Study Questions on R. G. Suny, The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). Week X, pp. 264-273, 285-315.
I have four main questions that I want you to think about as you read these documents:
1) How did the orientation of Soviet foreign policy change between 1928 and 1941 (who did the see as potential "allies" and who did the see as their main "enemies" in foreign policy in 1928, 1934, 1939, and 1941?)
2) From the documents, how can we understand the rationale behind the 1939 Soviet-Nazi non aggression agreement?
3) There has been an ongoing debate about who killed the Polish officers whose bodies were buried in a mass grave in the Katyn woods (outside of Smolensk); from the documents, what is your understanding of the story of the murder of these Polish officers?
4) From the documents, what sense do we get of the impact of the German invasion on the USSR? {please note that there is a typo on page 314--the document from the State Defense Committee should be dated July 4 1944 (not 1994)!}