IB MOCKS - RUSSIA

Question 1

Economic Argument for emancipation?

Answer 1

Needed for Russian Empire’s industrial development

Tied serfs could not move to cities to work in factories, where - free labour would be more efficient than forced labour

Serfdom kept standards of living low, reducing internal demand for goods

Serf-owning agricultural practices failed to produce a grain surplus for export

Tax debt - 54 Million Roubles - 1855

Question 2

Military arguments for emancipation?

Answer 2

Rieber

Reforming the Russian army

Crimean War –> Russia desperate need of reorganisation

25 year conscripts –> inefficient

Empire could no longer afford a large peacetime army

It was customary to free serfs after their military service, assuming they survived it

Serfdom would end

Question 3

Moral and intellectual arguments in favour of emancipation?

Answer 3

Intellectuals argued the need for change on morality

Bondage morally wrong

Westerners claimed that serfdom weakened the moral character of the upper classes, making them lazy and unable or unwilling to contribute to the well- being of the state

Turgenev - Sportsman sketches (serfs are normal human beings)

Question 4

Results of Emancipation: good?

Answer 4

Terence Emmons - ‘single greatest piece of state-directed engineering in modern European History before the 20th Century’

Hard-working or lucky ones were able to supplement their allocations by purchasing additional land and even buying out other ex-serfs - Kulaks

1880 - serfs owned 30% of the agricultural land

Emancipating led to increased literacy rates –> Up by 50%

Emancipation led to urbanization –> 1914 1/3 of serfs lived in rural cities

Question 5

How was the emancipation good for some landowners?

Answer 5

Those who used the compensation payments to write off their debts and invest in business increased their wealth

Question 6

How did the Edict fulfil Alexander’s wider aims?

Answer 6

Russian industry expanded in the wake of emancipation, and cities, communications

Ukraine - Increase in Grain production

Grain exports - 31%-47%

from 1861 - 1865

Question 7

How might emancipation be considered as a bad thing?

Answer 7

Peasants - received poor priced land allocations –> High redemption payments

Peasants generally lost around 20% of their former land

Land could be taken away and reallocated by the mir

1878 - 50% of peasants could produce a surplus to sell

Remainder forced to sell –> effectively migrant labourers

Question 8

How did landowners face problems due to the emancipation edict?

Answer 8

4 months - 647 incidents of rioting

500 killed

50% landowners already mortgaged at least some of their land to banks before the Edict

By 1905, nobles had sold about 30% of the land held in 1861 and 50% of the remaining land was mortgaged.

Left nobility worse off

Question 9

Criticisms of the Emancipation edict?

Answer 9

Emancipation manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and by this edict more than 23 million people received their liberty.

1866 - 80% state serfs (but they freed private)

Serfs granted freedom would have to become ‘obliged peasants for 2 years from the publication of the edict.

Therefore, for
2 years, no changes were made and the economy was not immediately benefited.

Question 10

Why can the Tsar Alexander the II be considered as a Tsar liberator?

Answer 10

Emancipation of the Serfs and the benefits of such Emancipation

That a ruler with absolute power was inclined towards reforms of a system that had thus far helped him subjugate many of his subjects was revolutionary and unheard of, which is what Tsar Alexander II hoped the peasants would see and be grateful for.

Question 11

Criticisms against the idea that Alexander II was the Tsar liberator? DUE TO THE EMANCIPATION

Answer 11

Emancipation –>

134% of the free market price of land - peasants paid

Loss of security with the removal of landlord security, famine due to subpar plots of land, and therefore continued discontent.

Question 12

What were the aims of Alexander II?

Answer 12

Preserve Autocracy

Placate the Peasantry

Modernise the Country

Stop Civil Unrest

Question 13

Was Alexander II successful in the short term?

Answer 13

Reforms –> Decline in Peasant unrest that had been growing

Successful in getting the nobility to accept change and by insisting that they drew up measures for emancipation ensured that they had to take responsibility for the outcome

Question 14

Political reforms under AII?

Answer 14

1864 - Zemstvos led by Milyutin

Made up of representatives of all classes responsible for local schools, public health, roads, prisons, food supply, and other concerns.

It gave people a taste of democracy and the right to vote.

Question 15

Why were Zemstvas useful?

Answer 15

1864

There were over 500 of them

The zemstva contained people with local knowledge “enabling them to do a good job where a St. Petersburg official would have failed.” (Westwood).

Zemstvo doctors played a significant role in combating cholera and other epidemics that ravaged the Russian countryside.

Zemstvos also played a key role in the development of transportation infrastructure, including the construction of roads, bridges, and railways.

Question 16

Why were Zemstvas not useful?

Answer 16

On the other hand, the zemstva were effectively figureheads who hardly did much for local communities – with nearly all problems stemming from the fact that they were dominated by the nobility.

Provincial governors had the ability to reverse any decisions of the zemstva if considered to be ‘contrary to the law or the welfare of the state’, leading to apathy within the zemstva’s and hardly any incentive for change.

Question 17

What do we think about Zemstvas overall?

Answer 17

Zemstvas –> feeling of independence and autonomy within the peasant classes,

HOWEVER in the LR,

Redundant as they were still very much controlled by state ideology.

What made them beneficial to the peasants – their proximity and therefore familiarity with local issues – became the very thing that led to zemstva being used as instruments of censorship and repression later on, in the Tsar’s reactionary phase.

Question 18

What were educational reforms like under Alexander II?

Answer 18

More accessible for serfs, and censorship law repealed

Increased the number of primary and secondary schools throughout the country, declaring them accessible to all classes, and even women.

1863 - Universities given independence

3600 students - 10000 students

Question 19

What is the February Revolution of 1917 generally described as?

Answer 19

General feeling of outburst of feeling from the people of Russia

Question 20

Why were educational reforms not as good as people make them out to be - hence why is AII not the tsar Liberator?

Answer 20

Government could ban student organisations

Increase in discontent –> Increase in rebellions –> Increase in censorship
.

Question 21

Overall why do we believe that the Tsar is not a liberator?

Answer 21

Overall, Tsar Alexander does not deserve the title of ‘Tsar Liberator’, because, despite his actions which were seen as progressive’ and ‘reformative’, Tsar Alexander’s interests in liberating the serfs were purely self-interested, and therefore ineffective, and even harmful, in the long run. He only agitated for change before the 1860s because he recognised that peasants were getting increasingly disillusioned with the current system of serfdom such that it posed a threat to his absolute power – there were 712 peasant uprisings in the span of just 26 years.

Question 22

What did Alexander III do regarding Education?

Answer 22

• Not all social classes could attend High School
• Universities not allowed to hire own professor
• History not allowed to be taught unless given permission by Education Minister
• 1884 - Unis deprives of independence
• 1887 - Uni fees raised

Question 23

Did peasants increase their education under AIII?

Answer 23

Policies tried hard not to allow them

But from 1897–>1904

Population that could read and write went from 21 –> 27%

Question 24

AIII Russification?

Answer 24

Extended this idea of Russification

Russian only language taught in schools

1891 (Jews forbidden to live in Moscow)

Ukrainian and Belorussian churches persecuted

1883 - Publication of Ukrainian abolished

Question 25

AIII Economics? successes

Answer 25

Had a finance minister - Vyshnegradsky

1892 - Grain exports increased by 18%

1888 - Valuable loan negotiated with the French

1891 - highest tariffs in Russia’s commercial history were helping to protect developing internal industries, while contributing to the government’s taxation revenue.

Question 26

AIII Economics? Weaknesses

Answer 26

Positive sounding statistics hid the suffering of peasants

Exports of grain earned the gold and foreign currency needed to guarantee repayments on foreign loans, but they left many of the most vulnerable members of society on the edge of starvation.

Peasants faced growth in indirect taxation

Achieved surplus for the first time ever between 1881 - 1885

Question 27

Repression AIII?

Answer 27

1881 - Statue on Measures for the Preservation of Political and Social Order

Order said that any area which was under threat would be under extreme observation

Commander in Chief would then have the right to a full warranted search

The ‘untrustworthy’ would have no right to legal representation

Question 28

Witte’s Reforms under AIII?

Answer 28

A
Rapid Industrial Expansion

Coal Production doubled

Iron and Oil soon became fastest growing sector of the Russian Economy

1900- Russia was entirely self-sufficient in petroleu

1885–>1913 Oil production troubled

1885-1913 –> Average annual rate of growth of industrial production –> 6.10% –> 6.25%

Building of the 7000 km Trans-Siberian Railway linking European Russia and Western Siberia

Question 29

How did AIII re-establish noble Influence?

Answer 29

Land Captains controlled by the Minister of Internal Affairs

They were picked from heredITARY NOBLES

1890 - THE CONSTITUION OF THE ZEMSTVA WAS CHANGED TO GIVE THE NOBLES 57% OF THE PLACES AVAILABLE

1892 - Property Qualification for voters to the municipal dumas was also raised

In St Petersburg, the electrorate was reduced by 2/3s as a result

Question 30

Counter Arguments to A III’s abillity to suppress the locals?

Answer 30

He did not abolish the Zemstvas and dumas created by AII

That said, he reduced their influcned by adjusting their membership to give more weight to the nobility

Question 31

Criticisms of Witte’s Reforms?

Answer 31

Paul gregory questioned the idea of a decline rurual living standards

Avg Male –> 27.25 Avg Femake —> 29.38

Gregory argued that the economy was growing marginally than the population was rising

Therefore belueved that output rose fast enough to feed most of the population

Question 32

How did WW1 lead to the February Revolution?

Answer 32

People angry about Tsar’s broken promises

Shortage of bread - Bread Riots

Soldiers dying on the front - 1.8 million

Ministers who defended the Tsar in 1905 had to save their skin as they knew a full revolution was coming

They advised him to abdicate which he did

Question 33

economic and social causes of the 1805 revolutions?

Answer 33

• 1897 and 1901 - poor harvests

economic slump –> unemployment grew

• International monetary crisis –> Russia could not negotiate loans

After 1899 - Overall annual growth rate fell from %-8 - 1%

CONSEQUENTLY,

1894 - 90K stoppages

1890s - increase in peasant attacks on landlords

Question 34

How did the Sino-Japanese war could the Revolution of 1805

Answer 34

Proved catastrophic for the tsarist autocracy

• Russo-Japanese war –> significantly undermined support for the tsardom.
• Not only did Russia fail at expanding its empire, but it lost to Japan.
• The fact that a tiny country like Japan managed to beat Russia in war caused a massive amount of humiliation
• Forced to hand over their Port Arthur naval base

Question 35

Political causes of the Russian Revolution of 1805

Answer 35

Union of Liberation demanded a fairly elected National Legislative Assembly

Wanted constitutional monarchy

Organised 50 revolutionary banquets by 1904

Zemstva presented a petition to the tsar

Radical socialists –> helped prove unrest

• appealed to peasants’ desire for land
• SD’s promise of power attracted workers
• SR assassinated many officials including the Tsars uncle

Question 36

Social causes of October Revolutions of 1917

Answer 36

Centuries of oppression towards the lower classes by the Tsarist regime.

While rural agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked.

Farming peasants, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.

Rapid industrialization of Russia -> urban overcrowding and poor conditions

• In 1890 and 1910, population of capital of St Petersburg increased from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600
• 1904 survey -an average of 16 shared each apartment in St Petersburg, with six people per room.

Question 37

Western Liberal perspectives on the causes of the October Revolution?

Answer 37

• Nicholas was at fault
• Rasputin and Nicholas’ wife affair
• Poor leadership in WW1

Question 38

Soviet perspectives on the causes of the October Revolution?

Answer 38

result of economic forces and class struggle

importance of the war and the role of the oppressed working class and the Bolshevik Party.

For them, the collapse of tsardom was part of an inevitable process of change

Agricultural reforms had made no obvious difference to the peasants

Political changes had also been very slight