HIS 242
Secret Speech Paragraph Assignment

 

It took about five years, but the culmination of the de-Stalinization campaign begun by Khrushchev in 1956 with his "Secret Speech" finally culminated on 31 October 1961 with the removal of Stalin's corpse from the Lenin Mausoleum and its burial along the Kremlin wall in a simple granite-covered grave. A small marker was added in 1970.

 Stalin's Grave
 
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Read Khrushchev's Secret Speech (Crimes of the Stalin Era, Special Report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Closed session, February 24-25, 1956, By Nikita S. Khrushchev, First Secretary, Communist Party of the Soviet Union), also at www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956khrushchev-secret1.html.  These are short versions of the speech.  I have available the complete--45 pages or so-- version of the Secret Speech (also available as a *.pdf or *.doc file).

Answer the following question in a paragraph:

Citing specific evidence from the Secret Speech (not from the textbook), what was the purpose of Khrushchev's revelations in the Secret Speech?

Your paragraph should be about one-half page in length, double-spaced with one-inch margins, font size 10 or 12; it should contain a concise topic sentence that directly responds to the assigned question (no need to define terms or cite a dictionary) and use direct, quoted material to support your points.  You may consider submitting a draft of your assignment to your instructor for feedback before submitting the assignment for a grade. Please send some specific questions that you would like answered about your draft. The questions can be general (Is my thesis/first sentence clear?) or specific (Is the phrase, "Chardin was jeweller," written correctly?).
 
Your assignment should be sent to your course instructor following the directions for submitting assignments.
 
Please take a moment to review Charlie's History Writing Center for specific information on the writing requirements for the assignments in the course.

 

 

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