HISTORY

LONG TERM:
Poverty
Famine
Repression
Autocratic system

MEDIUM TERM:
Poor leader
Lack of reform
Rasputin/Tsarina

SHORT TERM:
Bloody Sunday
Russo-Japanese war

Navy mutiny, however the rest of the navy stay loyal.

Accepted the duma
Civil rights
Peasant debt abolished

Gave peasants security in land and money
Tried to get rid of the strip system
Migration to Siberia
Created Kulaks loyal to the Tsar

Power lessen when the Tsar got a loan from France
Dominated by reformist parties
Demanded more rights

Rendered the October Manifesto meaningless as it proclaimed the autocratic right of the tsar to do whatever he wants by decree.

Strongly anti government
Extremists on both left and right made agreement difficult
Hostile

Tsar wanted to look democratic to get loans from Europe
New electoral system: only home owners (no peasants or workers)
Dominated by right wing parties
Criticism was more docile
Questioned the government

Reforms: education and health

Peaceful protesters were massacred in Siberia.

Voiced some criticisms

Reforms: state welfare

Tried to persuade N2 to make concessions and appoint better ministers

Showed how unhappy even the aristocrats were with N2

Feb: strikes about better conditions, pay and equality
March: PG declared, Tsar abdicates

Large concessions to Germany

abandon co-operation with other parties
another revolution
overthrow the PG
power to the workers
power to the soviets

3 days of demonstrations
PG still had loyal army, and opposition was disunited

spread of the soviets
worker control of the factories
peasant seizure of land
independence for nationalist movements

Kornilov threatened to bring troops to Petrograd and moose military rule
Bolsheviks released from prison and armed to protect the city from the troops which never arrived.

PG offer very little resistance
Right-wing SR's and Mensheviks walk out of the Soviet

Basically just authorised land seizures in the country and takeovers in the factories that had already been happening since Feb

Whites were ununited, poor leadership and failed to get Greens on side

All priority given to the war effort, centralised system, seen by many as true communism

To spread communism over Europe

Thousands of workers tried to ask for concessions such as freedom of speech etc an rights

Russia needed food, so tried to persuade the peasants.
Seen as unrevolutionary

Slated all of the major applicants and offered no alternative, its suppressed

Stalin/Kamenev/Zinoviev

Kamenev and Zinoviev (joined by trotsky in 1926)

The state owned the land and the peasants simply worked on it, many peasants didn't want to.
Led to famines and starvation

Emphasis on heavy industry, ignored consumer goods

Stalin attacks the right over land policy

Peasants stopped producing in many areas due to inability to adapt or as an act of rebellion

More realistic targets
Bad organisation and regional competition meant hold ups in some areas
Spare parts for machines weren't made

Centralisation of:
civilian police
secret police
labour camps
border guards

Kirov's murder allowed Stalin to pass a decree giving the NKVD complete freedom

Huge propaganda mission to celebrate a man who had overshot his target

Purges included:
Party
People
Army

Failure to improve living conditions
Focus on heavy industry and communications

Included supposed war criminals and german spies

Doctors Plot: focused on the jewish dominated medical sector

Expressed concerns about US using its wealth to act like an imperialist power, for world domination.

Cominform implement one-party states loyal to the USSR

A response to Marshall Aid. Comecon gave assistance to Eastern Bloc countries.

Civil unrest in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and East Germany.

His temperament was unpredictable and he was prone to bursts of anger and exaggeration.

Policies:
Primary aim to improve economy with defence cuts
His attitude to diplomacy was erratic
Building relationships with pro-Soviet governments in the Third World

A military Alliance formed in respond to NATO between the Eastern Bloc countries and Soviet Russia.

Criticised Stalin for developing a cult of personality and for abusing his power.

Protests focused on poor conditions and food shortages.
Gomulka wanted reform but made it clear that it would stay loyal to the USSR and would not leave the Warsaw Pact.

The student movement began heavy pressure for widespread reform, including freedom of the press and elections.

Nagy's reforms went too far and on November Soviet troops moved in to crush the rising.

Beginning of the Brezhnev Doctrine

Martial law

First free trade union in Easter Europe

NEW THINKING:
Perestroika: less money on military to boost the economy
Glasnost: freedom
End to the arms race
End to the Brezhnev Doctrine

End of the Brezhnev Doctrine and to the interference in the Eastern Bloc

Poland disregards communism

Encouraged by Gorbachev, they hold elections