DSST Soviet Union study guide
DSST Soviet Union · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
History of the Soviet Union is a DSST exam in the Social Sciences subject area, listed by DSST – Get College Credit as a three-credit Baccalaureate examination. It was formerly titled The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, so candidates may still encounter the older name in catalogs and study plans. The DSST Soviet Union study guide has 9 sections and about 3,811 words.
01Russia under the Old Regime
This domain tests the tsarist system from the Great Reforms of the 1860s to the collapse in February 1917: how Alexander II's reforms were meant to stabilize autocracy, how Witte's industrialization destabilized society, and how the 1905 settlement left the central question of power unresolved. The Emancipation Edict of 1861 freed the serfs personally but allotted land to the peasant commune (obshchina), not to the individual household, and required redemption payments spread over 49 years.
469 words, about 2 min02The Revolutionary Period
This domain covers 1917 to 1921: the February collapse, dual power, the Bolshevik seizure in October, and the civil war settlement that created the one-party state. Bread rationing and strikes in Petrograd in late February (Julian) 1917 brought the garrison over to the crowd and shattered the monarchy.
429 words, about 2 min03New Economic Policy
This domain tests NEP from 1921 to 1928–29: what replaced War Communism, where the state kept control, what economic imbalances persisted, and why the party abandoned the retreat. At the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, with Kronstadt in revolt and the countryside exhausted, the party replaced grain requisitioning with a tax in kind (prodnalog, later converted to cash) and legalized private trade and small-scale enterprise.
418 words, about 2 min04Pre-war Stalinism
This domain covers 1928–1941: forced industrialization and collectivization, mass terror as a governing instrument, the constitutional facade, and the diplomacy that ended in the Nazi–Soviet Pact. From 1929 peasants were forced into collective farms (kolkhozy) and wealthier households were dekulakized, with families deported north and to Siberia.
399 words, about 2 min05Second World War
This domain tests the Great Patriotic War, 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945: invasion and survival, the sequence of turning points, the mobilization of industry and manpower, and the Allied diplomacy that shaped post-war Europe. Operation Barbarossa opened on 22 June 1941 with huge encirclements at Minsk, Smolensk, and Kiev.
419 words, about 2 min06Post-war Stalinism
This domain covers 1945–1953: reconstruction, ideological campaigns, the onset of the Cold War, and the late Stalinist purges that were cut short by Stalin's death on 5 March 1953. The Fourth Five-Year Plan (1946–1950) restored heavy industry quickly - output reached pre-war levels in most branches by 1948–1950 - while agriculture and housing lagged and consumption stayed austere.
408 words, about 2 min07Khrushchev Years
This domain covers 1953–1964: the succession struggle after Stalin, de-Stalinization, Khrushchev's erratic reform program, and the foreign policy crises that accompanied his rise and fall. Stalin's death in March 1953 produced collective leadership.
429 words, about 2 min08Brezhnev Era
This domain covers 1964–1982: the stabilization of the nomenklatura, the reform that stalled, détente and its limits, and the social costs of a system that stopped experimenting. Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev in October 1964 with a collective leadership that included Kosygin and Podgorny.
431 words, about 2 min09Reform and Collapse
This domain covers 1982–1991: the late succession, Gorbachev's interlocking reforms, the nationalities question, and the sequence that ended the USSR in December 1991. Andropov (November 1982 – February 1984) ran a discipline and anti-corruption campaign drawing on his KGB background; Chernenko (1984–85) reversed little and died in March 1985, bringing Gorbachev to the general secretaryship.
409 words, about 2 min