Misplaced Pages

#507492

157-706: Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko (24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the seventh General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . He briefly led the Soviet Union from 1984 until his death a year later. Born to a poor Ukrainian family in Siberia , Chernenko joined the Komsomol in 1929 and became a full member of the party in 1931. After holding

314-447: A 'scanning all-band receiver' because the system used an analog transmission system-like an ordinary radio transmitter. Instead, digital phones are harder to monitor because they use digitally encoded and compressed transmission. However the government can tap mobile phones with the cooperation of the phone company. It is also possible for organizations with the correct technical equipment to monitor mobile phone communications and decrypt

471-643: A one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , it was a flagship communist state . Its capital and largest city was Moscow . The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin , established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally socialist state . The revolution

628-471: A satellite can be used to receive terrestrial transmissions with a power of a few milliwatts. Any sort of radio transmitter whose presence is suspected is detectable with suitable equipment. Conversation on many early cordless telephones could be picked up with a simple radio scanner or sometimes even a domestic radio. Widespread digital spread spectrum technology and encryption has made eavesdropping increasingly difficult. A problem with recording

785-485: A warrant to search a person. However, telephone tapping is the subject of controversy surrounding violations of this right. There are arguments that wiretapping invades a person's personal privacy and therefore violates their Fourth Amendment rights. On the other hand, there are certain rules and regulations, which permit wiretapping. A notable example of this is the Patriot Act , which, in certain circumstances, gives

942-470: A ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out". Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in

1099-592: A closer relationship with France and Britain. In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement , the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain. Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in

1256-415: A continuous circuit and disconnect the wires when the call ended). All other telephone services, such as call forwarding and message taking, were handled by human operators. The earliest wiretaps were extra wires — physically inserted to the line between the switchboard and the subscriber — that carried the signal to a pair of earphones and a recorder. Later, wiretaps were installed at the central office on

1413-536: A conversation, which requires that it is expected to reveal evidence to a crime. State agents may record conversations, but must obtain a warrant to use them as evidence in court. The history of voice communication technology began in 1876 with the invention of Alexander Graham Bell 's telephone. In the 1890s, "law enforcement agencies begin tapping wires on early telephone networks". Remote voice communications "were carried almost exclusively by circuit-switched systems," where telephone switches would connect wires to form

1570-420: A direct tap much better. Mobile phones are, in surveillance terms, a major liability. For mobile phones the major threat is the collection of communications data. This data does not only include information about the time, duration, originator and recipient of the call, but also the identification of the base station where the call was made from, which equals its approximate geographical location. This data

1727-407: A fleet of strategic bombers and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers. Telephone tapping Lawful interception

SECTION 10

#1732765931508

1884-827: A full member of the Central Committee and later a full member of the Politburo in 1978. Following the death of Brezhnev and his successor Yuri Andropov , Chernenko was elected General Secretary in February 1984 and made Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in April 1984. However, due to his rapidly failing health, he was often unable to fulfill his official duties. He died in March 1985 after leading

2041-528: A greater role for the labour unions , and reform in education and propaganda . The one major personnel change Chernenko made was the dismissal of the Chief of the General Staff , Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov . Ogarkov was subsequently replaced by Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev . In foreign policy , he negotiated a trade deal with China . Despite calls for renewed détente , Chernenko did little to prevent

2198-519: A greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии , romanized : Soyuz Sovyetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii ). Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began as socialist soviet and did not change to

2355-788: A history of presidential operations that had used surveillance on domestic and foreign political organizations. A difference between US wiretapping in the US and elsewhere is that, when operating in other countries, "American intelligence services could not place wiretaps on phone lines as easily as they could in the U.S." Also, in the US, wiretapping is regarded as an extreme investigative technique, while communications are often intercepted in some other countries. The National Security Agency (NSA) "spends billions of dollars every year intercepting foreign communications from ground bases, ships, airplanes and satellites". FISA distinguishes between U.S. persons and foreigners, between communications inside and outside

2512-564: A list of all calls to a specific number can be obtained by sorting billing records. A telephone tap during which only the call information is recorded but not the contents of the phone calls themselves, is called a pen register tap. For telephone services via digital exchanges, the information collected may additionally include a log of the type of communications media being used (some services treat data and voice communications differently, in order to conserve bandwidth). Conversations can be recorded or monitored unofficially, either by tapping by

2669-597: A new profitable market. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labour unions or other organizations on the left, which they labelled social fascists . In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, the epithet fascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with

2826-615: A party to record a conversation if one party to the conversation consented, but the Nevada Supreme Court issued two judicial opinions changing the law and requiring all parties to consent to the recording of a private conversation for it to be legal. It is considered better practice to announce at the beginning of a call that the conversation is being recorded. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects privacy rights by requiring

2983-568: A reply to parliament question no. 595 on scope, objectives and framework of the CMS has struck a balance between national security, online privacy and free speech informed that to take care of the privacy of citizens, lawful interception and monitoring is governed by the Section 5(2) of Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with Rule 419A of Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2007 wherein oversight mechanism exists in form of review committee under chairmanship of

3140-441: A second line and it is impossible to tell whether a line is being tapped. A well-designed tap installed on a phone wire can be difficult to detect. In some places, some law enforcement may be able to even access a mobile phone's internal microphone even while it isn't actively being used on a phone call (unless the battery is removed or drained). The noises that some people believe to be telephone taps are simply crosstalk created by

3297-729: A series of propaganda posts, in 1948 he became the head of the propaganda department in Moldavia , serving under Leonid Brezhnev . After Brezhnev took over as First Secretary of the CPSU in 1964, Chernenko was appointed to head the General Department of the Central Committee . In this capacity, he became responsible for setting the agenda for the Politburo and drafting Central Committee decrees. By 1971 Chernenko became

SECTION 20

#1732765931508

3454-531: A son, Vladimir. In 2015 archival documents were published, according to which Chernenko had many more wives, and many more children with them; this circumstance, perhaps, was the reason for the slowing of Chernenko's career growth in the 1940s. Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ), commonly known as the Soviet Union , was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. During its existence, it

3611-606: A specific federal statute (FISA) and the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution . The President claimed his authorization was consistent with other federal statutes ( AUMF ) and other provisions of the Constitution, also stating that it was necessary to keep America safe from terrorism and could lead to the capture of notorious terrorists responsible for

3768-631: A status that is retained by the Russian Federation . Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America . Two other successor states, Kazakhstan and Ukraine , rank among the top 10 countries by land area, and the largest country entirely in Europe, respectively. The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to

3925-407: A telephone conversation is that the recorded volume of the two speakers may be very different. A simple tap will have this problem. An in-ear microphone, while involving an additional distorting step by converting the electrical signal to sound and back again, in practice gives better-matched volume. Dedicated, and relatively expensive, telephone recording equipment equalizes the sound at both ends from

4082-611: A televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow, where the General Secretary stood as candidate for the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR , when Politburo member Viktor Grishin revealed that the General Secretary was absent in accordance with doctors' advice. Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation, Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to

4239-519: A third party without the knowledge of the parties to the conversation or recorded by one of the parties. This may or may not be illegal, according to the circumstances and the jurisdiction. There are a number of ways to monitor telephone conversations. One of the parties may record the conversation, either on a tape or solid-state recording device, or they may use a computer running call recording software . The recording, whether overt or covert, may be started manually, automatically when it detects sound on

4396-475: A union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians . The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as 'Russia'. While the Russian SFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and area), most powerful, and most highly developed. The Russian SFSR

4553-573: Is derived from the Russian word sovet (Russian: совет ), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice', ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of * vět-iti ('to inform'), related to Slavic věst ('news'), English wise . The word sovietnik means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called council (Russian: совет ). In the Russian Empire ,

4710-523: Is his background, his education , his profession . These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror ." During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , or by

4867-749: Is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that could cause serious harm to any person or to property. This was introduced by Rob Nicholson on February 11, 2013, and is also known as Bill C-55. The Supreme Court gave Parliament twelve months to rewrite a new law. Bill C-51 (also known as the Anti-Terrorism Act) was then released in 2015, which transformed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service from an intelligence-gathering agency to an agency actively engaged in countering national security threats. Legal protection extends to 'private communications' where

Konstantin Chernenko - Misplaced Pages Continue

5024-401: Is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard privacy ; this is the case in all liberal democracies . In theory, telephone tapping often needs to be authorized by a court , and is again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive ways. Oftentimes, the law and regulations require that

5181-517: Is stored with the details of the call and has utmost importance for traffic analysis . It is also possible to get greater resolution of a phone's location by combining information from a number of cells surrounding the location, which cells routinely communicate (to agree on the next handoff—for a moving phone) and measuring the timing advance , a correction for the speed of light in the GSM standard. This additional precision must be specifically enabled by

5338-401: Is used to monitor websites that presumably contain dangerous or sensitive materials, and the people that access them. It is allowed in the US by the Patriot Act , but is considered a questionable practice by many. In Canada, anyone is legally allowed to record a conversation as long as they are involved in the conversation. The police must apply for a warrant beforehand to legally eavesdrop on

5495-617: The Axis powers , suffering an estimated 27 million casualties , which accounted for most Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war , the Soviet Union consolidated the territory occupied by the Red Army , forming satellite states , and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower . Geopolitical tensions with the US led to the Cold War . The American-led Western Bloc coalesced into NATO in 1949, prompting

5652-520: The Council of People's Commissars ), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society. State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of

5809-725: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) wanted to expand CALEA requirements to VoIP service.” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in August 2005 that “broadband-service providers and interconnected VoIP providers fall within CALEA's scope. Currently, instant messaging, web boards and site visits are not included in CALEA's jurisdiction. In 2007 Congress amended FISA to "allow

5966-986: The Federal Communications Commission was asked to clarify how the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) related to Internet service providers. The FCC stated that “providers of broadband Internet access and voice over Internet protocol (“VoIP”) services are regulable as “telecommunications carriers” under the Act.” Those affected by the Act will have to provide access to law enforcement officers who need to monitor or intercept communications transmitted through their networks. As of 2009, warrantless surveillance of internet activity has consistently been upheld in FISA court . The Internet Engineering Task Force has decided not to consider requirements for wiretapping as part of

6123-614: The Greek telephone tapping case 2004–2005 more than 100 mobile phone numbers belonging mostly to members of the Greek government, including the Prime Minister of Greece , and top-ranking civil servants were found to have been illegally tapped for a period of at least one year. The Greek government concluded this had been done by a foreign intelligence agency, for security reasons related to the 2004 Olympic Games , by unlawfully activating

6280-593: The Gulag was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact , but in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II . The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating

6437-755: The Land Forces , the Air Force , the Navy , Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and the Internal Troops . The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the NKVD secret police, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in

Konstantin Chernenko - Misplaced Pages Continue

6594-528: The Moscow State Institute of International Relations . The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions. During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it

6751-657: The Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia , was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones , and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra , taiga , steppes , desert and mountains . The USSR, like Russia , had the world's longest border , measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it

6908-790: The Popular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all anti-Fascist political, labour, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism , especially of the Nazi variety. The rapid growth of power in Nazi Germany encouraged both Paris and Moscow to form a military alliance, and the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed in May 1935. A firm believer in collective security, Stalin's foreign minister Maxim Litvinov worked very hard to form

7065-472: The September 11 attacks in 2001. In 2008, Wired and other media reported a lamplighter disclosed a "Quantico Circuit", a 45-megabit/second DS-3 line linking a carrier's most sensitive network in an affidavit that was the basis for a lawsuit against Verizon Wireless. The circuit provides direct access to all content and all information concerning the origin and termination of telephone calls placed on

7222-849: The Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet–Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist . In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted to head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. Chernenko steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of

7379-411: The Soviet republics , and the control of the Communist Party weakened. The failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Gorbachev by hardline communists hastened the end of the Soviet Union , which formally dissolved on December 26, 1991, ending nearly seven decades of Soviet rule. With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country,

7536-772: The State Council , which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers. The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the 1905 Russian Revolution . Although they were quickly suppressed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917 , workers' and soldiers' Soviets emerged throughout the country and shared power with the Russian Provisional Government . The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin , demanded that all power be transferred to

7693-721: The Summer Olympics held in Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan . The following 1984 Summer Olympics were due to be held in Los Angeles , California . On 8 May 1984, under Chernenko's leadership, the USSR announced its intention not to participate in the Games , claiming "security concerns and chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States". The boycott

7850-408: The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court , a court with secret proceedings, or in certain circumstances from the Attorney General without a court order. The telephone call recording laws in most U.S. states require only one party to be aware of the recording, while twelve states require both parties to be aware. In Nevada, the state legislature enacted a law making it legal for

8007-489: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), saying that it was "overly juridical" and potentially infringed on national sovereignty. The Soviet Union later signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 (and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ), but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by

SECTION 50

#1732765931508

8164-527: The coupling of signals from other phone lines. Data on the calling and called number, time of call and duration, will generally be collected automatically on all calls and stored for later use by the billing department of the phone company. These data can be accessed by security services, often with fewer legal restrictions than for a tap. This information used to be collected using special equipment known as pen registers and trap and trace devices and U.S. law still refers to it under those names. Today,

8321-496: The largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world . As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council . Before its dissolution, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomatic and ideological influence (particularly in the Global South ), military and economic strengths, and scientific accomplishments. The word soviet

8478-485: The right to food , the right to work , and the right to education . The Soviet conception of human rights was very different from international law . According to Soviet legal theory , "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the individual". The Soviet state was considered as the source of human rights. Therefore, the Soviet legal system considered law an arm of politics and it also considered courts agencies of

8635-481: The 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union , concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR , to himself. Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling

8792-424: The 1950s, the Soviet Union expanded its efforts in space exploration and took a lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite , the first human spaceflight , the first space station , and the first probe to land on another planet . In 1985, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev , sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika . In 1989, various countries of

8949-432: The 1990s to the present, the majority of communications between fixed locations has been achieved by fiber. Because these fiber communications are wired, they are protected under U.S. law. In 1978, the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created a "secret federal court" for issuing wiretap warrants in national security cases. This was in response to findings from the Watergate break-in, which allegedly uncovered

9106-432: The 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissioned nuclear submarines , and the processing of nuclear waste or spent nuclear fuel . It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to the Barents Sea and Kara Sea , which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of the K-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in

9263-474: The 30–300 GHz range to keep up with telephone technology compared to the 772 kHz systems used in the past. The transmitter may be powered from the line to be maintenance-free, and only transmits when a call is in progress. These devices are low-powered as not much power can be drawn from the line, but a state-of-the-art receiver could be located as far away as ten kilometers under ideal conditions, though usually located much closer. Research has shown that

9420-417: The Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) was invented by Wayne Howe and Dale Malik at BellSouth's Advanced Technology R&D group in 1995 and was issued as US Patent #5,590,171. Telephone services provided by cable TV companies also use digital switching technology. If the tap is implemented at a digital switch , the switching computer simply copies the digitized bits that represent the phone conversation to

9577-427: The CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees , local Soviets and executive committees . While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary. The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies ) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Red Terror and Great Purge , but

SECTION 60

#1732765931508

9734-434: The Cabinet Secretary at Central Government level and Chief Secretary of the State at the state government level. Section 5(2) also allows the government to intercept messages that are public emergencies or for public safety. In Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is authorised by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication to intercept and trace telecommunications, as stipulated under Section 54 of

9891-411: The Communist authorities. Under Joseph Stalin , the death penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935. Sergei Kovalev recalled "the famous article 125 of the Constitution which enumerated all basic civil and political rights" in the Soviet Union. But when he and other prisoners attempted to use this as a legal basis for their abuse complaints, their prosecutor's argument

10048-423: The General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a facsimile was used instead). In 1971 Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence. In 1976 he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau. He became Candidate in 1977, and in 1978 a full member of the Politburo, second to the General Secretary in

10205-509: The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 shall not be issued except by an order made by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Home Affairs in the case of Government of India and by the Secretary to the State Government in-charge of the Home Department in the case of a state government. The government has set up the Centralized Monitoring System (CMS) to automate the process of lawful interception and monitoring of telecommunications technology. The government of India on 2015 December 2 in

10362-484: The Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment before being named Deputy Head of the Agitprop Department of Krasnoyarsk's Territorial Committee in 1939. In the early 1940s, he began a close relationship with Fyodor Kulakov and was named Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda. By 1945 he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow then later finished a correspondence course for schoolteachers in 1953. The turning point in Chernenko's career

10519-470: The Nazis. This was done through an isolated rental property just outside of Paris . Keller's group became known to SOE (and later Allied military intelligence generally) as "Source K". They were later betrayed by a mole within the French resistance, and Keller was murdered in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945. The first computerized telephone switch was developed by Bell Labs in 1965; it did not support standard wiretapping techniques. In

10676-411: The Party hierarchy. During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in ideological Party work : heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and working as a member of the commission that revised the Soviet Constitution in 1977. In 1979 he took part in the Vienna arms limitation talks . After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, there

10833-481: The Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal, itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee. All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party. Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from

10990-420: The Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС has been taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is associated with the infamous Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany , as SS is in English. In English-language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that, for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it

11147-495: The Russians if they keep dying on me?" Chernenko was honored with a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis , in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall . He is the last person to have been interred there. The impact of Chernenko—or the lack thereof—was evident in the way in which his death was reported in the Soviet press. Soviet newspapers carried stories about Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selection on

11304-580: The Soviet Union and turned into SSRs, which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation . After the Soviet invasion of Finland , the Karelo-Finnish SSR was formed on annexed territory as a Union Republic in March 1940 and then incorporated into Russia as the Karelian ASSR in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below). While nominally

11461-529: The Soviet Union . Boris Yeltsin , the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation , which became the Soviet Union's successor state; all other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states . During its existence, the Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations . It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An NPT-designated state , it wielded

11618-507: The Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact , in 1955. Neither side engaged in direct military confrontation, and instead fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . In 1953, following Stalin's death , the Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev , which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China . During

11775-662: The Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with the United Kingdom , Vyacheslav Molotov dropped his post war border demands. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc , which began following World War II in 1945. The term cold war is used because there

11932-594: The Soviet Union's superpower status, the economy struggled due to its centralized nature, technological backwardness, and inefficiencies. The vast military expenditures and burdens of maintaining the Eastern Bloc, further strained the Soviet economy. In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev 's policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) aimed to revitalize the Soviet system but instead accelerated its unraveling. Nationalist movements gained momentum across

12089-483: The Soviet authorities admitted. The Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. In 1988, total emissions in the Soviet Union were about 79% of those in the United States. But since the Soviet GNP was only 54% of that of the United States, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the United States per unit of GNP. The Soviet Chernobyl disaster in 1986

12246-757: The Soviets, and gained support from the workers and soldiers. After the October Revolution , in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets, Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR). During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national Soviet republics to form

12403-472: The Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet ,

12560-496: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that wiretapping (or “intercepting communications”) requires a warrant in Katz v. United States . In 1968 Congress passed a law that provided warrants for wiretapping in criminal investigations. In the 1970s, optical fibers become a medium for telecommunications. These fiber lines, "long, thin strands of glass that carry signals via laser light," are more secure than radio and have become very cheap. From

12717-481: The U.S., and between wired and wireless communications. Wired communications within the United States are protected, since intercepting them requires a warrant, but there is no regulation of US wiretapping elsewhere. In 1994, Congress approved the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which “requires telephone companies to be able to install more effective wiretaps. In 2004,

12874-430: The USSR. Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it

13031-469: The Warsaw Pact overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes , and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to preserve the country as a renewed federation , an attempted coup against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the largest republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of

13188-503: The accident, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005). Another major radioactive accident was the Kyshtym disaster . The Kola Peninsula was one of the places with major problems. Around the industrial cities of Monchegorsk and Norilsk , where nickel , for example, is mined, all forests have been destroyed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions. During

13345-411: The audio. To the mobile phones in its vicinity, a device called an " IMSI-catcher " pretends to be a legitimate base station of the mobile phone network, thus subjecting the communication between the phone and the network to a man-in-the-middle attack . This is possible because, while the mobile phone has to authenticate itself to the mobile telephone network, the network does not authenticate itself to

13502-640: The communications of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The wiretaps remained in place until April 1965 at his home and June 1966 at his office. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent entry of the United States into World War II , the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on the legality of wiretapping for national defense. Significant legislation and judicial decisions on the legality and constitutionality of wiretapping had taken place years before World War II. However, it took on new urgency at that time of national crisis. The actions of

13659-567: The country for only 13 months, and was succeeded as General Secretary by Mikhail Gorbachev . Chernenko was born to a poor family of Ukrainian ethnicity in the Siberian village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District , Krasnoyarsk Krai ) on 24 September 1911. Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929. By 1931 he became a full member of the ruling Communist Party. From 1930 to 1933, he served in

13816-450: The country was announced. India , Iraq , Syria and Nicaragua all declared three days of mourning; Pakistan declared two days of mourning; East Germany and Czechoslovakia declared one day of mourning. Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President Ronald Reagan is reported to have remarked, "How am I supposed to get anyplace with

13973-501: The country was limited. The state restricted rights of citizens to private property . According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , human rights are the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." including the right to life and liberty , freedom of expression , and equality before the law ; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture ,

14130-716: The creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the government budget . The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium (successor of the Central Executive Committee ) to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court , the Procurator General and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as

14287-596: The crime investigated must be at least of a certain severity. Illegal or unauthorized telephone tapping is often a criminal offense. In certain jurisdictions, such as Germany and France , courts will accept illegally recorded phone calls without the other party's consent as evidence, but the unauthorized telephone tapping will still be prosecuted. In the United States , under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act , federal intelligence agencies can get approval for wiretaps from

14444-464: The degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They were not controlled by

14601-606: The duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in

14758-436: The escalation of the Cold War with the United States. For example, in 1984 the Soviet Union prevented a visit to West Germany by East German leader Erich Honecker . However, in late autumn of 1984, the U.S. and the Soviet Union did agree to resume arms control talks in early 1985. In November 1984 Chernenko met with Britain's Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock . In 1980 the United States led an international boycott of

14915-779: The founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan PSPs . In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR

15072-667: The frames that held the incoming wires. In late 1940, the Nazis tried to secure some telephone lines between their forward headquarters in Paris and a variety of Fuhrerbunkers in Germany. They did this by constantly monitoring the voltage on the lines, looking for any sudden drops or increases in voltage indicating that other wiring had been attached. However, the French telephone engineer Robert Keller succeeded in attaching taps without alerting

15229-410: The general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism , demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above. The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over the system of appointments . All senior government officials and most deputies of

15386-525: The globe. The post-Stalin leadership, particularly under Nikita Khrushchev , initiated a de-Stalinization process, leading to a period of liberalization and relative openness known as the Khrushchev Thaw . However, the subsequent era under Leonid Brezhnev , referred to as the Era of Stagnation , was marked by economic decline, political corruption, and a rigid gerontocracy . Despite efforts to maintain

15543-399: The government permission to wiretap citizens. In addition, wiretapping laws vary per state , making it even more difficult to determine whether the Fourth Amendment is being violated. In Canadian law, police are allowed to wiretap without the authorization from a court when there is the risk for imminent harm, such as kidnapping or a bomb threat . They must believe that the interception

15700-518: The government regarding wiretapping for the purpose of national defense in the current war on terror have drawn considerable attention and criticism. In the World War II era, the public was also aware of the controversy over the question of the constitutionality and legality of wiretapping. Furthermore, the public was concerned with the decisions that the legislative and judicial branches of the government were making regarding wiretapping. In 1967,

15857-403: The government to monitor more communications without a warrant". In 2008 President George W. Bush expanded the surveillance of internet traffic to and from the U.S. government by signing a national security directive. The NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–2007) controversy was discovered in December 2005. It aroused much controversy after then President George W. Bush admitted to violating

16014-497: The government. Extensive extrajudicial powers were given to the Soviet secret police agencies . In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed the rule of law , civil liberties , protection of law and guarantees of property , which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky . The USSR and other countries in the Soviet Bloc had abstained from affirming

16171-402: The highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989, the first in Soviet history. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since

16328-472: The implementation of socialist policies and the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for market-oriented reforms. The rise of Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s ushered in an era of intense centralization and totalitarianism. Stalin's rule was characterized by the forced collectivization of agriculture , rapid industrialization , and the Great Purge , which eliminated perceived enemies of

16485-486: The interception of communications for law enforcement purposes under the terms of Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). When telephone exchanges were mechanical, a tap had to be installed by technicians, linking circuits together to route the audio signal from the call. Now that many exchanges have been converted to digital technology, tapping is far simpler and can be ordered remotely by computer. This central office switch wiretapping technology using

16642-435: The interim, he was forced to govern the country as part of a triumvirate alongside Defense Minister Dmitriy Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko . This became a growing problem as Chernenko's illness led him to miss meetings with increasing frequency. At Andropov's funeral, Chernenko could barely read the eulogy . Chernenko represented a return to the policies of the late Brezhnev era. Nevertheless, he supported

16799-545: The last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, Yevgeny I. Chazov, Chernenko had also developed both chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver. On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a coma and died later that evening at 19:20, at age 73. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of chronic emphysema , an enlarged and damaged heart, congestive heart failure and liver cirrhosis . A three-day period of mourning across

16956-542: The lawful interception subsystem of the Vodafone Greece mobile network. An Italian tapping case which surfaced in November 2007 revealed significant manipulation of the news at the national television company RAI . Many state legislatures in the United States enacted statutes that prohibited anyone from listening in on telegraph communication. Telephone wiretapping began in the 1890s, and its constitutionality

17113-447: The line ( VOX ), or automatically whenever the phone is off the hook. The conversation may be monitored (listened to or recorded) covertly by a third party by using an induction coil or a direct electrical connection to the line using a beige box . An induction coil is usually placed underneath the base of a telephone or on the back of a telephone handset to pick up the signal inductively. An electrical connection can be made anywhere in

17270-427: The mandate to set the Politburo agenda and prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored telephone wiretaps and covert listening devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to

17427-645: The memory and heritage of I.V. Stalin", which presumably referred to Stalin's political rehabilitation. Chernenko started smoking at the age of nine, and he was always known to be a heavy smoker as an adult. Long before his election as general secretary, he had developed emphysema and right-sided heart failure . In 1983 he had been absent from his duties for three months due to bronchitis , pleurisy and pneumonia . Historian John Lewis Gaddis described him as "an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not" when he succeeded Andropov in 1984. In early 1984 Chernenko

17584-541: The most common Russian initialization is Союз ССР (transliteration: Soyuz SSR ) which essentially translates to Union of SSRs in English. In addition, the Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovyetsky Soyuz , which literally means Soviet Union ) is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of the Great Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating

17741-417: The newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR , and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt . The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power 'in the period of transition'. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR. The judiciary

17898-400: The nominal head of state . The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations . However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party, nor

18055-608: The official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force fourth, and Navy fifth). The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis , under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov , it expanded significantly. It became known for battlecruisers and submarines. In 1989, there served 500 000 men. The Soviet Air Force focused on

18212-420: The only legal party and the final policymaker in the country. At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee , elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966), Secretariat and the general secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union. Depending on

18369-694: The other order until 1936 . In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the word council or conciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian soviet and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR . СССР (in the Latin alphabet: SSSR ) is the abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters . The Soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this,

18526-400: The participants would not expect unintended persons to learn the content of the communication. A single participant can legally, and covertly record a conversation. Otherwise police normally need a judicial warrant based upon probable grounds to record a conversation they are not a part of. In order to be valid wiretap authorization must state: 1) the offense being investigated by the wiretap, 2)

18683-570: The partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II . Up until his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during the interwar period . Despite the increasing build-up of Germany 's war machine and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path. However, after Operation Barbarossa ,

18840-482: The party's highest body the Politburo . Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs . It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in

18997-478: The phone. There is no defense against IMSI-catcher based eavesdropping, except using end-to-end call encryption; products offering this feature, secure telephones , are already beginning to appear on the market, though they tend to be expensive and incompatible with each other, which limits their proliferation. Logging the IP addresses of users that access certain websites is commonly called "webtapping". Webtapping

19154-590: The process for creating and maintaining IETF standards. Typically, illegal Internet wiretapping is conducted via Wi-Fi connection to someone's Internet by cracking the WEP or WPA key, using a tool such as Aircrack-ng or Kismet . Once in, the intruder relies on a number of potential tactics, for example an ARP spoofing attack, allowing the intruder to view packets in a tool such as Wireshark or Ettercap . The first generation mobile phones ( c.  1978 through 1990) could be easily monitored by anyone with

19311-467: The relevant Act, in July 2024. Under the authorization, ISI officers of at least grade 18, subject to periodic designation, are empowered to surveil calls and messages. The contracts or licenses by which the state controls telephone companies often require that the companies must provide access to tapping lines to law enforcement. In the U.S., telecommunications carriers are required by law to cooperate in

19468-417: The same day. The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected Mikhail Gorbachev and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary. After the death of a Soviet leader it was customary for his successors to open his safe. When Gorbachev had Chernenko's safe opened, it

19625-597: The state. The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II , but at a tremendous human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict. The Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, leading the Eastern Bloc in opposition to the Western Bloc during the Cold War . This period saw the USSR engage in an arms race, the Space Race , and proxy wars around

19782-469: The struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare , propaganda campaigns, espionage , far-reaching embargoes , rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race . Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs), all four being

19939-528: The telephone company—it is not part of the network's ordinary operation. In 1995, Peter Garza , a Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service , conducted the first court-ordered Internet wiretap in the United States while investigating Julio Cesar "Griton" Ardita. As technologies emerge, including VoIP , new questions are raised about law enforcement access to communications (see VoIP recording ). In 2004,

20096-431: The telephone system, and need not be in the same premises as the telephone. Some apparatus may require occasional access to replace batteries or tapes. Poorly designed tapping or transmitting equipment can cause interference audible to users of the telephone. The tapped signal may either be recorded at the site of the tap or transmitted by radio or over the telephone wires. As of 2007 state-of-the-art equipment operates in

20253-492: The truth". Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labour unions , private corporations , independent churches or opposition political parties . The freedom of movement within and especially outside

20410-544: The type of communication, 3) the identity of the people or places targeted, 4) the period of validity (60 days from issue). In India, the lawful interception of communication by authorized law enforcement agencies (LEAs) is carried out in accordance with Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with Rule 419A of Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2007. Directions for interception of any message or class of messages under sub-section (2) of Section 5 of

20567-527: The west further raised concerns. In the past, there were accidents involving submarines K-19 , K-8 , a K-129 , K-27 , K-219 and K-278 Komsomolets . There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the government represented by the Council of Ministers , and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),

20724-465: The world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran ), and Lake Baikal , the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia. Neighbouring countries were aware of the high levels of pollution in the Soviet Union but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was discovered that its environmental problems were greater than what

20881-562: Was a coastline . The country bordered Afghanistan , the People's Republic of China , Czechoslovakia , Finland , Hungary , Iran , Mongolia , North Korea , Norway , Poland , Romania , and Turkey from 1945 to 1991. The Bering Strait separated the USSR from the United States . The country's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak ) in Tajikistan , at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The USSR also included most of

21038-539: Was also the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was 'window dressing' for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were usually called 'Russians', not 'Soviets', since 'everyone knew who really ran the show'. Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of

21195-483: Was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov , the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The constitution , which

21352-540: Was carried out within the terms of the Soviet Civil Code. Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt. Martin Latsis , chief of Soviet Ukraine 's secret police explained: "Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what

21509-542: Was colloquially, but incorrectly, referred to as Russia . The history of the Soviet Union began with the ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following the Russian Civil War , the Soviet Union quickly became a one-party state under the Communist Party . Its early years under Lenin were marked by

21666-404: Was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia , Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from the Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status. In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of Ukraine and Soviet-occupied Bessarabia , and Ukrainian SSR. Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania were also annexed by

21823-523: Was established in the Prohibition -Era conviction of bootlegger Roy Olmstead . Wiretapping has also been carried out in the US under most presidents, sometimes with a lawful warrant since the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional in 1928. On October 19, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy , who served under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson , authorized the FBI to begin wiretapping

21980-413: Was found to contain a small folder of personal papers and several large bundles of money; more money was found in his desk. It is not known where he had obtained the money or what he intended to use it for. Chernenko had a son with his first wife, Faina Vassilyevna Chernenko, named Albert . With his second wife, Anna Dmitrevna Lyubimova , who married him in 1944, he had two daughters, Yelena and Vera, and

22137-665: Was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic . There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev , the first secretary of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960 after Brezhnev

22294-459: Was hospitalized for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to Kislovodsk for the mineral spas , but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but

22451-641: Was joined by 14 Eastern Bloc satellites and allies, including Cuba (but not Romania ). The action was widely seen as revenge for the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games. The boycotting countries organised their own " Friendship Games " in the summer of 1984. Before his death, Chernenko signed preliminary documents stating that on 9 May 1985, on the day of the 40th Victory Day Parade, the city of Volgograd would be renamed to Stalingrad. In his letter to Stalin 's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva , he wrote about "the upcoming restoration of justice in relation to

22608-464: Was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff. In 1964 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, and succeeded by Brezhnev. During Brezhnev's tenure as Party leader, Chernenko's career continued successfully. He was nominated in 1965 as head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given

22765-424: Was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers , but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars . The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment,

22922-534: Was not accepted by all within the Russian Republic , resulting in the Russian Civil War . The RSFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into the Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth but contributed to a famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system of

23079-450: Was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts ( People's Court ) 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 used the inquisitorial system of Roman law , where the judge, procurator , and defence attorney collaborate to "establish

23236-433: Was promulgated in 1924 , 1936 and 1977 , did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in

23393-477: Was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924. All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of

23550-491: Was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy within the Party. Ultimately, KGB chief Yuri Andropov , who had been more mindful of Brezhnev's failing health, eventually won the position. Yuri Andropov died on 9 February 1984 at age 69 in Moscow Central Clinical Hospital of kidney failure . Chernenko

23707-482: Was that "the Constitution was written not for you, but for American Negroes, so that they know how happy the lives of Soviet citizens are". Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, instead, it was determined as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example, a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. The liquidation and deportation of millions of peasants in 1928–31

23864-413: Was the largest country by area , extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries , and the third-most populous country . An overall successor to the Russian Empire , it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics , the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR . In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized . As

24021-587: Was the Russian responsibility to assist them. The Comintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic —lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help. By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became

24178-404: Was the first major accident at a civilian nuclear power plant . Unparalleled in the world, it resulted in a large number of radioactive isotopes being released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses were scattered relatively far. Although long-term effects of the accident were unknown, 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer which resulted from the accident's contamination were reported at the time of

24335-486: Was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned . The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets ) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including

24492-407: Was then elected to replace Andropov even though the latter stated he wanted Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed him. Additionally, Chernenko was terminally ill himself. At the time of his ascent to the country's top post, Chernenko was primarily viewed as a transitional leader who could give the Politburo's "Old Guard" time to choose an acceptable candidate from the next generation of Soviet leadership. In

24649-487: Was unable to walk through the corridors and was driven in a wheelchair. By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the Central Clinical Hospital , a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 during

#507492