Opposition to Russian Government

Question 1

What caused opposition to Russian rulers?

Answer 1

It was caused by poor treatment of the peasantry or working classes, independence movements from minorities, lack of political freedom and failure to meet expectation following reform. In some cases opposition was based on political differences

Question 2

What were the high points of opposition?

Answer 2

The Assassination of Alexander II, the 1905 Revolution, the Revolutions of 1917, the Kornilov Affair, the Civil War and the Krondstadt Mutiny

Question 3

What was the impact of the assassination of Alexander II?

Answer 3

The impact was limited; the People’s Will were hunted down and the Loris-Melikov Proposal for a national zemstvo ended

Question 4

What was the impact of the 1905 Revolution?

Answer 4

It led to sweeping political reform with the October Manifesto and Duma but was curtailed by the Fundamental Laws of 1906 and brutal revenge through Stolypin’s necktie for those leading the movements

Question 5

What sparked the February Revolution and why did it succeed?

Answer 5

It was begun by the Putilov Steel Works strike, but the main reason for its success was the abandonment of the Tsar by the army

Question 6

What was the impact of the Kornilov Affair?

Answer 6

It saw the collapse of the Provisional Government legitimacy as they were threatened by their own forces who came back from the front line of the war

Question 7

What was the impact of the October Revolution?

Answer 7

Although it wasn’t particularly popular, as opposed to a well orchestrated coup, it saw the beginning of 70 years of Communist rule

Question 8

What was the result of the Civil War?

Answer 8

The Civil War resulted in the total defeat of external ‘white’ forces to the Bolshevik party

Question 9

Why was the Kronstadt Mutiny important?

Answer 9

It was important for redirecting Lenin’s policy from War Communism to the NEP, however, 1,000 ex-Bolshevik soldiers were massacred

Question 10

What was the Leningrad Affair?

Answer 10

The Leningrad Affair was Stalin’s belief that members of the Leningrad party were trying to take credit for the success of World War II, and he purged around 200 party officials

Question 11

What was the Doctors’ Plot?

Answer 11

It was a theoretical plan to murder Stalin by Jewish doctors who had been blamed for the death of the leading Communist Zhadanov

Question 12

How strong was political opposition to the Tsars in the form of populism?

Answer 12

It was weak. The Narodniks tried to take political ideas to the peasants who were unwilling to support them

Question 13

What groups did the Narodniks break into?

Answer 13

They became Land and Liberty (peaceful) and the People’s Will (terrorists)

Question 14

What was the main threat to the Tsars in the early nineteenth century?

Answer 14

The main threat came in the form of Socialist Revolutionaries, who were a populist/communist hybrid. They carried out political assassinations in their terrorist wing and were popular in the Duma before the election system was adapted

Question 15

Who were the Social Democrats split between?

Answer 15

The Mensheviks (moderate) and the Bolsheviks (radical). The Mensheviks were more popular however Bolshevism was advanced by World War I

Question 16

What did Lenin do immediately in 1918?

Answer 16

He closed down the Constituent Assembly and banned all political parties immediately. He also unleashed the Red Terror on political opponents

Question 17

Who were removed from the government after initially being allowed in?

Answer 17

Despite arguments from Zinoviev and Kamenev, SRs and Mensheviks were removed

Question 18

Where did Lenin’s main opposition come from?

Answer 18

It came from internal splits - most notably the one regarding whether to continue War Communism or the NEP - this led him to introduce the ‘Ban on Factions’ in the party

Question 19

How did Stalin discredit his enemies?

Answer 19

He used the factionalist argument, expelling Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev from the politburo due to their demonstration in Red Square against him (known as the United Opposition) in 1927. Bukharin was also accused

Question 20

What happened to Stalin’s popularity in 1934?

Answer 20

Stalin’s popularity was waning within the party due to his brutal policies. His leadership was challenged by Kirov, who was murdered in late 1934

Question 21

What were the Great Purges and what did Stalin use to justify them?

Answer 21

The Great Purges were instigated following Kirov’s murder, and included Show Trials of leading ex-Bolsheviks who were accused of complicity in his murder. Between 1935 and 1938, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin were all executed after confessing under torture

Question 22

What was the new wave of terror between 1937 and 1938 and who led it?

Answer 22

The head of the NKVD Yekhov unleashed a new wave of terror called the Yezhovschina which saw quotas and lists drawn up to find oppositionists in all areas of society. He was eventually purged in 1938 when the USSR was struggling to administer itself because of the waves of arrests and executions

Question 23

How many are estimated to have died during Stalin’s purges?

Answer 23

20 million

Question 24

Who did Khrushchev face internal opposition from?

Answer 24

He faced internal opposition from Beria, who he had executed, and the Anti-Party Group who he sidelined by gaining the support of new members in 1957

Question 25

What did peasant opposition come in the form of?

Answer 25

It came in the form of rioting - there were thousands of riots after the Emancipation and in the early part of the twentieth century there were widespread Black Earth Riots

Question 26

Where did peasant opposition succeed?

Answer 26

Peasants succeeded in getting redemption dues abolished and Stolypin’s ‘Wager on the Strong’ but they were often brutally crushed

Question 27

What led Lenin towards the NEP?

Answer 27

Despite initial support for the Bolsheviks from peasants with heroes like Chapayev fighting against the Whites, riots in the Volga and Tambov regions led Lenin towards the NEP

Question 28

How was peasant opposition dealt with under Stalin?

Answer 28

Stalin used the Red Army on peasant resistance to collectivisation and they were hit by famines due to their tactics of destroying produce. Peasant opposition was effectively destroyed and Khrushchev tried to grant them some concessions

Question 29

How did workers protest in the Tsarist era?

Answer 29

Workers mainly used striking as a protest, with 800 being killed at the Morozov Dye Works strike in 1888, 1,000 during Bloody Sunday and 200 in the Lena Goldfields Massacre of 1912

Question 30

What happened to the workers during the revolution?

Answer 30

Workers are believed to have aided the revolution but some railwaymen demanded concessions from Lenin in 1918 that were short-lived. After fighting in the Civil War lots of workers were killed and replaced by apathetic peasants in the cities

Question 31

What workers revolt did Khrushchev face?

Answer 31

He faced a workers revolt in Novocherkassk in 1962, and 60 people were killed

Question 32

What happened to the Poles?

Answer 32

The Polish revolt was brutally put down after a years’ fighting although they gained independence in the Treaty of Versailles and defeated Russia in the short border war in 1920. They were taken as part of the Satellite States again by 1945

Question 33

What happened to the Finns?

Answer 33

The Finns tended to be loyal to the Tsars as Alexander II had given them a Diet, Nicholas II removed it, however, independence was gained after World War I

Question 34

How were Jews treated?

Answer 34

Jews were treated fairly poorly under the Tsars and there were frequent pogroms, and Zionist movements did develop. They received better treatment initially in the Communist ear as many were Bolsheviks but Stalin launched some attacks on ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’ in the 1950s which were eased by Khrushchev

Question 35

What happened to the Ukrainians in the Stalinist era?

Answer 35

Ukrainians suffered heavily due to their opposition to collectivisation with around 5 million dying in a famine between 1932 and 1934

Question 36

When did opposition tend to be more successful?

Answer 36

Opposition tended to be more successful when the leader was failing in wars, when the leader did not use heavy repression or censorship or if they had a mastery of media and propaganda techniques and were well organised

Question 37

Who were the chief proponents of the populist cause?

Answer 37

Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Pyotr Lavrov

Question 38

How many political killings were the radical SRs responsible for between 1901 and 1905?

Answer 38

2,000, including Grand Duke Sergei and Vyacheslav Plehve

Question 39

When was the People’s Will formed and what was a success of the People’s Will?

Answer 39

The People’s Will was formed in 1879, and the assassination of Alexander II was a short term success, although it did not prompt a complete overthrow of Tsarism and ended the Loris-Melikov proposal for a national Zemstvo

Question 40

When was the Socialist Revolutionary Party formed and who led it?

Answer 40

1901, led by Victor Chernov. They became the biggest threat to Tsarist rule before the October 1917 revolution

Question 41

What was the Union of Liberation and when was it founded?

Answer 41

It was founded in 1904 by Pyotr Struve, and demanded greater freedoms and justice for all Russians. In particular, the Union wanted fairer and more land distribution for peasants, a representative Constituent Assembly and improved conditions for industrial workers

Question 42

What were the Kadets?

Answer 42

The Kadets was the cumulation of the clamour for a constitutional monarchy, and was led by Paul Milyukov. This was the intellectual arm of the Liberal movement, and went on to play an important role as opposition within the first Duma

Question 43

What were the Octobrists?

Answer 43

The Octobrists were a moderate liberal group consisting of individuals like Alexander Guchkov and Mikhail Rodzianko who displayed loyalty to the Tsar but wanted changes to the system of government

Question 44

Was opposition successful before 1917?

Answer 44

The major political changes promised in the October Manifesto were largely cancelled out by the Fundamental Laws and the Romanov dynasty remained intact until Nicholas II failed with the First World War. The lack of effective opposition before 1917 was due partly to the control exerted by successive Tsars, but also to the lack of unity within and between opposition groups

Question 45

What opposition did the Provisional Government face?

Answer 45

The main concern of the Provisional Government was the growing strength of workers’ committees, especially in Petrograd. The vast majority of these committees were opposed to the interim government and were prepared to listen to what other opposition groups, such as the Bolsheviks, had to offer

Question 46

How did Lenin consolidate power in regards to the Constituent Assembly?

Answer 46

Lenin believed that the Bolsheviks would not be able to achieve and consolidate power through future elections to the assembly, and therefore chose to use military force to end it. The official justification for such action was that the elections had been rigged

Question 47

What did Lenin do in 1921 after the Red Army victory?

Answer 47

He presented a paper ‘On Party Unity’, which laid the base for making all other parties illegal, and banned factionalism within the Bolshevik Party. From 1921 to 1964, Russia remained a one-party state.

Question 48

What internal opposition did Lenin face?

Answer 48

After the overthrow of the Provisional Government, a number of prominent Bolsheviks, including Kamenev, Zinoviev and Rykov, called for a coalition to be formed with other socialist groups. Although some left-wing SRs were allowed to join ranks, Lenin bullied his Bolshevik colleagues into rejecting an alliance with opposing political groups

Question 49

How was the United Opposition group dealt with?

Answer 49

Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev formed the United Opposition, but their opposition to the NEP and their demands for more ‘free speech’ were treated with contempt, and all were excluded from the Politburo. In 1927 Trotsky was expelled from the party, and in January 1929 he was expelled from the USSR altogether

Question 50

How did Stalin deal with Bukharin?

Answer 50

Bukharin was vocal in expressing his concerns in regards to collectivisation, and as a result of joining forces with Kamenev, was branded a factionalist, and in 1929 was ousted from his positions as president of Cominterm, editor of Pravda and member of the Politburo

Question 51

What happened during the purges of the 1930s?

Answer 51

Party members who failed to implement collectivisation adequately, or who disagreed with dekulakisation lost their party card, reducing total party membership by about a tenth, and during the 1930s the party shed a further third of its members who were seen to be resisting the pace of industrialisation and collectivisation. From the mid-1930s some prominent Politburo members were exiled or executed after being called oppositionists, and by 1939, Kirov, Kossior, Ordhonikze, Kuibyshev and Rudzuki were dead

Question 52

Why was peasant unrest taken seriously, and what was the main cause of upset?

Answer 52

At any point in time the peasants constituted 70-80% of the population of Russia, and riots mainly occurred because of land distribution and access to food

Question 53

What caused peasant unrest from 1916?

Answer 53

Peasants protested at high food prices, and the pressure of rising demand for food from urban dwellers, and it was exacerbated by the lack of technology and materials needed to improve productivity

Question 54

What was the impact of worker opposition?

Answer 54

The average working day was reduced from 11.5 hours in 1897 to 7 hours in the 1960s, and official inspection and administration of working conditions was established