Russia and its rulers A level OCR

Generally for a theme 1 question, which will be about nature of govt, the themes you talk about are ideology, structures of govt (local and central) and mechanisms of state (repression, propaganda, censorship, opposition). Or if the question is just on opposition you can use opposition from different groups in Russian society as your themes, so that is peasants, urban workers, political parties and individuals (such as Brezhnev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Trotsky...).
As for theme 2 this is economy and society so the themes are simply living conditions, working conditions and civil liberties. Sometimes they ask really specific questions though, last year they asked just about religious freedoms, political freedom and something else that I can't remember but it was basically just a civil liberties question. Also they have asked some questions on just the economy before, but this can be divided into treaties, agriculture and industry.
Theme 3 questions will be on war so you can split that into social, political and economic impacts of war, however you can also include the impact of war on national minorities as a fourth theme but that is not always necessary.
As for theme 4 on national minorities my teachers advice was essentially to avoid theme 4 like the plague, if it doesn't come up great but if it comes up don't do it. So I haven't actually learnt this so cant help that much but depending on the question you could probably manipulate it, especially if it is a hybrid question! If the question includes theme 4 and another theme then use the themes of that other themes. (idk if that makes sense)
I hope this helps, I am not too sure if I answered your question or not good luck for Thursday

How would you talk about civil liberties and treaties because i feel like i cant think of alot of that

fingers crossed they won’t ask a question just on civil liberties, they did that last year so i don’t imagine it will come up again. if they do i would split the themes into personal, political and religious freedoms. but generally for a civil liberties paragraph you could talk about how the emancipation gave citizenship rights to over 20 million privately owned serfs but then how the mir restricted that. you could mention also the law of 1883 which essentially banned public promotion of non-orthodox religions, also pogroms and russification under alexander third. then you could talk about how nicholas repressed national minorities and denied them basic freedoms. you could also bring up propaganda and censorship if you apply it correctly. you could talk about the treaty of brest litovsk and how that gave national identity to areas which became under german protection after WW1, the treaty made the baltic states, ukraine and poland independent but then stalin and WW2 revoked this as russian influence expanded. then you could talk about how destalinisation under kchev freed many political prisoners and released people from the gulags. i think the best points to make tho would be about serfdom and how they had no freedoms, then how the mir restricted freedoms granted under emancipation, also repression and lack of freedom under stalin, the purges, show trials, and also the red terror and civil war under lenin.
then for treaties you would link to economic impacts of war so you can mention the loss of warm water ports from the treaty of paris and the treaty of portsmouth. you can talk about a loss of influence and loss of territory which is seen in nearly all the treaties other than san stefano i think, then just link that to maybe humiliation and perhaps impact on russian people. treaties is a bit of a difficult one but if a question on the economy came up you don’t necessarily have to use treaties as a theme if you have another point, for instance you could talk about whether the economic impacts were short term or long term or the scale of the economic impacts so who they effected and how many people they effected.
sorry for the waffle, this is my procrastination rn💪🏼

Hey, can anyone give me some advise about figuring out the themes to answer the 25 mark thematic questions in the russia paper?