|
Vladimir Petrov (diplomat)
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov (russian: Влади́мир Миха́йлович Петро́в; 15 February 1907 – 14 June 1991) was a member of the Soviet Union's clandestine services who became famous in 1954 for his defection to Australia. Biography Early life He was born Afanasy Mikhaylovich Shorokhov (russian: Афанасий Миха́йлович Шорохов), into a peasant family in the village of Larikha, in central Siberia. Petrov joined the Komsomol in 1923 and the Soviet Navy., changing his full name to Vladimir Mikhaylovich Proletarsky (russian: Влади́мир Миха́йлович Пролетарский). Intelligence career According to his recently released secret British MI5 file, Petrov stated during his post-defection interviewing that his intelligence career was as follows: * 1929–1933 cypher clerk Soviet Navy. * 1933–1938 NKVD Moscow dealing with overseas cypher communications. * 1939 NKVD cypher clerk attached to Soviet Army Weste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of Russia since the latter half of the 16th century, after the Russians conquered lands east of the Ural Mountains. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over , but home to merely one-fifth of Russia's population. Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Omsk are the largest cities in the region. Because Siberia is a geographic and historic region and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean. The river Yenisey divides Siberia into two parts, Western and Eastern. Siberia stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samara, Russia
Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 million residents, up to 1.22 million residents in the urban agglomeration, not including Novokuybyshevsk, which is not conurbated. The city covers an area of , and is the eighth-largest city in Russia and tenth agglomeration, the third-most populous city on the Volga, as well as the Volga Federal District. Formerly a closed city, Samara is now a large and important social, political, economic, industrial, and cultural centre in Russia and hosted the European Union—Russia Summit in May 2007. It has a continental climate characterised by hot summers and cold winters. The life of Samara's citizens has always been intrinsically linked to the Volga River, which has not only served as the main commercial thoroughfare of Russia th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased death, mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. In the 19th and 20th century, generally characterized Southeast and South Asia, as well as Eastern and Central Europe, in terms of having suffered most number of deaths from famine. The numbers dying from famine began to fall sharply from the 2000s. Since 2010, Africa has been the most affected continent of famine in the world. Definitions According to the United Nations World Food Programme, famine is declared when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to suf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collectivization In The USSR
The Soviet Union introduced the collectivization (russian: Коллективизация) of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascension of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to integrate individual landholdings and labour into collectively-controlled and state-controlled farms: ''Kolkhozes'' and ''Sovkhozes'' accordingly. The Soviet leadership confidently expected that the replacement of individual peasant farms by collective ones would immediately increase the food supply for the urban population, the supply of raw materials for the processing industry, and agricultural exports via state-imposed quotas on individuals working on collective farms. Planners regarded collectivization as the solution to the crisis of agricultural distribution (mainly in grain deliveries) that had developed from 1927. This problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrializati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Thwaites
Michael Rayner Thwaites, AO (30 May 1915 – 1 November 2005) was an Australian academic, poet, and intelligence officer. Early life and education Thwaites was born in Brisbane, to Yorkshire immigrant Robert Ernest Thwaites who taught at Brisbane Grammar School and Jessie Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Hugh Nelson, a previous premier of Queensland. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School, entering Trinity College at the University of Melbourne from which he graduated in 1937. As a student he came into contact with the Oxford Group (later Moral Rearmament), whose ideas greatly influenced him. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize (1938) for poetry and the King's Gold Medal for Poetry (1940). He was the first Australian to win either of these prizes, and is still the only Australian to have won the Newdigate Prize. Naval and intelligence career Thwaites joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was an officer in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles, or other written material. Memoir ghostwriters often pride themselves in "disappearing" when impersonating others since such disappearance signals the quality of their craftsmanship. In music, ghostwriters are often used to write songs, lyrics, and instrumental pieces. Screenplay authors can also use ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them. Usually, there is a confidentiality clause in the contract between the ghostwriter and the credited author that obligates the former to remain anonymous. Sometimes the ghostwriter is acknowledged by the author or publisher for their writing services, euphemistically called a "researcher" or "resea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Asylum
The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum; ) is an ancient juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereign authority, like a second country or another entity which in medieval times could offer sanctuary. This right was recognized by the Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Hebrews, from whom it was adopted into Western tradition. René Descartes fled to the Netherlands, Voltaire to England, and Thomas Hobbes to France, because each state offered protection to persecuted foreigners. The Egyptians, Greeks and Hebrews recognized a religious "right of asylum", protecting people (including those accused of crime) from severe punishments. This principle was later adopted by the established Christian church, and various rules were developed that detailed how to qualify for protection and what degree of protection one would receive. The Council of Orleans decided in 511, in the presence of Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO ) is Australia's national security agency responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and terrorism. ASIO is part of the Australian Intelligence Community and is comparable to the American FBI and the British MI5. ASIO has a wide range of surveillance powers to collect human and signals intelligence. Generally, ASIO operations requiring police powers of arrest and detention under warrant are co-ordinated with the Australian Federal Police and/or with state and territory police forces. ASIO Central Office is in Canberra, with a local office being located in each mainland state and territory capital. A new A$630 million Central Office, Ben Chifley Building, named after Ben Chifley, prime minister when ASIO was created, was officially opened by then Prime Minister Kevin R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Bialoguski
Michael Bialoguski (19 March 191729 July 1984) was a Polish-Australian medical practitioner, musician and intelligence agent, who played a significant part in the 1954 Petrov Affair. Biography Michael Bialoguski was born to Polish Jewish parents in 1917 in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire and now the capital of Ukraine. When he was three years old, Bolshevik forces were on the point of shooting him and his entire family, when his father bribed them with his gold watch; they were forced to flee immediately, and made their way to Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). He attended school there, studied violin at the Vilnius Conservatorium, receiving a diploma in 1935, and commenced a course in medicine at the Stefan Batory University. He had an early short-lived marriage. He was jailed by the invading Soviet forces in 1939. It was at this time that he had his first experience of conducting an orchestra, that of a musical comedy troupe. In 1941, he travelled across the Soviet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Ministry Of Internal Affairs
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD; russian: Министерство внутренних дел (МВД), ''Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del'') is the interior ministry of Russia. The MVD is responsible for law enforcement in Russia through its agencies the Police of Russia, Migration Affairs, Drugs Control, Traffic Safety, the Centre for Combating Extremism, and the Investigative Department. The MVD is headquartered in Zhitnaya Street 16 in Yakimanka, Moscow. The MVD claims ancestry from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire founded in 1802 by Tsar Alexander I which became the interior ministry of the Russian Republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and the Soviet Union. The MVD was dissolved and reformed several times during the Stalin era until being established as the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1946. The current MVD was formed in 1990 from the Russian branch of the MVD of the USSR shortly be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security, and chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during the Second World War, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin in 1941. He officially joined the Politburo in 1946. Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after the war. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was responsible for organizing purges such as the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and officials. He would later also orchestrate the forced upheaval of minorities from the Caucasus as head of the NKVD, an act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell from Stalin's favour and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession (that he later claimed was taken under torture) to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge. Early life and career Yezhov was born either in Saint Petersburg, according to his official Soviet biography, or in southwest Lithuania (probably Veiveriai, Marijampolė or Kaunas). Although Yezhov claimed to be born in Saint Petersburg, hoping to "portray (himself) in the guise of a deeply-rooted proletarian", h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Michael Bialoguski")
_with_child.jpg "Click for more on -> Nikolai Yezhov")