Imperial Russia, revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union (1855–1924)

Alexander II freed around 23 million serfs from noble ownership. The key flaw: peasants had to pay redemption payments for 49 years and land was given to the commune, not individuals, leaving many poorer than before.

Local elected councils created in 1864 to manage schools, roads and hospitals. They gave the middle class limited self-government at local level but had no national political power.

The policy of forcing Russian language, culture and Orthodox religion on non-Russian peoples in the empire (Poles, Finns, Ukrainians, Jews). It alienated minorities and widened opposition to the tsar.

Finance Minister Sergei Witte used foreign loans and tariffs to rapidly industrialise Russia in the 1890s (railways, steel, mines). It created a large urban working class in terrible conditions — a ready base for radical movements.

Both were Marxist factions of the Social Democratic Party after the 1903 split. Lenin's Bolsheviks wanted a small, tight, professional revolutionary party. The Mensheviks wanted a broader mass party open to all workers.

Father Gapon led 100,000+ workers to petition the tsar peacefully at the Winter Palace. Troops opened fire, killing up to 1,000. The massacre radicalised millions and triggered the 1905 Revolution.

Russia suffered humiliating defeats (fall of Port Arthur, Mukden, destruction of the Baltic Fleet at Tsushima). The war exposed military incompetence, drained resources and domestic discontent exploded — making 1905 possible.

An elected parliament (the Duma), civil liberties and the right for political parties to exist. It split the opposition — liberals accepted it, radicals rejected it — and the revolution collapsed.

1) Land reform — let peasants leave the commune and consolidate private farms to create a loyal landowning class ('a wager on the strong'). 2) Repression — hanged thousands of revolutionaries ('Stolypin's necktie').

Nicholas dissolved the first two Dumas when they demanded real power. In 1907 he changed the electoral law to give nobles more seats. The Dumas became toothless — proof that autocracy had barely changed.

Alexander II tried to defuse opposition through reform (emancipation, zemstvos, courts) but was assassinated. Alexander III responded with repression (Okhrana, Russification, 'Temporary Regulations') — but only drove opposition underground and made it more extreme.

Trotsky's phrase: 1905 showed the pattern — military failure, mass strikes, tsarist concessions — but the regime survived because the army stayed loyal. In 1917 the army mutinied, and the regime collapsed completely.

1) Military catastrophe (mass casualties, defeats at Tannenberg) destroyed army morale. 2) Nicholas II took personal command in 1915, linking his name directly to every defeat. 3) Economic breakdown — inflation, food shortages and railway collapse in Petrograd triggered the February 1917 strikes.

Dual power (dvoevlastie) describes the coexistence of two competing authorities after February 1917: the Provisional Government (legal authority, no real popular control) and the Petrograd Soviet (mass support, controlled soldiers via Order Number 1). Neither could act decisively without the other — this paralysis benefited the Bolsheviks.

Lenin's April Theses demanded: no support for the Provisional Government; immediate peace; land to the peasants; all power to the Soviets. They gave the Bolsheviks a radical, distinctive programme ('Peace, Land, Bread') that no other party offered, sharply differentiating them from Mensheviks and SRs who cooperated with the Provisional Government.

As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky organised the Military Revolutionary Committee whose Red Guards seized key Petrograd buildings (bridges, railway stations, telephone exchange, Winter Palace) on 24–25 October 1917. He timed the coup to coincide with the Second Congress of Soviets, giving it Soviet legitimacy. Lenin provided ideology; Trotsky provided the actual seizure.

The Bolsheviks won only 24% of seats in free elections to the Constituent Assembly (Socialist Revolutionaries won the majority). When the Assembly met on 5 January 1918, Lenin dissolved it after one day — it contradicted Bolshevik power and showed they were unwilling to accept democratic outcomes that went against them.

Reds: unified command under Trotsky; controlled industrial heartland (Moscow/Petrograd); conscript army of 5 million; clear propaganda message; peasant support (fear of landlords returning). Whites: foreign backing (Britain, France, USA) but insufficient; geographically dispersed; divided aims (tsarists vs liberals vs SRs); atrocities alienated potential supporters.

War Communism was Lenin's emergency economic policy during the Civil War: nationalized all industry, banned private trade, and sent armed detachments (prodotryad) to forcibly requisition peasant grain to feed the Red Army. Results: fed the army but caused catastrophic famine (5 million deaths, 1921–22), peasant revolts and the Kronstadt uprising — forcing Lenin to abandon it.

Kronstadt sailors — once 'the pride and glory of the revolution' — revolted demanding free soviets, an end to grain requisitioning and multi-party socialism. Trotsky suppressed it by force. It shocked Lenin because it showed even revolutionary supporters had turned against War Communism, directly prompting him to announce the New Economic Policy.

The NEP (from March 1921) replaced grain requisitioning with a fixed tax in kind — peasants could sell surplus on the open market. Small businesses and retail were legalised. Heavy industry (railways, banks, large factories) stayed in state hands. A new stable currency was introduced. The NEP successfully restored agricultural output to pre-war levels by 1925.

The Comintern (1919) was designed to spread world revolution globally — an ideological goal. But practical survival came first: the humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) traded vast territory for peace; the Soviet-Polish War (1920) ended in defeat; the Rapallo Treaty (1922) with Germany was a pragmatic alliance of two pariah states. By 1924 the USSR accepted diplomatic recognition rather than revolution abroad.

The Cheka was the Bolshevik secret police, founded December 1917 under Felix Dzerzhinsky. It arrested, tortured and executed 'class enemies', White sympathisers and political opponents. The Red Terror (September 1918) intensified after an assassination attempt on Lenin. The Cheka embodied the principle that political repression ran alongside every economic and military policy throughout Lenin's rule.

Revolution argument: genuine mass discontent (bread shortages, war exhaustion, anti-Provisional Government sentiment) created revolutionary conditions; Bolsheviks represented real working-class aspirations. Coup argument: a disciplined minority (Military Revolutionary Committee) seized power overnight; the Bolsheviks had only 24% electoral support; the Congress of Soviets was presented with a fait accompli. Strong essays acknowledge both: revolutionary conditions + minority seizure.