To create a thesis statement, writers and scholars often begin with a list, writing down everything relevant to the topic: facts, quotations, observations, and ideas. Then they analyze the list, looking to answer these questions:

1. What goes with what?
2. What contradicts what? (And what explains the contradiction?)
3. What main categories do the items belong to?

The main categories that emerge from this creative process (not all will make the cut) become the paper’s main ideas, and the thesis statement follows from the categories.

Exercise: Analyze and sort material into main ideas

Instructions: Use the following lists of material about Lenin’s New Economic Policy to create X-1-2-3 sets (a thesis statement and three supporting sentences) for three prompts below.

First, sort the list into categories; then turn the three or four main categories into a thesis statement and its supporting ideas. A possible answer to the first prompt has been done for you.

Please note:

• While you may use most or all of the items in the lists below, when you draw up your own lists you will generally begin with more material than you can use.
• For ease of use, we’ve ordered items by date, but history papers don’t have to be organized chronologically.
• Some of your categories will contain more items than others.

Example

PROMPT: Write an essay arguing that, on the whole, Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) was a success.

MATERIAL YOU MIGHT USE TO INTRODUCE LENIN’S NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP) AND TO HIGHLIGHT HOW SUCCESSFUL IT WAS COMPARED TO THE PRECEDING "WAR COMMUNISM":

1. After 7 years of war Russia was devastated economically (1921)
2. "The collapse of the productive forces surpassed anything of the kind that history had ever seen. The country, and the government with it, were at the very edge of the abyss." - Leon Trotsky on war communism Quoted in Ralph Raico, "Trotsky: The Ignorance and the Evil," Libertarian Review 8, no. 2 (March 1979): 39. || Trotsky is speaking of the year 1922 – writing in 1937 – The Revolution Betrayed
3. Many Russians in open rebellion against the state (1921-1922)
4. Russian people demoralized (1921)
5. Population could barely subsist (1921)
6. Skilled and educated elite dead or exiled (1921)
7. National income and industrial production below level of 1913 (1921)
8. More casualties during 1921-1922 famine than during Great War and Civil War

WAYS IN WHICH NEP WAS A SUCCESS:

9. Some Russians resorted to cannibalism (1921-1922)
10. After NEP, people have enough to eat (1921-1928)
11. After NEP, precipitous drop in illiteracy because peasants could afford some schooling for their children (1921-1928)
12. After NEP, 11% rise in real wages (1921-1928)
13. After NEP, 30% drop in infant mortality due to better nutrition (1921-1928)
14. Majority of peasants own their land (1921-1928)
15. NEP produced some social mobility based in merit (1921-1928)
16. Laborers were able to rise to managerial positions in industry (1921-1928)
17. Laborers were able to rise to bureaucratic posts in rapidly expanding Communist state (1921-1928)
18. NEP produced some women’s emancipation (1921-1928)
19. Divorce and family planning accepted (1921-1928)
20. New state welfare system helped women care for their children (1921-1928)
21. Women encouraged to join workforce (1921-1928)

Response

On the whole, the NEP was a success because it expanded the economy, fostered social mobility, and improved opportunities for women and working people. (THESIS)

1. The NEP expanded the economy. (Items #9-13)
(This paper would open with a paragraph using some of the items in #1-8 to describe the desperate state of the Russian economy at the end of the Civil War.)
2. The NEP fostered social mobility. (Items #14-16)
3. The NEP improved opportunities for women. (Items #17-20)

PROMPT: Write an essay on what you consider to be the four most important causes of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

1. “Great Reforms” of 1860s did not free the peasantry (80 % of population); peasants now “indentured” to village and state
2. Peasants still very poor because communal control of lands prevented improvement in agricultural techniques
3. Suddenly, between 1880 and 1900, Russian infrastructure and industry multiplied by a factor of ten
4. Industrialization happened so late that Russia could use the West’s advanced technology, which created a need for a lot of unskilled labor
5. Peasant men left their villages several months of the year to work in the new factories and mines
6. No clear-cut distinction between peasants and workers (confusing to Marxist revolutionaries, who thought revolution came from industrial workers, not peasants)
7. Worker-peasants were militant, even revolutionary, partly because of Russia’s fast industrialization
8. Fast industrialization meant no time or money to build housing or social services for workers
9. Factory owners kept wages low to finance expansion
10. Workers frequently went on strike—not worried about the consequences because they had villages to go back to
11. Government called in troops against strikers; workers became more militant.
12. The populists (radical intelligentsia) were middle and upper class Russians who saw themselves as the people’s saviors and guides.
13. Populists’ radicalism was caused partly by the fact that they had no way to participate in politics or policy-making—no voting rights and no offices to run for
14. Some Populists opposed Western industrialization because it destroyed the healthy rural life of peasants and made them “slaves of the machine”
15. But peasants saw Populists as potential exploiters and often denounced them to police
16. A group of Populists assassinated Czar Alexander II, thinking that a dramatic act would finally trigger a revolution, but Jews were blamed instead (1881)
17. Populists were eclipsed by Marxists—Marxists were also members of the intelligentsia, but they admired the West
18. Marxists believed that class struggle moved history forward in predictable stages and that socialism would result without the need for violent revolution
19. Russian Marxists admired the factories and mechanized agriculture of the West
20. Lenin argued that Marxists should build a militant party to organize workers and speed up the arrival of the socialist revolution
21. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 caused revolution to come sooner than anyone expected
22. As the Czar lost battles, he lost legitimacy, and his domestic opponents increased: nobles who were excluded from power; liberals who wanted a parliament and limits on the Czar’s authority; teachers, doctors, and lawyers whose professional lives were stymied; socialists who wanted revolution; workers and peasants already in turmoil and ready to revolt
23. Liberals and Mensheviks joined forces to create a constitutional government
24. Bolsheviks (led by Lenin) and Socialist Revolutionaries (peasant-oriented) encouraged militant strikes, demonstrations, and peasant unrest
25. Peasants sacked and burned nobles’ residences and attacked landowners and government officials
26. Leaders of national minorities (Poles, Georgians, Tatars) began to demand autonomy or independence, and radicalized soldiers rebelled
27. End of October —massive general strike in St. Petersburg directed by leadership council (soviet)
28. October 30, 1905: Czar issued October Manifesto—Russians obtained civil liberties and Duma received legislative powers
29. Liberals and moderates happy; socialists wanted more
30. Split between moderates and radicals let Czar take back power in 1907
31. Repression returned; revolutionaries were in exile
32. Industrial development began again at a fast pace—made peasants see change is possible
33. Workers went on many strikes in run-up to WWI
34. Most workers, motivated by patriotism, went to the front
35. But the war went badly and support for Czar fell
36. Czar Nicholas left government in hands of Empress Alexandra and her bizarre guru, Grigori Rasputin(1869-1916). Czar and Czarina lost much of their remaining legitimacy
37. March 8, 1917: more than 7,000 working women (new name for St. Petersburg) struck on International Women's Day for bread and coal; end to war; abdication of Czar
38. Cossaks (an ethnic group that fought for the Czar) refused to stop the strike
39. March 15, 2017: Czar stepped down