The First World War and the Tsarist regime

In 1914 Russia was an autocracy: Tsar Nicholas II ruled without meaningful checks, over a vast, mostly peasant empire that had already been shaken by the 1905 Revolution.

War exposed every weakness:

• Defeats — beginning at Tannenberg in 1914 — and appalling casualties.
• Supply failures — shortages of rifles, shells, boots and food.
• Nicholas took personal command of the army in 1915, so every defeat was now his fault.
• Government at home passed to the Tsarina and the discredited Rasputin, who was murdered in December 1916.
• Cities went hungry as transport collapsed and inflation soared.

Why did taking command backfire?

The fall of the Tsar

In March 1917 (February, old style) strikes and bread riots swept Petrograd. The decisive moment came when soldiers of the garrison refused to fire on the crowds and joined them. Without the army, autocracy was finished: Nicholas abdicated.

Power was split — "dual power":

• The Provisional Government, drawn from the Duma, held formal authority.
• The Petrograd Soviet of workers' and soldiers' deputies held the real loyalty of the armed workers and troops. Its Order No. 1 meant soldiers obeyed the Soviet, not the government.

The decisive factor in March 1917

The Bolsheviks seize power

The Provisional Government made two fatal errors: it continued the war and it postponed land reform.

• Lenin returned in April 1917, demanding "All power to the Soviets" and offering Peace, Bread, Land.
• The failed June offensive and the July Days weakened Kerensky.
• The Kornilov affair (August) forced Kerensky to arm the Bolshevik Red Guards to defend Petrograd — and they kept the weapons.
• Trotsky, chairing the Petrograd Soviet, planned the seizure. On 7–8 November 1917 (25–26 October, old style) Bolshevik forces took the key points of the capital and the Winter Palace.

Holding power: the Cheka was created in December 1917; the elected Constituent Assembly was shut down after a single day in January 1918; and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) ended the war with Germany at the cost of vast territory.

Whose policy was it?

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

Reds, Whites and War Communism

Civil war raged from 1918 to 1921 between the Reds and the Whites — an assortment of Tsarists, liberals, nationalists and foreign interventionists.

• Why the Reds won: they held the central industrial region, with the railways and armaments factories; Trotsky built a disciplined Red Army with conscription and former Tsarist officers; the Whites were geographically scattered, politically divided, and discredited by foreign backing and the fear of landlords returning.
• War Communism: grain was requisitioned from peasants, industry nationalised, and strict labour discipline imposed. It fed the army but wrecked the economy — production collapsed and famine followed.
• Red Terror: the Cheka executed opponents; the royal family was killed in 1918.

When did the Bolsheviks seize power?

Retreat and succession

By 1921 the country was in ruins. The Kronstadt mutiny — by sailors who had been among the Bolsheviks' staunchest supporters — was the final warning.

• The New Economic Policy (1921) ended grain requisitioning, allowed peasants to sell surpluses and permitted small private trade and businesses. The economy recovered; hardliners hated it as a retreat towards capitalism.
• Lenin died in January 1924. The obvious heir, Trotsky, was distrusted for his arrogance and his late arrival in the party.
• Stalin, as General Secretary, controlled appointments and filled the party with his supporters. He shifted alliances — with the right against Trotsky, then against the right — and advocated "Socialism in One Country" against Trotsky's "permanent revolution". Trotsky was expelled from the party and exiled from the USSR in 1929.

Match the policy to its purpose

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

Five-Year Plans and collectivisation

From 1928 Stalin abandoned the NEP for forced modernisation.

• Five-Year Plans: vast targets for coal, steel, oil and electricity; new industrial cities such as Magnitogorsk; the Moscow Metro. Heavy industry grew enormously; consumer goods, housing and food did not. Workers faced fierce discipline, and propaganda celebrated Stakhanovite record-breakers.
• Collectivisation: peasants were forced onto collective farms. The kulaks — better-off peasants — were denounced, deported or killed. Peasants slaughtered animals rather than hand them over.
• Famine, 1932–33: as the state seized grain regardless of the harvest, millions died, above all in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

The balance: industrialisation was real and rapid, and arguably enabled the USSR to survive the German invasion of 1941. It was achieved through coercion, famine and forced labour.

The purpose of collectivisation

The Purges and the Terror

The murder of Kirov in 1934 became the pretext for a campaign of terror against the party itself.

• Show trials (1936–38): Old Bolsheviks — including Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin — confessed to impossible crimes and were executed.
• The armed forces: the officer corps was devastated, leaving the Red Army badly led when Germany invaded in 1941.
• The NKVD arrested millions; prisoners filled the Gulag camps.
• Cult of personality: Stalin was portrayed as an infallible leader; photographs and histories were altered to erase his victims.

When did the first Five-Year Plan begin?

Why did the Reds win the Civil War?

Building an argument

Whether at GCSE or AS, the marks come from explanation and judgement, not narrative.

• Rank causes. "The war was the immediate cause of the Tsar's fall, but it destroyed a regime already weakened by autocracy, poverty and the failure to reform after 1905."
• Distinguish aims from outcomes. Collectivisation achieved state control of grain — not efficient agriculture.
• Anchor everything in dated evidence: Tannenberg 1914, abdication 1917, Brest-Litovsk 1918, Kronstadt and the NEP 1921, Five-Year Plans 1928, famine 1932–33, show trials 1936–38.

Why was the NEP introduced?

The big ideas to know

That is Russia, 1914–41. Press Finish to see your score.