Troika (triumvirate)

Troika (тройка, meaning threesome) is a committee consisting of three members. The origin of "troika" comes from the term in Russian used to describe three-horse harnessed carriage, or more often, horse drown sledge.

NKVD Troikas
The word became notorious in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era: troikas replaced the normal legal system for quick prosecution of dissidents or anybody accused of political crimes.

Other uses
The word has also been used to describe the supreme officials of Communist states, consisting of the party leader, head of government, and head of state. This was true during periods where the positions were held by three different people, and the party leader was not viewed as sole dictator. The most famous troika was the one that ruled briefly in the period immediately following Stalin's death: Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Vyacheslav Molotov.

In the early 1960s, following independence from Belgium, a complicated civil war broke out in Congo. Amongst the fighting forces, there was one side supported by the United States, another by the Soviet Union, and a third trying to secede. On top of it all, the UN Secretary General of the time, Dag Hammarskjöld wanted to establish a UN presence. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, believing the Secretary General to be a US puppet, proposed that the Secretary-General be replaced with a troika, with one member selected by the West, one from the Communist bloc, and one from the Non-Aligned (neutral) states. He was unable to gather enough support, as the Non-Aligned states refused to back the scheme.

It is used in the European Union when referring to a group composed of the Foreign Affairs Minister of the Member State holding the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Secretary-General/High Representative for the common foreign and security policy, the European Commissioner in charge of external relations and European neighbourhood policy. The "Troïka" represents the European Union in external relations that fall within the scope of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP). It is also used in the G20 and the SADC, to mean the group of the states holding the incoming, current and outgoing chairs of those groups.

During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan three of his most senior White House advisers were known as "The Troika"; they were White House Chief of Staff James Baker III, Counsellor to the President Ed Meese and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Michael Deaver.

It has also been briefly applied to the presidency of the South African Republic from 1881 to 1883, when it was jointly governed by M.W. Pretorius, Paul Kruger and P.J. Joubert.