The assignment must be typed, double-spaced with one inch margins on all sides. Respond in essay format answering each part of the assignment as thoughtfully and thoroughly as you can in an essay format of approximately four to five pages

In "The Tasks of Economic Executives" of 1931 and in Parts I and II of "The Results of the First Five-Year Plan" in 1933, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin outlined the motivations and the result of his policy of rapid industrialization of the USSR. What were the reasons and the initial results of Stalin's policy as expressed in these speeches? How, according to Stalin, did the rest of the world view these results? After Stalin's death, however, Soviet leader Khrushchev denounced him for a long list of crimes. What according to this denunciation were Stalin's crimes, why in Khrushchev's view did he commit them and what were some of the consequences of those crimes?

Secondly, examine the fall of European communism by looking at the 2009 reflections of Mikhail Gorbachev on the resignations of Communist regimes in Europe in 1989-90. What do these readings and the largely non-violent surrender of power by European Communists in most countries where they ruled indicate about the evolution of those societies by that time?

The reading for this assignment are available at

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/RFFYP33.html

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/TEE31.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/krushchev-secret.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/kvh_cohen?