Key Figures

Question 1

Alexander II

Answer 1

Ruled as Tsar from 1855 to 1881. Sometimes known as the ‘Tsar Liberator’; primarily for his abolition of serfdom in 1861 and other reforms. Assassinated in 1881.

Question 2

Alexander III

Answer 2

Succeeded his father, Alexander II, in 1881. He opposed his father’s reforming policies and repressed political opposition.

Question 3

Alexandra Feodorovna

Answer 3

The German wife of Nicholas II.

Question 4

Lavrenty Beria

Answer 4

Head of the NKVD from 1938. Executed in 1953.

Question 5

Leonid Brezhnev

Answer 5

A close ally of Khrushchev. Eventually led the group that forced him from power.

Question 6

Father Gapon

Answer 6

An Orthodox priest who organised workers’ unions from 1903 but remained loyal to the Tsar. Fled into exile after Bloody Sunday but was later hanged.

Question 7

Lev Kamenev

Answer 7

An active Bolshevik from 1905 and later a member of the Politburo. Executed in the purges of 1936.

Question 8

Alexander Kerensky

Answer 8

A Socialist Revolutionary who sat in the Petrograd Soviet and Provisional Government in 1917, rising to become leader of the government from July. Deposed by the Bolsheviks in October.

Question 9

Nikita Khrushchev

Answer 9

First Secretary of the party from 1953 to 1964 who had emerged as leader in the mid-1950s. He delivered the ‘secret speech’ in 1956, which revealed the extent of Stalin’s purges. Ousted in 1964.

Question 10

Sergei Kirov

Answer 10

A popular figure, he was Party Secretary in Leningrad before being assassinated in 1934.

Question 11

Lavr Kornilov

Answer 11

Army general who attempted a coup against the Provisional Government in August 1917.

Question 12

Peter Lavrov

Answer 12

A populist who, in 1874, led a group of students into the countryside to live and spread their ideas among the peasants.

Question 13

Vladimir Lenin

Answer 13

Leader of the Bolsheviks from 1903, he shaped the communist state which emerged after the 1917 October Revolution. Died in 1924 and and the city of Petrograd was renamed ‘Leningrad’ after him.

Question 14

Georgy Malenkov

Answer 14

Prime Minister and leading reformer after Stalin’s death. Forced to resign by Khrushchev in 1955.

Question 15

Julius Martov

Answer 15

A leader of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Broke with Lenin and led the Mensheviks.

Question 16

Nicholas and Dmitri Milyutin

Answer 16

Two brothers who were both close advisers of Nicholas II.

Question 17

Vyacheslav Molotov

Answer 17

Served under Stalin and was part of the collective leadership that ruled the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death.

Question 18

Nicholas II

Answer 18

Tsar from 1894 until his abdication in February 1917. Determined to uphold the Tsarist autocracy, he proved to be an indecisive ruler.

Question 19

Konstantin Pobedonostev

Answer 19

Tutor to Alexander III and later to Nicholas II, he encouraged Alexander to maintain a highly autocratic government.

Question 20

Prince Lvov

Answer 20

A wealthy aristocratic landowner who had led the Kadets and Russian Union of Zemstva before becoming leader of the Provisional Government in 1917.

Question 21

Gregory Rasputin

Answer 21

A mystic peasant who exercised great influence with the Empress Alexandra and then in the Tsarist government in the early years of WWI. Assassinated in 1916.

Question 22

Joseph Stalin

Answer 22

General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922, he exercised increasingly dictatorial control over the Soviet Union until his death in 1953.

Question 23

Peter Stolypin

Answer 23

Interior Minister from 1906 to 1911, he introduced major reforms in agriculture. Assassinated in 1911.

Question 24

Leon Trotsky

Answer 24

A brilliant orator, he masterminded the takeover of Petrograd by Red Guards in October 1917 and the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. Assassinated on Stalin’s orders in Mexico in 1940.

Question 25

Mikhail Von Reutern

Answer 25

Minister of Finance under Alexander II from 1862 to 1878.

Question 26

Ivan Vyshnegradsky

Answer 26

Finance Minister from 1887 to 1892.

Question 27

Sergei Witte

Answer 27

Finance Minister from 1892 to 1903. Credited with the rapid expansion of the Russian economy at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Question 28

Gregory Zinoviev

Answer 28

A close ally of Lenin. Played a prominent part in the October Revolution but was purged by Stalin in 1936.