Russian AOS1 Interpretations

Question 1

Lynch

Bureaucracy under Nobility

Answer 1

‘…capable of doing nothing but ‘serving’…and sucking the blood of the people.’

Govt. role based on soc stand X merit
14 levels of Bureaucracy = slow

Question 2

Lynch

Goals of Orthodoc Church

Answer 2

‘Wholly committed to the preservation of the tsarist system in its reactionary form’

Propoganda = reinforce conservative values -> stifle opposition

Question 3

Corin

Tsar Nicholas’ competence

Answer 3

‘Nicholas was idealogoically incapable of acommodating the new middle class let alone a more demanding peasantry and working class’

Autocracy X viable in changing times -> Nicholas X right frame of mind

Question 4

Orlando Figes

Assessment of Tsar Nicholas

Answer 4

‘Nicholas was the source of all problems… In a sense, Russia gained in him the worst of both worlds: a Tsar determined to rule from the throne yet quite incapable of excersising power… Perhaps nobody could have fulfilled the role which Nicholas had set himself… autocracy itself was out of date. But Nicholas was mistaken to try in the first place.’

N = reason of rev. h/w conditions = diff. to nav. regardless

Russia needed to change to survive X perpetuate traditions. -> downfall = reason why N X compatible w times

Question 5

D. Lieven

Assessment of Nicholas

Answer 5

‘…his problem tended to be that he could not understand many points of view and wavered between them. The dangers Russia faced were very great… He had not sought power and he was not by temperament or personality very well equipped to wield it… These traumatic years required something very different and would probably have destroyed any man who sat on the throne.’

Turmoil = too big 4 any

N = too outdated to keep up w demand for change

N = X ideal person to deal w current times
Turmoil = too tumultuous for any to navigate -> rev/fall = inevitable

Question 6

Adcock

Tsarist regime created its own enemies

Answer 6

‘Liberals are evidence of the tsarist regime creating their own enemies’

Tsar ignored & shut down moderate calls for reform -> ^ frustration
Tsar banned All Zemstvo Org. -> ^ radicalisation

Question 7

Robert Service

Splits in the Russian Empire

Answer 7

‘the Russian Empire was deeply fissured (split) between the government and the tsar’s subjects… between the educated and the uneducated; between Western and Russian ideas; between rich and poor; between privilege and oppression; between contemporary fashion and centuries-old custom.’

Workers strikes ^ & student protests (slaughter of the students by the Okhrana) for improved conditions
Living & working conditions = horrendous
Urbanisation -> ^ pop. in cities -> unemployment & overcrowding
Tsar image = frivilous & uncaring
West = capitalism & democracy vs Russia = Feudal & backward
Power imbalance = Zemstva has limited influ.
X representation on national level
1% pop. = nobility but owned 25% of land = Wealth disparity

Question 8

Steve Smith

Impact of modernisation

Answer 8

‘The collapse of autocracy was rooted in a crisis of modernisation. The government hoped that it could carry out modernisation whilest maintaining tight control over society. Yet the effect of industrialisation, urbanisation, internal migration and the emergence of new social classes was to set in train forces that served to erode the foundations of the autocratic state.’

Desire to modernise made autocracy incompatible with change
522 strikes supressed with force
Inflation = 40% ^ but wages 7% ^
Peasants move to cities: recession -> ^ unemployment -> ^ anger = close proximity to ppl in power (tsar) -> force govt. to listen
^ taxation of peasants = 5% ^ 15% of grain -> peasants still paying off land redemption & suffering from famine = X benefit from modernisation
^ MC (students & intellects) -> ^ radical ideas of reform
Bourgeoise = only group who benefit from modernisation

Question 9

Figes

Lenin’s ‘What is to be done?’

Answer 9

‘the founding text of international Leninism’

Book outlines Lenin’s beliefs & plans -> Marxism-Leninism
Lenin gaining ^ support w/I party w separate ideology

Question 10

Harcave

Discontent among peasants

Answer 10

‘Their earnings were often so small that they could neither buy the food they needed nor keep up the payment of taxes and redemption dues they owed the government for their land allotments. By the tenth year of Nicholas II’s reign, their total arrears in payment of taxes and dues was 118 million roubles.’

Peasants X afford to live = ^ anger & tensions -> govt.
Emancipation -> land payments but serfs X earnt $

Question 11

Richard Pipes

Peasant Uprisings

Answer 11

‘There was general agreement at the turn of the century that Russia faced a grave and intensifying agrarian crisis due to mainly rural overpopulation with an annual excess of fifteen to eighteen live births over deaths per 1000 inhabitants’

Rapidly growing pop. & X enough resources e.g. food to sustain pop -> ^ death rates
Agriculture X viable in Russia b/c inefficient farming & land use = 1/4 land X used after emancipation & strip farming = ineffective & overused land

Question 12

Harcave

Disgruntled Workers

Answer 12

‘Dissatisfaction turned into desperation for many impoverished workers, which made them more sympathetic to radical ideas’

^ influence of political parties

Question 13

Lauren Perfect

Increasing Middle Class tensions following inadequate reforms

Answer 13

‘It was an **opportunity missed **and tensions continued to mount’

Failure to adress root causes for tensions = X representative national legislature
^ radicalism of MC due to enforced reactionary beliefs of Tsar

Question 14

Robert Service

Military response to Bloody Sunday

Answer 14

‘the monarchy’s fate hung by a thread’

If the Tsar lost the support of the military they would have nothing to protect them from a revolution
Mutiny’s and desertion were early signs that the Tsar was losing support it needed to survive

Question 15

Steve Smith

Impact of the 1905 Revolution

Answer 15

‘That the autocracy came out of the Revolution unscathed had little to do with political tactics’

Autocracy left with two choices; suppression and violence or concessions
Nicholas wanted to avoid bloodshed so he agreed to Witte’s reforms and proclaimed the OM to appease the liberals and peasants etc.

Question 16

Fitzpatrick

Impact of the 1905 revolution

Answer 16

‘the political outcome of the 1905 Revolution was an ambiguous and in some ways unsatisfactory to all concerned’

Tsarism: forced to make concessions to people -> appear weak
Liberals: split over more or enough reform -> divided opposition
Revolutionaries: no revolution & losing committment from workers -> Russia X ready for revolution

Question 17

Pipes

Impact of 1905 Revolution

Answer 17

‘In the end, Russia gained nothing more than a breathing spell’

Tsarism relied on the support of the army and they had to buy its loyalities -> showed weakness of support & over-reliance on suppression.

Question 18

Malcom

Response to Lena Goldfield Massacre

Answer 18

‘society reacted furiously’

Dramatic ^ of strike action over next 2 yrs
^ strikes with politcal demands

Question 19

Lynch

Replacement for Stolypin

Answer 19

‘the various ministers the tsar appointed were distinguished only by their incompetence.’

Ministers struggled to cooperate with Duma.
Continued to use violence against strikers.

Question 20

Pipes

Long term results of Stolypin’s reforms

Answer 20

long term results remained ‘on paper’ but his greatest achievement was his ability to offer ‘a sense of national purpose and hope’ after 1905.

Results for reforms were superficial - had immediate benefits but didn’t cause any long-term farming or class improvements.

Question 21

Lynch

Judgement on Stolypin’s Reforms

Answer 21

‘Even in advanced economies land reforms take time to work. Stolypin was well aware that, in a country as relatively backward as Russia, reforms would take even longer to become effective. He spoke of needing twenty years or his ‘wager on the strong’ to show dividends. In the event, his assassination in 1911 allowed him personally only five, and the war in 1914 allowed Russia only eight. However, there is doubt whether, even without the intrusion of murder and war, his peasant policy would have succeeded. The deep conservatism of the Russian peasants made them slow to respond.’

No permanent results had occured after 5 yrs = not enough time
Peasants prefer security of mir & are hesitant to accept change = 50% stayed in mir over more land

Question 22

Lynch

Rasputin’s importance to the Revolution

Answer 22

‘symptom of the fatal disease affecting the tsarist system.’

Rasputin was of minimal importance in the collapse of the regime - he was just one symptom of the corruption and incompetence

Question 23

Rabinowitch

Bolshevik propoganda following the April Theses

Answer 23

‘Tailoring the Bolshevik pogramme so that it would reflect popular aspirations was one of Lenin’s most important contributions to the development of the revolution.’

Call for end to war, access to land and food reflected demands of Feb Revolution
Using class warefare in his favour; proletariat against bourgeois

Question 24

White

Regarding the April Crisis

Answer 24

‘Presened the Bolsheviks with a marvellous opportunity to discredit the Provisional Government and the moderate socialists at the time by showing that the government continued to pursue imperialist aims.’

Miliukov’s note undermined PG & Suggested that the govt couldn’t be trusted

Question 25

Wade

Bolsheviks during 1917

Answer 25

‘the Bolsheviks became a political alternative for the dissapointed and disenchanted.’

Soldiers & workers found Bolsheviks most popular = biggest supporters

Question 26

Stalin

The man responsible for the October Revolution

Answer 26

All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the presidents of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee (Milrevkom) was organised.

Stalin, Pravda (Oct 1918)
Trotsky controlled milrevkom + took lead in final days of october + responds to outcry in congress of soviets

Question 27

Lynch assessment

Regarding who was responsible for the October revolution

Answer 27

‘The failure of the Provisional Government to rally effective military support in its hour of need was symptomatic of its much deeper political failure over the previous eight months. It was not that the Provisional Government was bitterly rejected by the Russian people. It was more a matter of its inability to arouse genuine enthusiasm. Kerensky’s government had come nowhere near to solving Russia’s problems or satisfying its needs. Its support had evaporated. Economically incompetent and militarily disastrous, the Provisional Government was not considered worth struggling to save. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks were pushing against an already open door.’

PG procrastinated on Constituent Assembily + didn’t address war, land +lacked legitimacy

Question 28

Richard Pipes

regarding the October revolution

Answer 28

Although it is customary to speak of two Russian revolutions of 1917 – one in February, the other in October – only the first deserves this name… October was a classic coup d’état, the capture of governmental authority by a small band, carried out, in deference to the democratic profession of the age, with a show of mass participation, but with hardly any mass involvement.’

not a mass revolution – Trotsky himself claims they had 30,000-40,000 supporters, of whom only 10,000-15,000 attacked the Winter Palace (5% of workers in Petrograd).