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All ministry seals of the Soviet Union used the Soviet coat of arms
The Ministry of External Relations (MER) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: Министерство иностранных дел СССР) was founded on 6 July 1923. It had three names during its existence: People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (1923–1946), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1946–1991) and Ministry of External Relations (1991). It was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. The Ministry was led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs prior to 1991, and a Minister of External Relations in 1991. Every leader of the Ministry was nominated by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and was a member of the Council of Ministers.
The Ministry of External Relations negotiated diplomatic treaties, handled Soviet foreign affairs along with the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and aided in the guidance of world communism and anti-imperialism, both strong themes of Soviet policy. Before Mikhail Gorbachev became CPSU General Secretary, the organisational structure of the MER mostly stayed the same. As many other Soviet agencies, the MER had an inner-policy group known as the Collegium, made up of the minister, the two first deputy ministers and nine deputy ministers, among others. Each deputy minister usually headed his own department. (Full article...)
“
I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.
”
— Dmitri Shostakovich, talking about life living in the USSR
Kosygin was born in the city of Saint Petersburg in 1904 to a Russian working-class family. He was conscripted into the labour army during the Russian Civil War, and after the Red Army's demobilization in 1921, he worked in Siberia as an industrial manager. Kosygin returned to Leningrad in the early 1930s and worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. During the Great Patriotic War (World War II), Kosygin was a member of the State Defence Committee and was tasked with moving Soviet industry out of territories soon to be overrun by the German Army. He served as Minister of Finance for a year before becoming Minister of Light Industry (later, Minister of Light Industry and Food). Stalin removed Kosygin from the Politburo one year before his own death in 1953, intentionally weakening Kosygin's position within the Soviet hierarchy. (Full article...)
Image 7Country emblems of the Soviet Republics before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (note that the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and the emblem is unofficial.) (from Soviet Union)
Image 8Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution. (from Russian Revolution)
Image 9Forward gun of Aurora that fired the signal shot (from October Revolution)
Image 20Map showing greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the states that it dominated politically, economically and militarily in 1960, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961 (total area: c. 35,000,000 km2) (from Soviet Union)
... that when Imants Lešinskis defected from the Soviet Union while working for the UN in New York, Kofi Annan, future UN secretary-general, complained that he did not show up to work?
... that development of the British UB.109Tcruise missile was given "super-priority" in 1951 to ward off an expected attack by the Soviet Union, only to be cancelled after the attack never came?
... that a 1955 satirical comedy play by Kasymaly Jantöshev was one of the first signs of the relaxation of Soviet literary restrictions after the death of Joseph Stalin?
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