 | |
| Founded | 1973 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
President | Natalie Sabelnik |
| Website | russian-americans |
The Congress of Russian Americans is a non-governmental organization in the United States representing Russian-Americans and Russians. The CRA's stated purposes include preserving Russian culture in the United States, protecting the rights of Russian-Americans, fighting Russophobia, and improving relations between Russians and Americans.
The Congress of Russian Americans (CRA) was founded in 1973 by Russian immigrants to the United States, including White émigrés from the Russian Empire, who were opposed to communism. The CRA's original intention was to prevent Russophobia from being the basis of Western anti-communism during the Cold War by advocating the distinction between the Russian national identity and Soviet communist ideology. [1] In 1978, the Russian-American Chamber of Fame was founded to honor Russian immigrants who provided outstanding contributions to American science and culture, including the television pioneer Vladimir K. Zworykin, the 1973 Economics Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief, the founder of Tolstoy Foundation Alexandra Tolstaya, and many other notable Russian Americans. [2] [3] [4]
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CRA has extended its goals to include encouraging cultural and economic development in Russia and aiding persecuted Christians and human rights activists in the former Soviet states.
The Congress of Russian Americans is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and maintains a liaison office in Washington, DC, to interact with the US government and other organizations. The CRA's known initiatives include attempts to nullify the law on Captive Nations, which it regards as anti-Russian, rather than anticommunist, since the list of "captive nations" did not include Russia although it was the first nation to fall to a communist regime. The CRA is also known for opposing the 2017 Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act and for criticizing the law as damaging to Russian-American relations and propagating Russophobia. [5]
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology and was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Marxism–Leninism was the formal name of the official state ideology adopted by the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc and various self-declared scientific socialist regimes in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War as well as the Communist International after Bolshevisation. Today, Marxism–Leninism is the ideology of several communist parties and remains the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam as unitary one-party socialist republics and of Nepal in a people's multiparty democracy. Generally, Marxist–Leninists support proletarian internationalism, socialist democracy and oppose anarchism, fascism, imperialism and liberal democracy. Marxism–Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism. A vanguard party, organised hierarchically through democratic centralism, would seize power "on behalf of the proletariat" and establish a communist party-led socialist state, which it claims to represent the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state would control the economy and means of production, suppress the bourgeoisie, counter-revolution and opposition, promote collectivism in society and pave the way for an eventual communist society, which would be both classless and stateless. As a result, Marxist–Leninist states have been commonly referred to by Western academics as communist states.
Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a one-party state until 1990 and a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 where members of the Communist Party held all key positions in the institutions of the state and other organizations. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labor unions, private corporations, independent churches or opposition political parties. The freedom of movement within and especially outside the country was limited. The state's restricted rights of citizens to private property.
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International (1919–1943), was an international organization that advocated world communism, controlled by the Soviet Union. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". The Comintern was preceded by the 1916 dissolution of the Second International.
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a far-left communist party in the United States established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revolution.
An index of articles related to the former nation known as the Soviet Union. It covers the Soviet revolutionary period until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This list includes topics, events, persons and other items of national significance within the Soviet Union. It does not include places within the Soviet Union, unless the place is associated with an event of national significance. This index also does not contain items related to Soviet Military History.
The term fellow traveller identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that organization. In the early history of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman Anatoly Lunacharsky coined the term poputchik and later it was popularized by Leon Trotsky to identify the vacillating intellectual supporters of the Bolshevik government. It was the political characterisation of the Russian intelligentsiya who were philosophically sympathetic to the political, social, and economic goals of the Russian Revolution of 1917, but who did not join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The usage of the term poputchik disappeared from political discourse in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist régime, but the Western world adopted the English term fellow traveller to identify people who sympathised with the Soviets and with Communism.
Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich was a Russian mathematician who contributed to algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry. He wrote books and articles that criticised socialism, and he was an important dissident during the Soviet regime.
Anti-Russian sentiment, commonly referred to as Russophobia, describes prejudice, fear or hatred against Russia, the Russians, and Russian culture. Russophilia, by contrast, refers to admiration and fondness of Russia and the Russians.
The Communist Party USA, ideologically committed to foster a socialist revolution in the United States, played a significant role in defending the civil rights of African Americans during its most influential years of the 1930s and 1940s. In that period, the African-American population was still concentrated in the South, where it was largely disenfranchised, excluded from the political system, and oppressed under Jim Crow laws.
Captive Nations Week is an annual official observance in the United States aimed at demonstrating solidarity with the "captive nations" under the control of authoritarian governments.
Jerome Dwight Davis, was an American activist for international peace and social reform, a labor organizer, and a sociologist who founded the organization Promoting Enduring Peace. Early in his life, he campaigned to reduce the workweek and as an advocate of organized labor.
The Victims of Communism Memorial is a memorial in Washington, D.C. located at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues and G Street, NW, two blocks from Union Station and within view of the U.S. Capitol.
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) was a far-right nationalistic organization masquerading as a coordinating center for anti-Communist émigré political organizations from Soviet and other socialist countries. The ABN formation dates back to a conference of representatives of non-Russian peoples that took place in November 1943, near Zhytomyr as the Committee of Subjugated Nations/the Anti-Bolshevik Front sponsored by the German occupying authorities. The American journalist Russ Bellant described the ABN as "...the high council for the expatriate nationalist groups that formed the police, military, and militia that worked with Hitler during World War II. Some were organized as mobile killing teams that exterminated villages and sought to murder whole ethnic, racial and cultural groups".
Communism is a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and, in some cases, the state. As such, communism is a specific form of socialism.
The relations between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991) succeeded the previous relations between the Russian Empire and the United States from 1776 to 1917 and precede modern-day relations between the Russian Federation and the United States that began in 1992. Full diplomatic relations between both countries were established in 1933, which was late due to the countries' mutual hostility. During World War II, both countries were briefly allies. At the end of the war, the first signs of post-war mistrust and hostility began to appear between the two countries, escalating into the Cold War; a period of tense hostile relations, with periods of détente.
Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. Politics consists of "social relations involving authority or power. The definition of "politics" from "The Free Dictionary" is the study of political behavior and examines the acquisition and application of power. Politics study include political philosophy, which seeks a rationale for politics and an ethic of public behavior, and public administration, which examines the practices of governance.
Lev E. Dobriansky was a professor of economics at Georgetown University, U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas and anti-communist advocate. He is known for his work with the National Captive Nations Committee and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and served as the chairman of the latter.
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an intense rivalry. Anti-communism has been an element of movements which hold many different political positions, including conservatism, fascism, liberalism, nationalism, social democracy, anarchism, libertarianism, and leftism. Anti-communism has also been expressed in philosophy, by several religious groups, and in literature. Some well-known proponents of anti-communism have been former communists. Anti-communism has also been prominent among movements resisting Communist governance.
"Captive Nations" is a term sometimes used in the United States to describe nations under undemocratic regimes. During the Cold War, when the phraseology appeared and was more frequently used, it referred to nations under Communist administration, primarily Soviet rule.
The FRIENDSHIP Act of 1993 was enacted as a law of the United States enhancing prior statutory provisions which govern international relations between the former Republics of the Soviet Union and United States during the Cold War. The Act of Congress reformed United States statutes related to:
