There is No Justification for the Terror in the U.S.S.R....

There is No Justification for the Terror in the U.S.S.R. in the 1930s I agree more with the statement ‘There can be no justification for the â€Å"terror† in the USSR in the 1930’s. It was motivated purely by Stalin’s lust for power.’ However, I can understand why one could say that terror was essential for the survival of the new communist state or Soviet Union. Stalin used terror to force the USSR to industrialise quickly, which enabled them to ward off the threat from fascism and develop into a world power. Source I, written by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 a few years before communism fell in Russia,†¦show more content†¦Source K partly agrees with Statement B because it states ‘without terror, who would have failed to notice the clear absurdity of Stalin’s rule?’ This shows that terror was necessary for Stalin to remain in power, and I think that Stalin was crucial to the survival of the USSR in these early days because without Stalin as a strong leader there might have been a power struggle, which may have made the USSR more vulnerable when Hitler invaded. Source K states that Stalin needed to use terror to keep the people ‘obedient’ and more importantly to make them ‘believe in him’. It seems that in the end the Source believes he was a ‘ruthless politician’ who was corrupted by power. Source K is reliable because, Adam Ulam, a historian in Britain writes it. It is written in 1974 and, therefore, Ulam has hindsight and large amounts of sources available for him to use. Source J generally agrees with Statement A because it states ‘Stalin was convinced that this (the use of terror and executions) was necessary for the defence of.. the interests of the victory of socialism and communism†¦In this lies the whole tragedy’. This quote shows how Khrushchev believes that the use of terror and executions was a tragedy and not necessarily needed for the survival of the USSR but that Stalin believed itShow MoreRelatedLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesunited Aragon and Castille into the modern country of Spain in 1469. They founded the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 as a branch of the government and appointed Torquemada to be the grand inquisitor. This government agency caused all sorts of official terror, and was generally bad for Europeans, although it brought certain shortterm benefits to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, King Ferdinand and especially Queen Isabella paid for Christopher Columbus’ trip west to find Asia, and this was very