Biographies & Memoirs

Glossary

Agitprop

Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

aktiv

party rank and file

ASSR

Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic: administrative division of nationalities within USSR

GOKO

(Gosudarstvennyi komitet oborony) State Defence Committee

Gosplan

(Gosudarstvennyi plan) State Planning Committee

Gulag

Main Administration of the Labour Camps

Komsomol

Communist Youth League

krai

an administrative region, used without a clear distinction from oblast

kraikom

the party committee of the krai

NKVD

People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs: the secret police; successor to the OGPU, renamed the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1946 (when commissariats became ministries)

obkom

regional committee of the Communist Party

oblast

an administrative region; cf. krai above

OUN

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (anti-Soviet)

partiinost’

method of analyzing literature and the arts that defines the position of the party; carries the sense of being imbued with Bolshevik values

polpred

abbreviation of polnomochnyi predstavitel’, meaning plenipotentiary, the equivalent of ambassador

praktiki

men with practical training in education, as opposed to theoretical; also applied to type of work

raikom

district committee of the Communist Party

RSFSR

Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic; from 1937 the name of the largest of the Soviet republics, inhabited mainly by ethnic Russians

SMERSH

Counterintelligence section of the Red Army

Sovnarkom

Council of People’s Commissars

SSR

Soviet Socialist Republic

Stavka

General Headquarters of the Supreme Command

ABBREVIATIONS

AVP

Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow

GARF

Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiisskoi Federatsii, Moscow

KI

Kommunisticheskii internatsional

KPSS

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Perkins et al., FRUS

E.R. Perkins, R.P. Churchill and J.G. Reid (eds), Foreign Relations of the United States: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1952)

RGASPI

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii, Moscow

TsK

Central Committee

VIZh

Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal

Volokitina et al., VE

T.V. Volokitina et al. (eds), Vostochnaia Evropa v dokumentakh Rossiiskikh arkhivov, 1944–1953 gg., 2 vols (Moscow and Novosibirsk: Sibirskii khronograf, 1997).

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