Stalin: A Biography

GLOSSARY

All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) — The communist party’s name from 1952.

Bolsheviks — The faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party which was formed by Lenin in 1903 and consolidated as a separate party in 1917.

Central Committee — The supreme party body elected at Party Congresses to run the party until the next such Congress.

Central Control Commission — Party body established in 1920 to supervise the fair administration of the communist party.

Cheka — The Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage.

Cominform — International organ founded in 1947 supposedly to facilitate consultation among communist parties of eastern Europe and France and Italy. In fact it was used to impose Moscow’s will on those parties.

Comintern — Abbreviation for the Communist International.

Communist International — The international organ founded in Petrograd in March 1919 to co-ordinate and direct the entire world communist movement. It was disbanded in 1943.

Council of Ministers — The successor organ of government to the Council of People’s Commissars, set up in 1946.

Council of People’s Commissars — The government established by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Usually known by the acronym Sovnarkom.

Democratic Centralists — Faction of Bolsheviks, formed in 1919, which called for the restoration of internal democratic procedures to the party.

GPU — The name of the Cheka from 1921. The full name is Main Political Administration.

GUGB — The Russian acronym of the Main Administration of State Security: this was the departmental name of the OGPU after its incorporation in the NKVD in 1934.

Gulag — Properly the acronym should be GUlag; it is short for the Main Administration of Camps.

Ilich — One of Lenin’s nicknames, used by his political associates.

Kadets — Acronym of the Constitutional-Democrats. This was the main Russian liberal party and was formed by Pavel Milyukov in 1905.

Koba — One of Stalin’s youthful nicknames which he continued to use as a Marxist militant and leader before 1917.

Kuomintang — Chinese nationalist movement led by Chiang Kai-shek.

Left Opposition — Bolshevik faction led by Trotski from 1923 committed to accelerating industrial growth and to de-bureaucratising the party.

Lenin — Main pseudonym of the Bolshevik leader. He was christened Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov.

Mensheviks — Faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, initially led by Martov and founded at the Second Party Congress in 1903.

MGB — Ministry of State Security, the successor organisation to the NKGB from 1946.

MVD — Ministry of Internal Affairs, the successor organisation to the NKVD from 1946.

NKGB — People’s Commissariat of State Security. This was the name of the security police agency; it was designated thus in 1941 and again in 1943–6.

NKVD — The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs established after the October Revolution. In 1934 it incorporated the OGPU.

OGPU — Successor organ of the GPU and Cheka from 1924. It formally united all the GPUs of the various Soviet republics when the USSR came into existence. The full name in English is the United Main Political Administration.

Orgburo — Internal body of the Party Central Committee with responsibility for organisational leadership of the party in the period between meetings of the Central Committee.

Politburo — Internal committee of the Party Central Committee, empowered to direct the party in the period between meetings of the Central Committee.

Rabkrin — Abbreviated name of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate. Set up in 1920, it was headed by Stalin till December 1922.

Red Army — The Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, formed in 1918.

Right Deviation — The supporters of Bukharin who opposed the abandonment of the NEP in 1928.

RSFSR — The Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. Established in 1918, it became a constituent republic of the USSR in 1924. It was renamed the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic in 1936.

Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) — The name of the Bolshevik party from 1918.

Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party — The Marxist party of the Russian Empire, formed in 1898. In 1903 its leadership split into two factions, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. After recurrent attempts at reunification the party fell apart into two separate parties in 1917.

Social-Federalists — Georgian socialist party which opposed Marxism and advocated Georgian national and territorial unity in a federal state within the boundaries of the Russian Empire.

Socialist-Revolutionaries — Party formed by Viktor Chernov and others in 1901 in the tradition of those revolutionaries of the Russian Empire who looked mainly to the peasants as the guiding force of revolution and to the village land commune as the future basis of a socialist society.

Soselo — One of Stalin’s youthful nicknames.

Soso — Stalin’s main youthful nickname.

Soviet Army — The name of the Red Army from 1946.

Sovnarkom — The government established by Lenin and the Bolsheviks through the October Revolution. Acronym for the Council of People’s Commissars.

Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilich — Original name of Lenin before he adopted revolutionary pseudonyms.

United Opposition — The faction formed from a combination of the Left Opposition and the Leningrad Opposition in 1926.

Wehrmacht — The German army.

White Armies — The various armies which were ranged against the Red Army from 1918. Their commanders and soldiers were both anti-socialist and distrustful of liberalism and parliamentarism.

Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate — The full name of the institution usually known as Rabkrin.

Workers’ Opposition — Bolshevik faction which emerged at the end of the Civil War and called both for the internal democratisaton of the party and for the granting of authority to workers and peasants to control their sectors of the economy.