Also his methods of massacring anyone he felt was a threat seemed to be effective in dealing with opposition. By 1939 majority of bishops were killed in Russia and there were only 12 left also 400,000 party members were purged due to his Stalin paranoia of them scheming against him. However to suggest that Stalin was the more effective in dealing with opposition in the period 1855-1964 compared to the other rulers would be wrong. In order to assess this argument we must compare the success of Stalin against opposition to the success of the other against their opposition. By comparing the key events in terms of opposition like the Assassination of Alexander II in 1881, Blood Sunday and the October manifesto in 1905, the February and October revolution in 1917, and how effectively they were dealt with, then we can come to a judgment on the argument.
There were signs of an early revolution in the making when the people had had enough off being ruled by an autocratic government. On January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg, the civilians of Russia peacefully marched to the palace of the tsar with just a simple compromise in which the Russian government was not very fond of due to the fact that they thought an autocratic government was the only government that could rule Russia. They ordered to soldiers to open fire on the demonstrators killing nearly 1,000 people. Russian’s were furious with this and throughout the year, they went on strikes in which one strike paralyzed the country, which then compelled Nicholas the second to grant civil and political freedoms to the people. The document was known as The October Manifesto.
The main reason that Stalin was able to rise to power was his ingenious defeats of both the left and right wings of the Party. The key figure Stalin had to take down from the left wing was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was important because in effect, it was his leadership of the Red Army during the Civil War that had won the war for the Reds. If it hadn’t been for Trotsky, the Bolsheviks may not have been in the position they were by 1924. The first step Stalin took towards removing the threat of Trotsky was to lie to him about the date of Lenin’s funeral.
At the time, the formation of political parties was illegal but despite this, they still existed. Every sector of society was represented through one of these illegal parties to act as opposition to the Tsarist autocracy. A number of parties set up used violence and terrorist activities to express their views. The Social Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats were set up to create a new society which gave power to the workers and peasants. The Social Revolutionaries were responsible for over 2000 assassinations from 1901-1905 including the Tsars uncle, Grand Duke Sergei in February 1905.
Lenin also suppressed democracy, closing down the constituent assembly in January 1918 after ‘one day of democracy’. Both the Tsars and the communist rulers also showed no hesitation in the use of secret police and mass terror. Each regime had its own secret police - the Third Section under Alexander II, the Okhrana under Alexander III and Nicholas II, the Cheka, the NKVD and the KGB under the communists. The suppression of opponents was also a common practice throughout the period. Under the term of Pyotr Stolypin as Prime Minister (1906-11), hundreds of opponents were hanged - earning the hangman’s noose the nickname - ‘the Stolypin necktie’.
His task of defeating the Whites was made a great deal more difficult by the Czechs if he had kept his word and let them move freely out of Russia, this problem would not have occurred. The Politburo blamed this solely on Trotsky – and the man who led the critics was Joseph
Another factor to the growth of opposition against the Tsar was due to the Rasputin becoming advisor to Alexandria as Nicholas the second went to war. During September 1915 and December there was frequent changes such as; 4 prime ministers ,5 interior ministers and 3 ministers of agriculture. This made it hard for people of Russia to keep up and it made no improvements to Russia’s society. In addition this made the Tsar hated among the people and the opposition grew against him. However, if Alexandra accepted reforms from the Duma instead of Rasputin a reduction of opposition would of
World War 1 was the major factor which led to the collapse of the Romanov Dynasty and put an end to Tsardom in February, 1917. Without the war and the hardship and strain on the Russian economy and moral a revolution would not have happened at this point in time. This is not to say a revolution would not have eventually happened, as many of the ingredients needed were already present. However, what World War 1 did was to heighten the discontent throughout society enough for it to revolt the upper classes in society where annoyed because Nicholas II had left Russia to be ran effectively by Rasputin whilst he was away at the front line leading to bribery and corruption plaguing the Russian political system; the lower class in Russia where angered by the total war attitude of the
However, it is hard to imagine how Ivan’s paranoia and constant killing caused Russia to reform for the better. Ivan’s paranoia, violent nature, and the development of the oprichnina caused him to destroy much of Russia, including the boyars, Russian agriculture and economy, and many innocent civilians. It seems as though everything Ivan achieved was for his own benefit and not the country of Russia as a whole. Ivan’s childhood was very complicated . Both of his parents died when he was very young.
It mainly effected eastern Europeans, especially Russians because the Americans were more suspicious that they were communists spies or promoters. Only limited number of people from that area could come through. During the late 1940s several news events caught the public's attention, including the trial, conviction and subsequent execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for espionage (specifically passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union), the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, and the acquisition of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union. [11] In 1893 the Supreme Court stated that the deportation was not criminal case and thus not subject to the same constitutional standards of due process. In practice, this meant that the INS could surround the foreign-born Communists and detain them indefinitely without bail in an attempt to deport