Global Studies II

Unit II Russia

Name ______________________________
Date ____________

Totalitarianism under Stalin

1. Define the term totalitarianism Describes a government that takes total centralized state control
over every aspect of public and privet life.
2. While reading the excerpt, create a list of methods of control used by Soviet leaders and examples

Methods
Police Terror

Indoctrination

Examples
They use terror and violence to force obedience
and to crush opposition.

Instruction in the government beliefs- to mold

peoples minds.

Propaganda and censorship

Incomplete information used to sway people to

accept certain beliefs or actions.

Religious or ethnic Persecution

Create Enemies of the state to blame for

things that went wrong.

Of all the methods of control, which allows the MOST long-term control? Police Terror because
they have control and the fear can stay with the people they are effecting.
3. Stalins methods of control.
a. What was the Great Purge? How would Stalins use of this action increase his power?
A campaign of terror directed at eliminating anyone who threatened his power. This helped Stalin gain
power because he made anyone involved stand trial than work for him after.
b. What was Pravda? How did Stalin explain the purpose of art in the USSR?
The Pravda was the communist party newspaper and it explained the purpose of art. Literature, the
cinema, the arts are levers in the hands of the proletariat which must be used to show the masses positive
models of initiative and heroic labor.
c. What is an atheism? How did Stalin use atheism to influence his control over his citizens?
Atheism is a to believe in no God. He wanted them only to believe in him and not a God or bigger figure.

4. Stalins control over the economy.

a. What is a command economy? a system in which the government made all economic decisions.
b. Stalins Five Year Plans
1. Purpose
Increase the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity. To reach these targets the government had to limit
production of consumer goods.
2. Results?
People were faced with severe shortages of housing, food, clothing, and other necessary goods.
c. What methods did Stalin use to bring agriculture under state control?
Stalin uses collective farms to bring agriculture under state control. The government owned all of these
farms. It boosted the food production and reduced the number of workers.
d. Kulaks - Who were they?
Fiercely resisted collectivization.
1. How did they create a problem for Stalin?
They murdered officials, torched the property of the collectives, and burned their own crops
and grain in protest.
2. How did he solve the problem?
The State took control of the Kulaks land and equipment, and confiscated stores of food and
grain. More than 3 million Ukrainians were shot, exiled, or imprisoned. Over 6 million people died in
the government-engineered famine that result from the destruction of crops and animals. By 1935,
all the Kulaks had been eliminated.