Russia Vocabulary

Radical ideology seeking to overthrow all conventional forms of government.

"Man of the apparatus"; full-time CPSU functionary.

Selling off firm's property and raw materials for short-term profit.

Dictatorial rejection of democracy, but milder than totalitarianism.

Absolute rule of one person in a centralized state.

"Majority" in Russian; early name for Soviet Communist Party

Combining the top civil ruler (caesar) with the top spiritual ruler (pope), as in Russia's tsars.

Implements used to make other things.

Mountainous region between Black and Caspian seas.

Region between Caspian Sea and China.

Large, next-to-top governing body of most Communist parties.

Associations larger than the family but not part of government, and the pluralistic values that come with them.

Period of armed tension and competition between the US and the Soviet Union, approximately 1947-1989.

Economic theories of Marx combined with organization of Lenin.

Capital of Byzantium, conquered by Turks in 1453.

Things people use, such as food, clothing, and housing.

In Marxism, a big, incurable problem that rips the system apart (current equivalent: dysfunction).

Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Personal glorification of a dictator.

A country's exports minus its imports.

Greek-based alphabet of Eastern Slavic languages.

Country announces that it cannot pay back a loan.

Russia's national parliament.

Part of country separated from main territory.

Stalin's forced industrialization of the Soviet Union, starting in 1928.

Money that the owner sends out of the country for fear of losing it.

Russian abbreviation for "general secretary"; powerful CPSU chief.

Influence of geography on politics and use of geography for strategic ends.

Gorbachev's policy of media openness.

Soviet central economic planning agency.

The Soviet central prisons administration.

Noninflating, recognized currencies used in international dealings, such as dollars and euros.

Powerful countries turning other lands into colonies.

Number of live newborns who die in their first year, per thousand; standard measure of nation's health.

Spreadsheet for economy of entire nation.

Rule by thieves.

Supposed blend of capitalism and socialism; also called "third way."

From Russian for "people," narod; radical populist agitators of late nineteenth-century Russia.

Lenin's economic policy that allowed private activity, 1921-1928.

List of sensitive positions and people eligible to fill them, the Soviet elite.

Mountainous region north of Georgia and Azerbaijan, including Chechnya.

Rule by a few.

Unreasonable suspicion of others.

Russian for "restructuring"; Gorbachev's proposals to reform the Soviet economy.

"Political bureau"; small, top governing body of most Communist parties.

According to Marx, class of industrial workers.

What a government takes in, what it spends, and how it makes up the difference.

Stalin's "cleansing" of suspicious elements by firing squad.

First-order civil division of Communist federal systems, equivalent to U.S. states.

Leftover portions of a country after dismemberment

Influential people use their resources to amass more resources.

Sudden replacement of socialist economy by market economy.

To teach political culture, often informally.

That part of Russia east of the Ural Mountains.

"Strong men"; security officials who now control Russia (singular silovik).

Nineteenth-century Russians who wished to develop Russia along native, non-Western lines; also known as "Russophiles."

Lower house of Russia's parliament.

Mongol-origin tribes who ruled Russia for centuries. (Not Tartar.)

Attempts to totally control society, as under Stalin and Hitler.

From "caesar"; Russia's emperor; sometimes spelled old Polish style, czar.

Coercive rule, usually by one person.

From Slavic for "borderland"; country south of Russia

Temporary strict socialism in Russia, 1918-1921.

One unable to govern effectively; corrupt and crime-ridden.

Nineteenth-century Russians who wished to copy the West.

Local parliament in old Russia.