1.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
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Komsomolskaya Pravda is a daily Russian tabloid newspaper, founded on 13 March 1925. During the Soviet era, Komsomolskaya Pravda was a newspaper of the Soviet Union. Established in accordance with a decision of the 13th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, Komsomolskaya Pravda began as the official organ of the Communist Union of Youth, or Komsomol, the youth wing of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As such, it targeted the same 14 to 28 demographic as its parent organization, focusing initially on popular science, as the Soviet Union started to collapse, on 1 December 1990 the paper shifted from serving as a Komsomol mouthpiece to become a Russian nationwide daily tabloid newspaper. Nevertheless, on 21 August the newspaper published a chronicle of the coup as a historical document. The paper is owned by Media Partner, which in turn is owned by ESN Group, a company led by Grigory Berezkin. In December 2000 the Norwegian media company A-Pressen bought 25 percent plus one share of the paper and it is published in tabloid format by Izdatelsky Dom Komsomolskaya Pravda. Komsomolskaya Pravda reached its highest circulation in 1990 when it sold almost 22 million daily copies, in 2001 it was the ninth-top European newspaper with a circulation of 785,000 copies. It was the newspaper in Russia in 2006 with daily circulation ranging from 700,000 to 3.1 million copies. Its March 2008 circulation, certified by the NCS, was 660,000 copies, in the same year the online version of the paper was also the most visited news website. In January 2015 a front-page article in Komsomolskaya Pravda suggested that the United States had orchestrated the Charlie Hebdo shooting
2.
Operation Barbarossa
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Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which was launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. In the two leading up to the invasion, the two countries signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, the German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940, over the course of the operation, about four million Axis personnel invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2, 900-kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Wehrmacht employed some 600,000 motor vehicles, the offensive marked an escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition. Despite their successes, the German offensive stalled in the Battle of Moscow and was pushed back by the Soviet winter counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmachts strongest blows and forced the unprepared Germans into a war of attrition, the Wehrmacht would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet–Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations of limited scope inside the Soviet Union, such as Case Blue. The failure of Operation Barbarossa proved a point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, in more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The German armies captured 5,000,000 Soviet prisoners of war who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions, a majority of them never returned alive. The Nazis deliberately starved 3.1 million of the prisoners to death as part of a Hunger Plan that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe, over a million Soviet Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his commanders that the next war would be purely a war of Weltanschauungen. Totally a peoples war, a racial war, on 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world. The racial policy of Nazi Germany viewed the Soviet Union as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen, Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germanys destiny was to turn to the East as it did six hundred years ago. Accordingly, it was stated Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples, under the Generalplan Ost. Likening the Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan, Hitler told Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the Mongolian race threatened Europe. Following the invasion, Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood, German army commanders cast the Jews as the major cause behind the partisan struggle. The main guideline policy for German troops was Where theres a partisan, theres a Jew, many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human
3.
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
4.
Newspaper
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A newspaper is a serial publication containing news about current events, other informative articles about politics, sports, arts, and so on, and advertising. A newspaper is usually, but not exclusively, printed on relatively inexpensive, the journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often metonymically called newspapers. As of 2017, most newspapers are now published online as well as in print, the online versions are called online newspapers or news websites. Newspapers are typically published daily or weekly, News magazines are also weekly, but they have a magazine format. General-interest newspapers typically publish news articles and feature articles on national and international news as well as local news, typically the paper is divided into sections for each of those major groupings. Papers also include articles which have no byline, these articles are written by staff writers, a wide variety of material has been published in newspapers. As of 2017, newspapers may also provide information about new movies, most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of subscription revenue, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. Some newspapers are government-run or at least government-funded, their reliance on advertising revenue, the editorial independence of a newspaper is thus always subject to the interests of someone, whether owners, advertisers, or a government. Some newspapers with high editorial independence, high quality. This is a way to avoid duplicating the expense of reporting from around the world, circa 2005, there were approximately 6,580 daily newspaper titles in the world selling 395 million print copies a day. Worldwide annual revenue approached $100 billion in 2005-7, then plunged during the financial crisis of 2008-9. Revenue in 2016 fell to only $53 billion, hurting every major publisher as their efforts to gain online income fell far short of the goal. Besides remodeling advertising, the internet has also challenged the business models of the era by crowdsourcing both publishing in general and, more specifically, journalism. In addition, the rise of news aggregators, which bundle linked articles from online newspapers. Increasing paywalling of online newspapers may be counteracting those effects, the oldest newspaper still published is the Gazzetta di Mantova, which was established in Mantua in 1664. While online newspapers have increased access to newspapers by people with Internet access, literacy is also a factor which prevents people who cannot read from being able to benefit from reading newspapers. Periodicity, They are published at intervals, typically daily or weekly. This ensures that newspapers can provide information on newly-emerging news stories or events, currency, Its information is as up to date as its publication schedule allows
5.
Broadsheet
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A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long vertical pages. The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material. The first broadsheet newspaper was the Dutch Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner and tabloid/compact formats. Many broadsheets measure approximately 29 1⁄2 by 23 1⁄2 inches per full broadsheet spread, australian and New Zealand broadsheets always have a paper size of A1 per spread. South African broadsheet newspapers have a spread sheet size of 820 by 578 mm or 32.3 by 22.8 in. Others measure 22 inches or 560 millimetres vertically, in the United States, the traditional dimensions for the front page half of a broadsheet are 15 inches wide by 22 3⁄4 inches long. However, in efforts to save newsprint costs many U. S. newspapers have downsized to 12 inches wide by 22 3⁄4 inches long for a folded page. Many rate cards and specification cards refer to the size with dimensions representing the front page half of a broadsheet size, rather than the full. Some quote actual page size and others quote the area size. The two versions of the broadsheet are, Full broadsheet – The full broadsheet typically is folded vertically in half so that it forms four pages, the four pages are called a spread. Half broadsheet – The half broadsheet is usually a page that is not folded vertically and just includes a front. In uncommon instances, an entire newspaper can be a two-page half broadsheet or four-page full broadsheet, totally self-contained advertising circulars inserted in a newspaper in the same format are referred to as broadsheets. Broadsheets typically are also folded horizontally in half to accommodate newsstand display space, the horizontal fold however does not affect the page numbers and the content remains vertical. The most important newspaper stories are placed above the fold and this contrasts with tabloids which typically do not have a horizontal fold. The broadsheet has since emerged as the most popular format for the dissemination of printed news, historically, broadsheets developed after the British in 1712 placed a tax on newspapers based on the number of their pages. The original purpose of the broadsheet, or broadside, was for the purpose of posting royal proclamations, acts, eventually the people began using the broadsheet as a source for political activism by reprinting speeches, ballads or narrative songs originally performed by bards. With the early mechanization of the 19th century came an increase in production of printed materials including the broadside as well as the penny dreadful. In this period all over Europe began to print their issues on broadsheets
6.
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
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The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Russia. The party is viewed as the immediate successor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It is the second largest political party in the Russian Federation, the youth organisation of the party is the Leninist Young Communist League. The party is administered by the Central Committee, as of 2015, the party has 570,000 members. The partys stated goal is to establish a new, modernised form of socialism in Russia, Zyuganov had been a harsh critic of Alexander Yakovlev, the so-called godfather of glasnost, on the CPSU Central Committee. In order to oppose Yeltsin, Zyuganov organized a popular-patriotic bloc of nationalist organizations to support his candidacy and it went on to support Zyuganov in the 2000 presidential election. The NPSR was meant to form the basis of a two-party system, the party suffered a sharp decline in the 2003 legislative election, going from 113 seats to 52. Zyuganov called the 2003 elections a revolting spectacle, and accused the Kremlin of setting up a Potemkin party, Rodina, the CPRF was endorsed by Sergey Baburins Peoples Union for the 2007 Russian parliamentary elections. The party played only a role in the protests. Party rallies on December 18,2011 in protest of election irregularities in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were attended by only a few thousand, mostly elderly, the party has also recently called for Russia to formally recognize Donetsk Peoples Republic and the Luhansk Peoples Republic. The partys current program was adopted in 2008, where the CPRF declared that it is the political organization that consistently upholds the rights of the workers. According to the program, the goal of the party is to build in Russia a renewed socialism, socialism of the 21st century. The program of the Communist Party declared that the party is guided by Marxism–Leninism, based on the experience and achievements of domestic and world science, according to its program, the CPRF considers it necessary to reform the country in three phases. In the first phase, it is needed to achieve power through representation by a coalition led by the CPRF. In this case, however, small producers will remain, and, moreover, will be organized to protect them from robbery by big business, bureaucrats and it is planned to reform the management of enterprises through the creation of councils at various levels. The party also plans to transform Russia into a Soviet republic, in the second stage the role of councils and trade unions will increase even more. The economy will be made a transition to a socialist form of economic activity, however. Finally, the phase is to build socialism
7.
Communism
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Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism, and the political ideologies grouped around both. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to analysis, is the social ownership of the means of production. Likewise, some communists defend both theory and practice, while others argue that historical practice diverged from communist principles to a greater or lesser degree, according to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless, egalitarian society first emerged in Ancient Greece. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, in the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Communist thought has also traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia, More portrayed a society based on ownership of property. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine, in the early 19th century, Various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the emphasis with a rational. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana, in its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels, in 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for the rise to power of Lenins Bolsheviks. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, the event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx predicted that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development, Russia, however, was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers. Marx had explicitly stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule, the moderate Mensheviks opposed Lenins Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Great Purge of 1937–1938 was Stalins attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party and its leading role in the Second World War saw the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower, with strong influence over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The European and Japanese empires were shattered and Communist parties played a role in many independence movements
8.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
9.
International Standard Serial Number
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An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title, ISSN are used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature. The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971, ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC9 is responsible for maintaining the standard. When a serial with the content is published in more than one media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media, the ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN and electronic ISSN, respectively. The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers, as an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits. The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows, NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character. The ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, for calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, the modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres, usually located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris. The International Centre is an organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, at the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept, where ISBNs are assigned to individual books, an ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an identifier associated with a serial title. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change, separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. Also, a CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved, however, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial
10.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
11.
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
12.
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
13.
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
14.
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
15.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26,1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and that evening at 7,32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag. Previously, from August to December, all the individual republics, the week before the unions formal dissolution,11 republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also signalled the end of the Cold War, on the other hand, only the Baltic states have joined NATO and the European Union. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on March 11,1985, Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy, the reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On April 23,1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept the power ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and this liberalisation, however, fostered nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union. Under Gorbachevs leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, in May 1985, Gorbachev delivered a speech in Leningrad advocating reforms and an anti-alcohol campaign to tackle widespread alcoholism. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised in order to make these drinks more expensive and a disincentive to consumers, unlike most forms of rationing intended to conserve scarce goods, this was done to restrict sales with the overt goal of curtailing drunkenness. Gorbachevs plan also included billboards promoting sobriety, increased penalties for public drunkenness, however, Gorbachev soon faced the same adverse economic reaction to his prohibition as did the last Tsar. The disincentivization of alcohol consumption was a blow to the state budget according to Alexander Yakovlev. Alcohol production migrated to the market, or through moonshining as some made bathtub vodka with homegrown potatoes. The purpose of these reforms, however, was to prop up the centrally planned economy, unlike later reforms. The latter, disparaged as Mr Nyet in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs, gromyko was relegated to the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, as he was considered an old thinker. In the fall of 1985, Gorbachev continued to bring younger, at the next Central Committee meeting on October 15, Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Talyzin became a candidate. Finally, on December 23,1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin, Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization. The CTAG Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja by three workers, Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss and its name refers to the human-rights statements of the Helsinki Accords
16.
President of Russia
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The President of the Russian Federation is the elected head of state, Supreme Commander-in-Chief and holder of the highest office within the Russian Federation. The current President of Russia is Vladimir Putin, in 1991, the office was briefly known as the President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until 25 December 1991. According to the 1978 Russian Constitution, the President of Russia was head of the executive branch, according to the current 1993 Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is not a part of the Government of Russia, which exercises executive power. In all cases where the President of the Russian Federation is unable to fulfill his duties, they shall be temporarily delegated to the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the Federation Council is the third important position after the President and the Prime Minister. In the case of incapacity of both the President and Prime Minister, the chairman of the house of parliament becomes acting head of state. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Federation, the president is elected directly through a popular vote to a six-year term. The law prohibits anyone from ever being elected to the presidency for a consecutive term. In all,3 individuals have served 4 presidencies spanning 6 full terms, on May 7,2012, Vladimir Putin became the 4th and current president. A candidate for office must be a citizen of the Russian Federation who is at least 35 years old and has resided in Russia for at least 10 years. The Constitution of Russia limits the election of one person to the Presidency to two consecutive terms, since the constitution contains no ruling on a total number of terms that a President may serve, a former president may seek re-election after sitting out one complete term. The election of the President is mainly regulated by the Presidential Election Law, the Federation Council calls the presidential elections. If it does not call an election that is due. The Election Day is the second Sunday of the month and the electoral constituency is the territory of the Russian Federation as a whole. Each faction in the State Duma, the house of the Russian parliament has the right to nominate a candidate for the presidential elections. The minimum number of signatures for a presidential candidate fielded by a party with no parliamentary representation is 100,000. Terms were extended from four to six years in 2008, during Dmitry Medvedevs administration, the President is elected in a two-round system every six years, with a two consecutive term limitation. If no candidate wins by an majority in the first round
17.
Boris Yeltsin
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Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the reforms as one of Gorbachevs most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a member of the Politburo, no one had resigned from the Politburo before. This act branded Yeltsin as a rebel and led to his rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure, on 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. However, Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after a series of economic. He vowed to transform Russias socialist economy into a capitalist market economy and implemented economic shock therapy, price liberalization, due to the sudden total economic shift, a majority of the national property and wealth fell into the hands of a small number of oligarchs. The well-off millionaire and billionaire oligarchs likened themselves to 19th century robber barons, in October 1993, troops loyal to Yeltsin stopped an armed uprising outside of the parliament building, leading to a number of deaths. Yeltsin then scrapped the existing Russian constitution, banned political opposition, on 31 December 1999, under enormous internal pressure, Yeltsin announced his resignation, leaving the presidency in the hands of his chosen successor, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin left office widely unpopular with the Russian population, Yeltsin kept a low profile after his resignation, though he did occasionally publicly criticise his successor. Yeltsin died of heart failure on 23 April 2007. Boris Yeltsin was born in the village of Butka, Talitsky District, Sverdlovsk, USSR, growing up in rural Sverdlovsk, he studied at the Ural State Technical University, and began his career in the construction industry. In 1934 Nikolai Yeltsin was convicted of anti-Soviet agitation and sentenced to hard labour in a gulag for three years, Nikolai remained unemployed for a period of time and then worked again in construction. His mother, Klavdiya Vasilyevna Yeltsina, worked as a seamstress, Boris studied at Pushkin High School in Berezniki. In 1949 he was admitted to the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk, majoring in construction, the subject of his degree paper was Construction of a Mine Shaft. From 1955 to 1957 he worked as a foreman with the building trust Uraltyazhtrubstroy, from 1957 to 1963 he worked in Sverdlovsk, and was promoted from construction site superintendent to chief of the Construction Directorate with the Yuzhgorstroy Trust. In 1963 he became chief engineer, and in 1965 head of the Sverdlovsk House-Building Combine, responsible for sewerage and he joined the ranks of the CPSU nomenklatura in 1968 when he was appointed head of construction with the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee. In 1975 he became secretary of the committee in charge of the regions industrial development. In 1976 the Politburo of the CPSU promoted him to the post of the first secretary of the CPSU Committee of Sverdlovsk Oblast, Yeltsin was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 17 March 1961 to 13 July 1990, and a nomenklatura member from 1968
18.
Karl Marx
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Karl Marx was a Prussian-born philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier to a family, he later studied political economy. His work has influenced subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. These economic critiques were set out in works such as the three volumes, published between 1867 and 1894, that comprise Das Kapital. According to Marx, states are run in the interests of the class but are nonetheless represented as being in favor of the common interest of all. He predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Marx actively fought for its implementation, arguing that the class should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and his work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and subsequent economic thought. Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marxs work, Marx is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern sociology and social science. Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx and he was born at Brückengasse 664 in Trier, a town then part of the Kingdom of Prussias Province of the Lower Rhine. Marx was ancestrally Jewish, his grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his paternal line had supplied Triers rabbis since 1723. Marx was also a cousin once removed of German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine, also born to a German Jewish family in the Rhineland. Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant, a classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, then governed by an absolute monarchy. In 1815 Heinrich Marx began work as an attorney, in 1819 moving his family to a property near the Porta Nigra. Her sister Sophie Pressburg, was Marxs aunt and was married to Lion Philips Marxs uncle through this marriage, Lion Philips was a wealthy Dutch tobacco manufacturer and industrialist, upon whom Karl and Jenny Marx would later often come to rely for loans while they were exiled in London. Little is known of Karl Marxs childhood, the third of nine children, he became the oldest son when his brother Moritz died in 1819. Young Karl was baptised into the Lutheran Church in August 1824 along with his siblings, Sophie, Hermann, Henriette, Louise, Emilie. Young Karl was privately educated, by Heinrich Marx, until 1830, by employing many liberal humanists as teachers, Wyttenbach incurred the anger of the local conservative government
19.
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
20.
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
21.
Alexander Bogdanov
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Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov was a Russian and Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity. In the first decade of the Soviet Union, he was an opponent of the government from a Marxist perspective. Bogdanov received training in medicine and psychiatry and his scientific interests ranged from the universal systems theory to the possibility of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion. He invented an original philosophy called “tectology, ” now regarded as a forerunner of systems theory and he was also an economist, culture theorist, science fiction writer, and political activist. Alyaksandr Malinovsky was born in Sokółka, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire, into a teachers family. He attended the Gymnasium at Tula, which he compared to a barracks or prison and he was awarded a gold medal when he graduated. Upon completion of the gymnasium, Bogdanov was admitted to the Natural Science Department of Moscow University. In his autobiography, Bogdanov reported that, while studying at Moscow University, he joined the Union Council of Regional Societies, the occasion of his arrest and exile is as follows. The head of the Moscow Okhrana used an informant to acquire the names of members of the Union Council of Regional Societies, punishment of a few of the students was arbitrary and unfair that the Union Council requested a fair reexamination of the issue. That very night, the Okhrana arrested all the students on the list mentioned above - including Bogdanov - were arrested, expelled from the university, here he met and married Natalya Bogdanovna Korsak, who, as a woman, had been refused entrance to the university. She was working as a nurse for Rudnev, Malinovsky adopted the nom de plume that he used when he wrote his major theoretical works and his novels from her patronym. Alongside Bazarov and Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov he became a tutor in a study circle. This was organised in the Tula Armament Factory by Ivan Saveliev, during this period, he wrote his Brief course of economic science which was published – subject to many modifications made for the benefit of the censor – only in 1897. He later said that this experience of student-led education gave him his first lesson in proletarian culture, in autumn 1895, he resumed his medical studies at the University of Kharkiv but still spent much time in Tula. He gained access to the works of Lenin in 1896, particularly the latters critique of Peter Berngardovich Struve, in 1899, he graduated as a medical doctor and published his next work, Basic elements of the historical perspective on nature. However, because of his views, he was also arrested by the Tsars police, spent six months in prison. Bogdanov dates his support for Bolshevism from autumn of 1903, early in 1904, Martin Lyadov was sent by the Bolsheviks in Geneva to seek out supporters in Russia. He found a group of revolutionaries in Tver
22.
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
23.
Mensheviks
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The dispute originated at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, ostensibly over minor issues of party organization. Neither side held a consistent majority over the course of the congress, Lenins formulation required the party member to be a member of one of the partys organizations, whereas Martovs only stated that he should work under the guidance of a party organization. Martovs proposal was accepted by the majority of the delegates and that was also the reason behind the naming of the factions. Despite the outcome of the congress, the years saw the Mensheviks gathering considerable support among regular Social Democrats. In 1906, at the 4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, on the other hand, numerous disagreements about alliances and strategy emerged. The two factions kept their separate structures and continued to operate separately, both believed that the working class had to contribute to this revolution. In the event of a revolution, this was meant to lead to a dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, the Mensheviks came to argue for predominantly legal methods and trade union work, while the Bolsheviks favoured armed violence. Some Mensheviks left the party after the defeat of 1905 and joined legal opposition organisations, after a while, Lenins patience wore out with their compromising and in 1908 he called these Mensheviks liquidationists. The Menshevik faction split further in 1914 at the beginning of World War I, most Mensheviks opposed the war, but a vocal minority supported it in terms of national defense. They called for a revolution and transfer of all power to the Soviets. In March–April 1917, the Menshevik leadership conditionally supported the newly formed liberal Russian Provisional Government, from then on, the Mensheviks had at least one representative in the Provisional Government until it was overthrown by the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution of 1917. With Mensheviks and Bolsheviks diverging, Mensheviks and non-factional social democrats returning from exile in Europe, others, like Alexandra Kollontai, joined the Bolsheviks. A significant number, including Leon Trotsky and Adolf Joffe, joined the non-factional Petrograd-based anti-war group called Mezhraiontsy, a small but influential group of social democrats associated with Maxim Gorkys newspaper Novaya Zhizn refused to join either party. The Mensheviks got just 3. 3% of the national vote,41. 7% of their support came from the Transcaucasus. In Georgia about 75% voted for them, the right wing of the Menshevik party supported actions against the Bolsheviks, while the left wing, the majority of the Mensheviks at that point, supported the Left in the ensuing Russian Civil War. However, Martovs leftist Menshevik faction refused to break with the wing of the party, resulting in their press being sometimes banned. The Mensheviks opposed war communism, and in 1919 suggested an alternative programme, during World War I, some anti-war Mensheviks had formed a group called Menshevik-Internationalists. They were active around the newspaper Novaya Zhizn and took part in the Mezhraiontsy formation. After July 1917 events in Russia, they broke with the Menshevik majority that supported continued war with Germany, the Mensheviks-Internationalists became the hub of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party
24.
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
25.
Vienna
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Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austrias primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, and its cultural, economic and it is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin, Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region, along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be The City of Dreams because it was home to the worlds first psycho-analyst – Sigmund Freud. The citys roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city and it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the worlds most liveable cities, between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne, Australia. Monocles 2015 Quality of Life Survey ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world to make a base within, the UN-Habitat has classified Vienna as being the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the worlds number-one destination for international congresses and it attracts over 3.7 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the name or the French Vienne. The etymology of the name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning forest stream, which produced the Old High German Uuenia. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Slovak names of the city, the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, evidence has been found of continuous habitation since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north
26.
Tabloid (newspaper format)
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A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet. There is no standard size for this newspaper format, the term tabloid journalism refers to an emphasis on such topics as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and television, and is not a reference to newspapers printed in this format. Some small-format papers with a standard of journalism refer to themselves as compact newspapers. Larger newspapers, traditionally associated with higher-quality journalism, are called broadsheets, in common usage, tabloid and broadsheet are frequently more descriptive of a newspapers market position than physical format. The Berliner format used by many prominent European newspapers is sized between the tabloid and the broadsheet, in a newspaper context, the term Berliner is generally used only to describe size, not to refer to other qualities of the publication. The word tabloid comes from the name given by the London-based pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co. to the compressed tablets they marketed as Tabloid pills in the late 1880s, the connotation of tabloid was soon applied to other small compressed items. A1902 item in Londons Westminister Gazette noted, The proprietor intends to give in tabloid form all the news printed by other journals, thus tabloid journalism in 1901 originally meant a paper that condensed stories into a simplified, easily absorbed format. The term preceded the 1918 reference to smaller sheet newspapers that contained the condensed stories, a tabloid is defined as roughly 17 by 11 inches and commonly half the size of a broadsheet. Tabloid newspapers, especially in the United Kingdom, boast a very high degree of variation as far as target market, political alignment, editorial style, thus, various terms have been coined to describe the subtypes of this versatile paper format. There are, broadly, two types of tabloid newspaper, red top and compact. The distinction is largely of editorial style, both red top and compact tabloids span the width of the spectrum from socialism to capitalist conservatism. The red top tabloid is, for many, the example of the format. Red tops tend to be written with a simplistic, straightforward vocabulary and grammar, their layout, more often than not, in the extreme case, red top tabloids have been accused of lying or misrepresenting the truth to increase circulation. Poll results are often predicted by red top papers, examples of British red top newspapers include The Sun, the Daily Star, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sport. In contrast to red top tabloids, compacts use a style more closely associated with broadsheet newspapers. In fact, most compact tabloids formerly used the paper size. The term compact was coined in the 1970s by the Daily Mail, one of the newspapers to make the change. The purpose behind this was to avoid the association of the word tabloid with the flamboyant, the early converts from broadsheet format made the change in the 1970s, two notable British papers that took this step at the time were the Daily Mail and the Daily Express
27.
Prague
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Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is the 14th largest city in the European Union and it is also the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city has a temperate climate, with warm summers and chilly winters. Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its history and it was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire. Prague is home to a number of cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence. Main attractions include the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The city has more than ten major museums, along with theatres, galleries, cinemas. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city, also, it is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe. Prague is classified as an Alpha- global city according to GaWC studies, Prague ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016. Its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination, and the city more than 6.4 million international visitors annually. Prague is the fifth most visited European city after London, Paris, Istanbul, the region was settled as early as the Paleolithic age. In the last century BC, the Celts were slowly driven away by Germanic tribes, around the area where present-day Prague stands, the 2nd century map of Ptolemaios mentioned a Germanic city called Casurgis. In the following century, the Czech tribes built several fortified settlements in the area, most notably in Levý Hradec, Butovice and in the Šárka valley. The construction of what came to be known as the Prague Castle began near the end of the 9th century, the first masonry under Prague Castle dates from the year 885 at the latest. The other prominent Prague fort, the Přemyslid fort Vyšehrad, was founded in the 10th century, Prague Castle is dominated by the cathedral, which was founded in 1344, but completed in the 20th century. The legendary origins of Prague attribute its foundation to the 8th century Czech duchess and prophetess Libuše and her husband, Přemysl, legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied, I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars. She ordered a castle and a town called Praha to be built on the site, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the city was founded as Boihaem in c.1306 BC by an ancient king, Boyya. The region became the seat of the dukes, and later kings of Bohemia, under Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973
28.
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
29.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
30.
Maxim Gorky
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Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, primarily known as Maxim Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire. Gorkys most famous works were The Lower Depths, Twenty-six Men and he had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs. Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement and he publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanovs Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia, in 1932, he returned to Russia on Joseph Stalins personal invitation and died there in June 1936. Born as Alexei Maximovich Peshkov on 28 March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod and he was brought up by his grandmother and ran away from home at the age of twelve in 1880. After an attempt at suicide in December 1887, he travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, changing jobs, as a journalist working for provincial newspapers, he wrote under the pseudonym Иегудиил Хламида. He began using the pseudonym Gorky in 1892, while working in Tiflis for the newspaper Кавказ, the name reflected his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the bitter truth. Gorkys first book Очерки и рассказы in 1898 enjoyed a sensational success, Gorky wrote incessantly, viewing literature less as an aesthetic practice than as a moral and political act that could change the world. He described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of society, revealing their hardships, humiliations, and brutalisation, but also their inward spark of humanity. Gorkys reputation grew as a literary voice from the bottom strata of society and as a fervent advocate of Russias social, political. By 1899, he was associating with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. At the heart of all his work was a belief in the inherent worth, in his writing, he counterposed individuals, aware of their natural dignity, and inspired by energy and will, with people who succumb to the degrading conditions of life around them. But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore art thou and he publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many times. Gorky befriended many revolutionaries and became a friend of Vladimir Lenin after they met in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press, in 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary Academician of Literature, but Tsar Nicholas II ordered this annulled. In protest, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the Academy, from 1900 to 1905, Gorkys writings became more optimistic
31.
Ruble
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The ruble or rouble is or was a currency unit of a number of countries in Eastern Europe closely associated with the economy of Russia. Originally, the ruble was the unit of Imperial Russia and then the Soviet Union. The Russian ruble is used in the partially recognised states of Abkhazia. In the past, several other countries influenced by Russia and the Soviet Union had currency units that were also named rubles, one ruble is divided into 100 kopeks. According to one version, the ruble is derived from the Russian verb рубить, to cut, to chop, to hack. Rubles were parts of the grivna or pieces of silver with notches indicating their weight, each grivna was divided into four parts, the name ruble came from the word cut because the silver rod weighing 1 grivna was split into four parts, which were called rubles. Another version of the origin is that it comes from the Russian noun рубец. Therefore, the word means a cast with a seam. A popular theory deriving word ruble from rupee is probably not correct, the ruble was the Russian equivalent of the mark, a measurement of weight for silver and gold used in medieval Western Europe. The weight of one ruble was equal to the weight of one grivna, in Russian, a folk name for ruble, tselkovyj, is known, which is a shortening of the целковый рубль, i. e. a wholesome, uncut ruble. This name persists in the Mordvin word for ruble, целковой, the word kopek, kopeck, copeck, or kopeyka is a diminutive form of the Russian kopyo — a spear. The first kopek coins, minted at Novgorod and Pskov from about 1534 onwards, from the 1540s onwards the horseman bears a crown, and doubtless the intention was to represent Ivan the Terrible, who was Grand Prince of all Russia until 1547, and Tsar thereafter. Subsequent mintings of the coin, starting in the 18th century, since the monetary reform of 1534, one Russian accounting ruble became equivalent to 100 silver Novgorod denga coins or smaller 200 Muscovite denga coins or even smaller 400 polushka coins. Exactly the former coin with a rider on it became colloquially known as kopek and was the higher coin until the beginning of the 18th century. Ruble coins as such did not exist till Peter the Great, apart from one ruble and one kopek coins other smaller and greater coins existed as well. Both the spellings ruble and rouble are used in English, the form rouble is preferred by the Oxford English Dictionary, but the earliest use recorded in English is the now completely obsolete robble. The form rouble probably derives from the transliteration into French used among the Tsarist aristocracy, the Russian plurals that may be seen on the actual currency are modified according to Russian grammar. Numbers 1,21,31 etc. are followed by nominative singular рубль, numbers 2–4, 22–24, 32–34 etc. will be followed by genitive singular рубля, копейки
32.
Strike action
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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances, Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. In most countries, strike actions were made illegal, as factory owners had far more power than workers. Most Western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard or 1981 Warning Strike, official publications have typically used the more neutral words work stoppage or industrial dispute. The first historically certain account of action was towards the end of the 20th dynasty. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid, the Egyptian authorities raised the wages. An early predecessor of the strike may have been the secessio plebis in ancient Rome. In the Outline Of History, H. G. Wells characterized this event as the strike of the plebeians, the plebeians seem to have invented the strike. The strike action became a feature of the political landscape with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, large numbers of people were members of the working class, they lived in cities. By the 1830s, when the Chartist movement was at its peak, in 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by an agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the industrial work force were on strike at its peak – over 500,000 men. The local leadership marshalled a growing working class tradition to organize their followers to mount an articulate challenge to the capitalist. Friedrich Engels, an observer in London at the time, wrote, by its numbers, this class has become the most powerful in England, the English proletarian is only just becoming aware of his power, and the fruits of this awareness were the disturbances of last summer. Karl Marx has condemned the theory of Proudhon criminalizing strike action in his work The Poverty of Philosophy, in 1937 there were 4,740 strikes in the United States. This was the greatest strike wave in American labor history, the number of major strikes and lockouts in the U. S. fell by 97% from 381 in 1970 to 187 in 1980 to only 11 in 2010
33.
Proletariat
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The proletariat is a term for the class of wage-earners, in a capitalist society, whose only possession of significant material value is their labor-power, a member of such a class is a proletarian. The proletarii constituted a class of Roman citizens owning little or no property. This assembly, which met on the Campus Martius to discuss public policy issues, was also used as a means of designating military duties demanded of Roman citizens. The top infantry class assembled with full arms and armor, the two classes brought arms and armor, but less and lesser, the fourth class only spears. In voting, the cavalry and top class were enough to decide an issue, as voting started at the top. As a result of the Marian reforms initiated in 107 B. C. by the Roman general Gaius Marius, proletarians are wage-workers, while some refer to those who receive salaries as the salariat. For Marx, however, wage labor may involve getting a salary rather than a wage per se, intermediate positions are possible, where some wage-labor for an employer combines with self-employment. Socialist parties have often struggled over the question of whether they should seek to organize and represent all the lower classes, according to Marxism, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Instead of hiring those means of production, they themselves get hired by capitalists and work for them and these goods or services become the property of the capitalist, who sells them at the market. Surplus value is the difference between the wealth that the proletariat produces through its work, and the wealth it consumes to survive and to provide labor to the capitalist companies. A part of the value is used to renew or increase the means of production, either in quantity or quality. What remains is consumed by the capitalist class, the commodities that proletarians produce and capitalists sell are valued for the amount of labor embodied in them. The same goes for the labor power itself, it is valued, not for the amount of wealth it produces. Marxists argue that new wealth is created through labor applied to natural resources, prole drift, short for proletarian drift, is a term that suggests the tendency in advanced industrialized societies for everything inexorably to become proletarianized, or to become commonplace. This trend is attributed to mass production, mass selling, mass communication, examples include best-seller lists, films and music that must appeal to the masses and shopping malls. Why workers can change the world, hal Draper, Karl Marxs Theory of Revolution, Vol.2, The Politics of Social Classes
34.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
35.
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
36.
Lev Kamenev
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Lev Borisovich Kamenev, born Rozenfeld, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev was the brother-in-law of Leon Trotsky. He served briefly as the equivalent of the first head of state of Soviet Russia in 1917, Joseph Stalin viewed him as a source of discontent and a source of opposition to his own leadership. After Kamenev fell out of favour, Stalin had him executed on 25 August 1936, aged 53, Lev Borisovich Rozenfeld was born in Moscow, the son of a Jewish railway worker and a Russian Orthodox mother. His father used the wealth he earned in the building of the Baku-Batumi railway to pay for an education for Lev. He went to the boys Gymnasium in Tiflis, Georgia and attended Moscow University, Rozenfeld became politically active during university and was arrested in 1902, ending his formal education. From that point on, he worked as a professional revolutionary and he adopted Kamenev as his revolutionary surname. In the early 1900s, he married Olga Bronstein, a fellow Marxist, the couple had two sons together. Kamenev joined the Communists in 1901 and he took a brief trip abroad in 1902, meeting Russian social democratic leaders living in exile, including Vladimir Lenin, whose adherent and close associate he became. He also visited Paris and met the Iskra group who published the newspaper. He went back to London to attend the 5th RSDLP Party Congress, where he was elected to the partys Central Committee and the Bolshevik Center, in May 1907, but was arrested upon his return to Russia. After Kamenev was released from prison in 1908, he and his family went abroad later in the year to help Lenin edit the Bolshevik magazine Proletariy. After Lenins split with another senior Bolshevik leader, Alexander Bogdanov, in mid-1908, Kamenev and they helped him expel Bogdanov and his Otzovist followers from the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP in mid-1909. In January 1910 Leninists, followers of Bogdanov, and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the partys Central Committee in Paris, Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea, but were willing to give it a try under pressure from conciliator Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin. Lenin was adamantly opposed to re-unification, but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership, the meeting reached a tentative agreement. As one of its provisions, Trotskys Vienna-based Pravda was designated as a central organ. Kamenev, Trotskys brother-in-law, was added to Pravdas editorial board as a representative of the Bolsheviks in this process, the unification attempts failed in August 1910, when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations. After the failure of the attempt, Kamenev continued working for Proletariy
37.
Nicholas II of Russia
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Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic, Soviet historiography portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader, whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects. The Anglo-Russian Entente, designed to counter German attempts to influence in the Middle East. Nicholas approved the Russian mobilisation on 30 July 1914, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia on 1 August 1914 and it is estimated that around 3,300,000 Russians were killed in World War I. Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son, Nicholas, the recovered remains of the Imperial Family were finally re-interred in St. Petersburg, eighty years to the day on 17 July 1998. In 1981, Nicholas, his wife and their children were canonized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, located in New York City. On 15 August 2000 Nicholas and his family were canonized as passion bearers, Nicholas was born in the Alexander Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. He had five siblings, Alexander, George, Xenia, Michael. Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexanders death in 1894 and he was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other. His paternal grandparents were Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia and his maternal grandparents were King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. Nicholas was of primarily German and Danish descent, his last ethnically Russian ancestor being Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, Nicholas was related to several monarchs in Europe. His mothers siblings included Kings Frederik VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece, Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was also a first cousin of both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway, as well as King Constantine I of Greece, Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin-once-removed of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. To distinguish between them the Grand Duke was often known within the Imperial family as Nikolasha and Nicholas the Tall, while the Tsar was Nicholas the Short. In his childhood, Nicholas, his parents and siblings made annual visits to the Danish royal palaces of Fredensborg and Bernstorff to visit his grandparents, the king and queen. The visits also served as family reunions, as his mothers siblings would come from the United Kingdom, Germany. It was there in 1883, that he had a flirtation with one of his English first cousins, in 1873, Nicholas also accompanied his parents and younger brother, two-year-old George, on a two-month, semi-official visit to England. In London, Nicholas and his family stayed at Marlborough House, as guests of his Uncle Bertie and Aunt Alix, the Prince and Princess of Wales, where he was spoiled by his uncle
38.
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
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Alexander Shliapnikov
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Alexander Gavrilovich Shliapnikov was a Russian communist revolutionary, metalworker, and trade union leader. He is best remembered as a memoirist of the October Revolution of 1917, Alexander Shliapnikov was born August 30,1885, in Murom, Russia to a poor family of the Old Believer religion. His father died when he was a small child, Shliapnikov began factory work at age thirteen and became a revolutionary at age sixteen. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and he was arrested and imprisoned at various times for his radical political activities, including his involvement in the 1905 revolution. Shliapnikov left Russia in 1908 and continued his activities in Western Europe. Shliapnikov returned to Russia in 1916 and he, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Petr Zalutskii were the senior Bolsheviks in Petrograd at the time of the February Revolution in 1917. More prominent figures such as Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, in 1917, Shliapnikov became a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies. He also was elected to chairmanship of the Petrograd Metalworkers Union and he led negotiations of a wage agreement between Petrograd metalworkers and factory owners in 1917. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes him as the leader of the Communist Party of Russia in the years before the Revolution. Following the October Revolution and the Bolshevik seizure of power, Shliapnikov was appointed Commissar of Labor, Lenin called for a Bolshevik dictatorship, which some Bolsheviks opposed. Shliapnikov supported a government composed of left socialist parties, but he did not resign his post in the government. He played an important role in evacuating industry from Petrograd, as the Germans approached in 1918, as Commissar of Labor, he helped draft important directives on workers control of industry and nationalization of industry and he staffed government bureaucracies with staff from trade unions. In the summer of 1918, he went to the south of Russia on a mission to gather food for the population of the Bolshevik-controlled cities of central Russia and he also served in the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western Front during the Civil War. To Shliapnikov, denial of workers right to participate in economic decision-making was an away from the goals of the 1917 revolution. Shliapnikov became leader of the Workers Opposition movement inside the Russian Communist Party, alexandra Kollontai was a mentor and advocate of the group, which was composed of leaders of trade unions and industry who were all former industrial workers, usually metalworkers. This movement advocated the role of workers, organized in unions, in managing the economy. The Russian Communist Party leaders succeeded in suppressing the Workers Opposition, in 1921, Shliapnikov was forced out of his elected post as chairman of the Metalworkers Union. Party leaders and Party-controlled media condemned the appeal, two of the signatories of the appeal were expelled from the Party, but Shliapnikov, Kollontai, and Sergei Medvedev narrowly escaped expulsion
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Russian Provisional Government
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The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Republic established immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian Empire on 2 March 1917. The intention of the government was the organization of elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly. The provisional government lasted approximately eight months, and ceased to exist when the Bolsheviks seized power after the October Revolution in October 1917. According to Harold Whitmore Williams the history of eight months during which Russia was ruled by the Provisional Government was the history of the steady and systematic disorganisation of the army. The Provisional Government was formed in Petrograd by the Provisional Committee of the State Duma and was led first by Prince Georgy Lvov and it replaced the institution of the Council of Ministers of Russia, members of which after the February Revolution presided in the Chief Office of Admiralty. At the same time the Russian Emperor Nicholas II abdicated in favor of the Grand Duke Michael who agreed that he would accept after the decision of Russian Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Government was unable to make decisive policy decisions due to political factionalism and a breakdown of state structures. This weakness left the government open to challenges from both the right and the left. The weakness of the Provisional Government is perhaps best reflected in the nickname given to Kerensky. The authority of the Tsars government began disintegrating on 1 November 1916, Stürmer was succeeded by Alexander Trepov and Nikolai Golitsyn, both Prime Ministers for only a few weeks. During the February Revolution two rival institutions, the Imperial Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, both located in the Tauride Palace, competed for power. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on 2 March and Milyukov announced the decision to offer the Regency to his brother. Grand Duke Michael did not want to take the poisoned chalice, public announcement of the formation of the Provisional Government was made. It was published in Izvestia the day after its formation, the announcement stated the declaration of government Full and immediate amnesty on all issues political and religious, including, terrorist acts, military uprisings, and agrarian crimes etc. Freedom of word, press, unions, assemblies, and strikes with spread of political freedoms to military servicemen within the restrictions allowed by military-technical conditions, abolition of all hereditary, religious, and national class restrictions. Immediate preparations for the convocation on basis of universal, equal, secret, and direct vote for the Constituent Assembly which will determine the form of government, replacement of the police with a public militsiya and its elected chairmanship subordinated to the local authorities. Elections to the authorities of local self-government on basis of universal, direct, equal, non-disarmament and non-withdrawal out of Petrograd the military units participating in the revolution movement. Under preservation of strict discipline in ranks and performing a military service - elimination of all restrictions for soldiers in the use of rights granted to all other citizens. It also said, The provisional government feels obliged to add that it is not intended to take advantage of circumstances for any delay in implementing the above reforms
41.
Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
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listen), "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, formerly the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the country with a circulation of 11 million.[1] The newspaper began publication on 5 May 1912 in the Russian Empire, but was already extant abroad in January 1911,[2] it emerged as a leading 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.[3]
Leon Kamenev reading Pravda
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