WWII

Question 1

How many Russians died?

Answer 1

24 million

Question 2

Proportion of this total being civilians

Answer 2

2/3

Question 3

how many died during the Siege of Leningrad 1941-44?

Answer 3

1 million

Question 4

how many died during the Battle of Stalingrad 1942-3?

Answer 4

1.1 million

Question 5

What were politicians in the post war years were faced with the problem of?

Answer 5

a shortage of all types of labour- essential if russia was to move successfully into the new technological age

Question 6

How many taken prisoner by Germany?

Answer 6

5 million

Question 7

How many russian citizens fought on the side of germany at the battle of stalingrad?

Answer 7

50,000

Question 8

How many deserters shot?

Answer 8

13,000

Question 9

What did little to enhance Stalin’s relations with the allies during wartime conferences and afterwards when proposals for economic aid and reconstruction were discussed?

Answer 9

Treatment of prisoners of war, deserters and non-russian women

Question 10

What did the government had a huge challenge in addressing the damage to?

Answer 10

Industrial and rural infrastructure which had been damaged through shelling and Stalin’s scorched earth policy

Question 11

What worsened the damage?

Answer 11

During the war many industrial enterprises had to be relocated to the Urals, Volga basin and Central Asia to be protected

Question 12

What was a costly industrial enterprise after the war?

Answer 12

many factories had to be reconverted from munitions production back to their original function

Question 13

What economy did the government run?

Answer 13

A command economy and was responsible for all industrial enterprise

Question 14

What did the Soviet government’s reconstruction programme revolve around?

Answer 14

A fourth five year plan 1946-59

Question 15

What was the specific aim of the reconstruction programme?

Answer 15

Get the soviet economy back to growth levels achieved before the war
• this plan would be followed by 2 others which would accelerate the development of heavy industry

Question 16

What was neglected as a result of the reconstruction programme?

Answer 16

The production of consumer goods was neglected

Question 17

How long did it take until the targets set by the fourth five year plan were achieved?

Answer 17

3 years

Question 18

What only favoured Russia after the war?

Answer 18

Availability of free labour- 4 million prisoners of war, soviet prisoners, conscript labour
• unilateral trade agreements
• external financial aid- from the UN, the USA, Britain and Sweden
• the commitment of the Russian people- ordinary russian workers continued to labour for excessivlely long hours and under very challenging conditions to increase production and productivity in all of the staple industries

Question 19

What was the biggest flaw in Stalin’s post war strategy?

Answer 19

his continuation of gargantuan projects

• great amounts of capital were ploughed into schemes such as the Volga-Don canal with very little economic return

Question 20

Why did agriculture fail?

Answer 20

War years had seen a reversion to small scale ownership of land plots and collective farms
• those who acquired private plots were soon hit by exorbitant taxes
• the collectives suffered from shortages of labour and materials

Question 21

When was there famine and rural unrest?

Answer 21

1947

Question 22

How did minister for agriculture Khrushchev attempt to resolve some of the problems?

Answer 22

Through farm amalgamation; had a limited impact

Question 23

What did WII have a limited impact on politically?

Answer 23

Structure

Question 24

What positions did Stalin have?

Answer 24

The chairman of the State Defence Committee which had absolute control over the lives of soviet citizens
• took the role of supreme commander of the military, like Nicholas II in WW1

Question 25

Until his death, what positions did Stalin retain?

Answer 25

head of government and party secretary

Question 26

What of the Politburo remained the same?

Answer 26

the composition

in 1948 the prominent members had been in existence 10 years earlier

Question 27

How did communist party membership increase?

Answer 27

from 3.8 million in 1941 to 5.8 million in 1945

Question 28

Why did party membership increase?

Answer 28

additions in the military who were rewarded for their gallantry with official party membership

Question 29

What was very active during and after the war?

Answer 29

the NKVD

Question 30

what was the NKVD involved in during the war?

Answer 30

policing prisons and the deporting national minorities

Question 31

after the war, what did the NKVD revert to?

Answer 31

purging the party and other groups of dissidents eg the Leningrad Affair resulted in over 200 supporyers of Zhdanov being purged

Question 32

What policy was significantly affected by the war?

Answer 32

Foreign policy

Question 33

What did Stalin believe were the benefits of joining the Grand Alliance?

Answer 33

Placed Russia in a very strong bargaining position over making territorial gains

Question 34

What was Stalin’s main objective of foreign policy?

Answer 34

keep the frontiers established under the Nazi-Soviet pact

Question 35

As a result of Yalta, what was Stalin able to influence?

Answer 35

the nature of government in Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania and insist that they were ruled by communist regimes

Question 36

When did Churchill agree that Russia could maintain these areas as a sphere of influence after the war?

Answer 36

October 1944

Question 37

Why did Stalin want these areas?

Answer 37

to maintain a physical barrier between the west and the western russian border, also promote communism

Question 38

What did Churchill later refer to this barrier as?

Answer 38

Iron Curtain and start of cold war

Question 39

What zone of Germany did Russia have jurisdiction over?

Answer 39

Eastern

Question 40

Why did Russia block all communication links with the western part of the city?

Answer 40

June 1948- the western powers combined to introduce a new currency in the zones under their control.
Russia saw this as an attempt to show how capitalism could bring prosperity to Berlin

Question 41

What worsened relations between Russia and the west?

Answer 41

Berlin Blockade of 1948 lifted in 1949 and the erection of the berlin wall