authoritarian states: Stalin (exam review)

Question 1

Khlevniuk

Answer 1

• “The civil war accustomed the Bolsheviks to blood and ruthlessness. atrocities lost their horror.”
• personally organized acts of terror
• fighting within the party during emergence led to a deep desire for unity that stalin presented
• driven towards hitler pact “by his country’s isolation and a sense that he was undervalued by his western allies”
• “moscow was often too slow in its decision making, and many of its decisions were bad”

Question 2

Wimmer

Answer 2

when economic inequality is combined with ethnic or nationalist tensions, conditions are ripe for the rise of authoritarian leaders.

Question 3

steffens (participant)

Answer 3

liberal-bourgeois democracy was dead and communism is inevitable

Question 4

Davies and wheatcroft

Answer 4

stalin possessed a deep dislike for the peasantry and believed the famine was a well-deserved punishment for counterrevolutionary activity

Question 5

tumarkin

Answer 5

parallels between religious devotion and the cult of personality around Lenin. the bolsheviks strategically utilized symbols reminiscent of religious practices to solidify their power

Question 6

snyder

Answer 6

stalin and hitler established their regimes by exploiting ethnic and national tensions in the borderlands between the USSR and germany

Question 7

fukuyama

Answer 7

democratic societies can maintain political power better because they are more responsive to citizens’ needs. authoritarian regimes rely on repression and propaganda to maintain their power

Question 8

carr

Answer 8

lenin’s vision of a classless society is a rejection of traditional Marxist historical progress. not a linear progression, thought it required the use of state power

Question 9

betts

Answer 9

the success or failure of foreign policy can have a major impact on the stability of the regime

Question 10

grey

Answer 10

“soviet Russia became stronger as a result of stalin’s campaigns of industrialization, collectivization, and social transformation”

Question 11

mccauley

Answer 11

stalin used brutal methods but had considerable achievement that allowed the USSR to become a superpower by 1945

Question 12

ulam

Answer 12

USSR would be better off with another leader bc he impeded Soviet victory in ww2 since the purges removed officers, expertise, and manpower

Question 13

williamson

Answer 13

stalin’s purges were a tool used to shift the blame for economic and social crises