George F. Kennan: “Long Telegram”

Glossary

• Bolshevist reference to the native political party that led the Russian Revolution of 1917, the forerunner of the nation’s Communist Party
• Coup de grace death blow, blow that kills
• fig leaf a covering that conceals or obscures something only partly
• Kremlin a fortified complex of buildings in the heart of Moscow, Russia; as a figure of speech, the government of the Soviet Union
• Lenin Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Bolshevist Party and first leader of the Soviet Union
• Marxism the economic and social philosophy advocated by Karl Marx, often used synonymously with “Communism”
• modus vivendi an agreement or accommodation between adversaries
• Tsarist reference to the Russian monarchs, or tsars (czars), prior to the advent of Communism