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1. Stalin And The Soviet Union
With the arrival of the second half of the 20th century, came the death of Stalin and a new age for not only Russia but the entirety of the Eastern
Block as well. Russia, as always, stood in the face of adversity and, instead of crumbling, began to develop and progress in leaps and bounds. In the
span of a mere 50 or so years Russia went from one political, social, and economic standing, (Stalinism) to its exact obverse. Despite the obvious
changes a switch like this requires there are still some fundamental and intrinsically Russian sentiments and characteristics that were maintained
throughout the change.
The first waves of change started with Khrushchev's Secret Speech. In February, 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, then leader of the Soviet Union, made a
speech during the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, openly condemning his iconic predecessor, Stalin. Khrushchev
tells the Congress,
"It is here that 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 or the Soviet
Government"
To say the least, his peers were stunned. In making this speech Khrushchev was actively tearing down the Cult of Personality that had surrounded the
premier position since Lenin. This was intentional. While Stalin used the Cult to gain power and
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2. Russia And The Soviet Union
Russia had many complications before Mikhail Gorbachev came into power for the Soviet Union. During 1939 through 1945, Russian took part in
World War II heavily and were led by Dictator Joseph Stalin. Following the war, Russia was in a nuclear arms race with America, riding on everyone's
fear of there being a World War III and a nuclear war. Post World War II Russia and the rest of the
Soviet Union had very poor living conditions due to
the mass of poverty. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place, which was also known as the October Crisis. This was when American President
John F. Kennedy was informed that there were Soviet nuclear–tipped missiles in Cuba where he then made a deal with Soviet President Nikita
Khrushchev where America would not invade Cuba as long as the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles. Following this was the Brezhnev Era, Soviet
Union circa 1964 through 1982, in the Soviet Union.
The Brezhnev Era is the time in the Soviet Union that Leonid Brezhnev was in power of Russia and the Soviet Union from October 1964 through
November 1982. During this era, the Soviet Union began with a high economic growth and prosperity but then it ended in a weaker Soviet Union
with a social, political and economic lack of progress. Nikita Khrushchev was President before Brezhnev but he was kicked out of office due to his
lack of accomplishing his set goals. During the Brezhnev Era, the leadership style was known as "collective leadership" which would continue through
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3. The Collapse Of The Soviet Union
The quick collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 appalled everyone in the West, but that is because no one outside the Soviet Union knew what was
going on. The Soviet government's lies of economic success and superiority over the Western capitalist states had controlled the citizens of Russia to
believe that the USSR's Communist regime was growing for half a decade. It wasn't until Mikhail Gorbachev that mocked previous leaders like Stalin
and Brezhnev for being responsible for not improving the Soviet economy. Gorbachev's reforms to modernize the USSR created more freedom and
openness for Russians, but sprawled uprisings and revolutions in the Central Asia and the Baltic states. The inability to keep up with the United States
economically in the 1970s and 1980s along with the later reforms to improve the Soviet economy in Gorbachev's term led to the downfall of the USSR.
Leonid Brezhnev had taken over as the head of the Communist party in 1964 by replacing Nikita Khrushchev, an anti–Stalinist who strived for reform
and modernization in the USSR. Brezhnev was an old Communist that wanted to keep the government and its policies similar to Stalin's views. He
used the buildup of the military and its strength comparable to the United States. The main issue with strengthening the military was that it required
twice the amount of GNP than the United States did. Money, manpower and machinery were subsided from the civilian economy so the military could
be equally as strong as the
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4. DISMANTLING OF THE SOVIET UNION
DISMANTLING OF THE SOVIET UNION
Introduction
The fall of the once might soviet union was as a result unwarranted succession of events. There is a likelihood of some arguing that a certain even led
to the dismantling but this would be a fallacious assertion.
Dismantling of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was one of the three strongest nations in the world. Between 1964 and 1982, the Soviet Union competed militarily with the world's
best. The Soviet Union and its system appeared impervious to rudimentary change especially when Politburo was headed by Leonid Brezhenev. It was
almost impossible even for the most disaffected nationalities like Baltic people of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia to think that the Soviet Union could
fall leading ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
With time, regions like Czech and Hungary started gaining independence and thus diverging their resources and attention to rebuild their newly formed
states. At some point, the US president Ronald Reagan termed USSR as an evil empire. On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved with
a declaration nullifying its existence forthwith.
Selected Website
The website that has been selected to complement the text book is BBC History. This website provides a lot of insights about the fall of the Soviet
State. The website starts by reflecting on the state of affairs during and immediately after the Second World War. This information ushers in thecold war
scenario and how the Soviet Union set the scene on a global front.
This website is quite informative and does not offer personal opinions concerning the history of the fall of the Soviet Union. This website is quite
easy to navigate because it offers sleek yet compressed information on the history of the fall of the Soviet Union. On the left side of the webpage are
links to specific sections of the text, which makes it easier to access different contents within the page. To the right of the webpage is a number of
links to audiovisual content on related issues especially World War II and the aftermath of the war.
This webpage is designed with such simplicity with multiple graphics that are quite attractive. The presence of symbols used by the
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5. The Failure Of The Soviet Union
There is a myriad of factors that accounted for the dissolution of the USSR, and the consolidation of capitalist superiority from 1991 onwards after
the fall of an autocracy, and demise of a disunited provisional government. The official declaration of the termination of the Soviet Union was
December 26 1991; this collapse was addressed by the west as the defeat of communism, and the end of the Cold War. To understand how and why this
previously prosperous nation came to fall it is important to look at the major factors contributing to this disarray. I will examine the economic and
ethnic problems the Soviet Union faced, as well as the problems with those in power.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the newly formed government had a philosophy ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Communism is described as " a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being
ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. " In some countries this system worked, but what the Soviet Union failed to do was to instill the
ideology of Communism into the heart and minds of its population, an anonymous Soviet citizen said, "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to
work," Showing the lack of motivation amongst the citizens, and lack of enthusiasm in the system. Not only was there no productivity, but also in the
middle of the 1980's approximately seventy percent of industrial output of the Soviet Union was going to the military, causing severe shortages of the
industrial goods for the rest of the economy, and failing to meet the needs of the State resulting in acute poverty. In the end the Soviet people became
more cynical about their government and only felt distrust towards them, this and the fact that the Soviet Union failed to produce a stable economy led
to economic decline, eventually demanding the necessity to
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6. The Soviet Union
Gain of Prestige The Soviet Union was already setting up a unique standard of gender roles and gender equality, so the reinforced emphasis on fertility
created an interesting return to traditional gender stereotypes. Despite the resurgence of the traditional ideal, the 1936 Decree was able to emphasize
motherhood and nurturing without limiting women to the more feminine role. Instead, what occurred was the "super heroine" role, where the women's
maternity and industrial capital were both valued. Women were given both higher recognition for their role as a mother and also allowed to remain
independent through her industrial power. The emphasis on the mother figure was seen throughout the whole 1936 decree, but most blatantly through
the Mother Heroine awards. The Mother Heroine awards were an official government–run propaganda scheme set up by the Stalinist regime, in the
form of medals given out to mothers based on the amount of children they had. A mother with five to six children received a "Motherhood Medal." A
mother with seven to nine children received a "Mother Glory" award, and a mother with ten or more children gained the highest achievement, the
"Mother Heroine" award. Those who received the Mother Heroine award were also given a special certificate of the Praesidium of the Supreme
Soviet of the USSR. The Mother Heroine awards didn't offer economic compensation for child–bearing, but they did offer official,
government–approved stamps of prestige for
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7. Description Of The Soviet Union
C
Timeline: Soviet Union
1917
Vladimir Lenin
Main player in 1917 Bolshevik revolution
1918: Survives assassination attempt
1924: Dies from a stroke; his tomb in Red Square becomes a shrine
1917