Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov
(b. 26 Feb. 1896, d. 31 Aug. 1948).Soviet politician Born in Mariupol (later Zhdanov), he joined the Bolsheviks in 1915, and became an active propagandist for the party until the 1917 Russian ...
Andrei Yanuarovich Vyshinsky
(b. Odessa, 11 Dec. 1883; d. New York, 22 Nov. 1954)Russian; Chief Procurator of the USSR 1935–9, Minister of Foreign Affairs 1949–53 Vyshinsky was of Polish extraction, the son of middle-class ...
Anton Ivanovich Denikin
(1872–1947)Russian general and counter-revolutionary. The son of a serf, he served the Provisional Government as commander of the Western Front in 1917. After the October Revolution (see Russian ...
Armenia
A region south of the Caucasus in Asia Minor, comprising the Republic of Armenia (see Armenia, Republic of) but also parts of eastern Turkey and northern Iran. Armenian culture dates from the 6th ...
Azerbaijan
Oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan has high levels of poverty and a dynastic political successionAround half of Azerbaijan comprises the central lowland area through which flow the two main rivers, the Aras ...
Belarus
A territory formerly also known as Belorussia (White Russia) which had been under Polish and Lithuanian domination for centuries, until it came under Russian control in the late eighteenth century. ...
Bolshevism
Political theory and practice of the Bolshevik Party which, under Lenin, came to power during the Russian Revolution of October 1917. The Bolshevik (meaning ‘majority’) radical communist faction ...
Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim, Baron von
(1867–1951)Finnish military leader and statesman. Trained as an officer in the Tsarist army, he rose to the rank of general, and, defeating the Finnish Bolsheviks (1918), he expelled the Soviet ...
civil war
Military conflict centred on territory within a state, involving combatants from that state, over the political right to control that territory. Civil wars usually involve government forces, and the ...
Communist Party
Founded in 1921, it attempted to raise the class consciousness of the White proletariat before accepting Moscow's orders to work for the establishment of a multi‐racial ‘native’ republic by 1931. Its ...
Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov
(b. 11 Dec. 1896, d. 18 June 1977).Marshal of the Soviet Union Born in Strelkova (near Moscow), the son of a shoemaker enlisted in the Red Army in 1918 and fought in the Russian Civil War, joining ...
Georgi Maksimilianovich Malenkov
(1903–1988)Soviet statesman. As a protégé of Stalin he became prime minister (1953–55) after Stalin's death, although the leadership of the party was taken from him by Khrushchev. He was awarded the ...
Georgia
A Caucasian state of relative prosperity in the USSR, which since independence has been marked by political instability, territorial disputes, and economic fragilty.Early history (up to 1991)Georgia ...
Hara Takashi
(1856–1921)Japanese statesman. Leader of the Seiyukai (Friends of Constitutional Government) Party and a strong advocate of government by political party rather than by interest groups, he became the ...
Imre Nagy
(b. 7 June 1896, d. 16 June 1958).Prime Minister of Hungary 1953–5, 1956 Born in Kaposvár, he served in World War I until he became a Russian prisoner of war in 1916. He was converted to Communism ...
Józef Pilsudski
(1867–1935)Polish general and statesman. His involvement in early revolutionary activity against Tsarist Russia had led to his imprisonment. In World War I he raised three Polish legions to fight ...
Lazar Moisevich Kaganovich
(b. 22 Nov. 1893, d. 25 July 1991).Soviet politicianBorn in Kabany (near Kiev) into a poor Jewish family, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1911. He fought in World War I, and after the Russian Revolution ...
Lenin
(1870–1924)A Marxist theoretician and revolutionary, born in Russia, whose early life was characterized by a more or less orthodox Marxism. However, from the late 1890s he developed a distinctive ...
Leon Trotsky
1879–1940)Russian revolutionary leader who, from the October Revolution to the death of Lenin, was the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union. He lost ground to Stalin after Lenin's death and ...
Marshal Ivan Konev
(1897–1973),Soviet Army officer who acted as a military commissar during the civil war before becoming part of the officer corps in 1924.Konev, not entirely without reason, regarded Zhukov ...
