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"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!). Nothing past page 5 will be read and if you play games with the font or the margins I will stop reading earlier. (Erin: Um, way to preemptively be a bitch, but whatev) Essays are due in class when you turn in your short answer portion of the final exam.
The question:
Obviously, no one factor can account for as complex an event as the fall of the USSR. A variety of political, economic, and social forces contributed to popular disillusionment with the regime and a decline in its authority. Drawing on the assigned readings, lectures, discussions, and films, what are the most crucial factors that would you highlight in explaining the collapse of the Soviet experiment from the perspective of (a) politics [domestic or international]; (b) economics; and (c) society. Please articulate and provide evidence for one “factor,” as you define it, for each of these three categories. What patterns can you discern among these three aspects of the Soviet system across the postwar period? In your conclusion, in addition to recapping your paper, address to what extent you see the post-Soviet period as representing a break or a continuation of these patterns. (Erin:...all that in 3-5 double spaced? Oh you have got to be kidding me)
Before you start to write, think about how to structure your paper so as to answer all parts of the question. I expect you to have some discussion somewhere of the late Stalin era, likely in the context of discussing the continual post-Stalinist efforts at various reforms. This is not a long essay, so you will need tight organization and well-chosen, strong evidence/examples. (Erin: WHAT. WHAT. I CANNOT FIT ALL OF MY GORBACHEV THEORY AND A SEPARATE POST-SOVIET ANALYSIS INTO THIS, LET ALONE SUSTAIN A CRITIQUE FROM THE STALIN ERA ONWARDS RE: REFORM. THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL.)
Conclussion: I will do what I can: 1) steal Richard Pipes' theory of the impossibility of grafting Western bits onto a totalitarian system, and 2) do a three-pronged analysis of Gorbachev era with perestrokia/glasnost for two (lame, but if it's what she wants than it is, facile as it seems) and a political vector of center-periphery multinational tension for the last, and 3) some post-Soviet total bullshit in the conclussion.
COMPLETELY IGNORING THE BIT WHERE SOMEHOW I WAS SUPPOSED TO PROVIDE SOME STALIN-ON CRITIQUE B/C W.T.F.
...oh my god, why would you write the world's fattest-assed paper assignment?! Why would you do this to the world?!
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!). Nothing past page 5 will be read and if you play games with the font or the margins I will stop reading earlier. (Erin: Um, way to preemptively be a bitch, but whatev) Essays are due in class when you turn in your short answer portion of the final exam.
The question:
Obviously, no one factor can account for as complex an event as the fall of the USSR. A variety of political, economic, and social forces contributed to popular disillusionment with the regime and a decline in its authority. Drawing on the assigned readings, lectures, discussions, and films, what are the most crucial factors that would you highlight in explaining the collapse of the Soviet experiment from the perspective of (a) politics [domestic or international]; (b) economics; and (c) society. Please articulate and provide evidence for one “factor,” as you define it, for each of these three categories. What patterns can you discern among these three aspects of the Soviet system across the postwar period? In your conclusion, in addition to recapping your paper, address to what extent you see the post-Soviet period as representing a break or a continuation of these patterns. (Erin:...all that in 3-5 double spaced? Oh you have got to be kidding me)
Before you start to write, think about how to structure your paper so as to answer all parts of the question. I expect you to have some discussion somewhere of the late Stalin era, likely in the context of discussing the continual post-Stalinist efforts at various reforms. This is not a long essay, so you will need tight organization and well-chosen, strong evidence/examples. (Erin: WHAT. WHAT. I CANNOT FIT ALL OF MY GORBACHEV THEORY AND A SEPARATE POST-SOVIET ANALYSIS INTO THIS, LET ALONE SUSTAIN A CRITIQUE FROM THE STALIN ERA ONWARDS RE: REFORM. THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL.)
Conclussion: I will do what I can: 1) steal Richard Pipes' theory of the impossibility of grafting Western bits onto a totalitarian system, and 2) do a three-pronged analysis of Gorbachev era with perestrokia/glasnost for two (lame, but if it's what she wants than it is, facile as it seems) and a political vector of center-periphery multinational tension for the last, and 3) some post-Soviet total bullshit in the conclussion.
COMPLETELY IGNORING THE BIT WHERE SOMEHOW I WAS SUPPOSED TO PROVIDE SOME STALIN-ON CRITIQUE B/C W.T.F.
...oh my god, why would you write the world's fattest-assed paper assignment?! Why would you do this to the world?!
