History

Course summary

In the Lower Sixth you will study two Twentieth Century Communist states – the USSR and China. Communism was one of the most significant ideologies of the Twentieth Century. It directly affected the lives of millions of people who lived under communist rule, but it also had indirect effects on countless others around the world. The world’s first Communist state was the Soviet Union. You will learn about the ways in which the Soviet Union controlled the people, the politics and the economic life of the country, from Lenin’s creation of a communist state, to Stalin’s purges, Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s ‘excesses’ and the stagnation of the Cold War era. You will also make a special study of why the USSR collapsed in 1991. Another country rapidly growing in importance is Communist China. You will discover how a Communist regime was established in China over seventy years ago and what impact it had on Chinese people – from the unbinding of women’s feet and the attempt to make steel in every backyard, to the crackdown on dissent and opposition. Studying two different countries allows you to develop a greater understanding of the nature of communist, and totalitarian, rule and to see similarities and differences between them.