Communism Flashcards
What does the word “Bolshevik” mean in English?
Majority
What does the word “Soviet” mean in English?
Council
Describe the Bolsheviks.
The Bolsheviks were a radical, far-left, and revolutionary Marxist faction in Russia.
Who founded the Bolshevik faction in Russia?
Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov
When did the Bolsheviks take power in Russia?
November of 1917
What were Soviets?
Political organizations and governmental bodies of the late Russian Empire primarily associated with the Russian Revolution.
What was the Communist International? (3 answers)
- An international organization that advocated world communism.
- Also known as the third international.
- Resolved to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish an international soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state.
What years was the Comintern active?
1919-1943
Why was the Comintern dissolved?
Stalin dissolved the Comintern to avoid antagonizing the Soviet Union’s allies in WW II.
What is the bourgeoisie according to Marxist philosophy?
The social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialization and whose societal concerns are the value of property and the preservation of capital to ensure the perpetuation of their economic supremacy in society.
Define proletariat.
The class of wage-earners in an economic society whose only possession of significant material value is their labor-power.
What is the Marxist view of the proletariat?
Marxism sees the proletariat as oppressed by capitalism and the wage system, giving all proletarians common economic and political interests across national boundaries.
Who was Leon Trotsky
- A Soviet revolutionary, Marxist theorist, and politician.
- Originator of a strain of Marxist thought known as Trotskyism.
- A Vital leading figure in the Red victory in the Russian Civil War.
- Exiled after the rise of Stalin and assassinated by a Soviet agent years later.
What was the defining feature of Trotskyism?
Favored permanent revolution to Stalin’s theory of socialism in one country.
What is permanent revolution?
The strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society.
What was Trotsky’s view of permanent revolution?
It is possible for a country to pass directly from a semi-feudal society to one dominated by the proletariat without an interceding period of bourgeoisie dominance.
Politburo
The principal policy making committee of a communist party.
Apparatchik
A full time professional functionary of the communist party of the Soviet Union.
What was the Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty signed in Poland between Soviet Union and seven other countries.
Which countries participated in the Warsaw Pact?
Albania Bulgaria Czechoslovakia East Germany Hungary Poland Romania Soviet Union
Define agit-prop. (3 answers)
- Political propaganda that is spread to the general public through popular media such as literature, plays, pamphlets, films, and other art forms with an explicitly political message.
- Often refers to communist propaganda used in Soviet Russia.
- The word is a portmanteau of the words “agitation” and “propaganda”.
