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The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea.<br/><br/> The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin ( 9 October 1888 – 15 March 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician and prolific author on revolutionary theory.<br/><br/> When the Great Purge began in 1936, Stalin looked for any pretext to liquidate his former allies and rivals for power, and some of Bukharin’s letters, conversations and tapped phone-calls indicated disloyalty. Arrested in February 1937, he was charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state and executed in March 1938, after a trial that alienated many Western communist sympathisers.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
Hồ Chí Minh, born Nguyá»…n Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyá»…n Ái Quốc (19 May 1890 – 3 September 1969) was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1946–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).<br/><br/> He formed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and led the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War until his death. Hồ led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu.<br/><br/> He lost political power inside North Vietnam in the late 1950s, but remained as the highly visible figurehead president until his death.
Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after World War II. He simultaneously administered vast sections of the Soviet state and served as de facto Marshal of the Soviet Union in command of the NKVD field units responsible for anti-partisan operations on the Eastern Front during World War II.<br/><br/> Beria administered the vast expansion of the Gulag labor camps and was primarily responsible for overseeing the secret defense institutions known as <i>sharashkas</i>, critical to the war effort. He also played the decisive role in coordinating the Soviet partisans, developing an impressive intelligence and sabotage network behind German lines. He attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as 'our Himmler'.<br/><br/> Beria was promoted to First Deputy Premier, where he carried out a campaign of liberalization. He was briefly a part of the ruling 'troika' with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. Beria's overconfidence in his position after Stalin's death led him to misjudge other Politburo members. During the coup d'état led by Nikita Khrushchev and assisted by the military forces of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, Beria was arrested on charges of treason during a meeting in which the full Politburo condemned him. The compliance of the NKVD was ensured by Zhukov's troops, and after interrogation Beria was taken to the basement of the Lubyanka and shot.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Yezhov's time in charge is sometimes known as the 'Yezhovshchina' ('the Yezhov era'), a term coined during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. After presiding over mass arrests and executions during the Great Purge, Yezhov became a victim of it himself. He was arrested, confessed under torture to a range of anti-Soviet activity, and was executed in 1940.<br/><br/> By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political non-person. Among art historians, he has the nickname 'The Vanishing Commissar' because after his execution, his likeness was retouched out of an official press photo; he is among the best known examples of the Soviet press making someone who had fallen out of favor 'disappear'.
From 1930 onwards, the Soviet Communist Party and police officials feared the social disorder caused by the upheavals of forced collectivization of peasants and the resulting famine of 1932–1933, as well as the massive and uncontrolled migration of millions of peasants into cities.<br/><br/> This fear resulted in a series of purges between about 1930 and 1939, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after World War II. He simultaneously administered vast sections of the Soviet state and served as de facto Marshal of the Soviet Union in command of the NKVD field units responsible for anti-partisan operations on the Eastern Front during World War II.<br/><br/> Beria administered the vast expansion of the Gulag labor camps and was primarily responsible for overseeing the secret defense institutions known as <i>sharashkas</i>, critical to the war effort. He also played the decisive role in coordinating the Soviet partisans, developing an impressive intelligence and sabotage network behind German lines. He attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as 'our Himmler'.<br/><br/> Beria was promoted to First Deputy Premier, where he carried out a campaign of liberalization. He was briefly a part of the ruling 'troika' with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. Beria's overconfidence in his position after Stalin's death led him to misjudge other Politburo members. During the coup d'état led by Nikita Khrushchev and assisted by the military forces of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, Beria was arrested on charges of treason during a meeting in which the full Politburo condemned him. The compliance of the NKVD was ensured by Zhukov's troops, and after interrogation Beria was taken to the basement of the Lubyanka and shot.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, was arrested and executed in 1938 as an 'enemy of the people'. In 1940 Yezhov was shot in an execution chamber with a sloping floor, which was for hosing and had been built according to Yezhov's own specifications near the Lubyanka.<br/><br/> After his execution, Yezhov was painstakingly removed from this image, earning him the posthumous nickname 'the Vanishing Commissar'.
The Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, and, later, Clement Attlee, as well as President Harry S. Truman.<br/><br/> Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—as well as Attlee, who participated alongside Churchill while awaiting the outcome of the 1945 general election, and then replaced Churchill as Prime Minister after the Labour Party's defeat of the Conservatives—gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on 8 May (VE Day).<br/><br/> The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of the war.
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938. The defendants included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the former leadership of the Soviet secret police.<br/><br/> The Moscow Trials led to the execution of many of the defendants, including most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks. The trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge which was an attempt to rid the party of current or prior party oppositionists. Trotskyists were especially targeted, but not exclusively. Indeed any leading Bolshevik cadre from the period of the 1917 revolution or earlier who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin's incompetent mismanagement of the economy was targeted.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
Nikolai Yezhov's time in charge is sometimes known as the 'Yezhovshchina' ('the Yezhov era'), a term coined during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. After presiding over mass arrests and executions during the Great Purge, Yezhov became a victim of it himself. He was arrested, confessed under torture to a range of anti-Soviet activity, and was executed in 1940.<br/><br/> By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political non-person. Among art historians, he has the nickname 'The Vanishing Commissar' because after his execution, his likeness was retouched out of an official press photo; he is among the best known examples of the Soviet press making someone who had fallen out of favor 'disappear'.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea.<br/><br/> The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial.<br/><br/> Also present are Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (far left); Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, RN, Marshal of the RAF Sir Charles Portal, RAF, (standing behind Churchill); General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, (standing behind Roosevelt).
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938. The defendants included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the former leadership of the Soviet secret police.<br/><br/> The Moscow Trials led to the execution of many of the defendants, including most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks. The trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge which was an attempt to rid the party of current or prior party oppositionists. Trotskyists were especially targeted, but not exclusively. Indeed any leading Bolshevik cadre from the period of the 1917 revolution or earlier who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin's incompetent mismanagement of the economy was targeted.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Yezhov's time in charge is sometimes known as the 'Yezhovshchina' ('the Yezhov era'), a term coined during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. After presiding over mass arrests and executions during the Great Purge, Yezhov became a victim of it himself. He was arrested, confessed under torture to a range of anti-Soviet activity, and was executed in 1940.<br/><br/> By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political non-person. Among art historians, he has the nickname 'The Vanishing Commissar' because after his execution, his likeness was retouched out of an official press photo; he is among the best known examples of the Soviet press making someone who had fallen out of favor 'disappear'.
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held in the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran and was the first of the World War II conferences held between all of the 'Big Three' Allied leaders (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom).<br/><br/> It closely followed the Cairo Conference which had taken place on 22-26 November 1943, and preceded the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Although all three of the leaders present arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the commitment to the opening of a second front against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies.<br/><br/> The conference also addressed relations between the Allies and Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan as well as the envisaged post-war settlement. A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three's recognition of Iran's independence.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1878–1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (1868-1936), primarily known as Maxim (Maksim) Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the Socialist realism literary method and a political activist.
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.<br/><br/> During the Holodomor millions of citizens of the Ukrainian SSR, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by the independent Ukraine and many other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Yezhov's time in charge is sometimes known as the 'Yezhovshchina' ('the Yezhov era'), a term coined during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. After presiding over mass arrests and executions during the Great Purge, Yezhov became a victim of it himself. He was arrested, confessed under torture to a range of anti-Soviet activity, and was executed in 1940.<br/><br/> By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political non-person. Among art historians, he has the nickname 'The Vanishing Commissar' because after his execution, his likeness was retouched out of an official press photo; he is among the best known examples of the Soviet press making someone who had fallen out of favor 'disappear'.
The Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, and, later, Clement Attlee, as well as President Harry S. Truman.<br/><br/> Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—as well as Attlee, who participated alongside Churchill while awaiting the outcome of the 1945 general election, and then replaced Churchill as Prime Minister after the Labour Party's defeat of the Conservatives—gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on 8 May (VE Day).<br/><br/> The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of the war.
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/> According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938. The defendants included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the former leadership of the Soviet secret police.<br/><br/> The Moscow Trials led to the execution of many of the defendants, including most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, and the trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge which was an attempt to rid the party of current or prior party oppositionists, especially but not exclusively Trotskyists, and indeed any leading Bolshevik cadre from the period of the 1917 revolution or earlier, who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin's incompetent mismanagement of the economy.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) envoy traveled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west.<br/><br/> Another early mention of Kashgar is during the Former Han (also known as the Western Han Dynasty), when in 76 BCE the Chinese conquered the Xiongnu, Yutian (Khotan), Sulei (Kashgar), and a group of states in the Tarim basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan mountains.<br/><br/> Ptolemy spoke of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a 'Kasia Regio', probably exhibiting the name from which Kashgar is formed.<br/><br/> The country’s people practised Zoroastrianism and Buddhism before the coming of Islam. The celebrated Old Uighur prince Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan converted to Islam late in the 10th century and his Uighur kingdom lasted until 1120 but was distracted by complicated dynastic struggles.<br/><br/> The Uighurs employed an alphabet based upon the Syriac and borrowed from the Nestorian, but after converting to Islam widely used also an Arabic script. They spoke a dialect of Turkic preserved in the Kudatku Bilik, a moral treatise composed in 1065.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.
The Spanish Civil War was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 between the Republicans, who were loyal to the democratically elected Spanish Republic, and the Nationalists, a rebel group led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists prevailed, and Franco ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from 1939 until his death in 1975.<br/><br/> The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937. They also besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. Capturing large parts of Catalonia in 1938 and 1939, the war ended with the victory of the Nationalists and the exile of thousands of leftist Spaniards, many of whom fled to refugee camps in southern France.
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea.<br/><br/> The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial.<br/><br/> Also present are Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (far left); Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, RN, Marshal of the RAF Sir Charles Portal, RAF, (standing behind Churchill); General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, (standing behind Roosevelt).
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.<br/><br/> Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.<br/><br/> Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.<br/><br/> Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. He dominated Soviet politics and the USSR through the Great Purges of the 1930s, then the catastrophic Second World War, remaining in power until his death in 1953.