Essay
A* Russia and its Rulers Empire & Nationalities Exemplar Essay 1
How successful was Russia in expanding and maintaining its Empire between ?
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Russia empire and nationalities practice essay 1How successful was Russia in expanding and maintaining its Empire between 1855-1964?
All rulers during the period between 1855-1964 were generally successful in expanding and
maintaining the Russian Empire through an effective policy of repression and concession. Firstly, in
response to rebellion in Poland in 1863-64, Alexander II installed Miliyutin as prime minister in order
to ‘Russify’ the nation and thus deter another revolt. The subsequent Miliyutin Plan was successful in
terms of granting concessions on the one hand – rural district councils were set up after the
emancipation of Polish serfs on more favourable terms to those of native Russians – and preventing
a repeat of the rebellion as Poland became the Vistula region of Russia and saw its autonomy
diminished. The fact that Alexander III faced no unrest in Poland suggests that the territory was
successfully maintained. This view is further supported by Stalin’s repression of the Poles during the
Second World War given that the deaths of 4231 Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest Massacre
acted as a reminder of Russia’s domination in Eastern Europe and an ominous sign of things to come,
as Stalin exploited the march to Berlin to expand the Russian Empire in the region. Poland became a
satellite state of the USSR and remained firmly under its grasp far beyond the end of the period.
Although Khrushchev operated a policy of de-Stalinisation and made concessions to Poland – for
example, he released Gomulka from prison to become prime minister – he likewise demonstrated
that Russia was not prepared to relax its level of control in Eastern Europe as Hungary, another
satellite state after the Second World War, saw a revolt crushed in 1956. Khrushchev sent around
30,000 troops, artillery and tanks to Budapest as a sign that de-Stalinisation had limits and that
Russian power should not be questioned by its satellites, nor by the West.
However, less successful were the campaigns in the Far East and the general attempts of
Russian rulers between 1855-1964 to exert influence there. In the Russo-Japanese War, Nicholas II
suffered humiliating defeats at Mukden and in the Battle of Yalu and lost rights to Port Arthur which
had been established under his predecessor. This enabled Japan to expand its empire at the expense
of the Russian Empire in the Far East, which undermined Russian power and threatened the stability
of the Empire as the campaign led to domestic rebellion in the Greater Russian cities throughout
1905. Again, during the Korean War, the USSR failed to sufficiently supply the communists in North
Korea to ensure an ideological as well as territorial victory over the capitalist West. The maintenance
of the status-quo in Korea meant that Stalin’s decision to involve Russia in the war compromised
Khrushchev’s relations with the West and arguably exacerbated the Cold War. More humiliating for
the reputation of the Russian Empire was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; this resulted in the loss of a
third of the population, of agricultural land, and of railway track, thus highlighting the weakness of
the Empire relative to the stronger Western European powers and how vulnerable it was to
disintegration. Lenin managed to secure the return of Ukraine and Georgia but Poland and Finland
were permanently lost as a result of the Treaty as Lenin failed to expand Russian influence to these
areas in the Civil War. Similarly, during the Cold War period, both Stalin and Khrushchev were unable
to effectively control all communist states, as Yugoslavia broke away from Cominform in 1948 and
China emerged as a rival to the USSR in acting as the leader of the communist world. The
desperation of Stalin and Khrushchev to dominate the communist states is clearly evident by their
policies in Germany after the Second World War. The Berlin Blockade and the later decision to
construct a wall to separate East Berlin from the West reveal an Empire that realised that its
influence was waning in the post-war period and tried hopelessly to ideologically defeat the
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