Hii just a question for let's say a question "assess the significance of the new economic policy for the Bolshevik consol ideation of power". How much of the question should specifically target the NEP, because my teacher said 70-80%. But what if I want to argue that the civil war for eg was more significant for the consolidation of power, can I have a paragraph on that or am I losing focus of the question?
Hey hey! Congrats on doing Russia, defs the best National Study (though I am a bit biased
) 70-80%! Thats a bit extreme. If someone could write that much on the NEP I'd applaud them but for most people I'd say that would be near impossible - you just won't have the detail to suffice your entire response. If I had to put a percentage on it, I'd say 30-40% should be straight on the NEP, and then a bit of related stats/detail/links spattered around later on. If I was confronted with this essay, which I was many times hahaha, what I would do is write a differentiated essay, which is what you touched on at the end of your question! A differentiated essay allows you to focus on the other factors, so it'll let you include a paragraph on the NEP (as that is the stem of the question that MUST come first and should be the longest paragraph of your essay), the social and political policies, the Treaty of Brest Litovsk and the Civil War.
However becareful arguing that another factor is more important than the stem because that can sometimes be mistaken for a split judgement. A better way to approach it would to be like this (this would be the first sentence of your intro):
The NEP was highly significant within the Bolshevik Consolidation of power, however it's significance must be assessed within it's context, as just one in a series of interrelated events which ensured that they maintained control. So basically your judgement is that each factors importance is relevant to the importance of the others (if that makes sense). So you can then write a paragraph on each of the other factors, but make sure to include at least one linking statement to the NEP (must be in your judgement, but it's really good to include a few throughout your paragraphs as well). So for example in your Civil War paragraph, your topic sentence could look something like this:
Similarly to the NEP, the Civil War was highly significant to the Bolshevik Consolidation of power, as a critical event within a series of interrelated factors that assured control.And then throughout your paragraph, if you can think of any stats or detail in regards to both the Civil War and the NEP (since the two directly related to each other, as the NEP was a response to War Communism this shouldn't be to hard) then make sure to include!
If you want to get HELLA SOPHISTICATED as in your aiming for those 24-25/25 essays, then you can take a differentiated essay one step further and try to find a direct link with the NEP and all the other factors. This will make it even easier to integrate the NEP throughout your response... and oh look i've done it for you haha
! I've attached my Bolshevik Consolidation linking table which shows all the ways in which each factor relates to another factor. You don't NEED to do this, you can still get a band 6 without it and if you're confused in an exam I'd suggest doing the other one instead, but if you're confident this is the best way to go. So instead of making a judgement that everything is important and thats it, you could say something like this:
The NEP was highly significant to the Bolshevik Consolidation of power, as one of the many, interrelated factors that clearly demonstrates the importance of popular support in maintaining controlThus you have linked everything together, and within your responses you can sophisticatedly discuss how each factor works together to ensure this goal, eg. The NEP demonstrates that the social and political reforms must have been a key factor, because when these policies were reintroduced popular support spiked. The NEP demonstrates that the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was important, as both clearly showed how important Lenin's flexibility in regards to Communist Theory and Practice was. etc. etc.
Though this is all valid for the HSC (and this isn't just me saying this my teacher was an experienced marker + I've had convos with an ex-senior marker about this), that being said if your teacher insists you need 70-80% on the NEP... then for now and until the HSC exam you might need to try and work around those guidelines as they'll be the ones marking your responses (I don't know how you're going to get 70-80% in there, unless you try the more sophisticated differentiated essay method? maybe). Maybe have a discussion with them though and see whether they'll accept differentiated essays? Maybe when they say 70-80% that just means that you're continually relating your work back to the NEP even when talking about other factors (which would be doable and also extremely sophisticated).
I really hope this helps! Sorry for the massive slab of text hahaha. Good luck, and if you need anymore help let us know