Period
|
Quality
of Government
|
Standard
of Living
|
A
Meaning to Life
|
|
Before
1917
(Tsarist
Russia
)
|
Autocratic
(Tsar
Nicholas ignores the Duma)
Oppressive
(Okhrana
secret police/\press censorship/ Cossack soldiers suppress
peasant riots)
Inefficient
(huge
size, many nationalities/ Tsar insists on doing work himself/
mistakes during the war – takes over army & ignores
Rodzianko)
Corrupt
(Rasputin)
Opposition
(Social
Revolutionaries, Communists/ assassinations)
|
Peasant
poverty
(out-of-date
farming methods/ periodic famines)
Factory and
Living
conditions in towns
(‘corner
dwellers’)
Rich
nobles
(=
unfair distribution of wealth)
(After
1914) war chaos
(15
million deaths/ famine/ inflation).
|
Love
of the Tsar as a ‘father’
(damaged
on Bloody Sunday 1905, but restored by the successful
tercentenary celebrations in 1913)
Orthodox
religion
(taught
people to accept their position and sufferings).
|
|
Mar-Nov
1917
(Provisional
Govt)
|
Democratic
(Duma
takes over, but no elections).
Oppressive
(death
squads kill deserters/ army puts down peasants taking nobles
land)
Chaotic
(Soviets
are a rival government/ Order No.1/ anarchy in the
countryside)
Opposition
(Bolsheviks
and Kornilov – Provisonal Govt powerless against them).
|
Continued
the war
(inflation
and hunger got worse)
Less
produced than in 1914.
|
Initial
excitement of Revolution, but no ideology to
sustain it.
|
|
1918-1924
(Bolshevik
Rule and Civil War)
|
Dictatorship
of proletariat
(Lenin
dismisses Assembly)
Oppressive
(CHEKA/
censorship/ ‘Red Terror’ during Civil War)
Ruthlessly
efficient and well organised
(eg
Trotsky’s control of the army/ war communism)
Certain
freedoms
Free
love, divorce and abortion allowed
|
Land
taken from nobles and given to peasants.
Workers
(Factories
controlled by workers’ committees/ Labour Law: 8hr day, dole
and pensions/)
BUT
Civil
War
(both
sides slaughter the other/ shortages, famine and disease)
War
communism
(govt
takes over factories/ strikers shot/ all surplus food to govt/
rationing)
Less
produced than in 1914.
|
Communist
zeal and hope
(propaganda
campaign – trains)
Campaign
to teach everyone to read
BUT
Religion
banned
(priests
killed/ churches destroyed)
|
|
1924-1928
(NEP)
|
Lenin’s
dictatorship continues
(Control
by ‘the Party’)
Oppressive
(OGPU)
|
NEP
(Small
factories handed back/ people allowed to set up private
businesses/ advertising/ Lenin let the peasants sell their
surplus, and pay a tax instead /the ‘Kulaks’ got rich).
BUT
Less
produced than in 1914.
|
Some
private enterprise
(lottery)
Many
Bolsheviks were disillusioned and angry.
|
|
1928-1941
(Stalin’s
Russia
)
|
Dictatorship
Oppressive
(Terror/
NKVD/ Show Trials and purges/ 20 million dead/ Gulag/ kulaks
‘eliminated’/ ‘Russification’)
Corrupt
(‘Apparatchiks’
get all best houses/ jobs)
No
human rights
|
Collectivisation
(peasants
lose land/ slaughter of animals/ famines 1932-3)
Five-Year
Plans
(crèches/
day-care centres/ women workers/
electricity/ Moscow
Underground/ no unemployment/ doctors/ education/ New
Towns)
BUT
(Until
1933) less food produced than in 1914
Concentration
on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods
or good housing, although industrial production increased.
Terrible
working conditions
(labour
camps - slave labour/ accidents/ poor housing)
|
Cult
of personality
Communist
zeal of ‘Pioneers’
(propaganda
– Stakhanovites)
Stalin
attacked Muslim faith
|
1941-1945
(WWII
)
|
Dictatorship
(Stalin exercised total control of all decisions, military and non-military)
Total
War
(The whole economy was mobilised for the war effort)
|
Destruction
(Enemy
action and 'Scorched Earth'/ Industry & Agriculture ruined/ Homelessness - 5 million homes destroyed/ 70,000 villages and 100,000 kolkhozy destroyed)
Mobilisation of Labour
(The govt controlled the labour force/ holidays abolished = overworked)
Rationing
(Shortages led to under-nourishment and millions of deaths)
Army
(Draconian discipline/ Millions of soldiers died obeying Stalin’s demand for attack)
|
Motivation
(Soviet
propaganda successfully appealed to citizens’ and soldiers’
love for Mother Russia, communism and religion)
Cult
of Stalin
(Soviet propaganda successfully presented Stalin as the
'Father of the People' who would save them)
Impositions on the Orthodox Church were relaxed
|
