DSST Soviet Union key terms

A system in which one ruler holds unchecked political power, governing without a constitution, elected legislature, or independent courts. In Russia the tsar claimed this authority by divine right until 1905, and it shaped how reform and dissent were handled.

The 1861 decree of Alexander II freeing privately owned serfs from personal bondage and granting them land, which they had to pay for over decades through redemption payments. It created a legal peasantry but left rural poverty and communal landholding largely intact.

The peasant commune that held land collectively, periodically redistributed strips among households, and controlled passports and tax collection. It survived emancipation and served as a conservative stabilizing institution that also limited agricultural productivity and personal mobility.

Land measures from 1906 that let peasants leave the commune, consolidate strips into private farms, and resettle in Siberia, aiming to create a loyal prosperous landowner class. The changes increased output but alienated many peasants and left rural tensions unresolved.

A label for wealthier peasants who hired labor or lent money, originally applied to independent farmers and later used loosely against any prosperous rural household. Soviet authorities treated the category as a class enemy and used it to justify dekulakization and grain requisitioning.

Nicholas II's 1905 proclamation promising civil liberties and an elected legislative assembly after strikes and the general strike paralyzed the country. It split the opposition, bought time for the regime, and was later undermined by restrictive electoral laws.

The elected legislative chamber created after 1905, with limited powers and repeatedly dissolved by the tsar. Its four convocations before 1917 became a forum for liberal and moderate criticism of the autocracy.

The faction of Russian social democracy led by Lenin that insisted on a disciplined party of committed revolutionaries rather than a broad mass membership. After 1917 they became the ruling party and renamed themselves Communists in 1918.

The rival social-democratic faction that favored a broad, open party and argued Russia needed a developed bourgeois stage before socialism. They influenced the Petrograd Soviet in 1917 but lost out to the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution.

The March 1917 upheaval in Petrograd, sparked by food shortages and strikes, that ended the Romanov monarchy and produced dual power between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet. It was largely spontaneous rather than party-directed.

The liberal-led body that took power in March 1917 and intended to govern until a constituent assembly could be elected. It stayed in the First World War, delayed land reform, and collapsed in the October Revolution.

A council of workers' and soldiers' deputies formed in March 1917 that competed with the Provisional Government for authority. Its Order No. 1 asserted control over the army, and its eventual Bolshevik majority made the October seizure possible.

Lenin's 1917 program calling for no support of the Provisional Government, Soviet power, and an end to the war, rejecting the idea of a long bourgeois stage. It set the Bolshevik strategy that produced the October Revolution.

The Bolshevik-led seizure of power in Petrograd in November 1917, justified as transferring authority to the Soviets. It was followed by the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the start of civil war.

An elected body meant to write a constitution for post-tsarist Russia. It met in January 1918, but the Bolsheviks dissolved it by force after losing the majority, ending the brief experiment with multiparty parliamentary politics.

The March 1918 peace with Germany in which Soviet Russia ceded Poland, the Baltic lands, Ukraine, and other western territories. It ended the war with the Central Powers but deepened opposition and helped trigger the civil war.

The 1918-1922 armed conflict between the Bolshevik Red Army and the loosely allied White forces, along with national independence movements and peasant revolts. Its outcome entrenched one-party rule and the Red Army's role in the state.

The Bolshevik military force built by Trotsky during the civil war with conscription and professional officers. It became a central institution of the Soviet state and a pillar of party power.

The emergency economic policy of 1918-1921 featuring grain requisitioning, nationalization, and strict labor discipline. It kept the Red Army supplied but provoked peasant resistance and economic collapse, prompting the New Economic Policy.

Lenin's 1921 retreat from war communism that replaced grain requisitioning with a tax in kind and allowed small private trade and enterprise while the state kept heavy industry and banking. It restored production but was abandoned by Stalin around 1928.

A 1921 uprising by sailors at the Kronstadt naval base demanding free Soviets, civil liberties, and an end to requisitioning. The Bolsheviks crushed it, and it pushed Lenin toward the New Economic Policy.

A private trader or small entrepreneur who profited under the New Economic Policy. The figure symbolized the partial market revival of the 1920s and later became a target of ideological hostility during the first five-year plan.

State development programs setting output targets for industry and agriculture, beginning in 1928. They drove rapid heavy-industrial growth and urbanization while prioritizing quotas over consumer goods and quality.

The forced consolidation of peasant farms into collective farms from about 1929, intended to secure grain and control the countryside. It involved requisitioning, deportation, and a severe famine in 1932-1933, especially in Ukraine.

The campaign of expropriating and deporting wealthier peasants during collectivization. It was used to seize grain and land, and it removed or destroyed a large part of the more productive rural population.

A collective farm in which land was formally held in common and members received payment from farm income, often in kind. State procurement quotas and restricted movement left peasants with little incentive to raise output.

A propaganda campaign from 1935 celebrating workers who vastly exceeded production norms, named after a coal miner. It encouraged competition and pressure on managers but often depended on staged records and increased labor intensity.

The mass repression of 1936-1938 including show trials, executions, and camp sentences that targeted party elites, the military, and ordinary citizens. They consolidated Stalin's personal power and left lasting fear and institutional damage.

The state administration of forced-labor camps and settlements. It grew under Stalin as a system of punishment and economic exploitation, and its camps held millions of prisoners in harsh conditions.

The organized glorification of a leader as infallible and heroic, built in the USSR through propaganda, portraits, and controlled history. It legitimized Stalin's authority and made criticism of policy equate to betrayal.

The August 1939 nonaggression treaty with Nazi Germany that included secret provisions dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence. It delayed war, allowed Soviet annexations in Poland and the Baltics, and shocked foreign communists.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union launched in June 1941. Its failure to take Moscow and the subsequent counteroffensive turned the war into a prolonged conflict that devastated Soviet territory.

The Soviet term for the 1941-1945 war against Germany, framed as a national struggle for survival. It became a central source of legitimacy and collective memory for the Soviet state.

The 1942-1943 siege and counteroffensive that encircled German forces and ended in their surrender. It marked the turning point on the eastern front and became a symbol of Soviet endurance.

The German siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944 that cut off supplies and caused mass starvation deaths. The city's survival became a symbol of civilian suffering and resistance.

The American program of supplying weapons, vehicles, food, and raw materials to allies, including the USSR during the Second World War. It supported Soviet logistics, especially transport and communications, though Soviet industry supplied most weapons.

The February 1945 meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin that settled postwar arrangements in Europe, including the division of Germany and plans for the United Nations. It also produced vague promises about free elections in eastern Europe.

The July-August 1945 meeting of the Allied leaders that addressed the administration of occupied Germany, reparations, and the terms for Japan's surrender. It revealed growing distrust that soon hardened into the Cold War.

The prolonged geopolitical rivalry between the Soviet bloc and the Western alliance after 1945, fought through arms races, alliances, propaganda, and proxy conflicts. It structured Soviet foreign and domestic policy for decades.

The group of states in central and eastern Europe under communist governments aligned with Moscow after 1945. Their regimes were established with Soviet support and tied to the USSR through trade and military structures.

The 1955 military alliance of the Soviet Union and its European satellites, created in response to NATO. It provided a framework for Soviet command and was used to justify interventions in member states.

The 1956 closed party congress report denouncing Stalin's crimes and the cult of personality. It triggered de-Stalinization, unrest in the bloc, and a partial loosening of cultural and political controls.

The post-1956 relaxation of terror, rehabilitation of purge victims, and reduction of the leader cult, associated with Khrushchev. It did not dismantle one-party rule but changed how power was exercised and justified.

The period of relative cultural openness under Khrushchev when some previously banned works appeared and contacts with the West grew. It was uneven and later reversed in part, but it shaped a generation of dissidents.

Khrushchev's program of plowing marginal land in Kazakhstan and Siberia to raise grain output. It produced short-term gains but caused soil erosion and unreliable harvests, and it failed to solve chronic agricultural problems.

The 1956 revolt against Soviet control, led by Nagy's government, which declared neutrality and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Soviet troops crushed it, showing the limits of de-Stalinization within the bloc.

The 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, which brought the superpowers close to war. It ended with a Soviet withdrawal in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba and removal of missiles from Turkey.

The 1968 reform movement in Czechoslovakia under Dubcek that sought liberalization within socialism. It ended with a Warsaw Pact invasion that enforced the Brezhnev Doctrine and deepened disillusionment.

The policy asserting that the Soviet Union could intervene when socialism was threatened in any bloc country. It justified the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and framed satellite sovereignty as limited.

The easing of superpower tensions in the 1970s, marked by arms-control treaties, summit meetings, and expanded trade and cultural exchange. It coexisted with continued rivalry in the third world and later faded.

The informal, hand-copied circulation of banned literature and political criticism in the USSR. It sustained dissident networks when official publishing was censored and became a key source for later accounts of repression.

Individuals who publicly or privately challenged party rule, censorship, and human-rights abuses, often at great personal cost. Their networks, manifestos, and trials drew international attention and undermined the regime's legitimacy.

A term for the late Brezhnev years when economic growth slowed, corruption spread, and leadership avoided major reform. Consumer shortages and falling productivity set the stage for Gorbachev's attempts at restructuring.

Gorbachev's policy of greater openness in media, history, and public discussion from the mid-1980s. It exposed Stalinist crimes and economic failures, weakening the regime's legitimacy more than its authors intended.

Gorbachev's program of economic and political restructuring, including limited market measures and competitive elections. It failed to revive the economy and instead loosened party control, contributing to the USSR's collapse.

The 1986 nuclear reactor accident that released radiation across Europe and exposed official secrecy and incompetence. It damaged trust in Soviet institutions and gave momentum to glasnost.

The 1991 attempt by hardline officials to seize power and reverse Gorbachev's reforms while he was away from Moscow. It collapsed within days, accelerated the breakup of the USSR, and boosted Yeltsin's authority.

The loose association formed in December 1991 by former Soviet republics as the USSR dissolved. It replaced the union with a weak coordinating body and marked the end of the Soviet state.