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Chapter 10
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Bolsheviks
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Lenin’s faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party; later came to mean anyone who followed his views and/or organization.
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Brezhnev, Leonid
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General secretary of the CPSU from 1964 until 1982. Largely responsible for the stagnation of the USSR.
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Central Committee
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Supposedly the most important body in a communist party; its influence declined as it grew in size and the party needed daily leadership.
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Cheka
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The Soviet Union’s first secret police.
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Chernomyrdin, Viktor
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Prime minister of Russia, 1993–98.
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Comintern
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The interwar coalition of communist parties directed from Moscow.
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Communist Party of the Russian Federation
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The new incarnation of the CPSU for Russia.
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Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The party that ran the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
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CPSU
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Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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De-Stalinization
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The shift away from Stalinist policies and practices beginning with Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956.
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Democratic centralism
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The Leninist organizational structure that concentrates power in the hands of the party elite.
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Fatherland–All Russia
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One of the leading opposition parties in Russia in the 1999 Duma elections.
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Federation Council
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The largely powerless upper house of the Russian parliament.
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Five-year plan
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In the former Soviet Union and other communist countries, the period for which Gosplan developed goals and quotas.
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Gaidar, Yegor
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Reformist politician and acting prime minister of Russia in 1993.
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Glasnost
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Under Gorbachev, Soviet policies that opened up the political system and allowed for freedom of expression.
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Gorbachev,Mikhail
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Head of the CPSU and last president of the Soviet Union.
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Gosplan
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The Soviet central planning agency.
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KGB
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Soviet secret police.
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Khrushchev, Nikita
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Successor of Josef Stalin as head of CPSU and Soviet Union from 1953 until he was ousted in 1964.
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Lenin, V. I.
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Architect of the Bolshevik revolution and first leader of the Soviet Union.
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Liberal Democratic Party
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In Britain, the number-three party and in some ways the most radical; in Japan, the dominant party since the 1950s; in Russia, the neofascist and racist opposition party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
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Mensheviks
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The smaller and more moderate faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party before World War I.
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Near abroad
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Russian term to describe the other fourteen republics of the former Soviet Union.
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NEP
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New Economic Policy in USSR.
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Nomenklatura
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The Soviet system of lists that facilitated the CPSU’s appointment of trusted people to key positions. Adopted by other communist regimes.
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Oligarch
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Business and political leaders with, what some think, is undue influence in Russia.
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Our Home Is Russia
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New political party chaired by former prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
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Perestroika
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Ill-fated program to reform the Soviet economy in the late 1980s.
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Politburo
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Generic term used to describe the leadership of communist parties.
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Power ministries
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The most important departments in the Russian government.
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Privatization
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The selling off of state-owned companies.
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Provisional government
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Generic term used to describe temporary governments until a new constitution is written; also the government in Russia between the two 1917 revolutions.
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Purge
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The systematic removal of people from party, state, or other office; especially common in communist systems.
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Putin, Vladimir
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President of Russia since 2000.
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RSFSR
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Official title of the Russian federation of the old Soviet Union.
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Russian Federation
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Formal name of Russia.
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Secret speech
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Given by Khrushchev in 1957, seen as the start of the “thaw.”
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Secretariat
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Generic term used to describe the bureaucratic leaders of a communist party.
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Shock therapy
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Policies in formerly communist countries that envisage as rapid a shift to a market economy as possible.
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Stalin, Joseph
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Leader of the CPSU and Soviet Union, 1924–53.
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State Duma
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The lower house of the Russian parliament.
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State Security Council
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The leading ministers of the Russian government; the coordinating body for secret police and other organs of repression in the later years of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
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Third International
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Moscow-dominated organization of communist parties around the world between the two world wars.
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Trotsky, Leon
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Leading left-wing Bolshevik, purged in the 1920s and assassinated by Stalin’s agents in 1940.
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Twentieth Party Congress
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Occasion of Khrushchev’s “secret speech” launching de-Stalinization.
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Yaboloko
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One of the leading reformist parties in Russia.
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Yeltsin, Boris
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Former reformist communist leader and president of Russia, 1991–2000.
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Zhirinovsky, Vladimir
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Leader of the right-wing and racist Liberal Democratic Party in Russia.
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Zyuganov, Gennady
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Head of the Russian Communist Party.
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