Name: _______________________ Stalin DBQ

DOCUMENT BASED QUESTION

This question is based on the accompanying documents. The question is designed to test your ability to
work with historical documents. Some of these documents have been edited for the purposes of this question.
As you analyze the documents, take into account the source of each document and any point of view that may
be presented in the document.

Historical Context:

Throughout history, governments have sometimes attempted to control the

thoughts and actions of their people. One such government is the Soviet Union under
the rule of Joseph Stain. The efforts of this government greatly affected its society.

Task: Using the information from the documents and your knowledge of global history,
answer the questions that follow each document in Part A. Your answers to the
questions will help you write body paragraph(s) in which you will be asked to

For the Soviet Union under Stalin’s control address each aspect below
• Describe the efforts of the Soviet Union to control the thoughts and/or actions
of its people
• Discuss an impact of this government’s efforts on its society

In developing your answer, be sure to keep these general definitions in mind:

(a) describe means “to illustrate something in words or tell about it”
(b) discuss means “to make observations about something using facts, reasoning, and argument; to
present in some detail”

Guidelines:
In your essay, be sure to:
• Develop all aspects of the task
• Incorporate information from at least five documents
• Incorporate relevant outside information
• Support the theme with relevant facts, examples, and details
Part A: Document Based Questions – Stalin Early Years

Document 1
It is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slow down the tempo [speed] somewhat, to put a check on the
movement. No, comrades, it is not possible! The tempo must not be reduced! On the contrary, we must increase it as
much as is within our powers and possibilities. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the workers and peasants of
the USSR. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the working class of the whole world.
To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. One feature of the history of
old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. All [other countries/empires] beat her
because of her backwardness...They beat her because to do so was profitable and could be done with impunity [freedom
from punishment]. Such is the law of the exploiters: to beat the backward and the weak.
That is why we must no longer lag behind.
In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in
our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we will defend its independence. Do you want our
socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? If you do not want this you must put an end to its
backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist system of
economy. There is no other way.
We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either
we do it, or we shall be crushed.

Speech by Stalin to industrial managers, February, 1931

1. What is Stalin saying are two reasons Russia had been beaten in the past? [2 points]

a) _________________________________________________________________________________________

b) _________________________________________________________________________________________

2. According to Stalin, how can the Soviet Union prevent beatings from occurring in the future? [1 point]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Document 2
 3. Describe the result of Stalin’s Five Year Plan’s
in these industries. [1 point]

_______________________________________

_______________________________________

4. Choose an industry listed and explain how

focusing on it would help the Soviet Union catch
up to other nations militarily. [1 point]

_______________________________________

_______________________________________

Document 3
The solution lies in enlarging the agricultural units . . . and in changing the agricultural base of our national economy. . .
the Socialist way, which is to set up collective farms and state farms which leads to the joining together of the small
peasant farms into large collective farms, technically and scientifically equipped, and to the squeezing out of the
capitalist elements from agriculture. . . . Now we are able to carry on a determined offensive against the kulaks [private
land owners], to break their resistance, to eliminate them as a class and substitute for their output the output of the
collective farms and state farms.

Speech by Stalin, 1929

5. According to Stalin, how best can agricultural production be increased? [1 point]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. According to Stalin, why must the kulaks be eliminated? [1 point]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Document 4
Today, reliable academic estimates place the number of Ukrainian victims of starvation at 4.5 million to 7 million.
. . . The famine was in part the by-product of Stalin’s relentless drive to collectivize Soviet agriculture. The famine was
a clear result of the fact that between 1931 and 1933, while harvests were precipitously [very steeply] declining,
Stalin’s commissars [Communist officials] continued to . . . confiscate grain. Peasants were shot and deported as rich,
landowning “kulaks”. . . . While the drive to collectivize agriculture was a wide-ranging phenomenon common to the
entire USSR, only in the Ukraine did it assume a genocidal character. Indeed there can be no question that Stalin used
the forced famine as part of a political strategy whose aim was to crush all vestiges [smallest amount] of Ukrainian
national sentiments.

“Forced Famine in the Ukraine: A Holocaust the West Forgot” by Adrian Karatnycky

7. According to this author, what were two explanations for the elimination of between 4.5 and 7 million Ukrainians between 1932
and 1933? [2 points]

a) _________________________________________________________________________________________
 b) _________________________________________________________________________________________

Document 5
The radical step forward by the majority of the peasantry towards a collective way of life was taking place against the
backdrop of a bitter struggle between Soviet power and the kulaks. The [kulaks] stooped to all possible means to wreck
the collectivization campaign. They murdered collective farm activists and Party and government officials sent to the
villages to help the peasants; they set fire to collective farm buildings; they poisoned the cattle and destroyed farm
machinery. . . . The Soviets had the right to banish them from their villages. . . . The exploiter class—the rural
bourgeoisie—was finally abolished. . .

The Land of Soviets, published in the U.S.S.R

8. Identify two ways in which kulaks attempted to resist the collectivization of farms. [2 points]

a) _________________________________________________________________________________________

b) _________________________________________________________________________________________
Document 6
The fulfillment of the first and second Five-Year Plans strengthened the Soviet Union’s economic position and turned it
into a powerful industrial state. . . . In 1937 the industrial output of the USSR was 5.8 times larger than in 1913. The
rate of industrial growth in the USSR considerably exceeded that of the capitalist countries. By 1937 the Soviet Union
was the first country in Europe and the second in the world in the volume of industrial production. . . . Socialist
industrialization was accompanied by the rapid growth of the working class, and made it possible to liquidate
[eliminate] unemployment. In 1940 there were 9,971,000 industrial workers, which was nearly three times more than
in 1928. The working class was also changing: its efficiency, technical and cultural levels were growing rapidly.

The Land of the Soviets, published in the U.S.S.R, describes the results of the Five-Year Plans.

9. According to the author, what were two results of the Five-Year Plans? [2 points]

a) _________________________________________________________________________________________

b) _________________________________________________________________________________________

Document 7
A society that is intense in its struggle for change has a flip side to its idealism: intolerance. People saw enemies
everywhere, enemies who wanted to destroy the revolution and diminish the results of their hard work and
accomplishments, enemies who wanted to restore capitalism for selfish reasons against the collective interests of the
nation. If those at the top of the Communist Party and an old revolutionary like Trotsky could join the enemy, what
about lesser people? In factories and offices, mass meetings were held in which people were urged to be vigilant
[watching for danger] against sabotage. It was up to common folks to make the distinction between incompetence and
intentional wrecking [i.e., sabotage], and any mishap [unintentional accident] might be blamed on wrecking.
Denunciations [provide information against someone] became common. Neighbors denounced neighbors.
Denunciations were a good way of striking against people one did not like, including one's parents, a way of
eliminating people blocking one's promotion, and ... a means of proving one's patriotism. Many realized that some
innocent people were being victimized, and the saying went around that "when you chop wood the chips fly." As with
Lenin, it was believed that some who were innocent would have to be victimized if all of the guilty were to be
apprehended.

Professor Frank Smitha in a lecture on genocide.

10. According to the lecturer, what were two reasons an individual might denounce another individual? [2 points]

a) _________________________________________________________________________________________
 b) _________________________________________________________________________________________

Document 8
I personally attended the second and third Moscow trials, those of 1937 and 1938. . . . Pyatakov [another defendant]
arose . . . confessed . . . to a number of crimes. Did these “confessions” carry any share of truth? It is possible that the
accused were hostile to Stalin’s regime. . . . But the lessons they recited must have been forced from them . . . it is more
likely that the GPU [secret police] touched each at his weak point. It is also probable that the accused gave in to some
form of pressure. . . . Some would give in to save their families, others in the hope of saving their own lives.

excerpt from the French ambassador to the Soviet Union described the public trials that were part of the “great
purges” of Stalin.

11. According to the French ambassador, give one reason those on trial may have given a false “confession’? [1 point]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Stalin DBQ Outline

Task Document Information Outside Information

Task Item 1
efforts of the
Soviet Union
under Stalin to
control the
thoughts and/or
actions of its
people

Task Item 2
impact of this
governments
efforts on its
society