Agitprop – Agitation and Propaganda
ANC – African National Congress
apparat – apparatus, bureaucracy
apparatchik – bureaucrat, full-time official (especially of Communist Party)
BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation
BCP – Bulgarian Communist Party
blat – pull, influence through reciprocal favours (Russia)
BSP – Bulgarian Socialist Party
Bund – Jewish socialist organization
CC – Central Committee
CCP – Chinese Communist Party
Cheka – All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (December 1917–22)
CIA – Central Intelligence Agency (USA)
Cominform – Communist Information Bureau (1947–56)
Comintern – Communist International (1919–43)
CPGB – Communist Party of Great Britain
CPI – Communist Party of India
CPI (M)–Communist Party of India (Marxist)
CPR – Chinese People’s Republic
CPRF – Communist Party of the Russian Federation
CPSA – Communist Party of South Africa
CPSU – Communist Party of Soviet Union
CPUSA – Communist Party of the USA
CPV – Communist Party of Vietnam
CPY – Communist Party of Yugoslavia (to 1952)
CSCE – Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe
CWIHB – Cold War International History Bulletin
DPA – Democratic Party of Albania
DRV – Democratic Republic of Vietnam
FNLA – National Front for the Liberation of Angola
FRG – Federal Republic of Germany
GDP – Gross Domestic Product
GDR – German Democratic Republic
glasnost – openness, transparency
Glavlit – state censorship (USSR)
Gosplan – State Planning Committee (USSR)
guanxi – connections, networking, reciprocal exchange of favours (China)
ID – International Department (CC of CPSU)
ILO – International Labour Organization
IMEMO – Institute of World Economy and International Relations (Moscow)
INF – Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
Iskra – The Spark (newspaper and organization founded by Lenin)
JCP – Japanese Communist Party
KAN – Club of Non-Party Activists (Czechoslovakia, 1968)
KGB – Committee of State Security (USSR)
Komsomol – Young Communist League (USSR)
KOR – Workers’ Defence Committee (Poland)
KPD – Communist Party of Germany
Kuomintang (also known as Guomindang)–Chinese Nationalist Party
LCY – League of Communists (Yugoslavia – after 1952)
MAD – Mutally Assured Destruction
MAKN – Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party
MGB – Ministry of State Security (USSR, 1946–53)
MKS – Inter-Factory Strike Committee (in Poland)
MPLA – Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
MVD – Ministry of Internal Affairs (USSR)
MSZMP – Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party
NEM – New Economic Mechanism (Hungary)
NEP – New Economic Policy (of Lenin in 1920s)
NKVD – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (name of Soviet security police during worst years of the purges)
nomenklatura – Communist system of appointments; also used to refer to people appointed to high positions by this system as an especially privileged social stratum
Novy mir – New World (Russian monthly literary journal)
NSA – National Security Archive (Washington DC)
OGPU – name of Soviet security organs before they became
NKVD Okhrana – pre-revolutionary Russian secret police
ORI – Integrated Revolutionary Organization (name of Cuban Communist party, 1961–65)
PCC – Cuban Communist Party
PCE – Spanish Communist Party
PCF – French Communist Party
PCI – Italian Communist Party
PDPA – People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan
perestroika – reconstruction (or restructuring)
PKI – Communist Party of Indonesia
PLA – People’s Liberation Army (China)
Politburo – Political Bureau of Central Committee of Communist parties (the highest collective policy-making body in Communist states)
POUM – Worker Party of Marxist Unification (Spain)
PSP – Popular Socialist Party (early name of Cuban Communist party)
PUWP – Polish United Workers’ Party
RFE – Radio Free Europe
RL – Radio Liberty
RSDLP – Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (forerunner of CPSU).
RSFSR – Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian republic of USSR)
Sovnarkom – Council of People’s Commissars (name of Soviet government – became Council of Ministers from 1946)
sovnarkhozy – regional economic councils (Khrushchev era, USSR)
SPD – Social Democratic Party (Germany)
SRs – Socialist Revolutionaries (a Russian political party, 1902–22)
svyazi – connections (Russia)
UDF – Union of Democratic Forces (Bulgaria)
UN – United Nations
USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
vozhd’–leader and guide, with strongly positive connotation (Russia)