1.
Democratic Party of Turkmenistan
–
The Democratic Party of Turkmenistan is a political party in Turkmenistan. The party was led by former Soviet provincial Party leader Saparmurat Niyazov from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s until his death in 2006, in 2013 President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow suspended his party membership for the duration of his presidency. The current leader is Kasymguly Babaev, the DPT was created following the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a successor party to the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR. The internal structure of the old party was effectively unchanged in the transition, opposition parties are usually crushed before they make any significant grounds in public opinion. This has been the case even after the legalization of opposition parties in 2010. Due to the lack of parties to contest for government. Central planning is a key element of party policy and serves as the basis of functionality for government services, the partys ideology Turkmen nationalism was theorized by former party leader Saparmurat Niyazov for the purpose of an authoritarian state ideology in Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan elects on national level a head of state - the president -, the Elections in Turkmenistan have been widely criticized for being completely fraudulent and attempting to give an appearance of legitimacy to what is in reality a dictatorship. The Assembly is a 50 member legislative body officially led by the President of Turkmenistan, the DPT, not unlike every other facet of political life in Turkmenistan, holds every seat. The Turkmen Economy, Challenges and Opportunities, st Antonys College, University of Oxford. Sunday,19 December 2004,17,22 GMT
Democratic Party of Turkmenistan
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Ashgabat assembly building, where the Assembly of Turkmenistan is housed.
2.
Communism
–
Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism, and the political ideologies grouped around both. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to analysis, is the social ownership of the means of production. Likewise, some communists defend both theory and practice, while others argue that historical practice diverged from communist principles to a greater or lesser degree, according to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless, egalitarian society first emerged in Ancient Greece. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, in the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Communist thought has also traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia, More portrayed a society based on ownership of property. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine, in the early 19th century, Various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the emphasis with a rational. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana, in its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels, in 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for the rise to power of Lenins Bolsheviks. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, the event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx predicted that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development, Russia, however, was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers. Marx had explicitly stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule, the moderate Mensheviks opposed Lenins Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Great Purge of 1937–1938 was Stalins attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party and its leading role in the Second World War saw the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower, with strong influence over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The European and Japanese empires were shattered and Communist parties played a role in many independence movements
Communism
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Vladimir Lenin after his return to
Petrograd
Communism
Communism
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USSR postage stamp depicting the states ruled by self-proclaimed communist parties, launching the first artificial satellite,
Sputnik 1
Communism
–
A demonstration of the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Moscow, December 2011
3.
Marxism-Leninism
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Marxism–Leninism is a political philosophy or world view founded on ideas of Classical Marxism and Leninism, and seeks to establish socialist states and develop them further. Marxism–Leninism first became a philosophical movement in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. It rejected the notions, common among Marxists at the time, of revolution as a prerequisite for building socialism in Russia. The internationalism of Marxism–Leninism was expressed in supporting revolutions in foreign countries, trotskyists claim that Marxism–Leninism led to the establishment of a degenerated workers state. Criticism like this has itself been criticised for philosophical determinism—i. e. that the events in the movements history were predetermined by their convictions. In complete contrast, E. Van Ree argues that Stalin continued to be in agreement with the classical works of Marxism until his death. Within five years of Vladimir Lenins death in 1924, Stalin completed his rise to power in the Soviet Union, according to G. Lisichkin, Stalin compiled Marxism–Leninism as a separate ideology in his book Concerning Questions of Leninism. During the period of Stalins rule in the Soviet Union, Marxism–Leninism was proclaimed the ideology of the state. There is no agreement amongst historians regarding whether or not Stalin actually followed the principles established by Karl Marx. After the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the communist parties of the Soviet Union, after the death of Mao on 1976, Peruvian Maoists associated with the Communist Party of Peru coined the term Marxism–Leninism–Maoism, arguing that Maoism was a more advanced stage of Marxism. In North Korea, Marxism–Leninism was officially superseded in 1977 by Juche, in concepts of class and class struggle, in other words Marxism itself. However, the government is sometimes referred to as Marxist–Leninist, or more commonly as Stalinist, due to its political. Originally and for a time the concept of a socialist society was regarded as equal to that of a communist society. However, it was Lenin who defined the difference between socialism and communism, explaining that they are similar to what Marx described with the lower and upper stages of communist society. For Marxism–Leninism, the USSR was a state and thus any property under this State was a type of socialist property. This is part of Marxist–Leninists advocacy of promoting and reinforcing the operation of a planned socialist economy and it advocates universal education with a focus on developing the proletariat with knowledge, class consciousness, and understanding the historical development of communism. Marxism–Leninism supports the emancipation of women and ending the exploitation of women, Marxist–Leninist cultural policy focuses upon modernisation and distancing society from, the past, the bourgeoisie, and the old intelligentsia. Agitprop and various associations and institutions are used by the Marxist–Leninist state to educate society with the values of communism, the state serves as a safeguard for the ownership and as the coordinator of production through a universal economic plan
Marxism-Leninism
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The Russian Orthodox Cathedral, once the most dominant landmark in
Baku, was demolished in the 1930s in accordance with
Marxist–Leninist atheism.
Marxism-Leninism
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Vladimir Lenin, leader of both the
RSFSR and the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1924, was one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century.
Marxism-Leninism
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Bolshevik forces marching in
Moscow in 1917, shortly after the
October Revolution
4.
Red
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Red is the color at the longer-wavelengths end of the spectrum of visible light next to orange, at the opposite end from violet. Red color has a predominant light wavelength of roughly 620–740 nanometers, light with a longer wavelength than red but shorter than terahertz radiation and microwave is called infrared. Red is one of the secondary colors, resulting from the combination of yellow. Traditionally, it was viewed as a primary colour, along with yellow and blue, in the RYB color space and traditional color wheel formerly used by painters. Reds can vary in shade from light pink to very dark maroon or burgundy. Red is the color of cyan. In nature, the red color of blood comes from hemoglobin, the red color of the Grand Canyon and other geological features is caused by hematite or red ochre, both forms of iron oxide. It also causes the red color of the planet Mars, the color of autumn leaves is caused by pigments called anthocyanins, which are produced towards the end of summer, when the green chlorophyll is no longer produced. One to two percent of the population has red hair, the color is produced by high levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin. Since red is the color of blood, it has historically been associated with sacrifice, danger, modern surveys in the United States and Europe show red is also the color most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love and joy. In China, India and many other Asian countries it is the color of symbolizing happiness, since the 19th century, red has also been associated with socialism and communism. The word red is derived from the Old English rēad, the word can be further traced to the Proto-Germanic rauthaz and the Proto-Indo European root rewdʰ-. In Sanskrit, the word means red or blood. In the Akkadian language of Ancient Mesopotamia and in the modern Inuit language of Inuit, the words for colored in Latin and Spanish both also mean red. In Portuguese the word for red is vermelho, which comes from Latin vermiculus, in the Russian language, the word for red, Кра́сный, comes from the same old Slavic root as the words for beautiful—красивый and excellent—прекрасный. Thus Red Square in Moscow, named long before the Russian Revolution, in heraldry, the word gules is used for red. Red can vary in hue from orange-red to violet-red, and for each hue there is a variety of shades and tints. Red hematite powder was found scattered around the remains at a grave site in a Zhoukoudian cave complex near Beijing
Red
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Pure, or solid red, the color of most ripe
strawberries.
Red
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Red
Red
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Scarlet is one quarter of the way between the colors red and orange. It is the color worn by a
cardinal of the
Roman Catholic Church..
Red
–
The
cardinal takes its name from the color worn by Roman Catholic
cardinals.
5.
Politics of Turkmenistan
–
The politics of Turkmenistan takes place in the framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Turkmenistan is both head of state and head of government. No true opposition parties are allowed, every registered political party supports the second and current President, after 69 years as part of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan declared its independence on 27 October 1991. He retained absolute control over the country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, on 28 December 1999 the Mejlis declared Niyazov President for Life. Prior to 2008 the authorities permitted only a political party. Political gatherings are illegal unless government sanctioned, all citizens must carry internal passports, noting place of residence—a practice carried over from the Soviet era. Movement into and out of the country, as well as within its borders, is difficult, Turkmenistan is dominated by a pervasive cult of personality extolling the late president Niyazov as Türkmenbaşy, a title he assumed in 1993. His face adorns many everyday objects, from banknotes to bottles of vodka, the logo of Turkmen national television is his profile. The two books he has written are mandatory readings in schools and public servants are quizzed yearly about their knowledge of their contents and they are also common in shops and homes. Many institutions are named after Niyazovs mother, all watches and clocks made must bear his portrait printed on the dial-face. A giant 15-meter tall gold-plated statue of Niyazov stands on a pedestal in Ashgabat, so it will always face into the sun. A slogan popular in Turkmen propaganda is Halk, Niyazov renamed the days of the week after members of his family and wrote the new Turkmen national anthem/oath himself. Foreign companies seeking to exploit Turkmenistans vast natural gas resources cooperated with Niyazov since he also controlled access to the natural resources. His book, Ruhnama, which is revered in Turkmenistan almost like a text, has been translated into 41 languages as of 2008. Niyazov once proclaimed that anyone who reads this book three times will become more intelligent, will recognise the divine being and will go straight to heaven, after the death of Saparmurat Niyazov Turkmenistans leadership made tentative moves to open up the country. Berdimuhamedow repealed some of Niyazovs most idiosyncratic policies, including banning opera, in education, his government increased basic education from 9 years to 10 years, and extended higher education from two years to five. The constitution provides for freedom of the press, but the government does not practice it, the government controls all media outlets. Only two newspapers, Adalat and Galkynyş, are independent, but they were created by presidential decree. Cable television, which existed in the late 1980s, was shut down, Turkmen authorities restrict the activities of all but the officially recognized Russian Orthodox and Sunni Muslim faiths
Politics of Turkmenistan
–
The National Assembly of Turkmenistan in
Ashgabat.
Politics of Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan
6.
List of political parties in Turkmenistan
–
The politics of Turkmenistan takes place in the framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Turkmenistan is both head of state and head of government. No true opposition parties are allowed, every registered political party supports the second and current President, after 69 years as part of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan declared its independence on 27 October 1991. He retained absolute control over the country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, on 28 December 1999 the Mejlis declared Niyazov President for Life. Prior to 2008 the authorities permitted only a political party. Political gatherings are illegal unless government sanctioned, all citizens must carry internal passports, noting place of residence—a practice carried over from the Soviet era. Movement into and out of the country, as well as within its borders, is difficult, Turkmenistan is dominated by a pervasive cult of personality extolling the late president Niyazov as Türkmenbaşy, a title he assumed in 1993. His face adorns many everyday objects, from banknotes to bottles of vodka, the logo of Turkmen national television is his profile. The two books he has written are mandatory readings in schools and public servants are quizzed yearly about their knowledge of their contents and they are also common in shops and homes. Many institutions are named after Niyazovs mother, all watches and clocks made must bear his portrait printed on the dial-face. A giant 15-meter tall gold-plated statue of Niyazov stands on a pedestal in Ashgabat, so it will always face into the sun. A slogan popular in Turkmen propaganda is Halk, Niyazov renamed the days of the week after members of his family and wrote the new Turkmen national anthem/oath himself. Foreign companies seeking to exploit Turkmenistans vast natural gas resources cooperated with Niyazov since he also controlled access to the natural resources. His book, Ruhnama, which is revered in Turkmenistan almost like a text, has been translated into 41 languages as of 2008. Niyazov once proclaimed that anyone who reads this book three times will become more intelligent, will recognise the divine being and will go straight to heaven, after the death of Saparmurat Niyazov Turkmenistans leadership made tentative moves to open up the country. Berdimuhamedow repealed some of Niyazovs most idiosyncratic policies, including banning opera, in education, his government increased basic education from 9 years to 10 years, and extended higher education from two years to five. The constitution provides for freedom of the press, but the government does not practice it, the government controls all media outlets. Only two newspapers, Adalat and Galkynyş, are independent, but they were created by presidential decree. Cable television, which existed in the late 1980s, was shut down, Turkmen authorities restrict the activities of all but the officially recognized Russian Orthodox and Sunni Muslim faiths
List of political parties in Turkmenistan
–
The National Assembly of Turkmenistan in
Ashgabat.
List of political parties in Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan
7.
Elections in Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan elects on national level a head of state - the president - and a legislature. The Elections in Turkmenistan have been criticized for being completely fraudulent. Parties in Turkmenistan are the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan and the Party of Industrialists, both president and Assembly have a five-year term. On declaring independence from the Soviet Union, the president was to be elected for a term by the people. President Saparmurat Niyazov, was elected unopposed on 21 June 1992, in a referendum in January 1994, it was decided that he would be president for eight more years. In 1999, the parliament decided that he would be president for life. He died on 21 December 2006, an election to replace him was held on 11 February 2007. Turkmenistan elects a legislature on a national level, the Assembly has 125 members, elected for a five-year term in single seat constituencies. Political parties are the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan and the Party of Industrialists, all candidates at the elections of 7 April 2003 belonged to the DPT. The Khalk Maslakhaty which is considered the representative body, has more than 2,500 members. Electoral calendar Electoral system Turkmens vote Adam Carrs Election Archive
Elections in Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan
8.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
Russian language
–
Russian language street sign in
Russia.
Russian language
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Russian minimarket in
Limassol, Cyprus; translation: "Teremok market. Russian goods. Phone number: 96 74 19 63"
Russian language
–
This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letter
П.
Russian language
–
The
Ostromir Gospels of 1056 is the second oldest
East Slavic book known, one of many medieval
illuminated manuscripts preserved in the
Russian National Library.
9.
Turkmen language
–
Turkmen has vowel harmony, is agglutinative, and has no grammatical gender. Written Turkmen today is based on the Teke dialect, the other dialects are Nohurly, Ýomud, Änewli, Hasarly, Nerezim, Gökleň, Salyr, Saryk, Ärsary and Çowdur. The Teke dialect is referred to as Chagatai, but like all Turkmen dialects it reflects only a limited influence from classical Chagatai. Officially, Turkmen is rendered in the “Täze Elipbiý”, or “New Alphabet”, however, the old Soviet Cyrillic alphabet is still in wide use. Before 1929, Turkmen was written in an Arabic alphabet, in 1929–1938 a Latin alphabet replaced it, and then the Cyrillic alphabet was used from 1938 to 1991. In 1991, the current Latin alphabet was introduced, although the transition to it has been rather slow and it used to use some unusual letters, such as the pound, dollar, yen, and cent signs, but these were replaced by more conventional letter symbols. The following phonemes are present in the Turkmen language, Turkmen contains both short and long vowels, doubling the duration of sound for a short vowel is generally how its long vowel counterpart is pronounced. Turkmen employs vowel harmony, a principle that is common in fellow Turkic languages, vowels and their sounds are as follows, For purposes of vowel harmony the central vowel is considered back. Turkmen consonant phonemes, Note that с and з are actually used for and, not, like other Turkic languages, Turkmen is characterized by vowel harmony. In general, words of native origin consist either entirely of front vowels or entirely of back vowels, prefixes and suffixes reflect this harmony, taking different forms depending on the word to which they are attached. The infinitive form of a verb determines whether it will follow a front vowel harmony or back vowel harmony, words of foreign origin, mainly Russian, Persian, or Arabic, do not follow vowel harmony. Verbs are conjugated for singular and plural number and first, second, There are 11 verb tenses, present comprehensive, present perfect, future certain, future indefinite, conditional, past definite, obligatory, imperative, and intentional. There are two types of verbs in Turkmen, distinguished by their forms, those ending in the suffix -mak. -Mak verbs follow back vowel harmony, whereas -mek verbs follow front vowel harmony, evidentiality is determined by four markers, roughly, -dY -Yp-dYr -dYr-mY-näm -mYş Some independent particles may be said to convey evidentiality, one such word is the particle eken. Aman become sick-EV-COP Aman is sick, compare 1 with 2. a and 2. b,2. a. Maral Ashgabat-ABL come-EV-COP Maral came from Ashgabat, Ben you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC eat-3spast Ben ate your cookies. The speaker saw Ben eat the cookies, Ben told the speaker that he ate the cookies. Ben you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC eat-EV-COP Ben ate your cookies, the speaker heard from someone else that Ben ate the cookies
Turkmen language
–
Turkmen
10.
Turkmen SSR
–
Initially, on 7 August 1921, it was established as the Turkmen Oblast of the Turkestan ASSR before being made, on 13 May 1925, a separate republic of the USSR as the Turkmen SSR. Since then the borders of the Turkmenia were unchanged, on 22 August 1990, Turkmenia declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. On 27 October 1991, it became independent and Turkmen SSR was renamed to Turkmenistan, geographically, Turkmenia was bordered between Iran, Afghanistan to the south, Caspian Sea to the west, Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the east. Russian attempts to encroach upon Turkmen territory began in earnest in the part of the nineteenth century. Of all the Central Asian peoples, the Turkmen put up the stiffest resistance against Russian expansion, in 1869 the Russian Empire established a foothold in present-day Turkmenistan with the foundation of the Caspian Sea port of Krasnovodsk. From there and other points, they marched on and subdued the Khiva Khanate in 1873, in 1881 the Russians under General Mikhail Skobelev besieged and captured Geok Tepe, one of the last Turkmen strongholds, northwest of Ashgabat. With the Turkmen defeat, the annexation of what is present-day Turkmenistan met with only weak resistance, later the same year, the Russians signed an agreement with the Persians and established what essentially remains the current border between Turkmenistan and Iran. In 1897 a similar agreement was signed between the Russians and Afghans, in the 1880s, a railroad was built from Krasnovodsk to Ashgabat and later extended to Tashkent. Urban areas began to develop along the railway, because the Turkmen generally were indifferent to the advent of Soviet rule in 1917, little revolutionary activity occurred in the region in the years that followed. Their armed resistance to Soviet rule was part of the larger Basmachi Revolt throughout Central Asia from the 1920s into the early 1930s, which included most of the future USSR dependencies. Although Soviet sources describe this struggle as a chapter in the republics history, it is clear that opposition was fierce. Significant numbers of Russians and other Slavs, as well as groups from various nationalities mainly from the Caucasus, modest industrial capabilities were developed, and limited exploitation of Turkmenistans natural resources was initiated. Under Soviet rule, all religious beliefs were attacked by the communist authorities as superstition, most religious schooling and religious observance were banned, and the vast majority of mosques were closed. An official Muslim Board of Central Asia with a headquarters in Tashkent was established during World War II to supervise the Islam faith in Central Asia, for the most part, the Muslim Board functioned as an instrument of propaganda whose activities did little to enhance the Muslim cause. Atheist indoctrination stifled religious development and contributed to the isolation of the Turkmen from the international Muslim community, beginning in the 1930s, Moscow kept the republic under firm control. The nationalities policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fostered the development of a Turkmen political elite, Slavs, both in Moscow and Turkmenia, closely supervised the national cadre of government officials and bureaucrats, generally, the Turkmen leadership staunchly supported Soviet policies. Foreigners and even most Soviet citizens couldnt visit the area, most Turkmen couldnt leave the republic either. The republic found itself rather unprepared for the dissolution of the Soviet Union, by a unanimous vote of its Supreme Soviet, Turkmenistan declared its sovereignty in August 1990
Turkmen SSR
–
Flag
11.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as the Soviet leader. His rule is best known for his liberalization of political and social life, and the end of terror as a means of social control
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
The Brezhnev era is commonly referred to by historians as the
Era of Stagnation, a term coined by CPSU General Secretary Gorbachev
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
Gorbachev, the last leader of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, as seen in 1986
12.
Saparmurat Niyazov
–
Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov was a Turkmen politician who served as the leader of Turkmenistan from 1985 until his death in 2006. He was First Secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party from 1985 until 1991, Turkmen media referred to him using the title His Excellency Saparmurat Türkmenbaşy, President of Turkmenistan and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers. His self-given title Türkmenbaşy, meaning Head of the Turkmen, referred to his position as the founder, Niyazov was born on 19 February 1940 in Gypjak, just outside Ashgabat in the Turkmen SSR. He was a member of the influential Tekke tribe, the other members of his family were killed in the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake that caused extreme damage and a high number of casualties the city. His mother Gurbansoltan Eje was part of the Cult of personality later and he grew up in a Soviet orphanage before the state put him in the custody of a distant relative. After finishing school in 1959, he worked as an instructor in the Turkmen trade-union exploratory committee and he then studied at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, where in 1967 he received a diploma as an electrical engineer. After graduating, he went to study in Russia, but was expelled a few years later for academic failure, in 1962 Niyazov started his political career, becoming a member of the Communist Party. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR in 1985 and he gained this post after Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had removed his predecessor, Muhammetnazar Gapurov, following a cotton-related scandal. Under Niyazov, the Turkmen Communist Party had a reputation as one of the most hardline, on January 13,1990, Niyazov became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Turkmen SSR, the supreme legislative body in the republic. The post was equivalent to that of president, Niyazov supported the Soviet coup attempt of 1991. However, after the coup collapsed, he set about separating Turkmenistan from the dying Soviet Union, the Turkmen Supreme Soviet declared Turkmenistan independent and appointed Niyazov as the countrys first president on October 27,1991. On June 21,1992 the Turkmenistani presidential election of 1992 saw Niyazov - the sole candidate - chosen as the countrys first popularly elected president, a year later he declared himself Türkmenbaşy - Leader of all Turkmen. In 1994 a plebiscite extended Niyazovs term to 2002 so he could oversee a 10-year development plan, the official results showed that 99. 9% of voters approved this proposal. On December 28,1999, Parliament declared Niyazov President for Life, Niyazov and his Russian-Jewish wife, Muza, had a son and a daughter. Niyazov became president at the transition of Turkmenistan from a Soviet republic to an independent state, there was outside concern about press freedom and to a lesser extent religious rights of minority religious groups. He also took part in creating new holidays with a specific Turkmen nature and introduced a new Latin-based Turkmen alphabet to replace Russian Cyrillic. The Latin Turkmen alphabet consists of, Aa, Bb, Çç, Dd, Ee, Ää, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Žž, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ňň, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Ww, Yy, Ýý, Zz. Niyazov became a substitute for the left by the downfall of the communist system, with his image replacing those of Marx
Saparmurat Niyazov
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Saparmyrat Nyýazow
Saparmurat Niyazov
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Saparmurat Niyazov is depicted on the 10,000
Manat Banknote
Saparmurat Niyazov
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Niyazov with
Russian President Vladimir Putin in the
Moscow Kremlin, June 2000
Saparmurat Niyazov
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Niyazov mausoleum at the Türkmenbaşy Ruhy Mosque, just outside Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
13.
Balysh Ovezov
–
Balysh Ovezovich Ovezov, served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR twice. He succeeded Shadzha Batyrov, beginning his first term in 1950 and staying in office until October 1951, Ovezov was returned to power on 13 June 1960, following the death of Dzhuma Durdy Karayev. He served until 24 December 1969, rulers of Soviet Republics Turkmenia, Man Masters the Desert by Balysh Ovezov
Balysh Ovezov
–
Kaikhaziz Atabayev
14.
Muhammetnazar Gapurow
–
Muhammetnazar Gapurowiç Gapurow served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR from 1969 until 1985. He spent his career in the Komsomol and Communist Party apparatus. Gapurow was born in a village close to Chardzhou in Chardzhou oblast. From 1941 to 1943 he was on duty in the Red Army during World War II. In 1948 Gapurow joined the Communist Party nomenklatura as head of the Propaganda Department at the level in Chardzhou oblast. He graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Ashgabat in 1954, from 1951 to 1955 he worked as first secretary of the Komsomol organisation, and later he held various party posts before assuming the republics leadership. In 1969 he was appointed first secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR, during his time in office, the republic received considerable investment in its modernisation of the gas and oil sectors, and living standards rose significantly for the general population. Gapurows era also witnessed growth in nepotism, regional rivalries. In 1985, incoming General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev removed Gapurow from his post due to a corruption scandal. He never returned to the arena and held several minor positions in the late 1980s. He authored several books and articles during the Soviet era, mainly on Communist Party, in the 1990s he began writing his memoirs but left them unfinished when he died in 1999. Historical Dictionary of Turkmenistan, p. 64-5, rulers of Soviet Republics Russian biographies project
Muhammetnazar Gapurow
–
Gapurow in 1980
15.
Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan has been at the crossroads of civilizations for centuries. In medieval times, Merv was one of the cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan later figured prominently in the movement in Central Asia. In 1924, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Turkmenistan possesses the worlds fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert, since 1993, citizens have received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in 2006, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president in 2007. According to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries, after suspending the death penalty, the use of capital punishment was formally abolished in the 2008 constitution. Historically inhabited by the Indo-Iranians, the history of Turkmenistan begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Iran. In the 8th century AD, Turkic-speaking Oghuz tribes moved from Mongolia into present-day Central Asia, part of a powerful confederation of tribes, these Oghuz formed the ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name Turkmen was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam, There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire, which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Turkmen soldiers in the service of the played a important role in the spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan. In the 12th century, Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire, in the next century, the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled, scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups. The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, by the 16th century, most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates, Khiva and Bukhoro. Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period, in the 19th century, raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that groups dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. According to Paul R. Spickard, Prior to the Russian conquest, Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk, the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates, in 1916 the Russian Empires participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. In 1924 the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from the tsarist province of Transcaspia, by the late 1930s, Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan, and Moscow controlled political life. The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people, during the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside the course of major world events
Turkmenistan
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Turkmen helmet (15th century).
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
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Russians attack a Turkmen caravan 1873 (during the "
The Great Game ").
Turkmenistan
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A Turkmen man of Central Asia in traditional clothes. Photo by
Prokudin-Gorsky between 1905 and 1915.
16.
Assembly of Turkmenistan
–
The Assembly is the legislative branch of Turkmenistan. It has 125 members, elected for terms in single-seat constituencies. Originally, it shared power with the Peoples Council, a 2003 law reduced the power of the Assembly and augmented that of the Peoples Council. The Assembly can now be legally dissolved by the Peoples Council, is led by the President, the Peoples Council was abolished by a new constitution drafted by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow in 2008, making the Assembly/Mejlis the unicameral parliament again. The current chairperson is Akja Nuberdiyeva from December 21,2006, the Constitution of Turkmenistan stipulates that the assembly shall, Enacts laws, makes amendments and additions to the Constitution and laws, monitors their performance and their interpretation. Considers for approval the programme activities of the Cabinet of Ministers, Examines questions related to approval of the budget of Turkmenistan. Considers the basic directions and programmes of political, economic and social development of the country, determines whether to hold national referendums. Declare the election of the President of Turkmenistan, deputies of the Mejlis, members of the velayat, district, municipal representative bodies, establishes state awards, awards state decorations to the President of Turkmenistan, assigns him the military ranks and distinctions. Determines conformity to or divergence from the Constitution and the normative-legal Acts by the state authorities, considers questions related to change of state borders and administrative and territorial division of Turkmenistan. Examines the issues related to peace and security, decides other questions in the competence of the Mejlis under the Constitution and laws. List of Chairmen of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Turkmenistan List of Chairmen of the Assembly of Turkmenistan Politics of Turkmenistan List of legislatures by country
Assembly of Turkmenistan
Assembly of Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan manat
17.
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is generally conceived as also covering that of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which it evolved. The history of the regional and republican branches of the party does however differ from the all-Russian, over twenty Party organizations were represented. In the eyes of the Bolsheviks the conference had, therefore, moreover, the conference declared the Mensheviks expelled from the party. Stalin and Sverdlov won election to the Central Committee despite their non-attendance at the conference, the elected alternate members of the Central Committee included Mikhail Kalinin. For the direction of work in Russia a practical center was set up, with Stalin at its head. Sverdlov, Spandaryan, S. Ordzhonikidze, M. Kalinin and Goloshchekin, I hope you will rejoice with us over the fact. In the summer of 1912, Lenin moved from Paris to Galicia in order to be nearer to Russia. An important instrument used by the Bolshevik Party to strengthen its organizations and to spread its influence among the masses was the Bolshevik daily newspaper Pravda and it was founded, according to Lenins instructions, on the initiative of Stalin, Olminsky and Poletayev. Pravda was intended as a legal, mass working-class paper founded simultaneously with the new rise of the revolutionary movement and its first issue appeared on May 51912. Previous to the appearance of Pravda, the Bolsheviks already had a newspaper called Zvezda. Zvezda had played an important part at the time of the Lena events and it printed a number of political articles by Lenin and Stalin. But the Party felt that with the revolutionary upsurge, a weekly newspaper no longer met the requirements of the Bolshevik Party, according to the analysis of the Party leadership, a daily mass political newspaper designed for the broadest sections of the workers was needed. Whilst the average circulation of Pravda was 40,000 copies per day, the circulation of Luch, in Moscow, the party launched Nash Put as a workers newspaper in September 1913. It was banned after just a few editions were published, another legally functioning central organ of the Party was the Bolshevik group in the Fourth State Duma. In 1912 the government decreed elections to the Fourth Duma, the RSDLP decided to participate in the elections. The RSDLP acted independently, under its own slogans, in the Duma elections, the slogans of the Bolsheviks in the election campaign were a democratic republic, an 8-hour day and the confiscation of the landed estates. The elections to the Fourth Duma were held in the autumn of 1912, in reply, the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP, on Stalins proposal, called upon the workers of the large factories to declare a one-day strike. Placed in a position, the government was forced to yield
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
–
RCP(b) Party Programme, adopted at the 8th Party Congress
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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16th Congress poster
18.
Komsomol
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The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although it was officially independent and referred to as the helper. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918, during the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Young Communist League, or RKSM. During 1922, with the unification of the USSR, it was reformed into an all-union agency and it was the final stage of three youth organizations with members up to age 28, graduated at 14 from the Young Pioneers, and at nine from the Little Octobrists. Before the February Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks did not display any interest in establishing or maintaining a youth division, after the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922 ended, the Soviet government under Lenin introduced a semi-capitalist economic policy to stabilize Russia’s floundering economy. This reform, the New Economic Policy, introduced a new policy of moderation and discipline. Lenin himself stressed the importance of education of young Soviet citizens in building a new society. The first Komsomol Congress met in 1918 under the patronage of the Bolshevik Party, Party intervention in 1922-1923 proved marginally successful in recruiting members by presenting the ideal Komsomolets as a foil to the bourgeois NEPman. However, the party was not very successful overall in recruiting Russian youth during the NEP period and this came about because of conflict and disillusionment among Soviet youth who romanticised the spontaneity and destruction characteristic of War Communism and the Civil War period. They saw it as their duty, and the duty of the Communist Party itself, however, the NEP had the opposite effect, after it started, many aspects of bourgeois social behavior began to reemerge. The contrast between the Good Communist extolled by the Party and the bourgeois capitalism fostered by NEP confused many young people, as a result, there was a major slump in interest and membership in the Party-oriented Komsomol. In March 1926, Komsomol membership reached a NEP-period peak of 1,750,000 members, only when Stalin came to power and abandoned the NEP in the first Five Year Plan did membership increase drastically. The youngest people eligible for Komsomol membership were fourteen years old, the upper age-limit for ordinary personnel was twenty-eight, but Komsomol functionaries could be older. Younger children joined the allied Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, while membership was nominally voluntary, those who failed to join had no access to officially sponsored holidays and found it very difficult to pursue higher education. The Komsomol also served as a pool of labor and political activism. Active members received privileges and preferences in promotion, for example, Yuri Andropov, CPSU General Secretary in succession to Leonid Brezhnev, achieved political importance through work with the Komsomol organization of Karelia in 1940-1944. At its largest, during the 1970s, the Komsomol had tens of millions of members, the government, unions and the Komsomol jointly introduced Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity for Youth. At the same time, many Komsomol managers joined and directed the Russian Regional, folklore quickly coined a motto, The Komsomol is a school of Capitalism, hinting at Vladimir Lenins Trade unions are a school of Communism
Komsomol
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1933 Komsomol poster. Caption says "Prepare for worthy successors to the Leninist Komsomol"
Komsomol
–
All-Union Leninist Young Communist League Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи
Komsomol
–
Komsomol poster urging youth to become pilots.
Komsomol
–
Monument to Courage, Firmness and Faithfulness of Members of the Komsomol in
Sevastopol
19.
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
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The Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization was a mass youth organization of the Soviet Union for children of age 10–15 that existed between 1922 and 1991. Similar to the Scouting organisations of the Western world, Pioneers learned skills of social cooperation, after the October Revolution of 1917, some Scouts took the Bolsheviks side, which would later lead to the establishment of ideologically altered Scoutlike organizations, such as ЮК and others. During the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1921, most of the Scoutmasters and many Scouts fought in the ranks of the White Army and those Scouts who did not wish to accept the new Soviet system either left Russia for good or went underground. However, clandestine Scouting did not last long, Komsomol persistently fought with the remnants of the Scout movement. This organization would properly educate children with Communist teachings, on behalf of the Soviet Government Nadezhda Krupskaya was one of the main contributors to the cause of the Pioneer movement. In 1922, she wrote an essay called Russian Union of the Communist Youth and boy-Scoutism. as the organizational motto and slogan. Thereby they suggested to use the system as a foundation of the new communist organization for children. The main contribution of the scoutmasters was the introduction of the new expression system scouting into the discourse on communist childrens, by doing so they avoided the dissolution of the scout organization as it would happen sooner or later to any organization opposed to the Komsomol. May 19,1922 was later on considered the birthday of the All-Union Pioneer Organization, by October 1922 pioneer units nationwide were united to form the Spartak Young Pioneers Organization, which was named after V. I. Lenin by a decision of the Central Committee of Komsomol of January 21,1924, since March 1926 it bore the name Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. By the middle of 1923 it had 75,000 members, among other activities, Young Pioneer units, helped by the Komsomol members and leadership at all levels, played a great role in the eradication of illiteracy since 1923. Membership was at 161,000 in the beginning of 1924,2 million in 1926,13.9 million in 1940, and 25 million in 1974. Many Young Pioneer Palaces were built, which served as community centers for the children, with rooms dedicated to various clubs, thousands of Young Pioneer camps were set up where children went during summer vacation and winter holidays. All of them were free of charge, sponsored by the government, during World War Two the Pioneers worked hard to contribute to the war effort at all costs. One of them widely known, for his resistance in Kerch. Its main grouping of members until 1942 was the Young Pioneer detachment, from 1942 to October 1990 the detachment was made up of children belonging to the same class within a school, while a school was referred to as a Young Pioneer group. At age 15, Young Pioneers could join Komsomol, with a recommendation from their Young Pioneer group, the main governing body was the Central Soviet of the Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union, which worked under the leadership of the main governing body of Komsomol. Its official newspaper was Pionerskaya Pravda, there were two major revisions of them, in 1967 and 1986
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
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Samantha Smith with Young Pioneers, 1983.
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
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Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organisation Всесоюзная Пионерская организация имени Владимира Ленина
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
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50 years, Stamp, 1972
Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
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Member pin. The inscription reads "Always Ready!" (
Russian: Всегда готов!)
20.
Pravda
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The newspaper began publication on 5 May 1912 in the Russian Empire, but was already extant abroad in January 1911. It emerged as a newspaper of the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. The newspaper was an organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU between 1912 and 1991, in 1996 there was an internal dispute between the owners of Pravda International and some of the Pravda journalists which led to Pravda splitting into different entities. After a legal dispute between the parties, the Russian court of arbitration stipulated that both entities would be allowed to continue using the Pravda name. Though Pravda officially began publication on 5 May 1912, the anniversary of Karl Marxs birth, its origins back to 1903 when it was founded in Moscow by a wealthy railway engineer. Pravda had started publishing in the light of the Russian Revolution of 1905, during its earliest days, Pravda had no political orientation. Kozhevnikov started it as a journal of arts, literature and social life, Kozhevnikov was soon able to form up a team of young writers including A. A. Bogdanov, N. A Rozhkov, M. N Pokrovsky, I. I Skvortsov-Stepanov, P. P Rumyantsev, lunts, who were active contributors on social life section of Pravda. Later they became the board of the journal and in the near future also became the active members of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Because of certain quarrels between Kozhevnikov and the board, he had asked them to leave and the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP took over as Editorial Board. But the relationship between them and Kozhevnikov was also a bitter one, the Ukrainian political party Spilka, which was also a splinter group of the RSDLP, took over the journal as its organ. Leon Trotsky was invited to edit the paper in 1908 and the paper was moved to Vienna in 1909. By then, the board of Pravda consisted of hard-line Bolsheviks who sidelined the Spilka leadership soon after it shifted to Vienna. Trotsky had introduced a format to the newspaper and distanced itself from the intra-party struggles inside the RSDLP. During those days, Pravda gained an audience among Russian workers. By 1910 the Central Committee of the RSDLP suggested making Pravda its official organ, finally, at the sixth conference of the RSDLP held in Prague in January 1912, the Menshevik faction was expelled from the party. The party under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin decided to make Pravda its official mouthpiece, the paper was shifted from Vienna to St. Petersburg and the first issue under Lenins leadership was published on 5 May 1912. It was the first time that Pravda was published as a political newspaper
Pravda
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The front page of Pravda on
June 23, 1941, including a printed radio speech by
Molotov
Pravda
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Vladimir Lenin in his study inside the Kremlin, reading Pravda. Circa 1918.
Pravda
–
A delegate at
17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) holding Pravda newspaper (1934)
Pravda
–
A soldier reading Pravda during WWII. October -December 1941-RIAN
21.
Vladimir Lenin
–
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism, born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brothers execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empires Tsarist regime and he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, after his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, Lenins government was led by the Bolsheviks—now renamed the Communist Party—with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services, tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies, established by both right and left-wing groups, were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. Seeking to promote world revolution, Lenins government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, in increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his Gorki mansion. He became a figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. Lenins father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs, his origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility, Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a German–Swedish woman. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the governments plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, the couple had two children, Anna and Alexander, before Lenin—who would gain the childhood nickname of Volodya—was born in Simbirsk on 10 April 1870, and baptised several days later. They were followed by three children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy, Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a Lutheran – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Every summer they holidayed at a manor in Kokushkino
Vladimir Lenin
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Lenin in 1920
Vladimir Lenin
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"Volodya", aged four.
Vladimir Lenin
–
Lenin, c. 1887.
Vladimir Lenin
–
Lenin (left) in December 1895 and his wife Nadezhda.
22.
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
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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.
23.
Nikita Khrushchev
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Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, Khrushchevs party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Khrushchev was born in the village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar, with the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalins purges, and approved thousands of arrests, in 1938, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalins close advisers, in the power struggle triggered by Stalins death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the Secret Speech, denouncing Stalins purges and his domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchevs rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, flaws in Khrushchevs policies eroded his popularity and emboldened potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed the premier in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the fate of previous losers of Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970, Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease. Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russias Kursk Oblast and his parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin, and had a daughter two years Nikitas junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, Kalinovka was a peasant village, Khrushchevs teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age and he was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenkos tutelage in Kalinovkas state school. She urged Nikita to seek education, but family finances did not permit this. In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka, fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after
Nikita Khrushchev
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Khrushchev in
East Berlin, 1963
Nikita Khrushchev
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Khrushchev in 1916
Nikita Khrushchev
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NKVD chief
Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting the construction of the
Moscow-Volga canal, 1935. Khrushchev is left behind Yagoda.
Nikita Khrushchev
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Nestor Lakoba, Khrushchev,
Lavrenti Beria and
Aghasi Khanjian during opening of the
Moscow Metro
24.
Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration, during Brezhnevs rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic, Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye into a Russian workers family in 1906. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became an engineer in the iron and steel industry. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became a member of the CPSU. He was drafted into military service during World War II. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. However, in December 1981 he decided not to intervene in Poland, instead allowing the countrys government to impose martial law. After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Brezhnev had fostered a cult of personality, although not nearly to the degree as Stalin. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would lead the USSR from 1985 to 1991, denounced his legacy, in spite of this, opinion polls in Russia show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamianske in Ukraine, to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife and his parents used to live in Brezhnevo before moving to Kamenskoe. Brezhnevs ethnicity was specified as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a technical education, at first in land management where he started as a land surveyor and then in metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became an engineer in the iron. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth organisation, the Komsomol, in 1923, in 1935 and 1936, Brezhnev served his compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in a tank factory. Later in 1936, he director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum. In 1936, he was transferred to the center of Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk. As a survivor of Stalins Great Purge of 1937–39, he was able to quickly as the purges created numerous openings in the senior and middle ranks of the Party
Leonid Brezhnev
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Brezhnev in
East Berlin in 1967
Leonid Brezhnev
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Young Brezhnev with his wife
Victoria
Leonid Brezhnev
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Brezhnev with
Nikita Khrushchev during the war
Leonid Brezhnev
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Khrushchev in 1963, one year before his ousting
25.
Yuri Andropov
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Later in 1982, he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a position he held until his death fifteen months later. Andropov was born in Nagutskaya, Stavropol Region, Russian Empire, Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College and graduated in 1936. Both of his parents died early, leaving Yuri an orphan at the age of thirteen, as a teenager he worked as a loader, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for the Volga steamship line. At 16, Yuri Andropov, then a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, was a worker in the town of Mozdok in the North Ossetian ASSR, during World War II, Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work, between 1946 and 1951, he studied at the university of Petrozavodsk. In 1947, he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, in 1951 Andropov was transferred, by the decision of the CPSU Central Committee, to its staff. He was appointed an inspector and then the head of a subdepartment of the Committee, in July 1954 he was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Hungary and held this position during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Andropov played a key role in crushing the Hungarian uprising and he convinced a reluctant Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary. He is known as ‘The Butcher of Budapest’ for his ruthless suppression of the Hungarian uprising, the Hungarian leaders were arrested and Imre Nagy and others executed. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple. In 1957 Andropov returned to Moscow from Budapest in order to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers Parties in Socialist Countries, in 1961, he was elected full member of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962. He gained additional powers in 1973, when he was promoted to member of the Politburo. During the Prague Spring events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Andropov was the proponent of the extreme measures. The KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to NATO aggression or to a coup, however his message was destroyed because it contradicted the conspiracy theory fabricated by Andropov. Andropov ordered a number of measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS. After the assassination attempt against Brezhnev in January 1969, Andropov led the interrogation of the captured gunman, Ilyin was pronounced insane and sent to Kazan Psychiatric Hospital. On 3 July 1967, he made a proposal to establish for dealing with the opposition the KGBs Fifth Directorate. At the end of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents including Andrei Sakharov, the proposal by Andropov to use psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented
Yuri Andropov
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Andropov c. 1983
Yuri Andropov
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Identity cards The Chairman of the
KGB of the USSR Yuri Andropov.
Yuri Andropov
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Andropov and
Wojciech Jaruzelski, General Secretary of the
Polish United Workers' Party
Yuri Andropov
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Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
26.
Konstantin Chernenko
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Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, Chernenko was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death. Chernenko was born to a family in the village of Bolshaya Tes on 24 September 1911. His father, Ustin Demidovich, worked in mines and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work. Chernenko joined the Komsomol in 1929, and became a member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet-Chinese border, after completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee, a few years later he was promoted to head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. It was in the 1940s that Chernenko established a relationship with Fyodor Kulakov. In 1945, he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow, the turning point in Chernenko’s career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party’s propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev, Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960, after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, in 1964 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, and succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev. During Brezhnevs tenure as Party leader, Chernenkos career continued successfully and he also monitored telephone wiretaps and covert listening devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another one of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department. In 1971 Chernenko was promoted to membership in the Central Committee, Overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau. In 1976 he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau, in 1977 he became Candidate, and in 1978 full member of the Politburo, serving second to the General Secretary in terms of Party hierarchy. In 1979 he took part in the Vienna arms limitation talks, yuri Andropov died in February 1984, after just 15 months in office. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov, despite concerns over his own ailing health, yegor Ligachev writes in his memoirs that Chernenko was elected general secretary without a hitch. At Andropovs funeral, he could read the eulogy
Konstantin Chernenko
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Konstantin Chernenko
27.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, Privolnoye, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Gorbachev in 1987
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Gorbachev in 1966
Mikhail Gorbachev
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U.S. President
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands at the American-Soviet summit in Washington, D.C., in 1987
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Gorbachev at the
Brandenburg Gate in 1986 during a visit to
East Germany
