AQA AS HISTORY Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Component 2N The Russian Revolution and the Rise of Stalin, 1917–1929 FINAL MAY 2023

AQA AS HISTORY Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Component 2N The Russian Revolution and the Rise of Stalin, 1917–1929 Tuesday 23 May 2023 Afternoon Time allowed: 1 hour 30 minutes Materials For this paper you must have: • an AQA 16-page answer book. Instructions • Use black ink or black ball-point pen. • Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7041/2N. • Answer two questions. In Section A answer Question 01. In Section B answer either Question 02 or Question 03. Information • The marks for questions are shown in brackets. • The maximum mark for this paper is 50. • You will be marked on your ability to: – use good English – organise information clearly – use specialist vocabulary where appropriate. Advice • You are advised to spend about: – 50 minutes on Section A – 40 minutes on Section B. Section A Answer Question 01. Source A From comments made to his colleague and supporter, Smirnov, by Trotsky in 1924. Trotsky recorded what he had said in his biography of Stalin, written in exile, 1938–40. Stalin is needed by all of them: by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, by the kulaks, by ambitious individuals advancing themselves in the party, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionary. He has will and daring. He is currently organising around himself all the shifty characters in the party, the crafty and unscrupulous. If everything continues to go automatically as it is going now, Stalin will just as automatically become dictator. 5 Source B From the memoirs of a Swiss communist, Jules Humbert-Droz, 1971. Humbert-Droz was a close friend of Nikolai Bukharin, whom he visited in February 1929. Before leaving Russia I went to see Bukharin. We had a long and frank conversation. He brought me up to date with the contacts made by his group with the Zinoviev-Kamenev faction in order to coordinate the struggle against the power of Stalin. I did not hide from him that I did not approve of this collaboration with the opposition. He told me that the struggle against Stalin was not a political programme and admitted that the bloc the groups were planning was a bloc without principles. Its sole purpose was to get rid of Stalin. I expressed my reservations, but Bukharin certainly knew better than I what crimes Stalin was capable of. 5 0 1 With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, which of these two sources is more valuable in explaining why Stalin won the power struggle after Lenin’s death? [25 marks] Section B Answer either Question 02 or Question 03. Either 0 2 ‘It was the weaknesses and failures of the Provisional Government established in March 1917 that led to its collapse in October/November 1917.’ Explain why you agree or disagree with this view. [25 marks] or