by Tariq Ali
Twentieth Congress of the CPSU Held in 1956. This was the congress at which Khrushchev denounced the ‘cult of personality’ and crimes of the Stalin period, in a ‘Secret Speech’ soon made public.
Ulbricht, Walter (1893–1973) Made leader of the GDR upon that state’s foundation, he would remain in the post until his death. Honecker succeeded him as party general secretary in 1971.
USPD The left wing faction of the German Social Democracy, opposed to granting war credits in 1914. Split in March 1917 to form its own Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany.
Wedding Red district of Berlin before the war.
Weltschmerz The pain of being in the world.
Wessis Literally ‘Westerners’. Popular German term designating people from the former West Germany, as against Ossis from the East.
Wolf, Christa (1929–2011) East-German woman of letters, both an oppositionist and a supporter of socialism. Awarded numerous West German literary prizes in the 1980s.
Zeitgeist ‘The spirit of the times’ (Hegel).
Zetkin, Clara (1857–1933) German Communist militant. Took part in founding the Second International (1889) and published a socialist–feminist paper in Stuttgart (Die Gleichheit; ‘Equality’) before organizing a conference of women against the war in Bern in 1915. A member of the Spartakist League and then the KPD. Elected to the Comintern presidium, she moved to Moscow where she lived out her days.
Zinoviev, Grigori (1883–1936) A Bolshevik from 1903 and one of Lenin’s closest comrades. Opposed Lenin in 1917, publicly rejecting the turn to insurrection. Nonetheless elected president of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1919. Expelled in 1927, the following year he abandoned the opposition and supported Stalin. Reintegrated into the Party but then expelled again in 1932. In 1935 accused of responsibility for the Kirov assassination, he was condemned to death and executed at the end of the first Moscow Trial.