Recommended textbooks for this unit, available from Amazon:
Official Edexcel Textbook
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My Revision Notes
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1 Communist government in the USSR, 1917–85
Establishing Communist Party control, 1917–24: the creation of a one-party state and the party congress of 1921; the nature of government under Lenin; the growing centralisation of power.Stalin in power, 1928–53: the elimination of opponents in government and party; the purges of the 1930s; Stalin’s power over party and state.
Reform, stability and stagnation, 1953–85: Khrushchev’s attempts to reform government including de-Stalinisation; the return to stability under Brezhnev, 1964–82; growing political stagnation.
2 Industrial and agricultural change, 1917–85
Towards a command economy, 1917–28: the nationalisation of industry; War Communism and the New Economic Policy; state control of industry and agriculture.Industry and agriculture in the Stalin era: the Five-Year Plans and industrial change; agricultural collectivisation and its impact; recovery from war after 1945.
Changing priorities for industry and agriculture, 1953–85: the promotion of light industry, chemicals and consumer goods; investment in agriculture and the Virgin Lands Scheme; the limited attempts at reform after 1964; economic decline.
3 Control of the people, 1917–85
Media, propaganda and religion: state control of mass media and propaganda; the personality cults of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev; attacks on religious beliefs and practices.The secret police: attacks on opponents of the government; the roles of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria; Andropov’s suppression of dissidents, 1967–82; the continued monitoring of popular discontent, 1982–85.
The state and cultural change: Proletkult, avant-garde and Socialist Realism, 1917–53; nonconformity from the 1950s; clashes between artists and the government to 1985.
4 Social developments, 1917–85
Social security: full employment, housing and social benefits, 1917–53; Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the promotion of a stable society, 1953–85.Women and the family: the changing status of different groups of women in towns and countryside; changing government attitudes towards the family as a social unit.
Education and young people: the growth of primary, secondary and higher education; the reduction of illiteracy; state control of the curriculum.
What explains the fall of the USSR, c1985–91?
The significance of the economic weaknesses of the USSR and the failure of reform.The effects of Gorbachev’s failure to reform the Communist Party and the Soviet government.
The impact of the nationalist resurgence in the late 1980s in the Soviet republics and in the communist states of Eastern Europe.
How far Gorbachev and Yeltsin can be seen as responsible for the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
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