Search Results for: leon trotsky

Holding Families of Officers Hostage

Leon Trotsky, Order of the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic. September 30, 1918

 

Original Source: L. Trotskii, Kak vooruzhalas revoliutsiia (Moscow: Izd. VVRS, 1923-25).

Cases of treacherous flight by members of the commanding apparatus into the enemy’s camp, though less frequent, are still occurring. These monstrous crimes must be stopped, without shrinking from any measures. The turncoats are betraying the Russian workers and peasants to the Anglo-French and Japanese-American robbers and hangmen. Let the turncoats realize that they are at the same time betraying their own families-their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives and children.

I order the headquarters of all the armies of the Republic, and also the district commissars to supply by telegram to member of the Revolutionary War Council Aralov lists of all the members of the commanding apparatus who have gone over to the enemy camp, with all needful data about their family situation. I entrust Comrade Aralov with the responsibility for taking, in co-operation with the appropriate institutions, the measures necessary for arresting the families of deserters and traitors.

Source: Leon Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed, Vol. 1, Brian Pearce, trans. London, 1979-1981, p. 196.

Invitation to the Allies

Leon Trotsky, Note on Joining the Negotiations. December 6, 1917

 

Trotsky sent this note to Moscow in his capacity as People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs.

Original Source: Izvestiia, No. 234, 7 December 1917, pp. 1-2

The negotiations between the delegates of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, on the one hand, and the Russian delegates, on the other, have been suspended for a week in order to inform the Allied nations and governments that such negotiations are taking place as well as to indicate the direction of those negotiations.

On behalf of Russia it was proposed that the intended armistice should have for its object the conclusion of a democratic peace on the basis of the declaration of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, that during armistice negotiations there should be no transfer of troops from one front to another, and that the Moon Sound Islands should be evacuated.

On the question of war aims the enemy delegates refrained from any definite statement on the ground that they were under limited orders to regulate the military side of the armistice only. Likewise on the question of a general armistice the enemy delegates insisted that they had no authority to discuss armistice conditions with countries whose delegates took no part in the negotiations …

In view of the unwillingness of our delegation to sign a formal armistice at this stage of the negotiations the period of suspension of military activities has been extended for one week, and armistice negotiations will be postponed for that period.

Thus a period of more than one month will have elapsed between the first peace decree of the Soviet Government (November 8) and the resumption of peace negotiations (December 12). This interval … affords ample time to the Allies to set forth their attitude toward the peace negotiations, i.e., to say whether they will accept or decline the opportunity of taking part in the armistice and peace negotiations, and, in case of refusal, to state clearly and definitely before all humanity, for what causes the nations of Europe must continue shedding their blood during the fourth year of war.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (1919), Russia, 1:258.

Publication of the Secret Treaties

Leon Trotsky, Publication of the Secret Treaties. November 22, 1917

 

People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Trotsky seized the secret treaties and papers of the Tsarist and Provisional governments to expose their complicity in the bloody war whose deserters had been strong supporters of the Bolsheviks.

Original Source: Izvestiia, No. 221, 23 November 1917, p. 4.

In undertaking the publication of the secret diplomatic documents relating to the foreign diplomacy of the tsarist and the bourgeois coalition governments, … we fulfill an obligation which our party assumed when it was the party of opposition.

Secret diplomacy is a necessary weapon in the hands of the propertied minority which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to make the latter serve its interests. Imperialism, with its world-wide plans of annexation, its rapacious alliances and machinations, has developed the system of secret diplomacy to the highest degree, … The Russian people as well as the other peoples of Europe and those of the rest of the world should be given the documentary evidence of the plans which the financiers and industrialists, together with their parliamentary and diplomatic agents, were secretly scheming …

Abolition of secret diplomacy is the first essential of an honorable, popular, and really democratic foreign policy. The Soviet Government has undertaken to carry out such a policy, and that is why, having offered to all belligerents an immediate armistice, it at the same time publishes the treaties and agreements which are no longer binding on the Russian workmen, soldiers, and peasants …

The bourgeois politicians and newspapers of Germany and Austria-Hungary will no doubt seize upon the published documents and will try to represent the diplomatic work of the Central Empires in a favorable light. Such an attempt is foredoomed to failure; and this for two reasons: In the first place, we intend in a short time to present at the bar of public opinion a series of secret documents which amply illustrate the diplomatic methods of the Central Empires. In the second place, and this is most important–the methods of secret diplomacy are as international as those of imperialistic plunder. When the German proletariat, by revolutionary means, gets access to the secrets of the chancelleries of its government it will discover documents in them of just the same character as those we are about to publish. It is to be hoped that this will happen at an early date.

The government of workers and peasants abolished secret diplomacy with its intrigues, ciphers, and lies. We have nothing to hide. Our program expresses the ardent desires of millions of workers, soldiers, and peasants. We desire a speedy peace on the basis of honest relations with and the full co-operation of all nations. We desire a speedy abolition of the supremacy of capital. In revealing to the whole world the work of the governing classes as it is expressed in the secret documents of diplomacy, we offer to the workers the slogan which will always form the basis of our foreign policy: “Proletarians of all countries, unite!”

L. TROTSKY People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 243-244.

Fighting the Strike in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs

Leon Trotsky, The October Revolution. November 8, 1917

 

Original Source: “Vospominaniia ob oktiabrskom perevorote,” Proletarskaia Revoliutsiia, No. 10 (1922), pp. 59-61.

In connection with the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs I should like to say something about Comrade Markin who, to a, certain extent, organized the Ministry. Markin was a sailor in the Baltic fleet and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Second Congress.

I came to know him through my boys about two or three weeks before the revolution. He offered his services … and when I went into the Ministry he came with me.

When I arrived at the Ministry some kind of prince named Tatishchev told me that there was no one there … I demanded that the officials be summoned … quite a crowd appeared …

After I left, Markin arrested and locked up Tatishchev and Taube … About two days later Markin sent for me, and I found Tatishchev ready to show us about. Markin got hold of the secret documents and proceeded to publish them.” … He was helped by an armless young man of about twenty-five … He was a hard drinker and there were rumors that he was taking bribes. He was discharged for that …

Markin was … an intelligent man with strong will power. But could not write without making many mistakes … Later on he commanded our flotilla on the Volga and there lost his life.

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 227-228.

Personages

Abalkin, Leonid Ivanovich

tbabalko01

Name: Leonid Ivanovich Abalkin

Lived: 1930 –

Notes: Economist, especially prominent during the Gorbachev and post-Soviet eras, associated with the market-oriented reforms of perestroika.

[collapse]
Abramov, Fedor Aleksandrovich

Name: Fedor Aleksandrovich Abramov

Lived: 1920 – 1983

Notes: Novelist of the “village prose” movement, author of THE PRIASLINS, a cycle of novels on life in a Russian village during and after the that includes BROTHERS AND SISTERS and CROSSROADS.

[collapse]
Abuladze, Tengiz Evgenevich

Name: Tengiz Evgen’evich Abuladze

Lived: 1924 – 1994

Notes: Georgian film director (“Repentance,” 1987), recipient of Lenin Prize in 1988.

[collapse]
Adenauer, Konrad

Name: Konrad Adenauer

Lived: 1876 – 1967

Notes: Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-1963, who helped created a post-war German republic integrated into the western economic bloc, and friendly with its former enemies Great Britain, the United States and France.

[collapse]
Adler, Alfred

Name: Alfred Adler

Lived: 1870 – 1937

Notes: Austrian psychiatrist

[collapse]
Adzhubei, Aleksei Ivanovich

Name: Aleksei Ivanovich Adzhubei

Lived: 1924 – 1993

Notes: Editor of Komsomol Pravda and then Izvestia, advisor to and son-in-law of Khrushchev.

[collapse]
Afanasiev, Iurii Nikolaevich

Name: Iurii Nikolaevich Afanasiev

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Journalist, historian, from 1986 director of the Moscow Historical Institute and mainstay of the glasnost-era movement to recover lost episodes in the Soviet past.

[collapse]
Afinogenov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Afinogenov

Lived: 1904 – 1941

Notes: Soviet playwright, author of TERROR (1931) in defense of dekulakization and collectivization, died during an air raid in the early weeks of the war.

[collapse]
Agamaly-Ogly, Samed Aga

Name: Samed Aga Agamaly-Ogly

Lived: 1867 – 1930

Notes: Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Azerbaidzhan SSR from 1922-1929, best known for his support for adoption of the new Turkish (Latin-based) alphabet.

[collapse]
Aganbegyan, Abel Gezevich

Name: Abel Gezevich Aganbegyan

Lived: 1932 –

Title: Academician

Notes: Economist, academician from 1974, specialist in productivity, standard of living and mathematical models of economic planning. Leading reformer of centralized planning, advisor to Soviet leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev.

[collapse]
Agranov, Iakov Samuilovich

Name: Iakov Samuilovich Agranov

Lived: 1893 – 1938

Notes: Member of the Politburo and head of the Leningrad regional party. Secretary of the Azerbaijan Central Committee 1921-26, moved to Leningrad and rose through the Party ranks. Politbiuro member from 1930, and of the Party secretariat from 1934. Murdered by an alleged terrorist in 1934, an event that triggered the first wave of terror.

[collapse]
Aguzarova, Zhanna

Name: Zhanna Aguzarova

Lived: 1967 –

Notes: Born in a small town in Siberia, lead of singer of the rock group BRAVO, first female star of Russian rock.

[collapse]
Ahmadzai, Najib

Name: Najib Ahmadzai

Lived: –

Alias: Najibullah

Notes: Known as Najibullah, Ahmadzai was General Secretary of the Afghan Communist Party, replacing Babrak Karmal when he could not muster support among the military or populace.

[collapse]
Aivazovskii, Ivan Konstantinovich

Name: Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovskii

Lived: 1817 – 1900

Notes: Artist renowned for his magnificent seascapes and Crimean landscapes.

[collapse]
Akhlomov, Viktor

Name: Viktor Akhlomov

Lived: 1938 –

Notes: Soviet news photographer for the newspaper Izvestiia from the 1960s on.

[collapse]
Akhmadulina, Bella Akhatovna

Name: Bella Akhatovna Akhmadulina

Lived: 1937 –

Notes: Poet prominent in the 1960s, associated with the younger generation of thaw artists.

[collapse]
Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna

Name: Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

Lived: 1889 – 1966

Notes: One of the pleiade of great Silver Age Russian poets, member of the Acmeist movement, wife of poet Nikolai Gumilev and mother of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev whose testimonies about the purge years are among the most courageous works of Russian literature.

[collapse]
Akhromeev, Sergei Fedorovich

Name: Sergei Fedorovich Akhromeev

Lived: 1923 – 1991

Notes: Marshal of the Soviet Union (1983), chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces 1984-1988, advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev in the final years of the Soviet Union.

[collapse]
Akhundov, Rukhulla Ali

Name: Rukhulla Ali Akhundov Lived: 1897 – 1938 Notes: Secretary of the Azerbaidzhan Communist Party, 1924-30

[collapse]
Aksenov, Vasilii Pavlovich

Name: Vasilii Pavlovich Aksenov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Modernist novelist, author of TICKET TO THE STARS (1961), BURN (1980) and many other novels written in a language characterized by urban and youth slang.

[collapse]
Alpert, Maksim Vladimirovich (Maks)

Name: Maksim Vladimirovich (Maks) Al’pert

Lived: 1899 – 1980

Notes: Photographer, one of the founders of Russian photojournalism. Best known for his work for USSR IN CONSTRUCTION and PRAVDA.

[collapse]
Aleksandrov, Aleksandr Vasilievich

Name: Aleksandr Vasilievich Aleksandrov

Lived: 1883 – 1946

Title: General

Notes: Conductor of the famous Red Army Chorus, original composer of the Bolshevik Anthem (1937) which melody became the Soviet National Anthem in 1944.

[collapse]
Aleksandrovskii, Vasilii Dmitrievich

Name: Vasilii Dmitrievich Aleksandrovskii

Lived: 1897 – 1934

Notes: Poet, a founder of the SMITHY (Kuznitsa) literary circle that gave birth to the proletarian movement in Soviet verse.

[collapse]
Alekseev, Mikhail Vasilevich

Name: Mikhail Vasil’evich Alekseev

Lived: 1857 – 1918

Title: General

Notes: Commander of Russian troops on the Western Front during the First World War, from 1915 chief of the General Staff Headquarters, Commander in Chief from March to May 1917. Later participated in the formation of a “Volunteer Army” to oppose the Bolshevik coup.

[collapse]
Aleksii

Name: Aleksii

Lived: 1877 – 1970

Title: Patriarch

Notes: Born Sergei Vladimirovich Simanskii. Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia from 1945. Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod 1943-45.

[collapse]
Alentova, Vera Valentinovna

Name: Vera Valentinovna Alentova

Lived: 1942 –

Notes: Actress, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation (1982).

[collapse]
Aleshin, Samuil Iosifovich

Name: Samuil Iosifovich Aleshin

Lived: 1913 –

Notes: Born Samuil Kotliar. Soviet Russian playwright, author of DIRECTOR (1950), EVERYTHING LEFT TO PEOPLE (1959), THE EIGHTEENTH CAMEL (1983).

[collapse]
Algasov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Algasov

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Alias: Born Burdakov

Notes: Former Left-SR who worked with the Bolsheviks in he Miitary-Revolutionary Committee. Joined the Red Army during the Civil War.

[collapse]
Aliev, Geidar Alievich

Name: Geidar Alievich Aliev

Lived: 1923 – 2003

Notes: President of Azerbaidzhan from 1993 till his death in 2003. 1967-69 chief of Azerbaidzhan KGB, from 1969 first secretary of the republic Communist Party. 1982-87 deputy chairman of the USSR Soviet of Ministers.

[collapse]
Amalrik, Andrei Alekseevich

Name: Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik

Lived: 1936 – 1980

Notes: Writer and essayist exiled in 1965, and placed in the labor camps in 1970. Emigrated in 1976, most famous for his WILL THE SOVIET UNION SURVIVE UNTIL 1984?

[collapse]
Amin, Hafizullah

Name: Hafizullah Amin

Lived: 1929 – 1979

Notes: Marxist president of Afghanistan, 1978-79. He occupied his post for 104 days, until killed by Soviet special forces, placing Babrak Karmal in power and unleashing the Soviet invasion.

[collapse]
Amonashvili, Shalva Alekseevich

Name: Shalva Alekseevich Amonashvili

Lived: 1931 –

Notes: Georgian child psychologist, joint creator of a pedagogical system for early school-age children.

[collapse]
Amori

Name: Amori

Lived: 1860 – 1918

Title: Count

Notes: See Rapgof

[collapse]
Amundsen, Roald

Name: Roald Amundsen

Lived: 1872 – 1928

Notes: Norwegian polar explorer; first person to reach the South Pole.

[collapse]
Anders, Wladyslaw

Name: Wladyslaw Anders

Lived: 1892 – 1970

Title: Lt. General

Notes: Polish general at the time of the German invasion of 1939, Anders was eventually captured by the Red Army, and imprisoned in Lubianka. The Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941 made him a valuable Soviet ally, and he was made commander of all Polish soldiers once imprisoned in the Soviet Union. His troops were eventually sent west, fighting in valiantly in the Battle of Monte Cassino (Italy). Anders spent the rest of his life after the war in Great Britain.

[collapse]
Andreev, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Andreev

Lived: 1895 – 1971

Notes: People’s Commissar of Transportation, 1931-35, and Politburo member, 1932-52.

[collapse]
Andreev, Nikolai Platonovich

Name: Nikolai Platonovich Andreev

Lived: 1882 – 1947

Notes: Soviet photographer and artist.

[collapse]
Andreeva, Nina Aleksandrova

Name: Nina Aleksandrova Andreeva

Lived: 1938 –

Notes: Leningrad chemistry teacher, author of anti-perestroika article of 1988.

[collapse]
Andropov, Iurii Vladimirovich

Name: Iurii Vladimirovich Andropov

Lived: 1914 – 1984

Notes: Head of KGB under Brezhnev during a period of repression of the so-called dissidents, General Secretary of CPSU, 1982-84. He died in office without accomplishing the reforms that many had anticipated from ascendance.

[collapse]
Angelina, Praskoviia (Pasha)

Name: Praskoviia (Pasha) Angelina

Lived: 1913 – 1959

Notes: Tractor driver and famous female Stakhanovite, of Greek ethnicity.

[collapse]
Annenkov, Iurii Pavlovich

Name: Iurii Pavlovich Annenkov

Lived: 1889 – 1974

Notes: Painter and creator of fine ink sketches, illustrator of Blok’s TWELVE (1918).

[collapse]
Antonii

Name: Antonii

Lived: 1863 – 1936

Title: Metropolitan

Notes: Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia, first head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Born Aleksei Pavlovich Khrapovitskii.

[collapse]
Antonin

Name: Antonin

Lived: –

Title: Metropolitan

Notes: See Antonin-Krutitskii

[collapse]
Antonin-Krutitskii

Name: Antonin-Krutitskii

Lived: 1865 – 1927

Title: Bishop

Alias: Antonin

Notes: Bishop of Vladikavkaz and Mozdok. On of the first leaders of the “Living Church.” Cooperated with Soviet officials on many matters, including the removal of valuables from churches.

[collapse]
Antonov, Oleg Konstantinovich

Name: Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov

Lived: 1906 – 1984

Notes: Aircraft designer, lead designer of the ANT line of Soviet aircraft.

[collapse]
Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko

Lived: 1884 – 1938

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1902. He was active in the 1905 revolution and was arrested. During the First World War he was founder of and collaborator in the periodicals Golos and Nashe Slovo On his return to Russia he Joined the Bolsheviks and took part in the capture of the Winter Palace. Was commander-in-chief in the Ukraine from December 1918 to June 1919. Held government posts 1920-2.

[collapse]
Apsit, Aleksandr Petrovich

Name: Aleksandr Petrovich Apsit

Lived: 1880 – 1944

Notes: Latvian Soviet propaganda artist.

[collapse]
Aragon, Louis

Name: Louis Aragon

Lived: 1897 – 1982

Notes: French writer and member of the French Communist Party from 1927. One of the founders of surrealism in literature, Aragon wrote a warm tribute to Soviet socialist after a trip to the USSR in 1931.

[collapse]
Arakcheev, Aleksei Andreevich

Name: Aleksei Andreevich Arakcheev

Lived: 1769 – 1834

Title: Count

Notes: Artillery general who became Russian Minister of War, 1808-10, effectively reorganizing the artillery for the soon-to-be war with Napoleon. Most trusted advisor of Aleksandr I from 1815-1825, during which he created a system of military colonies designed to reform army life, but which were unnecessarily harsh and spartan.

[collapse]
Arbatov, Georgii Arkadevich

Name: Georgii Arkad’evich Arbatov

Lived: 1923 –

Notes: Journalist, historian and economist, academician since 1974, polemicist in support of Gorbachev during his reforms.

[collapse]
Arnshtam, Leo Oskarovich

Name: Leo Oskarovich Arnshtam

Lived: 1905 – 1979

Notes: Director of such films as GIRL FRIENDS (1936), ZOYA (1944), and HISTORY LESSONS (1957)

[collapse]
Aronson, Naum

Name: Naum Aronson

Lived: 1872 – 1943

Notes: Born at Kieslavka, Ukraine. Russian-Jewish sculptor whose most famous work is the Beethoven monument at Bonn. Awarded gold medal at Liege, 1906. His bust of Lenin was exhibited at the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris.

[collapse]
Arskii, Pavel Aleksandrovich

Name: Pavel Aleksandrovich Arskii

Lived: 1886 – 1967

Alias: Born Pavel Afanasiev

Notes: One of the original stormers of the Winter Palace, proletarian poet and dramatist, early leader of the Proletkult movement. His poetry collections include “Songs of Struggle” (1918) and “Hammer and Sickle” (1925).

[collapse]
Artiukhina, Aleksandra Vasilevna

Name: Aleksandra Vasil’evna Artiukhina

Lived: 1889 – 1969

Notes: Leader of the Zhenotdel movement during the 1920s. Rumored to be a favorite of Iosif Stalin.

[collapse]
Artsybashev, Mikhail Petrovich

Name: Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev

Lived: 1878 – 1927

Notes: Writer whose tremendously popular SANIN (1907) helped spread a form of Nietzsche®s thought that seemed to emphasize hedonism and amorality.

[collapse]
Arutiunian, Iurii Vartanovich

Name: Iurii Vartanovich Arutiunian

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Russian sociologist, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, specialist in ethnosociology.

[collapse]
Askoldov, Aleksandr Iakovlevich

Name: Aleksandr Iakovlevich Askoldov

Lived: –

Notes: Director of the film COMMISSAR, shot in 1967 but not released until 1987.

[collapse]
Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal

Name: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Lived: 1881 – 1938

Title: President

Alias: Kemal

Notes: Founding father of modern Turkey, as president of the Turkish Republic following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Atatürk instituted reforms that transformed the Ottoman Empire into a modern secular, nation-state.

[collapse]
Attlee, Clement

Name: Clement Attlee

Lived: 1883 – 1967

Notes: British Labor Party politician, elected Prime Minister in 1945.

[collapse]
Avanesov, Varlaam Aleksandrovich

Name: Varlaam Aleksandrovich Avanesov

Lived: 1884 – 1930

Alias: Born Suren Karpovich Martirosov

Notes: Social Democrat from 1903, Bolshevik from 1914. Member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in October 1917, Secretary of the Central Executive Committee (1917-19), 1920-24 Cheka Presidium.

[collapse]
Avdeenko, Aleksandr Ostapovich

Name: Aleksandr Ostapovich Avdeenko

Lived: 1908 – 1996

Notes: Writer, most famous for his autobiographical novel, I LOVE (1933), about an orphan and thief who becomes a shock-worker in Magnitogorsk.

[collapse]
Averbakh, Leopold Leonidovich

Name: Leopold Leonidovich Averbakh

Lived: 1903 – 1939

Notes: Literary critic, head of Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) in late 1920s.

[collapse]
Avilov, Nikolai Pavlovich

Name: Nikolai Pavlovich Avilov

Lived: 1887 – 1942

Alias: Glebov

Notes: Revolutionary, participant in the October Revolution. Narkom of Post Office and Telegraph in 1917, chief commissar of the Black Sea Fleet in 1918. Occupied high posts in industry until he perished in the purges.

[collapse]
Avksentiev, Nikolai Dmitrievich

Name: Nikolai Dmitrievich Avksentiev

Lived: 1878 – 1943

Notes: SR leader. In 1917, chairman of the Soviet of Peasant Deputies and the pre-parliament, Minister of Internal Affairs under the Provisional Government. Fought the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, in emigration thereafter.

[collapse]
Axelrod, Pavel Borisovich

Name: Pavel Borisovich Axelrod

Lived: 1850 – 1928

Notes: Pseudonym of Pinkhas Boruch Axelrod. Early Marxist theoretician. One of the founders of the ‘Liberation of Labour’ group, 1883. Became Menshevik after 1903 Party split.

[collapse]
Azhaev, Vasilii Nikolaevich

Name: Vasilii Nikolaevich Azhaev

Lived: 1915 – 1968

Notes: Soviet novelist, author of FAR FROM MOSCOW (1948, State Prize 1949).

[collapse]
Babel, Isaak Emmanuilovich

Name: Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel

Lived: 1894 – 1941

Notes: Writer, author of Red Cavalry and other short stories, died in the purges.

[collapse]
Babeuf, Francois Noel

Name: Francois Noel Babeuf

Lived: 1760 – 1797

Notes: French revolutionary, organizer of an uprising against the Directory by a secret society called the Conspiracy of Equals.

[collapse]
Babochkin, Boris Andreevich

Name: Boris Andreevich Babochkin

Lived: 1904 – 1975

Notes: Fine stage actor whose career was overshadowed by his one great film role, Chapaev in the film of that name (1934)

[collapse]
Bach-Zelewski, Erich von dem

Name: Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski

Lived: 1899 – 1972

Title: General Notes: SS Obergruppenfhrer and General of the Waffen-SS. Nazi officer in charge of finding and exterminating Soviet partisans. Testified in Nuremburg Trials.

[collapse]
Bagirov, Kyamran Mamed ogly

Name: Kyamran Mamed ogly Bagirov

Lived: 1933 –

Notes: First secretary of the Azerbaidzhan Communist Party during the Gorbachev era, relieved of his post after the outbreak of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

[collapse]
Bagration, Petr Ivanovich

Name: Petr Ivanovich Bagration

Lived: 1765 – 1812

Title: Prince

Notes: Infantry general, participant in Suvorov’s Italian and Swiss campaigns. During the Great Patriotric War (War of 1812) he was commander-in-chief of the Second Army, fatally wounded in the Battle of Borodino.

[collapse]
Baidukov, Georgii Fillipovich

Name: Georgii Fillipovich Baidukov

Lived: 1907 – 1994

Notes: Air Force general, Hero of the Soviet Union (1936), completed famous polar flights with Valerii Chkalov and Aleksandr Beliakov. Air Corps commander during the Second World War.

[collapse]
Bakatin, Vadim Viktorovich

Name: Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Minister of State Security under Gorbachev.

[collapse]
Baklanov, Oleg Dmitrievich

Name: Oleg Dmitrievich Baklanov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Deputy chief in Gorbachev’s Security Council and ex-secretary of the Central Committee who was a leading member of the 1991 putsch committee.

[collapse]
Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

Name: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

Lived: 1814 – 1876

Notes: Anarchist and revolutionary, deep influence on Russian populism and revolutionary thought who worked in exile with Aleksandr Herzen.

[collapse]
Balmont, Konstantin Dmitrievich

Name: Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont

Lived: 1867 – 1942

Notes: Symbolist poet, author of musical verse celebrating the sensory world (“We Will Be Like the Sun,” 1903)

[collapse]
Baltermants, Dmitrii

Name: Dmitrii Baltermants

Lived: 1912 – 1990

Notes: Soviet news photographer for Izvestiia, and later Ogonyok, most famous for his coverage of Operation Barbarossa and the defense of Russia’s major cities. His most famous images were made at Kerch where the German Army killed more than 176,000 men.

[collapse]
Barannikov, Viktor Pavlovich

Name: Viktor Pavlovich Barannikov

Lived: 1941 – 1995

Notes: Interior Minister of the Russian Federation, later promoted to Interior Minister of the USSR, who became minister of defense in the post-Soviet Russian government.

[collapse]
Batalov, Aleksei Vladimirovich

Name: Aleksei Vladimirovich Batalov

Lived: 1928 –

Notes: Film actor and director, star of films ranging from CRANES ARE FLYING (1957) to MOSCOW DOESN’T BELIEVE IN TEARS, son of actor Nikolai Petrovich Batalov.

[collapse]
Batur

Name: Batur

Lived: 1208 – 1255

Notes: Also Batyi or Batu, grandson of Chingiz Khan, chief of the Mongol Horde in eastern and central Europe (1236-1243) and then the Golden Horde from 1243.

[collapse]
Bauman, Nikolai Ernestovich

Name: Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman

Lived: 1867 – 1905

Alias: Grach

Notes: Veterinarian, revolutionary since the 1890s. Leader of the Moscow Party Central Committee from 1904. Murdered by reactionaries on October 18, 1905, his funeral gave cause to massdemonstrations.

[collapse]
Beatty, Bessie

Name: Bessie Beatty

Lived: 1886 – 1947

Notes: Employed by the San Francisco Bulletin, Beatty visited Russia in 1917 with John Reed and Louise Bryant. Her book on the Russian Revolution, The Red Heart of Russia, was published in 1919.

[collapse]
Bednyi, Demian

Name: Demian Bednyi

Lived: 1883 – 1945

Notes: Friend of Lenin and poet whose folksy verse castigated the White Army and other opponents of the Bolsheviks during the Revolution and Civil War.

[collapse]
Beethoven, Ludwig van

Name: Ludwig van Beethoven

Lived: 1770 – 1827

Notes: German composer during the period between classicism and romanticism, most famous for the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, and his Moolight and Path€tique Sonatas.

[collapse]
Belashova, Ekaterina Fedorovna

Name: Ekaterina Fedorovna Belashova

Lived: 1906 – 1971

Notes: Sculptor, Secretary of the Board of the USSR Artists’ Union, awarded several state prizes for such works as Untamed (1957), Aleksandr Pushkin, 1837 (1964)

[collapse]
Belavin, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Belavin

Lived: 1865 – 1925

Title: Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Notes: Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church from 1917, opponent of bloodshed caused by Revolution who pronounced anathema on Bolsheviks in 1918, accused and imprisoned by Bolsheviks for anti-Soviet activity in 1922.

[collapse]
Beliaev, Aleksandr Romanovich

Name: Aleksandr Romanovich Beliaev

Lived: 1884 – 1942

Notes: Early Russian science fiction, author of PROFESSOR DOWELL’S HEAD (1925) and AMPHIBIAN MAN (1928).

[collapse]
Beliakov, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasil’evich Beliakov

Lived: 1897 – 1982

Notes: Air Force general, Hero of the Soviet Union (1936), navigator of famous polar flights with Valerii Chkalov and Georgii Baidukov.

[collapse]
Belinsky, Vissarion

Name: Vissarion Belinsky

Lived: 1811 – 1848

Notes: Russian literary critic and critical intellectual, role model of future westernizers and revolutionaries. His essays appeared in the thick journal Sovremennik.

[collapse]
Bellamy, Edward

Name: Edward Bellamy

Lived: 1850 – 1898

Notes: Author of the classic utopia Looking Backward (1888), which had a profound influence on economic idealism in America.

[collapse]
Beloborodov, Aleksandr Georgievich

Name: Aleksandr Georgievich Beloborodov

Lived: 1891 – 1938

Notes: Chairman of the Ural Region TsIK in 1918, signed the order to execute Aleksandr II and the royal family. People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, 1923-27. Victim of the purges.

[collapse]
Belov, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Belov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Writer concerned with Russian rural life and its vanishing traditions.

[collapse]
Belyi, Andrei

Name: Andrei Belyi

Lived: 1880 – 1934

Notes: Symobolist poet, peer and friend of Aleksandr Blok, and author of the first modernist novel in Russia, PETERSBURG.

[collapse]
Benes, Edvard

Name: Edvard Benes

Lived: 1884 – 1948

Notes: Minister of Foreign Affairs (1918-1935) and President of Czechoslovakia (1935-1938), president in wartime exile and once again from 1946-48 until a Soviet-influenced socialist government was installed.

[collapse]
Bennigsen, Leontii Leontevich

Name: Leontii Leont’evich Bennigsen

Lived: 1745 – 1826

Title: Count

Alias: Born Levin August Theophil Bennigsen

Notes: Russian cavalry general, participant in the plot to kill Tsar Pavel I. Unsuccessful army commander in the war with France in 1807, he began the War of 1812 as army chief-of-staff, but was relieved of his duties when Kutuzov became supreme commander.

[collapse]
Berdiaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdiaev

Lived: 1874 – 1948

Notes: Lapsed Marxist philosopher who became one of the great Russian religious philosophers of the twentieth century. Participant in the VEKHI collection (1909), he was exiled to France in 1922, where his most famous work was likely THE RUSSIAN IDEA (1948).

[collapse]
Berggolts, Olga Fedorovna

Name: Olga Fedorovna Berggolts

Lived: 1910 – 1975

Notes: Poetess, author of moving verse during the months of the blockade.

[collapse]
Beria, Lavrentii Pavlovich

Name: Lavrentii Pavlovich Beria

Lived: 1899 – 1953

Notes: Rose to prominence in the Transcaucasian Cheka and GPU. From 1931-38 secretary of the Georgian Party, and Narkom of Internal Affairs from 1938. High positions in the Sovnarkom and Soviet Communist Party, and in the Defense Council during the war. Arrested in 1953, sentenced by a special court and shot.

[collapse]
Berkman, Alexander

Name: Alexander Berkman

Lived: 1870 – 1936

Notes: American anarchist born in Vilnius. Closely associated with Emma Goldman, both were arrested in 1917 for opposing the draft, and deported to Russia in 1919, where they were bitterly disappointed in their hopes of finding freedom.

[collapse]
Bernes, Mark Naumovich

Name: Mark Naumovich Bernes

Lived: 1911 – 1969

Notes: Singer and actor immensely popular for many decades, star of such films as FIGHTER PILOTS (1939) and TWO SOLDIERS (1942)

[collapse]
Berolzheimer, Fritz

Name: Fritz Berolzheimer

Lived: 1869 – 1920

Notes: Legal philosopher and historian, author of System der Rechts-und Wirtschaftsphilosophie (Munich, 1907)

[collapse]
Bessmertnykh, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bessmertnykh

Lived: 1933 –

Notes: Diplomat, ambassador to the United States, who succeeded Eduard Shevardnadze to become the last Soviet Foreign Minister.

[collapse]
Bevin, Ernest

Name: Ernest Bevin

Lived: 1881 – 1951

Notes: British labor leader and statesman. Born an orphan, trade union leader for many years, entered the parliament as part of Churchill’s wartime coalition government, and became foreign minister from 1945 to 1951, when he laid the foundations for close cooperation with the United States and Western Europe.

[collapse]
Bezymenskii, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Bezymenskii

Lived: 1898 – 1973

Notes: Komsomol poet, author of “Komsomolia” (1924), the song “Young Guard” and the satirical verse play SHOT (1929)

[collapse]
Bibikov, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Bibikov

Lived: 1729 – 1774

Title: General

Notes: Infantry officer who first distinguished himself during the Seven Year War, and who commanded military operations against the Pugachev Rebellion

[collapse]
Bidault, Georges

Name: Georges Bidault

Lived: 1899 – 1983

Notes: French political leader. Imprisoned (1940 41) in World War II, then joined the French underground, becoming its leader. Imprisoned (1940-41) in World War II and then joined the French underground, becoming its leader. Opposed to Algerian independence, he formed the underground National Council of Resistance within the terrorist Secret Army Organization (OAS), and lived in exile from 1962.

[collapse]
Bliukher, Vasilii Konstantinovich

Name: Vasilii Konstantinovich Bliukher

Lived: 1890 – 1938

Notes: Commander of Far East Military District, 1929-1938, leading proponent of tank warfare, one of the highest ranking officer killed in the military purges of 1938.

[collapse]
Blix, Hans

Name: Hans Blix

Lived: 1928 –

Notes: Swedish diplomat and politician. Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978 – 1979); head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from 2000 to 2003.

[collapse]
Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok

Lived: 1880 – 1921

Notes: Symbolist poet. See 1921: The Death of a Poet, on this website

[collapse]
Blum, Leon

Name: Leon Blum

Lived: 1872 – 1950

Notes: French socialist, head of Popular Front government in the late 1930s

[collapse]
Bogaevskii, Konstantin Fedorovich

Name: Konstantin Fedorovich Bogaevskii

Lived: 1872 – 1943

Notes: Painter, Honored Artist of Russia (1933), gained fame for “heroic” landscapes in the classical spirit, in Soviet times for decorative industrial landscapes.

[collapse]
Bogatyrev, Petr Grigorevich

Name: Petr Grigor’evich Bogatyrev

Lived: 1893 – 1971

Notes: Folklorist

[collapse]
Bogdanov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bogdanov

Lived: 1873 – 1928

Notes: See Malinovskii, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich. Leading Bolshevik and Marxist philosopher, active in Proletkul’t movement after October Revolution.

[collapse]
Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir Dmitrievich

Name: Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich

Lived: 1873 – 1955

Notes: Bolshevik and friend of Lenin, organizer of several Bolshevik newspapers and publishers during the underground years. 1917-20 business manager of the Soviet of People’s Commissars. Learned historian and author of works about the revolution and religious sectarians.

[collapse]
Bondarchuk, Sergei Fedorovich

Name: Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk

Lived: 1920 – 1994

Notes: Film director and actor, director and star of FATE OF MAN (1959), WAR AND PEACE (1966-67), and THEY FOUGHT FOR THE MOTHERLAND (1975).

[collapse]
Bonner, Elena Georgievna

Name: Elena Georgievna Bonner

Lived: 1923 –

Notes: Human rights activist, wife of Andrei Sakharov

[collapse]
Borodin, Aleksandr Porfirevich

Name: Aleksandr Porfir’evich Borodin

Lived: 1833 – 1887

Notes: Russian composer and chemist. Member of the so-called Mighty Five, the generation of composer that established the unique values of Russian classical music. Composed opera PRINCE IGOR, completed later by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov (1890), and the symphonic picture “Central Asia” (1880). Highly accomplished as a chemist as well.

[collapse]
Borodin, Leonid Ivanovich

Name: Leonid Ivanovich Borodin

Lived: 1939 –

Notes: Dissident and author, imprisoned in the labor camps from 1967-73 and 1982-87.

[collapse]
Mikhail Borodin

Name: Mikhail Borodin

Lived: 1884 – 1953

Notes: Comintern envoy to the Chinese revolutionary government headed by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, which he helped organize into a national force. His intriguing was blamed for the Kuomintang split with the Communists and subsequent failure of Soviet policy. Later served as editor of the English-language Moscow News. Arrested and shot as an “enemy of the people” in 1949.

[collapse]
Borovik, Artem Genrikhovich

Name: Artem Genrikhovich Borovik

Lived: 1960 – 1999

Notes: Talented journalist for Ogonek whose reporting from Afghanistan was the first indication Soviet readers had of the hardships of that campaign.

[collapse]
Braude, Semen Iakovlevich

Name: Semen Iakovlevich Braude

Lived: 1911 –

Notes: Physicist specializing in radio waves, laureate of the State Prize of the Soviet Union.

[collapse]
Breshko-Breshkovskaia, Ekaterina Konstantinovna

Name: Ekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaia

Lived: 1844 – 1934

Notes: Dubbed the “grandmother of the Russian Revolution,” took part in the populist “going to the people” of the 1870s, imprisoned and in exile from 1874-96. A leader of the SRs and their “Combat Organization”. Participant in the revolution of 1905-07, imprisoned again from 1907-17. Released by the February Revolution, she was active among right SRs, and was hostile to the October Revolution. After participating in armed resistance to the Bolsheviks, she emigrated in 1919.

[collapse]
Breshko-Breshkovskii, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Breshko-Breshkovskii

Lived: 1874 – 1943

Notes: Son of the “grandmother of the Russian Revolution,” with whom he had minimal contact after her exile. Writer of popular and somewhat scandalous novels, his specialty was the lives of athletes, especially professional wrestlers.

[collapse]
Brezhnev, Leonid Ilich

Name: Leonid Ilich Brezhnev

Lived: 1906 – 1982

Notes: General Secretary of the CPSU, 1964-1982

[collapse]
Britten, Benjamin

Name: Benjamin Britten

Lived: 1913 – 1976

Notes: British composer, conductor, violist, and pianist; close friend of Dmitri Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich.

[collapse]
Brodskii, Iosif Aleksandovich

Name: Iosif Aleksandovich Brodskii

Lived: 1940 – 1996

Notes: Poet in both Russian and English, forced emigre to the US in 1972. Writer of elegant essays, stories and translations. Tried as a “parasite” in 1966 for having no legally recognized profession, Brodskii was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1987.

[collapse]
Bronstein, Lev Davydovich

Name: Lev Davydovich Bronstein

Lived: 1879 – 1940

Alias: Trotsky

Notes: See Trotsky

[collapse]
Broz-Tito, Josif

Name: Josif Broz-Tito

Lived: 1892 – 1980

Alias: Tito

Notes: See Tito

[collapse]
Brusilov, Aleksei Alekseevich

Name: Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov

Lived: 1853 – 1926

Title: General

Notes: Cavalry general, commander in several important battles of the First World War, commander in chief from May to July 1917, as the Russian Army disintegrated. One of the first “specialists” to work with the Red Army, which he served during the Civil War and after.

[collapse]
Bryant, Louise

Name: Louise Bryant

Lived: 1885 – 1936

Notes: Journalist, companion of John Reed, with whom she journeyed to Russia during the Revolution. Upon her return she published her memoirs of that time, Six Red Months in Russia.

[collapse]
Bubnov, Andrei Sergeevich

Name: Andrei Sergeevich Bubnov

Lived: 1883 – 1940

Notes: A Bolshevik from 1903. A professional revolutionary. A member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee during the October Revolution and after it a member of the Collegium. of the Commissariat of Transport. In 1918 he went to the Ukraine and became a member of the Ukrainian CC and of the Ukrainian government of January 1919.

[collapse]
Budennyi, Semen Mikhailovich

Name: Semen Mikhailovich Budennyi

Lived: 1883 – 1973

Notes: Civil War commander of the Bolshevik cavalry and led the Southern Front in World War II, a close crony of Stalin.

[collapse]
Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich

Name: Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin

Lived: 1888 – 1938

Notes: Joined the Bolsheviks in 1906 and became a member of their Moscow Committee in 1908. Played active part in October Revolution and was editor of Moscow Izvestiia Was editor of Pravda from December 1917 to 1929. A Left Communist at the time of the Brest negotiations and a co-editor of their journal, Kommunist. Bukharin’s moderate views were eventually eclipsed by the radical policies of Stalin, and Bukharin gradually lost influence until he perished in the purge trials of 1938.

[collapse]
Bukovskii, Vladimir Konstantinovich

Name: Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovskii

Lived: 1942 –

Notes: Dissident and defender of human rights, organized a demonstration in defense of Siniavskii and Daniel in 1965. Subject to a variety of repressive measures, including psychiatric hospitals, in the 1960s, Bukovsky presented the 1971 World Congress of Psychiatrists evidence of abuse in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. Exiled in 1976.

[collapse]
Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasevich

Name: Mikhail Afanas’evich Bulgakov

Lived: 1891 – 1940

Notes: Writer best known for his novel, The Master and Margarita

[collapse]
Bulganin, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin

Lived: 1895 – 1975

Notes: Politician prominent in the late Stalin and early post-Stalin eras, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, 1955-1958.

[collapse]
Bullitt, William

Name: William Bullitt

Lived: 1891 – 1967

Notes: US Ambassador to the Soviet Union in the 1930s

[collapse]
Bunich, Pavel Grigorevich

Name: Pavel Grigor’evich Bunich

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Economist active in post-Soviet politics

[collapse]
Burbank, Luther

Name: Luther Burbank

Lived: 1849 – 1926

Notes: American botanist and horticulturist who developed more than 800 strains and varieties of fruits, flowers, grains, and vegetables over his long career.

[collapse]
Burbulis, Gennadii Eduardovich

Name: Gennadii Eduardovich Burbulis

Lived: 1945 –

Notes: Politician. From June 1991, state secretary of the Russian Federation, and simaltaneously deputy chief of the Russian government.

[collapse]
Burlatskii, Fedor Mikhailovich

Name: Fedor Mikhailovich Burlatskii

Lived: 1927 –

Notes: Speechwriter for Khrushchev, politically active again under Gorbachev

[collapse]
Busygin, Aleksandr Kharitonovich

Name: Aleksandr Kharitonovich Busygin

Lived: 1907 – 1985

Notes: Stakhanovite blacksmith, later to become a member of the Supreme Soviet.

[collapse]
Castro, Fidel

Name: Fidel Castro

Lived: 1926 –

Notes: Cuban revolutionary, leader of the successful revolution that toppled dictator Batista in 1959, premier of Cuba (1959-1976), president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers (1976-)

[collapse]
Ceaucescu, Nicolae

Name: Nicolae Ceaucescu

Lived: 1918 – 1989

Notes: Secretary-general of the Romanian Communist Party (1965-89) and the first president of the Socialist Republic of Romania (1974-89). Schemes for the the total socialization of society led to economic failure and the impoverishment of the countryside. His repressive and totalitarian regime ended with his execution following the revolution of 1989.

[collapse]
Chaikovskii Petr Ilich

Name: Petr Il’ich Chaikovskii

Lived: 1840 – 1893

Notes: Sometimes spelled Tchaikovsky. Towering figure in Russian music, one of the most popular composers in history. Wrote 11 operas (EUGENE ONEGIN, QUEEN OF SPADES), four concertos, six symphonies, three ballets (NUTCRACKER, SWAN LAKE), and other works.

[collapse]
Chakovskii, Aleksandr Borisovich

Name: Aleksandr Borisovich Chakovskii

Lived: 1913 – 1994

Notes: Writer, author of the wartime trilogy IT HAPPENED IN LENINGRAD (1944), BLOCKADE (1968-1975) and VICTORY (1978-1981).

[collapse]
Chamberlain, Neville

Name: Neville Chamberlain

Lived: 1869 – 1940

Notes: British Prime Minister in late 1930s, most famous for his attempts to appease Nazi Germany at then Munich Conference in 1938, when Hitler’s aggressive designs against Czechoslovakia became apparent. His guarantee of “peace in our time” would soon ring hollow.

[collapse]
Chapaev, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Chapaev

Lived: 1887 – 1919

Notes: Son of a peasant, decorated non-commissioned officer during the First World War, Chapaev joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and was made a division commander during the Civil War. Chapaev’s unfettered spirit and courage were memorialized in a novel by his commissar, Dmitry Furmanov, and made into a hugely popular film in 1934.

[collapse]
Chaplygin, Sergei Alekseevich

Name: Sergei Alekseevich Chaplygin

Lived: 1869 – 1942

Notes: Academician from 1929, one of the founders of aerodynamics, with N. E. Zhukovskii founded the Central Aerodynamics Institute in Moscow.

[collapse]
Chazov, Evgenii Ivanovich

Name: Evgenii Ivanovich Chazov

Lived: 1929 –

Title: Dr.

Notes: Prominent cardiologist and Soviet Minister of Health from 1987-1990, physician to many Kremlin leaders.

[collapse]
Chebrikov, Viktor Mikhailovich

Name: Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov

Lived: 1923 – 1999

Notes: Soviet spymaster who, as deputy chairman (1968 82) and chairman (1982 88) of the KGB, presided over the agency during a period of great success against the U.S., only to lose power when his ideological opponent Mikhail Gorbachev became ascendant.

[collapse]
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich

Name: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Lived: 1860 – 1904

Notes: Russian short-story writer, dramatist, and physician. Author of world famous plays such as Uncle Vanya (1899), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904), which in the performance of Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theater were founding events of twentieth-century realist theater, in Russian he is at least as beloved for his short stories.

[collapse]
Cheremisov, Leontii G.

Name: Leontii G. Cheremisov

Lived: 1893 – 1967

Title: Lieutenant-General Notes: Commander at the Northern Front during the final months of the Russian effort in the First World War.

[collapse]
Cheremnykh, Mikhail Mikhailovich

Name: Mikhail Mikhailovich Cheremnykh Lived: 1890 – 1962 Notes: Graphic artist, one of the creators of the ROSTA Windows and the satiric journal KROKODIL.

[collapse]
Cherkasov, Nikolai Konstantinovich

Name: Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov

Lived: 1903 – 1966

Notes: Actor, member of the Pushkin Drama Theater in Leningrad from 1933, film actor best known for his starring roles in PETER the GREAT, BALTIC DEPUTY, ALEKSANDR NEVSKY, IVAN the TERRIBLE, DON QUIXOTE.

[collapse]
Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich

Name: Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko

Lived: 1911 – 1985

Notes: General Secretary of the CPSU, 1984-85

[collapse]
Chernov, Viktor Mikhailovich

Name: Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov

Lived: 1876 – 1952

Notes: An SR leader and theorist. Took part in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. Became Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government and in January 1918, Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. Emigrated in 1921.

[collapse]
Chi-Minh, Ho

Name: Ho Chi-Minh

Lived: 1890 – 1969

Notes: Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became Prime Minister and President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Famous for leading the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. Lived in the Soviet Union 1933-1938.

[collapse]
Chicherin, Georgii Vasilevich

Name: Georgii Vasilevich Chicherin

Lived: 1872 – 1936

Notes: Employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1896 onwards. Returned to Russia in January 1918 and was soon appointed deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. joined the Bolshevik party. Served as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 30 May 1918 to 1930.

[collapse]
Chirkov, Boris Petrovich

Name: Boris Petrovich Chirkov

Lived: 1901 – 1982

Notes: Soviet stage and film actor, four time State Prize Laureate, including in 1952 for his role in DONETSK MINERS, People’s Artist of the Soviet Union (1950).

[collapse]
Chkalov, Valerii Pavlovich

Name: Valerii Pavlovich Chkalov

Lived: 1904 – 1938

Notes: Test pilot, pilot of famous non-stop flights in 1936-1937: Moscow-Udd Island (Soviet Far East), Moscow-North Pole-Vancouver (Washington). Died testing a new fighter plane.

[collapse]
Chkheidze, Nikolai Semenovich

Name: Nikolai Semenovich Chkheidze

Lived: 1864 – 1926

Notes: Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917, and one of the Menshevik leaders of Georgia before it fell under Soviet power in 1921.

[collapse]
Chubais, Anatolii Borisovich

Name: Anatolii Borisovich Chubais

Lived: 1955 –

Notes: Chairman of the State Privatiztion Fund of the Russian Federation, 1991-94, often implicated in the massive accumulation of wealth by tycoons during that period.

[collapse]
Chubar, Vlas Iakovlevich

Name: Vlas Iakovlevich Chubar

Lived: 1891 – 1939

Notes: High Soviet Ukrainian official, specialist in economic and administrative questions, who was shot in the purges

[collapse]
Chuikov, Semen Afanasievich

Name: Semen Afanasievich Chuikov

Lived: 1902 – 1980

Notes: Russian painter, genre paintings and landscapes devoted to Soviet Kirghiziia and India.

[collapse]
Chuikov, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Chuikov

Lived: 1900 – 1982

Title: General

Notes: Soviet general, commander of the 62nd Army during the Battle of Stalingrad. Later commanded the 8th Guards and led its advance through Poland. Directed the Soviet offensive which captured Berlin in April 1945.

[collapse]
Chukhrai, Grigorii Naumovich

Name: Grigorii Naumovich Chukhrai

Lived: 1921 – 2001

Notes: Film director (“Ballad of a Soldier”)

[collapse]
Chukovskii, Kornei Ivanovich

Name: Kornei Ivanovich Chukovskii

Lived: 1882 – 1969

Notes: Writer and critic best known for his children’s verse (“Moidodyr,” “Doctor Aibolit”), and FROM TWO TO FIVE, on the idiosyncracies of children’s language.

[collapse]
Churbanov, Iurii

Name: Iurii Churbanov

Lived: 1936 – 2013

Title: General

Notes: Brezhnev son-in-law who rose to become first deputy minister of the interior, a position he used to protect numerous corrupt practices. After his father-in-law’s death in 1982, Churbanov was arrested and sentenced to 12 years for taking bribes. Coming in the early years of economic and political reform under former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the case sent an important signal that no one was above the law. Churbanov was released from prison in 1993.

[collapse]
Clemenceau, Georges

Name: Georges Clemenceau

Lived: 1841 – 1929

Notes: French statesman, twice premier (1906-9, 1917-20)

[collapse]
Dan, Fedor

Name: Fedor Dan

Lived: 1871 – 1947

Notes: Menshevik leader, married to the sister of Martov. Joined Social Democratic party in 1894. Became Menshevik in 1903. Shared with Martov the leadership of the Menshevik faction until after October 1917. Later exiled to New York in 1922.

[collapse]
Daud, Mohammed

Name: Mohammed Daud

Lived: 1909 – 1978

Title: General

Notes: General Mohammed Daud overthrew the Afghan king in 1973 and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union. He ruled Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978.

[collapse]
Demchenko, Mariia Sofronovna

Name: Mariia Sofronovna Demchenko

Lived: 1912 –

Notes: Outstanding Stakhanovite sugarbeet worker

[collapse]
Demichev, Petr Nilovich

Name: Petr Nilovich Demichev

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: Politbiuro member from 1966 to 1988, Minister of Culture under Brezhnev.

[collapse]
Denikin, Anton Ivanovich

Name: Anton Ivanovich Denikin

Lived: 1872 – 1947

Notes: Tsarist military leader who commanded the anti-Bolshevik forces in the South, 1918-1919

[collapse]
Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich

Name: Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev

Lived: 1872 – 1929

Notes: Founder with Aleksandr Benois of the WORLD OF ART movement, Impressario of the “Ballet russe” from 1907.

[collapse]
Diderot, Denis

Name: Denis Diderot

Lived: 1713 – 1784

Notes: French philosopher and writer; prominent figure in the Enlightenment, and editor-in-chief of the famous Encyclopédie.

[collapse]
Djilas, Milovan

Name: Milovan Djilas

Lived: 1911 – 1995

Notes: Yugoslav Communist politician, theorist and author, key figure in the partisan movement and post-war government who later became an incisive critic of the Tito regime.

[collapse]
Dobroliubov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobroliubov

Lived: 1836 – 1861

Notes: Russian literary critic, publicist, and revolutionary democrat.

[collapse]
Dobrynin, Anatolii Fedorovich

Name: Anatolii Fedorovich Dobrynin

Lived: 1919 –

Notes: Diplomat, many years the Soviet Ambassador to the United States and leading foreign policy advisor to the Kremlin.

[collapse]
Dokuchaev, Vasilii Vasilevich

Name: Vasilii Vasil’evich Dokuchaev

Lived: 1846 – 1903

Notes: Natural scientist, professor at Petersburg University. In his classic RUSSIAN BLACK EARTH (1883), laid the foundation of genetic soil studies

[collapse]
Donahue, Phil

Name: Phil Donahue

Lived: 1935 –

Notes: American media personality best known as star of The Phil Donahue Show.

[collapse]
Donskoi, Dmitrii

Name: Dmitrii Donskoi

Lived: 1350 – 1389

Notes: Grand Prince of Muscovy and Vladimir. The first stone churches of the Moscow Kremlin were built in his reign. Commander of Russian forces in their greatest victories of over the Mongols, including the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). Made Moscow most powerful of Russian cities.

[collapse]
Doronin, Ivan Vasilevich

Name: Ivan Vasil’evich Doronin

Lived: 1903 – 1951

Notes: Pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union (1934). Participant in polar flights from 1930, and in the expedition to save the Cheliuskin in 1934.

[collapse]
Dostoevskii, Fedor Mikhailovich

Name: Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskii

Lived: 1821 – 1881

Notes: Russian novelist whose works include Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.

[collapse]
Dovzhenko, Aleksandr Petrovich

Name: Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko

Lived: 1894 – 1956

Notes: Director of ARSENAL (1929), EARTH (1930), and other films.

[collapse]
Drabkin, Sergei Ivanovich (Iakov Davydovich)

Name: Sergei Ivanovich (Iakov Davydovich) Drabkin

Lived: 1874 – 1933

Alias: Gusev

Notes: Became a Bolshevik in 1903. A professional revolutionary. He was secretary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. During the Civil War he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of, successively, the Fifth Army, the Second Army, the Eastern Front, the Southeastern Front and the Southern Front. Appointed head of the Army Political Administration in the spring of 1921.

[collapse]
Dubcek, Alexander

Name: Alexander Dubcek

Lived: 1921 – 1992

Notes: Reformist president of Czechoslovakia, ousted after Soviet-led invasion of 1968

[collapse]
Dubinin, Nikolai Petrovich

Name: Nikolai Petrovich Dubinin

Lived: 1907 –

Notes: Geneticist, member of the Academy of Sciences from 1966. Discovered technique for splitting genes.

[collapse]
Dudin, Samuel Martinovich

Name: Samuel Martinovich Dudin

Lived: 1863 – 1929

Notes: Photographer who collected vast photographic and ethnographic collections in Central Asia between 1893 and 1914.

[collapse]
Dudintsev, Vladimir Dmitrievich

Name: Vladimir Dmitrievich Dudintsev

Lived: 1918 – 1998

Notes: Writer, author of novel, Not By Bread Alone (1956)

[collapse]
Dudko, Dmitrii Sergeevich

Name: Dmitrii Sergeevich Dudko

Lived: 1922 – 2004

Notes: Orthodox priest, arrested in 1980 for his writings and sermons.

[collapse]
Dukhonin, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Dukhonin

Lived: 1876 – 1917

Title: Commander-in-Chief

Notes: Last commander-in-chief of the Russian Army before the October Revolution. He was killed by Red Guards for refusing to follow the Bolshevik order to cease fire against the German Army in 1917.

[collapse]
Dunaevskii, Isaak Osipovich

Name: Isaak Osipovich Dunaevskii

Lived: 1900 – 1955

Notes: Composer of immensely popular songs, including SONG OF THE MOTHERLAND (1936), MARCH OF ENTHUSIASTS (1940), and music to such films as HAPPY-GO-LUCKY FELLOWS (1934) and VOLGA-VOLGA (1938)

[collapse]
Duranty, Walter

Name: Walter Duranty

Lived: 1884 – 1946

Notes: New York Times correspondent in Moscow during the 1920s and 1930s, criticized much then and now for his blindness to many of the Stalin regimes worst sins.

[collapse]
Dutov, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Dutov

Lived: 1879 – 1921

Notes: White military leader who led a Cossack revolt in the Orenburg region in Nov-Dec 1917

[collapse]
Dybenko, Pavel Efimovich

Name: Pavel Efimovich Dybenko

Lived: 1889 – 1938

Notes: Joined Bolsheviks in 1912. A naval rating in the Baltic Fleet from 1911. Elected head of the CC of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution. Played a prominent role in the October Revolution and was a member of the military collegium of the first Sovnarkom in November 1917. During the Civil War held various commands, including that of the first Ukrainian army in January 1919.

[collapse]
Dzerzhinskii, Feliks Edmundovich

Name: Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii

Lived: 1877 – 1926

Notes: Elected to the Party CC at its VI Congress. Head of Cheka from its foundation on 20 December 1917 until his death (except for a short time in August 1918) Chairman first of the Cheka, then of OGPU. From 1921 People’s Commissar for Transport.

[collapse]
Dzhaparidze, Prokofii Aprasionovich

Name: Prokofii Aprasionovich Dzhaparidze

Lived: 1880 – 1918

Alias: Alesha

Notes: 1917-18 deputy and then chairman of the Baku Soviet, a leader of the Baku Commune. One of the famous executed “Baku Commissars.”

[collapse]
Dzhemilev, Mustafa

Name: Mustafa Dzhemilev

Lived: 1943 –

Alias: Mustafa Abdlcemil Qirimglu (in Tatar) Notes: Crimean Tatar deported as a one-year during the exile of his people to Uzbekistan. Human rights activist in the 1960s, supporting both Tatar and other causes. Active now in Ukrainian politics.

[collapse]
Dzhugashvili, Iosef Vissarionovich

Name: Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

Lived: 1879 – 1953

Alias: Stalin

Notes: See Stalin

[collapse]
Dziuba, Ivan Mikhailovich

Name: Ivan Mikhailovich Dziuba

Lived: 1931 –

Notes: Literary critic, critic of Soviet nationality policies.

[collapse]
de Gaulle, Charles

Name: Charles de Gaulle

Lived: 1890 – 1970

Notes: French general and statesman, first president (1959 69) of the Fifth Republic.

[collapse]
Eden, Anthony

Name: Anthony Eden

Lived: 1897 – 1977

Notes: Conservative statesmen, British Foreign Secretary during WW II, and under the conservatives during the 1950s.

[collapse]
Efimov, Boris Efimovich

Name: Boris Efimovich Efimov

Notes: Political cartoonist and propagandist known for his political caricatures of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, and for his anti-Trotskyist cartoons of the mid-1930s, featured in KROKODIL and OGONEK. Brother of Mikhail Kol’tsov.

[collapse]
Efron, Sergei

Name: Sergei Efron

Lived: 1893 – 1940

Notes: Journalist, husband of poet Marina Tsvetaeva, former White Guard officer later suspected of collaboration with Soviet security officials.

[collapse]
Efros, Anatolii Vasilevich

Name: Anatolii Vasil’evich Efros

Lived: 1925 – 1987

Notes: Stage director at the Theater of Leninist Komsomol and the Dramatic Theater on Malaia Bronnaia in Moscow. Later head director of the Taganka Theater.

[collapse]
Egorov, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Egorov

Lived: 1883 – 1939

Title: Marshal

Notes: Army commander during the Civil War, led the rout of Denikin on the Southern Front and fought in the Polish War of 1920. Chief of the General Staff in 1935-37, commander in the Caucasus in 1938 before perishing in the purges.

[collapse]
Egorychev, Nikolai Grigorevich

Name: Nikolai Grigor’evich Egorychev

Lived: 1920 –

Notes: Party official under Khrushchev and Brezhnev who began a successful diplomatic career when designated ambassador to Denmark in 1970, and to Afghanistan in 1988.

[collapse]
Eikhe, Robert Indrikovich

Name: Robert Indrikovich Eikhe

Lived: 1890 – 1940

Notes: A founder of the Latvian Communist Party, victim of the purge trials.

[collapse]
Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Name: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Lived: 1890 – 1969

Notes: Supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War, later thirty-fourth president of the U.S. (1953-1961).

[collapse]
Eizenshtein, Sergei

Name: Sergei Eizenshtein

Lived: 1898 – 1948

Notes: Great film director, most notably of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and OCTOBER, master editor whose daring cross-cut techniques (montage) laid the foundation of modern film.

[collapse]
El-Registan, Garold

Name: Garold El-Registan

Lived: 1899 – 1945

Notes: Soviet-Armenian poet, journalist, adventure story writer, and co-author of words to Soviet National Anthem (1944).

[collapse]
Eltsin, Boris Nikolaevich

Name: Boris Nikolaevich Eltsin

Lived: 1931 – 2007

Notes: Communist Party boss in Sverdlovsk oblast, then Moscow; his activities as President of the RSFSR put him into conflict with then USSR President Gorbachev, eventually leading to the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. First President of post-Soviet Russian Federation.

[collapse]
Eluard, Paul

Name: Paul Eluard

Lived: 1895 – 1952

Notes: Pen name of Eug„ne ˆmile Paul Grindel, French poet and surrealist until joining the Communist Party in 1942.

[collapse]
Engels, Friedrich

Name: Friedrich Engels

Lived: 1820 – 1895

Notes: German socialist thinker, co-author of Karl Marx in many of the fundamental texts of the world socialist movement.

[collapse]
Enukidze, Avel Sefronovich

Name: Avel Sefronovich Enukidze

Lived: 1877 – 1937

Notes: Secretary of Central Executive Committee, 1918-1935, Party Presidium from 1927, victim of the purge trials.

[collapse]
Erenburg, Ilia Grigorevich

Name: Il’ia Grigor’evich Erenburg

Lived: 1891 – 1967

Notes: Novelist and journalist based in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Master at treading on the fine line between critique and loyalism. Author of JULIO JURENITO (1922), THAW (1956) and many other novels, and sharp essays during the wartime and after.

[collapse]
Ermak

Name: Ermak

Lived: 1532 – 1585

Notes: Also Ermak Timofeevich. Cossack explorer of Siberia, beginning Russian colonization of the region.

[collapse]
Ermilov, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Name: Vladimir Vladimirovich Ermilov

Lived: 1904 – 1965

Notes: Literary critic of orthodox Soviet bent.

[collapse]
Ernesaks, Gustav

Name: Gustav Ernesaks

Lived: 1908 – 1993

Notes: Estonian composer and choral director, chief director of Estonian Song Festivals from 1947.

[collapse]
Esenin, Sergei Aleksandrovich

Name: Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin

Lived: 1895 – 1925

Notes: Russian poet of immense lyric talent whose verse (TAVERN MOSCOW, 1924) animated young people and aggravated Soviet critics. Died a suicide.

[collapse]
Esenin-Volpin, Aleksandr Sergeevich

Name: Aleksandr Sergeevich Esenin-Volpin

Lived: 1924 –

Notes: Mathematician and son of the famous poet Sergei Esenin, had spent varying periods in mental hospitals since 1949. In 1959 he had sent to the West a philosophical treatise and collection of poems, published as A Leaf of Spring, and in 1965 he had founded the “Constitution Day demonstrations,” which later became an annual event. He became a prolific contributor to samizdat on legal problems, and in February 1968 was forcibly committed to the Kashchenko Mental Hospital for protesting against the “Trial of the Four” (Ginzburg, Galanskov, Dobrovolsky, and Lashkova). He was released again in May. He then became the chief legal adviser to the Moscow Human Rights Committee, led by Andrei Sakharov, until his emigration to the U.S. in 1972.

[collapse]
Evdokimov, Efim Georgievich

Name: Efim Georgievich Evdokimov

Lived: 1891 – 1940

Notes: High ranking officer of the Cheka, OGPU and NKVD shot in the purges of 1940.

[collapse]
Evtushenko, Evgenii Aleksandrovich

Name: Evgenii Aleksandrovich Evtushenko

Lived: 1933 –

Notes: Poet, member of the young generation of the 1960s.

[collapse]
Ezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich

Name: Nikolai Ivanovich Ezhov

Lived: 1895 – 1939

Notes: People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, 1936-38; carried out Great Purges, often called Ezhovshchina for his leading role. Died a victim of those purges.

[collapse]
Fedin, Konstantin

Name: Konstantin Fedin

Lived: 1892 – 1977

Notes: Member of the Serapion Brothers literary grouping best known for his novel, Cities and Years, who supported the Revolution and creative freedom for writers.

[collapse]
Fedorchuk, Vitalii Vasilievich

Name: Vitalii Vasilievich Fedorchuk

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: Chairman of the Ukrainian KGB from 1970, Fedorchuk became chairman of the Soviet KGB and Minister of Internal Affairs in 1982. He was transferred to a minor inspectoral post under Gorbachev.

[collapse]
Feinberg, Evgenii Lvovich

Name: Evgenii L’vovich Feinberg

Lived: 1912 – 2005

Notes: Theoretical physicist in the field of radio waves, acoustics and nuclear physics.

[collapse]
Feltrinelli, Giangiacomo

Name: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

Lived: 1926 – 1972

Notes: Italian publisher and left-wing activist known for publishing the first edition of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, for which he was expelled from the Italian Communist Party.

[collapse]
Feuchtwanger, Leon

Name: Leon Feuchtwanger

Lived: 1884 – 1958

Notes: German novelist who wrote laudatory book on the USSR after his 1937 visit.

[collapse]
Figner, Vera Nikolaevna

Name: Vera Nikolaevna Figner

Lived: 1852 – 1942

Notes: A leader of Narodnaya Volya who participated in assasination of Alexander II in 1881

[collapse]
Filatov, Anatoly N.

Name: Anatoly N. Filatov

Lived: –

Notes: Soviet Foreign Ministry aide entrapped by the CIA, whose espionage work was quickly detected by the KGB, resulting in a quick trial and international scandal.

[collapse]
Flatten, Fritz

Name: Fritz Flatten

Lived: 1883 – 1942

Notes: Swiss socialist and friend of Lenin who helped negotiate his passage back to Russia in 1917 with the Germans. Later saved Lenin from an assassination attempt. Died in the Soviet labor camps.

[collapse]
Forsh, Olga Dmitrievna

Name: Ol’ga Dmitrievna Forsh

Lived: 1873 – 1961

Notes: Historical novelist who made the successful transition from pre-revolutionary author to Soviet memoirist, satirist, novelist and children’s writer.

[collapse]
Fourier, Charles

Name: Charles Fourier

Lived: 1772 – 1832

Notes: French utopian socialist most influential in Russia for his idea of cooperative communities called phalanges.

[collapse]
Franco, Francisco

Name: Francisco Franco Lived: 1892 – 1975

Title: General

Notes: Leader of anti-Republic forces during Spanish Civil War, dictator of Spain from 1939 to his death.

[collapse]
Frumkin, Moisei Ilich

Name: Moisei Il’ich Frumkin

Lived: 1878 – 1938

Notes: Old Bolshevik who held responsible office in the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade. Joined RSDRP in 1898. In 1906 a member of Bolshevik Military Organisation in Petrograd. After the February Revolution he was a member of the Regional Party Committee and the Executive Committee in Krasnoyarsk and later in Omsk Member of Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Food, 1918-22. Later in the 1920s, he proposed a milder policy towards the peasantry and more moderate plans for economic growth.

[collapse]
Frunze, Mikhail Vasilevich

Name: Mikhail Vasilevich Frunze

Lived: 1885 – 1925

Notes: A Bolshevik from 1904. Took part in the October Revolution in Moscow. In 1918 he was appointed Military Commissar of the Yaroslavl Military District and in December 1918 given command of the Fourth Army In April 1919 he became commander of the Southern Army Group of the Eastern Front, in July 1919 Commander of the Eastern Front and in September 1920 of the Southern Front. At the end of 1920 he became commander-in-chief of the newly created Southern Front against Wrangel and a member of the Ukrainian CC.

[collapse]
Furmanov, Dmitrii Andreevich

Name: Dmitrii Andreevich Furmanov

Lived: 1891 – 1926

Notes: Comissar during the Civil War, novelist and author of the hugely popular CHAPAEV.

[collapse]
Furtseva, Ekaterina Alekseevna

Name: Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva

Lived: 1910 – 1974

Notes: First female member of the Politburo, Minister of Culture under Khrushchev.

[collapse]
Galanskov, Iurii Timofeevich

Name: Iurii Timofeevich Galanskov

Lived: 1939 – 1972

Notes: Poet, member of the human rights movement in the USSR, sentenced to seven years prison in 1972, where he died.

[collapse]
Galczynski, Konstanty Ildefons

Name: Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski

Lived: 1905 – 1953

Notes: Whimsical and graceful Polish poet; wrote politically correct work for the post-war Polish socialist state.

[collapse]
Gende-Rote, Valerii Albertovich

Name: Valerii Albertovich Gende-Rote

Lived: 1926 – 2000

Notes: Photographer for magazine “Soviet Photo” and for the international department of “Photochronika TASS” (1957-1968), one of the leaders of the Russian “young photography” movement in the sixties, most famous for his photos Gagarin’s report to the Soviet Government.

[collapse]
Georgadze, Mikhail Porfirevich

Name: Mikhail Porfirevich Georgadze

Lived: 1912 – 1982

Notes: Secretary of Presidium of Supreme Soviet, 1957-1984, who began as a tractor driver and official in his native Georgia before being brought to Moscow by Khrushchev.

[collapse]
Gerasimov, Sergei Apollinarevich

Name: Sergei Apollinarevich Gerasimov

Lived: 1906 – 1985

Notes: Film director, much decorated by the Soviet state. Best known for THE DARING SEVEN (1936), MASQUERADE (1941), YOUNG GUARD (1948), QUIET FLOWS THE DON (1957-58)

[collapse]
Gibbon, Edward

Name: Edward Gibbon

Lived: 1737 – 1794

Notes: English historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

[collapse]
Ginzburg, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Ginzburg

Lived: 1936 – 2002

Notes: Poet, dissident and samizdat editor of the poetry almanac “Sintaksis, who compiled the “White Book.”

[collapse]
Gittis, Vladimir Mikhailovich

Name: Vladimir Mikhailovich Gittis

Lived: 1881 – 1938

Notes: Commanded armies on the northern and southern fronts of the Civil War, and promoted subsequently until reaching the rank of corps commander in 1935. Victim of the military purge of 1938.

[collapse]
Glazunov, Ilia Sergeevich

Name: Il’ia Sergeevich Glazunov

Lived: 1930 –

Title: People’s Artist of the USSR Notes: Painter and graphic artist, best known for his large canvases that trace his personal conception of the unique path of Russian history and culture.

[collapse]
Glebov

Name: Glebov

Lived: –

Notes: See Avilov, Nikolai Viktorovich

[collapse]
Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich

Name: Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka

Lived: 1804 – 1857

Notes: Composer, patriarch of Russian classical music. His IVAN SUSANIN (Life for the Tsar, 1836) and RUSLAN AND LIUDMILA (1842) established the two most important prototypes for Russian operas, the national drama and the fairy tale opera.

[collapse]
Godunov, Boris Fedorovich

Name: Boris Fedorovich Godunov

Lived: 1551 – 1605

Notes: Regent of Russia from 1584 to 1598, tsar from 1598 to 1605. Under his rule Russia received its Orthodox Patriarchate, and saw many necessary reforms, but eventually it descended into the chaos known as the Time of Troubles.

[collapse]
Goebbels, Joseph

Name: Joseph Goebbels

Lived: 1897 – 1945

Notes: Nazi propaganda minister and fierce anti-Semite.

[collapse]
Golshtein, Moisei Markovich

Name: Moisei Markovich Golshtein

Lived: 1891 – 1918

Alias: V. Volodarskii

Notes: Revolutionary at the age of 14 under the influence of the 1905 revolution.1913 departure to America. Returned to Russia after the February revolution, soon becoming a Bolshevik. Member of the Petrograd Party Committee, one of the finest propagandists. Member of the Petrograd Soviet, later of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Editor of the newspaper Krasnaia Gazeta, Petrograd. Commissar for the Press, Propaganda and Agitation of the Petrograd Commune. Murdered on June 20, 1918.

[collapse]
Gompers, Samuel

Name: Samuel Gompers

Lived: 1850 – 1924

Notes: American labor leader and union organizer

[collapse]
Gorbanevskaia, Natalia

Name: Natalia Gorbanevskaia

Lived: 1936 – 2013

Notes: Poet; translator; member of the Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR; first editor of The Chronicle of Current Events; participant in the demonstration in Red Square against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Arrested in 1969 and held in Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital until 1972. Emigrated in 1975. Lived in Paris till her death, working as a journalist and publishing her poetry.

[collapse]
Gorky, Maksim

Name: Maksim Gorky

Lived: 1868 – 1936

Notes: See Peshkov, Maksim. Writer, author of celebrated novels, essays and poems, progressive essayist and sometimes associate of the Bolsheviks. Gorkii spent much of the Bolsheviks time in power in voluntary exile. He was invited back to the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1932, when he was feted and served as a leader of the Soviet literary world. His name is most associated with the birth of socialist realism.

[collapse]
Gotz, Abram Rafailovich

Name: Abram Rafailovich Gotz

Lived: 1882 – 1940

Notes: Socialist Revolutionary, a member of the secret “Combat Organization” that arranged political assassinations after the failed 1905 Revolution, exiled from 1907-17. Participated in Soviet organizations in 1917, but opponent of the Bolsheviks after the October takeover. Frequently jailed and repressed under their rule.

[collapse]
Govorov, Leonid Aleksandrovich

Name: Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov

Lived: 1897 – 1955

Notes: Marshal of the Soviet Union from 1944, one of the leading commanders of the Red Army during the Second World War. Commanded an army during the Battle of Moscow, and important commander during the Leningrad Blockade.

[collapse]
Govorukhin, Stanislav

Name: Stanislav Govorukhin

Lived: 1936 –

Notes: Director, actor, script writer; after 1991 Deputy of the State Duma known for his conservative politics. Director “We Can’t Live Like This” and “The Russia That We Lost”, and “The Great Criminal Revolution”.

[collapse]
Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich

Name: Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar

Lived: 1871 – 1960

Notes: Russian-Soviet artist and art critic first associated with the World of Art movement, whose art, critical and museum activities were increasingly in line with official policies under Stalin.

[collapse]
Grach

Name: Grach

Lived: –

Notes: See Bauman, Nikolai

[collapse]
Griboedov, Aleksandr Sergeevich

Name: Aleksandr Sergeevich Griboedov

Lived: 1790 – 1829

Notes: Writer and diplomat, most famous for his witty play WOE FROM WIT (1822), in which social conservatives were mercilessly satirized. Investigated for connections to the Decembrists, he was sent as Russian emissary to Persia, where he was torn to pieces by an angry mob.

[collapse]
Grigorenko, Petr Grigorevich

Name: Petr Grigor’evich Grigorenko

Lived: 1907 – 1987

Title: Major General

Notes: After a successful military career, including action at Khalkhin-Gor (1939), the Second World War, and a post-war teaching post at the Frunze Military Academy, Grigorenko became a defender of human rights and critic of Khrushchev, for which he was transferred to the Far East in 1961. After creating the Union to Resurrect Leninism in 1963, he was deprived of his rank, medals and pension. Stints in prison and a psychiatric hospital preceded his emigration to the USA in 1977.

[collapse]
Grigorev, Aleksandr Dmitrievich

Name: Aleksandr Dmitrievich Grigorev

Lived: 1874 – 1940

Notes: Ethnographer

[collapse]
Grinko, Grigorii Fedorovich

Name: Grigorii Fedorovich Grinko

Lived: 1890 – 1938

Notes: Chairman of Gosplan, People’s Commissar of Finance (1930-1937) and other high posts in financial planning. Victim of the purges

[collapse]
Grishashvili, Iosif Grigorevich

Name: Iosif Grigor’evich Grishashvili

Lived: 1889 – 1965

Notes: Real name: Mamulaishvili. Georgian poet, member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences since 1947, People’s Poet of Georgia (1959), concerned with social and political themes.

[collapse]
Gromova, Uliana Matveeva

Name: Ul’iana Matveeva Gromova

Lived: 1924 – 1943

Notes: One of the leaders of the Komsomol underground in the city of Krasnodon, immortalized in Fadeev’s post-war novel YOUNG GUARD, executed by the Germans.

[collapse]
Gromyko, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Gromyko

Lived: 1909 – 1989

Notes: Ambassdor to the United States during the war and then delegate to the United Nations. Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1957-1985.

[collapse]
Grossman, Vasilii Semenovich

Name: Vasilii Semenovich Grossman

Lived: 1905 – 1964

Notes: Soviet Jewish writer and war correspondent, author of Forever Flowing and Life and Fate, epic novels about the Great Patriotic War that were published only many years after their writing, to great critical acclaim.

[collapse]
Grosz, Georg

Name: Georg Grosz

Lived: 1893 – 1959

Notes: German artist famous for his anti-capitalist caricatures in years following the First World War.

[collapse]
Gubenko, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Gubenko

Lived: 1941 –

Notes: Actor, director, People’s Artist of Russia (1985). Minister of Culture of the USSR, 1989-91.

[collapse]
Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich

Name: Aleksandr Ivanovich Guchkov

Lived: 1862 – 1936

Notes: Factory owner, leader of the Octobrist faction in the Duma. Member of the State Council, 1907-1915. Chairman of the Central Military Industrial Committee, 1915-17, and Minister of War under the Provisional Government.

[collapse]
Guevara, Ernesto "Che"

Name: Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Lived: 1928 – 1967

Notes: Cuban revolutionary and political leader born in Argentina and trained as a physician. Close comrade of Castro, he was more comfortable as a revolutionary than a state administrator. Left Cuba in 1965 to foster revolutionary activity in the Congo and other countries. In 1967, directing an ineffective guerrilla movement in Bolivia, he was wounded, captured, and executed by government troops.

[collapse]
Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich

Name: Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev

Lived: 1886 – 1921

Notes: Acmeist organizer and poet, once husband of Anna Akhmatova, executed as counter-revolutionary in 1921.

[collapse]
Gurvich, Fedor Ilich

Name: Fedor Il’ich Gurvich

Lived: 1871 – 1947

Alias: Dan

Notes: See Fedor Dan. Menshevik leader, married to the sister of Martov. Joined Social Democratic party in 1894. Became Menshevik in 1903. Shared with Martov the leadership of the Menshevik faction until after October 1917. Later exiled to New York in 1922.

[collapse]
Gusev

Name: Gusev

Lived: –

Notes: See Drabkin, Sergei Ivanovich

[collapse]
Handel, George Frideric

Name: George Frideric Handel

Lived: 1685 – 1759

Notes: English composer born in Germany, great master of baroque music, most celebrated for his oratorio The Messiah.

[collapse]
Harriman, William Averell

Name: William Averell Harriman

Lived: 1891 – 1986

Notes: Heir to the Harriman railroad fortune, filled various high governmental posts in commerce before the war. Adminstered the Land Lease program from 1941, and was American ambassador to the Soviet Union 1943-46. Played many important roles in American foreign policy until the late 1960s.

[collapse]
Heiden, Eric

Name: Eric Heiden

Lived: 1958 –

Notes: American long track speed skater who won an unprecedented five gold medals, and set four Olympic records and one world record at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid.

[collapse]
Hull, Cordell

Name: Cordell Hull

Lived: 1871 – 1955

Notes: American statesman, named Secretary of State by FDR in 1933. Placed great emphasis on international economic relations and fostered the “good neighbor” policy toward Latin American countries. After World War II broke out, pushed for aid to the Allies and recommended revision of the Neutrality Act. After U.S. entry into the war, he worked to improve cooperation among the Allies, visiting Moscow in 1943. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

[collapse]
Iakobson, Anatolii Aleksandrovich

Name: Anatolii Aleksandrovich Iakobson

Lived: 1935 – 1978

Notes: Poet, school teacher, editor of The Chronicle of Current Events. Involved in human rights defense after the Siniavsky-Daniel trial. Emigrated from the USSR in 1973, lived in Jerusalem. Died by his own hand.

[collapse]
Iakunin, Gleb Pavlovich

Name: Gleb Pavlovich Iakunin

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Orthodox priest, banished to a strict regime camp in 1979 for his criticism of Soviet state manipulation of the Orthodox Church.

[collapse]
Ianaev, Gennadii Ivanovich

Name: Gennadii Ivanovich Ianaev

Lived: 1937 –

Notes: Vice President under Gorbachev, involved in failed putsch of August 1991 when he assumed the constitutional duties of president.

[collapse]
Ianov, Aleksandr Lvovich

Name: Aleksandr L’vovich Ianov

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Historian, expert in the origins of Russian autocracy and nationalism.

[collapse]
Iaroslavskii, Emelian Mikhailovich

Name: Emelian Mikhailovich Iaroslavskii

Lived: 1878 – 1943

Notes: Secretary of the Central Committee, 1921-22, later chairman of League of Militant Atheists.

[collapse]
Iavlinskii, Grigorii Alekseevich

Name: Grigorii Alekseevich Iavlinskii

Lived: 1952 –

Notes: Economist, leading proponent of economic reforms in the final years of Soviet power and in the new Russian Federation.

[collapse]
Ignatiev, Semen Denisovich

Name: Semen Denisovich Ignatiev

Lived: 1904 – 1983

Notes: Joined the Cheka at age sixteen in 1920, and worked his way up through the party and industrial apparatus under Stalin. Ignatiev served as minister of state security from 1951-1953, during Stalin’s final years.

[collapse]
Inber, Vera Mikhailovna

Name: Vera Mikhailovna Inber

Lived: 1890 – 1972

Notes: Leningrad lyric poet, children’s author, writer of powerful verse about the Leningrad under the blockade (Pulkovo Meridian, 1943)

[collapse]
Iofan, Boris Mikhailovich

Name: Boris Mikhailovich Iofan

Lived: 1891 – 1970

Notes: Architect, chiefly known for his design for the Palace of Soviets and other monumental buildings

[collapse]
Ioffe, Adolf Abramovich

Name: Adolf Abramovich Ioffe

Lived: 1883 – 1927

Notes: Joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917. He served on the Brest-Litovsk peace delegation and opposed signing the peace treaty. Appointed ambassador to Berlin on 6 April 1918.

[collapse]
Ioganson, Boris Vladimirovich

Name: Boris Vladimirovich Ioganson

Lived: 1893 – 1973

Notes: Painter of socialist realist canvases (Rabfak is Coming, 1928; Interrogation of the Communists, 1933; Old Urals Factory, 1937); later President of the USSR Academy of Arts.

[collapse]
Iudenich, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Iudenich

Lived: 1862 – 1933

Notes: Tsarist military leader who led anti-Bolshevik forces in Estonia and on the northern front, 1918-1920

[collapse]
Ivanov, V. N.

Name: V. N. Ivanov

Notes: Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol in the late Stalin years.

[collapse]
Ivanov, Vsevolod

Name: Vsevolod Ivanov

Lived: 1895 – 1963

Notes: Novelist, author of stories PARTISANS (1921), ARMORED TRAIN 14-69 (1922), ADVENTURES OF A FAKIR (1934)

[collapse]
Jellinek, Georg

Name: Georg Jellinek

Lived: 1851 – 1911

Notes: Author of Verfassungsd derung und Verfassungswandlung (n.p., n.d.), promoter of the study of law and philosophy.

[collapse]
Jodl, Alfred

Name: Alfred Jodl

Lived: 1890 – 1946

Notes: German General and commander-in-chief, who signed the surrender in 1945.

[collapse]
John Paul II

Name: John Paul II

Lived: 1920 – 2005

Title: Pope

Notes: See Wojtyla, Karol

[collapse]
Jordania, Noi

Noe Jordania

Lived: 1869 – 1953

Notes: Georgian journalist and Menshevik politician. Leader in the socialist revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire, and later head of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from July 24, 1918 until March 18, 1921, when he was deposed and exiled by the Red Army invasion of Georgia.

[collapse]
Jouhaux, Leon

Name: Leon Jouhaux

Lived: 1879 – 1954

Notes: French trade union leader, Resistance fighter, and Nobel Prize Laureate.

[collapse]
Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseevich

Name: Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich

Lived: 1893 – 1991

Notes: Close associate of Stalin who was ousted from leadership in 1957. Party leader of Ukraine from 1925-28 and 1947; Central Committee Secretary from 1928-39, and also of the Moscow Party Committee (1930-1935). Held other important posts as well until he was removed from power as part of the so-called “Anti-Party Group.” Ironically, this henchman and collaborator in some of the bloodiest campaigns of Soviet history lived until the ripe old age of 98, almost outliving the Soviet Union itself.

[collapse]
Kaganovich, Mikhail Moiseevich

Name: Mikhail Moiseevich Kaganovich

Lived: 1888 – 1941

Notes: Brother of Lazar. From 1932, Deputy People’s Commissar of Heavy Industry; from 1937, People’s Commissar of Defense Industry. Committed suicide during a period of mass repressions.

[collapse]
Kai-shek, Chiang

Name: Chiang Kai-shek

Lived: 1887 – 1975

Notes: Chinese military and political figure who led the Nationalists against the rising Communist forces and was driven from the mainland to Taiwan (1949), where he served as president of Nationalist China until his death.

[collapse]
Kalatozov, Mikhail Konstantinovich

Name: Mikhail Konstantinovich Kalatozov

Lived: 1903 – 1973

Notes: Soviet film director, whose work ranged from SALT FOR SVANETIIA (1930) to VALERY CHKALOV (1941) and CRANES ARE FLYING (1957).

[collapse]
Kaledin, Aleksei Maksimovich

Name: Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin

Lived: 1861 – 1918

Title: General

Notes: Cavalry general and Cossack leader. Appointed ataman of the Don Cossack Army in 1917, and from November of that year to January 1918, leading a resistance effort to Soviet power.

[collapse]
Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich

Name: Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin

Lived: 1875 – 1946

Notes: Worker. Member of the SD party from 1898 Active in both revolutions in 1917. After the October Revolution was head of the City of Petrograd. In March 1919 succeeded Sverdlov as Chairman of the CEC. Travelled widely in a propaganda train during the Civil War. Chairman of the TsIK from 1922, and a close colleague of Stalin.

[collapse]
Kamenev, Lev Borisovich

Name: Lev Borisovich Kamenev

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Notes: See Rozenfeld, Lev Borisovich. Joined the Social Democratic party in 1901; a Bolshevik in 1903. Close associate of Lenin. Arrested and exiled to Siberia in November 1914. Released February 1917. Chairman, Central Executive Committee of Soviets. Supported Trotsky in the anti-Stalin opposition. 1926-27 Soviet Ambassador to Italy. Condemned and executed in the first major ‘purge’ trial, 1936.

[collapse]
Kapitsa, Petr Leonidovich

Name: Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa

Lived: 1894 – 1984

Notes: Physicist, Nobel Prize winner (1978), organizer and first director of the Academy of Science Institute of Physical Problems

[collapse]
Kardelj, Edvard

Name: Edvard Kardelj

Lived: 1910 – 1979

Notes: Slovene-Yugoslav partisan, communist political leader, and economist. Architect of the post-war state ideology, and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1948 to 1953. Kardelj was instrumental in the split with the Soviet Union, his influence in the government later waned.

[collapse]
Karimov, Khurshed Khilovich

Name: Khurshed Khilovich Karimov

Lived: 1935 –

Notes: Tajik physiologist and biochemist.

[collapse]
Karmal, Babrak

Name: Babrak Karmal

Lived: 1929 – 1996

Notes: Afghan Commuunist leader who succeeded Hafizullah Amin in 1979, and ruled until 1986.

[collapse]
Kataev, Valentin Petrovich

Name: Valentin Petrovich Kataev

Lived: 1897 – 1986

Notes: Dramatist (Squaring the Circle, 1928), novelist (TIME, FORWARD!, 1932), and memoirist.

[collapse]
Katsman, Evgenii

Name: Evgenii Katsman

Lived: 1890 – 1976

Notes: Painter and co-founder of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) from 1921-1928

[collapse]
Kaverin, Veniamin Aleksandrovich

Name: Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin

Lived: 1902 – 1989

Notes: Prose writer who subscribed to formalist literary theories but who also composed successful socialist realist works in the 1930s and 1940s such as the Two Captains (1939).

[collapse]
Kazakov, Iurii Pavlovich

Name: Iurii Pavlovich Kazakov

Lived: 1927 – 1982

Notes: Short story writer who published between 1957 and 1977 and who was influential in reviving the style of Chekhov and Bunin.

[collapse]
Kerenskii, Aleksandr Fedorovich

Name: Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii

Lived: 1881 – 1971

Notes: Lawyer. An SR member of the Duma from 1912. Became Minister of Justice in first Provisional Government. Later Prime Minister. After the Kornilov revolt he took over as commander-in-chief as well. Kerenskii was deposed from power by the Bolsheviks, for whom he was a figure of particular contempt, and all of whom he outlived.

[collapse]
Khachaturian, Aram

Name: Aram Khachaturian

Lived: 1903 – 1978

Notes: Composer, conductor and professor at Moscow Conservatory

[collapse]
Khalatov, Artashes (Artemii) Bagratovich

Name: Artashes (Artemii) Bagratovich Khalatov

Lived: 1896 – 1938

Notes: Food supply official in Moscow during the Revolution, later part of the Commissariat of Railroads, and chairman of Gosizdat (1927-32). Fell victim to the purges

[collapse]
Khariton, Boris Osipovich

Name: Boris Osipovich Khariton

Lived: 1875 – 1942

Notes: One of the founders of Dom Literatorov in Petrograd, 1918-1921 who emigrated to Latvia and was deported after its occupation by the Soviet military.

[collapse]
Khasbulatov, Ruslan

Name: Ruslan Khasbulatov

Lived: 1942 –

Notes: Scholar, Chechen state official and People’s Deputy of the RSFSR, 1990, who supported economic reforms but whose independent leadership of the Duma led to sharp confrontations with the Eltsin government in 1993.

[collapse]
Khmelnitskii, Bogdan

Name: Bogdan Khmelnitskii

Lived: 1595 – 1657

Notes: See Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Ukrainian name)

[collapse]
Khmelnytsky, Bohdan

Name: Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Lived: 1595 – 1657

Notes: Hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. He led the uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth magnates (1648-1654) with the goal of creating an independent Cossack state. In 1654 he concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, which led to the eventual loss of Ukrainian independence in the Russian Empire and later in the Soviet Union.

[collapse]
Khodasevich, Vladislav Felitsianovich

Name: Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich

Lived: 1886 – 1939

Notes: Poet and essayist.

[collapse]
Khodzhaev, Faizulla

Name: Faizulla Khodzhaev

Lived: 1898 – 1938

Notes: Former Jadadist who served as Chairman of the Uzbek Council of People’s Commissars, and the First Secretary of the Uzbek party organization in the mid 1930s. Khodzhaev was removed from office in 1937, and was convicted in the last of the great show trials.

[collapse]
Khristianovich, Sergei Alekseevich

Name: Sergei Alekseevich Khristianovich

Lived: 1908 – 2000

Notes: Highly decorated scientist who served at the Hydrological Institute in Leningrad.

[collapse]
Kirov, Sergei Mironovich

Name: Sergei Mironovich Kirov

Lived: 1886 – 1934

Notes: Member of the Politburo and head of the Leningrad regional party. Secretary of the Azerbaijan Central Committee 1921-26, moved to Leningrad and rose through the Party ranks. Politbiuro member from 1930, and of the Party secretariat from 1934. Murdered by an alleged terrorist in 1934, an event that triggered the first wave of terror.

[collapse]
Kliuchevskii, Vasilii Osipovich

Name: Vasilii Osipovich Kliuchevskii

Lived: 1841 – 1911

Notes: Prominent historian

[collapse]
Knipper, Lev Konstantinovich

Name: Lev Konstantinovich Knipper

Lived: 1898 – 1978

Notes: Composer and conductor who led the Red Army Orchestra.

[collapse]
Kobets, Konstantin Ivanovich

Name: Konstantin Ivanovich Kobets

Lived: 1932 –

Title: General Notes: Army officer who chaired the Committee for Preparing and Carry Out Military Reform Under the USSR State Council, Sept.-Dec. 1991.

[collapse]
Kochetov, Vsevolod Anisimovich

Name: Vsevolod Anisimovich Kochetov

Lived: 1912 – 1973

Notes: Author who epitomized the Socialist Realist school of writing who served as secretary of the Leningrad branch of Writers’ Union, 1953-1955.

[collapse]
Koltsov, Mikhail Efimovich

Name: Mikhail Efimovich Kol’tsov

Lived: 1898 – 1942

Notes: Journalist and writer, PRAVDA correspodent, author of sharp-witted essays and feuilletons and the SPANISH DIARY (1938), a first-person account of the Spanish Civil War. Victim of the purges

[collapse]
Kolchak, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak

Lived: 1873 – 1920

Notes: At Naval Academy 1888-94. Afterwards served in the Baltic and Pacific Fleets. Taken prisoner during the Russo-Japanese war. Served in the Baltic Fleet during the First World War. Appointed Commander of the Black Sea Fleet in 1916 with the rank of Rear Admiral. Resigned his command in July 1917. Appointed Minister of Defense by Ufa Directorate. Staged military coup in November 1918 and assumed title of Supreme Ruler Detained by Czechs in Irkutsk and handed over to the local Revolutionary Committee which tried him and had him shot.

[collapse]
Kollontai, Aleksandra Mikhailovna

Name: Aleksandra Mikhailovna Kollontai

Lived: 1872 – 1952

Notes: Soviet political leader and activist for women whose leadership of the Zhenotdel ended because of her continued involvement in the Workers’ Opposition.

[collapse]
Kolmanovskii, Eduard Savelevich

Name: Eduard Savelevich Kolmanovskii

Lived: 1923 – 1994

Notes: Composer of musical comedies, choral works and symphonies.

[collapse]
Konchalovskii, Petr Petrovich

Name: Petr Petrovich Konchalovskii

Lived: 1876 – 1956

Notes: Painter who accepted socialist realism in the 1930s but who still retained his own unique style.

[collapse]
Konev, Ivan Stepanovich

Name: Ivan Stepanovich Konev

Lived: 1897 – 1973

Title: General

Notes: Served as a prominent Soviet military commander during and after World War II.

[collapse]
Korneichuk, Aleksandr Evdokimovich

Name: Aleksandr Evdokimovich Korneichuk

Lived: 1905 – 1972

Notes: Russian-Ukrainian drmatist, director of the Writers’ Union, and President of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

[collapse]
Kornilov, Lavr Geogievich

Name: Lavr Geogievich Kornilov

Lived: 1870 – 1918

Title: General

Notes: Commander in Chief of the Russian forces under the Provisional Government who led the revolt against Kerensky in August 1917.

[collapse]
Kosarev, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasil’evich Kosarev

Lived: 1903 – 1939

Notes: Komsomol leader who advanced quickly through Party ranks in the early 30s to become a member of the Central Committee and Orgbiuro by 1934. A willing participant of the purges and Terror, he himself was victim of a false denunciation, and was fired and General Secretary of the Komsomol in 1938, and was executed in 1939.

[collapse]
Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin

Lived: 1904 – 1980

Notes: Served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers after the fall of Khrushchev, 1964-1980, tried to implement economic reform in 1956 but met with great opposition.

[collapse]
Kotov, Petr Ivanovich

Name: Petr Ivanovich Kotov

Lived: 1889 – 1953

Notes: Painter of portraits and battle scenes, professor at Moscow Art Institute (1948-1951), originally opposed the Bolshevik takeover.

[collapse]
Krasin, Leonid Borisovich

Name: Leonid Borisovich Krasin

Lived: 1870 – 1926

Notes: A Marxist since the end of the 1880s On SD work since the 1890s. A first class engineer, he worked as such during emigration from 1908 to 1917. After the October Revolution he was engaged on diplomatic work. In August 1918 he became head of a commission providing the Red Army with supplies. In November 1918 he became People’s Commissar of Trade and Industry. Later he was People’s Commissar for Transport. From 1919 he was mainly engaged in diplomatic work. Played important part in arranging Anglo-Soviet trade agreement in 1921.

[collapse]
Kraval, Ivan Adamovich

Name: Ivan Adamovich Kraval

Lived: 1897 – 1938

Notes: Head of the Central Directorate of the National Economic Account Attached to USSR Gosplan, 1935-1937, blamed and put to death when the census of 1937 yielded data unflattering to the Soviet government.

[collapse]
Kravchuk, Leonid Makarovich

Name: Leonid Makarovich Kravchuk

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Chair of the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine, July 1990 and president of Ukraine, Dec 1991.

[collapse]
Krestinskii, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Krestinskii

Lived: 1883 – 1938

Notes: Joined RSDRP in 1903. People’s Commissar for Finance from August 1918 to 1921 as well as being a CC secretary, 1919-21. Lost secretaryship at Tenth Party Congress. From 1921 Soviet diplomatic representative in Berlin. Caught up in the purge trials, and sentenced to death on March 13, 1938, along with Bukharin and Rykov.

[collapse]
Kriuchkov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kriuchkov

Lived: 1924 –

Notes: Trained as a diplomat, Kriuchkov began his career serving in embassies around the world before joining the security organs in 1967. Chairman of the KGB from 1988-1991, Kriuchkov was implicated in the failed putsch of August 1991.

[collapse]
Krupskaia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna

Name: Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia

Lived: 1869 – 1939

Notes: Lenin’s wife and fellow revolutionary who held educational offices after 1921. Member of the Party Central Committee from 1927.

[collapse]
Krylenko, Nikolai Vasilevich

Name: Nikolai Vasilevich Krylenko

Lived: 1885 – 1940

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1904. Together with Antonov-Ovseenko and P. E Dybenko he was made a member of the Collegium for Military and Naval Affairs of the Sovnarkom on 8 November. Made Supreme Commander-in-Chief on 22 November when Dukhonin refused to negotiate

[collapse]
Krzhizhanovskii, Gleb Maksimilianovich

Name: Gleb Maksimilianovich Krzhizhanovskii

Lived: 1872 – 1959

Notes: Became Marxist in 1891. Graduated from St Petersburg as an engineer 1894. Early Bolshevik. In 1895 arrested and exiled to Siberia. Emigrated to Munich in 1901, collaborated on Iskra. Elected to Central Committee of SD Party at 2nd Congress, 1903. An organizer of the railway strike in the 1905 revolution. Member of Moscow Soviet during 1917. Originated the plan for the electrification of Russia. Founded and ran Gosplan (State Planning Commission) from 1921 to 1930. Vice-president, Academy of Sciences.

[collapse]
Kuhlmann, Richard von

Name: Richard von Kuhlmann

Lived: 1873 – 1948

Notes: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Germany, from August 1917, led the delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia.

[collapse]
Kuibyshev, Valerian Vladimirovich

Name: Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev

Lived: 1888 – 1935

Notes: Prominent economic planning official.

[collapse]
Kukryniksy

Name: Kukryniksy

Lived: –

Notes: Composite names for the most succesful Soviet caricaturists who worked for Pravda and Krokodil: Mikhail Kuprivanov (1903), Proforoi Krylov (1902) and Nikolai Sokolov (1903). Pictured here with satirist Boris Efimov

[collapse]
Kuleshov, Lev Vladimirovich

Name: Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov

Lived: 1899 – 1970

Notes: Innovative film director (Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924; By the Law, 1926), teacher and theorist of film, inventor of basic techniques of film montage.

[collapse]
Kun, Bela

Name: Bela Kun

Lived: 1886 – 1937

Notes: Hungarian Communist leader who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Embraced Communism as a prisoner-of-war in Russia, sent back to Hungary as propagandist after the October Revolution. After the Hungarian Revolution was deposed, he eventually was allowed to return to Moscow, where he lived in exile, participating in the Komintern, until he died in the purges.

[collapse]
Kunaev, Dinamukhammed Akhmedovich

Name: Dinamukhammed Akhmedovich Kunaev

Lived: 1912 – 1993

Notes: First Secretary of the Kazakh Party, 1964-1986, whose replacement with an ethnic Russian in 1987 precipitated rioting in Alma-Atta.

[collapse]
Kurchatov, Igor Vasilevich

Name: Igor Vasil’evich Kurchatov

Lived: 1903 – 1960

Notes: Physicist and director of the Soviet nuclear weapons program from 1943

[collapse]
Kurskii, Dmitrii Ivanovich

Name: Dmitrii Ivanovich Kurskii

Lived: 1874 – 1932

Notes: People’s Commissar of Justice, 1918-1928, from 1928 Soviet ambassador (polpred) in Italy.

[collapse]
Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich

Name: Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov

Lived: 1745 – 1813

Title: Count

Notes: Russian Field Marshal, pupil of Suvorov, victor over Napoleon in the French invasion of Russia, 1812. Participant in the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12, and commander in the Austrian War of 1805.

[collapse]
Kuznetsov, Eduard

Name: Eduard Kuznetsov

Lived: 1939 –

Notes: Jewish Soviet dissident and human rights activist. Sentenced in 1962 to seven years in the labor camps for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. In 1970 he was one of the chief participants in the celebrated attempted hijacking in Leningrad, for which he was first sentenced to death and then to fifteen years in special-regime labor camps. His Prison Diaries (1975) is one of the most powerful books to describe the experience of dissidents.

[collapse]
Kuznetsov, Vasilii Vasilevich

Name: Vasilii Vasil’evich Kuznetsov

Lived: 1901 – 1990

Notes: First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 1977-1986, relieved of his duties upon the rise of Gorbachev to power.

[collapse]
Lamm, Pavel Aleksandrovich

Name: Pavel Aleksandrovich Lamm

Lived: 1882 – 1951

Notes: Musicologist, famed for his work on the academic texts of the operas of Mussorgsky with Asafiev) and Borodin. Lamm wrote the orchestrations for many important works of Prokofiev, including The Betrothal in the Convent and War and Peace, as well as the music for the films Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible.

[collapse]
Landsbergis, Vytautas

Name: Vytautas Landsbergis

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Professor of Musicology who helped organize the Sajudis national movement, and served as first President of independent Lithuania

[collapse]
Larin, Iurii

Name: Iurii Larin

Lived: 1882 – 1932

Notes: Economic theorist, chief of the Bureau of Legislation of the Sovnarkom, proponent of the unification of the single state economy.

[collapse]
Larina, Anna Mikhailovna

Name: Anna Mikhailovna Larina

Lived: 1914 – 1996

Notes: Wife of Nikolai Bukharin, adopted daughter of Iurii Larin, who wrote memoirs of her life with Bukharin on the eve of the purges.

[collapse]
Latsis, Martin Ivanovich

Name: Martin Ivanovich Latsis

Lived: 1888 – 1938

Alias: Born Jan Sudrabs

Notes: Prominent member of the Cheka, 1918-21, in charge of the secret section of that institution. Director of the Plekhanov Institute of Economics from 1932, victim of the purges.

[collapse]
Lavrentiev, Mikhail Alekseevich

Name: Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentiev

Lived: 1900 – 1980

Title: Academician

Notes: Prominent physicist and mathematician, founder of Akademgorodok, Siberian haven for Soviet scientists.

[collapse]
Lebedev-Kumach, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach

Lived: 1898 – 1949

Notes: Poet who was involved in Communist propaganda efforts during the Civil War and thereafter wrote highly-popular songs for films.

[collapse]
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich

Name: Vladimir Il’ich Lenin

Lived: 1870 – 1924

Notes: See Ul’ianov. Bolshevik leader before October Revolution; architect of Soviet Communism. Leader of Bolsheviks from II Congress in 1903, and dominant influence in the party until his death. After October Revolution appointed Chairman of Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom.)

[collapse]
Lentsman, Leonid Nikolaevich

Name: Leonid Nikolaevich Lentsman

Lived: 1915 – 1996

Notes: Russian Estonian who served as Second Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party from 1953-1964, and as Secretary from 1964-1971. Lentsman was the party’s ideological watchdog in Estonia.

[collapse]
Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich

Name: Leonid Maksimovich Leonov

Lived: 1899 – 1994

Notes: Author whose novels (THIEF, 1927) were praised by Gorky and Lunacharskii.

[collapse]
Leskov, Nikolai Semionovich

Name: Nikolai Semionovich Leskov

Lived: 1831 – 1895

Notes: Russian realist writer whose deeply Russian narrative language (e.g. The Left-Handed Blacksmith) established the model for “skaz” writers thereafter

[collapse]
Liatoshinskii, Boris Nikolaevich

Name: Boris Nikolaevich Liatoshinskii

Lived: 1895 – 1968

Notes: Ukrainian composer who received the Stalin Prize in 1952 for his various operas (SHCHORS, 1938) and symphonies.

[collapse]
Libedinskii, Iurii Nikolaevich

Name: Iurii Nikolaevich Libedinskii

Lived: 1898 – 1959

Notes: Activist in the literary groups October and RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, 1925-1932)

[collapse]
Liberman, Evsei Grigorevich

Name: Evsei Grigor’evich Liberman

Lived: 1897 – 1983

Notes: Economist whose 1962 essay in PRAVDA laid the groundwork for the econmic reform of 1965.

[collapse]
Lidin, Vladimir Germanovich

Name: Vladimir Germanovich Lidin

Lived: 1894 – 1979

Notes: Novelist who taught at Gorky Institute for twenty-five years.

[collapse]
Ligachev, Egor Kuzmich

Name: Egor Kuzmich Ligachev

Lived: 1920 –

Notes: Informal leader of conservatives in the Politburo during the Gorbachev administration.

[collapse]
Lisitsyn, Pavel Gerasimovich

Name: Pavel Gerasimovich Lisitsyn

Lived: 1911 –

Notes: Baritone singer who was named People’s Artist of the USSR in 1956

[collapse]
Lissitzsky, Lazar Mark

Name: Lazar Mark Lissitzsky

Lived: 1890 – 1941

Alias: El Lissitsky

Notes: Artist, designer, and photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. Better known as El Lissitzky, he helped develop suprematism with his friend Kazimir Malevich, and designed numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His experimentation anticipated many of the devices that would characterize avant-garde graphic art.

[collapse]
Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich

Name: Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov

Lived: 1876 – 1951

Notes: People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs, 1930-39; spokesman for collective security

[collapse]
Lloyd-George, David

Name: David Lloyd-George

Lived: 1863 – 1945

Notes: British Minister of War and then Prime Minister, 1916-1922, pursued interventionist policies against the young Soviet state.

[collapse]
Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasilievich

Name: Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov

Lived: 1711 – 1765

Notes: Russian scientist, writer and polymath who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. His poetry and tractates on poetic language were the foundation of modern Russian verse.

[collapse]
Lotman, Iurii Mikhailovich

Name: Iurii Mikhailovich Lotman

Lived: 1922 – 1994

Notes: Semiotician, founder of Tartu school

[collapse]
Lozovskii, Solomon Abramovich

Name: Solomon Abramovich Lozovskii

Lived: 1878 – 1952

Notes: Head of Trade Union International (1921-1937) and People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs during WW II

[collapse]
Lukianov, Anatolii Ivanovich

Name: Anatolii Ivanovich Lukianov

Lived: 1930 –

Notes: Elevated to the Secretariat of the Central Committee, 1987. 1990-91, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, candidate member of the Politbiuro until participant in the aborted coup of August 1991.

[collapse]
Lumumba, Patrice Emergy

Name: Patrice Emergy Lumumba

Lived: 1925 – 1960

Notes: First prime minister of independent Republic of Congo, assassinated.

[collapse]
Lunacharskii, Anatolii Vasilievich

Name: Anatolii Vasilievich Lunacharskii

Lived: 1875 – 1933

Notes: Old Bolshevik, widely read essayist and critic, first Soviet Commissar for Enlightenment (or Education)

[collapse]
Lvov, Arkadii Lvovich

Name: Arkadii L’vovich L’vov

Lived: 1927 –

Notes: Author who in 1970 was accused of corresponding with International Zionism. Emigrated in 1976.

[collapse]
Lvov, Georgii Evgenevich

Name: Georgii Evgen’evich L’vov

Lived: 1861 – 1925

Title: Prince

Notes: Large landowner, deputy of the First State Duma, chairman of the All-Russian Land Union. First Prime Minister of the Provisional Government (March – June 1917). Emigrated to Paris after the October Revolution

[collapse]
Lvov, Vladimir Nikolaevich

Name: Vladimir Nikolaevich L’vov

Lived: 1872 – 1934

Title: Prince

Notes: Member of the Provisional Government from February, 1917. Served as Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod.

[collapse]
Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich

Name: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko

Lived: 1898 – 1976

Title: Academician

Notes: Academician and agro-biologist who rejected the chromosome theory of heredity purported by modern genetics, and ruled Soviet biology under Stalin and then Khrushchev.

[collapse]
Maiakovskii, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Name: Vladimir Vladimirovich Maiakovskii

Lived: 1893 – 1930

Notes: Referred to as the “poet of the Russian Revolution”, a Futurist who dedicated his talent to the Bolshevik cause. His pithy agitational verses were featured on posters and newsreels during the Civil War. Ever an advocate of the new Soviet path, Maiakovskii eventually became disillusioned, and committed suicide in 1930.

[collapse]
Makarenko, Anton Semenovich

Name: Anton Semenovich Makarenko

Lived: 1888 – 1939

Notes: Educator who organized rehabilitation colonies for juvenile delinquents.

[collapse]
Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich

Name: Nestor Ivanovich Makhno

Lived: 1888 – 1934

Notes: Anarchist commander of the peasant Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (the Greens) during the Civil War, who fought with and against the Bolsheviks, and was forced into exile in 1921.

[collapse]
Malenkov, Georgii Maksimilianovich

Name: Georgii Maksimilianovich Malenkov

Lived: 1902 – 1988

Notes: Close associate of Stalin who after Stalin’s death became Soviet Party leader and subsequently Premier until 1957

[collapse]
Malinovskii, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskii

Lived: 1873 – 1928

Alias: Bogdanov

Notes: Philosopher, sociologist, economist and surgeon. Joined the Social Democratic party in 1890s, became a Bolshevik at the Party split in 1903. Became leader of the left-wing Bolshevik ‘Forward’ group. Served in the First World War as an army doctor.

[collapse]
Mandela, Nelson

Name: Nelson Mandela

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: South African president (1994-1999) and alack political leader imprisoned for nearly 30 years for his anti-apartheid activities

[collapse]
Mandelshtamm, Osip Emilevich

Name: Osip Emil’evich Mandelshtam

Lived: 1891 – 1938

Notes: Acmeist poet and close associate of Anna Akhmatova, author of TRISTIA and other collections of verse, who was emprisoned twice in the 1930s and eventually died in transit camp.

[collapse]
Manet, Edouard

Name: Edouard Manet

Lived: 1832 – 1883

Notes: French painter, forerunner of impressionism whose works, including Dejeuner sur l’herbe (1862), sparked great controversy in their time.

[collapse]
Manuilov, Aleksandr Apollonovich

Name: Aleksandr Apollonovich Manuilov

Lived: 1861 – 1929

Notes: Economist, liberal populist, later member of the Cadets. Rector of Moscow State University in 1908-11, who resigned in protest against repression of students. Minister of Education under the Provisional Government

[collapse]
Manuilskii, Dmitrii Zakharovich

Name: Dmitrii Zakharovich Manuilskii

Lived: 1883 – 1959

Notes: Ukrainian political leader, commissar of the Petrograd MRC in 1917, chairman of the 1928-42, deputy chair of the Sovnarkom 1944-53, simaltaneously Ukrainian Foreign Minister. Central Committee member, 1923-52.

[collapse]
Marat, Jean Paul

Name: Jean Paul Marat

Lived: 1743 – 1793

Notes: French revolutionary who founded L’Ami du peuple (1789) in support of the Revolution. He was elected to the National Convention in 1792 but was assassinated.

[collapse]
Markin, Nikolai Grigorevich

Name: Nikolai Grigor’evich Markin

Lived: 1893 – 1918

Notes: Sailor of the Baltic Fleet during the Revolution, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Second Congress of Soviets, and secretary who helped organize the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Died in battle.

[collapse]
Markov-Grinberg, Mark

Name: Mark Markov-Grinberg

Lived: 1907 – 2006

Notes: Photojournalist who started as a stringer for Ogonek in southern Russia in 1926, and then moved to Moscow to work for SMENA. Joined the TASS photo pool in 1930, for which he travelled the country and chronicled the changes of the industrial revolution, collectivization, and photographed leading Soviet personalities.

[collapse]
Marshall, George Catlett

Name: George Catlett Marshall

Lived: 1880 – 1959

Title: General

Notes: American general and cabinet member, who in the years after the Second World War initiated the Marshall Plan, or European Recovery Program (1947) to foster economic recovery in western European countries.

[collapse]
Martov, Iulii Osipovich

Name: Iulii Osipovich Martov

Lived: 1873 – 1923

Notes: See Tsederbaum. Russian revolutionary, Menshevik leader exiled in 1921. Editorial board of ISKRA from 1900, Menshevik from 1903. Participated in Pre-Parliment of mid-1917, but saw October Revolution as a catastrophe. Strong critic of dictatorial tendencies of Bolsheviks. Emigrated 1920.

[collapse]
Masaryk, Jan Garrigue

Name: Jan Garrigue Masaryk

Lived: 1886 – 1948

Notes: Czechoslovak minister to Great Britain (1925-38), foreign minister for the Czechoslovak government in exile during the war, and foreign minister after the war. During the Communist infiltration of the state in 1948, killed in a fall from his office window; reported as suicide.

[collapse]
Medvedev, Roy Aleksandrovich

Name: Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev

Lived: 1925 –

Notes: Soviet historianand dissident expelled from the Communist Party under Brezhnev. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet 1989-91.

[collapse]
Menger, Anton

Name: Anton Menger

Lived: 1841 – 1906

Notes: Author of Neue Staatslehre (Jena, 1903).

[collapse]
Menzhinskii, Viacheslav Rudolfovich

Name: Viacheslav Rudol’fovich Menzhinskii

Lived: 1874 – 1934

Notes: Participant of revolutions of 1905 and 1917, member of the Military-Revolutionay Committee. From 1918 People’s Commissar of Finance. Joined the Cheka Presidium in 1919, and led the OGPU, 1926-1934.

[collapse]
Merkulov, Vsevolod Nikolaevich

Name: Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov

Lived: 1895 – 1946

Notes: Merkulov worked his way up through the security organs during the purges of the late 1930s, and became deputy commissar and commissar of state security during the Great Patriotic War.

[collapse]
Merkurev, Sergei Dmitrievich

Name: Sergei Dmitrievich Merkurev Lived: 1881 – 1952 Notes: Realist sculptor whose most famous work is that of Dostoevsky in Moscow.

[collapse]
Meyerhold, Vsevolod Emilevich

Name: Vsevolod Emil’evich Meyerhold

Lived: 1874 – 1934

Notes: Actor and avant-garde direct prominent in twentieth century Russian and world theater. Declared an “October in the Theater” in 1918, demanding changes in the theater analogous to the revolution in politics. Most fruitful collaborations with Mayakovsky (Mystery-Bouffe (1918), BEDBUG and BATH HOUSE.

[collapse]
Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich

Name: Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin

Lived: 1855 – 1935

Notes: Practical agronomist who received much praise from Lenin for his work and who was hailed in the press during collectivization for his achievements. Claimed as a direct antecedent by Lysenko and other Stalin-era biologists, who rejected “bourgeois” genetics on the basis of Michurin’s work in selective breeding.

[collapse]
Mikoian, Anastas Ivanovich

Name: Anastas Ivanovich Mikoian

Lived: 1895 – 1978

Notes: Member of the Politburo, 1935-1966, close colleague of Stalin during the 1930s, filled various posts on the People’s Commissar level in trade and food supply; foreign policy counselor to Khrushchev.

[collapse]
Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw

Name: Stanislaw Mikolajczyk

Lived: 1901 – 1966

Notes: Polish Peasant Party leader, in Polish post-war government, 1945-1947.

[collapse]
Miliukov, Pavel Nikolaevich

Name: Pavel Nikolaevich Miliukov

Lived: 1859 – 1943

Notes: Leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party and historian who emigrated in 1920. Served the Provisional Government as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[collapse]
Mirbach, Wilhelm von

Name: Wilhelm von Mirbach

Lived: 1871 – 1918

Title: Count

Notes: German ambassador to Soviet Russia from April 1918, assassinated by SRs as a signal to begin their rebellion against the Bolsheviks.

[collapse]
Molotov, Viacheslav Mikhailovich

Name: Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov

Lived: 1890 – 1986

Notes: Stalin’s right-hand man; chairman of the Sovnarkom from 1930-41; People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs from 1939-49, 1953-56. From 1957, demoted to Ambassador to Mongolia in connection with the “Anti-Party” affair.

[collapse]
Morozov, Pavlik (Pavel Trofimovich)

Name: Pavlik (Pavel Trofimovich) Morozov

Lived: 1918 – 1932

Notes: Russian farm boy who denounced his father for collaborating with kulaks and was himself murdered by villagers.

[collapse]
Mukhina, Vera Ignatevna

Name: Vera Ignat’evna Mukhina

Lived: 1889 – 1953

Notes: Soviet sculptor most famous for her statue of the Worker and Collective Farm Girl, 1937.

[collapse]
Mzhavanadze, Vasilii Pavlovich

Name: Vasilii Pavlovich Mzhavanadze

Lived: 1902 – 1988

Notes: Georgian professional soldier from 1924 who served during the Second World War as on the command staff of several armies; and as Deputy Commander for Political Affairs of Kiev and Carpathian Districts from 1946 to 1953. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1953-1972. After moving into civilian life, joined the Politbiuro as candidate member, 1957-72. Dismissed after a corruption scandal, and replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze.

[collapse]
Nagy, Imre

Name: Imre Nagy

Lived: 1896 – 1958

Notes: Hungarian Communist leader. Nagy was a symbol of the 1956 Hungarian revolt after he was deposed in a Soviet-led invasion.

[collapse]
Najibullah, Mohammad

Name: Mohammad Najibullah

Lived: 1947 – 1996

Notes: See Ahmadzai, Najib. Najibullahi was General Secretary of the Afghan Communist Party, replacing Babrak Karmal when he could not muster support among the military or populace. Fourth and last president of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

[collapse]
Nalbandyan, Dmitrii Arkadevich

Name: Dmitrii Arkad’evich Nalbandyan

Lived: 1906 – 1993

Notes: Armenian painter, Kremlin “court painter” for Stalin and Brezhnev alike. People’s Artist of the Soviet Union (1969), Lenin Prize winner (1982), most famous for his historical-revolutionary canvases (“All Power to the Soviets, Peace to the World,” 1950). Self-portrait from 1932.

[collapse]
Napravnik, Eduard Frantsevich

Name: Eduard Frantsevich Napravnik

Lived: 1839 – 1916

Notes: Composer and director of Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, first director of many of Chaikovskii’s Russian operas.

[collapse]
Nasser, Gamal Abdal

Name: Gamal Abdal Nasser

Lived: 1918 – 1970

Notes: Egyptian army officer and political leader, first president of the republic of Egypt.

[collapse]
Nechaev, Sergei Gennadievich

Name: Sergei Gennadievich Nechaev

Lived: 1847 – 1882

Notes: Russian anarchist and revolutionary.

[collapse]
Neizvestnyi, Ernst Iosifovich

Name: Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestnyi

Lived: 1926 –

Notes: Sculptor, painter, writer who was expelled from Artists’ Union in 1954 for his rejection of Socialist Realism. He later designed the gravestone for Nikita Khrushchev, and eventually emigrated to the West.

[collapse]
Nekrasov, Viktor Platonovich

Name: Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov

Lived: 1911 – 1987

Notes: Soviet writer, author of vivid war stories (In the Trenches of Stalingrad, 1946) who left the Soviet Union in 1974.

[collapse]
Nesmeianov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Nesmeianov

Lived: 1899 – 1980

Title: Academician

Notes: Organic chemist, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1951-61).

[collapse]
Nikolaev, Leonid Vasilievich

Name: Leonid Vasilievich Nikolaev

Lived: 1904 – 1934

Notes: Murderer of Sergei Kirov in 1934, executed one month after the event. His wife and many family members were also persecuted during the Kirov investigation.

[collapse]
Nishanov, Rafik Nishanovich

Name: Rafik Nishanovich Nishanov

Lived: 1926 –

Notes: Secretary for Ideology of the Communist Party, 1963-1970; Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet, 1986-1988, First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party, 1988-1989, chairman of the Council of Nationalities, 1989-91.

[collapse]
Nobile, Umberto

Name: Umberto Nobile

Lived: 1885 – 1978

Notes: Italian aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. His dirigible “Italia” crashed in 1928 on his second expedition to the Pole; part of his crew perished, and the remainder were rescued by an international mission.

[collapse]
Nosar-Khrustalev, Georgii Stepanovich

Name: Georgii Stepanovich Nosar-Khrustalev

Lived: 1879 – 1919

Notes: (Sometimes referred to as ‘Khrustalev-Nosar’.) First chairman of the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies during the 1905 revolution. Became a Menshevik in 1907. Gave up politics, became a journalist in the right-wing Press. Headed the ephemeral ‘Khrustalev Republic’ in the Ukraine during the Civil War. Shot by the Bolsheviks.

[collapse]
Obolenskii-Osinskii, V.

Name: V. Obolenskii-Osinskii

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Alias: Also Osinskii.

Notes: See Obolenskii, Valerian Valerianovich

[collapse]
Oistrakh, David Fedorovich

Name: David Fedorovich Oistrakh

Lived: 1908 – 1974

Notes: Soviet violinist

[collapse]
Olesha, Iurii Karlovich

Name: Iurii Karlovich Olesha

Lived: 1899 – 1960

Notes: Prose writer whose most famous short novel Envy (1927) was the subject of much controversy because of its ambiguous meaning.

[collapse]
Orbeli, Leon Abgarovich

Name: Leon Abgarovich Orbeli

Lived: 1882 – 1958

Title: Academician

Notes: Russian-Armenian physiologist, one of the creators of evolutionary physiology. Secretary of the Academy of Sciences Division of Biological Sciences who fell in the struggle with Lysenko.

[collapse]
Ordzhonikidze, Sergo (Grigorii Konstantinovich)

Name: Sergo (Grigorii Konstantinovich) Ordzhonikidze

Lived: 1886 – 1937

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1903, took part in the October Revolution. In January 1918 made plenipotentiary for the Ukraine. In April sent to the Caucasus as an extraordinary Commissar with the Southern Front. After the reverse there he worked on other fronts. From 1921 a member of the Party Central Committee, posted to the Caucasus. From 1930 chairman of the VSNKh, from 1932 People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Committed suicide during period of mass repressions.

[collapse]
Orlova, Liubov Petrovna

Name: Liubov Petrovna Orlova

Lived: 1902 – 1972

Notes: Popular film actress known especially The Circus (1936) and Volga-Volga (1938).

[collapse]
Ortega y Gasset, Josô

Name: Josô Ortega y Gasset

Lived: 1883 – 1955

Notes: Spanish philosopher, best known for the idea that life is both fate and freedom, and that freedom “is being free inside of a given fate.”

[collapse]
Oshanin, Lev Ivanovich

Name: Lev Ivanovich Oshanin

Lived: 1912 – 1996

Notes: Author of popular song lyrics, lyrical and patriotic.

[collapse]
Osinskii

Name: Osinskii

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Alias: Also Obolenskii-Osinskii

Notes: See Obolenskii, Valerian Valerianovich

[collapse]
Osipov, Vladimir Nikolaevich

Name: Vladimir Nikolaevich Osipov

Lived: 1938 –

Notes: Russian nationalist and samizdat writer and editor.

[collapse]
Ostrovskii, Nikolai Alekseevich

Name: Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovskii

Lived: 1904 – 1936

Notes: Writer most famous for his semi-autobiographical novel HOW THE STEEL WAS FORGED (1934). Participant of the Civil War.

[collapse]
Ovseenko

Name: Ovseenko

Notes: See Antonov-Ovseenko.

[collapse]
Papanin, Ivan Dmitrievich

Name: Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin

Lived: 1894 – 1986

Notes: Polar explorer, geographer and admiral. Commander of the first floating ice station. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

[collapse]
Pasha, Enver

Name: Enver Pasha

Lived: 1881 – 1922

Notes: Former Young Turk officer and minister of war who led Basmachi revolt in Soviet Turkestan, killed in a clash with Red Army troops.

[collapse]
Pashukanis, Evgenii Bronislavovich

Name: Evgenii Bronislavovich Pashukanis

Lived: 1891 – 1937

Notes: Marxist-Leninist legal philosopher of international renown. From 1936 until his death in the purges, Deputy Commissar of Justice.

[collapse]
Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich

Name: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

Lived: 1890 – 1960

Notes: Poet and novelist who was a 1958 Nobel laureate for DOCTOR ZHIVAGO.

[collapse]
Paustovskii, Konstantin Georgevich

Name: Konstantin Georgevich Paustovskii

Lived: 1892 – 1968

Notes: Prose writer who played an integral role in rehabilitating and publishing purged writers.

[collapse]
Perov, Georgii Vasilievich

Name: Georgii Vasilievich Perov

Lived: 1905 – 1979

Notes: Soviet economic planning official.

[collapse]
Peshkov, Maksim

Name: Maksim Peshkov

Lived: 1868 – 1936

Alias: Maksim Gorkii (“the Bitter”)

Notes: See Gorkii, Maksim. Writer, author of celebrated novels, essays and poems, progressive and sometimes associate of the Bolsheviks who spent much of their time in power in voluntary exile

[collapse]
Pestkovskii, Stanislav

Name: Stanislav Pestkovskii

Lived: 1882 – 1937

Notes: Born Stanislaw Pestkowski in Poland. Telegraph Commissar during the days of revolution, later Commissar for Commissar for the State Bank in November 1917. Later Stalin’s deputy in the Commissariat of Nationalities; died in the purges.

[collapse]
Peters, Iakov Khristoforovich

Name: Iakov Khristoforovich Peters

Lived: 1886 – 1938

Notes: Born the son of a day laborer in provincial Russia, Peters joined the Bolsheviks in 1904. He became a member of the board of the dreaded Cheka in December 1917, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1918, and was head of the Cheka for a period in 1918. After the Civil War, GPU Eastern Director. Peters died in the purges of 1938.

[collapse]
Petliura, Simon Vasilevich

Name: Simon Vasilevich Petliura

Lived: 1879 – 1926

Notes: A right-wing S.D. and active as such before the revolution. In June 1917 he became Secretary General for Military Affairs in the Rada Government and was at that time a member of the Directorate. He acquired notoriety for the pogroms carried out by his troops. In the summer of 1919 he captured Kiev. When he failed to come to an understanding with Denikin he allied himself with Poland and took part in the Polish-Soviet war of 1920.

[collapse]
Petrazhitskii, Lev Iosifovich

Name: Lev Iosifovich Petrazhitskii

Lived: 1867 – 1931

Title: Professor

Notes: Legal scholar, author THEORY OF LAW AND STATE IN CONNECTION WITH THE THEORY OF MORALITY. Emigrated to Poland in 1918.

[collapse]
Petrov, Vladimir Mikhailovich

Name: Vladimir Mikhailovich Petrov

Lived: 1896 – 1966

Notes: Film director who most prominent films include KUTUZOV (1944) and BATTLE OF STALINGRAD (1947)

[collapse]
Piatakov, Georgii Leonidovich

Name: Georgii Leonidovich Piatakov

Lived: 1890 – 1937

Notes: Left Oppositionist who became Deputy Commissar of Heavy Industry until arrest in 1937.

[collapse]
Pilniak, Boris Andreevich

Name: Boris Andreevich Pilniak

Lived: 1894 – 1937

Notes: Modernist novelist, author of NAKED YEAR (1921), MAHOGANY (1929), THE VOLGA FALLS INTO THE CASPIAN SEA (1930). Accused of distorting revolutionary events, and died in the purges.

[collapse]
Pimen

Name: Pimen

Lived: –

Notes: A well-known character in Russian literature, Pimen (a monk) appears in Pushkin’s BORIS GODUNOV.

[collapse]
Piontkovskii, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Piontkovskii

Lived: 1898 – 1973

Notes: Jurist, expert in the theory and philosophy of law, and criminal law.

[collapse]
Platonov, Andrei Platonovich

Name: Andrei Platonovich Platonov

Lived: 1899 – 1951

Notes: Writer best known for his novels FOUNDATION PIT, and CHEVENGUR.

[collapse]
Plekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich

Name: Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov

Lived: 1857 – 1918

Notes: Marxist philosopher and historian, Menshevik leader who opposed Bolsheviks’ 1917 coup.

[collapse]
Pleve, Viacheslav Konstantinovich

Name: Viacheslav Konstantinovich Pleve

Lived: 1846 – 1904

Notes: Minister of the Interior from 1902, persecutor of revolutionary and working class movements, assassinated by the SRs.

[collapse]
Podgornyi, Nikolai Viktorovich

Name: Nikolai Viktorovich Podgornyi

Lived: 1903 – 1983

Notes: Soviet head of state from 1965-1977, part of the triumvirate that deposed Khrushchev and brought Brezhnev to power.

[collapse]
Podvoiskii, Nikolai Ilich

Name: Nikolai Il’ich Podvoiskii

Lived: 1880 – 1948

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1901. Served in the Petrograd Military Organisation in 1917. During the October Revolution he was Chair man of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. He was the first People’s Commissar for Military Affairs, replaced by Trotsky in March 1918. People’s Commissar for Military Affairs of the Ukraine, 1919.

[collapse]
Pogodin, Nikolai Fedorovich

Name: Nikolai Fedorovich Pogodin

Lived: 1900 – 1962

Notes: Soviet playwright whose plays dealt with with Lenin and the White Sea Canal.

[collapse]
Pokrovskii, Mikhail Nikolaevich

Name: Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovskii

Lived: 1868 – 1932

Notes: Founder of Soviet Marxist historical scholarship.

[collapse]
Polevoi, Boris Nikolaevich

Name: Boris Nikolaevich Polevoi

Lived: 1908 – 1981

Notes: Writer best known for socialist realist classic STORY OF A REAL MAN (1946)

[collapse]
Popov, Gavriil Kharitonovich

Name: Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov

Lived: 1936 –

Title: Professor

Notes: Profesor of economics. Radical economic and political reformer who under Brezhnev established management studies at Moscow University. First mayor of Moscow in post-Soviet times.

[collapse]
Poskrebyshev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Poskrebyshev

Lived: 1891 – 1965

Notes: Stalin’s right-hand man and head of his secretariat from 1928-1953. His relationship with Stalin continued despite the arrest and execution of his second wife in 1939.

[collapse]
Pospelov, Petr Nikolaevich

Name: Petr Nikolaevich Pospelov

Lived: 1898 – 1979

Notes: Russian historian and ideologist who was a staunch defender of Khrushchev.

[collapse]
Potresov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Potresov

Lived: 1869 – 1934

Notes: Early Russian socialist, collaborated with Lenin in early days of Party journal The Spark (Iskra). Became right wing Menshevik after 1905 revolution, but broke with Mensheviks after 1917 as being insufficiently vigorous in their opposition to Bolsheviks.

[collapse]
Preobrazhenskii, Evgenii Aleksandrovich

Name: Evgenii Aleksandrovich Preobrazhenskii

Lived: 1886 – 1937

Notes: Member of Trotskyite opposition who spoke out against erosion of internal democracy.

[collapse]
Primakov, Evgenii Maksimovich

Name: Evgenii Maksimovich Primakov

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Full member of the Central Committee who spent most of his career Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies. Chairman of the Union Council, 1989-1990, and from November 1991 of Russian intelligence services. Became Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1996.

[collapse]
Prishibeev

Name: Prishibeev

Lived: –

Title: Sergeant

Notes: A character in a Chekhov story of the same name (1885).

[collapse]
Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeevich

Name: Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev

Lived: 1891 – 1953

Notes: Innovative modernist composer. Lived abroad from 1918-1933. Composer of seven symphonies, opera LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES (1919), ballet ROMEO AND JULIET (1936), music for the film ALEKSANDR NEVSKY (1938). Despite being named People’s Artist of RSFSR in 1947, Prokofiev was severely constrained by Soviet cultural policies.

[collapse]
Prokopovich, Sergei Nikolaevich

Name: Sergei Nikolaevich Prokopovich

Lived: 1871 – 1955

Notes: Minister of Supplies under the Provisional Government. Exiled in 1922.

[collapse]
Prunskiene, Kazimiera Daunte

Name: Kazimiera Daunte Prunskiene

Lived: 1943 –

Notes: Lithuanian economist elected Premier-Minister of the Lithuanian Republic in March 1990.

[collapse]
Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich

Name: Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin

Lived: 1893 – 1953

Notes: One of the most prominent Soviet film directors, director of MOTHER (1926), END OF ST. PETERSBURG (1927)

[collapse]
Pugacheva, Alla Borisovna

Name: Alla Borisovna Pugacheva

Lived: 1949 –

Notes: Pop diva, best-selling most singer in Russia from the mid-1970s the present. Her outrageous behavior and contempt for political orthodoxy during the Soviet era did not impede her success.

[collapse]
Pugo, Boris Karlovich

Name: Boris Karlovich Pugo

Lived: 1937 – 1991

Notes: Latvian who served as the First Secretary of the Latvian Communist Party, 1984-1989. Rose through the ranks in the KGB, candidate member of the Politbiuro, 1989-90, and Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs, 1990-91, from which position he participated in coup of August 1991. Committed suicide upon its failure.

[collapse]
Pyriev, Ivan Aleksandrovich

Name: Ivan Aleksandrovich Pyriev

Lived: 1901 – 1968

Notes: Initially a Proletkult actor turned film director, director of successful if orthodox musicals TRACTOR DRIVERS (1939), SWINEHERD AND THE SHEPHERD (1941), COSSACKS OF THE KUBAN (1948).

[collapse]
Radomyslskii, Grigorii Evseevich

Name: Grigorii Evseevich Radomyslskii

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Alias: Zinoviev

Notes: Bolshevik from 1903. Returned to Russia with Lenin. Opposed him on April Theses at first; also opposed to taking power in October. Appointed Chairman of the Northern Commune when government moved to Moscow. Chairman of the Comintern from its foundation until 1926. Joined Stalin and Kamenev in struggle with Trotsky in 1926, but soon fell out of Stalin’s favor. Arrested in 1934, executed in 1936.

[collapse]
Raikin, Arkadii Isaakovich

Name: Arkadii Isaakovich Raikin

Lived: 1911 – 1987

Notes: Satirical comedian who effectively criticized Soviet leaders prior to glasnost.

[collapse]
Raizman, Iulii Iakovlevich

Name: Iulii Iakovlevich Raizman

Lived: 1903 – 1994

Notes: Successful film director known for honest depiction of Soviet experience, including YOUR CONTEMPORARY (1968), PRIVATE LIFE (1982).

[collapse]
Rakovskii, Khristian Georgevich

Name: Khristian Georgevich Rakovskii

Lived: 1873 – 1941

Notes: Served in the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs after the October Revolution. Headed commission on Russo-Rumanian affairs, 1918. Leader of Soviet peace delegation in Kiev, May-September 1918. Head of Ukrainian Soviet government in 1919. Served abroad 1923-27. Victim of purges.

[collapse]
Rapgof, Ippolit Pavlovich

Name: Ippolit Pavlovich Rapgof

Lived: 1860 – 1918

Alias: Count Amori Notes: Music teacher and critic who found fame as a writer of salacious popular tales. Scandalized the literary world by publishing second parts to Aleksandr Kuprin’s THE PIT and Anastasiia Verbitskaia’s KEYS TO HAPPINESS before their authors could complete continuations. Rumored to have been shot when the Bolsheviks overcame an anarchist government he had established in Rostov-on-the-Don.

[collapse]
Rashidov, Sharaf Rashidovich

Name: Sharaf Rashidovich Rashidov

Lived: 1917 – 1983

Notes: Uzbek political leader very close with Brezhnev during the 1970s.

[collapse]
Raskolnikov, Fedor Fedorovich

Name: Fedor Fedorovich Raskolnikov

Lived: 1892 – 1939

Notes: Commander of the Red Navy on the Baltic and Caspian Seas during the Civil War. Served as a diplomat after the war, and in 1939 refused to return to the Soviet Union, when he published his “Open Letter to Stalin.” He died soon after under suspicious circumstances, and was rehabilitated after Stalin’s death.

[collapse]
Rasputin, Valentin Grigorevich

Name: Valentin Grigor’evich Rasputin

Lived: 1937 –

Notes: Conservative prose writer and staunch advocate of environmentalist causes in such novels as LIVE AND REMEMBER (1974), FAREWELL TO MATYORA (1976).

[collapse]
Reisner, Larisa Mikhailovna

Name: Larisa Mikhailovna Reisner

Lived: 1895 – 1926

Notes: Civil War participant and journalist, best known for her reports from the war front, and later Afghanistan and Germany.

[collapse]
Rezunov, Mikhail Denisovich

Name: Mikhail Denisovich Rezunov

Lived: 1905 – 1937

Notes: Member of the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law, professor at Leningrad State University, shot during the purges of 1937.

[collapse]
Riazanov, Eldar

Name: Eldar Riazanov

Lived: 1927 –

Notes: Much-beloved director whose many hit movies, beginning with CARNIVAL NIGHT (1956), and including THE IRONY OF FATE (1975) and GARAGE (1979) revealed the contradictions of Soviet life with a gentle irony.

[collapse]
Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mikhailovich

Name: Aleksandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko

Lived: 1891 – 1956

Notes: Avant-garde painter and designer who devoted most of his later work to photography.

[collapse]
Rodov, Semen Abramovich

Name: Semen Abramovich Rodov

Lived: 1893 – 1968

Notes: A proletarian poet literary theoretician and critic who became a member of the Party in 1918.

[collapse]
Rodzianko, Mikhail Vladimirovich

Name: Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko

Lived: 1859 – 1924

Notes: Octobrist Duma deputy and President of the Fourth Duma

[collapse]
Rokossovskii, Konstantin Konstantinovich

Name: Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovskii

Lived: 1896 – 1968

Notes: Soviet military commander during the Second World War, Defense Minister of Poland in post-war years.

[collapse]
Rozenfeld, Lev Borisovich

Name: Lev Borisovich Rozenfeld

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Alias: Kamenev

Notes: See Kamenev. Joined the Social Democratic party in 1901; a Bolshevik in 1903. Close associate of Lenin. Arrested and exiled to Siberia in November 1914. Released February 1917. Chairman, Central Executive Committee of Soviets. Supported Trotsky in the anti-Stalin opposition. 1926-27 Soviet Ambassador to Italy. Condemned and executed in the first major ‘purge’ trial, 1936.

[collapse]
Rudzutak, Ian Evnestovich

Name: Ian Evnestovich Rudzutak

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Notes: Full member of the Politburo, 1926-1927 arrested in 1937.

[collapse]
Rutskoi, Aleksandr Vladimirovich

Name: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Rutskoi

Lived: 1945 –

Notes: Air Force general, fought in the Afghan War, later Vice President of the Russian Federation under Eltsin and leader of the Duma rebellion against Yeltsin in 1993.

[collapse]
Rybakov, Anatolii Naumovich

Name: Anatolii Naumovich Rybakov

Lived: 1911 – 1998

Notes: Novelist, successful writer in the final years of Stalin, most famous for the cycle of novels dealing with Moscow life in the 1930s, which began with CHILDREN OF ARBAT (1987)

[collapse]
Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich

Name: Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov

Lived: 1881 – 1938

Notes: Elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee at the III Party Congress. After October Revolution appointed first People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs but left that pos. Chairman of VSNKh in February 1918. Replaced Lenin as Chairman of Sovnarkom in 1921 and after Lenin’s death appointed to succeed him permanently in this post. Died in the purges.

[collapse]
Ryzhkov, Nikolai Ivanovich

Name: Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Chairman of Council of Minister of USSR since 1985-91, Politbiuro member 1985-90. Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Communist Party left him out of politics, but he returned as a deputy in the Russian Duma in 1995.

[collapse]
Sakharov, Andrei Dmitrievich

Name: Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov

Lived: 1921 – 1989

Notes: Nuclear physicist who became a major dissident during the Brezhnev era.

[collapse]
Sarkisov, Sarkis Artemevich

Name: Sarkis Artem’evich Sarkisov

Lived: 1898 – 1938

Notes: Party member from 1917, once a member of the party opposition but later Ukrainian Central Committee member 1933-37, arrested in 1937 and shot.

[collapse]
Sautin, Ivan Vasilievich

Name: Ivan Vasilievich Sautin

Lived: 1903 – 1975

Notes: Chief, Central Administration of Economic Accounting, Gosplan USSR, in 1938-1940.

[collapse]
Scheidemann, Philipp

Name: Philipp Scheidemann

Lived: 1865 – 1939

Notes: German Chanceller who denounced the Versailles Treaty in the Reichstag, 1919.

[collapse]
Sedov, Grigorii Iakovlevich

Name: Grigorii Iakovlevich Sedov

Lived: 1877 – 1914

Notes: Russian hydrographer and polar explore. Organized a 1912 expedition to the North Pole by dog sled, during which he perished.

[collapse]
Semashko, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko

Lived: 1874 – 1949

Notes: Doctor, founder of the Commissariat of Health from 1918-30, party member since 1893.

[collapse]
Semichastnyi, Vladimir Efimovich

Name: Vladimir Efimovich Semichastnyi

Lived: 1924 – 2001

Notes: Chairman of the KGB from 1961-1967, during which Soviet security organs began the systematic repression of social dissidents.

[collapse]
Serafimovich, Aleksandr Serafimovich

Name: Aleksandr Serafimovich Serafimovich

Lived: 1863 – 1949

Notes: Writer best known for his civil war novel IRON FLOOD (1924).

[collapse]
Serbin, Ivan Dmitrevich

Name: Ivan Dmitrevich Serbin

Lived: 1910 – 1981

Notes: Led the Defense Industry Department of the Central Committee from 1958-1981.

[collapse]
Serebriakov, Leonid Petrovich

Name: Leonid Petrovich Serebriakov

Lived: 1890 – 1937

Notes: A worker. After the October Revolution was a member of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet and later of the Presidium of the TsIK. In military work in 1919-20. Appointed deputy Commissar for Transport in 1922. Victim of the purges

[collapse]
Serov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Serov

Lived: 1910 – 1968

Notes: Major representative of socialist realism and one of Stalin’s favored painters. President of the Soviet Academy of Arts from 1962.

[collapse]
Shaginian, Marietta Sergeevna

Name: Marietta Sergeevna Shaginian

Lived: 1888 – 1982

Notes: Author of the socialist adventure novel MESS-MEND (1922), and then more politically orthodox novels such as HYDROCENTRAL (1930-31). Later wrote two novels about Lenin’s life for which she was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1972.

[collapse]
Shaliapin, Fedor Ivanovich

Name: Fedor Ivanovich Shaliapin

Lived: 1873 – 1938

Notes: Russian operatic bass. Powerful and supple voice, a tremendous physique, and superb acting ability made him one of the greatest performers in the history of opera. Left Russia in 1922.

[collapse]
Shatalin, Stanislav Sergeevich

Name: Stanislav Sergeevich Shatalin

Lived: 1934 – 1997

Notes: Radical economist who emphasized the country’s need to introduce market relations, and was a principle author of the 500 Days Plan of 1990, a last gasp effort at economic reform before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[collapse]
Shatrov, Mikhail Filippovich

Name: Mikhail Filippovich Shatrov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Playwright best known for his eight plays about Lenin that often managed to include a note of unorthodoxy.

[collapse]
Shatunovskaia, Olga Grigorievna

Name: Olga Grigorievna Shatunovskaia

Lived: 1901 – 1991

Notes: Leading Party worker in Moscow arrested in 1938 on charges of Trotskyite activity. She was rehabilitated in 1954, and her account of conversations with prisoners involved with the Kirov trials were an important part of Khrushchev’s charges that Stalin was behind the murder.

[collapse]
Shchedrin

Name: Shchedrin

Notes: Saltykov-Shchedrin

[collapse]
Shchelokov, Nikolai Anisimovich

Name: Nikolai Anisimovich Shchelokov

Lived: 1910 – 1984

Notes: Soviet official close to both Brezhnev and Chernenko and who gained notoriety for corruption.

[collapse]
Shcherbitskii, Vladimir Vasilievich

Name: Vladimir Vasilievich Shcherbitskii

Lived: 1918 – 1990

Notes: Ukrainian Party leader, chairman of the Ukrainian Soviet of Ministers 1965-72, last Brezhnevite to hold a seat in Gorbachev’s Politburo.

[collapse]
Shchipachev, Stepan Petrovich

Name: Stepan Petrovich Shchipachev

Lived: 1899 – 1980

Notes: Born into a poor peasant family, joined the Red Army in 1917. Part of an army literary unit in 1930.

[collapse]
Shchors, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Shchors

Lived: 1895 – 1919

Notes: Ukrainian hero of the Civil War, who fought German and Polish invaders, and the White Forces of Petliura, before his death in battle.

[collapse]
Shchukin, Anatolii

Name: Anatolii Shchukin

Lived: –

Notes: A poet, appeared in the samizdat publications Phoenix 1961 and Phoenix 1966.

[collapse]
Shebalin, Vissarion Iakovlevich

Name: Vissarion Iakovlevich Shebalin

Lived: 1902 – 1963

Notes: Composer who became director of the Moscow Conservatory, 1942-1948.

[collapse]
Shelepin, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Shelepin

Lived: 1918 – 1994

Notes: Chairman of the KGB from 1958-1961. Once heir apparent to Khrushchev who became a full member of the Politburo in 1964, but lost power gradually after Brezhnev’s rise to power. Demoted from the Politburo in 1975.

[collapse]
Shelest, Petro Iukhymovych

Name: Petro Iukhymovych Shelest

Lived: 1908 – 1996

Notes: First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist party, and member of the Politburo, forced into retirement by Brezhnev in 1973 for alleged Ukrainian national tendencies.

[collapse]
Shevardnadze, Eduard Amvrosievich

Name: Eduard Amvrosievich Shevardnadze

Lived: 1928 – 2014

Notes: Georgian politician rose as head of the Georgian NKVD, 1965-72, and Georgian party chief, 1972-85, then served as Gorbachev’s Foreign Minister and close supporter, and later as president of independent Georgia, from 1995 until removed from power in the Rose Revolution of 2003.

[collapse]
Shklovskii, Viktor Borisovich

Name: Viktor Borisovich Shklovskii

Lived: 1893 – 1984

Notes: Russian writer, literary scholar, one of the founders of Russian formalism.

[collapse]
Shliapnikov, Aleksandr Gavrilovich

Name: Aleksandr Gavrilovich Shliapnikov

Lived: 1885 – 1937

Notes: Industrial worker active in the 1905 revolution, subsequently in emigration. In April 1917 became Chairman of the Metal Workers’ Trade Union, and served in that post until 1921. After the October Revolution was appointed the first People’s Commissar of Labor. He served in the army during the Civil War. In 1919-21 he was a leader of the ‘Workers’ Opposition” and afterwards was often under fire for his oppositional views. Under exile and arrest from 1934, he was shot in 1937.

[collapse]
Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

Name: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov

Lived: 1905 – 1985

Notes: Don Cossack novelist best known for QUIET FLOWS THE DON (1928-1940) and other novels and stories. Loyal but not orthodox member of the Soviet literary establishment, awarded Nobel Prize in 1965.

[collapse]
Shostakovich, Dmitrii Dmitrievich

Name: Dmitrii Dmitrievich Shostakovich

Lived: 1906 – 1975

Notes: Composer of fifteen symphonies, chamber music, and the opera, LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

[collapse]
Sklianskii, Efraim Markovich

Name: Efraim Markovich Sklianskii

Lived: 1892 – 1925

Notes: Doctor, joined RSDRP in 1913. After the October Revolution became chairman of the committee of the Fifth Army in Dvinsk. Appointed Supreme Commissar on 25 November, two days after being appointed deputy People’s Commissar for Military Affairs. Elected to the Constituent Assembly on 28 November as a delegate for the Northern Front. Throughout the Civil War Trotsky’s most trusted supporter and deputy.

[collapse]
Skriabin, Viacheslav Mikhailovich

Name: Viacheslav Mikhailovich Skriabin

Lived: 1890 – 1986

Alias: Molotov

Notes: See Molotov

[collapse]
Smilga, Ivar Tenisovich

Name: Ivar Tenisovich Smilga

Lived: 1892 – 1937

Notes: Bolshevik revolutionary, later member of the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union. Born in modern Latvia), chairman of the Baltic Fleet Committee in 1917-1918. Later vice-chairman of the Vesenkha (1921-1928), and of the Gosplan from 1924 to 1936. Arrested, tried, and executed as a terrorist in the first Moscow Trial (1937).

[collapse]
Smolich, Nikolai Vasilievich

Name: Nikolai Vasilievich Smolich

Lived: 1888 – 1968

Notes: Opera director, avant-gardist, who directed the premieres of Shostakovich’s operas NOSE The Nose and LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

[collapse]
Sokolnikov, Grigorii Iakovlevich

Name: Grigorii Iakovlevich Sokolnikov

Lived: 1888 – 1939

Notes: Lawyer and economist. Bolshevik from 1905 when he took part in the Moscow uprising. Member of the Moscow Party Committee in April 1917. After the October revolution organized nationalization of banks Signed Brest-Litovsk Treaty in 1918. Between 1918 and 1920 served on the Revolutionary Military Councils of Second, Ninth, Thirteenth and Eighth Armies. From August 1920 in charge of the Turkestan committee of the TsIK and organized Bolshevik takeover in Bukhara. Occupied high positions in finance and industry until fell victim in the purges.

[collapse]
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich

Name: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: Novelist, author of the multi-volume GULAG-ARCHIPELAGO, trenchant critic of Soviet ideology and government who was exiled in 1974

[collapse]
Spiridonova, Mariia Aleksandrovna

Name: Mariia Aleksandrovna Spiridonova

Lived: 1889 – 1941

Notes: Member of the SR party. In 1906 assassinated the Vice Governor of Tambov in retaliation for his persecution of peasants. Sent to Siberia for forced labor; remained until February Revolution. Became a left SR and a member of their Central Committee. Disagreed with the Bolsheviks over the Brest Treaty and helped to organize the left SR uprising in July 1918. Arrested and exiled, subject to frequent repressions until shot in 1941.

[collapse]
Stakhanov, Aleksei

Name: Aleksei Stakhanov

Lived: 1905 – 1976

Notes: Coalminer whose production record of August 1935 inaugurated the Stakhanovite movement

[collapse]
Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich

Name: Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin

Lived: 1879 – 1953

Notes: General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1922 until his death in 1953. Stalin’s increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to his becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country. He initiated a series of gruesome purges in the 1930s that eliminated his opponents and consolidated his power. Under Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War and went on to achieve the status of superpower. His crash programs of industrialization and collectivization in the 1930s, World War II casualties, along with his ongoing campaigns of political repression, are estimated to have cost the lives of up to 20 million people.

[collapse]
Stiedry, Fritz

Name: Fritz Stiedry

Lived: 1883 – 1968

Notes: Conductor, Mahler’s assistant in the Vienna Opera. In 1933 he emigrated to the USSR, where he was conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic. He led the premiere of Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto. After the war one of the principal conductors of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

[collapse]
Struve, Petr Berngardovich

Name: Petr Berngardovich Struve

Lived: 1870 – 1944

Notes: One of the earliest Russian Marxist theorists. Although he drafted the first manifesto of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1898, Struve changed his politics in 1902 and joined the liberal Kadet party. During Civil War, foreign minister of Wrangel’s ‘White’ government in the Crimea. Died in Paris. Became a Bolshevik in 1903. Member of the Bolshevik Central Committee since 1913. Played leading role in the October Revolution and became Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and was one of the most able Bolshevik administrators.

[collapse]
Stuchka, Petr Ivanovich

Name: Petr Ivanovich Stuchka

Lived: 1865 – 1932

Notes: Born Pēteris Stučka in Latvia, was head of the Bolshevik government in Latvia during its war of independence (1918-1920). During the 1920s, a leading legal theoretician promoting the “revolutionary” or “proletarian” model of socialist legality.

[collapse]
Sudrabs

Name: Sudrabs

Notes: See Latsis, Martin Ivanovich

[collapse]
Sukhanov, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Sukhanov

Lived: 1882 – 1940

Alias: Originally Gimmer

Notes: Economist, Left Menshevik from 1917, worked in Soviet economic organizations after Revolution. Wrote memoir, NOTES ABOUT THE REVOLUTION (1922-23)

[collapse]
Sverdlov, Iakov Mikhailovich

Name: Iakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov

Lived: 1885 – 1919

Notes: Became a Bolshevik in 1903. Member of the Bolshevik Central Committee since 1913. Played leading role in the October Revolution and became Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and was one of the most able Bolshevik administrators.

[collapse]
Thant, U

Name: U Thant

Lived: 1909 – 1974

Notes: Burmese diplomat and third Secretary General of the United Nations, 1961-1971.

[collapse]
Timiriazev, Kliment Arkadievich

Name: Kliment Arkadievich Timiriazev

Lived: 1843 – 1920

Notes: Botanist, physiologist who established a vegetable physiology laboratory at the Petrov Academy. His enthusiasm for the young Soviet regime was rewarded when it was renamed the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

[collapse]
Tito, Josif

Name: Josif Tito

Lived: 1892 – 1980

Notes: See Broz, Josif. Yugoslav war-time guerilla leader and post-WW II head of Communist government whose independent stance in the face of Stalin®s orders helped split the international communist movement.

[collapse]
Todorovskii, Aleksandr Ivanovich

Name: Aleksandr Ivanovich Todorovskii

Lived: 1894 – 1965

Notes: Soviet military leader, commissar of the Air Force Academy 1933-36, purged and arrested in 1938, rehabilitated in 1953.

[collapse]
Tomskii, Mikhail Pavlovich

Name: Mikhail Pavlovich Tomskii

Lived: 1880 – 1937

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1904. Member of the Petrograd Executive Committee after the February Revolution. Chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions, 1919-28.

[collapse]
Topchiev, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasil’evich Topchiev

Lived: 1907 – 1962

Notes: Chemist, Chief Academic Secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Khrushchev years

[collapse]
Toporova, Z. N.

Name: Z. N. Toporova

Lived: –

Notes: defense attorney (for Brodsky?)

[collapse]
Trapeznikov, Sergei Pavlovich

Name: Sergei Pavlovich Trapeznikov

Lived: 1912 – 1984

Notes: Specialist in the history of Soviet agricultural policies, head of the Science and Education Department of the Party Secretariat, 1965-83, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences

[collapse]
Tretiakov, Sergei

Name: Sergei Tretiakov

Lived: 1892 – 1939

Notes: Avant-garde playwright, who worked with Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Mayakovsky. Bertolt Brecht considered Tretyakov one of his teachers in the field of Marxism. He was shot during the Great Terror.

[collapse]
Trotsky, Leon

Name: Leon Trotsky

Lived: 1879 – 1940

Alias: Born Lev Davydovich Bronstein

Notes: Social Democrat from 1896, exiled to Siberia in 1901, escaped to London in 1902. Sided with Mensheviks at II Congress in 1903. Played leading role in St Petersburg Soviet in 1905. Arrested and deported to Siberia for life in 1906. Escaped en route. Returned to Petrograd in May 1917 and joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917. Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and of its Military Revolutionary Committee in September 1917. Played important role in October Revolution. People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, November 1917-February 1918. Founder of the Red Army. People’s Commissar for Military Affairs, February 1918-December 1922, leader of the Civil War victory. Central Committee, 1917-27, Politbiuro, 1919-26. Bitter struggle with Stalin for power led to his eventual dismissal from posts, exclusion from the Party in 1927, exile to Alma-Ata and then abroad in 1929. Long career in exile as bitter critic of Stalin, ended when murdered by NKVD agent in Mexico.

[collapse]
Tsederbaum, Iulii Osipovich

Name: Iulii Osipovich Tsederbaum

Lived: 1873 – 1923

Alias: Martov

Notes: See Martov. Russian revolutionary, Menshevik leader exiled in 1921. Editorial board of ISKRA from 1900, Menshevik from 1903. Participated in Pre-Parliment of mid-1917, but saw October Revolution as a catastrophe. Strong critic of dictatorial tendencies of Bolsheviks. Emigrated 1920.

[collapse]
Tseretelli, Iraklii Georgievich

Name: Iraklii Georgievich Tseretelli

Lived: 1881 – 1959

Notes: A Menshevik leader during the Russian Revolution of 1917, and one of the Menshevik leaders of Georgia before it fell under Soviet power in 1921.

[collapse]
Tsiolkovskii, Konstantin Eduardovich

Name: Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii

Lived: 1857 – 1935

Notes: Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of astronautic theory, lionized by Soviet patriots as the father of heavier-than-air flight and space travel.

[collapse]
Tsiurupa, Aleksandr Dmitrevich

Name: Aleksandr Dmitrevich Tsiurupa

Lived: 1870 – 1928

Notes: Social Democrat from 1898. During the October Revolution was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Ufa. Appointed deputy People’s Commissar for Food in December 1917. Later became Commissar and held post until 1921

[collapse]
Tso-lin, Chang

Name: Chang Tso-lin

Lived: 1873 – 1928

Alias: Zhang Zuolin in Pinyin transliteration

Notes: Chinese warlord and military leader under the Kuomintang government, who ruled Manchuria from 1920 until his assassination by Japanese militarists.

[collapse]
Tsoi, Viktor Robertovich

Name: Viktor Robertovich Tsoi

Lived: 1962 – 1990

Notes: Soviet rock star, lead singer of the group KINO, who died in a motorcycle crash and was memorialized in graffiti and informal memorials throughout the country.

[collapse]
Tu-hsiu, Chen

Name: Ch’en Tu-hsiu

Lived: 1879 – 1942

Alias: Chen Duxiu in Pinyin transliteration

Notes: Chinese educator and Communist party leader. One of the founders of the Chinese party, he was dismissed and withdrew from the party in 1927 over his opposition to the Comintern-sponsored armed insurrection.

[collapse]
Tugan-Baranovskii, Mikhail Ivanovich

Name: Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovskii

Lived: 1865 – 1919

Notes: Economics professor at St Petersburg University. ‘Legal’ Marxist. In 1918 Minister of Finance in short-lived Ukrainian government of Hetman Skoropadsky.

[collapse]
Tukhachevskii, Mikhail Nikolaevich

Name: Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevskii

Lived: 1893 – 1937

Notes: Officer in 1914 and taken prisoner in 1915. Escaped and returned in October 1917. Joined Party in August 1918 and became a commissar of the Moscow Military District. In 1921 he organized and directed military operations against the Kronstadt mutineers. Brilliant strategist who rose through party and military, became Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935, two years before he fell victim in the military purges.

[collapse]
Tulin

Name: Tulin

Lived: –

Notes: ‘K. Tulin’ was Lenin’s first pseudonym, which he used between 1895 and 1900.

[collapse]
Tynianov, Iurii Nikolaevich

Name: Iurii Nikolaevich Tynianov

Lived: 1894 – 1943

Notes: Writer and literary scholar.

[collapse]
Ulrikh, Vasilii Vasilievich

Name: Vasilii Vasilievich Ulrikh

Lived: 1889 – 1951

Notes: Military jurist who served in the Cheka during the Civil War. Later a senior judge during most of Stalin’s regime. Ulrikh served as the presiding judge at many of the major show trials.

[collapse]
Uritskii, Moiseei

Name: Moiseei Uritskii

Lived: 1873 – 1918

Notes: First leader of the Cheka, assassinated by SRs in 1918.

[collapse]
Valk, Robert Robertovich

Name: Robert Robertovich Val’k

Lived: –

Notes: See Falk, Robert

[collapse]
Varga, Eugene

Name: Eugene Varga

Lived: 1879 – 1964

Notes: People’s Commissar of Finance in Bela Kun’s Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919); later a distinguished Soviet economist.

[collapse]
Vertinskii, Aleksandr

Name: Aleksandr Vertinskii

Lived: 1889 – 1957

Notes: Popular singer, poet, composer and actor, a founder of the genre of guitar poetry, Vertinskii’s songs of the high life and decadence endeared him to generations of Russians and Soviets.

[collapse]
Vinogradova, A. N.

Name: A. N. Vinogradova

Lived: –

Notes: Weaver, Bolshaia Dmitrovskaia Factory, Ivanovo, and model production leader who was celebrated as a Stakhanovite worker, along with her sister Dusya.

[collapse]
Vinogradova, Evdokiia Viktorovna (Dusya)

Name: Evdokiia Viktorovna (Dusya) Vinogradova

Lived: 1914 – 1962

Notes: Celebrated Stakhanovite weaver and sister of A.N. Vinogradova.

[collapse]
Vishnevskaia, Galina Pavlovna

Name: Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaia

Lived: 1926 – 2012

Notes: Soprano. Shostakovich’s vocal cycle Satires and his instrumentation of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death are dedicated to her. She sang the premieres of these works and sang in the first performance of the Fourteenth Symphony. In 1978 she and her husband, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, were stripped of Soviet citizenship for “systematic acts that bring harm to the prestige of the Soviet Union.” Thereafter, Vishnevskaia’s name was removed from all Soviet reference works.

[collapse]
Vishnevskii, Vsevolod Vitalievich

Name: Vsevolod Vitalievich Vishnevskii

Lived: 1900 – 1951

Notes: Playwright. Took part in the Petrograd rebellion in 1917, and fought in the Civil War as a machine gunner and political agitator in the Red Fleet. Later he was a frontline correspondent for Pravda during WWII, and was in Leningrad during the blockade. His greatest success in the theater came in the 1930s, when he produced WE ARE FROM KRONSHTADT, LAST DECISIVE MAN, and OPTIMISTIC TRAGEDY.

[collapse]
Vlasov, Aleksandr Vladimirovich

Name: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Vlasov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR 1986-1988, during the initial period of loosening civil society.

[collapse]
Vlasov, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Vlasov

Lived: 1901 – 1946

Notes: Joined the Red Army in 1920, commanded an army corps in Second World War. Upon capture by Germans, formed the anti-Soviet Russian Liberation Army from prisoners-of-war. Sentenced to death after capture at end of war

[collapse]
Volkogonov, Dmitrii Antonovich

Name: Dmitrii Antonovich Volkogonov

Lived: 1928 – 1995

Notes: Historian and army general whose biographies of Lenin and Trotsky received accolades in the 1990s.

[collapse]
Volodarskii, V.

Name: V. Volodarskii

Lived: 1891 – 1918

Notes: Real name: Golshtein. Revolutionary at the age of 14 under the influence of the 1905 revolution.1913 departure to America. Returned to Russia after the February revolution, soon becoming a Bolshevik. Member of the Petrograd Party Committee, one of the finest propagandists. Member of the Petrograd Soviet, later of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Editor of the newspaper Krasnaia Gazeta, Petrograd. Commissar for the Press, Propaganda and Agitation of the Petrograd Commune. Murdered on June 20, 1918.

[collapse]
Volpin

Name: Volpin

Notes: See Esenin-Volpin

[collapse]
Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich

Name: Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov

Lived: 1881 – 1969

Notes: Bolshevik and an active revolutionary from 1903. Outstanding Red Army commander in the civil war. Commissar for military and naval affairs, later defense (1925-1940), Voroshilov helped reorganize the Red Army. Commander of the northwestern front in World War II. Member of the Politburo from 1926 and of the Supreme Soviet from 1937. Close associate of Stalin, he was implicated by Khrushchev in the 1957 “antiparty faction”, and was forced to resign and dropped from the Central Committee in 1961.

[collapse]
Vyshinskii, Andrei Ianuarevich

Name: Andrei Ianuar’evich Vyshinskii

Lived: 1883 – 1954

Notes: Prosecutor of Judicial Collegia of Supreme Tribunal of the RSFSR, 1933-1939, during which time he conducted the most vicious purge trials. Also occupied various other high posts in the Soviet government, including foreign minister, until his death.

[collapse]
William of Occam

Name: William of Occam Lived: 1285 – 1349

Notes: English scholastic philosopher. Namesake of Occam’s Razor, the principle that “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.”

[collapse]
Wojtyla, Karol

Name: Karol Wojtyla

Lived: 1920 – 2005

Title: Pope

Alias: John Paul II

Notes: Native of Poland, 264th Pope of the Catholic Church. He was the first non-Italian pope since the sixteenth century. His early reign was marked by his opposition to communism, and he is often credited as one of the forces which contributed to its collapse in Eastern Europe. His 1979 journey to Poland electrified his compatriots and was a major impetus for the founding of the Solidarity movement.

[collapse]
Yu-Siang, Feng

Name: Feng Yu-Siang

Lived: 1882 – 1948

Notes: Also Feng Yu-hsiang. Warlord in Republican China, nicknamed the ‘Christian General’. Feng at controlled most of north-central China by 1929, but was soon defeated by forces loyal to Chiang Kai-shek.

[collapse]
Zasulich, Vera Ivanovna

Name: Vera Ivanovna Zasulich

Lived: 1851 – 1919

Notes: Began her political career as a Narodnik. She attempted, aged seventeen, to assassinate Trepov, military governor of St Petersburg. Was tried but acquitted and allowed to escape abroad. Became a Marxist in the early 1800s and was one of the first members of the Russian Social Democratic party.

[collapse]
Zhdanov, Iurii Andreevich

Name: Iurii Andreevich Zhdanov

Lived: 1919 – 2006

Notes: Russian chemist, rector of Rostov State University from 1957 to 1988; son of Andrei Zhdanov and former husband of Svetlana Alliluyeva.

[collapse]
Zinoviev, Grigorii Evseevich

Name: Grigorii Evseevich Zinoviev

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Notes: Bolshevik from 1903. Returned to Russia with Lenin. Opposed him on April Theses at first; also opposed to taking power in October. Appointed Chairman of the Northern Commune when government moved to Moscow. Chairman of the Comintern from its foundation until 1926. Joined Stalin and Kamenev in struggle with Trotsky in 1926, but soon fell out of Stalin’s favor. Arrested in 1934, executed in 1936.

[collapse]

 

Glossary

ACSSR

Autonomous Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic.

AES

Atomic-electric station.

AKhRR

(Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia) Artistic organization that promoted the “proletarianization” of the visual arts during the Cultural Revolution. Active in Moscow and Leningrad in 1922-32.

AMO

Automobile Manufacturing Company, established in 1916 in Moscow.

ARA

The private charitable relief effort organized to help Volga region during the great famine of 1921-23.
Headed by Herbert Hoover, it operated the American Volga Relief Society (AVRS), created by a merger of theVolga Relief Society (VRS), which solicited funds from Volga German communities in America for the relief of relatives in Russia, and the Central States Volga Relief Society (CSVRS), which arose at the same time in Nebraska.

ARCEC

All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

ASSR

A territorial and administrative subdivision of some union republics, created to grant a degree of administrative autonomy to some major minority groups. Directly subordinate to its union republic. In 1989 the Soviet Union had twenty autonomous republics, sixteen of which were in the Russian Republic.

ATSSR

Autonomous Turkestan Socialist Soviet Republic.

AUCCTU

All-Union Central Council of the Trade Unions.

AVIAKhIM

Society of Friends of the Airforce and Chemicas Industry, a semi-official organization popular in 1920s and ’30s.

Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Home academy of Trofim Lysenko, the biologist who dominated scientific life after the war and whose hostility to Mendelian genetics destroyed the Soviet biological sciences.

Academy of Sciences

The Soviet Union’s most prestigious scholarly institute, which conducted basic research in the physical, natural, mathematical, and social sciences. Established in 1725 by Peter the Great, it carried out long-range research and developed new technology. Union republics also had academies of sciences. The Academy of Sciences was under the direction of the Council of Ministers. (Alternative term: Akademiia nauk.)

Agentstvo pechati novosti; NPA

News Press Agency. The news agency responsible for disseminating Soviet information abroad in the post-Khrushchev era. (The word novost’ means news or something new.)

Akademiia nauk

The Soviet Union’s most prestigious scholarly institute, which conducted basic research in the physical, natural, mathematical, and social sciences. Established in 1725 by Peter the Great, it carried out long-range research and developed new technology. Union republics also had academies of sciences. The Academy of Sciences was under the direction of the Council of Ministers. (English: Academy of Sciences.)

All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions; All-Russian Council of Trade Unions

Russian acronym: VTsSPS.

All-Union Central Council of the Trade Unions

English acronym: AUCCTU.

American Relief Administration

The private charitable relief effort organized to help Volga region during the great famine of 1921-23.
Headed by Herbert Hoover, it operated the American Volga Relief Society (AVRS), created by a merger of theVolga Relief Society (VRS), which solicited funds from Volga German communities in America for the relief of relatives in Russia, and the Central States Volga Relief Society (CSVRS), which arose at the same time in Nebraska.

Arbat

One of the principal commercial streets in central Moscow; before reconstruction in the 1970s, one of Moscow’s oldest and most charming neighborhoods.

Artek

A Pioneer summer health camp on the Black Sea coast of Crimea.

Aurora

Russian naval vessel seized in course of October Revolution; used to fire on Winter Palace.

Autocephalous Church

Independent or self-governing; an Orthodox church that was headed by its own patriarch.

Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

A territorial and administrative subdivision of some union republics, created to grant a degree of administrative autonomy to some major minority groups. Directly subordinate to its union republic. In 1989 the Soviet Union had twenty autonomous republics, sixteen of which were in the Russian Republic.

Autonomous oblast

A territorial and administrative subdivision of a union republic or of a krai in the Russian Republic, created to grant a degree of autonomy to a national minority within that krai or union republic. In 1989 the Soviet Union had eight autonomous oblasts, five of which were in the Russian Republic.

Autonomous okrug

A territorial and administrative subdivision of a krai or oblast in the Russian Republic that granted a degree of administrative autonomy to a nationality; usually found in large, remote areas of sparse population. In 1989 the Soviet Union had ten autonomous okruga, all of which were in the Russian Republic.

acceleration

Under Gorbachev, an on-going effort to speed up the rate of growth and modernization of the economy.

agitprop

Agitation and Propaganda Department, established by the Central Committee of the party in 1920. Absorbed by the Ideological Department in 1988. The term agitprop means the use of mass media to mobilize the public to accomplish the regime’s demands.

aktiv

Local Communist Party activists, recognizable by their constant involvement in official community affairs.

all-union

National, with purview throughout the entire territory of the Soviet Union.

all-union ministries

Ministries of the Soviet central government that did not have counterpart ministries at the republic level. Other ministries were termed union-republic ministries.

anarcho-syndicalism

Radical ideological current and movement preaching all power to producers.

apparat

Soviet or party office with administrative responsibilities; often used perjoratively to refer to the Soviet bureaucracy.

apparatchik

Russian colloquial expression for a person of the party apparatus, i.e., an individual who has been engaged full time in the work of the CPSU. Often used in a derogatory sense.

arioso

In classical music, arioso is a style of solo opera singing between recitative and aria.

ariq

Irrigational ditches that ran alongside roads in Central Asia.

arshin

unit of length equal to two feet, four inches.

artel

Russian artisans’ or farm co-operative.

ataman

Cossack chief; the word was also used for the heads of criminal gangs during the first decade following the October Revolution.

aul

A fortified village often found in the Caucasus region.

autonomous republic

A territorial and administrative subdivision of some union republics, created to grant a degree of administrative autonomy to some major minority groups. Directly subordinate to its union republic. In 1989 the Soviet Union had twenty autonomous republics, sixteen of which were in the Russian Republic.

BAM

A second trans-Siberian railroad, running 100 to 500 kilometers north of the original Trans-Siberian Railway and extending 3,145 kilometers from the western terminus at Ust’-Kut to the eastern terminus at Komsomol’sk-na- Amure. Opened in 1989, the BAM was designed and built to relieve traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railway, lessen rail traffic’s vulnerability to Chinese military incursion, and facilitate transport of natural resources from huge, unexploited deposits in eastern Siberia. (English: Baikal-Amur Main Line; alternative term: Baikalo-Amurskaia Magistral’.)

BSSR

Belorussian Socialist Soviet Republic; or Bukharan Socialist Soviet Republic.

Baikal-Amur Main Line

A second trans-Siberian railroad, running 100 to 500 kilometers north of the original Trans-Siberian Railway and extending 3,145 kilometers from the western terminus at Ust’-Kut to the eastern terminus at Komsomol’sk-na- Amure. Opened in 1989, the BAM was designed and built to relieve traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railway, lessen rail traffic’s vulnerability to Chinese military incursion, and facilitate transport of natural resources from huge, unexploited deposits in eastern Siberia.

Baikalo-Amurskaia Magistral’

A second trans-Siberian railroad, running 100 to 500 kilometers north of the original Trans-Siberian Railway and extending 3,145 kilometers from the western terminus at Ust’-Kut to the eastern terminus at Komsomol’sk-na- Amure. Opened in 1989, the BAM was designed and built to relieve traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railway, lessen rail traffic’s vulnerability to Chinese military incursion, and facilitate transport of natural resources from huge, unexploited deposits in eastern Siberia.

Baikonur

Rocket launching site in Kazakhstan.

Basmachi

Central Asian “bandits” who opposed Soviet power, especially active in early 1920s.

Basmachi Rebellion

A sporadic and protracted revolt by Central Asian Muslims against Soviet rule beginning in 1918 and continuing in some parts of Central Asia until 1931.

Bezbozhnik

Godless, the title of a journal issued by the Society of the Militant Godless in the 1920s and ’30s.

Black Hundreds

The Union, called the Black Hundreds by their opponents, were right-wing, proto-fascist extremist organization that took as its mission the maintenance of the truest traditions of the Russian people. Made the first extensive use of the ‘pogrom’ as a form of organized anti-Semitic terror. (Russian: chernosotensty; alternative term: Union of the Russian People.)

Black Marias

Cars used by the NKVD to transport people who had been arrested during and after the Great Terror.

Bloknot agitatora

(Agitator’s Notebook) Pocket-sized booklet issued weekly to suggest timely slogans and brief arguments to be used in speeches and conversations among the masses. Published by the Propaganda Departments of regional and city party committees of the Communist Party, and from 1942 by Soviet Communist Party twice monthly. The publication gained readers in the late 1950s due to its section on City History Facts. In 1987 the Bloknot Agitatora was renamed Dialog and its format enlarged. The publication was shut down in 1991.

Bol’shevik

Faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party that seized power during the October Revolution. Also a journal, later renamed Kommunist.

Bolsheviki; RKP(B); Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

A member of the radical group within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which, under Vladimir I. Lenin’s leadership, staged the Bolshevik Revolution. The term bol’shevik means a member of the majority (bol’shenstvo) and was applied to the radical members of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party after they won a majority of votes cast at a party congress in 1903. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks formed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) and began calling themselves Communists. That party was the precursor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

Bolsheviks

A member of the radical group within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which, under Vladimir I. Lenin’s leadership, staged the Bolshevik Revolution. The term bol’shevik means a member of the majority (bol’shenstvo) and was applied to the radical members of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party after they won a majority of votes cast at a party congress in 1903. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks formed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) and began calling themselves Communists. That party was the precursor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

Brezhnev Doctrine

The Soviet Union’s declared right to intervene militarily to prevent other states from eliminating the leading role of the communist party and returning to capitalism once they have achieved socialism. First expressed after Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring in 1968 and used as justification for the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In the late 1980s, Mikhail S. Gorbachev made statements interpreted by some in the West as repudiating the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Bukhara

One of the centers of Central Asian Muslim culture, located in Uzbekistan.

Butyrki

Prison in Moscow.

baba

Derogatory term for elderly woman, usually peasant.

bagmen

Illegal traders during Russian civil war.

bai

Wealthy Central Asian landlord.

balance of payments

The international transactions of a country, including commodity and service transactions, capital transactions, and gold movements.

balance of trade

The relationship between a country’s exports and imports.

banya

Traditional Russian steam bath.

bast shoe

Soft shoes made of the bark of a tree, and worn by the poorer peasants.

batiushka

Sire: traditional Russian title of respect, whether of peasants for their master, or all Russians for their tsar.

bedniak

Poor peasant, owning some land but usually not enough to support a family.

bednota

The poorest sector of the rural community, used as a wedge against wealthier peasants (kulaks) during collectivization. Also a Soviet newspaper in 1920s devoted to interests of poor peasants.

besprizornye

Orphaned or abandoned children who were particularly numerous during the 1920s.

blat

Profitable connections, influence, pull, or illegal dealings, usually for personal gain.

blatnoi

Goods and services obtained via unofficial system of exchange; also refers to the culture and society of the criminal underworld.

bogatyr

Knight; hero of traditional Russian tales.

borshch

beet soup, a specialty of Russian and Ukrainian cuisine

byt

daily life

CARC

State council (1944-1965) that kept a watch on and sometimes supervised church affairs after the reestablishment of the Patriarchate in 1943. (English: Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults.)

CEC

All-Russian, later All-Union executive arm of the Soviet government, the effective ruling body of the Soviet governmental system. (English: Central Executive Committee; Russian acronym: TsIK; alternative terms: VTsIK; Tsentral’nyi ispolnitel’nyi komitet.)

CEMA; CMEA

(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). A multilateral economic alliance headquartered in Moscow; it existed from 1949-91. Members in 1989 were Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Comecon was created in January 1949, ostensibly to promote economic development of member states through cooperation and specialization, but actually to enforce Soviet economic domination of Eastern Europe and to provide a counterweight to the Marshall Plan.

CER

Chinese-Eastern Railway. Built by Russia in 1897-1903; claimed by Japan after its occupation of Manchuria in 1931; sold to Japan in 1935.

CIS

Commonwealth of Independent States. (SNG: Sodruzhestvo nezavisimykh gosudarstv). Official designation of the former republics that remained loosely federated in economic and security matters of common concern, after the Soviet Union disbanded as a unified nation in 1991. Members in 1993 were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

CP; VKPb; VKPU; VKP; VSKP(b)

Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The official name of the communist party in the Soviet Union since 1952. Originally the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the party was named the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) from March 1918 to December 1925, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) from December 1925 to October 1952, and the CPSU thereafter.

CPC

Communist Party of China.

CPSU

The official name of the communist party in the Soviet Union since 1952. Originally the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the party was named the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) from March 1918 to December 1925, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) from December 1925 to October 1952, and the CPSU thereafter.

CSCE

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Originating at the meeting that produced the Helsinki Accords in 1975, a grouping of all European nations (the lone exception, Albania, joined in 1991) that subsequently sponsored joint sessions and consultations on political issues vital to European security.

CSSR

Czechoslovak Soviet Socialist Republic.

Cadets

Constitutional Democratic Party (1906-17); moderate liberals.

Carpatho-Ukraine

An area historically belonging to Hungary but, attached to Czechoslovakia from 1918 to October 1938. In October 1938, Carpatho-Ukraine became autonomous, and in March 1939, it became independent as Subcarpathian Ruthenia. But Hungary occupied it nine days later and after World War II, ceded the area to the Soviet Union. Populated mostly by Ukrainians, who, prior to World War II, were sometimes referred to as Ruthenians. (Alternative term: Subcarpathian Ruthenia.)

Central Black-Earth Region

Literally, black earth. The zone of rich, black soil that extends across the southwestern Soviet Union. (Russian: chernozem.)

Central Bureau of Statistics

Central Statistics Department of the government. (Russian acronym: TsSU; alternative term: Tsentral’noe statisticheskoe upravlenie.)

Central Committee of the Communist Party

Central ruling body of the Soviet Communist Party. Membership in the Central Committee was a mark of the highest Soviet elite. The business of the Central Committee was directed by the Politburo in the periods between its congresses.  (Russian acronym: TsK; alternative term: Tsentral’nyi komitet.)

Central Control Commission

Highest body of the Communist Party (1920-34) for supervision of party members; it served as the instrument of the initial party purges in the early 1930s.

Central Executive Committee

All-Russian, later All-Union executive arm of the Soviet government, the effective ruling body of the Soviet governmental system.

Central Powers

Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey (Ottoman Empire) in World War I.

Cheka

The political police created by the Bolsheviks in 1917; supposed to be dissolved when the new regime, under Lenin, had defeated its enemies and secured its power. But the Vecheka, also known as the Cheka, continued until 1922, becoming the leading instrument of terror and oppression as well as the predecessor of other secret police organizations. Members of successor security organizations continued to be referred to as “Chekisty” in the late 1980s.

Cheliuskin Arctic expedition

Soviet ship under command of Otto Schmidt which attempted to navigate sea from Murmansk to Vladivostok in 1933 but became stuck in ice and was rescued.

Chernobyl’

A town in the Ukrainian Republic, site of the world’s most catastropic nuclear accident. On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl’ nuclear power plant exploded and irradiated areas as far away as Sweden. Most radioactivity contaminated large sections of rich farmland in the Ukrainian, Russian, and Belorussian republics and affected millions of their inhabitants. Soviet and Western experts believe that damage to the people’s health, to the economy, and to the environment will be felt for decades. As of 1989, the accident had cost hundreds of lives and billions of rubles, caused a major slowdown in what had been an ambitious nuclear energy program, and provided an impetus to the fledgling environmental movement in the Soviet Union. Although the accident was caused by a combination of human error and faulty reactor design, the remaining three reactors at the Chernobyl’ power plant and reactors of this type remained operational elsewhere in the Soviet Union in 1989.

Chinese-Eastern Railway

Built by Russia in 1897-1903; claimed by Japan after its occupation of Manchuria in 1931; sold to Japan in 1935.

Comecon

(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). A multilateral economic alliance headquartered in Moscow; it existed from 1949-91. Members in 1989 were Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Comecon was created in January 1949, ostensibly to promote economic development of member states through cooperation and specialization, but actually to enforce Soviet economic domination of Eastern Europe and to provide a counterweight to the Marshall Plan.

Cominform

Communist Information Bureau. An international organization of communist parties, founded and controlled by the Soviet Union in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. The Cominform published propaganda touting international communist solidarity but was primarily a tool of Soviet foreign policy.

Comintern

An international organization of communist parties founded by Lenin in 1919. Initially, it attempted to control the international socialist movement and to foment world revolution; later, it also became an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Dissolved by Stalin in 1943 as a conciliatory measure toward his Western allies.

Commonwealth of Independent States

(SNG: Sodruzhestvo nezavisimykh gosudarstv). Official designation of the former republics that remained loosely federated in economic and security matters of common concern, after the Soviet Union disbanded as a unified nation in 1991. Members in 1993 were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Communist Party of Germany

Communist Party of Germany in the years following the First World War.

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The official name of the communist party in the Soviet Union since 1952. Originally the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the party was named the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) from March 1918 to December 1925, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) from December 1925 to October 1952, and the CPSU thereafter.

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Originating at the meeting that produced the Helsinki Accords in 1975, a grouping of all European nations (the lone exception, Albania, joined in 1991) that subsequently sponsored joint sessions and consultations on political issues vital to European security.

Congress of People’s Deputies

The highest organ of legislative and executive authority, according to the Soviet Constitution. Existed in the early Soviet period as the Congress of Soviets and was resurrected in 1988 by constitutional amendment.

Congress of Soviets

First met in June 1917 and elected the All-Russian Central Committee of over 250 members dominated by the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet. The Second Congress of Soviets met on October 25, 1917, one day offer the start of the Bolshevik Revolution. Dominated by Bolshevik delegates the Second Congress of Soviets approved the Bolshevik coup d’¦tat and the decrees on peace and loud issued by Lenin. It also confirmed the Council of People’s Commissars, drawn exclusively from Bolshevik Ranks, as the new government and elected the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It adjourned on October 27 and was not reconvened.

Constituent Assembly

Elected in November 1917 on the basis of universal franchise; assembled for one session in January 1918 before being dissolved by Soviet Red Army.

Control Commission

Highest body of the Communist Party (1920-34) for supervision of party members; it served as the instrument of the initial party purges in the early 1930s.

Cossack

Originally peasants, primarily Ukrainian and Russian, who fled from bondage to the lower Dnepr and Don river regions to settle in the frontier areas separating fifteenth-century Muscovy, Poland, and the lands occupied by Tatars. The cossacks, engaged in hunting, fishing, and cattle raising, established permanent settlements and later organized themselves into military formations to resist Tatar raids. Renowned as horsemen, they were absorbed into the Russian army as light cavalry or irregular troops by the late eighteenth century.

Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults

State council (1944-1965) that kept a watch on and sometimes supervised church affairs after the reestablishment of the Patriarchate in 1943.

Council of Defense

The chief decision-making organ of the Soviet national security apparatus, composed of selected members of the Politburo and headed by the general secretary of the CPSU and the chairman of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee.

Council of Labor and Defense

See entry for Soviet of Labor and Defense.

Council of Ministers

The highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet Union, according to the Constitution. In practice, its members directed most day-to-day state activities.

Council of People’s Commissars; Council of People’s Commissaries

The first central institution of the Soviet state, formed immediately after the October Revolution to coordinate the work of the various commissariats. The Sovnarkom had an overlapping and sometimes conflicting mandate with other important Soviet institutions such as the Party, the military, and various economic councils. Renamed the Council of Ministers in 1946.

Cultural Revolution

Policy of Communist Party (1928-31) to proletarianize the arts by removing bourgeois personnel and influences and promoting those of proletarian background.

Cyrillic

An alphabet based on Greek characters that was created in the ninth century to serve as a medium for translating Eastern Orthodox texts into Old Church Slavonic. Named for Cyril, the leader of the first religious mission from Byzantium to the Slavic people, Cyrillic is used in modern Russian and several other Slavic languages.

cadre

Organized group of party activists. A party member who holds a responsible position (usually administrative) in either the party or the government apparatus. In a more restricted sense, a person who has been fully indoctrinated in party ideology and methods and uses this training in his or her work.

centner

One centner =100 kilograms.

chai-khan

Tea house in Central Asia where males congregated for conversation and recreation.

chastushka

Rhymed ditty characteristic of pre-revolutionary popular culture; its salty language could be easily adapted to satiric purposes.

chernosotensty

The Union, called the Black Hundreds by their opponents, were right-wing, proto-fascist extremist organization that took as its mission the maintenance of the truest traditions of the Russian people. Made the first extensive use of the ‘pogrom’ as a form of organized anti-Semitic terror.

chernozem

Literally, black earth. The zone of rich, black soil that extends across the southwestern Soviet Union.

chervonets

Soviet gold-backed ruble introduced in July 1922.

collective farm

(Kollektivnoe khoziaistvo). An agricultural “cooperative” where peasants, under the direction of party-approved plans and leaders, are paid wages based, in part, on the success of their harvest.

collectivization

Stalin’s policy of confiscating privately owned agricultural lands and facilities and consolidating them, the farmers, and their families into large collective farms and state farms. Forced collectivization took place from 1929 to 1937.

combine

An economic entity of an industrial or service nature that consists of several specialized, technologically related enterprises.

commanding heights

The main or crucial levers of the economy (large-scale industry, banking, foreign commerce) controlled by the state during the New Economic Policy.

cosmodrome

Soviet space center.

cult of personality

A term coined by Nikita S. Khrushchev at the Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU in 1956 to describe the rule of Stalin, in which the Soviet people were compelled to deify the dictator. Leonid I. Brezhnev also established a cult of personality around himself, although to a lesser extent than Stalin. Similar cults of saints, heroes, and the just tsar formed a historical basis for the cult of personality.

DDR

German Democratic Republic. East Germany of the divided Cold-War Germanies (see FRG).

DOSAAF

Dobrovol’noe obshchestvo sodeistviia armii, aviatsii i flotu (Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force, and Navy). Responsible for premilitary training of Soviet youth.

DRA

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The socialist government defended by the Soviet invasion of 1979.

Dashnak

Armenian nationalist movement (1880s – 1920s).

Defense Council

The chief decision-making organ of the Soviet national security apparatus, composed of selected members of the Politburo and headed by the general secretary of the CPSU and the chairman of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee.

Defensist

A moderate socialist (or any other leftist) who during the First World War supported the Russian war effort as a defense against aggressive German designs.

Deutsche Demokratische Republik

German Democratic Republic. East Germany of the divided Cold-War Germanies (see FRG).

Dinamo

Sports organization sponsored by Soviet police; name of soccer and hockey teams based in Moscow and other large cities.

Dneproges; Dneprostroi

Dam and hydroelectric station on the Dnepr river near Zaporozh’e built in 1927-32; one of the great construction projects of the Soviet industrial revolution.

Donbass

Donets Basin. A major coal-mining and industrial area located in the southeastern Ukrainian Republic and the adjacent Russian Republic.

Duma

Lower chamber of the Russian Parliament, established by Nicholas II after the Revolution of 1905. Absent during Soviet times, the name was revived for the post-communist Russian legislature.

dekkan

Ordinary peasant in Central Asia.

dekulakization

Euphemism for the forced displacement, exile and often execution of better-off peasants during the years of collectivization that followed 1929.

democratic centralism

A Leninist doctrine requiring discussion of issues until a decision is reached by the party. After a decision is made, discussion concerns only planning and execution. This method of decision making directed lower bodies unconditionally to implement the decisions of higher bodies.

democratization

Campaign initiated by Gorbachev to enable different interest groups to participate in political processes to a greater extent than previously allowed.

demokratizatsiia

Campaign initiated by Gorbachev to enable different interest groups to participate in political processes to a greater extent than previously allowed.

desiatin

Measure of land, 2.7 acres or 1.1 hectares.

detdom

Home for orphaned or abandoned children.

dialectical materialism

A Marxist tenet describing the process by which the class struggle between bourgeois capitalist society and the exploited workers produces the dictatorship of the proletariat and evolves into socialism and, finally, communism.

dictatorship of the proletariat

According to Marxism-Leninism, the early stage of societal organization under socialism after the overthrow of capitalism. It involves workers’ dominance in suppressing the counterrevolutionary resistance of the bourgeois “exploiting classes.”

druzhinniki

Para-police force established under Khrushchev to maintain social order in cities.

dual power

Referring to the uneasy division of real governmental power by Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in the months leading up to the October Revolution.

dvoevlastie

Referring to the uneasy division of real governmental power by Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in the months leading up to the October Revolution.

EBRD

A bank founded under sponsorship of the European Community in 1990, to provide loans to East European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia) to establish independent, market-driven economies and democratic political institutions. Some fifty-eight countries were shareholders in 1992.

EC

A group of primarily economic communities of Western European countries, including the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom or EAEC) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Executive power rested with the European Commission, which implemented and defended the community treaties in the interests of the EC as a whole. Members in 1993 were Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Name changed to European Union (EU), December 1993.

ECCI

Executive Committee of the Communist International.

EKO

(Economics and Organization of Industrial Production) Bi-monthly publication put out by the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1965. Aimed at economists, planners, policy makers, plant managers and others involved in the administration and operation of the Soviet economy.

Eastern-Rite Catholics; Ukrainian Greek Catholic; Ukrainian Uniate Church

A branch of the Catholic Church that preserved the Eastern Rite and discipline but submitted to papal authority. Established in 1596 at the Union of Brest. In the Soviet Union, the Uriate Church is found primarily in the western Ukrainian Republic, where it has been referred to as the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Also known as the Greek Catholic Church or the Byzantine Rite Church.

Eighth Congress

Congress of the Bolshevik Party held in March 1919. Its most important resolution decreed the separation of Party and Soviet organizations.

Ekonomika i organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva

(Economics and Organization of Industrial Production) Bi-monthly publication put out by the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1965. Aimed at economists, planners, policy makers, plant managers and others involved in the administration and operation of the Soviet economy.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

A bank founded under sponsorship of the European Community in 1990, to provide loans to East European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia) to establish independent, market-driven economies and democratic political institutions. Some fifty-eight countries were shareholders in 1992.

European Community

A group of primarily economic communities of Western European countries, including the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom or EAEC) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Executive power rested with the European Commission, which implemented and defended the community treaties in the interests of the EC as a whole. Members in 1993 were Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Name changed to European Union (EU), December 1993.

Exarch

Non-resident church leader, or ruler from outside.

Ezhovshchina

The Great Terror prosecuted under N. I. Ezhov, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs (1936-38).

edinolichnik

Independent farmers; i.e., those peasants who did not join collective farms, most of whom were destroyed or forced into collective farms by the late-1930s.

emploi

A defined range of characters defined for a given actor, which define their acting roles or, for singers, their voice and character range.

enemy of the people

Characterization of victims of the Great Terror (1936-38).

estrada

Genre of popular musical performance, from “estrada” (stage).

executive committee

Executive committee of soviets and the party from the local to the All-Union level.

FRG

Known as West Germany before the reunification of the two Germanys (see DDR).

Federal Republic of Germany

Known as West Germany before the reunification of the two Germanys (see DDR).

Fellow Travellers

Term coined by Trotsky in his 1923 LITERATURE AND REVOLUTION for the talented writers who pursued their own creative paths, but were not hostile to the Bolsheviks. Many of the fellow travellers were in fact sympathetic to Bolshevik policies in the mid-1920s, though some would later suffer under the Stalinist literary establishment.

Finland Station

Railroad station in Petrograd where Lenin arrived in April 1917.

First Clause of the Party Statute

The wording of this clause, which defined Party membership, was one of the sharpest points of difference between Lenin and Martov in the Split of the Russian Social Democratic party into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions.

First Secretary

The title of the head of the CPSU Secretariat that was adopted after Stalin’s death in 1953; used by Khrushchev, and by Brezhnev until 1966 before the title was changed back to General Secretary.

Five-Year Plan

A comprehensive plan that sets the economic goals for a five- year period. Once the Soviet regime stipulated the plan figures, all levels of the economy, from individual enterprises to the national level, were obligated to meet those goals.

Five-hundreder

A worker producing at least 500 percent of quota. See the entry for Stakhanovite.

Fontanka

Graceful canal in the center of Petersburg, associated with painters and poets from Pushkin to Akhmatova.

Formerly TsGAOR (Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv oktiabr’skoi revoliutsii)

Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation).Archival holdings include government institutions of the Russian Empire, Provisional Government, RSFSR, Soviet Union and the Russian Federation from the early nineteenth century until the present. Archives on non-Communist political parties and the emigre community are also held. Catalogues accessible at http://garf.narod.ru/. (Russian acronym: GARF.)

Foros

Resort area on the south coast of the Crimea that was site to the luxurious dachas of the highest members of the Soviet elite.

Fourth Congress of the Third International

Held 1922-23 in Moscow. The Third International was the Bolshevik-dominated Communist international movement, usually known as the ‘Comintern’, so called to distinguish it from the Second or ‘socialist’ International.

fabrichno-zavodskie komitety

Committee elected to exercise workers’ control in 1917; absorbed by trade unions in 1918.

fabzavkom

Committee elected to exercise workers’ control in 1917; absorbed by trade unions in 1918.

face to the countryside

Slogan of the Communist Party; adopted in 1925 to promote interests of peasants.

factory committee

Committee elected to exercise workers’ control in 1917; absorbed by trade unions in 1918.

fartsovshchik

Black-marketeer.

food detachments

Food detachments, better known as Food Requisition Detachments, were groups of armed city workers who were organized either by trade unions or by individual factories and sent to food-surplus regions to requisition grain from the peasants. The organization of these detachments was authorized by the Soviet government on August 6, 1918.

GAKhN

Gosudarstvennaia akademiia khudozhevennykh nauk (Soviet Academy of Arts), which enforced the standard of socialist realism during the years of Stalinism, and beyond. Members of the academy were given great benefits in Soviet society, and artists who were not included had difficulty exhibiting their works or making a living as an artist.

GARF

Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation).Archival holdings include government institutions of the Russian Empire, Provisional Government, RSFSR, Soviet Union and the Russian Federation from the early nineteenth century until the present. Archives on non-Communist political parties and the emigre community are also held. Catalogues accessible at http://garf.narod.ru/.

GATT

An integrated set of bilateral trade agreements among more than 100 contracting nations. Originally drawn up in 1947, GATT aimed at abolishing quotas and reducing tariffs among members. The Soviet Union eschewed joining GATT until 1987, when it applied for membership.

GDP

The total value of goods and services produced exclusively within a nation’s domestic economy, in contrast to gross national product, usually computed over one year.

GES

Electric-producing dam, such as the giant projects built on the Dnepr, Bratsk or Angara rivers.

GKChP

Coup launched on August 18, 1991 by high ranking members of the Soviet government against the possibility of signing the Union Treaty. (Alternative terms: Gosudarstvennyi komitet chrezvychainogo polozheniia; State Committee for the State of Emergency.)

GNP

The total value of goods and services produced within a country’s borders and the income received from abroad by residents, minus payments remitted abroad by nonresidents. Normally computed over one year.

GOELRO

State Commission for the Electrification of Russia.

GPU

Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie (State Political Directorate). The security police successor to the Cheka from 1922 to 1923.

GRU

Main Intelligence Directorate. A military organization, subordinate to the General Staff of the armed forces, that collected and processed strategic, technical, and tactical information of value to the armed forces. It may also have included special units for engaging in active measures, guerrilla warfare, and sabotage.

GUGB

Main Directorate for State Security. The security police, successor to the OGPU, subordinate to the NKVD. Existed from 1934 to 1941, 1941 to 1943, and 1953 to 1954.

GULAG

Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps. The penal system of the Soviet Union, consisting of a network of harsh labor camps where criminals and political prisoners were forced to serve sentences.

GUM

State Department Store located on Moscow’s Red Square across from the Kremlin; the main and best supplied department store in the Soviet Union open to the public.

Gdansk Agreement

The first of several major concessions made by the Polish communist government in late 1980 to the rising Solidarity movement. The agreement granted public expression to many groups in Polish society hitherto restricted, promised new economic concessions, removed discredited communist officials, and recognized workers’ right to establish free trade unions.

Gen-sek

The title of the head of the CPSU Secretariat, who presides over the Politburo and has been the Soviet Union’s de facto supreme leader. Stalin became general secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolskevik) in 1922 and employed the positions to amass personal powers. After Statin’s death in 1953, the title was changed to first secretary, which was used by Khrushalea and by Brezhnev until 1966, when the title of general secretary was reinstituted. Brezhnev’s successors–Iurii Androkov, Konstantin Chernenko, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev–were all general secretaries.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

An integrated set of bilateral trade agreements among more than 100 contracting nations. Originally drawn up in 1947, GATT aimed at abolishing quotas and reducing tariffs among members. The Soviet Union eschewed joining GATT until 1987, when it applied for membership.

General Secretary

The title of the head of the CPSU Secretariat, who presides over the Politburo and has been the Soviet Union’s de facto supreme leader. Stalin became general secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolskevik) in 1922 and employed the positions to amass personal powers. After Statin’s death in 1953, the title was changed to first secretary, which was used by Khrushalea and by Brezhnev until 1966, when the title of general secretary was reinstituted. Brezhnev’s successors–Iurii Androkov, Konstantin Chernenko, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev–were all general secretaries.

Genoa Conference

International conference (1922) to revitalize international trade after WWI.

GlavPUR

The organ the CPSU used to control the armed forces of the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. An organ of the CPSU in the Ministry of Defense, it was responsible for conducting ideological indoctrination and propaganda activities to prepare the armed forces for their role in national security.

Glavkomtrud

Committee of Universal [Compulsory] Labor, established toward the end of the civil war to help mobilize labor to win the war and reconstruct the economy after. An embodiment of the Bolshevik tendency during the Civil War on compulsory methods of labor mobilization.

Glavlit

Glavnoe upravlenie po delam literatury i izdatel’stv (Main Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs). Created in 1922 under the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR to administer Soviet literary life, Glavlit eventually became the necessary clearing house and censor for all print publications in the Soviet Union. Renamed Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press in 1946. The acronym Glavlit continued to be used in the late 1980s.

Glavnoe razvedyvatel’noe upravlenie

Main Intelligence Directorate. A military organization, subordinate to the General Staff of the armed forces, that collected and processed strategic, technical, and tactical information of value to the armed forces. It may also have included special units for engaging in active measures, guerrilla warfare, and sabotage.

Glavnoe upravlenie gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti

Main Directorate for State Security. The security police, successor to the OGPU, subordinate to the NKVD. Existed from 1934 to 1941, 1941 to 1943, and 1953 to 1954.

Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel’no- trudovykh lagerei

Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps. The penal system of the Soviet Union, consisting of a network of harsh labor camps where criminals and political prisoners were forced to serve sentences.

Glavnyi komitet po kontroliu za zrelishchami i repertuarom

Committee established in 1923 under the People’s Commissariat of Education to control theatrical, film, and other cultural productions and sanctioned their release for public viewing. Glavrepertkom functioned as the de facto theater censor with the advent of Stalinist cultural policies. The acronym, Glavrepertkom, continued in use although the organization was changed from a committee (komitet) to an administration (upravelenie) under the Ministry of Culture.

Glavrepertkom

Committee established in 1923 under the People’s Commissariat of Education to control theatrical, film, and other cultural productions and sanctioned their release for public viewing. Glavrepertkom functioned as the de facto theater censor with the advent of Stalinist cultural policies. The acronym, Glavrepertkom, continued in use although the organization was changed from a committee (komitet) to an administration (upravelenie) under the Ministry of Culture.

Gorkom

City party committee.

gorodki

An ancient Russian folk sport. Similar in concept to to horseshoes, the aim of the game is to knock out groups of wickets arranged in various patterns by throwing a bat at them. The wickets or pins, are called gorodki.

Gosbank

State Bank. The main bank in the Soviet Union, which acted as a combination central bank, commercial bank, and settlement bank. It issued and regulated currency and credit and handled payments between enterprises and organizations. It received all taxes and payments to the state and paid out budgetary appropriations.

Gosizdat

State Publishing House.

Goskino

Gosudarstvenyi komitet po kinematografii (State Committee for Cinematography). Created in 1933, Goskino consolidated and controlled all facets of the film industry, from scenario writing to production. Goskino allowed the Soviet state to exert complete control over the industry. Absorbed by the Ministry of Culture in 1953, it became an independent organization again in 1963.

Goskomizdat

State Committee for Publishing Houses, Printing Plants, and the Book Trade. Supervised the publishing and printing industry and exercised all-union control over the thematic trend and content of literature.

Goskompriroda

State Committee for the Protection of Nature. Formed in 1988, the government agency charged with responsibility for overseeing environmental protection in the Soviet Union.

Goskomstat

State Committee of the Russian Federation on Statistics.

Goskomtsen

State Committee on Prices. The government body that established, under party guidance, the official prices of virtually everything produced in the Soviet Union, including agricultural produce, natural resources, manufactured products, and consumer goods and services.

Gosplan

Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet (State Planning Committee). Under party guidance, it was primarily responsible for creating and monitoring five-year plans and annual plans. The name was changed from State Planning Commission in 1948, but the acronym was retained.

Gostelradio

State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting. Established in 1957 as the Committee for Radio Broadcasting and Television. Upgraded to a state committee in 1970.

Gosudarstvennyi komitet chrezvychainogo polozheniia; State Committee for the State of Emergency

Coup launched on August 18, 1991 by high ranking members of the Soviet government against the possibility of signing the Union Treaty.

Gosudarstvennyi komitet po delam izdatel’stv poligrafii i knizhoi torgovli

State Committee for Publishing Houses, Printing Plants, and the Book Trade. Supervised the publishing and printing industry and exercised all-union control over the thematic trend and content of literature.

Gosudarstvennyi komitet po okhrane prirody

State Committee for the Protection of Nature. Formed in 1988, the government agency charged with responsibility for overseeing environmental protection in the Soviet Union.

Gosudarstvennyi komitet po tsenam

State Committee on Prices. The government body that established, under party guidance, the official prices of virtually everything produced in the Soviet Union, including agricultural produce, natural resources, manufactured products, and consumer goods and services.

Gosudarstvennyi universal’nyi magazin

State Department Store located on Moscow’s Red Square across from the Kremlin; the main and best supplied department store in the Soviet Union open to the public.

Gosudarstvennyy komitet po televideniyu i radioveshchaniiu

State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting. Established in 1957 as the Committee for Radio Broadcasting and Television. Upgraded to a state committee in 1970.

Guardsmen

The name given to WWII regiments that had earned special distinction in a military campaign, for example, by taking a major city. Such regiments were supplied somewhat better than their ordinary counterparts, receiving larger rations of sugar, vodka, and dried food.

Gvardeitsy

The name given to WWII regiments that had earned special distinction in a military campaign, for example, by taking a major city. Such regiments were supplied somewhat better than their ordinary counterparts, receiving larger rations of sugar, vodka, and dried food.

glasnost’

Public discussion of issues; accessibility of information so that the public can become familiar with it and discuss it. Gorbachev’s policy of using the media to make information available on some controversial issues, in order to provoke public discussion, challenge government and party bureaucrats, and mobilize greater support for his policy of perestroika.

glavki

Main administrations; branch units of the Vesenkha, the state agency regulating the economy.

gorispolkom

City, town or municipal executive committee, the operating arm of local soviet power.

gross domestic product

The total value of goods and services produced exclusively within a nation’s domestic economy, in contrast to gross national product, usually computed over one year.

gross national product

The total value of goods and services produced within a country’s borders and the income received from abroad by residents, minus payments remitted abroad by nonresidents. Normally computed over one year.

guberniia

Administrative unit of the Tsarist empire, roughly equivalent to a province.

gubkom

Guberniia (province) committee of the Communist Party.

Helsinki Accords

Signed in 1975 by all countries of Europe except Albania (which signed in 1991), plus Canada and the United States, at the conclusion of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Helsinki Accords endorsed general principles of international behavior and measures to enhance security and addressed selected economic, environmental, and humnitarian issues. In essence, the Helsinki Accords confirmed existing, post-World War II national boundaries and obligated signatories to respect basic principles of human rights. Helsinki watch groups were formed in 1976 to monitor compliance. The term Helsinki Accords is the short form for the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and is also know as the Final Act.

Helsinki watch groups

Informal, unofficial organizations of citizens monitoring their regimes’ adherence to the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

Holy Synod

Chief tsarist state administrative body with responsibility for oversight of Russian Orthodox Church; the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Russian Church stood at the head of Church administration.

hard currency

Currency that was freely convertible and traded on international currency markets. The Soviet ruble was not hard currency, and Soviet citizens from the mid-1920s were not allowed to hold hard currency, eventually creating a huge black market in dollars.

hectare

One hectare = 2.5 acres.

hydro-electric station

lectric-producing dam, such as the giant projects built on the Dnepr, Bratsk or Angara rivers.

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency.

IMF

International Monetary Fund. Established along with the World Bank in 1945, the IMF is a specialized agency affiliated with the United Nations and responsible for stabilizing international exchange rates and payments. Its main function is to provide loans to its members (including industrialized and developing countries) when they experience balance of payments difficulties. These loans frequently have conditions that require substantial internal economic adjustments by the recipients, most of which are developing countries.

Industrial Workers of the World; IWW

Radical labor union in North America popularly known as the Wobblies.

International Monetary Fund

Established along with the World Bank in 1945, the IMF is a specialized agency affiliated with the United Nations and responsible for stabilizing international exchange rates and payments. Its main function is to provide loans to its members (including industrialized and developing countries) when they experience balance of payments difficulties. These loans frequently have conditions that require substantial internal economic adjustments by the recipients, most of which are developing countries.

Intourist

Official Soviet state tourist organization for foreign tourists.

Iskra

(Spark). Party journal of the Russian Social Democrats, of which Lenin was member of the editorial board from December 1900 to October 1903.

Izvestiia

The second most authoritative paper (after Pravda). Published by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., and the official national publication of the Soviet government until 1991. Circulated to between 8 and 10 million people daily. Contained official government information and general news and an expanded Sunday section composed of news analysis, feature stories, poetry, and cartoons. Its extensive coverage of international relations made it the principal voice for Soviet foreign policy. Under the editorship of Nikita Khrushchev’s son-in-law, Alexei Adzhubei, became a lively, readable and popular daily newspaper that included photographs, bigger headlines, shorter and more interesting articles, and a generally high standard of design.

Izvestiia TsIK; Izvestiia TsK KPSS

The second most authoritative paper (after Pravda). Published by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., and the official national publication of the Soviet government until 1991. Circulated to between 8 and 10 million people daily. Contained official government information and general news and an expanded Sunday section composed of news analysis, feature stories, poetry, and cartoons. Its extensive coverage of international relations made it the principal voice for Soviet foreign policy. Under the editorship of Nikita Khrushchev’s son-in-law, Alexei Adzhubei, became a lively, readable and popular daily newspaper that included photographs, bigger headlines, shorter and more interesting articles, and a generally high standard of design.

iconostas

The holy partition wall dividing the altar from the congregation in an Orthodox church, bearing icons of saints in four ranks.

indigenization

Rooting in: a policy of the late 1920s and 1930s that encouraged the advancement of local or native ethnic cadres into the upper-ranks of national-republic administrations and other positions of power.

intelligentsia

Intellectuals constituting the cultural, academic, social, and political elite. Often the source of opposition to the oppressive state in tsarist and Soviet times.

internal passport

Government-issued document, presented to officials on demand, identifying citizens and their authorized residence. Used in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union to restrict the movement of people, in conjunction with the propiska system.

ispolkom

Executive committee of soviets and the party from the local to the All-Union level.

Jadidism

Radical secularist movement among Central Asian intelligentsia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Julian calendar

A calendar, named for Gaius Julius Caesar and introduced in Rome in 46 B.C., that established the twelve-month year of 365 days. It was adopted throughout much of the Western world, including Kievan Rus’ and Muscovy. The Julian calendar’s year, however, was over eleven minutes too long compared with the solar year, i.e., thetime the earth requires to make one revolution around the sun. Because of this discrepancy, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a revised calendar in 1582 that had a shortened year and then omitted the ten excess days that had accumulated since A.D. 325, the year of the Council of Nicea, which was chosen as the base year. Although most of the Western world adopted the Gregorian calendar, Russian regimes retained the Julian calendar (termed old style or O.S.) until after the Bolshevik Revolution. On February 1, 1918 O.S., the Bolsheviks introduced the Gregorian calendar and omitted the thirteen excess days that had accumulated since A.D. 325, thus making that day February 14, 1918 (new style or N.S.). The Russian Orthodox Church and other Eastern Christian churches continue to use the Julian calendar.

June Offensive

Last major offensive of Russian Imperial army (June-July 1917).

Junkers

Military cadets of the tsarist era. Junker units were the final troops to defend the Winter Palace in October, 1917.

KAPD

Communist Workers’ Party of Germany, competitor of the VKPD in the years following the First World War.

KGB

Committee for State Security. The predominant security police organization from its establishment in 1954, it was broken up into internal and external security organs after the fall of the Soviet Union.

KOR

KOR, or KSS-KOR [Committee of Social Self-Defense – Worker Defense Committee] was the union of dissident intellectuals and workers organized in 1976, which helped inspire the strong resistance to Communist dictatorship in Poland, and constituted the core for the later Solidarity movement.

KPSS

The official name of the communist party in the Soviet Union since 1952. Originally the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the party was named the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) from March 1918 to December 1925, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) from December 1925 to October 1952, and the CPSU thereafter.

KSS-KOR

KOR, or KSS-KOR [Committee of Social Self-Defense – Worker Defense Committee] was the union of dissident intellectuals and workers organized in 1976, which helped inspire the strong resistance to Communist dictatorship in Poland, and constituted the core of the later Solidarity movement.

Kadet

Constitutional Democratic Party (1906-17), moderate liberals.

Kalym

Bride price traditional in some Muslim cultures, particularly in Kyrgyzstan. The practice was stamped out by Soviet power, and has undergone a revival in post-Soviet times.

KamAZ

Largest truck factory in the Soviet Union which began production in 1972; located in Naberezhnye Chelnyi on the Volga.

Kamenev-Zinoviev trial

First of the major Show Trials of the Great Terror (August 1936).

Karakum Canal

An irrigation and water supply canal, which is navigable, in the Turkmen Republic. Under construction since 1954, the 1,100 kilometers completed by 1988 diverted a significant amount of the Amu Darya’s waters west through and into the Kara Desert and Ashkhabad, the republic’s capital, and beyond. The canal opened up expansive new tracts of land to agriculture, while contributing to a major environmental disaster, the drying up of the Aral Sea. The primitive construction of the canal allows almost 50 percent of the water to escape en route.

Kavbiuro

Caucasian Bureau of the Communist Party set up during the civil war to provide political leadership in Transcaucasia, much of which was not under Bolshevik control.

Kazakhstan

Literally, land of the Kazakhs. A vast region in Central Asia settled by the Golden Horde in the thirteenth century that the Russian Empire acquired during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1924 the Soviet regime began dividing Kazakhstan into its major nationality groups, the Kazakhs and the Kirgiz. Subsequently, both of these groups was given union republic status in the Soviet Union.

KhSSR

Khorezm Soviet Socialist Republic.

Khanate

Dominion or territorial jurisdiction of a Mongol khan (ruler).

Khokhol

Perjorative Russian term for Ukrainian, implying provincial slowness. The traditional Ukrainian rejoinder was to call the Russian “Moskal.”

Khorezm

The central Asian khanate based in the present city of Khiva, from which shifted the Soviet administrative center in Bukhara. Both became part of the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, with its capital in the modern city of Tashkent.

Kievan Rus’

An East Slavic state, centered on Kiev, established by Oleg ca. 880. Disintegrated by the thirteenth century.

Knigotsentr

Literally: Book Center, the central distribution point for state publishers.

Komintern; Third International, Communist International

An international organization of communist parties founded by Lenin in 1919. Initially, it attempted to control the international socialist movement and to foment world revolution; later, it also became an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Dissolved by Stalin in 1943 as a conciliatory measure toward his Western allies.

Komitet Samoobrony Spolecznej – Komitet Obrony Robotnikow

KOR, or KSS-KOR [Committee of Social Self-Defense – Worker Defense Committee] was the union of dissident intellectuals and workers organized in 1976, which helped inspire the strong resistance to Communist dictatorship in Poland, and constituted the core of the later Solidarity movement.

Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti

Committee for State Security. The predominant security police organization from its establishment in 1954, it was broken up into internal and external security organs after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Kommunist

Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1940 (previously Bol’shevik). Kommunist was often the forum in which party doctrines on important theoretical and political were enunciated.

Komsomol; Kommunisticheskii soiuz molodezhi; Vsesoiuznyi Leninskii kommunisticheskii soiuz molodezhi

All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League (YCL). An organization administered by the CPSU for youth between ages fourteen and twenty-eight. Since its establishment in 1918, the Komsonol has helped the party prepare new generations for an elite role in Soviet society. It has instilled in young people the principles of Marxism-Leninism and involved them in large-scale industrial projects, such as factory construction and the virgin land campaign. Members were expected to be politically conscious, vigilant, and loyal to the communist cause. Membership privileges included better opportunities for higher education and preferential consideration for career advancement. In 1982 the Komsomol had 41.7 million members.

Komsomol’skaia pravda

(Komsomol Truth) Morning daily newspaper published in Moscow that was the official voice of the Central Council of the Komsomol, or Communist youth league. Aimed at young people aged 14 to 28. Under the editorship of Nikita S. Khrushchev’s son-in-law, Alexei Adzhubei, in the 1950s, it introduced more travel articles, sports pieces, and short fiction and reduced the amount of propaganda. At its peak in the 1970s and early ’80s, its circulation was more than 15 million.

Komsomolka

Either a female member of the Komsomol, or a diminutive form for the newspaper Komsomol’skaia pravda.

Kornilov affair

Attempt by General Lavr Kornilov, Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces, to crush Soviets in August 1917.

Krasnaia Presnia

Historically working-class district of Moscow, site of street battles during 1905 revolution.

Krasnaia gazeta

(Red Gazette) A daily newspaper which at different times of its existence was an organ of the central, provincial, city committees of the All-Union Communist Party and the Petrograd/Leningrad Soviet. It circulated from January 1918 to 1939, when it was merged with Leningradskaia Pravda.

Kremlin

Central citadel in many medieval Russian towns, usually located at a strategic spot along a river. Moscow’s Kremlin, situated on the Moscow River on a spot found by Prince Iurii Dolgorukii in 1147, became the fortress of the Muscovite princes and then tsars. Deprived of ruling status when Peter the Great moved the capital to St. Petersburg, it recovered its status as seat of the CPSU and the government of the Soviet Union in 1918.

Krokodil

(Crocodile). Thrice-monthly 14-18-page magazine of humor and satire, published 1922-1991. One of the most popular publications in the Soviet Union; with a circulation of approximately 6 million. Printed in color. Featured excellent artistic political cartoons and feature stories that pushed the envelope of ideologically correctness. Its humor was chiefly directed against what it termed Western imperialism and bourgeois ideology, but it also assailed “undesirable elements” in Russian society.

Kuomintang

Chinese nationalist movement led by Chiang-Kai Shek which routed Chinese Communists in 1927 and was defeated and exiled to Taiwan in 1949.

Kurile Islands

Archipelago extending southwards from Kamchatka peninsula; occupied by USSR during WW II, and the source of great contention between the Soviet Union and Russia, and later Russia and Japan.

Kuzbass

Kuznetsk Basin (Kuznetskii bassein). A major coal-mining and industrial area located in southern Siberia, east and southeast of Novosibirsk.

kerenka

Popular name of currency issued by the Provisional Government under Aleksander Kerenskii, which to succumbed to the hyper-inflation of the war-time economy.

khozraschet

A system of “self-supporting operations,” applied to such individual enterprises as factories, encompassing a wide range of activities, including samofinanserovanie, and a management process involving a large number of individuals.

khutor

Ukrainian village.

kishlaq

Central Asian or Afghan village.

kolkhoz

(Kollektivnoe khoziaistvo). An agricultural “cooperative” where peasants, under the direction of party-approved plans and leaders, are paid wages based, in part, on the success of their harvest.

kolkhoznik

Collectivized peasant-farmer.

kombedy

(Committees of the Poor). Organizations of rural poor established in 1918 to serve as base of Soviet power in countryside.

kombinat

An economic entity of an industrial or service nature that consists of several specialized, technologically related enterprises.

kommuna

(Commune) The most complete collective farm in which there was no private property; all land was worked collectively and its produce shared. Sometimes included collective eating and living.

korenizatsiia

Rooting in: a policy of the late 1920s and 1930s that encouraged the advancement of local or native ethnic cadres into the upper-ranks of national-republic administrations and other positions of power.

krai

A large territorial and administrative subdivision found only in the Russian Republic, where there are six, all of which are thinly populated. The boundaries of a krai are laid out primarily for ease of administration but may also contain lesser political subdivisions based on nationality groups–autonomous oblast, or autonomous okrug, or both. Directly subordinate to its union republic.

krasnyi ugolok

The corner of a peasant reserved for the display of icons and other religious items. Capitalizing on the two meanings of the Russian word “krasnyi” (both beautiful and red), the Soviets encouraged kolkhoz peasants to arrange their own “Red Corners” devoted to pictures and the works of Lenin.

kul’tzmichki

Ukrainian: cultural link, as in the Russian smychka.

kulak

Literally, fist. A successful, independent farmer of the period of Soviet history before collectivization. According to the Bolsheviks, any peasant who hired labor. The term eventually was applied to any peasant who opposed collectivization.

L’Humanite

Official newspaper of the French Communist Party.

L’Unita

Newspaper of the Italian Communist Party.

LEF

Acronym of Left Front, leftist artistic movement of 1920s, and also name of the movement’s journal.

Lake Chudo

Lake where Aleksandr Nevskii threw back the Teutonic Knights in 1242 in the famous Battle on the Ice, memorialized in Sergei Eisenstein’s 1938 film, Aleksandr Nevskii.

League of Nations

Organization for international cooperation established by the victorious Allied Powers at the end of World War I. The Soviet Union joined in 1934 but was expelled in 1939.

Left Opposition

Faction of Communist party led by Trotsky against bureaucratic maneuverings of Stalin (1925-27); ended with Trotsky’s exile, and most former members eventually perished in the Great Terror.

Left SRs

Faction of Socialist-Revolutionary Party that sided with Bolsheviks in 1917, briefly participated in Soviet government, but went into opposition after March 1918.

Lend-Lease Law

A foreign aid program initiated by the United States in March 1941 that authorized the transfer of substantial quantities of war materiel, such as tanks, munitions, locomotives, and ships, to countries opposing the military aggression of the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) while the United States mobilized for war. In November 1941, the Soviet Union was added to the list of recipients and, during the course of World War II, received supplies and equipment worth billions of dollars.

Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences (LAAAS)

Home academy of Trofim Lysenko, the biologist who dominated scientific life after the war and whose hostility to Mendelian genetics destroyed the Soviet biological sciences.

Leningrad Affair

Arrest and execution of high-ranking party officials in Leningrad (1949) following death of A. Zhdanov.

Literaturnaia gazeta

(Literary Newspaper) Weekly 16-page newspaper published by the USSR s Union of Writers from 1929-1990. Contained authoritative statements and perspectives concerning literature, plays, cinema, and literary issues of popular interest, but also included political and social content. Acquired greater influence in the post-World War II period, becoming one of the most authoritative and influential publications in the country. Faithfully reflected government policy (both political and literary) but also attempted to show the human face of Soviet society. Was the national newspaper most likely to push the limits of censorship. Most interesting to its readers were reports on the international political scene, and especially on cultural life in countries outside the Soviet sphere of influence.

Little Entente

Alliance of Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia formed in 1921.

Living Church

Break-away movement within Russian Orthodox Church, sponsored by Soviet government in 1920s.

Lubianka

Building in central Moscow that served as headquarters of the political police (Cheka – OGPU – NKVD – KGB), and where its holding prison was located.

Luftwaffe

German Air Force.

labor day; laborday

Method of payment to collective farmers based on gradated occupational category and number of days worked per year.

lapti

Soft shoes made of the bark of a tree, and worn by the poorer peasants. (English: bast shoe.)

lavra

A large monastery given particular prestige within the Orthodox Church.

lishentsy

Category of former bourgeois, tsarist officials, police, and clergy deprived of civil rights (1917-36).

lubok

Cheap popular print or literature produced in 19th c.

MGB

Ministry of State Security. The paramount security police organization from 1946 to 1953; replaced by the KGB.

MOOP

Ministry for the Preservation of Public Order. Functioned between 1962 and 1968, and was in charge of the druzhinniki.

MOSSKh

Moscow Section of the Union of Soviet Artists. Formed in 1932. The Painting Section represented half of its membership. Of these, over two to one were stylistic traditionalists. This section of the Artists’ Union was one of the most active in expelling members who did not conform with the socialist realistic aesthetic.

MTS

Provided collective farms with mechanized equipment in return for portion of harvest. Motor-tractor stations were abolished in 1958 in an effort to give collective farms more autonomy and economic flexibility.

MVD

Ministry of Internal Affairs, and successor to the NKVD. Existed from 1946 to 1991; from 1968 it exercised regular police functions.

Magadan

One of the principal labor camps of the GULAG located in the far Northeast of the USSR.

Magnitka

Popular name for Magnitogorsk, steel city located east of Urals.

Main Committee for Control of Entertainment and Repertory

Committee established in 1923 under the People’s Commissariat of Education to control theatrical, film, and other cultural productions and sanctioned their release for public viewing. Glavrepertkom functioned as the de facto theater censor with the advent of Stalinist cultural policies. The acronym, Glavrepertkom, continued in use although the organization was changed from a committee (komitet) to an administration (upravelenie) under the Ministry of Culture.

Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy

The organ the CPSU used to control the armed forces of the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. An organ of the CPSU in the Ministry of Defense, it was responsible for conducting ideological indoctrination and propaganda activities to prepare the armed forces for their role in national security.

Marshall Plan

A plan announced in June 1947 by United States secretary of state George C. Marshall for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The plan involved a considerable amount of United States aid to Western Europe, but the Soviet Union refused the offer of aid and forbade the East European countries it dominated from taking part in the Marshall Plan. As a counterweight, the Soviet Union created the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA).

Marxism

The economic, political, and social theories of Karl Marx, a nineteenth-century German philosopher and socialist, especially his concept of socialism, which includes the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, class struggle, and the dictatorship of the proletariat until a classless society can be established. Another German socialist, Friederich Engels, collaborated with Marx and was a major contributor to the development of Marxism.

Marxism-Leninism

The ideology of communism, developed by Karl Marx and refined and adapted to social and economic conditions in Russia by Lenin, that has guided the party and the Soviet Union. Marx talked of the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, as a transitional socialist phase before the achievement of communism. Lenin added the idea of a communist party as the vanguard or leading force in promoting the proletarian revolution and building communism. Stalin and subsequent leaders contributed their own interpretations of the ideology.

May Day

International workers’ holiday, celebrated in Soviet Union and many other European countries.

Melodiia

State-owned record company, with a monopoly on the production and distribution of recorded music within the USSR.

Mendelism-Morganism

In August, 1948, at a disastrous session of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lysenko’s dogma, approved by Stalin personally and named “Michurinian biology”, was proclaimed to be the greatest achievemet in Soviet biological science. “Weismanism-Mendelism-Morganism” was announced to be a “bourgeois pseudo-science” and was anathemized. Mendelism-Morganism was, of course, the foundations of the science that would soon be known in the west as genetics. Soviet biology never recovered from the attack.

Menshevik

A member of a wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party before and during the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Unlike the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks believed in the gradual achievement of socialism by parliamentary methods. The term Menshevik is derived from the word menshenstvo (minority).

Messidor

One of the months of the French revolutionary calendar, adopted in 1793 and intended to rationalize the inconsistent old system of months and seasons. Months (beginning at the autumnal equinox), included Vend¯miaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Niv se, Pluvi se, Vent se, Germinal, Flor¯al, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor.

Metropolitan

The primate of an ecclesiastical province of the Orthodox Church, usually housed in a large city, such as Moscow, Petersburg or Kiev.

Military Revolutionary Committee

Formed in the days before the October Revolution to coordinate the seizure of power, the Revvoensovet continued to be an important director of armed might during the Civil War.

Milton

Slang for militiaman or cop.

Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti

Ministry of State Security. The paramount security police organization from 1946 to 1953; replaced by the KGB.

Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka

Ministry for the Preservation of Public Order. Functioned between 1962 and 1968, and was in charge of the druzhinniki. (Russian acronym: MOOP.)

Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del

Ministry of Internal Affairs, and successor to the NKVD. Existed from 1946 to 1991; from 1968 it exercised regular police functions.

Mongol yoke

Period of Mongol domination of much of eastern Europe by the Golden Horde from the mid-thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth century.

Morganism-Mendelism; Morganists; Weismannist-Morganist Movement; Mendelism

See the entry for Mendelism-Morganism.

Mosfilm

Main film studio located in Moscow.

Mosselprom

Short for Moscow Rural and Industrial Products. Soviet department store built in the 1920s to compete against the private goods that dominated the consumer market during the years of the New Economic Policy.

Mossovet

Moscow City Soviet.

makhorka

Cheap tobacco, usually smoked in hand-rolled form. Makhorka was the tobacco of choice for the lower classes and lower ranks of the military during the years of revolution and the Great Patriotic War [World War II], and an item of ready exchange and barter.

matreshka

Traditional Russian embedded doll, the “dolls within the doll.”

medres

Islamic religious school.

meshochniki

Illegal traders during Russian civil war.

mir

A peasant commune established at the village level in tsarist Russia. It controlled the redistribution of farmland and was held responsible for collecting taxes and levying recruits for military service. In Russian, mir also means ‘world’ and ‘peace.’

motor-tractor station

Provided collective farms with mechanized equipment in return for portion of harvest. Motor-tractor stations were abolished in 1958 in an effort to give collective farms more autonomy and economic flexibility.

mujahideen; mujahidin

Derived from the word jihad, the term means holy warriors and was used by and applied to the Afghan resistance or freedom fighters.

mullah

Muslim man trained in Islamic law and doctrine.

muzhik

Derogatory term for Russian peasant.

NATO

An alliance founded in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and their postwar European allies to oppose Soviet military presence in Europe. Until the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, NATO was the primary collective defense agreement of the Western powers. Its military and administrative structure remained intact after the threat of Soviet expansionism had subsided.

NDPA

The ruling party of Afghanistan during its period of Soviet tutelage.

NEP

Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. Instituted in 1921, it let peasants sell produce on an open market and permitted small enterprises to be privately owned and operated. Cultural restrictions were also relaxed during this period. NEP declined with the forced collectivization of farms and was officially ended by Stalin in December 1929.

NKGB

Narodnyi komissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (People’s Commissariat of State Security). Security police which functioned in 1941 and again from 1943 to 1946.

NKVD

Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennykh del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). The commissariat that administered regular police organizations from 1917 to 1946. When the OGPU was abolished in 1934, the NKVD incorporated the security police organization until 1946.

Continue reading

July Days

Texts     Images     Video

 

Subject essay: Lewis Siegelbaum

“You have come here, you, red men of Kronstadt, as soon as you heard about the danger threatening the revolution … Long live red Kronstadt, the glory and pride of the revolution!” Thus did Leon Trotsky harangue and flatter the soldiers and sailors who amassed before the Tauride Palace to attempt to force the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet to seize power from the Provisional Government. The armed demonstration which included soldiers from the Petrograd garrison and factory workers began on the evening of July 3 and lasted until the morning of the fifth.

The soldiers and sailors of Kronstadt were among the most militant in the Russian armed forces. In February they had executed some forty officers including the base commander, Admiral R. N. Viren. They had figured prominently in the Petrograd street demonstrations of April and June. In May, the Kronstadt soviet had declared itself the sole authority on the island and endorsed Lenin’s call for “all power to the soviets.” Now in July, they sought to realize that demand, at one point taking captive Victor Chernov, the SR Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government, whom they regarded as a traitor to the revolution.

The Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin who had just returned to Petrograd from Finland, was fundamentally ambivalent about the demonstration. While the Central Committee advised caution lest the demonstration provoke a counter-revolutionary thrust, the party’s Military Organization and Petersburg Committee publicly endorsed it and summoned reinforcements from the front. But at the same time, the Executive Committee of the Soviet, still dominated by Mensheviks and SRs, also called up troops to disperse the demonstrators. Moreover, the Provisional Government, in a desperate attempt to undermine the Bolsheviks’ credibility, decided to go public with its investigation of their receipt of German money and charges that Lenin was a German spy. These actions combined to quell the rebellion.

There exists no film footage of the July Days. But ten years later, Sergei Eisenstein’s dramatization of the revolution, October, included what was to become one of the most famous scenes of Soviet cinema in which the demonstrators scatter as they are fired upon from the rooftops.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Not All Theaters Are Erotic

A. Kuznetsov, Not All Theaters Are Erotic. July 28, 1990

Although the country was going through a severe crisis, Gorbachev took the time in December 1990 to read before the Supreme Soviet letters complaining about pornography. On December 5 he issued a decree outlining a program to combat pornography and establishing a Public Morals Protection Committee under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. Two prominent members of the former Presidential Council, Evgenii Primakov and Valentin Rasputin, were put in charge.

The shift from a hypocritically puritan socialist society to democracy is naturally accompanied by a more open interest in sex. Video clubs showing mainstream Western movies became the most important entertainment for males in the Soviet Union. Severe economic problems and the lure of hard currency resulted in an increase in prostitution. Soviet children were taught little about sex, and adults had no opportunity to discuss their intimate problems with trained physicians. According to the older Communists and conservatives, it was glasnost that created all the fuss. The reader of a youth-oriented newspaper mocks their fears.

Original Source: Komsomol’skaia pravda, 28 July 1990.

Dear Editor!

I read in your newspaper Mr. V. Shtyriakhov’s letter, “Eroticism Is a Weapon, Too,” and, word of honor, I shed a tear. I congratulate you wholeheartedly! I have been subscribing to Komsomolka for more than twenty years, but a more hypocritical article I have not read, not even during the stagnation period!

It seems that, instead of nuclear weapons, now there is an erotic weapon. All must stand as one on the front line of struggle! Destroy the weapon and multiply chastely, like flowers and leaves! Remove eroticism from the big screen, from the newspaper pages, from the theaters, from the beaches, and from spouses’ beds! And only then will we eradicate sexual crimes!

Our ancestors, as well as the Americans’ ancestors, paid for freedom with their lives. And we, in exchange for our newfound freedom, are inundated by the naked thighs of Moscow beauties, leading all of society to dwell on but one thought: Whom should we rape today? Isn’t it too primitive? Isn’t it too pitiful a price for freedom?

The image of part or all of a woman’s naked body is not eroticism! The description of the sexual act in literature is not eroticism, but rather naturalism. Eroticism is a depiction and a glorification of sensual love; it is not bestiality! I will swear that in the Soviet Union not one erotic movie or play has been produced, nor has one truly erotic book been published!

I can assure you, Mr. Shtyriakhov, that nobody forces sexual permissiveness into the public consciousness. To do so would be possible only through cruel repression and animal fear, which is never 100 percent effective in any case; society is never a unified conglomerate but consists instead of individuals. The more a person is cultured and educated, the more difficult such mind control is to achieve! Take our society in the 1930s: With education averaging four to seven years and with no culture, there was fertile ground for the forcible manipulation of thought. It happened! It also happened that sixty million people disappeared! And a lot of our citizens believed sincerely that their parents, children, relatives, and friends were indeed German and Japanese spies, Trotskyites, terrorists, or simply enemies of the people.

And, in another example, how many times were we told in the mass media, literature, movies, and television that dear Leonid Il’ich [Brezhnev] was a smart, handsome, and courageous champion (of what?), a true Leninist (and who are the rest?), and a loyal proponent (of what?)? At the same time, society was laughing at him openly and telling anecdotes (at his expense). Why? Society had become more cultured and educated. And there was no fear anymore, only disdain.

I do not think that, at present, our society can still be afraid of anything! The genie has been let out of the bottle, and to put it back again would be very difficult! It might be also dangerous! And, Mr. Shtyriakhov, do not presume to speak for all of society, because we have plenty of cowards and scoundrels, traitors and conformists, rapists and murderers. Speak only for yourself

I, for example, will never assault a woman after watching erotic videotapes or looking at nudes on a calendar. It is not eroticism that provokes sexual crimes, but our low culture, savagery and dullness, permissiveness, absence of authoritative powers, uncertainty about the future, and the deep moral and ethical crisis in our country! As a result we have a rapid rise in serious crimes!

Religion will not help us here, because it is not a panacea for all problems. Simply put, the church is now as much in fashion as are acid-washed jeans in the Riga market in Moscow. Before, we criticized the church and praised the bureaucrats, now it’s vice versa.

I’d like to quote one sentence from your letter: “I suspect you are right that the term ‘full freedom of creativity,’ which has been talked about so much recently, should not signify a full freedom of artists to do anything they want.”

The artist can only be called an artist when he has full freedom in his work. Otherwise he becomes a craftsman or, what is even more terrible, a flattering servant. Talent does not owe anything to anyone. It cannot be nurtured; one either has it or not. This is a notion that stands above classes, systems, and politics!

In dark, cruel medieval Spain Don Quixote suddenly appeared-a humanistic, light, and kind novel. And in the nice, staid tulip country of Flanders appeared the no-less-famous novel, The Legend of Eulenspiegel, all stained with blood, smelling of burned human flesh, pain, and suffering!

If these novels had been written by “assignment,” the result would have been the opposite. These novels would not have become jewels of world literature.

Should we see everywhere and in everything the intrigues of the command administrative system? According to you, a naked back on the screen amounts to a conspiracy. A beauty pageant is a malicious plot. An erotic calendar in the metro is simply a terrible scheme. If there is a plot, where are the enemies-enemies of society, enemies of the people? Maybe everything is much simpler. Perhaps what we observe today is the expression of the “forbidden fruit syndrome.” All of it will pass; we’ll become more cultured, free, quiet, and we won’t snivel because of every miniskirt, be enraged because of eroticism, write ludicrous mad letters to newspapers, and confuse low-quality cooperative goods with the arts.

But when will this happen? Until we live in such a dark and boring reality, Mr. Shtyriakhov, we should allow our youth to enjoy themselves by truly looking at beautiful men, women, and life. You remember Dostoevskii’s words: “Beauty will save the world!” It is truly so! When one sees a beautiful woman, one immediately forgets about increasing her role in society and about a positive outcome for the Food Program. And, in a further advantage, one’s stomach suffers less from hunger, and one stops running to the stores. Instead, one lovingly feels the awakening of his primal animal instincts!

So let’s be gentlemen. Don’t deprive a Soviet woman of her only joy (she is already left without sausage). Let her, one who shares our misfortunes, have plenty of at least these things! And we men will go on somehow.

The roots of amorality in our country lie not in eroticism and pornography but in an agonized economy and an absence of ideals. We can do anything. We can forbid eroticism, put underwear and a Russian blouse on the statue of David and an old-fashioned swimsuit on Aphrodite. We can dress Danae in a deep-sea diving suit, close all cinemas and TV stations, and I assure you there will be no drop in sexual crimes.

A crisis of ideas brings about a crisis of authority, which in turn results in a moral and ethical crisis in society. We are all guilty in this! Some are guilty because they rule, and others because they allowed the first ones to rule!

Enough of screams, and appeals, and false threats ascribed to a nonexistent weapon. It is high time to learn to think and build, but not to restructure.

With erotic regards,
A. Kuznetsov, director Palace of Culture, Moscow Province

Source: Isaac Tarasulo, ed., Perils of Perestroika: Viewpoints from the Soviet Press, 1989-1991 (Wilmington: SR Books, 1992), pp. 18-21.

Bukharin and his Trial

Nikolai Bukharin, Excerpts from Bukharin and his Trial. 1938

 

1. The Indictment

2. The Pleas

3. Bukharin’s Last Plea

The Indictment

… The investigation instituted by the organs of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs has established that on the instructions of the intelligence services of foreign states hostile to the USSR the accused in the present case organized a conspiratorial group named the “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites,” the object of which was to overthrow the Socialist social and state system existing in the USSR, to restore capitalism and the power of the bourgeoisie in the USSR, to dismember the USSR and to sever from it for the benefit of the aforementioned states the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Central Asiatic Republics, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and the Maritime Region….

Lacking all support within the USSR, the members of the “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites” in their struggle against the Socialist social and state system existing in the USSR and for seizing power placed all their hopes exclusively upon the armed assistance of foreign aggressors, who promised the conspirators this assistance on the condition that the USSR was to be dismembered and that the Ukraine, the Maritime region, Byelorussia, the Central Asiatic Republics, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were to be severed from the USSR

This agreement between the “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites” and the representatives of the aforementioned foreign states was facilitated by the fact that many of the leading participants of this conspiracy had long been agents of foreign intelligence services and had for many years carried on espionage activities on behalf of these intelligence services.

This applies first of all to one of the inspirers of the conspiracy, enemy of the people TROTSKY. His connection with the Gestapo was exhaustively proved at the trials of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center in August 193 6, and of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center in January 1937.

However, the materials in the possession of the investigating authorities in the present case establish that the connections between the enemy of the people TROTSKY and the German political police and the intelligence services of other countries were established at a much earlier date. The investigation has definitely established that TROTSKY has been connected with the German intelligence service since 1921, and with the British Intelligence Service since 1926….

The Pleas

THE PRESIDENT: Accused Bukharin, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you?

BUKHARIN: Yes, I plead guilty to the charges brought against me.

THE PRESIDENT: Accused Rykov, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you?

RYKOV: Yes, I do.

THE PRESIDENT: Accused Iagoda, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you?

IAGODA: Yes, I do.

THE PRESIDENT: Accused Krestinskii, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you?

KRESTINSKII: I plead not guilty. I am not a Trotskyite. I was never a member of the bloc of Rights and Trotskyites, of whose existence I was not aware. Nor have I committed any of the crimes with which I personally am charged, in particular I plead not guilty to the charge of having had connections with the German intelligence service.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you corroborate the confession you made at the preliminary investigation?

KRESTINSKII: Yes, at the preliminary investigation I confessed, but I have never been a Trotskyite.

THE PRESIDENT: I repeat the question, do you plead guilty?

KRESTINSKII: Before my arrest I was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) and I remain one now.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you plead guilty to the charge of participating in espionage activities and of participating in terrorist activities?

KRESTINSKII: I have never been a Trotskyite, I have never belonged to the bloc of Rights and Trotskyites and have not committed a single crime.

THE PRESIDENT: Accused Rakovskii, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you?

RAKOVSKII: Yes, I do….

Bukharin’s Last Plea

Citizen President and Citizens judges, I fully agree with Citizen the Procurator regarding the significance of the trial, at which were exposed our dastardly crimes, the crimes committed by the “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites,” one of whose leaders I was, and for all the activities of which I bear responsibility.

This trial, which is the concluding one of a series of trials, has exposed all the crimes and the treasonable activities, it has exposed the historical significance and the roots of our struggle against the Party and the Soviet government.

I have been in prison for over a year, and I therefore do not know what is going on in the world. But, judging from those fragments of real life that sometimes reached me by chance, I see, feel and understand that the interests which we so criminally betrayed are entering a new phase of gigantic development, are now appearing in the international arena as a great and mighty factor of the international proletarian phase.

We, the accused, are sitting on the other side of the barrier, and this barrier separates us from you, Citizens judges. We found ourselves in the accursed ranks of the counter-revolution, became traitors to the Socialist fatherland….

… At such moments, Citizens judges, everything personal, all the personal incrustation, all the rancor, pride, and a number of other things, fall away, disappear. And, in addition, when the reverberations of the broad international struggle reach your ear, all this in its entirety does its work, and the result is the complete internal moral victory of the USSR over its kneeling opponents. I happened by chance to get Feuchtwanger’s book [MOSCOW, 1937 (1937)] from the prison library. There he refers to the trials of the Trotskyites. It produced a profound impression on me; but I must say that Feuchtwanger did not get at the core of the matter. He stopped half way, not everything was clear to him; when, as a matter of fact, everything is clear. World history is a world court of judgment: A number of groups of Trotskyite leaders went bankrupt and have been cast into the pit. That is true. But you cannot do what Feuchtwanger does in relation to Trotsky in particular, when he places him on the same plane as Stalin. Here his arguments are absolutely false. For in reality the whole country stands behind Stalin; he is the hope of the world; he is a creator. Napoleon once said that fate is politics. The fate of Trotsky is counter-revolutionary politics.

I am about to finish. I am perhaps speaking for the last time in my life.

I am explaining how I came to realize the necessity of capitulating to the investigating authorities and to you, Citizens judges. We came out against the joy of the new life with the most criminal methods of struggle. I refute the accusation of having plotted against the life of Vladimir Il’ich, but my counter-revolutionary confederates, and I at their head, endeavored to murder Lenin’s cause, which is being carried on with such tremendous success by Stalin. The logic of this struggle led us step by step into the blackest quagmire. And it has once more been proved that departure from the position of Bolshevism means siding with political counter-revolutionary banditry. Counter-revolutionary banditry has now been smashed, we have been smashed, and we repent our frightful crimes….

… I am kneeling before the country, before the Party, before the whole people. The monstrousness of my crimes is immeasurable especially in the new stage of the struggle of the USSR May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may the great might of the USSR become clear to all. Let it be clear to all that the counter-revolutionary thesis of the national limitedness; of the USSR has remained suspended in the air like a wretched rag. Everybody perceives the wise leadership of the country that is ensured by Stalin.

It is in the consciousness of this that I await the verdict. What matters is not the personal feelings of a repentant enemy, but the flourishing progress of the USSR and its international importance….

Source: Case of the Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites: heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., Moscow. March 2-13, 1938 (Moscow: People’s Commissariat of Justice, 1938), pp. 5-6, 36, 626, 648, 696-97, 767, 778-79.

Murder of Kirov

P. N. Pospelov, Materials on the Question of the Murder of S. M. Kirov. 1955

 

Translated from the Russian by Ranjana Saxena.

Original Source: Svobodnaia mysl, No. 8 (1992).

As directed by the Presidium of the CC we investigated the points referred to in the letter of Comrade O. G. Shatunovskaia. We talked to Comrade Kirchakov and Comrade Trunina, former members of the party, mentioned in Comrade Shatunovskaia’s letter.

Dr. Kirchakov confirmed that he did talk to Shatunovskaia and Trunina about some of the unexplained aspects of the Kirov murder case. Nonetheless, he said that his statement was based not ‘on Medved’s words’, as had been stated in the letter of Shatunovskaia but on that of Ol’skii (the former NKVD worker who was transferred in 1931 to the People’s Supply System). Apparently, Medved’ himself told all this to Dr. Kirchakov.

In his declaration Kirchakov writes that: ‘…he stated in the discussion on the tragic death of Comrade Kirov and the role of Medved’ who was repressed over this matter. In this discussion Ol’skii was of the firm opinion that Medved’ came to grief completely undeservedly, that Medved’ was a close and sincere friend of Comrade Kirov and that in the murder of Comrade Kirov Medved’ was not culpable.

Ol’skii also told me that Medved’ was alienated from the investigations of the murder of Comrade Kirov. The proceedings were carried out by Agranov and later by somebody (whose name he did not remember).

During one of the sessions of the cross-examination, Ol’skii related that Stalin asked the killer why Comrade Kirov had been killed. To this he replied that he carried out the instruction of the Chekists and pointed towards the group of Chekists standing in the room, Medved’ was not amongst them..’

In the declaration of Comrade Trunina this episode has been described somewhat differently. Comrade Trunina was a nurse in the hospital and heard this story along with Comrade Shatunovskaia:

I do not remember from where he heard all this but this is what Comrade Kirchakov told us:

After Comrade Kirov’s murder Comrade Stalin came down to Leningrad. He was the last one to interrogate Nikolaev, as to why he had killed Comrade Kirov. Nikolaev pointed to the NKVD workers standing there and said that they had ‘forced’ him to do so. After this one of the persons from them hit Nikolaev on the head with a revolver and he was taken away.

Lots of material started pouring into the CC of the CPSU and the Party Control Committee regarding various aspects of Kirov’s murder after Comrade Khrushchev’s Report, ‘On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences’ was read at closed door meetings. This includes the statement of Kirov’s driver, Kuzin, that Commissar Borisov who was responsible for Kirov’s round the clock security in the Smolnyi was intentionally killed and that his death in a road accident was not at all natural. Some important facts are mentioned in the statement (Stalin’s discussion with the NKVD workers of the Leningrad division) of Fomin, former Deputy Director of the Leningrad NKVD. Incidentally he is the only one living of all the workers of this department it needs to be mentioned that Fomin’s statement on Borisov’s accidental death seems to be untrue.

There is a lot of material, at times of a contradictory nature, available on the Kirov murder case. There are 58 volumes for just one year from 1934 to 1935.

In these materials there is a clear tendency to explain Kirov’s murder as ‘negligence’ of the Leningrad division of the NKVD and also to attribute the murder committed by Nikolaev as the planned work of the supporters of Trotsky and Zinoviev in Moscow and Leningrad. Hence it is necessary to compare the material with that of the years of 1937 and 1938.

The case proceedings of the Kirov murder case and the statements of people like Iagoda, Enukidze, Zaporozhets, and the groups of workers of the Leningrad division of the NKVD (like Khviyuzov, Gubin, Malyi, Vinogradov), who were accused in the suspected murder of Commissar Borisov, are of great importance as far as factual information on the case is concerned.

On studying and comparing this material one can reach some preliminary conclusions:

1. Kirov’s murder could take place primarily because the people responsible for his security, clearly facilitated his killing:

(a) On 15th October, 1934, L. Nikolaev, was arrested for the first time for suspicious conduct but was set free by Gubin though he (by the facts of 1937) was in possession of a revolver and documents which incriminated him of having intentions of terrorist activity. Nikolaev was freed on orders from Zaporozhets, the Deputy Director of the Leningrad NKVD who in turn received orders from Iagoda.

(b) The immediate reason leading to the murder of Kirov was that Borisov, who was responsible for his security in Smolnyi, did not keep pace with Kirov and lagged behind by at least 20 meters. Dureiko, the second guard on patrol duty on the third floor, did not, as per the instructions, accompany Kirov up to the room and instead went into the other direction. Therefore Nikolaev could catch up with Kirov and shoot him almost pointblank.

It would be wrong to say that few people were engaged in the security of Kirov. In fact on the first of December there were 9 persons involved in his security from the NKVD.

2. During the summer of 1934 Iagoda received instructions from Enukidze not to come in between the plans for the assassination of Kirov by the Trotskyites and Zinovievites. Initially, Iagoda was categorically opposed to such an idea as the entire political responsibility of such an act would have been his, but later on he succumbed to pressures from Enukidze. This is what Iagoda had to say.

The question arises: in what capacity did Enukidze give such orders to Iagoda, whether in his position of a member of the ‘Rightist Trotskyite Center’, as Iagoda indicated subsequently and in court in March, 1938, or in his capacity as a trusted person of Stalin, at his ‘instance’. Why strictly speaking was Iagoda in this period (the summer of 1934) in his words ‘forced’ to submit to the ‘Rightist-Trotskyite Center’? Looking at the materials of the investigation it seems to be a far-fetched idea that Iagoda could have politically compromised at this time. His meetings with the rightists were of a formal, official nature, he had to arrest both the Trotskyites and the Rightists. He could not have taken the risk of succumbing to the pressures of the ‘Rightist-Trotskyite Center’, nor to raise the question of the arrest of persons, or offering to assist the murder of a member of the Politbiuro, Kirov.

At this time (the summer of 1934) Iagoda was at the peak of his political career. He was promoted to the post of People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs; his biography and photograph were published in Pravda on the occasion. At this juncture why would he risk his position and follow such a dangerous instruction of the ‘Rightist-Trotskyite Center’?

It is a different matter if these instructions were given by Enukidze in the name of ‘instances’ even in a semi-official form. Iagoda would have been compelled to comply with such directives.

3. Iagoda was not given any penalty. In fact he did not even carry any responsibility for a shameful fault of the NKVD’s functioning as the assassination of a member of the Politbiuro, S. M. Kirov. Instead he was made out to be a ‘hero’. By way of an explanation he was given the chance to come out with a political document: ‘A Closed Letter to the NKVD of the USSR’, No. 001, dated 26th January, 1935, where he squarely put all the blame on Medved’ and the Leningrad workers of the NKVD. The people at the NKVD, said Iagoda in his letter, ‘had become blind and deaf in fact were asleep at their revolutionary post’.

This ‘Closed Letter No. 001’ by Iagoda was placed before Stalin for approval and was edited by him personally.

Was there any move in the PB to implicate Iagoda as responsible in the Kirov murder? Apparently there were. As told by Enukidze in one of the Politbiuro meetings Sergo Ordzhonikidze directly blamed Iagoda for the death of Kirov, flinging the remark ‘You are culpable for the death of Kirov’. (See ‘The Enukidze Case’, p. 81).

The fact that Iagoda did not get any penalty and that the Leningrad NKVD workers were very mildly punished by the court in 1935 raised a lot of doubts.

Right from the beginning of the case of the murder of Kirov in 1934 Stalin who was associated with the case from the start, frankly charged the Trotskyites and Zinovievites as terrorist groups.

Ezhov talked about this in his concluding speech at the Plenum of the CC of the CPSU(b) on the 3rd of March, 1937:

As I now remember Comrade Stalin called Kosarev and me and said ‘Look for the guilty amongst the Zinovievites’, I must say that the Chekists did not believe this and that at all events insured themselves on another line, the line of a foreign connection – possibly something could come out of that. (Stenographic Report of the Plenum of the CC of the CPSU(b) of 3rd March, 1937, p. 391).

Stalin carried out a substantial change while editing the above-mentioned ‘Secret Letter’ of Iagoda. The proposed text read: ‘Our organs in Leningrad criminally overlooked the ramifications of the counter-revolutionary organization of the Zinovievites’. Stalin amended it to ‘criminally overlooked the existence of the terrorist groups of Zinovievites’ (The Case of Medved’, Zaporozhets and others, preserved in the CC).

1. A few facts about the murder of S. M. Kirov and the nature of the investigation in this case during the years 1934-35 and 1937-38.

From the bulk of the factual material on the murder of S. M. Kirov one can conclude that Nikolaev had been planning this villainous murder for some months.

What was the assassin – L. Nikolaev – like?

Many facts point out that Nikolaev was not really a normal person, he was an epileptic with an incorrect self-assessment and bore a grudge against the Party and the Soviet state (he was dropped from the Party for refusing to work in the transport division, later he was reinstated).

If one goes by the personal diary of Nikolaev, his various counter-revolutionary statements and the opinion of his wife, one may conclude that Kirov’s murder was planned by Nikolaev as a mark of protest against the policies of the Party and the Soviet state. While preparing for the assassination, Nikolaev, pretending to be a proletarian (though he worked in a factory for only two years), wrote a counter-revolutionary letter to the Politbiuro in 1934. The letter had a very pretentious title: ‘My answer to the Party and the Fatherland’.

In this letter he listed his various ‘grudges’ and he also declared: ‘We, the working people, do not have any freedom in life, work and academics… We have shifted to a new flat, but what a commotion had been raised for it… They talk about war, the impending war as the Weatherman gives a weather prognosis. So, let it be – the war is inevitable, but it would be destructive and salutary also. Not so many people would suffer as during revolution -17-30-50 million of people – facing all its consequences’.

In another of his letters Nikolaev wrote:

‘…Thousands of generations would come but the idea of communism would still remain alien to life…’

‘I would condemn everything new with the same intensity with which I defended it’ (Materials on the Case of Nikolaev and others, Vol. 24, pp. 27-28, 15).

Nikolaev’s wife, M. Draule, in her declaration of 11th December, 1934, confirms the deep-rooted anti-Soviet feelings of her husband: ‘Nikolaev accused the Central Committee of pursuing the politics of militarization, spending huge amounts on the defense of the country. To justify all the defense expenditure (building of factories etc.) they are raising the false alarm that the foreign forces are planning to attack the Soviet Union though there is no such threat. According to Nikolaev this false alarm is also being raised to divert the attention of the toiling masses of the Soviet Union away from the persisting hardships in the country. These hardships are also the result of the wrong policies of the CC… After his exclusion from the Party, in fact, Nikolaev turned into a hardcore anti-Soviet terrorist, killing Comrade Kirov’.

In her statement M. Draule made it clear that ‘from the date of his expulsion from the Party until his arrest (at the end of March, 1934), Nikolaev remained unemployed. In fact, he was not even willing to take up any work, as he was completely engrossed with the preparations of his future act of’ terrorism’. (The Case of Nikolaev and others: File No. 1, pp. 183, 182).

During the first hours of his arrest, Nikolaev’s conduct has been recorded by Comrade Fomin, the former Deputy Director of the Leningrad branch of the NKVD, in a statement to the CC of the CPSU as follows: ‘The murderer for a long time after gaining consciousness simply was blabbering and only towards the morning he started shouting and speaking coherently. He said: “My shot echoed in the whole world”. I told him that in turn he would get only the abuses of the people. To my and Deputy Director O. O. Ianishevskii’s repeated query about “the person(s) who incited him to this shooting”, Nikolaev did not answer. All he would do is start shouting and become hysterical. (Comrade Fomin’s statement dated 26th March, 1956).

On the day of the murder of S. M. Kirov, Nikolaev stated that the assassination was worked out by him alone and that there were no co-conspirators. Further he said that by killing Comrade Kirov he had fulfilled an ‘historic mission’ and it was a ‘signal’ for the Party that they had done injustice to a living person.

In the Protocol dated the 3rd December, Nikolaev talked only of the officials he met in the Smolnyi on the 1st of December, how he got the entry pass and talked about the actual murder. ‘…I came out of the Smolnyi building and strolled about an hour on the Tver and Ochakov Streets and came back to Smolnyi. I climbed up to the 3rd floor, entered the washroom, came out and turned left. Having taken two-three steps I saw that Sergei Mironovich Kirov was walking towards me from the right side of the corridor. He was 15-20 steps away from me. When I caught sight of Sergei Mironovich Kirov I immediately halted and turned my back to him so that when he walked past me I followed behind him. While walking behind Kirov at a distance of 10-15 paces I noted that there was nobody in the corridor for quite a distance. Then I went after him, gradually caught up with him. When Kirov turned left towards his room, the situation of which was well-known to me, the whole corridor was empty. I ran five steps up to him, took out my revolver and shot him in the back of the head. Instantaneously Kirov fell on his face (The Case of Nikolaev and Others, File No. 1, p. 42).

This statement of Nikolaev clarifies that Commissar Borisov lagged behind Kirov not by just 20 meters but by 40-50 or more. His statement tells us that there was nobody ‘patrolling’ in the main corridor at the time of the assassination attempt.

On the 4th December, 1934 in a message to the Secretary of the CC of CPSU(b) Comrade Stalin, Agranov, who was carrying out the investigation at this moment, intimated: ‘The Secret Service are confounded (This was evidently for the sake of informing the collaborators of the NKVD, Katsaf and Radin, who were sitting in the room with Nikolaev) by the utterances of Nikolaev Leonid, it became clear that his closest friends were the Trotskyite Ivan Ivanovich Kotolynov and Nikolai Nikolaevich Shatskii, from whom he learnt a lot. Nikolaev said that these people were hostile to Comrade Stalin. Kotolynov was well-known in the NKVD to be a former underground Trotskyite activist. He at one time had been expelled from the party and later re-admitted. Shatskii, a former anarchist, had been expelled from the ranks of the CPSU(b) in 1927 for counter-revolutionary activity. He was not reinstated in the party. I issued orders for the arrest of Shatskii for the establishment of the residence of Kotolynov’ (Case of Nikolaev and Others, File No. 1, p. 49).

For the first time after this in the statements of Nikolaev there are hints of his ‘connections’ with the Trotskyites. But at the same time Nikolaev categorically denied any hand of the ‘Trotskyites’ or the ‘Zinovievites’ in the attempt on Kirov.

While reporting to Stalin about the interrogation of Nikolaev of the 4th of December, Agranov conveyed that ‘Nikolaev is holding out with extreme obduracy’ (Ibid., p. 47).

During the cross-examination on the 4th of December, Agranov put the question to Nikolaev: ‘What influence on your decision to murder Comrade Kirov had your relations with the Trotskyite opposition?’ Nikolaev replied: ‘my decision to murder Comrade Kirov was influenced by my relations with the Trotskyites: Shatskii, Vanya Kotolynov, Nikolai Bardin. However I knew these persons not as members of a grouping, but as individuals.’ To the question: ‘Did these individuals participate in his crimes?’ – Nikolaev answered: ‘No, they did not take part. Roughly in the August of that year, when I carried an inspection of the house where Kirov and Chudov lived, I met Shatskii on Red Dawn Street. He complained about his being cut off from the patty, his discontentment. He said that another person in his place would have been prepared for anything…

‘I caught sight of Kotolynov in the Polytechnic Institute in Leningrad before the October Celebrations (4th November), but we had no discussions’ (The Case of Nikolaev and Others, File No. 1, pp. 47, 46). From these testimonies of Nikolaev of 4th December it follows that already in August, 1934, Nikolaev, independently of his meetings with Kotolynov and Shatskii, bad terrorist intentions in relation to S. M. Kirov and that he ‘carried out an inspection of the house where Kirov and Chudov lived on Red Dawn Street.

Here, by his words, he accidentally met Shatskii who complained to him about his serious situation and stated that another in his place would have been driven to the extreme. Thereafter they ‘exchanged glances’ at the time they saw the car of Chudov arrive. All this strictly is established by the interrogation of 4th December.

Further, from the protocol annexed it is clear that Nikolaev first met Kotolynov only on the 4th December, 1934, it is known that no conversation took place between them. Hence, Kotolynov could not be the initiator and main organizer of the murder of S. M. Kirov.

It was on this circumstance that Kotolynov rested in Court to conclusively refute any subsequent (after 4th December) testimony given by Nikolaev.

This is what Kotolynov stated in the court on 29-29 December, 1934:

Nikolaev states as if I was responsible for dragging him into a counter-revolutionary organization. At the same time he also says that before this he had met Shatskii, who got him into the organization. His meeting with Shatskii took place before meeting Kotolynov. Therefore it is Shatskii who is responsible for his entry into the organization, and that Kotolynov is not implicated. He maintains that the meeting in September 1934 was with Kotolynov, but in his testimony he affirms that already in the summer of 1934 be met Shatskii by the quarters of Kirov. The question arises: what did they do by the house of Kirov in the summer of 1934. If you gather to commit a terrorist act, then why do you have a meeting in September when in the summer you went to the residence of Comrade Kirov. Here there is an internal contradiction which exposes the fallaciousness of the testimony of Nikolaev. I have still an entire succession of moments in which he exposes himself. Let him firmly say where he met Kotolynov, he says in the Leningrad Industrial Institute, let him say where and how the meeting was organized. I undertake to disperse the smoke of this testimony (Stenographic Protocol of the Court Proceedings of the Assizes Session of the Supreme Court of the USSR of 28-29 December in the Case of L. V. Nikolaev and others, Sheet 54).

In his last statement Kotolynov said:

I can take the worst kind of punishment, I do not plead for mercy. I demand stern punishment but I did not participate in this murder and in this lies my tragedy. Nikolaev, Antonov testify that I knew, but I did not know, I did not participate, I did not organize and I did not meet Nikolaev.

Being accused in prison I saw the sequence of contradictions of which I have frequently spoken. These inaccuracies and contradictions are the basis of the false statements of Nikolaev. All sitting in the dock admit to their guilt in the terrorist act, but I deny it.

The first question is: who was responsible for the entry of Nikolaev into the counter- revolutionary organization. According to him he first met Shatskii and then Kotolynov. But he also says that from March onwards he did not take up any job and his wife confirms this. But why did he not work? Nikolaev’s wife says that he wanted time to make preparations for the terrorist act. From the end of March, 1934, onwards he did not work, not that he did not get work, but he wanted to devote himself entirely and fully to prepare the terrorist act, that means that he was prepared for the terrorist act already long before his meeting with me that he mentioned. He said that this meeting took place in September. He met Shatskii near the flat of Kirov in the summer of 1934. Again this was before meeting me as Nikolaev’s own words testify.

With full responsibility I declare for the last time that I am guilty of counter-revolutionary Zinovievshchina. I am answerable for that shot witch was fired by Nikolaev, but I did not participate in organizing this murder (Leafs 117-118-119).

In this last statement the suspect Shatskii fully denied any role in the preparations for the terrorist act on S. M. Kirov and the corresponding testimony of Nikolaev. Shatskii stated: ‘I must confirm that I had no relations with the counter-revolutionary group. Nor was I aware of any preparation for terrorist acts upon Comrades Stalin and Kirov. I state that I do not acknowledge any conversations which were spoken of here and in the investigations as if I carried out talks relating to the assassination’ (Leaf 122).

Kotolynov requested a supplementary inquiry into the case of Nikolaev to investigate the evident contradictions in his statements.

Apparently, this testimony of Kotolynov had some effect on Ulrikh, the Chairman of the Military Board. In a letter to the Party Control Commission Comrade Aristovaia-Litkens (the former common law wife of Ulrikh) who was in Leningrad at the time of the trial, said:

When the investigation proceedings were over and a short break was declared before passing sentence, Comrade Ulrikh, not satisfied, apparently, with something in the proceedings, telephoned the Kremlin by the direct-line, requesting permission to carry out further investigation to clarity some facts which were insufficiently clear but could powerfully give the deeper roots and threads of the crime. He received from Comrade Stalin an abrupt and short reply: ‘What further investigations? Enough of it. Finish the case.’