Global Awareness

Unit 16 – The Russian Revolution

 

Western Heritage – Chapters 24, 26, 27, 28

MEH – Chapters 25 (pp.333-336) & 30 (pp. 403-420)

 

TERMS

Assignment: Know them! (No writing here, but keep reading kids!)

 

1. Bolsheviks
2. Mensheviks
3. Bloody Sunday
4. October Manifesto
5. The Duma
6. Nicholas II
7. Grigori Rasputin
8. March Revolution
9. Provisional Government
10. Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
11. V.I. Lenin
12. April Theses
13. “Peace, Land, and Bread”
14. October Revolution
15. Leon Trotsky
16. Joseph Stalin
17. Constituent Assembly
18. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
19. Reds v. Whites (Civil War)
20. War Communism
21. Kronstadt Revolt
22. New Economic Policy
23. Trotsky’s “Permanent Revolution”
24. Stalin’s “Socialism in One Country”
25. Five Year Plans
26. State Planning Commission
27. Collectivization
28. Kulaks
29. The Great Purge
30. Comintern

 

 

 

SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

 

Answer the following questions on your own paper using complete sentences.

 

PART I – The Fall of the Romanovs

 

1. What conditions in Russia caused great discontent and helped to bring on the Revolution?
2. Why did Tsar Nicholas II abdicate the throne in March 1917?
3. What was a “soviet”?
4. Why did the provisional government become unpopular in Russia?
5. How did the Bolsheviks change the Russian economy after seizing power in 1917?
6. What were the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? Why did the Bolsheviks agree to sign it?

 

 

PART II – Russia Under Lenin

 

1. Agree with or refute the following statement: “Bolshevik leaders initially only wanted to establish communism in Russia.”
2. Describe the (a) politics and (b) economics of “War Communism.”
3. Discuss the internal opposition faced by the Bolsheviks in the early 1920s.
4. What economic changes did the New Economic Policy of 1921 introduce to Russia?
5. Explain how “the right wing” of Joseph Stalin and “the left wing” of Leon Trotsky disagreed regarding policy in Russia. Who won this power struggle?
6. What was the Comintern? What was its purpose? How did the Comintern affect politics in the rest of Europe?

 

 

PART III – Russia Under Stalin

 

1. What important change did the Soviet Union make in its economic policy in 1928?
2. Describe the accomplishments of Soviet industry between 1928-1940.
3. What were Stalin’s Five Year Plans? How did they work?
4. Why did Stalin decide “to collectivize” agriculture beginning in 1929?
5. Who were the “kulaks”? What role did they play in the collectivization movement?
6. Describe the impact of collectivization on the control of Soviet agriculture?
7. What change did Stalin make in Comintern policy in 1934?
8. Whom were the “purges” of the 1930s directed against?