AQA A Level History Depth Study: The Crisis of Communism: The USSR and the Soviet Empire, 1953-2000 (A-level only) June 2022 question paper 7042/2T

With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying the political leadership of the satellite states in c1971.

To what extent did the risings of 1953–56 threaten the stability of the East German, Polish and Hungarian Soviet satellite states?

How effectively did Khrushchev ‘de-Stalinise’ the USSR in the years 1956 to 1964?

‘The collapse of the USSR in 1991 was due to Gorbachev’s failure to carry through a successful programme of reforms within the Soviet Union.’

Assess the validity of this view.