Apologies if formatting comes out weird, I'm copy and pasting from Word:
Peasantry
• Tsars to communists
o 1891 famine killed 350,000; 1921 food shortages killed 5 million
• Abolition of serfdom
o In the four months following emancipation, there were 650 riots
o 1861 – 500 cases of riots that needed to be put down with armed troops
o 1861 – 82% of population freed
o While productivity increased maybe 20% by 1900, production had doubled in Japan in the same period
• 1891 famine
o Vyshnegradsky requisitions grain
o Vyshnegradsky raises taxes on matches, salt and vodka
• Wager on the strong 1906
o Power of Peasant Land Banks (established 1883) increased:
Peasants could be loaned 90% of the value of property by 1911
8 million hectares of (church and state) land made available
o Redemption payments cancelled
o Only 10% of peasants had left the mir by 1914
• Stolypin’s necktie
o 1,100 peasants executed 1906-07
• Collectivisation
o 1929: 3% of peasants in collective farms
o 1940: 98% of peasants in collective farms
o In 1930, 2 million peasants took part in 14,000 protests (met with arrests and killings)
o The drives in 1929 reduced Kazakhstan’s population by 75%
• 1932 famine
o State increased procurement quotas from 18 million to 27 million
o Between 8-14 million died
• Khrushchev
o Reduces procurement quotas
o State paid 25% more for grain
o 105 new economic councils emphasise agricultural needs over industrial ones
o 1962 riots over bad harvests (VLS failings?): 23 killed at Novocherkassk
Workers
• Tsars
o Hans Rogger: ‘the brutishness of the working man’s life tended to make him difficult and explosive’
• Tsars to communists
o Living space fell from 8.5m2 in 1905 to 5.8m2 by 1935
o Working hours decreased from unregulated (Alex II and III) or 11 hours (Nicholas II) to around 7 or 8 hours (apart from first FYP – up to 12 hours)
Democratic legitimacy
• Tsars
o Mosse: ‘a pseudo-liberal autocrat is an unhappy hybrid, unlikely to achieve political success’
o 1914: only 43 of 70 provinces had a zemstvo
• Bolshevik takeover
o A majority in the Petrograd soviet in 1917
o 80% of Constituent Assembly votes were for socialist parties
o Trotsky: ‘democracy again asserts its rights when the Party feels the need to critically examine its actions’
o Lenin: ‘higher than democracy’
Coercion and repression
• Romanovs
o 20,000 – 30,000 killed overall
• Alexander III
o 1881 Extraordinary Laws create 10,000 elite policemen (could arrest and sentence without reference to court)
• Nicholas II
o 1901-1905: SRs undertake over 2000 political killings
o 1905 – Bloody Sunday: army leave 200 dead, 800 wounded
• Lenin
o Killed 140,000 between October 1917 and February 1922
• Stalin
o An estimated 15 million died in the gulags
o The ‘decapitation of the Red Army’ 1937-38
90 of the 100 supreme leaders of the Red Army were shot or arrested
60% of all Marshals of the Soviet Union (highest rank)
75% of army commanders
All heads of military districts
All commanders of the air force
Nearly all divisional commanders
NB: by 1941 the majority of those arrested were re-instated (the army could barely function – 1939 Winter War with Finland failed to take back the country; though the USSR had 3x soldiers, 30x aircraft and 100x tanks)
• OVERALL: 40% of top echelon of the military purged
Concesssion
• Alexander II
o 1865: glasnost (relaxation of censorship)
1000 books published 1855, 10,000 published 1894 (sum total of USA + UK)
Das Kapital published 1872
• Nicholas II
o 1894: glasnost reverses censorship of Alexander III
1900-1914: circulation of newspapers increases 3-fold
o 1905: October Manifesto
Parties, trade unions legalised etc.
• Lenin
o 1921-27: NEP
Peasants allowed to sell surplus at market
• Stalin
o 1930 – peasants briefly allowed to opt out of collectivised farms
• Khrushchev
o 1956: destalinisation, release of political prisoners, censorship relaxed etc.
by the late 1950s there were 135,000 libraries containing 8000 million books
Economy
• Alexander II
o 1862-78 – Reutern
sevenfold increase railway track (but 94% privately owned by 1880)
• 1855-1881 (total reign): 700 miles to 14,000 miles
doubling of industrial output
average annual growth rate of 6%
J.J. Hughes employed in 1871, by 1884 his company is the largest producer of pig iron and by 1900 is responsible for around 50% of steel production
o 1864-1880: grain exports, 26 million to 86 million
• Alexander III
o Bunge - 1882
abolishes Poll Tax and Salt Tax. 69% of railways public by 1911
1885 rouble starts to fall in value
o Vyshnegradsky – 1887
‘we must go hungry, but export’
1891 famine
o Witte – 1891-1903 (NII to throne in 1894)
Average increase in annual industrial production of 7.5%
1893-98
• Capital from abroad increases 120% every year
• income earned from industry grows from 42 million to 161 million roubles
1900
• France moves down to fourth place in world iron production
1901
• Total railway track has doubled since Witte’s appointment (10 years)
Trebilcock:
• ‘far exceeding Russian achievement for any comparable period before 1914 and establishing one of the most impressive performances in late nineteenth-century Europe’
• Nicholas II
o 1890-1916 (overlap w/ Alex III): Coal x6, pig iron x4, oil x3, grain x2
o 1914-16: inflation quadruples (price of fuel and food), wages don’t keep up
o Growth in GDP over total reign is higher than all the main developed Western nations (96.8% growth 1898-1913)
• Lenin
o Supreme Economic Council
Formed 1917, nationalises all enterprises employing over 10 people
o War Communism
1918-1921: 8 million died of starvation and disease
o 1920: the rouble is worth 1% of its 1917 value
o 1921: 90% of wages paid ‘in kind’
o NEP
Grain harvests, industrial production (coal, pig iron, steel, cotton) all steadily increase 1921-26
• Stalin
o The USSR was out-producing Germany by 1939
o Heavy industry
First FYP doubles steel, coal and oil production (3-6 million tonnes, 30-60 million tonnes and 10-20 million tonnes respectively)
Second FYP triples steel and doubles coal again (18 million and 120 million tonnes)
Cult of personality
• Stalin
o Kenev: ‘this surrogate ideology of hero worship ... now reached pagan proportions’
Population trends
• Alexander II, 1855-1881
o Increase of 20 million
o Percentage in towns climbing steadily (largest increase of tsars – early industrialistion?)
o Established urban class
• Alexander III, 1881-1894
o Increase of 30 million
o Rate of urbanisation decreasing but cities growing
• Nicholas II, 1894-1917
o Increase of 50 million
o Urbanisation growing but still slowly (nearly 20% by 1917 – large proletariat)
o 2 million dead in WWI
• Civil War / War Communism 1918-1921
o Decrease of 30 million
o Many workers killed: peasants had to fill industrial roles
o Percentage in cities falls 3%
• Lenin / NEP 1921-1929
o Increase of 10-20 million
o Percentage in cities reaches 1914 levels
• Stalin 1929-1939
o Increase of 40 million
o NB: 1 million killed through purges
o NB: 8-14 million die in Ukrainian famine 1933
o Percentage in cities jumps dramatically 14% - largest in period (one third of country now in cities). What can this be attributed to? Rural deaths in famine, industrialisation, ideology
• Great Patriotic War 1941-45
o 25 million dead
o Percentage in cities continues to increase
• End of Stalin / Khrushchev 1950-1964
o Increase of 40 million
o Urban population jumps 40%-50%
o Half of Russia in cities by the end of the period
• Whole period 1855-1964
o Tripling of population: ~70 to~ 210 million
o Percentage in cities increases 10-fold – ~5 to ~50 %
Military
• Stalin
o The ‘decapitation of the Red Army’ 1937-38
90 of the 100 supreme leaders of the Red Army were shot or arrested
60% of all Marshals of the Soviet Union (highest rank)
75% of army commanders
All heads of military districts
All commanders of the air force
Nearly all divisional commanders
o Preparation for war 1940-41
By 1941 most of those arrested were reinstated (around 70% or more)
Production of armaments increases by a third in one year 1939-40
Army grows from 1.6 million to 5.4 million 1938-41
Hutchings: ‘one can hardly doubt that if there had been a slower build-up of industry, the attack would have been successful and world history would have evolved quite differently’.
Education
• Alexander II
o 1872 – first courses for women
2,000 women studying by 1881
• Alexander III
o 1880: 23,000 primary schools
• Nicholas II
o 1914: 81,000 primary schools
• Stalin
o 1930: Primary attendance compulsory, attendance jumps 8 to 18 million
o 1931-32: attendance of secondary schools jumps 2.5 million to 6.9 million
Ideology
• Alexander II
o 1880: Pobedonostsev appointed, called democracy ‘the biggest lie of our time’, noted ‘inertness and laziness are generally the characteristics of the Slavonic nature’
• Nicholas II
o States he will ‘uphold the principle of autocracy as firmly and unflinchingly as did my ever lamented father’
• Khrushchev
o 1956: Tanks sent into Hungary
o 1961: Stalin’s body taken from mausoleum
Opposition
• From individuals / cliques
o 1930s: 1/3 of Party members killed
• Political parties
o 1901-05: SRs undertake 2000 political killings
o 1905: Parties legalised
o 1921: Lenin’s paper ‘On Party Unity’, + Ban on Factions
• National minorities
o 1863: Polish rebellion
o 1882: Anti-Jewish measures (re-confined to Pale of Settlement)
o 1941: Stalin viewed national minorities as traitors, increased the scale of repression / killings / exiles. More anti-Jewish laws
o 1956: Tanks sent into Hungary to suppress Nagy regime
• Peasants
o 1861: Peasant revolts. 500 cases of riots that needed to be put down with armed troops
o 1890/91: Outbreaks of peasant revolts put down by Land Captains
o 1900-7: Peasant rebellions. New tactics: appropriating land, refusing to pay taxes, robbing stores and warehouses, physical attacks and incendiary
o 1906-7: Black Earth region revolts, Stolypin used a great deal of force and carried out land reforms: an example of successful direct action
o 1928: Introduction of collectivisation and dekulakisation ignites peasant unrest; thousands of peasants die as a result of the first wave
o 1930: Mir dismantled
o 1932: Stalin-made famine
o 1941: 90% of peasants in collective farms
o [Khrushchev]: J.N. Westwood: ‘for the first time since Peter the Great there was genuine interchange between the tsar and people’
• Workers
o Pre-1880: Strikes tend to be localised and small-scale
o 1885: First significant strike at the Morozov dye works involving over 8000 workers, led to an official ban on striking
o 1905: Bloody Sunday; prompts a wave of sympathy strikes
o 1912: Lena Goldfields massacre, over 200 deaths
o 1917: Lots of strikes leading up to revolution. Soviets formed
o 1928: Stalin’s purges ensure any trade union official growing too powerful was dealt with; Five Year Plans also helped control worker behaviour
o 1940s: Rise of worker suicides
o 1962: Novocherkassk protest, 23 killed
These aren't sorted particularly thematically, and definitely aren't comprehensive. If anyone else has a similar list, posting it would be great - as you can probably tell, I'm missing a lot of stats.