Soviet Soviet & Eastern Block Quiz

[JimZ]

So are your searches not churning up anything yet? Are you having fun?

I realise this question was not as straightforward as I thought it would be..... good! (Is there no smug smiley)

Should I start to drop small hints here and there?

Jim

(currently using the as opposed to the as it goes with the eye!)

[JimZ]

Ok.... I guess that you need some help.

....our "eye" is associated with a person who is non russian by birth.....

Remember credit only for all four reply being correct.

And a better hint next time round......!

Jim

[Ed_Haynes]

Thank you, Jim:

[Christian Zulus]

....our "eye" is associated with a person who is non russian by birth.....

Gentlemen,

I am almost sure, that the eye belongs to "Saint Karl"

Might be from a famous illustration or painting .

Well, I wrote my master thesis about Karl Marx, but I can't answer 100 % of Jim's question .

Best regards

Christian

[JimZ]

Thank you, Jim:

And I'll also give another small hint (for now).

You must look West of the USSR to find where this eye was very prominently depicted.

Got more hints in mind but I'll wait some more. It only starts to get easier from this point onwards.

Jim

[JimZ]

Gentlemen,

I am almost sure, that the eye belongs to "Saint Karl"

Might be from a famous illustration or painting .

Well, I wrote my master thesis about Karl Marx, but I can't answer 100 % of Jim's question .

Best regards

Christian

Myabe the next hints will comfirm your hunch.... or otherwise!

Jim

[JimZ]

So another hint....

The eye (and the rest of the picture) and its heading was made 'public' 5 months before the official death of our mysterious person

Look at the 1950's to try to find your answer

Jim

Edited November 29, 2007 by JimZ

[JimZ]

RECAP

Question

Most of us know the following eye as it portrayed on American currency:

......BUT......

.....according to some it seems that not only the American had their all seeing eye!

1) Who is this eye associated with?

2) Where and when was the person associated with this eye born and when did he die?

3) What date is associated with this portrayal?

4) What is the full text associated with it?

LATER HINTS:

....our "eye" is associated with a person who is non russian by birth.....

...you must look West of the USSR to find where this eye was very prominently depicted...

...the eye (and the rest of the picture) and its heading was made 'public' 5 months before the official death of our mysterious person...

...look at the 1950's to try to find your answer...

LAST HINT

.... our person was a product of the Stalin era....

Remember.... its all questions or nothing so find that timeless image and you will inevitably find the key!

Jim

Edited November 30, 2007 by JimZ

[Christian Zulus]

BERIA

Gentlemen,

I guess, that the comrade in question was a (very) prominent communist leader of the Soviet Union, whose patron had been Joseph Stalin himself and who died in the 1950s and his nationality had been non-Russian. The picture with the eye had been published in the West just before his death.

O.K., the comrade in question is Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (29 March 1899 ? 23 December 1953) .

His eye is shown at the cover of TIME - Beria: Enemy of the People:

5 month later Beria - also infamous for sexual sadism & perversion - was a dead man ...

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria tells:

Accounts of Beria's fall vary considerably. According to the most recent accounts[citation needed] Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Praesidium on June 26, where he launched an attack on Beria, accusing him of being in the pay of British intelligence. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, "What's going on, Nikita Sergeyevich? Why are you picking fleas in my trousers?" Molotov and others then also spoke against Beria, and Khrushchev put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to Marshal Georgy Zhukov and a group of armed officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria.

Beria was taken first to the Moscow guardhouse ("gauptvakhta") and then to the bunker of the headquarters of Moscow Military District.

Defence minister Nikolai Bulganin ordered Kantemirovskaya Tank Division and Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division to move into Moscow in order to prevent any possible attempts of Internal Troops loyal to Beria to rescue him.

Beria's henchmen such as Vsevolod Merkulov, Bogdan Kobulov, Sergey Golgidze, Vladimir Dekanozov, Pavel Meshik, Lev Vlodzimirskiy were also arrested.

Pravda announced Beria's arrest only on July 10, crediting it to Malenkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Party and the State." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union and restore capitalism."

Beria and his henchmen were tried by a special session ("Spetsialnoye Sudebnoye Prisutstvie") of the Supreme Court of the USSR with no defense counsel and no right of appeal. Marshal Ivan Konev was the chairman of the court.

Beria was found guilty of:

1) treason; It was alleged, without any proof, that "up to the moment of his arrest Beria maintained and developed his secret connections with foreign intelligence services". In particular, attempts to initiate peace talks with Hitler in 1941 through the ambassador of Bulgaria were classified as treason, it was not mentioned that Beria was fulfilling the orders of Stalin and Molotov in this respect. It was also alleged that Beria, who in 1942 was involved in the organisation of the defence of the North Caucasus, tried to let the Germans occupy the Caucasus. There were also allegations that "planning to seize power, Beria tried to obtain the support of imperialist states at the price of violation of territorial integrity of the Soviet Union and transfer of parts of USSR's territory to capitalist states". These allegations were due to Beria's suggestion to his assistants that in order to improve foreign relations it is reasonable to transfer Kaliningrad Oblast to Germany, part of Karelia to Finland and Kuril Islands to Japan.

2) terrorism; Beria's order to execute 25 political prisoners in October 1941 without trial was classified as an act of terrorism.

3) counterrevolutionary activity during Russian Civil War; In 1919 Beria worked in the security service of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, he maintained that Hummet party which subsequently merged with the Adalat Party, the Ahrar Party and Baku Bolsheviks to establish the Azerbaijan Communist Party gave him such an assignment.

Beria and all the other defendants were sentenced to death. When the death sentence was passed, according to Moskalenko's later account, Beria begged on his knees for mercy, but he and his subordinates were immediately executed on 23 December 1953. (See Citizen Kurchatov documentary for more details on his death[1]). Apparently his body was cremated.

However, according to other accounts including his son's[citation needed], Beria's house was assaulted on 26 June 1953, by military units and Beria himself was killed on the spot. A member of the court which tried Beria, Nikolay Shvernik, has subsequently allegedly told Beria's son that he had never seen Beria alive.

Beria's wife and son were sent to exile to Sverdlovsk. They were released in 1964; his wife Nina died in 1991 in exile in Ukraine, his son Sergo died in October 2000 still defending his father's reputation. After Beria's death the MGB was separated from the MVD and reduced from the status of a Ministry to a Committee (known as the KGB), and no Soviet police chief ever again held the kind of power Beria had wielded.

In May 2000 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused an application by members of Beria's family to overturn his 1953 conviction. The application was based on a Russian law that provided for rehabilitation of victims of false political accusations. The court ruled, however, that "Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could not be considered a victim". However, the Supreme Court found Vladimir Dekanozov, Pavel Meshik and Lev Vlodzimirskiy guilty of abuse of authority, instead of crimes against the state, and the sentence for them was posthumously changed from death to 25 year imprisonment.

Best regards

Christian

RECAP

LATER HINTS:

....our "eye" is associated with a person who is non russian by birth.....

...you must look West of the USSR to find where this eye was very prominently depicted...

...the eye (and the rest of the picture) and its heading was made 'public' 5 months before the official death of our mysterious person...

...look at the 1950's to try to find your answer...

LAST HINT

.... our person was a product of the Stalin era....

Remember.... its all questions or nothing so find that timeless image and you will inevitably find the key!

Jim

[Christian Zulus]

NEXT QUESTION

Gentlemen,

if Jim says, that I answered his question to 100 %, then I will hand over the right to put the coming question to GMIC-member Dan "Hauptmann", due to the fact, that I wouldn't be back to my library not before wednesday.

Best regards

Christian

[Ed_Haynes]

Well done, Christian (it seems, we await formal word). But does the "eye-in-the-star" design have any menaing other than an over-active graphics department at Time??

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Ed,

many thanks for your congratulations .

But does the "eye-in-the-star" design have any menaing other than an over-active graphics department at Time??

Well, I don't have any glue - maybe Jim knows more ?

Best regards

Christian

[JimZ]

Well done Christian! Like I said.... once you found the image it was not hard at all.

It is unfortunate that people like Beria and Stalin (and many others) did what they did to Soviet Union in the form of the purges and the millions they eventually murdered but such is life under dictatorship and I guess our quiz sometimes touches on the less glorious characthers and incidents of the USSR. For those of you interested in finding out in more detail what this characther was all about do indeed check the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria.

As for Ed's question - well I guess his links to NKVD and the subsequent purges would well merit the fact that the soviet version of big brother was watching. Then of course, Time wanted to sell and if it helped them sell, then why not.

Regards,

Jim

[Hauptmann]

NEXT QUESTION

Gentlemen,

if Jim says, that I answered his question to 100 %, then I will hand over the right to put the coming question to GMIC-member Dan "Hauptmann", due to the fact, that I wouldn't be back to my library not before wednesday.

Best regards

Christian

Hi Christian,

Many thanks my friend and congratulations! Now that Jim has confirmed your hard earned victory I'll run with it per your request.

I was a gift.

What am I?

Who was I given to, by whom, in what year and on what occassion?

Good luck!

Dan

[JimZ]

This was a telephone fashioned in the shape of a hammer and sickle telephone resting over a globe and given to Stalin as a gift from Polish workers. I have not found the year itself or the occassion for which it was given but until then I am going with 1949 as the year being the occasion of Stalin's 70th birthday!

Regards

Jim

[Hauptmann]

This was a telephone fashioned in the shape of a hammer and sickle telephone resting over a globe and given to Stalin as a gift from Polish workers. I have not found the year itself or the occassion for which it was given but until then I am going with 1949 as the year being the occasion of Stalin's 70th birthday!

Regards

Jim

Hi Jim,

WOW... you are good! I'd hoped this would be a bit easier than the last few as I felt we needed a bit of a break... but didn't think it would go quite that quick. Congratulations on all points!

Here's a link to an article with more information:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...l%3Den%26sa%3DN

Go down just a bit to the article "On The Phone" and then click on "writes" in the body of the text and it will take you to the full article with more pics, etc.

Hoping it works okay for everyone.

So back to you! Great job!

Dan

[JimZ]

Hi Dan,

I did find several articles but none of them set out the date or reason for this present.

Well after some thinking I said... why would some Polish workers give Stalin a present? He was either visiting them (in which case I could not suggest a date), or they were visiting him (somehow unlikely but still no clue of a date) OR, it was his birthday! The 70th Birthday seemed the only one I could suggest..... but its really and truly guess work.

I'll come up with a question shortly. Question is.... on a scale of one to ten.... and I think my last one was a twelve , how tough do we want the questions to be?

Jim

[Hauptmann]

Hi Dan,

I did find several articles but none of them set out the date or reason for this present.

Well after some thinking I said... why would some Polish workers give Stalin a present? He was either visiting them (in which case I could not suggest a date), or they were visiting him (somehow unlikely but still no clue of a date) OR, it was his birthday! The 70th Birthday seemed the only one I could suggest..... but its really and truly guess work.

I'll come up with a question shortly. Question is.... on a scale of one to ten.... and I think my last one was a twelve , how tough do we want the questions to be?

Jim

Hi Jim,

As in tests in school, often guesswork pays off!

As to the questions... and speaking only for me of course, I love seeing difficult ones as they help to keep us learning new things... but the occassional set of easier ones are nice as well. I for one have never traveled in Europe, am not fluent in any other languages, although I have taken German and French and can manage by hook or by crook. So I'm not able to read many of the references and books that some others can, nor have I visited many of the places others have been. So it's either the web or things that have been available in English, either books, documentaries, movies, etc., that help me out in these. Well, that and my education here at the University of GMIC.

And I must admit that I've learned quite a bit on the last few questions... although that last one was soooooo frustrating. I had the person and his dates... just not the eye for sure... but knew it was him. Of course without all the info I couldn't answer the question. But I got to ask the next one anyway (many thanks to Christian! ) so all worked out. But still hoping to get more over time.

Again just my two cents worth.

Dan

[JimZ]

And I must admit that I've learned quite a bit on the last few questions... although that last one was soooooo frustrating. I had the person and his dates... just not the eye for sure... but knew it was him. Of course without all the info I couldn't answer the question. But I got to ask the next one anyway (many thanks to Christian! ) so all worked out. But still hoping to get more over time.

Guesswork does pay off indeed Dan

With the person and the dates, all you needed to do was wiki Beria. And that is why at first I thought it was a much easier question than it turned out to be.

Jim

[JimZ]

Question

Here I am in a photo taken of me when I was a soldier in the Imperial Army.

From a young soldier boy I went on to great things and reached political and military rank.

1) Who am I?

2) Where and when was I born

3) What are my political and military achievements?

4) Name some of the orders that were conferred on me

Enjoy!

Jim

[Knarf]

Hello,

Hovhannes Bagramyan

Dec.2 (Nov 20.) 1897 in Chardaklu

Marshal of SU

Commands: 11 Guards Army

First Baltc Front

Baltic Military District

Reserve Forces of the Red Army

Military Akademy of SU

Deputy Min. of Def.

Work during War I : Turkish Armenian War

War II

Chief of Staff Soutwestern Front, Commander of 16th Army, Kursk, Belarus

After War

Commander of Baltic Mil. Distr.

Chief inspector MOD

Dept. Minister of Def. in Rank od Marshall SU

Went to Vietnam with Brezhnev and Kosygin

Awards: HSU 2, Lenin 7, Oct. Rev., Red Banner 3, Suvorov 1st cl. 2, Kutuzov 1st cl.

Books: This is how the war begun, Thus we went to victory

Regards

Frank

And Back to work. Lady Boss is comming

[JimZ]

Well Done Frank!!

Next one is on you!

Lady boss is never a good sign

Jim

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Frank,

congratulations to your victory .

Most of us have problems with the "Lady Boss", due to the time spent with GMIC and with our orders & medals ...

Some more infos about the Armenian Marshal Hovhannes Bagramyan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovhannes_Bagramyan

He got a hughe collection of Lenins :

Armenia issued a Bagramyan-Medal:

Best regards

Christian

[Knarf]

Hello,

I hate questions on persons. So I will ask something completely different.

During GDR times the longest federal Road was the "Fernstrasse F 96" Now German Federal Road B 96. After August 14. 1977 the plumbers in that area where the road leads through Brandenburg had to do a lot of wor for a few days.GSFG placed a very large order

What happened?

What did the Soviets order?

Regards Frank

I think you will need a map

[JimZ]

Not as easy as I made this one out to be!

I looked at the map and I got some really crazy ideas. But definitely so speculative and highly imaginative that I to even suggest them.

If no hints are forthcoming and nobody attempts or succeeds in replying I may dare make public these figments of my imagination.

Jim