Sebastian Pasha 5th September 2014 How significant were the personalities of the contenders to succeed Lenin in accounting for Stalin’s defeat of his opponents in the years 1924-1929? Stalin’s defeat of his contenders in the struggle of power between 1924 to 1929 was mainly due to his personality. For instance, he was compared to a ‘grey blur’, allowing him to slip under the radar and play behind the scenes, therefore seeming to be no real threat to the others. However he was quite the contrary. In addition, numerous factors such as his acquired powerbase and his policies aided him greatly to secure the highest position of authority in Russia.
How far do you agree that the 1905 Revolution was a result of dire living and working conditions in the cities? In 1905 a series of unplanned but widespread protests gripped Russia as workers, peasants and the armed forces revolted against the oppressive and autocratic regime of Tsar Nicholas II. A growing industrialised workforce had become increasingly exposed to poverty and hardship in the cities and it is clear that dire living and working conditions played an important role in the explosion of civil unrest that swept the country. However, this essay will argue that the roots of the revolution can be traced back to the 1861 Emancipation edict and the failure of successive Tsar’s to solve the problem of peasant ‘land hunger’. Poor harvests, famine, a lack of freedom and repressive policies meant that Russia was a country that was teetering on the brink of revolution long before dissatisfied factory workers marched on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.
Alexander III was the most successful in keeping to his aims, as he enforced this from the start of his reign to ensure there were no open criticisms of the regime. Nicholas and Alexander II on the other hand suffered growing discontent from the population. Alexander II had initially relaxed censorship and allowed the press to discuss government policy (1865), thereby encouraging criticism of the tsarist regime. This grew when censorship was tightened again, and may have been a contribution as to why so many concessions were made. Similarly, in Nicholas II’s reign, political parties were allowed their own newspapers e.g.
It was clear that the Tsar had to clear the newly formed alliance between the classes; but even thought they never really worked together they were still deadly as a whole. In October many revolutionaries came out of exile to set up Soviets (workers councils), they directed where to strike so this put pressure on the Tsar, which meant he had to grant concessions. So he instituted the October Manifesto which was promises that were made to cancel all redemption payments (peasants), create a duma, increase living and working conditions. He also encouraged Kulaks to buy up the strips of land from the Mir as he set up land bank, which would encourage them to produce their own grain and increase the grain industry. But even thought many peasants would now have their land many of the youths of the landlords would rise up against the peasants for killing their parents.
In many respects, there is no doubt that Alexander III was the most effective Tsar in such the short reign that he had. He was referred to as a reactionary, unlike his father Alexander II who was known as a reformer. He managed to please the people with his Russian figure and attitude, he changed their attitude and he made tsarism look all the better, all in a short period of time. Despite their different policies, they had the same ambitions inside their head in the long run, and that was to strengthen autocracy in the Russian empire but Alexander III did this by reversing what his father had done as he felt he knew better ways of dealing with the situation and strengthening the Tsarist position. The first thing that Alexander III did when he came into power to contradict his fathers’ reforms was to recall the decision of creating the constitution.
As anti-Bolshevik sentiment began to grow within Russia, particularly within the ‘White forces’, active protests against the Bolsheviks signalled the beginning of the Civil War. The Civil War occurred due to the resentment of the government restrictions, total control, pragmatic militaristic approach and the people’s loss of livelihood. To consolidate their power, the Bolsheviks had to contend with two sources of opposition – domestic and external. Domestic opposition stemmed from the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who had been excluded from power, whilst the external opposition included the US, British, French, Czech and Japanese soldiers who feared the spread of communism. Collectively known as the ‘Whites’, these interventionist forces fought the Bolshevik ‘Reds’ in the Civil War.
Why was Nicolas II’s regime able to overcome the revolution of 1905 but unsuccessful in the revolution of 1917? Discontent was part of the Russian lifestyle in the twentieth century-the reactionary tsarist regime, the policy of Russification targeting the minorities, the exorbitant price of land for the peasants, the overall repression of freedom, the humiliating defeat at the hands of Japan and the economic strain of the first world war all contributed towards the growth of resistance to the imperial government. General dissatisfaction sparked both the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. However, one ended in concession and later suppression while the other culminated in abdication of the Tsar Nicolas II and later full-blown revolution and execution. Perhaps the foremost factor contributing towards the failure of the 1905 revolution was the apparent readiness of both the peasants and the liberals to accept the concessions offered by the government.
Czar Nicholas II saw the possibility of diverting Russian discontent with a “successful war”, and so in February, 1904, Nicholas decided to go to war with Japan. The war was a disaster for the Czar – the Russian army was ill-equipped, poorly armed, and unskilfully trained; the transportation system throughout Russia collapsed and bread prices soared, thus destroying the confidence in the government. Basically, government corruption and inefficiency was exposed during the war and as the war continued, discontent among the people increased dramatically and they lost faith in their
This also meant that the land was not used to it full potential, all these factors lead to the famines and causing peasants to up rise using violence against government officials. This was on the verge of the revolution. The deep resentment from the peasantry towards the Tsar increased after the war as lots of money had being invested in the war and Russia had lost. Moreover, Sergei Witte had tried to improve the economy of Russia but it was to make sure that the Russian social order stayed the same. Due to industrialisation, factories were built which lead to rapid growth of population in the towns and cities for example from 98 million in 1885 to 125 million in 1905.
In an attempt to increase their wages, industrial workers went on strike. The Tsar’s indecisiveness, the reality of him continuing the war against Germany although there were many thousands of casualties and the rest of Russia was starving due to the bad transportation systems, and the fact that he had broken his promises from the October Manifesto after the