Chapter Chronology

Quiz for Beyond America’s Borders: “Bolshevism”

Select the best answer for each question. Click the “submit” button for each question to turn in your work.

Question

1. After seizing control of Russia in November 1917, what did the Bolsheviks declare they would eliminate in their country?

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Correct. The answer is b. Bolsheviks were Marxist radicals who took control of Russia in 1917, installing Vladimir Lenin as the nation’s new ruler. The Bolsheviks committed themselves to eliminating capitalism in Russia, and replacing it with a new economic system that would, in theory, place full control of the nation’s economy in the hands of workers.
Incorrect. The answer is b. Bolsheviks were Marxist radicals who took control of Russia in 1917, installing Vladimir Lenin as the nation’s new ruler. The Bolsheviks committed themselves to eliminating capitalism in Russia, and replacing it with a new economic system that would, in theory, place full control of the nation’s economy in the hands of workers.

Question

2. Why did some Americans vocally oppose President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send American troops to Russian to put down the revolutionary Bolshevik regime in 1918?

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Correct. The answer is c. Americans like Senator William Borah of Idaho argued that the United States did not have the right to interfere with the Russian people’s right to decide what form its government would take, even if that form were socialism. Borah and others who held this opinion were likely thinking about how this process was the same that the United States had gone through in the 1770s, when it established itself as a democratic republic.
Incorrect. The answer is c. Americans like Senator William Borah of Idaho argued that the United States did not have the right to interfere with the Russian people’s right to decide what form its government would take, even if that form were socialism. Borah and others who held this opinion were likely thinking about how this process was the same that the United States had gone through in the 1770s, when it established itself as a democratic republic.

Question

3. How did the Bolshevik revolution in Russia affect people in the United States in 1919?

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Correct. The answer is b. The Bolshevik revolution sparked a red scare in the United States in 1919, in which the federal government attacked any person suspected of having communist sympathies. Such attacks targeted American revolutionaries, but they also targeted anyone who expressed a desire for change—whether it was expanded rights for women and African Americans, or better working conditions of laborers. People with even very mild complaints found themselves brutally repressed and subjected to violence, arrest, and even deportation.
Incorrect. The answer is b. The Bolshevik revolution sparked a red scare in the United States in 1919, in which the federal government attacked any person suspected of having communist sympathies. Such attacks targeted American revolutionaries, but they also targeted anyone who expressed a desire for change—whether it was expanded rights for women and African Americans, or better working conditions of laborers. People with even very mild complaints found themselves brutally repressed and subjected to violence, arrest, and even deportation.

Question

4. Although the Cold War is typically defined as starting after World War II and lasting through the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, this essay suggests that the Cold War actually began in

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Correct. The answer is a. This essay argues that the origins of the Cold War actually lie in 1917, when the Bolshevik regime promised to, in the words of Lenin, “incite rebellion among all the peoples now oppressed” in the world. This action incited the troubled relationship between the United States and Russia that would last more than seventy years.
Incorrect. The answer is a. This essay argues that the origins of the Cold War actually lie in 1917, when the Bolshevik regime promised to, in the words of Lenin, “incite rebellion among all the peoples now oppressed” in the world. This action incited the troubled relationship between the United States and Russia that would last more than seventy years.

Question

5. This essay supports which of the following historical arguments about the United States in the 1910s?

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Correct. The answer is d. The intensity of the 1919 Red scare was a shocking rebuttal to the American commitment to democracy because the federal government targeted people with even very minor complaints or propositions for change. Instead of protecting an individual’s right to dissent, the fear of communism at home was so tremendous that it provoked the government to repress dissent instead.
Incorrect. The answer is d. The intensity of the 1919 Red scare was a shocking rebuttal to the American commitment to democracy because the federal government targeted people with even very minor complaints or propositions for change. Instead of protecting an individual’s right to dissent, the fear of communism at home was so tremendous that it provoked the government to repress dissent instead.