Soviet Union History/Russia
Instructions: Each answer should be approximately 1000 words (about four pages double-spaced with one-inch margins in 12pt font). I cannot tell you how many sources you should read. Making that determination is itself part of the test; students should read and include those sources necessary to answer the questions they choose. Students should identify their sources by consistently using signal phrases (e.g., “In his political report to the 17th Party Congress, Stalin claimed….”). To document sources, please insert endnotes that direct your reader to the URLs for the SMSH page where they may be found.
A) Grappling with Stalin’s Legacies, I..
1) 1968 and 1973 are typically treated as key moments in Soviet history because they provide evidence of “Stagnation” in the USSR. To what extent do the subject essays and documents available on SMSH support this interpretation of the Brezhnev era – that it was a period of economic stagnation, corruption, pessimism, and decline? What evidence does not support this interpretation?
B) Grappling with Stalin’s Legacies, II
1) Could socialism in the USSR still be salvaged in 1985 or was the collapse of the USSR already unavoidable? What problems were perestroika, glasnost,’ and the New Political Thinking supposed to resolve? Did Gorbachev have specific remedies for the social, economic, and political challenges the country faced when he was elected First Secretary in 1985?
