Stalin's Russia 1924-1953 Revision Check list

• (useful to know personalities and policies) i.e.New Economic Policyand Bukharin the 'Golden Boy'

• The struggle for power  between Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamanev, Bikharin and Stalin

• The political issues at stake: NEP vs Rapid Industrialisation

                                                    Socialism in one country VS World Revolution

• Shifting pattern of rivalry: the influence of both personalities and the political institution of the new Soviet Union in determining the outcome by 1929

• The Important changes in social and economic policies between 1928 and 1941

•  The reasons for the decision to promote collectivisation

• The effects of collectivisation not just on rural areas but its connection to industrialisation and urbanisation.

• The changing nature and priorities of the three five-year plans

• The success and failures of the three five-year plans

• Changing social policies: inclusing changing government policies on education, the family and divorce.

• The focus here is on aspects of stalin's regime that have been described as tolatarian

• The ferocity of repression under Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria

• The explanations for the extraordinary extent of the purges between 1936 and 1938

• The impact of the purges on both politics and society

• The 'Cult of Personality' and it's development in the 1930's and during Stalin's last years

• The concept of 'Social Realism' as applied to the arts and culture

• The USSR's survival and triumph in the Second World War

• The cost and damage inflicted on the uSSR during the Second World War

• Reasons for ultimate Soviet victory and the significance of this for the USSR's status as a superpower

• The success of maintaining and increasing war production

• The importance of lend-lease

NOTE Detailed questions will not be set on particular campaigns or years of the conflict, or on relations with other powers after 1945