| AGITPROP | Agitation and Propaganda | A department of the Central Committee Secretariat |
| AVIAKHIM | Obshchestvo sodeystviya aviatsyonnokhimicheskomu stroitelstvu v SSSR | Society for the Advancement of the Aviation and Chemical Industry in the USSR (1925-7). In 1927 became Osoaviakhim |
| BUND | General Union of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jewish Workers | Founded in 1897, joined the RSDRP at its first Congress, left it at the Second and rejoined after the Fourth Congress in 1906 |
| CHEKA | See under Vecheka | |
| COMINTERN | Third International, or Communist International | First Congress: 2-7 March 1919. Dissolved on 10 June 1943 |
| DUMA | House of Representatives | Set up in Tsarist Russia as a consequence of the 1905 Revolution. First Duma: April-July 1906; second Duma: February-July 1907; third Duma: 1907-12; fourth Duma: 1912-17. Also the name of pre-revolutionary municipal councils |
| GLAVISKUSSTVO | Glavnoye Upravleniye po delam Iskusstva | Central Directorate for Artistic Affairs |
| GLAVKONTSESKOM | Glavny Kontsessionny Komitet | Chief Concessions Committee |
| GLAVREPERTKOM | Glavnoye Upravlenie po Kontrolyu za Zrelishchami i Repertuarom | Central Directorate for Theatres and Entertainments |
| GKO | Gosudarstvenny Komitet Oborony | Government Defence Committee |
| GOSPLAN | Gosudarstvenny Plan | State Planning Commission |
| GPU | Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie | Government Political Administration. A political police force set up in 1922 to replace the Cheka; itself replaced by OGPU from 1922 to 1934. Then came under the NKVD; today comes under the KGB |
| GUBKOM | Gubemsky Komitet | Province Committee |
| GUS | Gosudarstvenny Uchony Soviet | State Academic Council (1919-33) |
| lKKl | Ispolnitelny Komitet Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala | Executive Committee of the Comintern |
| ISB | International Socialist Bureau | |
| ISPOLKOM KD(KADETS) | Ispolnitelny Komitet Konstitutsionnaya Demokratiya | Executive Committee Constitutional Democracy, founded October 1905 |
| MEZHRAYONKA | Inter-district social democratic organisation, created in Petersburg in 1913. Joined the RSDRP(b) at the Party’s sixth Congress | |
| MOPBR | Mezhdunarodnaya Organisatsiya Pomoshchi Bortsam Revolyutsii | International Revolutionaries’ Aid Organisation |
| NARKOMINDEL [NKID] | Narodny Kommissariat Inostranikh Del | People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs |
| NARKOMNATS | Narodny Kommissariat po Delam Natsionalnostyey | People’s Commissariat for Nationalities |
| NARKOMPROS | Narodny Kommissariat Prosveshcheniga | People’s Commissariat for Education |
| NARODNAYA VOLYA | The People’s Will | A Populist secret society, founded 1879, decimated by the Tsarist authorities after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 |
| NEP | New Economic Policy | |
| NKVD | Narodny Kommissariat Vnutrennykh Del | People’s Commissariat for the Interior |
| OKHRANA | Tsarist political police | |
| ORGBURO | Organisational Bureau | |
| OSVOBOZHDENIYE | Liberation | Liberal group, with paper of same name, published between 1902 and 1905 under direction ofP. Struve. The group later formed the nucleus of the Kadets |
| OSVOBOZHDENIYE TRUDA | Workers’Liberation | The first Russian Marxist group founded by G. Plekhanov, Geneva 1883 |
| POUM | Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista | Non-communist Marxist group founded by Nin and Maurin |
| PPS | Polska Partia Socjalistyczna | Polish Socialist Party, founded 1892, originally to promote Polish independence. Split between right and left wings in 1906. During the war, the left merged with the sDKPiL |
| PROFINTERN | Profsoyuzny Internatsional | Red International of Trade Unions |
| PYATYORKA | Name of the RVS set up on 10 [NS 23] October 1917 by the Central Committee, to become part of the Soviet RVS and run the practical side of the Revolution | |
| RABKRIN | Narodny Kommissariat Rabochey i Krestyanskoy Inspektsii | People’s Commissariat for Workers’ and Peasants’ Control |
| RADA | Pre-Soviet Ukrainian councils | |
| RKKA | Raboche Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya | Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army |
| RKP(b) | Russkaya Kommunist-icheskaya Partiya (bolshevikov) | Bolshevik Party, from 1918 to 1925. Formerly RSDRP(b). From 1925 to 1952, renamed VKP(b); from 1952, became KPSS (= CPSU) |
| RSDRP | Russkaya Sotsial-Demokraticheskaya Rabochaya Partiya | Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Founded 1898 at Minsk Congress, split at second Congress into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. Bolshevik faction became RKP at sixth Congress in 1918 |
| RSFSR | Russian Soviet Socialist Federal Republic | |
| RRVS | Respublikansky Revolyutsionny Voyenny Soviet | Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic |
| RVS | Revolyutsionny Voyenny Soviet | Revolutionary Military Council |
| SDKPiL | Socjaldemokracja Kr6lestawa Polskiego iLitwy | Polish and Lithuanian Social Democratic Party |
| SEMYORKA | Name of the political buerau set up by the Central Committee on 10 [NS 23] October 1917 to control the political side of the Revolution | |
| SOVNARKHOZ | Soviet Narodnogo Khozyaistva | Council of the People’s Economy, created by decree on 5 [NS 18] December 1917 |
| SOVNARKOM | Soviet Narodnykh Kommissarov | Council of People’s Commissars |
| SPILKA | Ukrainian social democratic group, associated with the Mensheviks and founded towards the end of 1904. From 1907 existed as a number of small groups. Published Pravda, which was transferred to Vienna and came under the control of Trotsky and Ioffe | |
| STO | Soviet Truda i Oborony | Labour and Defence Council |
| TSEKTRAN | Tsentralny Komitet Obyedinyonnogo Professialnogo Soyuza Rabotnikov Zheleznodorozhnogo i Vodnogo Transporta | Central Committee of the United Trade Union of Railway and Waterway Transport Workers. Created September 1920 |
| TSENTROBALT | Tsentralny Komitet Baltiskogo Flota | Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet |
| TSIK | Tsentralny Ispolnitelny Komitet | Central Executive Committee, elected by the Congress of Soviets |
| TSKK | Tsentralnaya Kontrolnaya Kommissaya | Central Control Commission, instituted by the Central Committee of the RKP(b) in June 1921 to direct the Party purges |
| UNION OF RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IN EXILE | Created in Geneva, 1894, at the instigation of the OSVOBOZHDENIYE TRUDA group. Broke with it in April 1900 | |
| UNION OF STRUGGLE FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKING CLASSES | Marxist working-class circles in Petersburg united by Lenin in autumn 1895. Similar union in Kiev, March 1897 | |
| UkSSR | Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic | |
| URAVNILOVKA | An egalitarian economic and social theory, considered under Stalin to be a petit bourgeois reactionary leftist deviation, and ascribed to supporters of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenevand then to the trade union leader Tomsky | |
| USSR | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics | |
| VKP(b) | Vserossiskaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya | All-Russian Communist Party. Formerly RKP(b) |
| VNESHTORG | Commissariat for External Trade | |
| VTSIK | Vserossisky Tsentralny Ispolnitelny Komitet | Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Became the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet |
| VECHEKA | Vserossiskaya Chrezvychainaya Kommissiya pOBorbe s Kontrrevolyutsiyeyi Sabotazhem | Better known by the name Cheka, Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle against Sabotage and Counter-Revolution. Instituted 7 September 1917.In 1922, became GPU |
| VTSSPS | Vsesoyuzny Tsentralny Soviet Profsoyuzov | All-Union Central Trade Union Council |
| ZAKKRAIKOM | Zakavkazsky Kraikom | Transcaucasian Regional Committee |
| ZEMSTVO | Local administrative authority, instituted in 1864, with control over local economic matters, but coming under the province governors and the Ministry of the Interior |