Abbreviations

AFL-CIO – American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations

CC – Central Committee

CCP – Chinese Communist Party

CI – Communist International

CIS – Commonwealth of Independent States

CWM – Communist Women’s Movement

ECCI – Executive Committee of the Communist International

FYP – Five-Year Plan

IWD – International Women’s Day

IWMA – International Working Men’s Association

IWS – International Women’s Secretariat of the CI

KPD(S) – German Communist Party

KUTB – Committee to Improve the Labour and Life of Women, a branch of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh)

LGBT – An inclusive term for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and others

NGO – Non-governmental Organisation

OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

RDDPP – Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry

SD – Social Democracy or Social Democrat, determined by the context

SDs – Social Democrats

SDP – German Social Democratic Party

Sovnarkom – Council of People’s Commissars

SR – Socialist Revolutionary

ToPR – Theory of Permanent Revolution

ToSOC – Theory of Socialism in One Country

UO – United Opposition

USPD – Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany

VKPD – Unified Communist Party of Germany

VSNKh – Supreme Council of the National Economy

VTsIK – All-Russian Central Executive Committee

VTsSPS – All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions

WHO – World Health Organisation

ZAGS – The government office for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages.

Party Name, Congresses and Conferences

1898-1903

RSDLP: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

1903-1906

The political differences at the Second Congress led to the de facto division of the RSDLP into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, with parallel publications and committees

1906-1912

The 1905 Revolution forced a re-unification in 1906 which lasted until the Prague Conference, January 1912, called by the Bolsheviks

1912-1918

RSDLP(B), Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks)

1918-1925

RCP(B), All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

1925-1952

AUCP(B), All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

1952-1992

CPSU, Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1992 – Present

CPRF, Communist Party of the Russian Federation

The Congress was the decision-making body of the Bolshevik Party and comprised elected delegates. Conferences were held between Congresses when an important issue required an immediate decision. Conferences would be comprised of both delegates and officials, the relative numbers depending on the specific circumstances.

Dates: All dates before 1 February 1918 are given according to the old Russian, Julian calendar which was thirteen days behind the Gregorian calendar used in the West. To change to a modern calendar, add thirteen days.

USSR: In July 1918, the Russian Constitution renamed Russia as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR). In December 1922, the Congress of the Soviets approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, which united the RSFSR with the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics and the Transcaucasian SFSR into a single federal state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, more commonly known as the Soviet Union. On 12 December 1991, the RSFSR renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and declared Russia’s independence from the USSR.

Security and political police of the Soviet Union: Cheka, December 1918, political police, the NKVD – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. GPU, The Cheka was reorganised in 1922, first as the GPU (State Political Directorate) and then as the OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate). OGPU was incorporated into the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) in 1934.