Stalin and Khrushchev Sources Questions

The source makes Stalin out to be evil and paranoid, Stalin was very suspicious and to make sure that nobody talked about him behind his back he purged many of his party's important leaders. The NKVD made sure of this and drove round in "ravens" so they were distinguished form the public. Anybody with any sort of education or knowledge of the state could be purged; members of the party, army, education, art and sciences could be sacked, arrested, imprisoned or shot these people lived in fear of "the knock at the door in the middle of the night" they always kept a bag packed.

The source has to be put into context because even though Khrushchev was very close to Stalin at the time of his rule, Khrushchev is Stalin's successor. Any political successor to anybody will always feel pressured to do better than the previous leader, in order to do this they attack the previous leader to make themselves look better, this may have been what we are seeing in source D. He may of felt threatened because even after Stalin's death many people still worshiped Stalin, so Khrushchev may over exaggerate points to stop this worship and let the USSR forget about Stalin.

The source suggests that Stalin did not trust anybody but I think that Stalin did trust Khrushchev. Khrushchev was a long-standing member of the communist party he fought in the civil war and received "The Order Of Lenin", many of the long-standing members of the communist party were purged by Stalin because he thought they "knew too much", Khrushchev was never purged and was put in a position of authority to work closely with Stalin, this shows that Stalin must have trusted Khrushchev.

The source is reliable because Khrushchev worked closely with Stalin and was trusted by Stalin, Stalin may have revealed a lot to Khrushchev about his personality. Also what is said in the source fits in with what we know about the purges and show trials that Stalin introduced.

This Source is reliable because it fits in with what we know about Stalin and how he was very suspicious of his party members and anybody with a mind of their own. We know that this suspicion that Stalin created caused a lot of party members not to put forward ideas because they were afraid of being purged.

The source could be considered unreliable because Khrushchev had many motives when he denounced Stalin; he wanted to put Stalin down to project a better impression of himself and to become the next great leader of the USSR. Khrushchev may have felt threatened by the impact of Stalin's rule that remained on the people of the USSR and if he were to gain any respect at all he would have to make himself out to be better than Stalin by denouncing Stalin. If Khrushchev had any chance of becoming the next great leader of the USSR then he would have to put down the last great leader of the USSR.