What made him change his mind, and what can that tell us about the Soviet collapse more broadly?

Suppose you wanted to know why the USSR collapsed in 1991. That is a big question, and obviously beyond the scope of a first year research paper (or even a PhD thesis). So you might try to find a more specific angle to look at – an event or development that was part of the collapse and whose explanation might help us understand the larger story. We might ask why Russian President Boris Yeltsin decided to stop collaborating with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev on signing a new Union treaty in the fall of 1991 and instead negotiate a separate agreement with the other republics. No we have a particular historical actor, a limited time frame, and a specific action or decision that required investigation.

 

“Between June 1991 [when Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Federation] and December 1991 [when Yeltsin chose to ignore Gorbachev], Boris Yeltsin was willing to work towards a treaty that would preserve the USSR with Russia at its core. What made him change his mind, and what can that tell us about the Soviet collapse more broadly?”

…

 

NB: avoid “how” questions: they tend to call for a long narrative discussion rather than an argument and an analysis.