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OCR A2 Level History: Russia and its Rulers 1855-1964 - General Discussion Thread

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One thing I have noticed is that when Russia win a war, there is barely any reform and when Russia lose a war, reform is noticeably increased. So structure would be:

Impact of war- political

Impact of war- social

Impact of war- economics (industrialisation)

Impact of war- cultural



With that you can go into perhaps reforming governments and repressive ones


Hope that's okay


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Original post by peelin
Anyone have a long list of statistics and/or quotes? Definitely the most tedious bit to learn. I've been compiling population stats, industrial output, state murders etc. but still feeling a bit thin. Also, historians can never seem to agree which makes it even more irritating to get a comprehensive list.


It might be a really useful idea for everyone if we compile a big post with various facts/figures/quotes so that we all have a comprehensive list of things to add into the essays? :biggrin:
I'm finding it difficult to collect my thoughts to efficiently revise, I think part of the problem is because there is so much to revise and remember, I want to make sure I cover everything in as much detail as possible. Does anyone find making detailed essay plans a good way to revise? I'm thinking it'd be good as I'd be planning but revising key bits of info at the same time.
Tell me how you're revising!!
Reply 23
Original post by procrastination...
It might be a really useful idea for everyone if we compile a big post with various facts/figures/quotes so that we all have a comprehensive list of things to add into the essays? :biggrin:


Sure, I'll post what I've got so far.
Reply 24
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.
That is bloody brilliant.

Don't forget Famine 1932-3 caused 6-8 million deaths.

The weight of the vote of the noble was greater, evidenced by the fact that 74% of the zemstvo members were nobles, even though nobles were 1.3% of the population.
(edited 11 years ago)
Does anyone know how many raw marks would equate to 115/120 ums?
Original post by Monkeysuit.
Does anyone know how many raw marks would equate to 115/120 ums?


each exam is 60marks so its 115 raw marks out of both exams so 57 and 58marks.
Original post by krystlezara
each exam is 60marks so its 115 raw marks out of both exams so 57 and 58marks.


No it'll be less than that. Last summer it was about 99/120 RAW for 108/120 UMS, and after that UMS increases more than proportionally compared to RAW increases. So I'd guess about 53-54/60 in each exam for 115 UMS.
I was wondering, on questions that ask you about the change in the nature of government or just change in Russian government, what kind of things would you explore in the essay? I'm just looking at 'Assess the view that the 1905 Revolution changed Russian government more than other events in the period from 1855-1964'. Would it be things like reform and opposition? I just wonder whether I'd have enough to write about for this!! :/
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Minusthevolta
No it'll be less than that. Last summer it was about 99/120 RAW for 108/120 UMS, and after that UMS increases more than proportionally compared to RAW increases. So I'd guess about 53-54/60 in each exam for 115 UMS.


Thank you both :smile:
Reply 31
Oh god im hating revising this . cramming it because i have chemistry and biology this week too.

Basically to get an A* in this A level, My teacher said you need an A* so (72/80 ums) in your coursework and then 90% in this paper i.e (108/120)
but no where on the OCR website has it stated that for History A it's different, and so I'm ASSUMING that a 90% overall is sufficient in getting an overall A*
i.e 180/200 ums
Or does the coursework HAVE to be 90%
any ideas?
either way then it's gonnabe difficult ill need 114 ums marks and so roughly 53/54 in each - WOOOOOO.
Reply 32
For a question concerning economic modernisation (such as, "the communist rulers were more effective at modernising the state than their tsarist counterparts. Discuss."), what possible themes could you consider? Obviously there's industry and agriculture, however could you break these two rather broad areas into subthemes? I was thinking for industry, you could consider reliance on foreign monies and investment capital and how this changed over the period, such as:

Reutern and Witte relying on foreign loans; Reutern providing tax breaks and guaranteeing to bail out projects that encountered financial difficulty and Witte putting Russia on the gold standard in 1897.
Conversely, under Stalin there was a move towards economic autarky.

What's everyone else thinking?
Original post by procrastination...
I was wondering, on questions that ask you about the change in the nature of government or just change in Russian government, what kind of things would you explore in the essay? I'm just looking at 'Assess the view that the 1905 Revolution changed Russian government more than other events in the period from 1855-1964'. Would it be things like reform and opposition? I just wonder whether I'd have enough to write about for this!! :/


Nature of Government is:

Structure of Government
Organisation of Government
Tools of Government

I think! :smile:
Reply 34
For nature of government I would definetly consider ideology ahead of organisation! So my themes would be ideology, structure, mechanisms(propaganda, censorship, repression/reform).

For the question two posts above about modernising, you will really need to define the more modernising. Given that Russia was such a backward, bordering on primitive, society then one could define modernisation as "to accept or adopt Western ideas, methods or style in the domains of politics, economics and also socially."

The essay structure follows sequentially...
Does anyone know the questions that were on Jan 2012?

Found the examiners' report but not the paper.
Original post by andyinder01
Does anyone know the questions that were on Jan 2012?

Found the examiners' report but not the paper.


"Lenin was more successful in dealing with opposition than any other ruler of Russia in the period from 1855 to 1964." How far do you agree?

"The development of Russian government was influenced more by war than by any other factor". How far do you agree with this view of the period from 1855 to 1964?

To what extent did Russian people lose more than they gained from economic and social changes during the period from 1855 to 1964?
One theme that I'm absolutely useless at is the workers and living standards questions.

How would you structure, for example, this question:

"Assess the view that Russia's communist leaders did less than the tsars to improve the lives of the working class in the period from 1855 to 1964."
Original post by helzz94
One theme that I'm absolutely useless at is the workers and living standards questions.

How would you structure, for example, this question:

"Assess the view that Russia's communist leaders did less than the tsars to improve the lives of the working class in the period from 1855 to 1964."


The report for that question is...

Candidates frequently turned this question into one about the treatment of the Russian peasantry and while many peasants did indeed become ‘working class’, living in towns and working in factories, many candidates knew little about how industrial developments affected the lives of Russians. Others made perfunctory references to the industrial workers, relying on assertions and generalisations. The better candidates were clearly able to make the necessary distinctions and focus on the question at hand. Several candidates were very well informed on employment statistics in the Stalinist period and housing and working conditions.

The best answers examined living and working conditions, personal freedom, civil rights and electoral opportunities, social and cultural changes, especially in health and educational opportunities, how the lives of women improved over the period, and made effective contrasts between the Tsarist and Communist periods. Such answers were often detailed, using good illustrative knowledge about living and working conditions, prices and wages, working hours and practices, trade unions, factories and the demands of the state.

Many gave good assessments of life under Stalin and Khrushchev but knowledge of developments under Alexander III and Nicholas II was less assured and, surprisingly, few analysed changes under the Provisional Government. Strong essays organised ideas thematically; weaker responses tended to adopt a chronological and descriptive approach.
Original post by helzz94
One theme that I'm absolutely useless at is the workers and living standards questions.

How would you structure, for example, this question:

"Assess the view that Russia's communist leaders did less than the tsars to improve the lives of the working class in the period from 1855 to 1964."


I would split it up into the following themes:
-Social Conditions
-Political Rights
-Economic Rights
-Repression

and then compare the Tsars and Communists within each. Hope this helps.

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