| Term | Definition |
|---|
| decrees | thingies the government tells you |
| democratic centralism | rule by few for the benefit of many |
| de-Stalinization | led to reforms such as loosening government censorship of the press, decentralization of economic decision-making, and restructuring of the collective farms |
| Duma | 450 deputies, lower house, half elected by PR, half from SMD |
| equality of result in Russia | people want equal result, we want equal opportunity |
| federal government structure | retained this model of government despite high centralization |
| Federation Council | upper house, 2 members from each of the 89 federal administrative units |
| Five Year Plan | set ambitious goals for production of heavy industry |
| general secretary | leader of the politburo, dictator of the country |
| glasnost | Gorbachev's policy on freedom of speech and press |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | open to western style reforms |
| Gorbachev's three-pronged reform plan | glasnost, perestroika, democratization |
| Gosplan | the Central State Planning Commission, nerve center for the economy |
| head of government, head of state | prime minister, president |
| Nikita Khrushchev | chosen as party secretary and premier of the USSR as the result of a power struggle among top Communist Party leaders |
| kulaks | peasants who owned larger farms, forced to move to cities or labor camps |
| Alexander Lebed | gained political following before Election of 1996, Yeltsin had to court his favor in order to win reelection |
| Vladimir Lenin | changed the meaning of Marxism when he argued for democratic centralism |
| Liberal Democrats | Misnamed, generally radical party |
| mafia | important to government and whatnot |
| Marxism-Leninism | party legitimacy base |
| Mensheviks | The opposing party to the bolsheviks |
| nationality | the most important single cleavage in the Russian Federation |
| near abroad | ??? |
| New Economic Policy | private ownership under centralized leadership; Lenin |
| nomenklatura | the process of filling influential jobs in the state, society, or the economy with people approved and chosen by the communist party |
| oligarchy | bought state owned industries, defined loosely as an interest group |
| perestroika | transferred economic powers held by the central government to private hands and the market economy |
| Peter the Great | challenged the value of isolation |
| politburo | the heart and soul of the Communist party, 12 men ran the country |
| proportional representation in Russia | ??? |
| Vladimir Putin | ??? |
| Red Army/White Army | led by Lenin/led by Russian military leaders funded by the Allied Poers |
| Russian Orthodox Church | tsars headed this, so they were seen as both political and religious leaders |
| secret speech | revealed the existence of a letter written by Lenin before he died, critical of Stalin, denounced Stalins rules and practices, particularly purges |
| semi-presidential model | ??? |
| shock therapy | immediate transition to market economy |
| slavophile vs. westernizer | political opinion on westernization follows this old divide |
| Stalinism | changed regime to totalitarianism |
| state corporatism | government in control of channeling the voice of the people |
| statism in Russia | have a strong government or die |
| totalitarianism | a more complete, invasive form of a strong-man rule than the tsars were ever able to implement |
| tsars | strong, aristocratic rulers |
| United Russia Party | Strongest party, pro-Putin |
| Window on the West | St. Petersburg |
| Yabloko | Pro democracy, reformist party |
| Boris Yeltsin | radical views, extreme reform measures |
| zemstras | assemblies |
| Vladimir Zhirinovsky | Lib Dem leader, extreme nationalist positions |
| Gennady Zyuganov | CPRF leader, came in second in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections |
| asymmetric federalism | power is devolved unequally across the country |
| Boris Berezovsky | oligarch, one of 7 with over 50% of country's GDP in 1997 |
| bolsheviks | created the USSR, communist rule |
| boyars | ??? |
| Catherine the Great | followed efforts of Peter the Great so that by the time of her death, Russia was seen as a major empire |
| Central Committee | 300 party members that met twice a year |
| civil society in Russia | preferred statism to protect from geographic vulnerabilities |
| collective farms, collectivization | people work on big scary farms together |
| Confederation of Independent States | 15 former republics of the Soviet Union, Russia as leader, little formal power, motives under scrutiny |
| conflict in Chechnya | a primarily Muslim region in the Caucasus that has fought for years for their freedom |
| Constitution of 1993 | provided for a strong president, created a 3-branch government |
| Constitutional Court | 1993 attempt to build a judicial system, 19 members appointed by president, judicial review |
| Crimean War | convinced many of the tsar's critics that Russian was were indeed backward and in need of major reform |
| CPRF | Second strongest party, not as reformist |
| cultural heterogeneity in Russia | the numerous invasions from earlier times meant that the area was home to people of wide cultural diversity |
| Decembrist Revolt | wanted growth of political institutions, crushed by Nicholas I |
| bourgeoisie | owners of factories and other means of production |
| central planning | private property replaced with allocation of resources by the state bureaucracy |
| Communist Manifesto | Karl Marx's book outlining marxism |
| co-optation | allocation of power throughout various political, social, and economic instituations |
| Maoism | equality and cooperation, peasant-based society |
| market-based socialism | initiated in China after Mao's death, allows for a significant infusion of capitalism into the system |
| Marxism | free market as exploitation of workers, no social class |
| proletariat | workers |
| revolution of the proletariat | 1917, to overthrow the tsar, peasants released from oppression |
| social mobility | the ability for individuals to change their social status over the course of their lifetimes |
| vanguard of the revolution | group of revolutionary leaders who could provoke the revolution in non-capitalist Russia |
Combine with other sets
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