Tsarist rule in russia

Question 1

Discontent: Autocratic rule & police state:

Answer 1

Autocratic rule & police state:

• Nicholas II, ruled as an autocrat, which meant no control on his power.
• Navy and army swore personal loyalty to the tsar
• could not criticise the tsar in comparison to the British government, as they felt this was unloyal.
• feared arrest- Okhrana, secret police division kept watch on those being revolutionaries. As a result, people could not be seen as unloyal to the tsar in any environment
• minimal ways to complain about how their country was run

Question 2

Peasant discontent

Answer 2

Peasants:

• 85 percent of the population were peasants.
• Popul. Growth meant peasants needed more land but they were all too poor to buy it
• 1890s -1901, famines killed thousands
• word famine was banned

Question 3

Industrial workers discontent

Answer 3

Industrial workers

• Only recently started industrialising in the 1890s.
• Industry progress was valued much more than conditions for said workers.
• Working hours were long, pay was low, rules were strictly enforced
• housing shortages meant many lived in overcrowded barracks.

Question 4

Middle class discontent

Answer 4

Middle classes

• most of Russia’s middle class people were liberals.
• wanted change, but feared radical revolutionaries that would share property with the poor
• instead wanted to replace the tsarist regime with a constitution that guaranteed rights to everyone, under a fair legal system.

Question 5

Non-russian discontent

Answer 5

Non- russians

• 56% of 12.5 million people recorded from a census in 1897 were non-russians.
• this was due to russification, a policy implemented to put pressure on everyone to adopt russian culture.
• Many non-russians wanted independence, as they believed that the empire put Russia before anything.

Question 6

Discontent: Radical threat from revolutionaries:

Answer 6

• Tsarism had been under threat by revolutionaries.
• Nicholas grandfather, other important ministers had been assassinated.
• SRP believed in a socialist revolution
• RSDP believed in karl marx, believed in a worker’s revolution.

Question 7

Discontent: Russo-japanese war

Answer 7

• Russia and japan wanted control of a part of a northern China called manchuria.
• This region had valuable resources and a port that did not freeze over winter.
• Russia confident, as a major european power, that they could beat the japanese.
• Japanese beat the old fashioned military tactics of the Russians
• as a result, many embarrassed and blamed the tsarist government for the embarrassing defeat.

Question 8

Bloody sunday:

Answer 8

• Bloody sunday was a massacre of unarmed protesters that took place in St. Petersburg.
• Led by father gapon, a large crowd of protestors was bringing a petition to the tsar.
• Called for a 8 hour working day, right to organise trade unions, and a constitution to guarantee these rights and other freedoms in law.
• although peaceful, the Tsar’s palace was blocked by soldiers,
• demonstrators insulted the soldiers about manchuria, and shouted abuse at them
• mounted cossacks began attacking the crowd with swords and whips
• over 100 killed,100 more wounded
• united people in disgust at the actions of the tsarist government.

Question 9

Potemkin Mutiny: It escalated after sailors complained about their conditions.

Answer 9

Supporting detail:

• The quartermaster planned to lead a mutiny.
• Eventually, on June 14 1905, potemkin cooks would report that the meats were full of maggots. the ship’s doctor inspected the meat and said it was acceptable.
• after more complaints, Potemokin’s executive officer threatened to shoot any sailors who refused to eat the meat.
• Officer shot one mutineer which set off the mutiny. Threw the officer into the water and shot him
• as a result, the socialist ‘people’s committee’ took over, and the quartermaster led as its chairperson.

Question 10

Potemkin Mutiny: It failed

Answer 10

Supporting detail:

• The mutineers sailed to potemkin to the prot of odessa, where strikes and protests had been taking place for several weeks.
• riots spread throughout the city. Nicholas II ordered the army in Odessa to stop the riots. This was done by firing into the crowds.
• Over 1000 citizens killed, and the city was brought under government control again.
• an attempt to spread the mutiny through the rest of the black sea fleet failed, and potemkin was forced to sail around the back sea.
• The mutiny accomplished almost nothing.

Question 11

Setting up of Soviets 1905 - Feature 1: Helped to organise resistance to the Tsar.

Answer 11

Supporting detail:

The St. Petersburg soviet was a council of workers set up in 1905 to organise the general strike.
Industrial workers and peasants rioted together. Peasants rioted against their landlords,, sometimes killing landlords and their families. The industrial workers used strikes to achieve their aims

Question 12

Setting up of Soviets 1905 - Feature 2: Offered an alternative system of government.

Answer 12

Supporting detail:

• Although the st petersburg soviet was not directly responsible for the strike itself as it formed after after the general strike had begun,
• the idea of a workers’ soviet for organising resistance became important again in 1917.

Question 13

1905 Revolution Feature 1:

United different groups against the Tsar

Answer 13

Supporting detail:

• Industrial workers and peasants rioted together. - Peasants rioted against their landlords,, sometimes killing landlords and their families. - The industrial workers used strikes to achieve their aims.
• Bloody sunday led to a huge increase in the number of strikes: more than 400,000 workers went on strike in january 1905 alone. - A general strike was organised from sept 20 to oct 2.
• Linked workers with the liberal middle classes who wanted reform.

Question 14

1905 Revolution Feature 2:

Ended through concessions and repression

Answer 14

Supporting detail:

• resulted in the october manifesto
  → new civil rights for the people of the russian empire: free speech, religion, trade unions, duma, approval of duma
• delighted the liberal middle classes and the general strike was called off
• however peasant unrest and worker strikes continued through oct. 1905
• majority of the armed services remained loyal to the tsar.
  → Therefore brutal force was used to repress strikes, unrest and mutinies.
• Under stolypin, groups of army soldiers rode out to villages where there was peasant unrest. The soldiers used extreme force to stop the unrest

Question 15

October Manifesto Feature 1: A concession by the Tsar to create a Duma..

Answer 15

Supporting detail:

• a parliament known as duma would be formed.
• They would approve new laws
• gave the liberal middle classes satisfaction, believed that russia was heading in a new direction

Question 16

October Manifesto Feature 2: Granted new rights for Russians.

Answer 16

Supporting detail:

• civil rights for the people of the russian empire
• trade unions, free speech, religion

Question 17

Attitude of Nicholas to the first four dumas Feature 1: The tsar was against the duma at first but portrayed himself to be in full support of it

Answer 17

Supporting detail:

• nicholas nor his ministers trusted the idea of allowing the russian people ot have a say on how russia should be governed
• hated idea of limiting his sacred autocratic powers
• treated the duma as important as that meant that more of russia would be content
• encouraged people to celebrate the opening of the first duma by decorating their homes and businesses with flags
• duma deputies went to tsar’s winter palace were the tsar made a congratulatory speech to them

Question 18

Attitude of Nicholas to the first four dumas Feature 2: Tsar did not trust it and made actions to minimise its threat to tsarism

Answer 18

Supporting detail:

• first duma was already very anti-government, dominated by deputies of:
  → kadets(supported reform but wanted govt. To answer directly to duma) and
  → trudoviks(SR party that took part in the duma)
• tsar dissolved the first duma in just 10 weeks in fear of further, more radical demands
• SRs and RSDP joined the 2nd duma. Dissolved after four months, as it was clear it was even more of a threat.
• conservative deputies more likely to be elected to be apart of the third duma. As a result, they could be relied on to support government policies. 228 of 443 duma seats were controlled by conservative deputies and octobrists.
• It lasted its full 5 year term; it served no threat to the tsar.
• 4th duma much the same, even more conservative

Question 19

Growth of opposition groups Feature 1:

Some groups wanted to overthrow the Tsar in a revolution.

Answer 19

Supporting detail:

→ kadets(supported reform but wanted govt. To answer directly to duma) and
→ trudoviks(SR party that took part in the duma)
- tsar dissolved the first duma in just 10 weeks in fear of further, more radical demands
- SRs and RSDP joined the 2nd duma. Dissolved after four months, as it was clear it was even more of a threat.
- conservative deputies

Question 20

Growth of opposition groups Feature 2:

Some more moderate groups wanted to work with the Tsar.

Answer 20

Supporting detail:

→ octobrists and the middle classes, both in support of the october manifesto

Question 21

Stolypin’s policy of repression Feature 1:

Clampdown on freedoms

Answer 21

Supporting detail:

• After the october manifesto, riots still continued as many peasants, workers were still discontent.
• Army given complete control over the law and order in almost every part of the country.
• Newspapers, trade unions were closed- (denial of freedom of speech, not following through with october manifesto)
• suspected revolutionaries rounded up, put into prison.

Question 22

Stolypin’s policy of repression Feature 2:

Violent treatment of opposition

Answer 22

Supporting detail:

• over a thousand people executed
• used extreme force to stop peasant unrest.
• suspected revolutionaries rounded up, put into prison.

Question 23

Stolypin’s land reform Feature 1:

Designed to modernise farming and pacify peasants

Answer 23

Supporting detail:

• planned to let individual peasants leave the commune, and set up farms for themselves.
• wanted russia to be a country of individual family farms.
• as a result of competitiveness, he hoped that farmers would use more modern farming methods to increase personal crop growth.
• Called this a ‘wager on the strong’
• his wager was that if peasants became successful, they would stop wanting to burn down their landlords’ manor houses and support the govt instead.
• it also encouraged 3.5 million siberian peasant migrants, where there was plenty of land

Question 24

Stolypin’s land reform Feature 2:

A failure.

Answer 24

Supporting detail:

• Although in theory the peasants had their own farms to run, they and their families tended to work and live as though they were still apart of the commune.
• for example, peasants continued to allow their animals to graze on each other’s land.
• only 14 percent of peasants taking up the reform, combined their land together in individual enclosed family farms
• as a result, peasant unrest once again swept through rural russia in 1917, organised by the said communes that he had tried to break apart.

Question 25

Lena Goldfield Strike Feature 1:

Tsarist forces killed strikers

Answer 25

Supporting detail:

• the protest originated from one mining gang who protested about rotten horsemeat. The event turned into a mass protest of workers, who brought lists of their demands to the managers.
• troops fired into the crowd. 200-500 workers were killed, with hundreds more wounded.
• This escalated an kick started a storm of protests throughout russia. Repression meant the number of strikes had declined from thousands in 1905 to a few hundred. After said massacre, it inc. to nearly 2000 strikes.

Question 26

Lena Goldfield Strike Feature 2:

Made clear to the rest of russia how the tsar refused to move towards better conditions and freedoms.

Answer 26

Supporting detail:

• Alex. Kerensky became famous for his reports about the terrible conditions endured by the miners.
• Showed that none of the reasons for discontent with tsarist rule had gone away.- tsar held on to their autocratic power