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Bag People
Bag people (russian: мешочники, ''meshochniks'', or "people with bags") is a term in Russian and other Slavic languages that refers to people doing small trade for personal profit, recognizable by their large sacks. Some of them were people from the cities travelling to the countryside to buy food for small scale trade or for personal consumption, often exchanging it for material goods from farmers due to collapse of the monetary system. Others were people from the countryside doing the opposite trade. Historically, the ''bag people'' have appeared in response to economic and political collapse that ended organized delivery and distribution of food in the cities. The phenomenon was very widespread during and soon after the Russian Revolution. It also flourished throughout Eastern Europe and Germany after the devastation of World War I. No well-known English language term for this phenomenon exists. With the devastation of the economy during the Russian Civil War and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Communism
War communism or military communism (russian: Военный коммунизм, ''Voyennyy kommunizm'') was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921. According to Soviet historiography, the ruling Bolshevik administration adopted this policy with the goal of keeping towns (the proletarian power-base) and the Red Army stocked with food and weapons since circumstances dictated new economic measures. During the civil war, the old capitalist market-based system was unable to produce food and expand the industrial base. War communism has often been described as simple authoritarian control by the ruling and military castes to maintain power and control in the Soviet regions, rather than any coherent political ideology. War communism began in June 1918, enforced by the Supreme Economic Council (russian: Высший Совет Народного Хозяйства), known as the Vesenkha. It ended on 21 March 1921 w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Absolute At Large
''The Absolute at Large'' (''Továrna na absolutno'' in the original Czech, literally translated as ''The Factory for the Absolute''), is a science fiction novel written by Czech author Karel Čapek in 1922. The first sentence opens the story on New Year's Day 1943 - a future date at the time of writing - and describes the fundamental transformations in society as the result of a new mystical source of virtually free energy. Plot The story centers on the invention of a reactor that can annihilate matter to produce cheap and abundant energy. Unfortunately, it produces something else as a by-product, the ''absolute''. The ''absolute'' is a spiritual essence that according to some religious philosophies permeates all matter. It is associated with human religious experience, as an unsuspecting humanity is to find out all too soon in the story. The widespread adoption of the reactors cause an enormous outpouring of pure ''absolute'' into the world. This leads to an outburst of religio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karel Čapek
Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel ''War with the Newts'' (1936) and play ''R.U.R.'' (''Rossum's Universal Robots'', 1920), which introduced the word ''robot''.Oxford English Dictionary: robot n2 He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism, he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe. Though nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, Čapek never received it. However, several awards commemorate his name, such as the Karel Čapek Prize, awarded every other year by the Czech PEN Club for literary work that contributes to reinforcing or maintaining democratic and humanist values in society. He also played a key role in establishing the Czechoslovak PEN Club as a part of Internatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Road Back
''The Road Back'', also translated as ''The Way Back'', (german: Der Weg zurück) is a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque, commonly regarded as a sequel to his 1929 novel ''All Quiet on the Western Front''. It was first serialized in the German newspaper ''Vossische Zeitung'' between December 1930 and January 1931, and published in book form in April 1931. Plot Although the book follows different characters from those in ''All Quiet on the Western Front'', it can be assumed that they were in the same company, as the characters recall other characters from the earlier novel. Tjaden is the only member of the 2nd Company to feature prominently in both books. Set a few weeks after the end of ''All Quiet on the Western Front'', the novel deals with the fall of the German Empire and details the experience of young men in Germany who have returned from the trenches of World War I and are trying to integrate back into civilian life. Its most salient feature is the main chara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque (, ; born Erich Paul Remark; 22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was a German-born novelist. His landmark novel '' All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1928), based on his experience in the Imperial German Army during World War I, was an international bestseller which created a new literary genre, and was adapted into multiple films. Remarque's anti-war themes led to his condemnation by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as "unpatriotic". He was able to use his literary success to relocate to Switzerland and the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. Early life Remarque was born on 22 June 1898, as Erich Paul Remark, to Peter Franz Remark and Anna Maria (), a working-class Roman Catholic family in Osnabrück. He was never close with his father, a bookbinder, but he was close with his mother and he began using the middle name Maria after World War I in her honor. Remarque was the third of four children of Peter and Anna. His sibl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuttle Trading
Shuttle traders (russian: челноки, lit=shuttles, translit=chelnoki; ) were people engaged in the practice of shuttle trading in late Soviet Union and post-soviet states in which traders shuttle backwards and forwards in and out of the country buying goods and then selling them within the country. Originated during the ''perestroika'' times, it extended well beyond time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The OECD defines shuttle trade as "the activity in which individual entrepreneurs buy goods abroad and import them for resale in street markets or small shops. Often the goods are imported without full declaration in order to avoid import duties." See also *Bag people Bag people (russian: мешочники, ''meshochniks'', or "people with bags") is a term in Russian and other Slavic languages that refers to people doing small trade for personal profit, recognizable by their large sacks. Some of them were p ... External links Jamestown.org articleOECD ''Glossary of S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Other major cities include Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Poland has a temperate transitional climate and its territory traverses the Central European Plain, extending from Baltic Sea in the north to Sudeten and Carpathian Mountains in the south. The longest Polish river is the Vistula, and Poland's highest point is Mount Rysy, situated in the Tatra mountain range of the Carpathians. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west. It also shares maritime boundaries with Denmark and Sweden. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated as VChK ( rus, ВЧК, p=vɛ tɕe ˈka), and commonly known as Cheka ( rus, Чека, p=tɕɪˈka; from the initialism russian: ЧК, ChK, label=none), was the first of a succession of Soviet secret-police organizations. Established on December 5 (Old Style) 1917 by the Sovnarkom, it came under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat-turned-Bolshevik. By late 1918, hundreds of Cheka committees had sprung up in the RSFSR at the oblast, guberniya, raion, uyezd, and volost levels. Ostensibly set up to protect the revolution from reactionary forces, i.e., "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie and members of the clergy, it soon became the repression tool against all political opponents of the communist regime. At the dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prodrazvyorstka
''Prodrazvyorstka'', also transliterated ''Prodrazverstka'' ( rus, продразвёрстка, p=prədrɐˈzvʲɵrstkə, short for , ) was a policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal fixed prices according to specified quotas (the noun ''razvyorstka,'' , and the verb ''razverstat'', refer to the partition of the requested total amount as obligations from the suppliers). This strategy often led to the deaths of many country-dwelling people, such as its involvement with the Holodomor famine. The term is commonly associated with war communism during the Russian Civil War when it was introduced by the Bolshevik government. However, Bolsheviks borrowed the idea from the grain ''razvyorstka'' introduced in the Russian Empire in 1916 during World War I. World War I grain razvyorstka 1916 saw a food crisis in the Russian Empire. While the harvest was good in Lower Volga Region and Western Siberia, its transportation by railroa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East through the 1920s and 1930s.{{cite book, last=Mawdsley, first=Evan, title=The Russian Civil War, location=New York, publisher=Pegasus Books, year=2007, isbn=9781681770093, url=https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan, url-access=registration{{rp, 3,230(5 years, 7 months and 9 days) {{Collapsible list , bullets = yes , title = Peace treaties , Treaty of Brest-LitovskSigned 3 March 1918({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=3, day2=3, year2=1918) , Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian)Signed 2 February 1920({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=2, day2=2, year2=1920) , Soviet–Lithuanian Peace TreatySigned 12 July 1920({{Age in years, months, weeks and da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
