Misplaced Pages

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140-752: The Gwardia Ludowa was established with sponsorship from the Soviet Union to support the Red Army and Polish communists against Nazi Germany . It became the largest partisan force in Poland which refused to join the structures of the Polish Underground State loyal to the London -based Polish government-in-exile . The Gwardia Ludowa was incorporated into the larger Armia Ludowa in January 1944. The Gwardia Ludowa

280-662: A Bundist member of the Polish government in exile, committed suicide in London to protest the lack of action on behalf of the Jews by the Allied governments. In his farewell note, he wrote: I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being murdered. My comrades in the Warsaw Ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I

420-666: A one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , it was a flagship communist state . Its capital and largest city was Moscow . The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin , established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally socialist state . The revolution

560-848: A French-made Lorraine 37L light armored vehicle and an armored car ) were set on fire by the insurgents' petrol bombs. The remaining Jews knew that the Germans would murder them and decided to resist to the last. While the uprising was underway, the Bermuda Conference was held by the Allies from 19 to 29 April 1943 to discuss the Jewish refugee problem. Discussions included the question of Jewish refugees who had been liberated by Allied forces and those who still remained in German-occupied Europe . Following von Sammern-Frankenegg's failure to contain

700-580: A closer relationship with France and Britain. In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement , the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain. Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in

840-712: A day for " resettlement to the East ". Czerniaków committed suicide once he became aware of the true goal of the "resettlement" plan. Approximately 254,000–300,000 ghetto residents were murdered at Treblinka during the two-month-long operation. The Grossaktion was directed by SS- Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg , the SS and police commander of the Warsaw area since 1941. He was relieved of duty by SS-und-Polizeiführer Jürgen Stroop , sent to Warsaw by Heinrich Himmler on 17 April 1943. Stroop took over from von Sammern-Frankenegg following

980-446: A fleet of strategic bombers and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising April uprising: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

1120-515: A greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии , romanized : Soyuz Sovyetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii ). Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began as socialist soviet and did not change to

1260-557: A major subject. The important things were inherent in the force shown by Jewish youth after years of degradation, to rise up against their destroyers, and determine what death they would choose: Treblinka or Uprising. On 7 December 1970, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt spontaneously knelt while visiting the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes memorial in the People's Republic of Poland . At

1400-595: A museum and archives dedicated to remembering the Holocaust . Yad Mordechai , a kibbutz just north of the Gaza Strip , was named after Mordechaj Anielewicz. In 2008, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi led a group of Israeli officials to the site of the uprising and spoke about the event's "importance for IDF combat soldiers". In 1968, the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Zuckerman

1540-592: A new profitable market. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labour unions or other organizations on the left, which they labelled social fascists . In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, the epithet fascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with

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1680-465: A number of extremely crowded ghettos located in large Polish cities . The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto , collected approximately 300,000–400,000 people into a densely packed, 3.3 km area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews were killed by rampant disease and starvation under SS-und-Polizeiführer Odilo Globocnik and SS - Standartenführer Ludwig Hahn , even before the mass deportations from

1820-529: A prominent role in the history of the Polish People's Republic after the war's end and was known for his ultra-nationalist and antisemitic attitude. This Polish military article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ), commonly known as the Soviet Union , was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. During its existence, it

1960-456: A search later on was out of the question. The captured hand grenades, ammunition, and incendiary bottles were at once reused by us against the bandits. Further booty: Up to 23 May 1943 we had counted: 4.4 million zloty; furthermore about 5 to 6 million zloty not yet counted, a great amount of foreign currency, e.g. US$ 14,300 in paper and US$ 9,200 in gold, moreover valuables (rings, chains, watches, etc.) in great quantities. State of

2100-615: A status that is retained by the Russian Federation . Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America . Two other successor states, Kazakhstan and Ukraine , rank among the top 10 countries by land area, and the largest country entirely in Europe, respectively. The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to

2240-469: A union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians . The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as 'Russia'. While the Russian SFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and area), most powerful, and most highly developed. The Russian SFSR

2380-556: Is derived from the Russian word sovet (Russian: совет ), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice', ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of * vět-iti ('to inform'), related to Slavic věst ('news'), English wise . The word sovietnik means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called council (Russian: совет ). In the Russian Empire ,

2520-570: Is his background, his education , his profession . These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror ." During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , or by

2660-498: Is likely that his list was neither complete, free of errors, nor indicative of the German losses throughout the entire period of resistance, until the absolute liquidation of Jewish life in the ghetto. All the same, the German casualty figures cited by the various Jewish sources are probably highly exaggerated." Other historians such as Raul Hilberg also confirm the accuracy of official German casualty figures. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

2800-598: The Axis powers , suffering an estimated 27 million casualties , which accounted for most Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war , the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army , forming satellite states , and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower . Geopolitical tensions with the US led to the Cold War . The American-led Western Bloc coalesced into NATO in 1949, prompting

2940-510: The Council of People's Commissars ), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society. State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of

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3080-576: The Gulag was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact , but in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II . The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating

3220-729: The Land Forces , the Air Force , the Navy , Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and the Internal Troops . The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the NKVD secret police, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in

3360-518: The Moscow State Institute of International Relations . The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions. During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it

3500-644: The Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia , was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones , and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra , taiga , steppes , desert and mountains . The USSR, like Russia , had the world's longest border , measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it

3640-761: The Popular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all anti-Fascist political, labour, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism , especially of the Nazi variety. The rapid growth of power in Nazi Germany encouraged both Paris and Moscow to form a military alliance, and the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed in May 1935. A firm believer in collective security, Stalin's foreign minister Maxim Litvinov worked very hard to form

3780-566: The Soviet republics , and the control of the Communist Party weakened. The failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Gorbachev by hardline communists hastened the end of the Soviet Union , which formally dissolved on December 26, 1991, ending nearly seven decades of Soviet rule. With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country,

3920-739: The State Council , which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers. The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the 1905 Russian Revolution . Although they were quickly suppressed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917 , workers' and soldiers' Soviets emerged throughout the country and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government . The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin , demanded that all power be transferred to

4060-616: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), saying that it was "overly juridical" and potentially infringed on national sovereignty. The Soviet Union later signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 (and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ), but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by

4200-736: The largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world . As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council . Before its dissolution, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomatic and ideological influence (particularly in the Global South ), military and economic strengths, and scientific accomplishments. The word soviet

4340-534: The right to food , the right to work , and the right to education . The Soviet conception of human rights was very different from international law . According to Soviet legal theory , "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the individual". The Soviet state was considered as the source of human rights. Therefore, the Soviet legal system considered law an arm of politics and it also considered courts agencies of

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4480-511: The " Trawniki men " and Polish police under his command. Other sources have questioned the number of German casualties. Edelman claims that the German casualties amounted to 300 killed and wounded. The official German casualty figures were kept low, while the propaganda bulletins of the Polish Underground State , claimed that hundreds of occupiers had been killed in the fighting. But according to Israel Gutman , "the number cited by Stroop (16 dead, 85 wounded) cannot be rejected out of hand, but it

4620-683: The 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union , concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR , to himself. Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling

4760-476: The 1950s, the Soviet Union expanded its efforts in space exploration and took a lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite , the first human spaceflight , the first space station , and the first probe to land on another planet . In 1985, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev , sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika . In 1989, various countries of

4900-585: The 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissioned nuclear submarines , and the processing of nuclear waste or spent nuclear fuel . It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to the Barents Sea and Kara Sea , which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of the K-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in

5040-709: The AK under the command of Captain Józef Pszenny ("Chwacki") joined up in a failed attempt to breach the ghetto walls with explosives. Eventually, the ŻZW lost all of its commanders. On 29 April, the remaining fighters from the organization escaped the ghetto through the Muranowski tunnel and relocated to the Michalin forest. This event marked the end of significant fighting. At this point, organized defense collapsed. Surviving fighters and thousands of remaining Jewish civilians took cover in

5180-519: The CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees , local Soviets and executive committees . While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary. The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies ) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Red Terror and Great Purge , but

5320-518: The Communist authorities. Under Joseph Stalin , the death penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935. Sergei Kovalev recalled "the famous article 125 of the Constitution which enumerated all basic civil and political rights" in the Soviet Union. But when he and other prisoners attempted to use this as a legal basis for their abuse complaints, their prosecutor's argument

5460-421: The Germans also took casualties, and the deportation was halted within a few days. About 1,200 Jews were killed, and about 5,000 deported, instead of the 8,000 planned by Germans. The fighters managed to kill about a dozen Germans and wound several dozen. Hundreds of people in the Warsaw Ghetto were ready to fight, sparsely armed with handguns, gasoline bottles, and a few other weapons that had been smuggled into

5600-428: The Germans discovered a large dugout located at Miła 18 Street, which served as ŻOB's main command post . Most of the organization's remaining leadership and dozens of others committed mass suicide by ingesting cyanide , including Mordechaj Anielewicz , the chief commander of ŻOB. His deputy Marek Edelman escaped the ghetto through the sewers with a handful of comrades two days later. On 10 May, Szmul Zygielbojm ,

5740-488: The Germans in reprisal. GL was divided into partisan units and garrison units assembled for quick ambushes, after which the garrison members returned to their homes. By the end of 1942 GL had approximately 5,000 men, including, at least nominally, every member of the Polish Workers' Party . By late 1943 the number rose to about 10,000. Among them approximately 1,700 were partisans, and the rest were part-time combatants. For

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5880-759: The Germans. The Apollo movie theatre in Radom was attacked on 22 November 1942; the Deutsches Haus in April 1943. In Kraków and Kielce the Nur für Deutsche coffee houses were bombed in December 1942 and February 1943 respectively. The German administration building in Rzeszów was bombed also in February. Most of GL operations resulted in great number of Polish and Jewish hostages being shot by

6020-451: The Ghetto at the termination of the large-scale operation: Sporadic resistance continued and the last skirmish took place on 5 June 1943 between Germans and a holdout group of armed Jews without connections to the resistance organizations. 13,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from smoke inhalation ). Of the remaining 50,000 residents, almost all were captured and shipped to

6160-487: The Holocaust [...] those who won our loyalty and helped us with their slim forces were the Polish Communists [...] They hated the Poland of the fascistic Sanacja and sought someone to lean on. [...] They were first of all Polish patriots who wanted to see a new Poland; and they were the only force we could rely on because of their attitude toward us, toward our Jewish group". Polish-Israeli historians Israel Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski report that in many regions of Poland,

6300-471: The July 1942 Grossaktion Warsaw committed suicide after being arrested in 1962. Walter Bellwidt, who commanded a Waffen-SS battalion among Stroop forces, died on 13 October 1965. Hahn went into hiding until 1975, when he was apprehended and sentenced to life for crimes against humanity ; he served eight years and died in 1986. SS Oberführer Arpad Wigand who served with von Sammern-Frankenberg as SS and Police Leader in Warsaw from 4 August 1941 to 23 April 1943

6440-402: The People's Guard was the only allied force the Jewish partisans could rely on, and list ten Jewish partisan units that joined the People's Guard, alongside thirteen ethnically mixed partisan units of the People's Guard. According to Dariusz Libionka , "the fundamental difference between the AK [ Armia Krajowa ] and GL-AL [Gwardia Ludowa- Armia Ludowa ] with regard to their attitude towards Jews

6580-417: The Polish Home Army and its command structure in exchange for weapons and training. Marek Edelman, who was the only surviving uprising commander from the left-wing ŻOB, stated that the ŻOB had 220 fighters and each was armed with a handgun, grenades, and Molotov cocktails . His organization had three rifles in each area, as well as two land mines and one submachine gun . Due to its socialist leanings,

6720-481: The Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal, itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee. All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party. Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from

6860-420: The Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС has been taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is associated with the infamous Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany , as SS is in English. In English-language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that, for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it

7000-450: The Soviet Union and turned into SSRs, which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation . After the Soviet invasion of Finland , the Karelo-Finnish SSR was formed on annexed territory as a Union Republic in March 1940 and then incorporated into Russia as the Karelian ASSR in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below). While nominally

7140-477: The Soviet Union . Boris Yeltsin , the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation , which became the Soviet Union's successor state; all other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states . During its existence, the Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations . It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An NPT-designated state , it wielded

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7280-448: The Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact , in 1955. Neither side engaged in direct military confrontation, and instead fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . In 1953, following Stalin's death , the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev , which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China . During

7420-417: The Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with the United Kingdom , Vyacheslav Molotov dropped his post war border demands. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc , which began following World War II in 1945. The term cold war is used because there

7560-480: The Soviet Union's superpower status, the economy struggled due to its centralized nature, technological backwardness, and inefficiencies. The vast military expenditures and burdens of maintaining the Eastern Bloc, further strained the Soviet economy. In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev 's policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) aimed to revitalize the Soviet system but instead accelerated its unraveling. Nationalist movements gained momentum across

7700-424: The Soviet authorities admitted. The Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. In 1988, total emissions in the Soviet Union were about 79% of those in the United States. But since the Soviet GNP was only 54% of that of the United States, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the United States per unit of GNP. The Soviet Chernobyl disaster in 1986

7840-459: The Soviets and Israel promoted the actions of ŻOB as the dominant or only party in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a view often adopted by secondary sources in the West. The right-wing faction ŻZW, which was founded by former Polish officers, was larger, more established and had closer ties with the Polish Home Army, making it better equipped. Zimmerman describes the arms supplies for the uprising as "limited but real". Specifically, Jewish fighters of

7980-406: The Soviets, and gained support from the workers and soldiers. After the October Revolution , in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets, Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR). During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national Soviet republics to form

8120-415: The Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet ,

8260-430: The USSR. Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it

8400-548: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, known as the "Ghetto Fighters", went on to create the kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta'ot (literally: "Ghetto Fighters'"), which is located north of Acre, Israel . The founding members of the kibbutz include Yitzhak Zuckerman (Icchak Cukierman), who represented the ŻOB on the 'Aryan' side, and his wife Zivia Lubetkin , who commanded a fighting unit. In 1984, members of the kibbutz published Daphei Edut ("Testimonies of Survival"), four volumes of personal testimonies from 96 kibbutz members. The settlement features

8540-462: The Warsaw Ghetto but was later discovered and executed in 1944) visited a ŻZW armoury hidden in the basement at 7 Muranowska Street. In his notes, which form part of Oneg Shabbat archives, he reported: They were armed with revolvers stuck in their belts. Different kinds of weapons were hung in the large rooms: light machine guns, rifles, revolvers of different kinds, hand grenades, bags of ammunition, German uniforms, etc., all of which were utilized to

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8680-409: The Warsaw Pact overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes , and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to preserve the country as a renewed federation , an attempted coup against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the largest republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of

8820-425: The Warsaw Uprising: the left wing ŻOB founded in July 1942 by Zionist Jewish youth groups within the Warsaw Ghetto; and the right wing ŻZW, or Jewish Military Union, a national organization founded in 1939 by former Polish military officers of Jewish background which had strong ties to the Polish Home Army and cells in almost every major town across Poland. However, both organisations were officially incorporated into

8960-449: The accident, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005). Another major radioactive accident was the Kyshtym disaster . The Kola Peninsula was one of the places with major problems. Around the industrial cities of Monchegorsk and Norilsk , where nickel , for example, is mined, all forests have been destroyed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions. During

9100-671: The alleged agent and Judenrat associate Alfred Nossig , executed on 22 February 1943). The ŻOB established a prison to hold and execute traitors and collaborators. Józef Szeryński , former head of the Jewish Ghetto Police, committed suicide. On 19 April 1943, on the eve of Passover , the police and SS auxiliary forces entered the ghetto. They were planning to complete the deportation action within three days, but were ambushed by Jewish insurgents firing and tossing Molotov cocktails and hand grenades from alleyways, sewers, and windows. The Germans suffered 59 casualties and their advance bogged down. Two of their combat vehicles (an armed conversion of

9240-429: The country was limited. The state restricted rights of citizens to private property . According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , human rights are the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." including the right to life and liberty , freedom of expression , and equality before the law ; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture ,

9380-442: The creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the government budget . The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium (successor of the Central Executive Committee ) to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court , the Procurator General and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as

9520-566: The death camps of Majdanek and Treblinka. Jürgen Stroop's internal SS daily report for Friedrich Krüger , written on 16 May 1943, stated: 180 Jews, bandits and sub-humans, were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 20:15 hours by blowing up the Warsaw Synagogue . ... Total number of Jews dealt with 56,065, including both Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved. ... Apart from 8 buildings (police barracks, hospital, and accommodations for housing working-parties)

9660-409: The degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They were not controlled by

9800-432: The duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in

9940-400: The end of the year, the organisation was divided onto seven administrative districts including Warsaw , Lublin , Radom - Kielce , Kraków , Łódź , Silesia and Lwów . First major operations of GL consisted of disassembling train tracks. Until December 1942 some 50 railway lines were damaged resulting in 30 German supply trains being disabled. Some 30 insurgents were caught and hanged, but

10080-507: The failure of the latter to pacify the ghetto resistance. When the deportations first began, members of the Jewish resistance movement met and decided not to fight the SS directives, believing that the Jews were being sent to labour camps and not to be murdered. But by the end of 1942, ghetto inhabitants learned that the deportations were part of an extermination process. Many of the remaining Jews decided to revolt. The first armed resistance in

10220-644: The first organizers of the Jewish resistance in Warsaw Ghetto . During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising People's Guard attacked German units near the Ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons, ammunition, supplies, and instructions into the Ghetto. After the uprising was over, GL helped Jews to escape Ghetto and some Jewish militants joined the units of GL. The leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising , Yitzhak Zuckerman , wrote in his memoirs: "During

10360-629: The first uprising took part in the later uprising (mostly in non-combat roles such as logistics and maintenance, due to their physical state and general shortage of arms), joining the ranks of the Polish Home Army and the Armia Ludowa . According to Samuel Krakowski from the Jewish Historical Institute , "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a real influence ... in encouraging the activity of the Polish underground." A number of survivors of

10500-436: The following as captured booty: Regarding the booty of arms, it must be taken into consideration that the arms themselves could in most cases not be captured, as the bandits and Jews would, before being arrested, throw them into hiding places or holes which could not be ascertained or discovered. The smoking out of the dug-out by our men, also often made the search for arms impossible. As the dug-outs had to be blown up at once,

10640-533: The former Ghetto is completely destroyed. Only the dividing walls are left standing where no explosions were carried out. According to the casualty lists in Stroop's report, German forces suffered a total of 110 casualties – 17 dead (of whom 16 were killed in action ) and 93 injured – of whom 101 are listed by name, including over 60 members of the Waffen-SS. These figures did not include Jewish collaborators but did include

10780-739: The founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan PSPs . In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR

10920-410: The general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism , demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above. The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over the system of appointments . All senior government officials and most deputies of

11060-524: The ghetto by resistance fighters. Most of the Jewish fighters did not view their actions as an effective measure by which to save themselves, but rather as a battle for the honour of the Jewish people, and a protest against the world's silence. The ŻZW and ŻOB built dozens of fighting posts and executed a number of Nazi collaborators , including Jewish Ghetto Police officers, members of the fake (German-sponsored and controlled) resistance organization Żagiew , as well as Gestapo and Abwehr agents (including

11200-402: The ghetto occurred in January 1943. On 18 January 1943, the Germans began their second deportation of the Jews, which led to the first instance of armed insurgency within the ghetto. While Jewish families hid in their so-called "bunkers", fighters of the ŻOB and ŻZW, resisted, engaging the Germans in direct clashes. Though the ŻZW and ŻOB suffered heavy losses (including some of their leaders),

11340-412: The ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop , who ordered the destruction of the ghetto, block by block, ending on 16 May. A total of 13,000 Jews were killed, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. Stroop reported 110 German casualties, including 17 killed. The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. The Jews knew that victory

11480-563: The ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp began. The SS conducted many of the deportations during the operation code-named Grossaktion Warschau , between 23 July and 21 September 1942. Just before the operation began, the German "Resettlement Commissioner" SS- Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle called a meeting of the Ghetto Jewish Council Judenrat and informed its leader, Adam Czerniaków , that he would require 7,000 Jews

11620-417: The ghetto were carried out by: Open and secret executions carried out in Warsaw were led by SS-Obersturmführer Norbert Bergh-Trips, SS-Haupturmführer Paul Werner and SS-Obersturmführer Walter Witossek. The latter often presided over the police "trio", signing mass death sentences for Polish political prisoners, which were later pronounced by the ad hoc court of the security police. In October 1943, Bürkl

11760-515: The globe. The post-Stalin leadership, particularly under Nikita Khrushchev , initiated a de-Stalinization process, leading to a period of liberalization and relative openness known as the Khrushchev Thaw . However, the subsequent era under Leonid Brezhnev , referred to as the Era of Stagnation , was marked by economic decline, political corruption, and a rigid gerontocracy . Despite efforts to maintain

11900-491: The government. Extensive extrajudicial powers were given to the Soviet secret police agencies . In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed the rule of law , civil liberties , protection of law and guarantees of property , which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky . The USSR and other countries in the Soviet Bloc had abstained from affirming

12040-507: The highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989, the first in Soviet history. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since

12180-463: The implementation of socialist policies and the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for market-oriented reforms. The rise of Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s ushered in an era of intense centralization and totalitarianism. Stalin's rule was characterized by the forced collectivization of agriculture , rapid industrialization , and the Great Purge , which eliminated perceived enemies of

12320-527: The most common Russian initialization is Союз ССР (transliteration: Soyuz SSR ) which essentially translates to Union of SSRs in English. In addition, the Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovyetsky Soyuz , which literally means Soviet Union ) is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of the Great Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating

12460-494: The most part, the GL carried out acts of sabotage, including the sabotage of German rail transport. GL took part in the Zamość uprising - a series of partisan actions against the forced Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany from the Zamość region. Since the formation of GL, its soldiers worked together with Jewish partisans . In Warsaw, Polish communists like Józef Lewartowski were ones of

12600-417: The newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR , and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt . The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power 'in the period of transition'. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR. The judiciary

12740-400: The nominal head of state . The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations . However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party, nor

12880-733: The number of units grew to over 30 in the same time. The most prominent sabotage action took place on 16 November 1942 along the railway line Radom – Łuków – Terespol , where five trains and a bridge were destroyed with the use of Soviet explosives. Another five trains were derailed around Oświęcim on 25 February 1943. Throughout the year, trains were damaged around Warsaw in Olszynka Grochowska, Elsnerów, Legionowo , Żyrardów and Żywczyn. In total, Gwardia Ludowa caused damage to 169 trains in 1943, as well as 113 train stations, resulting in 55 temporary line shut-downs. GL retaliation actions included throwing grenades into buildings frequented by

13020-603: The official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force fourth, and Navy fifth). The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis , under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov , it expanded significantly. It became known for battlecruisers and submarines. In 1989, there served 500 000 men. The Soviet Air Force focused on

13160-531: The only legal party and the final policymaker in the country. At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee , elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966), Secretariat and the general secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union. Depending on

13300-677: The other order until 1936 . In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the word council or conciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian soviet and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR . СССР (in the Latin alphabet: SSSR ) is the abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters . The Soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this,

13440-560: The partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II . Up until his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during the interwar period . Despite the increasing build-up of Germany 's war machine and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path. However, after Operation Barbarossa ,

13580-529: The party's highest body the Politburo . Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs . It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in

13720-409: The remaining Jews began to build bunkers and smuggle weapons and explosives into the ghetto. The left-wing Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) and right-wing Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) formed and began to train. A small resistance effort to another roundup in January 1943 was partially successful and spurred Polish resistance groups to support the Jews in earnest. The uprising started on 19 April when

13860-473: The revolt, he lost his post as the SS and police commander of Warsaw. He was replaced by SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who rejected von Sammern-Frankenegg's proposal to call in bomber aircraft from Kraków . He led a better-organized and reinforced ground attack. During this fight on 22 April, SS officer Hans Dehmke was killed when gunfire detonated a hand grenade he was holding. When Stroop's ultimatum to surrender

14000-409: The ruins of the ghetto. The SS hunted Jews hiding in the ruins. On 19 April 1943, the first day of the most significant period of the resistance, 7,000 Jews were transported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka extermination camp. Many purportedly developed resistance groups and helped to plan and execute the revolt and mass escape of 2 August 1943. From May 1943 to August 1944, executions in the ruins of

14140-475: The sewer system and in the many dugout hiding places hidden among the ruins of the ghetto, referred to as "bunkers" by Germans and Jews alike. The Germans used dogs to detect such hideouts, then usually dropped smoke bombs to force people out. Sometimes they flooded these so-called bunkers or destroyed them with explosives. On occasions, shootouts occurred. A number of captured fighters lobbed hidden grenades or fired concealed handguns after surrendering. On 8 May,

14280-564: The southern part of this region, however, Jews hiding in the forests were killed by a People's Guard unit. On 1 January 1944, by a decree of the Krajowa Rada Narodowa , the communist government installed by Stalin , the Gwardia Ludowa became a part of the newly formed Armia Ludowa . The prominent commanders and GL chiefs of staff were Marian Spychalski , Franciszek Jóźwiak , Franciszek Zubrzycki, and Mieczysław Moczar who played

14420-637: The state. The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II , but at a tremendous human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict. The Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, leading the Eastern Bloc in opposition to the Western Bloc during the Cold War . This period saw the USSR engage in an arms race, the Space Race , and proxy wars around

14560-469: The struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare , propaganda campaigns, espionage , far-reaching embargoes , rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race . Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs), all four being

14700-581: The time of the Uprising, Dr. Ludwig Fischer , was tried and executed in 1947. Stroop was captured by Americans in Germany, convicted of war crimes in two trials (U.S. military and Polish), and executed by hanging in Poland in 1952, along with Warsaw Ghetto SS administrator Franz Konrad . Stroop's aide, Erich Steidtmann , was exonerated for "minimal involvement"; he died in 2010 while under investigation for war crimes. Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle who helped carry out

14840-577: The time, the action surprised many and was the focus of controversy, but it has since been credited with helping improve relations between the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries. Many people from the United States and Israel came for the 1983 commemoration. The last surviving Jewish resistance fighter, Simcha Rotem , died in Jerusalem on 22 December 2018, at age 94. Two Jewish underground organisations fought in

14980-492: The truth". Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labour unions , private corporations , independent churches or opposition political parties . The freedom of movement within and especially outside

15120-514: The west further raised concerns. In the past, there were accidents involving submarines K-19 , K-8 , a K-129 , K-27 , K-219 and K-278 Komsomolets . There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the government represented by the Council of Ministers , and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),

15260-459: The world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran ), and Lake Baikal , the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia. Neighbouring countries were aware of the high levels of pollution in the Soviet Union but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was discovered that its environmental problems were greater than what

15400-476: The ŻZW received from the Polish Home Army: 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades for the uprising. During the Uprising, ŻZW is reported to have had about 400 well-armed fighters grouped in 11 units, with 4 units including fighters from the Polish Home Army. Due to the ŻZW's anti-socialist stand and close ties with the Polish Home Army (which

15540-559: Was a coastline . The country bordered Afghanistan , the People's Republic of China , Czechoslovakia , Finland , Hungary , Iran , Mongolia , North Korea , Norway , Poland , Romania , and Turkey from 1945 to 1991. The Bering Strait separated the USSR from the United States . The country's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak ) in Tajikistan , at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The USSR also included most of

15680-434: Was able to rescue 380 Jewish prisoners (mostly foreign) held in the concentration camp " Gęsiówka " set up by the Germans in an area adjacent to the ruins of former ghetto. These prisoners had been brought from Auschwitz and forced to clear the remains of the ghetto. A few small groups of ghetto residents also managed to survive in the undetected "bunkers" and to eventually reach the "Aryan side". Several hundred survivors from

15820-524: Was also the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was 'window dressing' for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were usually called 'Russians', not 'Soviets', since 'everyone knew who really ran the show'. Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of

15960-401: Was asked what military lessons could be learned from the uprising. He replied: I don't think there's any real need to analyze the Uprising in military terms. This was a war of less than a thousand people against a mighty army and no one doubted how it was likely to turn out. This isn't a subject for study in military school. (...) If there's a school to study the human spirit, there it should be

16100-480: Was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov , the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The constitution , which

16240-578: Was carried out within the terms of the Soviet Civil Code. Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt. Martin Latsis , chief of Soviet Ukraine 's secret police explained: "Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what

16380-525: Was colloquially, but incorrectly, referred to as Russia . The history of the Soviet Union began with the ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following the Russian Civil War , the Soviet Union quickly became a one-party state under the Communist Party . Its early years under Lenin were marked by

16520-592: Was created on 6 January 1942 with military aid from the Red Army , with the availability of firearms led to it swiftly reaching a strength of 3,000 fighters. It was connected to the NKVD , the intelligence services of the Soviet Union , to the point that some of its military actions were commanded by NKVD colonels . It was tasked with fighting against Nazi Germany by means of partisan warfare, sabotage, and reprisal actions. The full size partisan detachments were formed in May 1942 although foray groups were organized earlier. They operated near Piotrków and Radom . By

16660-404: Was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia , Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from the Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status. In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of Ukraine and Soviet-occupied Bessarabia , and Ukrainian SSR. Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania were also annexed by

16800-557: Was impossible and survival unlikely. Marek Edelman , the last surviving ŻOB commander who died in 2009, said their inspiration to fight was "not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths". According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , the uprising was "one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people". In 1939, German authorities began to concentrate Poland's population of over three million Jews into

16940-462: Was no air, only black, choking smoke and heavy burning heat radiating from the red-hot walls, from the glowing stone stairs." The "bunker wars" lasted an entire month, during which German progress was slowed. While the battle continued inside the ghetto, Polish resistance groups AK and GL engaged the Germans between 19 and 23 April at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, firing at German sentries and positions. In one attack, three units of

17080-424: Was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers , but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars . The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment,

17220-526: Was not accepted by all within the Russian Republic , resulting in the Russian Civil War . The RSFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth but contributed to a famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system of

17360-450: Was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts ( People's Court ) and applied the law as established by the constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law , where the judge, procurator , and defence attorney collaborate to "establish

17500-504: Was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people. Besides claiming an estimated 56,065 Jews accounted for (although his own figures showed the number to be 57,065) and noting that "The number of destroyed dug-outs amounts to 631," in his official report dated 24 May 1943, Stroop listed

17640-481: Was promulgated in 1924 , 1936 and 1977 , did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in

17780-420: Was rejected by the defenders, his forces resorted to systematically burning houses block by block using flamethrowers and fire bottles, and blowing up basements and sewers. "We were beaten by the flames, not the Germans," survivor Marek Edelman said in 2007; he was deputy commander of the ŻOB and escaped the ghetto in its last days. In 2003, he recalled: "The sea of flames flooded houses and courtyards. ... There

17920-631: Was released from prison on the grounds of his advanced cancer and died 13 days later. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 took place over a year before the Warsaw uprising of 1944. The ghetto had been destroyed by the time of the general uprising in the city, which was part of the Operation Tempest , a nationwide insurrection plan. During the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish Home Army's Battalion Zośka

18060-477: Was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924. All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of

18200-524: Was subsequently outlawed by the Soviets), the Soviets suppressed publication of books and articles on ŻZW after the war and downplayed its role in the uprising, in favor of the more socialist ŻOB. More weapons were supplied throughout the uprising, and some were captured from the Germans. Some weapons were handmade by the resistance; sometimes such weapons worked. Shortly before the uprising, Polish-Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum (who managed to escape from

18340-482: Was that "the Constitution was written not for you, but for American Negroes, so that they know how happy the lives of Soviet citizens are". Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, instead, it was determined as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example, a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. The liquidation and deportation of millions of peasants in 1928–31

18480-496: Was that Jews could function in GL while retaining their identity, while in the AK they could not". According to Shmuel Krakowski, the People's Guard's attitude towards the Jewish families hiding in the forests was not uniform. In the northern part of the Lublin region , local People's Guard units helped Jewish partisans to protect a large camp of Jewish families in the Parczew forests. In

18620-467: Was the largest country by area , extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries , and the third-most populous country . An overall successor to the Russian Empire , it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics , the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR . In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized . As

18760-603: Was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany 's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps . After the Grossaktion Warsaw of summer 1942, in which more than a quarter of a million Jews were deported from the ghetto to Treblinka and murdered,

18900-587: Was the Russian responsibility to assist them. The Comintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic —lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help. By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became

19040-404: Was the first major accident at a civilian nuclear power plant . Unparalleled in the world, it resulted in a large number of radioactive isotopes being released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses were scattered relatively far. Although long-term effects of the accident were unknown, 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer which resulted from the accident's contamination were reported at the time of

19180-406: Was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. German daily losses of killed/wounded and the official figures for killed or captured Jews and "bandits", according to the Stroop report: After the uprising was over, most of the incinerated houses were razed, and the Warsaw concentration camp complex was established in their place. Thousands of people died in the camp or were executed in

19320-481: Was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned . The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets ) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including

19460-555: Was tried and condemned to death in absentia by the Polish Resistance's Underground court , and shot dead by the AK in Warsaw, a part of Operation Heads that targeted notorious SS officers. That same month, von Sammern-Frankenegg was killed by Yugoslav Partisans in an ambush in Croatia . Himmler, Globocnik and Krüger all committed suicide at the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. The General Government Governor of Warsaw at

19600-665: Was tried for war crimes in Hamburg Germany in 1981 and sentenced to 12.5 years in prison; died 26 July 1983. Walter Reder reportedly served in the SS Panzer Grenadier Training Battalion III; he served a jail sentence in Italy from 1951 to 1985 for war crimes committed in 1944 in Italy and died in 1991. Josef Blösche was tried for war crimes and executed in 1969. Heinrich Klaustermeyer was tried for war crimes in 1965 and sentenced to life in prison. In 1976, he

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