Communism — Marxist Theory, Soviet Union & Legacy

Knowledge Themes

Structural Subtopics

• Core tenets of Karl Marx's Historical Materialism and Class Struggle
• Vladimir Lenin’s theory of the Vanguard Party and Democratic Centralism
• Causes and impact of the 1917 October Revolution
• Transition from War Communism to the New Economic Policy (NEP)
• Joseph Stalin’s policy of Socialism in One Country
• Implementation and socio-economic consequences of the Five-Year Plans
• Forced collectivization of agriculture and the Liquidation of the Kulaks
• Theoretical differences between Stalinism and Trotskyism
• The role of the Comintern in spreading global communism
• Post-WWII Sovietization of Eastern Europe and the Iron Curtain
• Nikita Khrushchev’s De-Stalinization and the Secret Speech
• Factors leading to the stagnation and eventual collapse of the USSR in 1991
• Comparison between Marxist theory and its practical application in the Soviet state
• Legacy of the Soviet model on 20th-century decolonization movements