Glossary. Flashcards

Question

Edict …

Answer 1

An official order issued by a person of authority. (Russian = ukaz).

Answer 2

In a system of electoral colleges, individuals vote for others who then vote on their behalf.

Answer 3

Freeing from bondage.

Answer 4

Dispossessed old elites who had no place in the new Russia.

Answer 5

A strike that involves all workers so that the country is brought to a standstill.

Answer 6

The State Council Planning Commission (1921-91); helped coordinate the economic development and from 1925, drafted economic plans.

Answer 7

The move from NEP to the 5-year plans and collectivisation of agriculture entitled a move to central planning and a ‘command economy’.

Answer 8

Economic colonies where millions of prisoners were used to dig mines and canals, build railways and clear forests.

Answer 9

A group of bishops, which forms the ruling body of the Orthodox Church.

Answer 10

A citizen elects a delegate to vote in the general election on their behalf.

Answer 11

The more educated members of Russian society, including writers and philosophers with both humanitarian and nationalist concerns.

Answer 12

The desire and ability to buy the products of manufacturing within the country.

Answer 13

A collective operated by a number of peasant families on state-owned land.

Answer 14

Communal family dwellings formed of formerly private apartments that were resettled shortly after the revolution.

Answer 15

The All-Leninist Union Young Communist League, the youth division of the Communist Party which was represented in its own right in the Supreme Soviet.

Answer 16

A prosperous landed peasant.

Answer 17

Those who owned land and who were a privileged minority in Russian society.

Answer 18

A programme under which the USA supplied the USSR (and other nations) with food and wartime material between 1941 and August 1945.

Answer 19

The authority to carry out a policy; this is usually given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election.

Answer 20

An extreme measure involving the use of military force; military leaders are used to enforce the law and normal civil liberties are suspended.

Answer 21

Where the conscripts lived (with their families) and trained, all under strict military discipline.

Answer 22

A peasant commune.

Answer 23

Involves borrowing money by providing a guarantee.

Answer 24

A belief in the strength of one’s own country, language and traditions.

Answer 25

Taking businesses out of private hands and placing them under state control.

Answer 26

Speculative traders who brought up produce from the peasants to sell in the towns, and consumer items in the towns to sell in the peasant markets - making a profit on both transactions.

Answer 27

A category of people who held key administrative positions in areas such as government, industry, agriculture and education, appointed by the Communist Party in the region.

Answer 28

Following a split in the Christian Church in the eleventh century, the Eastern Orthodox Church developed its own beliefs and rituals.

Answer 29

Appointed by the Tsar from the laity, this was the highest Church official.

Answer 30

A belief that Slav races should be united.

Answer 31

A member of a military force behind the front line opposing the control of the area by the enemy.

Answer 32

A loose title given given to to the more liberal nobles and officials who frequented the salons of the Tsar’s aunt, or tethered around his brother.

Answer 33

Fatherly; in Russia, the male had almost unlimited authority over his family.

Answer 34

Payment in goods or services, such as accommodation, rather than money wages.

Answer 35

‘Councils’; the one in Petrograd, often known simply as ‘The Soviet’, was the most important.

Answer 36

Derogatory term for peasants who were middle class or ‘bourgeois’ in their outlook, thinking only of themselves and how they could make personal profits.

Answer 37

An old Russian which means ‘round-up’ or lynching connotation of an attack on Jews.

Answer 38

Opposite ‘extremes’ such as the North Pole and South Pole.

Answer 39

A state in which the activities of the people are closely monitored and controlled for political reasons.

Answer 40

The highest policy-making government authority under communist rule.

Answer 41

The highest policy-making government authority under communist rule.

Answer 42

Dealing with matters realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.

Answer 43

Stalin re-named the politburo as the presidium in 1952; the name was retained until 1966.

Answer 44

A government office responsible for ensuring all government ministries and institutions, as well as individual officials and citizens, obeyed the law. (Russian, Prokuratura).

Answer 45

Urban working class.

Answer 46

To turn the mass of the population into urban workers.

Answer 47

Living away from the capital.

Answer 48

A Russian measure of weight.

Answer 49

Literally a ‘cleaning out of impurities’.

Answer 50

Implies actions and policies that are backward looking in an attempt to restore the past.

Answer 51

Loyal, volunteer soldiers who had been recruited from the factory workers in the city.

Answer 52

Serfs were required to pay money in exchange for their freedom.

Answer 53

Forcing everyone within the Russian Empire to think of themselves as ‘Russian’, by enforcing the Russian language and culture.

Answer 54

Dissident activity whereby individuals reproduced works that would not pass the censor, and distributed them.

Answer 55

Destroying anything useful to the enemy before retreating.

Answer 56

A training college for priests.

Answer 57

A person who was the property of the lord whom he or she worked.

Answer 58

A trial that took place in front of the general public, usually for ‘propaganda’ purposes.

Answer 59

The political and economic theory that means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned by the community as a whole and that people would work cooperatively together.

Answer 60

One in which there is no private ownership and in which all members of society have a share in the State’s resources.

Answer 61

Person who believes that society should be egalitarian.

Answer 62

A Council of workers.

Answer 63

The cabinet, made up of the important ministers who, between them, would run the country.

Answer 64

Printing banned writings abroad.

Answer 65

The title by which the Russian ‘emperors’ were known.

Answer 66

The Council of the National Economy.

Answer 67

A peasant community consisting of several villages or hamlets.

Answer 68

The raising of taxes and loans to finance war.

Answer 69

The forces ranged against the Bolsheviks ‘Reds’.

Glossary. Flashcards

(93 cards)