Why was Russia so hard to rule?

Tsar Nicholas II ruled as an autocrat over a vast, mostly peasant empire of many nationalities. Industrial growth in the cities created a small but concentrated working class with grim housing and long hours.

1905: defeat in the war with Japan, then Bloody Sunday (January 1905), when troops fired on a peaceful petition march led by Father Gapon. Strikes, mutinies and a St Petersburg Soviet followed.

• The Tsar survived by issuing the October Manifesto — promising an elected Duma and civil rights — which split the opposition.
• He then limited the Duma's power. Stolypin combined repression with land reform.

Key judgement: 1905 was a warning, not a revolution. The Tsar kept the loyalty of the army — the single reason he survived. In 1917, he would not.

How did the Tsar survive 1905?

Why did Tsarism collapse in 1917?

The First World War broke the regime:

• Military failure — huge casualties, poor supply, shattered morale.
• Nicholas took personal command in 1915 — so every defeat was now his.
• Government at home was left to the Tsarina and the discredited Rasputin (murdered in December 1916).
• Cities starved — inflation, fuel and bread shortages.

In March 1917 (February in the old Russian calendar) strikes and bread riots in Petrograd turned into revolution when soldiers joined the crowds. Nicholas abdicated; the Provisional Government took over, alongside the Petrograd Soviet — "dual power".

Dual power

Why did the Bolsheviks succeed in November 1917?

The Provisional Government made two fatal choices: it continued the war and it delayed land reform. The June offensive failed; soldiers deserted; peasants seized land anyway.

• Lenin returned in April 1917 demanding "All power to the Soviets" and offering Peace, Bread, Land — simple promises that answered exactly what people wanted.
• The Kornilov affair (August) discredited Kerensky and let the Bolsheviks arm the Red Guards.
• Trotsky, chairing the Petrograd Soviet, organised the seizure of key points in the city; the Winter Palace fell on 7–8 November 1917 (25–26 October, old style).

Consolidation: the Cheka (secret police) was created; the Constituent Assembly was closed after one day (January 1918); and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) bought peace with Germany at the price of huge territorial losses.

Who ruled — and how?

Tap a policy or event, then tap who was responsible.

War Communism, the Civil War and the NEP

From 1918 to 1921 the Reds fought the Whites (Tsarists, liberals, foreign interventionists and others).

• Why the Reds won: they held the industrial centre with its railways and factories; Trotsky built and drove the Red Army; the Whites were geographically scattered, politically divided and tainted by foreign backing.
• War Communism — grain requisitioning, nationalised industry, strict discipline — fed the army but wrecked the economy. Famine and revolt followed.
• The Kronstadt mutiny (1921) by once-loyal sailors forced a rethink.
• The NEP (1921) allowed peasants to sell surplus grain and let small private trade return. Production recovered — but many Bolsheviks saw it as a retreat from socialism.

When did the Bolsheviks seize power?

How did Stalin gain and hold power?

Lenin died in January 1924. Trotsky looked the obvious heir — brilliant, the victor of the Civil War — but he was arrogant and distrusted. Stalin, as General Secretary, controlled appointments and built a following inside the party.

• Stalin outmanoeuvred rivals by shifting alliances — first with the right against Trotsky, then against the right.
• He posed as Lenin's loyal disciple, staging the funeral and promoting "Socialism in One Country" against Trotsky's "permanent revolution".
• Trotsky was expelled from the Party in 1927 and deported from the USSR in 1929; by 1929 Stalin was unchallenged.

Stalin's power base

Five-Year Plans and collectivisation

Stalin's aim was to modernise fast. In 1931 he told industrial managers: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years."

• Five-Year Plans (from 1928): huge targets for coal, steel, oil, electricity; new cities like Magnitogorsk; the Moscow Metro. Heavy industry grew dramatically; consumer goods and housing did not. Workers faced brutal discipline; propaganda glorified Stakhanovite heroes.
• Collectivisation: peasants were forced into kolkhozes. Better-off peasants (kulaks) were denounced, deported or killed. Peasants slaughtered livestock rather than surrender it.
• Famine, 1932–33: as the state seized grain, millions died, above all in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Balanced judgement: the USSR industrialised at astonishing speed — arguably what allowed it to survive the German invasion of 1941. The cost was famine, forced labour and terror.

Match the policy to its purpose

Tap a policy on the left, then its aim on the right.

The Purges and the cult of personality

From the mid-1930s Stalin turned on his own party. The murder of Kirov in 1934 was the pretext.

• Show trials (1936–38) saw Old Bolsheviks confess to fantastical crimes and be executed.
• The NKVD arrested millions; the Red Army officer corps was gutted — a disastrous weakness in 1941.
• Prisoners filled the Gulag labour camps.
• A cult of personality presented Stalin as an all-wise leader; photographs and history books were doctored to erase his enemies.

Why purge the army?

Explaining causes and consequences

Depth Study C questions usually ask why something happened or how far a policy succeeded.

• Rank your reasons. "The war was the most important cause of the Tsar's fall because it turned long-standing grievances into a collapse of authority — the army mutinied."
• Separate aims from results. Collectivisation achieved state control of grain; it did not achieve efficient farming.
• Use precise evidence: Bloody Sunday 1905, Brest-Litovsk 1918, Kronstadt 1921, NEP 1921, Five-Year Plans from 1928, show trials 1936–38.

When did the Five-Year Plans begin?

Why did the Reds win the Civil War?

The arc of Depth Study C

Three big claims, each of which you should be able to argue and challenge:

• Tsarism fell because of the war — but the war exposed weaknesses (autocracy, poverty, national resentments) that 1905 had already revealed.
• The Bolsheviks won power because they were organised and offered simple, popular promises — and because the Provisional Government kept fighting the war.
• Stalin transformed the USSR into an industrial and military power — through a system of coercion that killed millions.

Peace, Bread, Land

The big ideas to know

That is Depth Study C: Russia, 1905–41. Press Finish to see your score.