Soviet Union - History Quiz

1. There were _____ main leaders of the Soviet Union, starting with Vladimir Lenin and ending with Mikhail Gorbachev.

2. Who were the SRs?

3. On Sunday, 22 January 1905 in St Petersburg, Russia, demonstrators, led by Orthodox Priest, Father Georgy Gapon, were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched towards the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. Some 140-230 people were killed. This was known as ___________?

4. Before the Revolution in 1917, there was an early revolution in 1905. What did Nicholas II do just after the revolution?

5. After the 1917 Russian Revolution (and in its aftermath across the USSR and neighboring revolutionary movements) many people adopted ideological, commemorative, or slogan-based names to signal loyalty to the new order. Which of these is NOT an example of a popular name people used?

6. Approximately how many people died during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922?

7. During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army, fighting for the establishment of a Bolshevik-led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin, and the forces known as the _______ movement, led mainly by the right-leaning officers of the Russian Empire, united around the figure of Alexander Kolchak fought to determine Russia's political future.

8. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably the Ukrainian anarchists of the _________ and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks, but at later points form uneasy alliances with them.

9. What was the Motto of the Soviet Union adopted in 1923 with the creation of the original State Emblem. It was formally inscribed in the 1924 Soviet Constitution? (The phrase originated as the final rallying cry in the 1848 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.)

10. The Russian Battleship _________ was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She became famous during the Revolution of 1905, when her crew mutinied against their officers. This event later formed the basis for Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film Battleship ______.

11. Stalin had film director Sergei Eisenstein produce films to reflect the Nationalistic and Socialist frameworks of the day. Along with the above film, Eisenstein also made ________ in 1938, this film was about the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle on the Ice (1242) on Lake Peipus. The Knights are portrayed as faceless invaders and themes of collective struggle over individual heroism are explored. The film was rereleased after Germany's invasion in 1941.

12. Shared apartments in the Soviet Union, called _________, were apartments where several unrelated families lived in separate rooms and shared common areas like the kitchen, bathroom, and toilet. This communal living arrangement was a response to a severe housing shortage that began with the Bolsheviks nationalizing private property after the 1917 revolution and expanded significantly after World War II to accommodate rapid urbanization and displaced populations.

13. What was the non-aggression Pact that the USSR signed with Germany in Moscow on August 23, 1939 called?

14. In 1939, the USSR would not yet have joined the war effort alongside the allies - it would do so with Germany's invasion into the USSR in 1941. However in September 1939 it won the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia, why was this such an important victory within the history of WWII?

15. How many Soviets (civilian and combatant casualties) fell in WWII?

16. In June 1941, more than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with the main goal of capturing territory up to a line between Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, known as the A–A line. This marked a major escalation of WWII, opened the Eastern Front—the largest and deadliest land war in history—and brought the Soviet Union into the Allied powers. This was called Operation _________.

17. During WWII, The Battle of Stalingrad is seen as one of the defining moments of the war for the Russians, including civilian as well as Soviet and German combatant deaths, over 2 million people died. On 10 November 1961, Nikita Khrushchev's administration changed the name of the city to _______ as part of his programme of de-Stalinization .

18. After WWII, there were approximately ___ million more women than men in the Soviet Union. This demographic imbalance was largely due to the higher death toll for men during the conflict.

19. The Soviet Union was the first country to legalize abortion on request in 1920, but policy changed over time. Abortion was banned in 1936 but re-legalized in ______ after a period of concern over the high number of dangerous, illegal abortions

20. The U.S. ________ was a U.S. government initiative passed in 1948 to provide economic aid to help Western European countries recover from World War II. Officially called the European Recovery Program, the plan offered over $13 billion in aid through 1952, which was used for rebuilding infrastructure, purchasing American goods, and stabilizing economies. Its goals were to prevent the spread of communism and to create stable trading partners for the United States

21. The _________ was a Soviet state-sponsored anti-intellectual and antisemitic (under the guise of being anti-cosmopolitan) in the mid 1950s. The campaign based on a conspiracy theory that alleged an anti-Soviet cabal of prominent medical specialists, many of whom were ethnically Jewish, intended to murder leading government and Communist Party officials. This led many Jews leaving the Soviet Union for Israel

22. Krasnaya Moskva became very popular and was widespread in the Soviet Union (partially due to limited competition in early USSR) and, after the Second World War, became popular throughout the Eastern Bloc. It was the very first Soviet created _____.

23. The black, leather, peaked cap or visor hat worn by NKVD officers was called a ________ cap.

24. Approximately ____men received the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. The vast majority of recipients received the award for actions during World War II.

25. A total of ____ women received the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. The vast majority of recipients received the award for actions during World War II.

26. The first man in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who made history on April 12, 1961, aboard the _____ 1 spacecraft, completing one orbit of Earth in 108 minutes and becoming a global icon and hero for the Soviet Union.

27. Low-cost, concrete-paneled or brick three- to five-storied apartment building constructed in the Soviet Union from the early 1960s till the 70s were called _____________.

28. One of the most famous Soviet films was made in 1985 entitled ___________, directed by Elem Klimov. It is a film that explores German's invasion of the Soviet Union through the eyes of a young boy Florya, who joins the Soviet Army against his family's wishes.

29. Which of these is NOT a famous work of literature written during the Soviet Era?

30. In 1998 Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union starred in an advert for __________, this advert showed Gorbachev and his granddaughter enjoying the food of this chain restaurant and was seen as a symbolic moment of Russia's transition from communism to a market economy.

31. In 1979, the Soviet Union went to war in what country? The war latest 10 years, ending in Soviet defeat in 1989, with some 14 500 Soviet soldiers killed, but far higher numbers for citizens of ______ killed, with estimates of over 1 million (Hint, the US covertly funded and armed Mujahideen rebels fighting the Soviets in a massive multi-billion dollar operation, known as Operation Cyclone).

32. The Soviet Union (USSR) was made up of 15 constituent republics, which became independent countries after its dissolution in 1991. Which of the these was NOT part of the Soviet Republics?

33. The Chernobyl disaster that occurred in ____ in Ukraine is one of the overlooked factors that led to the end of the Soviet Union. Initial Soviet cleanup costs were around $18 billion (or 2 billion rubles), effectively bankrupting the Soviet Economy.

34. Failed reforms under Gorbachev in the 1980s were called Perestroika (meaning ______) and Glasnost meaning ______)

35. The first country to declare independence from the Soviet Union was ________, which did so on March 11, 1990, with its "Act of Re-Establishment" vote, a bold move that preceded the USSR's official dissolution and spurred other republics to follow suit in the ensuing months and years.