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| 6933218250 | 1. Where did communist governments exercise state power and various degrees of influence besides the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe during the 20th century? | Korea, Vietnam, Greece, France, Italy, the United States, Philippines, Malaya, Indonesia, Bolivia and Peru. (Original: p. 660-661; With Sources: pp. 1030-1031) | 0 | |
| 6933218251 | 2. Identify the major differences between the Russian and Chinese Revolutions. | The revolution in China was a struggle of decades rather than a single year. Unlike Russia, where intellectuals had been discussing socialism for more than 50 years before the revolution, the ideas of Karl Marx were barely known in China. The Chinese communists faced a more formidable political foe than the weak Provisional Government over which the Bolsheviks had triumphed in Russia. The Bolsheviks found their primary audience among workers in Russia's major cities and the Chinese communists looked to the rural peasant villages for support. The Chinese peasants did not rise up spontaneously against their landlords as Russian peasants did. The Bolsheviks gained support by urging Russian withdrawal from WWI, whereas the Chinese communists won support by aggressively pursuing the struggle against Japanese invaders during WWII. (Original: pp. 662-667; With Sources: pp. 1032-1037) | 1 | |
| 6933218252 | 3. Why were the Bolsheviks able to ride the Russian Revolution to power? | Impatience and outrage against the Provisional Government provided them with an opening. The Bolsheviks message to end the war, more land for peasants, workers' control of factories, and self- determination for non-Russian nationalities, resonated with an increasingly rebellious public mood. They were able to seize power during an overnight coup in the capital city of St. Petersburg by claiming to act on the behalf of the highly popular soviets, in which they had a major presence. (Original: p. 663-664; With Sources: pp. 1033-1034) | 2 | |
| 6933218253 | 4. How did the Chinese Communist Party adapt its ideology and strategy during its long struggle to power? | The Chinese Communist Party aimed its efforts at organizing the country's small urban working class. European Marxism was adapted to fit the situation in a mostly peasant China. The CCP found a charismatic leader in Mao Zedong who addressed China's major problems—foreign imperialism and peasant exploitation. To gain peasant support, Mao experimented with land reform in areas under communist control, increased efforts to empower women, and created a communist military force to protect liberated areas form Guomindang attack and landlord reprisals. Furthermore, in the areas that the Guomindang controlled, the CCP reduced rents, taxes, and interest payments for peasants; taught literacy to adults; and mobilized women for the struggle. The struggle expressed Chinese nationalism as well as a demand for radical social change. (Original: pp. 665-667; With Sources: pp. 1035-1037) | 3 | |
| 6933218254 | 5. In undertaking the push for modernization, how were China and Russia able to construct a socialist societies? In economic terms? | In the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, the Russians embraced many material values of Western capitalist societies and were similar to the new nations of the 20th century, all of which were seeking development. This involved a frontal attack on long-standing inequalities of class and gender, an effort to prevent the making of new inequalities as the process of modern development unfolded, and the promotion of cultural values of selflessness and collectivism that could support a socialist society. This political state, dominated by the Communist Party, also controlled almost the entire economy and various professional groups operated under party control. The Chinese had substantial administrative and governing experience, unlike the Bolsheviks. The Chinese communists came to power as the champions of the rural masses, whereas the Bolsheviks lacked experience in the countryside. In economic terms, China faced even more daunting prospects than did the Soviet Union. Its population was far greater, its industrial base far smaller, and the availability of new agricultural land was far more limited than in the Soviet Union. China's literacy and modern education, and its transportation network, were likewise much less developed. Thus, Chinese communists had to build a modern society from the ground up. (Original: p. 668; With Sources: p. 1038) | 4 | |
| 6933218255 | 6. What changes did communist regimes bring to the lives of women? | In the Soviet Union: Women had full legal and political equality; marriage became a civil procedure among freely consenting adults; divorce and abortion were made easier and legalized; married women could keep their own names; pregnancy leave for women was mandated; and women could now work in factories in the country's drive to industrialize. The Communist Party set up a special organization, whose radical women leaders pushed a feminist agenda in the 1920s by organizing conferences for women, training women to run day-care centers and medical clinics, publishing newspapers and magazines aimed at a female audience, providing literacy and prenatal classes, and encouraging Muslim women to remove their veils. In China, the Marriage Law of 1950 was a direct attack on patriarchal and Confucian traditions. This decreed free choice in marriage; relatively easy divorce; the end of concubinage and child marriage; permission for widows to marry; and equal property rights for women. The Chinese Communist Party also launched a Women's Federation, although its leadership was less radical than the Women's Department (Zhenotdel). (Original: p. 669; With Sources: p. 1039) | 5 | |
| 6933218256 | 7. How did the collectivization of agriculture differ between the USSR and China? | In Russia, the peasants had spontaneously redistributed the land among themselves, and the Bolsheviks ratified their actions. In 1949 China, after a long and difficult process, peasants were encouraged to confront and humiliate landlords, which resulted in over one million deaths of landlords. A second and more distinctively socialist stage of rural reform sought to end private property in land by collectivizing agriculture. In China, despite brief resistance from richer peasants, collectivization during the 1950s was generally a peaceful process. In the Soviet Union, peasant resistance to collectivization led to extensive violence in 1928-1933. China pushed the collectivization process further, though, particularly in large "peoples communes" during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. (Original: p. 670-671; With Sources: pp. 1040-1041) | 6 | |
| 6933218257 | 8. What were the achievements of communist efforts at industrialization? What problems did these achievements generate? (Results of The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution) | One significant achievement for both was that they experienced major economic growth. Living standards improved; literacy rates and educational opportunities greatly improved, allowing for greater social mobility than ever before. Problems were: industrialization brought rapid urbanization, the countryside was exploited to provide modern industry in the cities; and a privileged bureaucratic and technological elite developed, intent on pursuing their own careers and passing on their new status to their children. (Original: pp. 671-673; With Sources: pp. 1041-1043) | 7 | |
| 6933218258 | 9. Explain the Great Purges. | In the late 1930s, Lenin's top associates and millions of more people felt Stalin's Great Purges. This process was based on suspicious associations in the past; denunciations by colleagues; connections to foreign countries; or simply bad luck. Such people would be arrested, usually in the dead of night, and tried and sentenced either to death or to long years in harsh and remote labor camps known as the gulag. Many were falsely accused, but in the Soviet Union, the search for enemies occurred under the clear control of the state. The Terror consumed the energies of a huge corps of officials, investigators, informers, guards, and executioners, many of whom themselves, were arrested, exiled, or executed in the course of the purges. (Original: p. 674; With Sources: p. 1044) | 8 | |
| 6933218259 | 10. In what different ways was the Cold War expressed? | It was expressed through rivalry militarist satellite countries of Eastern Europe; and a series of regional wars, especially in Korea, Vietnam, and later in Afghanistan. Tense standoffs occurred, like the Cuban Missile Crisis. The nuclear arms race escalated into the stockpiling of nuclear warheads. There was competition for influencing undeveloped countries worldwide, and fomenting revolutionary groups around the world. (Original: pp. 675-677; With Sources: pp. 1045-1047) | 9 | |
| 6933218260 | 11. How did the United States and the Soviet Union court third world countries? | Cold War fears of communism penetration prompted U.S. intervention, sometimes openly, and often secretly, in Iran, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, the Congo, and elsewhere, and in the process the U.S. supported anti-communist but corrupt and authoritarian regimes. Indonesia received large amounts of Soviet and Eastern European aid, but that didn't prevent it from destroying the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965, butchering half a million suspected communists in the process. When the Americans refused to assist Egypt in building the Aswan Dam in the mid-1950s, Egypt developed a close relationship with the Soviet Union. However, neither superpower was able to completely dominate its supposed third world allies, many of whom resisted the role of pawns in superpower rivalries. (Original: p. 678; With Sources: p. 1048) | 10 | |
| 6933218261 | 12. In what ways did the United States play a global role after World War II? | The United States lead the Western world in an effort to contain the spread of the communist movement. It deployed military might around the world; it became the world's largest creditor and its chief economic power; and it became an exporter of popular culture. (Original: p. 678-679; With Sources: pp. 1048-1049) | 11 | |
| 6933218262 | 13. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the communist world by the 1970s. | By the 70s, communism had reached the greatest extent of expansion. The Soviet Union had matched its military might with the U.S. However, divisions within the communist world increased, especially between Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, China and the Soviet Union, and China and Vietnam. The horrors of Stalin's Terror and the gulag, of Mao's Cultural Revolution, and of something approaching genocide in communist Cambodia all wore away at communist claims to moral superiority over capitalism. (Original: p. 680-681; With Sources: pp. 1050-1051) | 12 | |
| 6933218263 | 14. Explain the economic and moral failures of the communist experiment. (Could the USSR match the West in quality and availability of consumer goods?) | Despite early success, communist economies by the late 1970s showed no signs of catching up to the more advanced capitalist countries. The highly regimented and state controlled Soviet economy was largely stagnant; its citizens had to stand in long lines for consumer goods and complained endlessly about their poor quality and declining availability. The eroding away of communist claims of moral superiority over capitalism was undermined by Stalin's purges, Mao's Cultural Revolution in which millions died of starvation, and Cambodia's attempt at genocide. This erosion occurred as global political culture more widely embraced democracy and human rights as the universal legacy of humankind. After all the boasting, Communism was increasingly being seen as the road to nowhere. (Original: p. 682; With Sources: p. 1052) | 13 | |
| 6933218264 | 15. What was the result of the reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping? | Socially: Banned plays, operas, films, and translations of Western classics reappeared, and a "literature of the wounded" exposed the sufferings of the Cultural Revolution; a problem of urban over-crowding; terrible pollution in major cities; street crime, prostitution, gambling, drug addiction, and a criminal underworld, which had been eliminated after 1949, surfaced again in Chinas' booming cities. Politically: Some 100,000 political prisoners, many of them high-ranking communists, were released and restored to important positions. Local governments and private enterprises joined forces in thousands of flourishing township and village enterprises that produced food, clothing, building materials, and much more. Economically: More dramatic was the rapid dismantling of the country's system of collectivized farming and a return to something close to small scale private agriculture. Managers of state enterprises were given greater authority and encouraged to act like private owners, making many of their own decisions and seeking profits. China welcomed foreign investment in special enterprise zones along the coast, where foreign capitalists received tax breaks and other inducements. On the other hand, the states growing economy also generated massive corruptions among Chinese officials, but an essentially capitalist economy had been restored under Deng's reforms. (Original: pp. 682-684; With Sources: pp. 1052-1054) | 14 | |
| 6933218265 | 16. Describe China after communism. | Although the Communist Party still governed China in the early 21st century, communist values of selflessness, community, and simplicity had been substantially replaced for many by Western-style consumerism. People can now eat at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, drink Pepsi Cola, use cell phones, and wear clothing common to modern youth everywhere. (Original: p. 683; With Sources: p. 1053) | 15 | |
| 6933218266 | 17. How did the end of communism in the Soviet Union differ from communism's demise in China? | The Soviet reform program was far more broadly based than that of China, embracing dramatic cultural and political changes that China refused to consider. Unlike what happened in China, the reforms of the Soviet Union spun into a sharp decline. Unlike Chinese peasants, few Soviet farmers were willing to risk the jump into private farming, and few foreign investors found the Soviet Union a tempting place to do business. The Soviet Union's reform program led to the political collapse of the state unlike China. (Original: pp. 684-687; With Sources: pp. 1054-1057) | 16 | |
| 6933218267 | 18. Impact of glasnost on the Soviet allies in Eastern Europe? | Gorbachev moved to end the cold war by making unilateral cuts in Soviet Military forces, engaging in arms control negotiations with the United States, and most important, refusing to intervene as communist governments in Eastern Europe were overthrown. (Original: p. 686; With Sources: p. 1056) | 17 | |
| 6933218268 | 19. (On the one hand...On the other hand...) | On the one hand, communism brought hope to millions by addressing the manifest injustices of the past; by providing new opportunities for women, workers, and peasants; by promoting rapid industrial development; and by ending Western domination. On the other hand, communism was responsible for mountains of crimes—millions killed and wrongly imprisoned; massive famines partly caused by radical policies; human rights violated on an enormous scale; lives uprooted and distorted by efforts to achieve the impossible. (Original: p. 688; With Sources: p. 1058) | 18 | |
| 6933224371 | Berlin Wall | The Berlin Wall was built in Germany in 1961 to prevent the residents of communist East Berlin from escaping to the West. It had become a strong symbol of communist tyranny. (Original: p. 659; With Sources: p. 1029) | 19 | |
| 6933224372 | Comintern | This was a communist organization that provided aid and advice to aspiring revolutionaries everywhere. Through Comintern, Soviet authorities sought to control their policies and actions. (Original: p. 661; With Sources: p. 1031) | 20 | |
| 6933224373 | Warsaw Pact | Military alliance of the USSR and the communist states of Eastern Europe during the Cold War. (Original: p. 661; With Sources: p. 1031) | 21 | |
| 6933224374 | McCarthyism | Wave of anti-communist fear and persecution that took place in the U.S. in the 1950s. (Original: p. 661; With Sources: p. 1031) | 22 | |
| 6933224375 | Guomindang | The Chinese nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai-shek from 1928 until its overthrow by the communists in 1949. (Original: p. 666; With Sources: p. 1036) | 23 | |
| 6933224376 | Great Leap Forward | Major Chinese initiative from 1958-1960 led by Mao Zedong that was intended to promote small-scale industrialization and increase knowledge of technology; in reality, it caused a major crisis and exacerbated the impact of a devastating famine. (Original: p. 673; With Sources: p. 1043) | 24 | |
| 6933224377 | Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution | Mao Zedong's great effort in the mid-1960s to weed out capitalist tendencies that he believed had developed in China. (Original: p. 673; With Sources:) | 25 | |
| 6933224378 | Deng Xiaoping | Leader of China from 1976-1997 whose reforms essentially dismantled the communist elements of the Chinese economy. (Original: p. 682; With Sources: p. 1052) | 26 | |
| 6933224379 | Perestroika | bold economic program launched in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev with the intention of freeing up Soviet industry and businesses. (Original: p. 684; With Sources: p. 1054) | 27 | |
| 6933224380 | Glasnost | Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of "openness," which allowed greater freedom and ended most censorship of the media; the result was a burst of awareness of the problems and corruption of the Soviet system. (Original: p. 684; With Sources: p. 1054) | 28 |
