Tsvetayeva, Marina Ivanovna (1892–1941). Poet; lived abroad 1922 to 1939; a suicide two years after return to Soviet Union.
Tukhachevsky, Mikhail Nikolayevich (1893–1937). Soviet military leader; shot in 1937 on trumped-up treason charges.
Tur Brothers. Pen names of two playwrights and authors of spy stories: Leonid Davydovich Tubelsky (1905–1961) and Pyotr Lvovich Ryzhei (1908–).
Tynyanov, Yuri Nikolayevich (1895–1943). Soviet writer and literary scholar.
Ulrikh, Vasily Vasilyevich (1889–1951). Supreme Court justice; presided over major trials of 1920’s and 1930’s.
Ulyanov, Aleksandr Ilyich (1866–1887). Lenin’s older brother; executed after unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Alexander III in 1887.
Ulyanova (Yelizarova-Ulyanova), Anna Ilyinichna (1874–1935). Lenin’s sister; journalist and editor.
Uritsky, Moisei Solomonovich (1873–1918). Revolutionary; chairman of the Petrograd Cheka; his assassination by an SR set off Red Terror.
Utyosov, Leonid Osipovich (1895–). Soviet orchestra leader and variety-stage star.
Valentinov (Volsky), Nikolai Vladislavovich (1879–1964). Journalist and philosopher; former Bolshevik turned Menshevik; emigrated 1930.
Vasilyev-Yuzhin, Mikhail Ivanovich (1876–1937). Revolutionary; secret police and justice official.
Vavilov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1887–1943). Prominent plant geneticist; Director of Institute of Applied Botany (1924–1940) and Institute of Genetics (1930–1940); arrested 1940; died in imprisonment.
Vereshchagin, Vasily Vasilyevich (1842–1904). Painter noted for battle scenes.
Vladimir II Monomakh. Ruler of Kievan Russia, 1113–1125.
Vladimirov (Sheinfinkel), Miron Konstantinovich (1879–1925). Early Soviet official in agriculture, finance and economic management.
Vlasov, Lieut. Gen. Andrei Andreyevich (1900–1946). Red Army officer; captured by Germans in 1942; led Russian forces against Soviet Union; handed over by Allies after war and executed.
Voikov, Pyotr Lazarevich (1888–1927). Bolshevik revolutionary; Soviet representative in Warsaw, 1924–1927; assassinated by an émigré.
Voloshin, Maksimilian Aleksandrovich (1878–1932). Symbolist poet and watercolorist; opposed Bolsheviks.
Voroshilov, Kliment Yefremovich (1881–1969). Close associate of Stalin; long Defense Commissar; Soviet President, 1953–1960.
Vysheslavtsev, Boris Petrovich (1877–1954). Philosopher; exiled in 1922.
Vyshinsky, Andrei Yanuaryevich (1883–1954). Lawyer and diplomat; former Menshevik turned Bolshevik; chief state prosecutor in show trials, 1936–1938; Deputy Foreign Commissar and Minister, 1939–1949 and 1953–1954; Foreign Minister, 1949–1953.
Wrangel, Pyotr Nikolayevich (1878–1928). Tsarist military commander; led anti-Bolshevik forces in South in 1920 after Denikin.
Yagoda, Genrikh Grigoryevich (1891–1938). Secret police official; People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, 1934–1936; shot after 1938 show trial.
Yakubovich, Pyotr Filippovich (1860–1911). Poet; translated Baudelaire; wrote memoirs about his Tsarist exile.
Yaroshenko, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1846–1898). Painter.
Yenukidze, Avel Safronovich (1877–1937). Bolshevik official; Secretary of Central Executive Committee, 1918–1935; shot in purges.
Yermilov, Vladimir Vladimirovich (1904–1965). Soviet literary critic.
Yesenin, Sergei Aleksandrovich (1895–1925). Imagist poet; suicide.
Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1895–1939). Secret police official; People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, 1936–1938.
Yudenich, Nikolai Nikolayevich (1862–1933). Tsarist military commander; led anti-Bolshevik forces in Estonia, 1918–1920.
Zalygin, Sergei Pavlovich (1913–). Soviet writer.
Zamyatin, Yevgeny Ivanovich (1884–1937). Writer; returned 1917 from abroad, but opposed Bolsheviks; emigrated in 1932; his novel We, published in London in 1924, influenced Huxley, Orwell.
Zasulich, Vera Ivanovna (1849–1919). Revolutionary; acquitted after attempt to assassinate Mayor of St. Petersburg; emigrated 1880; returned 1905; became Menshevik.
Zavalishin, Dmitri Irinarkhovich (1804–1892). One of the Decembrists; sentenced to 20 years’ Siberian exile; worked as journalist after 1863.
Zhdanov, Andrei Aleksandrovich (1896–1948). Close associate of Stalin; shaped cultural policy after World War II.
Zhebrak, Anton Romanovich (1901–1965). Soviet geneticist.
Zhelyabov, Andrei Ivanovich (1851–1881). Revolutionary; executed after his assassination of Alexander II in 1881.
Zhukov, Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich (1896–). World War II leader.
Zinoviev (Apfelbaum), Grigory Yevseyevich (1883–1936). Associate of Lenin; expelled from Party in 1927; shot after 1936 show trial.
Institutions and Terms
All-Russian Central Executive Committee. See VTsIK.
April Theses. A programmatic statement issued by Lenin in April, 1917, calling for end of war with Germany and transfer of power to the Soviets.
Basmachi. Name given to anti-Bolshevik forces in Central Asia after 1917 Revolution.
Black Hundreds. Armed reactionary groups in Tsarist Russia; active from about 1905 to 1917 in pogroms of Jews and political assassinations of liberal personalities.
Butyrki. A major Moscow prison, named for a district of Moscow; often known also as Butyrka.
Cadet. See Constitutional Democratic Party.
Chechen. Ethnic group of Northern Caucasus; exiled by Stalin in 1944 on charges of collaboration with German forces.
Cheka. Original name of the Soviet secret police, 1917–1922; succeeded by GPU.
Chinese Eastern Railroad. A Manchurian rail system built (1897–1903) as part of original Trans-Siberian Railroad. Jointly operated by Chinese and Soviet authorities until 1935 (when it was sold to Japanese-dominated Manchukuo government) and again in 1945–1950. Russian acronym: KVZhD.
Codes. The 1926 Criminal Code and the 1923 Code of Criminal Procedure were repealed in 1958 with the adoption of new Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation and Criminal Procedure; in 1960 these were embodied in a new Criminal Code and a new Code of Criminal Procedure.
Collegium. Governing board of Soviet government departments and other institutions.
Comintern. Acronym for Communist International, the world organization of Communist parties that existed from 1919 to 1943.
Committee of the Poor, also known by the Russian acronym Kombed. A Bolshevik-dominated organization of poor peasants (1918).
Constituent Assembly. A multiparty legislative body with large anti-Bolshevik majority, elected in November, 1917, after the Bolshevik Revolution. It met in January, 1918, but was broken up when it refused to adopt Bolshevik proposals.
Constitutional Democratic Party. Founded in 1905 under the Tsars, advocating a constitutional monarchy; played a conservative role after overthrow of Tsar; members were known as Cadets, from a Russian acronym for the party.
Council of People’s Commissars. Name given the Soviet cabinet (government) before 1946, when it became the Council of Ministers; also known by Russian acronym Sovnarkom.
Crimean Tatars. Exiled by Stalin to Central Asia in 1944 on charges of collaboration with Germans.
Dashnak. Anti-Bolshevik group in Armenia after 1917 Revolution.
Decembrists. Group of Russian officers who took part in unsuccessful liberal uprising against Nicholas I in December, 1825.
Doctors’ case. The arrest of leading Kremlin physicians, most of them Jews, in 1952 on trumped-up charges of plotting against the lives of Soviet leaders. At least one, Y. G. Etinger, is believed to have died under interrogation; the others were released after Stalin’s death in 1953.
Famine Relief, State Commission for. A Soviet governmental body, set up in 1921–1922; also known by the Russian acronym Pomgol.
GPU. Designation for Soviet secret police in 1922; acronym for Russian words meaning State
Political Administration; continued to be used popularly after 1922, when the official designation became OGPU, acronym for United State Political Administration.
Gulag. The Soviet penal system under Stalin; a Russian acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps.
Hehalutz. Zionist movement that prepared young Jews for settling in Holy Land; it founded most of the kibbutzim.
Hiwi. German designation for Russian volunteers in German armed forces during World War II; acronym for Hilfswillige.
Industrial Academy. A Moscow school that served as training ground of industrial managers in late 1920’s and early 1930’s.
Industrial Party. See Promparty.
Informburo. See Sovinformburo.
Ingush. Ethnic group of Northern Caucasus; exiled by Stalin in 1944 on charges of collaboration with Germans.
Isolator. (1) Type of political prison established in early stage of Soviet regime for fractious Bolsheviks and other political foes. (2) In a labor camp, the designation for a building with punishment cells.
Kalmyks. Ethnic group of Northern Caucasus; exiled by Stalin in 1943 on charges of collaboration with German forces.
KGB. Acronym for Soviet secret police after 1953; stands for State Security Committee.
Khalkhin-Gol. River on border between China and Mongolia. Scene of Soviet-Japanese military clashes in 1939.
Khasan. Lake on Soviet-Chinese border, near Sea of Japan. Scene of Soviet-Japanese military clash in 1938.
Kolyma. Region of northeast Siberia; center of labor camps under Stalin.
Komsomol. Russian acronym for Young Communist League.
KVZhD. See Chinese Eastern Railroad.
Labor day. Accounting unit on collective farms.
Lubyanka. Popular designation for secret police headquarters and prison in central Moscow, named for adjacent street and square (now Dzerzhinsky Street and Square); housed Rossiya Insurance Company before the 1917 Revolution.
Makhorka. A coarse tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) grown mainly in the Ukraine.
Mensheviks. Democratic faction of Marxist socialists; split in 1903 from Bolshevik majority; repressed after 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
MGB. Initials for Soviet secret police, 1946–1953; acronym for Ministry of State Security; succeeded by KGB.
MVD. Russian acronym for Ministry of Interior; performed secret police function briefly in 1953.
Narodnaya Volya (literal translation: People’s Will). Secret terrorist society dedicated to overthrowing Tsarism; existed from 1879 until disbanded in 1881 after assassination of Alexander II.
Narodnik (Populist). Member of populist revolutionary movement under the Tsars.
NEP. Acronym for New Economic Policy, a period of limited private enterprise, 1921–1928.
Nine grams. A bullet.
NKGB. Designation of Soviet secret police, 1943–1946; acronym for People’s Commissariat of State Security.
NKVD. Designation of Soviet secret police, 1934–1943; acronym for People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
OGPU. Designation of Soviet secret police, 1922–1934; acronym for United State Political Administration.
Okhrana. Name of Tsarist secret police from 1881 to 1917; Russian word means “protection,” replacing the full designation Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order.
OSO. See Special Board.
People’s Commissariat. Name of Soviet government departments from 1917 to 1946, when they were renamed “Ministry.”
Petrograd. Official name of Leningrad, 1914–1924.
Polizei. German word for “police”; designation of Russians who served as police under German occupation in World War II.
Pomgol. See Famine Relief.
Popular Socialist Party. Founded in 1906, it favored general democratic reforms, opposed terrorism.
Promparty. Mixed Russian-English acronym for Industrial Party (in Russian, Promyshlennaya Partiya). Nonexistent underground to which the organization of industrial managers tried in 1930 allegedly belonged.
Provisional Government. Coalition government of Russia after overthrow of Tsarism, March to November, 1917; first under Prince Georgi Lvov, later under Kerensky; overthrown by Bolsheviks.
Revolutionary Tribunal (Revtribunal). Special Soviet courts (1917—1922), which tried counterrevolutionary cases.
Russkaya Pravda. Political program of the Decembrists; drafted by Pestel; the Russian words mean “Russian truth.”
Sapropelite Committee. A scientific study group that sought to use bituminous lake-bottom ooze, or sapropel, as a fuel around 1920.
Schlüsselburg. Fortress on Lake Ladoga, at outlet of Neva River; used as political prison under Tsars; now called Petrokrepost.
Schutzbund. Armed contingents of Austrian Social Democrats; members sought refuge in Soviet Union in 1934 after defeat in civil war.
Sharashka. Russian prison slang for a special research center in which the research scientists, specialists, and technicians are all prisoners under prison discipline.
Short Course. Familiar title of the standard Stalinist version of the history of the Soviet Communist Party; used as the official text from 1938 until after Stalin’s death in 1953.
SMERSH. Acronym for Soviet counterintelligence during World War II; stands for “death to spies.”
Smolny. Former girls’ school; Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad.
Socialist Revolutionary Party. Created in 1890’s out of several populist groups; split at first congress held in Finland in December, 1905, into right wing, opposed to terrorism, and left wing, favoring terrorism; SR’s played key role in Provisional Government; left wing cooperated briefly with Bolsheviks after Revolution.
Solovetsky Islands (colloquially known as Solovki). Island group in White Sea, with monasteries; used as place of exile for rebellious priests in Middle Ages; early forced-labor camp (SLON) after 1917 Revolution.
Sovinformburo. Soviet information agency in World War II.
Sovnarkom. See Council of People’s Commissars.
Special Board (Russian acronym: OSO). Three-man boards of People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, with powers to sentence “socially dangerous” persons without trial; abolished in 1953.
SR. See Socialist Revolutionary Party.
Stolypin car. A railroad car used to transport prisoners, named for P. A. Stolypin; also known in prison slang as vagonzak, for vagon zaklyuchennykh (prisoner car).
Supreme Council of the Economy. Highest industrial management agency in early years of Soviet regime; established in 1917; abolished 1932, when it was divided into industrial ministries.
Supreme Soviet. The national legislature of the Soviet Union, with counterparts in its constituent republics; meets usually twice a year to approve decisions taken by the Soviet leadership. Its lawmaking function is performed between sessions by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet; nominally the highest state body in the Soviet Union.
Time of Troubles. A period of hardship and confusion during the Polish and Swedish invasions of Russia in the early seventeenth century.
Union Bureau. See Mensheviks.
UPK. Code of Criminal Procedure. See Codes.
Verkhtrib. Russian acronym for Supreme Tribunal (1918–1922), which tried the most important cases in the early Soviet period.
Vikzhel. Railroad workers union, opposed Bolsheviks after 1917 Revolution; acronym stands for All-Russian Executive Committee of Railroad Workers Union.
VSNKh. See Supreme Council of the Economy.
VTsIK. Acronym for All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the highest state body of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the largest Soviet state, from 1917 to 1937, when it was succeeded by the Presidium of the Republic’s Supreme Soviet. The national equivalent of VTsIK was TsIK, the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. (1922–1938), which became the Presidium of the national Supreme Soviet.
Workers Opposition. Bolshevik faction that sought greater trade-union contro
l of industry and greater democracy within Party; its activities were condemned at Tenth Party Congress in 1921, and some leaders were later expelled from Party and arrested.
Zek. Prison slang for prisoner, derived from zaklyuchenny, Russian word for “prisoner.”
Zemstvo. Local government unit in prerevolutionary Russia.
Index
The pagination of this digital edition does not match the print edition from which the index was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
Page numbers in boldface refer to the Glossary.
Abakumov, Viktor S., 112n, 126, 145, 154, 157, 158–159, 297, 298, 520–21, 553, 554n, 621
Abrikosova, A. I., 37
Adamova (Adamova-Sliozberg) see Sliozberg
Against Capital Punishment, 301
Agranov, Yakov S., 95n, 621
agriculture, 32, 33, 55–59 passim, 64, 67, 80, 420
subversion of, in Criminal Code, 64–65, 67
see also collectives; famine; Kady case; kulaks; peasants
Aikhenvald, Yuli I., 372, 621
Akhmatova (Gorenko), Anna A., 95n, 621
Alalykin, 445
Aldanov (Landau), Mark A., 220, 621
Aldan-Semyonov, Andrei I., 540n, 621
Aleksandrov, A. I., 126, 621
Aleksandrov, Vasily, 250n
Aleksei Mikhailovich, Tsar, 93, 242, 432
Alexander I, Tsar, 433
Alexander II, Tsar, 144–45
assassination attempts on, 132, 144, 287
Alexander III, Tsar, 134
Alliluyev family, 100, 621
All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), 307, 313, 321, 344, 352, 354, 365, 366–67, 436, 437, 438, 641
All-Russian Executive Committee of Railroad Workers Union (Vikzhel), 28, 641
“All-Union Bureau of the Mensheviks”: trial, 49, 399–407
Altai region, legend about, 270
Altshuller, 442
Amfiteatrov, Aleksandr V., 220, 621
amnesty: (1905), 190–91
(1912), 272
(1919), 358–59, 360
(1920s), 39
(1927), 271
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1 Page 73