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Suggested Short Essay Titles

1. ‘The collapse of the autocracy was rooted in a crisis of modernisation’ (Steve Smith). Discuss.

2. Account for the fact that ‘Russia’s working class, despite its close links with the peasantry, was exceptionally militant and revolutionary’ (Sheila Fitzpatrick).

3. ‘The dominant discourse of 1905 was one of citizenship, rather than of socialism’ (Steve Smith). Discuss.

4. How successful was the autocracy in re-establishing its authority between 1905 and 1914?

5. ‘The First World War both exposed and increased the vulnerability of Russia's old regime’ (Sheila Fitzpatrick).

6. ‘The Bolsheviks came to power not because they were superior manipulators or cynical opportunists but because their policies placed them at the head of a genuinely popular movement.’ (Ronald Suny). Discuss.

7. How far do you agree that the Russian revolution was a particularly utopian phenomenon?

8. ‘The era of NEP was a profoundly anxious time’ (Eric Naiman). Discuss.

9. How far was it possible for ‘backward’ groups to become ‘New Soviet People’?

10. How far do you agree with Lynne Viola’s description of Stalin’s Great Break as ‘social engineering on a mass scale’?

11. Assess the view that the 1930s saw a ‘Great Retreat’ (Nikolai Timasheff) to traditional social values.

12. To what extent did Soviet leaders promote the development of national identities?

13. The Soviet state ‘divided the world into enemies and friends and justified the harshest of measures against all opponents’ (Ronald Suny). Discuss.

14. Account for the ways in which the Soviet state attempted to influence, guide and repress popular attitudes during the Great Fatherland War.

15. How far do you agree that the Secret Speech ‘generated a crisis in the management of public opinion’ (Polly Jones)?

16. Post-war Soviet society was defined ‘as much by those people, experiences and ideas it excluded as by those it welcomed and included’ (Susan Morrissey, Juliane Fürst and Polly Jones). Discuss.

17. The Cold War was fought, not only with conventional weapons, but also with ‘consumption and living standards’ (Susan Reid). Discuss.

18. The ‘imagined West’ (Alexei Yurchak) had a greater impact on late Soviet society than the West itself. Discuss.

19. Soviet society under Brezhnev was ‘overtaken by pessimism’ (John Bushnell). Discuss.

20. How far do you agree that the post-war Soviet Union cared more about its historical past than its utopian future?

21. Glasnost’ unleashed social forces that the Soviet state could not control. Discuss.

22. How far do you agree that ‘the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism were consequences of Soviet contacts and exchanges with the West’ (Yale Richmond)?

23. To what extent did the ghosts of the Soviet past haunt Russia's 1990s?

24. ‘Putin’s admirers argue that he has done nothing less than create a model of Russian statehood revamped for the twenty-first century’ (Stephen Lovell). How far do you agree with this assessment?