| A | B |
|---|
| Nicholas & Alexandra | The last Czar and Czarina or Russia |
| Gregory Rasputin | an illiterate peasant and "holy man" who held great influence over Czarina Alexandra |
| Bolsheviks | elite revolutionary party assembled by V. I. Lenin |
| Leon Trotsky | Marxist revolutionary who assisted Lenin |
| Red Army | communist forces in the Russian Civil War |
| Whites | counterrevolutionary forces, loyal to the Czar |
| Cheka | secret police force, organized by the Reds |
| USSR | United Soviet Socialist Republics - a multinational state made up of European and Asian peoples |
| NEP | New Economic Policy - policy adopted by Lenin to allow some capitalist ventures |
| Great Purge | a reign of terror in which Stalin eliminated any potential competition through murder and exile |
| Comintern | an organization that aided revolutionary groups around the world and urged colinial peoples to rise up against imperialist powers |
| Pravda | communist party newspaper |
| Alexandra Kollontai | the only high-ranking woman to serve in Lenin's government |
| Osip Mandelstam | Jewish poet, persecuted for criticizing Stalin |
| Anna Akhmatova | one of Russia's greatest poets, who was unable to publish her works, becaues they violated state guidelines |
| Mikhail Sholokhov | Russian writer allowed to publish; winner of the Nobel Prize for literature |
