global vocab

Question 1

autocrat

Answer 1

a person who has absolute power or authority, especially a ruler of a country.

Question 2

Duma

Answer 2

Russian parliament (ie legislature)

Question 3

abdicate

Answer 3

to officially step down and give up power as a ruler

Question 4

white army

Answer 4

a loosely organized coalition of anti-communists who fought (and lost to) the Bolsehviks in the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution

Question 5

proletariat

Answer 5

In Marxist theory, the group of workers who would overthrow the czar and come to rule Russia

Question 6

Bolsheviks

Answer 6

A group of revolutionary Russian Marxists who took control of Russia’s government in
November 1917

Question 7

provisional government

Answer 7

a temporary government [in Russia a provisional government was put in place when the czar abdicated, but this government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks later that year]

Question 8

soviet

Answer 8

one of the local representative councils formed in Russia after the downfall of Czar Nicholas II

Question 9

Communist Party

Answer 9

a political party practicing the ideas of Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin; originally the Russian
Bolshevik Party [years later, Mao Zedong and others created the Chinese Communist Party
to push for a communist revolution in China]

Question 10

totalitarianism

Answer 10

government control over every aspect of public and private life

Question 11

Great Purge

Answer 11

a campaign of terror in the Soviet Union during the 1930’s, in which Joseph Stalin sought to
eliminate all Communist Party members and other citizens who threatened his power.

Question 12

command economy

Answer 12

an economic system in which the government makes all economic decisions

Question 13

Five-Year Plan

Answer 13

plans outlined by Joseph Stalin in 1928 for the development of the Soviet Union’s economy

Question 14

collective farm

Answer 14

a large government-controlled farm formed by combining many small farms