Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Hata, Tsutomu tso͞otōˈmo͞o häˈtä [key], 1935–, Japanese politician, b. Tokyo. After 10 years in Japan's private sector, he was elected (1969) to parliament as a member of the Liberal Democrat...

(Encyclopedia) Kok, Wim (Willem Kok), 1936–2018, Dutch political leader. He worked for the National Association of Trade Unions (later the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions), and served as its chairman from 1973 to...

(Encyclopedia) St. Laurent, Louis Stephen săN lôräNˈ [key], 1882–1973, Canadian political leader. A well-known lawyer, he entered (1941) political life as minister of justice and attorney general in the Macken...

(Encyclopedia) Tadić, Boris, 1958–, Serbian political leader, president of Serbia (2004–), b. Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina). A student activist while attending Belgrade Univ., Tadić join...

(Encyclopedia) Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, Pedro, 1972–, Spanish political leader, b. Madrid, Ph.D. Camilo José Cela Univ., 2012. A professor of economics and a member of the Socialist Workers party (PSOE), he ser...

(Encyclopedia) Bolshevism and Menshevism bōlˈshəvĭzəm, bŏlˈ–, mĕnˈshəvĭzəm [key], the two main branches of Russian socialism from 1903 until the consolidation of the Bolshevik dictatorship under Lenin ...

(Encyclopedia) Kim Il Sung kĭm jông ĭl [key], 1941?–2011, was groomed as his successor. Active in the Korean Workers' party leadership from 1964, Kim Jong Il became secretary of its central committee in 1973. I...

(Encyclopedia) Himmler, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh hĭmˈlər [key], 1900–1945, German Nazi leader. An early member of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party, Himmler took part in Adolf Hitler's “beer-hal...

(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 ...

(Encyclopedia) Gandhi, Sonia gänˈdē [key], 1946–, Indian politician, b. Turin, Italy, as Sonia Maino. She met Rajiv Gandhi in 1965 when they were students in Cambridge, England. They were married in 1968 and se...