> The secret police
> Ban on criticism and free speech
> Purges and show trials introduced
> Concentration camps
> Destruction of the trade unions (Bolsheviks had negative attitudes towards improving workers condition without Marxist revolution)
> Restriction on religious freedom (over 300 bishops executed + ca. 10 000 priests imprisoned/ exiled; religion was driven underground)
> The one-party, bureaucratic state (> the Kronstadt uprising, 1921)
> the NEP period (after War Communism)
> USSR's international role left unsolved
> Uncertain succession to the leadership of Soviet Russia