So when attempting to use Gulag for one of my own quizzes, I discovered that GULAG is actually not the name of a Soviet prison camp, but rather the acronym for the government bureau that ran their prison camps. I've been using the word wrong for years. And so has Jetpunk.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? I didn't realize he was also a survivor. I'll have to read that. Thanks for the recommendation
Having read both, they both have their merits. Applebaum has far more resources at her disposal and is more academic, Solzhenitsyn is more literary and emotive.
Quizmaster, I do think that Gulag is used incorrectly here- it's an acronym for the entire system of labor camps, the institution that commanded them all, not merely an individual camp. Note that the definition from the Wikimedia site you've linked says virtually the same. It is incorrect, or just coloquial if anything, to refer to the term of just one camp as a gulag.
It's quite common for acronyms to become words on their own. For example, the word laser used to be an acronym. It stood for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation". Let's just stick with calling it laser.
They did not side with the Germans,they simply had a non-aggression pact,never in the Molotov Ribbentrop pact did it say anything about Soviets helping or defending if France or the UK attacked.Finland technically didn't side with the Nazi's either,Hitler was just quiet fond of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim,president of Finland during the winter war.
What? Of course the Soviet Union did side with the Germans, it's a grave misunderstanding of history when you state otherwise. There was a secret Protocol to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that divided Eastern Europe into Hitler's (Western Poland, Lithuania) and Stalin's (Eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Finland, Bessarabia) "spheres of influence", de facto this meant the desire of annexation of these territories. If it hadn't been for the Soviet's commitment as an ally of Germany to invade and partition Poland, support Hitler with ores, wood and other resources, and allow Hitler to invade Western Europe, the war wouldn't have broken out in the first place. Hitler was waiting for the pact with Stalin - only then could he start the invasion of Poland.
Mannerheim was not the president of Finland during the Winter War. He was the commander in chief of the Finnish defence forces. He was the president 1944-1946.
I think CPSU should be added at least as a type-in, even better would be using CPSU as the correct answer and Communist as type-in. Like Nazi Party, Communist Party wasn't the actual name of the party.
I highly doubt that the real official name was in english though. So it wold have to be "KHCC" (not acually H, but that cyrillic character I don't have on my keyboard). And before you start to argue, in your own example of the nazi party, I'm sure you ment "NSDAP," which is in german, only an insane person would ment "NSGWP," as it would have been in english.
Well, the difference is that the abbreviation NSDAP neither in academic nor colloquial contexts gets translated (even though colloquially probably Nazi Party is used more often).
Meanwhile it is standard procedure to translate the names of Communist parties and use their abbreviations such as the CPSU, CPC (or CCP) and so on. The same is even true for other languages, e.g. in German the CCP is abbreviated KPCh and the CPSU is usually written as KPDSU.
Again, it's mostly Germany where this is not the case, since the Socialist Unity Party usually also just is abbreviated SED like in Germany.
As you mentioned, КПСС or KPSS would be of course in principle even ''more correct'', but since nobody would write that I think the answer should be simply CPSU.
Nice quiz otherwise, but I dare to disagree with Finland being invaded in 1939. Or at least it sounds a bit misleading as it was more of a tried invasion than a successful one.
A "tried" invasion? You mean like... the Russians were gearing up to invade Finland... they all piled in to their van... and then got a flat tire before they were able to cross the border?
If there were ever Soviet troops on Finnish territory without being invited there, then Finland was invaded.
No, I means as in Finland was never fully invaded. The USSR was never able to invade the whole Finland. So saying that "Finland was invaded" just sounds wrong to me. The USSR attacked Finland, tried to invade it, didn't succeed and Finland never lost its independence. But I'm also starting to believe this is just a language thing as English isn't my first language and maybe I'm just somehow misunderstanding the whole meaning of the word invade/invasion. Because what I understand when someone says "this country was invaded" is that the enemy troops have spread to every part of that country and it has lost its independence.
An invasion can be in any part of a country. It doesn't require that you occupy that country in its entirety. Once troops have crossed the border, an invasion has occurred.
When you twist it this way, then Soviet Union was also invaded by Finland In WW2. But that's not what happened, is it? So I would say Soviets and Finland were in a serious conflict, but no invasion happened.
that would be like saying the Nazis didn't invade Prokhorovka .. during the Battle of Kursk. or that the Russians didn't invade Crimea during world war II either.. ;)
irony since they got lost on GPS and by accident invaded Crimea again not that long ago :)
This has come up in other quizzes as well. I believe it may be an English as a second language issue. "Invaded" merely means that troops from a country violated the territory of another country. It does not mean they conquered it.
Yeah, I remembered that it meant truth, but just couldn't remember the Russian name for it. Tried typing "truth," just in case that was accepted, but no luck.
Got all the answers right with 2:48 remaining at 3:39:59 PM on February 8, 2019. My point total increased by 5 points, to 776. I am currently at Level 29 working towards 800 points to reach Level 30. All this coming from an American.
When you featured the Greenland Country Quiz, I believed in you that we are going to stop. Now we have the 199th quiz! What country will be the 200th? Yugoslavia? LOL!
Thank goodness the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. And with that, communism across the globe became a fraction of what it once was. Lose your freedom in the name of equality, good riddance!
Although sadly today we're starting to have our freedoms infringed upon for the sake of a divisive media and oversensitive people who don't seem to understand the difference between hate speech and fact. Complacency will of course only help this problem.
This is not correct. The censorship to which you are alluding is a badge of freedom: the citizenry is expressing its opinion on the issue and media networks (i.e., the free market) are responding accordingly. People are making demands and they are being met. This is totally different than government censorship. The government is not passing laws banning free speech; it's not even involved. On top of that, you're still free to say whatever you want, any time you want. But there is no requirement that Twitter or whoever accommodate you. They, as part of their freedom, can kick you out of their domain, just as I have the freedom to tell you to tell leave my home if you starting spouting bigotry. This is freedom at work. You are free to say what you want, and others are free to call for your ouster as a result. If the results are bad, that's a failure of the people, not the government.
While the censorship may not be directly implemented by the government or technically infringe upon our freedom of speech, I would argue that certain members of the free market (the influential media networks for example) are blatantly censoring things that people say which are contrary to their political ideals. They claim that all of the censorship is in the name of fact vs. "fake news," but sadly this is no longer the case. This is still censorship, and I wouldn't be surprised if the scale at which it is present (the "big" social media networks, Facebook/Twitter) is somewhat comparable to communist censorship, just in our modern society. (Mainly because social networks and media networks have such an incredible degree of influence today.)
I disagree. Government censorship brings penalties. Fines. Jail. It scares people from speaking their minds. Having a Facebook post taken down isn't a big deal, frankly, and I return to the refrain that it is entirely within people's power to just not rely on Facebook. It's only so powerful because the people let it be. I don't use Facebook. I'm not uninformed (I daresay not using it has made me more informed). I can still find reliable news by going to reliable networks. If you read the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist (and stay off the op-ed pages!) you'll get lots of good information, and the biases, though extant, are negligible enough that it's pretty easy to parse out what actually happened. Facebook's dominance is just another consequence of the free market. McDonald's is more popular than steamed vegetables, but you can still get a healthy meal if you're disciplined about it. Power to the people.
Moderation on Facebook is a bit of a dumpster fire right now, mostly run by very poorly coded AI bots, but.... if you're having a large number of your posts taken down or flagged as misinformation... then... you probably are spreading misinformation. Also, what jmellor said. FB is a private company and under no obligation to publish or broadcast whatever garbage you decide to upload to it. Particularly if it poses a public health risk, is likely to incite violence, or in any other way opens the company up to liability, litigation, or criticism. Facebook isn't speech. It's a medium you can use to speak. One run by a for-profit corporation. If you end up in jail for expressing an opinion, then come back and talk to us.
In Slovakia, we also have a newspapers called "Pravda" - but of course it´s not the only one. And we use both astronaut and kozmonaut without their connection to some country, they are just synonyms for me, so that´s the only I didn´t know.
The Red Army changed its name into the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union already in 1946.
The KGB was more of a version of the CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, FTP and many other law enforcement agencies. It wasn't only an intelligence agency.
The term for "fellow citizen" would be "Grazhdanin" (litterally, citizen), "Comrade" would only be used in formal speach and almost exclusively while speaking to party members or military personel.
"GULAG" is in fact an abreviation of the authority within the former Ministry of Interior that was responsible for managing prison camps. In Russian it was rarely used to actually describe a camp.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gulag
In other news, I'd highly recommend the book Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum.
Meanwhile it is standard procedure to translate the names of Communist parties and use their abbreviations such as the CPSU, CPC (or CCP) and so on. The same is even true for other languages, e.g. in German the CCP is abbreviated KPCh and the CPSU is usually written as KPDSU.
Again, it's mostly Germany where this is not the case, since the Socialist Unity Party usually also just is abbreviated SED like in Germany.
As you mentioned, КПСС or KPSS would be of course in principle even ''more correct'', but since nobody would write that I think the answer should be simply CPSU.
If there were ever Soviet troops on Finnish territory without being invited there, then Finland was invaded.
irony since they got lost on GPS and by accident invaded Crimea again not that long ago :)
Although sadly today we're starting to have our freedoms infringed upon for the sake of a divisive media and oversensitive people who don't seem to understand the difference between hate speech and fact. Complacency will of course only help this problem.
easy but lots of fun
Thanks!
The Red Army changed its name into the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union already in 1946.
The KGB was more of a version of the CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, FTP and many other law enforcement agencies. It wasn't only an intelligence agency.
The term for "fellow citizen" would be "Grazhdanin" (litterally, citizen), "Comrade" would only be used in formal speach and almost exclusively while speaking to party members or military personel.
"GULAG" is in fact an abreviation of the authority within the former Ministry of Interior that was responsible for managing prison camps. In Russian it was rarely used to actually describe a camp.
Thanks.
tried entering Gorby, but not accepted. Clearly anyone would know I was referring to Gorbachov.