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The Russian Revolution
Rasputin: A monk, folk-healer, and hypnotist, Rasputin was hired by the czar to cure his son of hemophilia and sporadic seizures. He stayed employed for the czar’s family, and influenced them to do what he wanted. He was later poisoned to death because the czar’s rivals thought that Russia would be better off without him. He was said to have a penis of inordinate size.
Romanov: With the death of Rasputin came the deposition of the czar. This ended the 204-year-long Romanov dynasty, of which the current czar was a part.
Provisional Government: When the czar was deposed, power was transferred to the Duma, the Russian legislature. They enacted a provisional government, which was granted emergency powers by the Duma. Despite popular demand, however, the provisional government did not Russia’s involvement with the war.
Alexander Kerensky: The head of the provisional government. He believed that Russia’s leaving the war would be considered a breach in Russia’s treaties with France and England, which he viewed as critical.
Bolshevik: The provisional government’s immense unpopularity allowed the Bolsheviks, a majority faction of the Russian communist party, to take over.
Vladimir Lenin: The head of the Bolsheviks, Lenin was in exile during World War I, but was paid by the Germans to return to Russia and lead the Russian Revolution
Leon Trotsky: A Jew who became a high-ranking Bolshevik. Like Lenin, he also spent a long time in exile before returning to Russia.
Soviet: Councils of soldiers, sailors, etc. who identified as revolutionaries but supported the provisional government. The Soviets were used to gain support for the Bolshevik cause.
Bolshevik Revolution: A Bolshevik coup.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: A treaty that brought Russia out of the war. The Bolsheviks believed that they had to work on enacting a socialist revolution in Russia now, and then take over more land later.
Russian Civil War: Unlike the American Civil War, there were several different groups, each fighting for their own goals:
Greens
The Bolsheviks won the Revolution because they had three key advantages:
Unity: The Bolsheviks won because they were centralized socially — every Bolshevik fought for the same cause.
Center: The Bolsheviks were centrally located, which made it easier to control.
Population: The Bolsheviks also had the most support from the Russian population
Superior Military: The Bolsheviks also had the best military of the other groups
War Commissar: The head of the Bolshevik army, Leon Trotsky
Red Army: The Bolshevik army
War Communism: After the December 1917 election, the Bolsheviks dismissed the Duma, and adopted war communism, where the government repressed private ownership and everyone produced things to aid the war
Cheka: The Russian secret service that replaced the Okhrana, but they were much, much worse.
GULAG: A Russian labor camp system run by the Bolsheviks. They believed that a communist society needed labor — and what better way to get that labor than by making criminals do it for free?
USSR: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This was the named adopted by the Bolsheviks after winning the Russian Revolution.
NEP: Short for New Economic Plan, the NEP was adopted by the socialists to allow the liberalization of the economy and allowed for small-scale entrepreneurship.
Campaign against religion: During this time, priests were arrested and church property was taken by the state. Although this campaign was primarily against Christians, Jewish and other religious institutions were also targeted.
Totalitarianism: A word that best describes the various governments in Europe between the World Wars. These governments controlled every aspect of everyday life. No government was more totalitarianistic that Russia. By 1930, Russia took control of every aspect life, making the Bolshevik regime even harsher than the czar’s.
Josef Stalin (Dzugashvili): Originally thought by Lenin to be stripped of his powers, Stalin took the odd jobs that no one else wanted, slowly gaining support. He became Comissar of the Nationalities. Before Lenin dies, he begins working out how to deal with Russia after Lenin’s death, and forms the troika.
Socialism in one country: One of Stalin’s core beliefs, wherein the Russians would focus on building up their country’s economy and become a model for what socialism can do for a country. Once everyone sees just how good socialism is, then other countries will emulate Russia’s example, causing socialism to spread.
Five Year Plan: A series of plans put in place by Stalin whose jobs were to cause Russia to rapidly industrialize.
Socialist Realism: Artwork that tried to portray the socialists as happy and intense workers.
Stakhanov: The poster boy for socialist realism, he was the ideal hard worker. He became the hero of Soviet labor. Because of him, other countries outside the USSR saw socialism as a model for efficiency.
Collectivization: Large farms belonged to “everyone” or the state. The state decided what should be planted, how much of everything, and how much everything should be sold for.
Dekulakization: The breaking up of large, privately-owned farms in Russia.
Holodomor: After breaking up the privately-owned farms inside Russia, the Soviets moved on to target cooperatives, which were particularly powerful in the Ukraine. This was also seen as a way to eliminate the Ukrainian resistance. This led to the Holodomor, a Ukrainian famine that resulted of various Russian laws and restrictions. During the Holodomor, approximately 2-3,000,000 Ukrainians died.
Great Purge: Due to Stalin’s extreme paranoia, he began assassinating various party members whom he deemed to be a threat to his control. He first aimed at the Old Bolsheviks (see below), but then moved on to the rest of his party. Out of all of the members of the Bolshevik party, only 3 besides Stalin died of natural causes.
Old Bolsheviks: Bolsheviks who were in the party before 1917.
show trials: People who were arrested during the Great Purge were tortured until they confessed in show trials, which were more for other people to see just how fair socialist society is than to actually convict people
Cult of Personality: The reason why no one believed that Stalin was at fault for what happened in Russia. Everyone believed that Stalin was always right, and if they were imprisoned, then it was their fault, not Stalin’s.
Separation of church and school: The belief that religion should play no part in society. Everyone was mandated to attend public school, which the Soviets believed would cause everyone, both Jewish and not, to acculturate.
Committee of Rabbis in the USSR: the Jewish response to the separation of church and school. This committee was supposed to preserve Jewish identity as much as possible, but was shut down by 1930.
Yevsektzia: The Jewish section of the Bolshevik party. They used the Bolshevik regime as an opportunity to get back at their opponents, the Zionists and the Orthodox Jews. They were hostile only to religious Jewish life, but not to Yiddish-socialist culture.
Semyon Dimanshtain: The head of the Yevsektzia.
Left Poalei Zion: The only Zionist party allowed in Russia after the Yevsektzia took control. The reason for this was because they supported the socialist revolution in Russia.
"national in content, socialist in character": Under a socialist regime, the Jews would have a culture, which would be structured by socialist government. Additionally, a non-traditional Yiddish was established that was used to indoctrinate Jews into socialism.
Birobidzhan: A part of Siberia that the Bolsheviks gave to the Jews as an autonomous piece of land.
Fascism
"Mutilated Victory": What the Italians perceived the results of World War I to be. They were given small amounts of land, and were not treated as a Great Power, which is what they hoped they would be.
Fears of Bolshevik Revolution: After the Bolshevik Revolution had spread to Austria and Hungary, the Italians became afraid that the revolution would spread to Italy as well.
Benito Mussolini: Although Mussolini was born and raised to be socialist, his belief that Italy should stay in the war (because, according to him, the War would return Italy to its former glory), ultimately got him kicked out of the socialist party. He made the trains run on time.
Fascist Party: After returning from the war, Mussolini and a group of war veterans formed the Fascist Party. This was the least coherent of all of the political parties in Italy, and was whatever Mussolini wanted it to be.
Black Shirts: The Fascist militia.
Acerbo Law: A law that Mussolini passed that guaranteed completely power to the party with the most votes in Parliament.
Il Duce: Mussolini’s title
Lateran Agreement: An agreement that Mussolini made with the Church. In exchange for money and respect, the Vatican accepted Italy as an independent state and legitimized Mussolini’s government to the many devout Catholics in Italy.
Nazi Germany
Weimar Republic: After the Treaty of Versailles was passed in 1919, a liberal constitution was passed, but it took a while for the provisional government in Berlin to accept it. This led to the Spartacus Uprising, where a group of German socialists tried to overthrow the new government, but was prevented. This provisional government with their new liberal constitution became known as the Weimar Republic.
"Stab in the back": This describes how the Germans felt after the War. Throughout World War I, the Germans felt that they were winning, because very little of the war was fought on their soil, and they were defeating Russia. However, after the war, the Germans were forced to take the bulk of the blame for the War.
Ruhr: A coal-producing region near Belgium that the Germans took over during World War I. After the War, when Germany retreated from Belgium, they let their workers stay there, since it provided coal and produced jobs. After the War, part of the war reparations that Germany had to pay was coal from Ruhr. When the Germans announced that they could no longer afford to give France and Belgium coal, they came and took it by themselves. This marked the beginning of “runaway German inflation”
Dawes Plan: To help stimulate the German economy, U.S. Senator Dawes proposes to lend money to Germany. This plan works for five years until the Great Depression hits.
Bauhaus: Literally “farmhouse,” this refers to a type of architecture that originated in Germany, and is still seen around the world today.
Adolf Hitler: After returning from the army after World War I, he continued to remain committed to the army, and began working in intelligence. He would attend various political party gatherings, and his job was to report back their goings-on to his superiors. It was during these expeditions that Hitler first encountered the Nazi party.
NSDAP (Nazi): Originally a group of war veterans, Hitler, instead of reporting this party like he did the others, joined this group, and soon became a very high-ranking official.
An example of Bauhaus
Beer Hall Putsch: A coup pulled by the Nazis, but was unsuccessful. During it, Hitler was arrested, tried for treason, and imprisoned.
Mein Kampf: Hitler’s memoir, which he wrote from prison.
SA/Brownshirts: Hitler’s military
Ernst Roehm: The head of the Brownshirts.
The Nazis promise to do three things during their campaigning:
Restore the economy
Overturn Versailles
Protect Germany from the communists
Paul von Hindenburg: The president of Germany during the time. He appointed the Chancellor (the position that Hitler was striving for), but appointed someone else instead of Hitler. In response, Hitler and the Nazis held emergency elections, wherein the Nazis lost seats.
Enabling Act: A law passed in 1933 that gave Hitler four years of emergency dictatorial power.
Fuhrer: When von Hindenburg (the president of Germany) dies, Hitler, who is now the Chancellor, absorbs von Hindenburg’s position, making himself the Fuhrer.
Concentration camps: Nazi labor camps. These were not originally created to house Jews, but were labor camps like the GULAG in Russia. The Nazis used these for imprisoning political opponents.
Night of the Long Knives: One night when many of the opponents of the Nazi regime were rounded up and arrested. They were accused of being homosexuals and shot.
SS (Schutzstaffeln): The organization responsible for the Night of the Long Knives. They were an elite group of the SA (see above).
Heinrich Himmler: The head of the SS.
Personal Loyalty Oath: In return for getting rid of the SA, the army gave Hitler a personal loyalty oath, in which they promised to serve him unconditionally, regardless of Weimar or the Reichstag. After World War II, many Nazis used this as an excuse for the war crimes that they committed.
Joseph Goebbels: The Nazi’s Minister of Propaganda. One of his ideas was to manufacture and sell cheap radios (which were considered a luxury back then), through which the Nazis pumped propaganda by the truckload. Additionally, newspapers and movie production companies were also controlled by the government.
Hitler Youth: In addition to posters and radio ads, the Nazis also created youth groups, such as the Hitler Youth, to cause the new generation to be Nazi-supporters. These groups would later become mandatory by the government.
Strength through Joy: Vacation packages designed for hard-working, working-class families. These came at little or no cost to the vacationing families.
Third Reich: Literally the “Third Empire.” In the Third Reich, all Germans would be a part of the community.
Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer: The idea that all Germans shared a national identity under Hitler.
Hugo Preuss: One of the architects of Weimar, who was Jewish. Because of him, before Hitler took over, Jews could hold public office and serve in the army.
Walter Rathenau: A German-Jewish nationalist. He fully embraced his German identity and the Foreign Minister of Weimar. Rathenau was later assassinated by German nationalists.
Ostjuden: Jews from Eastern Europe, who immigrated to Germany. They were viewed as dirty and grungy, an embarrassment for the polite and dignified German Jews.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A book, originally published in Russia, that claimed that the Jewish rabbis were planning to take over the entire world. This became one of the holiest texts of anti-Semites.
Martin Buber: A German-Jewish literature. He, with other writers at the time, tried to raise interest in Jewish learning.
YIVO: An organization (that is still active today) that was established to move Yiddish culture from its perception as a folk religion to the world of academia.
Boycott: In 1933, a boycott of Jewish stores was planned, but failed.
Nuremberg Laws: Laws restricting Jewish laws. They defined:
What a Jew is — to be a Jew, you had to have 3 or more Jewish grandparents from either side. People who had only 1 or 2 were called mischlinge.
Aryanized: The belief that Jews were temporarily occupying German-owned stores. Germans slowly took over Jewish stores.
Evian Conference: A conference where a bunch of countries got together and basically said that, although the Jewish plight, they unfortunately cannot take any more Jews in. The only country that allowed Jews in was the Dominican Republic.
Dominican Republic: The only country at the Evian Conference that said that they would allow Jews in. In reality, however, only about 1,000 Jews were allowed into the Dominican Republic.
Kristallnacht: Following the assassination of a German ambassador by some wee Jewish lad in France, a massive mob broke out all across Germany. They ransacked Jewish homes and stores.
S.S. St. Louis: A boat from Germany that had a number of Jews on it, originally bound for Cuba. Once they docked in Cuba, however, the Cubans stopped honoring their visas. The ship returned to Europe, and the Jews on the ship, sadly, ended up under Nazi rule soon after.
