Russia - Definitions

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  • Created by: T Colby
  • Created on: 26-02-16 12:33
(Define) All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
A gathering of representatives from all the soviets formed in Russia between February and October 1917.
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(Define) Amazons.
A special corps of female soldiers recruited by Kerensky.
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(Define) Anarchy.
Absence of government or authority, leading to disorder.
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(Define) autonomy.
Natioal self-government.
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(Define) Balkans.
The area of south-eastern Europe (surrounded by Austria-Hungary to the north, the Black Sea to the east, Turkey to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the west) that had largely been under Turkish control.
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(Define) Bi-cameral.
A parliament made up of two chambers of houses, an upper and a lower.
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(Define) Bolsheviks.
From bolshinstvo (Russian for majority).
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(Define) Bottom up approach.
Historical analysis of what was happening at the grass-roots level of society.
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(Define) Bourgeoisie.
The owners of capital, the boss class, who exploited the workers but who would be overthrown by them in the revolution to come.
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(Define) Capitalism.
The predominant economic system in Europe and the USA, based on private ownership and the making of profits - condemned by Marxists as involving the exploitation of the poor by the rich.
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(Define) Capitalist methods of finance.
The system in which the owners of private capital (money) increase their wealth by making loans on which interest has to be paid later by the borrower.
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(Define) Capitalists.
Russia's financiers and industrialists.
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(Define) Central Committee.
The decision-making body of the Bolshevik Party.
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(Define) Central Powers.
Germany, Austria-Hungary Turkey.
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(Define) Centralisation.
The concentration of political and economic power at the centre.
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(Define) Cheka.
Stood for (Russian) All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Fighting Counter-revolution, Sabotage and Speculation. It was the secret police.
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(Define) Collective farms (kolkhozy).
Co-operatives in which the peasants pooled their resources and shared the labour and the wages.
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(Define) Collectivisation.
The abolition of private property and the forcing of the peasants to live and work in communes.
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(Define) Comintern.
Short for the Communist International, a body set up in Moscow in March 1919 to organise worldwide revolution.
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(Define) Commissars.
Russian for 'ministers'; Lenin chose the word because, he said, "It reeks of blood".
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(Define) Commissar for Foreign Affairs.
Equivalent to the Foreign Secretary in Britain.
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(Define) Commissar for Nationalities.
Minister responsible for liasing with the non-Russian national minorities.
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(Define) Commissar for Enlightenment.
Equivalent to an arts minister.
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(Define) Commission.
The awarding of officer rank.
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(Define) Committee System.
A process in which the deputies of the third duma formed various committtes to discuss and advise on particular issues.
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(Define) Confidant.
A person to whom one confides intimates secrets and a special trust.
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(Define) Conscription.
The forcing of large numbers of peasants into the army or navy. `
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(Define) Conservatism.
Suspicious of change, and, therefore, resistant to it.
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(Define) Co-operative.
Group of workers or farmers working together on their own enterprise.
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(Define) Cossacks.
The elite cavalry regiment of the tsars.
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(Define) Council of People's Commissars.
The cabinet of ministers responsible for making government policies.
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(Define) Counter-revolution.
A term used by the Bolsheviks to cover any action of which they dissaproved by branding it as reactionary and opposed to progress.
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(Define) 'Dark masses'.
The term used in court and government circles to signify the fear and contempt they felt towards the peasants who made up four-fiths of the population.
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(Define) De facto.
A term used to denote the real situation, as compared to what it should or might be in theory of law.
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(Define) De jure.
By legitimate legal right.
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(Define) Diktat.
A settlement imposed on a weaker nation by a stonger.
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(Define) Dual Authority.
Lenin coined this term to describe the uneasy alliance and balance of power between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet.
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(Define) Duma.
The Russian parliament, which existed from 1906-1917.
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(Define) Economism.
Putting the improvement of the workers' conditions before the need for revolution.
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(Define) Grain procurements.
Enforced collections of fixed quotas of grain from the peasants.
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(Define) Greens.
Largely made up of groups from the national minorities; the best known of the Green leaders was Nestor Makhno.
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(Define) Homo sovieticus.
A mock Latin term invented to describe the new 'Soviet man'.
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(Define) Indemnities.
Payment of war costs demanded by the victors from the defeated.
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(Define) Institutions.
The formal structures on which a society depends, such as the government, the administration system, the law, education, the economy.
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(Define) International revolutionaries.
Marxists who were willing o sacrifice national interests in the cause of a worldwide rising of the workers.
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(Define) International Women's Day.
A demonstration organised by socialist groups to demand female equity: 23rd February 1917.
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(Define) Kremlin.
The former tsarist fortress in Moscow that became the centre of Soviet government.
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(Define) Kulaks.
Bolshevik term for the class of rich, exploiting peasants. The notion was largely a myth. Rather than being a class of exploiters, the kulaks were simply the more efficient farmers, who were marginally more prosperous.
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(Define) Labourists.
Name adopted by the SRs, who as a party officially boycotted the elctions to the first duma.
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(Define) Left Communists.
Bolsheviks who were convinced that their first task was to consolidate the October Revolution by driving the German imperialist armies from Russia. The term was later used to describe Party members who opposed the NEP.
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(Define) Legislative Duma.
A parliament with law-making powers.
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(Define) Martial law.
The placing of the whole population under direct military authority.
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(Define) Marxism-Leninism.
The notion that Marx's theory of the class war as interpreted by Lenin was an unchallengeably accurate piece of scientific analysis.
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(Define) Mensheviks.
From menshinstvo (Russian for minority).
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(Define) Monarchists.
Those who wanted a restoration of tsardom.
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(Define) Nepmen.
Those who stood to gain from the free trading permitted under the New Economic Policy: the rich peasants, the retailors, the traders, and the small-scale manufacturers.
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(Define) Nepotism.
A system in which positions are gained through family connections rather than on merit.
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(Define) Bolshevik deserters.
Bolsheviks who in October 1917, believing that the Party was not yet strong enough, had advised against a Bolshevik rising.
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(Define) Okhrana.
The tsarist secret police, whose special task was to hunt down subversives who challenged the tsarist regime.
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(Define) Party democracy.
Trotsky was not pressing for democracy in the full sense of all party members having a say. His aim was to condemn the centralising of power from which Stalin had gained such benefit.
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(Define) Patronage.
The power to appoint individuals to official posts in the Party and the government.
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(Define) People's Will.
This group of SRs represented the most extreme element in pre-revolutionary Russia.
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(Define) Petrograd.
For patriotic reasons, the German name for the capital, St. Petersburg, was changed to the Russian form Petrograd in 1914.
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(Define) Pogroms.
Fierce persecutions of the Jews, which often involved wounding or killing them and destroying their property.
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(Define) Politburo.
Short for Political Bureau, the inner cabinet of the ruling Central Committee of the CPSU.
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(Define) Political acitivists.
Those who believed necessary change could be achieved only through direct action.
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(Define) Politcal commissars.
Party workers whose function was to accompany the officers of the Red Army permanently and report on their conduct. No military order carried final authority unless a commissar countersigned it.
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(Define) Political correctness.
The requirement that people conform to a prescribed set of opinions when expressing themselves to show what they have accepted the ideology of the leaders of society.
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(Define) Pragmatic.
An approach in which policies are modified according to circumstances rather than in keeping with a fixed theory.
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(Define) Pravda.
Russian for truth. The title of one of the USSR's official government newspapers.
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(Define) Proletariat.
The exploited industrial workers, who, according to Marx, would triumph in the last great class struggle.
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(Define) Red Guards.
Despite the Bolshevik legend that these were the crack forces of the Revolution, the Red Guards, some 10,000 in number, were largely made up of elderly men recruited from the workers in the factories.
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(Define) Reds.
The Bolsheviks and their supporters.
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(Define) Reparations.
The payment of was costs by the loser to the victor.
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(Define) Requisitioning.
State-authorised takeover of the property of resources.
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(Define) Revolutionary socialism.
The takeover of the state by the peasants and workers.
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(Define) Romanov dynasty.
The royal house that ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917.
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(Define) Secretariat.
The civil service that put Communist Party policies into practice.
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(Define) Soviet.
A council made up of elected representatives.
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(Define) Sovnarkom.
Russian for government or cabinet.
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(Define) State capitalism.
The direction and control of the economy by the government, using its central power and authority.
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(Define) Ukraine.
The region in southern Russia containing the largest number of non-Russian people (23 million) in the empire. It was also the nation's largest food-producing region, hence its great importance.
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(Define) Vesenkha.
The Supreme Council of the National Economy.
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(Define) War credits.
Money loaned on easy repayment terms to Russia to finance its war effort.
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(Define) Westerners.
Russians who believed that their nation had to model iself on the advanced countries of western Europe.
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(Define) Whites.
The Bolsheviks' opponents, including monarchists looking for a tsarist restoration, and those parties that had been outlawed or suppressed by the new regime.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

(Define) Amazons.

Back

A special corps of female soldiers recruited by Kerensky.

Card 3

Front

(Define) Anarchy.

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

(Define) autonomy.

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

(Define) Balkans.

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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