Case study: Stalin and the USSR
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Question
Stalin: country, region and years in power?
Answer
USSR; region Europe; in power c1928–1953.
Question
Define cult of personality.
Answer
State-organised worship of a leader, portraying them as wise and infallible — central to Stalin's image.
Question
What was the NKVD?
Answer
The Soviet secret police that carried out arrests, the purges, and the running of the Gulag labour camps.
Question
Define collectivisation.
Answer
Forcing peasants off their own land into large state-controlled collective farms.
Question
How did Stalin rise to sole power (1924–29)?
Answer
As General Secretary he controlled appointments; after Lenin's death he defeated Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, then Bukharin.
Question
What was the Great Terror (1936–38)?
Answer
Mass NKVD arrests, executions and show trials that destroyed any possible opposition to Stalin.
Question
What were the Moscow show trials?
Answer
Public trials (1936–38) where leading communists 'confessed' to invented plots and were executed — making the purges look legal.
Question
What were the Five-Year Plans (from 1928)?
Answer
State plans setting huge production targets to industrialise the USSR rapidly into a superpower.
Question
What was the Holodomor (1932–33)?
Answer
The catastrophic famine, especially in Ukraine, caused by collectivisation and grain seizures, killing millions.
Question
How did Stalin's policies affect women?
Answer
Women were mobilised into the workforce in large numbers — factories, farms and professions — raising output and literacy.
Question
Stalin's successes vs human cost (one line)?
Answer
Built an industrial superpower (Five-Year Plans) but at the cost of millions dead from famine, terror and the camps.
Question
Why pair Stalin with Mao or Castro in Paper 2?
Answer
Paper 2 needs two examples from different regions — Stalin (Europe) pairs with Mao (Asia) or Castro (Americas).
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Full study notes for Case study: Stalin and the USSR
Topic 15.4 hub
Case studies (authoritarian leaders)
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