1923,33 of 57 active guerrilla detachments disintegrated or surrendered to the Soviet authorities, the deplorable situation of the anti-Soviet opposition forced all major underground parties to seek closer cooperation. Soon the opposition parties congregated into a movement known as the Committee for the Independence of Georgia or the Damkom. Sponsored by the government of Georgia-in-exile, the Damkom began preparations for an uprising in Georgia. The organization set up a Military Center and appointed General Spiridon Chavchavadze the commander-in-chief of all rebel forces, the organizers, encouraged by the Georgian emigrants in Europe, had still more expectations that the Western powers intended to help
August Uprising
–
Georgian rebels known as "Oath of Fealty" (შეფიცულები) under the command of
Kakutsa Cholokashvili
August Uprising
–
Prince Kote Andronikashvili, chairman of the Damkom (1923–4)
August Uprising
–
Colonel
Kakutsa Cholokashvili, a guerrilla leader, during the rebellion
August Uprising
–
The Soviet security officer
Lavrentiy Beria rose to prominence for his role in quashing the rebellion
23.
Collectivization in the Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union enforced the collectivization of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascendancy of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan, the policy aimed to consolidate individual landholdings and labour into collective farms, mainly kolkhozy and sovkhozy. Planners regarded collectivization as the solution to the crisis of agricultural distribution that had developed from 1927 and this problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrialization program. In the early 1930s over 91% of agricultural land became collectivized as rural households entered collective farms with their land, livestock, the sweeping collectivization often involved tremendous human and social costs. After the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, peasants gained control of half of the land they had previously cultivated. The Stolypin agricultural reforms between 1905 and 1914 gave incentives for the creation of large farms, but these ended during World War I, the Russian Provisional Government accomplished little during the difficult World War I months, though Russian leaders continued to promise redistribution. Peasants began to turn against the Provisional Government and organized themselves into land committees, when the Russian Civil War ended, the economy changed with the New Economic Policy and specifically, the policy of prodnalog or food tax. This new policy was designed to re-build morale among embittered farmers, the pre-existing communes, which periodically redistributed land, did little to encourage improvement in technique, and formed a source of power beyond the control of the Soviet government. Although the income gap between wealthy and poor farmers did grow under the NEP, it remained small. Clearly identifying this group was difficult, though, since only about 1% of the peasantry employed laborers, the small shares of most of the peasants resulted in food shortages in the cities. Although grain had nearly returned to production levels, the large estates which had produced it for urban markets had been divided up. Not interested in acquiring money to purchase overpriced manufactured goods, the peasants chose to consume their produce rather than sell it, as a result, city dwellers only saw half the grain that had been available before the war. Before the revolution, peasants controlled only 2,100,000 km² divided into 16 million holdings, producing 50% of the food grown in Russia and consuming 60% of total food production. After the revolution, the peasants controlled 3,140,000 km² divided into 25 million holdings, producing 85% of the food, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had never been happy with private agriculture and saw collectivization as the best remedy for the problem. Lenin claimed Small-scale production gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily, hourly, with elemental force and this demand for more grain resulted in the reintroduction of requisitioning which was resisted in rural areas. In 1928 there was a 2-million-ton shortfall in grains purchased by the Soviet Union from neighbouring markets, Stalin claimed the grain had been produced but was being hoarded by kulaks. Instead of raising the price, the Politburo adopted a measure to requisition 2.5 million tons of grain. In 1929, especially after the introduction of the Ural-Siberian Method of grain procurement, also, massive hoarding and illegal transfers of grain took place
Collectivization in the Soviet Union
–
"Strengthen working discipline in collective farms" – Soviet propaganda poster issued in
Uzbekistan, 1933
Collectivization in the Soviet Union
–
YCLers seizing grain from "kulaks" which was hidden in the graveyard, Ukraine
Collectivization in the Soviet Union
–
The First Tractor by Vladimir Krikhatsky (
Socialist realism)
Collectivization in the Soviet Union
–
Soviet famine of 1932–33. Areas of most disastrous famine marked with black.
24.
Kolkhoz
–
A kolkhoz was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz, the 1920s were characterized by spontaneous emergence of collective farms, under influence of traveling propaganda workers. Initially a collective farm resembled a version of the traditional Russian commune, the generic farming association, the association for joint cultivation of land. This gradual shift to farming in the first 15 years after the October Revolution was turned into a violent stampede during the forced collectivization campaign that began in 1928. The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, suggesting collective ownership, on the other hand, sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство, suggesting state ownership. As a collective farm, a kolkhoz was legally organized as a production cooperative, the Standard Charter of a kolkhoz, which since the early 1930s had the force of law in the USSR, is a model of cooperative principles in print. It speaks of the kolkhoz as a form of agricultural cooperative of peasants that voluntarily unite for the purpose of joint agricultural production based on collective labor. Importantly, remuneration had always been in proportion to labor and not from residual profits, implying that members were treated as employees and they imposed detailed work programs and nominated their preferred managerial candidates. Since the mid-1930s, the kolkhozes had been in effect an offshoot of the state sector, nevertheless, in locations with particularly good land or if it happened to have capable management, some kolkhozes accumulated substantial sums of money in their bank accounts. Subsequently, numerous kolkhozes were formally nationalized by changing their status to sovkhozes, essentially, his administration recognized their status as hired hands rather than authentic cooperative members. The guaranteed wage provision was incorporated in the 1969 version of the Standard Charter, the question of internal organization was important in the new kolkhozes. The most basic measure was to divide the workforce into a number of groups, generally known as brigades, by July 1929 it was already normal practice for the large kolkhoz of 200-400 households to be divided into temporary or permanent work units of 15-30 households. The brigade was headed by a brigade leader and this was usually a local man. After the kolkhoz amalgamations of 1950 the territorial successor of the old village kolkhoz was the complex brigade, brigades could be subdivided into smaller units called zvenos for carrying out some or all of their tasks. See collectivisation in the USSR and agriculture in the Soviet Union for general discussion of Soviet agriculture. In a kolkhoz, a member, called a kolkhoznik, received a share of the product and profit according to the number of days worked. In practice, most kolkhozy did not pay their members in cash at all. In 1946,30 percent of kolkhozy paid no cash for labor at all,10.6 paid no grain, in addition the kolkhoz was required to sell its grain crop and other products to the State at fixed prices
Kolkhoz
–
"Kolkhoznik"; a fragment of a
Taras Shevchenko monument.
25.
Chinese Civil War
–
The Chinese Civil War was fought between forces loyal to the Kuomintang -led government of the Republic of China, and forces loyal to the Communist Party of China. The civil war began in August 1927, with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-sheks Northern Expedition and it can generally be divided into two stages, the first being from 1927 to 1937, and the second being from 1946 to 1950 with the Second Sino-Japanese War separating them. The war represented a split between the Communist CPC and the KMTs brand of Nationalism. It continued intermittently until late 1937, when the two came together to form the Second United Front to counter the Japanese threat and prevent the country from crumbling. Chinas full-scale civil war resumed in 1946, a year after the end of hostilities with Japan, to this day no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed, and there is debate about whether the Civil War has legally ended. The ROC mutually claims mainland China, and they continue the fight over diplomatic recognition. The Qing Dynasty, the last of the ruling Chinese dynasties, collapsed in 1911 and finally fell in 1912 with the abdication of the last emperor, Puyi. China fell into what became known as the era, when control of much of the country was divided among a group of powerful independent warlords. Sun Yat-sens efforts to aid from the Western countries were ignored, however. Thus the struggle for power in China began between the KMT and the CPC, in 1923, a joint statement by Sun and Soviet representative Adolph Joffe in Shanghai pledged Soviet assistance for Chinas unification. The Sun-Joffe Manifesto was a declaration of cooperation among the Comintern, KMT, Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin arrived in China in 1923 to aid in the reorganization and consolidation of the KMT along the lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPC joined the KMT to form the First United Front, in 1923, Sun Yat-sen sent Chiang Kai-shek, one of his lieutenants from his Tongmeng Hui days, for several months of military and political study in Moscow. By 1924 Chiang became the head of the Whampoa Military Academy, the Soviets provided the academy with much educational material, organization and equipment, including munitions. They also provided education in many of the techniques for mass mobilization, with this aid, Sun Yat-sen was able to raise a dedicated army of the party, with which he hoped to defeat the warlords militarily. CPC members were present in the academy, and many of them became instructors, including Zhou Enlai. Communist members were allowed to join the KMT on an individual basis, the CPC itself was still small at the time, having a membership of 300 in 1922 and only 1,500 by 1925. The KMT in 1923 had 50,000 members, however, after Sun died, the KMT split into left- and right-wing movements. KMT members worried that the Soviets were trying to destroy the KMT from inside using the CPC, the CPC then began movements in opposition of the Northern Expedition, passing a resolution against it at a party meeting
Chinese Civil War
–
Clockwise from the top: Communist troops at the
Battle of Siping,
Muslim soldiers of the NRA,
Mao Zedong in the 1930s,
Chiang Kai-shek inspecting soldiers, CCP general
Su Yu investigating the front field shortly before the
Menglianggu Campaign
Chinese Civil War
–
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Commander-in-Chief of the
National Revolutionary Army, emerged from the
Northern Expedition as the leader of the
Republic of China.
Chinese Civil War
–
A Communist leader addressing "Long March" survivors.
Chinese Civil War
–
From left to right: US diplomat
Patrick J. Hurley,
Chiang Ching-kuo,
Chiang Kai-shek,
Chang Ch'ün, Wang Shi Jie (王世杰),
Mao Zedong
26.
First Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)
–
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 (Soviet Union)
–
Propaganda stand dedicated to the first five-year plan in
Moscow. 1931 colour photo by Branson DeCou.
First Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)
–
Industrialization poster for the first five-year plan made by
Gustavs Klucis
27.
Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)
–
The Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 was a minor armed conflict between the Soviet Union and Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang of the Republic of China over the Chinese Eastern Railway. In order to understand why the Chinese forced a hostile takeover, on August 26,1919, the Karakhan Manifesto was published by the Soviet press, but the document did not contain anything about returning the CER to China without compensation. The Soviets had laid the foundation to double-cross the Chinese, the Soviets would later use of the August 26th version of the Manifesto to argue with the Chinese government that they did not have to pay compensation for the CER. Along with the original Karakhan telegram the Chinese had the Vilenski pamphlet as evidence, the Vilenski pamphlet also shows the Chinese that they were willing to return the CER to the Chinese without compensation. The July 25th Karakhan telegram shows the Soviet Unions original intentions, which was to return the CER back into Chinese control without compensation. The July 25th telegram was used to satisfy the requirements for the Chinese government. This made all treaties, border relations and commercial relations dependent on the upcoming conference and this gave the Soviets time to turn to Zhang Xueliang in Manchuria. Zhang Xueliang was the strongest warlord in Manchuria at the time and he had control of the Mukden government, today the city is known as Shenyang. The Soviets were the first to propose joint management of the CER with the Chinese, but Zhang stood in the way of this joint management. The Soviets decided to make a deal with Zhang, on May 31,1924, Lev Karakhan and Dr. V. K. Ellington Koo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of China, while negotiations had been concluded with the Chinese, the Soviets turned to make a deal with Zhang Xueliang. They promised him full control of choosing which Chinese officials would be on the board in the joint Chinese-Soviet management of the CER and this would give Zhang Xueliang half control of CER. On September 20,1924 Zhang signed the Secret Agreement not knowing the Chinese government had signed the Secret Protocol earlier in the year, and since the CER was originally controlled by the Soviets, the majority of the positions would be under Soviet control. Then the Soviet claimed they should keep majority control is any other solution would interrupt or injure the railway. The Soviets were also the master of the President for the CER. The Soviet government was able to regain majority control of the CER by playing the secret protocols off each other, the Soviets allowed the Chinese to think they were adding workers loyal to their government. However, in reality, the Soviets were creating more job on the railway, in the end, the Soviets controlled sixty-seven percent of all positions on the CER. The Chinese entertained joint- management until mid-1929, the change from Soviet control to Chinese control started when the Chinese authorities made a radical move to try and remove Soviet management
Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)
–
Soviet soldiers with captured Kuomintang banners.
28.
Spanish Civil War
–
Ultimately, the Nationalists won, and Franco then ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from April 1939 until his death in November 1975. Sanjurjo was killed in an accident while attempting to return from exile in Portugal. The coup was supported by units in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, Pamplona, Burgos, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Cádiz, Córdoba. However, rebelling units in some important cities—such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and Málaga—did not gain control, Spain was thus left militarily and politically divided. The Nationalists and the Republican government fought for control of the country, the Nationalist forces received munitions and soldiers from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republican side received support from the Communist Soviet Union and leftist populist Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, operated a policy of non-intervention. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west and they also besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. Those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists, with the establishment of a dictatorship led by General Franco in the aftermath of the war, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime. The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired, organized purges occurred in territory captured by Francos forces to consolidate the future regime. A significant number of killings took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, the extent to which Republican authorities took part in killings in Republican territory varied. The 19th century was a turbulent time for Spain and those in favour of reforming Spains government vied for political power with conservatives, who tried to prevent reforms from taking place. Some liberals, in a tradition that had started with the Spanish Constitution of 1812, sought to limit the power of the monarchy of Spain, the reforms of 1812 did not last after King Ferdinand VII dissolved the Constitution and ended the Trienio Liberal government. Twelve successful coups were carried out between 1814 and 1874, until the 1850s, the economy of Spain was primarily based on agriculture. There was little development of an industrial or commercial class. The land-based oligarchy remained powerful, a number of people held large estates called latifundia as well as all the important government positions. In 1868 popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II of the House of Bourbon, two distinct factors led to the uprisings, a series of urban riots and a liberal movement within the middle classes and the military concerned with the ultra-conservatism of the monarchy. In 1873 Isabellas replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy, abdicated owing to increasing pressure. After the restoration of the Bourbons in December 1874, Carlists and Anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy, alejandro Lerroux, Spanish politician and leader of the Radical Republican Party, helped bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia, where poverty was particularly acute
Spanish Civil War
–
Republican International Brigadiers at the
Battle of Belchite ride on a
T-26 tank
Spanish Civil War
–
King
Amadeo I of Spain
Spanish Civil War
–
Republican volunteers at
Teruel, 1936.
Spanish Civil War
–
Republican troops at
Guadalajara, 1937
29.
Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937)
–
In 1937 an Islamic rebellion broke out in southern Xinjiang. The rebels were 1,500 Turkic Muslims led by Kichik Akhund, Sheng Shicai had moved against Divisional Gen. Mahmut Muhiti, commander-in-chief of the 6th Uyghur Division and deputy chief of the Kashgar Military Region. Muhiti resented the increased Russian influence and formed a group around himself. Sheng feared Muhiti may have allied with Chinese Muslim Gen. Ma Hu-shan, however, the Uighurs of Kashgar heard hostile reports on Ma Hu-shan from Uighur refugees from Khotan suffering under Ma. Muhiti fled Kashgar on April 2,1937, with a number of his subordinates and some amount of gold to India via Yengi Hissar. Shortly before his departure he sent a message to Ma Hu-Shan about his arrival at Khotan. In response, Ma Hu-Shan ordered his troops to prepare a parade and this preparation pulled troops who guarded both mountain passes to Kashmir, which allowed Muhiti the opportunity to change his route and slip through into Kashmir. Muhitis flight resulted in Uighur troops rising in revolt in Yengi Hissar, Yarkand and Artush, resulting in the execution of all pro-Soviet officials and a number of Soviet advisers. Liu Pin, a commander in Kashgar Region with 700 troops at his command, responded to the rebellion by launching a squadron of nine Soviet planes to bomb Yangi Hissar. After Muhiti reached Srinagar in India, the year, he went on pilgrimage to Mecca. A buildup of Soviet military assets occurred in Xinjiang before the outbreak of war, around Kashgar, the Soviets sent AA guns, fighter planes, and soldiers of Russian and Kyrgyz origin in great amounts. They were all arrested on one night in May 1937 by the NKVD—the Soviet secret police—and executed without trials, Soviet diplomatic staff were also purged throughout the province in Soviet consulates in Urumchi, Karashar, Ghulja, Chuguchak and Altai. The rebellion is also viewed by historians as a plot by Mahmut Muhiti. A conquest of the Kremlin, Russian Turkistan and Siberia was planned in an anti-Soviet jihad formulated by Ma Hsi Jung and he promised a devastated Europe and the conquering of Russia and India. The anti-Soviet client uprising by Ma Hsi Jung s was reported by United Press International, meanwhile, Ma Hushan and his Chinese Muslim troops of the 36th Division were watching the situation with interest, eager to seize more territory. Having received the order, the Tungans attacked Kashgar airfield on 20 May but were defeated, ten days later 1,500 Islamic irregulars under Kichik Akund attacked and seized Kashgar Old City. His troops wore armbands with the words Fi sabil Allah, the rebellion was followed by a Kyrgyz uprising near Kucha and Muslim unrest in Kumul. Ma Hushan remained at Khotan watching the situation and his Chief of Staff Pai Tzu-li and Ma Ju-lung, the 1st Brigade commander at Karghalik, persuaded him to strike against Kashgar
Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937)
–
Soviet Invasion 1937
Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937)
–
Gen. Abdul Niyaz
30.
Soviet Union legislative election, 1937
–
Elections to the Supreme Soviet were held in the Soviet Union on 12 December 1937. It was the first election held under the 1936 Soviet Constitution, which had formed the Supreme Soviet to replace the old legislature, Hurrah for Comrade Stalin, the creator of the Soviet Constitution, the most democratic in the world. Long live Comrade Stalin, leader of the oppressed throughout the world, in his speech Stalin said that Comrades, to tell you the truth, I had no intention of making a speech. Never in the history of the world have there been such really free, history knows no other example like it. our universal elections will be carried out as the freest elections and the most democratic compared with elections in any other country in the world. Universal elections exist and are held in some capitalist countries. But in what atmosphere are elections held there and that is what we call Socialism in practice. In our fields the tillers of the work without landlords. The work is directed by men and women of the people and that is what we call Socialism in daily life, that is what we call a free, socialist life. The elections were announced as being multi-candidate, however, by halfway through the year the announcement was reversed due to the distrust of the leadership during the Great Purge. Many of the individuals attempting to run as alternate candidates were arrested after the decision for multiple candidates was reversed. Additionally, the NKVD conducted mass arrests shortly before the elections, state and Society Under Stalin, Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s, article by J. Arch Getty in Slavic Review, Vol.50, No.1. Ferdinand Joseph Maria Feldbrugge, ed. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, everyday Stalinism, Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Soviet Russia in the 1930s. New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 179–182
Soviet Union legislative election, 1937
–
All of seats to the
Soviet Supreme Soviet
Soviet Union legislative election, 1937
–
Distribution of seats
31.
Soviet invasion of Poland
–
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939. On that morning,16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland was secretly agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed on 23 August 1939. The Red Army, which outnumbered the Polish defenders, achieved its targets by using strategic. Some 230,000 Polish prisoners of war had been captured, the campaign of mass persecution in the newly acquired areas began immediately. In November 1939 the Soviet government ostensibly annexed the entire Polish territory under its control, the Soviet campaign of ethnic cleansing began with the wave of arrests and summary executions of officers, policemen and priests. Soviet forces occupied eastern Poland until the summer of 1941, when they were out by the invading German army in the course of Operation Barbarossa. The area was under Nazi occupation until the Red Army reconquered it again in the summer of 1944, the Soviet Union enclosed most of the annexed territories into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. After the end of World War II in Europe, the USSR signed a new border agreement with the Polish communists on 16 August 1945. The USSR played a double game secretly engaging in talks with Germany. The terms were rejected, thus giving Josef Stalin a free hand in pursuing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Adolf Hitler, the non-aggression pact contained a secret protocol dividing Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence in the event of war. One week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, German forces invaded Poland from the west, north, Polish forces gradually withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited the French and British support and relief that they were expecting. On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Red Army invaded the Kresy regions in accordance with the secret protocol, at the opening of hostilities several Polish cities including Dubno, Łuck and Włodzimierz Wołyński let the Red Army in peacefully, convinced that it was marching on to fight the Germans. General Juliusz Rómmel of the Polish Army issued an order to treat them like an ally before it was too late. The result of the Paris Peace Conference did little to decrease the territorial ambitions of parties in the region, the border skirmishes of 1919 progressively escalated into the Polish–Soviet War in 1920. Following the Polish victory at the Battle of Warsaw, the Soviets sued for peace, the parties signed the formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, on 18 March 1921, dividing the disputed territories between Poland and Soviet Russia. In the aftermath of the agreement, Soviet leaders largely abandoned the cause of international revolution. The Conference of Ambassadors and the community recognized Polands eastern frontiers in 1923. Germany marched into Prague on 15 March 1939, in mid-April, the Soviet Union, Britain and France began trading diplomatic suggestions regarding a political and military agreement to counter potential further German aggression
Soviet invasion of Poland
–
Soviet parade in
Lwów, 1939
Soviet invasion of Poland
–
Soviet invasion of Poland, 1939. Advance of the Red Army troops
Soviet invasion of Poland
–
Disposition of all troops following the Soviet invasion
Soviet invasion of Poland
–
German and Soviet officers shaking hands following the invasion
32.
Winter War
–
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940. It began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, the League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the League on 14 December 1939. Finland refused and the USSR invaded the country, the Soviets possessed more than three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalins Great Purge of 1937. With more than 30,000 of its officers executed or imprisoned, including most of those of the highest ranks, because of these factors, and high morale in the Finnish forces, Finland repelled Soviet attacks for several months, much longer than the Soviets expected. However, after reorganization and adoption of different tactics, the renewed Soviet offensive overcame Finnish defenses at the borders, hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland ceded territory representing 11% of its area and 13% of its economy to the Soviet Union. Soviet losses were heavy, and the international reputation suffered. While the Soviet Union did not conquer all Finland, Soviet gains exceeded their pre-war demands and they gained substantial territory along Lake Ladoga, providing a buffer for Leningrad, and territory in northern Finland. Finland retained its sovereignty and enhanced its international reputation, the end of the war cancelled the Franco-British plan to send troops to Finland through northern Scandinavia. One of the goals of the projected Franco-British operation had been to take control of northern Swedens iron ore. For this reason it was also a factor in the launching of Operation Weserübung, Nazi Germanys invasion of Denmark. The poor performance of the Red Army encouraged Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be successful, until the beginning of the 19th century, Finland constituted the eastern part of the Kingdom of Sweden. In 1809, to protect their capital, Saint Petersburg. While abortive because of Russias internal strife, these attempts ruined Russias relations with the Finns, the new Bolshevik Russian government was weak, and with the threat of civil war looming Soviet Russia recognized the new Finnish government just three weeks after the declaration of independence. Sovereignty was fully achieved in May 1918 after a civil war. Finland joined the League of Nations in 1920, from which it sought security guarantees, nevertheless, the government of Sweden carefully avoided committing itself to Finnish foreign policy. Another Finnish military policy was the top secret military cooperation between Finland and Estonia, the 1920s and early 1930s were a politically unstable time in Finland
Winter War
–
A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter War
Winter War
–
Finnish ski troops in Northern Finland in January 1940
Winter War
–
Lieutenant
Aarne Juutilainen became a national hero for his defence of Finland during the
Battle of Kollaa.
Winter War
–
A Finnish soldier with an
M-26 machine gun
33.
Moscow Peace Treaty
–
The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed by Finland and the Soviet Union on 12 March 1940, and the ratifications were exchanged on 21 March. It marked the end of the 105-day Winter War, Finland had to cede border areas to the Soviet Union. The treaty was signed by Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrey Zhdanov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky for Soviet Union, the Finnish government received the first tentative peace conditions from the Soviet Union on 31 January. By this point, the regime was prepared to temper its claims, the demands were that Finland cede the Karelian Isthmus, including the city of Viipuri, and Finlands shore of Lake Ladoga. The Hanko Peninsula was to be leased to the Soviet Union for 30 years, Finland rejected these demands and intensified its pleas to Sweden, France and the United Kingdom for military support by regular troops. Although Finland in the run had no chance against a country fifty times its size. On 6 March, a Finnish delegation led by Prime Minister Risto Ryti travelled to Moscow, during the negotiations, the Red Army broke through the Finnish defence lines around Tali and were close to surrounding Viipuri. The Peace Agreement was signed on the evening of 12 March, Moscow time, i. e.1 hour on March 13, the protocol appended to the treaty stipulated that the fighting should be ended at noon, Leningrad time, and the fighting continued until that time. Finnish concessions and territorial losses exceeded those demanded by the Soviets pre-war, Finland was forced to cede nearly all of Finnish Karelia, even though large parts were still held by Finlands army. Military troops and remaining civilians were evacuated to inside the new border. 422,000 Karelians, 12% of Finlands population, lost their homes, there was also an area that the Russians captured during the war, which remained in Finnish hands according to the Peace Treaty, Petsamo. However, the treaty also stipulated that Finland would grant free passage for Soviet civilians through Petsamo to Norway. Finally, the Hanko Peninsula was leased to the Soviet Union as a base for 30 years at an annual rent of 8 million marks. Additional demands were that any equipment and installation on the territories were to be handed over. Thus Finland had to hand over 75 locomotives,2,000 railroad cars, a number of cars, trucks and ships. The Enso industrial area, which was clearly on the Finnish side of the border, as it was drawn in the treaty, was also soon added to the Finnish losses of territory. The new border was not arbitrary from the Soviet viewpoint, before the war, Finland had been a leading producer of high quality pulp, which was an important raw material for explosives. Including the Enso factories, the Soviet Union captured 80% of Finlands production capacity, the location of the new border was consistent with the Soviet defence doctrine, which envisioned taking the fight onto enemy soil through counterattacks and pre-emptive strikes
Moscow Peace Treaty
–
Areas ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union
34.
Occupation of the Baltic states
–
On 22 June 1941 Nazi Germany attacked the USSR and within weeks occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Baltic territory was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ostland of the Third Reich, the Soviet annexation occupation of the Baltic states lasted until August 1991, when the Baltic states regained independence. In its reassessment of Soviet history that began during perestroika in 1989, however, Russia agreed to Europes demand to assist persons deported from the occupied Baltic states upon joining the Council of Europe. De facto independence was restored to the Baltic states in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia started to withdraw its troops from the Baltics in August 1993. The full withdrawal of troops deployed by Moscow was completed in August 1994, Russia officially ended its military presence in the Baltics in August 1998 by decommissioning the Skrunda-1 radar station in Latvia. The dismantled installations were repatriated to Russia and the returned to Latvian control. Early in the morning of August 24,1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, the pact contained a secret protocol by which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence. In the north, Finland, Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere, Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its political rearrangement—the areas east of the Narev, Vistula and San Rivers going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west. According to this protocol, Lithuania would regain its historical capital Vilnius. Following the end of Soviet invasion of Poland on 6 October, the Soviets pressured Finland, the Soviets questioned the neutrality of Estonia after the escape of an interned Polish submarine on 18 September. A week later on 24 September, the Estonian foreign minister was given an ultimatum in Moscow, the Soviets demanded the conclusion of a treaty of mutual assistance to establish military bases in Estonia. The Estonians had no choice but to accept naval, air, the corresponding agreement was signed on 28 September 1939. Latvia followed on 5 October 1939 and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on 10 October 1939, in September and October 1939, the Soviet government compelled the Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance pacts which gave it the right to establish Soviet military bases. In May 1940, the Soviets turned to the idea of military intervention. Their model was the Finnish Democratic Republic, a puppet regime set up by the Soviets on the first day of the Winter War, the Soviets organised a press campaign against the allegedly pro-Allied sympathies of the Baltic governments. In May 1940, the Germans invaded France, which was overrun, in late May and early June 1940, the Baltic states were accused of military collaboration against the Soviet Union by holding meetings the previous winter. On 15 June 1940, the Lithuanian government had no choice but to agree to the Soviet ultimatum, president Antanas Smetona proposed armed resistance to the Soviets but the government refused, proposing their own candidate to lead the regime. However, the Soviets refused this offer and sent Vladimir Dekanozov to take charge of affairs while the Red Army occupied the state, on 16 June 1940, Latvia and Estonia also received ultimata
Occupation of the Baltic states
–
Schematics of the Soviet military blockade and invasion of Estonia in 1940. (Russian State Naval Archives)
Occupation of the Baltic states
–
Planned and actual divisions of Europe, according to the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with later adjustments
Occupation of the Baltic states
–
Monument to Lithuanian victims of Soviet occupation in
Gediminas Avenue,
Vilnius. 54°41′18.9″N 25°16′14.0″E / 54.688583°N 25.270556°E / 54.688583; 25.270556
35.
Soviet Union in World War II
–
The Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939. Stalin and Hitler later traded proposals after a Soviet entry into the Axis Pact, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Joseph Stalin waited until 17 September before launching his own invasion of Poland, part of southeastern and Salla region in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and it was only in 1989 that the Soviet Union admitted the existence of the secret protocol of the Nazi-Soviet pact regarding the planned divisions of these territories. The invasion of Bukovina violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere agreed with the Axis, in 1940-41 Stalin ignored reports of an Axis invasion. On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin was confident that the total Allied war machine would eventually stop Germany, and with Lend Lease from the West, the Soviets stopped the Wehrmacht some 30 kilometres from Moscow. Stalin began to listen to his generals more after Kursk, the bulk of Soviet fighting took place on the Eastern Front—including a continued war with Finland—but it also invaded Iran in cooperation with the British and late in the war attacked Japan. Stalin met with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference and began to discuss a two-front war against Germany, Berlin finally fell in April 1945, but Stalin was never fully convinced his nemesis Adolf Hitler had committed suicide. Stalin became personally involved with questionable tactics employed during the war, including the Katyn massacre,270, Order No.227 and NKVD prisoner massacres. Officially a non-aggression treaty only, a secret protocol, also reached on 23 August, divided the whole of eastern Europe into German. Another clause of the treaty was that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, was to be joined to the Moldovan SSR, the pact was reached two days after the breakdown of Soviet military talks with British and French representatives in August 1939 over a potential Franco-Anglo-Soviet alliance. By that time, Molotov obtained information regarding Anglo-German negotiations and a report from the Soviet ambassador in France. They further traded toasts, with Stalin proposing a toast to Hitlers health, on 1 September 1939, the German invasion of its agreed upon portion of Poland started the Second World War. On 17 September the Red Army invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. Eleven days later, the protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was modified, allotting Germany a larger part of Poland. The Soviet portions lay east of the so-called Curzon Line, a frontier between Russia and Poland drawn up by a commission of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In early 1940, the Soviets executed over 25,000 Polish PoWs and this became known as the Katyn massacre. In August 1939, Stalin declared that he was going to solve the Baltic problem, after unsuccessfully attempting to install a communist puppet government in Finland, in November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland
Soviet Union in World War II
–
Stalin,
Roosevelt and
Churchill at the
Tehran Conference, November 1943
Soviet Union in World War II
–
Soviet soldiers of the Eastern Front during a short rest after fighting, 1 April 1944
Soviet Union in World War II
–
Stalin and
Ribbentrop at the signing of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939.
Soviet Union in World War II
–
Soviet cavalry on parade in
Lviv (then Lwów), after the city's surrender during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland
36.
Soviet atomic bomb project
–
The project was directed by Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, while the military logistics and intelligence efforts were undertaken and managed by NKVD peoples commissar Lavrentiy Beria. The Soviet Union benefited from highly successful efforts on the part of the GRU of the Soviet General Staff. However, because of the bloody and intensified war with Nazi Germany, the Soviets accelerated the program after the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet atomic project was charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear energy project as well as the American nuclear efforts, after the war, the Soviet Union expanded its research facilities, military reactors, and employed many scientists. With the success of this test, the Soviet Union became the nation after the United States to detonate a nuclear device. In early 1930s, the Soviets were instrumental to the advancement of nuclear physics, the Soviet interest in nuclear physics had begun in the early 1930s, an era in which a variety of important nuclear discoveries and achievements were made. Even before the Russian revolution and the February Revolution, the mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky had made a number of calls for a survey of Russias uranium deposits. The main motivation for research at the time was radium, which had scientific as well as medical uses. The soviet Atomic Bomb Project has its roots all the way back in the 1910s, the research being done was not officially institutionalized until 1922 when the Radium Institute in Petrograd opened. Through the thirties there were other institutions opened across the nation. It is important to acknowledge that the research and institutions were all a part of civil society and this meant that the military did not directly control the progress being made. In 1940, a commission was set up to address the Uranium Problem allowing intelligentsia to study nuclear fission, although significant ground had been broke the majority of research would be abandoned during World War II. Russia would spend the four years in conflict with Europe. Flyorov deduced that this meant such research had been classified, creation in 1943 of Laboratory No.2 under the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was the first stage of the Soviet atomic bomb project. When the United States tested the Atom Bomb in 1945 Stalin decided to push the intellectuals even harder and they appointed a special committee that was fully funded. This committee was headed by Beria who was now in charge of a group of specialists in science. Again it is important to note that Stalin did not include military men. Instead he put those from the party, civilians, and secret police in charge, on April 9,1946, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted the resolution on creation of Design Office#11 to develop an atomic bomb
Soviet atomic bomb project
–
The fathers of the Soviet nuclear program, Dr.
Andrei Sakharov (left) with Dr.
Igor Kurchatov (right).
Soviet atomic bomb project
–
RDS-1, the first Soviet
atomic test.
Soviet atomic bomb project
–
The mushroom cloud from the first air-dropped bomb test in 1951. This picture is confused with RDS-27 and
RDS-37 tests.
37.
Tehran Conference
–
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held in the Soviet Unions embassy in Tehran, Iran and it was the first of the World War II conferences of the Big Three Allied leaders. It closely followed the Cairo Conference which had taken place on 22–26 November 1943, although the three leaders arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the Western Allies commitment to open a second front against Nazi Germany. The conference also addressed the Allies relations with Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan, a separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three to recognize Irans independence. As soon as the German-Soviet war broke out in June 1941, Churchill offered assistance to the Soviets, and an agreement to this effect was signed on 12 July 1941. Delegations had traveled between London and Moscow to arrange the implementation of this support and when the United States joined the war in December 1941, a Combined Chiefs of Staff committee was created to coordinate British and American operations as well as their support to the Soviet Union. There was the question of opening a second front to alleviate the German pressure on the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front, the question of mutual assistance. Also, neither the United States nor Britain were prepared to give Stalin a free hand in Eastern Europe and, lastly, communications regarding these matters between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin took place by telegrams and via emissaries—but it was evident that direct negotiations were urgently needed. Stalin was reluctant to leave Moscow and was unwilling to risk journeys by air, while Roosevelt was physically disabled, in order to arrange this urgently needed meeting, Roosevelt tried to persuade Stalin to travel to Cairo. Stalin turned down this offer and also offers to meet in Baghdad or Basra, the conference was to convene at 16,00 on 28 November 1943. Stalin arrived well before, followed by Roosevelt, brought in his wheelchair from his accommodation adjacent to the venue, Roosevelt, who had traveled 7,000 miles to attend and whose health was already deteriorating, was met by Stalin. This was the first time that they had met, Churchill, walking with his general staff from their accommodations nearby, arrived half an hour later. The U. S. and Great Britain wanted to secure the cooperation of the Soviet Union in defeating Germany, Stalin pressed for a revision of Poland’s eastern border with the Soviet Union to match the line set by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in 1920. In order to compensate Poland for the loss of territory. This decision was not formally ratified, however, until the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the leaders then turned to the conditions under which the Western Allies would open a new front by invading northern France, as Stalin had pressed them to do since 1941. It was agreed Overlord would occur by May 1944, Stalin agreed to support it by launching a concurrent major offensive on Germanys eastern front to divert German forces from northern France, Iran and Turkey were discussed in detail. In addition, the Soviet Union was required to support to Turkey if that country entered the war. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed that it would also be most desirable if Turkey entered on the Allies side before the year was out, despite accepting the above arrangements, Stalin dominated the conference
Tehran Conference
–
The "Big Three" at the Tehran Conference Left to right: Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
Tehran Conference
–
Life
38.
Yalta Conference
–
The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea, USSR. The goal of conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order, the meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, to a degree, it has remained controversial. Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three and it had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Stalin, Churchill and Harry S. Truman, Roosevelts successor. All three leaders were attempting to establish an agenda for governing post-war Germany and they wanted to keep peace between post-world war countries. On the Eastern Front, the front line at the end of December 1943 remained in the Soviet Union but, by August 1944, Soviet forces were inside Poland, by the time of the Conference, Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukovs forces were 65 km from Berlin. Stalins position at the conference was one which he felt was so strong that he could dictate terms. According to U. S. delegation member and future Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, t was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, moreover, Roosevelt hoped for a commitment from Stalin to participate in the United Nations. Stalin, insisting that his doctors opposed any long trips, rejected Roosevelts suggestion to meet at the Mediterranean and he offered instead to meet at the Black Sea resort of Yalta, in the Crimea. Stalins fear of flying also was a factor in this decision. Each leader had an agenda for the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt wanted Soviet support in the U. S, Poland was the first item on the Soviet agenda. Stalin stated that For the Soviet government, the question of Poland was one of honor, in addition, Stalin stated regarding history that because the Russians had greatly sinned against Poland, the Soviet government was trying to atone for those sins. Stalin concluded that Poland must be strong and that the Soviet Union is interested in the creation of a mighty, free, Roosevelt wanted the USSR to enter the Pacific War with the Allies. Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany, Stalin pledged to Truman to keep the nationality of the Korean Peninsula intact as Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. At the time, the Red Army had occupied Poland completely, the Declaration of Liberated Europe did little to dispel the sphere of influence agreements that had been incorporated into armistice agreements. They also agreed to give France a zone of occupation, carved out of the U. S. also, the Big Three agreed that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries and that all civilians would be repatriated. The Declaration of Liberated Europe is a declaration that was created by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and it was a promise that allowed the people of Europe to create democratic institutions of their own choice. The declaration pledged, the earliest possible establishment through free elections governments responsive to the will of the people and this is similar to the statements of the Atlantic Charter, which says, the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
–
A Big Three meeting room
Yalta Conference
–
The military situation [
clarification needed] at the end of the conference
39.
Potsdam Conference
–
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, the three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and, later, Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. The goals of the conference included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaty issues. In the five months since the Yalta Conference, a number of changes had taken place which would affect the relationships between the leaders. Firstly, the Soviet Union was occupying Central and Eastern Europe, by July, the Red Army effectively controlled the Baltic states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, and fearing a Stalinist take-over, refugees were fleeing from these countries. Stalin had set up a communist government in Poland and he insisted that his control of Eastern Europe was a defensive measure against possible future attacks and claimed that it was a legitimate sphere of Soviet influence. Secondly, Britain had a new Prime Minister, a general election was held in the UK on 5 July, the results of which became known during the conference, with a Labour Party majority, Labour leader Clement Attlee became the new Prime Minister. During the war and in the name of Allied unity, Roosevelt had brushed off warnings of a potential domination by a Stalin dictatorship in part of Europe, while inexperienced in foreign affairs, Truman had closely followed the allied progress of the war. With the end of the war, the priority of allied unity was replaced with a new challenge, the two leading powers continued to sustain a cordial relationship to the public but suspicions and distrust lingered between them. As the suspicion grew between the two rising powers, Stalin proposed that America will use their advantage and success in order to entices other nations into expanding their U. S. policies. Truman became much more suspicious of communist moves than Roosevelt had been, Truman and his advisers saw Soviet actions in Eastern Europe as aggressive expansionism which was incompatible with the agreements Stalin had committed to at Yalta the previous February. However, the Potsdam Conference marks the first and only time Truman would ever meet Stalin in person, at the end of the conference, the three Heads of Government agreed on the following actions. All other issues were to be answered by the peace conference to be called as soon as possible. Allied Chiefs of Staff at the Potsdam Conference decided to temporarily partition Vietnam at the 16th parallel for the purposes of operational convenience. It was agreed that British forces would take the surrender of Japanese forces in Saigon for the half of Indochina. The Allies issued a statement of aims of their occupation of Germany, Germany and Austria were to be divided respectively into four occupation zones, and similarly each capital, Berlin and Vienna, was to be divided into four zones. It was agreed that the Nazi war criminals would be put to trial, all German annexations in Europe were to be reversed, including Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, and the westernmost parts of Poland. Germanys eastern border was to be shifted westwards to the Oder–Neisse line, the territories east of the new border comprised East Prussia, Silesia, West Prussia, and two thirds of Pomerania
Potsdam Conference
–
A picture of a conference session including
Clement Attlee,
Ernest Bevin,
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov,
Joseph Stalin,
William D. Leahy,
Joseph E. Davies,
James F. Byrnes, and
Harry S. Truman.
Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
–
Clement Attlee, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, circa 28 July -- 1 August 1945
Potsdam Conference
–
Cecilienhof today: site of the Potsdam Conference.
40.
Iran crisis of 1946
–
In 1941, Iran had been jointly invaded and occupied by the Allied powers of the Soviet Red Army in the north and by the British in the centre and south. Iran was used by the Americans and the British as a route to provide vital supplies to the Soviet Unions war efforts. As of August 1941, the United States was a nation and had not yet entered as a belligerent in World War II. In the aftermath of the occupation of Iran, those Allied forces agreed to withdraw from Iran within six months after the cessation of hostilities. However, when this came in early 1946, the Soviets, under Joseph Stalin, remained in Iran. In late 1945, in addition to the Peoples Republic of Azerbaijan, negotiation by Iranian premier Ahmad Qavam and diplomatic pressure on the Soviets by the United States eventually led to Soviet withdrawal. The crisis is seen as one of the conflicts in the growing Cold War at the time. As a result, Rezā Shāh was forced to abdicate and exiled to Mauritius, his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, throughout the rest of the war, the United Kingdom and the United States used Iran as an important supply line to the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany. Thirty thousand non-combatant US troops arrived to move supplies. Following VJ Day in September 1945, first the US and then the UK withdrew their forces within the treaty-stipulated period, the Soviets not only violated the March 2 withdrawal deadline, in that time they had expanded their military presence southward. The Azerbaijani Democratic Party was formed in September 1945 and headed by Jafar Pishevari, the ADP expanded throughout Iranian Azerbaijan, and initiated a local coup détat with help from the Soviet army, who prevented the Iranian army from intervening. The only Prime Minister of this republic was Ahmad Kordary. Though the Soviets initially supported the new entity and prevented the Iranian army from restoring governmental control over the area. After the Soviet withdrawal, Iranian troops entered the region in December 1946 and Pishevari, the Mahabad Republic was proclaimed in December 1945. Leading the nascent Kurdish republic and fully endorsed by the Soviets, was Qazi Muhammad, despite Soviet opposition, Mullah Mustafa Barzani came to play an important role in the newly created military force of the Mahabad Republic - the Peshmerga. With Barzanis support secured, along with some 60 tribal Kurdish leaders, the Kurdish forces were advised and organized by Soviet military officer Captain Salahuddin Kazimov. The Soviets extended their influence by sending at least 60 Kurds to Soviet Azerbaijan for additional military training, in total, the Mahabad army consisted of 70 active duty officers,40 non-commissioned officers, and 1,200 lower-enlisted privates. The Mahabad peshmerga also engaged Iranian reconnaissance teams in the region throughout early May 1946, Kurdish offensives were limited to minor skirmishes due to the removal of Soviet influence in the region that month, possibly due to a Soviet-Iranian oil agreement
Iran crisis of 1946
–
Jafar Pishevari in 1946
41.
Turkish Straits crisis
–
The Turkish Straits crisis was a Cold War-era territorial conflict between the Soviet Union and Turkey. As the Turkish government would not submit to the Soviet Unions requests, tensions arose in the region, the incident would later serve as a deciding factor in the issuing of the Truman Doctrine. At its climax, the tensions would cause Turkey to turn to the United States and NATO, for protection and membership, the result of this action contributed to the European post-war status quo that remains to this day. The conflict has its roots in Soviet-Turkish relations, both just prior to and during the Second World War, until the last half of the 1930s, Russian-Turkish relations were warm and somewhat fraternal. The previous incarnations of the two nations, the Ottoman Empire and Bolshevist Russia, had promised to cooperate with other in the Treaty of Moscow. It was the latest of several negotiations regarding the two waterways, previous treaties and conferences had materialized over the spans of the 19th and 20th centuries. The issue had been revived again with the rise of Fascist Italy, upon the treatys signing, on July 20,1936, Turkey was permitted to rearm and regulate the straits. The treaty also forbade the traversing of the straits by ships not belonging to any of the Black Sea states. Throughout the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Stalin repeatedly challenged the agreements reached by the 1936 convention and he proposed joint Turkish and Soviet control of the straits. The Soviet Union wished for the Turkish-USSR border within the Eastern Anatolia Region to be normalized in a way beneficial to themselves and the Armenian and Georgian SSRs. Deputy premier Lavrentiy Beria got in Stalins ear, claiming that Turkish territory to the southwest of Georgia was stolen from the Georgians by the Turks during the Ottoman period, the argument was retracted along with Soviet reservations over the regime of the straits in May 1953. After the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviets returned to the issue in 1945 and 1946, throughout 1946, American and Turkish diplomats frequently conversed on the issue. The Soviets grew angry over Turkeys allowing of non-Black Sea naval vessels to cross the straits during the course of the war, the April 6,1946 visit of the American battleship USS Missouri further angered the Soviets. The ship had come to the region under the explanation that it was delivering the mortuary urn of the late Turkish Ambassador home and this drew attention to the occasions in which Italian and German warships had passed through the straits without conflict. The note concluded that the regime of the straits was no longer reliable and demanded that the Montreux Treaty be re-examined, in a secret telegram sent by US Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson to diplomats in Paris, he explained the American position on the matter. On August 20,1946, Undersecretary Acheson met with fifteen journalists to explain the urgency of the situation and make the opinions of the United States Government known. In the period of months from summer to autumn of 1946, a substantial number of ground troops were dispatched to the Balkans. Buckling under the pressure from the Soviets, in a matter of days Turkey appealed to the United States for aid
Turkish Straits crisis
–
The location of the
Bosphorus and
Dardanelles straits.
42.
First Indochina War
–
The First Indochina War began in French Indochina on 19 December 1946 and lasted until 1 August 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Viet Minh opponents in the South dated from September 1945, Japanese forces located south of that line surrendered to him and those to the north surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. In September 1945, Chinese forces entered Tonkin and a small British task force landed at Saigon, the Chinese accepted the Vietnamese government under Ho Chi Minh, then in power in Hanoi. The British refused to do likewise in Saigon, and deferred to the French there from the outset, on V-J Day, September 2, Ho Chi Minh had proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 23 September 1945, with the knowledge of the British Commander in Saigon, French forces overthrew the local DRV government, guerrilla warfare began around Saigon immediately. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against the French, French Union forces included colonial troops from the whole former empire, French professional troops and units of the French Foreign Legion. The use of metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming more unpopular at home. It was called the dirty war by leftists in France, the strategy of pushing the Viet Minh into attacking well-defended bases in remote parts of the country at the end of their logistical trails was validated at the Battle of Nà Sản. However, this base was relatively weak because of a lack of concrete and this combination proved fatal for this base defenses, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The south continued under Emperor Bảo Đại, a year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Soon an insurgency, backed by the North, developed against Diệms government, the conflict gradually escalated into the Vietnam War. Vietnam was absorbed into French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1887, nationalism grew until World War II provided a break in French control. Early Vietnamese resistance centered on the intellectual Phan Bội Châu, Châu looked to Japan, which had modernized and was one of the few Asian nations to successfully resist European colonization. With Prince Cường Để, Châu started two organizations in Japan, the Duy Tân hội and Vietnam Cong Hien Hoi, due to French pressure, Japan deported Phan Bội Châu to China. Witnessing Sun Yat-sens 1911 nationalist revolution, Châu was inspired to commence the Viet Nam Quang Phục Hội movement in Guangzhou, from 1914 to 1917, he was imprisoned by Yuan Shikais counterrevolutionary government. In 1925, he was captured by French agents in Shanghai, due to his popularity, Châu was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940. In September 1940, shortly after Phan Bội Châus death, Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina, keeping the French colonial administration, the Japanese ruled from behind the scenes in a parallel of Vichy France. As far as Vietnamese nationalists were concerned, this was a double-puppet government, Emperor Bảo Đại collaborated with the Japanese, just as he had with the French, ensuring his lifestyle could continue
First Indochina War
–
A
French Foreign Legion unit patrols in a communist-controlled area.
First Indochina War
–
French Indochina (1913)
First Indochina War
–
Japanese troops lay down their arms to British troops in a ceremony in Saigon 1945
First Indochina War
–
Commando of the C.L.I. (
Corps Léger d'Intervention) in Indochina after the
surrender of Japan.
43.
Cold War
–
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
Cold War
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Photograph of the
Berlin Wall taken from the West side. The Wall was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing and to stop an economically disastrous drain of workers. It was a symbol of the Cold War and its fall in 1989 marked the approaching end of the war.
Cold War
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Allied troops in
Vladivostok, August 1918, during the
Allied intervention in the
Russian Civil War.
Cold War
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The "
Big Three " at the Yalta Conference:
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Joseph Stalin, 1945.
44.
Eastern Bloc
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The Eastern Bloc was the group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The terms Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc were also used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a socialist island, Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a secret protocol in September 1939. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas. Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property, the international community condemned this initial annexation of the Baltic states and deemed it illegal. In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union, from the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germanys Ostland. Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the Eastern Front, from 1943 to 1945, several conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he wont try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace. While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as an independent country, Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction. In February 1945, at the conference at Yalta, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of influence in Central Europe. Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany, after resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current pro-Soviet government on a broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new primary task would be to prepare elections. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for war booty, which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, as a young communist was told in East Germany, its got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control. Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation, elimination of the bourgeoisies social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations, the bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly. Crucial departments such as responsible for personnel, general police, secret police
Eastern Bloc
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The Big Three:
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Premier of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin at the
Yalta Conference, February 1945.
Eastern Bloc
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Political situation in Europe during the
Cold War
Eastern Bloc
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World War II Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk fled Poland in 1947 after facing arrest and persecution.
Eastern Bloc
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Germans watching Western supply planes at
Berlin Tempelhof Airport during the
Berlin Airlift.
45.
Cominform
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Founded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers Parties. The intended purpose of Cominform was to coordinate actions between Communist parties under Soviet direction and it had its own newspaper, For Lasting Peace, for Peoples Democracy. In other aspects, Cominform was also used to repel against the anti-communist expansion, Cominform was a Soviet-dominated organization of Communist parties founded in September 1947 at a conference of Communist party leaders in Szklarska Poręba, Poland. Soviet leader Josef Stalin called the conference in response to divergences among communist governments on whether or not to attend the Paris Conference on Marshall Plan in July 1947, Cominform was initially located in Belgrade. After the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the group in June 1948, the expulsion of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from Cominform for Titoism initiated the Informbiro period in that countrys history. The Cominform was dissolved in 1956 after Soviet rapprochement with Yugoslavia and the process of De-Stalinization
Cominform
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Eastern Bloc
46.
Greek Civil War
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The Greek Civil War was fought in Greece from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek government army, and the Democratic Army of Greece. The fighting resulted in the defeat of the Communist insurgents by the government forces, the civil war resulted from a highly polarized struggle between left and right ideologies that started in 1943. From 1944 each side targeted the power vacuum that the end of German-Italian occupation during World War II left, the struggle became one of the first conflicts of the Cold War and represents the first example of Cold War power postwar involvement in the internal politics of a foreign country. The first signs of the war occurred in 1942 to 1944. The immediate prelude of the war took place in Athens, on December 3,1944. A bloody battle erupted after Greek government gendarmes, with British forces standing in the background, opened fire on a massive unarmed pro-EAM rally, killing 28 demonstrators and injuring dozens. The rally had been organised against the impunity of the collaborators and the general disarmament ultimatum, signed by Ronald Scobie, the battle lasted 33 days and resulted in the defeat of the EAM after the heavily reinforced British forces sided with the Greek government. All the while, White Terror was unleashed against the supporters of the left, the war erupted in 1946, when forces of former ELAS partisans who found shelter in their hideouts and were controlled by the KKE organized the DSE and its High Command headquarters. The Communists formed a government in December 1947 and used the DSE as the military branch of this government. The neighboring communist states of Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria offered logistical support to this provisional government, the final victory of the western-allied government forces led to Greeces membership in NATO and helped to define the ideological balance of power in the Aegean Sea for the entire Cold War. Western leaders encouraged and even coerced King George II of Greece to appoint a moderate cabinet, nevertheless, the exiled governments inability to influence affairs inside Greece rendered it irrelevant in the minds of most Greek people. At the same time, the Germans set up a collaborationist government in Athens, the puppet regime was further undermined when economic mismanagement in wartime conditions created runaway inflation, acute food shortages and famine among the civilian population. The power vacuum that the occupation created was filled by several resistance movements that ranged from royalist to communist ideologies, resistance was born first in eastern Macedonia and Thrace, where Bulgarian troops occupied Greek territory. Soon large demonstrations were organized in cities by the Defenders of Northern Greece. However, the largest group to emerge was the National Liberation Front, proclaiming that it followed the Soviet policy of creating a broad united front against fascism, EAM won the support of many noncommunist patriots. These resistance groups launched attacks against the powers and set up large espionage networks. When liberation came in October 1944, Greece was in a state of crisis, although controlled by the KKE, the organization had democratic republican rhetoric. Its military wing, the Greek Peoples Liberation Army was founded in February 1942, Aris Velouchiotis, a member of KKEs Central Committee, was nominated Chief of the ELAS High Command
Greek Civil War
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Greek Civil War
Greek Civil War
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A member of the
Security Battalions with a man executed for aiding the
Resistance.
Greek Civil War
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Guerillas of
ELAS
47.
Berlin Blockade
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The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies railway, road, the Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin. In response, the Western Allies organized the Berlin airlift to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, the Soviets did not disrupt the airlift for fear this might lead to open conflict. By the spring of 1949, the airlift was clearly succeeding, on 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin. The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe. These zones were located roughly around the then-current locations of the allied armies, also divided into occupation zones, Berlin was located 100 miles inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. The United States, United Kingdom, and France controlled western portions of the city, factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were removed to the Soviet Union. Stalin and other leaders told visiting Bulgarian and Yugoslavian delegations in early 1946 that Germany must be both Soviet and communist, a further factor contributing to the Blockade was that there had never been a formal agreement guaranteeing rail and road access to Berlin through the Soviet zone. At the end of the war, western leaders had relied on Soviet goodwill to them with access. The Soviets also granted only three air corridors for access to Berlin from Hamburg, Bückeburg and Frankfurt, in response, the Soviets started a public relations campaign against American policy and began to obstruct the administrative work of all four zones of occupation. Until the blockade began in 1948, the Truman Administration had not decided whether American forces should remain in West Berlin after the establishment of a West German government, Berlin quickly became the focal point of both US and Soviet efforts to re-align Europe to their respective visions. As Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov noted, What happens to Berlin, happens to Germany, what happens to Germany, Berlin had suffered enormous damage, its prewar population of 4.3 million people was reduced to 2.8 million. After harsh treatment, forced emigration, political repression and the hard winter of 1945–1946. Local elections in 1946 resulted in a massive anti-communist protest vote, Berlins citizens overwhelmingly elected non-Communist members to its city council. Meanwhile, to coordinate the economies of the British and United States occupation zones, after March 1946 the British zonal advisory board was established, with representatives of the states, the central offices, political parties, trade unions, and consumer organisations. As indicated by its name, the advisory board had no legislative power. The Control Commission for Germany – British Element made all decisions with its legislative power and it created its own central bodies headed by a secretariat seated in Stuttgart. Eventually the London Agreement on German External Debts, also known as the London Debt Agreement, was concluded, in response to the announcement of the first of these meetings, in late January 1948, the Soviets began stopping British and American trains to Berlin to check passenger identities
Berlin Blockade
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Berliners watch a US Air Force
Douglas C-54 Skymaster land at
Tempelhof Airport, 1948
Berlin Blockade
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C-47 Skytrains unloading at
Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift.
Berlin Blockade
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Loading milk on a West Berlin-bound aircraft
Berlin Blockade
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Germans watching supply planes at Tempelhof.
48.
Comecon
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The descriptive term was often applied to all multilateral activities involving members of the organization, rather than being restricted to the direct functions of Comecon and its organs. According to some historians, Moscow was concerned about the Marshall Plan, Comecon was meant to prevent countries in the Soviets’ sphere of influence from moving towards that of the Americans and South-East Asia. Although Mongolia and Vietnam later gained full membership, China stopped attending Comecon sessions after 1961, Yugoslavia negotiated a form of associate status in the organization, specified in its 1964 agreement with Comecon. In the late 1980s there were ten members, the Soviet Union, six East European countries. Geography, therefore, no longer united Comecon members, wide variations in economic size and level of economic development also tended to generate divergent interests among the member countries. All these factors combined to give rise to significant differences in the member states expectations about the benefits to be derived from membership in Comecon, unity was provided instead by political and ideological factors. All Comecon members were united by a commonality of fundamental class interests, in 1949 the ruling communist parties of the founding states were also linked internationally through the Cominform, from which Yugoslavia had been expelled the previous year. Although the Cominform was disbanded in 1956, interparty links continued to be strong among Comecon members, Comecon provided a mechanism through which its leading member, the Soviet Union, sought to foster economic links with and among its closest political and military allies. The East European members of Comecon were also allied with the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact. There were three kinds of relationships – besides the 10 full memberships – with the Comecon, Yugoslavia was the country considered to have associate member status. On the basis of the 1964 agreement, Yugoslavia participated in twenty-one of the thirty-two key Comecon institutions as if it were a full member, finland, Iraq, Mexico, and Nicaragua had a nonsocialist cooperant status with Comecon. Because the governments of countries were not empowered to conclude agreements in the name of private companies. They were represented in Comecon by commissions made up of members of the government, the commissions were empowered to sign various framework agreements with Comecons Joint Commission on Cooperation. After 1957, Comecon allowed certain countries with communist or pro-Soviet governments to attend sessions as observers, in November 1986, delegations from Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Laos, Nicaragua, and the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen attended the 42nd Council Session as observers. The Comecon was founded in 1949 by the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland had remained interested in Marshall aid despite the requirements for a convertible currency and market economies. This has been described as the moment of truth in the post-World War II division of Europe, according to the Soviet view the Anglo-American bloc and American monopolists. Furthermore, GATTs notion of nondiscriminatory treatment of trade partners was incompatible with notions of socialist solidarity, recent research by the Romanian researcher Elena Dragomir suggests that Romania played a rather important role in the Comecons creation in 1949. According to Dragomir, in December 1948, the Romanian leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej sent a letter to Stalin, at first, planning seemed to be moving along rapidly
Comecon
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An
East German stamp celebrating the 40th anniversary of Comecon in 1989
Comecon
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Flag
Comecon
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1974 Medallion 10th Anniversary of Intermetall, that was founded in 1964 in Budapest
49.
Soviet Union legislative election, 1950
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Elections to the Supreme Soviet were held in the Soviet Union on 12 March 1950. Candidates had to be nominated by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or by a public organisation, however, all public organisations were controlled by the party and were subservient to a 1931 law that required them to accept party rule. The CPSU itself remained the legal one in the country. Voters could vote against the CPSU candidate, but could only do so by using polling booths, turnout was required to be over 50% for the election to be valid. CPSU candidates accounted for three quarters of the nominees, whilst many of the others were members of Komsomol
Soviet Union legislative election, 1950
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All of seats to the
Soviet Supreme Soviet
