Russian thematic 25 markers essays for ocr alevel students
A timeline is given at the start just to start off with key dates that must be memorised. Some of the essays are based on highly marked exemplar answers.
Main themes
1. System of government
2. Economy
3. Society
4. War and Revolu...
1. System of government
2. Economy
3. Society
4. War and Revolution
5. Nationalities
Key dates:
1. Crimean war: 1853-56
2. alexander 11 becomes tsar 1855
3. emancipate edit announced: 1861-66
4. polish revolt: 1863 -64
5. zemtvo law and legal reforms/ school boards: 1864
6. First assassination attempt of Alexander ii: 1866
7. russo -Turkish war: 1877-78
8. growth of opposition groups - narodniks, land and liberty, peoples will:
1877-81
,9. Loris malenkov proposal. Alexander ii assissinated. Alex iii and the
reaction: 1881
10. factory inspectorate established: 1882
11. peasant land bank: 1883
12. land captains: 1889
13. famine in 17 provinces of Russia: 1881
14. imposition of the medele’ev tariff: 1881
15. wittes great spurt: 1892-3
16. rouble placed on gold standard/ first census: 1898
17. nicholas ii becomes tsar: 1894
18. formation of SD’s: 1898
19. formation of SR’s: 1901
20. SD’s split into bolsheviks and Mensheviks: 1903
21. russo-Japanese war: 1904-5
22. bloody Sunday and October manifesto: 1905
23. fundamental laws, start of stolypins reforms and the first Duma:
1906
24. ww1: 1914- 1918
25. feb revolution and PG. decree on land - start of civil war - war
communism: 1917
26. constituent assembly/ constitution formed: 1918
27. krondstadt rising/ famine - 5m dead/ economic collapse/ NEP
and gosplan: 1921
28. declaration of 46 (like anti-party): 1923
29. Lenin dead/ constitution: 1924
30. 1920s famine: 1922-8
31. first 5 year plan: 1928
32. mass collectivisation and dekulaksiation: 1929
33. 1930s famine - 5m dead: 1932-4
34. the great terror: 1934-40
35. Stalins constitution: 1936
36. the winter war: 1939-40
37. ww2 Stalin grade/ Kursk/ Leningrad: 1942
38. yalta and Potsdam: 1945
39. Cold War starts/ long telegram/ iron curtain speech: 1946-7
40. tightening of censorship. Famine in Ukraine: 1946
41. leningrad purged. Formation of Comecon: 1949
42. formation of east and west Germany and china becomes
communist: 1951
43. korean war: 1950-3
, 44. doctors plot: 1953
45. creation of Warsaw pact: 1955
46. hungarian uprising:1956
47. khrushchev’s rise to power. Virgin land scheme: 1953-4
48. denunciation of Stalin in secret speech: 1956
49. khrushchev’s maize growing campaign: 1954
50. workers riot in novocherkaask: 1962
51. cuban missile crisis: 1962
52. agricultural crisis - soil erosion - VLS: 1963
53. khrushchev falls from power - Brezhnev takes over: 1964
System of government
To what extent was repression consistent used by the
Russian leaders during the period 1855- 1964?
Repression is the means to control, prevent and inhibit others thoughts and actions Repression
across the Russian leaders all involved some sort of secret police, army and censorship
(already establishing continuity). Yet its evident that there were heightened moments of
repression particularly under the communists with their reigns of ‘terror’ and desires by leaders
such as Alexander II and Khrushchev to reduce the amount of repression (including PG) thus
suggesting it wasn’t consistent during the period 1855-1964.
When observing the use of Secret police as a form of repression there seems to be a consistent
similarity in the nature and tactics of the secret police against opposition under all Russian
leaders as all had autocratic control over police forces. However, Khrushchev may be excluded
from this argument thus suggesting the use of the secret police may not have been as
consistent as stated above. - Alex III: okhrana 1881-1917, utilised as a tool for spying, arresting,
improving and exiling critics which can be seen as a existing role throughout 1885-1964. 1881
extraordinary laws creating 10,000 elite policemen due to Alex III inclinations to be reactionary
after his fathers death due to opposition groups "the people's will". This therefore does suggest
a change as Alex III has. The okhrana helped to enforce a policy called Russification and it
caused much resentment particularly to other ethnicities like poles and Lithuanians but also
religions such as Jews in the pale of settlement suffering from the may laws. - Lenin: in a similar
way to Alex III the Cheka made a clamp down on political pressure groups and parties
specifically the left wing SR's, because in the august of 1918 there was an attempt to
assassinate Lenin. The cheka would also work on enforcing a policy called war communism
especially grain requisitioning, this had also caused resentment particularly to workers. - Stalin:
, absolute demonstration of change in use of the secret police. NKVD was formed in 1934.
Headed by Yagoda (later Yezhov), it created a permanent form of terror. It was crucial to the
imposition of purges, notable for gathering evidence against high-ranking communists such as
Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky. (Similar use of political arrests) The NKVD also
helped to administer the Gulags (continuing what Lenin did but to an extreme level with; over 40
million people were sent to these prison camps during the Stalinist regime. By the start of the
Second World War, the NKVD itself had been purged of around 20,000 members. -
Khrushchev: breaks the chain in the nature and tactics that used with-all the other leaders partly
due to destal and also with the fact that the KGB and MVD were placed under direct admin of
the party rather than an individual like Beria for example who led the secret police during stalins
regime. The kgb had quite a different role and that was to focus on internal and external security
of the ussr which was significant during the Cold War. With all of this the number of political
arrests plummeted to numbers others leaders hadn't seen before and gulags largely
disappeared unlike the past two communist leaders HOWEVER… KGB sent political dissidents
psychiatric institutions - Nicholas II: Yet again the okhrana was used to dismantle opposition in
this case peasants, SRs and SDS. The okhrana acted as agents provocateurs and executioners
during the Bloody Sunday. We can see how repressive nicholas II's government is by using the
secret police as between oct 1905 to April 1906 around 15000 peasants and workers were killed
but this nowhere compares to Stalins strengthing and brutality of the KGB. Moreover, in the
previous years of 1905 Russia seemed relatively stable so the government weren't as
repressive. Overall not consistent as the police take bigger roles in certain tenures such as
Stalin’s where the secret police not only took on new roles (gulags…) but had more strength
(lots of deaths…)
Army - overall similarities in how they dealt crimes such as criticizing or dissenting against the
government - Nicholas II: Lena goldfields 1912 where Protestors were shot by the army, with
around 270 killed and 250 injured showing how repressive Nicholas's regime was. The army
tried dealing with the social unrest of feb 1917 but troops were deserting and joining protesters,
it is estimated that about 150,000 of the Petrograd garrison supported revolution. - Lenin: Lenin
brought in the introduction of gulags which highlights the difference between the roles of the
army between the tsars and communists. But other than that the red army guided by trotksy had
dealt with flash strikes by civil servants and workers similar Nicholas II and this was to
consolidate his power. The red army was used in a way that no other leaders of Russia during
1855-1964 were used due to the fact that they were an instrumental role in allowing the
Bolshevisks to win the civil war. But Lenin faced the same problem that Nicholas did like
desertion and rebellion. - Khrushchev: the army focused more on resolving international
conflicts such as that with America in the Cuban missile crisis rather than internal conflicts seen
in previous leaders. And with Khrushchevs case there was no making of a new army he's
actually reduced the size from 3.6 million to about 2.4 million due to easing of tensions. - Alex II:
a similarity that's common between the tsars and their armies is that the majority were peasant
conscripts and the officers were drawn from the nobility. In 1861 armed troops were used to put
down 500 cases of peasant riots which shows how the role of the army has passed down.-
Stalin: use of the military to help implement economic policy furthered by Stalin (similar to Lenin
with war communism) The Red Army required to requisition grain, as part of collectivisation.
helped to administer the purges, played a role in the Great Terror. Different because of Stalins
paranoia the military leadership was consistently perceived as a threat by Stalin therefore
removed a number of key military figures in the Great Purge of 1936-8, including the great Civil
War hero Marshal Tukhachevsky.
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