EXAM: Names, Concepts, and Events to Review
Be sure to know meanings of these concepts/events and to be able to support your reasoning with facts or examples.
The “Russian Moment”
How long did the RM last? Historical origins of autocracy: Slavs, Vikings, Kiev, and Mongols. Key institutions of autocracy: economy, army, culture. Causes of autocracy. The role of European threat. Perspectives on Russia: Westernism and obsession with modernization vs. Traditionalism and perception of insecurity. Three Russias and their key differences.
Key dates: 9-11 cent (Vikings, Christianity, Kiev Rus), 13th cent (Mogols), 15th cent (“Third Rome,” 1453 and “Gathering Russian lands”), early 17th cent (Time of Troubles and Romanovs, 1613), early 18th cent (Peter’s modernization, 1712 and the “Window to Europe”), 1789, 1812-14, 1856, 1861, 1905, 1914
Revolution and Bolsheviks
Key positions before the revolution: Kerenski, Tsereteli, and Lenin. The causes of revolution. Russia’s last csar and his role in the event leading to the October revolution. Sociohistory and sociohistorical analysis of the revolution’s causes. The role of the Soviets in the October revolution. Differences between the February and the October revolutions. Bolsheviks’ first decrees. Causes of dissolving the Constitutional Assembly. Military communism, its doctrinal and circumstancial sources. Domestic and international conditions. Supporters of the world revolution vs. the New Economic Policy (NEP).
Key dates: Feb and Oct 1917, 1918, 1918-1920, 1921
Stalin’s System
New international conditions and the Soviet rapproachment with Germany (Rappalo). Growing criticism of NEP and its roots. Stalin’s arguments against NEP vs. Bukharin’s defense. The Great Breakpoint and its immediate pretext. Industrialization and collectivization. Regime’s nationalization and its key features (Timasheff). Stalin’s foreign policy and the role of Nazi-Soviet Pact in Stalin’s calculations. Stalin’s political skills and main reasons of his victory. Lenin’s political will and characterization of Stalin’s fitness to rule. Distinctiveness of Stalinist political system and its economic, military, and political outcomes. The question of alternatives to Stalinism.
Key dates: 1929, 1934-36, 1937-39, 1941
Post-Stalin’s Political Changes
Khrushchev’s de-stalinization speech and its criticism of Stalin’s role. Main causes of the Soviet middle class pessimism (Bushnell). Brezhnev and the “little deal” (Millar). A comparison of Khrushchev and Brezhnev’s leadership styles (Burlatski).
Key dates: 1956, 1964, 1979
Soviet Breakup
The Soviet relative decline and Reagan’s SDI (1983). Gorbachev’s election and his initial vision of reform. Gorbachev’s traditionalist opponents and their critique (Andreeva). The dismissal (1987) and reemergence of Yeltsin and his reasons for withdrawing from Communist Party. Yelstin’s elections (June 1991). Yeltsin’s role in the coup against Gorbachev and dissolution of the Soviet Union. Position of Ukraine and Belarus. Arguments for and against (Malia) preventability of the Soviet breakup.
Key dates: 1983, 1986, 1988 (Law of State Enterprise), June 1991 (Yelstin’s election), Spring 1991, August 1991, December 1991
Yelstin’s System
The October 1993 crisis, its roots and main results. Positions of Yeltsin and Khasbulatov. Yeltsin’s mindset and the myths of transition (Shevtsova). Other assessments of Yeltsin’s era: a liberator or a failed statesman? (or both?)
Key dates: December 1991, Spring 1992, October 1993, 1996
Putin’s System
The role of state weakness in the rise of Putin. Role of Chechnya and residential buildings explosions. Putin’s Millennium speech and his assessment of the Soviet Union and its role in Russia’s development. New vision of change and its difference from that of Yeltsin. Westernist and statist assessments of Putin (Chivers vs. Graham).
Key dates: August 1999, 2000
Chechnya
Historical background to Russia-Chechnya uneasy relations. Tsar’s and Stalin’s treatments of Chechens. Yeltsin’s decision to use force in Chechnya: official and “non-official” explanations. Outcomes of the first war. Khasavyurt agreement and status of Chechnya. Basayev and Maskhadov. The second war and its causes. The role of Islamic Jihad (LaFraniere; Shlapentokh). Current status of Chechnya. Attempted solutions and their results (Doukaev vs. Steele). Continued problems in the region and its roots: Yelstin’s legacy, overdependence on force, corruption. Role of the West.
Key dates before the Soviet break: 1814-1864, 1877, 1918, 1922, 1929, 1944,
Soviet breakup and after: 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999-2003.