Deck 18: The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union

Question 1

All of the following statements are true of the Russian economy before 1914 except

A) Europeans had invested as much money in it as they had in the American economy.
B) between 1888 and 1913 railway mileage more than doubled.
C) the state-operated sector of Russian industry was the largest government-managed economic system in the world.
D) Russian industry was typically dispersed in small factories employing fewer than 100 people.

Answer 1

Russian industry was typically dispersed in small factories employing fewer than 100 people.

Question 2

The Russian populists, and later the Social Revolutionaries,

A) disapproved of terrorism and assassination.
B) formed a small minority of the revolutionary intelligentsia.
C) held that revolution must come through the development and organization of the proletariat.
D) none of the choices are correct.

Answer 2

none of the choices are correct.

Question 3

The Russian Marxists

A) founded the Social Democratic Labor party in 1898.
B) were suspicious of the peasantry as a revolutionary class.
C) approved of terrorism and assassination as revolutionary tactics.
D) A and B

Answer 3

A and B

Question 4

Lenin and the Bolsheviks differed from the Mensheviks in that

A) Lenin was an elitist while the Mensheviks wanted a larger and more open party.
B) Lenin disapproved of the Menshevik purges.
C) Lenin wanted cooperation with liberals, progressives, and bourgeois democrats.
D) the Bolsheviks increasingly resembled the Marxists of western Europe.

Question 5

Lenin believed that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism,

A) thereby reaffirming the Marxian fundamentals of dialectical materialism and class struggle
B) in a striking revision of Marx's work on the subject.
C) meaning that big business exported surplus capital to underdeveloped areas in the search for greater profits.
D) and therefore, the export of surplus capital to underdeveloped areas impeded the growth of national colonial struggles.

Question 6

The "Bloody Sunday" demonstration of 1905, held in St. Petersburg, was

A) the incident that started the 1905 Russian Revolution.
B) instigated by the Bolsheviks so as to put themselves at the head of the workers' movement.
C) aimed at overthrowing the tsar.
D) all of the choices are correct.

Question 7

The tsar's government helped to quell the 1905 revolution by issuing the October Manifesto, _which

A) provided for sweeping labor reforms.
B) promised a constitution with civil liberties and a parliament.
C) pledged to punish only the most radical elements in the revolt.
D) promised an immediate end to the war with Japan.

Question 8

The history of the four Russian Dumas, or parliaments, indicated that

A) socialism and radicalism had little support in Russia.
B) the government could manipulate the electoral process to obtain the kind of Duma it wished.
C) the Cadets, or Liberals, enjoyed the support of most of the Russian people.
D) no party or group of parties could form a majority.

Question 9

In the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, a soviet was

A) a follower of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
B) the smallest organizational unit of the Bolshevik party.
C) a council of workers and soldiers.
D) a unit of the Red Army.

Question 10

All of the following reasons help to explain the fall of the tsar in February 1917 except

A) the disastrous Russian defeats in World War I.
B) the disgust with the influence of Rasputin on the imperial family.
C) Bolshevik revolutionary activity in St. Petersburg.
D) the refusal of the Russian army to back the tsar.

Question 11

The institution whose approval Lenin used to gain a modicum of legitimacy for his seizure of power in October 1917 was

A) the Constituent Assembly.
B) the Congress of Soviets.
C) the factory committees.
D) the Provisional Government.

Question 12

The Red Terror

A) aimed to exterminate all opponents of Lenin's regime.
B) exterminated thousands of revolutionaries.
C) continued long after the Revolution was secure.
D) all of the choices are correct.

Question 13

Under the New Economic Policy adopted by Lenin in 1921

A) the peasants were allowed to sell their farm products at a profit.
B) the state controlled the basic industries.
C) middlemen were permitted to buy and sell products at market prices.
D) all of the choices are correct.

Question 14

Many of the new laws passed by the Soviet Union regarding the rights of women did not have much immediate effect or were later revoked, but

A) women and girls did begin to receive more education.
B) women retained the right to an abortion.
C) traditional social relations were transformed nonetheless.
D) women retained the right to vote.

Question 15

Some of the most important bases or precedents for the creation of the carefully planned Soviet economy were

A) Marx's precepts for the creation of a socialist society.
B) Engel's ideas and the experiences of wartime, centralized control of the economy by the belligerent governments.
C) plans drawn up by Lenin before he died.
D) A and B

Question 16

Stalin's First Five-Year Plan

A) destroyed the kulak class.
B) increased the amount of livestock in the Soviet Union.
C) increased agricultural output to pre-1913 levels.
D) doubled agricultural production.

Question 17

The consequences of Stalin's Five-Year Plans included all of the following except

A) capital wealth, paid for by collectivized agriculture, grew, while consumer goods production languished.
B) agricultural production doubled.
C) the industrialization of Asiatic Russia occurred for the first time.
D) many millions of workers and peasants died.

Question 18

Around 1935, the Comintern, the international organization of Communists, instructed Communist parties to cooperate with socialists and liberals in order to

A) seize control of the European labor movement.
B) combat fascism.
C) persuade them to accept the Twenty-One Points.
D) gain European support of Russian industrialization.

Question 19

Describe the economic, social, and political reforms carried out in Russia, 1905-1914. If World War I had not broken out, could these reforms have prevented the Russian Revolution?

Question 20

What were the major reasons for the collapse of the Tsarist Regime in February 1917?

Question 21

What were the reasons for the fall of the Provisional government in October 1917 and the triumph of the Bolsheviks?

Question 22

Analyze the strengths and the weaknesses of the different Russian revolutionary groups. Why did the Bolsheviks win out over their other revolutionary rivals?

Question 23

How was Stalin able to acquire unparalleled personal power in the Soviet Union by the 1930s?

Question 24

How did Stalin transform the Soviet economy in the 1930s?

Question 25

Despite the harshness and brutality of his policies, Stalin's power in the 1930s remained virtually unchallenged. Why?

Question 26

What was the social impact of Stalin's programs?

Question 27

Did Stalin's great economic achievement justify the cruelty and repressive nature of his regime? Give an overall assessment of his years in power.

Question 28

How successful were the communists in spreading their beliefs to countries outside Russia during the period 1919-1939?

Question 29

What changes did industrialization bring to Russia before 1914? To what extent did industrialization change Russian society?

Question 30

How did Lenin define imperialism? What, in his view, would result from colonialism?

Question 31

What was war communism? How effective was war communism as a policy?

Question 32

How did the U.S.S.R. attempt to resolve the problem of nationalism?

Question 33

What was the role of the Communist party in the U.S.S.R.? How did membership affect the lives of individuals in the U.S.S.R.?

Question 34

What were Trotsky's contributions to Marxist thought? How were his ideas received within the U.S.S.R.?

Question 35

How did Marxists in both eastern and western Europe differ on the issue of international wars?

Question 36

Compare the map above to the map of post-World War I Europe on pages 716 and 717. What happened to the countries constituting the cordon sanitaire over the course of the mid-twentieth century?

Question 37

How did the U.S.S.R. address the problem of nationalism? Where was nationalism strongest among the member republics? Why?