Embedded Files
DOCUMENT 1
The following is an image that shows the hierarchy of society prior to the Russian Revolution.
1. List each of the groups shown next to their statement, starting at the top of the image and working your way down.
2. What do you notice about the character of "We work for you"? Why do you think they are depicted in this way?
3. What do you notice about the character of "We feed you"? Why do you think they are depicted in this way?
4. Why would this image help us to understand the Russian Revolution?
DOCUMENT 2
The following is a map that shows the modern countries that made up the Soviet Union.
1. How many modern countries made up the Soviet Union?
2. On which two continents was the Soviet Union located?
DOCUMENT 3
The following is a quote from Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Soviet politician and leader of the CHEKA, the Soviet secret police under Lenin. Below, he describes the Soviet policies for "criminals."
We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Soviet Government and of the new order of life. We judge quickly. In most cases only a day passes between the apprehension of the criminal and his sentence. When confronted with evidence criminals in almost every case confess; and what argument can have greater weight than a criminal's own confession.
1. Why did Dzerzhinsky think that terror should be used?
2. Are criminals in the USSR given due process when they are accused of a crime? Explain how you know.
3. Do you think the criminals who were arrested are actually criminals? What do you think their crime was?
DOCUMENT 4
The following is an excerpt a newspaper written by Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist who became famous for writing about the famine in Ukraine that killed between 3 and 7 million Ukrainians.
A few days ago I stood in a worker’s cottage outside Moscow. A father and a son, the father, a Russian skilled worker in a Moscow factory and the son a member of the Young Communist League, stood glaring at one another.
The father trembling with excitement, lost control of himself and shouted at his Communist son. It is terrible now. We workers are starving. Look at Chelyabinsk where I once worked. Disease there is carrying away numbers of us workers and the little food there is uneatable. That is what you have done to our Mother Russia.
The son cried back: “But look at the giants of industry which we have built. Look at the new tractor works. Look at the Dniepostroy. That construction has been worth suffering for.”
“Construction indeed!” Was the father's reply: “What’s the use of construction when you have destroyed all that’s best in Russia?”
What that worker said is what at least 96 per cent of the people of Russia are thinking. There has been construction, but, in the act of building, all that was best in Russia has disappeared. The main result of the Five Year Plan has been the tragic ruin of Russian agriculture. This ruin I saw in its grim reality. I tramped through a number of villages in the snow of March. I saw children with swollen bellies. I slept in peasants’ huts, sometimes nine of us in one room. I talked to every peasant I met, and the general conclusion I draw is that the present state of Russian agriculture is already catastrophic but that in a year’s time its condition will have worsened tenfold.
1. Why does the father dislike the changes that have come to Russia?
2. Why does the son believe that the changes to Russia are positive?
3. What does the author predict about the future of Russia? What do you think caused this?
DOCUMENT 5
The following is a map that shows the Long March that Mao's communist forces took as they tried to escape the KMT.
1. Where did Mao's forces start? Where did they end up?
DOCUMENT SIX
Below is a map that shows the fighting in parts of China during the Chinese Civil War, fought between the Communists (led by Mao) and the KMT (Chinese nationalists)
1. What parts of China did the communists conquer first? Why do you think they started here?
2. Where did the nationalist government go when they realized they had lost the war to the communists?
3. What direction did communism spread in China?
DOCUMENT 7
The following is a graph showing the production of grain in China from 1950 - 1970. The Great Leap Forward, and the subsequent famine, took place from 1958 - 1961.
1. According to this chart, what happened to grain production during the Great Leap Forward?
2. According to this chart, was the Great Leap Forward a success? Why or why not?
3. Based on your background knowledge, what actions by the government caused the Great Leap Forward to fail?
DOCUMENT 8
The infographic below gives information about internet censorship in China today.
1. What happened on the anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre (when students who were protesting the government were shot and killed) in 2008? Why do you think this happened?
2. Based on the words censored by search engines, what kind of information is the government trying to prevent the Chinese people from learning about?
3. Which 2 facts on this sheet are most surprising to you? Why are they surprising?
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