1.
Ministry of Justice (Soviet Union)
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The Ministry of Justice of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, formed on 15 March 1946, was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. It was formerly known as the Peoples Commissariat for Justice abbreviated as Наркомюст, the Ministry of Justice was responsible for courts, prisons, and probations. Further responsibilities included criminal justice policy, sentencing policy, and prevention of re-offending in the USSR, the Ministry was organised into All-Union and Union departments. The All-Union level ministries were divided into separate organisations in the Republican, Autonomous Oblast, the leadership of the Ministry of Justice came from notable Soviet law organisations from around the country. According to a decree from 1972, the Ministry of Justice prepared proposals for the codification of law, the Ministry was liable to the Party, the state, and the people. The Ministrys main goal was to strengthen socialist legality and the rule of law within Soviet judicial institutions, the Ministry was organised into one All-Union ministry and 15 Union ministries. The leadership of the ministry consisted of notable figures of the authority of the Soviet Republics, the military tribunals, Bar members, notaries. The leaderships task was to organise and prepare proposals for the codification of legislation, the organisational leadership, and the courts, had full control over the republican, autonomous, and provincial levels of government and the party. On 1 February 1923 the All-Union Peoples Commissariat for Justice was dissolved, and its responsibilities, duties, the Department of the Procuracy of the Ministry of Justice, headed by a republican Procurator General, was responsible for limiting the powers of the Procurator General. On the grounds of stopping unnecessary centralisation, the Ministry of Justice was dissolved both on the Union and the All-Union level, the functions of the Ministry was then handed to the Supreme Court and the Legal Commission of the Council of Ministers. The Ministry was reestablished in 1970 by the Alexei Kosygin government, extensive regulations on the Ministry were created by the Council of Ministers. The Ministrys main task was to direct and supervise judicially organs, according to Soviet law, the Ministry could propose various measures to improve the Soviet court system. According to Article 1 of the Peoples Commissariat for Justice, the main task was to supervise the legal activities of the Soviet central agencies. The Ministry of Justice was headed by a Minister who was elected by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet between seasons, and authenticated by a Supreme Soviet convocation, deputy Ministers were elected by the Council of Ministers, allocation of the deputies was decided by the Ministry of Justice. Each deputy usually headed his or her own department, the minister, the deputies, and other senior officials formed the leadership circle, known as the Board of the Ministry of Justice. The members of this board were approved by the Council of Ministers, the Board of the Ministry held meetings regularly to discuss legal matters nationwide. Decisions made by the board were as a rule implemented nationwide, if the board disagreed they sought the assistance of the Council of Ministers to solve the problem. The structure and number of employees of the Ministry were approved by the Council of Ministers, staffing of the central apparatus of the Ministry, as well as provisions of the departments and divisions, were approved by the Ministry of Justice
2.
Vyacheslav Molotov
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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
3.
Alexei Rykov
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Alexei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician most prominent as Premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. Rykov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, and after it split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions in 1903 and he played an active part in the 1905 Russian Revolution. During the Russian Civil War, Rykov oversaw the implementation of the War Communism economic policy, after Lenin was incapacitated by his third stroke in March 1923 Rykov—along with Lev Kamenev—was elected by the Sovnarkom to serve as Deputy Chairman to Lenin. While both Rykov and Kamenev were Lenins deputies, Kamenev was the acting Premier of the Soviet Union, on 21 December 1930 he was removed from the Politburo. From 1931-37 Rykov served as Peoples Commissar of Communications on the Council he formerly chaired, on 17 February 1937—at a meeting of the Central Committee—he was arrested with Nikolai Bukharin. In March 1938 both were found guilty of treason and executed, Alexei Ivanovich Rykov was born on 25 February 1881 in Saratov, Russia. His parents were peasants from the village of Kukarka, alexeis father, Ivan Illych Rykov, a farmer whose work had led the family to settle in Saratov died in 1889 from cholera while working in Merv. His widowed stepmother could not care for him, so he was cared for by his sister, Klavdiya Ivanovna Rykova. In 1892 he began his first year of school in Saratov. An outstanding student, he started school at age 13. He excelled in mathematics, physics and the natural sciences, at 15 Rykov stopped attending church and confession, and renounced his faith. He graduated from school in 1900 and enrolled at the University of Kazan to study law. Rykov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898 and supported its Bolshevik faction when the party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at its Second Congress in 1903. He worked as a Bolshevik agent in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and he was elected a member of the Partys Central Committee at its 3rd Congress in London in 1905 and its 4th Congress in Copenhagen in 1906. He was elected member of the Central Committee at the 5th Congress in London. He spent 1910-11 exiled in France, and in 1912 expressed reproach towards Lenins proposal that the Bolsheviks become an independent party, the dispute was interrupted by Rykovs exile to Siberia for revolutionary activity. Rykov returned from Siberia after the February Revolution of 1917 and re-joined the Bolsheviks and he became a member of the Petrograd Soviet and the Moscow Soviet. At the 6th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in July–August 1917 he was elected to the Central Committee, during the October Revolution of 1917, he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Moscow
4.
Andrey Vyshinsky
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Andrey Yanuarevich Vyshinsky was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat. He is known as a prosecutor of Joseph Stalins Moscow trials. He was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953, after having served as Deputy Foreign Minister under Vyacheslav Molotov since 1940 and he also headed the Institute of State and Law in the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Vyshinsky was born in Odessa into a Polish Catholic family, who moved to Baku. A talented student, he married Kara Mikhailova, and became interested in revolutionary ideas and he began attending the Kiev University but was expelled for participating in revolutionary activities. Vyshinsky returned to Baku, became a Menshevik in 1903 and took a part in the 1905 Russian Revolution. As a result, in 1908 he was sentenced to prison, here he first met Stalin, a fellow inmate with whom he engaged in ideological disputes. After his release, he returned home to Baku for the birth of his daughter Zinaida in 1909, soon thereafter, he returned to Kiev University and did quite well. He was even considered for a professorship, but his political past caught up with him, determined to practice law, he tried Moscow, where he became a successful lawyer, remained an active Menshevik, gave many passionate and incendiary speeches, and became involved in city government. In 1917, he became reacquainted with Stalin, who had become an important Bolshevik leader, in 1920, after the defeat of the Whites under Denikin, and the end of the Russian Civil War, he joined the Bolsheviks. In 1928, he presided over the Shakhty Trial against 53 alleged counter-revolutionary wreckers, Krylenko acted as prosecutor, and the outcome was never in doubt. In 1930, he acted as co-prosecutor with Krylenko at another show trial, in this case, all eight defendants confessed their guilt. As a result, he was promoted and he carried out administrative preparations for a systematic drive against harvest-wreckers and grain-thieves. In 1935 he became Procurator General of the USSR, the mastermind of Joseph Stalins Great Purge. Although he acted as a judge, he encouraged investigators to procure confessions from the accused, in some cases, he prepared the indictments before the investigation was concluded. Vyshinsky recommended that investigators and judges consider the wider social perspective of each case in the context of class struggle. He first became a known public figure as a result of the Semenchuk case of 1936. Konstantin Semenchuk was the head of the Glavsevmorput station on Wrangel Island, death to this gang who hide their ferocious teeth, their eagle claws, from the people
5.
Sychyovsky District
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Sychyovsky District is an administrative and municipal district, one of the twenty-five in Smolensk Oblast, Russia. It is located in the northeast of the oblast, the area of the district is 1,803.90 square kilometers. Its administrative center is the town of Sychyovka, the population of Sychyovka accounts for 57. 3% of the districts total population. The western part of Sychyovsky District is a highland where sources of rivers are located. Northwestern tip of the district belongs to the Western Dvina basin, while the rest drains into the Volga via the Vazuza River, thus, the Mediterranean–Atlantic–Caspian tripoint of the European Watershed lies there. In other words, Sychyovsky District is the terminus of the Atlantic–Mediterranean watershed in Europe. Постановление №261 от30 апреля2008 г, «Об утверждении реестра административно-территориальных единиц и территориальных единиц Смоленской области», в ред. Постановления №464 от27 июня2014 г, «О внесении изменений в реестр административно-территориальных единиц и территориальных единиц Смоленской области». Закон №106-з от20 декабря2004 г, Закона №69-з от28 мая2015 г. Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования, Опубликован, Вестник Смоленской областной Думы и Администрации Смоленской области, №13, часть II, стр
6.
Russian Empire
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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
7.
Moscow
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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
8.
Soviet Union
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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
9.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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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
10.
Lawyer
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A lawyer is a person who practices law, as an advocate, barrister, attorney, counselor or solicitor or chartered legal executive. The role of the lawyer varies greatly across legal jurisdictions, in practice, legal jurisdictions exercise their right to determine who is recognized as being a lawyer. As a result, the meaning of the lawyer may vary from place to place. In Australia, the lawyer is used to refer to both barristers and solicitors. In Canada, the word lawyer refers to individuals who have been called to the bar or. Common law lawyers in Canada are formally and properly called barristers and solicitors, however, in Quebec, civil law advocates often call themselves attorney and sometimes barrister and solicitor in English. The Legal Services Act 2007 defines the activities that may only be performed by a person who is entitled to do so pursuant to the Act. Lawyer is not a protected title, in India, the term lawyer is often colloquially used, but the official term is advocate as prescribed under the Advocates Act,1961. In Scotland, the word refers to a more specific group of legally trained people. It specifically includes advocates and solicitors, in a generic sense, it may also include judges and law-trained support staff. In the United States, the term refers to attorneys who may practice law. It is never used to refer to patent agents or paralegals, in fact, there are regulatory restrictions on non-lawyers like paralegals practicing law. Other nations tend to have terms for the analogous concept. In most countries, particularly civil law countries, there has been a tradition of giving many legal tasks to a variety of civil law notaries, clerks, and scriveners. Several countries that originally had two or more legal professions have since fused or united their professions into a type of lawyer. Most countries in this category are common law countries, though France, in countries with fused professions, a lawyer is usually permitted to carry out all or nearly all the responsibilities listed below. Arguing a clients case before a judge or jury in a court of law is the province of the barrister in England. However, the boundary between barristers and solicitors has evolved, in England today, the barrister monopoly covers only appellate courts, and barristers must compete directly with solicitors in many trial courts
11.
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
12.
Bolsheviks
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The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk in Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party. In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues and they ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks or Reds came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, with the Reds defeating the Whites, and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union in December 1922. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism, in the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, held in Brussels and London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members who recognise the Party Programme and support it by material means, Julius Martov suggested by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the partys organisations. Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a core of active members. A main source of the factions could be attributed to Lenin’s steadfast opinion. It was obvious at early stages in Lenin’s revolutionary practices that he would not be willing to concede on any party policy that conflicted with his own predetermined ideas and it was the loyalty that he had to his own self-envisioned utopia that caused the party split. He was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow minded that he believed there were only two types of people, Friend and enemy—those who followed him, and all the rest. Leon Trotsky, one of Lenins fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Robespierre, Lenins view of politics as verbal and ideological warfare and his inability to accept criticism even if it came from his own dedicated followers was the reason behind this accusation. The root of the split was a book titled What is to be Done. that Lenin wrote while serving a sentence of exile, in Germany, the book was published in 1902, in Russia, strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the points of Lenin’s writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by the strong leadership of one person over the masses. After the proposed revolution had overthrown the government, this individual leader must release power. Lenin also wrote that revolutionary leaders must dedicate their lives to the cause in order for it to be successful. Lenins view of a socialist intelligentsia showed that he was not a supporter of Marxist theory. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral, and were loyal to the idea of a completely classless society, so Lenin’s variations caused the party internal dissonance. Although the party split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would not become official until 1903, as discussed in What is to be Done. Lenin firmly believed that a political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution
13.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
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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
14.
Show trial
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A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its goal to present the accusation. Show trials tend to be rather than correctional justice and also conducted for propagandistic purposes. The term was first recorded in the 1930s, during this time, many thousands of people classified as elements of the bourgeois like wealthy landlords were rounded up, given show trials, with some receiving executions. Between 1 and 2 million landlords were executed as counterrevolutionaries in Communist China, after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, show trials were given to rioters and counter-revolutionaries involved in the protests and subsequent military massacre. Chinese writer and dissident Ma Jian argued that Gu Kailai, the wife of purged Communist Chinese leader Bo Xilai, was given a trial in 2012. Show trials were a significant part of Joseph Stalins regime, the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period in the Soviet Union are characteristic. The authorities staged the actual trials meticulously, if defendants refused to cooperate — i. e. to admit guilt for their alleged and mostly fabricated crimes — they did not go on public trial, but suffered execution nonetheless. This happened, for example during the prosecution of the so-called Labour Peasant Party, a party invented by the NKVD, some solid public evidence of what really happened during the Moscow Trials came to the West through the Dewey Commission. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, more became available. This discredited the New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, who claimed at the time that these trials were actually fair. According to declassified Soviet archives, with documents dating to 1937 and 1938, the NKVD arrested more than one, in August 2015 Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov was sentenced by a Russian military court to 20 years in prison after show trial in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don. His co-defendant, the activist and anti-fascist Alexander Kolchenko, was sentenced to 10 years, in addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials. These were more likely to be instigated, and sometimes orchestrated, by the Kremlin or even Stalin himself, such high-ranking party show trials included those of Koçi Xoxe in Albania and Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria, who were purged and arrested. After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help, in Romania, Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca were arrested, with Pătrăşcanu being executed. The Czechoslovak Communist party subsequently arrested Slánský himself, Vladimír Clementis, Ladislav Novomeský, the higher-ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him. The trials themselves were shows, with each participant having to learn a script, in the Slánský trial, when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions, the better-rehearsed Slánský answered the one which should have been asked. The Cadaver Trial was a trial over Catholic Pope Formosus held in 897
15.
Great Purge
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The Great Purge or the Great Terror was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union which occurred from 1936 to 1938. In Russian historiography, the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina, after Nikolai Yezhov and it has been estimated between 600,000 and 3 million people died at the hands of the Soviet government during the Purge. In the Western world, Robert Conquests 1968 book The Great Terror popularized that phrase, Conquests title was in turn an allusion to the period called the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. The term repression was used to describe the prosecution of people considered counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people by the leadership of the Soviet Union. The purge was motivated by the desire to remove dissenters from the Communist Party, most public attention was focused on the purge of the leadership of the Communist Party, as well as of government bureaucrats and leaders of the armed forces, most of whom were Party members. The campaigns also affected many other categories of the society, intelligentsia, peasants and especially those branded as too rich for a peasant, a series of NKVD operations affected a number of national minorities, accused of being fifth column communities. Due legal process, as defined by Soviet law in force at the time, was largely replaced with summary proceedings by NKVD troikas. Hundreds of thousands of victims were accused of political crimes, they were quickly executed by shooting. Many died at the labor camps of starvation, disease, exposure. Other methods of dispatching victims were used on an experimental basis, one secret policeman, for example, gassed people to death in batches in the back of a specially adapted airtight van. The campaigns were carried out according to the line, and often by direct orders. The threat of war heightened Stalins perception of marginal and politically suspect populations as the source of an uprising in case of invasion. He began to plan for the elimination of such potential recruits for a mythical fifth column of wreckers, terrorists. The term purge in Soviet political slang was an abbreviation of the purge of the Party ranks. In 1933, for example, the Party expelled some 400,000 people, but from 1936 until 1953, the term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment, and often execution. Stalins opponents on both sides of the political spectrum chided him as undemocratic and lax on bureaucratic corruption and these tendencies may have accumulated substantial support among the working class by attacking the privileges and luxuries the state offered to its high-paid elite. The Ryutin Affair seemed to vindicate Stalins suspicions and he enforced a ban on party factions and banned those party members who had opposed him, effectively ending democratic centralism. In the new form of Party organization, the Politburo, and this required the elimination of all Marxists with different views, especially those among the prestigious old guard of revolutionaries
16.
NKVD
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The Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD, was a joint law enforcement agency of the whole Soviet Union that directly executed the will of the All-Union Communist Party. It was closely associated with the Soviet secret police, which at times was part of the agency, the NKVD was headed by Soviet secret police officials. The NKVD contained the regular, public police force of the USSR, including police, firefighting, border guards. It is best known for the activities of the Gulag and the Main Directorate for State Security and it was also tasked with protection of Soviet borders and espionage, influencing foreign governments and enforcing Stalinist policy within communist movements in other countries. After the Russian February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government dissolved the Tsars police, realizing that it was left with no capable security force, the Council of Peoples Commissars of the RSFSR created a secret political police, the Cheka, led by Felix Dzerzhinsky. It gained the right to undertake quick non-judicial trials and executions, the Cheka was reorganized in 1922 as the State Political Directorate, or GPU, of the NKVD of the RSFSR. In 1922, the USSR was formed with the RSFSR as its largest member, the GPU became the OGPU, under the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR. The NKVD of the RSFSR retained control of the militsiya, as a result, the NKVD also became responsible for all detention facilities as well as for the regular police. Since its creation in 1934, the NKVD of the USSR underwent many organizational changes, on February 3,1941, the Special Sections of the NKVD responsible for military counterintelligence became part of the Army and Navy. The GUGB was separated from the NKVD and renamed the Peoples Commissariat for State Security, after the German invasion, the NKVD and NKGB were reunited on July 20,1941. The CI sections were returned to the NKVD in January 1942, in April 1943, the CI sections were again transferred to the Peoples Commissariats of Defense and the Navy, becoming SMERSH, at the same time, the NKVD was again separated from the NKGB. In 1946, all Soviet Commissariats were renamed ministries, accordingly, the NKVD of the USSR was renamed as the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while the NKGB was renamed as the Ministry of State Security. In 1953, after the arrest of Lavrenty Beria, the MGB was merged back into the MVD, the police and security services were finally split in 1954 to become, The USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, responsible for the criminal militia and correctional facilities. The USSR Committee for State Security, responsible for the police, intelligence, counter-intelligence, personal protection. In implementing Soviet internal policy towards perceived enemies of the Soviet state, untold multitudes of people were sent to GULAG camps, formally, most of these people were convicted by NKVD troikas – special courts martial. Evidential standards were low, a tip-off by an anonymous informer was considered sufficient grounds for arrest. Use of physical means of persuasion was sanctioned by a decree of the state. Hundreds of mass graves resulting from operations were later discovered throughout the country
17.
Anti-Soviet agitation
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Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. To begin with the term was used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the first Russian Revolution in February 1917, the offence was codified in criminal law in the 1920s, and revised in the 1950s in two articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code. The offence was widely used against Soviet dissidents, the article was put in force on 25 February 1927 and remained in force throughout the period of Stalinism. The offence was significantly revised in the post-Stalin Criminal Code of the RSFSR, Article 58.10 was replaced by Article 70, Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. The new definition brought it closer to Western legal norms, although it had few if any parallels in the codes of democratic countries. Article 70 was considered by critics of the Soviet System to be a violation of freedom of speech. It was one of the two legal instruments for the prosecution of Soviet dissidents, the other being Article 190 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Other means of control were extrajudicial, such as the use of punitive psychiatry or the generalised offence of the social parasitism, in particular, the clause about literature targeted samizdat. It basically repeated the Article 70, with the provision of the anti-Soviet purpose. The penalty was lower, up to 3 years of imprisonment, petro Grigorenko in his memoirs wrote that any critique of the Soviet government or events in the Soviet Union was easily classified as ASA. Dissemination of any information which was not officially recognized was classified as Anti-Soviet slander, in this way nearly all members of Helsinki Watch were imprisoned. On 19 February 1986, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov in his letter to Mikhail Gorbachev wrote, application by courts of Articles 70 and 190-1 is pronounced persecution for beliefs. In 1990, just before the end of the Soviet regime, Anti-Soviet agitation. In April 1989, Article 70 was reformulated as part of a series of changes made under perestroika. It was more strictly formulated and became related to violent actions. The terms anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda were replaced by public appeals, subversion, in the new Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, effective from 1 January 1997, the offence of anti-Soviet propaganda has no parallel. More recently a retrogressive trend in amendments to existing laws led attorney Henri Reznik to raise the alarm about the appearance of the phrase anti-Russian in certain legislative proposals, law and political dissent in the Soviet Union
18.
Smolensk Governorate
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Smolensk Governorate, together with seven other governorates, was established on December 29,1708, by Tsar Peter the Greats edict. On July 28,1713, Smolensk Governorate was abolished and its territory was divided between Moscow and Riga Governorates, the governorate was re-established in 1726. In 1775, it was included, along parts of Moscow and Belgorod Governorates. The governorate was again restored in 1796, eventually, on January 14,1929, Smolensk Governorate was abolished and its territory was included into Western Oblast. Population by mother tongue according to the Imperial census of 1897, according to the Imperial census of 1897. История Смоленской земли до начала XV столетия
19.
Populism
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Populism is a political doctrine that proposes that the common people are exploited by a privileged elite, and which seeks to resolve this. The underlying ideology of populists can be left, right, or center and its goal is uniting the uncorrupt and the unsophisticated little man against the corrupt dominant elites and their camp of followers. It is guided by the belief that political and social goals are best achieved by the actions of the masses. Political parties and politicians often use the terms populist and populism as pejoratives against their opponents, such a view sees populism as demagogy, merely appearing to empathize with the public through rhetoric or unrealistic proposals in order to increase appeal across the political spectrum. Populism is most common in democratic nations, historically, academic definitions of populism vary, and people have often used the term in loose and inconsistent ways to reference appeals to the people, demagogy, and catch-all politics. The term has also used as a label for new parties whose classifications are unclear. In recent years, academic scholars have produced definitions that facilitate populist identification and comparison, in the United States and Latin America, populism has generally been associated with the left, whereas in European countries, populism is more associated with the right. In both, the tenet of populism—that democracy should reflect the pure and undiluted will of the people—means it can sit easily with ideologies of both right and left. Cas Mudde says, Many observers have noted that populism is inherent to representative democracy, after all, most recently, many observers have categorized the rise of Donald Trump in the U. S. and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines as populist in nature. Populism has taken left-wing, right-wing, and even centrist forms, as well as forms of politics that bring together groups and individuals of diverse partisan views. The use of populist rhetoric in the United States has recently included references such as the trial lawyer lobby. Subsistence peasant movements, such as the Eastern European Green Rising militias, intellectuals who romanticize hard-working farmers and peasants and build radical agrarian movements like the Russian narodniki. Populist democracy, including calls for political participation through reforms such as the use of popular referenda. Politicians populism marked by non-ideological appeals for the people to build a unified coalition, reactionary populism, such as the white backlash harvested by George Wallace. Populist dictatorship, such as established by Getúlio Vargas in Brazil. Scholars have argued that populist elements have appeared in authoritarian movements. Conspiracist scapegoating employed by various populist movements can create a seedbed for fascism, National Socialist populism interacted with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany. In this case, distressed middle–class populists mobilized their anger against the government, the Nazis parasitized the forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism
20.
Saint Petersburg State University
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Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg. It is the oldest and one of the largest universities in Russia, the university has two primary campuses, one on Vasilievsky Island and the other in Peterhof. During the Soviet period, it was known as Leningrad State University and it was named after Andrei Zhdanov in 1948. Saint Petersburg State University is the second best multi-faculty university in Russia after Moscow State University, the university has a reputation for having educated the majority of Russias political elite, these include presidents Vladimir Putin and Dimitry Medvedev, both of whom studied Law at the university. The university is Russias oldest university, founded in 1724 by Peter the Great, Saint Petersburg state university is included in all ratings and lists of the best universities in the world and is one of the leaders in all indicators in Russia. The university was the first from Russian universities to join The Coimbra Group and it is disputed by the university administration whether Saint Petersburg State University or Moscow State University is the oldest higher education institution in Russia. The Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, renamed the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1814, was established in 1804, in 1823 most of the university moved from the Twelve Collegia to the southern part of the city beyond the Fontanka. In 1824 a modified version of the charter of Moscow University was adopted as the first charter of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, in 1829 there were 19 full professors and 169 full-time and part-time students at the university. In 1830 Tsar Nicholas returned the building of the Twelve Collegia back to the university. In 1835 a new Charter of the Imperial Universities of Russia was approved, however, Pyotr Pletnyov was reappointed Rector and ultimately became the longest-serving rector of Saint Petersburg University. In 1855 Oriental studies were separated from the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1859–1861 female part-time students could attend lectures in the university. In 1861 there were 1,270 full-time and 167 part-time students in the university, of them 498 were in the Faculty of Law, many Russian, Georgian etc. managers, engineers and scientists studied at the Faculty of law therefore. During 1861–1862 there was student unrest in the university, and it was closed twice during the year. The students were denied freedom of assembly and placed under police surveillance, after the unrest, in 1865, only 524 students remained. A decree of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia adopted on 18 February 1863 restored the right of the university assembly to elect the rector and it also formed the new faculty of the theory and history of art as part of the faculty of history and philology. In March 1869, student unrest shook the university again but on a smaller scale, by 1869,2,588 students had graduated from the university. In 1880 the Ministry of National Enlightenment forbade students to marry, in 1882 another student unrest took place in the university. In 1884 a new Charter of the Imperial Russian Universities was adopted, on March 1,1887 a group of the university students was arrested while planning an attempt on the life of Alexander III of Russia
21.
1905 Russian Revolution
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The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire, some of which was directed at the government. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies and it led to Constitutional Reform including the establishment of the State Duma, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906. According to Sidney Harcave, author of The Russian Revolution of 1905, newly emancipated peasants earned too little, and were not allowed to sell or mortgage their allotted land. A nascent industrial working class resented the government for doing too little to them, banning strikes. Finally, the educated class fomented and spread radical ideas after a relaxing of discipline in universities allowed a new consciousness to grow among students, vladimir Lenin was a political theorist who also contributed his own ideology of how a revolution would be caused. In his book Imperialism he claimed that driven imperialism and the dependence on overseas markets would be a factor to revolution. This would cause a rivalry between the powers, leading to war. Taken individually, these issues might not have affected the course of Russian history, the government finally recognized these problems, albeit in a shortsighted and narrow-minded way. The minister of interior Plehve stated in 1903 that, after the problem, the most serious ones plaguing the country were those of the Jews, the schools. This setback aggravated social unrest during the five years preceding the revolution of 1905, every year, thousands of nobles in debt mortgaged their estates to the noble land bank or sold them to municipalities, merchants, or peasants. By the time of the revolution, the nobility had sold off one-third of its land and this plan was meant to prevent proletarianisation of the peasants. However, the peasants were not given land to provide for their needs. Their earnings were often so small that they could buy the food they needed nor keep up the payment of taxes. By the tenth year of Nicholas IIs reign, their total arrears in payments of taxes and dues was 118 million rubles, masses of hungry peasants roamed the countryside looking for work and sometimes walked hundreds of kilometres to find it. Desperate peasants proved capable of violence and these violent outbreaks caught the attention of the government, so it created many committees to investigate their causes. The committees concluded that no part of the countryside was prosperous, some parts, although cultivated acreage had increased in the last half century, the increase had not been proportionate to the growth of peasant populations, which had doubled. The investigations revealed many difficulties but could not find solution that were both sensible and acceptable to the government, nineteenth-century Russians saw cultures and religions in a clear hierarchy. Non-Russian cultures were tolerated in the empire but were not necessarily respected, European civilization was valued over Asian culture, and Christianity was on the whole considered more progressive and true than other religions
22.
Tsar
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Tsar /zɑːr/ or /tsɑːr/, also spelled tzar, csar, or czar, is a title used to designate certain Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, occasionally, the word could be used to designate other secular supreme rulers. Simeon II, the last Tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have borne the title Tsar, the title Tsar is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors, Caesar. In the history of the Greek language, basileus had originally meant something like potentate and it gradually approached the meaning of king in the Hellenistic Period, and it came to designate emperor after the inception in the Roman Empire. Thus, tsar was not only used as an equivalent of Latin imperator but was used to refer to Biblical rulers. From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages, thus, the Bulgarian language and Russian language no longer use tsar as an equivalent of the term emperor/imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. Currently, the term refers to native sovereigns, ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales. The title of king is sometimes perceived as alien and is by some Russian-speakers reserved for European royalty, foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called imperator, rather than tsar. Biblical rulers in Serbian are called цар and in Croatian kralj, in the Polish language however tsar is always used as imperator, never as king. The term tsar is very used to refer to the Russian rulers after Peter the Great. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title, the sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the tsar was actually adopted and used for the first time by his son Simeon I. Since in Byzantine political theory there was place for two emperors, Eastern and Western, the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as a spiritual son of the Byzantian basileus. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated Emperor of Zagora, various additional epithets and descriptions apart, the official style read Emperor and autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks. During the five-century period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the sultan was referred to as tsar. This may be related to the fact that he had claimed the legacy of the Byzantine Empire or to the fact that the sultan was called Basileus in medieval Greek, after Bulgarias liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first autonomous prince. With the declaration of independence, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the traditional title tsar in 1908. However, these titles were not generally perceived as equivalents of emperor any longer, in the Bulgarian as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shifted
23.
Lublin
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Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland and the second largest city of Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 349,103, Lublin is the largest Polish city east of the Vistula River, and is located approximately 170 kilometres to the southeast of Warsaw by road. One of the events that contributed to the citys development was the Polish-Lithuanian Union of Krewo in 1385. In 1474, Lublin, which was part of the Sandomierz region. Lublin also witnessed the early stages of Reformation in the 16th century, a Calvinist congregation was founded and certain groups of radical Arians also appeared in the city, making it an important national centre of Arianism. Until the partitions at the end of the 18th century, Lublin was a city of the Crown Kingdom of Poland. Its delegates and nobles had the right to participate in the Royal Election, although Lublin was not spared from severe destruction during World War II, its picturesque and historical Old Town has been preserved. The district is one of Polands official national Historic Monuments, as designated May 16,2007, the city is viewed as an attractive location for foreign investment and the analytical Financial Times Group has found Lublin to be one of the best cities for business in Poland. The Foreign direct investment ranking placed Lublin second among larger Polish cities in the Cost-effectiveness category, Lublin is also noted for its green spaces and a high standard of living. Archaeological finds indicate a presence of cultures in the area. A complex of settlements started to develop on the site of Lublin and in its environs in the 6th-7th centuries. Remains of settlements dating back to the 6th century were discovered in the center of todays Lublin on Czwartek Hill, the next period of the early Middle Ages was marked by intensification of habitation, particularly in the areas along river valleys. The settlements at the time were centered around the stronghold on Old Town Hill, when the tribal stronghold was destroyed in the 10th century, the center shifted to the north-east, to a new stronghold above Czechówka valley, and after the mid-12th century to Castle Hill. At least two churches are presumed to have existed in Lublin in the medieval period. One of them was most probably erected on Czwartek Hill during the rule of Casimir the Restorer in the 11th century. The castle became the seat of a Castellan, first mentioned in sources from 1224. The oldest historical document mentioning Lublin dates from 1198, so the name must have come into use some time earlier. The location of Lublin at the borders of the Polish lands gave it military significance
24.
Second lieutenant
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Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1b rank. Like the United Kingdom, the rank of second lieutenant replaced the rank of ensign, the rank of second lieutenant was phased out in the Australian Regular Army in 1986. The Canadian Forces adopted the rank insignia of a single gold ring around the service dress uniform cuff for both army and air personnel upon unification in 1968 until the late 2000s. For a time, naval personnel used this rank but reverted to the Royal Canadian Navy rank of acting sub-lieutenant, currently, the Canadian Army insignia for second lieutenant is a pip and the Royal Canadian Air Force insignia for lieutenant is one thick braid. The equivalent rank for the Royal Canadian Navy is acting sub-lieutenant, also known as an Ensign in the Foot Guards units. The insignia consists of a bar in accordance with the color of the ceremonial uniform buttons. For cavalry or forest rangers, ceremonial dress buttons were silver, as was the horn on the forest commissioned officers képi. The insignia consists of a silver star. Officers holding this rank should be addressed as Kyrie Anthypolochage by their subordinates, in Indonesia, Second lieutenant is known as Letnan Dua which is the most junior ranked officer in the Indonesian Military. Cadets who graduate from the Indonesian Military Academy achieve this rank as young officers, senior Non-commissioned officers promoted to becoming commissioned officers go to the Officers Candidate School in Bandung for achieving the Second Lieutenant rank. The Lieutenant rank has two levels, which are Second lieutenant and First lieutenant, lieutenants in Indonesia usually command a Platoon level of troops and are referred to as Danton abbreviated from Komandan Pleton in Indonesian. Since 1951 in the Israel Defense Forces (סגן-משנה (סגמ segen mishne has been equivalent to a second lieutenant, from 1948 –1951 the corresponding rank was that of a segen, which since 1951 has been equivalent to lieutenant. Segen mishne means junior lieutenant and segen literally translates as assistant, typically it is the rank of a platoon commander. Note that the IDF uses this rank across all three of its services, the equivalent rank in Norway is fenrik. This is the first rank, where they are commanding officer, Fenriks are usually former experienced sergeants but to become a fenrik one has to go through officers training and education. Fenriks fill roles as second in command within a platoon, Fenriks are in some cases executive officers. Most fenriks have finished the War Academy as well, and are fully trained officers, to qualify for the Military Academy, Fenriks are required to do minimum 6 months service in international missions, before or after graduation. The Pakistan Army follows the British pattern of ranks, a second lieutenant is represented by one metal pip on each shoulder in case of khaki uniform and one four quadric printed star on the chest in case of camouflage combat dress
25.
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
26.
Duma
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A duma is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term comes from the Russian verb думать meaning to think or to consider, the first formally constituted duma was the State Duma introduced into the Russian Empire by Tsar Nicholas II in 1906. It was dissolved in 1917 during the Russian Revolution, since 1993, the State Duma is the lower legislative house of the Russian Federation. The term Boyar Duma is used by historians to denote the class of boyars, in 1721, Peter the Great transferred its functions to the Governing Senate. In contemporary sources it is called simply the boyars or the duma. Originally there were ten to twelve boyars and five or six okolnichii, by 1613 it had increased to twenty boyars and eight okolnichii. Lesser nobles, duma gentlemen and secretaries, were added to the duma, in 1676 the number of boyars was increased to 50 and was by then constituted only a third of the duma. Under the reign of Alexander II, several reforms were enacted during the 1860s and 1870s and these included the creation of local political bodies known as zemstvoes. All owners of houses, tax-paying merchants and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of a mayor and an uprava. Under Alexander III, however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, in 1894 municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in Caucasia. Under the pressure of the Russian Revolution of 1905, on 6 August 1905, Sergei Witte issued a manifesto about the convocation of the Duma, however, Nicholas II was determined to retain his autocratic power. Just before the creation of the Duma in May 1906, the Tsar issued the Fundamental Laws and it stated in part that the tsars ministers could not be appointed by, and were not responsible to, the Duma, thus denying responsible government at the executive level. Furthermore, the tsar had the power to dismiss the Duma, at this first meeting of the Duma members proposed that political prisoners should be released, trade unions given rights and land reform be introduced. Nicholas II rejected these suggestions and dissolved the assembly in July,1906, the imperial State Duma was elected four times, in 1906, twice in 1907, and in 1912. The State Duma in Russia is the house of the Federal Assembly of Russia. Under Russias 1993 constitution, there are 450 deputies of the State Duma, each elected to a term of four years, this was changed to a five-year term in late 2008
27.
Kharkiv
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Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine. In the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region, the city has a population of about 1.5 million people. Kharkiv is the centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv district. The city was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew to be a centre of Ukrainian industry, trade. Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934 and its industry specializes primarily in machinery and in electronics. There are hundreds of companies in the city, including the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory, Khartron, the Turboatom. Some sources indicate that the city may have named after the Hunnic name for swan. Other sources offer that the city was named after its near-legendary founder, archeological evidence discovered in the area of present-day Kharkiv indicates that a population has existed in that area since the second millennium BC. Cultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers, there is also evidence that the Chernyakhov culture flourished in the area from the second to the sixth centuries. The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654, the years before the region was a sparsely populated part of the Cossack Hetmanate. The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where a settlement stood. According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk, at first the settlement was self-governed under the jurisdiction of a voivode from Chuhuiv that is 40 kilometres to the east. The first appointed voivode from Moscow was Voyin Selifontov in 1656 who started to build a local ostrog, at that time the population of Kharkiv was just over 1000, half of whom were local cossacks, while Selifontov brought along a Moscow garrison of another 70 servicemen. The first Kharkiv voivode was replaced in two years after constantly complaining that locals refused to cooperate in building the fort, Kharkiv also became the centre of the local Sloboda cossack regiment as the area surrounding the Belgorod fortress was being heavily militarized. By 1657 the Kharkiv settlement had a fortress with underground passageways, in 1658 Ivan Ofrosimov was appointed as the new voivode, who worked on forcing locals to kiss the cross to show loyalty to the Moscow tsar. The locals led by their otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk refused, however, with the election of the new otaman Tymish Lavrynov the community sent a request to the tsar to establish a local Assumption market, signed by deans of Kharkiv churches. Relationships with the neighboring Chuhuiv sometimes were non-friendly and often their arguments were pacified by force, with the appointment of the third voivode Vasiliy Sukhotin was completely finished the construction of the city fort. Meanwhile, Kharkiv had become the centre of Sloboda Ukraine, the Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was at University Hill
28.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
29.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
30.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
31.
Vladimir Lenin
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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
32.
Draft evasion
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Draft evasion is an intentional decision not to comply with the military conscription policies of ones nation. Such practices that do not involve law breaking or which are based on conscientious objection are sometimes referred to as draft avoidance, refusing to submit to the draft is considered a criminal offense in most countries where conscription is in effect. Those who practice draft evasion are sometimes referred to as draft dodgers. It is possible to draw a contrast between draft evasion and draft avoidance, the Vietnam era version of Websters Unabridged Dictionary simply defined draft dodger as one who avoids military service regardless how it was done. Some means of draft avoidance, Being a conscientious objector, whether ones anti-war sentiment is religious or otherwise, note that many people who support conscription will distinguish between bona fide conscientious objection and draft dodging, which they view as evasion of military service without a valid excuse. Conscientious objection would be considered if the sentiment was not genuine. Seeking excusal from military service due to health reasons - this would be considered if the purported health issue was feigned or overstated. Seeking and receiving a student deferment and this would be considered evasion if false or misleading academic credentials were used. Some notable US figures avoided the draft as students, such as Bill Clinton, being employed in or applying for a job in an essential civilian occupation and seeking deferment on those grounds. Farmers are usually exempt as are individuals employed in related industries. Often this required a letter from the potential draftees employer to be accepted, after receiving deferment as a student,2008 U. S. Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani received further deferment after his occupation as a law clerk was deemed essential by the Selective Service, non-pacifist churches have at times deferred missionaries as divinity students. During the Vietnam War The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became embroiled in controversy for deferring large numbers of its young members. The LDS church eventually agreed to cap the number of missionary deferments it sought for members in any one state, however and this cap was church wide in the United States and was not limited to Utah. Only two missionaries a year were allowed from each ward. Utah from receiving deferments with relative ease, simply declining to enlist, if the potential conscript appears likely to avoid the draft through sheer luck of the draw. Declining to enlist is not evasion, paying a stand-in to take ones place if drafted. In most countries this is no legally sanctioned, but it was a lawful. In some countries it is possible to evade military service by bribing corrupt draft officers
33.
February Revolution
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The February Revolution, known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution was the first of two Russian revolutions in 1917. The revolution centered on Petrograd, then the Russian capital, arguably beginning on 8 March, Revolutionary activity was largely confined to the capital and its vicinity, and lasted about eight days. It involved mass demonstrations and armed clashes with police and gendarmes, on 12 March mutinous Russian Army forces sided with the revolutionaries. Three days later the result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, Russian Council of Ministers was replaced by a Russian Provisional Government under Prince Georgy Lvov. The revolution appeared to break out spontaneously, without any leadership or formal planning. Russia had been suffering from a number of economic and social problems, bread rioters primarily women in bread lines, and industrial strikers were joined on the streets by disaffected soldiers from the citys garrison. As more and more troops deserted, and with loyal troops away at the Front, in all, over 1,300 people were killed in the protests of February 1917. A number of factors contributed to the downfall of the Imperial government in the spring of 1917, different historians apply different weights to different factors, liberal historians emphasise the turmoil created by the war, whereas Marxists emphasise the inevitability of change. Rabinowitch summarizes the main long-term and short-term causes, The February 1917 revolution, despite its occurrence at the height of World War I, the roots of the February Revolution date much further back. As historian Richard Pipes writes, the incompatibility of capitalism and autocracy struck all who gave thought to the matter. The first major event of the Russian Revolution was the February Revolution, dissatisfaction of proletarians was compounded by food shortages and military failures. Widespread strikes, riots and the mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin ensued. These conditions caused much agitation among the working and professional classes. This tension erupted into revolt with the 1905 Revolution, and again under the strain of war in 1917. The revolution was provoked by Russian military failures during the First World War, the economic challenges faced due to fighting a total war also contributed. In August 1914, all supported and virtually all political deputies voted in favour of the war. The exceptions included the Bolshevik Party and specifically Vladimir Lenin who argued it was not a war fighting. The declaration of war was followed by a revival of nationalism across Russian society, nearly six million casualties—dead, wounded and missing—had been accrued by January 1917
34.
Mogilev
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Mogilev is a city in eastern Belarus, about 76 kilometres from the border with Russias Smolensk Oblast and 105 km from the border with Russias Bryansk Oblast. As of 2011, its population was 360,918, up from an estimated 106,000 in 1956 and it is the administrative centre of Mogilev Region and the third largest city in Belarus. The city is mentioned in sources since 1267. From the 14th century it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, since the Union of Lublin, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 16th-17th century the city flourished as one of the main nodes of the east-west and north-south trading routes. In 1577 Polish King Stefan Batory granted it city rights under Magdeburg law, in 1654, the townsmen negotiated a treaty of surrender to the Russians peacefully, if the Jews were to be expelled and their property divided up among Mogilevs inhabitants. However, instead of expelling the Jews, the Russian troops massacred them after they had led them to the outskirts of the town, after the First Partition of Poland Mogilev became part of the Russian Empire and became the centre of the Mogilev Governorate. In the years 1915–1917, during World War I, the Stavka, the headquarters of the Russian Imperial Army was based in the city, following the Russian Revolution, in 1918, the city was briefly occupied by Germany and placed under their short-lived Belarusian Peoples Republic. Then, in 1919 it was captured by the forces of Soviet Russia, during the Operation Barbarossa, the city was conquered by Wehrmacht forces on 26 July 1941 and remained under German occupation until 28 June 1944. Mogilev became the residence of High SS and police leader Erich von dem Bach. During that period, the Jews of Mogilev were ghettoized and systematically murdered by Ordnungspolizei, heinrich Himmler personally witnessed the executions of 279 Jews on 23 October 1941. Later that month a number of mentally disabled patients were poisoned with car exhaust fumes as an experiment, initial plans for establishing a death camp in Mogilev were abandoned in favour of Maly Trostenets. In 1944, the devastated city was reconquered by the Red Army. Mogilev then was the site of a camp for German POW soldiers. Since Belarus gained its independence in 1991 Mogilev has remained one of its principal cities, Mohilev was the episcopal see of the Latin Catholic Archdiocese of Mohilev until its 1991 merger into the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev. It remains the see of the Eparchy of Mogilev and Mstsislaw in the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, after World War II a huge metallurgy centre with several major steel mills was built. Also, several factories of cranes, cars, tractors. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the establishment of Belarus as an independent country, Mogilev has become one of that countrys main economic, the towns most notable landmark is the late 17th-century town hall built during the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The grand tower of the town hall sustained serious damage during the Great Northern War and it was eventually demolished in 1957 and rebuilt in its pre-war form in 2008
35.
Kornilov affair
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The affair was initiated when Kerensky requested that Kornilov move forces loyal to the Provisional Government into Petrograd to counter the threat of the radical Petrograd garrison. Kornilov then marched on Petrograd intent on purging the Provisional Government of revolutionary elements, the Government passed legislation that led even Lenin, one of its harshest critics, to declare Russia the freest of all the belligerent countries. The demonstrations during the July Days sparked calls for a need for more discipline, officers of the Russian Army, Kornilov amongst them, led these calls. The officers feared that ill-discipline amongst their troops accounted for the poor performance of the Russian army during the First World War. They demanded the reintroduction of the penalty at the front line as well as the abolition of the various soldiers committees that had sprung up in the months following February. Unease also escalated amongst Russias businessmen and industrialists, whilst even amongst the politicians who formed the Provisional Government support for the restoration of order was strong. Shortly after the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917, Kornilov managed to escape from Bykhov and went to establish the Volunteer Army and he was killed in battle against Bolshevik forces in the town of Ekaterinodar in April 1918. Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the Kornilov Affair were the Bolshevik Party, though these weapons were not needed to fight off Kornilovs advancing troops in August, they were kept by the Bolsheviks and used in their own successful armed insurrection of October 1917. Bolshevik support amongst the Russian public also increased following the Kornilov affair, another important consequence of the Kornilov Affair is that it severed the tie between Kerensky and the military. When the Bolsheviks staged their revolution in October 1917 Kerensky appealed to the military to defend the government from the insurrection. Several schools of thought surrounding the Kornilov Affair offer contrasting interpretations and have provoked debate among historians, one take on the Kornilov Affair was put forward by Aleksandr Kerensky himself, the main target of the coup. Kornilov, argued Kerensky, was drawn into this long after the preparatory work had been completed. In a 1966 interview with Soviet journalist Genrikh Borovik, Kerensky expressed the view that Winston Churchill had played a role in the conspiracy. In his 1970 work, The Kornilov Affair, A Reinterpretation, Harvey Asher suggests that Kerensky and Kornilov had an agreement to use the military to restore order within Russia. Asher then goes onto argue that, upon learning that Kornilov favoured the idea of a military dictatorship from Lvov, another interpretation of the Kornilov affair is that it was the result of a misunderstanding between Kerensky and Kornilov, caused by the interference of Vladimir Lvov. The American historian Richard Pipes put forward another interpretation of the event in his work The Russian Revolution, a Peoples Tragedy, The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. The Kornilov Revolt, A Critical Examination of Sources and Research, westwood, J. N. Endurance and Endeavour, Russian History 1812–1992. Katkov, G. Russia 1917, The Kornilov Affair
36.
October Revolution
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It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 25 October 1917. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and this immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first self-proclaimed socialist state. The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces, Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917. The following day, the Winter Palace, was captured, the long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November 1917. The Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the body rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, as the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. At first, the event was referred to as the October coup or the Uprising of 25th, in Russian, however, переворот has a similar meaning to revolution and also means upheaval or overturn, so coup is not necessarily the correct translation. With time, the term October Revolution came into use and it is also known as the November Revolution having occurred in November according to the Gregorian Calendar. The Great October Socialist Revolution was the name for the October Revolution in the Soviet Union after the 10th anniversary of the Revolution in 1927. The February Revolution had toppled Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, however, the provisional government was weak and riven by internal dissension. It continued to wage World War I, which became increasingly unpopular, a nationwide crisis developed in Russia, affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased, gross industrial production in 1917 had decreased by over 36% from what it had been in 1914. In the autumn, as much as 50% of all enterprises were closed down in the Urals, the Donbas, at the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. Real wages fell about 50% from what they had been in 1913, russias national debt in October 1917 had risen to 50 billion rubles. Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion rubles, the country faced the threat of financial bankruptcy. In these months alone, more than a million took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution, by October 1917, there had been over 4,000 peasant uprisings against landowners. When the Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants
37.
Military Revolutionary Committee
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The Military Revolutionary Committee, was the name for military organs created by Bolsheviks Party organizations under the soviets in preparation for the October Revolution. The committees were powerful directing bodies of revolt, installing and securing the Soviet power and they executed a role of provisional extraordinary organs of Proletariat power. The most notable ones were those of the Petrograd Soviet, the Moscow Soviet, the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee was created on 29 October 1917. The idea for organization of the armed revolt battle center belongs to Lenin, the MRC were elected from representatives of the Bolsheviks party, soviets, factory or soldier committees, Bolshevik Military Organizations, Red Guards, and others. The committees were of various such as gubernial, city, county, district, volost, while in the Army were frontlines, army, corps, division. On occasions the functions of the Military Revolutionary Committee were performed by revolutionary committees, the military revolutionary committees were not uniform in terms of their social and party composition, however most of them were predominantly represented by bolsheviks. The first headquarters of armed uprising became the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee that was created by the Petrograd Soviet on October 25,1917, during the Triumphant advance of Soviet power there was a mass establishment of MRCs. Many MRCs appeared on initiative of the delegates of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Big squad of commissars, emissaries, agitators was sent to various regions by the Petrograd MRC on direction of the Central Committee of RSDLP. The Bolsheviks party composed the committees of experienced organizers, in the weeks following the October insurrection, military revolutionary committees based on the MRC of Petrograd were set up throughout the other soviets and helped cement Bolshevik control. These other MRCs were formed by locals but agents from the Petrograd MRC were often in positions to give advice or direction. By the end of October 1917, representatives from the Petrograd MRC were on assignments in at least forty-four cities as well as 113 military units throughout Russia, Turkestan, Lenin on Freedom of the Press. British Journal of Political Science, Vol.4, No, Bolsheviks and Their Allies after 1917, The Ideological Pattern. Vol.34 Questionnaires of councils of the Central Industrial district
38.
Leon Trotsky
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Trotsky initially supported the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks just before the 1917 October Revolution, and he was, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov, one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution. He was a figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union from exile, on Stalins orders, he was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940 by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent. Trotskys ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a school of Marxist thought that opposes the theories of Stalinism. He was written out of the books under Stalin, and was one of the few Soviet political figures who was not rehabilitated by the government under Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s. It was not until the late 1980s that his books were released for publication in the Soviet Union and his parents were David Leontyevich Bronstein and his wife Anna Lvovna. The family was of Jewish origin, the language they spoke at home was Surzhyk, a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Trotskys younger sister, Olga, who grew up to be a Bolshevik. Many anti-Communists, anti-semites, and anti-Trotskyists have noted Trotskys original surname, some authors, notably Robert Service, have also claimed that Trotskys childhood first name was the Yiddish Leiba. The American Trotskyist David North said that this was an apparent attempt to emphasize Trotskys Jewish origins but, contrary to Services claims and he says that it is highly improbable that the family was Jewish, as they did not speak Yiddish, the common language among eastern European Jews. Both North and Walter Laqueur in their books say that Trotskys childhood name was Lyova, when Trotsky was nine, his father sent him to Odessa to be educated in a Jewish school. He was enrolled in a German-language school, which became Russified during his years in Odessa as a result of the Imperial governments policy of Russification. As Isaac Deutscher notes in his biography of Trotsky, Odessa was then a cosmopolitan port city. This environment contributed to the development of the young mans international outlook, although Trotsky said in his autobiography My Life that he was never perfectly fluent in any language but Russian and Ukrainian, Raymond Molinier wrote that Trotsky spoke French fluently. Trotsky became involved in activities in 1896 after moving to the harbor town of Nikolayev on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. At first a narodnik, he initially opposed Marxism but was won over to Marxism later that year by his future first wife, instead of pursuing a mathematics degree, Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name Lvov, he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets, in January 1898, more than 200 members of the union, including Trotsky, were arrested
39.
Adolph Joffe
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Adolph Abramovich Joffe was a Communist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and a Soviet diplomat of Karaite descent. Adolf Abramovich Joffe was born in Simferopol, Crimea, Russian Empire in a wealthy Karaite family and he became a social democrat in 1900 while still in high school, formally joining the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903. In 1904 Joffe was sent to Baku, which he had to flee to avoid arrest and he was then sent to Moscow, but had to flee again, this time abroad. After the events of Bloody Sunday on January 9,1905, Joffe returned to Russia, in early 1906 he was forced to emigrate and lived in Berlin until his expulsion from Germany in May 1906. In Russia, Joffe was close to the Menshevik faction within the Russian Social Democratic Party. However, after moving to Vienna in May 1906, he became close to Leon Trotskys position and helped Trotsky edit Pravda from 1908 to 1912 while studying medicine and with Alfred Adler and he also used his familys fortune to support Pravda financially. During the course of his revolutionary activity Joffe adopted the party name V. Krymsky. In 1912 Joffe was arrested while visiting Odessa, imprisoned for 10 months, in 1917, Joffe, freed from the Siberian exile by the February Revolution, returned to the Crimea. Instead, he joined forces with Trotsky, who had just returned from abroad, in May 1917, Joffe and Trotsky temporarily joined Mezhraiontsy who merged with the Bolsheviks at the VIth Bolshevik Party Congress held between 26 July and 3 August 1917. Joffe headed the Bolshevik faction in the Petrograd Duma in the fall of 1917 and was one of the Dumas delegates to the Democratic Conference between September 14 and 22. Two weeks later, on October 7, once the more radical Bolshevik faction gained the hand, Joffe. Joffe served as the Chairman of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee which overthrew the Russian Provisional Government on October 25–26,1917. From November 30,1917 until January 1918, Joffe was the head of the Soviet delegation that was sent to Brest-Litovsk to negotiate an end to the hostilities with Germany, grigori Yakovlovich Sokolnikov, leader of the signatory team, signed on behalf of Russia. His whole theory is based on the universal application of the right of self-governance of nations in the broadest form. If he continued to hold on his utopic viewpoints the peace would not be possible, mr. Joffe looked astonishedly at me with his gentle eyes and was silent for a while. Then he continued in a - for me, ever unforgettable - friendly, or I would even nearly say suppliant, tone, I very much hope that we will also be able to raise the revolution in your country. At the VIIth Extraordinary Congress of the Bolshevik Party between March 6 and March 8,1918, Joffe was re-elected to the Central Committee and he signed the Soviet-German Supplementary Treaty on August 27,1918. In 1919–1920, Joffe was a member of the Council of Labor and Defense and he wasnt re-elected to the Central Committee at the VIII Party Congress in March 1919 and would never again occupy a major leadership position
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