Stalin - Reading Questions

Describe the Soviet Union in the 1930s politically.

Totalitarian dictatorship by Stalin over the USSR, Russia was ruined by famine, and industrialization was broken down.

Lenin put down a rebellion led by former Bolshevik sailors at what Russian port city in 1921?

Kronstadt

What aspects of the Russian economy did not apply to the New Economic Policy? Why not?

Heavy industry, railroads, banks, these economic aspects remained controlled by the state and not different on local level.

What two Soviet leaders competed for power after the death of Lenin? Who won and why?

Trotsky and Stalin, Stalin won because he used his Communist party position to promise positions to gain support.

Explain the difference between Stalin’s “socialism in one country” theory, and Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” theory.

Stalin – soviet union could achieve socialism on its own, Trotsky – soviet union could only achieve socialism if a socialist revolution were to sweep across EU.

Although the Soviet Union was a “federation” of socialist “republics,” it began to look more and more like a Communist empire built on the imperial holdings of the former Russian ____.

czar

The objective of Stalin’s five-year plans was for the country to ________as quickly as possible, which would be supported by a massive ____ of the nation’s agriculture.

industrialize, collectivization

What were the results of Stalin’s five-year plans?

Russia greatly industrialized and began to compete with other western nations (at the cost of human lives)

What was the Soviet policy toward religion?

Persecuted all those who practiced religion, burned down churches and mocked priests.

The attempt by Joseph Stalin to purge any potential political threat from 1934-1938 is known as the Great _____.

Terror

In what year did Joseph Stalin die?

1953