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Lenin's Testament
Lenin's Testament is a document alleged to have been dictated by Vladimir Lenin in late 1922 and early 1923, during and after his suffering of multiple strokes. In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies. Sensing his impending death, he also criticised Bolshevik leaders Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin, Pyatakov, and crucially Stalin. He warned of the possibility of a split developing in the party leadership between Trotsky and Stalin if proper measures were not taken to prevent it. In a post-script of dubious origin, it is also suggested Joseph Stalin be removed from his position as General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party's Central Committee; Stalin suppressed the document. Although there are some historical questions regarding the document's origins, the majority view is that the document was authored by Lenin. Background Lenin was seriously ill by the latter half of 1921, experiencing hyperacusis, insomnia, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin, his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. As the founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin led the October Revolution which established the world's first socialist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism. Born into a middle-class family in Simbirsk in the Russian Empire, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics after Aleksandr Ulyanov, his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Alexander III of Russia, the tsar. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in student prote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rabkrin
The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, also known as Rabkrin (; РКИ, RKI; Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, WPI), was a governmental establishment in the Soviet Union of ministerial level (people's commissariat) that was responsible for scrutinizing the state, local and enterprise administrations. Beginnings On February 7, 1920, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee established the Rabkrin to succeed the People's Commissariat for State Control. The term "Rabkrin" comes from the Russian title, ''Narodniy Kommissariat Raboche-Krestyanskoy Inspektsiyi'', the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate. Rabkrin was put in place to ensure the effectiveness of the newly created Soviet government, which had experienced bureaucratic turmoil beginning with the Russian Revolution and had continued into the Russian Civil War. The People's Commissariat for State Control was a key institute for creating the Soviet Union, but its mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communist Party Of The Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the One-party state, sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union, Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party's main ideology was Marxism–Leninism. The party was outlawed under Russian President Boris Yeltsin's decree on 6 November 1991, citing the 1991 Soviet coup attempt as a reason. The party started in 1898 as part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903, that party split into a Menshevik ("mino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
12th Congress Of The Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
The 12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 17–25 April 1923 in Moscow. The congress elected the 12th Central Committee. It was attended by 408 delegates with deciding votes and 417 with consultative votes, representing 386,000 party members. This was the last congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP(b) during Vladimir Lenin's leadership, though Lenin was unable to attend due to illness.Twelfth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979) Agenda * The Central Committee po ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nomenklatura
The ''nomenklatura'' (; from , system of names) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the communist party of each country or region. While in the Russian language the term номенклатура has the same generic meaning as "nomenclature", in the context of the politics of the Soviet Union it refers to the "party and state nomenklatura", lists of persons vetted for key management, or "nomenklatura lists". Description Virtually all members of the nomenklatura were members of a communist party. Critics of Stalin, such as Milovan Djilas, critically defined them as a " new class". Richard Pipes, a Harvard historian, claimed that the nomenklatura system mainly reflected a continuation of the old Tsarist regime, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sovnarkom
The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Soviet republics from 1917 to 1946. The Sovnarkom of the RSFSR was founded in the Russian Republic soon after the October Revolution in 1917 and its role was formalized in the 1918 Constitution of the RSFSR to be responsible to the Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR for the "general administration of the affairs of the state". Unlike its predecessor the Russian Provisional Government which had representatives of various political parties, and except for the brief two-party cabinet with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries from December 1917 to March 1918, the Sovnarkom was a government of a single party, the Bolsheviks. The Sovnarkom of the USSR and Congress of Soviets of the USSR founded in 1922 were modelled on the RSFSR system, and identical Sovnarkom bodies we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheila Fitzpatrick
Sheila Mary Fitzpatrick (born June 4, 1941) is an Australian historian, whose main subjects are history of the Soviet Union and history of modern Russia, especially the Stalin era and the Great Purges, of which she proposes a " history from below", and is part of the "revisionist school" of Communist historiography. She has also critically reviewed the concept of totalitarianism and highlighted the differences between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in debates about comparison of Nazism and Stalinism. Fitzpatrick is professor at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne), honorary professor at the University of Sydney, and Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago. Prior to this, she taught Soviet history at the University of Texas at Austin and was the Bernadotte Everly Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. She is considered a founder of the field of Soviet social history. Family Sheila Fitzpatrick was b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secretariat Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union
The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was responsible for managing and directing the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while the Politburo was charged with the policy-making aspects of the party. The Secretariat was a component agency of the party's Central Committee. Overview The members of the Secretariat were elected by the Communist Party's Central Committee, although in all but the first years of its existence the elections were a formality since decisions were made by the senior leadership before the voting. The General Secretary of the CPSU, who was also a Politburo member, was the leader of the Secretariat and of the Party. Dual membership in the Secretariat and the Politburo was in practice reserved for two or three very senior members of the Soviet leadership, and in the post- Stalin era (after March 1953) was a stepping-stone to ultimate power. The last five Soviet leaders (Nikita K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orgburo
The Orgburo (), also known as the Organisational Bureau (), of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union existed from 1919 to 1952, when it was abolished at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party and its functions were transferred to the enlarged Secretariat. Role The Orgburo was established during Lenin's government to make important decisions about organisational work in the Communist Party. It was originally designed to have equal political weight as Politburo and Secretariat. It oversaw the work of local Party committees and had the power to select and place Communist Party members in positions as it saw fit. The functions of the Orgburo and the Politburo were often interconnected, but the latter was ultimately the final decision-maker. While the Politburo mostly focused on strategic planning and monitoring of the people and status of the country, the Orgburo was tasked with overseeing the Party cadre and its assignment to various positions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gosplan
The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( ), was the agency responsible for economic planning, central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Gosplan had as its main task the creation and administration of a series of Five-year plans of the Soviet Union, five-year plans governing the economy of the Soviet Union, economy of the USSR. History Economic background The time of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War which followed was a period of virtual economic collapse. Production and distribution of necessary commodities were severely tested as factories were shuttered and major cities such as Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) were depopulated, with urban residents returning to the countryside to claim a place in land redistribution and in order to avoid the unemployment, lack of food, and lack of fuel which had become endemic. By 1919 the country was in hype ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supreme Soviet Of The National Economy
Supreme Soviet of the National Economy, Superior Soviet of the People's Economy, (Высший совет народного хозяйства, ВСНХ, ''Vysshiy sovet narodnogo khozyaystva'', VSNKh) was the superior state institution for management of the economy of the RSFSR and later of the Soviet Union. There were two institutions with this name, at different times, 1917–1932 and 1963–1965. 1917–1932 The VSNKh of the first period was the supreme organ of the management of the economy, mainly of the industry. Foundation The VSNKh was launched on December 5, 1917, through a decree of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) and All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.Alec Nove, ''An Economic History of the USSR.'' New Edition. London: Penguin Books, 1989; pg. 42. Its stated purpose was to "plan for the organization of the economic life of the country and the financial resources of the government" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
