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Teamsters Union

(Encyclopedia)Teamsters Union, U.S. labor union formed in 1903 by the amalgamation of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union. Its full name is the International Brotherhood of Teamste...

French Union

(Encyclopedia)French Union, 1946–58, political entity established by the French constitution of 1946. It comprised metropolitan France (the 90 departments of continental France and Corsica); French overseas depar...

Kalmar Union

(Encyclopedia)Kalmar Union, combination of the three crowns of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, effected at Kalmar, Sweden, by Queen Margaret I in 1397. Because the kingship was elective in all three countries, the uni...

perestroika

(Encyclopedia)perestroika pərˈĕstroyˈkə [key], Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s. Perestroika [restructuring] was the term attached to the attempts (1985–91) by Mikhail Gorbachev to transfo...

Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich

(Encyclopedia)Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich lāyōnēdˈ ĭlyēchˈ brĕzhˈnĕf [key], 1906–82, Soviet leader. He joined (1931) the Communist party and rose steadily in its hierarchy. In 1952 he became a secretary of ...

Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich

(Encyclopedia)Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich vyĕˌchĭsläfˈ mēkhīˈləvĭch môˈlətəf [key], 1890–1986, Soviet political leader. A Communist from 1906, he changed his name from Skriabin to Molotov [the ...

Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich

(Encyclopedia)Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich yo͞oˈrē vlədyēˈmĭravĭch əndrôˈpôf [key], 1914–84, Soviet Communist leader (1982–84). As ambassador to Hungary from 1954 to 1957, he played a major role in ...

industrial union

(Encyclopedia)industrial union, labor union composed of all the workers in a given industry, regardless of skill, craft, or occupation (as opposed to the craft union, in which all members are of one skill, such as ...

communism

(Encyclopedia)communism, fundamentally, a system of social organization in which property (especially real property and the means of production) is held in common. Thus, the ejido system of the indigenous people of...

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