Essay Plan: Economic Overview

This is an example of an overview question (45 marks) for which I have created an essay plan.

I always plan in exams, but not in this much detail; it's a good revision technique! In exams, I use bullet points first, briefly - say, one per paragraph - and then write the introduction, as this is where I lay out my argument, so I can make sure that I don't divert from the plan and that I know what it is that I'm arguing.

As this is an overview question, I've planned it per leader.

How far was the failure to achieve effective economic reform between 1941 and 1991 responsible for the break-up of the USSR?

Most historians agree that economic problems throughout the history of the USSR have been a significant cause of discontent both within the party and without, leading to stagnation during the Brezhnev era and beyond and ultimately having a large part to play in the discontent of the early 1990s. The failure of all leaders to significantly reform the system can thus be seen not only to have caused rifts in the party but to have resulted in the break up of the USSR by 1991.

Plan

STALIN
- caused the rigidity of the economy which meant no one after could reform
- historians agree that it was strong and that it was what was necessary during the war and in its immediate aftermath, but that is became too rigid
- HARRISON: "If WW2 was a test then the Soviet Economy passed it"
- Legacy of superpower status: OVERY: "The Soviet state was transformed by this process, and communism, close to collapse in the Autumn of 1941, came to be the dominant political force across Eurasia from East Germany to North Korea"

KHRUSHCHEV
- attempts at reform fail, but boost economy - maintaining it for the mean time
- tries to remove bureaucracy; causes it to grow by 1/3 making it harder to change later on and proving the fact that it was impossible to reform
- FILTZER: "Khrushchev never attempted to remove the basic levers of Stalinism within the USSR; those of central planning"

BREZHNEV
- NOVE: "Economically speaking, the Brezhnev period has to be seen as a disaster"
- no attempts at reform made, save for in agriculture, where they weakened the system further by causing unnecessary change and directing investment away from industry with no tangible successes resulting
- one reason for the rise of dissidence?
- black market undermining the system just left to grow

ANDROPOV
- dies before black market reforms have a chance to work

GORBACHEV
- lights nationalist fire; general strikes etc
- causes party rifts

OTHER REASONS FOR USSR'S COLLAPSE
- political corruption
- Gorbachev's personal failings

Conclusion
- Yes, in the long-term, it was a significant reason for the collapse of the USSR

Hoping this help!

- HistGrrl x

Themes: Social change

I'm not going to look at specific elements within social change independently, but rather have come up with this rather lovely table for you. Click to see it larger :)

Print it and learn it :)



- HistGrrl x

Themes: Leaderships

The comparison of leaderships makes up a large part of the analysis of political change.

Stalin
- strong, decisive leadership which commanded respect
- ideology
- brutal, dictatorial, paranoid, resistant to change
- rigid control and denial of outside influences
- death toll & purges
- economy strong but extremely rigid and controlled
- no dissent because no dissent tolerated

Khrushchev
- popular, accepting of reform and more humane
- unpredictable, coarse and indecisive
- dismantled Stalinism
- peaceful co-existence
- ignored party responsibility for crimes
- economic failures

Brezhnev
- stable, reliable
- poor judgement, conservative, corrupt
- abuse of system
- cult of personality
- treatment of peasants
- stagnation
- ideology lost meaning

Gorbachev
- more liberal and Western
- recognised need for change
- indecisive, inconsistent, hesitant
- opened society
- more realistic defence and foreign policy
- contribution to break-up
- not an economist

I was going to put pictures of the leaders on this post, but I thought it might scare away my readers. Eeek...

Interesting thought: Russian leaders alternate - bald, had hair, bald, had hair etc

Lenin - bald
Stalin - had hair
Khrushchev - bald
Brezhnev - had hair
Andropov - bald
Chernenko - had hair
Gorbachev - bald

That's... um, interesting, right? And, um, of course, highly significant to their leaderships...

- HistGrrl?

Themes: Nationalist Tension

Nationalist tension has always existed within the USSR, and has always been a cause of instability and a worry to leaders. As with some other topics, we'll investigate the war and the "High Stalinism" period separately.

The War Years
- Jews, Tartars and other minority nationalities treated with hostility and suspicion
- worries that they'd ally with the Nazis
- many deported to Siberia or rounded up and sent to labour camps
- the fight for "Mother Russia" alienated many
- Nazi treatment of Jews and Slavs commonly seen as having been a major cause of Nazi loss (believed them subhuman so wouldn't allow them to fight for the Reich)
- Tartar exile 1944; Keys suggests was one of the only rational racial exiles, as many had actually allied with the Nazis - entire Tartar race (200 000 people exiled to Central Asia, with 40 000 dying on the way)
- most were fully involved in Soviet war effort
- 'Guilty by association'
- LAVER: "Stalin was obsessed with a supposed national threat"

High Stalinism
- wartime paranoia continues
- national tensions kept at bay by totalitarian nature of regime

Khrushchev
- LAVER: "through nationalist reform, the USSR was also discouraged"
- Poland and Hungary, 1956
- Warsaw Pact
- break from Stalinist cultural control
- Stalinist treatment of religious groups (eg Jews wanting to emigrate to Israel)

Brezhnev
- Stagnation & poor economic growth lead to rises in national tension, especially from the better of nationalities who did not wish to be associated with Russia
- Helsinki accords lead to hope of reform
- Dissidence more potent amongst national minorities
- Prague Spring
- LAVER: "If there was a national threat then Brezhnev did not solve it"
- Deliberate 'russification' or republics/letting sleeping dogs lie
- Brezhnev Doctrine
- Olympics lead to campaign of Soviet nationalism

Gorbachev and the collapse of the USSR
- 'Glasnost' lead to hopes of national freedom
- Economic failure and 'left over' dissatisfaction lead to increased growth in nationalism
- fuelled by political moves to democracy
- LAVER: "a timebomb waiting to explode"
- break up began in nationalities
- August Coup lead many nationalities to claim independence
- CIS
- break up of Warsaw pact
- Lithuania
- trigger cause of collapse of USSR?

How significant a threat were nationalities all along?

Many historians have speculated that the national threat which came to dominate Soviet politics towards the end of the USSR had been long-existent and that it had simply reacted particularly harshly to more political freedoms and to drastic economic conditions. The threat was clearly present in some nationalities, such as Ukraine, since well before the Second World War, when Ukrainian peasants fought especially potently against the collectivisation drive; and the fact that most historians agree that the moment Ukraine seceded was essentially the moment that the USSR fell suggests that this long-existent tension was incredibly important in the collapse of the USSR.

The tensions in the Baltic states which were taken during WW2 were certainly the strongest, as they had the longest tradition of independence and were most able to remember the pre-Soviet era: thus the fact that Gorbachev's one attempt to halt secession happened as he sent tanks into Lithuania suggests that even the regime saw these as the greatest threat.

The threat of religious races has also been seen as highly significant, with the only major threat from within the USSR, under Khrushchev, being from the highly repressed Jews wishing to emigrate to their newly formed republic of Israel. Religious tensions also exacerbated problems within the Asian republics under Brezhnev, as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan faced particularly harsh repression as well as strong economic incentives to conform, with much investment being given to these.

Hope this helps! That's pretty much half your essay written for you because I got a little carried away!

Much love xo

- HistGrrl x

Themes: The Role of Stalinism

Assessing whether Stalinism was maintained after Stalin's death, and to what extent, is a very simple and somewhat likely exam question - and would definitely be my preferred thematic exam question!

(Remind yourself of how I define Stalinism HERE)

So, to what extent was it maintained after Stalin's death? This time, we're looking by element of Stalinism, not by leader.

Dictatorship of one man

- arguably all leaders post-Stalin lead in this way
- Khrushchev and Malenkov in the collective leadership
- the party's desire, post-Khrushchev, not to let any one leader hold so much power again
- Brezhnev chosen as a "man of the centre" (Tompson)
- Brezhnev's willingness to ask for advice
- Khrushchev's outsting
- Gorbachev's more liberal, Western viewpoint, and the fact that he had political opposition

Cult of personality

- Brezhnev arguably had one; "a personality cult without a personality" (Tompson)
- Khrushchev was accused of building one
- Khrushchev and Brezhnev's assumptions of all Stalin's old positions

Dominant ideology

- LAVER: "Ideology had simply lost its meaning to many within the USSR by 1982"
- not seen as so dominant in ever after Stalin's death

Command Economy

- Brezhnev's inability to remove Gosplain
- Khrushchev's separation of ind/ag
- Gorbachev's desire for "a free market within the confines of a state-controlled economy"
- the dominance of FYPs

Aggressive Foreign Policy

- Warsaw Pact
- "The Thaw"
- SALT
- Détente
- Afghanistan
- Brezhnev Doctrine
- Helsinki
- Regan/Bush and Gorbachev
- USSR joining the UN
- end of the Cold War

Use of terror

- Khrushchev-era legal reforms
- Dissidence and Brezhnev
- End of "reign of fear" - Khrushchev ousted, for eg
- Purges on same scale never happened again

So, was Stalinism maintained in the USSR after Stalin's death? I think we can almost categorically agree not.

Now, have a break. I feel like I need one; you do too! :)

- HistGrrl x

Themes: Economy

The Soviet Economy is a topic highly likely to come up, and so an understanding of it and themes within it is very important.

I'm going to look at a few key dates in detail to help spot trends.

1941 - how prepared were the USSR for war?

The top line shows 1941 levels of industrial production and the bottom line shows 1942.

- Gosplan, FYPs and collectivisation prepared the USSR for war
- strong armaments industry
- industry in less vulnerable areas
- central planning system well geared towards war
- HOWEVER 1942 statistics show how badly the invasion hit the USSR & how it caused serious damage to industrial infrastructure
- agriculture was similarly hit because of the "scorched Earth" and German advances through Ukraine

1950 - how well had the USSR recovered from war?

Purple bars show 1950 statistics; green show 1950 plan targets; red show 1945 stats; and blue show 1940.

- for the most part, the Soviet economy recovered bizarrely well from the war
- 1940 quotas were always exceeded by 1950 & most of the 1950 plan targets were, too
- quantitative statistics, not qualitative
- propaganda projects
- agricultural production up on 1945, but down on 1940
- scorched Earth damage
- NOVE: "agriculture, in Stalin's final years, was characterised by excessive centralisation of decision, insufficient investment, extremely low prices and ill-judged intentions"

1965 - how successful were Khrushchev's reforms?

Blue shows 1958; red shows 1965 targets; green shows 1965 actual results

- supposed failures not as bad as is often claimed
- agriculture characterised by campaignist schemes
- confusion of bureaucracy and changes to it
- ind/ag wings left added complications

1985 - how far was the economy declining?

The weird cream colour is 1981-85; maroon is 1976-80; and purple is 1971-75

- lack of investment/innovation
- conservatism
- black market
- lack of regard for environmental concerns
- tried to replace Gosplan, but was not successful
- little put into economy = little comes out (ind)
- agriculture received significant investment, which came to nothing

1991 - economy in crisis?

Blue is national income (what people were paid); red is industrial out-put; green is agricultural out-put

- even official Soviet statistics showed significant decline in growth, and even genuine economic decline
- indecision
- Gorbachev was not an economisy
- the party lost economic control

Shocking final statistics to leave you with a true sense of the desperation of the Soviet Economy...

Growth rates 1960-1985

Blue is Soviet statistics; red is American estimates; green is a leading Soviet economist, Kahin.

All show the economy to be declining at unprecedented rates.

Why did the economy decline so drastically, though?

- indecision
- inability to modify the Stalinist system
- vested interests in the bureaucracy
- the extent of the bureaucracy
- falling birth rates and lack of people to work
- lack of environmental concern
- absenteeism and alcoholism
- determination that the system that existed was the right one
- the role of the black market and the mafia
- lack of trading partners, once the Eastern Bloc began to turn away from the USSR
- loss of party control over the economy under Gorbachev

And... that's the economy done.

Questions, as ever, are welcome. I still can't believe I understood and created all those graphs! Statistics used sourced from Laver textbook on the era.

- HistGrrl x

PS - email me if you want full-size copies of the graphs, and I will transfer them over GoogleDocs.

Themes: Foreign Policy

When talking about Foreign Policy, you must ALWAYS talk about its significance within the USSR. Talking about it as a stand-alone element is neither relevant to the course, nor analytical. So, how did it affect leaderships and perceptions of leaders? Did it bring opposition or prove weakness?

As this theme is harder to analyse, I'm providing examples of short paragraphs of analysis after the information.

This theme is going to include the war as a separate element to High Stalinism - and I should probably warn you that I'm doing this one off the top of my head...

The Great Patriotic War
- working with the Allies
- suspicion of foreign powers
- against Germany, Norway and Finland
- A-Bomb
- "Soviet Sphere of Influence"
- Potsdam and Yalta conferences - the cause of the Cold War?
- Lend-Lease

The tensions created by the beginning of the cold war lead Stalin's regime to become even more internal and to spend a lot more on military and defence, dramatically effecting the economy. The Atomic Bomb also lead to changes in policy towards scientists and mathematicians, who were given more civil liberties in order to incentivise them.

High Stalinism
- THATCHER: "aggressive foreign policy"
- Aggression over East Berlin
- Defence spending rocketed
- Comecon
- Not involved in diplomacy with the rest of the world
- Seen as trying to "take over the world"

The internal nature of Stalin's regime at this time lead to distaste and bad feeling from the West, making later easing in relations even harder. However, the "percieved menace of the West" left Stalin with a suitable excuse to become more brutal in his internal policy, and lead him to be presented as a stronger leader, something that many historians agree Russians find necessary in their leaders - especially at this time, when memories of the Tsar were still existent.

Khrushchev
- the "thaw"
- U-2 incident
- Berlin Wall
- Start of the Vietnam War in earnest
- Warsaw Pact
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- economic aid to the third world
- alliance with China breaking down
- Sputnik and the space race
- Suez Crisis, 1956

Khrushchev's role in Soviet Foreign Policy is often seen as having been fatal because of the contradictions between the supposed "thaw" of destalinisation and the problems he caused with the West, over instances such as the building of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact and Cuban Missile Crisis. The "thaw" made him unpopular in the USSR, and his handling of these major events presented him as weak and aggressive both at home and abroad.

The effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis were especially fatal, given that clauses of the Kennedy/Khrushchev agreement which lead to the removal of US nuclear warheads from Eastern Europe were kept secret on the international stage, making it seem as though he had backed down, and thus presenting him as weak within the USSR. This is commonly seen as having been a major cause of his downfall.

Brezhnev
- SALT
- Détente
- Helsinki
- Moscow Olympics
- Afghanistan
- Brezhnev Doctrine

Laver has argued that "Brezhnev presided over a crucial period of Soviet Foreign Policy", given that his actions provoked distaste and opposition both within the USSR and abroad; although the initial SALT treaties and détente meetings were successful in the West as well as in the USSR, the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 is often seen as having been the breaking point. Causing millions of Soviet deaths, and often being referred to as "Russia's Vietnam", the war was as unpopular at home as it was in the West, where a boycott of the Moscow Olympics was called in protest, demonstrating the regime's unpopularity abroad to dissidents at home, thus exacerbating the problem.

Gorbachev
- popular in the West; seen as an international statesman
- membership of the UN
- ending the cold war?
- talks with Regan and Bush successful

Despite Gorbachev's vast successes in nuclear disarmament and in making the USSR acceptable on the world stage, he is often perceived within the USSR as having cared too much for Western ways of life and for PR as opposed to serious policies. Some argue that, had he spent less time on Foreign Policy, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 could have been averted.

As ever - any questions, just ask! :)

- HistGrrl x

Themes: Position of the CPSU

In this post, I'm going to examine the changing position of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) throughout the period 1941-1991. It's vague - but remember, you only have 45 minutes to cover fifty years. You can't go into too much detail and still be analytical!

Remember to differentiate between the PARTY and the GOVERNMENT. At certain points, they were synonymous, but at certain points they were completely different.

The changing role will be judged by leader, and "govt" is short-hand for "government".

Stalin
- dominant
- all-powerful
- congresses rarely met
- economic and social control rigid and complete (Gosplan, Zhadnovshchina etc)
- Govt and party synonymous

Khrushchev
- FILTZER: "It was Khrushchev who placed the party back at the centre of the political stage"
- moves to consolidate his own power gave the party more power
- split into industrial and agricultural wings
- legal reforms meant it had less control over people's lives
- government and party organs became more seperate

Brezhnev
- reversal of Khrushchev's reforms
- Nomenklachura and stability of cadres
- LAVER: "ideology had all but lost its meaning to many within the USSR by 1982"

Andropov
- anti-corruption drive to take power back from the mafia

Gorbachev
- law and party separated
- couldn't hold a state and party position
- membership fell by 3 million in 1990
- removal of incentives
- BRESLAUR: "Gorbachev refused to recognise that Yeltsin and the radicals were the future"
- economic control revoked 1988
- CPSU banned in aftermath of coup
- emergence of other parties

Specialist terminology has been used in this post - if you don't know it, please feel free to ask! :)

And... that's one theme down!

- HistGrrl x

Themes: Explanation

The course also requires students to be able to take a sweeping view across the whole fifty-year period studied. There will only be one question on this length of time, and you will not necessarily have to do it (as there are three questions and you only have to answer two), but it is never-the-less a good way to revise, and it would be foolish not to plan for these, in case there is another question that you just can't answer. Like... one on Brezhnev for example.

The most likely themes to come up are -

- the role of the CPSU
- the economy
- foreign policy
- nationalities
- leaderships
- political change (covered by "Leaderships" and "the role of the CPSU" - role them together for this topic & I won't bother covering it separately)
- the role of Stalinism
- social change
- and elements within social change

Although Laver, the chief examiner, is reported to have warned students to neglect culture at their peril, the relative lack of information on this, especially within his own textbook for the course, makes study of this unnecessarily difficult, and so I will not be covering it here - or answering a question on it, should one arise!

I'm going to cover these themes in the same way as ever. Usually, however, thematic questions are easier to plan for in exams, as there isn't all that much that can vary, so these are also good as sample essay plans.

- HistGrrl x

Introduction to posting style

Each post in The History Girl is going to be written in the same style.

First, we'll tackle units, part of a unit at a time, in short, simple bullet points, and then we'll look at themes, followed by construction of a strong essay, and exam technique.

And, of course, we'll not forget the historiography!

At the end of each section will be a question in italics - something for you to think about as you revise.

Hope this help - and good luck with your exam!