Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The GULag Archipelago Volume 1 - An Experiment in Literary Investigation

Basmachi. Name given to anti-Bolshevik forces in Central Asia after 1917 Revolution.

Black Hundreds. Armed reactionary groups in Tsarist Russia; active from about 1905 to 1917 in pogroms of Jews and political assassinations of liberal personalities.

Butyrki. A major Moscow prison, named for a district of Moscow; often known also as Butyrka.

Cadet. See Constitutional Democratic Party.

Chechen. Ethnic group of Northern Caucasus; exiled by Stalin in 1944 on charges of collaboration with German forces.

Cheka. Original name of the Soviet secret police, 1917-1922; succeeded by GPU.

Chinese Eastern Railroad. A Manchurian rail system built (1897-1903) as part of original Trans-Siberian Railroad. Jointly operated by Chinese and Soviet authorities until 1935 (when it was sold to Japanese-dominated Manchukuo government) and again in 1945-1950. Russian acronym: KVZhD.

Codes. The 1926 Criminal Code and the 1923 Code of Criminal Procedure were repealed in 1958 with the adoption of new Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation and Criminal Procedure; in 1960 these were embodied in a new Criminal Code and a new Code of Criminal Procedure.

Collegium. Governing board of Soviet government departments and other institutions.

Comintern. Acronym for Communist International, the world organization of Communist parties that existed from 1919 to 1943.

Committee of the Poor, also known by the Russian acronym Kombed. A Bolshevik-dominated organization of poor peasants (1918).

Constituent Assembly. A multiparty legislative body with large anti-Bolshevik majority, elected in November, 1917, after the Bolshevik Revolution. It met in January, 1918, but was broken up when it refused to adopt Bolshevik proposals.

Constitutional Democratic Party. Founded in 1905 under the Tsars, advocating a constitutional monarchy; played a conservative role after overthrow of Tsar; members were known as Cadets, from a Russian acronym for the party.

Council of People’s Commissars. Name given the Soviet cabinet (government) before 1946, when it became the Council of Ministers; also known by Russian acronym Sovnarkom.

Crimean Tatars. Exiled by Stalin to Central Asia in 1944 on charges of collaboration with Germans.

Dashnak. Anti-Bolshevik group in Armenia after 1917 Revolution.

Decembrists. Group of Russian officers who took part in unsuccessful liberal uprising against Nicholas I in December, 1825.

Doctors’ case. The arrest of leading Kremlin physicians, most of them Jews, in 1952 on trumped-up charges of plotting against the lives of Soviet leaders. At least one, Y. G. Etinger, is believed to have died under interrogation; the others were released after Stalin’s death in 1953.

Famine Relief, State Commission for. A Soviet governmental body, set up in 1921-1922; also known by the Russian acronym Pom-gol.

GPU. Designation for Soviet secret police in 1922; acronym for Russian words meaning State Political Administration; continued to be used popularly after 1922, when the official designation became OGPU, acronym for United State Political Administration.

Gulag. The Soviet penal system under Stalin; a Russian acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps.

Hehalutz. Zionist movement that prepared young Jews for settling in Holy Land; it founded most of the kibbutzim.

Hiwi. German designation for Russian volunteers in German armed forces during World War II; acronym for Hilfswillige.

Industrial Academy. A Moscow school that served as training ground of industrial managers in late 1920’s and early 1930’s.

Industrial Party. See Promparty.

Informburo. See Sovinformburo.

Ingush. Ethnic group of Northern Caucasus; exiled by Stalin in 1944 on charges of collaboration with Germans.

Isolator. (1) Type of political prison established in early stage of Soviet regime for fractious Bolsheviks and other political foes. (2) In a labor camp, the designation for a building with punishment cells.

Kalmyks. Ethnic group of Northern Caucasus; exiled by Stalin in 1943 on charges of collaboration with German forces.

KGB. Acronym for Soviet secret police after 1953; stands for State Security Committee.

Khalkhin-Gol. River on border between China and Mongolia. Scene of Soviet-Japanese military clashes in 1939.

Khasan. Lake on Soviet-Chinese border, near Sea of Japan. Scene of Soviet-Japanese military clash in 1938. Kolyma. Region of northeast Siberia; center of labor camps under Stalin.

Komsomol. Russian acronym for Young Communist League.

KVZhD. See Chinese Eastern Railroad.

Labor day. Accounting unit on collective farms.

Lubyanka. Popular designation for secret police headquarters and prison in central Moscow, named for adjacent street and square (now Dzerzhinsky Street and Square); housed Rossiya Insurance Company before the 1917 Revolution.

Makhorka. A coarse tobacco ( Nicotiana rustica ) grown mainly in the Ukraine.

Mensheviks. Democratic faction of Marxist socialists; split in 1903 from Bolshevik majority; repressed after 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

MGB. Initials for Soviet secret police, 1946-1953; acronym for Ministry of State Security; succeeded by KGB.

MVD. Russian acronym for Ministry of Interior; performed secret police function briefly in 1953.

Narodnaya Volya (literal translation: People’s Will). Secret terrorist society dedicated to overthrowing Tsarism; existed from 1879 until disbanded in 1881 after assassination of Alexander II. Narodnik (Populist). Member of populist revolutionary movement under the Tsars.

NEP. Acronym for New Economic Policy, a period of limited private enterprise, 1921-1928.

Nine grams. A bullet.

NKGB. Designation of Soviet secret police, 1943-1946; acronym for People’s Commissariat of State Security.

NKVD. Designation of Soviet secret police, 1934-1943; acronym for People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.

OGPU. Designation of Soviet secret police, 1922-1934; acronym for United State Political Administration.

Okhrana. Name of Tsarist secret police from 1881 to 1917; Russian word means “protection,” replacing the full designation Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order.

OSO. See Special Board. People’s Commissariat. Name of Soviet government departments from 1917 to 1946, when they were renamed “Ministry.”

Petrograd. Official name of Leningrad, 1914-1924.

Polizei. German word for “police”; designation of Russians who served as police under German occupation in World War II.

Pomgol. See Famine Relief.

Popular Socialist Party. Founded in 1906, it favored general democratic reforms, opposed terrorism.

Promparty. Mixed Russian-English acronym for Industrial Party (in Russian, Promyshlennaya Partiya). Nonexistent underground to which the organization of industrial managers tried in 1930 allegedly belonged.

Provisional Government. Coalition government of Russia after overthrow of Tsarism, March to November, 1917; first under Prince Georgi Lvov, later under Kerensky; overthrown by Bolsheviks.

Revolutionary Tribunal (Revtribunal). Special Soviet courts (1917-1922), which tried counterrevolutionary cases.

Russkaya Pravda. Political program of the Decembrists; drafted by Pestel; the Russian words mean “Russian truth.”

Sapropelite Committee. A scientific study group that sought to use bituminous lake-bottom ooze, or sapropel, as a fuel around 1920.

Schliisselburg. Fortress on Lake Ladoga, at outlet of Neva River; used as political prison under Tsars; now called Petrokrepost.

Schutzbund. Armed contingents of Austrian Social Democrats; members sought refuge in Soviet Union in 1934 after defeat in civil war.

Sharashka. Russian prison slang for a special research center in which the research scientists, specialists, and technicians are all prisoners under prison discipline.