Stalin Sources Questions

Stalin Coursework 7.) Using all the sources in this booklet and your own knowledge explain why there has been so much disagreement about Stalin. There are many sources in the booklet that show Stalin to be a great leader, but on the other hand there are also many sources that show him to be a dark and evil man. For example sources B and C show Stalin doing good things. Source B is a painting of him stood with workers in front of a newly opened hydroelectric power station. Source C shows him congratulating the wives of army officers. Then there is source A, a cartoon, which shows him standing before millions of skulls stacked in the shape of the pyramids. Although some of these sources were biased they all emphasised a certain point about Stalin. Source A was drawn to show the result of Stalin's policies, the 20 million that died because of them, and how he was proud of it. These sources show that from as early as 1930 there was disagreement about Stalin. Another source in support of Stalin is source E, a speech published in the Pravda. This speech is strongly in favour of Stalin and gives him great praise. It calls him many things like, "our inspired leader", "I have been over come by his strength, his charm, his greatness." This shows that this person saw Stalin as an idol and had great respect for him. Again, there are people that disagree with this view of Stalin.

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Stalin Sources Questions

RUSSIA COURSEWORK ) Study Sources A, B and C. Do these sources give similar or different impressions of Stalin? Explain your answer. (6) If we take source A it states at the bottom that it was published in the 1930's in Paris. It illustrates three pyramids of skulls and vultures flying above them. The skulls are most likely the victims of his purges and policies. He seems to be pointing at the skulls as if he is proud of them, as some sort of achievement. The vultures flying over these pyramids seem to be there to indicate death that is what this cartoon seems to be trying to project about Stalin. It is trying to condemn the Russian leader for his ruthless and murderous policies and criticise the way in which he keeps control of his country solely by the use of fear. The source seems to be putting forward a sarcastic tourism theme. It uses the pyramids of Egypt to carry this out. The French writing in the illustration translates to, "Visit the Pyramids of Russia". Overall this source seems to give a fairly negative impression of Stalin, but we have to recognise that it was published by an outsider, a French cartoonist such a person was not under any of Stalin's mind control, if you would like to call it that. A non- Russian would probably see Stalin's extreme methods as ruthless and murderous. A Russian citizen may not. We also have to recognise that it was at the time

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Assess The Impact Of Stalin On Russia And The Russian People.

Assess The Impact Of Stalin On Russia And The Russian People? Now that Stalin was in power, he was determined to modernise the USSR so that it could meet the challenges which were to come. He took over a country in which almost all the industry was concentrated in just a few cities and whose workers were unskilled and poorly educated. Many regions of the USSR were in the same state as they had been a hundred years earlier. So, Stalin wanted to make a few changes and believed that: "Throughout history Russia has been beaten again and again because she was backward" and that the USSR was "50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. Either we make good the difference in ten years or they crush us" so in order to do this Stalin ended Lenin's NEP because he believed is was such a slow process and needed a dramatic change for Russia to become a world power. So Stalin set about achieving modernisation through a series of Five-Year Plans which was for towns and industrial workers and also made a modernisation plan for peasants and countryside's throughout Russia. This was called collectivisation. The Five-Year Plans were originally drawn up by the GOSPLAN, the state planning organisation that Lenin set up in 1921. They set ambitious targets for production in the vital heavy industries (coal, iron, oil, electricity). The plans were very complicated but they were set out in such a

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Assess the impact of Stalin on Russia and the Russian people

Assess the impact of Stalin on Russia and the Russian people By 1929, Stalin had become sole leader of Russia. He said, "We are between 50 and 100 years behind the west. We must make good this difference in 10 years or go under." He wanted things to change in Russia quickly and so he brought up the five year plans, these were to modernise the Russian economy. He also brought up the idea of collectivisation. This was to modernise Russian agriculture. These two things would transform Russia. Stalin had "borrowed" Trotsky's ideas, which was very ironic. Stalin introduced the five year plans because he wanted to industrialise the Soviet Union, he felt it was matter of life or death. If his plans failed he believed the Soviet Union's enemies would crush it. He wanted rapid industrialisation; this was what Trotsky had wanted! Stalin gave the responsibility of devising the plans to GOSPLAN, the state planning bureau. The idea was that the state would decide targets for industrial production, and would use central planning and direction of the nation's resources to achieve the priorities set out in each plan The first five year plan was launched in 1928. It was to b focused on building up heavy industry's like coal and steel. Propaganda was used to try to make the workers finish in just four years. The targets were tough but enormous increases in production were

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  • Level: GCSE
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Russian Revolution Sources Questions

Russian Revolution . The personalities of the Tsar and Tsarina was one of if not the main reason why there was a revolution in March 1917. This is because the Tsar could have handled Russia's problems like bad living and working conditions and fuel and food shortages better so his personality of being lazy and selfish was the main cause of the revolution in March 1917. Nicholas II became Tsar in 1896 and was in total control of the Russian Empire. He was the autocrat of Russia. Nicholas II replaced his father Alexander III who had respect from his people. In contrast Nicholas II was the opposite. He was weak, knew little about leadership and was shy. At his coronation in 1896 there were mass crowds and 1200 people were crushed to death. The Tsar took little notice of this tragedy and went to a party that very night. This gave him a disrespectful image towards his people from the beginning of his rule. It shown that he was uninterested in the feelings of the Russian people and only cared about his family and social life. Nicholas II himself said ' I am not prepared to be Tsar, I never wanted to become one, I know nothing of the business of ruling.' It seemed as though Nicholas II was only ruling as Tsar because he had to. The Tsar took little notice of the ordinary Russian people. He did not respect their needs and let them continue to live and work in terrible conditions.

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To what extent do the sources agree that Russian government policy on agriculture consistently failed and that peasants resisted it under both Tsarist and Communist rule?

To what extent do the sources agree that Russian government policy on agriculture consistently failed and that peasants resisted it under both Tsarist and Communist rule? From these sources, it is clear to see that Russian government policy on agriculture consistently failed and that peasants consistently resisted it under both Tsarist and Communist rule. The abolition of serfdom had done little to gear Russia towards modernisation. This is evidently shown in source one with the peasantry remaining "subject to legal discrimination", i.e. they remained bound to their village commune. The introduction of the strip system saw peasants receiving "too little land for their needs" thus Russia found it increasingly difficult to feed the nations growing numbers. Emancipation was a failure particularly for the peasants who could do nothing to better themselves as change could only come from above. Continuity of this theme is present in source six where peasant initiative was treated with "instinctive suspicion". This top-down flow of power present under both Tsarism and Communism signifies how much the government feared the 'dark masses', so much that it interfered with agricultural policy. No space for peasant initiative was allowed, which in turn harmed Russia as a whole. Source four indicates that when things went wrong, the peasants could not do anything about it, "we watched

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To what extent do the sources agree that Russian government policy on agriculture consistently failed and that peasants resisted it under both Tsarist and Communist rule?

History Coursework Assignment To what extent do the sources agree that Russian government policy on agriculture consistently failed and that peasants resisted it under both Tsarist and Communist rule? During the development of Russia, the policies on agriculture changed between Tsarist and Communist rule. Did the policies on agriculture that they came up with consistently fail and did the peasants resist them under both Tsarist and Communist rule? The emancipation Statute of 1861 freed millions of serfs, and at first was welcomed. S1 says that the serfs previously been bought and sold like cattle. Alexander II freed the serfs without any accompanying civil war. There was, at first, little resistance from the serfs and the freeing of serfs was seen as a huge success. But it became clear that in practice and terms the changes were far less dramatic. It was an ideological situation. In reality most of the liberated serfs resented receiving too little land for their needs and having to pay far more for it than they could afford. Individual peasants remained bound in various ways to their village communes. Some peasants did take advantage of emancipation to rise above and exploit this opportunity. These Kulaks as they became known would further prosper under Stolypin's reform as shown in S2. However for the bulk of the serfs peasants realised they were worse off than before.

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The Romanov Family - source based work.

The Romanov Family ) Source A says that Sergeyev believes that not all of Tsar's family was killed there. Sergeyev believes that Tsar, the family doctor, two servants and the maid were shot in the Ipatiev house. This report can not be relied on because Sergeyev is supporting the Provisional government and the provisional government didn't like Tsar and his rules. This Provisional government wanted to change things. This source was written by an American newspaper. Source B basically says that there is no evidence of who were shot or killed there but it is supposed that five people were shot in the house. This suggestion is made by sergeyev who at that time is against Tsar and was leading Sir Eliot around. This source is from Sir Charles Eliot's report to the British government. I believe that the two sources A and B are not reliable both sources are mostly influenced by sergeyev who is supportive of the Provisional government and is maybe trying to hide something from the people which the Provisional government didn't want the people or media to find out. 2) Source A states that sergeyev believes that not the whole of Tsar's family were killed in the Ipatiev house. Sergeyev believes that tsar, family doctor, two servants and the maid were shot in the Ipatiev house. Source B which is from Sir Eliot's report Ipative house. Source C which is from the book published by

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Why did Hitler order the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941?

History Coursework Why did Hitler order the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941? During the Second World War Hitler had taken over most of Western Europe, but after being defeated by Great Britain and stopped from taking over the country, he turned his attention to Russia. So on the 22nd of June 1941, Hitler ordered German troops to invade Russia under the intensions of taking over Russia. Hitler intended to take over Russia because Russia is and was a large country and has many resources, fuels and also it was more space for Germany to develop their empire. Another reason Hitler invaded Russia was because in previous decades other German dictators e.g. Napolean Bonaparte, had attempted to invade and take over Russia, but had failed and Hitler wanted to prove that it could be done. Firstly, Hitler chose to invade Russia on the date, 22nd of June because in Russia the winters can become extremely cold and the temperature of Russia will usually drop to below -30C. These temperatures are very bad for warfare and the German soldiers certainly wouldn't have been able to deal with them and still achieve a successful invasion of Russia. So Hitler chose the date of 22nd of June because the temperatures would have been more bearable for the German troops. Also Hitler chose to invade Russia in the year 1941 because while Hitler was attacking Britain in the "Battle of

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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What Happened To the Romanov Family?

What Happened To the Romanov Family? 1. (a) Sources A and B are both very similar, and in some ways these sources are reliable evidence, but in other ways these sources are not very reliable evidence. One way in which both of the accounts are reliable is that they both say that not all of the members of the Romanov family were killed. In fact in both accounts the same 5 people were mentioned as being murdered which show that this is likely to have happened. Another reason that the accounts may be reliable is because Judge Sergeyev wouldn't have had a motive in which to say that only 5 people were killed. This is because he was taking out an investigation on behalf of the whites, and if he would have had any bias it would have been towards the whole family being murdered by the Bolsheviks. A way in which the accounts are unreliable is that Judge Sergeyev's account is only taken from people who have spoken to him or who have read\d his report, so these people may not be telling the truth. Another reason is that Sir Charles Eliot seems very conclusive, and it doesn't seem like he is sure about what he was saying. This is because in his account he uses the phrase "it is supposed" and "there is no real evidence to who or how many victims there were." It also seemed like everything he said agreed to Judge Sergeyev which suggests that the only story he heard was Sergeyev's and

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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