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Which position did William Leader Maberly hold in Aug, 1833?
|
August 26, 1833
|
{
"text": [
"Clerk of the Ordnance",
"Member of the 11th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q8014397_P39_6
|
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 11th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Dec, 1832 to Jun, 1834.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 7th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Mar, 1820 to Jun, 1826.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Surveyor-General of the Ordnance from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1832.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 9th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1831 to Apr, 1831.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 8th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1826 to Jul, 1830.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 10th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1831 to Dec, 1832.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 6th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1819 to Feb, 1820.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Clerk of the Ordnance from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1834.
|
William Leader MaberlyWilliam Leader Maberly (1798–1885) spent most of his life as a British army officer and Whig politician.He was the eldest child of John Maberly (1777–1845), a currier, clothing manufacturer, banker and MP, who had made and lost a fortune in a lifetime.He became a member of parliament, initially for Westbury (1819–20), then Northampton (1820–30), then Shaftesbury (1831–32), and finally for Chatham (1832–34).In 1831 he was Surveyor-General of the Ordnance and in 1832 Clerk of the Ordnance; then, in 1834, he became a Commissioner of HM Customs. In 1836, he was appointed as joint secretary to the General Post Office, where he strongly opposed the introduction of the Penny Post, a plan championed by Rowland Hill to charge a fixed price for postage (as is now the normal practice in most of the world). One of Maberly's principal secretaries during his time at the Post Office was the novelist Anthony Trollope, who later parodied Maberly as Sir Boreas Bodkin in the novel "Marion Fay". On stepping down from the Post Office in 1854 he was appointed a Commissioner of Audit, remaining in post until 1867.In 1865, the Canadian Post Office Department Secretary William Dawson LeSueur named the settlement of Maberly, Ontario in Maberly's honour.He married Irish novelist Catherine C. Prittie (1805–75) in 1830. Their only child, William Anson Robert Maberly, died at the age of 29 in the Isle of Wight.
|
[
"Member of the 10th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 9th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 8th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 6th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Surveyor-General of the Ordnance",
"Member of the 7th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did William Leader Maberly hold in Jun, 1833?
|
June 17, 1833
|
{
"text": [
"Clerk of the Ordnance",
"Member of the 11th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q8014397_P39_7
|
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Surveyor-General of the Ordnance from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1832.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 7th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Mar, 1820 to Jun, 1826.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 9th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1831 to Apr, 1831.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Clerk of the Ordnance from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1834.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 6th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1819 to Feb, 1820.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 11th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Dec, 1832 to Jun, 1834.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 10th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1831 to Dec, 1832.
William Leader Maberly holds the position of Member of the 8th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1826 to Jul, 1830.
|
William Leader MaberlyWilliam Leader Maberly (1798–1885) spent most of his life as a British army officer and Whig politician.He was the eldest child of John Maberly (1777–1845), a currier, clothing manufacturer, banker and MP, who had made and lost a fortune in a lifetime.He became a member of parliament, initially for Westbury (1819–20), then Northampton (1820–30), then Shaftesbury (1831–32), and finally for Chatham (1832–34).In 1831 he was Surveyor-General of the Ordnance and in 1832 Clerk of the Ordnance; then, in 1834, he became a Commissioner of HM Customs. In 1836, he was appointed as joint secretary to the General Post Office, where he strongly opposed the introduction of the Penny Post, a plan championed by Rowland Hill to charge a fixed price for postage (as is now the normal practice in most of the world). One of Maberly's principal secretaries during his time at the Post Office was the novelist Anthony Trollope, who later parodied Maberly as Sir Boreas Bodkin in the novel "Marion Fay". On stepping down from the Post Office in 1854 he was appointed a Commissioner of Audit, remaining in post until 1867.In 1865, the Canadian Post Office Department Secretary William Dawson LeSueur named the settlement of Maberly, Ontario in Maberly's honour.He married Irish novelist Catherine C. Prittie (1805–75) in 1830. Their only child, William Anson Robert Maberly, died at the age of 29 in the Isle of Wight.
|
[
"Member of the 10th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 9th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 8th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 6th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Surveyor-General of the Ordnance",
"Member of the 7th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which employer did Peiter Zatko work for in Jul, 2010?
|
July 22, 2010
|
{
"text": [
"DARPA"
]
}
|
L2_Q3327412_P108_0
|
Peiter Zatko works for Twitter, Inc. from Jan, 2020 to Jan, 2022.
Peiter Zatko works for Google from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2020.
Peiter Zatko works for DARPA from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2013.
|
Peiter ZatkoPeiter C. Zatko, better known as Mudge, is a network security expert, open source programmer, writer, and a hacker. He was the most prominent member of the high-profile hacker think tank the L0pht as well as the long-lived computer and culture hacking cooperative the Cult of the Dead Cow.While involved with the L0pht, Mudge contributed significantly to disclosure and education on information and security vulnerabilities. In addition to pioneering buffer overflow work, the security advisories he released contained early examples of flaws in the following areas: code injection, race condition, side-channel attack, exploitation of embedded systems, and cryptanalysis of commercial systems. He was the original author of the password cracking software L0phtCrack.In 2010 Mudge accepted a position as a program manager at DARPA where he oversaw cyber security research. In 2013 Mudge went to work for Google in their Advanced Technology & Projects division. In 2020, he was hired as head of security at Twitter.Born in December 1970, Mudge graduated from the Berklee College of Music at the top of his class and is an adept guitar player.Mudge was responsible for early research into a type of security vulnerability known as the buffer overflow. In 1995 he published "How to Write Buffer Overflows", one of the first papers on the topic. He published some of the first security advisories and research demonstrating early vulnerabilities in Unix such as code injection, side-channel attacks, and information leaks, and was a leader in the full disclosure movement. He was the initial author of security tools L0phtCrack, AntiSniff, and l0phtwatch.Mudge was one of the first people from the hacker community to reach out and build relationships with government and industry. In demand as a public speaker, he spoke at hacker conferences such as DEF CON and academic conferences such as USENIX. Mudge has also been a member of Cult of the Dead Cow since 1996.He was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 about the serious vulnerabilities of the Internet at that time. The L0pht became the computer security consultancy @stake in 1999, and Mudge became the vice president of research and development and later chief scientist.In 2000, after the first crippling Internet distributed denial-of-service attacks, he was invited to meet with President Bill Clinton at a security summit alongside cabinet members and industry executives.In 2004 he became a division scientist at government contractor BBN Technologies, where he originally worked in the 1990s, and also joined the technical advisory board of NFR Security. In 2010, it was announced that he would be project manager of a DARPA project focused on directing research in cyber security. In 2013 he announced that he would leave DARPA for a position at Google ATAP. In 2015 Zatko announced on Twitter he would join a project called #CyberUL, a testing organisation for computer security inspired by Underwriters Laboratories, mandated by the White House.On 11 August 2007 he married Sarah Lieberman, a co-worker at BBN.At DARPA he created the Cyber Analytical Framework the agency used to evaluate DoD investments in offensive and defensive cyber security. During his tenure he ran at least three DoD programs known as Military Networking Protocol (MNP), Cyber-Insider Threat (CINDER), and Cyber Fast Track (CFT).Military Networking Protocol (MNP) provided network prioritization with full user-level attribution for military computer networks.Cyber-Insider Threat (CINDER) focused on identifying cyber espionage conducted by virtual insider threats such as future variants of Stuxnet or Duqu. CINDER is often mistakenly associated with WikiLeaks in the media. This is possibly due to the confusion between DARPA programs focused on identifying human insider threat such as ADAMS and the identification of software espionage posed by malware in the CINDER program. This issue was clarified by Mudge in his Defcon 2011 keynote at 46 minutes and 11 seconds into the talk.Cyber Fast Track (CFT) provided resources and funding to security research, including programs run by hackers, hackerspaces, and makerlabs. The program provided an alternative to traditional government contracting vehicles that was accessible to individuals and small companies previously unable to work within the cumbersome and complicated DARPA process. The novel contracting effort had an averaging time of 7 days from receipt of proposal to funding being provided to the proposing research organization. The program was initially announced at Shmoocon during his 2011 keynote.Mudge published numerous papers and advisories detailing security problems across different applications and operating systems and was a pioneering champion of full disclosure.
|
[
"Google",
"Twitter, Inc."
] |
|
Which employer did Peiter Zatko work for in Nov, 2016?
|
November 11, 2016
|
{
"text": [
"Google"
]
}
|
L2_Q3327412_P108_1
|
Peiter Zatko works for Google from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2020.
Peiter Zatko works for DARPA from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2013.
Peiter Zatko works for Twitter, Inc. from Jan, 2020 to Jan, 2022.
|
Peiter ZatkoPeiter C. Zatko, better known as Mudge, is a network security expert, open source programmer, writer, and a hacker. He was the most prominent member of the high-profile hacker think tank the L0pht as well as the long-lived computer and culture hacking cooperative the Cult of the Dead Cow.While involved with the L0pht, Mudge contributed significantly to disclosure and education on information and security vulnerabilities. In addition to pioneering buffer overflow work, the security advisories he released contained early examples of flaws in the following areas: code injection, race condition, side-channel attack, exploitation of embedded systems, and cryptanalysis of commercial systems. He was the original author of the password cracking software L0phtCrack.In 2010 Mudge accepted a position as a program manager at DARPA where he oversaw cyber security research. In 2013 Mudge went to work for Google in their Advanced Technology & Projects division. In 2020, he was hired as head of security at Twitter.Born in December 1970, Mudge graduated from the Berklee College of Music at the top of his class and is an adept guitar player.Mudge was responsible for early research into a type of security vulnerability known as the buffer overflow. In 1995 he published "How to Write Buffer Overflows", one of the first papers on the topic. He published some of the first security advisories and research demonstrating early vulnerabilities in Unix such as code injection, side-channel attacks, and information leaks, and was a leader in the full disclosure movement. He was the initial author of security tools L0phtCrack, AntiSniff, and l0phtwatch.Mudge was one of the first people from the hacker community to reach out and build relationships with government and industry. In demand as a public speaker, he spoke at hacker conferences such as DEF CON and academic conferences such as USENIX. Mudge has also been a member of Cult of the Dead Cow since 1996.He was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 about the serious vulnerabilities of the Internet at that time. The L0pht became the computer security consultancy @stake in 1999, and Mudge became the vice president of research and development and later chief scientist.In 2000, after the first crippling Internet distributed denial-of-service attacks, he was invited to meet with President Bill Clinton at a security summit alongside cabinet members and industry executives.In 2004 he became a division scientist at government contractor BBN Technologies, where he originally worked in the 1990s, and also joined the technical advisory board of NFR Security. In 2010, it was announced that he would be project manager of a DARPA project focused on directing research in cyber security. In 2013 he announced that he would leave DARPA for a position at Google ATAP. In 2015 Zatko announced on Twitter he would join a project called #CyberUL, a testing organisation for computer security inspired by Underwriters Laboratories, mandated by the White House.On 11 August 2007 he married Sarah Lieberman, a co-worker at BBN.At DARPA he created the Cyber Analytical Framework the agency used to evaluate DoD investments in offensive and defensive cyber security. During his tenure he ran at least three DoD programs known as Military Networking Protocol (MNP), Cyber-Insider Threat (CINDER), and Cyber Fast Track (CFT).Military Networking Protocol (MNP) provided network prioritization with full user-level attribution for military computer networks.Cyber-Insider Threat (CINDER) focused on identifying cyber espionage conducted by virtual insider threats such as future variants of Stuxnet or Duqu. CINDER is often mistakenly associated with WikiLeaks in the media. This is possibly due to the confusion between DARPA programs focused on identifying human insider threat such as ADAMS and the identification of software espionage posed by malware in the CINDER program. This issue was clarified by Mudge in his Defcon 2011 keynote at 46 minutes and 11 seconds into the talk.Cyber Fast Track (CFT) provided resources and funding to security research, including programs run by hackers, hackerspaces, and makerlabs. The program provided an alternative to traditional government contracting vehicles that was accessible to individuals and small companies previously unable to work within the cumbersome and complicated DARPA process. The novel contracting effort had an averaging time of 7 days from receipt of proposal to funding being provided to the proposing research organization. The program was initially announced at Shmoocon during his 2011 keynote.Mudge published numerous papers and advisories detailing security problems across different applications and operating systems and was a pioneering champion of full disclosure.
|
[
"DARPA",
"Twitter, Inc."
] |
|
Which employer did Peiter Zatko work for in Oct, 2021?
|
October 17, 2021
|
{
"text": [
"Twitter, Inc."
]
}
|
L2_Q3327412_P108_2
|
Peiter Zatko works for Twitter, Inc. from Jan, 2020 to Jan, 2022.
Peiter Zatko works for DARPA from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2013.
Peiter Zatko works for Google from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2020.
|
Peiter ZatkoPeiter C. Zatko, better known as Mudge, is a network security expert, open source programmer, writer, and a hacker. He was the most prominent member of the high-profile hacker think tank the L0pht as well as the long-lived computer and culture hacking cooperative the Cult of the Dead Cow.While involved with the L0pht, Mudge contributed significantly to disclosure and education on information and security vulnerabilities. In addition to pioneering buffer overflow work, the security advisories he released contained early examples of flaws in the following areas: code injection, race condition, side-channel attack, exploitation of embedded systems, and cryptanalysis of commercial systems. He was the original author of the password cracking software L0phtCrack.In 2010 Mudge accepted a position as a program manager at DARPA where he oversaw cyber security research. In 2013 Mudge went to work for Google in their Advanced Technology & Projects division. In 2020, he was hired as head of security at Twitter.Born in December 1970, Mudge graduated from the Berklee College of Music at the top of his class and is an adept guitar player.Mudge was responsible for early research into a type of security vulnerability known as the buffer overflow. In 1995 he published "How to Write Buffer Overflows", one of the first papers on the topic. He published some of the first security advisories and research demonstrating early vulnerabilities in Unix such as code injection, side-channel attacks, and information leaks, and was a leader in the full disclosure movement. He was the initial author of security tools L0phtCrack, AntiSniff, and l0phtwatch.Mudge was one of the first people from the hacker community to reach out and build relationships with government and industry. In demand as a public speaker, he spoke at hacker conferences such as DEF CON and academic conferences such as USENIX. Mudge has also been a member of Cult of the Dead Cow since 1996.He was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 about the serious vulnerabilities of the Internet at that time. The L0pht became the computer security consultancy @stake in 1999, and Mudge became the vice president of research and development and later chief scientist.In 2000, after the first crippling Internet distributed denial-of-service attacks, he was invited to meet with President Bill Clinton at a security summit alongside cabinet members and industry executives.In 2004 he became a division scientist at government contractor BBN Technologies, where he originally worked in the 1990s, and also joined the technical advisory board of NFR Security. In 2010, it was announced that he would be project manager of a DARPA project focused on directing research in cyber security. In 2013 he announced that he would leave DARPA for a position at Google ATAP. In 2015 Zatko announced on Twitter he would join a project called #CyberUL, a testing organisation for computer security inspired by Underwriters Laboratories, mandated by the White House.On 11 August 2007 he married Sarah Lieberman, a co-worker at BBN.At DARPA he created the Cyber Analytical Framework the agency used to evaluate DoD investments in offensive and defensive cyber security. During his tenure he ran at least three DoD programs known as Military Networking Protocol (MNP), Cyber-Insider Threat (CINDER), and Cyber Fast Track (CFT).Military Networking Protocol (MNP) provided network prioritization with full user-level attribution for military computer networks.Cyber-Insider Threat (CINDER) focused on identifying cyber espionage conducted by virtual insider threats such as future variants of Stuxnet or Duqu. CINDER is often mistakenly associated with WikiLeaks in the media. This is possibly due to the confusion between DARPA programs focused on identifying human insider threat such as ADAMS and the identification of software espionage posed by malware in the CINDER program. This issue was clarified by Mudge in his Defcon 2011 keynote at 46 minutes and 11 seconds into the talk.Cyber Fast Track (CFT) provided resources and funding to security research, including programs run by hackers, hackerspaces, and makerlabs. The program provided an alternative to traditional government contracting vehicles that was accessible to individuals and small companies previously unable to work within the cumbersome and complicated DARPA process. The novel contracting effort had an averaging time of 7 days from receipt of proposal to funding being provided to the proposing research organization. The program was initially announced at Shmoocon during his 2011 keynote.Mudge published numerous papers and advisories detailing security problems across different applications and operating systems and was a pioneering champion of full disclosure.
|
[
"DARPA",
"Google"
] |
|
Which employer did Laurens Perseus Hickok work for in Mar, 1842?
|
March 11, 1842
|
{
"text": [
"Case Western Reserve University"
]
}
|
L2_Q1808043_P108_0
|
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Case Western Reserve University from Jan, 1836 to Jan, 1844.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Auburn Theological Seminary from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1852.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Amherst College from Jan, 1868 to Jan, 1888.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Union College from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1868.
|
Laurens Perseus HickokLaurens Perseus Hickok (December 20, 1798 – May 7, 1888), American philosopher and divine, was born at Bethel, Connecticut.He took his degree at Union College in 1820. Until 1836 he was occupied in active pastoral work, and was then appointed professor of theology at the Western Reserve College, Ohio, and later (1844–1852) at the Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York.From this post he was elected vice-president of Union College and professor of mental and moral science. In 1866, he succeeded Dr. E. Nott as president, but in July 1868 retired to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to writing and study. A collected edition of his principal works was published at Boston in 1875. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a collection of his papers.
|
[
"Auburn Theological Seminary",
"Amherst College",
"Union College"
] |
|
Which employer did Laurens Perseus Hickok work for in Jan, 1844?
|
January 11, 1844
|
{
"text": [
"Auburn Theological Seminary",
"Case Western Reserve University"
]
}
|
L2_Q1808043_P108_1
|
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Auburn Theological Seminary from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1852.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Case Western Reserve University from Jan, 1836 to Jan, 1844.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Amherst College from Jan, 1868 to Jan, 1888.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Union College from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1868.
|
Laurens Perseus HickokLaurens Perseus Hickok (December 20, 1798 – May 7, 1888), American philosopher and divine, was born at Bethel, Connecticut.He took his degree at Union College in 1820. Until 1836 he was occupied in active pastoral work, and was then appointed professor of theology at the Western Reserve College, Ohio, and later (1844–1852) at the Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York.From this post he was elected vice-president of Union College and professor of mental and moral science. In 1866, he succeeded Dr. E. Nott as president, but in July 1868 retired to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to writing and study. A collected edition of his principal works was published at Boston in 1875. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a collection of his papers.
|
[
"Amherst College",
"Union College",
"Case Western Reserve University",
"Amherst College",
"Union College"
] |
|
Which employer did Laurens Perseus Hickok work for in Apr, 1861?
|
April 19, 1861
|
{
"text": [
"Union College"
]
}
|
L2_Q1808043_P108_2
|
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Amherst College from Jan, 1868 to Jan, 1888.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Auburn Theological Seminary from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1852.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Case Western Reserve University from Jan, 1836 to Jan, 1844.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Union College from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1868.
|
Laurens Perseus HickokLaurens Perseus Hickok (December 20, 1798 – May 7, 1888), American philosopher and divine, was born at Bethel, Connecticut.He took his degree at Union College in 1820. Until 1836 he was occupied in active pastoral work, and was then appointed professor of theology at the Western Reserve College, Ohio, and later (1844–1852) at the Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York.From this post he was elected vice-president of Union College and professor of mental and moral science. In 1866, he succeeded Dr. E. Nott as president, but in July 1868 retired to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to writing and study. A collected edition of his principal works was published at Boston in 1875. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a collection of his papers.
|
[
"Auburn Theological Seminary",
"Amherst College",
"Case Western Reserve University"
] |
|
Which employer did Laurens Perseus Hickok work for in Sep, 1881?
|
September 14, 1881
|
{
"text": [
"Amherst College"
]
}
|
L2_Q1808043_P108_3
|
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Auburn Theological Seminary from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1852.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Amherst College from Jan, 1868 to Jan, 1888.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Union College from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1868.
Laurens Perseus Hickok works for Case Western Reserve University from Jan, 1836 to Jan, 1844.
|
Laurens Perseus HickokLaurens Perseus Hickok (December 20, 1798 – May 7, 1888), American philosopher and divine, was born at Bethel, Connecticut.He took his degree at Union College in 1820. Until 1836 he was occupied in active pastoral work, and was then appointed professor of theology at the Western Reserve College, Ohio, and later (1844–1852) at the Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York.From this post he was elected vice-president of Union College and professor of mental and moral science. In 1866, he succeeded Dr. E. Nott as president, but in July 1868 retired to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to writing and study. A collected edition of his principal works was published at Boston in 1875. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a collection of his papers.
|
[
"Auburn Theological Seminary",
"Union College",
"Case Western Reserve University"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Nov, 1988?
|
November 28, 1988
|
{
"text": [
"Bohumil Plátěnka"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_0
|
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Jul, 1990?
|
July 01, 1990
|
{
"text": [
"Stanislav Loukota"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_1
|
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Jun, 1992?
|
June 09, 1992
|
{
"text": [
"Zdeněk Mraček"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_2
|
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Jun, 1994?
|
June 12, 1994
|
{
"text": [
"Zdeněk Prosek"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_3
|
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Sep, 2000?
|
September 19, 2000
|
{
"text": [
"Jiří Šneberger"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_4
|
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Jun, 2004?
|
June 17, 2004
|
{
"text": [
"Miroslav Kalous"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_5
|
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
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PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Feb, 2008?
|
February 27, 2008
|
{
"text": [
"Pavel Rödl"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_6
|
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in May, 2017?
|
May 12, 2017
|
{
"text": [
"Martin Zrzavecký"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_7
|
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Martin Baxa",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Who was the head of Plzeň in Dec, 2019?
|
December 30, 2019
|
{
"text": [
"Martin Baxa"
]
}
|
L2_Q43453_P6_8
|
Stanislav Loukota is the head of the government of Plzeň from Mar, 1990 to Dec, 1990.
Pavel Rödl is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2010.
Miroslav Kalous is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2006.
Bohumil Plátěnka is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1988 to Jan, 1990.
Jiří Šneberger is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1998 to Jan, 2004.
Martin Baxa is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2018 to Jan, 2022.
Zdeněk Mraček is the head of the government of Plzeň from Dec, 1990 to Jan, 1994.
Martin Zrzavecký is the head of the government of Plzeň from Nov, 2014 to Nov, 2018.
Zdeněk Prosek is the head of the government of Plzeň from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 1998.
|
PlzeňPlzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, , ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 175,000 inhabitants.The city is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842.Plzeň is divided into ten boroughs, which are further divided into 25 administrative parts (in brackets):Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II the Pious of Bohemia and Emperor Otto II. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a "Royal City" and established a new town site, some away from the original settlement, which is the current town of Starý Plzenec. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to Nuremberg and Regensburg; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after Prague and Kutná Hora. During the Hussite Wars, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites: Prokop the Great unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Catholic nobles against King George of Poděbrady. In 1468, the town acquired a printing press; the Trojan Chronicle (), the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.Emperor Rudolf II made Plzeň his seat from 1599 to 1600. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the Siege of Plzeň and it was not recaptured by Imperial troops until 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Catholic despite the Hussite Wars.From the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň has been influenced by the Baroque style. The city centre has been under cultural heritage preservation since 1989.In the second half of the 19th century Plzeň, already an important trade centre for Bohemia, near the Bavarian/German border, began to industrialise rapidly. In 1869 Emil Škoda started up the Škoda Works, which became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1917 the Škoda Works employed over 30,000 workers. After 1898 the second largest employer was the National Railways train workshop, with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and of the urban poor. After 1868 first Czech mayor of the city was elected.Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the countryside bordering the city of Plzeň hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazis after 1933 in the hope that Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht, and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.Between 17 and 26 January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and indeed all of the rest of Czechoslovakia after the end of the war in 1945, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement. All of their property was confiscated.On 6 May 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions supported by the Polish Holy Cross Mountains Brigade. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of Czechoslovakia was liberated from German control by the Soviet Red Army. Elements of the 3rd Army, as well as units from the 1st Army, remained in Plzeň until late November 1945 to assist the Czechs with rebuilding.After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the government launched a currency reform in 1953, which caused a wave of discontent, including the Plzeň uprising. On 1 June 1953, over 20,000 people, mainly workers at the Škoda Works, began protesting against the government. Protesters forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out of the windows. The protest caused a retaliation from the government. As part of its retaliation, they destroyed the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The statue has since been re-erected.The next year, a West German homing pigeon was lost near the Czechoslovak border. It returned two days later, bearing a strong anticommunist message, signed "Unbowed Pilsen." The bird, named Leaping Lena, was taken to the United States, where it was celebrated as a Cold War hero.Plzeň has a cool and temperate Oceanic climate (Cfb). Plzeň has low rainfall ( year average) evenly spread over the year. Precipitation occurs on average every second day, and the number of days with thunderstorms is 19. It receives on average 1,700 hours of sunshine though winters have longer periods without sunshine. Terrain features and a relatively low altitude () give some shelter from strong winds. Winters are chilly but milder than some adjacent areas. Snow cover is erratic and lasts on average for 51 days. Though an average year has 113 days with minimum temperature below zero, the temperature falls below on 5 days. The record low temperatures is around . Winters are often murky with frequent long-standing haze. Spring is short, and in April to June there is blooming vegetation. Summer lasts from the end of May until the first third of September. During that period Plzeň has changeable weather which can be warm to hot. Temperatures are always above 5 degrees Celsius with nights between and days between . Days are up to 16 hours long.Plzeň can be hot, especially during heat waves originating in the southern Mediterranean. The number of hot days above is steadily growing, with 5 months (late April – early September) of possible 30+ °C days. If hot weather does occur, it is often changes after a few weeks into cold and rainy weather with incoming Atlantic-based fronts. Nights can be unpleasantly cold even in summer, with high level of humidity. Winter frosts frequently occur from the second half of November to the end of March. February is the driest month with of precipitation, and July the wettest with . The only natural hazards are occasional fast changes of weather with negative consequences, e.g. floodings.Extreme values for years 2011 and 2012: An extremely cold day of 2011 had on average (23 February), and extremely hot day on average (24 August, . The year 2012 had the coldest day on 12 February with minimum plummeting to and maximum around with average . The hottest day of 2012 occurred on 21 August with daily maximum temperature and minimum staying on with all day average on . Absolute minimum and maximum for both years were (February 2012) and during August 2012.Number of rainy/snowy days for 2011: 78; number of days with frost: 76; number of days with minimal temperatures below : 12; number of days with average temperature below zero: 35; number of days with daily average temperature higher than : 188; number of days with daily average higher than : 32. Total amount of precipitation for year 2011: ; average year humidity value: 80.8%. Maximal temperature: ; minimal temperature .Average 2011 temperature: ; average speed of wind: , mainly from SSE.Number of days with frost was 96 during year 2012; 18 days had minima below and 165 days with an average temperature on or above . Number of days with maxima on or above was 42.In 1375 Bohemian king Charles IV endowed the Dobrow Monastery near Plzeň with the beer right, and it is one of the oldest breweries to survive to modern times. Many breweries were located in the interconnected deep cellars of the city.The officials of Plzeň founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, (Citizens' Brewery, now Plzeňský Prazdroj), and recruited Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who produced the first batch of modern Pilsner beer on 5 October 1842. The combination of pale colour from the new malts, Pilsen's remarkably soft water, Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec ("Saaz" in German) and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer which was regarded as a sensation.Improving transport meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Central Europe and -style brewing was widely imitated. In 1859, "Pilsner Bier" was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trade mark was created to put emphasis on it being the original brewery.Plzeň is a centre of business in the western part of the Czech Republic.Since the late 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investment. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a shopping mall and entertainment centre featuring a multiplex cinema from Cinema City Czech Republic.Plzeň produces about two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population. Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters to the city, it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.The Škoda company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important element of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering, and one of the biggest European arms factories. During the Communist era (1948–1989) the company's production had been directed to the needs of the Eastern Bloc. Disarray in the era after the Velvet Revolution, and unsuccessful efforts to gain new Western markets, resulted in sales problems and debts. After a huge restructuring process, the company was divided into several subsidiaries, which were later sold. The most important successors companies are Škoda Transportation and Doosan Škoda Power.Many foreign companies now have manufacturing bases in Plzeň, including Daikin, Hisense and Panasonic. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.Stock, located in the Božkov district, is the biggest distillery in the Czech Republic.Since 31 May 1993 Plzeň has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plzeň. The first bishop (current bishop emeritus) was František Radkovský. The current bishop is Tomáš Holub. The diocese covers an area with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The diocesan see is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on Republiky Square in Plzeň. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.The seat of the West Bohemian seniorate (literary presbytery; Central European protestant equivalent of a diocese) of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is currently set in Plzeň. The current senior is Miroslav Hamari, the preacher of Koranda parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, commonly known as Koranda congregation located in the city centre of Plzeň. The senioral churchwarden is Josef Beneš, the parish churchwarden of the same congregation. There are two other parish congregations of Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in the Plzeň-City District – The Western congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Plzeň, known as The Western congregation located in the Western part of the city in the borough of Jižní předměstí and The Congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Chrást located in Chrást in the very east of Plzeň-City District. The seat of Plzeň diocese of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is located in Plzeň (although the bishop has resided in Mirovice for several years due to a reconstruction of episcopacy). The current bishop is Filip Štojdl. The Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church is headquartered in Plzeň. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is a church of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The other churches also present in Plzeň are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic, the United Methodist Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Brethren, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, the Greek Catholic Church, and others.The University of West Bohemia in Plzeň is well known for its Faculty of Law, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Applied Science in particular.Martin Luther Elementary School (Základní škola Martina Luthera) is a private Christian school of the Czech Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plzeň.The ice hockey club HC Škoda Plzeň plays in the Czech Extraliga. The team plays its home games at Home Monitoring Aréna.The football club FC Viktoria Plzeň plays in the Czech First League and belongs among the most successful clubs in the Czech Republic. Viktoria Plzeň has played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The team plays its home games at Doosan Arena.Handball club Talent Plzeň plays in the Czech Handball Extraliga.The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the Gothic St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, founded in the late 13th century, whose tower, at , is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance Town Hall, and the Moorish Revival Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. There is also a historic tunnel and cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of about in length and down to a depth of .Built in 1532, the former water tower was integrated into the city's fortification system at Prague Gate. Another storey was added in 1822 in French Imperial style. The Gothic portal dating from the 1500s and coming from another house, which had been demolished, was added in 1912. Above the portal there is a commemorative plaque dedicated to Dr Josef Škoda (a professor at the Vienna University), who was born next door on 10 December 1805.Plzeň is also well known for the Pilsner Urquell (since 1842) and Gambrinus (since 1869) breweries, currently owned by Asahi Group Holdings. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The pilsener style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.Plzeň was a European Capital Of Culture in 2015, along with Mons in Belgium.The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams, trolleybuses and buses operated by the PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transport run by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid. Tickets can be purchased in vehicles with a contactless smart card.Plzeň is an important centre of Czech railway transport, with the crossing of five main railway lines:Plzeň main railway station ("Plzeň hlavní nádraží") serves all five of these lines.The most important transport link in the city is the D5 highway connecting Prague and Nuremberg.A public domestic and private international airport is located 11 km south-west from Plzeň, at the nearby village of Líně.Plzeň is twinned with:
|
[
"Miroslav Kalous",
"Jiří Šneberger",
"Zdeněk Prosek",
"Martin Zrzavecký",
"Stanislav Loukota",
"Bohumil Plátěnka",
"Zdeněk Mraček",
"Pavel Rödl"
] |
|
Which employer did Orm Finnendahl work for in Mar, 2000?
|
March 31, 2000
|
{
"text": [
"Berlin University of the Arts",
"Folkwang University of the Arts"
]
}
|
L2_Q1517862_P108_0
|
Orm Finnendahl works for Folkwang University of the Arts from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Orm Finnendahl works for Berlin University of the Arts from Jan, 1996 to Jan, 2001.
Orm Finnendahl works for Hochschule für Musik Freiburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2013.
Orm Finnendahl works for Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
|
Orm FinnendahlOrm Finnendahl (born in 1963) is a German composer.Born in Düsseldorf, von 1983 bis 1990 Finnendahl studied music composition and musicology with Frank Michael Beyer, Carl Dahlhaus and Gösta Neuwirth in Berlin. He then studied from 1995 to 1998 with Helmut Lachenmann at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. From 1988 to 1989 he studied at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.He was director of the Kreuzberg sound workshop from 1991 to 1995. He taught at the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universität Berlin and headed the Institute for New Music at the Universität der Künste Berlin from 1996 to 2001. From 2000 to 2004 he was a university lecturer at the of the Folkwang University of the Arts. In 2004 he became professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. There he ran the studio for electronic music. Since 2013 Finnendahl has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main.
|
[
"Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts",
"Hochschule für Musik Freiburg"
] |
|
Which employer did Orm Finnendahl work for in Oct, 2003?
|
October 13, 2003
|
{
"text": [
"Folkwang University of the Arts"
]
}
|
L2_Q1517862_P108_1
|
Orm Finnendahl works for Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
Orm Finnendahl works for Folkwang University of the Arts from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Orm Finnendahl works for Berlin University of the Arts from Jan, 1996 to Jan, 2001.
Orm Finnendahl works for Hochschule für Musik Freiburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2013.
|
Orm FinnendahlOrm Finnendahl (born in 1963) is a German composer.Born in Düsseldorf, von 1983 bis 1990 Finnendahl studied music composition and musicology with Frank Michael Beyer, Carl Dahlhaus and Gösta Neuwirth in Berlin. He then studied from 1995 to 1998 with Helmut Lachenmann at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. From 1988 to 1989 he studied at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.He was director of the Kreuzberg sound workshop from 1991 to 1995. He taught at the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universität Berlin and headed the Institute for New Music at the Universität der Künste Berlin from 1996 to 2001. From 2000 to 2004 he was a university lecturer at the of the Folkwang University of the Arts. In 2004 he became professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. There he ran the studio for electronic music. Since 2013 Finnendahl has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main.
|
[
"Berlin University of the Arts",
"Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts",
"Hochschule für Musik Freiburg"
] |
|
Which employer did Orm Finnendahl work for in Jun, 2004?
|
June 12, 2004
|
{
"text": [
"Hochschule für Musik Freiburg"
]
}
|
L2_Q1517862_P108_2
|
Orm Finnendahl works for Berlin University of the Arts from Jan, 1996 to Jan, 2001.
Orm Finnendahl works for Folkwang University of the Arts from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Orm Finnendahl works for Hochschule für Musik Freiburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2013.
Orm Finnendahl works for Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
|
Orm FinnendahlOrm Finnendahl (born in 1963) is a German composer.Born in Düsseldorf, von 1983 bis 1990 Finnendahl studied music composition and musicology with Frank Michael Beyer, Carl Dahlhaus and Gösta Neuwirth in Berlin. He then studied from 1995 to 1998 with Helmut Lachenmann at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. From 1988 to 1989 he studied at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.He was director of the Kreuzberg sound workshop from 1991 to 1995. He taught at the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universität Berlin and headed the Institute for New Music at the Universität der Künste Berlin from 1996 to 2001. From 2000 to 2004 he was a university lecturer at the of the Folkwang University of the Arts. In 2004 he became professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. There he ran the studio for electronic music. Since 2013 Finnendahl has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main.
|
[
"Berlin University of the Arts",
"Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts",
"Folkwang University of the Arts"
] |
|
Which employer did Orm Finnendahl work for in Sep, 2022?
|
September 21, 2022
|
{
"text": [
"Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts"
]
}
|
L2_Q1517862_P108_3
|
Orm Finnendahl works for Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
Orm Finnendahl works for Folkwang University of the Arts from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Orm Finnendahl works for Hochschule für Musik Freiburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2013.
Orm Finnendahl works for Berlin University of the Arts from Jan, 1996 to Jan, 2001.
|
Orm FinnendahlOrm Finnendahl (born in 1963) is a German composer.Born in Düsseldorf, von 1983 bis 1990 Finnendahl studied music composition and musicology with Frank Michael Beyer, Carl Dahlhaus and Gösta Neuwirth in Berlin. He then studied from 1995 to 1998 with Helmut Lachenmann at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. From 1988 to 1989 he studied at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.He was director of the Kreuzberg sound workshop from 1991 to 1995. He taught at the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universität Berlin and headed the Institute for New Music at the Universität der Künste Berlin from 1996 to 2001. From 2000 to 2004 he was a university lecturer at the of the Folkwang University of the Arts. In 2004 he became professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. There he ran the studio for electronic music. Since 2013 Finnendahl has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main.
|
[
"Berlin University of the Arts",
"Hochschule für Musik Freiburg",
"Folkwang University of the Arts"
] |
|
Which employer did Deborah Sugg Ryan work for in Mar, 1994?
|
March 10, 1994
|
{
"text": [
"University of East London"
]
}
|
L2_Q51714707_P108_0
|
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for The Open University from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 1999.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Royal Holloway, University of London from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Falmouth University from Sep, 2007 to Aug, 2016.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of East London from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Ulster University from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of Portsmouth from Sep, 2016 to Dec, 2022.
|
Deborah Sugg RyanDeborah Sugg Ryan is a British design historian, Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Portsmouth.Sugg Ryan was previously Associate Professor of History and Theory of Design at Falmouth University.She was series consultant and on-screen expert for the BBC2 television series "A House Through Time".
|
[
"The Open University",
"Royal Holloway, University of London",
"Falmouth University",
"Ulster University",
"University of Portsmouth"
] |
|
Which employer did Deborah Sugg Ryan work for in Oct, 1995?
|
October 27, 1995
|
{
"text": [
"Royal Holloway, University of London"
]
}
|
L2_Q51714707_P108_1
|
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for The Open University from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 1999.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Ulster University from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Royal Holloway, University of London from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of East London from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of Portsmouth from Sep, 2016 to Dec, 2022.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Falmouth University from Sep, 2007 to Aug, 2016.
|
Deborah Sugg RyanDeborah Sugg Ryan is a British design historian, Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Portsmouth.Sugg Ryan was previously Associate Professor of History and Theory of Design at Falmouth University.She was series consultant and on-screen expert for the BBC2 television series "A House Through Time".
|
[
"University of East London",
"The Open University",
"Falmouth University",
"Ulster University",
"University of Portsmouth"
] |
|
Which employer did Deborah Sugg Ryan work for in Apr, 1997?
|
April 20, 1997
|
{
"text": [
"The Open University"
]
}
|
L2_Q51714707_P108_2
|
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Royal Holloway, University of London from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of East London from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Falmouth University from Sep, 2007 to Aug, 2016.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Ulster University from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for The Open University from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 1999.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of Portsmouth from Sep, 2016 to Dec, 2022.
|
Deborah Sugg RyanDeborah Sugg Ryan is a British design historian, Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Portsmouth.Sugg Ryan was previously Associate Professor of History and Theory of Design at Falmouth University.She was series consultant and on-screen expert for the BBC2 television series "A House Through Time".
|
[
"University of East London",
"Royal Holloway, University of London",
"Falmouth University",
"Ulster University",
"University of Portsmouth"
] |
|
Which employer did Deborah Sugg Ryan work for in Feb, 2001?
|
February 01, 2001
|
{
"text": [
"Ulster University"
]
}
|
L2_Q51714707_P108_3
|
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Falmouth University from Sep, 2007 to Aug, 2016.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Royal Holloway, University of London from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Ulster University from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of East London from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of Portsmouth from Sep, 2016 to Dec, 2022.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for The Open University from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 1999.
|
Deborah Sugg RyanDeborah Sugg Ryan is a British design historian, Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Portsmouth.Sugg Ryan was previously Associate Professor of History and Theory of Design at Falmouth University.She was series consultant and on-screen expert for the BBC2 television series "A House Through Time".
|
[
"University of East London",
"The Open University",
"Royal Holloway, University of London",
"Falmouth University",
"University of Portsmouth"
] |
|
Which employer did Deborah Sugg Ryan work for in Mar, 2009?
|
March 05, 2009
|
{
"text": [
"Falmouth University"
]
}
|
L2_Q51714707_P108_4
|
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of Portsmouth from Sep, 2016 to Dec, 2022.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Royal Holloway, University of London from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Falmouth University from Sep, 2007 to Aug, 2016.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of East London from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for The Open University from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 1999.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Ulster University from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
|
Deborah Sugg RyanDeborah Sugg Ryan is a British design historian, Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Portsmouth.Sugg Ryan was previously Associate Professor of History and Theory of Design at Falmouth University.She was series consultant and on-screen expert for the BBC2 television series "A House Through Time".
|
[
"University of East London",
"The Open University",
"Royal Holloway, University of London",
"Ulster University",
"University of Portsmouth"
] |
|
Which employer did Deborah Sugg Ryan work for in Oct, 2022?
|
October 30, 2022
|
{
"text": [
"University of Portsmouth"
]
}
|
L2_Q51714707_P108_5
|
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Royal Holloway, University of London from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Falmouth University from Sep, 2007 to Aug, 2016.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of Portsmouth from Sep, 2016 to Dec, 2022.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for University of East London from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for The Open University from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 1999.
Deborah Sugg Ryan works for Ulster University from Jan, 2000 to Jan, 2004.
|
Deborah Sugg RyanDeborah Sugg Ryan is a British design historian, Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Portsmouth.Sugg Ryan was previously Associate Professor of History and Theory of Design at Falmouth University.She was series consultant and on-screen expert for the BBC2 television series "A House Through Time".
|
[
"University of East London",
"The Open University",
"Royal Holloway, University of London",
"Falmouth University",
"Ulster University"
] |
|
Which employer did Anna Mullikin work for in Mar, 1917?
|
March 21, 1917
|
{
"text": [
"Mary Baldwin University"
]
}
|
L2_Q4767362_P108_0
|
Anna Mullikin works for Mary Baldwin University from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1918.
Anna Mullikin works for Franklin Learning Center from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1923.
Anna Mullikin works for University of Texas at Austin from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
Anna Mullikin works for Oak Lane Day School from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1922.
|
Anna MullikinAnna Margaret Mullikin (March 7, 1893 – August 24, 1975) was a mathematician who was one of the early investigators of point set theory. She received her BA from Goucher College in 1915 and went on to attend University of Pennsylvania for doctoral work. She was Robert Lee Moore's third student, graduating in 1922 with a dissertation entitled "Certain Theorems Relating to Plane Connected Point Sets". Her dissertation was published that year in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society and subsequently became the catalyst for significant advances in the field. She spent most of her subsequent career as a secondary school mathematics teacher. During 1921–1922 she had taught at Oak Lane Country Day School, which served preschool and elementary-aged children. She later became a mathematics teacher at Germantown High School (Philadelphia); there she became a mentor to Mary-Elizabeth Hamstrom, who became a student of Moore and professional mathematician herself.
|
[
"Oak Lane Day School",
"University of Texas at Austin",
"Franklin Learning Center"
] |
|
Which employer did Anna Mullikin work for in Feb, 1920?
|
February 27, 1920
|
{
"text": [
"University of Texas at Austin"
]
}
|
L2_Q4767362_P108_1
|
Anna Mullikin works for Mary Baldwin University from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1918.
Anna Mullikin works for Franklin Learning Center from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1923.
Anna Mullikin works for University of Texas at Austin from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
Anna Mullikin works for Oak Lane Day School from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1922.
|
Anna MullikinAnna Margaret Mullikin (March 7, 1893 – August 24, 1975) was a mathematician who was one of the early investigators of point set theory. She received her BA from Goucher College in 1915 and went on to attend University of Pennsylvania for doctoral work. She was Robert Lee Moore's third student, graduating in 1922 with a dissertation entitled "Certain Theorems Relating to Plane Connected Point Sets". Her dissertation was published that year in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society and subsequently became the catalyst for significant advances in the field. She spent most of her subsequent career as a secondary school mathematics teacher. During 1921–1922 she had taught at Oak Lane Country Day School, which served preschool and elementary-aged children. She later became a mathematics teacher at Germantown High School (Philadelphia); there she became a mentor to Mary-Elizabeth Hamstrom, who became a student of Moore and professional mathematician herself.
|
[
"Oak Lane Day School",
"Mary Baldwin University",
"Franklin Learning Center"
] |
|
Which employer did Anna Mullikin work for in Jun, 1921?
|
June 08, 1921
|
{
"text": [
"Oak Lane Day School"
]
}
|
L2_Q4767362_P108_2
|
Anna Mullikin works for University of Texas at Austin from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
Anna Mullikin works for Franklin Learning Center from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1923.
Anna Mullikin works for Oak Lane Day School from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1922.
Anna Mullikin works for Mary Baldwin University from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1918.
|
Anna MullikinAnna Margaret Mullikin (March 7, 1893 – August 24, 1975) was a mathematician who was one of the early investigators of point set theory. She received her BA from Goucher College in 1915 and went on to attend University of Pennsylvania for doctoral work. She was Robert Lee Moore's third student, graduating in 1922 with a dissertation entitled "Certain Theorems Relating to Plane Connected Point Sets". Her dissertation was published that year in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society and subsequently became the catalyst for significant advances in the field. She spent most of her subsequent career as a secondary school mathematics teacher. During 1921–1922 she had taught at Oak Lane Country Day School, which served preschool and elementary-aged children. She later became a mathematics teacher at Germantown High School (Philadelphia); there she became a mentor to Mary-Elizabeth Hamstrom, who became a student of Moore and professional mathematician herself.
|
[
"Mary Baldwin University",
"University of Texas at Austin",
"Franklin Learning Center"
] |
|
Which employer did Anna Mullikin work for in Nov, 1922?
|
November 23, 1922
|
{
"text": [
"Franklin Learning Center"
]
}
|
L2_Q4767362_P108_3
|
Anna Mullikin works for Oak Lane Day School from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1922.
Anna Mullikin works for Franklin Learning Center from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1923.
Anna Mullikin works for University of Texas at Austin from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
Anna Mullikin works for Mary Baldwin University from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1918.
|
Anna MullikinAnna Margaret Mullikin (March 7, 1893 – August 24, 1975) was a mathematician who was one of the early investigators of point set theory. She received her BA from Goucher College in 1915 and went on to attend University of Pennsylvania for doctoral work. She was Robert Lee Moore's third student, graduating in 1922 with a dissertation entitled "Certain Theorems Relating to Plane Connected Point Sets". Her dissertation was published that year in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society and subsequently became the catalyst for significant advances in the field. She spent most of her subsequent career as a secondary school mathematics teacher. During 1921–1922 she had taught at Oak Lane Country Day School, which served preschool and elementary-aged children. She later became a mathematics teacher at Germantown High School (Philadelphia); there she became a mentor to Mary-Elizabeth Hamstrom, who became a student of Moore and professional mathematician herself.
|
[
"Oak Lane Day School",
"University of Texas at Austin",
"Mary Baldwin University"
] |
|
Which employer did Derman Christopherson work for in Mar, 1949?
|
March 13, 1949
|
{
"text": [
"University of Leeds"
]
}
|
L2_Q5262678_P108_0
|
Derman Christopherson works for Durham University from Jan, 1960 to Jan, 1979.
Derman Christopherson works for Imperial College London from Jan, 1955 to Jan, 1960.
Derman Christopherson works for University of Leeds from Jan, 1949 to Jan, 1955.
|
Derman ChristophersonSir Derman Guy Christopherson (6 September 1915 – 7 November 2000) was a British engineering science academic.He was born the son of a clergyman, Derman Christopherson (the vicar of Plumstead in southeast London), and Edith FrancesChristopherson. Soon afterwards, the Christopherson family moved to Porlock in Devon, where his father was vicar of Clovelly. As a boy, Christopherson suffered from asthma. He was educated privately until, at age 14, he was sent to Sherborne School in Dorset.He gained a scholarship at University College, Oxford, initially to read Mathematics. Later, in 1937, he achieved a first class degree in Engineering Science. The following year he went to Harvard University in the United States as a Henry Fellow, gaining an SM master's degree in 1938.He returned to Oxford University as a research assistant to Sir Richard Southwell FRS, working on numerical methods for applied mechanics. He contributed to Southwell's relaxation method. Christopherson was the first to apply the method in the solution of field differential equations, which later became the most important application. He gained his DPhil in 1941.In 1941, during World War II, Christopherson was appointed as a Scientific Officer in the Ministry of Home Security, working in theresearch and experimental department with Sir Reginald Stradling. His work involved investigating the effects of explosives on buildings, shelters, and firefighting (he worked with Solly Zuckerman and Hugh Cairns on researching helmet designs.Most of Christopherson's research was conducted at the University of Oxford (1937–41), the University of Cambridge (1945–49), and the University of Leeds (1949–55). He contributed to lubrication research especially. He was a lecturer in engineering at Cambridge. Christopherson was then appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Leeds and became the head of the department in 1949. He left Leeds to become Professor of Applied Science with special reference to Engineering at Imperial College, London until 1960.Christopherson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He was Vice-Chancellor and Warden of the University of Durham (1960–1979) and then Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (1978–1985). In 1983 he became the second Chairman of the Standing Committee on Structural Safety, succeeding The Rt. Hon. the Lord Penney. He served as such until 1988.He was also with Barnes Wallace and his team during the war. A.D.Christopherson married Frances Edith Tearle in 1940; the couple had four children. Their son, Peter, was a musician, video director and designer. Lady Christopherson predeceased her husband in 1988. The couple are interred at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge.
|
[
"Durham University",
"Imperial College London"
] |
|
Which employer did Derman Christopherson work for in Jul, 1957?
|
July 02, 1957
|
{
"text": [
"Imperial College London"
]
}
|
L2_Q5262678_P108_1
|
Derman Christopherson works for University of Leeds from Jan, 1949 to Jan, 1955.
Derman Christopherson works for Durham University from Jan, 1960 to Jan, 1979.
Derman Christopherson works for Imperial College London from Jan, 1955 to Jan, 1960.
|
Derman ChristophersonSir Derman Guy Christopherson (6 September 1915 – 7 November 2000) was a British engineering science academic.He was born the son of a clergyman, Derman Christopherson (the vicar of Plumstead in southeast London), and Edith FrancesChristopherson. Soon afterwards, the Christopherson family moved to Porlock in Devon, where his father was vicar of Clovelly. As a boy, Christopherson suffered from asthma. He was educated privately until, at age 14, he was sent to Sherborne School in Dorset.He gained a scholarship at University College, Oxford, initially to read Mathematics. Later, in 1937, he achieved a first class degree in Engineering Science. The following year he went to Harvard University in the United States as a Henry Fellow, gaining an SM master's degree in 1938.He returned to Oxford University as a research assistant to Sir Richard Southwell FRS, working on numerical methods for applied mechanics. He contributed to Southwell's relaxation method. Christopherson was the first to apply the method in the solution of field differential equations, which later became the most important application. He gained his DPhil in 1941.In 1941, during World War II, Christopherson was appointed as a Scientific Officer in the Ministry of Home Security, working in theresearch and experimental department with Sir Reginald Stradling. His work involved investigating the effects of explosives on buildings, shelters, and firefighting (he worked with Solly Zuckerman and Hugh Cairns on researching helmet designs.Most of Christopherson's research was conducted at the University of Oxford (1937–41), the University of Cambridge (1945–49), and the University of Leeds (1949–55). He contributed to lubrication research especially. He was a lecturer in engineering at Cambridge. Christopherson was then appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Leeds and became the head of the department in 1949. He left Leeds to become Professor of Applied Science with special reference to Engineering at Imperial College, London until 1960.Christopherson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He was Vice-Chancellor and Warden of the University of Durham (1960–1979) and then Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (1978–1985). In 1983 he became the second Chairman of the Standing Committee on Structural Safety, succeeding The Rt. Hon. the Lord Penney. He served as such until 1988.He was also with Barnes Wallace and his team during the war. A.D.Christopherson married Frances Edith Tearle in 1940; the couple had four children. Their son, Peter, was a musician, video director and designer. Lady Christopherson predeceased her husband in 1988. The couple are interred at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge.
|
[
"University of Leeds",
"Durham University"
] |
|
Which employer did Derman Christopherson work for in Sep, 1964?
|
September 21, 1964
|
{
"text": [
"Durham University"
]
}
|
L2_Q5262678_P108_2
|
Derman Christopherson works for Imperial College London from Jan, 1955 to Jan, 1960.
Derman Christopherson works for Durham University from Jan, 1960 to Jan, 1979.
Derman Christopherson works for University of Leeds from Jan, 1949 to Jan, 1955.
|
Derman ChristophersonSir Derman Guy Christopherson (6 September 1915 – 7 November 2000) was a British engineering science academic.He was born the son of a clergyman, Derman Christopherson (the vicar of Plumstead in southeast London), and Edith FrancesChristopherson. Soon afterwards, the Christopherson family moved to Porlock in Devon, where his father was vicar of Clovelly. As a boy, Christopherson suffered from asthma. He was educated privately until, at age 14, he was sent to Sherborne School in Dorset.He gained a scholarship at University College, Oxford, initially to read Mathematics. Later, in 1937, he achieved a first class degree in Engineering Science. The following year he went to Harvard University in the United States as a Henry Fellow, gaining an SM master's degree in 1938.He returned to Oxford University as a research assistant to Sir Richard Southwell FRS, working on numerical methods for applied mechanics. He contributed to Southwell's relaxation method. Christopherson was the first to apply the method in the solution of field differential equations, which later became the most important application. He gained his DPhil in 1941.In 1941, during World War II, Christopherson was appointed as a Scientific Officer in the Ministry of Home Security, working in theresearch and experimental department with Sir Reginald Stradling. His work involved investigating the effects of explosives on buildings, shelters, and firefighting (he worked with Solly Zuckerman and Hugh Cairns on researching helmet designs.Most of Christopherson's research was conducted at the University of Oxford (1937–41), the University of Cambridge (1945–49), and the University of Leeds (1949–55). He contributed to lubrication research especially. He was a lecturer in engineering at Cambridge. Christopherson was then appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Leeds and became the head of the department in 1949. He left Leeds to become Professor of Applied Science with special reference to Engineering at Imperial College, London until 1960.Christopherson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He was Vice-Chancellor and Warden of the University of Durham (1960–1979) and then Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (1978–1985). In 1983 he became the second Chairman of the Standing Committee on Structural Safety, succeeding The Rt. Hon. the Lord Penney. He served as such until 1988.He was also with Barnes Wallace and his team during the war. A.D.Christopherson married Frances Edith Tearle in 1940; the couple had four children. Their son, Peter, was a musician, video director and designer. Lady Christopherson predeceased her husband in 1988. The couple are interred at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge.
|
[
"University of Leeds",
"Imperial College London"
] |
|
Who was the head of Skælskør Municipality in May, 1970?
|
May 29, 1970
|
{
"text": [
"Svend Aage Troelsen"
]
}
|
L2_Q1814393_P6_0
|
Svend Aage Troelsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Apr, 1970 to Jan, 1974.
Johannes Lyshjelm is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1986.
Hans Ole Drost is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 2002 to Dec, 2006.
Hans Christian Nielsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 2002.
Søren Clausen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1986 to Jan, 1994.
|
Skælskør MunicipalityUntil January 1, 2007 Skælskør Municipality was a municipality (Danish: "kommune") in the former West Zealand County, on the southwestern coast of the island of Zealand, in eastern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 170.02 km, and had a total population of 11,928 (2006). Its last mayor was Hans Ole Drost, a member of the Venstre.Skælskør Municipality bordered Korsør and Hashøj Municipality to the north and Fuglebjerg Municipality to the east. The municipality included the islands of Agersø, Omø and Glænø.To the west is the Great Belt (Danish: "Storebælt"), the strait that separates Zealand and the island of Funen (Danish. "Fyn"), and the Agersø Sound (Danish: "Agersø Sund"), the strait that separates Zealand from the former municipality's islands of Agersø and Omø. To the south is Karrebæksminde Bay (Danish: "Karrebæksminde Bugt") and Rågø Sund. The municipality's island of Glænø lies in Karrebæksminde Bay, along with a number of other smaller islands. "Noret", a large lake lies to the north of the town of Skælskør.The municipality ceased to exist as the result of "Kommunalreformen 2007" (the Municipality Reform of 2007). It was merged with Slagelse, Hashøj and Korsør municipalities to form a new Slagelse municipality. The new municipality belongs to Region Zealand.Skælskør was likely built in the 1100s, and was granted the status of a market town (Danish: "Købstad") in 1414. It originally played a role as a transit town between Zealand, Funen and Langeland, though Korsør eventually became the more prominent transit town on the coast.In the Middle Ages, when Denmark was divided into hundreds, the area of Skælskør Municipality were under Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred and Slagelse Hundred. Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred was under Sorø County when it was established in 1662, while Slagelse Hundred came under Korsør County. Sorø County was merged with Ringsted County in 1748. It was merged again in 1798, this time with Korsør County and Antvorskov County. This county lasted until the 1970 Danish Municipal Reform where it merged with Holbæk County to create West Zealand County (Danish: "Vestsjællands Amt"). After the 2007 municipal reform this changed to Region Zealand.From 1842, where parish municipalities were created, and until 1922 the area of Skælskør Municipality consisted of nine parish municipalities. From 1875 it also consisted of Skælskør Market Town Municipality, which would merge with its Rural District Parish Municipality in 1922, leaving eight parish municipalities and one market town municipality. In 1966 many of these parish municipalities were merged to create only two parish municipalities, which would again be merged to form Skælskør Municipality in the 1970 Municipal Reform.In the Municipality Reform of 2007 Skælskør Municipality was merged with Hashøj, Slagelse and Korsør Municipality to form a new Slagelse Municipality.Since the creation of the municipality in 1970 and until it was dissolved in 2007, the mayors of Skælskør Municipality were:The largest town in the municipality was Skælskør, where more than half of the municipality's population lived. Nearly a third of the population lived in rural areas. The remaining population lived in the towns of Bisserup, Boeslunde, Eggeslevmagle and Rude. Notable smaller villages in the municipality included the main settlements on Agersø and Omø: Agersø By and Omø By.Skælskør was located in the western part of the municipality, bordering "Skælskør Nor", giving it access to the sea. In the town is a church from the 1200s. It is named Saint Nicholas Church (Danish: "Sankt Nicolai Kirke") and is located centrally in the town. One of the largest breweries in Denmark, Harboe's Brewery, has been located in Skælskør since its foundation in 1883.Below are the populations from 2006 of the five larger settlements of the municipality.Below are the municipal council elected from 1989 and until 2001, which was the last election before the municipality was dissolved.The municipality consisted of eleven parishes and eleven churches.The municipality's coat of arms is the same as the town of Skælskør's. It shows a bridge connecting the two parts of the town of Skælskør. The church is located to the left, illustrated with crosses. The city hall is on the right. They stand on green grass with a river running across the land and through the town, under the bridge. In the river is an escallop, which is in reference to the origin of the town's name ""Skælfisk-ør"" translating to "shellfish beach". The sky is dark blue.
|
[
"Søren Clausen",
"Hans Ole Drost",
"Johannes Lyshjelm",
"Hans Christian Nielsen"
] |
|
Who was the head of Skælskør Municipality in Jan, 1985?
|
January 08, 1985
|
{
"text": [
"Johannes Lyshjelm"
]
}
|
L2_Q1814393_P6_1
|
Hans Ole Drost is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 2002 to Dec, 2006.
Johannes Lyshjelm is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1986.
Svend Aage Troelsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Apr, 1970 to Jan, 1974.
Hans Christian Nielsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 2002.
Søren Clausen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1986 to Jan, 1994.
|
Skælskør MunicipalityUntil January 1, 2007 Skælskør Municipality was a municipality (Danish: "kommune") in the former West Zealand County, on the southwestern coast of the island of Zealand, in eastern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 170.02 km, and had a total population of 11,928 (2006). Its last mayor was Hans Ole Drost, a member of the Venstre.Skælskør Municipality bordered Korsør and Hashøj Municipality to the north and Fuglebjerg Municipality to the east. The municipality included the islands of Agersø, Omø and Glænø.To the west is the Great Belt (Danish: "Storebælt"), the strait that separates Zealand and the island of Funen (Danish. "Fyn"), and the Agersø Sound (Danish: "Agersø Sund"), the strait that separates Zealand from the former municipality's islands of Agersø and Omø. To the south is Karrebæksminde Bay (Danish: "Karrebæksminde Bugt") and Rågø Sund. The municipality's island of Glænø lies in Karrebæksminde Bay, along with a number of other smaller islands. "Noret", a large lake lies to the north of the town of Skælskør.The municipality ceased to exist as the result of "Kommunalreformen 2007" (the Municipality Reform of 2007). It was merged with Slagelse, Hashøj and Korsør municipalities to form a new Slagelse municipality. The new municipality belongs to Region Zealand.Skælskør was likely built in the 1100s, and was granted the status of a market town (Danish: "Købstad") in 1414. It originally played a role as a transit town between Zealand, Funen and Langeland, though Korsør eventually became the more prominent transit town on the coast.In the Middle Ages, when Denmark was divided into hundreds, the area of Skælskør Municipality were under Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred and Slagelse Hundred. Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred was under Sorø County when it was established in 1662, while Slagelse Hundred came under Korsør County. Sorø County was merged with Ringsted County in 1748. It was merged again in 1798, this time with Korsør County and Antvorskov County. This county lasted until the 1970 Danish Municipal Reform where it merged with Holbæk County to create West Zealand County (Danish: "Vestsjællands Amt"). After the 2007 municipal reform this changed to Region Zealand.From 1842, where parish municipalities were created, and until 1922 the area of Skælskør Municipality consisted of nine parish municipalities. From 1875 it also consisted of Skælskør Market Town Municipality, which would merge with its Rural District Parish Municipality in 1922, leaving eight parish municipalities and one market town municipality. In 1966 many of these parish municipalities were merged to create only two parish municipalities, which would again be merged to form Skælskør Municipality in the 1970 Municipal Reform.In the Municipality Reform of 2007 Skælskør Municipality was merged with Hashøj, Slagelse and Korsør Municipality to form a new Slagelse Municipality.Since the creation of the municipality in 1970 and until it was dissolved in 2007, the mayors of Skælskør Municipality were:The largest town in the municipality was Skælskør, where more than half of the municipality's population lived. Nearly a third of the population lived in rural areas. The remaining population lived in the towns of Bisserup, Boeslunde, Eggeslevmagle and Rude. Notable smaller villages in the municipality included the main settlements on Agersø and Omø: Agersø By and Omø By.Skælskør was located in the western part of the municipality, bordering "Skælskør Nor", giving it access to the sea. In the town is a church from the 1200s. It is named Saint Nicholas Church (Danish: "Sankt Nicolai Kirke") and is located centrally in the town. One of the largest breweries in Denmark, Harboe's Brewery, has been located in Skælskør since its foundation in 1883.Below are the populations from 2006 of the five larger settlements of the municipality.Below are the municipal council elected from 1989 and until 2001, which was the last election before the municipality was dissolved.The municipality consisted of eleven parishes and eleven churches.The municipality's coat of arms is the same as the town of Skælskør's. It shows a bridge connecting the two parts of the town of Skælskør. The church is located to the left, illustrated with crosses. The city hall is on the right. They stand on green grass with a river running across the land and through the town, under the bridge. In the river is an escallop, which is in reference to the origin of the town's name ""Skælfisk-ør"" translating to "shellfish beach". The sky is dark blue.
|
[
"Søren Clausen",
"Hans Ole Drost",
"Hans Christian Nielsen",
"Svend Aage Troelsen"
] |
|
Who was the head of Skælskør Municipality in Oct, 1986?
|
October 20, 1986
|
{
"text": [
"Søren Clausen"
]
}
|
L2_Q1814393_P6_2
|
Søren Clausen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1986 to Jan, 1994.
Svend Aage Troelsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Apr, 1970 to Jan, 1974.
Johannes Lyshjelm is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1986.
Hans Ole Drost is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 2002 to Dec, 2006.
Hans Christian Nielsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 2002.
|
Skælskør MunicipalityUntil January 1, 2007 Skælskør Municipality was a municipality (Danish: "kommune") in the former West Zealand County, on the southwestern coast of the island of Zealand, in eastern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 170.02 km, and had a total population of 11,928 (2006). Its last mayor was Hans Ole Drost, a member of the Venstre.Skælskør Municipality bordered Korsør and Hashøj Municipality to the north and Fuglebjerg Municipality to the east. The municipality included the islands of Agersø, Omø and Glænø.To the west is the Great Belt (Danish: "Storebælt"), the strait that separates Zealand and the island of Funen (Danish. "Fyn"), and the Agersø Sound (Danish: "Agersø Sund"), the strait that separates Zealand from the former municipality's islands of Agersø and Omø. To the south is Karrebæksminde Bay (Danish: "Karrebæksminde Bugt") and Rågø Sund. The municipality's island of Glænø lies in Karrebæksminde Bay, along with a number of other smaller islands. "Noret", a large lake lies to the north of the town of Skælskør.The municipality ceased to exist as the result of "Kommunalreformen 2007" (the Municipality Reform of 2007). It was merged with Slagelse, Hashøj and Korsør municipalities to form a new Slagelse municipality. The new municipality belongs to Region Zealand.Skælskør was likely built in the 1100s, and was granted the status of a market town (Danish: "Købstad") in 1414. It originally played a role as a transit town between Zealand, Funen and Langeland, though Korsør eventually became the more prominent transit town on the coast.In the Middle Ages, when Denmark was divided into hundreds, the area of Skælskør Municipality were under Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred and Slagelse Hundred. Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred was under Sorø County when it was established in 1662, while Slagelse Hundred came under Korsør County. Sorø County was merged with Ringsted County in 1748. It was merged again in 1798, this time with Korsør County and Antvorskov County. This county lasted until the 1970 Danish Municipal Reform where it merged with Holbæk County to create West Zealand County (Danish: "Vestsjællands Amt"). After the 2007 municipal reform this changed to Region Zealand.From 1842, where parish municipalities were created, and until 1922 the area of Skælskør Municipality consisted of nine parish municipalities. From 1875 it also consisted of Skælskør Market Town Municipality, which would merge with its Rural District Parish Municipality in 1922, leaving eight parish municipalities and one market town municipality. In 1966 many of these parish municipalities were merged to create only two parish municipalities, which would again be merged to form Skælskør Municipality in the 1970 Municipal Reform.In the Municipality Reform of 2007 Skælskør Municipality was merged with Hashøj, Slagelse and Korsør Municipality to form a new Slagelse Municipality.Since the creation of the municipality in 1970 and until it was dissolved in 2007, the mayors of Skælskør Municipality were:The largest town in the municipality was Skælskør, where more than half of the municipality's population lived. Nearly a third of the population lived in rural areas. The remaining population lived in the towns of Bisserup, Boeslunde, Eggeslevmagle and Rude. Notable smaller villages in the municipality included the main settlements on Agersø and Omø: Agersø By and Omø By.Skælskør was located in the western part of the municipality, bordering "Skælskør Nor", giving it access to the sea. In the town is a church from the 1200s. It is named Saint Nicholas Church (Danish: "Sankt Nicolai Kirke") and is located centrally in the town. One of the largest breweries in Denmark, Harboe's Brewery, has been located in Skælskør since its foundation in 1883.Below are the populations from 2006 of the five larger settlements of the municipality.Below are the municipal council elected from 1989 and until 2001, which was the last election before the municipality was dissolved.The municipality consisted of eleven parishes and eleven churches.The municipality's coat of arms is the same as the town of Skælskør's. It shows a bridge connecting the two parts of the town of Skælskør. The church is located to the left, illustrated with crosses. The city hall is on the right. They stand on green grass with a river running across the land and through the town, under the bridge. In the river is an escallop, which is in reference to the origin of the town's name ""Skælfisk-ør"" translating to "shellfish beach". The sky is dark blue.
|
[
"Hans Ole Drost",
"Johannes Lyshjelm",
"Svend Aage Troelsen",
"Hans Christian Nielsen"
] |
|
Who was the head of Skælskør Municipality in Apr, 2001?
|
April 18, 2001
|
{
"text": [
"Hans Christian Nielsen"
]
}
|
L2_Q1814393_P6_3
|
Johannes Lyshjelm is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1986.
Hans Ole Drost is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 2002 to Dec, 2006.
Søren Clausen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1986 to Jan, 1994.
Svend Aage Troelsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Apr, 1970 to Jan, 1974.
Hans Christian Nielsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 2002.
|
Skælskør MunicipalityUntil January 1, 2007 Skælskør Municipality was a municipality (Danish: "kommune") in the former West Zealand County, on the southwestern coast of the island of Zealand, in eastern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 170.02 km, and had a total population of 11,928 (2006). Its last mayor was Hans Ole Drost, a member of the Venstre.Skælskør Municipality bordered Korsør and Hashøj Municipality to the north and Fuglebjerg Municipality to the east. The municipality included the islands of Agersø, Omø and Glænø.To the west is the Great Belt (Danish: "Storebælt"), the strait that separates Zealand and the island of Funen (Danish. "Fyn"), and the Agersø Sound (Danish: "Agersø Sund"), the strait that separates Zealand from the former municipality's islands of Agersø and Omø. To the south is Karrebæksminde Bay (Danish: "Karrebæksminde Bugt") and Rågø Sund. The municipality's island of Glænø lies in Karrebæksminde Bay, along with a number of other smaller islands. "Noret", a large lake lies to the north of the town of Skælskør.The municipality ceased to exist as the result of "Kommunalreformen 2007" (the Municipality Reform of 2007). It was merged with Slagelse, Hashøj and Korsør municipalities to form a new Slagelse municipality. The new municipality belongs to Region Zealand.Skælskør was likely built in the 1100s, and was granted the status of a market town (Danish: "Købstad") in 1414. It originally played a role as a transit town between Zealand, Funen and Langeland, though Korsør eventually became the more prominent transit town on the coast.In the Middle Ages, when Denmark was divided into hundreds, the area of Skælskør Municipality were under Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred and Slagelse Hundred. Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred was under Sorø County when it was established in 1662, while Slagelse Hundred came under Korsør County. Sorø County was merged with Ringsted County in 1748. It was merged again in 1798, this time with Korsør County and Antvorskov County. This county lasted until the 1970 Danish Municipal Reform where it merged with Holbæk County to create West Zealand County (Danish: "Vestsjællands Amt"). After the 2007 municipal reform this changed to Region Zealand.From 1842, where parish municipalities were created, and until 1922 the area of Skælskør Municipality consisted of nine parish municipalities. From 1875 it also consisted of Skælskør Market Town Municipality, which would merge with its Rural District Parish Municipality in 1922, leaving eight parish municipalities and one market town municipality. In 1966 many of these parish municipalities were merged to create only two parish municipalities, which would again be merged to form Skælskør Municipality in the 1970 Municipal Reform.In the Municipality Reform of 2007 Skælskør Municipality was merged with Hashøj, Slagelse and Korsør Municipality to form a new Slagelse Municipality.Since the creation of the municipality in 1970 and until it was dissolved in 2007, the mayors of Skælskør Municipality were:The largest town in the municipality was Skælskør, where more than half of the municipality's population lived. Nearly a third of the population lived in rural areas. The remaining population lived in the towns of Bisserup, Boeslunde, Eggeslevmagle and Rude. Notable smaller villages in the municipality included the main settlements on Agersø and Omø: Agersø By and Omø By.Skælskør was located in the western part of the municipality, bordering "Skælskør Nor", giving it access to the sea. In the town is a church from the 1200s. It is named Saint Nicholas Church (Danish: "Sankt Nicolai Kirke") and is located centrally in the town. One of the largest breweries in Denmark, Harboe's Brewery, has been located in Skælskør since its foundation in 1883.Below are the populations from 2006 of the five larger settlements of the municipality.Below are the municipal council elected from 1989 and until 2001, which was the last election before the municipality was dissolved.The municipality consisted of eleven parishes and eleven churches.The municipality's coat of arms is the same as the town of Skælskør's. It shows a bridge connecting the two parts of the town of Skælskør. The church is located to the left, illustrated with crosses. The city hall is on the right. They stand on green grass with a river running across the land and through the town, under the bridge. In the river is an escallop, which is in reference to the origin of the town's name ""Skælfisk-ør"" translating to "shellfish beach". The sky is dark blue.
|
[
"Søren Clausen",
"Hans Ole Drost",
"Johannes Lyshjelm",
"Svend Aage Troelsen"
] |
|
Who was the head of Skælskør Municipality in Sep, 2006?
|
September 03, 2006
|
{
"text": [
"Hans Ole Drost"
]
}
|
L2_Q1814393_P6_4
|
Johannes Lyshjelm is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1986.
Søren Clausen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1986 to Jan, 1994.
Hans Ole Drost is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 2002 to Dec, 2006.
Svend Aage Troelsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Apr, 1970 to Jan, 1974.
Hans Christian Nielsen is the head of the government of Skælskør Municipality from Jan, 1994 to Jan, 2002.
|
Skælskør MunicipalityUntil January 1, 2007 Skælskør Municipality was a municipality (Danish: "kommune") in the former West Zealand County, on the southwestern coast of the island of Zealand, in eastern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 170.02 km, and had a total population of 11,928 (2006). Its last mayor was Hans Ole Drost, a member of the Venstre.Skælskør Municipality bordered Korsør and Hashøj Municipality to the north and Fuglebjerg Municipality to the east. The municipality included the islands of Agersø, Omø and Glænø.To the west is the Great Belt (Danish: "Storebælt"), the strait that separates Zealand and the island of Funen (Danish. "Fyn"), and the Agersø Sound (Danish: "Agersø Sund"), the strait that separates Zealand from the former municipality's islands of Agersø and Omø. To the south is Karrebæksminde Bay (Danish: "Karrebæksminde Bugt") and Rågø Sund. The municipality's island of Glænø lies in Karrebæksminde Bay, along with a number of other smaller islands. "Noret", a large lake lies to the north of the town of Skælskør.The municipality ceased to exist as the result of "Kommunalreformen 2007" (the Municipality Reform of 2007). It was merged with Slagelse, Hashøj and Korsør municipalities to form a new Slagelse municipality. The new municipality belongs to Region Zealand.Skælskør was likely built in the 1100s, and was granted the status of a market town (Danish: "Købstad") in 1414. It originally played a role as a transit town between Zealand, Funen and Langeland, though Korsør eventually became the more prominent transit town on the coast.In the Middle Ages, when Denmark was divided into hundreds, the area of Skælskør Municipality were under Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred and Slagelse Hundred. Vester Flakkebjerg Hundred was under Sorø County when it was established in 1662, while Slagelse Hundred came under Korsør County. Sorø County was merged with Ringsted County in 1748. It was merged again in 1798, this time with Korsør County and Antvorskov County. This county lasted until the 1970 Danish Municipal Reform where it merged with Holbæk County to create West Zealand County (Danish: "Vestsjællands Amt"). After the 2007 municipal reform this changed to Region Zealand.From 1842, where parish municipalities were created, and until 1922 the area of Skælskør Municipality consisted of nine parish municipalities. From 1875 it also consisted of Skælskør Market Town Municipality, which would merge with its Rural District Parish Municipality in 1922, leaving eight parish municipalities and one market town municipality. In 1966 many of these parish municipalities were merged to create only two parish municipalities, which would again be merged to form Skælskør Municipality in the 1970 Municipal Reform.In the Municipality Reform of 2007 Skælskør Municipality was merged with Hashøj, Slagelse and Korsør Municipality to form a new Slagelse Municipality.Since the creation of the municipality in 1970 and until it was dissolved in 2007, the mayors of Skælskør Municipality were:The largest town in the municipality was Skælskør, where more than half of the municipality's population lived. Nearly a third of the population lived in rural areas. The remaining population lived in the towns of Bisserup, Boeslunde, Eggeslevmagle and Rude. Notable smaller villages in the municipality included the main settlements on Agersø and Omø: Agersø By and Omø By.Skælskør was located in the western part of the municipality, bordering "Skælskør Nor", giving it access to the sea. In the town is a church from the 1200s. It is named Saint Nicholas Church (Danish: "Sankt Nicolai Kirke") and is located centrally in the town. One of the largest breweries in Denmark, Harboe's Brewery, has been located in Skælskør since its foundation in 1883.Below are the populations from 2006 of the five larger settlements of the municipality.Below are the municipal council elected from 1989 and until 2001, which was the last election before the municipality was dissolved.The municipality consisted of eleven parishes and eleven churches.The municipality's coat of arms is the same as the town of Skælskør's. It shows a bridge connecting the two parts of the town of Skælskør. The church is located to the left, illustrated with crosses. The city hall is on the right. They stand on green grass with a river running across the land and through the town, under the bridge. In the river is an escallop, which is in reference to the origin of the town's name ""Skælfisk-ør"" translating to "shellfish beach". The sky is dark blue.
|
[
"Søren Clausen",
"Johannes Lyshjelm",
"Svend Aage Troelsen",
"Hans Christian Nielsen"
] |
|
Where was Władysław Orlicz educated in May, 1920?
|
May 28, 1920
|
{
"text": [
"Lviv Polytechnic"
]
}
|
L2_Q1344809_P69_0
|
Władysław Orlicz attended Lviv Polytechnic from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
Władysław Orlicz attended Lviv University from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1926.
Władysław Orlicz attended University of Göttingen from Jan, 1929 to Jan, 1930.
|
Władysław OrliczWładysław Roman Orlicz (May 24, 1903 in Okocim, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) – August 9, 1990 in Poznań, Poland) was a Polish mathematician of Lwów School of Mathematics. His main interests were functional analysis and topology: Orlicz spaces are named after him.
|
[
"Lviv University",
"University of Göttingen"
] |
|
Where was Władysław Orlicz educated in Apr, 1923?
|
April 04, 1923
|
{
"text": [
"Lviv University"
]
}
|
L2_Q1344809_P69_1
|
Władysław Orlicz attended University of Göttingen from Jan, 1929 to Jan, 1930.
Władysław Orlicz attended Lviv Polytechnic from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
Władysław Orlicz attended Lviv University from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1926.
|
Władysław OrliczWładysław Roman Orlicz (May 24, 1903 in Okocim, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) – August 9, 1990 in Poznań, Poland) was a Polish mathematician of Lwów School of Mathematics. His main interests were functional analysis and topology: Orlicz spaces are named after him.
|
[
"Lviv Polytechnic",
"University of Göttingen"
] |
|
Where was Władysław Orlicz educated in Feb, 1929?
|
February 15, 1929
|
{
"text": [
"University of Göttingen"
]
}
|
L2_Q1344809_P69_2
|
Władysław Orlicz attended University of Göttingen from Jan, 1929 to Jan, 1930.
Władysław Orlicz attended Lviv University from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1926.
Władysław Orlicz attended Lviv Polytechnic from Jan, 1920 to Jan, 1921.
|
Władysław OrliczWładysław Roman Orlicz (May 24, 1903 in Okocim, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) – August 9, 1990 in Poznań, Poland) was a Polish mathematician of Lwów School of Mathematics. His main interests were functional analysis and topology: Orlicz spaces are named after him.
|
[
"Lviv Polytechnic",
"Lviv University"
] |
|
Who was the head of Kerteminde Municipality in Nov, 2009?
|
November 22, 2009
|
{
"text": [
"Palle Hansborg-Sørensen"
]
}
|
L2_Q612488_P6_0
|
Palle Hansborg-Sørensen is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2007 to Dec, 2009.
Hans Luunbjerg is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2014 to Dec, 2017.
Kasper Ejsing Olesen is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2018 to Dec, 2022.
|
Kerteminde MunicipalityKerteminde Municipality is a municipality (Danish, "kommune") in Region of Southern Denmark on the northeast coast of the island of Funen in central Denmark. The municipality includes the island of Romsø, and it covers an area of 203 km. It has a total population of 23,630 (2008). Its mayor is Sonja Rasmussen, a former member of the Social Democratic Party ("Socialdemokraterne"). Just after the 2009 local election, Rasmussen became an Independent and was elected as the new mayor with the support of the right-wing parties. The main town and the site of its municipal council is the town of Kerteminde.Ferry service connects the municipality to the island of Romsø from the harbour in the town of Kerteminde.The municipality was created in 1970 as the result of a ("Municipal Reform") that merged a number of existing parishes:On 1 January 2007 Kerteminde Municipality was, as the result of "Kommunalreformen" ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007), merged with existing Munkebo and Langeskov municipalities to form an enlarged Kerteminde municipality.The Kerteminde Fjord flows through Kerteminde town and divides the easternmost part of the municipality into two segments. In the west, an isthmus near Munkebo connects the two areas. The fjord is a segment of the Great Belt. This results in the northern portion of the municipality being located on a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides: Kerteminde's municipal council consists of 25 members, elected every four years. The municipal council has six political committees.Below are the municipal councils elected since the Municipal Reform of 2007.
|
[
"Kasper Ejsing Olesen",
"Hans Luunbjerg"
] |
|
Who was the head of Kerteminde Municipality in Jun, 2016?
|
June 29, 2016
|
{
"text": [
"Hans Luunbjerg"
]
}
|
L2_Q612488_P6_1
|
Hans Luunbjerg is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2014 to Dec, 2017.
Kasper Ejsing Olesen is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2018 to Dec, 2022.
Palle Hansborg-Sørensen is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2007 to Dec, 2009.
|
Kerteminde MunicipalityKerteminde Municipality is a municipality (Danish, "kommune") in Region of Southern Denmark on the northeast coast of the island of Funen in central Denmark. The municipality includes the island of Romsø, and it covers an area of 203 km. It has a total population of 23,630 (2008). Its mayor is Sonja Rasmussen, a former member of the Social Democratic Party ("Socialdemokraterne"). Just after the 2009 local election, Rasmussen became an Independent and was elected as the new mayor with the support of the right-wing parties. The main town and the site of its municipal council is the town of Kerteminde.Ferry service connects the municipality to the island of Romsø from the harbour in the town of Kerteminde.The municipality was created in 1970 as the result of a ("Municipal Reform") that merged a number of existing parishes:On 1 January 2007 Kerteminde Municipality was, as the result of "Kommunalreformen" ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007), merged with existing Munkebo and Langeskov municipalities to form an enlarged Kerteminde municipality.The Kerteminde Fjord flows through Kerteminde town and divides the easternmost part of the municipality into two segments. In the west, an isthmus near Munkebo connects the two areas. The fjord is a segment of the Great Belt. This results in the northern portion of the municipality being located on a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides: Kerteminde's municipal council consists of 25 members, elected every four years. The municipal council has six political committees.Below are the municipal councils elected since the Municipal Reform of 2007.
|
[
"Kasper Ejsing Olesen",
"Palle Hansborg-Sørensen"
] |
|
Who was the head of Kerteminde Municipality in Jun, 2022?
|
June 11, 2022
|
{
"text": [
"Kasper Ejsing Olesen"
]
}
|
L2_Q612488_P6_2
|
Hans Luunbjerg is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2014 to Dec, 2017.
Palle Hansborg-Sørensen is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2007 to Dec, 2009.
Kasper Ejsing Olesen is the head of the government of Kerteminde Municipality from Jan, 2018 to Dec, 2022.
|
Kerteminde MunicipalityKerteminde Municipality is a municipality (Danish, "kommune") in Region of Southern Denmark on the northeast coast of the island of Funen in central Denmark. The municipality includes the island of Romsø, and it covers an area of 203 km. It has a total population of 23,630 (2008). Its mayor is Sonja Rasmussen, a former member of the Social Democratic Party ("Socialdemokraterne"). Just after the 2009 local election, Rasmussen became an Independent and was elected as the new mayor with the support of the right-wing parties. The main town and the site of its municipal council is the town of Kerteminde.Ferry service connects the municipality to the island of Romsø from the harbour in the town of Kerteminde.The municipality was created in 1970 as the result of a ("Municipal Reform") that merged a number of existing parishes:On 1 January 2007 Kerteminde Municipality was, as the result of "Kommunalreformen" ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007), merged with existing Munkebo and Langeskov municipalities to form an enlarged Kerteminde municipality.The Kerteminde Fjord flows through Kerteminde town and divides the easternmost part of the municipality into two segments. In the west, an isthmus near Munkebo connects the two areas. The fjord is a segment of the Great Belt. This results in the northern portion of the municipality being located on a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides: Kerteminde's municipal council consists of 25 members, elected every four years. The municipal council has six political committees.Below are the municipal councils elected since the Municipal Reform of 2007.
|
[
"Palle Hansborg-Sørensen",
"Hans Luunbjerg"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Dec, 2002?
|
December 01, 2002
|
{
"text": [
"SSC Bari"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_0
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Jan, 2003?
|
January 02, 2003
|
{
"text": [
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"SSC Bari"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_1
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908",
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Oct, 2004?
|
October 25, 2004
|
{
"text": [
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_2
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Mar, 2005?
|
March 15, 2005
|
{
"text": [
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_3
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Dec, 2006?
|
December 10, 2006
|
{
"text": [
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_4
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Nov, 2007?
|
November 23, 2007
|
{
"text": [
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_5
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Jan, 2008?
|
January 01, 2008
|
{
"text": [
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_6
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908",
"Varese Calcio",
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908",
"Varese Calcio",
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908",
"Varese Calcio"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Oct, 2008?
|
October 10, 2008
|
{
"text": [
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_7
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Jul, 2010?
|
July 12, 2010
|
{
"text": [
"Varese Calcio"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_8
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892",
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Which team did Alessandro Armenise play for in Aug, 2022?
|
August 22, 2022
|
{
"text": [
"F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892"
]
}
|
L2_Q4716291_P54_9
|
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Noicattaro Calcio from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for U.S. Viterbese 1908 from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2006.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Varese Calcio from Jan, 2009 to Jan, 2011.
Alessandro Armenise plays for S.S. Teramo Calcio from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2004.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S. Martina Franca 1947 from Jan, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
Alessandro Armenise plays for Unione Sportiva Catanzaro from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2009.
Alessandro Armenise plays for A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928 from Jan, 2006 to Jan, 2007.
Alessandro Armenise plays for SSC Bari from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2003.
Alessandro Armenise plays for F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892 from Jan, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
|
Alessandro ArmeniseAlessandro Armenise (born 23 October 1984 in Pisa) is an Italian footballer. He plays as a defender.
|
[
"SSC Bari",
"S.S. Teramo Calcio",
"S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924",
"Unione Sportiva Catanzaro",
"A.S. Martina Franca 1947",
"A.S.D. Fidelis Andria 1928",
"A.S. Noicattaro Calcio",
"Varese Calcio",
"U.S. Viterbese 1908"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Oct, 1927?
|
October 10, 1927
|
{
"text": [
"Joseph Stalin"
]
}
|
L2_Q79854_P488_0
|
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
|
Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
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[
"Nikita Khrushchev",
"Konstantin Chernenko",
"Yuri Andropov",
"Mikhail Gorbachev",
"Volodymyr Ivashko",
"Leonid Brezhnev"
] |
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Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Dec, 1960?
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December 31, 1960
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{
"text": [
"Nikita Khrushchev"
]
}
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L2_Q79854_P488_1
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Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
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Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
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[
"Joseph Stalin",
"Konstantin Chernenko",
"Yuri Andropov",
"Mikhail Gorbachev",
"Volodymyr Ivashko",
"Leonid Brezhnev"
] |
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Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Jan, 1981?
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January 19, 1981
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{
"text": [
"Leonid Brezhnev"
]
}
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L2_Q79854_P488_2
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Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
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Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
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[
"Nikita Khrushchev",
"Joseph Stalin",
"Konstantin Chernenko",
"Yuri Andropov",
"Mikhail Gorbachev",
"Volodymyr Ivashko"
] |
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Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Oct, 1983?
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October 07, 1983
|
{
"text": [
"Yuri Andropov"
]
}
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L2_Q79854_P488_3
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Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
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Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
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[
"Nikita Khrushchev",
"Joseph Stalin",
"Konstantin Chernenko",
"Mikhail Gorbachev",
"Volodymyr Ivashko",
"Leonid Brezhnev"
] |
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Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Dec, 1984?
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December 18, 1984
|
{
"text": [
"Konstantin Chernenko"
]
}
|
L2_Q79854_P488_4
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Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
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Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
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[
"Nikita Khrushchev",
"Joseph Stalin",
"Yuri Andropov",
"Mikhail Gorbachev",
"Volodymyr Ivashko",
"Leonid Brezhnev"
] |
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Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Apr, 1988?
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April 14, 1988
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{
"text": [
"Mikhail Gorbachev"
]
}
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L2_Q79854_P488_5
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Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
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Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
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[
"Nikita Khrushchev",
"Joseph Stalin",
"Konstantin Chernenko",
"Yuri Andropov",
"Volodymyr Ivashko",
"Leonid Brezhnev"
] |
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Who was the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Sep, 1991?
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September 09, 1991
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{
"text": [
"Volodymyr Ivashko"
]
}
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L2_Q79854_P488_6
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Konstantin Chernenko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Feb, 1984 to Mar, 1985.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Mar, 1985 to Aug, 1991.
Volodymyr Ivashko is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Aug, 1991 to Nov, 1991.
Nikita Khrushchev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Sep, 1953 to Oct, 1964.
Yuri Andropov is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Nov, 1982 to Feb, 1984.
Joseph Stalin is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Apr, 1922 to Sep, 1953.
Leonid Brezhnev is the chair of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Oct, 1964 to Nov, 1982.
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Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.The party started in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903 that party split into a Menshevik (minority) and Bolshevik (majority) faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by old-line CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, (previously the Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the "de facto" chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become a practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism, a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, and Lenin, became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War, reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev. By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War, and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in the economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin, and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in the direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of "perestroika", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free-market economy of the successor Russian Federation.A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that "perestroika" without "glasnost" was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day.The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the February Revolution, the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.With Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918, reigned 1894-1917), deposed in February 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War. In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.In the aftermath of the October Revolution, the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.In 1921, as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led western countries, such as the United States, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church, which had long been a political arm of tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to the international community. The western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invading the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the Great Patriotic War.The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947.In 1949, the Communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the western powers, fueling the Cold War. In Europe, Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, acquired the territory of Trieste, causing conflict both with the western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the Greek Communists during their civil war, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a Tito–Stalin Split, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.After Stalin's death, Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "socialism with a human face", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.During his rule, Brezhnev supported "détente", a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November.Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev, Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of "glasnost" (, meaning "openness" or "transparency") in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin's dismissal as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives - Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy.The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power by . From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Following this, the central party apparatus didn't play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.On 30 November 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court not only upheld this decree but barred the CPSU from ever being refounded. It accepted Yeltsin's argument that the CPSU was not a true party, but a criminal organization that had ruled the Soviet Union as a dictatorship in violation of the Soviet Constitution.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a cult of personality. Collective leadership split power between the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois defamation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the Communist International (Comintern).A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions. According to Lenin, the Party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the Party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "The Personality Cult and its Consequences".Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.The Central Committee was a collective body elected at the annual party congress. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretarythe "de facto" leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partythe forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally "majority") and Mensheviks (literally "minority"). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress. At the 11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled "First Secretary" between 1952 and 1966.The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko, Fyodor Kulakov and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee, Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.Until 1990, the CPSU General Secretary acted as the informal chairman of the Politburo. During the first decades of the CPSU's existence, the Politburo was officially chaired by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; first by Lenin, then by Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded Nikolai Bulganin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" () in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" () of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the 9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of factionalism and bureaucratism. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus. The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the nomenklatura system. The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy. Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year. Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc. The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the perestroika process. In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988."Pravda" ("The Truth") was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss "Pravda" editors. In 1905, "Pravda" began as a project by members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party. Leon Trotsky was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper "Kyivan Thought". The first issue of "Pravda" was published on 3 October 1908 in Lvov, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. During the Russian Civil War, sales of "Pravda" were curtailed by "Izvestia", the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for "Pravda" was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called "Pravda", which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the bourgeoisie. In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million. It's currently owned by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union. It was the successor of the Communist Academy, which was established in 1918. The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside Moscow was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.The lowest organ above the primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "raion" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party discipline – or had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" (общественная работа).In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the Lenin Enrolment, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million members,approximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the Congress, followed by the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Politburo. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The First Secretary and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the Party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed state atheism; Party members were not allowed to be religious.Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.Stalinism, while not an ideology "per se", refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessments dictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the Party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the Party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]". In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' "has no other meaning but this".Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through class struggle. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the Party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the Party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the Party and the proletariat. In a meeting with Party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we [the Party] do not promise any democracy or any freedom".The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, "" (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century. Eduard Bernstein from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections. Karl Kautsky, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.The1986 Party Program claimed the tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars, economic recessions, and exploitation of the working class, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, with the 1905 Russian Revolution presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace.""Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet "Lessons of October", in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharintogether with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a Party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels' writings on the subject. Stalin countered that Engels' writings reflected "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries". From 1925, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject and in 1926, Stalin wrote "On Questions of Leninism", which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of "Leninism", Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labor to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs. The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary. His policies of "perestroika" and "glasnost" tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country. Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule. These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union. Archie Brown said:The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' [Eastern Europe], and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did. The democratization from above weakened the Party's control over the country and put it on the defensive. Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform. Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics". According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the Communist Party of China (CPC) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CPC's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CPC officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism. Xu Zhixin from the CASS Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CPC argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".While most CPC researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing centralism, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the Party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CPC researcher Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true Marxism–Leninism." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it. Yu Sui, a CPC theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible, [for having a] bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.While the CPC concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The CPC Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party "needed transformation"—but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with Milovan Đilas assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a Party (and state) institution. The CPC criticizes the CPSU of pursuing Soviet imperialism in its foreign policies.
|
[
"Nikita Khrushchev",
"Joseph Stalin",
"Konstantin Chernenko",
"Yuri Andropov",
"Mikhail Gorbachev",
"Leonid Brezhnev"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Aug, 1985?
|
August 21, 1985
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_0
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Oct, 1988?
|
October 14, 1988
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_1
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Jul, 1993?
|
July 21, 1993
|
{
"text": [
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_2
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Dec, 1992?
|
December 27, 1992
|
{
"text": [
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_3
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Apr, 1995?
|
April 08, 1995
|
{
"text": [
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_4
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in May, 1999?
|
May 01, 1999
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_5
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Aug, 2002?
|
August 01, 2002
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Chief Whip"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_6
|
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Dec, 2004?
|
December 24, 2004
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Chief Whip"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_7
|
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Oct, 2007?
|
October 11, 2007
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_8
|
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in Jan, 2021?
|
January 12, 2021
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_9
|
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
|
David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
|
Which position did David Maclean hold in May, 2022?
|
May 06, 2022
|
{
"text": [
"Member of the House of Lords",
"Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe"
]
}
|
L2_Q1175443_P39_10
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David Maclean holds the position of Chief Whip from Sep, 2001 to Dec, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 1987 to Mar, 1992.
David Maclean holds the position of Substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jul, 1983 to May, 1987.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 1997 to May, 2001.
David Maclean holds the position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May, 1993 to May, 1997.
David Maclean holds the position of Secretary of State for the Environment from Apr, 1992 to May, 1993.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom from Jun, 2001 to Apr, 2005.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the House of Lords from Feb, 2011 to Dec, 2022.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom from May, 2005 to Apr, 2010.
David Maclean holds the position of Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom from Apr, 1992 to Apr, 1997.
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David MacleanDavid John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010.Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Maclean has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October.In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990.After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, and in 1993, he was moved to the post of Minister of State at the Home Office, a position he held until the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election. He turned down an offer to join the Cabinet, probably as Minister for Agriculture, in 1995, stating that he was 'a round peg in a round hole'.Under William Hague's leadership in opposition, he returned to the backbenches until 2001, when the new leader Iain Duncan Smith promoted him to opposition Chief Whip. When Duncan Smith lost a vote of confidence in 2003, Maclean tendered his resignation but was reappointed to the position under new leader Michael Howard. He returned to the back benches when David Cameron was elected as leader in 2005.During the 2005 general election and since, he has worked extensively with the pro hunting group Vote-OK, with the aim of returning a Conservative Government in order to have the Hunting Act 2004 repealed.Maclean made the headlines in 2007, when he proposed a private members bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill.Maclean said that "My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential." The Bill was passed by the House of Commons on 18 May 2007, but has so far failed to find a sponsor in the House of Lords.A report by the House of Lords "Select Committee on the Constitution", published on 20 June 2007, said the Bill "does not meet the requirements of caution and proportionality in enacting legislation of constitutional importance."In its report the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons said "we have been sent no evidence indicating a need for such an exemption or that existing protections for constituents' correspondence were inadequate." Gordon Brown's green paper on constitutional reform, 'The Governance of Britain', says "It is right that Parliament should be covered by the Act", indicating that the Bill's main proposal will not become law.On 26 June 2009, Maclean told his constituency Conservative Association that he would not stand at the following election, because of worsening multiple sclerosis.Maclean was reported in "The Daily Telegraph" as having spent more than £20,000 improving his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) scheme before selling it for £750,000. He claimed the money by designating the property as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.Maclean was one of 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret.On 28 February 2011, Maclean was created a life peer, as Baron Blencathra, "of Penrith in the County of Cumbria", and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 10 March 2011, where he sits as a Conservative. In 2010, Maclean was played by Sam Graham, in the television film "On Expenses". Four years later he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct of the Lords in his dealings with the government of the Cayman Islands.
|
[
"Chief Whip",
"Secretary of State for the Environment",
"Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department",
"Member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 53rd Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom",
"Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom"
] |
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Where was Alexander Grothendieck educated in Nov, 1945?
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November 05, 1945
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{
"text": [
"University of Montpellier"
]
}
|
L2_Q77141_P69_0
|
Alexander Grothendieck attended University of Montpellier from Jan, 1945 to Jan, 1948.
Alexander Grothendieck attended École normale supérieure (Paris) from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1949.
Alexander Grothendieck attended Nancy-Université from Jan, 1949 to Jan, 1953.
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Alexander GrothendieckAlexander Grothendieck (; ; ; 28 March 1928 – 13 November 2014) was a mathematician who became the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. His research extended the scope of the field and added elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory and category theory to its foundations, while his so-called "relative" perspective led to revolutionary advances in many areas of pure mathematics. He is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century.Born in Germany, Grothendieck was raised and lived primarily in France, and he and his family were persecuted by the Nazi regime. For much of his working life, however, he was, in effect, stateless. As he consistently spelled his first name "Alexander" rather than "Alexandre" and his surname, taken from his mother, was the Dutch-like Low German "Grothendieck", he was sometimes mistakenly believed to be of Dutch origin.Grothendieck began his productive and public career as a mathematician in 1949. In 1958, he was appointed a research professor at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS) and remained there until 1970, when, driven by personal and political convictions, he left following a dispute over military funding. He received his Fields Medal in 1966 for advances in algebraic geometry, homological algebra, and K-theory. He later became professor at the University of Montpellier and, while still producing relevant mathematical work, he withdrew from the mathematical community and devoted himself to political and religious pursuits (first Buddhism and later a more Christian vision). In 1991, he moved to the French village of Lasserre in the Pyrenees, where he lived in seclusion, still working tirelessly on mathematics until his death in 2014.Grothendieck was born in Berlin to anarchist parents. His father, Alexander "Sascha" Schapiro (also known as Alexander Tanaroff), had Hasidic Jewish roots and had been imprisoned in Russia before moving to Germany in 1922, while his mother, Johanna "Hanka" Grothendieck, came from a Protestant family in Hamburg and worked as a journalist. Both had broken away from their early backgrounds in their teens. At the time of his birth, Grothendieck's mother was married to the journalist Johannes Raddatz and his birth name was initially recorded as "Alexander Raddatz." The marriage was dissolved in 1929 and Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity, but never married Hanka.Grothendieck lived with his parents in Berlin until the end of 1933, when his father moved to Paris to evade Nazism, followed soon thereafter by his mother. They left Grothendieck in the care of Wilhelm Heydorn, a Lutheran pastor and teacher in Hamburg. During this time, his parents took part in the Spanish Civil War, according to Winfried Scharlau, as non-combatant auxiliaries, though others state that Sascha fought in the anarchist militia.In May 1939, Grothendieck was put on a train in Hamburg for France. Shortly afterwards his father was interned in Le Vernet. He and his mother were then interned in various camps from 1940 to 1942 as "undesirable dangerous foreigners". The first was the Rieucros Camp, where his mother contracted the tuberculosis which eventually caused her death and where Alexander managed to attend the local school, at Mende. Once Alexander managed to escape from the camp, intending to assassinate Hitler. Later, his mother Hanka was transferred to the Gurs internment camp for the remainder of World War II. Alexander was permitted to live, separated from his mother, in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, sheltered and hidden in local boarding houses or pensions, though he occasionally had to seek refuge in the woods during Nazis raids, surviving at times without food or water for several days. His father was arrested under the Vichy anti-Jewish legislation, and sent to the Drancy, and then handed over by the French Vichy government to the Germans to be sent to be murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. In Chambon, Grothendieck attended the Collège Cévenol (now known as the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International), a unique secondary school founded in 1938 by local Protestant pacifists and anti-war activists. Many of the refugee children hidden in Chambon attended Cévenol, and it was at this school that Grothendieck apparently first became fascinated with mathematics.After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier where he did not initially perform well, failing such classes as astronomy. Working on his own, he rediscovered the Lebesgue measure. After three years of increasingly independent studies there, he went to continue his studies in Paris in 1948.Initially, Grothendieck attended Henri Cartan's Seminar at École Normale Supérieure, but he lacked the necessary background to follow the high-powered seminar. On the advice of Cartan and André Weil, he moved to the University of Nancy where two leading experts were working on Grothendieck's area of interest, Topological Vector Spaces: Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. The latter had recently won a Fields Medal. He showed his new student his latest paper; it ended with a list of 14 open questions, relevant for locally convex spaces. Grothendieck introduced new methods, which allowed him to solve all these problems within a few months.In Nancy, he wrote his dissertation under those two professors on functional analysis, from 1950 to 1953. At this time he was a leading expert in the theory of topological vector spaces. From 1953 to 1955 he moved to the University of São Paulo in Brazil, where he immigrated by means of a Nansen passport, given that he refused to take French Nationality. By 1957, he set this subject aside in order to work in algebraic geometry and homological algebra. The same year he was invited to visit Harvard by Oscar Zariski, but the offer fell through when he refused to sign a pledge promising not to work to overthrow the United States government, a position that, he was warned, might have landed him in prison. The prospect did not worry him, as long as he could have access to books.Comparing Grothendieck during his Nancy years to the École Normale Supérieure trained students at that time: Pierre Samuel, Roger Godement, René Thom, Jacques Dixmier, Jean Cerf, Yvonne Bruhat, Jean-Pierre Serre, Bernard Malgrange, Leila Schneps says:His first works on topological vector spaces in 1953 have been successfully applied to physics and computer science, culminating in a relation between Grothendieck inequality and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox in quantum physics.In 1958, Grothendieck was installed at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS), a new privately funded research institute that, in effect, had been created for Jean Dieudonné and Grothendieck. Grothendieck attracted attention by an intense and highly productive activity of seminars there ("de facto" working groups drafting into foundational work some of the ablest French and other mathematicians of the younger generation). Grothendieck himself practically ceased publication of papers through the conventional, learned journal route. He was, however, able to play a dominant role in mathematics for around a decade, gathering a strong school.During this time, he had officially as students Michel Demazure (who worked on SGA3, on group schemes), Luc Illusie (cotangent complex), Michel Raynaud, Jean-Louis Verdier (cofounder of the derived category theory) and Pierre Deligne. Collaborators on the SGA projects also included Michael Artin (étale cohomology) and Nick Katz (monodromy theory and Lefschetz pencils). Jean Giraud worked out torsor theory extensions of nonabelian cohomology. Many others like David Mumford, Robin Hartshorne, Barry Mazur and C.P. Ramanujam were also involved.Alexander Grothendieck's work during the "Golden Age" period at the IHÉS established several unifying themes in algebraic geometry, number theory, topology, category theory and complex analysis. His first (pre-IHÉS) discovery in algebraic geometry was the Grothendieck–Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, a generalisation of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem proved algebraically; in this context he also introduced K-theory. Then, following the programme he outlined in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians, he introduced the theory of schemes, developing it in detail in his "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" ("EGA") and providing the new more flexible and general foundations for algebraic geometry that has been adopted in the field since that time. He went on to introduce the étale cohomology theory of schemes, providing the key tools for proving the Weil conjectures, as well as crystalline cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology to complement it. Closely linked to these cohomology theories, he originated topos theory as a generalisation of topology (relevant also in categorical logic). He also provided an algebraic definition of fundamental groups of schemes and more generally the main structures of a categorical Galois theory. As a framework for his coherent duality theory he also introduced derived categories, which were further developed by Verdier.The results of work on these and other topics were published in the "EGA" and in less polished form in the notes of the "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" ("SGA") that he directed at the IHÉS.Grothendieck's political views were radical and pacifist, and he strongly opposed both United States intervention in Vietnam and Soviet military expansionism. He gave lectures on category theory in the forests surrounding Hanoi while the city was being bombed, to protest against the Vietnam War. He retired from scientific life around 1970, having found out that IHÉS was partly funded by the military. He returned to academia a few years later as a professor at the University of Montpellier.While the issue of military funding was perhaps the most obvious explanation for Grothendieck's departure from the IHÉS, those who knew him say that the causes of the rupture ran deeper. Pierre Cartier, a "visiteur de longue durée" ("long-term guest") at the IHÉS, wrote a piece about Grothendieck for a special volume published on the occasion of the IHÉS's fortieth anniversary. The "Grothendieck Festschrift", published in 1990, was a three-volume collection of research papers to mark his sixtieth birthday in 1988.In it, Cartier notes that as the son of an antimilitary anarchist and one who grew up among the disenfranchised, Grothendieck always had a deep compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. As Cartier puts it, Grothendieck came to find Bures-sur-Yvette ""une cage dorée"" ("a gilded cage"). While Grothendieck was at the IHÉS, opposition to the Vietnam War was heating up, and Cartier suggests that this also reinforced Grothendieck's distaste at having become a mandarin of the scientific world. In addition, after several years at the IHÉS, Grothendieck seemed to cast about for new intellectual interests. By the late 1960s, he had started to become interested in scientific areas outside mathematics. David Ruelle, a physicist who joined the IHÉS faculty in 1964, said that Grothendieck came to talk to him a few times about physics. Biology interested Grothendieck much more than physics, and he organized some seminars on biological topics.In 1970, Grothendieck, with two other mathematicians, Claude Chevalley and Pierre Samuel, created a political group called "Survivre"—the name later changed to "Survivre et vivre". The group published a bulletin and was dedicated to antimilitary and ecological issues, and also developed strong criticism of the indiscriminate use of science and technology. Grothendieck devoted the next three years to this group and served as the main editor of its bulletin.Although Grothendieck continued with mathematical enquiries his standard mathematical career, for the most part, ended when he left the IHÉS. After leaving the IHÉS Grothendieck became a temporary professor at Collège de France for two years. He then became a professor at the University of Montpellier, where he became increasingly estranged from the mathematical community. He formally retired in 1988, a few years after having accepted a research position at the CNRS.While not publishing mathematical research in conventional ways during the 1980s, he produced several influential manuscripts with limited distribution, with both mathematical and biographical content.Produced during 1980 and 1981, "La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois" ("The Long March Through Galois Theory") is a 1600-page handwritten manuscript containing many of the ideas that led to the "Esquisse d'un programme". It also includes a study of Teichmüller theory.In 1983, stimulated by correspondence with Ronald Brown and Tim Porter at Bangor University, Grothendieck wrote a 600-page manuscript titled "Pursuing Stacks", starting with a letter addressed to Daniel Quillen. This letter and successive parts were distributed from Bangor (see External links below). Within these, in an informal, diary-like manner, Grothendieck explained and developed his ideas on the relationship between algebraic homotopy theory and algebraic geometry and prospects for a noncommutative theory of stacks. The manuscript, which is being edited for publication by G. Maltsiniotis, later led to another of his monumental works, "Les Dérivateurs". Written in 1991, this latter opus of about 2000 pages further developed the homotopical ideas begun in "Pursuing Stacks". Much of this work anticipated the subsequent development of the motivic homotopy theory of Fabien Morel and Vladimir Voevodsky in the mid-1990s.In 1984, Grothendieck wrote the proposal "Esquisse d'un Programme" ("Sketch of a Programme") for a position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). It describes new ideas for studying the moduli space of complex curves. Although Grothendieck himself never published his work in this area, the proposal inspired other mathematicians' work by becoming the source of dessin d'enfant theory and Anabelian geometry. It was later published in the two-volume "Geometric Galois Actions" (Cambridge University Press, 1997).During this period, Grothendieck also gave his consent to publishing some of his drafts for EGA on Bertini-type theorems ("EGA" V, published in Ulam Quarterly in 1992-1993 and later made available on the Grothendieck Circle web site in 2004).In the 1,000-page autobiographical manuscript "Récoltes et semailles" (1986) Grothendieck describes his approach to mathematics and his experiences in the mathematical community, a community that initially accepted him in an open and welcoming manner but which he progressively perceived to be governed by competition and status. He complains about what he saw as the "burial" of his work and betrayal by his former students and colleagues after he had left the community. "Récoltes et semailles" work is now available on the internet in the French original, and an English translation is underway. Parts of "Récoltes et semailles" have been translated into Spanish and into Russian and published in Moscow.In 1988 Grothendieck declined the Crafoord Prize with an open letter to the media. He wrote that established mathematicians like himself had no need for additional financial support and criticized what he saw as the declining ethics of the scientific community, characterized by outright scientific theft that, according to him, had become commonplace and tolerated. The letter also expressed his belief that totally unforeseen events before the end of the century would lead to an unprecedented collapse of civilization. Grothendieck added however that his views are "in no way meant as a criticism of the Royal Academy's aims in the administration of its funds" and added "I regret the inconvenience that my refusal to accept the Crafoord prize may have caused you and the Royal Academy.""La Clef des Songes", a 315-page manuscript written in 1987, is Grothendieck's account of how his consideration of the source of dreams led him to conclude that God exists. As part of the notes to this manuscript, Grothendieck described the life and work of 18 "mutants", people whom he admired as visionaries far ahead of their time and heralding a new age. The only mathematician on his list was Bernhard Riemann. Influenced by the Catholic mystic Marthe Robin who was claimed to survive on the Holy Eucharist alone, Grothendieck almost starved himself to death in 1988. His growing preoccupation with spiritual matters was also evident in a letter titled "Lettre de la Bonne Nouvelle" sent to 250 friends in January 1990. In it, he described his encounters with a deity and announced that a "New Age" would commence on 14 October 1996.Over 20,000 pages of Grothendieck's mathematical and other writings, held at the University of Montpellier, remain unpublished. They have been digitized for preservation and are freely available in open access through the Institut Montpelliérain Alexander Grothendieck portal.In 1991, Grothendieck moved to a new address which he did not provide to his previous contacts in the mathematical community. Very few people visited him afterward. Local villagers helped sustain him with a more varied diet after he tried to live on a staple of dandelion soup. At some point, Leila Schneps and Pierre Lochak located him, then carried on a brief correspondence. Thus they became among "the last members of the mathematical establishment to come into contact with him". After his death, it was revealed that he lived alone in a house in Lasserre, Ariège, a small village at the foot of the Pyrenees.In January 2010, Grothendieck wrote the letter "Déclaration d'intention de non-publication" to Luc Illusie, claiming that all materials published in his absence have been published without his permission. He asks that none of his work be reproduced in whole or in part and that copies of this work be removed from libraries. A website devoted to his work was called "an abomination." This order may have been reversed later in 2010.On 13 November 2014, aged 86, Grothendieck died in the hospital of Saint-Girons, Ariège.Grothendieck was born in Weimar Germany. In 1938, aged ten, he moved to France as a refugee. Records of his nationality were destroyed in the fall of Germany in 1945 and he did not apply for French citizenship after the war. He thus became a stateless person for at least the majority of his working life, traveling on a Nansen passport. Part of this reluctance to hold French nationality is attributed to not wishing to serve in the French military, particularly due to the Algerian War (1954–62). He eventually applied for French citizenship in the early 1980s, well past the age that exempted him from military service.Grothendieck was very close to his mother to whom he dedicated his dissertation. She died in 1957 from the tuberculosis that she contracted in camps for displaced persons. He had five children: a son with his landlady during his time in Nancy, three children, Johanna (1959), Alexander (1961) and Mathieu (1965) with his wife Mireille Dufour, and one child with Justine Skalba, with whom he lived in a commune in the early 1970s.Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis. Between 1949 and 1953 he worked on his doctoral thesis in this subject at Nancy, supervised by Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. His key contributions include topological tensor products of topological vector spaces, the theory of nuclear spaces as foundational for Schwartz distributions, and the application of L spaces in studying linear maps between topological vector spaces. In a few years, he had turned himself into a leading authority on this area of functional analysis—to the extent that Dieudonné compares his impact in this field to that of Banach.It is, however, in algebraic geometry and related fields where Grothendieck did his most important and influential work. From about 1955 he started to work on sheaf theory and homological algebra, producing the influential "Tôhoku paper" ("Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique", published in the Tohoku Mathematical Journal in 1957) where he introduced abelian categories and applied their theory to show that sheaf cohomology can be defined as certain derived functors in this context.Homological methods and sheaf theory had already been introduced in algebraic geometry by Jean-Pierre Serre and others, after sheaves had been defined by Jean Leray. Grothendieck took them to a higher level of abstraction and turned them into a key organising principle of his theory. He shifted attention from the study of individual varieties to the "relative point of view" (pairs of varieties related by a morphism), allowing a broad generalization of many classical theorems. The first major application was the relative version of Serre's theorem showing that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf on a complete variety is finite-dimensional; Grothendieck's theorem shows that the higher direct images of coherent sheaves under a proper map are coherent; this reduces to Serre's theorem over a one-point space.In 1956, he applied the same thinking to the Riemann–Roch theorem, which had already recently been generalized to any dimension by Hirzebruch. The Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem was announced by Grothendieck at the initial Mathematische Arbeitstagung in Bonn, in 1957. It appeared in print in a paper written by Armand Borel with Serre. This result was his first work in algebraic geometry. He went on to plan and execute a programme for rebuilding the foundations of algebraic geometry, which were then in a state of flux and under discussion in Claude Chevalley's seminar; he outlined his programme in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians.His foundational work on algebraic geometry is at a higher level of abstraction than all prior versions. He adapted the use of non-closed generic points, which led to the theory of schemes. He also pioneered the systematic use of nilpotents. As 'functions' these can take only the value 0, but they carry infinitesimal information, in purely algebraic settings. His "theory of schemes" has become established as the best universal foundation for this field, because of its expressiveness as well as technical depth. In that setting one can use birational geometry, techniques from number theory, Galois theory and commutative algebra, and close analogues of the methods of algebraic topology, all in an integrated way.He is also noted for his mastery of abstract approaches to mathematics and his perfectionism in matters of formulation and presentation. Relatively little of his work after 1960 was published by the conventional route of the learned journal, circulating initially in duplicated volumes of seminar notes; his influence was to a considerable extent personal. His influence spilled over into many other branches of mathematics, for example the contemporary theory of D-modules. (It also provoked adverse reactions, with many mathematicians seeking out more concrete areas and problems.)The bulk of Grothendieck's published work is collected in the monumental, yet incomplete, "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" ("EGA") and "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" ("SGA"). The collection "Fondements de la Géometrie Algébrique" ("FGA"), which gathers together talks given in the Séminaire Bourbaki, also contains important material.Grothendieck's work includes the invention of the étale and l-adic cohomology theories, which explain an observation of André Weil's that there is a connection between the topological characteristics of a variety and its diophantine (number theoretic) properties. For example, the number of solutions of an equation over a finite field reflects the topological nature of its solutions over the complex numbers. Weil realized that to prove such a connection one needed a new cohomology theory, but neither he nor any other expert saw how to do this until such a theory was found by Grothendieck.This program culminated in the proofs of the Weil conjectures, the last of which was settled by Grothendieck's student Pierre Deligne in the early 1970s after Grothendieck had largely withdrawn from mathematics.In Grothendieck's retrospective "Récoltes et Semailles", he identified twelve of his contributions which he believed qualified as "great ideas". In chronological order, they are:Here the term "yoga" denotes a kind of "meta-theory" that can be used heuristically; Michel Raynaud writes the other terms "Ariadne's thread" and "philosophy" as effective equivalents.Grothendieck wrote that, of these themes, the largest in scope was topoi, as they synthesized algebraic geometry, topology, and arithmetic. The theme that had been most extensively developed was schemes, which were the framework ""par excellence"" for eight of the other themes (all but 1, 5, and 12). Grothendieck wrote that the first and last themes, topological tensor products and regular configurations, were of more modest size than the others. Topological tensor products had played the role of a tool rather than a source of inspiration for further developments; but he expected that regular configurations could not be exhausted within the lifetime of a mathematician who devoted himself to it. He believed that the deepest themes were motives, anabelian geometry, and Galois–Teichmüller theory.Grothendieck is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century. In an obituary David Mumford and John Tate wrote:Although mathematics became more and more abstract and general throughout the 20th century, it was Alexander Grothendieck who was the greatest master of this trend. His unique skill was to eliminate all unnecessary hypotheses and burrow into an area so deeply that its inner patterns on the most abstract level revealed themselves–and then, like a magician, show how the solution of old problems fell out in straightforward ways now that their real nature had been revealed.By the 1970s, Grothendieck's work was seen as influential not only in algebraic geometry, and the allied fields of sheaf theory and homological algebra, but influenced logic, in the field of categorical logic.Grothendieck approached algebraic geometry by clarifying the foundations of the field, and by developing mathematical tools intended to prove a number of notable conjectures. Algebraic geometry has traditionally meant the understanding of geometric objects, such as algebraic curves and surfaces, through the study of the algebraic equations for those objects. Properties of algebraic equations are in turn studied using the techniques of ring theory. In this approach, the properties of a geometric object are related to the properties of an associated ring. The space (e.g., real, complex, or projective) in which the object is defined is extrinsic to the object, while the ring is intrinsic.Grothendieck laid a new foundation for algebraic geometry by making intrinsic spaces ("spectra") and associated rings the primary objects of study. To that end he developed the theory of schemes, which can be informally thought of as topological spaces on which a commutative ring is associated to every open subset of the space. Schemes have become the basic objects of study for practitioners of modern algebraic geometry. Their use as a foundation allowed geometry to absorb technical advances from other fields.His generalization of the classical Riemann-Roch theorem related topological properties of complex algebraic curves to their algebraic structure. The tools he developed to prove this theorem started the study of algebraic and topological K-theory, which study the topological properties of objects by associating them with rings. Topological K-theory was founded by Michael Atiyah and Friedrich Hirzebruch, after direct contact with Grothendieck's ideas at the Bonn Arbeitstagung.Grothendieck's construction of new cohomology theories, which use algebraic techniques to study topological objects, has influenced the development of algebraic number theory, algebraic topology, and representation theory. As part of this project, his creation of topos theory, a category-theoretic generalization of point-set topology, has influenced the fields of set theory and mathematical logic.The Weil conjectures were formulated in the later 1940s as a set of mathematical problems in arithmetic geometry. They describe properties of analytic invariants, called local zeta functions, of the number of points on an algebraic curve or variety of higher dimension. Grothendieck's discovery of the ℓ-adic étale cohomology, the first example of a Weil cohomology theory, opened the way for a proof of the Weil conjectures, ultimately completed in the 1970s by his student Pierre Deligne. Grothendieck's large-scale approach has been called a "visionary program." The ℓ-adic cohomology then became a fundamental tool for number theorists, with applications to the Langlands program.Grothendieck's conjectural theory of motives was intended to be the "ℓ-adic" theory but without the choice of "ℓ", a prime number. It did not provide the intended route to the Weil conjectures, but has been behind modern developments in algebraic K-theory, motivic homotopy theory, and motivic integration. This theory, Daniel Quillen's work, and Grothendieck's theory of Chern classes, are considered the background to the theory of algebraic cobordism, another algebraic analogue of topological ideas.Grothendieck's emphasis on the role of universal properties across varied mathematical structures brought category theory into the mainstream as an organizing principle for mathematics in general. Among its uses, category theory creates a common language for describing similar structures and techniques seen in many different mathematical systems. His notion of abelian category is now the basic object of study in homological algebra. The emergence of a separate mathematical discipline of category theory has been attributed to Grothendieck's influence, though unintentional.The novel "Colonel Lágrimas" ("Colonel Tears" in English, available by Restless Books) by Puerto Rican - Costa Rican writer Carlos Fonseca is a semibiographic novel about Grothendieck.
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[
"École normale supérieure (Paris)",
"Nancy-Université"
] |
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Where was Alexander Grothendieck educated in Feb, 1948?
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February 06, 1948
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{
"text": [
"École normale supérieure (Paris)"
]
}
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L2_Q77141_P69_1
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Alexander Grothendieck attended École normale supérieure (Paris) from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1949.
Alexander Grothendieck attended University of Montpellier from Jan, 1945 to Jan, 1948.
Alexander Grothendieck attended Nancy-Université from Jan, 1949 to Jan, 1953.
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Alexander GrothendieckAlexander Grothendieck (; ; ; 28 March 1928 – 13 November 2014) was a mathematician who became the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. His research extended the scope of the field and added elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory and category theory to its foundations, while his so-called "relative" perspective led to revolutionary advances in many areas of pure mathematics. He is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century.Born in Germany, Grothendieck was raised and lived primarily in France, and he and his family were persecuted by the Nazi regime. For much of his working life, however, he was, in effect, stateless. As he consistently spelled his first name "Alexander" rather than "Alexandre" and his surname, taken from his mother, was the Dutch-like Low German "Grothendieck", he was sometimes mistakenly believed to be of Dutch origin.Grothendieck began his productive and public career as a mathematician in 1949. In 1958, he was appointed a research professor at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS) and remained there until 1970, when, driven by personal and political convictions, he left following a dispute over military funding. He received his Fields Medal in 1966 for advances in algebraic geometry, homological algebra, and K-theory. He later became professor at the University of Montpellier and, while still producing relevant mathematical work, he withdrew from the mathematical community and devoted himself to political and religious pursuits (first Buddhism and later a more Christian vision). In 1991, he moved to the French village of Lasserre in the Pyrenees, where he lived in seclusion, still working tirelessly on mathematics until his death in 2014.Grothendieck was born in Berlin to anarchist parents. His father, Alexander "Sascha" Schapiro (also known as Alexander Tanaroff), had Hasidic Jewish roots and had been imprisoned in Russia before moving to Germany in 1922, while his mother, Johanna "Hanka" Grothendieck, came from a Protestant family in Hamburg and worked as a journalist. Both had broken away from their early backgrounds in their teens. At the time of his birth, Grothendieck's mother was married to the journalist Johannes Raddatz and his birth name was initially recorded as "Alexander Raddatz." The marriage was dissolved in 1929 and Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity, but never married Hanka.Grothendieck lived with his parents in Berlin until the end of 1933, when his father moved to Paris to evade Nazism, followed soon thereafter by his mother. They left Grothendieck in the care of Wilhelm Heydorn, a Lutheran pastor and teacher in Hamburg. During this time, his parents took part in the Spanish Civil War, according to Winfried Scharlau, as non-combatant auxiliaries, though others state that Sascha fought in the anarchist militia.In May 1939, Grothendieck was put on a train in Hamburg for France. Shortly afterwards his father was interned in Le Vernet. He and his mother were then interned in various camps from 1940 to 1942 as "undesirable dangerous foreigners". The first was the Rieucros Camp, where his mother contracted the tuberculosis which eventually caused her death and where Alexander managed to attend the local school, at Mende. Once Alexander managed to escape from the camp, intending to assassinate Hitler. Later, his mother Hanka was transferred to the Gurs internment camp for the remainder of World War II. Alexander was permitted to live, separated from his mother, in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, sheltered and hidden in local boarding houses or pensions, though he occasionally had to seek refuge in the woods during Nazis raids, surviving at times without food or water for several days. His father was arrested under the Vichy anti-Jewish legislation, and sent to the Drancy, and then handed over by the French Vichy government to the Germans to be sent to be murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. In Chambon, Grothendieck attended the Collège Cévenol (now known as the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International), a unique secondary school founded in 1938 by local Protestant pacifists and anti-war activists. Many of the refugee children hidden in Chambon attended Cévenol, and it was at this school that Grothendieck apparently first became fascinated with mathematics.After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier where he did not initially perform well, failing such classes as astronomy. Working on his own, he rediscovered the Lebesgue measure. After three years of increasingly independent studies there, he went to continue his studies in Paris in 1948.Initially, Grothendieck attended Henri Cartan's Seminar at École Normale Supérieure, but he lacked the necessary background to follow the high-powered seminar. On the advice of Cartan and André Weil, he moved to the University of Nancy where two leading experts were working on Grothendieck's area of interest, Topological Vector Spaces: Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. The latter had recently won a Fields Medal. He showed his new student his latest paper; it ended with a list of 14 open questions, relevant for locally convex spaces. Grothendieck introduced new methods, which allowed him to solve all these problems within a few months.In Nancy, he wrote his dissertation under those two professors on functional analysis, from 1950 to 1953. At this time he was a leading expert in the theory of topological vector spaces. From 1953 to 1955 he moved to the University of São Paulo in Brazil, where he immigrated by means of a Nansen passport, given that he refused to take French Nationality. By 1957, he set this subject aside in order to work in algebraic geometry and homological algebra. The same year he was invited to visit Harvard by Oscar Zariski, but the offer fell through when he refused to sign a pledge promising not to work to overthrow the United States government, a position that, he was warned, might have landed him in prison. The prospect did not worry him, as long as he could have access to books.Comparing Grothendieck during his Nancy years to the École Normale Supérieure trained students at that time: Pierre Samuel, Roger Godement, René Thom, Jacques Dixmier, Jean Cerf, Yvonne Bruhat, Jean-Pierre Serre, Bernard Malgrange, Leila Schneps says:His first works on topological vector spaces in 1953 have been successfully applied to physics and computer science, culminating in a relation between Grothendieck inequality and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox in quantum physics.In 1958, Grothendieck was installed at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS), a new privately funded research institute that, in effect, had been created for Jean Dieudonné and Grothendieck. Grothendieck attracted attention by an intense and highly productive activity of seminars there ("de facto" working groups drafting into foundational work some of the ablest French and other mathematicians of the younger generation). Grothendieck himself practically ceased publication of papers through the conventional, learned journal route. He was, however, able to play a dominant role in mathematics for around a decade, gathering a strong school.During this time, he had officially as students Michel Demazure (who worked on SGA3, on group schemes), Luc Illusie (cotangent complex), Michel Raynaud, Jean-Louis Verdier (cofounder of the derived category theory) and Pierre Deligne. Collaborators on the SGA projects also included Michael Artin (étale cohomology) and Nick Katz (monodromy theory and Lefschetz pencils). Jean Giraud worked out torsor theory extensions of nonabelian cohomology. Many others like David Mumford, Robin Hartshorne, Barry Mazur and C.P. Ramanujam were also involved.Alexander Grothendieck's work during the "Golden Age" period at the IHÉS established several unifying themes in algebraic geometry, number theory, topology, category theory and complex analysis. His first (pre-IHÉS) discovery in algebraic geometry was the Grothendieck–Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, a generalisation of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem proved algebraically; in this context he also introduced K-theory. Then, following the programme he outlined in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians, he introduced the theory of schemes, developing it in detail in his "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" ("EGA") and providing the new more flexible and general foundations for algebraic geometry that has been adopted in the field since that time. He went on to introduce the étale cohomology theory of schemes, providing the key tools for proving the Weil conjectures, as well as crystalline cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology to complement it. Closely linked to these cohomology theories, he originated topos theory as a generalisation of topology (relevant also in categorical logic). He also provided an algebraic definition of fundamental groups of schemes and more generally the main structures of a categorical Galois theory. As a framework for his coherent duality theory he also introduced derived categories, which were further developed by Verdier.The results of work on these and other topics were published in the "EGA" and in less polished form in the notes of the "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" ("SGA") that he directed at the IHÉS.Grothendieck's political views were radical and pacifist, and he strongly opposed both United States intervention in Vietnam and Soviet military expansionism. He gave lectures on category theory in the forests surrounding Hanoi while the city was being bombed, to protest against the Vietnam War. He retired from scientific life around 1970, having found out that IHÉS was partly funded by the military. He returned to academia a few years later as a professor at the University of Montpellier.While the issue of military funding was perhaps the most obvious explanation for Grothendieck's departure from the IHÉS, those who knew him say that the causes of the rupture ran deeper. Pierre Cartier, a "visiteur de longue durée" ("long-term guest") at the IHÉS, wrote a piece about Grothendieck for a special volume published on the occasion of the IHÉS's fortieth anniversary. The "Grothendieck Festschrift", published in 1990, was a three-volume collection of research papers to mark his sixtieth birthday in 1988.In it, Cartier notes that as the son of an antimilitary anarchist and one who grew up among the disenfranchised, Grothendieck always had a deep compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. As Cartier puts it, Grothendieck came to find Bures-sur-Yvette ""une cage dorée"" ("a gilded cage"). While Grothendieck was at the IHÉS, opposition to the Vietnam War was heating up, and Cartier suggests that this also reinforced Grothendieck's distaste at having become a mandarin of the scientific world. In addition, after several years at the IHÉS, Grothendieck seemed to cast about for new intellectual interests. By the late 1960s, he had started to become interested in scientific areas outside mathematics. David Ruelle, a physicist who joined the IHÉS faculty in 1964, said that Grothendieck came to talk to him a few times about physics. Biology interested Grothendieck much more than physics, and he organized some seminars on biological topics.In 1970, Grothendieck, with two other mathematicians, Claude Chevalley and Pierre Samuel, created a political group called "Survivre"—the name later changed to "Survivre et vivre". The group published a bulletin and was dedicated to antimilitary and ecological issues, and also developed strong criticism of the indiscriminate use of science and technology. Grothendieck devoted the next three years to this group and served as the main editor of its bulletin.Although Grothendieck continued with mathematical enquiries his standard mathematical career, for the most part, ended when he left the IHÉS. After leaving the IHÉS Grothendieck became a temporary professor at Collège de France for two years. He then became a professor at the University of Montpellier, where he became increasingly estranged from the mathematical community. He formally retired in 1988, a few years after having accepted a research position at the CNRS.While not publishing mathematical research in conventional ways during the 1980s, he produced several influential manuscripts with limited distribution, with both mathematical and biographical content.Produced during 1980 and 1981, "La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois" ("The Long March Through Galois Theory") is a 1600-page handwritten manuscript containing many of the ideas that led to the "Esquisse d'un programme". It also includes a study of Teichmüller theory.In 1983, stimulated by correspondence with Ronald Brown and Tim Porter at Bangor University, Grothendieck wrote a 600-page manuscript titled "Pursuing Stacks", starting with a letter addressed to Daniel Quillen. This letter and successive parts were distributed from Bangor (see External links below). Within these, in an informal, diary-like manner, Grothendieck explained and developed his ideas on the relationship between algebraic homotopy theory and algebraic geometry and prospects for a noncommutative theory of stacks. The manuscript, which is being edited for publication by G. Maltsiniotis, later led to another of his monumental works, "Les Dérivateurs". Written in 1991, this latter opus of about 2000 pages further developed the homotopical ideas begun in "Pursuing Stacks". Much of this work anticipated the subsequent development of the motivic homotopy theory of Fabien Morel and Vladimir Voevodsky in the mid-1990s.In 1984, Grothendieck wrote the proposal "Esquisse d'un Programme" ("Sketch of a Programme") for a position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). It describes new ideas for studying the moduli space of complex curves. Although Grothendieck himself never published his work in this area, the proposal inspired other mathematicians' work by becoming the source of dessin d'enfant theory and Anabelian geometry. It was later published in the two-volume "Geometric Galois Actions" (Cambridge University Press, 1997).During this period, Grothendieck also gave his consent to publishing some of his drafts for EGA on Bertini-type theorems ("EGA" V, published in Ulam Quarterly in 1992-1993 and later made available on the Grothendieck Circle web site in 2004).In the 1,000-page autobiographical manuscript "Récoltes et semailles" (1986) Grothendieck describes his approach to mathematics and his experiences in the mathematical community, a community that initially accepted him in an open and welcoming manner but which he progressively perceived to be governed by competition and status. He complains about what he saw as the "burial" of his work and betrayal by his former students and colleagues after he had left the community. "Récoltes et semailles" work is now available on the internet in the French original, and an English translation is underway. Parts of "Récoltes et semailles" have been translated into Spanish and into Russian and published in Moscow.In 1988 Grothendieck declined the Crafoord Prize with an open letter to the media. He wrote that established mathematicians like himself had no need for additional financial support and criticized what he saw as the declining ethics of the scientific community, characterized by outright scientific theft that, according to him, had become commonplace and tolerated. The letter also expressed his belief that totally unforeseen events before the end of the century would lead to an unprecedented collapse of civilization. Grothendieck added however that his views are "in no way meant as a criticism of the Royal Academy's aims in the administration of its funds" and added "I regret the inconvenience that my refusal to accept the Crafoord prize may have caused you and the Royal Academy.""La Clef des Songes", a 315-page manuscript written in 1987, is Grothendieck's account of how his consideration of the source of dreams led him to conclude that God exists. As part of the notes to this manuscript, Grothendieck described the life and work of 18 "mutants", people whom he admired as visionaries far ahead of their time and heralding a new age. The only mathematician on his list was Bernhard Riemann. Influenced by the Catholic mystic Marthe Robin who was claimed to survive on the Holy Eucharist alone, Grothendieck almost starved himself to death in 1988. His growing preoccupation with spiritual matters was also evident in a letter titled "Lettre de la Bonne Nouvelle" sent to 250 friends in January 1990. In it, he described his encounters with a deity and announced that a "New Age" would commence on 14 October 1996.Over 20,000 pages of Grothendieck's mathematical and other writings, held at the University of Montpellier, remain unpublished. They have been digitized for preservation and are freely available in open access through the Institut Montpelliérain Alexander Grothendieck portal.In 1991, Grothendieck moved to a new address which he did not provide to his previous contacts in the mathematical community. Very few people visited him afterward. Local villagers helped sustain him with a more varied diet after he tried to live on a staple of dandelion soup. At some point, Leila Schneps and Pierre Lochak located him, then carried on a brief correspondence. Thus they became among "the last members of the mathematical establishment to come into contact with him". After his death, it was revealed that he lived alone in a house in Lasserre, Ariège, a small village at the foot of the Pyrenees.In January 2010, Grothendieck wrote the letter "Déclaration d'intention de non-publication" to Luc Illusie, claiming that all materials published in his absence have been published without his permission. He asks that none of his work be reproduced in whole or in part and that copies of this work be removed from libraries. A website devoted to his work was called "an abomination." This order may have been reversed later in 2010.On 13 November 2014, aged 86, Grothendieck died in the hospital of Saint-Girons, Ariège.Grothendieck was born in Weimar Germany. In 1938, aged ten, he moved to France as a refugee. Records of his nationality were destroyed in the fall of Germany in 1945 and he did not apply for French citizenship after the war. He thus became a stateless person for at least the majority of his working life, traveling on a Nansen passport. Part of this reluctance to hold French nationality is attributed to not wishing to serve in the French military, particularly due to the Algerian War (1954–62). He eventually applied for French citizenship in the early 1980s, well past the age that exempted him from military service.Grothendieck was very close to his mother to whom he dedicated his dissertation. She died in 1957 from the tuberculosis that she contracted in camps for displaced persons. He had five children: a son with his landlady during his time in Nancy, three children, Johanna (1959), Alexander (1961) and Mathieu (1965) with his wife Mireille Dufour, and one child with Justine Skalba, with whom he lived in a commune in the early 1970s.Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis. Between 1949 and 1953 he worked on his doctoral thesis in this subject at Nancy, supervised by Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. His key contributions include topological tensor products of topological vector spaces, the theory of nuclear spaces as foundational for Schwartz distributions, and the application of L spaces in studying linear maps between topological vector spaces. In a few years, he had turned himself into a leading authority on this area of functional analysis—to the extent that Dieudonné compares his impact in this field to that of Banach.It is, however, in algebraic geometry and related fields where Grothendieck did his most important and influential work. From about 1955 he started to work on sheaf theory and homological algebra, producing the influential "Tôhoku paper" ("Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique", published in the Tohoku Mathematical Journal in 1957) where he introduced abelian categories and applied their theory to show that sheaf cohomology can be defined as certain derived functors in this context.Homological methods and sheaf theory had already been introduced in algebraic geometry by Jean-Pierre Serre and others, after sheaves had been defined by Jean Leray. Grothendieck took them to a higher level of abstraction and turned them into a key organising principle of his theory. He shifted attention from the study of individual varieties to the "relative point of view" (pairs of varieties related by a morphism), allowing a broad generalization of many classical theorems. The first major application was the relative version of Serre's theorem showing that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf on a complete variety is finite-dimensional; Grothendieck's theorem shows that the higher direct images of coherent sheaves under a proper map are coherent; this reduces to Serre's theorem over a one-point space.In 1956, he applied the same thinking to the Riemann–Roch theorem, which had already recently been generalized to any dimension by Hirzebruch. The Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem was announced by Grothendieck at the initial Mathematische Arbeitstagung in Bonn, in 1957. It appeared in print in a paper written by Armand Borel with Serre. This result was his first work in algebraic geometry. He went on to plan and execute a programme for rebuilding the foundations of algebraic geometry, which were then in a state of flux and under discussion in Claude Chevalley's seminar; he outlined his programme in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians.His foundational work on algebraic geometry is at a higher level of abstraction than all prior versions. He adapted the use of non-closed generic points, which led to the theory of schemes. He also pioneered the systematic use of nilpotents. As 'functions' these can take only the value 0, but they carry infinitesimal information, in purely algebraic settings. His "theory of schemes" has become established as the best universal foundation for this field, because of its expressiveness as well as technical depth. In that setting one can use birational geometry, techniques from number theory, Galois theory and commutative algebra, and close analogues of the methods of algebraic topology, all in an integrated way.He is also noted for his mastery of abstract approaches to mathematics and his perfectionism in matters of formulation and presentation. Relatively little of his work after 1960 was published by the conventional route of the learned journal, circulating initially in duplicated volumes of seminar notes; his influence was to a considerable extent personal. His influence spilled over into many other branches of mathematics, for example the contemporary theory of D-modules. (It also provoked adverse reactions, with many mathematicians seeking out more concrete areas and problems.)The bulk of Grothendieck's published work is collected in the monumental, yet incomplete, "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" ("EGA") and "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" ("SGA"). The collection "Fondements de la Géometrie Algébrique" ("FGA"), which gathers together talks given in the Séminaire Bourbaki, also contains important material.Grothendieck's work includes the invention of the étale and l-adic cohomology theories, which explain an observation of André Weil's that there is a connection between the topological characteristics of a variety and its diophantine (number theoretic) properties. For example, the number of solutions of an equation over a finite field reflects the topological nature of its solutions over the complex numbers. Weil realized that to prove such a connection one needed a new cohomology theory, but neither he nor any other expert saw how to do this until such a theory was found by Grothendieck.This program culminated in the proofs of the Weil conjectures, the last of which was settled by Grothendieck's student Pierre Deligne in the early 1970s after Grothendieck had largely withdrawn from mathematics.In Grothendieck's retrospective "Récoltes et Semailles", he identified twelve of his contributions which he believed qualified as "great ideas". In chronological order, they are:Here the term "yoga" denotes a kind of "meta-theory" that can be used heuristically; Michel Raynaud writes the other terms "Ariadne's thread" and "philosophy" as effective equivalents.Grothendieck wrote that, of these themes, the largest in scope was topoi, as they synthesized algebraic geometry, topology, and arithmetic. The theme that had been most extensively developed was schemes, which were the framework ""par excellence"" for eight of the other themes (all but 1, 5, and 12). Grothendieck wrote that the first and last themes, topological tensor products and regular configurations, were of more modest size than the others. Topological tensor products had played the role of a tool rather than a source of inspiration for further developments; but he expected that regular configurations could not be exhausted within the lifetime of a mathematician who devoted himself to it. He believed that the deepest themes were motives, anabelian geometry, and Galois–Teichmüller theory.Grothendieck is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century. In an obituary David Mumford and John Tate wrote:Although mathematics became more and more abstract and general throughout the 20th century, it was Alexander Grothendieck who was the greatest master of this trend. His unique skill was to eliminate all unnecessary hypotheses and burrow into an area so deeply that its inner patterns on the most abstract level revealed themselves–and then, like a magician, show how the solution of old problems fell out in straightforward ways now that their real nature had been revealed.By the 1970s, Grothendieck's work was seen as influential not only in algebraic geometry, and the allied fields of sheaf theory and homological algebra, but influenced logic, in the field of categorical logic.Grothendieck approached algebraic geometry by clarifying the foundations of the field, and by developing mathematical tools intended to prove a number of notable conjectures. Algebraic geometry has traditionally meant the understanding of geometric objects, such as algebraic curves and surfaces, through the study of the algebraic equations for those objects. Properties of algebraic equations are in turn studied using the techniques of ring theory. In this approach, the properties of a geometric object are related to the properties of an associated ring. The space (e.g., real, complex, or projective) in which the object is defined is extrinsic to the object, while the ring is intrinsic.Grothendieck laid a new foundation for algebraic geometry by making intrinsic spaces ("spectra") and associated rings the primary objects of study. To that end he developed the theory of schemes, which can be informally thought of as topological spaces on which a commutative ring is associated to every open subset of the space. Schemes have become the basic objects of study for practitioners of modern algebraic geometry. Their use as a foundation allowed geometry to absorb technical advances from other fields.His generalization of the classical Riemann-Roch theorem related topological properties of complex algebraic curves to their algebraic structure. The tools he developed to prove this theorem started the study of algebraic and topological K-theory, which study the topological properties of objects by associating them with rings. Topological K-theory was founded by Michael Atiyah and Friedrich Hirzebruch, after direct contact with Grothendieck's ideas at the Bonn Arbeitstagung.Grothendieck's construction of new cohomology theories, which use algebraic techniques to study topological objects, has influenced the development of algebraic number theory, algebraic topology, and representation theory. As part of this project, his creation of topos theory, a category-theoretic generalization of point-set topology, has influenced the fields of set theory and mathematical logic.The Weil conjectures were formulated in the later 1940s as a set of mathematical problems in arithmetic geometry. They describe properties of analytic invariants, called local zeta functions, of the number of points on an algebraic curve or variety of higher dimension. Grothendieck's discovery of the ℓ-adic étale cohomology, the first example of a Weil cohomology theory, opened the way for a proof of the Weil conjectures, ultimately completed in the 1970s by his student Pierre Deligne. Grothendieck's large-scale approach has been called a "visionary program." The ℓ-adic cohomology then became a fundamental tool for number theorists, with applications to the Langlands program.Grothendieck's conjectural theory of motives was intended to be the "ℓ-adic" theory but without the choice of "ℓ", a prime number. It did not provide the intended route to the Weil conjectures, but has been behind modern developments in algebraic K-theory, motivic homotopy theory, and motivic integration. This theory, Daniel Quillen's work, and Grothendieck's theory of Chern classes, are considered the background to the theory of algebraic cobordism, another algebraic analogue of topological ideas.Grothendieck's emphasis on the role of universal properties across varied mathematical structures brought category theory into the mainstream as an organizing principle for mathematics in general. Among its uses, category theory creates a common language for describing similar structures and techniques seen in many different mathematical systems. His notion of abelian category is now the basic object of study in homological algebra. The emergence of a separate mathematical discipline of category theory has been attributed to Grothendieck's influence, though unintentional.The novel "Colonel Lágrimas" ("Colonel Tears" in English, available by Restless Books) by Puerto Rican - Costa Rican writer Carlos Fonseca is a semibiographic novel about Grothendieck.
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[
"University of Montpellier",
"Nancy-Université"
] |
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Where was Alexander Grothendieck educated in Mar, 1949?
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March 17, 1949
|
{
"text": [
"Nancy-Université"
]
}
|
L2_Q77141_P69_2
|
Alexander Grothendieck attended University of Montpellier from Jan, 1945 to Jan, 1948.
Alexander Grothendieck attended Nancy-Université from Jan, 1949 to Jan, 1953.
Alexander Grothendieck attended École normale supérieure (Paris) from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1949.
|
Alexander GrothendieckAlexander Grothendieck (; ; ; 28 March 1928 – 13 November 2014) was a mathematician who became the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. His research extended the scope of the field and added elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory and category theory to its foundations, while his so-called "relative" perspective led to revolutionary advances in many areas of pure mathematics. He is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century.Born in Germany, Grothendieck was raised and lived primarily in France, and he and his family were persecuted by the Nazi regime. For much of his working life, however, he was, in effect, stateless. As he consistently spelled his first name "Alexander" rather than "Alexandre" and his surname, taken from his mother, was the Dutch-like Low German "Grothendieck", he was sometimes mistakenly believed to be of Dutch origin.Grothendieck began his productive and public career as a mathematician in 1949. In 1958, he was appointed a research professor at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS) and remained there until 1970, when, driven by personal and political convictions, he left following a dispute over military funding. He received his Fields Medal in 1966 for advances in algebraic geometry, homological algebra, and K-theory. He later became professor at the University of Montpellier and, while still producing relevant mathematical work, he withdrew from the mathematical community and devoted himself to political and religious pursuits (first Buddhism and later a more Christian vision). In 1991, he moved to the French village of Lasserre in the Pyrenees, where he lived in seclusion, still working tirelessly on mathematics until his death in 2014.Grothendieck was born in Berlin to anarchist parents. His father, Alexander "Sascha" Schapiro (also known as Alexander Tanaroff), had Hasidic Jewish roots and had been imprisoned in Russia before moving to Germany in 1922, while his mother, Johanna "Hanka" Grothendieck, came from a Protestant family in Hamburg and worked as a journalist. Both had broken away from their early backgrounds in their teens. At the time of his birth, Grothendieck's mother was married to the journalist Johannes Raddatz and his birth name was initially recorded as "Alexander Raddatz." The marriage was dissolved in 1929 and Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity, but never married Hanka.Grothendieck lived with his parents in Berlin until the end of 1933, when his father moved to Paris to evade Nazism, followed soon thereafter by his mother. They left Grothendieck in the care of Wilhelm Heydorn, a Lutheran pastor and teacher in Hamburg. During this time, his parents took part in the Spanish Civil War, according to Winfried Scharlau, as non-combatant auxiliaries, though others state that Sascha fought in the anarchist militia.In May 1939, Grothendieck was put on a train in Hamburg for France. Shortly afterwards his father was interned in Le Vernet. He and his mother were then interned in various camps from 1940 to 1942 as "undesirable dangerous foreigners". The first was the Rieucros Camp, where his mother contracted the tuberculosis which eventually caused her death and where Alexander managed to attend the local school, at Mende. Once Alexander managed to escape from the camp, intending to assassinate Hitler. Later, his mother Hanka was transferred to the Gurs internment camp for the remainder of World War II. Alexander was permitted to live, separated from his mother, in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, sheltered and hidden in local boarding houses or pensions, though he occasionally had to seek refuge in the woods during Nazis raids, surviving at times without food or water for several days. His father was arrested under the Vichy anti-Jewish legislation, and sent to the Drancy, and then handed over by the French Vichy government to the Germans to be sent to be murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. In Chambon, Grothendieck attended the Collège Cévenol (now known as the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International), a unique secondary school founded in 1938 by local Protestant pacifists and anti-war activists. Many of the refugee children hidden in Chambon attended Cévenol, and it was at this school that Grothendieck apparently first became fascinated with mathematics.After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier where he did not initially perform well, failing such classes as astronomy. Working on his own, he rediscovered the Lebesgue measure. After three years of increasingly independent studies there, he went to continue his studies in Paris in 1948.Initially, Grothendieck attended Henri Cartan's Seminar at École Normale Supérieure, but he lacked the necessary background to follow the high-powered seminar. On the advice of Cartan and André Weil, he moved to the University of Nancy where two leading experts were working on Grothendieck's area of interest, Topological Vector Spaces: Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. The latter had recently won a Fields Medal. He showed his new student his latest paper; it ended with a list of 14 open questions, relevant for locally convex spaces. Grothendieck introduced new methods, which allowed him to solve all these problems within a few months.In Nancy, he wrote his dissertation under those two professors on functional analysis, from 1950 to 1953. At this time he was a leading expert in the theory of topological vector spaces. From 1953 to 1955 he moved to the University of São Paulo in Brazil, where he immigrated by means of a Nansen passport, given that he refused to take French Nationality. By 1957, he set this subject aside in order to work in algebraic geometry and homological algebra. The same year he was invited to visit Harvard by Oscar Zariski, but the offer fell through when he refused to sign a pledge promising not to work to overthrow the United States government, a position that, he was warned, might have landed him in prison. The prospect did not worry him, as long as he could have access to books.Comparing Grothendieck during his Nancy years to the École Normale Supérieure trained students at that time: Pierre Samuel, Roger Godement, René Thom, Jacques Dixmier, Jean Cerf, Yvonne Bruhat, Jean-Pierre Serre, Bernard Malgrange, Leila Schneps says:His first works on topological vector spaces in 1953 have been successfully applied to physics and computer science, culminating in a relation between Grothendieck inequality and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox in quantum physics.In 1958, Grothendieck was installed at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS), a new privately funded research institute that, in effect, had been created for Jean Dieudonné and Grothendieck. Grothendieck attracted attention by an intense and highly productive activity of seminars there ("de facto" working groups drafting into foundational work some of the ablest French and other mathematicians of the younger generation). Grothendieck himself practically ceased publication of papers through the conventional, learned journal route. He was, however, able to play a dominant role in mathematics for around a decade, gathering a strong school.During this time, he had officially as students Michel Demazure (who worked on SGA3, on group schemes), Luc Illusie (cotangent complex), Michel Raynaud, Jean-Louis Verdier (cofounder of the derived category theory) and Pierre Deligne. Collaborators on the SGA projects also included Michael Artin (étale cohomology) and Nick Katz (monodromy theory and Lefschetz pencils). Jean Giraud worked out torsor theory extensions of nonabelian cohomology. Many others like David Mumford, Robin Hartshorne, Barry Mazur and C.P. Ramanujam were also involved.Alexander Grothendieck's work during the "Golden Age" period at the IHÉS established several unifying themes in algebraic geometry, number theory, topology, category theory and complex analysis. His first (pre-IHÉS) discovery in algebraic geometry was the Grothendieck–Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, a generalisation of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem proved algebraically; in this context he also introduced K-theory. Then, following the programme he outlined in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians, he introduced the theory of schemes, developing it in detail in his "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" ("EGA") and providing the new more flexible and general foundations for algebraic geometry that has been adopted in the field since that time. He went on to introduce the étale cohomology theory of schemes, providing the key tools for proving the Weil conjectures, as well as crystalline cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology to complement it. Closely linked to these cohomology theories, he originated topos theory as a generalisation of topology (relevant also in categorical logic). He also provided an algebraic definition of fundamental groups of schemes and more generally the main structures of a categorical Galois theory. As a framework for his coherent duality theory he also introduced derived categories, which were further developed by Verdier.The results of work on these and other topics were published in the "EGA" and in less polished form in the notes of the "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" ("SGA") that he directed at the IHÉS.Grothendieck's political views were radical and pacifist, and he strongly opposed both United States intervention in Vietnam and Soviet military expansionism. He gave lectures on category theory in the forests surrounding Hanoi while the city was being bombed, to protest against the Vietnam War. He retired from scientific life around 1970, having found out that IHÉS was partly funded by the military. He returned to academia a few years later as a professor at the University of Montpellier.While the issue of military funding was perhaps the most obvious explanation for Grothendieck's departure from the IHÉS, those who knew him say that the causes of the rupture ran deeper. Pierre Cartier, a "visiteur de longue durée" ("long-term guest") at the IHÉS, wrote a piece about Grothendieck for a special volume published on the occasion of the IHÉS's fortieth anniversary. The "Grothendieck Festschrift", published in 1990, was a three-volume collection of research papers to mark his sixtieth birthday in 1988.In it, Cartier notes that as the son of an antimilitary anarchist and one who grew up among the disenfranchised, Grothendieck always had a deep compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. As Cartier puts it, Grothendieck came to find Bures-sur-Yvette ""une cage dorée"" ("a gilded cage"). While Grothendieck was at the IHÉS, opposition to the Vietnam War was heating up, and Cartier suggests that this also reinforced Grothendieck's distaste at having become a mandarin of the scientific world. In addition, after several years at the IHÉS, Grothendieck seemed to cast about for new intellectual interests. By the late 1960s, he had started to become interested in scientific areas outside mathematics. David Ruelle, a physicist who joined the IHÉS faculty in 1964, said that Grothendieck came to talk to him a few times about physics. Biology interested Grothendieck much more than physics, and he organized some seminars on biological topics.In 1970, Grothendieck, with two other mathematicians, Claude Chevalley and Pierre Samuel, created a political group called "Survivre"—the name later changed to "Survivre et vivre". The group published a bulletin and was dedicated to antimilitary and ecological issues, and also developed strong criticism of the indiscriminate use of science and technology. Grothendieck devoted the next three years to this group and served as the main editor of its bulletin.Although Grothendieck continued with mathematical enquiries his standard mathematical career, for the most part, ended when he left the IHÉS. After leaving the IHÉS Grothendieck became a temporary professor at Collège de France for two years. He then became a professor at the University of Montpellier, where he became increasingly estranged from the mathematical community. He formally retired in 1988, a few years after having accepted a research position at the CNRS.While not publishing mathematical research in conventional ways during the 1980s, he produced several influential manuscripts with limited distribution, with both mathematical and biographical content.Produced during 1980 and 1981, "La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois" ("The Long March Through Galois Theory") is a 1600-page handwritten manuscript containing many of the ideas that led to the "Esquisse d'un programme". It also includes a study of Teichmüller theory.In 1983, stimulated by correspondence with Ronald Brown and Tim Porter at Bangor University, Grothendieck wrote a 600-page manuscript titled "Pursuing Stacks", starting with a letter addressed to Daniel Quillen. This letter and successive parts were distributed from Bangor (see External links below). Within these, in an informal, diary-like manner, Grothendieck explained and developed his ideas on the relationship between algebraic homotopy theory and algebraic geometry and prospects for a noncommutative theory of stacks. The manuscript, which is being edited for publication by G. Maltsiniotis, later led to another of his monumental works, "Les Dérivateurs". Written in 1991, this latter opus of about 2000 pages further developed the homotopical ideas begun in "Pursuing Stacks". Much of this work anticipated the subsequent development of the motivic homotopy theory of Fabien Morel and Vladimir Voevodsky in the mid-1990s.In 1984, Grothendieck wrote the proposal "Esquisse d'un Programme" ("Sketch of a Programme") for a position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). It describes new ideas for studying the moduli space of complex curves. Although Grothendieck himself never published his work in this area, the proposal inspired other mathematicians' work by becoming the source of dessin d'enfant theory and Anabelian geometry. It was later published in the two-volume "Geometric Galois Actions" (Cambridge University Press, 1997).During this period, Grothendieck also gave his consent to publishing some of his drafts for EGA on Bertini-type theorems ("EGA" V, published in Ulam Quarterly in 1992-1993 and later made available on the Grothendieck Circle web site in 2004).In the 1,000-page autobiographical manuscript "Récoltes et semailles" (1986) Grothendieck describes his approach to mathematics and his experiences in the mathematical community, a community that initially accepted him in an open and welcoming manner but which he progressively perceived to be governed by competition and status. He complains about what he saw as the "burial" of his work and betrayal by his former students and colleagues after he had left the community. "Récoltes et semailles" work is now available on the internet in the French original, and an English translation is underway. Parts of "Récoltes et semailles" have been translated into Spanish and into Russian and published in Moscow.In 1988 Grothendieck declined the Crafoord Prize with an open letter to the media. He wrote that established mathematicians like himself had no need for additional financial support and criticized what he saw as the declining ethics of the scientific community, characterized by outright scientific theft that, according to him, had become commonplace and tolerated. The letter also expressed his belief that totally unforeseen events before the end of the century would lead to an unprecedented collapse of civilization. Grothendieck added however that his views are "in no way meant as a criticism of the Royal Academy's aims in the administration of its funds" and added "I regret the inconvenience that my refusal to accept the Crafoord prize may have caused you and the Royal Academy.""La Clef des Songes", a 315-page manuscript written in 1987, is Grothendieck's account of how his consideration of the source of dreams led him to conclude that God exists. As part of the notes to this manuscript, Grothendieck described the life and work of 18 "mutants", people whom he admired as visionaries far ahead of their time and heralding a new age. The only mathematician on his list was Bernhard Riemann. Influenced by the Catholic mystic Marthe Robin who was claimed to survive on the Holy Eucharist alone, Grothendieck almost starved himself to death in 1988. His growing preoccupation with spiritual matters was also evident in a letter titled "Lettre de la Bonne Nouvelle" sent to 250 friends in January 1990. In it, he described his encounters with a deity and announced that a "New Age" would commence on 14 October 1996.Over 20,000 pages of Grothendieck's mathematical and other writings, held at the University of Montpellier, remain unpublished. They have been digitized for preservation and are freely available in open access through the Institut Montpelliérain Alexander Grothendieck portal.In 1991, Grothendieck moved to a new address which he did not provide to his previous contacts in the mathematical community. Very few people visited him afterward. Local villagers helped sustain him with a more varied diet after he tried to live on a staple of dandelion soup. At some point, Leila Schneps and Pierre Lochak located him, then carried on a brief correspondence. Thus they became among "the last members of the mathematical establishment to come into contact with him". After his death, it was revealed that he lived alone in a house in Lasserre, Ariège, a small village at the foot of the Pyrenees.In January 2010, Grothendieck wrote the letter "Déclaration d'intention de non-publication" to Luc Illusie, claiming that all materials published in his absence have been published without his permission. He asks that none of his work be reproduced in whole or in part and that copies of this work be removed from libraries. A website devoted to his work was called "an abomination." This order may have been reversed later in 2010.On 13 November 2014, aged 86, Grothendieck died in the hospital of Saint-Girons, Ariège.Grothendieck was born in Weimar Germany. In 1938, aged ten, he moved to France as a refugee. Records of his nationality were destroyed in the fall of Germany in 1945 and he did not apply for French citizenship after the war. He thus became a stateless person for at least the majority of his working life, traveling on a Nansen passport. Part of this reluctance to hold French nationality is attributed to not wishing to serve in the French military, particularly due to the Algerian War (1954–62). He eventually applied for French citizenship in the early 1980s, well past the age that exempted him from military service.Grothendieck was very close to his mother to whom he dedicated his dissertation. She died in 1957 from the tuberculosis that she contracted in camps for displaced persons. He had five children: a son with his landlady during his time in Nancy, three children, Johanna (1959), Alexander (1961) and Mathieu (1965) with his wife Mireille Dufour, and one child with Justine Skalba, with whom he lived in a commune in the early 1970s.Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis. Between 1949 and 1953 he worked on his doctoral thesis in this subject at Nancy, supervised by Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. His key contributions include topological tensor products of topological vector spaces, the theory of nuclear spaces as foundational for Schwartz distributions, and the application of L spaces in studying linear maps between topological vector spaces. In a few years, he had turned himself into a leading authority on this area of functional analysis—to the extent that Dieudonné compares his impact in this field to that of Banach.It is, however, in algebraic geometry and related fields where Grothendieck did his most important and influential work. From about 1955 he started to work on sheaf theory and homological algebra, producing the influential "Tôhoku paper" ("Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique", published in the Tohoku Mathematical Journal in 1957) where he introduced abelian categories and applied their theory to show that sheaf cohomology can be defined as certain derived functors in this context.Homological methods and sheaf theory had already been introduced in algebraic geometry by Jean-Pierre Serre and others, after sheaves had been defined by Jean Leray. Grothendieck took them to a higher level of abstraction and turned them into a key organising principle of his theory. He shifted attention from the study of individual varieties to the "relative point of view" (pairs of varieties related by a morphism), allowing a broad generalization of many classical theorems. The first major application was the relative version of Serre's theorem showing that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf on a complete variety is finite-dimensional; Grothendieck's theorem shows that the higher direct images of coherent sheaves under a proper map are coherent; this reduces to Serre's theorem over a one-point space.In 1956, he applied the same thinking to the Riemann–Roch theorem, which had already recently been generalized to any dimension by Hirzebruch. The Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem was announced by Grothendieck at the initial Mathematische Arbeitstagung in Bonn, in 1957. It appeared in print in a paper written by Armand Borel with Serre. This result was his first work in algebraic geometry. He went on to plan and execute a programme for rebuilding the foundations of algebraic geometry, which were then in a state of flux and under discussion in Claude Chevalley's seminar; he outlined his programme in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians.His foundational work on algebraic geometry is at a higher level of abstraction than all prior versions. He adapted the use of non-closed generic points, which led to the theory of schemes. He also pioneered the systematic use of nilpotents. As 'functions' these can take only the value 0, but they carry infinitesimal information, in purely algebraic settings. His "theory of schemes" has become established as the best universal foundation for this field, because of its expressiveness as well as technical depth. In that setting one can use birational geometry, techniques from number theory, Galois theory and commutative algebra, and close analogues of the methods of algebraic topology, all in an integrated way.He is also noted for his mastery of abstract approaches to mathematics and his perfectionism in matters of formulation and presentation. Relatively little of his work after 1960 was published by the conventional route of the learned journal, circulating initially in duplicated volumes of seminar notes; his influence was to a considerable extent personal. His influence spilled over into many other branches of mathematics, for example the contemporary theory of D-modules. (It also provoked adverse reactions, with many mathematicians seeking out more concrete areas and problems.)The bulk of Grothendieck's published work is collected in the monumental, yet incomplete, "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" ("EGA") and "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" ("SGA"). The collection "Fondements de la Géometrie Algébrique" ("FGA"), which gathers together talks given in the Séminaire Bourbaki, also contains important material.Grothendieck's work includes the invention of the étale and l-adic cohomology theories, which explain an observation of André Weil's that there is a connection between the topological characteristics of a variety and its diophantine (number theoretic) properties. For example, the number of solutions of an equation over a finite field reflects the topological nature of its solutions over the complex numbers. Weil realized that to prove such a connection one needed a new cohomology theory, but neither he nor any other expert saw how to do this until such a theory was found by Grothendieck.This program culminated in the proofs of the Weil conjectures, the last of which was settled by Grothendieck's student Pierre Deligne in the early 1970s after Grothendieck had largely withdrawn from mathematics.In Grothendieck's retrospective "Récoltes et Semailles", he identified twelve of his contributions which he believed qualified as "great ideas". In chronological order, they are:Here the term "yoga" denotes a kind of "meta-theory" that can be used heuristically; Michel Raynaud writes the other terms "Ariadne's thread" and "philosophy" as effective equivalents.Grothendieck wrote that, of these themes, the largest in scope was topoi, as they synthesized algebraic geometry, topology, and arithmetic. The theme that had been most extensively developed was schemes, which were the framework ""par excellence"" for eight of the other themes (all but 1, 5, and 12). Grothendieck wrote that the first and last themes, topological tensor products and regular configurations, were of more modest size than the others. Topological tensor products had played the role of a tool rather than a source of inspiration for further developments; but he expected that regular configurations could not be exhausted within the lifetime of a mathematician who devoted himself to it. He believed that the deepest themes were motives, anabelian geometry, and Galois–Teichmüller theory.Grothendieck is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century. In an obituary David Mumford and John Tate wrote:Although mathematics became more and more abstract and general throughout the 20th century, it was Alexander Grothendieck who was the greatest master of this trend. His unique skill was to eliminate all unnecessary hypotheses and burrow into an area so deeply that its inner patterns on the most abstract level revealed themselves–and then, like a magician, show how the solution of old problems fell out in straightforward ways now that their real nature had been revealed.By the 1970s, Grothendieck's work was seen as influential not only in algebraic geometry, and the allied fields of sheaf theory and homological algebra, but influenced logic, in the field of categorical logic.Grothendieck approached algebraic geometry by clarifying the foundations of the field, and by developing mathematical tools intended to prove a number of notable conjectures. Algebraic geometry has traditionally meant the understanding of geometric objects, such as algebraic curves and surfaces, through the study of the algebraic equations for those objects. Properties of algebraic equations are in turn studied using the techniques of ring theory. In this approach, the properties of a geometric object are related to the properties of an associated ring. The space (e.g., real, complex, or projective) in which the object is defined is extrinsic to the object, while the ring is intrinsic.Grothendieck laid a new foundation for algebraic geometry by making intrinsic spaces ("spectra") and associated rings the primary objects of study. To that end he developed the theory of schemes, which can be informally thought of as topological spaces on which a commutative ring is associated to every open subset of the space. Schemes have become the basic objects of study for practitioners of modern algebraic geometry. Their use as a foundation allowed geometry to absorb technical advances from other fields.His generalization of the classical Riemann-Roch theorem related topological properties of complex algebraic curves to their algebraic structure. The tools he developed to prove this theorem started the study of algebraic and topological K-theory, which study the topological properties of objects by associating them with rings. Topological K-theory was founded by Michael Atiyah and Friedrich Hirzebruch, after direct contact with Grothendieck's ideas at the Bonn Arbeitstagung.Grothendieck's construction of new cohomology theories, which use algebraic techniques to study topological objects, has influenced the development of algebraic number theory, algebraic topology, and representation theory. As part of this project, his creation of topos theory, a category-theoretic generalization of point-set topology, has influenced the fields of set theory and mathematical logic.The Weil conjectures were formulated in the later 1940s as a set of mathematical problems in arithmetic geometry. They describe properties of analytic invariants, called local zeta functions, of the number of points on an algebraic curve or variety of higher dimension. Grothendieck's discovery of the ℓ-adic étale cohomology, the first example of a Weil cohomology theory, opened the way for a proof of the Weil conjectures, ultimately completed in the 1970s by his student Pierre Deligne. Grothendieck's large-scale approach has been called a "visionary program." The ℓ-adic cohomology then became a fundamental tool for number theorists, with applications to the Langlands program.Grothendieck's conjectural theory of motives was intended to be the "ℓ-adic" theory but without the choice of "ℓ", a prime number. It did not provide the intended route to the Weil conjectures, but has been behind modern developments in algebraic K-theory, motivic homotopy theory, and motivic integration. This theory, Daniel Quillen's work, and Grothendieck's theory of Chern classes, are considered the background to the theory of algebraic cobordism, another algebraic analogue of topological ideas.Grothendieck's emphasis on the role of universal properties across varied mathematical structures brought category theory into the mainstream as an organizing principle for mathematics in general. Among its uses, category theory creates a common language for describing similar structures and techniques seen in many different mathematical systems. His notion of abelian category is now the basic object of study in homological algebra. The emergence of a separate mathematical discipline of category theory has been attributed to Grothendieck's influence, though unintentional.The novel "Colonel Lágrimas" ("Colonel Tears" in English, available by Restless Books) by Puerto Rican - Costa Rican writer Carlos Fonseca is a semibiographic novel about Grothendieck.
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[
"University of Montpellier",
"École normale supérieure (Paris)"
] |
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Who was the head of Mende in Jan, 1919?
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January 21, 1919
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{
"text": [
"Paulin Daudé-Gleize"
]
}
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L2_Q191772_P6_0
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Henri Trémolet de Villers is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1971 to Jan, 1977.
Paulin Daudé-Gleize is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1919 to Jan, 1928.
Alain Bertrand is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Jean-Jacques Delmas is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 1983 to Jan, 2008.
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Mende, LozèreMende (, ) is a commune and prefecture of the department of Lozère and of the region of Occitanie in southern France. Its inhabitants are called the "Mendois". The city, including the first traces of dwellings date back to 200 BC, was originally named "Mimata", probably in reference to the mountains that surround it.Mende is located between Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier, but also on the axis of Lyon–Saint-Étienne–Albi–Toulouse. The other important nearby towns are Aurillac and Saint-Flour (Cantal), Le Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire), Rodez, Millau (Aveyron) and Alès and Nîmes (Gard).Even though Mende remains a relatively sparsely populated city (approximately 12,000 inhabitants), it remains the most important of the Lozère Department. In addition, it is the city-centre of the unique urban area of this department.It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mende.Mende is situated in the high valley of the Lot, in a mountainous area, in the "Pays du Gévaudan", the Rieucros stream joins to it on its right bank. The city is overlooked (on the left bank of the Lot) by and its . Access is by the . On the right bank, residential areas extend over different causses, including the "Causse d'Auge". Located on the axis of Lyon-Toulouse, the city has long been a commercial crossroads between the Auvergne, Rhone and the Languedoc.The commune is bordered by Chastel-Nouvel to the north, Badaroux to the east, Lanuéjols to the southeast, Brenoux and Saint-Bauzile to the south, Balsièges to the southwest, and Barjac and Servières to the west.Mende is one of the "gateway cities" (along with Millau, Lodève, Alès and Ganges) for the site of the Causses and Cévennes, of world heritage by UNESCO under the inscription "Les Causses and Cevennes, Mediterranean agro-pastoral cultural landscape".According to the INSEE, Mende is an urban commune without suburbs ("ville isolée" [isolated town]). It lies at the centre of an urban area composed of 15 communes, the only one in the department of Lozère.The town of Mende is built in the Lot Valley, within the area of the . The region of the Causses in Lozère is one of the four of Lozère, with the Margeride, the Aubrac and the Cévennes. The city is nestled in the middle of different Causses which form as natural barriers. However, over the 20th century, urbanisation began to extend beyond these limits.Of the Causses, is the most significant. The causse is overhung by the Cross of . A first wooden cross was planted in 1900 or 1907. It was replaced a few years later, on 8 July 1933, a Jubilee year, by a -high iron cross. Until 1945, this cross was the place of large gatherings in honour of Mendois soldiers. This cross has been illuminated since the summer of 1965. The mount also houses the chapel where Privat, the martyr of the Gévaudan, withdrew to. At its foot lies the area of Vabre where can be found the first remains of houses in the city. Opposite this is the Causse d'Auge (northeast) and the Causse du Crouzet (northwest), and the Margeride mountains beyond. To the west is Causse de Changefège, located between Mende and Barjac, which complements the borders of the city.The geology of the city of Mende is very dependent on the surrounding causses and streams that pass through them. The Mont Mimat and the Causse de Changefège are composed of limestone of the "Grands Causses", thus presenting abrupt edges. The other causses (as well as the butte de Fontanille) are composed of limestone of the "Petits Causses" (without these edges). The Lot Valley is composed of marl. The Valley, in the south of Mende, is full of blue marl, leaving one to presuppose that the marl of the town of Mende would be, in part, of the same origin. Finally, the various streams (the Rieucros) of the causses of the north of the city are lined by mica-schist.The city of Mende was built on the banks of the Lot. But the Lot is not the only presence of water in the city: Indeed, it has several sources, including those of . The most significant of them is located in the Vabre district, close to the first houses. These sources have also often been channeled and feed the underground water system of the city, visible on the surface through numerous fountains and the old wash house. The streets, such as the "Rue du Torrent", attest to the passage of water from Mont Mimat.To the north, on the other side of the Lot, the sources are much more distant, but water is present in the stream known as Rieucros.Mende is subject to an oceanic stream that comes from the Aubrac and Mediterranean and flows from the Cévennes. The department of Lozère, Mende in particular, benefit from insolation (or sunlight) similar to that of Toulouse with approximately 2,069 hours of sunshine per year. The city, away from the mountains that surround it, has a more protected climate than the highlands of Gévaudan: So, average temperatures oscillate between and . With respect to annual precipitation, data for the Lozère is between , depending on the exposure of the regions, with up to 50 days of snow per year.Between 1971 and 2000, monthly rainfall ranged from (March) and (September).In more detail, here are some statements in Mende records since 1985:Mende is located in the centre of the Lozère department and therefore centralises the roads. The city has rail and air access, but the Lot is not navigable (too shallow) as with all the rivers of the department (except for recreational canoeing, or in rare exceptions for the transport of people such as the crossing of the Tarn towards La Malène).Mende is located on the , linking Lyon and Toulouse. The road comes from Balsièges to the west and Badaroux to the east. This axis can be reached easily. Haute-Loire and Ardèche are to the east, via Langogne and Aveyron is to the west via La Canourgue-Banassac, as well as the A75 autoroute. A road doubling project is underway in the department, bypassing Mende from the north. This doubling is however a long project (1993), having had several outlines and some opposition. The project was finally abandoned in October 2012 making Lozère a department without draft dual carriageways on RN 88. Indeed, its neighbours Aveyron and Tarn continue their projects of dual carriageways between Rodez and Toulouse with all expected to be commissioned in December 2015. The work of the Rodez - Séverac section should be completed by the end of 2019. The same will be the case for Haute-Loire, which continues its road access. However, the workarounds of Mende and Langogne are budgeted. These projects in adjacent departments will reach major cities nearby to Mende (Rodez, Albi, Toulouse, Le Puy and even Lyon). Finally, the economic impact or the absence of dual carriageways in Lozere must be assessed in the medium and long term.Furthermore, a viaduct (the Rieucros Viaduct) commissioned in December 2009 will be used to ensure a first bypass of Mende. It connects the industrial area of the Causse d'Auge to the technological centre of Valcroze (and the RD 42) and also helps to relieve the traffic connecting the districts north and northwest of the city.The RN 88 deviation from Mende should be the first from Pelouse to reach up to the Causse d'Auge with an "expressway" configuration. Then it would continue on the D 806 (ex north) to the Rieucros Viaduct, and then a new section of the viaduct to the Mende exit in the hamlet of La Thébaïde (west bypass). These two sections will only be of two lanes. Subsequently, the expressway from the Causse d'Auge will be directly linked to the A 75.Another national road, the RN 106, formerly ran through the city. This name is no longer valid for the section coming from the Gard and joining Mende via Florac (it is then of the RN 88 on the stretch between Balsièges and Mende). The northern part of the road was decommissioned in 2007 and now bears the name of D 806. This stretch goes from Mende to Saint-Chély-d'Apcher (and the A75 autoroute) via Chastel-Nouvel.Secondary access is provided by the RD 42 from the northwest, which joins the RN 88 at Barjac, and by the RD 25 which, passing through the , crosses before arriving at the Valdonnez.Mende features an SNCF railway station, located on the railway line of the , between Le Monastier (the ) and La Bastide - Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (). This line, built at the very beginning of the 20th century, bears the nickname of ""ligne du toit de la France"" [the roof of France line], and Mende is the main railway station. Ten weekly links are provided by rail.The station is also the starting point of the TER connection to Clermont-Ferrand by bus, which is daily.Referred to as TUM (for "Transports Urbains Mendois") the urban transport network is exclusively equipped with buses, which run through the city and some nearby villages (Les Boulaines, Chabrits, Chabannes). Since its establishment in 2000, it has replaced the school bus service. The urban transport network is also responsible for the management of the pay car parks in the city. A part of the city centre is also exclusively pedestrian.The prefecture of the Lozère department shares with the neighbouring village of Brenoux. This airfield, located on , is thus from Clermont-Ferrand, from Montpellier and away from Lyon and Toulouse. Highlights include it being the site of the final scene of the film "La Grande Vadrouille", and also of five stages of the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018).Furthermore, a Mende-Paris air link was implemented in October 2007. However, the flight was departing from the aerodrome of Le Puy-en-Velay, located from Mende and reached by a shuttle. This connection was born of a desire to open up Mende to air travel, which is indeed late at this level for a prefecture, and has no direct flight to Paris unlike its neighbours Clermont-Ferrand, Rodez, Aurillac or Le Puy-en-Velay.Since the beginning of 2008, a study has been conducted by the CCI of the Lozère department, in order to discuss the possibility of the establishment of a link between the Lozerian prefecture and the regional capital, Montpellier but four years after the launch of this study, no concrete project to date has been presented.Finally, two more major airports with international influence and close to Mende are Clermont-Ferrand Aulnat and Rodez-Aveyron.In the 13th century, the city was concentrated in what is now the city centre, bounded by the boulevards, and formerly the ramparts. It was then split into five sections (or neighbourhoods) known as "pans": Auriac, Aygues-Passe, Champnau, Chastel and Claustres.When it was initially named as such, the Pan d'Auriac was mainly a place of settlement, before becoming the "quartier des pénitents blancs" [district of the white penitents] who settled there. The Pan d'Aygues-Passe (or Aigues-Passe), meaning "water that passes", owes its name to the inclination of its streets, where the water flowed during cleaning. The Pan de Champnau derives its name from "new field", and includes what was a new residential area, at north of the city. The Pan de Chastel is the old commercial district of the city. It is located towards the Chastel Gate, which led then to Chastel-Nouvel, where a castle stood which was property of the bishops. Finally the Pan des Claustres, whose name comes from cloisters, was the largest of the city and is now between the and , i.e. between the two tombs of (the chapel Saint-Ilpide on the hill of the executioner, and the crypt of Sainte-Thècle under the cathedral square).The historic city centre is bordered by boulevards which took the place of the ancient walls. In addition to housing, the centre is mostly occupied by convenience stores and artisans. Beyond the boulevards, there are other houses as well as government buildings. The General Council and the prefecture indeed share the former , but services are scattered throughout the city. "Allée Piencourt" connects downtown roads to Badaroux and Chastel-Nouvel, near the ancient diocese (pré claux and pré vival) having been built.North of the "Allée Piencourt", past the Berlière Bridge, dwellings are present at the foot of the Causse d'Auge. These were established in several instalments over the 19th and 20th centuries, the first of these being Chaldecoste. It is in this part of the city that the large and the small seminary as well as the Convent of Carmel are found. The city extends to the north in the direction of Alteyrac (commune of Chastel-Nouvel). Between these areas and Alteyrac is located the zone of economic activities (ZAE) of the Causse d'Auge. The northern districts often bear names of flowers, this part of the city that historically sheltered gardens and vineyards, along the draille linking the "Plateau du Palais du Roi" [King's Palace Plateau].The causse is bounded by two streams, the Rieucros in the east and the to the west.Above the Badaroux road, on a hill, lies the Fontanilles district. It was originally social housing. At the foot of the hill is the Lycée Notre-Dame, while beyond the district of Saint-Laurent (where one finds traces of history with the presence of a chapel and a windmill) and, later, the Gardès ZAE. In this part, to the west of Gardès, is also the village of Sirvens where traces of a Gallo-Roman villa were discovered.Stuck between Fontanille, Mont Mimat and the city centre, are districts located roadside above pré claux. In this area are located the centre of firefighters, the Château of Bellesagne and the former gendarmerie. The market is also in this area, but more to the east than the precedents cited (beyond the boulevards, however). Above it lies the Vabre district and Hill of the Executioner where the first traces of dwellings of the city were found. Also nearby is the city's prison.In the westerly direction, found the District of Le Chapitre with the sports complex and the holiday village. This area is at the foot of a portion of the Causse de Changefège, where homes are installed along the Chabrits road ("Avenue du 11-Novembre", north-west of the city). It is in this part of the city which the district of Valcroze is found (new in the 19th century), the Chabrits ZAE and technology park.The other side of the Lot, along the , is found the avenue of the Gorges du Tarn and the area of Ramille. It is in this part where retail establishments are found. The Ramille zone saw the introduction, despite some criticism about the instability of the ground, of the hypermarket of the department, as well as a commercial area.On the map are the main roads of the city. To the west, the RN 88 is joined to Balsièges, passing through the Rocher de Moïse (classified site) located at the left end. To the northwest, it is the hamlet of Chabannes, and further to Chabrits. To the south, is found, where the new cross stands which symbolically marks the top of the hill (although it continues a little higher). This road leads to the Hermitage of , at the cross of the same name and the route of Valdonnez (Lanuéjols, Brenoux, Saint-Bauzile).To the east, Fontanille district is on a hillock, circumvented by the Lot. Behind lies the district of Saint-Laurent, then the ZAE de Gardès (and the village of the same name) and the village of Sirvens. Following the RN 88, one reaches Badaroux. Finally to the north, is the area of the Chaldecoste (broken down into several districts: Bergerie, Chanteperdrix, Vignette, etc.) where one can reach the ZAE du causse d'Auge. Further to the north, one finds Chastel-Nouvel before returning to the ground of and the "Plateau du Palais du Roi". The drinking water of the city of Mende comes from this direction, because of the Lac de Charpal reservoir, which is the main source.In 2017, Mende had 6,851 residences for an official population of 12,134 people. 87% of them are primary residences and 6.1% of secondary residences, which contrasts sharply with the figure of the Lozère department amounting to a 32.3% share of secondary housing.The population has been growing for several years, and the city has acquired new quarters over the years: Chaldecoste and Chanteperdrix in the 1970s, La Bergerie in the 1990s, and Valcroze in the 2000s. The city has 17.9% of HLM-type accommodations.59% of dwellings have four rooms or more and 19% have three rooms. The city is composed of many individual homes, small and large dwellings remaining in the minority. However, one can see that between 1990 and 1999 there was an increase of 85.3% of dwellings of one or two rooms. This can partly be explained by the development of higher education, with the branch of the University of Perpignan.The region is an ancient site of settlement dating back to the Bronze Age, although the capital of the Gévaudan, the Gallic period then Gallo-Roman, was Anderitum. Found in the ancient texts are the names of "Mimate", "Mimata" (mountain), which refer to this town at the foot of "Mons Mimatensis" (). In the same spirit, another name circulating is that of "Viculus Mimatensis" (or "Vicus Mimatensis"). It is the city which gave its name to Mont Mimat ("mount of the Mendois", literally) and not vice versa.Traces of dwellings dating from 200 BC were found, ancient Roman "villae", as well as around the city. However, residents could have been be domiciled here well before. Indeed, on Mont Mimat to Chapieu, a dolmen was found around 1913 including a trepanned skull. The other surrounding plateaux also attest this presence with other dolmens (on the Causse de Changefege for example). These remains may date from the Chalcolithic period.The city, strictly speaking, dates from the Middle Ages, and it is not found cited at the end of the 6th century by Gregory of Tours in his "Histoire des Francs". This text speaks of the martyrdom of , the first bishop of the Gabali, who was the origin of a pilgrimage to the hermitage and the caves where he had retired. Mende in the 3rd century was then only a village. The history of Privat is thus situated around the 3rd century, while he was sent by Austromoine to evangelize the Gévaudan. It was during this period that the Alemanni invaded the country, guided by their leader, Chrocus.The Gabali took refuge in the fortress of Grèzes where they were under siege for two years. Their bishop, Privat, was meanwhile in one of the caves of Mont Mimat which he had converted into a hermitage. When Chrocus learned that the bishop was not among his people, he went looking for him to use as a hostage in order to get the Gabali to leave Grèzes. Privat was martyred at his cave on near the village of Mimate. Presented to the Gabali, he refused to deliver his people despite all the barbaric tortures to which he was subjected (according to Gregory of Tours:""The good shepherd refused to deliver his sheep to wolves, and they tried to force his to sacrifice to demons""). Exhausted, the Alemanni would leave the Gabali free, by promising them peace. Privat succumbed to his injuries in the following days. His act of resistance, refusing to deliver his compatriots, thus earned him great popular fervour, and it was around his tomb and his hermitage that pilgrimage began, allowing the village to grow.In the 12th century Gévaudan was part of the County of Barcelona. In Mende, the counties have a castle, the castel frag. Three other lords had their castle around the Romanesque church: That of Canilhac (who owned the archtreasurer rights of the church), that of Cabrières (who was granted rights of archdeacon) and Dolan (who administered and ruled the episcopal home during the interregnum of bishops). In 1161, Mende, who was under the suzerainty of the King of France, saw his Bishop get the royal rights. It was the golden bull, an act signed by the king and marked with a royal seal in gold, which contained the terms of this agreement. It thus gave Aldebert and his successors, in perpetuity, the Royal power and the full powers of justice on the inhabitants of the bishopric. This fact is quite rare because only four golden bulls in six centuries were granted by the Kings of France.It was from this time that the city walls were built. Aldebert wished to protect the city and secure channels that lead there. he recovered and also built the fortress of Chapieu on , and was done so that it could accommodate a garrison. This allowed the monitoring of the direct route between Mont Lozère and Villefort, in other words towards the Regordane Way, trade route.At that time, however, Mende was not provided the civil and religious capital of Gévaudan. In fact the power was always dependent of two entities: The county and Viscount of Grèzes. The Viscount, property of the King of Aragon, was recovered by the King of France in 1258. The bishop had great power as a vassal, but he didn't have the total legitimacy of some Royal officials. This situation ended from 1307 with the Act of paréage between Bishop Guillaume VI Durand and King Philip IV. Indeed, it definitively fixed the possessions of the king and those of the bishop, even if some disputes persisted.During the Hundred Years' War security increased with the strengthening of the fortifications and the construction of ditches to 1361-1362. At that time, the chapter of Mende had a castle on the heights of the city, Chastel-Nouvel. In 1370 many locals felt safe from the ramparts of the city, despite threats from the routiers. Also, few of them took refuge in Chastel-Nouvel. But the walls were insufficient, and could not prevent the pillages. This period isolated Mende from its neighbours, including Le Puy-en-Velay, and waited the arrival of the Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, then the intervention of Charles VI and the liberation of the region so that the roads reopened around 1452.In 1390, was in Mende, where John III of Armagnac sought, on behalf of the King of France, to put an end to the private war that Raymond de Turenne led against the Pope from Avignon. The Gascon signed as a witness to an agreement between the legate of Clement VII, Antoine de Lisa, , and a representative of the Viscount of Turenne. This interview of Mende helped the Florentines to send ambassadors to solicit the Count of Armagnac. He was proposed to cross the Alps and attack the Count of Vertus in Lombardy.It was also at this time that blessed Pope Urban V began the work of the cathedral (1368), for a completion in 1467. By its letters patent, King Louis XI confirmed the privileges for this cathedral, granted by his predecessors, in September 1464.At the beginning of the 1470s, conflict erupted between Bishop and King Louis XI, because of the support that the bishop had given to the County of Armagnac when it had revolted. To counter it, the king subtracted La Panouse authority over the city which then became autonomous. It wasn't until 1478 that the bishops found authority over the city, sharing revenues with the consul.At the end of the Hundred Years' War, Mende developed its production of drapery, and thus increased its role as a commercial crossroads between the Languedoc and Auvergne, exporting its fame. It is estimated that in the 16th century Mende was one of the richest dioceses of Languedoc before Montpellier and Toulouse. This wealth of the diocese reinforced the ecclesiastical power. Thus among the list of the bishops of the time one can count a number from the family of the Pope. Giuliano della Rovere was ordained bishop of Mende, although he never visited in the capital of Gévaudan (practice known as commendation). His nephews, Clement and , succeeded him in this position. During his tenure, François adorned the cathedral with its bell towers, which one hosted the "Non Pareille", the largest bell in the world.In October 1485, when Clement de La Rovere came to the episcopal seat, old quarrels between the consul and the bishopric re-emerged, first mentioned with fear of losing this privilege. Thus they barricaded the gates of Mende, so that the bishop could not access. At this time the bishops primarily used their Balsièges Castle as a residence (that of Chanac being the summer residence). In vain as the Della Rovere family covered the full authority by notice of the king in 1492. The title of consul was held in place of the traditional title of trustee.In the 16th century, the main events were the Reformation and the Wars of Religion which resulted. On 21 July 1562, 4,000 Protestants got within the walls of the city. They destroyed the unprotected monuments and besieged the city by depriving it of water. They withdrew four days later, largely due to being given 2,000 ecus. This ransom ensured the city a few years of peace.During the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Astorg de Peyre was murdered in the king's room: his widow then hired a young man, Matthieu Merle to avenge the death of her husband. From 1569 to 1576 he held with his troops the fortress of Grèzes where he gradually seized the north of Gévaudan. From 1577 he moved with his troops to Marvejols intending to seize Mende, although not ceasing his conquests to the north, he failed however in August 1578 at Saint-flour. The night of Christmas 1579, to enter the city, Merle's soldiers expected that the people of Mendes were at midnight mass.During his stay in Mende, Merle made further fortification to the city, not hesitating razing 120 homes to restore the ramparts. In February 1581, while he ruled all the Gévaudan, he enforced the threat he had made to the people. He had in fact asked them to deliver 4,000 ecus, a sum that the Mendois could not collect. He partially destroyed Mende Cathedral built by Pope Urban V. He saved a bell tower to avoid damaging the episcopal palace where his home was established. It was at this time that the "Non Pareille" was melted, the biggest bell in the world, to manufacture culverins and other cannonballs. The city was liberated on bail that year thanks to the intervention of the King of Navarre.The city liberated, a seneschal was created to ensure the peace. Response to the attack of Merle was organised in 1586 against the town of Marvejols, led by baron de Saint-Vidal. It was during this response that the Peyre fortress disappeared from the rock of Peyre. The seneschal took its place. The Tower of Auriac, today known as the Tower of Penitents, was built to accommodate one hundred soldiers. The seneschal gradually took precedence over the diocese, which called for the help of the Duke of Languedoc in 1597. It was after this episode that the Seneschal of Mende disappeared.The beginning of the 17th century was coloured by the work of reconstruction of the cathedral for an inauguration in 1605, although work had lasted until 1629. Far from the splendour of the original, while taking up the same plane, this new cathedral was characterised by a bell tower which was smaller than the other.Between 1645 and 1660, the city was the scene of strife between two rival factions: The Marmaux and the Catharinaux, all members of the consuls or the bourgeoisie, but not having the same opinion on the importance of episcopal power, the latter being opposed. The bishop was also the target of an attack while he officiated in Mende Cathedral in 1645 (he was actually not touched). After several trials, it was not without difficulty that the kingdom gave back his ancestral power, the consul remaining under his control.At the end of the century, landscaped a lane which joined to the Lot (since known as ""Allée Piencourt"") and especially acquired the Aubusson tapestries for the episcopal palace. These tapestries, classified, since adorn the cathedral. It was also behind the early educational development in the city and contributed to the building of the hospital. It also made the hospital its heir, allowing it to develop.In 1702, the war of the Camisards was triggered in the Cévennes. Mende somewhat landscaped its walls in order to prevent any attack. However, this war which began with the murder of Father du Chayla at Le Pont-de-Montvert never reached Mende.In 1721, the Great Plague arrived in Gévaudan affecting the town of Mende with an amount of 1,078 victims in one year. Two generations later, the walls were removed (in 1768), "so the air circulates better".Once all these troubles passed, the city redeveloped its economy around wool and sheep farming. The city extended a little bit under the development of the appearance of the mills, and its first factory. In 1754, Mende saw Louis Mandrin the famous brigand, who lodged in a house there and, according to legend, hid treasure.Between 1764 and 1767, Mende was the witness the comings and goings of the wolf-hunters of the king, who came to seek rest in the city before returning to hunt the beast which was terrorising the north of the country. It was seen close to Mende, once at Pailhou and between Rieutort-de-Randon and Chastel-Nouvel but remained primarily in Margeride. At this time the quarrel between the consul and the bishop was brought up to date by the edict on municipal organizations. The burghers and nobles opposed, but the bishop finally retained power in 1771.During the French Revolution, Mende had to share with Marvejols the function of department capital of Gévaudan. This was renamed in the Lozère department in 1790, and the guardianship of the church disappeared in 1791, thus putting an end to the paréage of 1307. Mende was the scene of small counter-revolutionary clashes, but without great effects. It became the sole capital shortly after.In 1800, the prefect settled in the city, and the prefecture occupies the episcopal palace after the sale of the property of the church. In the middle of the 19th century, the causses around Mende are planted with Austrian black pine, this national forest has continued since then. The choice of black pine was due to its ease of acclimation, and its robustness. The presence of this forest often protected Mende from floods.Then the railway appeared in the prefecture, then linking to Sévérac-le-Château (3 May 1884). The railway line follows the Lot to cross the city, and also continues to follow, like the newly created road. In 1887 the old episcopal palace disappeared in flames, the prefecture had to be rebuilt.On 8 April 1888 Mende became one of the first cities in France, and the first chef-lieu to have electric lighting. The plant was installed in the old .The twentieth century was marked by a beginning of economic decline. The gradual end of the wool industry, the First and the Second World War depopulated the city. Between 1931 and 1934 baths are built, since becoming the Home, and located on the market square. The building was destroyed in summer 2013, to be replaced by a multi-cultural hall.In 1939, shortly before World War II, an internment camp was built in the woods of the Rieucros. The population was opposed to this transit camp for anti-fascists and communists. It then became an internment camp exclusively for women. The mayor at the time, , condemned the Vichy regime and the camp in his hometown, where he made sure that children interned with their mother followed a normal education. His hostile words and acts to the regime in place led him to be removed from his post in 1941. He then joined Resistance where he became one of the leaders for the Lozère. Arrested and sent to German camps in 1944, he died during a transfer in 1945.Ideally placed between the Maquis of the Cévennes and the Aubrac, the town was located as well as a centre for the coordination of the Lozère Interior Resistance. As for the population, it protected itself where shelters against aerial bombardments were implemented.From the 1970s, the city had a sizable population growth. The city then extended to the Causse d'Auge. In the 1980s and 1990s, one can also see that the department was depopulating overall, while its prefecture was expanding. Culture and sport took more importance in the life of the city.During the 1990s, the city developed administrative reconciliations with nearby cities. Therefore, it formed the Estelle city network with Aurillac and Rodez. The principle of the network was to share experiences and pool resources to develop such medium-sized cities. Shortly after, it was with other networks that Mende became closer to other cities of the Massif Central. This is the case, for example, with the Cyber Massif network dedicated to the digital opening up of the region.Moreover, since the beginning of the 21st century, Mende had tried to actively participate in the policies of opening up of the Massif Central. The city lies in the Lot Valley and reached an area of in the 2000s. It also seeks to enroll in a sustainable development project, in the image of the department with, among other projects, the construction of a cogeneration plant and the establishment of a network of heat. The timber industry, so important in the economy of the city, could therefore be put to further use. The establishment of bio-energy in the city has also been carried out by the appearance of a wind farm north of the city.Mende is the chef-lieu of the Lozère department: It welcomes in this regard the prefecture and the headquarters of the General Council. The buildings of these two institutions are scattered within the city. A project of the Department Hall to consolidate all services of the General Council is under consideration. The mayor's office is housed in the town hall which dates from the 18th century, however, a large part of the services have been moved to the annex of the mayor's office.This is the old consular house which was used as a city hall of the Revolution until 1852. On that date, Mayor Becamel bought the Pages family mansion located in the "Place d'Angiran". Since then the city hall has been based in this city mansion (listed historical monument) in the square which has become "Place Charles-de-Gaulle", although a part of the services is now located in the annex which faces it. As the cathedral, the city hall also houses the tapestries of Aubusson, classified since 1909.Since 1945, the following were elected mayors of the city of Mende:The city of Mende belongs to the . It was created in December 2001 under the name of "Communauté de communes de la Haute Vallée d'Olt" before changing its name in 2009. The commune being the largest in terms of population, it was its mayor, Jean-Jacques Delmas, who became the first president of the community.The implementation of this community of communes has allowed a transfer of powers. So, all areas of economic activity and sports facilities now fall under the responsibility of the community, rather than the commune itself.However, the actions are much wider since waste treatment also enters the competence of the community. The waste disposal site of the commune lies in the ZAE du Causse d'Auge, north of the city. In this context, unsorted collection is also the responsibility of the community of communes.This community of communes is not the only grouping of communities for the town of Mende. A comprehensive plan was implemented around the label "Pays d'Art et d'Histoire de Mende et Lot en Gévaudan" [Lands of art and history of Mende and Lot in Gevaudan]. These are twenty-two communes which now belong to the Pays d'Art [Lands of Art] which comes in the continuity of the city of art and history label which Mende has had since 1981. The lands comprises four communities: Cœur de Lozère, , and , which is assistant to the Chastel-Nouvel commune.The city is the chef-lieu of two cantons: Mende-1 and Mende-2 since 2015. Mende-1 comprises the northern part of the city, Mende-2 the southern part.Before the Act of paréage of 1307, Mendoise and Gevaudanaise justice was fully devolved to the bishops. This power was shared with the king after the signing of the Act. Power was shared between the various for the communal land, with Mende being in the land of the bishops and Marvejols in lands of the king, and like this until 1789.The courthouse was built between 1833 and 1835. On 18 February 1994, it was the target of a bombing by the FLNC.The tribunal groups together a children's tribunal, a tribunal of commerce, a court and a high court. It depends on the .The city has long held prisons. Current prison was commissioned in 1891. One of the first high-security areas of France was then moved there in 1949. It was at this date that the prison ownership changed, from the State Department. Several personalities have stayed here, the most famous being Jacques Mesrine. André Génovès' film, "Mesrine" released in 1983, also tells of the criminal plan to destroy the QHS. had sought to bring Jacques Mesrine out of prison when he was imprisoned in Mende. This area had also been the target of critics, such as those of the Committee of action of prisoners and Serge Livrozet, in 1975. In 1989, the Mende detention centre was again publicised with the escape of , who managed to escape by threatening guards with a dummy gun. The last prison 'personality' of Mende, , activist of the alongside José Bové, was imprisoned after the case of the McDonald's franchise destruction in Millau.Mende is twinned with:Since 2007, the cities of Wunsiedel and Volterra are also paired together. The twinning with Vila Real (much more populous than the city of Mende) is explained by the fact that a large part of the Portuguese population of Mende, and Lozère in general, is from this region.In contrast to the department of Lozère, the prefecture saw its demographic curve draw increasingly since the French Revolution. If the department was strongly affected by the and the great wars of the 20th century, the city had the presence of its own authorities. This may explain why Mende has not experienced the same trend as Lozère. This table shows the demographic for the town of Mende, but it can be considered that the "bassin Mendois" [Mende area] follows the same trend.In 2017, the commune had 12,134 inhabitants.The Mende population is fairly young taking into account the ageing population of Lozère. Compared with the 1990 census, it is the age group of 15–29 years which has had the greatest increase at the expense of those aged 0–14 and 30–44 years. The number of near-centenarians was also greater in 1999 than in 1990.In Mende, the share of the immigrant population represents about 8% of the total population. They originate mostly from Portugal (mainly from Vila Real), Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey. This being the image of immigration in the region. The Spanish immigration, which was very present in the middle of the twentieth century, has been disappearing since the 1970s.Mende has three nursery schools: "Solelhons" (the small Suns in Occitan), the Chênes school and Fontanilles school. They are in close relations with the primary schools of the Groupe solaire, Annex Michel del Castillo School and Fontanilles School, Jeanne d'Arc School dealing with private education.The public college of Henri-Bourillon is located in the former small seminary, and share places with the Lycée Chaptal. It hosts students from the city as well as a number from other neighbouring municipalities (Badaroux, Barjac, Chanac, Saint-Bauzile, Saint-Étienne-du-Valdonnez, etc.). The private college is the college of . The continuity of private education is at the Lycée Notre-Dame. Another high school, the Lycée Emile Peytavin allows, in addition to general education, technical and vocational education. Finally, now attached to the Lycée Notre-Dame, we find the Private Professional Lycée Plaisance.Institutions of the city are also have one of the best success rates for the Baccalauréat diploma, compared with the other schools in the area, which puts them in the first half best institutions of France.At the level of higher education, Mende welcomes a BTS in its different high schools. An , branch of the University of Perpignan, offers four courses: Multimedia, gerontology, City Council Secretary, and tourism. It is located in the buildings of the former Lamolle barracks, which had housed the . Finally the city also houses a teacher training Institute, an (IFSIL), a and a .The festivities of the town of Mende are held annually in the month of August. They were related to the feast of , on 21 August. They are decorated with a flower parade and the election of "Miss Mende". Then, in September, every other year, Mende hosts its beer festival, with its twin town of Wunsiedel. The city has also several sports events. At the cultural level, the "meetings of writers" were organized at the beginning of the 1990s, in August. They have welcomed regional authors but also renowned authors such as Calixthe Beyala and Michel Folco.The department has a hospital, which opened in 1970. Five of the six services are located in Mende: Guy de Chauliac Hospital, the retirement home, the convalescence centre, the Training Institute in Nursing and boarding school. The sixth branch, another retirement home, is based at Rieutort-de-Randon.The hospital has approximately 70 physicians and 750 health professionals. Moreover, since 2011, it welcomes in its structure the home of the Paul Éluard psychological and psychiatric unit, a branch of the of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole.To this one can add 20 physicians, general practitioners and specialists as well as a centre of firefighters. Though, if the implementation of the current hospital is fairly recent, the city has a fairly old hospital story.In the 12th century was the "alms house" for the population. This hospital, located on "Rue Angiran", derived its income from the operation of a mill in the district of La Vernède, as well as donations of the lords of the lands. It was partially destroyed in 1593 during the construction of a nearby citadel. Though the citadel disappeared in 1597, the hospital was not repaired immediately. From 1635 a budget was allocated for the rebuilding of the institution. It would not be built in the same place, and would take the name of "Hospital of Aygues-Passes". In 1677 became and thus Count of Gévaudan. In his first year as bishop, he rebuilt a new hospital which became the "general hospital". In 1702 it enlarged, and at his death he bequeathed it all of his possessions. This hospital, today the Piencourt residence, remained in use until the inauguration of the hospital. Added to this hospital, two establishments existed following periods of epidemics, both which were outside the city. A plague centre, referred to as 'House of God', was established in the district of Janicot. At the Saint-Jean Bridge (now Pont-Roupt), a "maladrerie" was rebuilt in 1242, intended for the accommodation of lepers.Mende is, by its number of licensees and all events, a sports town. Therefore, she was elected twice the by the daily newspaper "L'Équipe" (1988 and 1998) and a finalist in 2011. It is one of only a few cities of France to have achieved this distinction twice.Mende features a sports zone known as the "Complexe sportif de Jean Jacques Delmas" [Sports complex of Jean Jacques Delmas], in honour of his death, having been originally of this project he was the mayor of Mende for 25 years. There are 3 football/rugby pitches (the Stade du Chapitre and 2 training grounds), the semi-Olympic pool, tennis courts, a fitness room, a skate-park, a street-ball court, table-tennis hall and archery/shooting. It is in this complex which the '"Festival of sport" takes place every two years. Chapitre Stadium, enlarged at the Mediterranean Games has 500 seats, but this figure may be largely surpassed during some matches.Installed on the causse d'Auge are three soccer/rugby fields and an athletics track, which came to replace the old track of Mirandol. The Stade de Mirandol had the municipal stadium office until the 1980s. Since 2006, an equestrian centre is also located on the causse, it comes in addition to the aging Sirvens centre located at the exit of the city. Finally, the causse d'Auge was the chosen site, in 2008, for the construction of a new gymnasium, opposite the football fields.Near the Chaptal Lycée and the Henri Bourrillon College is the La Vernède complex. In this area are two gymnasiums, a dojo, a gymnastics Hall, one dance, one climbing (over an area outdoors), a covered petanque pitch and one outdoors. Before the construction of the gymnasium of La Vernède, this place was that of the municipal swimming pool and two tennis courts.Close to other educational institutions, other gyms are installed. There are six in all in the city: La Vernède, Lycée Notre-Dame, Piencourt, Lycée Chaptal, Lycée Théophile Roussel and college Saint-Privat.Many clubs share the facilities of the city. Football club Éveil Mendois evolved in CFA2 during two seasons (2000–01 and 2001–02), its successor, AF Lozère, plays in the (6th division). The Éveil Mendois football club came from the of the same name, founded in 1920. One of the highlights of its history remains a finish in the last 32 of Coupe de France final played opposite Angoulême on 24 January 1999. More recently, Mende moved up to the last 16 of the finals at the 2013 Coupe de France, winning on this occasion the "ranking of the Petits Poucets".The key club is the (formerly Mende Volley Ball) which plays in the Elite division, for the season 2014-2014 (3rd national division). At the top level, the MVL has a title of obtained at the end of the 2008-2009 season and a participation in the third round of the 2010-2011 Coupe de France.Of Rugby union ("Rugby Club Mende Lozère"), it found its place in Fédérale 3 in 2006, but returned to the regional level in the 2010s. The club however already evolved to a higher level a few years previously.The handball team ("Mende Gévaudan Club") is evolving in 2014-2015 in the National 3 France Championship. Finally, the basketball team ("basketball Causses Mendois") was found in 2014-2015 at the regional level. For women there are also handball, volleyball and basketball clubs which are Mendois clubs of highest level.Mende can be granted a special status to orienteering, an individual sport with team competitions. The fact remains that Mende is playing in the elite league of France, and "M. G. C. Pétanque" and its three veteran champions of France in 2007.Sports diversity does not stop there. Mende clubs also include roller hockey ("Les Comets"). Mende is also home to individual sports: Athletics, badminton, cycling, motorcycling, as well as many combat sports clubs.Since the beginning of the 2000s, a sports centre was set up to accompany young high school athletes to prepare for the best level. From the membership of the COL (centre omnisports Lozère), there is (France MTB 2010 downhill champion) and Fanny Lombard (Junior Champion of Europe 2009 and 2010 in the same discipline).Among professional sportspeople born in Mende, is the cyclist Christophe Laurent who shone by winning the jersey for the best climber of the Tour de l'Avenir and the Tour of California.The motorcyclist , winner of the prologue of the Paris-Dakar Rally (1991), also hails from Mende. He was one of the best enduro riders with the palmares of France, and was also vice World champion.Kayaker Brigitte Guibal, Olympic silver medallist in 2000 in Sydney, was also born in Mende.It is in 1988 that Marion Buisson was born in Mende. After making her athletics debut at the "Éveil mendois", she continued her career at Clermont athletics. She became champion of France in the pole vault in , thereby achieving the minimum to participate in the Beijing Summer Olympics.Each year, the , an enduro competition, centres its course on the city of Mende. This race is part of the most renowned of the enduro season and allows, in addition, mixing professional and amateur riders.One month later (July), the city centre is dedicated to foot racing and the arrival of . This race starts from Marvejols, joining Mende by the Col de Goudard and the Côte de Chabrits. It is sometimes used as a preparation marathon for major events (the World Championships, Olympic Games), but is also open to amateurs as the majority of the marathons. Since 2006, the month of July is also marked by the organisation of a national of pétanque.Cycling is also in honour of the city. The hosted the best professionals in the 1970s. Since then, the has seen five stage finishes in the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2018), and stages in the Tour de l'Avenir, the Grand Prix du Midi Libre, the and Paris-Nice. Since 2006 and the rebirth of the Tour du Gévaudan, Mende is judged the final arrival of this amateur race of great importance. In 2008, the event was organised as the "Finale de la Coupe des France des clubs" [final of the Cup of France for clubs]. During the winter, a grand prix of regional cyclo-cross is also organized. The grand departure of the Tour de France VTT 1996, as well as the first two stages, happened at Mende.Mende was also host city of the Mediterranean Games in 1993 by hosting cycling, football and swimming events.In October 2005, the city hosted the 37th national congress of the French hiking federation, Lozère being a popular department for hikers, and is crossed by two of the most important roads of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Then, in 2007, Mende was the host of a round of the French enduro championships, as well as the final of the Coupe de France rally.In 2008, France welcomed the enduro European grand prix, the final of the World Championship (WEC). It was the town of Alès which was chosen to host the competition. However the organization was forced to give up, and it was finally hosted by Mende on 11 and 12 October 2008. In 2011, the city hosted the Grand Prix of France, final of the World Championship.Mende is the seat of most of the media of Lozére. Thus we find the writings of the Lozère edition of "Midi Libre" and [New Lozère], with regard to the written press.The radio station France Bleu and have their editorial offices in Lozère. While Radio Eaux-Vives Lozère is installed at the former Grand Seminary.The town of Mende is the episcopal seat of Gévaudan and Lozère, religious life has always been linked with its bishops. Also chapter headquarters, Mende has welcomed a large number of canons. A religious brotherhood, the "Brotherhood of the White Penitents" has long existed and has a procession every Holy Thursday since the 17th century. The Tower of the Penitents (called so because it is adjacent to the chapel of the penitents) is one of the last vestiges of the ramparts of the city.The large and small seminaries are traces of the presence of the formation of Catholic priests.The main place of worship is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and Saint-Privat, built at the request of Pope Urban V, in place of the old church built over the tomb of but the city has many small chapels. One of the oldest is the chapel of Saint-Ilpide, on the hill of the executioner, which however was destroyed and replaced by a small chapel. Two other chapels are no longer used: That of the Penitents (future Museum of Religious Art) and the Chapel of Saint-Dominique (exhibition hall). The Chapel of the Hermitage (on ) and the cave which was drilled alongside, can still be used for offices.The Carmelite convent has existed since 1880 and has hosted a community of Carmelite nuns, which ensures production of altar bread (or wafers) for the diocese (and those nearby). Another Convent is installed in Mende, which is the Adoration of Picpus Convent. At the "Rue de la Chicanette" is installed the Jeanne Delanoue community of the Providence; little used for celebration services, the place is used for meetings between people in the religious world. The community is at the origin of the creation of the institution Notre-Dame-de-la-Providence, a social children's home adjacent to its premises and which hosts minors under administrative and judicial protection. There are of other religious communities, mainly related to private schools and retirement or rest homes.Worship in Mende, due to its history, is very oriented towards Catholicism, but there are other places of worship for other religions. Thus Mende, near of the Cévennes, has a Protestant temple installed in the "Allée Paul Doumer".The city also had a synagogue in the former Jewish quarter, but it has long since been abandoned. This synagogue, also called Ferrier House from the name of one of its former owners, is the last vestige of the Mende ghetto. The Jews were expelled from the Gévaudan in the 14th century, and this synagogue became the (Catholic) college of All Saints until the French Revolution.Whilst counting the presence of a Muslim community, the city has no mosque, but simply an apartment that serves as place of worship.Industrial (wood industry, jewelry), service centre (shops, restaurants, bars), administrative (generates a lot of jobs) and tourism (medieval town, excursions to Gorges du Tarn), Mende is the starting point for the establishment of new businesses in the department, and turned more towards new technologies, with the advent of the technological hub.The city has more than 1300 companies, including about 900 in the commercial sector, and has an unemployment rate of 10.7% (2017).The city has five zones of economic activities (ZAE), each having a rather clearly defined role. The largest is the ZAE of the Causse d'Auge (north of the city), with a mainly industrial orientation in automation or in the management of the wood. The ZI of Gardès, on the road to Badaroux is an industrial area covering public works and mainly the building companies. The ZAE Lou Chaousse and Chabrits (both in the northwest) also have a vocation craft, but more oriented towards the trade for individuals. And finally, the "Pôle lozérien d'économie numérique" (POLeN) is turned to the new technologies.In addition, since the mid-2000s, the de Ramille was created. This area, wedged between the Lot and the RN 88 on the road to Balsièges hosts a commercial zone which has tended to develop. It is without doubt, with the area of the Causse d'Auge, the area of activity that has extended most recently.In the near future a new area of activity should emerge north of Mende, in the commune of Badaroux. This area whose size is expected to reach approximately initially, would be served by the landscaped expressway.If the commune no longer has many farms, the city remains at the centre of a very rural area and is very oriented towards agriculture. Indeed, 54% of the Lozère territory is classified as a "utilised agricultural area". Livestock in the commune is mainly dedicated to the sheep sector, although cattle farms are found located between Mende and neighbouring communes.This attraction to sheep is ancestral to Mende, since the city has long lived wool exploitation, since the 16th century. In 1333 the city already had a brotherhood of the weavers. In 1849, the town was still equipped with five large mills. However, while having a rich textile past, the city now retains no activity.Like the Lozère department, industry in Mende is mainly oriented towards the timber sector: Its operation, its treatment, its derivatives, etc. Another industry that holds an important place in the city is that of construction and public works.Mende is also the seat of the that handles .The city is strongly turned towards the tertiary sector. As said above, a majority of the enterprises of the city are shops. Mende is the centre of an area's population of approximately 20,000 inhabitants around the Lot Valley, the city therefore centralises much of the services. Its quality of prefecture adds to the presence of public service.Tourism has also developed since the end of the 20th century. This openness on tourism translated between 1983 and 2008 by the creation of the office of tourism (municipal and intermunicipal), an increase of 400 beds offered to tourists, the opening of a holiday village and of a youth hostel, but also the creation of activity centre (canoe base, Freestyle Park, etc.). The city has eleven hotels, four with three stars and four having two. To this one can add the holiday village of Chapitre that offers 42 gîtes for rent, as well as two campsites near the Lot.Other businesses are those that can be found in other modern cities (banks, insurance, bakeries, the press houses, clothes, etc.). The city has a supermarket and a hypermarket, as well as several superettes and other discounters. The hypermarket, which is of recent construction, belongs to the Système U group and is located in the new area of activity of Ramilles. The supermarket (Intermarché) is, meanwhile, close to the city centre. Markets, vestiges of the traditional markets of the city are many, taking place on Wednesday (textile, utility, etc.) at "Place Chaptal", and on Saturday mornings (food market) at "Place Chaptal" and "Place Urbain V". In addition, night markets are held during the summer.The main companies in terms of turnover, as well as major private employers are:Since 1981 Mende has been classified as a city of art, and, since 2000, the grouping of "Mende and Lot in the Gévaudan" has the label of "city and land of art and history".Indeed, the city has a rich architectural heritage, witness of the prosperous time related to the papacy.The Cathedral of Saint-Privat (classed as a historical monument in 1906) whose construction began in 1368 at the initiative of Pope Urban V. Its bell towers date back, however, to the 16th century, following the destruction of one of them during the passage of the Huguenots by Matthieu Merle. The large belfry included housing ""Non Pareille"", the largest bell in the world melted between 1517 and 1521 in Villefort and destroyed during the Wars of Religion. There remains only the clapper. The cathedral consists of twelve rectangular chapels, two pentagonal chapels and a sacristy. Originally it was built above the Sainte-Thècle crypt where the body of Saint Privat had been buried. It is located next to the old episcopal palace.The city has many public fountains. Water from the causses thus enters a piping system located beneath the city before joining the Lot. Two of them (Aigues-Passe and Soubeyrand) are classified as historic monuments. Piped water also enters the old wash house of the Calquières, still visible on "Rue d'Angiran".This tower is one of the few remains of the ancient walls of the 12th century. Protecting the Gate of Angiran which was next to it, this tower served as guard for the short-lived Seneschal of Mende. It includes three floors and an attic. This is the installation of the chapel which is adjacent, and especially its bell tower at the top which saved the tower during the destruction of the walls in 1768.Dating back to the 13th century, this bridge is one of the symbols of the city. It has never been carried away by frequent floods in Mende. It formerly went by the name of Peyrenc Bridge, then took the name of Notre Dame due to the presence on its mouth of a Virgin, which disappeared during the Wars of Religion. Its span has a opening and is high.Saint Privat withdrew, in the 3rd century, into caves that he had built over Mende, on . Since his Hermitage was built, it also to allow the pilgrims to go there. It can be accessed either by Way of the Cross (from the market) or by road from the causse (RD 25). At the hermitage, we find a hotel for the reception of the pilgrims, a chapel, grotto and a breakthrough designed to the original cave.The House where the consul sat, since 1578, also served as city hall after the Revolution. On its pediment is found the arms of the city: ""Azure in the Gothic M of or, a shining Sun similarly topped."" Facing it is a trompe-l'œil wall symbolizing the twinning of Mende and Volterra.Located in the northwest of the city, the Bahours locality had two castles, one of which was destroyed in 1960. The remaining one is a strong house (manse) built in the 17th century, possibly on the foundations of a more ancient building. The main interest of this strong house is its kitchen listed as a historical monument, like the whole building.Mende features a municipal theatre and several rooms that can be used to this kind of show. The ancient theatre of the city turned into cinema. A development project involves the construction of a new multicultural hall. In addition, Mende has a departmental library, the Lamartine Library.The ancient theatre of the city, established between 1890 and 1895, was replaced by a cinema. The main room used for the theatre is now the festival hall located at the market. This room, and its natural scenery of arches, is multi-cultural and is the largest in the city in terms of capacity. On the market lies the "antirouille", a municipal building for young people and allowing everyone to have access to the internet, this building has a room to organize concerts.Near the market, along the "Chemin Saint-Ilpide", the Urban V municipal room hosts plays, live shows, and also meetings and projections (world knowledge, for example).Finally as part of the redevelopment of the market (started by the installation of the intercommunal tourism office and the renovation of the Lamartine Library), an auditorium should be created behind the festival hall (the Emile-Joly Square being moved).The Ignon-Fabre Museum (or the Museum of Mende) was located on "Rue de l'Epine" [street of the Holy thorn], at the , where there was installed the first electrification plant of the city. It was however closed due to lack of budget. Before it, a museum was located in a house next to the prison.The Chapel of Saint-Dominique and the current Department Hall can serve as an exhibition space, as can the Chapel of the Penitents and the former consular house.In addition a project of the Museum of , currently under study, should be installed in the Chapel of the Penitents.The poem, written by an author whose story did not retain the name, was confirmed in the 19th century:However, not everyone had a positive vision of the city. It had long had problems with sewage into the modern era, and was denigrated despite its charm:This quote comes perhaps from the conditions in which the geographer of the king came in the city. Like those who would declare to Serge Livrozet that Mende was "capital of Lozère and torture".Those born in Mende, or having a very strong tie with the city include:When King Louis XI granted autonomy to the city, he granted new arms in 1469. An 'L' surmounted by a crown, in gratitude to the king, was added to these in 1475.The current coat of arms dates from the sixteenth century. These weapons were registered in the Armorial General of France in 1697.
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[
"Jean-Jacques Delmas",
"Alain Bertrand",
"Henri Trémolet de Villers"
] |
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Who was the head of Mende in Feb, 1972?
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February 26, 1972
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{
"text": [
"Henri Trémolet de Villers"
]
}
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L2_Q191772_P6_1
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Paulin Daudé-Gleize is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1919 to Jan, 1928.
Henri Trémolet de Villers is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1971 to Jan, 1977.
Jean-Jacques Delmas is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 1983 to Jan, 2008.
Alain Bertrand is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
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Mende, LozèreMende (, ) is a commune and prefecture of the department of Lozère and of the region of Occitanie in southern France. Its inhabitants are called the "Mendois". The city, including the first traces of dwellings date back to 200 BC, was originally named "Mimata", probably in reference to the mountains that surround it.Mende is located between Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier, but also on the axis of Lyon–Saint-Étienne–Albi–Toulouse. The other important nearby towns are Aurillac and Saint-Flour (Cantal), Le Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire), Rodez, Millau (Aveyron) and Alès and Nîmes (Gard).Even though Mende remains a relatively sparsely populated city (approximately 12,000 inhabitants), it remains the most important of the Lozère Department. In addition, it is the city-centre of the unique urban area of this department.It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mende.Mende is situated in the high valley of the Lot, in a mountainous area, in the "Pays du Gévaudan", the Rieucros stream joins to it on its right bank. The city is overlooked (on the left bank of the Lot) by and its . Access is by the . On the right bank, residential areas extend over different causses, including the "Causse d'Auge". Located on the axis of Lyon-Toulouse, the city has long been a commercial crossroads between the Auvergne, Rhone and the Languedoc.The commune is bordered by Chastel-Nouvel to the north, Badaroux to the east, Lanuéjols to the southeast, Brenoux and Saint-Bauzile to the south, Balsièges to the southwest, and Barjac and Servières to the west.Mende is one of the "gateway cities" (along with Millau, Lodève, Alès and Ganges) for the site of the Causses and Cévennes, of world heritage by UNESCO under the inscription "Les Causses and Cevennes, Mediterranean agro-pastoral cultural landscape".According to the INSEE, Mende is an urban commune without suburbs ("ville isolée" [isolated town]). It lies at the centre of an urban area composed of 15 communes, the only one in the department of Lozère.The town of Mende is built in the Lot Valley, within the area of the . The region of the Causses in Lozère is one of the four of Lozère, with the Margeride, the Aubrac and the Cévennes. The city is nestled in the middle of different Causses which form as natural barriers. However, over the 20th century, urbanisation began to extend beyond these limits.Of the Causses, is the most significant. The causse is overhung by the Cross of . A first wooden cross was planted in 1900 or 1907. It was replaced a few years later, on 8 July 1933, a Jubilee year, by a -high iron cross. Until 1945, this cross was the place of large gatherings in honour of Mendois soldiers. This cross has been illuminated since the summer of 1965. The mount also houses the chapel where Privat, the martyr of the Gévaudan, withdrew to. At its foot lies the area of Vabre where can be found the first remains of houses in the city. Opposite this is the Causse d'Auge (northeast) and the Causse du Crouzet (northwest), and the Margeride mountains beyond. To the west is Causse de Changefège, located between Mende and Barjac, which complements the borders of the city.The geology of the city of Mende is very dependent on the surrounding causses and streams that pass through them. The Mont Mimat and the Causse de Changefège are composed of limestone of the "Grands Causses", thus presenting abrupt edges. The other causses (as well as the butte de Fontanille) are composed of limestone of the "Petits Causses" (without these edges). The Lot Valley is composed of marl. The Valley, in the south of Mende, is full of blue marl, leaving one to presuppose that the marl of the town of Mende would be, in part, of the same origin. Finally, the various streams (the Rieucros) of the causses of the north of the city are lined by mica-schist.The city of Mende was built on the banks of the Lot. But the Lot is not the only presence of water in the city: Indeed, it has several sources, including those of . The most significant of them is located in the Vabre district, close to the first houses. These sources have also often been channeled and feed the underground water system of the city, visible on the surface through numerous fountains and the old wash house. The streets, such as the "Rue du Torrent", attest to the passage of water from Mont Mimat.To the north, on the other side of the Lot, the sources are much more distant, but water is present in the stream known as Rieucros.Mende is subject to an oceanic stream that comes from the Aubrac and Mediterranean and flows from the Cévennes. The department of Lozère, Mende in particular, benefit from insolation (or sunlight) similar to that of Toulouse with approximately 2,069 hours of sunshine per year. The city, away from the mountains that surround it, has a more protected climate than the highlands of Gévaudan: So, average temperatures oscillate between and . With respect to annual precipitation, data for the Lozère is between , depending on the exposure of the regions, with up to 50 days of snow per year.Between 1971 and 2000, monthly rainfall ranged from (March) and (September).In more detail, here are some statements in Mende records since 1985:Mende is located in the centre of the Lozère department and therefore centralises the roads. The city has rail and air access, but the Lot is not navigable (too shallow) as with all the rivers of the department (except for recreational canoeing, or in rare exceptions for the transport of people such as the crossing of the Tarn towards La Malène).Mende is located on the , linking Lyon and Toulouse. The road comes from Balsièges to the west and Badaroux to the east. This axis can be reached easily. Haute-Loire and Ardèche are to the east, via Langogne and Aveyron is to the west via La Canourgue-Banassac, as well as the A75 autoroute. A road doubling project is underway in the department, bypassing Mende from the north. This doubling is however a long project (1993), having had several outlines and some opposition. The project was finally abandoned in October 2012 making Lozère a department without draft dual carriageways on RN 88. Indeed, its neighbours Aveyron and Tarn continue their projects of dual carriageways between Rodez and Toulouse with all expected to be commissioned in December 2015. The work of the Rodez - Séverac section should be completed by the end of 2019. The same will be the case for Haute-Loire, which continues its road access. However, the workarounds of Mende and Langogne are budgeted. These projects in adjacent departments will reach major cities nearby to Mende (Rodez, Albi, Toulouse, Le Puy and even Lyon). Finally, the economic impact or the absence of dual carriageways in Lozere must be assessed in the medium and long term.Furthermore, a viaduct (the Rieucros Viaduct) commissioned in December 2009 will be used to ensure a first bypass of Mende. It connects the industrial area of the Causse d'Auge to the technological centre of Valcroze (and the RD 42) and also helps to relieve the traffic connecting the districts north and northwest of the city.The RN 88 deviation from Mende should be the first from Pelouse to reach up to the Causse d'Auge with an "expressway" configuration. Then it would continue on the D 806 (ex north) to the Rieucros Viaduct, and then a new section of the viaduct to the Mende exit in the hamlet of La Thébaïde (west bypass). These two sections will only be of two lanes. Subsequently, the expressway from the Causse d'Auge will be directly linked to the A 75.Another national road, the RN 106, formerly ran through the city. This name is no longer valid for the section coming from the Gard and joining Mende via Florac (it is then of the RN 88 on the stretch between Balsièges and Mende). The northern part of the road was decommissioned in 2007 and now bears the name of D 806. This stretch goes from Mende to Saint-Chély-d'Apcher (and the A75 autoroute) via Chastel-Nouvel.Secondary access is provided by the RD 42 from the northwest, which joins the RN 88 at Barjac, and by the RD 25 which, passing through the , crosses before arriving at the Valdonnez.Mende features an SNCF railway station, located on the railway line of the , between Le Monastier (the ) and La Bastide - Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (). This line, built at the very beginning of the 20th century, bears the nickname of ""ligne du toit de la France"" [the roof of France line], and Mende is the main railway station. Ten weekly links are provided by rail.The station is also the starting point of the TER connection to Clermont-Ferrand by bus, which is daily.Referred to as TUM (for "Transports Urbains Mendois") the urban transport network is exclusively equipped with buses, which run through the city and some nearby villages (Les Boulaines, Chabrits, Chabannes). Since its establishment in 2000, it has replaced the school bus service. The urban transport network is also responsible for the management of the pay car parks in the city. A part of the city centre is also exclusively pedestrian.The prefecture of the Lozère department shares with the neighbouring village of Brenoux. This airfield, located on , is thus from Clermont-Ferrand, from Montpellier and away from Lyon and Toulouse. Highlights include it being the site of the final scene of the film "La Grande Vadrouille", and also of five stages of the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018).Furthermore, a Mende-Paris air link was implemented in October 2007. However, the flight was departing from the aerodrome of Le Puy-en-Velay, located from Mende and reached by a shuttle. This connection was born of a desire to open up Mende to air travel, which is indeed late at this level for a prefecture, and has no direct flight to Paris unlike its neighbours Clermont-Ferrand, Rodez, Aurillac or Le Puy-en-Velay.Since the beginning of 2008, a study has been conducted by the CCI of the Lozère department, in order to discuss the possibility of the establishment of a link between the Lozerian prefecture and the regional capital, Montpellier but four years after the launch of this study, no concrete project to date has been presented.Finally, two more major airports with international influence and close to Mende are Clermont-Ferrand Aulnat and Rodez-Aveyron.In the 13th century, the city was concentrated in what is now the city centre, bounded by the boulevards, and formerly the ramparts. It was then split into five sections (or neighbourhoods) known as "pans": Auriac, Aygues-Passe, Champnau, Chastel and Claustres.When it was initially named as such, the Pan d'Auriac was mainly a place of settlement, before becoming the "quartier des pénitents blancs" [district of the white penitents] who settled there. The Pan d'Aygues-Passe (or Aigues-Passe), meaning "water that passes", owes its name to the inclination of its streets, where the water flowed during cleaning. The Pan de Champnau derives its name from "new field", and includes what was a new residential area, at north of the city. The Pan de Chastel is the old commercial district of the city. It is located towards the Chastel Gate, which led then to Chastel-Nouvel, where a castle stood which was property of the bishops. Finally the Pan des Claustres, whose name comes from cloisters, was the largest of the city and is now between the and , i.e. between the two tombs of (the chapel Saint-Ilpide on the hill of the executioner, and the crypt of Sainte-Thècle under the cathedral square).The historic city centre is bordered by boulevards which took the place of the ancient walls. In addition to housing, the centre is mostly occupied by convenience stores and artisans. Beyond the boulevards, there are other houses as well as government buildings. The General Council and the prefecture indeed share the former , but services are scattered throughout the city. "Allée Piencourt" connects downtown roads to Badaroux and Chastel-Nouvel, near the ancient diocese (pré claux and pré vival) having been built.North of the "Allée Piencourt", past the Berlière Bridge, dwellings are present at the foot of the Causse d'Auge. These were established in several instalments over the 19th and 20th centuries, the first of these being Chaldecoste. It is in this part of the city that the large and the small seminary as well as the Convent of Carmel are found. The city extends to the north in the direction of Alteyrac (commune of Chastel-Nouvel). Between these areas and Alteyrac is located the zone of economic activities (ZAE) of the Causse d'Auge. The northern districts often bear names of flowers, this part of the city that historically sheltered gardens and vineyards, along the draille linking the "Plateau du Palais du Roi" [King's Palace Plateau].The causse is bounded by two streams, the Rieucros in the east and the to the west.Above the Badaroux road, on a hill, lies the Fontanilles district. It was originally social housing. At the foot of the hill is the Lycée Notre-Dame, while beyond the district of Saint-Laurent (where one finds traces of history with the presence of a chapel and a windmill) and, later, the Gardès ZAE. In this part, to the west of Gardès, is also the village of Sirvens where traces of a Gallo-Roman villa were discovered.Stuck between Fontanille, Mont Mimat and the city centre, are districts located roadside above pré claux. In this area are located the centre of firefighters, the Château of Bellesagne and the former gendarmerie. The market is also in this area, but more to the east than the precedents cited (beyond the boulevards, however). Above it lies the Vabre district and Hill of the Executioner where the first traces of dwellings of the city were found. Also nearby is the city's prison.In the westerly direction, found the District of Le Chapitre with the sports complex and the holiday village. This area is at the foot of a portion of the Causse de Changefège, where homes are installed along the Chabrits road ("Avenue du 11-Novembre", north-west of the city). It is in this part of the city which the district of Valcroze is found (new in the 19th century), the Chabrits ZAE and technology park.The other side of the Lot, along the , is found the avenue of the Gorges du Tarn and the area of Ramille. It is in this part where retail establishments are found. The Ramille zone saw the introduction, despite some criticism about the instability of the ground, of the hypermarket of the department, as well as a commercial area.On the map are the main roads of the city. To the west, the RN 88 is joined to Balsièges, passing through the Rocher de Moïse (classified site) located at the left end. To the northwest, it is the hamlet of Chabannes, and further to Chabrits. To the south, is found, where the new cross stands which symbolically marks the top of the hill (although it continues a little higher). This road leads to the Hermitage of , at the cross of the same name and the route of Valdonnez (Lanuéjols, Brenoux, Saint-Bauzile).To the east, Fontanille district is on a hillock, circumvented by the Lot. Behind lies the district of Saint-Laurent, then the ZAE de Gardès (and the village of the same name) and the village of Sirvens. Following the RN 88, one reaches Badaroux. Finally to the north, is the area of the Chaldecoste (broken down into several districts: Bergerie, Chanteperdrix, Vignette, etc.) where one can reach the ZAE du causse d'Auge. Further to the north, one finds Chastel-Nouvel before returning to the ground of and the "Plateau du Palais du Roi". The drinking water of the city of Mende comes from this direction, because of the Lac de Charpal reservoir, which is the main source.In 2017, Mende had 6,851 residences for an official population of 12,134 people. 87% of them are primary residences and 6.1% of secondary residences, which contrasts sharply with the figure of the Lozère department amounting to a 32.3% share of secondary housing.The population has been growing for several years, and the city has acquired new quarters over the years: Chaldecoste and Chanteperdrix in the 1970s, La Bergerie in the 1990s, and Valcroze in the 2000s. The city has 17.9% of HLM-type accommodations.59% of dwellings have four rooms or more and 19% have three rooms. The city is composed of many individual homes, small and large dwellings remaining in the minority. However, one can see that between 1990 and 1999 there was an increase of 85.3% of dwellings of one or two rooms. This can partly be explained by the development of higher education, with the branch of the University of Perpignan.The region is an ancient site of settlement dating back to the Bronze Age, although the capital of the Gévaudan, the Gallic period then Gallo-Roman, was Anderitum. Found in the ancient texts are the names of "Mimate", "Mimata" (mountain), which refer to this town at the foot of "Mons Mimatensis" (). In the same spirit, another name circulating is that of "Viculus Mimatensis" (or "Vicus Mimatensis"). It is the city which gave its name to Mont Mimat ("mount of the Mendois", literally) and not vice versa.Traces of dwellings dating from 200 BC were found, ancient Roman "villae", as well as around the city. However, residents could have been be domiciled here well before. Indeed, on Mont Mimat to Chapieu, a dolmen was found around 1913 including a trepanned skull. The other surrounding plateaux also attest this presence with other dolmens (on the Causse de Changefege for example). These remains may date from the Chalcolithic period.The city, strictly speaking, dates from the Middle Ages, and it is not found cited at the end of the 6th century by Gregory of Tours in his "Histoire des Francs". This text speaks of the martyrdom of , the first bishop of the Gabali, who was the origin of a pilgrimage to the hermitage and the caves where he had retired. Mende in the 3rd century was then only a village. The history of Privat is thus situated around the 3rd century, while he was sent by Austromoine to evangelize the Gévaudan. It was during this period that the Alemanni invaded the country, guided by their leader, Chrocus.The Gabali took refuge in the fortress of Grèzes where they were under siege for two years. Their bishop, Privat, was meanwhile in one of the caves of Mont Mimat which he had converted into a hermitage. When Chrocus learned that the bishop was not among his people, he went looking for him to use as a hostage in order to get the Gabali to leave Grèzes. Privat was martyred at his cave on near the village of Mimate. Presented to the Gabali, he refused to deliver his people despite all the barbaric tortures to which he was subjected (according to Gregory of Tours:""The good shepherd refused to deliver his sheep to wolves, and they tried to force his to sacrifice to demons""). Exhausted, the Alemanni would leave the Gabali free, by promising them peace. Privat succumbed to his injuries in the following days. His act of resistance, refusing to deliver his compatriots, thus earned him great popular fervour, and it was around his tomb and his hermitage that pilgrimage began, allowing the village to grow.In the 12th century Gévaudan was part of the County of Barcelona. In Mende, the counties have a castle, the castel frag. Three other lords had their castle around the Romanesque church: That of Canilhac (who owned the archtreasurer rights of the church), that of Cabrières (who was granted rights of archdeacon) and Dolan (who administered and ruled the episcopal home during the interregnum of bishops). In 1161, Mende, who was under the suzerainty of the King of France, saw his Bishop get the royal rights. It was the golden bull, an act signed by the king and marked with a royal seal in gold, which contained the terms of this agreement. It thus gave Aldebert and his successors, in perpetuity, the Royal power and the full powers of justice on the inhabitants of the bishopric. This fact is quite rare because only four golden bulls in six centuries were granted by the Kings of France.It was from this time that the city walls were built. Aldebert wished to protect the city and secure channels that lead there. he recovered and also built the fortress of Chapieu on , and was done so that it could accommodate a garrison. This allowed the monitoring of the direct route between Mont Lozère and Villefort, in other words towards the Regordane Way, trade route.At that time, however, Mende was not provided the civil and religious capital of Gévaudan. In fact the power was always dependent of two entities: The county and Viscount of Grèzes. The Viscount, property of the King of Aragon, was recovered by the King of France in 1258. The bishop had great power as a vassal, but he didn't have the total legitimacy of some Royal officials. This situation ended from 1307 with the Act of paréage between Bishop Guillaume VI Durand and King Philip IV. Indeed, it definitively fixed the possessions of the king and those of the bishop, even if some disputes persisted.During the Hundred Years' War security increased with the strengthening of the fortifications and the construction of ditches to 1361-1362. At that time, the chapter of Mende had a castle on the heights of the city, Chastel-Nouvel. In 1370 many locals felt safe from the ramparts of the city, despite threats from the routiers. Also, few of them took refuge in Chastel-Nouvel. But the walls were insufficient, and could not prevent the pillages. This period isolated Mende from its neighbours, including Le Puy-en-Velay, and waited the arrival of the Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, then the intervention of Charles VI and the liberation of the region so that the roads reopened around 1452.In 1390, was in Mende, where John III of Armagnac sought, on behalf of the King of France, to put an end to the private war that Raymond de Turenne led against the Pope from Avignon. The Gascon signed as a witness to an agreement between the legate of Clement VII, Antoine de Lisa, , and a representative of the Viscount of Turenne. This interview of Mende helped the Florentines to send ambassadors to solicit the Count of Armagnac. He was proposed to cross the Alps and attack the Count of Vertus in Lombardy.It was also at this time that blessed Pope Urban V began the work of the cathedral (1368), for a completion in 1467. By its letters patent, King Louis XI confirmed the privileges for this cathedral, granted by his predecessors, in September 1464.At the beginning of the 1470s, conflict erupted between Bishop and King Louis XI, because of the support that the bishop had given to the County of Armagnac when it had revolted. To counter it, the king subtracted La Panouse authority over the city which then became autonomous. It wasn't until 1478 that the bishops found authority over the city, sharing revenues with the consul.At the end of the Hundred Years' War, Mende developed its production of drapery, and thus increased its role as a commercial crossroads between the Languedoc and Auvergne, exporting its fame. It is estimated that in the 16th century Mende was one of the richest dioceses of Languedoc before Montpellier and Toulouse. This wealth of the diocese reinforced the ecclesiastical power. Thus among the list of the bishops of the time one can count a number from the family of the Pope. Giuliano della Rovere was ordained bishop of Mende, although he never visited in the capital of Gévaudan (practice known as commendation). His nephews, Clement and , succeeded him in this position. During his tenure, François adorned the cathedral with its bell towers, which one hosted the "Non Pareille", the largest bell in the world.In October 1485, when Clement de La Rovere came to the episcopal seat, old quarrels between the consul and the bishopric re-emerged, first mentioned with fear of losing this privilege. Thus they barricaded the gates of Mende, so that the bishop could not access. At this time the bishops primarily used their Balsièges Castle as a residence (that of Chanac being the summer residence). In vain as the Della Rovere family covered the full authority by notice of the king in 1492. The title of consul was held in place of the traditional title of trustee.In the 16th century, the main events were the Reformation and the Wars of Religion which resulted. On 21 July 1562, 4,000 Protestants got within the walls of the city. They destroyed the unprotected monuments and besieged the city by depriving it of water. They withdrew four days later, largely due to being given 2,000 ecus. This ransom ensured the city a few years of peace.During the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Astorg de Peyre was murdered in the king's room: his widow then hired a young man, Matthieu Merle to avenge the death of her husband. From 1569 to 1576 he held with his troops the fortress of Grèzes where he gradually seized the north of Gévaudan. From 1577 he moved with his troops to Marvejols intending to seize Mende, although not ceasing his conquests to the north, he failed however in August 1578 at Saint-flour. The night of Christmas 1579, to enter the city, Merle's soldiers expected that the people of Mendes were at midnight mass.During his stay in Mende, Merle made further fortification to the city, not hesitating razing 120 homes to restore the ramparts. In February 1581, while he ruled all the Gévaudan, he enforced the threat he had made to the people. He had in fact asked them to deliver 4,000 ecus, a sum that the Mendois could not collect. He partially destroyed Mende Cathedral built by Pope Urban V. He saved a bell tower to avoid damaging the episcopal palace where his home was established. It was at this time that the "Non Pareille" was melted, the biggest bell in the world, to manufacture culverins and other cannonballs. The city was liberated on bail that year thanks to the intervention of the King of Navarre.The city liberated, a seneschal was created to ensure the peace. Response to the attack of Merle was organised in 1586 against the town of Marvejols, led by baron de Saint-Vidal. It was during this response that the Peyre fortress disappeared from the rock of Peyre. The seneschal took its place. The Tower of Auriac, today known as the Tower of Penitents, was built to accommodate one hundred soldiers. The seneschal gradually took precedence over the diocese, which called for the help of the Duke of Languedoc in 1597. It was after this episode that the Seneschal of Mende disappeared.The beginning of the 17th century was coloured by the work of reconstruction of the cathedral for an inauguration in 1605, although work had lasted until 1629. Far from the splendour of the original, while taking up the same plane, this new cathedral was characterised by a bell tower which was smaller than the other.Between 1645 and 1660, the city was the scene of strife between two rival factions: The Marmaux and the Catharinaux, all members of the consuls or the bourgeoisie, but not having the same opinion on the importance of episcopal power, the latter being opposed. The bishop was also the target of an attack while he officiated in Mende Cathedral in 1645 (he was actually not touched). After several trials, it was not without difficulty that the kingdom gave back his ancestral power, the consul remaining under his control.At the end of the century, landscaped a lane which joined to the Lot (since known as ""Allée Piencourt"") and especially acquired the Aubusson tapestries for the episcopal palace. These tapestries, classified, since adorn the cathedral. It was also behind the early educational development in the city and contributed to the building of the hospital. It also made the hospital its heir, allowing it to develop.In 1702, the war of the Camisards was triggered in the Cévennes. Mende somewhat landscaped its walls in order to prevent any attack. However, this war which began with the murder of Father du Chayla at Le Pont-de-Montvert never reached Mende.In 1721, the Great Plague arrived in Gévaudan affecting the town of Mende with an amount of 1,078 victims in one year. Two generations later, the walls were removed (in 1768), "so the air circulates better".Once all these troubles passed, the city redeveloped its economy around wool and sheep farming. The city extended a little bit under the development of the appearance of the mills, and its first factory. In 1754, Mende saw Louis Mandrin the famous brigand, who lodged in a house there and, according to legend, hid treasure.Between 1764 and 1767, Mende was the witness the comings and goings of the wolf-hunters of the king, who came to seek rest in the city before returning to hunt the beast which was terrorising the north of the country. It was seen close to Mende, once at Pailhou and between Rieutort-de-Randon and Chastel-Nouvel but remained primarily in Margeride. At this time the quarrel between the consul and the bishop was brought up to date by the edict on municipal organizations. The burghers and nobles opposed, but the bishop finally retained power in 1771.During the French Revolution, Mende had to share with Marvejols the function of department capital of Gévaudan. This was renamed in the Lozère department in 1790, and the guardianship of the church disappeared in 1791, thus putting an end to the paréage of 1307. Mende was the scene of small counter-revolutionary clashes, but without great effects. It became the sole capital shortly after.In 1800, the prefect settled in the city, and the prefecture occupies the episcopal palace after the sale of the property of the church. In the middle of the 19th century, the causses around Mende are planted with Austrian black pine, this national forest has continued since then. The choice of black pine was due to its ease of acclimation, and its robustness. The presence of this forest often protected Mende from floods.Then the railway appeared in the prefecture, then linking to Sévérac-le-Château (3 May 1884). The railway line follows the Lot to cross the city, and also continues to follow, like the newly created road. In 1887 the old episcopal palace disappeared in flames, the prefecture had to be rebuilt.On 8 April 1888 Mende became one of the first cities in France, and the first chef-lieu to have electric lighting. The plant was installed in the old .The twentieth century was marked by a beginning of economic decline. The gradual end of the wool industry, the First and the Second World War depopulated the city. Between 1931 and 1934 baths are built, since becoming the Home, and located on the market square. The building was destroyed in summer 2013, to be replaced by a multi-cultural hall.In 1939, shortly before World War II, an internment camp was built in the woods of the Rieucros. The population was opposed to this transit camp for anti-fascists and communists. It then became an internment camp exclusively for women. The mayor at the time, , condemned the Vichy regime and the camp in his hometown, where he made sure that children interned with their mother followed a normal education. His hostile words and acts to the regime in place led him to be removed from his post in 1941. He then joined Resistance where he became one of the leaders for the Lozère. Arrested and sent to German camps in 1944, he died during a transfer in 1945.Ideally placed between the Maquis of the Cévennes and the Aubrac, the town was located as well as a centre for the coordination of the Lozère Interior Resistance. As for the population, it protected itself where shelters against aerial bombardments were implemented.From the 1970s, the city had a sizable population growth. The city then extended to the Causse d'Auge. In the 1980s and 1990s, one can also see that the department was depopulating overall, while its prefecture was expanding. Culture and sport took more importance in the life of the city.During the 1990s, the city developed administrative reconciliations with nearby cities. Therefore, it formed the Estelle city network with Aurillac and Rodez. The principle of the network was to share experiences and pool resources to develop such medium-sized cities. Shortly after, it was with other networks that Mende became closer to other cities of the Massif Central. This is the case, for example, with the Cyber Massif network dedicated to the digital opening up of the region.Moreover, since the beginning of the 21st century, Mende had tried to actively participate in the policies of opening up of the Massif Central. The city lies in the Lot Valley and reached an area of in the 2000s. It also seeks to enroll in a sustainable development project, in the image of the department with, among other projects, the construction of a cogeneration plant and the establishment of a network of heat. The timber industry, so important in the economy of the city, could therefore be put to further use. The establishment of bio-energy in the city has also been carried out by the appearance of a wind farm north of the city.Mende is the chef-lieu of the Lozère department: It welcomes in this regard the prefecture and the headquarters of the General Council. The buildings of these two institutions are scattered within the city. A project of the Department Hall to consolidate all services of the General Council is under consideration. The mayor's office is housed in the town hall which dates from the 18th century, however, a large part of the services have been moved to the annex of the mayor's office.This is the old consular house which was used as a city hall of the Revolution until 1852. On that date, Mayor Becamel bought the Pages family mansion located in the "Place d'Angiran". Since then the city hall has been based in this city mansion (listed historical monument) in the square which has become "Place Charles-de-Gaulle", although a part of the services is now located in the annex which faces it. As the cathedral, the city hall also houses the tapestries of Aubusson, classified since 1909.Since 1945, the following were elected mayors of the city of Mende:The city of Mende belongs to the . It was created in December 2001 under the name of "Communauté de communes de la Haute Vallée d'Olt" before changing its name in 2009. The commune being the largest in terms of population, it was its mayor, Jean-Jacques Delmas, who became the first president of the community.The implementation of this community of communes has allowed a transfer of powers. So, all areas of economic activity and sports facilities now fall under the responsibility of the community, rather than the commune itself.However, the actions are much wider since waste treatment also enters the competence of the community. The waste disposal site of the commune lies in the ZAE du Causse d'Auge, north of the city. In this context, unsorted collection is also the responsibility of the community of communes.This community of communes is not the only grouping of communities for the town of Mende. A comprehensive plan was implemented around the label "Pays d'Art et d'Histoire de Mende et Lot en Gévaudan" [Lands of art and history of Mende and Lot in Gevaudan]. These are twenty-two communes which now belong to the Pays d'Art [Lands of Art] which comes in the continuity of the city of art and history label which Mende has had since 1981. The lands comprises four communities: Cœur de Lozère, , and , which is assistant to the Chastel-Nouvel commune.The city is the chef-lieu of two cantons: Mende-1 and Mende-2 since 2015. Mende-1 comprises the northern part of the city, Mende-2 the southern part.Before the Act of paréage of 1307, Mendoise and Gevaudanaise justice was fully devolved to the bishops. This power was shared with the king after the signing of the Act. Power was shared between the various for the communal land, with Mende being in the land of the bishops and Marvejols in lands of the king, and like this until 1789.The courthouse was built between 1833 and 1835. On 18 February 1994, it was the target of a bombing by the FLNC.The tribunal groups together a children's tribunal, a tribunal of commerce, a court and a high court. It depends on the .The city has long held prisons. Current prison was commissioned in 1891. One of the first high-security areas of France was then moved there in 1949. It was at this date that the prison ownership changed, from the State Department. Several personalities have stayed here, the most famous being Jacques Mesrine. André Génovès' film, "Mesrine" released in 1983, also tells of the criminal plan to destroy the QHS. had sought to bring Jacques Mesrine out of prison when he was imprisoned in Mende. This area had also been the target of critics, such as those of the Committee of action of prisoners and Serge Livrozet, in 1975. In 1989, the Mende detention centre was again publicised with the escape of , who managed to escape by threatening guards with a dummy gun. The last prison 'personality' of Mende, , activist of the alongside José Bové, was imprisoned after the case of the McDonald's franchise destruction in Millau.Mende is twinned with:Since 2007, the cities of Wunsiedel and Volterra are also paired together. The twinning with Vila Real (much more populous than the city of Mende) is explained by the fact that a large part of the Portuguese population of Mende, and Lozère in general, is from this region.In contrast to the department of Lozère, the prefecture saw its demographic curve draw increasingly since the French Revolution. If the department was strongly affected by the and the great wars of the 20th century, the city had the presence of its own authorities. This may explain why Mende has not experienced the same trend as Lozère. This table shows the demographic for the town of Mende, but it can be considered that the "bassin Mendois" [Mende area] follows the same trend.In 2017, the commune had 12,134 inhabitants.The Mende population is fairly young taking into account the ageing population of Lozère. Compared with the 1990 census, it is the age group of 15–29 years which has had the greatest increase at the expense of those aged 0–14 and 30–44 years. The number of near-centenarians was also greater in 1999 than in 1990.In Mende, the share of the immigrant population represents about 8% of the total population. They originate mostly from Portugal (mainly from Vila Real), Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey. This being the image of immigration in the region. The Spanish immigration, which was very present in the middle of the twentieth century, has been disappearing since the 1970s.Mende has three nursery schools: "Solelhons" (the small Suns in Occitan), the Chênes school and Fontanilles school. They are in close relations with the primary schools of the Groupe solaire, Annex Michel del Castillo School and Fontanilles School, Jeanne d'Arc School dealing with private education.The public college of Henri-Bourillon is located in the former small seminary, and share places with the Lycée Chaptal. It hosts students from the city as well as a number from other neighbouring municipalities (Badaroux, Barjac, Chanac, Saint-Bauzile, Saint-Étienne-du-Valdonnez, etc.). The private college is the college of . The continuity of private education is at the Lycée Notre-Dame. Another high school, the Lycée Emile Peytavin allows, in addition to general education, technical and vocational education. Finally, now attached to the Lycée Notre-Dame, we find the Private Professional Lycée Plaisance.Institutions of the city are also have one of the best success rates for the Baccalauréat diploma, compared with the other schools in the area, which puts them in the first half best institutions of France.At the level of higher education, Mende welcomes a BTS in its different high schools. An , branch of the University of Perpignan, offers four courses: Multimedia, gerontology, City Council Secretary, and tourism. It is located in the buildings of the former Lamolle barracks, which had housed the . Finally the city also houses a teacher training Institute, an (IFSIL), a and a .The festivities of the town of Mende are held annually in the month of August. They were related to the feast of , on 21 August. They are decorated with a flower parade and the election of "Miss Mende". Then, in September, every other year, Mende hosts its beer festival, with its twin town of Wunsiedel. The city has also several sports events. At the cultural level, the "meetings of writers" were organized at the beginning of the 1990s, in August. They have welcomed regional authors but also renowned authors such as Calixthe Beyala and Michel Folco.The department has a hospital, which opened in 1970. Five of the six services are located in Mende: Guy de Chauliac Hospital, the retirement home, the convalescence centre, the Training Institute in Nursing and boarding school. The sixth branch, another retirement home, is based at Rieutort-de-Randon.The hospital has approximately 70 physicians and 750 health professionals. Moreover, since 2011, it welcomes in its structure the home of the Paul Éluard psychological and psychiatric unit, a branch of the of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole.To this one can add 20 physicians, general practitioners and specialists as well as a centre of firefighters. Though, if the implementation of the current hospital is fairly recent, the city has a fairly old hospital story.In the 12th century was the "alms house" for the population. This hospital, located on "Rue Angiran", derived its income from the operation of a mill in the district of La Vernède, as well as donations of the lords of the lands. It was partially destroyed in 1593 during the construction of a nearby citadel. Though the citadel disappeared in 1597, the hospital was not repaired immediately. From 1635 a budget was allocated for the rebuilding of the institution. It would not be built in the same place, and would take the name of "Hospital of Aygues-Passes". In 1677 became and thus Count of Gévaudan. In his first year as bishop, he rebuilt a new hospital which became the "general hospital". In 1702 it enlarged, and at his death he bequeathed it all of his possessions. This hospital, today the Piencourt residence, remained in use until the inauguration of the hospital. Added to this hospital, two establishments existed following periods of epidemics, both which were outside the city. A plague centre, referred to as 'House of God', was established in the district of Janicot. At the Saint-Jean Bridge (now Pont-Roupt), a "maladrerie" was rebuilt in 1242, intended for the accommodation of lepers.Mende is, by its number of licensees and all events, a sports town. Therefore, she was elected twice the by the daily newspaper "L'Équipe" (1988 and 1998) and a finalist in 2011. It is one of only a few cities of France to have achieved this distinction twice.Mende features a sports zone known as the "Complexe sportif de Jean Jacques Delmas" [Sports complex of Jean Jacques Delmas], in honour of his death, having been originally of this project he was the mayor of Mende for 25 years. There are 3 football/rugby pitches (the Stade du Chapitre and 2 training grounds), the semi-Olympic pool, tennis courts, a fitness room, a skate-park, a street-ball court, table-tennis hall and archery/shooting. It is in this complex which the '"Festival of sport" takes place every two years. Chapitre Stadium, enlarged at the Mediterranean Games has 500 seats, but this figure may be largely surpassed during some matches.Installed on the causse d'Auge are three soccer/rugby fields and an athletics track, which came to replace the old track of Mirandol. The Stade de Mirandol had the municipal stadium office until the 1980s. Since 2006, an equestrian centre is also located on the causse, it comes in addition to the aging Sirvens centre located at the exit of the city. Finally, the causse d'Auge was the chosen site, in 2008, for the construction of a new gymnasium, opposite the football fields.Near the Chaptal Lycée and the Henri Bourrillon College is the La Vernède complex. In this area are two gymnasiums, a dojo, a gymnastics Hall, one dance, one climbing (over an area outdoors), a covered petanque pitch and one outdoors. Before the construction of the gymnasium of La Vernède, this place was that of the municipal swimming pool and two tennis courts.Close to other educational institutions, other gyms are installed. There are six in all in the city: La Vernède, Lycée Notre-Dame, Piencourt, Lycée Chaptal, Lycée Théophile Roussel and college Saint-Privat.Many clubs share the facilities of the city. Football club Éveil Mendois evolved in CFA2 during two seasons (2000–01 and 2001–02), its successor, AF Lozère, plays in the (6th division). The Éveil Mendois football club came from the of the same name, founded in 1920. One of the highlights of its history remains a finish in the last 32 of Coupe de France final played opposite Angoulême on 24 January 1999. More recently, Mende moved up to the last 16 of the finals at the 2013 Coupe de France, winning on this occasion the "ranking of the Petits Poucets".The key club is the (formerly Mende Volley Ball) which plays in the Elite division, for the season 2014-2014 (3rd national division). At the top level, the MVL has a title of obtained at the end of the 2008-2009 season and a participation in the third round of the 2010-2011 Coupe de France.Of Rugby union ("Rugby Club Mende Lozère"), it found its place in Fédérale 3 in 2006, but returned to the regional level in the 2010s. The club however already evolved to a higher level a few years previously.The handball team ("Mende Gévaudan Club") is evolving in 2014-2015 in the National 3 France Championship. Finally, the basketball team ("basketball Causses Mendois") was found in 2014-2015 at the regional level. For women there are also handball, volleyball and basketball clubs which are Mendois clubs of highest level.Mende can be granted a special status to orienteering, an individual sport with team competitions. The fact remains that Mende is playing in the elite league of France, and "M. G. C. Pétanque" and its three veteran champions of France in 2007.Sports diversity does not stop there. Mende clubs also include roller hockey ("Les Comets"). Mende is also home to individual sports: Athletics, badminton, cycling, motorcycling, as well as many combat sports clubs.Since the beginning of the 2000s, a sports centre was set up to accompany young high school athletes to prepare for the best level. From the membership of the COL (centre omnisports Lozère), there is (France MTB 2010 downhill champion) and Fanny Lombard (Junior Champion of Europe 2009 and 2010 in the same discipline).Among professional sportspeople born in Mende, is the cyclist Christophe Laurent who shone by winning the jersey for the best climber of the Tour de l'Avenir and the Tour of California.The motorcyclist , winner of the prologue of the Paris-Dakar Rally (1991), also hails from Mende. He was one of the best enduro riders with the palmares of France, and was also vice World champion.Kayaker Brigitte Guibal, Olympic silver medallist in 2000 in Sydney, was also born in Mende.It is in 1988 that Marion Buisson was born in Mende. After making her athletics debut at the "Éveil mendois", she continued her career at Clermont athletics. She became champion of France in the pole vault in , thereby achieving the minimum to participate in the Beijing Summer Olympics.Each year, the , an enduro competition, centres its course on the city of Mende. This race is part of the most renowned of the enduro season and allows, in addition, mixing professional and amateur riders.One month later (July), the city centre is dedicated to foot racing and the arrival of . This race starts from Marvejols, joining Mende by the Col de Goudard and the Côte de Chabrits. It is sometimes used as a preparation marathon for major events (the World Championships, Olympic Games), but is also open to amateurs as the majority of the marathons. Since 2006, the month of July is also marked by the organisation of a national of pétanque.Cycling is also in honour of the city. The hosted the best professionals in the 1970s. Since then, the has seen five stage finishes in the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2018), and stages in the Tour de l'Avenir, the Grand Prix du Midi Libre, the and Paris-Nice. Since 2006 and the rebirth of the Tour du Gévaudan, Mende is judged the final arrival of this amateur race of great importance. In 2008, the event was organised as the "Finale de la Coupe des France des clubs" [final of the Cup of France for clubs]. During the winter, a grand prix of regional cyclo-cross is also organized. The grand departure of the Tour de France VTT 1996, as well as the first two stages, happened at Mende.Mende was also host city of the Mediterranean Games in 1993 by hosting cycling, football and swimming events.In October 2005, the city hosted the 37th national congress of the French hiking federation, Lozère being a popular department for hikers, and is crossed by two of the most important roads of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Then, in 2007, Mende was the host of a round of the French enduro championships, as well as the final of the Coupe de France rally.In 2008, France welcomed the enduro European grand prix, the final of the World Championship (WEC). It was the town of Alès which was chosen to host the competition. However the organization was forced to give up, and it was finally hosted by Mende on 11 and 12 October 2008. In 2011, the city hosted the Grand Prix of France, final of the World Championship.Mende is the seat of most of the media of Lozére. Thus we find the writings of the Lozère edition of "Midi Libre" and [New Lozère], with regard to the written press.The radio station France Bleu and have their editorial offices in Lozère. While Radio Eaux-Vives Lozère is installed at the former Grand Seminary.The town of Mende is the episcopal seat of Gévaudan and Lozère, religious life has always been linked with its bishops. Also chapter headquarters, Mende has welcomed a large number of canons. A religious brotherhood, the "Brotherhood of the White Penitents" has long existed and has a procession every Holy Thursday since the 17th century. The Tower of the Penitents (called so because it is adjacent to the chapel of the penitents) is one of the last vestiges of the ramparts of the city.The large and small seminaries are traces of the presence of the formation of Catholic priests.The main place of worship is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and Saint-Privat, built at the request of Pope Urban V, in place of the old church built over the tomb of but the city has many small chapels. One of the oldest is the chapel of Saint-Ilpide, on the hill of the executioner, which however was destroyed and replaced by a small chapel. Two other chapels are no longer used: That of the Penitents (future Museum of Religious Art) and the Chapel of Saint-Dominique (exhibition hall). The Chapel of the Hermitage (on ) and the cave which was drilled alongside, can still be used for offices.The Carmelite convent has existed since 1880 and has hosted a community of Carmelite nuns, which ensures production of altar bread (or wafers) for the diocese (and those nearby). Another Convent is installed in Mende, which is the Adoration of Picpus Convent. At the "Rue de la Chicanette" is installed the Jeanne Delanoue community of the Providence; little used for celebration services, the place is used for meetings between people in the religious world. The community is at the origin of the creation of the institution Notre-Dame-de-la-Providence, a social children's home adjacent to its premises and which hosts minors under administrative and judicial protection. There are of other religious communities, mainly related to private schools and retirement or rest homes.Worship in Mende, due to its history, is very oriented towards Catholicism, but there are other places of worship for other religions. Thus Mende, near of the Cévennes, has a Protestant temple installed in the "Allée Paul Doumer".The city also had a synagogue in the former Jewish quarter, but it has long since been abandoned. This synagogue, also called Ferrier House from the name of one of its former owners, is the last vestige of the Mende ghetto. The Jews were expelled from the Gévaudan in the 14th century, and this synagogue became the (Catholic) college of All Saints until the French Revolution.Whilst counting the presence of a Muslim community, the city has no mosque, but simply an apartment that serves as place of worship.Industrial (wood industry, jewelry), service centre (shops, restaurants, bars), administrative (generates a lot of jobs) and tourism (medieval town, excursions to Gorges du Tarn), Mende is the starting point for the establishment of new businesses in the department, and turned more towards new technologies, with the advent of the technological hub.The city has more than 1300 companies, including about 900 in the commercial sector, and has an unemployment rate of 10.7% (2017).The city has five zones of economic activities (ZAE), each having a rather clearly defined role. The largest is the ZAE of the Causse d'Auge (north of the city), with a mainly industrial orientation in automation or in the management of the wood. The ZI of Gardès, on the road to Badaroux is an industrial area covering public works and mainly the building companies. The ZAE Lou Chaousse and Chabrits (both in the northwest) also have a vocation craft, but more oriented towards the trade for individuals. And finally, the "Pôle lozérien d'économie numérique" (POLeN) is turned to the new technologies.In addition, since the mid-2000s, the de Ramille was created. This area, wedged between the Lot and the RN 88 on the road to Balsièges hosts a commercial zone which has tended to develop. It is without doubt, with the area of the Causse d'Auge, the area of activity that has extended most recently.In the near future a new area of activity should emerge north of Mende, in the commune of Badaroux. This area whose size is expected to reach approximately initially, would be served by the landscaped expressway.If the commune no longer has many farms, the city remains at the centre of a very rural area and is very oriented towards agriculture. Indeed, 54% of the Lozère territory is classified as a "utilised agricultural area". Livestock in the commune is mainly dedicated to the sheep sector, although cattle farms are found located between Mende and neighbouring communes.This attraction to sheep is ancestral to Mende, since the city has long lived wool exploitation, since the 16th century. In 1333 the city already had a brotherhood of the weavers. In 1849, the town was still equipped with five large mills. However, while having a rich textile past, the city now retains no activity.Like the Lozère department, industry in Mende is mainly oriented towards the timber sector: Its operation, its treatment, its derivatives, etc. Another industry that holds an important place in the city is that of construction and public works.Mende is also the seat of the that handles .The city is strongly turned towards the tertiary sector. As said above, a majority of the enterprises of the city are shops. Mende is the centre of an area's population of approximately 20,000 inhabitants around the Lot Valley, the city therefore centralises much of the services. Its quality of prefecture adds to the presence of public service.Tourism has also developed since the end of the 20th century. This openness on tourism translated between 1983 and 2008 by the creation of the office of tourism (municipal and intermunicipal), an increase of 400 beds offered to tourists, the opening of a holiday village and of a youth hostel, but also the creation of activity centre (canoe base, Freestyle Park, etc.). The city has eleven hotels, four with three stars and four having two. To this one can add the holiday village of Chapitre that offers 42 gîtes for rent, as well as two campsites near the Lot.Other businesses are those that can be found in other modern cities (banks, insurance, bakeries, the press houses, clothes, etc.). The city has a supermarket and a hypermarket, as well as several superettes and other discounters. The hypermarket, which is of recent construction, belongs to the Système U group and is located in the new area of activity of Ramilles. The supermarket (Intermarché) is, meanwhile, close to the city centre. Markets, vestiges of the traditional markets of the city are many, taking place on Wednesday (textile, utility, etc.) at "Place Chaptal", and on Saturday mornings (food market) at "Place Chaptal" and "Place Urbain V". In addition, night markets are held during the summer.The main companies in terms of turnover, as well as major private employers are:Since 1981 Mende has been classified as a city of art, and, since 2000, the grouping of "Mende and Lot in the Gévaudan" has the label of "city and land of art and history".Indeed, the city has a rich architectural heritage, witness of the prosperous time related to the papacy.The Cathedral of Saint-Privat (classed as a historical monument in 1906) whose construction began in 1368 at the initiative of Pope Urban V. Its bell towers date back, however, to the 16th century, following the destruction of one of them during the passage of the Huguenots by Matthieu Merle. The large belfry included housing ""Non Pareille"", the largest bell in the world melted between 1517 and 1521 in Villefort and destroyed during the Wars of Religion. There remains only the clapper. The cathedral consists of twelve rectangular chapels, two pentagonal chapels and a sacristy. Originally it was built above the Sainte-Thècle crypt where the body of Saint Privat had been buried. It is located next to the old episcopal palace.The city has many public fountains. Water from the causses thus enters a piping system located beneath the city before joining the Lot. Two of them (Aigues-Passe and Soubeyrand) are classified as historic monuments. Piped water also enters the old wash house of the Calquières, still visible on "Rue d'Angiran".This tower is one of the few remains of the ancient walls of the 12th century. Protecting the Gate of Angiran which was next to it, this tower served as guard for the short-lived Seneschal of Mende. It includes three floors and an attic. This is the installation of the chapel which is adjacent, and especially its bell tower at the top which saved the tower during the destruction of the walls in 1768.Dating back to the 13th century, this bridge is one of the symbols of the city. It has never been carried away by frequent floods in Mende. It formerly went by the name of Peyrenc Bridge, then took the name of Notre Dame due to the presence on its mouth of a Virgin, which disappeared during the Wars of Religion. Its span has a opening and is high.Saint Privat withdrew, in the 3rd century, into caves that he had built over Mende, on . Since his Hermitage was built, it also to allow the pilgrims to go there. It can be accessed either by Way of the Cross (from the market) or by road from the causse (RD 25). At the hermitage, we find a hotel for the reception of the pilgrims, a chapel, grotto and a breakthrough designed to the original cave.The House where the consul sat, since 1578, also served as city hall after the Revolution. On its pediment is found the arms of the city: ""Azure in the Gothic M of or, a shining Sun similarly topped."" Facing it is a trompe-l'œil wall symbolizing the twinning of Mende and Volterra.Located in the northwest of the city, the Bahours locality had two castles, one of which was destroyed in 1960. The remaining one is a strong house (manse) built in the 17th century, possibly on the foundations of a more ancient building. The main interest of this strong house is its kitchen listed as a historical monument, like the whole building.Mende features a municipal theatre and several rooms that can be used to this kind of show. The ancient theatre of the city turned into cinema. A development project involves the construction of a new multicultural hall. In addition, Mende has a departmental library, the Lamartine Library.The ancient theatre of the city, established between 1890 and 1895, was replaced by a cinema. The main room used for the theatre is now the festival hall located at the market. This room, and its natural scenery of arches, is multi-cultural and is the largest in the city in terms of capacity. On the market lies the "antirouille", a municipal building for young people and allowing everyone to have access to the internet, this building has a room to organize concerts.Near the market, along the "Chemin Saint-Ilpide", the Urban V municipal room hosts plays, live shows, and also meetings and projections (world knowledge, for example).Finally as part of the redevelopment of the market (started by the installation of the intercommunal tourism office and the renovation of the Lamartine Library), an auditorium should be created behind the festival hall (the Emile-Joly Square being moved).The Ignon-Fabre Museum (or the Museum of Mende) was located on "Rue de l'Epine" [street of the Holy thorn], at the , where there was installed the first electrification plant of the city. It was however closed due to lack of budget. Before it, a museum was located in a house next to the prison.The Chapel of Saint-Dominique and the current Department Hall can serve as an exhibition space, as can the Chapel of the Penitents and the former consular house.In addition a project of the Museum of , currently under study, should be installed in the Chapel of the Penitents.The poem, written by an author whose story did not retain the name, was confirmed in the 19th century:However, not everyone had a positive vision of the city. It had long had problems with sewage into the modern era, and was denigrated despite its charm:This quote comes perhaps from the conditions in which the geographer of the king came in the city. Like those who would declare to Serge Livrozet that Mende was "capital of Lozère and torture".Those born in Mende, or having a very strong tie with the city include:When King Louis XI granted autonomy to the city, he granted new arms in 1469. An 'L' surmounted by a crown, in gratitude to the king, was added to these in 1475.The current coat of arms dates from the sixteenth century. These weapons were registered in the Armorial General of France in 1697.
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[
"Jean-Jacques Delmas",
"Alain Bertrand",
"Paulin Daudé-Gleize"
] |
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Who was the head of Mende in Apr, 1985?
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April 04, 1985
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{
"text": [
"Jean-Jacques Delmas"
]
}
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L2_Q191772_P6_2
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Jean-Jacques Delmas is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 1983 to Jan, 2008.
Alain Bertrand is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Henri Trémolet de Villers is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1971 to Jan, 1977.
Paulin Daudé-Gleize is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1919 to Jan, 1928.
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Mende, LozèreMende (, ) is a commune and prefecture of the department of Lozère and of the region of Occitanie in southern France. Its inhabitants are called the "Mendois". The city, including the first traces of dwellings date back to 200 BC, was originally named "Mimata", probably in reference to the mountains that surround it.Mende is located between Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier, but also on the axis of Lyon–Saint-Étienne–Albi–Toulouse. The other important nearby towns are Aurillac and Saint-Flour (Cantal), Le Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire), Rodez, Millau (Aveyron) and Alès and Nîmes (Gard).Even though Mende remains a relatively sparsely populated city (approximately 12,000 inhabitants), it remains the most important of the Lozère Department. In addition, it is the city-centre of the unique urban area of this department.It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mende.Mende is situated in the high valley of the Lot, in a mountainous area, in the "Pays du Gévaudan", the Rieucros stream joins to it on its right bank. The city is overlooked (on the left bank of the Lot) by and its . Access is by the . On the right bank, residential areas extend over different causses, including the "Causse d'Auge". Located on the axis of Lyon-Toulouse, the city has long been a commercial crossroads between the Auvergne, Rhone and the Languedoc.The commune is bordered by Chastel-Nouvel to the north, Badaroux to the east, Lanuéjols to the southeast, Brenoux and Saint-Bauzile to the south, Balsièges to the southwest, and Barjac and Servières to the west.Mende is one of the "gateway cities" (along with Millau, Lodève, Alès and Ganges) for the site of the Causses and Cévennes, of world heritage by UNESCO under the inscription "Les Causses and Cevennes, Mediterranean agro-pastoral cultural landscape".According to the INSEE, Mende is an urban commune without suburbs ("ville isolée" [isolated town]). It lies at the centre of an urban area composed of 15 communes, the only one in the department of Lozère.The town of Mende is built in the Lot Valley, within the area of the . The region of the Causses in Lozère is one of the four of Lozère, with the Margeride, the Aubrac and the Cévennes. The city is nestled in the middle of different Causses which form as natural barriers. However, over the 20th century, urbanisation began to extend beyond these limits.Of the Causses, is the most significant. The causse is overhung by the Cross of . A first wooden cross was planted in 1900 or 1907. It was replaced a few years later, on 8 July 1933, a Jubilee year, by a -high iron cross. Until 1945, this cross was the place of large gatherings in honour of Mendois soldiers. This cross has been illuminated since the summer of 1965. The mount also houses the chapel where Privat, the martyr of the Gévaudan, withdrew to. At its foot lies the area of Vabre where can be found the first remains of houses in the city. Opposite this is the Causse d'Auge (northeast) and the Causse du Crouzet (northwest), and the Margeride mountains beyond. To the west is Causse de Changefège, located between Mende and Barjac, which complements the borders of the city.The geology of the city of Mende is very dependent on the surrounding causses and streams that pass through them. The Mont Mimat and the Causse de Changefège are composed of limestone of the "Grands Causses", thus presenting abrupt edges. The other causses (as well as the butte de Fontanille) are composed of limestone of the "Petits Causses" (without these edges). The Lot Valley is composed of marl. The Valley, in the south of Mende, is full of blue marl, leaving one to presuppose that the marl of the town of Mende would be, in part, of the same origin. Finally, the various streams (the Rieucros) of the causses of the north of the city are lined by mica-schist.The city of Mende was built on the banks of the Lot. But the Lot is not the only presence of water in the city: Indeed, it has several sources, including those of . The most significant of them is located in the Vabre district, close to the first houses. These sources have also often been channeled and feed the underground water system of the city, visible on the surface through numerous fountains and the old wash house. The streets, such as the "Rue du Torrent", attest to the passage of water from Mont Mimat.To the north, on the other side of the Lot, the sources are much more distant, but water is present in the stream known as Rieucros.Mende is subject to an oceanic stream that comes from the Aubrac and Mediterranean and flows from the Cévennes. The department of Lozère, Mende in particular, benefit from insolation (or sunlight) similar to that of Toulouse with approximately 2,069 hours of sunshine per year. The city, away from the mountains that surround it, has a more protected climate than the highlands of Gévaudan: So, average temperatures oscillate between and . With respect to annual precipitation, data for the Lozère is between , depending on the exposure of the regions, with up to 50 days of snow per year.Between 1971 and 2000, monthly rainfall ranged from (March) and (September).In more detail, here are some statements in Mende records since 1985:Mende is located in the centre of the Lozère department and therefore centralises the roads. The city has rail and air access, but the Lot is not navigable (too shallow) as with all the rivers of the department (except for recreational canoeing, or in rare exceptions for the transport of people such as the crossing of the Tarn towards La Malène).Mende is located on the , linking Lyon and Toulouse. The road comes from Balsièges to the west and Badaroux to the east. This axis can be reached easily. Haute-Loire and Ardèche are to the east, via Langogne and Aveyron is to the west via La Canourgue-Banassac, as well as the A75 autoroute. A road doubling project is underway in the department, bypassing Mende from the north. This doubling is however a long project (1993), having had several outlines and some opposition. The project was finally abandoned in October 2012 making Lozère a department without draft dual carriageways on RN 88. Indeed, its neighbours Aveyron and Tarn continue their projects of dual carriageways between Rodez and Toulouse with all expected to be commissioned in December 2015. The work of the Rodez - Séverac section should be completed by the end of 2019. The same will be the case for Haute-Loire, which continues its road access. However, the workarounds of Mende and Langogne are budgeted. These projects in adjacent departments will reach major cities nearby to Mende (Rodez, Albi, Toulouse, Le Puy and even Lyon). Finally, the economic impact or the absence of dual carriageways in Lozere must be assessed in the medium and long term.Furthermore, a viaduct (the Rieucros Viaduct) commissioned in December 2009 will be used to ensure a first bypass of Mende. It connects the industrial area of the Causse d'Auge to the technological centre of Valcroze (and the RD 42) and also helps to relieve the traffic connecting the districts north and northwest of the city.The RN 88 deviation from Mende should be the first from Pelouse to reach up to the Causse d'Auge with an "expressway" configuration. Then it would continue on the D 806 (ex north) to the Rieucros Viaduct, and then a new section of the viaduct to the Mende exit in the hamlet of La Thébaïde (west bypass). These two sections will only be of two lanes. Subsequently, the expressway from the Causse d'Auge will be directly linked to the A 75.Another national road, the RN 106, formerly ran through the city. This name is no longer valid for the section coming from the Gard and joining Mende via Florac (it is then of the RN 88 on the stretch between Balsièges and Mende). The northern part of the road was decommissioned in 2007 and now bears the name of D 806. This stretch goes from Mende to Saint-Chély-d'Apcher (and the A75 autoroute) via Chastel-Nouvel.Secondary access is provided by the RD 42 from the northwest, which joins the RN 88 at Barjac, and by the RD 25 which, passing through the , crosses before arriving at the Valdonnez.Mende features an SNCF railway station, located on the railway line of the , between Le Monastier (the ) and La Bastide - Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (). This line, built at the very beginning of the 20th century, bears the nickname of ""ligne du toit de la France"" [the roof of France line], and Mende is the main railway station. Ten weekly links are provided by rail.The station is also the starting point of the TER connection to Clermont-Ferrand by bus, which is daily.Referred to as TUM (for "Transports Urbains Mendois") the urban transport network is exclusively equipped with buses, which run through the city and some nearby villages (Les Boulaines, Chabrits, Chabannes). Since its establishment in 2000, it has replaced the school bus service. The urban transport network is also responsible for the management of the pay car parks in the city. A part of the city centre is also exclusively pedestrian.The prefecture of the Lozère department shares with the neighbouring village of Brenoux. This airfield, located on , is thus from Clermont-Ferrand, from Montpellier and away from Lyon and Toulouse. Highlights include it being the site of the final scene of the film "La Grande Vadrouille", and also of five stages of the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018).Furthermore, a Mende-Paris air link was implemented in October 2007. However, the flight was departing from the aerodrome of Le Puy-en-Velay, located from Mende and reached by a shuttle. This connection was born of a desire to open up Mende to air travel, which is indeed late at this level for a prefecture, and has no direct flight to Paris unlike its neighbours Clermont-Ferrand, Rodez, Aurillac or Le Puy-en-Velay.Since the beginning of 2008, a study has been conducted by the CCI of the Lozère department, in order to discuss the possibility of the establishment of a link between the Lozerian prefecture and the regional capital, Montpellier but four years after the launch of this study, no concrete project to date has been presented.Finally, two more major airports with international influence and close to Mende are Clermont-Ferrand Aulnat and Rodez-Aveyron.In the 13th century, the city was concentrated in what is now the city centre, bounded by the boulevards, and formerly the ramparts. It was then split into five sections (or neighbourhoods) known as "pans": Auriac, Aygues-Passe, Champnau, Chastel and Claustres.When it was initially named as such, the Pan d'Auriac was mainly a place of settlement, before becoming the "quartier des pénitents blancs" [district of the white penitents] who settled there. The Pan d'Aygues-Passe (or Aigues-Passe), meaning "water that passes", owes its name to the inclination of its streets, where the water flowed during cleaning. The Pan de Champnau derives its name from "new field", and includes what was a new residential area, at north of the city. The Pan de Chastel is the old commercial district of the city. It is located towards the Chastel Gate, which led then to Chastel-Nouvel, where a castle stood which was property of the bishops. Finally the Pan des Claustres, whose name comes from cloisters, was the largest of the city and is now between the and , i.e. between the two tombs of (the chapel Saint-Ilpide on the hill of the executioner, and the crypt of Sainte-Thècle under the cathedral square).The historic city centre is bordered by boulevards which took the place of the ancient walls. In addition to housing, the centre is mostly occupied by convenience stores and artisans. Beyond the boulevards, there are other houses as well as government buildings. The General Council and the prefecture indeed share the former , but services are scattered throughout the city. "Allée Piencourt" connects downtown roads to Badaroux and Chastel-Nouvel, near the ancient diocese (pré claux and pré vival) having been built.North of the "Allée Piencourt", past the Berlière Bridge, dwellings are present at the foot of the Causse d'Auge. These were established in several instalments over the 19th and 20th centuries, the first of these being Chaldecoste. It is in this part of the city that the large and the small seminary as well as the Convent of Carmel are found. The city extends to the north in the direction of Alteyrac (commune of Chastel-Nouvel). Between these areas and Alteyrac is located the zone of economic activities (ZAE) of the Causse d'Auge. The northern districts often bear names of flowers, this part of the city that historically sheltered gardens and vineyards, along the draille linking the "Plateau du Palais du Roi" [King's Palace Plateau].The causse is bounded by two streams, the Rieucros in the east and the to the west.Above the Badaroux road, on a hill, lies the Fontanilles district. It was originally social housing. At the foot of the hill is the Lycée Notre-Dame, while beyond the district of Saint-Laurent (where one finds traces of history with the presence of a chapel and a windmill) and, later, the Gardès ZAE. In this part, to the west of Gardès, is also the village of Sirvens where traces of a Gallo-Roman villa were discovered.Stuck between Fontanille, Mont Mimat and the city centre, are districts located roadside above pré claux. In this area are located the centre of firefighters, the Château of Bellesagne and the former gendarmerie. The market is also in this area, but more to the east than the precedents cited (beyond the boulevards, however). Above it lies the Vabre district and Hill of the Executioner where the first traces of dwellings of the city were found. Also nearby is the city's prison.In the westerly direction, found the District of Le Chapitre with the sports complex and the holiday village. This area is at the foot of a portion of the Causse de Changefège, where homes are installed along the Chabrits road ("Avenue du 11-Novembre", north-west of the city). It is in this part of the city which the district of Valcroze is found (new in the 19th century), the Chabrits ZAE and technology park.The other side of the Lot, along the , is found the avenue of the Gorges du Tarn and the area of Ramille. It is in this part where retail establishments are found. The Ramille zone saw the introduction, despite some criticism about the instability of the ground, of the hypermarket of the department, as well as a commercial area.On the map are the main roads of the city. To the west, the RN 88 is joined to Balsièges, passing through the Rocher de Moïse (classified site) located at the left end. To the northwest, it is the hamlet of Chabannes, and further to Chabrits. To the south, is found, where the new cross stands which symbolically marks the top of the hill (although it continues a little higher). This road leads to the Hermitage of , at the cross of the same name and the route of Valdonnez (Lanuéjols, Brenoux, Saint-Bauzile).To the east, Fontanille district is on a hillock, circumvented by the Lot. Behind lies the district of Saint-Laurent, then the ZAE de Gardès (and the village of the same name) and the village of Sirvens. Following the RN 88, one reaches Badaroux. Finally to the north, is the area of the Chaldecoste (broken down into several districts: Bergerie, Chanteperdrix, Vignette, etc.) where one can reach the ZAE du causse d'Auge. Further to the north, one finds Chastel-Nouvel before returning to the ground of and the "Plateau du Palais du Roi". The drinking water of the city of Mende comes from this direction, because of the Lac de Charpal reservoir, which is the main source.In 2017, Mende had 6,851 residences for an official population of 12,134 people. 87% of them are primary residences and 6.1% of secondary residences, which contrasts sharply with the figure of the Lozère department amounting to a 32.3% share of secondary housing.The population has been growing for several years, and the city has acquired new quarters over the years: Chaldecoste and Chanteperdrix in the 1970s, La Bergerie in the 1990s, and Valcroze in the 2000s. The city has 17.9% of HLM-type accommodations.59% of dwellings have four rooms or more and 19% have three rooms. The city is composed of many individual homes, small and large dwellings remaining in the minority. However, one can see that between 1990 and 1999 there was an increase of 85.3% of dwellings of one or two rooms. This can partly be explained by the development of higher education, with the branch of the University of Perpignan.The region is an ancient site of settlement dating back to the Bronze Age, although the capital of the Gévaudan, the Gallic period then Gallo-Roman, was Anderitum. Found in the ancient texts are the names of "Mimate", "Mimata" (mountain), which refer to this town at the foot of "Mons Mimatensis" (). In the same spirit, another name circulating is that of "Viculus Mimatensis" (or "Vicus Mimatensis"). It is the city which gave its name to Mont Mimat ("mount of the Mendois", literally) and not vice versa.Traces of dwellings dating from 200 BC were found, ancient Roman "villae", as well as around the city. However, residents could have been be domiciled here well before. Indeed, on Mont Mimat to Chapieu, a dolmen was found around 1913 including a trepanned skull. The other surrounding plateaux also attest this presence with other dolmens (on the Causse de Changefege for example). These remains may date from the Chalcolithic period.The city, strictly speaking, dates from the Middle Ages, and it is not found cited at the end of the 6th century by Gregory of Tours in his "Histoire des Francs". This text speaks of the martyrdom of , the first bishop of the Gabali, who was the origin of a pilgrimage to the hermitage and the caves where he had retired. Mende in the 3rd century was then only a village. The history of Privat is thus situated around the 3rd century, while he was sent by Austromoine to evangelize the Gévaudan. It was during this period that the Alemanni invaded the country, guided by their leader, Chrocus.The Gabali took refuge in the fortress of Grèzes where they were under siege for two years. Their bishop, Privat, was meanwhile in one of the caves of Mont Mimat which he had converted into a hermitage. When Chrocus learned that the bishop was not among his people, he went looking for him to use as a hostage in order to get the Gabali to leave Grèzes. Privat was martyred at his cave on near the village of Mimate. Presented to the Gabali, he refused to deliver his people despite all the barbaric tortures to which he was subjected (according to Gregory of Tours:""The good shepherd refused to deliver his sheep to wolves, and they tried to force his to sacrifice to demons""). Exhausted, the Alemanni would leave the Gabali free, by promising them peace. Privat succumbed to his injuries in the following days. His act of resistance, refusing to deliver his compatriots, thus earned him great popular fervour, and it was around his tomb and his hermitage that pilgrimage began, allowing the village to grow.In the 12th century Gévaudan was part of the County of Barcelona. In Mende, the counties have a castle, the castel frag. Three other lords had their castle around the Romanesque church: That of Canilhac (who owned the archtreasurer rights of the church), that of Cabrières (who was granted rights of archdeacon) and Dolan (who administered and ruled the episcopal home during the interregnum of bishops). In 1161, Mende, who was under the suzerainty of the King of France, saw his Bishop get the royal rights. It was the golden bull, an act signed by the king and marked with a royal seal in gold, which contained the terms of this agreement. It thus gave Aldebert and his successors, in perpetuity, the Royal power and the full powers of justice on the inhabitants of the bishopric. This fact is quite rare because only four golden bulls in six centuries were granted by the Kings of France.It was from this time that the city walls were built. Aldebert wished to protect the city and secure channels that lead there. he recovered and also built the fortress of Chapieu on , and was done so that it could accommodate a garrison. This allowed the monitoring of the direct route between Mont Lozère and Villefort, in other words towards the Regordane Way, trade route.At that time, however, Mende was not provided the civil and religious capital of Gévaudan. In fact the power was always dependent of two entities: The county and Viscount of Grèzes. The Viscount, property of the King of Aragon, was recovered by the King of France in 1258. The bishop had great power as a vassal, but he didn't have the total legitimacy of some Royal officials. This situation ended from 1307 with the Act of paréage between Bishop Guillaume VI Durand and King Philip IV. Indeed, it definitively fixed the possessions of the king and those of the bishop, even if some disputes persisted.During the Hundred Years' War security increased with the strengthening of the fortifications and the construction of ditches to 1361-1362. At that time, the chapter of Mende had a castle on the heights of the city, Chastel-Nouvel. In 1370 many locals felt safe from the ramparts of the city, despite threats from the routiers. Also, few of them took refuge in Chastel-Nouvel. But the walls were insufficient, and could not prevent the pillages. This period isolated Mende from its neighbours, including Le Puy-en-Velay, and waited the arrival of the Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, then the intervention of Charles VI and the liberation of the region so that the roads reopened around 1452.In 1390, was in Mende, where John III of Armagnac sought, on behalf of the King of France, to put an end to the private war that Raymond de Turenne led against the Pope from Avignon. The Gascon signed as a witness to an agreement between the legate of Clement VII, Antoine de Lisa, , and a representative of the Viscount of Turenne. This interview of Mende helped the Florentines to send ambassadors to solicit the Count of Armagnac. He was proposed to cross the Alps and attack the Count of Vertus in Lombardy.It was also at this time that blessed Pope Urban V began the work of the cathedral (1368), for a completion in 1467. By its letters patent, King Louis XI confirmed the privileges for this cathedral, granted by his predecessors, in September 1464.At the beginning of the 1470s, conflict erupted between Bishop and King Louis XI, because of the support that the bishop had given to the County of Armagnac when it had revolted. To counter it, the king subtracted La Panouse authority over the city which then became autonomous. It wasn't until 1478 that the bishops found authority over the city, sharing revenues with the consul.At the end of the Hundred Years' War, Mende developed its production of drapery, and thus increased its role as a commercial crossroads between the Languedoc and Auvergne, exporting its fame. It is estimated that in the 16th century Mende was one of the richest dioceses of Languedoc before Montpellier and Toulouse. This wealth of the diocese reinforced the ecclesiastical power. Thus among the list of the bishops of the time one can count a number from the family of the Pope. Giuliano della Rovere was ordained bishop of Mende, although he never visited in the capital of Gévaudan (practice known as commendation). His nephews, Clement and , succeeded him in this position. During his tenure, François adorned the cathedral with its bell towers, which one hosted the "Non Pareille", the largest bell in the world.In October 1485, when Clement de La Rovere came to the episcopal seat, old quarrels between the consul and the bishopric re-emerged, first mentioned with fear of losing this privilege. Thus they barricaded the gates of Mende, so that the bishop could not access. At this time the bishops primarily used their Balsièges Castle as a residence (that of Chanac being the summer residence). In vain as the Della Rovere family covered the full authority by notice of the king in 1492. The title of consul was held in place of the traditional title of trustee.In the 16th century, the main events were the Reformation and the Wars of Religion which resulted. On 21 July 1562, 4,000 Protestants got within the walls of the city. They destroyed the unprotected monuments and besieged the city by depriving it of water. They withdrew four days later, largely due to being given 2,000 ecus. This ransom ensured the city a few years of peace.During the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Astorg de Peyre was murdered in the king's room: his widow then hired a young man, Matthieu Merle to avenge the death of her husband. From 1569 to 1576 he held with his troops the fortress of Grèzes where he gradually seized the north of Gévaudan. From 1577 he moved with his troops to Marvejols intending to seize Mende, although not ceasing his conquests to the north, he failed however in August 1578 at Saint-flour. The night of Christmas 1579, to enter the city, Merle's soldiers expected that the people of Mendes were at midnight mass.During his stay in Mende, Merle made further fortification to the city, not hesitating razing 120 homes to restore the ramparts. In February 1581, while he ruled all the Gévaudan, he enforced the threat he had made to the people. He had in fact asked them to deliver 4,000 ecus, a sum that the Mendois could not collect. He partially destroyed Mende Cathedral built by Pope Urban V. He saved a bell tower to avoid damaging the episcopal palace where his home was established. It was at this time that the "Non Pareille" was melted, the biggest bell in the world, to manufacture culverins and other cannonballs. The city was liberated on bail that year thanks to the intervention of the King of Navarre.The city liberated, a seneschal was created to ensure the peace. Response to the attack of Merle was organised in 1586 against the town of Marvejols, led by baron de Saint-Vidal. It was during this response that the Peyre fortress disappeared from the rock of Peyre. The seneschal took its place. The Tower of Auriac, today known as the Tower of Penitents, was built to accommodate one hundred soldiers. The seneschal gradually took precedence over the diocese, which called for the help of the Duke of Languedoc in 1597. It was after this episode that the Seneschal of Mende disappeared.The beginning of the 17th century was coloured by the work of reconstruction of the cathedral for an inauguration in 1605, although work had lasted until 1629. Far from the splendour of the original, while taking up the same plane, this new cathedral was characterised by a bell tower which was smaller than the other.Between 1645 and 1660, the city was the scene of strife between two rival factions: The Marmaux and the Catharinaux, all members of the consuls or the bourgeoisie, but not having the same opinion on the importance of episcopal power, the latter being opposed. The bishop was also the target of an attack while he officiated in Mende Cathedral in 1645 (he was actually not touched). After several trials, it was not without difficulty that the kingdom gave back his ancestral power, the consul remaining under his control.At the end of the century, landscaped a lane which joined to the Lot (since known as ""Allée Piencourt"") and especially acquired the Aubusson tapestries for the episcopal palace. These tapestries, classified, since adorn the cathedral. It was also behind the early educational development in the city and contributed to the building of the hospital. It also made the hospital its heir, allowing it to develop.In 1702, the war of the Camisards was triggered in the Cévennes. Mende somewhat landscaped its walls in order to prevent any attack. However, this war which began with the murder of Father du Chayla at Le Pont-de-Montvert never reached Mende.In 1721, the Great Plague arrived in Gévaudan affecting the town of Mende with an amount of 1,078 victims in one year. Two generations later, the walls were removed (in 1768), "so the air circulates better".Once all these troubles passed, the city redeveloped its economy around wool and sheep farming. The city extended a little bit under the development of the appearance of the mills, and its first factory. In 1754, Mende saw Louis Mandrin the famous brigand, who lodged in a house there and, according to legend, hid treasure.Between 1764 and 1767, Mende was the witness the comings and goings of the wolf-hunters of the king, who came to seek rest in the city before returning to hunt the beast which was terrorising the north of the country. It was seen close to Mende, once at Pailhou and between Rieutort-de-Randon and Chastel-Nouvel but remained primarily in Margeride. At this time the quarrel between the consul and the bishop was brought up to date by the edict on municipal organizations. The burghers and nobles opposed, but the bishop finally retained power in 1771.During the French Revolution, Mende had to share with Marvejols the function of department capital of Gévaudan. This was renamed in the Lozère department in 1790, and the guardianship of the church disappeared in 1791, thus putting an end to the paréage of 1307. Mende was the scene of small counter-revolutionary clashes, but without great effects. It became the sole capital shortly after.In 1800, the prefect settled in the city, and the prefecture occupies the episcopal palace after the sale of the property of the church. In the middle of the 19th century, the causses around Mende are planted with Austrian black pine, this national forest has continued since then. The choice of black pine was due to its ease of acclimation, and its robustness. The presence of this forest often protected Mende from floods.Then the railway appeared in the prefecture, then linking to Sévérac-le-Château (3 May 1884). The railway line follows the Lot to cross the city, and also continues to follow, like the newly created road. In 1887 the old episcopal palace disappeared in flames, the prefecture had to be rebuilt.On 8 April 1888 Mende became one of the first cities in France, and the first chef-lieu to have electric lighting. The plant was installed in the old .The twentieth century was marked by a beginning of economic decline. The gradual end of the wool industry, the First and the Second World War depopulated the city. Between 1931 and 1934 baths are built, since becoming the Home, and located on the market square. The building was destroyed in summer 2013, to be replaced by a multi-cultural hall.In 1939, shortly before World War II, an internment camp was built in the woods of the Rieucros. The population was opposed to this transit camp for anti-fascists and communists. It then became an internment camp exclusively for women. The mayor at the time, , condemned the Vichy regime and the camp in his hometown, where he made sure that children interned with their mother followed a normal education. His hostile words and acts to the regime in place led him to be removed from his post in 1941. He then joined Resistance where he became one of the leaders for the Lozère. Arrested and sent to German camps in 1944, he died during a transfer in 1945.Ideally placed between the Maquis of the Cévennes and the Aubrac, the town was located as well as a centre for the coordination of the Lozère Interior Resistance. As for the population, it protected itself where shelters against aerial bombardments were implemented.From the 1970s, the city had a sizable population growth. The city then extended to the Causse d'Auge. In the 1980s and 1990s, one can also see that the department was depopulating overall, while its prefecture was expanding. Culture and sport took more importance in the life of the city.During the 1990s, the city developed administrative reconciliations with nearby cities. Therefore, it formed the Estelle city network with Aurillac and Rodez. The principle of the network was to share experiences and pool resources to develop such medium-sized cities. Shortly after, it was with other networks that Mende became closer to other cities of the Massif Central. This is the case, for example, with the Cyber Massif network dedicated to the digital opening up of the region.Moreover, since the beginning of the 21st century, Mende had tried to actively participate in the policies of opening up of the Massif Central. The city lies in the Lot Valley and reached an area of in the 2000s. It also seeks to enroll in a sustainable development project, in the image of the department with, among other projects, the construction of a cogeneration plant and the establishment of a network of heat. The timber industry, so important in the economy of the city, could therefore be put to further use. The establishment of bio-energy in the city has also been carried out by the appearance of a wind farm north of the city.Mende is the chef-lieu of the Lozère department: It welcomes in this regard the prefecture and the headquarters of the General Council. The buildings of these two institutions are scattered within the city. A project of the Department Hall to consolidate all services of the General Council is under consideration. The mayor's office is housed in the town hall which dates from the 18th century, however, a large part of the services have been moved to the annex of the mayor's office.This is the old consular house which was used as a city hall of the Revolution until 1852. On that date, Mayor Becamel bought the Pages family mansion located in the "Place d'Angiran". Since then the city hall has been based in this city mansion (listed historical monument) in the square which has become "Place Charles-de-Gaulle", although a part of the services is now located in the annex which faces it. As the cathedral, the city hall also houses the tapestries of Aubusson, classified since 1909.Since 1945, the following were elected mayors of the city of Mende:The city of Mende belongs to the . It was created in December 2001 under the name of "Communauté de communes de la Haute Vallée d'Olt" before changing its name in 2009. The commune being the largest in terms of population, it was its mayor, Jean-Jacques Delmas, who became the first president of the community.The implementation of this community of communes has allowed a transfer of powers. So, all areas of economic activity and sports facilities now fall under the responsibility of the community, rather than the commune itself.However, the actions are much wider since waste treatment also enters the competence of the community. The waste disposal site of the commune lies in the ZAE du Causse d'Auge, north of the city. In this context, unsorted collection is also the responsibility of the community of communes.This community of communes is not the only grouping of communities for the town of Mende. A comprehensive plan was implemented around the label "Pays d'Art et d'Histoire de Mende et Lot en Gévaudan" [Lands of art and history of Mende and Lot in Gevaudan]. These are twenty-two communes which now belong to the Pays d'Art [Lands of Art] which comes in the continuity of the city of art and history label which Mende has had since 1981. The lands comprises four communities: Cœur de Lozère, , and , which is assistant to the Chastel-Nouvel commune.The city is the chef-lieu of two cantons: Mende-1 and Mende-2 since 2015. Mende-1 comprises the northern part of the city, Mende-2 the southern part.Before the Act of paréage of 1307, Mendoise and Gevaudanaise justice was fully devolved to the bishops. This power was shared with the king after the signing of the Act. Power was shared between the various for the communal land, with Mende being in the land of the bishops and Marvejols in lands of the king, and like this until 1789.The courthouse was built between 1833 and 1835. On 18 February 1994, it was the target of a bombing by the FLNC.The tribunal groups together a children's tribunal, a tribunal of commerce, a court and a high court. It depends on the .The city has long held prisons. Current prison was commissioned in 1891. One of the first high-security areas of France was then moved there in 1949. It was at this date that the prison ownership changed, from the State Department. Several personalities have stayed here, the most famous being Jacques Mesrine. André Génovès' film, "Mesrine" released in 1983, also tells of the criminal plan to destroy the QHS. had sought to bring Jacques Mesrine out of prison when he was imprisoned in Mende. This area had also been the target of critics, such as those of the Committee of action of prisoners and Serge Livrozet, in 1975. In 1989, the Mende detention centre was again publicised with the escape of , who managed to escape by threatening guards with a dummy gun. The last prison 'personality' of Mende, , activist of the alongside José Bové, was imprisoned after the case of the McDonald's franchise destruction in Millau.Mende is twinned with:Since 2007, the cities of Wunsiedel and Volterra are also paired together. The twinning with Vila Real (much more populous than the city of Mende) is explained by the fact that a large part of the Portuguese population of Mende, and Lozère in general, is from this region.In contrast to the department of Lozère, the prefecture saw its demographic curve draw increasingly since the French Revolution. If the department was strongly affected by the and the great wars of the 20th century, the city had the presence of its own authorities. This may explain why Mende has not experienced the same trend as Lozère. This table shows the demographic for the town of Mende, but it can be considered that the "bassin Mendois" [Mende area] follows the same trend.In 2017, the commune had 12,134 inhabitants.The Mende population is fairly young taking into account the ageing population of Lozère. Compared with the 1990 census, it is the age group of 15–29 years which has had the greatest increase at the expense of those aged 0–14 and 30–44 years. The number of near-centenarians was also greater in 1999 than in 1990.In Mende, the share of the immigrant population represents about 8% of the total population. They originate mostly from Portugal (mainly from Vila Real), Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey. This being the image of immigration in the region. The Spanish immigration, which was very present in the middle of the twentieth century, has been disappearing since the 1970s.Mende has three nursery schools: "Solelhons" (the small Suns in Occitan), the Chênes school and Fontanilles school. They are in close relations with the primary schools of the Groupe solaire, Annex Michel del Castillo School and Fontanilles School, Jeanne d'Arc School dealing with private education.The public college of Henri-Bourillon is located in the former small seminary, and share places with the Lycée Chaptal. It hosts students from the city as well as a number from other neighbouring municipalities (Badaroux, Barjac, Chanac, Saint-Bauzile, Saint-Étienne-du-Valdonnez, etc.). The private college is the college of . The continuity of private education is at the Lycée Notre-Dame. Another high school, the Lycée Emile Peytavin allows, in addition to general education, technical and vocational education. Finally, now attached to the Lycée Notre-Dame, we find the Private Professional Lycée Plaisance.Institutions of the city are also have one of the best success rates for the Baccalauréat diploma, compared with the other schools in the area, which puts them in the first half best institutions of France.At the level of higher education, Mende welcomes a BTS in its different high schools. An , branch of the University of Perpignan, offers four courses: Multimedia, gerontology, City Council Secretary, and tourism. It is located in the buildings of the former Lamolle barracks, which had housed the . Finally the city also houses a teacher training Institute, an (IFSIL), a and a .The festivities of the town of Mende are held annually in the month of August. They were related to the feast of , on 21 August. They are decorated with a flower parade and the election of "Miss Mende". Then, in September, every other year, Mende hosts its beer festival, with its twin town of Wunsiedel. The city has also several sports events. At the cultural level, the "meetings of writers" were organized at the beginning of the 1990s, in August. They have welcomed regional authors but also renowned authors such as Calixthe Beyala and Michel Folco.The department has a hospital, which opened in 1970. Five of the six services are located in Mende: Guy de Chauliac Hospital, the retirement home, the convalescence centre, the Training Institute in Nursing and boarding school. The sixth branch, another retirement home, is based at Rieutort-de-Randon.The hospital has approximately 70 physicians and 750 health professionals. Moreover, since 2011, it welcomes in its structure the home of the Paul Éluard psychological and psychiatric unit, a branch of the of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole.To this one can add 20 physicians, general practitioners and specialists as well as a centre of firefighters. Though, if the implementation of the current hospital is fairly recent, the city has a fairly old hospital story.In the 12th century was the "alms house" for the population. This hospital, located on "Rue Angiran", derived its income from the operation of a mill in the district of La Vernède, as well as donations of the lords of the lands. It was partially destroyed in 1593 during the construction of a nearby citadel. Though the citadel disappeared in 1597, the hospital was not repaired immediately. From 1635 a budget was allocated for the rebuilding of the institution. It would not be built in the same place, and would take the name of "Hospital of Aygues-Passes". In 1677 became and thus Count of Gévaudan. In his first year as bishop, he rebuilt a new hospital which became the "general hospital". In 1702 it enlarged, and at his death he bequeathed it all of his possessions. This hospital, today the Piencourt residence, remained in use until the inauguration of the hospital. Added to this hospital, two establishments existed following periods of epidemics, both which were outside the city. A plague centre, referred to as 'House of God', was established in the district of Janicot. At the Saint-Jean Bridge (now Pont-Roupt), a "maladrerie" was rebuilt in 1242, intended for the accommodation of lepers.Mende is, by its number of licensees and all events, a sports town. Therefore, she was elected twice the by the daily newspaper "L'Équipe" (1988 and 1998) and a finalist in 2011. It is one of only a few cities of France to have achieved this distinction twice.Mende features a sports zone known as the "Complexe sportif de Jean Jacques Delmas" [Sports complex of Jean Jacques Delmas], in honour of his death, having been originally of this project he was the mayor of Mende for 25 years. There are 3 football/rugby pitches (the Stade du Chapitre and 2 training grounds), the semi-Olympic pool, tennis courts, a fitness room, a skate-park, a street-ball court, table-tennis hall and archery/shooting. It is in this complex which the '"Festival of sport" takes place every two years. Chapitre Stadium, enlarged at the Mediterranean Games has 500 seats, but this figure may be largely surpassed during some matches.Installed on the causse d'Auge are three soccer/rugby fields and an athletics track, which came to replace the old track of Mirandol. The Stade de Mirandol had the municipal stadium office until the 1980s. Since 2006, an equestrian centre is also located on the causse, it comes in addition to the aging Sirvens centre located at the exit of the city. Finally, the causse d'Auge was the chosen site, in 2008, for the construction of a new gymnasium, opposite the football fields.Near the Chaptal Lycée and the Henri Bourrillon College is the La Vernède complex. In this area are two gymnasiums, a dojo, a gymnastics Hall, one dance, one climbing (over an area outdoors), a covered petanque pitch and one outdoors. Before the construction of the gymnasium of La Vernède, this place was that of the municipal swimming pool and two tennis courts.Close to other educational institutions, other gyms are installed. There are six in all in the city: La Vernède, Lycée Notre-Dame, Piencourt, Lycée Chaptal, Lycée Théophile Roussel and college Saint-Privat.Many clubs share the facilities of the city. Football club Éveil Mendois evolved in CFA2 during two seasons (2000–01 and 2001–02), its successor, AF Lozère, plays in the (6th division). The Éveil Mendois football club came from the of the same name, founded in 1920. One of the highlights of its history remains a finish in the last 32 of Coupe de France final played opposite Angoulême on 24 January 1999. More recently, Mende moved up to the last 16 of the finals at the 2013 Coupe de France, winning on this occasion the "ranking of the Petits Poucets".The key club is the (formerly Mende Volley Ball) which plays in the Elite division, for the season 2014-2014 (3rd national division). At the top level, the MVL has a title of obtained at the end of the 2008-2009 season and a participation in the third round of the 2010-2011 Coupe de France.Of Rugby union ("Rugby Club Mende Lozère"), it found its place in Fédérale 3 in 2006, but returned to the regional level in the 2010s. The club however already evolved to a higher level a few years previously.The handball team ("Mende Gévaudan Club") is evolving in 2014-2015 in the National 3 France Championship. Finally, the basketball team ("basketball Causses Mendois") was found in 2014-2015 at the regional level. For women there are also handball, volleyball and basketball clubs which are Mendois clubs of highest level.Mende can be granted a special status to orienteering, an individual sport with team competitions. The fact remains that Mende is playing in the elite league of France, and "M. G. C. Pétanque" and its three veteran champions of France in 2007.Sports diversity does not stop there. Mende clubs also include roller hockey ("Les Comets"). Mende is also home to individual sports: Athletics, badminton, cycling, motorcycling, as well as many combat sports clubs.Since the beginning of the 2000s, a sports centre was set up to accompany young high school athletes to prepare for the best level. From the membership of the COL (centre omnisports Lozère), there is (France MTB 2010 downhill champion) and Fanny Lombard (Junior Champion of Europe 2009 and 2010 in the same discipline).Among professional sportspeople born in Mende, is the cyclist Christophe Laurent who shone by winning the jersey for the best climber of the Tour de l'Avenir and the Tour of California.The motorcyclist , winner of the prologue of the Paris-Dakar Rally (1991), also hails from Mende. He was one of the best enduro riders with the palmares of France, and was also vice World champion.Kayaker Brigitte Guibal, Olympic silver medallist in 2000 in Sydney, was also born in Mende.It is in 1988 that Marion Buisson was born in Mende. After making her athletics debut at the "Éveil mendois", she continued her career at Clermont athletics. She became champion of France in the pole vault in , thereby achieving the minimum to participate in the Beijing Summer Olympics.Each year, the , an enduro competition, centres its course on the city of Mende. This race is part of the most renowned of the enduro season and allows, in addition, mixing professional and amateur riders.One month later (July), the city centre is dedicated to foot racing and the arrival of . This race starts from Marvejols, joining Mende by the Col de Goudard and the Côte de Chabrits. It is sometimes used as a preparation marathon for major events (the World Championships, Olympic Games), but is also open to amateurs as the majority of the marathons. Since 2006, the month of July is also marked by the organisation of a national of pétanque.Cycling is also in honour of the city. The hosted the best professionals in the 1970s. Since then, the has seen five stage finishes in the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2018), and stages in the Tour de l'Avenir, the Grand Prix du Midi Libre, the and Paris-Nice. Since 2006 and the rebirth of the Tour du Gévaudan, Mende is judged the final arrival of this amateur race of great importance. In 2008, the event was organised as the "Finale de la Coupe des France des clubs" [final of the Cup of France for clubs]. During the winter, a grand prix of regional cyclo-cross is also organized. The grand departure of the Tour de France VTT 1996, as well as the first two stages, happened at Mende.Mende was also host city of the Mediterranean Games in 1993 by hosting cycling, football and swimming events.In October 2005, the city hosted the 37th national congress of the French hiking federation, Lozère being a popular department for hikers, and is crossed by two of the most important roads of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Then, in 2007, Mende was the host of a round of the French enduro championships, as well as the final of the Coupe de France rally.In 2008, France welcomed the enduro European grand prix, the final of the World Championship (WEC). It was the town of Alès which was chosen to host the competition. However the organization was forced to give up, and it was finally hosted by Mende on 11 and 12 October 2008. In 2011, the city hosted the Grand Prix of France, final of the World Championship.Mende is the seat of most of the media of Lozére. Thus we find the writings of the Lozère edition of "Midi Libre" and [New Lozère], with regard to the written press.The radio station France Bleu and have their editorial offices in Lozère. While Radio Eaux-Vives Lozère is installed at the former Grand Seminary.The town of Mende is the episcopal seat of Gévaudan and Lozère, religious life has always been linked with its bishops. Also chapter headquarters, Mende has welcomed a large number of canons. A religious brotherhood, the "Brotherhood of the White Penitents" has long existed and has a procession every Holy Thursday since the 17th century. The Tower of the Penitents (called so because it is adjacent to the chapel of the penitents) is one of the last vestiges of the ramparts of the city.The large and small seminaries are traces of the presence of the formation of Catholic priests.The main place of worship is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and Saint-Privat, built at the request of Pope Urban V, in place of the old church built over the tomb of but the city has many small chapels. One of the oldest is the chapel of Saint-Ilpide, on the hill of the executioner, which however was destroyed and replaced by a small chapel. Two other chapels are no longer used: That of the Penitents (future Museum of Religious Art) and the Chapel of Saint-Dominique (exhibition hall). The Chapel of the Hermitage (on ) and the cave which was drilled alongside, can still be used for offices.The Carmelite convent has existed since 1880 and has hosted a community of Carmelite nuns, which ensures production of altar bread (or wafers) for the diocese (and those nearby). Another Convent is installed in Mende, which is the Adoration of Picpus Convent. At the "Rue de la Chicanette" is installed the Jeanne Delanoue community of the Providence; little used for celebration services, the place is used for meetings between people in the religious world. The community is at the origin of the creation of the institution Notre-Dame-de-la-Providence, a social children's home adjacent to its premises and which hosts minors under administrative and judicial protection. There are of other religious communities, mainly related to private schools and retirement or rest homes.Worship in Mende, due to its history, is very oriented towards Catholicism, but there are other places of worship for other religions. Thus Mende, near of the Cévennes, has a Protestant temple installed in the "Allée Paul Doumer".The city also had a synagogue in the former Jewish quarter, but it has long since been abandoned. This synagogue, also called Ferrier House from the name of one of its former owners, is the last vestige of the Mende ghetto. The Jews were expelled from the Gévaudan in the 14th century, and this synagogue became the (Catholic) college of All Saints until the French Revolution.Whilst counting the presence of a Muslim community, the city has no mosque, but simply an apartment that serves as place of worship.Industrial (wood industry, jewelry), service centre (shops, restaurants, bars), administrative (generates a lot of jobs) and tourism (medieval town, excursions to Gorges du Tarn), Mende is the starting point for the establishment of new businesses in the department, and turned more towards new technologies, with the advent of the technological hub.The city has more than 1300 companies, including about 900 in the commercial sector, and has an unemployment rate of 10.7% (2017).The city has five zones of economic activities (ZAE), each having a rather clearly defined role. The largest is the ZAE of the Causse d'Auge (north of the city), with a mainly industrial orientation in automation or in the management of the wood. The ZI of Gardès, on the road to Badaroux is an industrial area covering public works and mainly the building companies. The ZAE Lou Chaousse and Chabrits (both in the northwest) also have a vocation craft, but more oriented towards the trade for individuals. And finally, the "Pôle lozérien d'économie numérique" (POLeN) is turned to the new technologies.In addition, since the mid-2000s, the de Ramille was created. This area, wedged between the Lot and the RN 88 on the road to Balsièges hosts a commercial zone which has tended to develop. It is without doubt, with the area of the Causse d'Auge, the area of activity that has extended most recently.In the near future a new area of activity should emerge north of Mende, in the commune of Badaroux. This area whose size is expected to reach approximately initially, would be served by the landscaped expressway.If the commune no longer has many farms, the city remains at the centre of a very rural area and is very oriented towards agriculture. Indeed, 54% of the Lozère territory is classified as a "utilised agricultural area". Livestock in the commune is mainly dedicated to the sheep sector, although cattle farms are found located between Mende and neighbouring communes.This attraction to sheep is ancestral to Mende, since the city has long lived wool exploitation, since the 16th century. In 1333 the city already had a brotherhood of the weavers. In 1849, the town was still equipped with five large mills. However, while having a rich textile past, the city now retains no activity.Like the Lozère department, industry in Mende is mainly oriented towards the timber sector: Its operation, its treatment, its derivatives, etc. Another industry that holds an important place in the city is that of construction and public works.Mende is also the seat of the that handles .The city is strongly turned towards the tertiary sector. As said above, a majority of the enterprises of the city are shops. Mende is the centre of an area's population of approximately 20,000 inhabitants around the Lot Valley, the city therefore centralises much of the services. Its quality of prefecture adds to the presence of public service.Tourism has also developed since the end of the 20th century. This openness on tourism translated between 1983 and 2008 by the creation of the office of tourism (municipal and intermunicipal), an increase of 400 beds offered to tourists, the opening of a holiday village and of a youth hostel, but also the creation of activity centre (canoe base, Freestyle Park, etc.). The city has eleven hotels, four with three stars and four having two. To this one can add the holiday village of Chapitre that offers 42 gîtes for rent, as well as two campsites near the Lot.Other businesses are those that can be found in other modern cities (banks, insurance, bakeries, the press houses, clothes, etc.). The city has a supermarket and a hypermarket, as well as several superettes and other discounters. The hypermarket, which is of recent construction, belongs to the Système U group and is located in the new area of activity of Ramilles. The supermarket (Intermarché) is, meanwhile, close to the city centre. Markets, vestiges of the traditional markets of the city are many, taking place on Wednesday (textile, utility, etc.) at "Place Chaptal", and on Saturday mornings (food market) at "Place Chaptal" and "Place Urbain V". In addition, night markets are held during the summer.The main companies in terms of turnover, as well as major private employers are:Since 1981 Mende has been classified as a city of art, and, since 2000, the grouping of "Mende and Lot in the Gévaudan" has the label of "city and land of art and history".Indeed, the city has a rich architectural heritage, witness of the prosperous time related to the papacy.The Cathedral of Saint-Privat (classed as a historical monument in 1906) whose construction began in 1368 at the initiative of Pope Urban V. Its bell towers date back, however, to the 16th century, following the destruction of one of them during the passage of the Huguenots by Matthieu Merle. The large belfry included housing ""Non Pareille"", the largest bell in the world melted between 1517 and 1521 in Villefort and destroyed during the Wars of Religion. There remains only the clapper. The cathedral consists of twelve rectangular chapels, two pentagonal chapels and a sacristy. Originally it was built above the Sainte-Thècle crypt where the body of Saint Privat had been buried. It is located next to the old episcopal palace.The city has many public fountains. Water from the causses thus enters a piping system located beneath the city before joining the Lot. Two of them (Aigues-Passe and Soubeyrand) are classified as historic monuments. Piped water also enters the old wash house of the Calquières, still visible on "Rue d'Angiran".This tower is one of the few remains of the ancient walls of the 12th century. Protecting the Gate of Angiran which was next to it, this tower served as guard for the short-lived Seneschal of Mende. It includes three floors and an attic. This is the installation of the chapel which is adjacent, and especially its bell tower at the top which saved the tower during the destruction of the walls in 1768.Dating back to the 13th century, this bridge is one of the symbols of the city. It has never been carried away by frequent floods in Mende. It formerly went by the name of Peyrenc Bridge, then took the name of Notre Dame due to the presence on its mouth of a Virgin, which disappeared during the Wars of Religion. Its span has a opening and is high.Saint Privat withdrew, in the 3rd century, into caves that he had built over Mende, on . Since his Hermitage was built, it also to allow the pilgrims to go there. It can be accessed either by Way of the Cross (from the market) or by road from the causse (RD 25). At the hermitage, we find a hotel for the reception of the pilgrims, a chapel, grotto and a breakthrough designed to the original cave.The House where the consul sat, since 1578, also served as city hall after the Revolution. On its pediment is found the arms of the city: ""Azure in the Gothic M of or, a shining Sun similarly topped."" Facing it is a trompe-l'œil wall symbolizing the twinning of Mende and Volterra.Located in the northwest of the city, the Bahours locality had two castles, one of which was destroyed in 1960. The remaining one is a strong house (manse) built in the 17th century, possibly on the foundations of a more ancient building. The main interest of this strong house is its kitchen listed as a historical monument, like the whole building.Mende features a municipal theatre and several rooms that can be used to this kind of show. The ancient theatre of the city turned into cinema. A development project involves the construction of a new multicultural hall. In addition, Mende has a departmental library, the Lamartine Library.The ancient theatre of the city, established between 1890 and 1895, was replaced by a cinema. The main room used for the theatre is now the festival hall located at the market. This room, and its natural scenery of arches, is multi-cultural and is the largest in the city in terms of capacity. On the market lies the "antirouille", a municipal building for young people and allowing everyone to have access to the internet, this building has a room to organize concerts.Near the market, along the "Chemin Saint-Ilpide", the Urban V municipal room hosts plays, live shows, and also meetings and projections (world knowledge, for example).Finally as part of the redevelopment of the market (started by the installation of the intercommunal tourism office and the renovation of the Lamartine Library), an auditorium should be created behind the festival hall (the Emile-Joly Square being moved).The Ignon-Fabre Museum (or the Museum of Mende) was located on "Rue de l'Epine" [street of the Holy thorn], at the , where there was installed the first electrification plant of the city. It was however closed due to lack of budget. Before it, a museum was located in a house next to the prison.The Chapel of Saint-Dominique and the current Department Hall can serve as an exhibition space, as can the Chapel of the Penitents and the former consular house.In addition a project of the Museum of , currently under study, should be installed in the Chapel of the Penitents.The poem, written by an author whose story did not retain the name, was confirmed in the 19th century:However, not everyone had a positive vision of the city. It had long had problems with sewage into the modern era, and was denigrated despite its charm:This quote comes perhaps from the conditions in which the geographer of the king came in the city. Like those who would declare to Serge Livrozet that Mende was "capital of Lozère and torture".Those born in Mende, or having a very strong tie with the city include:When King Louis XI granted autonomy to the city, he granted new arms in 1469. An 'L' surmounted by a crown, in gratitude to the king, was added to these in 1475.The current coat of arms dates from the sixteenth century. These weapons were registered in the Armorial General of France in 1697.
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[
"Alain Bertrand",
"Paulin Daudé-Gleize",
"Henri Trémolet de Villers"
] |
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Who was the head of Mende in Jan, 2020?
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January 20, 2020
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{
"text": [
"Alain Bertrand"
]
}
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L2_Q191772_P6_3
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Paulin Daudé-Gleize is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1919 to Jan, 1928.
Alain Bertrand is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Jean-Jacques Delmas is the head of the government of Mende from Mar, 1983 to Jan, 2008.
Henri Trémolet de Villers is the head of the government of Mende from Jan, 1971 to Jan, 1977.
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Mende, LozèreMende (, ) is a commune and prefecture of the department of Lozère and of the region of Occitanie in southern France. Its inhabitants are called the "Mendois". The city, including the first traces of dwellings date back to 200 BC, was originally named "Mimata", probably in reference to the mountains that surround it.Mende is located between Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier, but also on the axis of Lyon–Saint-Étienne–Albi–Toulouse. The other important nearby towns are Aurillac and Saint-Flour (Cantal), Le Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire), Rodez, Millau (Aveyron) and Alès and Nîmes (Gard).Even though Mende remains a relatively sparsely populated city (approximately 12,000 inhabitants), it remains the most important of the Lozère Department. In addition, it is the city-centre of the unique urban area of this department.It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mende.Mende is situated in the high valley of the Lot, in a mountainous area, in the "Pays du Gévaudan", the Rieucros stream joins to it on its right bank. The city is overlooked (on the left bank of the Lot) by and its . Access is by the . On the right bank, residential areas extend over different causses, including the "Causse d'Auge". Located on the axis of Lyon-Toulouse, the city has long been a commercial crossroads between the Auvergne, Rhone and the Languedoc.The commune is bordered by Chastel-Nouvel to the north, Badaroux to the east, Lanuéjols to the southeast, Brenoux and Saint-Bauzile to the south, Balsièges to the southwest, and Barjac and Servières to the west.Mende is one of the "gateway cities" (along with Millau, Lodève, Alès and Ganges) for the site of the Causses and Cévennes, of world heritage by UNESCO under the inscription "Les Causses and Cevennes, Mediterranean agro-pastoral cultural landscape".According to the INSEE, Mende is an urban commune without suburbs ("ville isolée" [isolated town]). It lies at the centre of an urban area composed of 15 communes, the only one in the department of Lozère.The town of Mende is built in the Lot Valley, within the area of the . The region of the Causses in Lozère is one of the four of Lozère, with the Margeride, the Aubrac and the Cévennes. The city is nestled in the middle of different Causses which form as natural barriers. However, over the 20th century, urbanisation began to extend beyond these limits.Of the Causses, is the most significant. The causse is overhung by the Cross of . A first wooden cross was planted in 1900 or 1907. It was replaced a few years later, on 8 July 1933, a Jubilee year, by a -high iron cross. Until 1945, this cross was the place of large gatherings in honour of Mendois soldiers. This cross has been illuminated since the summer of 1965. The mount also houses the chapel where Privat, the martyr of the Gévaudan, withdrew to. At its foot lies the area of Vabre where can be found the first remains of houses in the city. Opposite this is the Causse d'Auge (northeast) and the Causse du Crouzet (northwest), and the Margeride mountains beyond. To the west is Causse de Changefège, located between Mende and Barjac, which complements the borders of the city.The geology of the city of Mende is very dependent on the surrounding causses and streams that pass through them. The Mont Mimat and the Causse de Changefège are composed of limestone of the "Grands Causses", thus presenting abrupt edges. The other causses (as well as the butte de Fontanille) are composed of limestone of the "Petits Causses" (without these edges). The Lot Valley is composed of marl. The Valley, in the south of Mende, is full of blue marl, leaving one to presuppose that the marl of the town of Mende would be, in part, of the same origin. Finally, the various streams (the Rieucros) of the causses of the north of the city are lined by mica-schist.The city of Mende was built on the banks of the Lot. But the Lot is not the only presence of water in the city: Indeed, it has several sources, including those of . The most significant of them is located in the Vabre district, close to the first houses. These sources have also often been channeled and feed the underground water system of the city, visible on the surface through numerous fountains and the old wash house. The streets, such as the "Rue du Torrent", attest to the passage of water from Mont Mimat.To the north, on the other side of the Lot, the sources are much more distant, but water is present in the stream known as Rieucros.Mende is subject to an oceanic stream that comes from the Aubrac and Mediterranean and flows from the Cévennes. The department of Lozère, Mende in particular, benefit from insolation (or sunlight) similar to that of Toulouse with approximately 2,069 hours of sunshine per year. The city, away from the mountains that surround it, has a more protected climate than the highlands of Gévaudan: So, average temperatures oscillate between and . With respect to annual precipitation, data for the Lozère is between , depending on the exposure of the regions, with up to 50 days of snow per year.Between 1971 and 2000, monthly rainfall ranged from (March) and (September).In more detail, here are some statements in Mende records since 1985:Mende is located in the centre of the Lozère department and therefore centralises the roads. The city has rail and air access, but the Lot is not navigable (too shallow) as with all the rivers of the department (except for recreational canoeing, or in rare exceptions for the transport of people such as the crossing of the Tarn towards La Malène).Mende is located on the , linking Lyon and Toulouse. The road comes from Balsièges to the west and Badaroux to the east. This axis can be reached easily. Haute-Loire and Ardèche are to the east, via Langogne and Aveyron is to the west via La Canourgue-Banassac, as well as the A75 autoroute. A road doubling project is underway in the department, bypassing Mende from the north. This doubling is however a long project (1993), having had several outlines and some opposition. The project was finally abandoned in October 2012 making Lozère a department without draft dual carriageways on RN 88. Indeed, its neighbours Aveyron and Tarn continue their projects of dual carriageways between Rodez and Toulouse with all expected to be commissioned in December 2015. The work of the Rodez - Séverac section should be completed by the end of 2019. The same will be the case for Haute-Loire, which continues its road access. However, the workarounds of Mende and Langogne are budgeted. These projects in adjacent departments will reach major cities nearby to Mende (Rodez, Albi, Toulouse, Le Puy and even Lyon). Finally, the economic impact or the absence of dual carriageways in Lozere must be assessed in the medium and long term.Furthermore, a viaduct (the Rieucros Viaduct) commissioned in December 2009 will be used to ensure a first bypass of Mende. It connects the industrial area of the Causse d'Auge to the technological centre of Valcroze (and the RD 42) and also helps to relieve the traffic connecting the districts north and northwest of the city.The RN 88 deviation from Mende should be the first from Pelouse to reach up to the Causse d'Auge with an "expressway" configuration. Then it would continue on the D 806 (ex north) to the Rieucros Viaduct, and then a new section of the viaduct to the Mende exit in the hamlet of La Thébaïde (west bypass). These two sections will only be of two lanes. Subsequently, the expressway from the Causse d'Auge will be directly linked to the A 75.Another national road, the RN 106, formerly ran through the city. This name is no longer valid for the section coming from the Gard and joining Mende via Florac (it is then of the RN 88 on the stretch between Balsièges and Mende). The northern part of the road was decommissioned in 2007 and now bears the name of D 806. This stretch goes from Mende to Saint-Chély-d'Apcher (and the A75 autoroute) via Chastel-Nouvel.Secondary access is provided by the RD 42 from the northwest, which joins the RN 88 at Barjac, and by the RD 25 which, passing through the , crosses before arriving at the Valdonnez.Mende features an SNCF railway station, located on the railway line of the , between Le Monastier (the ) and La Bastide - Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (). This line, built at the very beginning of the 20th century, bears the nickname of ""ligne du toit de la France"" [the roof of France line], and Mende is the main railway station. Ten weekly links are provided by rail.The station is also the starting point of the TER connection to Clermont-Ferrand by bus, which is daily.Referred to as TUM (for "Transports Urbains Mendois") the urban transport network is exclusively equipped with buses, which run through the city and some nearby villages (Les Boulaines, Chabrits, Chabannes). Since its establishment in 2000, it has replaced the school bus service. The urban transport network is also responsible for the management of the pay car parks in the city. A part of the city centre is also exclusively pedestrian.The prefecture of the Lozère department shares with the neighbouring village of Brenoux. This airfield, located on , is thus from Clermont-Ferrand, from Montpellier and away from Lyon and Toulouse. Highlights include it being the site of the final scene of the film "La Grande Vadrouille", and also of five stages of the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018).Furthermore, a Mende-Paris air link was implemented in October 2007. However, the flight was departing from the aerodrome of Le Puy-en-Velay, located from Mende and reached by a shuttle. This connection was born of a desire to open up Mende to air travel, which is indeed late at this level for a prefecture, and has no direct flight to Paris unlike its neighbours Clermont-Ferrand, Rodez, Aurillac or Le Puy-en-Velay.Since the beginning of 2008, a study has been conducted by the CCI of the Lozère department, in order to discuss the possibility of the establishment of a link between the Lozerian prefecture and the regional capital, Montpellier but four years after the launch of this study, no concrete project to date has been presented.Finally, two more major airports with international influence and close to Mende are Clermont-Ferrand Aulnat and Rodez-Aveyron.In the 13th century, the city was concentrated in what is now the city centre, bounded by the boulevards, and formerly the ramparts. It was then split into five sections (or neighbourhoods) known as "pans": Auriac, Aygues-Passe, Champnau, Chastel and Claustres.When it was initially named as such, the Pan d'Auriac was mainly a place of settlement, before becoming the "quartier des pénitents blancs" [district of the white penitents] who settled there. The Pan d'Aygues-Passe (or Aigues-Passe), meaning "water that passes", owes its name to the inclination of its streets, where the water flowed during cleaning. The Pan de Champnau derives its name from "new field", and includes what was a new residential area, at north of the city. The Pan de Chastel is the old commercial district of the city. It is located towards the Chastel Gate, which led then to Chastel-Nouvel, where a castle stood which was property of the bishops. Finally the Pan des Claustres, whose name comes from cloisters, was the largest of the city and is now between the and , i.e. between the two tombs of (the chapel Saint-Ilpide on the hill of the executioner, and the crypt of Sainte-Thècle under the cathedral square).The historic city centre is bordered by boulevards which took the place of the ancient walls. In addition to housing, the centre is mostly occupied by convenience stores and artisans. Beyond the boulevards, there are other houses as well as government buildings. The General Council and the prefecture indeed share the former , but services are scattered throughout the city. "Allée Piencourt" connects downtown roads to Badaroux and Chastel-Nouvel, near the ancient diocese (pré claux and pré vival) having been built.North of the "Allée Piencourt", past the Berlière Bridge, dwellings are present at the foot of the Causse d'Auge. These were established in several instalments over the 19th and 20th centuries, the first of these being Chaldecoste. It is in this part of the city that the large and the small seminary as well as the Convent of Carmel are found. The city extends to the north in the direction of Alteyrac (commune of Chastel-Nouvel). Between these areas and Alteyrac is located the zone of economic activities (ZAE) of the Causse d'Auge. The northern districts often bear names of flowers, this part of the city that historically sheltered gardens and vineyards, along the draille linking the "Plateau du Palais du Roi" [King's Palace Plateau].The causse is bounded by two streams, the Rieucros in the east and the to the west.Above the Badaroux road, on a hill, lies the Fontanilles district. It was originally social housing. At the foot of the hill is the Lycée Notre-Dame, while beyond the district of Saint-Laurent (where one finds traces of history with the presence of a chapel and a windmill) and, later, the Gardès ZAE. In this part, to the west of Gardès, is also the village of Sirvens where traces of a Gallo-Roman villa were discovered.Stuck between Fontanille, Mont Mimat and the city centre, are districts located roadside above pré claux. In this area are located the centre of firefighters, the Château of Bellesagne and the former gendarmerie. The market is also in this area, but more to the east than the precedents cited (beyond the boulevards, however). Above it lies the Vabre district and Hill of the Executioner where the first traces of dwellings of the city were found. Also nearby is the city's prison.In the westerly direction, found the District of Le Chapitre with the sports complex and the holiday village. This area is at the foot of a portion of the Causse de Changefège, where homes are installed along the Chabrits road ("Avenue du 11-Novembre", north-west of the city). It is in this part of the city which the district of Valcroze is found (new in the 19th century), the Chabrits ZAE and technology park.The other side of the Lot, along the , is found the avenue of the Gorges du Tarn and the area of Ramille. It is in this part where retail establishments are found. The Ramille zone saw the introduction, despite some criticism about the instability of the ground, of the hypermarket of the department, as well as a commercial area.On the map are the main roads of the city. To the west, the RN 88 is joined to Balsièges, passing through the Rocher de Moïse (classified site) located at the left end. To the northwest, it is the hamlet of Chabannes, and further to Chabrits. To the south, is found, where the new cross stands which symbolically marks the top of the hill (although it continues a little higher). This road leads to the Hermitage of , at the cross of the same name and the route of Valdonnez (Lanuéjols, Brenoux, Saint-Bauzile).To the east, Fontanille district is on a hillock, circumvented by the Lot. Behind lies the district of Saint-Laurent, then the ZAE de Gardès (and the village of the same name) and the village of Sirvens. Following the RN 88, one reaches Badaroux. Finally to the north, is the area of the Chaldecoste (broken down into several districts: Bergerie, Chanteperdrix, Vignette, etc.) where one can reach the ZAE du causse d'Auge. Further to the north, one finds Chastel-Nouvel before returning to the ground of and the "Plateau du Palais du Roi". The drinking water of the city of Mende comes from this direction, because of the Lac de Charpal reservoir, which is the main source.In 2017, Mende had 6,851 residences for an official population of 12,134 people. 87% of them are primary residences and 6.1% of secondary residences, which contrasts sharply with the figure of the Lozère department amounting to a 32.3% share of secondary housing.The population has been growing for several years, and the city has acquired new quarters over the years: Chaldecoste and Chanteperdrix in the 1970s, La Bergerie in the 1990s, and Valcroze in the 2000s. The city has 17.9% of HLM-type accommodations.59% of dwellings have four rooms or more and 19% have three rooms. The city is composed of many individual homes, small and large dwellings remaining in the minority. However, one can see that between 1990 and 1999 there was an increase of 85.3% of dwellings of one or two rooms. This can partly be explained by the development of higher education, with the branch of the University of Perpignan.The region is an ancient site of settlement dating back to the Bronze Age, although the capital of the Gévaudan, the Gallic period then Gallo-Roman, was Anderitum. Found in the ancient texts are the names of "Mimate", "Mimata" (mountain), which refer to this town at the foot of "Mons Mimatensis" (). In the same spirit, another name circulating is that of "Viculus Mimatensis" (or "Vicus Mimatensis"). It is the city which gave its name to Mont Mimat ("mount of the Mendois", literally) and not vice versa.Traces of dwellings dating from 200 BC were found, ancient Roman "villae", as well as around the city. However, residents could have been be domiciled here well before. Indeed, on Mont Mimat to Chapieu, a dolmen was found around 1913 including a trepanned skull. The other surrounding plateaux also attest this presence with other dolmens (on the Causse de Changefege for example). These remains may date from the Chalcolithic period.The city, strictly speaking, dates from the Middle Ages, and it is not found cited at the end of the 6th century by Gregory of Tours in his "Histoire des Francs". This text speaks of the martyrdom of , the first bishop of the Gabali, who was the origin of a pilgrimage to the hermitage and the caves where he had retired. Mende in the 3rd century was then only a village. The history of Privat is thus situated around the 3rd century, while he was sent by Austromoine to evangelize the Gévaudan. It was during this period that the Alemanni invaded the country, guided by their leader, Chrocus.The Gabali took refuge in the fortress of Grèzes where they were under siege for two years. Their bishop, Privat, was meanwhile in one of the caves of Mont Mimat which he had converted into a hermitage. When Chrocus learned that the bishop was not among his people, he went looking for him to use as a hostage in order to get the Gabali to leave Grèzes. Privat was martyred at his cave on near the village of Mimate. Presented to the Gabali, he refused to deliver his people despite all the barbaric tortures to which he was subjected (according to Gregory of Tours:""The good shepherd refused to deliver his sheep to wolves, and they tried to force his to sacrifice to demons""). Exhausted, the Alemanni would leave the Gabali free, by promising them peace. Privat succumbed to his injuries in the following days. His act of resistance, refusing to deliver his compatriots, thus earned him great popular fervour, and it was around his tomb and his hermitage that pilgrimage began, allowing the village to grow.In the 12th century Gévaudan was part of the County of Barcelona. In Mende, the counties have a castle, the castel frag. Three other lords had their castle around the Romanesque church: That of Canilhac (who owned the archtreasurer rights of the church), that of Cabrières (who was granted rights of archdeacon) and Dolan (who administered and ruled the episcopal home during the interregnum of bishops). In 1161, Mende, who was under the suzerainty of the King of France, saw his Bishop get the royal rights. It was the golden bull, an act signed by the king and marked with a royal seal in gold, which contained the terms of this agreement. It thus gave Aldebert and his successors, in perpetuity, the Royal power and the full powers of justice on the inhabitants of the bishopric. This fact is quite rare because only four golden bulls in six centuries were granted by the Kings of France.It was from this time that the city walls were built. Aldebert wished to protect the city and secure channels that lead there. he recovered and also built the fortress of Chapieu on , and was done so that it could accommodate a garrison. This allowed the monitoring of the direct route between Mont Lozère and Villefort, in other words towards the Regordane Way, trade route.At that time, however, Mende was not provided the civil and religious capital of Gévaudan. In fact the power was always dependent of two entities: The county and Viscount of Grèzes. The Viscount, property of the King of Aragon, was recovered by the King of France in 1258. The bishop had great power as a vassal, but he didn't have the total legitimacy of some Royal officials. This situation ended from 1307 with the Act of paréage between Bishop Guillaume VI Durand and King Philip IV. Indeed, it definitively fixed the possessions of the king and those of the bishop, even if some disputes persisted.During the Hundred Years' War security increased with the strengthening of the fortifications and the construction of ditches to 1361-1362. At that time, the chapter of Mende had a castle on the heights of the city, Chastel-Nouvel. In 1370 many locals felt safe from the ramparts of the city, despite threats from the routiers. Also, few of them took refuge in Chastel-Nouvel. But the walls were insufficient, and could not prevent the pillages. This period isolated Mende from its neighbours, including Le Puy-en-Velay, and waited the arrival of the Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, then the intervention of Charles VI and the liberation of the region so that the roads reopened around 1452.In 1390, was in Mende, where John III of Armagnac sought, on behalf of the King of France, to put an end to the private war that Raymond de Turenne led against the Pope from Avignon. The Gascon signed as a witness to an agreement between the legate of Clement VII, Antoine de Lisa, , and a representative of the Viscount of Turenne. This interview of Mende helped the Florentines to send ambassadors to solicit the Count of Armagnac. He was proposed to cross the Alps and attack the Count of Vertus in Lombardy.It was also at this time that blessed Pope Urban V began the work of the cathedral (1368), for a completion in 1467. By its letters patent, King Louis XI confirmed the privileges for this cathedral, granted by his predecessors, in September 1464.At the beginning of the 1470s, conflict erupted between Bishop and King Louis XI, because of the support that the bishop had given to the County of Armagnac when it had revolted. To counter it, the king subtracted La Panouse authority over the city which then became autonomous. It wasn't until 1478 that the bishops found authority over the city, sharing revenues with the consul.At the end of the Hundred Years' War, Mende developed its production of drapery, and thus increased its role as a commercial crossroads between the Languedoc and Auvergne, exporting its fame. It is estimated that in the 16th century Mende was one of the richest dioceses of Languedoc before Montpellier and Toulouse. This wealth of the diocese reinforced the ecclesiastical power. Thus among the list of the bishops of the time one can count a number from the family of the Pope. Giuliano della Rovere was ordained bishop of Mende, although he never visited in the capital of Gévaudan (practice known as commendation). His nephews, Clement and , succeeded him in this position. During his tenure, François adorned the cathedral with its bell towers, which one hosted the "Non Pareille", the largest bell in the world.In October 1485, when Clement de La Rovere came to the episcopal seat, old quarrels between the consul and the bishopric re-emerged, first mentioned with fear of losing this privilege. Thus they barricaded the gates of Mende, so that the bishop could not access. At this time the bishops primarily used their Balsièges Castle as a residence (that of Chanac being the summer residence). In vain as the Della Rovere family covered the full authority by notice of the king in 1492. The title of consul was held in place of the traditional title of trustee.In the 16th century, the main events were the Reformation and the Wars of Religion which resulted. On 21 July 1562, 4,000 Protestants got within the walls of the city. They destroyed the unprotected monuments and besieged the city by depriving it of water. They withdrew four days later, largely due to being given 2,000 ecus. This ransom ensured the city a few years of peace.During the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Astorg de Peyre was murdered in the king's room: his widow then hired a young man, Matthieu Merle to avenge the death of her husband. From 1569 to 1576 he held with his troops the fortress of Grèzes where he gradually seized the north of Gévaudan. From 1577 he moved with his troops to Marvejols intending to seize Mende, although not ceasing his conquests to the north, he failed however in August 1578 at Saint-flour. The night of Christmas 1579, to enter the city, Merle's soldiers expected that the people of Mendes were at midnight mass.During his stay in Mende, Merle made further fortification to the city, not hesitating razing 120 homes to restore the ramparts. In February 1581, while he ruled all the Gévaudan, he enforced the threat he had made to the people. He had in fact asked them to deliver 4,000 ecus, a sum that the Mendois could not collect. He partially destroyed Mende Cathedral built by Pope Urban V. He saved a bell tower to avoid damaging the episcopal palace where his home was established. It was at this time that the "Non Pareille" was melted, the biggest bell in the world, to manufacture culverins and other cannonballs. The city was liberated on bail that year thanks to the intervention of the King of Navarre.The city liberated, a seneschal was created to ensure the peace. Response to the attack of Merle was organised in 1586 against the town of Marvejols, led by baron de Saint-Vidal. It was during this response that the Peyre fortress disappeared from the rock of Peyre. The seneschal took its place. The Tower of Auriac, today known as the Tower of Penitents, was built to accommodate one hundred soldiers. The seneschal gradually took precedence over the diocese, which called for the help of the Duke of Languedoc in 1597. It was after this episode that the Seneschal of Mende disappeared.The beginning of the 17th century was coloured by the work of reconstruction of the cathedral for an inauguration in 1605, although work had lasted until 1629. Far from the splendour of the original, while taking up the same plane, this new cathedral was characterised by a bell tower which was smaller than the other.Between 1645 and 1660, the city was the scene of strife between two rival factions: The Marmaux and the Catharinaux, all members of the consuls or the bourgeoisie, but not having the same opinion on the importance of episcopal power, the latter being opposed. The bishop was also the target of an attack while he officiated in Mende Cathedral in 1645 (he was actually not touched). After several trials, it was not without difficulty that the kingdom gave back his ancestral power, the consul remaining under his control.At the end of the century, landscaped a lane which joined to the Lot (since known as ""Allée Piencourt"") and especially acquired the Aubusson tapestries for the episcopal palace. These tapestries, classified, since adorn the cathedral. It was also behind the early educational development in the city and contributed to the building of the hospital. It also made the hospital its heir, allowing it to develop.In 1702, the war of the Camisards was triggered in the Cévennes. Mende somewhat landscaped its walls in order to prevent any attack. However, this war which began with the murder of Father du Chayla at Le Pont-de-Montvert never reached Mende.In 1721, the Great Plague arrived in Gévaudan affecting the town of Mende with an amount of 1,078 victims in one year. Two generations later, the walls were removed (in 1768), "so the air circulates better".Once all these troubles passed, the city redeveloped its economy around wool and sheep farming. The city extended a little bit under the development of the appearance of the mills, and its first factory. In 1754, Mende saw Louis Mandrin the famous brigand, who lodged in a house there and, according to legend, hid treasure.Between 1764 and 1767, Mende was the witness the comings and goings of the wolf-hunters of the king, who came to seek rest in the city before returning to hunt the beast which was terrorising the north of the country. It was seen close to Mende, once at Pailhou and between Rieutort-de-Randon and Chastel-Nouvel but remained primarily in Margeride. At this time the quarrel between the consul and the bishop was brought up to date by the edict on municipal organizations. The burghers and nobles opposed, but the bishop finally retained power in 1771.During the French Revolution, Mende had to share with Marvejols the function of department capital of Gévaudan. This was renamed in the Lozère department in 1790, and the guardianship of the church disappeared in 1791, thus putting an end to the paréage of 1307. Mende was the scene of small counter-revolutionary clashes, but without great effects. It became the sole capital shortly after.In 1800, the prefect settled in the city, and the prefecture occupies the episcopal palace after the sale of the property of the church. In the middle of the 19th century, the causses around Mende are planted with Austrian black pine, this national forest has continued since then. The choice of black pine was due to its ease of acclimation, and its robustness. The presence of this forest often protected Mende from floods.Then the railway appeared in the prefecture, then linking to Sévérac-le-Château (3 May 1884). The railway line follows the Lot to cross the city, and also continues to follow, like the newly created road. In 1887 the old episcopal palace disappeared in flames, the prefecture had to be rebuilt.On 8 April 1888 Mende became one of the first cities in France, and the first chef-lieu to have electric lighting. The plant was installed in the old .The twentieth century was marked by a beginning of economic decline. The gradual end of the wool industry, the First and the Second World War depopulated the city. Between 1931 and 1934 baths are built, since becoming the Home, and located on the market square. The building was destroyed in summer 2013, to be replaced by a multi-cultural hall.In 1939, shortly before World War II, an internment camp was built in the woods of the Rieucros. The population was opposed to this transit camp for anti-fascists and communists. It then became an internment camp exclusively for women. The mayor at the time, , condemned the Vichy regime and the camp in his hometown, where he made sure that children interned with their mother followed a normal education. His hostile words and acts to the regime in place led him to be removed from his post in 1941. He then joined Resistance where he became one of the leaders for the Lozère. Arrested and sent to German camps in 1944, he died during a transfer in 1945.Ideally placed between the Maquis of the Cévennes and the Aubrac, the town was located as well as a centre for the coordination of the Lozère Interior Resistance. As for the population, it protected itself where shelters against aerial bombardments were implemented.From the 1970s, the city had a sizable population growth. The city then extended to the Causse d'Auge. In the 1980s and 1990s, one can also see that the department was depopulating overall, while its prefecture was expanding. Culture and sport took more importance in the life of the city.During the 1990s, the city developed administrative reconciliations with nearby cities. Therefore, it formed the Estelle city network with Aurillac and Rodez. The principle of the network was to share experiences and pool resources to develop such medium-sized cities. Shortly after, it was with other networks that Mende became closer to other cities of the Massif Central. This is the case, for example, with the Cyber Massif network dedicated to the digital opening up of the region.Moreover, since the beginning of the 21st century, Mende had tried to actively participate in the policies of opening up of the Massif Central. The city lies in the Lot Valley and reached an area of in the 2000s. It also seeks to enroll in a sustainable development project, in the image of the department with, among other projects, the construction of a cogeneration plant and the establishment of a network of heat. The timber industry, so important in the economy of the city, could therefore be put to further use. The establishment of bio-energy in the city has also been carried out by the appearance of a wind farm north of the city.Mende is the chef-lieu of the Lozère department: It welcomes in this regard the prefecture and the headquarters of the General Council. The buildings of these two institutions are scattered within the city. A project of the Department Hall to consolidate all services of the General Council is under consideration. The mayor's office is housed in the town hall which dates from the 18th century, however, a large part of the services have been moved to the annex of the mayor's office.This is the old consular house which was used as a city hall of the Revolution until 1852. On that date, Mayor Becamel bought the Pages family mansion located in the "Place d'Angiran". Since then the city hall has been based in this city mansion (listed historical monument) in the square which has become "Place Charles-de-Gaulle", although a part of the services is now located in the annex which faces it. As the cathedral, the city hall also houses the tapestries of Aubusson, classified since 1909.Since 1945, the following were elected mayors of the city of Mende:The city of Mende belongs to the . It was created in December 2001 under the name of "Communauté de communes de la Haute Vallée d'Olt" before changing its name in 2009. The commune being the largest in terms of population, it was its mayor, Jean-Jacques Delmas, who became the first president of the community.The implementation of this community of communes has allowed a transfer of powers. So, all areas of economic activity and sports facilities now fall under the responsibility of the community, rather than the commune itself.However, the actions are much wider since waste treatment also enters the competence of the community. The waste disposal site of the commune lies in the ZAE du Causse d'Auge, north of the city. In this context, unsorted collection is also the responsibility of the community of communes.This community of communes is not the only grouping of communities for the town of Mende. A comprehensive plan was implemented around the label "Pays d'Art et d'Histoire de Mende et Lot en Gévaudan" [Lands of art and history of Mende and Lot in Gevaudan]. These are twenty-two communes which now belong to the Pays d'Art [Lands of Art] which comes in the continuity of the city of art and history label which Mende has had since 1981. The lands comprises four communities: Cœur de Lozère, , and , which is assistant to the Chastel-Nouvel commune.The city is the chef-lieu of two cantons: Mende-1 and Mende-2 since 2015. Mende-1 comprises the northern part of the city, Mende-2 the southern part.Before the Act of paréage of 1307, Mendoise and Gevaudanaise justice was fully devolved to the bishops. This power was shared with the king after the signing of the Act. Power was shared between the various for the communal land, with Mende being in the land of the bishops and Marvejols in lands of the king, and like this until 1789.The courthouse was built between 1833 and 1835. On 18 February 1994, it was the target of a bombing by the FLNC.The tribunal groups together a children's tribunal, a tribunal of commerce, a court and a high court. It depends on the .The city has long held prisons. Current prison was commissioned in 1891. One of the first high-security areas of France was then moved there in 1949. It was at this date that the prison ownership changed, from the State Department. Several personalities have stayed here, the most famous being Jacques Mesrine. André Génovès' film, "Mesrine" released in 1983, also tells of the criminal plan to destroy the QHS. had sought to bring Jacques Mesrine out of prison when he was imprisoned in Mende. This area had also been the target of critics, such as those of the Committee of action of prisoners and Serge Livrozet, in 1975. In 1989, the Mende detention centre was again publicised with the escape of , who managed to escape by threatening guards with a dummy gun. The last prison 'personality' of Mende, , activist of the alongside José Bové, was imprisoned after the case of the McDonald's franchise destruction in Millau.Mende is twinned with:Since 2007, the cities of Wunsiedel and Volterra are also paired together. The twinning with Vila Real (much more populous than the city of Mende) is explained by the fact that a large part of the Portuguese population of Mende, and Lozère in general, is from this region.In contrast to the department of Lozère, the prefecture saw its demographic curve draw increasingly since the French Revolution. If the department was strongly affected by the and the great wars of the 20th century, the city had the presence of its own authorities. This may explain why Mende has not experienced the same trend as Lozère. This table shows the demographic for the town of Mende, but it can be considered that the "bassin Mendois" [Mende area] follows the same trend.In 2017, the commune had 12,134 inhabitants.The Mende population is fairly young taking into account the ageing population of Lozère. Compared with the 1990 census, it is the age group of 15–29 years which has had the greatest increase at the expense of those aged 0–14 and 30–44 years. The number of near-centenarians was also greater in 1999 than in 1990.In Mende, the share of the immigrant population represents about 8% of the total population. They originate mostly from Portugal (mainly from Vila Real), Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey. This being the image of immigration in the region. The Spanish immigration, which was very present in the middle of the twentieth century, has been disappearing since the 1970s.Mende has three nursery schools: "Solelhons" (the small Suns in Occitan), the Chênes school and Fontanilles school. They are in close relations with the primary schools of the Groupe solaire, Annex Michel del Castillo School and Fontanilles School, Jeanne d'Arc School dealing with private education.The public college of Henri-Bourillon is located in the former small seminary, and share places with the Lycée Chaptal. It hosts students from the city as well as a number from other neighbouring municipalities (Badaroux, Barjac, Chanac, Saint-Bauzile, Saint-Étienne-du-Valdonnez, etc.). The private college is the college of . The continuity of private education is at the Lycée Notre-Dame. Another high school, the Lycée Emile Peytavin allows, in addition to general education, technical and vocational education. Finally, now attached to the Lycée Notre-Dame, we find the Private Professional Lycée Plaisance.Institutions of the city are also have one of the best success rates for the Baccalauréat diploma, compared with the other schools in the area, which puts them in the first half best institutions of France.At the level of higher education, Mende welcomes a BTS in its different high schools. An , branch of the University of Perpignan, offers four courses: Multimedia, gerontology, City Council Secretary, and tourism. It is located in the buildings of the former Lamolle barracks, which had housed the . Finally the city also houses a teacher training Institute, an (IFSIL), a and a .The festivities of the town of Mende are held annually in the month of August. They were related to the feast of , on 21 August. They are decorated with a flower parade and the election of "Miss Mende". Then, in September, every other year, Mende hosts its beer festival, with its twin town of Wunsiedel. The city has also several sports events. At the cultural level, the "meetings of writers" were organized at the beginning of the 1990s, in August. They have welcomed regional authors but also renowned authors such as Calixthe Beyala and Michel Folco.The department has a hospital, which opened in 1970. Five of the six services are located in Mende: Guy de Chauliac Hospital, the retirement home, the convalescence centre, the Training Institute in Nursing and boarding school. The sixth branch, another retirement home, is based at Rieutort-de-Randon.The hospital has approximately 70 physicians and 750 health professionals. Moreover, since 2011, it welcomes in its structure the home of the Paul Éluard psychological and psychiatric unit, a branch of the of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole.To this one can add 20 physicians, general practitioners and specialists as well as a centre of firefighters. Though, if the implementation of the current hospital is fairly recent, the city has a fairly old hospital story.In the 12th century was the "alms house" for the population. This hospital, located on "Rue Angiran", derived its income from the operation of a mill in the district of La Vernède, as well as donations of the lords of the lands. It was partially destroyed in 1593 during the construction of a nearby citadel. Though the citadel disappeared in 1597, the hospital was not repaired immediately. From 1635 a budget was allocated for the rebuilding of the institution. It would not be built in the same place, and would take the name of "Hospital of Aygues-Passes". In 1677 became and thus Count of Gévaudan. In his first year as bishop, he rebuilt a new hospital which became the "general hospital". In 1702 it enlarged, and at his death he bequeathed it all of his possessions. This hospital, today the Piencourt residence, remained in use until the inauguration of the hospital. Added to this hospital, two establishments existed following periods of epidemics, both which were outside the city. A plague centre, referred to as 'House of God', was established in the district of Janicot. At the Saint-Jean Bridge (now Pont-Roupt), a "maladrerie" was rebuilt in 1242, intended for the accommodation of lepers.Mende is, by its number of licensees and all events, a sports town. Therefore, she was elected twice the by the daily newspaper "L'Équipe" (1988 and 1998) and a finalist in 2011. It is one of only a few cities of France to have achieved this distinction twice.Mende features a sports zone known as the "Complexe sportif de Jean Jacques Delmas" [Sports complex of Jean Jacques Delmas], in honour of his death, having been originally of this project he was the mayor of Mende for 25 years. There are 3 football/rugby pitches (the Stade du Chapitre and 2 training grounds), the semi-Olympic pool, tennis courts, a fitness room, a skate-park, a street-ball court, table-tennis hall and archery/shooting. It is in this complex which the '"Festival of sport" takes place every two years. Chapitre Stadium, enlarged at the Mediterranean Games has 500 seats, but this figure may be largely surpassed during some matches.Installed on the causse d'Auge are three soccer/rugby fields and an athletics track, which came to replace the old track of Mirandol. The Stade de Mirandol had the municipal stadium office until the 1980s. Since 2006, an equestrian centre is also located on the causse, it comes in addition to the aging Sirvens centre located at the exit of the city. Finally, the causse d'Auge was the chosen site, in 2008, for the construction of a new gymnasium, opposite the football fields.Near the Chaptal Lycée and the Henri Bourrillon College is the La Vernède complex. In this area are two gymnasiums, a dojo, a gymnastics Hall, one dance, one climbing (over an area outdoors), a covered petanque pitch and one outdoors. Before the construction of the gymnasium of La Vernède, this place was that of the municipal swimming pool and two tennis courts.Close to other educational institutions, other gyms are installed. There are six in all in the city: La Vernède, Lycée Notre-Dame, Piencourt, Lycée Chaptal, Lycée Théophile Roussel and college Saint-Privat.Many clubs share the facilities of the city. Football club Éveil Mendois evolved in CFA2 during two seasons (2000–01 and 2001–02), its successor, AF Lozère, plays in the (6th division). The Éveil Mendois football club came from the of the same name, founded in 1920. One of the highlights of its history remains a finish in the last 32 of Coupe de France final played opposite Angoulême on 24 January 1999. More recently, Mende moved up to the last 16 of the finals at the 2013 Coupe de France, winning on this occasion the "ranking of the Petits Poucets".The key club is the (formerly Mende Volley Ball) which plays in the Elite division, for the season 2014-2014 (3rd national division). At the top level, the MVL has a title of obtained at the end of the 2008-2009 season and a participation in the third round of the 2010-2011 Coupe de France.Of Rugby union ("Rugby Club Mende Lozère"), it found its place in Fédérale 3 in 2006, but returned to the regional level in the 2010s. The club however already evolved to a higher level a few years previously.The handball team ("Mende Gévaudan Club") is evolving in 2014-2015 in the National 3 France Championship. Finally, the basketball team ("basketball Causses Mendois") was found in 2014-2015 at the regional level. For women there are also handball, volleyball and basketball clubs which are Mendois clubs of highest level.Mende can be granted a special status to orienteering, an individual sport with team competitions. The fact remains that Mende is playing in the elite league of France, and "M. G. C. Pétanque" and its three veteran champions of France in 2007.Sports diversity does not stop there. Mende clubs also include roller hockey ("Les Comets"). Mende is also home to individual sports: Athletics, badminton, cycling, motorcycling, as well as many combat sports clubs.Since the beginning of the 2000s, a sports centre was set up to accompany young high school athletes to prepare for the best level. From the membership of the COL (centre omnisports Lozère), there is (France MTB 2010 downhill champion) and Fanny Lombard (Junior Champion of Europe 2009 and 2010 in the same discipline).Among professional sportspeople born in Mende, is the cyclist Christophe Laurent who shone by winning the jersey for the best climber of the Tour de l'Avenir and the Tour of California.The motorcyclist , winner of the prologue of the Paris-Dakar Rally (1991), also hails from Mende. He was one of the best enduro riders with the palmares of France, and was also vice World champion.Kayaker Brigitte Guibal, Olympic silver medallist in 2000 in Sydney, was also born in Mende.It is in 1988 that Marion Buisson was born in Mende. After making her athletics debut at the "Éveil mendois", she continued her career at Clermont athletics. She became champion of France in the pole vault in , thereby achieving the minimum to participate in the Beijing Summer Olympics.Each year, the , an enduro competition, centres its course on the city of Mende. This race is part of the most renowned of the enduro season and allows, in addition, mixing professional and amateur riders.One month later (July), the city centre is dedicated to foot racing and the arrival of . This race starts from Marvejols, joining Mende by the Col de Goudard and the Côte de Chabrits. It is sometimes used as a preparation marathon for major events (the World Championships, Olympic Games), but is also open to amateurs as the majority of the marathons. Since 2006, the month of July is also marked by the organisation of a national of pétanque.Cycling is also in honour of the city. The hosted the best professionals in the 1970s. Since then, the has seen five stage finishes in the Tour de France (1995, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2018), and stages in the Tour de l'Avenir, the Grand Prix du Midi Libre, the and Paris-Nice. Since 2006 and the rebirth of the Tour du Gévaudan, Mende is judged the final arrival of this amateur race of great importance. In 2008, the event was organised as the "Finale de la Coupe des France des clubs" [final of the Cup of France for clubs]. During the winter, a grand prix of regional cyclo-cross is also organized. The grand departure of the Tour de France VTT 1996, as well as the first two stages, happened at Mende.Mende was also host city of the Mediterranean Games in 1993 by hosting cycling, football and swimming events.In October 2005, the city hosted the 37th national congress of the French hiking federation, Lozère being a popular department for hikers, and is crossed by two of the most important roads of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Then, in 2007, Mende was the host of a round of the French enduro championships, as well as the final of the Coupe de France rally.In 2008, France welcomed the enduro European grand prix, the final of the World Championship (WEC). It was the town of Alès which was chosen to host the competition. However the organization was forced to give up, and it was finally hosted by Mende on 11 and 12 October 2008. In 2011, the city hosted the Grand Prix of France, final of the World Championship.Mende is the seat of most of the media of Lozére. Thus we find the writings of the Lozère edition of "Midi Libre" and [New Lozère], with regard to the written press.The radio station France Bleu and have their editorial offices in Lozère. While Radio Eaux-Vives Lozère is installed at the former Grand Seminary.The town of Mende is the episcopal seat of Gévaudan and Lozère, religious life has always been linked with its bishops. Also chapter headquarters, Mende has welcomed a large number of canons. A religious brotherhood, the "Brotherhood of the White Penitents" has long existed and has a procession every Holy Thursday since the 17th century. The Tower of the Penitents (called so because it is adjacent to the chapel of the penitents) is one of the last vestiges of the ramparts of the city.The large and small seminaries are traces of the presence of the formation of Catholic priests.The main place of worship is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and Saint-Privat, built at the request of Pope Urban V, in place of the old church built over the tomb of but the city has many small chapels. One of the oldest is the chapel of Saint-Ilpide, on the hill of the executioner, which however was destroyed and replaced by a small chapel. Two other chapels are no longer used: That of the Penitents (future Museum of Religious Art) and the Chapel of Saint-Dominique (exhibition hall). The Chapel of the Hermitage (on ) and the cave which was drilled alongside, can still be used for offices.The Carmelite convent has existed since 1880 and has hosted a community of Carmelite nuns, which ensures production of altar bread (or wafers) for the diocese (and those nearby). Another Convent is installed in Mende, which is the Adoration of Picpus Convent. At the "Rue de la Chicanette" is installed the Jeanne Delanoue community of the Providence; little used for celebration services, the place is used for meetings between people in the religious world. The community is at the origin of the creation of the institution Notre-Dame-de-la-Providence, a social children's home adjacent to its premises and which hosts minors under administrative and judicial protection. There are of other religious communities, mainly related to private schools and retirement or rest homes.Worship in Mende, due to its history, is very oriented towards Catholicism, but there are other places of worship for other religions. Thus Mende, near of the Cévennes, has a Protestant temple installed in the "Allée Paul Doumer".The city also had a synagogue in the former Jewish quarter, but it has long since been abandoned. This synagogue, also called Ferrier House from the name of one of its former owners, is the last vestige of the Mende ghetto. The Jews were expelled from the Gévaudan in the 14th century, and this synagogue became the (Catholic) college of All Saints until the French Revolution.Whilst counting the presence of a Muslim community, the city has no mosque, but simply an apartment that serves as place of worship.Industrial (wood industry, jewelry), service centre (shops, restaurants, bars), administrative (generates a lot of jobs) and tourism (medieval town, excursions to Gorges du Tarn), Mende is the starting point for the establishment of new businesses in the department, and turned more towards new technologies, with the advent of the technological hub.The city has more than 1300 companies, including about 900 in the commercial sector, and has an unemployment rate of 10.7% (2017).The city has five zones of economic activities (ZAE), each having a rather clearly defined role. The largest is the ZAE of the Causse d'Auge (north of the city), with a mainly industrial orientation in automation or in the management of the wood. The ZI of Gardès, on the road to Badaroux is an industrial area covering public works and mainly the building companies. The ZAE Lou Chaousse and Chabrits (both in the northwest) also have a vocation craft, but more oriented towards the trade for individuals. And finally, the "Pôle lozérien d'économie numérique" (POLeN) is turned to the new technologies.In addition, since the mid-2000s, the de Ramille was created. This area, wedged between the Lot and the RN 88 on the road to Balsièges hosts a commercial zone which has tended to develop. It is without doubt, with the area of the Causse d'Auge, the area of activity that has extended most recently.In the near future a new area of activity should emerge north of Mende, in the commune of Badaroux. This area whose size is expected to reach approximately initially, would be served by the landscaped expressway.If the commune no longer has many farms, the city remains at the centre of a very rural area and is very oriented towards agriculture. Indeed, 54% of the Lozère territory is classified as a "utilised agricultural area". Livestock in the commune is mainly dedicated to the sheep sector, although cattle farms are found located between Mende and neighbouring communes.This attraction to sheep is ancestral to Mende, since the city has long lived wool exploitation, since the 16th century. In 1333 the city already had a brotherhood of the weavers. In 1849, the town was still equipped with five large mills. However, while having a rich textile past, the city now retains no activity.Like the Lozère department, industry in Mende is mainly oriented towards the timber sector: Its operation, its treatment, its derivatives, etc. Another industry that holds an important place in the city is that of construction and public works.Mende is also the seat of the that handles .The city is strongly turned towards the tertiary sector. As said above, a majority of the enterprises of the city are shops. Mende is the centre of an area's population of approximately 20,000 inhabitants around the Lot Valley, the city therefore centralises much of the services. Its quality of prefecture adds to the presence of public service.Tourism has also developed since the end of the 20th century. This openness on tourism translated between 1983 and 2008 by the creation of the office of tourism (municipal and intermunicipal), an increase of 400 beds offered to tourists, the opening of a holiday village and of a youth hostel, but also the creation of activity centre (canoe base, Freestyle Park, etc.). The city has eleven hotels, four with three stars and four having two. To this one can add the holiday village of Chapitre that offers 42 gîtes for rent, as well as two campsites near the Lot.Other businesses are those that can be found in other modern cities (banks, insurance, bakeries, the press houses, clothes, etc.). The city has a supermarket and a hypermarket, as well as several superettes and other discounters. The hypermarket, which is of recent construction, belongs to the Système U group and is located in the new area of activity of Ramilles. The supermarket (Intermarché) is, meanwhile, close to the city centre. Markets, vestiges of the traditional markets of the city are many, taking place on Wednesday (textile, utility, etc.) at "Place Chaptal", and on Saturday mornings (food market) at "Place Chaptal" and "Place Urbain V". In addition, night markets are held during the summer.The main companies in terms of turnover, as well as major private employers are:Since 1981 Mende has been classified as a city of art, and, since 2000, the grouping of "Mende and Lot in the Gévaudan" has the label of "city and land of art and history".Indeed, the city has a rich architectural heritage, witness of the prosperous time related to the papacy.The Cathedral of Saint-Privat (classed as a historical monument in 1906) whose construction began in 1368 at the initiative of Pope Urban V. Its bell towers date back, however, to the 16th century, following the destruction of one of them during the passage of the Huguenots by Matthieu Merle. The large belfry included housing ""Non Pareille"", the largest bell in the world melted between 1517 and 1521 in Villefort and destroyed during the Wars of Religion. There remains only the clapper. The cathedral consists of twelve rectangular chapels, two pentagonal chapels and a sacristy. Originally it was built above the Sainte-Thècle crypt where the body of Saint Privat had been buried. It is located next to the old episcopal palace.The city has many public fountains. Water from the causses thus enters a piping system located beneath the city before joining the Lot. Two of them (Aigues-Passe and Soubeyrand) are classified as historic monuments. Piped water also enters the old wash house of the Calquières, still visible on "Rue d'Angiran".This tower is one of the few remains of the ancient walls of the 12th century. Protecting the Gate of Angiran which was next to it, this tower served as guard for the short-lived Seneschal of Mende. It includes three floors and an attic. This is the installation of the chapel which is adjacent, and especially its bell tower at the top which saved the tower during the destruction of the walls in 1768.Dating back to the 13th century, this bridge is one of the symbols of the city. It has never been carried away by frequent floods in Mende. It formerly went by the name of Peyrenc Bridge, then took the name of Notre Dame due to the presence on its mouth of a Virgin, which disappeared during the Wars of Religion. Its span has a opening and is high.Saint Privat withdrew, in the 3rd century, into caves that he had built over Mende, on . Since his Hermitage was built, it also to allow the pilgrims to go there. It can be accessed either by Way of the Cross (from the market) or by road from the causse (RD 25). At the hermitage, we find a hotel for the reception of the pilgrims, a chapel, grotto and a breakthrough designed to the original cave.The House where the consul sat, since 1578, also served as city hall after the Revolution. On its pediment is found the arms of the city: ""Azure in the Gothic M of or, a shining Sun similarly topped."" Facing it is a trompe-l'œil wall symbolizing the twinning of Mende and Volterra.Located in the northwest of the city, the Bahours locality had two castles, one of which was destroyed in 1960. The remaining one is a strong house (manse) built in the 17th century, possibly on the foundations of a more ancient building. The main interest of this strong house is its kitchen listed as a historical monument, like the whole building.Mende features a municipal theatre and several rooms that can be used to this kind of show. The ancient theatre of the city turned into cinema. A development project involves the construction of a new multicultural hall. In addition, Mende has a departmental library, the Lamartine Library.The ancient theatre of the city, established between 1890 and 1895, was replaced by a cinema. The main room used for the theatre is now the festival hall located at the market. This room, and its natural scenery of arches, is multi-cultural and is the largest in the city in terms of capacity. On the market lies the "antirouille", a municipal building for young people and allowing everyone to have access to the internet, this building has a room to organize concerts.Near the market, along the "Chemin Saint-Ilpide", the Urban V municipal room hosts plays, live shows, and also meetings and projections (world knowledge, for example).Finally as part of the redevelopment of the market (started by the installation of the intercommunal tourism office and the renovation of the Lamartine Library), an auditorium should be created behind the festival hall (the Emile-Joly Square being moved).The Ignon-Fabre Museum (or the Museum of Mende) was located on "Rue de l'Epine" [street of the Holy thorn], at the , where there was installed the first electrification plant of the city. It was however closed due to lack of budget. Before it, a museum was located in a house next to the prison.The Chapel of Saint-Dominique and the current Department Hall can serve as an exhibition space, as can the Chapel of the Penitents and the former consular house.In addition a project of the Museum of , currently under study, should be installed in the Chapel of the Penitents.The poem, written by an author whose story did not retain the name, was confirmed in the 19th century:However, not everyone had a positive vision of the city. It had long had problems with sewage into the modern era, and was denigrated despite its charm:This quote comes perhaps from the conditions in which the geographer of the king came in the city. Like those who would declare to Serge Livrozet that Mende was "capital of Lozère and torture".Those born in Mende, or having a very strong tie with the city include:When King Louis XI granted autonomy to the city, he granted new arms in 1469. An 'L' surmounted by a crown, in gratitude to the king, was added to these in 1475.The current coat of arms dates from the sixteenth century. These weapons were registered in the Armorial General of France in 1697.
|
[
"Jean-Jacques Delmas",
"Paulin Daudé-Gleize",
"Henri Trémolet de Villers"
] |
|
Which team did Joe Lievesley play for in Apr, 1905?
|
April 05, 1905
|
{
"text": [
"Sheffield United F.C."
]
}
|
L2_Q10551302_P54_0
|
Joe Lievesley plays for Sheffield United F.C. from Jan, 1901 to Jan, 1913.
Joe Lievesley plays for Rossington Main F.C. from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1921.
Joe Lievesley plays for Chesterfield F.C. from Jan, 1915 to Jan, 1917.
Joe Lievesley plays for Arsenal F.C. from Jan, 1913 to Jan, 1915.
|
Joe LievesleyJoseph Lievesley (25 July 1883 – 13 October 1941) was a footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Born in Netherthorpe, England he spent the bulk of his career at Sheffield United for whom he made over 280 competitive appearances in twelve years. After leaving the Blades he moved to Woolwich Arsenal where he played regularly for two seasons. During World War I he played for Chesterfield Town until the club was disbanded in 1917, before returning to amateur football to play for Rossington Colliery until his retirement. He came from a family of footballers, with an uncle, two brothers and three children all playing the game professionally.A miner by trade, Lievesley was playing for the Ireland Colliery side in Poolsbrook, Derbyshire when he was spotted by Sheffield United. He signed an amateur contract with the club in 1901 and played regularly in the reserves for three seasons before turning professional in 1903. Lieversley didn't make his competitive first team debut until September 1904 but soon became the side's first choice keeper, supplanting the legendary William Foulke. A consistent performer and rarely troubled by injuries he missed only six competitive games between November 1904 and December 1911, at one point playing 130 consecutive league and cup games.At a time when very few were awarded, Lievesley saved nine penalty kicks whilst with United, including two in one game against Manchester City in 1906. After being a regular for eight seasons Lieversley was eventually replaced by Joe Mitchell and, after picking up an injury against Everton in what would be his last game in October 1912, he was given a free transfer to Woolwich Arsenal at the end of the 1912–13 season.Despite his injury problems of the previous season Lievesley was virtually ever–present for the Gunners and missed only three out of 76 league games in two seasons. Following the outbreak of World War I he returned north to play for Chesterfield Town until it was closed down by the FA for making illegal payments to players. After the end of the War Lievesley returned to his job as a miner and played for the Rossington Colliery side until retiring from football in 1921.Lievesley played (and saved a penalty) in an England trial game in 1910 but was never selected for the full side. He did represent the Football League on one occasion and played on an FA tour of South Africa in 1911.Lievesley was the nephew of Sheffield United full–back Harry Lilley. His brothers Fred and Wilf were also professional footballers, as were three of his sons; Leslie, Dennis and Ernest. Lievesley's first child was born during his time at Woolwich Arsenal but died in infancy, an event that contributed to his decision to return to the north of England. Another of his children contracted tuberculosis and died in 1941, desperate to save him Lievesley attempted mouth–to–mouth resuscitation only to contract the disease himself, dying a short time later.A miner by trade Lievesley served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, and as a good cricketer, he also played for Sheffield United Cricket Club during the summer months.
|
[
"Arsenal F.C.",
"Chesterfield F.C.",
"Rossington Main F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Joe Lievesley play for in May, 1913?
|
May 06, 1913
|
{
"text": [
"Arsenal F.C."
]
}
|
L2_Q10551302_P54_1
|
Joe Lievesley plays for Rossington Main F.C. from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1921.
Joe Lievesley plays for Arsenal F.C. from Jan, 1913 to Jan, 1915.
Joe Lievesley plays for Chesterfield F.C. from Jan, 1915 to Jan, 1917.
Joe Lievesley plays for Sheffield United F.C. from Jan, 1901 to Jan, 1913.
|
Joe LievesleyJoseph Lievesley (25 July 1883 – 13 October 1941) was a footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Born in Netherthorpe, England he spent the bulk of his career at Sheffield United for whom he made over 280 competitive appearances in twelve years. After leaving the Blades he moved to Woolwich Arsenal where he played regularly for two seasons. During World War I he played for Chesterfield Town until the club was disbanded in 1917, before returning to amateur football to play for Rossington Colliery until his retirement. He came from a family of footballers, with an uncle, two brothers and three children all playing the game professionally.A miner by trade, Lievesley was playing for the Ireland Colliery side in Poolsbrook, Derbyshire when he was spotted by Sheffield United. He signed an amateur contract with the club in 1901 and played regularly in the reserves for three seasons before turning professional in 1903. Lieversley didn't make his competitive first team debut until September 1904 but soon became the side's first choice keeper, supplanting the legendary William Foulke. A consistent performer and rarely troubled by injuries he missed only six competitive games between November 1904 and December 1911, at one point playing 130 consecutive league and cup games.At a time when very few were awarded, Lievesley saved nine penalty kicks whilst with United, including two in one game against Manchester City in 1906. After being a regular for eight seasons Lieversley was eventually replaced by Joe Mitchell and, after picking up an injury against Everton in what would be his last game in October 1912, he was given a free transfer to Woolwich Arsenal at the end of the 1912–13 season.Despite his injury problems of the previous season Lievesley was virtually ever–present for the Gunners and missed only three out of 76 league games in two seasons. Following the outbreak of World War I he returned north to play for Chesterfield Town until it was closed down by the FA for making illegal payments to players. After the end of the War Lievesley returned to his job as a miner and played for the Rossington Colliery side until retiring from football in 1921.Lievesley played (and saved a penalty) in an England trial game in 1910 but was never selected for the full side. He did represent the Football League on one occasion and played on an FA tour of South Africa in 1911.Lievesley was the nephew of Sheffield United full–back Harry Lilley. His brothers Fred and Wilf were also professional footballers, as were three of his sons; Leslie, Dennis and Ernest. Lievesley's first child was born during his time at Woolwich Arsenal but died in infancy, an event that contributed to his decision to return to the north of England. Another of his children contracted tuberculosis and died in 1941, desperate to save him Lievesley attempted mouth–to–mouth resuscitation only to contract the disease himself, dying a short time later.A miner by trade Lievesley served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, and as a good cricketer, he also played for Sheffield United Cricket Club during the summer months.
|
[
"Chesterfield F.C.",
"Sheffield United F.C.",
"Rossington Main F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Joe Lievesley play for in May, 1915?
|
May 18, 1915
|
{
"text": [
"Chesterfield F.C."
]
}
|
L2_Q10551302_P54_2
|
Joe Lievesley plays for Rossington Main F.C. from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1921.
Joe Lievesley plays for Chesterfield F.C. from Jan, 1915 to Jan, 1917.
Joe Lievesley plays for Sheffield United F.C. from Jan, 1901 to Jan, 1913.
Joe Lievesley plays for Arsenal F.C. from Jan, 1913 to Jan, 1915.
|
Joe LievesleyJoseph Lievesley (25 July 1883 – 13 October 1941) was a footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Born in Netherthorpe, England he spent the bulk of his career at Sheffield United for whom he made over 280 competitive appearances in twelve years. After leaving the Blades he moved to Woolwich Arsenal where he played regularly for two seasons. During World War I he played for Chesterfield Town until the club was disbanded in 1917, before returning to amateur football to play for Rossington Colliery until his retirement. He came from a family of footballers, with an uncle, two brothers and three children all playing the game professionally.A miner by trade, Lievesley was playing for the Ireland Colliery side in Poolsbrook, Derbyshire when he was spotted by Sheffield United. He signed an amateur contract with the club in 1901 and played regularly in the reserves for three seasons before turning professional in 1903. Lieversley didn't make his competitive first team debut until September 1904 but soon became the side's first choice keeper, supplanting the legendary William Foulke. A consistent performer and rarely troubled by injuries he missed only six competitive games between November 1904 and December 1911, at one point playing 130 consecutive league and cup games.At a time when very few were awarded, Lievesley saved nine penalty kicks whilst with United, including two in one game against Manchester City in 1906. After being a regular for eight seasons Lieversley was eventually replaced by Joe Mitchell and, after picking up an injury against Everton in what would be his last game in October 1912, he was given a free transfer to Woolwich Arsenal at the end of the 1912–13 season.Despite his injury problems of the previous season Lievesley was virtually ever–present for the Gunners and missed only three out of 76 league games in two seasons. Following the outbreak of World War I he returned north to play for Chesterfield Town until it was closed down by the FA for making illegal payments to players. After the end of the War Lievesley returned to his job as a miner and played for the Rossington Colliery side until retiring from football in 1921.Lievesley played (and saved a penalty) in an England trial game in 1910 but was never selected for the full side. He did represent the Football League on one occasion and played on an FA tour of South Africa in 1911.Lievesley was the nephew of Sheffield United full–back Harry Lilley. His brothers Fred and Wilf were also professional footballers, as were three of his sons; Leslie, Dennis and Ernest. Lievesley's first child was born during his time at Woolwich Arsenal but died in infancy, an event that contributed to his decision to return to the north of England. Another of his children contracted tuberculosis and died in 1941, desperate to save him Lievesley attempted mouth–to–mouth resuscitation only to contract the disease himself, dying a short time later.A miner by trade Lievesley served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, and as a good cricketer, he also played for Sheffield United Cricket Club during the summer months.
|
[
"Arsenal F.C.",
"Sheffield United F.C.",
"Rossington Main F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Joe Lievesley play for in Nov, 1920?
|
November 15, 1920
|
{
"text": [
"Rossington Main F.C."
]
}
|
L2_Q10551302_P54_3
|
Joe Lievesley plays for Chesterfield F.C. from Jan, 1915 to Jan, 1917.
Joe Lievesley plays for Sheffield United F.C. from Jan, 1901 to Jan, 1913.
Joe Lievesley plays for Arsenal F.C. from Jan, 1913 to Jan, 1915.
Joe Lievesley plays for Rossington Main F.C. from Jan, 1917 to Jan, 1921.
|
Joe LievesleyJoseph Lievesley (25 July 1883 – 13 October 1941) was a footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Born in Netherthorpe, England he spent the bulk of his career at Sheffield United for whom he made over 280 competitive appearances in twelve years. After leaving the Blades he moved to Woolwich Arsenal where he played regularly for two seasons. During World War I he played for Chesterfield Town until the club was disbanded in 1917, before returning to amateur football to play for Rossington Colliery until his retirement. He came from a family of footballers, with an uncle, two brothers and three children all playing the game professionally.A miner by trade, Lievesley was playing for the Ireland Colliery side in Poolsbrook, Derbyshire when he was spotted by Sheffield United. He signed an amateur contract with the club in 1901 and played regularly in the reserves for three seasons before turning professional in 1903. Lieversley didn't make his competitive first team debut until September 1904 but soon became the side's first choice keeper, supplanting the legendary William Foulke. A consistent performer and rarely troubled by injuries he missed only six competitive games between November 1904 and December 1911, at one point playing 130 consecutive league and cup games.At a time when very few were awarded, Lievesley saved nine penalty kicks whilst with United, including two in one game against Manchester City in 1906. After being a regular for eight seasons Lieversley was eventually replaced by Joe Mitchell and, after picking up an injury against Everton in what would be his last game in October 1912, he was given a free transfer to Woolwich Arsenal at the end of the 1912–13 season.Despite his injury problems of the previous season Lievesley was virtually ever–present for the Gunners and missed only three out of 76 league games in two seasons. Following the outbreak of World War I he returned north to play for Chesterfield Town until it was closed down by the FA for making illegal payments to players. After the end of the War Lievesley returned to his job as a miner and played for the Rossington Colliery side until retiring from football in 1921.Lievesley played (and saved a penalty) in an England trial game in 1910 but was never selected for the full side. He did represent the Football League on one occasion and played on an FA tour of South Africa in 1911.Lievesley was the nephew of Sheffield United full–back Harry Lilley. His brothers Fred and Wilf were also professional footballers, as were three of his sons; Leslie, Dennis and Ernest. Lievesley's first child was born during his time at Woolwich Arsenal but died in infancy, an event that contributed to his decision to return to the north of England. Another of his children contracted tuberculosis and died in 1941, desperate to save him Lievesley attempted mouth–to–mouth resuscitation only to contract the disease himself, dying a short time later.A miner by trade Lievesley served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, and as a good cricketer, he also played for Sheffield United Cricket Club during the summer months.
|
[
"Arsenal F.C.",
"Sheffield United F.C.",
"Chesterfield F.C."
] |
|
Which employer did Rudy Wijnands work for in Apr, 1999?
|
April 26, 1999
|
{
"text": [
"University of Amsterdam"
]
}
|
L2_Q59360227_P108_0
|
Rudy Wijnands works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Sep, 1999 to Aug, 2002.
Rudy Wijnands works for University of Amsterdam from Feb, 1999 to Aug, 1999.
Rudy Wijnands works for University of St Andrews from Sep, 2002 to Sep, 2003.
|
Rudy WijnandsRudy Wijnands (born 1971) is a Dutch astrophysicist. He is professor of Observational High-Energy Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam.Since 2004 Wijnands has been part of the faculty with the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 2008 he was appointed associate professor, and in 2017 full professor. Before that, he worked at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and MIT in the United States. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1999 with a thesis entitled "Millisecond phenomena in X-ray binaries".His research focuses on the accretion of matter onto neutron stars and black holes, which are very compact stellar remnants. He uses X-ray space telescopes such as Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton to observe the X-ray emission from these objects. In particular he studies neutron stars and black holes when they are accreting at very low rates. He also investigates the rate at which neutron stars cool after they have been heated by accretion, in order to learn about their interior composition. Furthermore, Wijnands has been involved in research into quasi-periodic oscillations.In 1998, Wijnands and his PhD advisor Michiel van der Klis discovered coherent millisecond X-ray pulsations in the persistent flux of the X-ray binary SAX J1808.4-3658. This was strong evidence for the model in which radio millisecond pulsars are spun up to periods of a few milliseconds by the accretion of matter from a companion star in an X-ray binary.In 2006 Wijnands received the Bruno Rossi Prize along with Deepto Chakrabarty and Tod Strohmayer "for their pioneering research which revealed millisecond spin periods and established the powerful diagnostic tool of kilohertz intensity oscillations in accreting neutron star binary systems".
|
[
"University of St Andrews",
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
] |
|
Which employer did Rudy Wijnands work for in May, 2002?
|
May 08, 2002
|
{
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
}
|
L2_Q59360227_P108_1
|
Rudy Wijnands works for University of St Andrews from Sep, 2002 to Sep, 2003.
Rudy Wijnands works for University of Amsterdam from Feb, 1999 to Aug, 1999.
Rudy Wijnands works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Sep, 1999 to Aug, 2002.
|
Rudy WijnandsRudy Wijnands (born 1971) is a Dutch astrophysicist. He is professor of Observational High-Energy Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam.Since 2004 Wijnands has been part of the faculty with the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 2008 he was appointed associate professor, and in 2017 full professor. Before that, he worked at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and MIT in the United States. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1999 with a thesis entitled "Millisecond phenomena in X-ray binaries".His research focuses on the accretion of matter onto neutron stars and black holes, which are very compact stellar remnants. He uses X-ray space telescopes such as Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton to observe the X-ray emission from these objects. In particular he studies neutron stars and black holes when they are accreting at very low rates. He also investigates the rate at which neutron stars cool after they have been heated by accretion, in order to learn about their interior composition. Furthermore, Wijnands has been involved in research into quasi-periodic oscillations.In 1998, Wijnands and his PhD advisor Michiel van der Klis discovered coherent millisecond X-ray pulsations in the persistent flux of the X-ray binary SAX J1808.4-3658. This was strong evidence for the model in which radio millisecond pulsars are spun up to periods of a few milliseconds by the accretion of matter from a companion star in an X-ray binary.In 2006 Wijnands received the Bruno Rossi Prize along with Deepto Chakrabarty and Tod Strohmayer "for their pioneering research which revealed millisecond spin periods and established the powerful diagnostic tool of kilohertz intensity oscillations in accreting neutron star binary systems".
|
[
"University of Amsterdam",
"University of St Andrews"
] |
|
Which employer did Rudy Wijnands work for in Oct, 2002?
|
October 08, 2002
|
{
"text": [
"University of St Andrews"
]
}
|
L2_Q59360227_P108_2
|
Rudy Wijnands works for University of St Andrews from Sep, 2002 to Sep, 2003.
Rudy Wijnands works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Sep, 1999 to Aug, 2002.
Rudy Wijnands works for University of Amsterdam from Feb, 1999 to Aug, 1999.
|
Rudy WijnandsRudy Wijnands (born 1971) is a Dutch astrophysicist. He is professor of Observational High-Energy Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam.Since 2004 Wijnands has been part of the faculty with the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 2008 he was appointed associate professor, and in 2017 full professor. Before that, he worked at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and MIT in the United States. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1999 with a thesis entitled "Millisecond phenomena in X-ray binaries".His research focuses on the accretion of matter onto neutron stars and black holes, which are very compact stellar remnants. He uses X-ray space telescopes such as Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton to observe the X-ray emission from these objects. In particular he studies neutron stars and black holes when they are accreting at very low rates. He also investigates the rate at which neutron stars cool after they have been heated by accretion, in order to learn about their interior composition. Furthermore, Wijnands has been involved in research into quasi-periodic oscillations.In 1998, Wijnands and his PhD advisor Michiel van der Klis discovered coherent millisecond X-ray pulsations in the persistent flux of the X-ray binary SAX J1808.4-3658. This was strong evidence for the model in which radio millisecond pulsars are spun up to periods of a few milliseconds by the accretion of matter from a companion star in an X-ray binary.In 2006 Wijnands received the Bruno Rossi Prize along with Deepto Chakrabarty and Tod Strohmayer "for their pioneering research which revealed millisecond spin periods and established the powerful diagnostic tool of kilohertz intensity oscillations in accreting neutron star binary systems".
|
[
"University of Amsterdam",
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
] |
|
Which political party did Jacques Le Nay belong to in Jul, 1997?
|
July 27, 1997
|
{
"text": [
"Union for French Democracy"
]
}
|
L2_Q3159317_P102_0
|
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2013.
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union for French Democracy from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2002.
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union of Democrats and Independents from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
|
Jacques Le NayJacques Le Nay (born 19 November 1949 in Plouay) is a French Senator, representing the Morbihan department. From 1993 to 2012 he was the deputy for Morbihan's 6th constituency in the National Assembly of France, as a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.From 1989 to 2017 he was Mayor of Plouay, and from 1988 to 2001 he was a General councillor of Morbihan.
|
[
"Union of Democrats and Independents",
"Union for a Popular Movement"
] |
|
Which political party did Jacques Le Nay belong to in Mar, 2009?
|
March 25, 2009
|
{
"text": [
"Union for a Popular Movement"
]
}
|
L2_Q3159317_P102_1
|
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2013.
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union for French Democracy from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2002.
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union of Democrats and Independents from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
|
Jacques Le NayJacques Le Nay (born 19 November 1949 in Plouay) is a French Senator, representing the Morbihan department. From 1993 to 2012 he was the deputy for Morbihan's 6th constituency in the National Assembly of France, as a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.From 1989 to 2017 he was Mayor of Plouay, and from 1988 to 2001 he was a General councillor of Morbihan.
|
[
"Union of Democrats and Independents",
"Union for French Democracy"
] |
|
Which political party did Jacques Le Nay belong to in Aug, 2018?
|
August 17, 2018
|
{
"text": [
"Union of Democrats and Independents"
]
}
|
L2_Q3159317_P102_2
|
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union of Democrats and Independents from Jan, 2013 to Dec, 2022.
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2013.
Jacques Le Nay is a member of the Union for French Democracy from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2002.
|
Jacques Le NayJacques Le Nay (born 19 November 1949 in Plouay) is a French Senator, representing the Morbihan department. From 1993 to 2012 he was the deputy for Morbihan's 6th constituency in the National Assembly of France, as a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.From 1989 to 2017 he was Mayor of Plouay, and from 1988 to 2001 he was a General councillor of Morbihan.
|
[
"Union for French Democracy",
"Union for a Popular Movement"
] |
|
Who was the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Dec, 2001?
|
December 17, 2001
|
{
"text": [
"P. Chandrasekhara Rao"
]
}
|
L2_Q639118_P488_0
|
Rüdiger Wolfrum is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
P. Chandrasekhara Rao is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
José Luís Jesus is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Jin-Hyun Paik is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Shunji Yanai is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
|
International Tribunal for the Law of the SeaThe International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. The Convention entered into force on 16 November 1994, and established an international framework for law over all ocean space, its uses and resources. The ITLOS is one of four dispute resolution mechanisms listed in Article 287 of the UNCLOS.The Tribunal is based in Hamburg, Germany. The Convention also established the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for the regulation of seabed mining beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is beyond the limits of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the continental shelf. There are currently 168 signatories, 167 states plus the European Union. As of 2021, holdouts included the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.According to its founding statute, the Tribunal has a set of 21 judges who serve from a variety of states parties, "according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation".At the request of Chile and the European Union, the Tribunal set up a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Community)".By agreement of the parties Ghana and Ivory Coast, the Tribunal formed a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte d'Ivoire)".By agreement of the parties Mauritius and Maldives, the Tribunal formed a special chamber of 7 permanent judges and 2 "ad hoc" judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)".
|
[
"Jin-Hyun Paik",
"Rüdiger Wolfrum",
"Shunji Yanai",
"José Luís Jesus"
] |
|
Who was the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Feb, 2007?
|
February 14, 2007
|
{
"text": [
"Rüdiger Wolfrum"
]
}
|
L2_Q639118_P488_1
|
José Luís Jesus is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
P. Chandrasekhara Rao is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Jin-Hyun Paik is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Rüdiger Wolfrum is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Shunji Yanai is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
|
International Tribunal for the Law of the SeaThe International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. The Convention entered into force on 16 November 1994, and established an international framework for law over all ocean space, its uses and resources. The ITLOS is one of four dispute resolution mechanisms listed in Article 287 of the UNCLOS.The Tribunal is based in Hamburg, Germany. The Convention also established the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for the regulation of seabed mining beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is beyond the limits of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the continental shelf. There are currently 168 signatories, 167 states plus the European Union. As of 2021, holdouts included the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.According to its founding statute, the Tribunal has a set of 21 judges who serve from a variety of states parties, "according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation".At the request of Chile and the European Union, the Tribunal set up a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Community)".By agreement of the parties Ghana and Ivory Coast, the Tribunal formed a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte d'Ivoire)".By agreement of the parties Mauritius and Maldives, the Tribunal formed a special chamber of 7 permanent judges and 2 "ad hoc" judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)".
|
[
"Jin-Hyun Paik",
"Shunji Yanai",
"P. Chandrasekhara Rao",
"José Luís Jesus"
] |
|
Who was the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Jul, 2009?
|
July 12, 2009
|
{
"text": [
"José Luís Jesus"
]
}
|
L2_Q639118_P488_2
|
Jin-Hyun Paik is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
P. Chandrasekhara Rao is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
José Luís Jesus is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Shunji Yanai is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Rüdiger Wolfrum is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
|
International Tribunal for the Law of the SeaThe International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. The Convention entered into force on 16 November 1994, and established an international framework for law over all ocean space, its uses and resources. The ITLOS is one of four dispute resolution mechanisms listed in Article 287 of the UNCLOS.The Tribunal is based in Hamburg, Germany. The Convention also established the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for the regulation of seabed mining beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is beyond the limits of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the continental shelf. There are currently 168 signatories, 167 states plus the European Union. As of 2021, holdouts included the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.According to its founding statute, the Tribunal has a set of 21 judges who serve from a variety of states parties, "according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation".At the request of Chile and the European Union, the Tribunal set up a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Community)".By agreement of the parties Ghana and Ivory Coast, the Tribunal formed a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte d'Ivoire)".By agreement of the parties Mauritius and Maldives, the Tribunal formed a special chamber of 7 permanent judges and 2 "ad hoc" judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)".
|
[
"Rüdiger Wolfrum",
"Shunji Yanai",
"P. Chandrasekhara Rao",
"Jin-Hyun Paik"
] |
|
Who was the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Apr, 2012?
|
April 18, 2012
|
{
"text": [
"Shunji Yanai"
]
}
|
L2_Q639118_P488_3
|
José Luís Jesus is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Shunji Yanai is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Jin-Hyun Paik is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Rüdiger Wolfrum is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
P. Chandrasekhara Rao is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
|
International Tribunal for the Law of the SeaThe International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. The Convention entered into force on 16 November 1994, and established an international framework for law over all ocean space, its uses and resources. The ITLOS is one of four dispute resolution mechanisms listed in Article 287 of the UNCLOS.The Tribunal is based in Hamburg, Germany. The Convention also established the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for the regulation of seabed mining beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is beyond the limits of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the continental shelf. There are currently 168 signatories, 167 states plus the European Union. As of 2021, holdouts included the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.According to its founding statute, the Tribunal has a set of 21 judges who serve from a variety of states parties, "according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation".At the request of Chile and the European Union, the Tribunal set up a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Community)".By agreement of the parties Ghana and Ivory Coast, the Tribunal formed a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte d'Ivoire)".By agreement of the parties Mauritius and Maldives, the Tribunal formed a special chamber of 7 permanent judges and 2 "ad hoc" judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)".
|
[
"Jin-Hyun Paik",
"Rüdiger Wolfrum",
"P. Chandrasekhara Rao",
"José Luís Jesus"
] |
|
Who was the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Jan, 2019?
|
January 24, 2019
|
{
"text": [
"Jin-Hyun Paik"
]
}
|
L2_Q639118_P488_4
|
P. Chandrasekhara Rao is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Shunji Yanai is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Rüdiger Wolfrum is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
José Luís Jesus is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Jin-Hyun Paik is the chair of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from Jan, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
|
International Tribunal for the Law of the SeaThe International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. The Convention entered into force on 16 November 1994, and established an international framework for law over all ocean space, its uses and resources. The ITLOS is one of four dispute resolution mechanisms listed in Article 287 of the UNCLOS.The Tribunal is based in Hamburg, Germany. The Convention also established the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for the regulation of seabed mining beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is beyond the limits of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the continental shelf. There are currently 168 signatories, 167 states plus the European Union. As of 2021, holdouts included the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.According to its founding statute, the Tribunal has a set of 21 judges who serve from a variety of states parties, "according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation".At the request of Chile and the European Union, the Tribunal set up a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Community)".By agreement of the parties Ghana and Ivory Coast, the Tribunal formed a special chamber composed of 5 judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte d'Ivoire)".By agreement of the parties Mauritius and Maldives, the Tribunal formed a special chamber of 7 permanent judges and 2 "ad hoc" judges to deal with the "Dispute concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)".
|
[
"Rüdiger Wolfrum",
"Shunji Yanai",
"P. Chandrasekhara Rao",
"José Luís Jesus"
] |
|
Which employer did Kurt O. Friedrichs work for in Jul, 1929?
|
July 30, 1929
|
{
"text": [
"RWTH Aachen University"
]
}
|
L2_Q72978_P108_0
|
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for New York University from Jan, 1937 to Jan, 1976.
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for Technical University of Braunschweig from Jan, 1931 to Jan, 1937.
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for RWTH Aachen University from Jan, 1929 to Jan, 1931.
|
Kurt Otto FriedrichsKurt Otto Friedrichs (September 28, 1901 – December 31, 1982) was a noted German American mathematician. He was the co-founder of the Courant Institute at New York University, and a recipient of the National Medal of Science.Friedrichs was born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein on September 28, 1901. His family soon moved to Düsseldorf, where he grew up. He attended several different universities in Germany studying the philosophical works of Heidegger and Husserl, but finally decided that mathematics was his real calling. During the 1920s, Friedrichs pursued this field in Göttingen, which had a renowned Mathematical Institute under the direction of Richard Courant. Courant became a close colleague and lifelong friend of Friedrichs.In 1931, Friedrichs became a full professor of mathematics at the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig. In early February 1933, a few days after Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrichs met and immediately fell in love with a young Jewish student, Nellie Bruell. Their relationship became increasingly challenging and difficult because of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws of Hitler's government. In 1937, both Friedrichs and Nellie Bruell managed to emigrate separately to New York City where they finally married. Their long and very happy marriage produced five children.Courant had left Germany in 1933 and had founded an institute for graduate studies in mathematics at New York University. Friedrichs joined him when he arrived in 1937 and remained there for forty years. He was instrumental in the development of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, which eventually became one of the most distinguished research institutes for applied mathematics in the world. Friedrichs died in New Rochelle, New York on December 31, 1982.Friedrichs's greatest contribution to applied mathematics was his work on partial differential equations. He also did major research and wrote many books and papers on existence theory, numerical methods, differential operators in Hilbert space, non-linear buckling of plates, flows past wings, solitary waves, shock waves, combustion, magneto-fluid dynamical shock waves, relativistic flows, quantum field theory, perturbation of the continuous spectrum, scattering theory, and symmetric hyperbolic equations. With Cartan, Friedrichs gave a "geometrized" formulation of Newtonian gravitation theory—also knownas “Newton–Cartan theory”— and later developed by Dautcourt, Dixon, Dombrowski and Horneffer, Ehlers, Havas, Künzle, Lottermoser, Trautman, and others.A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1959, Friedrichs received many honorary degrees and awards for his work. There is a student prize named after Friedrichs at NYU. The American Mathematical Society selected him as the Josiah Willards Gibbs lecturer for 1954. In November 1977, Friedrichs received the National Medal of Science from President Jimmy Carter "for bringing the powers of modern mathematics to bear on problems in physics, fluid dynamics, and elasticity."
|
[
"New York University",
"Technical University of Braunschweig"
] |
|
Which employer did Kurt O. Friedrichs work for in May, 1936?
|
May 28, 1936
|
{
"text": [
"Technical University of Braunschweig"
]
}
|
L2_Q72978_P108_1
|
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for Technical University of Braunschweig from Jan, 1931 to Jan, 1937.
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for New York University from Jan, 1937 to Jan, 1976.
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for RWTH Aachen University from Jan, 1929 to Jan, 1931.
|
Kurt Otto FriedrichsKurt Otto Friedrichs (September 28, 1901 – December 31, 1982) was a noted German American mathematician. He was the co-founder of the Courant Institute at New York University, and a recipient of the National Medal of Science.Friedrichs was born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein on September 28, 1901. His family soon moved to Düsseldorf, where he grew up. He attended several different universities in Germany studying the philosophical works of Heidegger and Husserl, but finally decided that mathematics was his real calling. During the 1920s, Friedrichs pursued this field in Göttingen, which had a renowned Mathematical Institute under the direction of Richard Courant. Courant became a close colleague and lifelong friend of Friedrichs.In 1931, Friedrichs became a full professor of mathematics at the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig. In early February 1933, a few days after Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrichs met and immediately fell in love with a young Jewish student, Nellie Bruell. Their relationship became increasingly challenging and difficult because of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws of Hitler's government. In 1937, both Friedrichs and Nellie Bruell managed to emigrate separately to New York City where they finally married. Their long and very happy marriage produced five children.Courant had left Germany in 1933 and had founded an institute for graduate studies in mathematics at New York University. Friedrichs joined him when he arrived in 1937 and remained there for forty years. He was instrumental in the development of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, which eventually became one of the most distinguished research institutes for applied mathematics in the world. Friedrichs died in New Rochelle, New York on December 31, 1982.Friedrichs's greatest contribution to applied mathematics was his work on partial differential equations. He also did major research and wrote many books and papers on existence theory, numerical methods, differential operators in Hilbert space, non-linear buckling of plates, flows past wings, solitary waves, shock waves, combustion, magneto-fluid dynamical shock waves, relativistic flows, quantum field theory, perturbation of the continuous spectrum, scattering theory, and symmetric hyperbolic equations. With Cartan, Friedrichs gave a "geometrized" formulation of Newtonian gravitation theory—also knownas “Newton–Cartan theory”— and later developed by Dautcourt, Dixon, Dombrowski and Horneffer, Ehlers, Havas, Künzle, Lottermoser, Trautman, and others.A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1959, Friedrichs received many honorary degrees and awards for his work. There is a student prize named after Friedrichs at NYU. The American Mathematical Society selected him as the Josiah Willards Gibbs lecturer for 1954. In November 1977, Friedrichs received the National Medal of Science from President Jimmy Carter "for bringing the powers of modern mathematics to bear on problems in physics, fluid dynamics, and elasticity."
|
[
"New York University",
"RWTH Aachen University"
] |
|
Which employer did Kurt O. Friedrichs work for in Aug, 1957?
|
August 24, 1957
|
{
"text": [
"New York University"
]
}
|
L2_Q72978_P108_2
|
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for Technical University of Braunschweig from Jan, 1931 to Jan, 1937.
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for RWTH Aachen University from Jan, 1929 to Jan, 1931.
Kurt O. Friedrichs works for New York University from Jan, 1937 to Jan, 1976.
|
Kurt Otto FriedrichsKurt Otto Friedrichs (September 28, 1901 – December 31, 1982) was a noted German American mathematician. He was the co-founder of the Courant Institute at New York University, and a recipient of the National Medal of Science.Friedrichs was born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein on September 28, 1901. His family soon moved to Düsseldorf, where he grew up. He attended several different universities in Germany studying the philosophical works of Heidegger and Husserl, but finally decided that mathematics was his real calling. During the 1920s, Friedrichs pursued this field in Göttingen, which had a renowned Mathematical Institute under the direction of Richard Courant. Courant became a close colleague and lifelong friend of Friedrichs.In 1931, Friedrichs became a full professor of mathematics at the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig. In early February 1933, a few days after Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrichs met and immediately fell in love with a young Jewish student, Nellie Bruell. Their relationship became increasingly challenging and difficult because of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws of Hitler's government. In 1937, both Friedrichs and Nellie Bruell managed to emigrate separately to New York City where they finally married. Their long and very happy marriage produced five children.Courant had left Germany in 1933 and had founded an institute for graduate studies in mathematics at New York University. Friedrichs joined him when he arrived in 1937 and remained there for forty years. He was instrumental in the development of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, which eventually became one of the most distinguished research institutes for applied mathematics in the world. Friedrichs died in New Rochelle, New York on December 31, 1982.Friedrichs's greatest contribution to applied mathematics was his work on partial differential equations. He also did major research and wrote many books and papers on existence theory, numerical methods, differential operators in Hilbert space, non-linear buckling of plates, flows past wings, solitary waves, shock waves, combustion, magneto-fluid dynamical shock waves, relativistic flows, quantum field theory, perturbation of the continuous spectrum, scattering theory, and symmetric hyperbolic equations. With Cartan, Friedrichs gave a "geometrized" formulation of Newtonian gravitation theory—also knownas “Newton–Cartan theory”— and later developed by Dautcourt, Dixon, Dombrowski and Horneffer, Ehlers, Havas, Künzle, Lottermoser, Trautman, and others.A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1959, Friedrichs received many honorary degrees and awards for his work. There is a student prize named after Friedrichs at NYU. The American Mathematical Society selected him as the Josiah Willards Gibbs lecturer for 1954. In November 1977, Friedrichs received the National Medal of Science from President Jimmy Carter "for bringing the powers of modern mathematics to bear on problems in physics, fluid dynamics, and elasticity."
|
[
"RWTH Aachen University",
"Technical University of Braunschweig"
] |
|
Which position did Ove Ljung hold in Sep, 1958?
|
September 04, 1958
|
{
"text": [
"chief of staff"
]
}
|
L2_Q16649745_P39_0
|
Ove Ljung holds the position of regiment commander from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Ove Ljung holds the position of Commandant General in Stockholm from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
Ove Ljung holds the position of chief of staff from Jan, 1957 to Jan, 1960.
Ove Ljung holds the position of Commander East Military Area from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
Ove Ljung holds the position of Chief of the Army Staff from Apr, 1966 to Jun, 1968.
|
Ove LjungLieutenant General Per-Ove Poul Ljung (18 May 1918 – 31 May 1997) was a Swedish Army officer. His senior commands include Chief of the Army Staff and the General Staff Corps, Master-General of the Ordnance, head of the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration, military commander of the Eastern Military District (Milo Ö) and Commandant General in Stockholm. Ljung retired from the military in 1974 and then served as Director General of the Defence Materiel Administration from 1974 to 1982.Ljung was born on 18 May 1918 in Jönköping, Sweden, the son of Per Ljung, an accountant, and his wife Martha (née Jensen). He passed "studentexamen" in 1937 and was commissioned as an officer in 1939. He belonged to an officer course, which, due to the increasingly threatening world political situation, had a dramatic shortening of their education in order to join units and strengthen the Swedish preparedness. Ljung was commissioned into the Jönköping-Kalmar Regiment (I 12) in Eksjö as "fänrik" in 1940 and then attended the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in 1942 and was promoted to lieutenant the same year. During the following years he held alternately troop, staff and teaching positions. Ljung attended the Royal Swedish Army Staff College in 1948 and was promoted to captain the same year. Ljung then served in the General Staff Corps in 1950 and in 1955 he served as captain in the Northern Scanian Infantry Regiment (I 6) in Kristianstad. He was promoted to major in 1957 and served again in the General Staff Corps and as chief of staff of the I Military District in Kristianstad. In 1959 Ljung attended the Swedish National Defence College and in 1960 he was appointed head of the Organization Department of the Army Staff. A year later he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1963 he was promoted to colonel and was appointed head of Section I of the Army Staff.Ljung was appointed commanding officer of the Life Regiment Grenadiers (I 3) in 1964 and in 1966 he was promoted to major general and appointed Chief of the Army Staff and the General Staff Corps. He was also from 1966 serving as the Master-General of the Ordnance and acting head of the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration. Ljung was appointed head of the Army Materiel Administration ("Armématerielförvaltningen", FMV-A) at the Defence Materiel Administration in 1968, a position he held for one year before being appointed military commander of the Eastern Military District (Milo Ö) and Commandant General in Stockholm. Ljung held this post until 1974 when he retired from the military and was appointed Director General of the Defence Materiel Administration. He served as Director General until 1982.Ljung was a member of the board of the Central Federation for Voluntary Military Training ("Centralförbundet för befälsutbildning") and the National Board of the Swedish Women's Voluntary Defence Organization ("Lottaöverstyrelsen"). He was also a member of the Administration Board of the Swedish Armed Forces and the board of the Swedish National Defence Research Institute from 1966 to 1968. Ljung was chairman of the Central Joint Consultation Board of the Swedish Armed Forces ("Försvarets centrala företagsnämnd") from 1968 to 1974 and a member of the board of the Idun Society ("Sällskapet Idun") from 1968 to 1990 and chairman of the same from 1981 to 1990.Ljugn was a member of the State Administration's Central Cooperation Council for Human Resources ("Statsförvaltningens centrala samarbetsråd för personalfrågor") from 1969 to 1974 and of the Industrial Council of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences from 1974. He was a member of the board of the Home Guard Fund ("Hemvärnsfonden") from 1975 and vice chairman of the National Swedish Board of Economic Defence from 1975 to 1977. Ljung was a member of the board of the County Council's Fund for Technology Procurement and Product Development ("Landstingets fond för teknikupphandling och produktutveckling") from 1982.In 1942 he married Inga-Maj Sjöholm (born 1918), the daughter of Ture Sjöholm and Gerda (née von Porat). He was the father of Per (born 1943) and Anders (born 1948).
|
[
"Chief of the Army Staff",
"Commander East Military Area",
"Commandant General in Stockholm",
"regiment commander"
] |
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