History terms in Political and economic transitions

The Indigenous people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, whose lands were colonised and culture suppressed by the Meiji state.

The treaty signed on 16 July 1894 under which Britain agreed to end extraterritoriality in Japan from 1899, the first revision of the unequal treaties.

The repression of 1858–1859 in which the shogunate's chief minister Ii Naosuke punished daimyō, court nobles and activists who opposed his treaty and succession policies.

Gorbachev's campaign from May 1985 to cut drinking by reducing the production and sale of alcohol; it reduced deaths for a time but cost the state large tax revenues.

The article of the 1977 Soviet constitution that made the Communist Party the "leading and guiding force" of Soviet society; it was amended in March 1990, ending the party's legal monopoly.

The government of the shogun (literally "tent government"), with its councils, officials and finances based in Edo.

The political order of Tokugawa Japan, combining the shogun's government (bakufu) with the semi-independent domains (han) of the daimyō.

A term for the Russian economy of the 1990s, in which business, organised crime and violence were closely linked.

The exchange of goods for other goods without money; in 1990s Russia it was widely used by enterprises to avoid taxes and make up for a shortage of cash.

The agreement of 8 December 1991 in which the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declared that the USSR had ceased to exist and created the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Rural risings of 1873 against conscription and other reforms, named after the phrase "blood tax" in the conscription ordinance, which rumour took literally.

The civil war of January 1868 to June 1869 in which the forces of the new imperial government, led by Satsuma and Chōshū, defeated supporters of the Tokugawa.

The Soviet claim, made after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, that socialist states had the right to intervene by force when socialism was threatened in any of them.

The amount by which a government's spending is greater than its revenue in a year, which must be covered by borrowing or printing money.

"Civilisation and enlightenment": the early Meiji movement to adopt Western institutions, learning and customs.

The five-article statement of aims sworn by Emperor Meiji on 6 April 1868, promising deliberative assemblies, unity of all classes, the end of evil customs and the search for knowledge abroad.

The armed rising of indebted farmers in Chichibu, north-west of Tokyo, in October–November 1884, crushed by the army; the largest rural revolt of the Meiji period.

The loose association of former Soviet republics created in December 1991 to replace the USSR, with no common government.

The successor to the Soviet Communist Party in Russia, founded in 1993 and led by Gennady Zyuganov; the largest opposition party of the 1990s.

The ruling party of the USSR, which held a legal monopoly of power until 1990 and controlled the state, economy and society through its own hierarchy. It was banned in Russia in November 1991.

The large parliament created in the USSR in 1989, partly through contested elections, and the similar body elected in Russia in 1990, which was dissolved by Yeltsin in 1993.

Compulsory enlistment of people, usually young men, into the armed forces by law.

A lord who ruled one of the roughly 260 domains (han) of Tokugawa Japan, with his own samurai, laws and taxes, under the control of the shogun.

Yeltsin's decree of 21 September 1993 dissolving the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet, which the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional and which led to the October crisis.

A term coined by the political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell for a system with free elections in which the elected president governs with few checks from parliament or the courts.

The name given by Gorbachev and his supporters to the late Brezhnev years (roughly 1970–1985), when Soviet economic growth slowed and the political system resisted change.

The right of foreigners to be tried under their own country's law, usually by their own consuls, rather than in the courts of the country where they live.

The treaties of March 1992 that set out the powers of Russia's regions and republics; Chechnya and Tatarstan refused to sign.

The movement of the 1870s and 1880s, begun by former officials such as Itagaki Taisuke, that demanded an elected national assembly, a constitution and civil rights.

"Rich country, strong army": the Meiji slogan for building industry and modern armed forces together to protect Japan's independence.

The Education System Order of 1872, which planned universal elementary schooling for boys and girls throughout Japan.

The head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and, in practice, the most powerful person in the USSR.

"Elder statesmen": the senior surviving Meiji oligarchs, such as Itō Hirobumi and Yamagata Aritomo, who advised the emperor informally from the 1890s and chose prime ministers.

Rule by old people; critics used the word for the ageing circle around Porfirio Díaz in Mexico by 1910 and for the Soviet leadership of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when several elderly and ill leaders died in office.

The Russian government's short-term rouble bonds, issued from 1993 at high interest rates; the government defaulted on them in August 1998.

"Openness": Gorbachev's policy, from 1986, of allowing more open discussion of the USSR's problems and past in the media and public life.

The Soviet state planning agency, which set production targets, prices and supplies for enterprises across the economy.

The abolition of the domains and their replacement by centrally governed prefectures on 29 August 1871.

The return of the daimyō's domain registers to the emperor in 1869, which made the lords imperial governors of their former domains.

The commercial treaty of 29 July 1858 between the United States and Japan, negotiated by Townsend Harris, which opened ports to trade and imposed extraterritoriality and fixed low tariffs.

Extremely rapid inflation in which prices rise so fast that money becomes almost worthless, as in Germany in 1923.

A Japanese term for a peasant protest or uprising, used for the many rural risings of the Tokugawa and early Meiji periods.

The parliament created by the Meiji Constitution, with a House of Peers and an elected House of Representatives, which first met in November 1890.

The statement of moral principles issued in the emperor's name on 30 October 1890, combining Confucian virtues with loyalty to the throne; it was read aloud in every school.

The international organisation, founded in 1944, that lends to countries with balance-of-payments problems, usually on condition that they carry out economic reforms.

The mission of Meiji leaders and students, led by Iwakura Tomomi, to the United States and Europe in 1871–1873, which failed to revise the treaties but studied Western institutions.

The Liberal Party founded by Itagaki Taisuke in 1881, drawing on rural notables and radical activists; it dissolved in 1884.

A business owned jointly by two or more partners; in the USSR from 1987, a company formed by a Soviet enterprise and a foreign firm.

The agreement of 31 August 1996 that ended the First Chechen War, providing for the withdrawal of Russian forces and postponing a decision on Chechnya's status to 2001.

"National learning": an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century school that studied ancient Japanese texts to recover a native tradition and exalted the emperor as divine.

"Roof": in 1990s Russia, a protection arrangement in which a criminal gang, security firm or corrupt officials protected a business and enforced its contracts in return for payment.

The reform announced in 1873 that gave landowners title deeds and replaced rice taxes with a cash tax of 3 per cent of assessed land value, cut to 2.5 per cent in 1877.

The Soviet law of May 1988 that allowed cooperatives, in effect private businesses, in most sectors of the economy.

The Soviet law of June 1987 (in force from 1988) that gave enterprise managers control over wages, output and profits once state orders were met.

The nationalist party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, which won the largest share of the party-list vote in the Duma elections of December 1993.

"The wild (or dashing) nineties": the Russian name for the 1990s, remembered by many Russians as a time of poverty, crime and disorder.

The scheme of 1995–1996 in which private banks lent money to the Russian government against its shares in major companies, then acquired those companies cheaply when the loans were not repaid.

An economy in which most enterprises are privately owned and prices, wages and output are set mainly by supply and demand rather than by the state.

The financial policy of Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi from 1881, which cut spending and withdrew paper money; it stabilised the currency but caused a sharp fall in farm prices.

The constitution promulgated on 11 February 1889 as the emperor's gift, which made the emperor sovereign and created an Imperial Diet with an elected lower house.

The overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and the restoration of rule in the emperor's name, followed by the reforms that turned Japan into a centralised, industrialising state.

A school of thought centred on the Tokugawa branch domain of Mito that combined Confucian loyalty with reverence for the emperor and called for resistance to the West.

A Russian investment company run as a pyramid scheme, which attracted millions of small investors before collapsing in July 1994.

The gap between the money people hold and the goods available to buy at fixed prices; in the late USSR it showed itself in empty shops and queues rather than rising prices.

A treaty clause promising that any privilege granted to one foreign country will automatically be granted to the country holding the clause.

Gorbachev's approach to foreign policy, which held that security had to be achieved jointly with the West and that every country had the right to choose its own system.

The list of important posts in the Soviet state, economy and society that could be filled only with Communist Party approval, and the privileged class of officials who held them.

In 1990s Russia, one of the small group of businessmen who made vast fortunes through banking, privatisation and natural resources and used their wealth and media to influence the government.

Government by a small, privileged group, such as the landowning and merchant elites of many Latin American states or, in Meiji Japan, the dozen or so former samurai and court nobles who held the key offices of state from 1868 into the 1890s.

The war of 1839–1842 in which Britain defeated Qing China and forced it, in the Treaty of Nanjing, to open ports, cede Hong Kong and pay an indemnity.

"Hired foreigners": the Western experts and teachers employed by the Meiji government and private firms to transfer technology and knowledge.

The wave of declarations of sovereignty by Soviet republics, and by autonomous republics inside Russia, in 1990–1991, each claiming that its laws and resources took priority over those of the centre.

"Restructuring": Gorbachev's programme, from 1987, to reform the Soviet economy and later the political system, giving enterprises more freedom and allowing limited private business while keeping socialism.

An economy in which the state owns most enterprises and decides what is produced, in what quantities and at what prices, instead of leaving these decisions to the market.

The small committee of senior leaders at the top of a communist party; in the USSR it decided policy and was headed by the General Secretary.

A political style that claims to speak for ordinary people against a corrupt or privileged elite.

The transfer of enterprises or other property from state ownership to private owners.

The blockades of the Trans-Siberian and other railways by Russian coal miners in May 1998, in protest at unpaid wages.

"Dutch learning": the study of Western science, medicine and military technology in Tokugawa Japan through Dutch books obtained at Nagasaki.

The Constitutional Reform Party founded by Ōkuma Shigenobu in 1882, supported by urban professionals and favouring British-style parliamentary government.

The Tokugawa policy of strictly limiting foreign contact from the 1630s to 1853, under which only the Dutch and Chinese could trade, at Nagasaki.

The hereditary warrior class of Japan, who by the Tokugawa period served mainly as administrators on stipends paid in rice; their status was abolished in the 1870s.

The Tokugawa rule of alternate attendance, which required each daimyō to spend every other year in Edo and to leave his family there as hostages.

The rising of former samurai led by Saigō Takamori in 1877, defeated by the conscript army; the last armed challenge to the Meiji government.

The debate of 1873 over sending Saigō Takamori to Korea to provoke a war; its rejection split the government and led to samurai rebellion and the people's rights movement.

"The rule of the seven bankers": a Russian term for the political influence of a handful of oligarchs in the mid-1990s.

"Men of high purpose": young samurai activists of the 1850s and 1860s who left their domains to work, often violently, for the imperial cause.

The legal category of former samurai families created in 1869, which kept a title but lost the stipends, offices and swords of the old samurai status.

A strategy for moving from a planned to a market economy all at once: freeing prices and trade, cutting state spending and privatising state property quickly.

The hereditary military ruler of Japan who held real political power in the emperor's name; from 1603 to 1867 the office belonged to the Tokugawa family.

The name given in October 1989 by a Soviet spokesman to Gorbachev's policy of letting the countries of Eastern Europe choose their own path, after Frank Sinatra's song "My Way".

The independent trade union and opposition movement founded in Poland in 1980, which won the semi-free elections of June 1989.

"Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians": the slogan of activists of the 1850s and 1860s who opposed the shogunate's foreign policy and later the shogunate itself.

The group of eight senior Soviet officials who tried to seize power from Gorbachev in the coup of 19–21 August 1991.

The organisation of Shinto shrines and rituals under state control from the Meiji period, presenting the emperor as a descendant of the sun goddess and the focus of national loyalty.

A system of government in which the elected president has far greater powers than the legislature and courts, including wide powers to rule by decree and dissolve parliament.

A state's right to set its own customs duties. Japan lost it under the treaties of 1858–1866 and regained it fully only in 1911; China lost it under the treaties of 1842–1844 and recovered it in 1928–1930.

The farming of land owned by someone else in return for rent paid in cash, crops or labour; in Song China and Meiji Japan most tenants paid a large share of their harvest as rent.

A famine of 1833–1837 caused by repeated harvest failures, which led to riots and Ōshio Heihachirō's rising and exposed the weakness of the shogunate.

A state-run model silk-reeling factory opened in 1872 with French machinery, which trained women workers in mechanised production; it was sold to Mitsui in 1893.

The "outer" daimyō whose ancestors had opposed the Tokugawa in 1600 and who were excluded from central government; they included Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa and Hizen.

The treaty of February 1876 by which Japan forced Korea to open three ports, recognise Japanese extraterritoriality and declare itself independent of China.

The treaty of 31 March 1854 between the United States and Japan that opened Shimoda and Hakodate to American ships and ended the policy of exclusion, without opening trade.

A port opened to foreign trade and residence by treaty, such as Yokohama or Nagasaki, where foreigners lived under their own laws.

A nineteenth-century treaty imposed on an Asian state by Western powers that granted foreigners privileges such as extraterritoriality and fixed low tariffs without equal rights in return.

The treaty negotiated in 1990–1991 to turn the USSR into a looser federation of sovereign republics; the August 1991 coup was launched to stop its signature.

"Acceleration": Gorbachev's first economic policy (1985–1986), which tried to speed up growth through more investment and stricter discipline within the existing planned economy.

A tax on the value added at each stage of production and sale of goods and services; Russia introduced it in 1992.

The peaceful revolution of November–December 1989 that ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

The first stage of Russian privatisation (1992–1994), in which every citizen was offered a voucher worth 10,000 roubles that could be exchanged for shares in state enterprises.

The military alliance of the USSR and the communist states of Eastern Europe, founded in 1955 and dissolved in July 1991.

The large family-controlled business groups, such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi, that dominated the Japanese economy before 1945; the US occupation ordered them broken up.

The special conference of the Soviet Communist Party in June–July 1988 at which Gorbachev won approval for contested elections and a new parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies.

The plan drawn up in 1990 by Stanislav Shatalin and Grigory Yavlinsky to move the Soviet economy to a market within 500 days; Gorbachev abandoned it for a compromise.