Chapter 9

Question 1

USSR after World War II

Answer 1

-After World War II, the USSR continued to increase it’s enormous territory by acquiring new territories in Far East Asia such as Sakhalin Island.
Link to a map of the USSR. It included 15 present-day countries: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-countries-made-up-the-former-soviet-union-ussr.html

• The country and its leader, Joseph Stalin, saw their power reach its apogee despite the death of over 20 million Soviet citizens and the destruction of major cities such as Leningrad, Stalingrad and Kiev during the war.
• Stalin continued to use totalitarian methods to maintain power. He also announced a new five-year plan in 1946 (the Soviet government were usually planning industrial and agricultural production for five years).
• The 1946 plan included drastic measures to bring back the soviet industries to their pre-war levels.

Question 2

conditions soviet union

Answer 2

• Consequently, the Soviets worked longer days but they still had unenviable living conditions.
• Stalin’s ambitious goals were surpassed. Soviet industries managed to exceed their pre-war industrial output by a staggering 40 percent. Stalin’s communist successors never came close to matching this level of economic growth.
• Moreover, the infrastructures were improved by the building of canals, power plants and railroads.

Question 3

women in post WW2 USSR

Answer 3

• The soviet women played a major role during this industrial renaissance because the war ravaged the male population of Russia. This was at a time when most women of capitalist countries were forced to limit themselves to the role of housewives.
• Soviet women were becoming used to playing unusual gender roles. Many of them had actually taken part in battles against the Nazis. After World War II, Soviet women also became dominant in fields such as healthcare and education. Valentina Tereshkova even became the first women in space in 1963.

Question 4

Stalin and people rights

Answer 4

• The oppression of political dissidents by Stalin’s government also resumed after World War II.
• Over 9 million Soviets were imprisoned in gulags (i.e., penal labor camps) by the beginning of the 1950’s.
• The victims of the gulags include the famous writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel Prize for literature mainly for his books on his experience in the gulags. This former soldier was sent there for criticizing Stalin.

Question 5

changes of power after stalin

Answer 5

• Stalin died in 1953 after governing the USSR with an iron fist for 3 decades.
• Georgy Malenkov replaced him at the head of a mourning state.
• Malenkov’s desire to overhaul the soviet government did not please the political elite and the fierce power struggle continued within the Communist Party. In 1955, Malenkov was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev.
• Khrushchev had worked relentlessly to engineer the downfall of Malenkov but he promptly adopted Malenkov’s desire to make reforms that would improve the living conditions of the Soviets.

Question 6

Khrushchev politcal beliefs

Answer 6

-Khrushchev quickly weakened his position at the top of the Communist Party when he dared to openly criticized Stalin’s methods during a meeting of the Communist Party in 1956:“Stalin…used extreme methods and mass repression at a time when the revolution was already victorious…It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of power…he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet government.” Nikita Khrushchev, 1956.

• Khrushchev`s speech leaked through the USSR and it even reached the American media.
• This speech is important because shattered the myth of the infallibility of the Communist Party of the USSR.
• It also divided the Communist Party. It disillusioned the Soviets who imagined that Khrushchev would follow Stalin’s totalitarian path.
• Khrushchev also exacerbated the animosity of his detractors and many Soviets who firmly believed that Stalin was a god-like figure who saved them from a German invasion during their Great Patriotic War.
• Khrushchev wanted to de-Stalinize the USSR. His substantial efforts included measures such as relaxing control over citizens, releasing dissenters from the

Question 7

-Khrushchev position on foreign countries

Answer 7

• He did not extend these measures to the satellites of the USSR.
• He continued to use Stalin’s aggressive policies towards Eastern Europe because he viewed that region like a buffer zone that was vital to ensure the security of the USSR.
• Khrushchev used force to impose his will on the communist countries of Eastern Europe. He sent Soviet troops to stop protests against the Communist dictator (i.e, Erno Gero) of Hungary in 1956. The Soviet interventions caused the death of 2,500 Hungarians (Imre Nagy, the leader of demonstrators was arrested and executed two years later).
• Khrushchev also unleashed his wrath on Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago.
• This novel condemns the excesses of the communists during the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was banned in the USSR and Khrushchev did not allow Pasternak to leave the USSR to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958.

Question 8

Khrushchev on oligarchs

Answer 8

• Khrushchev also tried to reduce the privileges of the oligarchs of the Communist Party (i.e., the members of the Politburo and the leaders of the KGB and the Red Army).
• This created tensions between him and many powerful members of the Communist Party.

Question 9

Khrushchev and the united states

Answer 9

• In 1962, Khrushchev’s embarrassing performance during the Cuban Missile Crisis was the last straw.
• Many Soviets were embarrassed by Khrushchev handling of the tense situation with the president John F. Kennedy of the United States.
• He had also lost face during the notorious kitchen debate with Vice-president Richard Nixon back in 1959. This debate unplanned debate had taken place in Moscow during a visit of Nixon. There were American products of display that average Muscovites could see. Many of them seem envious of the appliances that average Americans had in their kitchen. Khrushchev lost face when his fellow Soviets were awestruck by the high standard of living of middle-class American families. The Americans could not have come up with a better way to expose the failures of the Soviet economy.

Question 10

bye bye Khrushchev

Answer 10

• In the end, Khrushchev had never been able to impose himself as credible replacement of Stalin.
• He saw the Cuban Missile Crisis like an opportunity to save his declining political career but he continued to lose credibility instead.
• Khrushchev was forced to resign in 1964. He left behind a post-totalitarian government that was still repressive.

Question 11

Leonid Brezhnev yrs

Answer 11

(1964-1982)

Question 12

Brezhnev political affiliations

Answer 12

• In 1964, the leaders of the Communist party did not want to take any risk and their resistance to Khrushchev reforms led them to appoint Leonid Brezhnev to replace Khrushchev.
• Brezhnev was willing to maintain the status quo and he was not a firm believer of the communist ideology.
• Repression of the Soviet people resumed under Brezhnev. Freedom of expression declined and intellectuals such as the nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov and the aforementioned author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were constantly harassed. Solzhenitsyn eventually moved to Vermont. He enjoyed more freedom than ever but he deplored American materialism in his works.
• Criticizing the Communist government officially became a crime under Brezhnev.
• Brezhnev also used force to stop the drastic reforms put in place by the communist government of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
• The Czechoslovaks had been given more freedom of expression and freedom of movement than in any other communist country.

Question 13

Brezhnev and ussr

Answer 13

• Brezhnev could not tolerate that countries of Eastern Europe would dare to question the communist ideology and their commitment to the Warsaw Pact (the military alliance led by the USSR that included most the communist countries of Eastern Europe since 1955).
• Troops from the countries of the Warsaw Pact were sent to Prague to make sure that Czechoslovakia would remain a loyal ally of the USSR. Alexander Dubcek, the new communist leader of Czechoslovakia, had promised to give communism a human face. Brezhnev did not agree with him.

Question 14

Brezhnev vibe (politically)

Answer 14

• Conformity and obedience were highly valued during Brezhnev’s long rule. For example, children were not allowed to be left-handed.
• Employers and teachers were also encouraged to plan every minute of the lives of the Soviet comrades who were under their watch.
• Brezhnev also wanted to “protect” the USSR and its satellite countries from the influence of western “imperialists”.
• He even encouraged his citizens to protect their children from the decadent values of Western visitors when Moscow hosted the summer Olympic Games in 1980 (the United States boycotted these games to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).

Question 15

Soviet economy (work ethic)

Answer 15

• It seemed that Brezhnev did everything possible to maintain the status quo from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. This led to economic stagnation.
• He failed to offer incentives to increase the agricultural and industrial production of the USSR.
• Lenin’s NEP (New Economic Policy) had allowed a market economy to some extent and Stalin used terror to make sure that Soviet workers attained the ambitious objective of his Five Year Plans.
• On the other hand, Brezhnev failed to find incentives that would have encouraged his fellow Soviets to be more productive.
• The Soviets were not motivated to work harder or stand out. Moreover, they could rarely lose their job.

Question 16

Soviet economy (goods)

Answer 16

• Manufacture workers were not nearly as productive as their peers of capitalist countries were.
• Soviet products also tended to be very unreliable: inefficient and overstaffed and with no concern for consumers, many Soviet plants actually subtracted value from the raw materials they processed. (Roskin, 2013, p. 254). Lada, the only Soviet car manufacturing corporation, seems to encapsulate all the problems of Soviet unreliable and low-quality products.

Question 17

Soviet economy (public sector)

Answer 17

• In the public sector (i.e. government employees), the workers were notoriously lazy and rude: Bureaucrats-slow, inflexible, inefficient, and corrupt-helped ruin the Soviet Union (Roskin, 2013, p. 225).
• Central planning by the Communist Party also discouraged any entrepreneurial efforts and the offer of consumer goods failed to meet the demand.

Question 18

Soviet economy (supply and demand) key term

Answer 18

• Consequently, the Soviet consumers developed a “queue psychology” whenever they had a rare opportunity to purchase food or valuable goods.
• The shortage of goods led them to wait in line whenever something became available. People simply joined lines when they saw them and they purchased as much as possible because they never knew when they could spend again. Acquiring a great number of goods allowed them to trade these goods for something else that their neighbors had.
• The Soviet economy was also negatively affected by the thriving black market. Illegal activities represented more than 30 percent of the Soviet economy.

Question 19

where did excellence matter in the USSR

Answer 19

• Excellence was only encouraged in athletics and military research.
• The most gifted students tended to join the army and athletes could obtain privileges that were usual for the leaders of the Communist Party such as access to foreign products and better housing.

Question 20

Brezhnev end regime

Answer 20

• Brezhnev died in 1982 but the gerontocracy (i.e., rule by elders) continued.
• He was replaced by Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, two Communist Party elders who were unable to end the paralysis of the USSR. Brezhnev and his two immediate successors all died between 1982 and 1985.
• Ending the inefficiencies of the Soviet system was a priority for Mikhail Gorbachev who was appointed as the new leader of the USSR in 1985.

Question 21

Gorbachev exam question

Answer 21

• Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader who was not influenced by Stalin.
• He realized that the Communist Party needed to start socio-economic reforms that were badly overdue.
• The two pillars of Gorbachev’s reform program were Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness).

Question 22

Gorbachev changes

Answer 22

Gorbachev wanted to make the Soviet economy more modern, flexible and innovative.

• Gorbachev was open to free enterprise and a market economy.
• He gave more autonomy to manufacturers and farmers. They could decide what to produce and in which quantity with much less government control. They were also allowed to keep a much larger share of their profits.
• Gorbachev also hoped to stop the use of repression against dissenters.
• This allowed the Soviet journalists and artists to criticize the endemic corruption that plagued their country for decades.

Question 23

Gorbachev fuck up

Answer 23

-Unfortunately, Gorbachev did not act quickly during the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl in 1986. The authorities took 2 days to evacuate the city.
-This explosion caused around 50 deaths in the nearby city of Pripyat because of radiation poisoning. Moreover, the radiation contaminated more than 200,000 people (contaminated clouds were seen throughout Europe).
Documentary on Chernobyl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luSpdSyT1ys

Question 24

Gorbachev and the world outside the USSR

Answer 24

• Gorbachev’s policies also allowed the Soviets to have access to the works of foreign artists and he ended the Communists’ monopolistic position by allowing other political parties.
• Gorbachev also underestimated the forces of nationalism.
• Groups of nationalists emerged in many Republics of the USSR. Nationalists were especially strong in the Republics of the Baltic and the Caucasus.
• Gorbachev was caught in his own avalanche. He struggled with all the changes that were allowed by his reforms and his refusal to use force to suppress protests at home and abroad. In 1990, Gorbachev had even allowed the opening of a McDonald’s in Moscow.

Question 25

Gorbachev

Answer 25

• Gorbachev`s problem was that did not offer enough reforms to satisfy his fellow Soviets but he offered enough to cause the collapse of the USSR.
• Gorbachev “hoped that through reform, he could save the socialist system” (Druiker & Momani, 2007, p. 142). He accelerated its downfall instead.

Question 26

Gorbachev popularity ?

Answer 26

• The oligarchs of the KGB (Committee for state security), the Red Army and the Communist Party tried to regain control over the USSR by arresting Gorbachev in 1991.
• But the Soviet population massively rejected their plot.
• Boris Yeltsin led the opposition against these reactionary conspirators.
• Many Soviet soldiers mutinied and joined the protest led by Yeltsin. The coup to get rid of Gorbachev and his reforms was over after three days of tension.

Question 27

End of USSR

Answer 27

• Gorbachev created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the USSR but he failed to stop the independence movement of the Soviet republics. This was another example, that Gorbachev was willing to make reforms but his reforms were never enough to please critics of the Soviet system.
• The CIS was limited to maintaining economic cooperation between former Soviet Republics (the new Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania did not even join the CIS).
• The Communist Party disbanded and Boris Yeltsin became the first president of Russia by winning the presidential election that was held in 1991.
• It quickly became clear that Yeltsin was not going to be the ideal refromer to preside over Russia’s challenging transition from being a communist dictatorship to being a capitalist democracy.

Question 28

first leader of the Russian republic

Answer 28

• Yeltsin’s presidency was marked by a brutal war in Chechnya between 1994 and 1996. This conflict caused 100,000 victims. The war resumed briefly in 1999 causing another 300,000 victims.
• The large Muslim population of that Russian region hoped to become politically independent but the Russians were not in the mood to lose more territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Question 29

Chechnya today

Answer 29

-Chechen terrorists are still active and they still hope to obtain independence from Russia. They gained control over a theater in 2002 and an elementary school in 2004. These hostage crises led to bloodbaths. More than 300 Russians died in the hostage crisis at the school of Beslam in 2004. Most of them were children. Chechen terrorists also bombed a train station before the Sochi Olympics of 2014. They even extended their reach to the USA by doing a bombing during the Boston Marathon in 2013.

Question 30

Yeltsin economy

Answer 30

-Yeltsin’s Russia was also plagued by the decreasing value of the Ruble (Russian currency), the rise of organize crime and growing social inequalities between Russians. 
Many workers lost superfluous jobs that had been maintained by the inefficient communist system. 
-Moreover, the privatization of industries such as oil and mining allowed the rise of a new class of fabulously wealthy Russian businessmen.

Question 31

Russian the rise of oligarchs

Answer 31

• These nouveaux riches easily avoided paying taxes to their disorganized government.
• They also did not trust the new and corrupted Russian banks so their wealth did not stay in Russia (it was placed in tax havens such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands or in purchasing luxurious homes, newspapers and professional sports team in other countries).
• Corruption remained extremely problematic. Government employees were paid sporadically and strikes were common.
• comes from peeps taking over some national companies

Question 32

Yeltsin end of rule

Answer 32

• Yeltsin was surprisingly reelected in 1996 despite the aforementioned problems but he resigned in 1999.
• Yeltsin had failed miserably to establish capitalism and democracy in Russia unlike other former communist countries who made this transition very well such as Hungary and the Czech Republic.
• Yeltsin was replaced by Vladimir Putin, a former agent of the KGB.

Question 33

Putin vibe

Answer 33

Putin restored Russian nationalism, a long tradition authoritarian rule and an aggressive foreign policy.
-Putin also detest the fact that many former communist countries and even former republics of the USSR became members of NATO and the European Union. He sees this like a hostile gesture from the Americans and their allies. He even blames the fall of the USSR on the USA even if this downfall was mainly cause by the internal problems of the USSR.

Question 34

Russian democracy

Answer 34

-His power over Russian society has been increasing steadily since 2000. Putin had to step down from the presidency after his second term in 2008. He handpicked Dmitry Medvedev to be his successor/puppet and Putin reclaimed the Presidency in 2012 and he was reelected in 2018. He also handpicks the leaders of all the regional governments in Russia. Putin recently said that he plans to stay in power until 2036. His presidency would be longer than Stalin’s if he accomplishes this goal.

Question 35

Putin political goals

Answer 35

• Putin’s ultimate goal is to restore the greatest of Russia. He does everything possible to return his country to its superpower status. The Russian intervention in the crisis in Syria in 2015 is another proof of that.
• Most Russians do not seem to mind. Putin remains extremely popular.
• They had been disillusioned by democracy after all the chaos they endured during the 1990s: Most feel Putin made life more secure; they liked his increased power and paid no attention to his undemocratic methods. (Roskin, 2013, p. 241).
• Putin’s government also worked tirelessly to eliminate opponents of his party, United Russia such Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Gary Kasparov and Alexey Navalny.

Question 36

Putin economy

Answer 36

• Under his presidency Russia is becoming prosperous thanks to the frantic exploitation its natural resources. Russian corporations such as Gazprom (natural gaz), Rosnef (oil), Luckoil, Norilsk Nickel and Alrosa (diamonds) have all become major players in lucrative industries.
• Putin’s government also uses these natural resources to impose its will other countries since most countries of eastern and central Europe depend on cheap Russian natural gas for heating houses.
• The wealthy Russian business class was clearly warned to work with Putin’s party.

Question 37

Putin government control

Answer 37

-Businessmen who did not submit to Putin’s political authority saw their businesses being overtaken by the government (some of entrepreneurs were imprisoned or forced into exile).

• Putin’s government is also suspected of being involved in the murders of critical journalists (such as Paul Klebinkov and Anna Politsovskaya) and poisoning of spies and politicians (such as Viktor Yushchenko, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny).
• Putin is also behind the arrest of members of Pussy Riot, a feminist punk band. Putin does not tolerate protest and criticism. He believes that it’s important for his government to control public opinion because public opinion is a weakness of democratic governments.

Question 38

Putin and American democracy

Answer 38

-There was even an investigation on how Putin used Russian hackers to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election of USA in favor of Donald Trump to punish Hillary Clinton for her hostile policies towards Russia’s government when she was the American Secretary of State during the Obama presidency (Clinton and Obama felt like Russia was not a superpower anymore. Putin did everything he could to prove them wrong).

Question 39

Putin indoctrination

Answer 39

-Putin also started Nashi, a nationalist youth group that aims at forming the future leaders of Russia (the members of Nashi frequently organize counter protest to discredit dissenters).

Question 40

Putin and then lgbt

Answer 40

-Russian nationalism also causes an intense persecution to intimidate ethnic minorities and Russian members of the LGBTQ+ community within Russia.

Question 41

Russia and the ussr

Answer 41

• Many of Putin’s fellow Russians still consider that the former Republics of the USSR and Eastern Europe are part of their zone of influence.
• Seeing former communist countries of the Warsaw Pact such as Poland and Hungary or republics of the USSR such as Latvia and Lithuania join institutions such as the European Union and NATO is simply unacceptable from the Russian standpoint because it marks the economic and military decline of Russia`s power since the end of the Cold War.
• It also makes Putin and Russians more insecure because they had always seen the Soviet Republics and the countries of the Warsaw Pact as buffer zones that protected Russia from foreign attacks.
• This is also why Putin sent Russian troops into Ukraine in 2014 to prevent this former part of the USSR from joining the European Union.
• The takeover of Crimea, a region of Ukraine, by Russians living in Ukraine with the support of the Russian army is the first time that a territory is taken by force in Europe since World War II.
• It also clearly shows that Putin refuses to acknowledge the sovereignty of former Soviet republics who achieved their independence in 1991. It will be interesting to see how this crisis in Ukraine unfolds… (Russian troops also invaded parts of Georgia back in 2008).