Take Home Essay

You are to write an essay approximately 3-5 pages long, in which you address the following question. Your answer must be typed, one inch margins all around, double spaced, 12 point font and the paper must be stapled (no paper clips, or little folded over corner with a tear through it!). Essays are due in class when you turn in your short answer portion of the midterm exam.

The question:

Khrushchev has been described as a reformer, yet economic change, political reorganizations, and the cultural Thaw proceeded unevenly, in fits and starts. Choose two realms (e.g., the economy [agriculture, consumption, etc]; popular culture; education; foreign policy; domestic politics) and describe (a) why and how Khrushchev sought reform and (b) what forces that undermined or limited success. In light of your findings, can the Khrushchev era be characterized as a success?

Before you start to write, think about how to structure your paper so as to answer all parts of the question. Be aware that you will have to discuss the Stalinist system to some extent in order to explain the need for and program of reform, but the primary focus should be on the Khrushchev years. This is not a long essay, so you will need tight organization and well-chosen, strong evidence/examples. Do not try to summarize everything you know about Khrushchev. Rather, use carefully chosen, select examples to illustrate your point. Remember: this is an opportunity to demonstrate not only that you’ve been listening, but that you’ve been doing the reading, paying attention to discussion, and reflecting on the material.

You will find the History Writing Center’s “Final Checklist for Writing Essays,” as well as other handouts, useful when working on this assignment.

In-Class Short Answers

For the in-class portion of the exam, you will be required to define and give the significance, understood in broad terms, of five of six terms drawn from the following list. All terms come from the PowerPoint presentations/lectures or from the assigned readings.

Stalin Revolution	Secret Speech	Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Zhdanovshchina	Revolutionary Legality	Novocherkassk
Anticosmopolitanism Campaign	Cult of Personality	Machine Tractor Stations
Leningrad Case	Agrotowns	Polytechnicalism
Lavrentii Beriia	Virgin Lands Campaign	Collective leadership
Georgii Malenkov	The Thaw
Surviving Freedom	The Cranes Are Flying

To give you a sense of what I’m looking for in the short answers, here is an example drawn from a different course [The World Since 1945]:

Balfour Declaration

This statement was issued by the British government in 1917 affirming its commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration is significant because it gave the Jews of Europe leverage with the British for the creation of Israel on land that the British controlled under the terms of the Mandate. In the context of the Holocaust’s aftermath and the widespread understanding of the need for a Jewish homeland, the Balfour Declaration enhanced the Zionists historic claim to a right to Palestine, despite the fact that it was at odds with other promises made to the indigenous Arab population. This, of course, set the stage for a Palestinian-Jewish conflict that continues today.

Note that it took one sentence to define. The rest spun out the significance into the broadest possible context, essentially answering the question “why should we continue to care about this?” Where you can make explicit reference to assigned readings, please do so.

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