Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin Hist 206 The Rise And

1. Answer each aspect of the question below as an essay, NOT as short-answer responses, as thoughtfully and thoroughly as you can and using specific references from the readings to support your response.

• In “The Tasks of Economic Executives” of 1931 and in “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan” Parts I and II in 1933, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin outlined the motivations of his policy of rapid industrialization in the first case, and the results of that policy in the second. Discuss the reasons given by Stalin in “The Tasks” as to why it was imperative that the Soviet Union industrialize as quickly as possible, and what were the early results of Stalin’s policy as expressed in his speech on “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan,” Parts I, II and III? How, according to Stalin, did the rest of the world view these results despite their hostility to the Soviet Union and Communism?
• After Stalin’s death, however, Soviet leader Khrushchev denounced him for a long list of crimes. What according to this denunciation were Stalin’s crimes, why in Khrushchev’s view did Stalin behave in this was manner, and what were some of the consequences of those crimes according to this speech?
• Finally, examine the fall of European communism as discussed in the 2009 reflections of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev in The Nation magazine on the resignations of Communist regimes in Europe between 1989-91 and in chapter 14 of Edward Berenson’s Europe in the Modern World. What were the reasons behind the decline and fall of European Communism according to Merriman’s chapter on the subject? Why did Soviet leader Gorbachev decide to not interfere in the collapse of European Communist regimes outside the Soviet Union?

The on-line readings for this assignment are available at:

com/Stalin/TEE31.html”>http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/TEE31.html (The Tasks of Economic Executives, 1931)

com/Stalin/RFFYP33.html”>http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/RFFYP33.html (Results of the First Five Year Plan, 1933)

Only Parts I and II are required for this essay.

http://www.historyguide.org/europe/khrush_speech.h… (Khrushchev’s Speech Denouncing Stalin, 1956)