Abolition

Abolition is the act of formally destroying something through legal means, either by making it illegal, or simply no longer allowing it to exist in any form. Famous things that have been abolished include:
- Slavery; see also: Abolitionism
- The Soviet Union
- Alcohol; see also: Prohibition
- Numerous monarchies Things that are topics of debate over their possible abolition include:
- Suffering
- The Death penalty
- Abortion ABOLITION Anti-Slavery Society: The American Anti-Slavery Society was established in 1833, but abolitionist sentiment antedated the republic. For example, the charter of Georgia prohibited slavery, and many of its settlers fought a losing battle against allowing it in the colony. Before independence, Quakers, most black Christians, and other religious groups argued that slavery was incompatible with Christ's teaching. A number of revolutionaries saw the contradiction between demanding freedom for themselves while holding slaves. Although the economic center of slavery was in the South, northerners also held slaves, so did African Americans and Native Americans. Some southerners opposed slavery. Blacks were in the vanguard of the anti-slavery movement. Abolitionist literature began to appear around 1820. Until the Civil War, the anti-slavery press produced a steadily growing stream of newspapers, periodicals, sermons, children's publications, speeches, abolitionist society reports, broadsides, and memoirs of former slaves. The Library of Congress has a wealth of material that demonstrates the extent of public support for and opposition to abolition. Broadsides advertise fairs and bazaars that women's groups held to raise money for the cause. Other publications advertise abolitionist rallies, some of which are pictured in prints from contemporaneous periodicals. To build enthusiasm at their meetings, anti-slavery organizations used songs, some of which survive. The Library also has many political and satirical prints from the 1830s through the 1850s that demonstrate the rising sectional controversy during that time. Although excellent studies of the abolition movement exist, further research in the Library's manuscripts could document the lesser known individuals who formed the movement's core. Other promising topics include the roles of women and black abolitionists and the activities of state and local abolitionist societies. Category:Politics The African-American Mosaic:Library of congress Research Guide

Slavery

in 1834, London.]] Slavery is a condition in which one person, known as a slave, is under the control of another. Slavery almost always occurs for the purpose of securing the labour or sexual availability of the slave. A specific form, known as chattel slavery, is defined by the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons, including the legal right to buy and sell them.

Definitions

The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as "...the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..." Therefore, a slave is someone who cannot leave an owner or employer without explicit permission, and who will be returned if they escape. Therefore a system of slavery — as opposed to the isolated instances found in any society — requires official, legal recognition of ownership, or widespread tacit arrangements with local authorities, by masters who have some influence because of their social and/or economic status. In the strictest sense of the word, "slaves" are people who are not only owned, but are also not paid, and who have no rights. The word comes from the Latin term sclavus, which is thought to have originally referred to slavs, people from Eastern Europe, including parts of the Byzantine empire. However, the current usage of the word serfdom is not usually synonymous with slavery, because serfs are considered to have had some rights. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines slavery as a form of forced labour. It defines "forced labour" to be "all work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily", albeit with certain exceptions: military service, convicts, emergencies and minor community services. [http://www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=5059]. The ILO asserts that child labour amounts to forced labour in which the child's work is exacted from the family as a whole. In some historical contexts, compulsory labour to repay debts by adults has been regarded as slavery, depending upon the rights held by such individuals. Mandatory military service in liberal democracies is a controversial subject: one view is that conscripts are not "slaves", as they have substantial legal rights, and any government which took it upon itself to implement conscription, outside a time of extreme national emergency, would eventually face a backlash at an election. Another view interprets acceptance of conscription as a sign of chauvinist, ultra-nationalist and/or fascist ideologies, justified by philosophies such as the Hegelian notion of nations having rights which supersede those of individuals. In United States legal usage, the term involuntary servitude means a condition of labouring for another without one's willful consent. It does not necessarily mean the complete lack of freedom found in chattel slavery. Many left wing thinkers have discussed the idea of "wage slavery", although it is generally accepted that payment of a wage signifies "free labour", with the quite different disadvantages experienced by such workers. Ordinary citizens in totalitarian states are not generally considered slaves, as the only real point of comparison is restrictions on movement.

Unfree labour

Most people subject to the above conditions are covered by the generic term unfree labour, which includes all forms of slavery and similar labour systems. Unfree labour is now the preferred term of many scholars, because of the wide variety of ambiguities that may be attached to words like "slavery". One reason is that references to disparate, heterogenous types of labour have been translated into the English as "slavery". The British historian Sir Moses Finley, one of the most distinguished scholars of ancient slavery, suggested that "slavery" was imprecise and that chattel slavery, in which the slave has no legal rights and could be bought and sold, was sufficiently different from other forms of unfree labour, and a greater violation of human rights, to be labeled distinctively.

Contemporary status of slavery

Slavery is in almost all countries today considered illegal, a criminal activity outlawed by UN conventions. In some states, such as Niger, Myanmar and Sudan, the institution of slavery does still exist, as do child prostitution and sweatshop labour rings in many East Asian, African and Eastern European regions. [http://borgenproject.org/ The Borgen Project] has challenged U.S. leaders for doing business with countries that allow slavery. In sweatshop labour cases, unfree labourers are often told that they are working off a debt, but have no access to an accounting for that debt, and no right to take any higher-paying or less supervised employment. These people may be considered slaves if they are under the impression that challenging these conditions, or leaving in protest of them, would lead to serious bodily harm. Since the mid 1990s, with the opening up of the former Soviet Union, the end of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the opening up of East and Southeast Asia, there has been an increase in the trafficking in human beings, the movement of people into forced labour. A significant part of that includes sexual exploitation and forced prostitution, with, according to US State Department figures, at least 500,000 women and children forced into prostitution globally and "an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually." [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Human-Trafficking.html?hp] Some labour conditions for imported "domestic" workers approach conditions of slavery in developed countries by means of legal loopholes, such as Canada's “Live-in Caregiver Program. [http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1099087810560]. Numerous abuses are reported to the authorities which frequently turn a blind eye. In all countries, people in many occupations are contracted for a period of years, but they are usually paid on a regular basis, are rarely contracted based on a debt, and are rarely sold into that status by their parents or others. In any case, an attempt by an employer to enforce such a contract through violence or threats thereof would be dealt with by the police. In the early 1990s evidence of illegal "forced labour and debt bondage" amounting to slavery was unearthed in the Amazon region. The Brazilian government has since taken measures against such activities, although concerns continue to be expressed that more stringent steps may be required. In 1995, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced a new series of measures to force compliance with the anti-slavery statutes. In September of 2002, a report to the Ministério de Trabalho (Ministry of Labour), stated that between 1995 and 2001 approximately 3,500 slave labourers had been freed, and that it was estimated that 2,500 people remained in such conditions at that time (O Globo, 2002). In the late 1990s evidence emerged of large scale child slavery in West Africa to work cocoa plantations , see Chocolate and slavery.

Annual Trafficking in Persons report

The United States fifth annual Trafficking in Persons report says the 14 nations that are not doing enough to stop international human trafficking are (new to the list) Bolivia, Cambodia, Jamaica, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Togo, United Arab Emirates and (continuing to be on the list) Myanmar, Cuba, Ecuador, North Korea, Sudan and Venezuela.

How do people become slaves?

Historically, slaves were often those humans of a different ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex or race than the dominant or aspirationally dominant group; typically taken prisoner as a result of warfare, capture meant death or slavery if no one paid ransom. Societies characterized by poverty, population pressures, and cultural and technological lag are frequently exporters of slaves to more developed nations. Today most slaves are rural people forced to move to cities, or those purchased in rural areas and sold into slavery in cities. These moves take place due to loss of subsistence agriculture, thefts of land, and population increases. Some researchers have recently suggested that ancient Greco-Roman slavery may have been related to the practice of infanticide. Unwanted infants were exposed to nature to die; these were then often rescued by slavetraders, who raised them as slaves. In many cultures, persons convicted of serious crimes could be sold into slavery. The proceeds from this sale were often used to compensate the victims.

History

Europe and the Mediterranean

The ancient Mediterranean civilizations

See also: Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean; Slavery in Abrahamic religions. Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean cultures and the Islamic Caliphate was a mixture of debt-slavery, marriage, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war.

Medieval Europe

For Christian views on slavery see Religion and slavery. During the medieval period, slaves were traded openly in many cities, including Marseille, Dublin and Prague, and many were sold to buyers in the Middle East

Early Modern Europe

In the 17th century, slavery was used as punishment by conquering English Parliament armies against native Catholics in Ireland. Between the years 1649 and 1653, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland by the New Model Army under the command of Oliver Cromwell, thousands of Irish Catholics were forced into slavery. Cromwell had a deep religious dislike of the Catholic religion, and many Irish Catholics who had participated in Confederate Ireland had all their land confiscated and were transported to the West Indies as slaves. This helped lead to the formation of the island nation Monserrat, known as "the emerald aisle of the carribean" Item 20 of The Grand Remonstrance[http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur043.htm], a list of grievances committed by King Charles I and presented to him in 1641, contains the following: "20. And although all this was taken upon pretence of guarding the seas, yet a new unheard-of tax of ship-money was devised, and upon the same pretence, by both which there was charged upon the subject near £700,000 some years, and yet the merchants have been left so naked to the violence of the Turkish pirates, that many great ships of value and thousands of His Majesty's subjects have been taken by them, and do still remain in miserable slavery." Slavery existed in Eastern Europe during the period (particularly in Russia and Poland). Only in 1768 was a law passed in Poland that discontinued the nobility's control of the right to life or death of serfs.

Modern Europe

Main articles: Holocaust; Nazi concentration camps. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime created many Arbeitslager (labour camps) in Germany and Eastern Europe. Prisoners in Nazi labour camps were worked to death on short rations and in bad conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, died as a direct result of forced labour under the Nazis.

Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East

For Muslim views on slavery see Religion and slavery. The Arab world traded in slaves like many other cultures of the time. The Moors starting in the 8th century raided mediterranean coastal areas and would carry away sometimes whole villages to the Moorish slave markets on the Barbary Coast. The slave trade from East Africa to Arabia was dominated by Arab and African traders in the coastal cities of Zanzibar, Dar Es Salaam and Mombasa. Many Slavic males from the Balkans, and Turkic and Circassian males from the Caucasus Mountains and the eastern Black Sea regions were taken away from their homes and families and enlisted into special soldier classes of the army of the Ottoman Empire. These soldier classes were named Janissaries in the Balkans and Asia Minor, and Mamelukes in Egypt. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the intrigues of the Constantinople court of the Ottoman sultans, while the Mamelukes were mainly responsible for the expulsion of the Crusaders from Palestine.

Slavery in Africa

Slavery in North Africa

Slaves were being imported from Europe to North Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. Slave-taking persisted into the 19th century when Barbary pirates would capture ships and enslave the crew. In all, about 1.5 million Europeans were transported to the Barbary Coast. It was a period when Europe was preoccupied by sectarian wars and European navies were depleted. The trade was run by the Moors and the expeditions were often captained by Europeans with North African crews. In the early 19th century, European powers started to take action to free Christian slaves. The first major action was the bombardment of Algiers in 1816.

Slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa

See also the articles Atlantic slave trade and triangular trade. Slavery was common and widespread in Africa long before the 19th century, perpetrated on Africans by Arabs or other Africans, usually but not always of a competing tribe. "Slavery was endemic in Africa, part of the structure of everyday life," Fernand Braudel has noted. "Slavery came in different guises in different societies: there were court slaves, slaves incorporated into princely armies, domestic and household slaves, slaves working on the land, in industry, as couriers and intermediaries, even as traders" (Braudel 1984 p 435). Two aggressive slave-trading civiliified it out of all recognition, and during the 16th century Europe began to outpace Islam in the export traffic. The Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in South Africa. The United Kingdom, which held vast colonial territories on the continent (including South Africa), made the practice of slavery illegal in these regions. Ironically, the end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors. This action is what today may be called an instance of cultural imperialism. The nature of the slave societies differed greatly across the continent. There were large plantations worked by slaves in Egypt, the Sudan, and Zanzibar, but this was not a typical use of slaves in Africa as a whole. In some slave societies, slaves were protected and incorporated into the slave-owning family. In others, slaves were brutally abused, and even used for human sacrifices. Despite the vast numbers of slaves exported from Africa, it is thought that the majority of African slaves remained in Africa, continuing as slaves in the regions where they were first captured. Prior to the 16th century, the bulk of slaves exported from Africa were shipped from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar became a leading port on this trade. Arab slave traders differed from European traders in that they would often capture slaves themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into the continent. They also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of female slaves over male slaves. The Middle Passage, the crossing of the Atlantic to the Americas, endured by slaves laid out in rows in the holds of ships, was only one element of the well-known triangular trade engaged in by Portuguese, Dutch, French and British. Ships having landed slaves in Caribbean ports would take on sugar, indigo, raw cotton, and later coffee, and make for Liverpool, Nantes, Lisbon or Amsterdam. Ships leaving European ports for West Africa would carry printed cotton textiles, some originally from India, copper utensils and bangles, pewter plates and pots, iron bars more valued than gold, hats, trinkets, gunpowder and firearms and alcohol. Tropical shipworms were eliminated in the cold Atlantic waters, and at each unloading, a profit was made. The transatlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured for bounty by their own people in West Africa and shipped by European traders to the colonies of the New World. As a result of the Spanish War of Succession, the United Kingdom obtained the monopoly (asiento de negros) of transporting captive Africans to Spanish America. It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to twenty million people were shipped as slaves from Africa by European traders, of whom some 15 percent died during the terrible voyage, many during the arduous journey through the Middle Passage. The great majority were shipped to the Americas, but also went to Europe and the south of Africa. Some historians conclude that the total loss in persons removed, those who died on the arduous march to coastal slave marts and those killed in slave raids, far exceeded the 65-75 million inhabitants remaining in Sub-Saharan Africa at the trade's end. Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas (cassava, maize) would have limited general population decline to particular regions of western Africa around 1760-1810, and in Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa, females were most often captured as brides, with their male protectors being a "bycatch" who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them.

Modern Africa

Slavery persists in Africa more than in all other continents. Slavery in Mauritania was legally abolished by laws passed in 1905, 1961, and 1981, but several human rights organizations are reporting that the practice continues there. The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin. In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In this instance, the woman does not gain the title of "wife". In the Sudan slavery continues as part of an ongoing civil war. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in west Africa, see the chocolate and slavery article.

Slavery in the Americas

Slavery among indigenous people of America

In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica the most common forms of slavery were those of prisoners-of-war and debtors. People unable to pay back a debt could be sentenced to work as a slave to the person owed until the debt was worked off. Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free. In Tahuantinsuyu, or the Inca Empire, workers were subject to a mita in lieu of taxes which they paid by working for the government. Each ayllu, or extended family, would decide which family member to send to do the work.

Slavery in Brazil

During the colonial epoch, slavery was a mainstay of the Brazilian economy, especially in mining and sugar cane production. The Clapham Sect, a group of Victorian Evangelical politicians, campaigned during most of the 19th century for the United Kingdom to use its influence and power to stop the traffic of slaves to Brazil. Besides moral qualms, the low cost of slave-produced Brazilian sugar meant that British colonies in the West Indies were unable to match the market prices of Brazilian sugar, and each Briton was consuming 16 pounds (7 kg) of sugar a year by the 19th century. This combination led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil to end this practice, which it did by steps over several decades. Slavery was legally ended May 13 by the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law") of 1888. Brazil obtained 37% of all African slaves traded, and more than 3 million slaves were sent to this one country. The Portuguese were the first to initiate the slave trade, and the last to end the slave trade. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar plantations once the native Tupi deteriorated. The African slaves were useful for the sugar plantations in many ways. First, African slaves had immunities to European diseases. The white workers were less able to fend off deadly diseases of the Caribbean, such as malaria. Second, the benefits of the slaves far exceeded the costs. After 2-3 years, slaves worked off their worth, and plantation owners began to make profits from them. Plantation owners made lucrative profits even though there was approximately a 10% death rate per year, mainly due to harsh working conditions. The very harsh manual labour of the sugar cane fields saw slaves use hoes to dig large trenches. The slaves planted sugar cane in the trenches and then used their bare hands to spread manure. The average life span of a slave was eight years. In the mid to late 19th century, many Amerindians were enslaved to work on rubber plantations. See Içá for more information.

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean

Slavery was commonly used in the parts of the Caribbean controlled by France or the British Empire. The Lesser Antilles islands of Barbados, Antigua, Martinique and Guadeloupe, which were the first important slave societies of the Caribbean, began the widespread use of African slaves by the end of the 17th century, as their economies converted from tobacco to sugar production. The slaves were treated terribly, often beaten and raped. They had such miserable lives that death was considered a welcome release. By the middle of the 18th century, British Jamaica and French Saint-Domingue had become the largest slave societies of the region, rivaling Brazil as a destination for enslaved Africans. Due to overwork, the death rates for Caribbean slaves were higher than birth rates. The conditions led to increasing numbers of slave revolts, campaigns against slavery in Europe, and the abolition of slavery in the European empires.

Status of African slaves compared to Caribbean slaves

African slaves and Caribbean slaves both received little respect from their masters, who looked at them as objects for work and trade. Slavery and slave trading was widespread in both the Caribbean islands and in Africa. Many of the slaves were unable to reproduce because the stress of the work caused still births in women and sterility in men. Caribbean slavery granted the masters complete freedom over the control of their slaves. Caribbean sugar plantations resembled factories in a modern capitalist society. In contrast, African slavery was less harsh than slavery on Caribbean sugar estates. African kinship groups sought to assimilate new slaves into their circle. Many slave villages worked under their own management and paid tribute for their services. The family lifestyle of slavery in many parts of Africa had a closer bond as smaller groups usually had face-to-face relationships.

Slavery in North America

Main article: Slavery in Colonial America, Slavery in Canada, History of slavery in the United States, Atlantic slave trade The first imported Africans were brought as indentured servants, not slaves. They were required, as white indentured servants were, to serve seven years. Many were brought to the British North American colonies, specifically Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. However, the slave trade did not immediately expand in North America. Slavery under European rule began with importation of European indentured labourers, was followed by the enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Caribbean, and eventually was primarily replaced with Africans imported through a large slave trade. The shift from indentured servants to African slaves was prompted by a growing lower class of former servants who had worked through the terms of their indentures and thus became competitors of their former masters. These newly freed servants were rarely able to support themselves comfortably, and the tobacco industry was increasingly dominated by large planters. This caused domestic unrest culminating in Bacon's Rebellion. It is unclear whether the first Africans in North America were chattel slaves or other kinds of unfree labourers, such as indentured servants. In any case, chattel slavery gradually became the norm. Bacon's Rebellion Several slave rebellions took place during the 17th and 18th centuries. Through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 (also known as the Freedom Ordinance) under the Continental Congress, slavery was prohibited in the Midwest. In the East, though, slavery was not abolished until later. The importation of slaves into the United States was banned on January 1, 1808; but not the internal slave trade, or involvement in the international slave trade externally. Aggregation of northern free states gave rise to one contiguous geographic area, north of the Ohio River and the old Mason-Dixon line. This separation of a free North and an enslaved South launched a massive political, cultural and economic struggle. Refugees from slavery fled the South across the Ohio River to the North via the Underground Railroad, and their presence agitated Northerners. Midwestern state governments asserted States Rights arguments to refuse Federal jurisidiction over fugitives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 asserted that slavery's presence in the Midwest was nominally lawful (when owners crossed into free states) and this turned Northern public opinion even further against slavery. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, armed conflict broke out in Kansas Territory, where the question of whether it would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state had been left to the inhabitants. The radical abolitionist John Brown was active in the mayhem and killing in "Bleeding Kansas." Anti-slavery legislators took office under the banner of the Republican Party. In the election of 1860, the Republicans swept Abraham Lincoln into the Presidency. Lincoln however, did not appear on the ballots in most southern states and his election split the nation along sectional lines. After decades of controlling the Federal Government, the Southern states seceded from the U.S. (the Union) to form the Confederate States of America. Northern leaders like Lincoln viewed the prospect of a new slave nation, with control over the Mississippi River and the West, as unacceptable. This led to the outbreak of the Civil War. The Civil War spelled the end for chattel slavery in America. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was a reluctant gesture that proclaimed freedom for slaves within the Confederacy, although not those in strategically important border states which had remained in the Union, as Lincoln stated it 'If I could win the war having freed half of the slaves, I'd have freed half.'. Specifically exempted were slave states Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, as well as parts of Virginia and Louisiana then under Federal occupation. However, the proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal and it was implemented as the Union captured territory from the Confederacy. Slaves in many parts of the south were freed by Union armies or when they simply left their former owners. Many joined the Union Army as workers or troops, and many more fled to Northern cities. Legally, slaves within the United States remained enslaved until the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865 (with final recognition of the amendment on December 18), eight months after the cessation of hostilities. Slavery remained legal in Delaware and Kentucky until that time (Missouri and Maryland had officially abolished slavery during the war years). Only in Kentucky did a significant slave population remain by that time. Freed slaves in the United States were treated as second class citizens, for decades after their emancipation many slaves living in the South sharecropped and made so little that they might as well have been slaves. Only after the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's did blacks obtain legal status as full citizens (see segregation). Although very strict laws exist in the United States against racial discrimination, to a point of absurdity according to some, a very clear social divide exists between blacks and whites in the United States today. Some allege that slavery is being reintroduced to the United States under the guise of Imputed Income and Child Support. By this, states award custody of a child to one of two parents, while the other parent is then compelled to pay for the raising of the child without being given any say in raising the child. Child-support orders can be based on 'imputed income' and as such the orders can exceed 100 percent of a person's income. The law seems to be applied particluarly harshly to the African American community, the working poor and the seasonally employed.
Slavery in Asia

India
Unfree labour has existed in India for millennia, in different forms. The most common forms have been kinds of bonded labour. During the epoch of the Islamic empires in India and the Mughals, debt bondage reached its peak, and it was common for money lenders to make slaves of peasants and others who failed to repay debts. Under these practices, more than one generation could be forced into unfree labour; for example, a son could be sold into bonded labour for life to pay off the debt, along with interest. Much of India was ruled by the so-called Slave Dynasty from 1206-1290: Qutb-ud-din Aybak, a slave of Muhammad Ghori rose to power following his master's death. For almost a century his descendants ruled presiding over the introduction of Tankas and building of Qutub Minar.
Japan
Slavery in Japan was, for most of its history, indigenous, since the export and import of slaves was restricted by Japan being a group of islands. The export of a slave from Japan is recorded in 3rd century Chinese history, although the system involved is unclear. These slaves were called Seikō (生口) (lit. "living mouth"). In the 8th century, a slave was called Nuhi (奴婢) and series of laws on slavery was issued. In an area of present-day Ibaraki prefecture, out of a population of 190,000, around 2,000 were slaves; the proportion is believed to have been even higher in western Japan. By the time of the Sengoku period (1467-1615), the attitude that slavery was anachronistic had become widespread. In a meeting with Catholic priests, Oda Nobunaga was presented with a black slave, the first recorded encounter between a Japanese and an African. In 1588, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered all slave trading to be abolished. This was continued by his successors. As the Empire of Japan annexed Asian countries, from the late 19th century onwards, archaic institutions including slavery were abolished in those countries. However, during the Pacific War of 1937-45, the Japanese military used hundreds of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labour, on projects such as the Burma Railway. (For further details, see Japanese war crimes.)
Korea
Indigenous slaves existed in Korea. It is widely known that the last names "Chun", "Bang", "Ji", and "Chuk" are recognizable as last names having once been given to slaves.
Abolitionist movements
Slavery's origins are prehistoric. So, too, are movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves. Moses led Israelite slaves from ancient Egypt in the Biblical Book of Exodus - possibly the first detailed account of a movement to free slaves. Though modern archeology throws doubt on the claims of such a mass exodus. However, abolitionism should be distinguished from efforts to help a particular group of slaves, or to restrict one practice, such as the slave trade. In 1772, a legal case concerning James Somerset made it illegal to remove a slave from England against his will. A similar case, that of Joseph Knight, took place in Scotland five years later and ruled slavery to be contrary to the law of Scotland. Following the work of campaigners in the United Kingdom, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by Parliament on March 25, 1807. The act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within the whole British Empire. The Slavery Abolition Act, passed on August 23, 1833, outlawed slavery itself in the British colonies. On August 1, 1834 all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was finally abolished in 1838. 1838 France never authorized slavery on its mainland, but authorized it in some of its overseas possessions. On February 4, 1794, Abbé Grégoire and the Convention abolished slavery. Slaves in Haiti revolted when their masters did not accept the new rules from the metropolis. Slavery was re-established in 1802 by Napoleon, but failed to take hold because of the Haitian Slave Revolt in 1803 which gained the slaves their independence. Haiti became the first Black republic in 1803. Sierra Leone was established as a country for former slaves of the British Empire in Africa. Liberia served an analogous purpose for American slaves. The goal of the abolitionists was repatriation of the slaves to Africa. Also some trade unions did not want the cheap labour of former slaves around. Nevertheless, most former slaves stayed in America. Slaves in the United States who escaped ownership would often make their way north to Canada via the "Underground Railroad". Famously active abolitionists of the U.S. include Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865. The 1926 Slavery Convention, an initiative of the League of Nations, was a turning point in banning global slavery. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly, explicity banned slavery. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery was convened to outlaw and ban slavery worldwide, including child slavery. In December 1966, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was developed from the Universal Declaraction of Human Rights. Article 8 of this international treaty bans slavery. The treaty came into force in March 1976 after it had been ratified by 35 nations. As of November 2003, 104 nations had ratified the treaty.
Apologies
In June 1997, Tony Hall, a Democratic representative for Dayton, Ohio proposed a national apology by the U.S. government for slavery. This was at a time when the Catholic Church in France apologised for its silence and begged "forgiveness for Catholic inaction as regime sent Jews to their deaths in '40s". At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, at Durban, South Africa, the US representatives walked out, on the instructions of Colin Powell. A South African Government spokesperson claimed that "the general perception among all delegates is that the US does not want to confront the real issues of slavery and all its manifestations." However, the US delegates argued that they left over a resolution that equated Zionism with racism. At the same time the British, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese delegations blocked an EU apology for slavery. The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued across the world. E.g. The Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action Plan.
Reparations
As noted above, there have been movements to achieve reparations for those held in involuntary servitude, or sometimes their descendants. There is a growing modern movement to donate funds achieved in reparations efforts not to the descendants of those held as slaves in prior generations, but instead to donate them to those freed from slavery in this generation, in other countries and circumstances. In general, reparation for being held in slavery is handled as a civil law matter in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since slaves are exactly those people who have no access to the legal process. Systems of fines and reparations paid from fines collected by authorities, rather than in civil courts, have been proposed to alleviate this in some nations. In the United States, the reparations movement often cites the 40 acres and a mule decree. Recent effort have also targeted businesses that profited from the slave trade and issuing insurance on slaves. In Africa, the 2nd World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission was convened in Ghana in 2000. Its deliberations concluded with a Petition being served in the International Court at the Hague for US$777 trillion against the United States, Canada, and European Union members for "unlawful removal and destruction of Petitioners' mineral and human resources from the African continent" between 1503 up to the end of the colonialism era in the late 1950s and 1960s. This was the first time a price had been put on African Reparations. [http://web.archive.org/web/
- /http://www.people.virginia.edu/~eej2b/Soc410/barton.html]
Economics of slavery
According to the Anti-Slavery Society, "Although there is no longer any state which recognizes any claim by a person to a right of property over another, there are an estimated 2.7 million people throughout the world, mainly children, in conditions of slavery."[http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/slavery.htm] It further notes that slavery, particularly child slavery, was on the rise in 2003. It points out that there are countless others in other forms of servitude (such as pawnage, bonded labor and servile concubinage, which are not slavery in the narrow legal sense. According to a broader definition used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves, another advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there are 27 million people in slavery today, spread all over the world. This is, also according to that group:
- The largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history.
- The smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once.
- Reducing the price of slaves to as low as US$40 in Mali for young adult male labourers, to a high of US$1000 or so in Thailand for HIV-free young females suitable for use in brothels (where they invariably contract HIV). This represents the price paid to the person, or parents.
- This represents the lowest price that there has ever been for a slave in raw labour terms—while the price of a comparable male slave in 1850 America would have been about US$1000 in the currency of the time, that represents US$38,000 in today's dollars, thus slaves, at least of that category, now cost only one one-thousandth (0.1%) of their price 150 years ago. As a result, the economics of slavery is stark: the yield of profit per year for those buying and controlling a slave is over 800% on average, as opposed to the 5% per year that would have been the expected payback for buying a slave in colonial times. This combines with the high potential to lose a slave (have them stolen, escape, or freed by unfriendly authorities) to yield what are called disposable people—those who can be exploited intensely for a short time and then discarded, such as the prostitutes thrown out on city streets to die once they contract HIV, or those forced to work in mines.
Potential for total abolition
Those 27 million people produce a gross economic product of US $1.4 billion. This is also a smaller percentage of the world economy than slavery has produced at any prior point in human history. That, plus the universal criminal status of slavery, the lack of moral arguments for it in modern discourse, and the many conventions and agreements to abolish it worldwide, make it likely that it can be eliminated in this generation, according to Free The Slaves. There are no nations whose economies would be substantially affected by the true abolition of slavery. A first step towards this objective is the Cocoa Protocol, by which the entire cocoa industry worldwide has accepted full moral and legal responsibility for the entire comprehensive outcome of their production processes. Negotiations for this protocol were initiated for cotton, sugar and other commodity items in the 19th century—taking about 140 years to complete. Thus it seems that this is also a turning point in history, where all commodity markets can slowly lever licensing and other requirements to ensure that slavery is eliminated from production, one industry at a time, as a sectoral simultaneous policy that does not cause disadvantages for any one market player.
Famous slaves and former slaves
From the list of famous slaves:
- Saint Patrick, abducted from Britain, enslaved in Ireland, escaped to Britain, returned to Ireland as a missionary
- John Brown (fugitive slave), escaped and wrote of conditions in Deep South
- Frederick Douglass, abolitionist
- Enrique, the slave of Ferdinand Magellan, who became the first man to go around the globe.
- Malinche, famous translator during the Spanish conquest of Mexico
- Onesimus, owned by Philemon mentioned in the Bible
- Aesop, Greek author, famous for his fables
- Spartacus, led the Servile Revolt
- Toussaint L'Ouverture, led the independence of Haiti slave revolt after being freed.
- Harriet Tubman, nicknamed Moses because of her efforts in helping other slaves escape through the Underground Railway.
- Nat Turner, escaped and led revolt in Southampton County, Virginia
- Zumbi, in colonial Brazil, escaped and joined the Quilombo dos Palmares — the largest ever settlement of escaped slaves in Brazil — later becoming its last and most famous leader.
- Mende Nazer, a woman who was slave in Sudan and transferred to London to serve a diplomat family there
- Terence, Roman comic poet who wrote before and possibly after his freedom.
Films

- Stanley Kubrick, "Spartacus", 1960
- Tomas Gutierrez Alea, La Última cena - "The Last Supper", 1976
- Charles Burnett, "Nightjohn", 1996
- Julie Dash, "Daughters of the Dust", 1991
- Jonathan Demme, "Beloved", 1998
- Carlos Diegues, "Quilombo", 1984
- Haile Gerima, "Sankofa", 1993
-

Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, abbreviated USSR ( (СССР) ; tr.: Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik [SSSR])), more commonly known as the Soviet Union (; tr.: Sovetsky Soyuz) was an officially socialist state founded in 1922, centered on Russia, and dissolved in 1991. From 1945 until its dissolution it was historically notable as one of the world's two superpowers. The formation of the Soviet Union was the culmination of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew short-lived Provisional Government (established after Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on March 15, 1917), and later the Red Army victory in the violent Russian Civil War from 1918-1920. The geographic boundaries of the Soviet Union varied with time, but by 1945 it approximately corresponded to that of historic Imperial Russia, with the notable exclusions of Poland and Finland. The geographic size of the Soviet Union remained from 1945 until its dissolution. The Soviet Union, founded three decades before the Cold War, became a primary model for future Communist states; the socialist government and the political organization of the country were defined by the only permitted political party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
History
The Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be the successor of the Russian Empire. The last Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II, ruled until March 1917 and was eventually executed. The Soviet Union was established in December 1922 as the union of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics ruled by Bolshevik parties. By Soviet historiography, revolutionary activity in Russia began with the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, and although serfdom was abolished in 1861, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament, the State Duma, was established in 1906, after the 1905 Revolution but political and social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages. A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in response to the wartime decay of Russia's physical well-being and morale, culminated in the toppling of the imperial government in March 1917 (see February Revolution). The autocracy was replaced by the Provisional Government, whose leaders intended to establish democracy in Russia and to continue participating on the side of the Allies in World War I. At the same time, to ensure the rights of the working class, workers' councils, known as soviets, sprang up across the country. The radical Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, agitated for socialist revolution in the soviets and on the streets. They seized power from the Provisional Government in November 1917 (see October Revolution). Only after the long and bloody Russian Civil War of (1918-1921), which included combat between government forces and foreign troops in several parts of Russia, was the new communist regime secure. In a related conflict, the "Peace of Riga" in early 1921 split disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Soviet powers. From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party, as the Bolsheviks called themselves beginning in March 1918. After the extraordinary economic policy of war communism during the Civil War the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax (see New Economic Policy). Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating his rivals within the party, notably Lenin's more obvious heir Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s. In 1928 Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. In industry the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization; in agriculture collective farms were established all over the country (see Collectivisation in the USSR). The Soviet Union became a major industrial power; but the plan's implementation produced widespread misery for some segments of the population. Collectivization met widespread resistance from peasants, resulting in a bitter struggle against the authorities in many areas, famine, and estimated millions of casualties. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s, when Stalin began a purge of the party (see Great Purges). Yet despite this turmoil, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II. Although Stalin tried to avert war with Germany by concluding the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which involved the invasion of Poland, in 1939, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It has been debated that the Soviet Union had the intention of invading Germany once it was strong enough. The Red Army stopped the Nazi offensive, with the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 being the major turning point, and drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patriotic War). Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged superpower. superpower after the fall of Nazi Germany]] During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. The Soviet Union aided postwar reconstruction in Eastern Europe, set up the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, supplied aid to the eventually victorious communists in the People's Republic of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, the Cold War, turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into foes. Joseph Stalin died on March 5 1953. In the absence of an acceptable successor, the highest Communist Party officials opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly, although a struggle for power took place behind the facade of collective leadership. Nikita Khrushchev, who won the power struggle by the mid-1950s, denounced Stalin's use of repression and eased repressive controls over party and society (see de-Stalinization). During this period the Soviet Union launched the first satellite Sputnik 1 and man Yuri Gagarin into orbit. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses. Khrushchev's colleagues in the leadership removed him from power in 1964. Following the ouster of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting until Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. Brezhnev presided over a period of Détente with the West while at the same time building up Soviet military strength; the arms buildup contributed to the demise of Détente in the late 1970s. Another contributing factor was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. After some experimentation with economic reforms in the mid-1960s, the Soviet leadership reverted to established means of economic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during the 1970s, while agricultural development continued to lag. Throughout the period the Soviet Union maintained parity with the United States in the areas of military technology but this expansion ultimately crippled the economy. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. After the rapid succession of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, transitional figures with deep roots in Brezhnevite tradition, the energetic Mikhail Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy (see Perestroika) and the party leadership. His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of government regulations. In late 1980s constituent republics of the Soviet Union started declaring sovereignty over their territories or even independence citing Article 72 of USSR Constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede. Many republics proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as "The War of Laws." In 1989 Russian SFSR, which was then the largest constituent republic (with about 2/3 of population and territory) convened a Congress of Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was elected the chairman of the Congress. On June 12, 1989 the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. The period of legal uncertainty continued for the next three years as constituent republics slowly growing de-facto independent. A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on March 17, 1991, with the population voting for preservation of the Union in most republics. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost, and in the summer of 1991 an new Union Treaty was designed and agreed upon by most republics which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser federation. The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup - an attempted coup d'état against Mikhail Gorbachev by conservative members of the Communist Party, referred to as "Hardliners" by the Western media. After the coup was defeated, Yeltsin came out as a hero while Gorbachev's power was greatly reduced. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were immediately granted independence, while the other 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. On December 8 1991 Presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed Belavezha Accords which declared the Union dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place. While doubts remained over their authority to dissolve the Union, on 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the president of the USSR and turned the powers of his office over to Boris Yeltsin. The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, dissolved itself. This is generally recognized as the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning nation. Many organizations such as the Red Army and Police forces continued to remain in place in the early months of 1992, but were slowly phased out or absorbed by the newly independent nations.
Politics
Supreme Soviet] The government of the Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society. It implemented decisions made by the leading political institution in the country, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In the late 1980s, the government appeared to have many characteristics in common with democratic political systems. For instance, a constitution established all organs of government and granted to citizens a series of political and civic rights. A legislative body, the Congress of People's Deputies, and its standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, represented the principle of popular sovereignty. The Supreme Soviet, which had an elected chairman who functioned as head of state, oversaw the Council of Ministers, which acted as the executive branch of the government. The chairman of the Council of Ministers, whose selection was approved by the legislative branch, functioned as head of government. A constitutionally based judicial branch of government included a court system, headed by the Supreme Court, that was responsible for overseeing the observance of Soviet law by government bodies. According to the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the government had a federal structure, permitting the republics some authority over policy implementation and offering the national minorities the appearance of participation in the management of their own affairs. In practice, however, the government differed markedly from Western systems. In the late 1980s, the CPSU performed many functions that governments of other countries usually perform. For example, the party decided on the policy alternatives that the government ultimately implemented. The government merely ratified the party's decisions to lend them an aura of legitimacy. The CPSU used a variety of mechanisms to ensure that the government adhered to its policies. The party, using its nomenklatura authority, placed its loyalists in leadership positions throughout the government, where they were subject to the norms of democratic centralism. Party bodies closely monitored the actions of government ministries, agencies, and legislative organs. The content of the Soviet Constitution differed in many ways from typical Western constitutions. It generally described existing political relationships, as determined by the CPSU, rather than prescribing an ideal set of political relationships. The Constitution was long and detailed, giving technical specifications for individual organs of government. The Constitution included political statements, such as foreign policy goals, and provided a theoretical definition of the state within the ideological framework of Marxism-Leninism. The CPSU leadership could radically change the constitution or remake it completely, as it did several times throughout its history. The Council of Ministers acted as the executive body of the government. Its most important duties lay in the administration of the economy. The council was thoroughly under the control of the CPSU, and its chairman - the Soviet prime minister - was always a member of the Politburo. The council, which in 1989 included more than 100 members, was too large and unwieldy to act as a unified executive body. The council's Presidium, made up of the leading economic administrators and led by the chairman, exercised dominant power within the Council of Ministers. According to the Constitution, as amended in 1988, the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union was the Congress of People's Deputies, which convened for the first time in May 1989. The main tasks of the congress were the election of the standing legislature, the Supreme Soviet, and the election of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, who acted as head of state. Theoretically, the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet wielded enormous legislative power. In practice, however, the Congress of People's Deputies met infrequently and only to approve decisions made by the party, the Council of Ministers, and its own Supreme Soviet. The Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and the Council of Ministers had substantial authority to enact laws, decrees, resolutions, and orders binding on the population. The Congress of People's Deputies had the authority to ratify these decisions. The judiciary was not independent. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts and applied the law, as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union lacked an adversarial court procedure known to common law jurisdictions. Rather, Soviet law utilised the system derived from Roman law, where judge, procurator and defense attorney worked collaboratively to establish the truth. The Soviet Union was a federal state made up of fifteen republics joined together in a theoretically voluntary union. In turn, a series of territorial units made up the republics. The republics also contained jurisdictions intended to protect the interests of national minorities. The republics had their own constitutions, which, along with the all-union Constitution, provide the theoretical division of power in the Soviet Union. In 1989, however, the CPSU and the central government retained all significant authority, setting policies that were executed by republic, provincial, oblast, and district governments.
Leaders of the Soviet Union
The official leader of the Soviet Union was the First/General Secretary of the CPSU. The head of government was considered the Premier, and the head of state was considered the President. The Soviet leader could also have one (or both) of these positions, along with the position of General-Secretary of the party. :List of Soviet Premiers :(Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (1923-1946); Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1946-1990); Prime Minister of the USSR (1991)) :List of Soviet Presidents :(Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (1917-1922); Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (1922-1938); Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1938-1989); Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1989-1990); President of the Soviet Union (1990-1991))
Foreign relations
:Main article: Foreign relations of the Soviet Union Foreign relations of the Soviet Union] Once denied diplomatic recognition by the capitalist world, the Soviet Union had official relations with the majority of the nations of the world by the late 1980s. The Soviet Union also had progressed from being an outsider in international organizations and negotiations to being one of the arbiters of Europe's fate after World War II. A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions (see Soviet Union and the United Nations). The Soviet Union emerged from World War II as one of the two major world powers, a position maintained for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe (see Eastern Bloc), military strength, aid to developing countries, and scientific research, especially into space technology and weaponry. The Soviet Union's growing influence abroad in the postwar years helped lead to a socialist system of states in Eastern Europe united by military and economic agreements. Established in 1949 as an economic bloc of communist countries led by Moscow, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) served as a framework for cooperation among the planned economies of the Soviet Union, and, later, for trade and economic cooperation with the Third World. The military counterpart to the Comecon was the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet economy was also of major importance to Eastern Europe because of imports of vital natural resources from Russia, such as natural gas. Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by transforming the East European countries into stable allies. Soviet troops intervened in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and cited the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet counterpart to the U.S. Johnson Doctrine and later Nixon Doctrine, and helped oust the Czechoslovak government in 1968, sometimes referred to as the Prague Spring. In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China led to the Sino-Soviet split and a tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The KGB (Committee for State Security), served in a fashion as the Soviet counterpart to both the FBI and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) in the U.S. It ran a massive network of informants throughout the Soviet Union, which was used to monitor violations in law. The foreign wing of the KGB was used to gather intelligence in countries around the globe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was replaced in Russia by the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service). The KGB was not without substantial oversight. The GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), not publicized by Russia until the end of the Soviet era during perestroika, was created by Lenin in 1918 and served both as a centralized handler of military intelligence and as an institutional check-and-balance for the otherwise relatively unrestricted power of the KGB. Effectively, it served to spy on the spies, and, not surprisingly, the KGB served a similar function with the GRU. As with the KGB, the GRU operated in nations around the world, particularly in Soviet bloc and client states. The GRU continues to operate in Russia today, with resources estimated by some to exceed those of the SVR [http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gru/] [http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/svr/c103-gb.htm]. military intelligence]] In the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved rough nuclear parity with the United States. It perceived its own involvement as essential to the solution of any major international problem. Meanwhile, the Cold War gave way to Détente and a more complicated pattern of international relations in which the world was no longer clearly split into two clearly opposed blocs. Less powerful countries had more room to assert their independence, and the two superpowers were partially able to recognize their common interest in trying to check the further spread and proliferation of nuclear weapons (see SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty). By this time, the Soviet Union had concluded friendship and cooperation treaties with a number of states in the non-communist world, especially among Third World and Non-Aligned Movement states like India and Egypt. Notwithstanding some ideological obstacles, Moscow advanced state interests by gaining military footholds in strategically important areas throughout the Third World. Furthermore, the Soviet Union continued to provide military aid for revolutionary movements in the Third World. For all these reasons, Soviet foreign policy was of major importance to the non-communist world and helped determine the tenor of international relations. Although myriad bureaucracies were involved in the formation and execution of Soviet foreign policy, the major policy guidelines were determined by the Politburo of the Communist Party. The foremost objectives of Soviet foreign policy had been the maintenance and enhancement of national security and the maintenance of hegemony over Eastern Europe. Relations with the United States and Western Europe were also of major concern to Soviet foreign policy makers, and relations with individual Third World states were at least partly determined by the proximity of each state to the Soviet border and to Soviet estimates of its strategic significance. When Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985, it signalled a dramatic change in Soviet foreign policy. Gorbachev pursued conciliatory policies toward the West instead of maintaining the Cold War status quo. The Soviet Union ended its occupation of Afghanistan, signed strategic arms reduction treaties with the United States, and allowed its allies in Eastern Europe to determine their own affairs. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December, 1991, the Russian Federation claimed to be the legal successor to the Soviet state on the international stage despite its loss of superpower status. Russian foreign policy repudiated Marxism-Leninism as a guide to action, soliciting Western support for capitalist reforms in post-Soviet Russia.
Republics
Russian Federation)]] The Soviet Union was a federation of Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR). The first Republics were established shortly after the October Revolution of 1917. At that time, republics were technically independent from one another but their governments acted in closely coordinated confederation, as directed by the CPSU leadership. In 1922, four Republics (Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Belarusian SSR, and Transcaucasian SFSR) joined into the Soviet Union. Between 1922 and 1940, the number of Republics grew to sixteen. Some of the new Republics were formed from territories acquired, or reacquired by the Soviet Union, others by splitting existing Republics into several parts. The criteria for establishing new republics were as follows: # to be located on the periphery of the Soviet Union so as to be able to exercise their alleged right to secession; # be economically strong enough to survive on their own upon secession; and # be named after the dominant ethnic group which should consist of at least one million people. The system remained almost unchanged after 1940. No new Republics were established. One republic, Karelo-Finnish SSR, was disbanded in 1956. The remaining 15 republics lasted until 1991. Secession remained theoretical, and very unlikely, given Soviet centralism, until the 1991 collapse of the Union. At that time, the republics became independent countries, with some still loosely organized under the heading Commonwealth of Independent States. Some republics had common history and geographical regions, and were referred by group names. These were Baltic Republics, Transcaucasian Republics, and Central Asian Republics. In its final state, the Soviet Union consisted of the following republics. (See Republics of the Soviet Union for the list and timeline of other Union republics that existed over time.)
Economy
Republics of the Soviet Union power stations in the Soviet Union]] Prior to its collapse, the Soviet Union had the largest centrally directed economy in the world. The government established its economic priorities through central planning, a system under which administrative decisions rather than the market determined resource allocation and prices. Since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the country grew from a largely underdeveloped peasant society with minimal industry to become the second largest industrial power in the world. According to Soviet statistics, the country's share in world industrial production grew from 4 percent to 20 percent between 1913 and 1980. Although many Western analysts considered these claims to be inflated, the Soviet achievement remained remarkable. Recovering from the calamitous events of World War II, the country's economy had maintained a continuous though uneven rate of growth. Living standards, although still modest for most inhabitants by Western standards, had improved. Although these past achievements were impressive, in the mid-1980s Soviet leaders faced many problems. Production in the consumer and agricultural sectors was often inadequate (see Agriculture of the Soviet Union and shortage economy). Crises in the agricultural sector reaped catastrophic consequences in the 1930s, when collectivization met widespread resistance from the kulaks, resulting in a bitter struggle of many peasants against the authorities, famine, particularly in Ukraine, but also in the Volga River area and Kazakhstan. In the consumer and service sectors, a lack of investment resulted in black markets in some areas. black market] In addition, since the 1970s, the growth rate had slowed substantially. Extensive economic development, based on vast inputs of materials and labor, was no longer possible; yet the productivity of Soviet assets remained low compared with other major industrialized countries. Product quality needed improvement. Soviet leaders faced a fundamental dilemma: the strong central controls that had traditionally guided economic development had failed to promote the creativity and productivity urgently needed in a highly developed, modern economy. Conceding the weaknesses of their past approaches in solving new problems, the leaders of the late 1980s were seeking to mold a program of economic reform to galvanize the economy. The leadership, headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, was experimenting with solutions to economic problems with an openness (glasnost) never before seen in the history of the economy. One method for improving productivity appeared to be a strengthening of the role of market forces. Yet reforms in which market forces assumed a greater role would signify a lessening of authority and control by the planning hierarchy. Assessing developments in the economy was difficult for Western observers. The country contained enormous economic and regional disparities. Yet analyzing statistical data broken down by region was a cumbersome process. Furthermore, Soviet statistics themselves might have been of limited use to Western analysts because they are not directly comparable with those used in Western countries. The differing statistical concepts, valuations, and procedures used by communist and noncommunist economists made even the most basic data, such as the relative productivity of various sectors, difficult to assess.
Geography
The Soviet Union occupied the eastern portion of the European continent and the northern portion of the Asian continent. Most of the country was north of 50° north latitude and covered a total area of approximately 22,402,200 square kilometres. Due to the sheer size of the state, the climate varied greatly from subtropical and continental to subarctic and polar. 11 percent of the land was arable, 16 percent was meadows and pasture, 41 percent was forest and woodland, and 32 percent was declared "other" (including tundra). The Soviet Union measured some 10,000 kilometers from Kaliningrad on the Gulf of Gdańsk in the west to Ratmanova Island (Big Diomede Island) in the Bering Strait, or roughly equivalent to the distance from Edinburgh, Scotland, east to Nome, Alaska. From the tip of the Taymyr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean to the Central Asian town of Kushka near the Afghan border extended almost 5,000 kilometers of mostly rugged, inhospitable terrain. The east-west expanse of the continental United States would easily fit between the northern and southern borders of the Soviet Union at their extremities.
Demographics and society
The Soviet Union was one of the world's most ethnically diverse countries, with more than 150 distinct ethnic groups within its borders. The total population was estimated at 293 million in 1991. The majority of the population were Russians (50.78%), followed by Ukrainians (15.45%) and Uzbeks (5.84%). After all Soviet republics gained independence, Russia remained the largest country in the world by area, and still remains one of the most ethnically diverse.
Nationalities
The extensive multinational empire that the Bolsheviks inherited after their revolution was created by Tsarist expansion over some four centuries. Some nationality groups came into the empire voluntarily, others were brought in by force. Generally, the Russians and most of the non-Russian subjects of the empire shared little in common—culturally, religiously, or linguistically. More often than not, two or more diverse nationalities were collocated on the same territory. Therefore, national antagonisms built up over the years not only against the Russians but often between some of the subject nations as well. For seventy years, Soviet leaders had maintained that frictions between the many nationalities of the Soviet Union had been eliminated and that the Soviet Union consisted of a family of nations living harmoniously together. However, the national ferment that shook almost every corner of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s proved that seventy years of communist rule had failed to obliterate national and ethnic differences and that traditional cultures and religions would reemerge given the slightest opportunity. This reality facing Gorbachev and his colleagues meant that, short of relying on the traditional use of force, they had to find alternative solutions in order to prevent the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The concessions granted national cultures and the limited autonomy tolerated in the union republics in the 1920s led to the development of national elites and a heightened sense of national identity. Subsequent repression and Russianization fostered resentment against domination by Moscow and promoted further growth of national consciousness. National feelings were also exacerbated in the Soviet multinational state by increased competition for resources, services, and jobs.
Religious groups
linguistically]] The state was separated from church by the Decree of Council of People's Comissars 1918 January 23. Official figures on the number of religious believers in the Soviet Union were not available in 1989. But according to various Soviet and Western sources, over one-third of the people in the Soviet Union, an officially atheistic state, professed religious belief. Christianity and Islam had the most believers. Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox, which had the largest number of followers; Catholic; and Baptist and various other Protestant sects. There were many churches in the country (7500 Russian Orthodox churches in 1974). The majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni. Although there were many ethnic Jews in the Soviet Union, actual practice of Judaism was rare in Communist times. Jews were the victims of state-sponsored anti-semitism and were one of the few Soviet citizens allowed to emigrate from the country. Other religions, which were practiced by a relatively small number of believers, included Buddhism, Lamaism, and shamanism, a religion based on spiritualism. The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly. Because Islamic religious tenets and social values of Muslims are closely interrelated, religion appeared to have a greater influence on Muslims than on either Christians or other believers. Two-thirds of the Soviet population, however, had no religious beliefs. About half the people, including members of the CPSU and high-level government officials, professed atheism. For the majority of Soviet citizens, therefore, religion seemed irrelevant.
Culture
shamanism] All media in the Soviet Union were controlled by the state including television and radio broadcasting, newspaper, magazine and book publishing. This extended to the fine arts including the theatre, opera and ballet. Art and Music was controlled by ownership of distribution and performance venues. Censorship was made in cases where performances did not meet with the favour of the Soviet leadership with newspaper campaigns against offending material and sanctions applied though party controlled professional organizations.
- Soviet education
- Soviet cinema
- Soviet television
- USSR at the Summer Olympics
- USSR at the Winter Olympics
- USSR Chess Championship
- Palace of Culture
- Research in the Soviet Union
- Soviet Ballroom dances
- Soviet Student Olympiads
- Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Holidays

Related articles

- Post-Soviet states
- Prometheism
- List of Soviet Leaders
- List of premiers of the Soviet Union
- List of the presidents of the Soviet Union
Further reading

- Brown, Archie, et al, eds.: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
- Gilbert, Martin: The Routledge Atlas of Russian History (London: Routledge, 2002).
- Goldman, Minton: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Connecticut: Global Studies, Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc., 1986).
- Howe, G. Melvyn: The Soviet Union: A Geographical Survey 2nd. edn. (Estover, UK: MacDonald and Evans, 1983).
- Katz, Zev, ed.: Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York: Free Press, 1975).
- Rizzi, Bruno: "The bureaucratization of the world : the first English ed. of the underground Marxist classic that analyzed class exploitation in the USSR" , New York, NY : Free Press, 1985
External links

- [http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/art/photography/index.htm Images of the Soviet Union] - a collection of photos showing everyday life in the Soviet Union
- [http://geocities.com/deweytextsonline/isr.htm Impressions of Soviet Russia, by John Dewey]
- [http://www.n-wisdom.com/map_volume/world_map/Western_Soviet_Union_map.jpg Map of Western USSR]
- [http://www.angelfire.com/de/Cerskus/english/saitai.html Leonas Cerskus (the highest judge, a God):Crimes against Humanity committed by the Soviet Union]
- [http://koeln.tucker.in/music/gimn_sowjetskowo_sojusa.mp3 Melody of the Soviet National Anthem]
- Vladimir Lenin: What Is Soviet Power? (Text of the speech, )
References

- - [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html Soviet Union] Category:Communism Category:Former countries Category:History of the Soviet Union and Soviet Russia Category:Former countries in Europe ko:소비에트 연방 ja:ソビエト連邦 simple:Soviet Union th:สหภาพโซเวียต

Prohibition

:This article is about the prohibition of alcoholic beverages; separate articles on the prohibition of drugs in general and writs of prohibition are also available. writs of prohibition Prohibition was any of several periods during which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal.

Prohibition in the United States

alcoholic beverage In the United States, Prohibition was accomplished by means of the Eighteenth Amendment to the national Constitution (ratified January 16, 1919) and the Volstead Act (passed October 28, 1919). Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. The Volstead Act was amended to allow "3.2 beer" (3.2 percent alcohol by volume) by passage of the Blaine Act on February 17, 1933. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed later in 1933 with ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5. Prohibition also referred to that part of the Temperance movement which wanted alcohol made illegal. Prohibitionists had some success even before national prohibition; in 1905 three American states had already outlawed alcohol, by 1912 it was up to nine states, and by 1916, legal prohibition was already in effect in 26 of the 48 states. The Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed nationwide prohibition, explicitly gives states the right to restrict or ban the purchase and sale of alcohol; this has led to a patchwork of laws, in which alcohol may be legally sold in some but not all towns or counties within a particular state. After the repeal of the national constitutional amendment, some states continued to enforce prohibition laws; Oklahoma, Kansas, and Mississippi were still "dry" in 1948. Mississippi, which had made alcohol illegal in 1907, was the last state to repeal prohibition, in 1966. While there are still some dry c