Theme 2: Economics in the Soviet Union

“How far do you agree that the benefits of Soviet economic policies outweighed the costs in the years 1917-26?”

Introduction:

For the economics theme of the A level you always get questions that require you to weigh up the pros and cons of the various economic policies. The trick is to make sure the policies you are writing about fit the date range, and that whilst you must weigh up the positive and negative consequences of these policies, you must always try to come of a definitive overall opinion that overall they are positive or negative. This is often worded in terms of costs and benefits, or success and failures.

Here I am going to walk you through how to plan and write an essay like this so you can have more confidence writing these style of questions and ace the exams! 👊

1. Note the date range

Make sure you are clear what policies fall into the date range. So for the example above it is everything under Lenin. so that includes, State Capitalism, War Communism and the New Economic Policy. These three policies would therefore make up your three paragraphs, as you can examine them individually to make a judgement for each policy and then use these judgements to form an overall judgement for the whole time period.

2. Brainstorm the costs and benefits for each policy

Draw two columns and use them for each of the three policies, to brainstorm the positive things about the policy and the negative things about the policy. This should be done before you start writing and can be submitted in the exam, showing the examiner you have made a plan and done some pre-thinking before writing.

Short video to help inspire your ideas for this particular essay...

3. Decide for each policy what your judgement is

Go through each policy and make a judgement - do the positives outweigh the negatives or vice versa. Look at your columns, and thing about on which side is the most or the most compelling evidence.

4. Explain why you have come to the judgement for each policy

One of the areas my students struggle with the most is being clear what their criteria is for judgement. All this really means is are you able to fully explain why you have made this judgement, and can you fully support and justify why you have come to this judgment. Note down this criteria because you will need to put it in your introduction.

5. Once you have a judgement for all three policies, you can start to consider what your overall judgement is.

Consider the three judgements you have made already, do they easily point to an overall judgement. They may all come to the same judgement, they may not, but overall do you think that the policies had more positive rather than negative consequences, or vice versa. If you are finding this hard, try to summarise the positive consequences you have discussed, and summarise the negative consequences, and sue these two summaries to see which you feel is most significant.

6. What might you use to help you make judgement?

Often students of mine feel stuck on coming to a judgement, either about one specific policy or an overall judgement. With the economic policies there are a number of questions you might ask yourself. These include:

What might have happened had this policy not been put in place?

What impact did this policy have on overall living standards for the soviet people?

What impact did this policy have on the Communist's hold on power?

7. Create a plan

Now you have brainstormed, scribbled some notes and judgement ideas, it is time to organize it into a plan. Your notes will be useful, but it is still important to make a plan. Use short-hand and keep it brief but make sure you plan includes 1) your overall judgement, this will be your line of argument that you are trying to build throughout the essay 2) which order to put your paragraphs, often this is chronological, but can be thematic - so consider what is going to help with your overall argument 3) are you clear what criteria you are using to justify your arguments.

8. Introductions

Introductions need four things. First off it should start with a clear sense of what your overall argument responding to the question is. I would definitely try and use the wording of the question. In this example, you can start by saying.... Between 1917-26 overall the costs of the economic policies outweigh the benefits due to the harsh negative impact they had on the standard of living of the population. Here I have shown my argument and included a justification, or criteria to show why I think this.

You can then include a little contextual knowledge to help you justify this idea further. This might be something like... The Bolshevik party were desperate to seize power across the whole country, but the political unrest and economic policies put in place to achieve complete power, did not put the welfare of the population as their priority.

Finally you need to set out what your essay is going to include, by signposting the topics of each paragraph. So here you might explain ... The economic policies evolved from State Capitalism to War communism and finally the New Economic Policy, each of which were responding to the specific political problems of the time.

Try and keep the introduction therefore to four sentences as you want to focus now on writing some really strong paragraphs.

9. Perfect paragraphs

Writing a good paragraph is essential at A Level. In the video below I explain how to write a good paragraph. Essentially you need to start by introducing your judgement on the policy you will discuss in the particular paragraph. Overall do the positive consequences outweigh the negatives for this particular policy?

After you have set out your judgement you need to explain it and back it up with some clear, detailed examples to justify why you think this. So for example if you have argued that over the costs of War Communism outweigh the benefits, you need to explain why using the example of grain requisitioning and the consequential famine it created.

Then you need to acknowledge some of the benefits, so be clear you understand it was not all bad! Here you might use the phrase 'on the other hand' to help you change direction. In this example you might acknowledge that whilst the policy was deeply unpopular and detrimental to people's ability to meet theri basic needs, eg food, it was helpful in fueling the Red Army and helped the Bolsheviks obtain complete control of the country and win the civil war. One might even argue that during times of war, things like food shortages are going to occur, no matter what policies were put in place.

Finally, you need to return to your overall judgement. Phrases like 'nevertheless' 'however' or 'despite this' again can help you change direction of the argument. It is important here that you are clear as to why overall you have made your judgement about this policy. Make sure you really explain your thinking so that there are clear criteria you have used to measure costs over benefits.

Short video on paragraphs for essays...

10. Conclusion...

Really conclusion are the easy part. You have done all the hard work in the essay and already come to three mini-conclusions for each policy. By dissecting each policy and weighing up the pros and cons you have already shown some great analysis and judgement. You also should have includes lots of detailed examples to illustrate and back up your arguments. So now it time to tie it all together. I like to think of paragraphs as weaving together the three mini-judgements you have made and comparing the justification and criteria you have been using. If you have done within your paragraphs this comparison should be easy and you can show why you have come to your overall judgement that you have set out in your introduction. So, if in doubt, go back to your introduction, read the last sentence of all your paragraphs and you should have a clear idea of what you need to include. Note that no new facts or details are needed in the conclusion, unless they really help drive your argument home.

If you want further tips on essay writing and guidance on A Level History, sign up for my newsletter but downloading my survival guide. You will receive a free guie to essay writing to help you perfect those paragraphs.

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