Soviet Meaning

/ˈsəʊvi.ət/
B2

Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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nounA workers' council, an institution first formed during the 1905 Russian Revolution and then instituted as the main form of communist government at all levels in the Soviet Union; by extension, a similar organization in early Chinese communism and elsewhere.

adjPertaining to or resembling a soviet (council).

Communism is the system practiced in the Soviet Union.
The news was all about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He studied the political structure of the former Soviet Union.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ was the main council that governed the local area in the USSR.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ Union was a large socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991.

Borrowed from Russian сове́т (sovét, “council”), from Old Russian borrowed from Old Church Slavonic съвѣтъ (sŭvětŭ, “advice”). Compounded from съ- (sŭ-) + вѣтъ (větŭ, “agreement”), from Proto-Slavic *větъ (“council, talk”). Related words include наве́т (navét), изве́т (izvét), отве́т (otvét), приве́т (privét), обе́т (obét), ве́че (véče), отвеча́ть (otvečátʹ), отве́тить (otvétitʹ), завеща́ть (zaveščátʹ), and совещаться (soveščatʹsja). Probably cognate with Polish witać (“to welcome”).

"They then established the West Hunan-Hupeh (Hsiang-O-Hsi) Special Committee and a little later transformed it into a soviet government. Party membership figures as of 1932 for a dozen counties in the area were estimated at 18,034, with the largest number, 4,468, working in Chienli County, then headquarters of the soviet." — 1972, James Pinckney Harrison, “Growth of the Rural Soviets”, in The Long March to Power: A History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-72 (Praeger University Series), Praeger Publishers, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 194–195:
"Kratochvil, Jedlicka, Safar, Kubes and Vasata, who always took an interest in politics, set up a soviet in the last wagon and uncoupled it from the rest of the train in the night." — 2005, James Meek, The People's Act of Love, Canongate, published 2006, page 230:
"Workers' committees were forming embryo soviets, soldiers' and sailors' collectives had whole ships and regiments under their temporary command, landless workers in the countryside were taking over abandoned farms and properties." — 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 184:
"An engineer who is not very soviet in his convictions is the hero." — 1935, Louis Fischer, Soviet Journey, page 129:
"Why are separate divisions for teachers and administrators in a state organization any more "soviet" than the same divisions in a city educational […]" — 1947, Washington Education Association, Washington Education Journal:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ was the main council that governed the local area in the USSR.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ Union was a large socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991.

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