Socialism in one countrySocialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin encouraged the theory of the possibility of constructing socialism in the Soviet Union. The theory was eventually adopted as Soviet state policy. As a political theory, its exponents argue that it contradicts neither world revolution nor world communism.
Khrushchev ThawThe Khrushchev Thaw (хрущёвская о́ттепель or simply ottepel) is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were relaxed due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence with other nations. The term was coined after Ilya Ehrenburg's 1954 novel The Thaw ("Оттепель"), sensational for its time. The Thaw became possible after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
Special settlements in the Soviet UnionSpecial settlements in the Soviet Union were the result of population transfers and were performed in a series of operations organized according to social class or nationality of the deported. Resettling of "enemy classes" such as prosperous peasants and entire populations by ethnicity was a method of political repression in the Soviet Union, although separate from the Gulag system of penal labor. Involuntary settlement played a role in the colonization of virgin lands of the Soviet Union.
Joint State Political DirectorateThe Joint State Political Directorate (JSPD) (OGPU; Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1934. The OGPU was formed from the State Political Directorate of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic one year after the founding of the Soviet Union and responsible to the Council of People's Commissars.
Council of People's CommissarsThe Councils of People's Commissars (CPC) (Sovet narodnyh kommissarov (SNK)), commonly known as the Sovnarkom (Совнарком), 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".
Vinnytsia massacreThe Vinnytsia massacre was the mass execution of between 9,000 and 11,000 people in the Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD during the Great Purge in 1937–1938, which Nazi Germany discovered during its occupation of Ukraine in 1943. The investigation of the site first conducted by the international Katyn Commission coincided with the discovery of a similar mass murder site of Polish prisoners of war in Katyn. Nazi propaganda invoked mention of the massacre to illustrate communist terror by the Soviet Union.
Volga GermansThe Volga Germans (Wolgadeutsche, ˈvɔlɡaˌdɔɪ̯t͡ʃə; povolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Russia Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov and close to Ukraine nearer to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain their German culture, language, traditions and churches (Lutheran, Reformed, Catholics, Moravians and Mennonites).
KurapatyKurapaty (Курапаты, kuraˈpatɨ) is a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, in which a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 during the Great Purge by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. The exact count of victims is uncertain, as NKVD archives are classified in Belarus.
Solovki prison campThe Solovki special camp (later the Solovki special prison), was set up in 1923 on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea as a remote and inaccessible place of detention, primarily intended for socialist opponents of Soviet Russia's new Bolshevik regime. The first book on the Gulag, namely, In the Claws of the GPU (1934) by Francišak Aljachnovič, described the Solovki prison camp. At first, the Anarchists, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries enjoyed a special status there and were not made to work.
Latvian RiflemenThe Latvian Riflemen (Latviešu strēlnieki; Latyshskie strelki) were originally a military formation of the Imperial Russian Army assembled starting 1915 in Latvia in order to defend Baltic territories against the Germans in World War I. Initially, the battalions were formed by volunteers, and from 1916 by conscription among the Latvian population. A total of about 40,000 troops were drafted into the Latvian Riflemen Division. They were used as an elite force in the Imperial and Bolshevik armies.
