1.
Eastern Slavic naming customs
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They are also featured in the non-Slavic Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan as a result of the expansion of Russia and the result of Russification. As with most cultures, a person has a name chosen by the parents. First names in East Slavic languages mostly originate from two sources, Orthodox church tradition and native pre-Christian Slavic lexicons, all first names are single, non-doubled. Doubled first names are a very rare foreign-influenced instance, most doubled first names are spelled with the dash. Being highly synthetic, Eastern Slavic languages treat personal names as grammatical nouns and this auxiliary stem may be identical to the word stem of the full name while most names have it derived unproductively. Most commonly, Russian philologists distinguish the forms of given names, The short name, historically also half-name, is the most simple. Some names, such as Zhanna, Mark, etc. do not possess short forms, in the latter case, one form is usually more informal than the other. Diminutive forms are produced from the name by means of various suffixes. Unlike the full name, a diminutive name carries a particular emotional attitude, depending on the nature of this attitude, nameforms can be subdivided in three broad groups, affectionate, familiar and slang. Typically formed by suffixes -еньк-, -оньк-, -ечк-, -ушк and it is often used to address children or intimate friends. Within a more official context, this form may be combined with honorific plural to address a female colleague. Colloquial diminutives are derived from short names by means of -к- suffix, expressing a highly familiar attitude, it may be considered rude or even pejorative outside of friendly context. Slang forms mostly exist for male names, being produced though suffixes -ян, -он and these suffixes give off the sense of male brotherhood once expressed by patronymic-only form of address in Soviet Union. Originating in criminal communities, these came into wide usage in Russia in the 1990s. During the days of revolutionary enthusiasm, as part of the campaign to rid Russia of bourgeois culture, there was a drive to invent new, as a result, a large number of Soviet children were given unusual or atypical names. The patronymic name is based on the first name of the father and is written in all legal, if used with the first name, the patronymic always follows it. The patronymic is formed by a combination of the fathers name, the suffix -ович is used for son, suffix -овна - for daughter. For example, if the name was Иван, then the patronymic will be Иванович for a son
Eastern Slavic naming customs
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An example of an
ID document of a citizen of
Russia. The lower page includes the lines: Имя ("Name"), Фамилия ("Family name") and Отчество ("Patronymic").
Eastern Slavic naming customs
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Marina Tsvetaeva, a Russian poet. The name "Marina" traditionally has no short form.
Eastern Slavic naming customs
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Руслан (Ruslan), a character in
Alexander Pushkin 's poem
Ruslan and Ludmila. The short form for Руслан (Ruslan) is Руся (Rusya).
Eastern Slavic naming customs
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Николай II (
Nicholas II), the last Russian emperor. In private communication,
his wife called him in the German manner, "Nicky", instead the East Slavic short variant Коля ("Kolya").
2.
List of First Deputies of the Soviet Union
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A total of 26 individuals had held this post,18 of them held other posts simultaneously with their First Deputy Premiership. The first officeholder was Valerian Kuibyshev, who was inaugurated in 1934 as First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars, lavrentiy Beria spent the shortest time in office and served for 113 days. A First Deputy Premier was usually given responsibility over one specific area, for example, Kirill Mazurov was responsible for industry, and Dmitry Polyansky was agriculture. However, after Polyanskys departure in 1973 Mazurov was left the sole First Deputy Premier until Tikhonov was appointed in 1976, an officeholder could also be responsible for coordinating the activities of ministries and state committees and other subordinate bodies of the Council of Ministers. If the Premier could not perform his duties one of the First Deputy Premiers would take on the role of acting Premier until the Premiers return. During the late 1970s, when the health of Premier Alexei Kosygin deteriorated, Nikolai Tikhonov, when Tikhonov took command of the Soviet economy, Kosygin served in a standby role. At a Central Committee plenum in June 1980, the Soviet economic development plan was outlined by Tikhonov, there was no First Deputy Premier from 1935 to 1941 because no one was elected to the post. Stalins successor, Malenkov, promoted Bulganin, Beria and Lazar Kaganovich to the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. In a Council of Minister resolution it was stated that the Premier, the First Deputy Premiers, the Presidium was later expanded to include individuals hand-picked by the Premier. A decree had to be signed by the Premier or a First Deputy Premier, the First Deputy Prime Ministers were members of the Cabinet of Ministers, the executive and administrative body that replaced the Council of Ministers in 1990. Premier of the Soviet Union Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union List of leaders of the Soviet Union
List of First Deputies of the Soviet Union
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Lavrentiy Beriya (1899–1953)
List of First Deputies of the Soviet Union
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Coat of arms
List of First Deputies of the Soviet Union
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Political and religious leaders
3.
Council of Ministers (Soviet Union)
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The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was the de jure government comprising the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet Union from 1946 until 1991. In 1946 the Council of Peoples Commissars was transformed into the Council of Ministers, the council issued declarations and instructions based on and in accordance with applicable laws, which had obligatory jurisdictional power over the territories of all republics within the Union. In 1991 the Council of Ministers was dissolved, and replaced by the newly established Cabinet of Ministers, there were seven chairmen of the Council of Ministers, in effect Premier of the Soviet Union. The Presidium of the Council of Ministers was the collective decision-making body of government, the Council of Peoples Commissars, the Soviet Government, was transformed into the Council of Ministers in March 1946 in all level of governance. At the same time The Peoples Commissariats were transformed into Ministries, malenkov lost the power struggle, and in 1955 he was demoted from his office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was succeeded in his post by Nikolai Bulganin, who in turn was removed and replaced by Khrushchev because of his support for the Anti-Party Group, which had tried to oust Khrushchev in 1957. Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, was in charge of administration while Brezhnev. Kosygin resigned in 1980, to be succeeded by his First Deputy Chairman Nikolai Tikhonov, after five-years service, under the rules laid down by Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko Tikhonov was compelled to retire by Mikhail Gorbachev on 27 September 1985. Tikhonov was succeeded by Nikolai Ryzhkov, Ryzhkov was a half-hearted reformer, and was skeptical towards the de-nationalisation and the monetary reform of 1989, however, he did support the creation of a regulated market economy. In 1991 Ryzhkov was succeeded as Premier by Valentin Pavlov, the Council of Ministers was dissolved and replaced with the newly established Cabinet of Ministers. The Council of Ministers was the head of the executive branch. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers could also recommend people who he found suitable for membership of the Council of Ministers to the Supreme Soviet, the Council of Ministers laid down its functions on each first-convocation of a newly elected Supreme Soviet. Creation of necessary organisations within the Council of Ministers in the fields of economics, socio-cultural development, the Council of Ministers could also issue decrees and resolutions and later on verify their execution. All organisations were obliged to follow the decrees and resolutions issued by the All-Union Council of Ministers, the All-Union Council also had the power to suspend all mandates and decrees issued by itself or organisations subordinate to it. The Council coordinated and directed the work of the republics and union ministries, state committees. In 1946, the All-Union Council of Peoples Commissars became the Council of Ministers, whilst Peoples Commissars and Peoples Commissariats became Ministers, Ministers were important figures in day-to-day decision-making, with 73 percent of them elected full-members of the Central Committee at the 25th Party Congress. A large number of key ministries had been eliminated and replaced by a network of regional and local sovnarkhoz under the supervision of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy. Khrushchevs economic reform proved disastrous as it severed regional economic relations and was abandoned by the Soviet Government following Khrushchevs ousting in 1964, the year later twenty-eight industrial ministries, eleven All-union and seventeen Union ministries were reestablished
Council of Ministers (Soviet Union)
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The former headquarters of the Council of Ministers
4.
Georgy Malenkov
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Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician and Communist Party leader. His family connections with Vladimir Lenin sped his promotion in the party and this brought him into close association with Joseph Stalin, and he was heavily involved in the purges of the 1930s. During World War II, he was given responsibility for the Soviet missile program. His two-year term ended in failure and he was expelled from the Politburo in 1957. In 1961 he was expelled from the party and exiled to Kazakhstan, Malenkov was born at Orenburg in the Russian Empire. His paternal ancestors were from the area of Ohrid, then in the Ottoman Vilayet of Manastir, some of them served as officers in the Russian Imperial Army. His father was a farmer in Orenburg province. Young Malenkov occasionally helped his father to do business selling the harvest and his mother was the daughter of a blacksmith and the granddaughter of an Orthodox priest. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1920, Golubtsova and Malenkov never officially registered their union and remained unregistered partners for the rest of their lives. Valeria Golubtsova joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1920 and her personal views were described as anti-semitic by her co-workers. This connection helped both Golubtsova and Malenkov in their communist career, later Golubtsova was the director of the Moscow Energy Institute, a center for nuclear power research in USSR. After the Russian civil war, Malenkov quickly built himself a reputation of a tough communist Bolshevik and he was promoted in the Communist party ranks and was appointed Communist secretary at the military-based Moscow Higher Technical School in the 1920s. Around this time, Malenkov forged a friendship with Vyacheslav Malyshev. In 1924, Stalin noticed Malenkov and assigned him to Orgburo of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, in 1925, Malenkov worked in the staff of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Malenkov was in charge of keeping records on the members of the Soviet communist party – two million files were made under his supervision during the ten years. In this work Malenkov became closely associated with Stalin and was heavily involved in the treason trials during the purging of the party. In 1938 he was one of the key figures in bringing about the downfall of Yezhov, in 1939 Malenkov became the head of the Communist partys Cadres Directorate, which gave him control over personnel matters of party bureaucracy. During the same year he became a member and a Secretary of the Central Committee
Georgy Malenkov
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Georgy Malenkov Гео́ргий Маленко́в
Georgy Malenkov
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Malenkov among Soviet leadership speaking with
Konrad Adenauer in 1955
Georgy Malenkov
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Malenkov in the early 1960s
5.
Nikolai Bulganin
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Bulganin was born in Nizhny Novgorod, the son of an office worker. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and was recruited in 1918 into the Cheka, the Bolshevik regimes political police, after the Russian Civil War, he became an industrial manager and worked in the electricity administration until 1927. He was director of the Moscow electricity supply in 1927–1931, in 1931–1937, Bulganin was chairman of the executive committee of the Moscow City Soviet. In 1934, the 17th Congress of the Communist Party elected Bulganin a candidate member of the Central Committee, a loyal Stalinist, he was promoted rapidly as other leaders fell victim to Joseph Stalins Great Purge of 1937–38. In July 1937, he was appointed Prime Minister of the Russian Republic and he became a full member of the Central Committee later that year and, in September 1938, became Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union and head of the State Bank of the USSR. During World War II, Bulganin played a role in the government and Red Army. He was given the rank of Colonel-General and was a member of the State Defense Committee and he was appointed Deputy Commissar for Defence in 1944 and served as Stalins principal agent in the High Command of the Red Army. In 1946 he became Minister for the Armed Forces and was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union and he also became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Communist Party. He was again Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, under Stalin, in 1948 he became a full member of the Politburo. After Stalins death in March 1953, Bulganin moved into the first rank of the Soviet leadership and he was an ally of Nikita Khrushchev during his power struggle with Georgy Malenkov, and in February 1955 he succeeded Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. He was generally seen as a supporter of Khrushchevs reforms and destalinization and he and Khrushchev travelled together to India, Yugoslavia and Britain, where they were known in the press as the B and K show. In his memoirs, however, Khrushchev recounted that he believed that he couldnt rely on fully, the threatening letters actually helped the British and French at the United Nations, since they ensured that all of NATO was committed to defend the UK and France from a Soviet attack. By 1957, however, Bulganin had come to share the doubts held about Khrushchevs reformist policies by the group led by Vyacheslav Molotov. In June, when the tried to remove Khrushchev from power at a meeting of the Politburo. When the dissenters were defeated and removed from power, Bulganin survived for a while, but in March 1958, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev forced his resignation. He was appointed chairman of the Soviet State Bank, a job he had two decades before, but in September Bulganin was removed from the Central Committee and deprived of the title of Marshal. He was dispatched to Stavropol as chairman of the Regional Economic Council, a token position, nikolai Bulganin at Find a Grave
Nikolai Bulganin
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Bulganin at the Geneva Summit on reunification and disarmament of Germany, July 1955
Nikolai Bulganin
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Bulganin and Khrushchev in India
6.
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
7.
Lavrentiy Beria
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Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalins secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after World War II. Beria administered the vast expansion of the Gulag labor camps and was responsible for overseeing the secret defense institutions known as sharashkas. He also played the role in coordinating the Soviet partisans, developing an impressive intelligence. He attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as our Himmler, after the war, he organized the communist takeover of the state institutions of Central and Eastern Europe. Berias uncompromising ruthlessness in his duties and skill at producing results culminated in his success in overseeing the Soviet atomic bomb project. Stalin gave it priority and the project was completed in under five years in no small part due to Soviet espionage against the West organized by Berias NKVD. Upon Stalins death in March 1953, Beria was promoted to First Deputy Premier and he was briefly a part of the ruling troika with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. Berias overconfidence in his position after Stalins death led him to misjudge other Politburo members, the compliance of the NKVD was ensured by Zhukovs troops, and after interrogation Beria was taken to the basement of the HQ of the Moscow Military District and shot by General Pavel Batitsky. Beria was born in Merkheuli, near Sukhumi, in the Sukhumi district of Kutaisi Governorate and he was from the Mingrelian subethnic group of Georgians and grew up in a Georgian Orthodox family. Berias mother, Marta Jaqeli, was a religious, church-going woman, she was previously married and widowed before marrying Berias father, Pavel Khukhaevich Beria. He also had a brother, and a sister named Anna, in his autobiography, Lavrentiy Beria mentioned only his sister and his niece, implying that his brother either was dead or had no relationship with Beria after he left Merkheuli. Beria attended a school in Sukhumi, and joined the Bolsheviks in March 1917 while a student in the Baku Polytechnicum. As a student, Beria distinguished himself in mathematics and the sciences, the Polytechnicums curriculum concentrated on the petroleum industry. Beria also worked for the anti-Bolshevik Mussavatists in Baku, after the citys capture by the Red Army, Beria was saved from execution only because there was likely little arrangement time and Sergei Kirov had possibly intervened. While in prison, he formed a connection with Nina Gegechkori, his cellmates niece and she was 17, a trained scientist from an aristocratic family. In 1919, at the age of twenty, Beria started his career in state security when the security service of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic hired him while still a student at the Polytechnicum, in 1920 or 1921, Beria joined the Cheka – the original Bolshevik secret police. At that time, a Bolshevik revolt took place in the Menshevik-controlled Democratic Republic of Georgia, the Cheka became heavily involved in the conflict, which resulted in the defeat of the Mensheviks and the formation of the Georgian SSR. By 1922, Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Chekas successor, in 1924 he led the repression of a Georgian nationalist uprising, after which up to 10,000 people were executed
Lavrentiy Beria
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Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
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Beria on Caucasian
Party caucus, 1935. Left to right:
Filipp Makharadze,
Mir Jafar Baghirov, Beria.
Lavrentiy Beria
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The first page of Beria's notice (oversigned by Stalin), to kill approximately 15,000 Polish officers and some 10,000 more intellectuals in the
Katyn Forest and other places in the Soviet Union
Lavrentiy Beria
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Beria with Stalin (in background), Stalin's daughter
Svetlana, and
Nestor Lakoba (obscured)
8.
Anastas Mikoyan
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Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the mandates of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. Mikoyan became a convert to the Bolshevik cause. He was a supporter of Stalin during the immediate post-Lenin years. During Stalins rule, Mikoyan held several governmental posts, including that of Minister of Foreign Trade. By the end of Stalins rule, Mikoyan began to favour with him. In October 1952 at the 19th Party Congress Stalin even attacked Mikoyan viciously, when Stalin died in 1953, Mikoyan again took a leading role in policy-making. He backed Khrushchev and his policy, and became First Deputy Premier under Khrushchev. Mikoyans position under Khrushchev made him the second most powerful figure in the Soviet Union at the time, in 1964 Khrushchev was forced to step down in a coup that brought Brezhnev to power. Mikoyan served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Mikoyan was born to Armenian parents in the village of Sanahin, then a part of the Yelizavetpol Governorate of the Russian Empire in 1895. His father, Hovhannes, worked as a carpenter and his mother was a rug weaver, Mikoyan received his education at the Nersisian School in Tiflis and the Gevorgian Seminary in Echmiadzin. Religion, however, played an insignificant role in his life. Before becoming active in politics Mikoyan had already dabbled in the study of liberalism and socialism, at the age of twenty, he formed a workers soviet in Echmiadzin. In 1915 Mikoyan formally joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, during this time, he is said to have robbed a bank in Tiflis with TNT and had his nose broken in street fighting. After the February 1917 revolution that toppled the Tsarist government, Mikoyan, Mikoyan became a commissar in the newly formed Red Army and continued to fight in Baku against anti-Bolshevik forces. He was wounded in the fighting and was noted for saving the life of fellow Party-member Sergo Ordzhonikidze, known as the Baku 26, all the commissars were executed with the sole exception of Mikoyan, the circumstances of his survival are shrouded in mystery. In February 1919 Mikoyan returned to Baku and resumed his activities there, Mikoyan supported Stalin, whom he had first met in 1919, in the power struggle that followed Lenins death in 1924, he had become a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee in 1923. As Peoples Commissar for External and Internal Trade from 1926, he imported ideas from the West, in 1935 he was elected to the Politburo, and was among one of the first Soviet leaders to pay goodwill trips to the United States in order to boost economic cooperation. Mikoyan spent three months in the United States, where he not only learned more about its food industry but also met and spoke with Henry Ford, Mikoyan spearheaded a project to produce a home cookbook, which would encourage a return to the domestic kitchen
Anastas Mikoyan
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Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Mikoyan
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The Caucasus trio: From left to right, Mikoyan,
Joseph Stalin, and
Sergo Ordzhonikidze.
Anastas Mikoyan
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A. Badayev, Mikoyan, and
Sergei Kirov at a bread factory in Leningrad in 1927
Anastas Mikoyan
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Mikoyan talking to
Wilhelm Pieck in
East Berlin,
East Germany, 1954.
9.
Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)
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The Communist Party of Ukraine, known as the Communist Party of Ukraine until 1952, was the Ukrainian branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of Ukraine was created in July 1918 in Moscow, after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the Bolshevik faction Social-Democracy of Ukraine was forced to dissolve as all Bolsheviks were forced out of Ukraine. On October 13,1952 the party officially was renamed as the Communist Party of Ukraine, on August 26,1991 the Communist Party was outlawed in Ukraine. Different sectors reconstituted themselves in different parties, the remaining members either changed political direction or created their own left-wing parties such as the Vitrenko bloc, Social-Democratic party, and others. Beside full members there also were candidate to the committee, the initial composition included Yan Hamarnik, Dmitriy Lebed, Mikhail Mayorov, Mykola Skrypnyk, Petro Slynko, Yakov Yakovlev. On September 9,1918 Mayorov and Slynko replaced Kertvelishvili and Farbman as full members, during World War II on October 2,1942 there was created the Illegal Central Committee of the Party consisting of 17 members. The committee was dissolved on June 29,1943, among the members of the committee were such personalities as Sydir Kovpak, Leonid Korniets, Oleksiy Fedorov, and others. The party had its own Politburo created on March 6,1919, on September 25,1952 the committee was renamed into the Bureau of the Central Committee of CPU, and in October the same year as the Bureau of the CC CPU. On October 10,1952 it became the Presidium of the CC CPU, on June 26,1966 again the bureau was finally left with its original name as the Politburo of the CC CPU. At first it consisted of five members and later one was added. The first Politburo included Andriy Bubnov, Emanuel Kviring, Volodymyr Mescheriakov, Heorhiy Pyatakov, Christian Rakovsky, from March 23 until April 15,1920 there was elected a Provisional Bureau which the next day was ratified by the Russian Communist Party. Along with Politburo the party like its Russian counterpart had its own Orgburo that was created the day as Politburo. The party was headed by its secretary, the position was highly influential and often was considered to be more important than the head of state. The following list is composed of the secretary of the Central Committee of the party who were the leaders of the Party, the position also was changing names between being called the First Secretary or the General Secretary, depending on a political atmosphere in the Soviet Union. The position was not officially of the head of state, but certainly was very influential, Mykola Oleksiiovych Skrypnyk There were 28 Congresses with the last one consisting out of two stages. There also were three consolidated conferences of the party from 1926 to 1932, at the second stage of the last Congress there were 273 members in the Central Committee. This took place in Moscow and decided to call for preparations for an uprising against the occupying Central Powers forces. There were only 15 members in the Central Committee and six candidates, promoted to members, Mikhail Mayorov and Pyotr Slinko This also took place in Moscow
Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)
–
1922 - 1934
Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)
–
1934 - 1938
Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)
–
1938 - 1941
Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)
–
1943 - 1991
10.
Emanuel Kviring
–
Emanuel Kwiring was a Soviet politician. Born into a German family in Friesenthal, in the Samara Governorate of the Russian Empire, he became a socialist activist, after World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, he was a leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He was an opponent of the Ukrainization policy, so he had to leave Kharkiv for Moscow, then he worked as an economist in the State Planning Committee. In 1937, he was arrested and executed by NKVD, in 1956, Kwiring was posthumously rehabilitated by a decision of the USSR Supreme Court
Emanuel Kviring
–
Emanuel Kviring Емануїл Йонович Квірінг
11.
Stanislav Kosior
–
Stanisław Vikentyevich Kosior, sometimes spelled Kossior was one of three Kosior brothers, ethnically Polish Soviet politicians. He was General Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, deputy minister of the USSR. According to the Ukrainian government, he is considered one of the architects of the Ukrainian famine of 1932 to 1933. He was executed during the Great Purge, stanisław Kosior was born in 1889 in Węgrów in the Siedlce Governorate of the Russian Empire, in the Polish region of Podlaskie, to a Polish family of humble factory workers. Because of poverty, he emigrated to Yuzovka, where he worked at a steel mill, in 1907 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and quickly became the head of the local branch of the party. He was arrested and sacked from his job in the party later that year, and he used connections to get re-appointed at the Sulin factory in 1909, but was soon arrested again and deported to the Pavlovsk mine. In 1913 he was transferred to Moscow and then to Kiev and Kharkiv, in 1915 he was arrested by the Okhrana and exiled to Siberia. After the February Revolution Kosior moved to Petrograd, where he headed the branch of the Bolsheviks. After the October Revolution Kosior moved to the German-controlled areas of the Ober-Ost and Ukraine, after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, he moved back to Russia, where in 1920 he became Secretary of the CPSU. In 1922 he became head of the Siberian branch of the CPSU, from 1925 to 1928 he was Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. From 1919, Kosior was for some time a member of Ukraines Politburo, in 1928 he became General Secretary of the Ukrainian SSR Communist Party. Among his tasks was the forcible collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine, in 1930 Kosior was admitted to the Politburo of the CPSU. In 1935 he was awarded the Order of Lenin for remarkable success in the field of agriculture, in January 1938 he also became head of the Soviet Control Office and deputy prime minister of the USSR. This was the peak of his political success, on 3 May 1938, during the Great Purge, Kosior was stripped of all Party posts and arrested by the NKVD. Stanislav Kosior withstood brutal tortures but cracked when his daughter was brought into the room. On 26 February 1939 he was sentenced to death by shooting, other Politburo members purged in this period were Jānis Rudzutaks, Roberts Eihe, Vlas Chubar and Pavel Postyshev. After Stalins death, Kosior was rehabilitated by the Soviet government on 14 March 1956
Stanislav Kosior
–
Stanislav Kosior Станіслав Вікентійович Косіор
12.
Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev
–
Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev was a Soviet Communist politician who rose to power during the rule of Joseph Stalin, joining the Politburo as a candidate member in 1926 and as a full member in 1932. Andreyev also headed the powerful Control Commission of the Soviet Communist Party in 1930 and 1931 then again continuously from 1939 until 1952. After the death of Stalin Andreyev was removed from the Politburo, andrey Andreyevich Andreyev was the son of a peasant peasant family. Andreyev left the village to work as a worker, assuming a position in a munitions factory during World War I. Andreyev was married to Dora Khazan, who was a student along with Stalins second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, together the couple had two children, a son named Vladimir and a daughter named Olga. Andreyev joined the Bolshevik Party in 1914 and he was a member of the Politburo from 1932 until 1952. Andreyev was a Chairman of the Soviet of the Union from 1938 until 1946 and directed the partys powerful Control Commission during 1930-1931, in 1949 he was briefly Peoples Commissar for Agriculture. This was also the year of the Leningrad case for which Andreyev built up a case against Nikolai Voznesensky, Andreyev was dismissed from Politburo in 1952, although he remained a vice-premier of the Soviet government. Andreyev fell from grace in 1953 following the Central Committee Plenary Meeting (convened immediately after Lavrentiy Berias dismissal, after 1953 Andreyev was made a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a largely ceremonial position. Andrey Andreyev died 5 December 1971, Andreyev is remembered for having loved the music of Tchaikovsky, mountaineering, and nature photography. During his life Andreyev was four times awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution and he is the namesake of the AA-20 locomotive, which he is credited for sponsoring as the head of the Soviet railway system from 1931 to 1935
Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev
–
Andreyev in 1924
13.
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Molotov served as Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars from 1930 to 1941, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956. He served as First Deputy Premier from 1942 to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev, Molotov retired in 1961 after several years of obscurity. He was aware of the Katyn massacre committed by the Soviet authorities during this period, after World War II, Molotov was involved in negotiations with the Western allies, in which he became noted for his diplomatic skills. He retained his place as a leading Soviet diplomat and politician until March 1949, Molotovs relationship with Stalin deteriorated further, with Stalin criticising Molotov in a speech to the 19th Party Congress. However, after Stalins death in 1953, Molotov was staunchly opposed to Khrushchevs de-Stalinisation policy, Molotov defended Stalins policies and legacy until his death in 1986, and harshly criticised Stalins successors, especially Khrushchev. Molotov was born Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin in the village of Kukarka, Yaransk Uyezd, Vyatka Governorate, contrary to a commonly repeated error, he was not related to the composer Alexander Scriabin. Throughout his teen years, he was described as shy and quiet and he was educated at a secondary school in Kazan, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, soon gravitating toward that organisations radical Bolshevik faction, headed by V. I. Skryabin took the pseudonym Molotov, derived from the Russian word молот molot for his political work owing to the names vaguely industrial ring and he was arrested in 1909 and spent two years in exile in Vologda. In 1911 he enrolled at St Petersburg Polytechnic, Molotov joined the editorial staff of a new underground Bolshevik newspaper called Pravda, meeting Joseph Stalin for the first time in association with the project. This first association between the two future Soviet leaders proved to be brief, however, and did not lead to a close political association. Molotov worked as a professional revolutionary for the next several years, writing for the party press. He moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1914 at the time of the outbreak of World War I and it was in Moscow the following year that Molotov was again arrested for his party activity, this time being deported to Irkutsk in eastern Siberia. In 1916 he escaped from his Siberian exile and returned to the city, now called Petrograd by the Tsarist regime. Molotov became a member of the Bolshevik Partys committee in Petrograd in 1916, when the February Revolution occurred in 1917, he was one of the few Bolsheviks of any standing in the capital. Under his direction Pravda took to the left to oppose the Provisional Government formed after the revolution, when Joseph Stalin returned to the capital, he reversed Molotovs line, but when the party leader Lenin arrived, he overruled Stalin. Despite this, Molotov became a protégé of and close adherent to Stalin, Molotov became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee which planned the October Revolution, which effectively brought the Bolsheviks to power. In 1918, Molotov was sent to Ukraine to take part in the war then breaking out. Since he was not a man, he took no part in the fighting
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Vyacheslav Molotov Вячеслав Молотов
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Molotov in his youth
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
Molotov's birth house in
Sovetsk, Kirov Oblast
Vyacheslav Molotov
–
A list from the
Great Purge signed by Molotov, Stalin,
Voroshilov,
Kaganovich and
Zhdanov
14.
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.
15.
Kiev Governorate
–
Kiev Governorate was an administrative division of the Russian Empire and Ukraine in 1796 until the Soviet administrative reform of the 1920s. It was considered to be a Little Russian governorate due to majority of speaking in Little Russian dialect. The Kiev Governorate on the bank of Dnieper was officially established by Emperor Paul Is edict of November 30,1796. However it was not until 1800 when there was appointed the first governor, three existing Left-bank Ukraine viceroyalties were merged into one Little Russia Governorate centered on Chernigov, while the Kiev Governorate was now comprised on Right-bank Ukraine. The edict took effect on August 29,1797, bringing the number of uyezds to twelve. On January 22,1832, the Kiev Governorate, along with the Volhynia, at the time, Vasily Levashov was appointed the Military Governor of Kiev as well as the General Governor of Podolia and Volhynia. In 1845, the population of the Governorate was 1,704,661, by the 1897 Russian Census, there were 3,559,229 people in the guberniya making it the most populous one in the whole Russian Empire. There were 459,253 people living in cities, including about 248,000 in Kiev, by faith,2,983,736 census respondents were Orthodox Christians,433,728 were Jews and 106,733 were of the Roman Catholic Church. Kiev Governorate remained a constituent unit of the larger Governorate General with Kiev being the capital of both well into the 20th century, in 1915, the General Governorate was disbanded while the guberniya continued to exist. After the last Imperial governor, Alexey Ignatyev until March 6,1917, in the course of the Soviet administrative reform of 1923–1929 the Kiev Guberniya was transformed into six okruhas in 1923, and, since 1932, Kiev Oblast at the territory
Kiev Governorate
–
Kiev Governorate in 1812
Kiev Governorate
–
Ukrainian okruhas in 1927
Kiev Governorate
–
Kiev Governorate as of 1896.
Kiev Governorate
–
Kiev Governorate as of c. 1900
16.
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.
17.
Moscow
–
Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
Moscow
–
Left to right, top to bottom:
Moscow State University,
Spasskaya Clocktower,
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour;
Bolshoi Theatre,
Moscow International Business Center;
Red Square
Moscow
–
Tatar raid upon Moscow
Moscow
–
Map of Moscow, 1784
Moscow
–
Red Square, painting by
Fedor Alekseev, 1801
18.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
–
The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
–
Flag (1954–1991)
19.
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
20.
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
21.
Russian language
–
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
–
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.
22.
Soviet famine of 1932-33
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The Soviet famine of 1932–33 affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, leading to millions of deaths in those areas and severe food shortage throughout the USSR. These areas included Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region and Kazakhstan, the South Urals, Gareth Jones was the first Western journalist to report the inhumane devastation. The subset of the famine within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, unlike the previous famine of 1921–22, Russias intermittent drought was not severe in the affected areas at this time. Conquest, and others, additionally claim that the famine was an act of genocide against ethnic Ukrainians. The Decree About the Protection of Socialist Property – nicknamed by the farmers the Law of Spikelets – was enacted on August 7,1932, the purpose of the law was to protect the property of the collective farms. It was nicknamed the Law of Spikelets because it allowed people to be prosecuted for gleaning leftover grain from the fields, there were more than 200,000 people sentenced under this law. There was a wave of migration due to starvation, although authorities responded by introducing a requirement that passports be used to go between republics, and banning travel by rail. Soviet internal passports were introduced on 27 December 1932 to deal with the exodus of peasants from the countryside. Individuals not having such a document could not leave their homes on pain of administrative penalties, the rural population had no right to freely keep passports and thus could not leave their villages without approval. The power to issue passports rested with the head of the kolkhoz and this measure stayed in place until 1974. The lack of passports could not completely stop peasants leaving the countryside, unable to find work or possibly buy or beg a little bread, farmers died in the streets of Kharkiv, Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Vinnytsia, and other major cities of Ukraine. The famine of 1932–1933 was officially denied, so any discourse on this issue was classified as criminal anti-Soviet propaganda until Perestroika, the results of the 1937 census were kept secret as they revealed the demographic losses attributable to the Great Famine. Some well known journalists, most notably Walter Duranty of The New York Times, downplayed the famine, durantys coverage led directly to Franklin Roosevelt officially recognizing the Soviet Union in 1933 and thus revoked the United States official recognition of an independent Ukraine. A similar position was taken by the French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot, george Orwells Animal Farm was inspired by Gareth Jones articles about the Great Famine of 1932–1933. The 2004 book The Years of Hunger, Soviet Agriculture, 1931–33 by R. W. Davies and S. G. Wheatcroft, gives an estimate of 5.5 to 6.5 million deaths. Encyclopædia Britannica estimates that 6 to 8 million people died from hunger in the Soviet Union during this period, of whom 4 to 5 million were Ukrainians. Another study, by Michael Ellman using data given by Davies and Wheatcroft, estimates ‘about eight, in his 2010 book Stalins Genocides, Norman Naimark estimates that 3 to 5 million Ukrainians died in the famine. Ellman, Michael, Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited, Europe-Asia Studies, Routledge,59, 663–93, finn, Peter, Aftermath of a Soviet Famine, The Washington Post
Soviet famine of 1932-33
Soviet famine of 1932-33
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Starved peasants on a street in
Kharkiv, 1933
Soviet famine of 1932-33
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The cube at the site for future monument for victims of the Soviet famine (1931-1933) in the center of
Almaty, Kazakhstan
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