Economy and Society 8 Flashcards
Limitations on personal, political and religious freedoms (31 cards)
Personal freedoms: How did Alexander II reform the legal system?
1864, open trials and trial by jury. Vera Zasulich 1878
Personal freedoms: How did Alexander III reform the legal system?
restricted judicial independence, and increased the use of administrative punishment while reducing the number of jury trials
Personal freedoms: How did Nicholas II reform the legal system?
created 1906 Fundamental laws which claimed to enforce civil liberties but reinforced autocratic power.
he created the Duma too
Personal freedoms: How did Lenin reform the legal system?
he dismantled the Tsarist legal system.
he abolished formal law, due to the Marxist belief in the withering away of law in classless society. The law just became an arm of the dictatorship of the Proletariat
Personal freedoms: How did Stalin reform the legal system?
the 1936 constitution was ostensibly democratic but ignored in practice.
the Great show trials, like that of Bukharin and Rykov
legal system became a mechanism for totalitarianism control
Personal freedoms: How did Khrushchev reform the legal system?
reduced red terror and ended mass political purges
his judicial reforms increased emphasis on legal procedure and rights
1958 legal reform standardized criminal codes and legal processes across USSR
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Alexander II?
he replaced the ‘third element’ with a softer ‘Okhrana’ in 1880.
there were 5 unsuccessful attempts on his life, including one at the Winter Palace in 1880 where a bomb went off and killed 11 people
Alexander II was assassinated by the people’s will in 1880
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Alexander III?
he increased the power of the Okhrana so they could infiltrate dissident groups and exile dissidents.
in 1887, Lenin’s brother and 4 others were executed for a failed assassination plot against the Tsar
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Nicholas II?
increase in political violence, 3000 murdered by dissidents between 1905-1907.
Okhrana successfully infiltrated dissident groups, but they had little control over their informers
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Provisional government?
they set up the Counter espionage bureau of the Petrograd soviet military district was set up as the Okhrana was abolished in 1917
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Lenin?
the Cheka implemented the Red Terror during the civil war. between 1917-1922 the Cheka killed 28000 per year. the cheka was banned in 1922
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Stalin?
set up NKVD to combat opposition, high ranking officials like Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and Rykov were executed. the NKVD sent 40 million to the Gulags.
Stalin purged the NKVD, killing 20000 in 1938 including Yagoda, the chief of the secret police
Personal freedoms: What were the secret police like under Khrushchchev?
the KGB was put under party control rather than state control, which meant that it would be more difficult to implement Stalinist style terror.
only 11,000 political prisoners left in the gulags by 1960
Personal freedoms: What was the army like under Alexander II?
1.4 million men in the army in 1855, most of which were peasant conscripts
he used the army the defeat the Polish revolt in 1863
Personal freedoms: What was the army like under Nicholas II
the army fired on the crowd on Bloody Sunday in 1905 (killed 200) and was used to crush 1905 revolution.
however around 150,000 deserted the army and supported the February revolution.
Personal freedoms: What was the army like under Lenin?
by 1922 there were 5 million conscripts to the army.
he used the army to defeat the uprising at the Kronstadt naval base. 50,000 soldiers were sent to fight, 1000 rebels were killed in the assault and 500 executed after
Personal freedoms: What was the army like under Stalin?
40% of officers were purged by Stalin between 1936-38
the red army conquers berlin in May 1945
Personal freedoms: What was the army like under Khrushchev?
during détente the number of soldiers decreases from 3.6 million to 2.4 million
the army was sent to crush the Hungarian uprising in 1956
Political freedoms: What did Alexander II allow?
Censorship relaxed 1865
allowed discussion of public affairs in the press and local assemblies
created the Zemstva 1864
Political freedoms: What did Alexander II not allow?
No political parties or free elections
revolutionary groups were still suppressed
freedom of speech and assembly were tightly controlled
Political freedoms: What did Alexander III allow?
NONE
Political freedoms: What did Alexander III not allow?
enforced strict censorship surveillance, and crack down on public speech
outlawed or repressed all political organisations
Political freedoms: What did Nicholas II allow?
after 1905 revolution, October Manifesto promised civil liberties and a representative Duma
he legalised some political parties, and trade unions were allowed to some extent
