USSR 3 — Purges, show trials, the cult of Stalin and the revision of history
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History · 4HI1
Paper 1
The state turning on itself, and the parallel project of rewriting the past so that the terror looked like history.
Specification coverage
Paper 1 — Dictatorship and conflict in the USSR, 1924–53, key topic 3
Assessment objectives: AO1, AO2, AO4. Suggested learning time: 100 minutes.
Required knowledge
- Reasons for the purges, including the murder of Kirov, and the key features of the purges of the 1930s
- Control of the populace: the roles of Yezhov, the NKVD and the gulags, and conditions in the gulags
- Reasons for and features of the Moscow Show Trials, 1936–38, and the purges of the armed forces
- The impact of the purges on the Soviet Union
- Reasons for and methods of the cult of personality: censorship, propaganda, 'socialist realism', control of education and the Soviet interpretation of history
Required skills
- Explain and analyse using second-order concepts: causation, consequence, change, continuity, similarity, difference and significance
- Analyse and evaluate a written interpretation of this period (AO4)
- Reach a supported judgement rather than describing events
How it is examined
- (a) 6 marks — “What impression does the author give about…?” (AO4)
- (b) 8 marks — “Explain two effects of…” (AO1 4, AO2 4)
- (c) 16 marks — a statement, “How far do you agree?”, choice of two (AO1 7, AO2 9)
Common mistakes
- Explaining the purges through Stalin's personality alone. Systemic and political explanations score higher.
- Omitting the purge of the armed forces, which links directly to Soviet failures in 1941.