The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the two Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism led by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favoring political monarchism, economic capitalism and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists and nonideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. Eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the former Allied military forces from the World War and the pro-German armies. The Red Army eventually defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak to the east in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. The war ended in 1923 in the sense that Bolshevik communist control of the newly formed Soviet Union was now assured, although armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934. There were an estimated 7,000,000–12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk.
Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies implemented from around 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin (1878–1953). Stalinist policies and ideas as developed in the Soviet Union included rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a totalitarian state, collectivization of agriculture, a cult of personality and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, deemed by Stalinism to be the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.
Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited and the entire population was mobilized in support of the state ideology and policies. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a one-party authoritarian state prior to 1985 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 dissidents punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, including the involvement of people with free labour unions, private corporations, independent churches or opposition political parties. The state's proclaimed adherence to Marxism-Leninism restricted any rights of citizens to private property.
Prodrazvyorstka was a Bolshevik policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from the peasants at nominal fixed prices according to specified quotas.
Soviet and Communist studies is the field of historical studies of the Soviet Union and other Communist states, as well as of communist parties, such as the Communist Party USA, that existed or still exist in some form in many countries, inside or outside the former Soviet Bloc. It is a field rife with conflict and controversy.
The Russian famine of 1921–22, also known as Povolzhye famine, was a severe famine in Russia which began in early spring of 1921 and lasted through 1922. This famine killed an estimated 5 million, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River regions.
Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features in the embodiment of Soviet ideology and who were willing to speak out against them. The term dissident was used in the Soviet Union in the period following Joseph Stalin's death until the fall of communism. It was used to refer to small groups of marginalized intellectuals whose modest challenges to the Soviet regime met protection and encouragement from correspondents. Following the etymology of the term, a dissident is considered to "sit apart" from the regime. As dissenters began self-identifying as dissidents, the term came to refer to an individual whose non-conformism was perceived to be for the good of a society.
Steven R. Rosefielde is Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
This is a list of books in the English language which deal with Afghanistan and its geography, history, inhabitants, culture, biota, etc.
This is a list of books in the English language which deal with Albania and its geography, history, inhabitants, culture, biota, etc.
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy of Soviet Russia proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control", while socialized state enterprises would operate on "a profit basis".
Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse was a group that was founded by Soviet dissident Viktor Fainberg in April 1975 and participated in the struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union from 1975 to 1988.
The Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928, sometimes referred to as "the crisis of NEP," was a pivotal economic event which took place in the Soviet Union beginning in January 1928 during which the quantities of wheat, rye, and other cereal crops made available for purchase by the state fell to levels regarded by planners as inadequate to support the needs of the country's urban population. Failure of the state to make successful use of the price system to generate sufficient grain sales was met with a regimen of increasingly harsh administrative sanctions against the Soviet peasantry. The state of national emergency which followed led to the termination of the New Economic Policy and spurred a move towards the collectivization of agriculture in 1929.
Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914—1921, is a history book by Lars T. Lih about food crisis in Russian Empire and Soviet Russia.
Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation is an economic history book by professor Richard B. Day about economic views of Leon Trotsky.
The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky, is a history book by professor Baruch Knei-Paz, containing an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the social and political views of Leon Trotsky.
Guide to League of Nations Publications: A Bibliographical Survey of the Work of the League, 1920—1947 is a book of the German-American political scientist Hans Aufricht; it is a bibliographic review of the activities of the League of Nations for the entire period of its existence; the work — that includes an introduction to the topic, a list of documents published by various organs of the League, and a “good” index — was first published in 1951.
Russia, Bolshevism, and the Versailles peace is a book by the American historian John M. Thompson (1926–2017) that discusses the impact of events in Russia on the activities of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919—1920; the work was first published by Princeton University Press in 1966.
