Model Answer On Depth Study B Paper 4 Russia, 1905-1941

IGCSE History M. Nichols SCIE 2010

MODEL ANSWER ON DEPTH STUDY B PAPER 4 RUSSIA , 1905-1941

(a) (i) We can tell that Russian workers were badly paid, hence their demand for a “minimum wage of a rouble a day”; their working hours were also long, thus their demand for a reduced working day of eight hours. While their work itself, was soul-destroying and “unbearable”. They also felt undervalued, and lacking in status; while their political rights are non-existent, and they had no access to proper justice (fair trials). A march to protest was their only option.

(ii) Source B shows the Tsar did and did not want to help his people. His efforts to help them are apparent in his concessions of a Duma, less censorship (“free speech”), more freedom (the ability, for example, to form political parties) and his help for the peasants. He also ended the unpopular Russo-Japanese conflict. However, he also brought troops back to suppress his people (which is, perhaps, why he really made peace in the Far East) and “ruthlessly” put down the peasants’ revolts. Were his reforms just buying time?

(iii) Both sources have their uses, both their limitations as evidence about the 1905 so-called Revolution. Source A is primary evidence from an eyewitness who actually took part in the Bloody Sunday demonstrations, which helped trigger the Revolution. Father Georgei Gapon was a radical (and so untypical) Orthodox priest who led the demonstrators and knew how the urban proletariat were suffering. Source B is useful, because it benefits from hindsight, as a secondary source, and can present a wider, overall view of the Revolution, as well as access to a range of sources. B can also tell us about the Tsar’s responses and the wider impact of the Revolution. However, both sources have limitations as evidence about 1905. Source A is only one man’s opinions. He has a motive and it is clearly biased propaganda. He is also writing before the Revolution broke out and is hinting at its causes not its nature and effect. While B has more facts than A, but is equally flawed in that it does not refer directly to the causes of the Revolution, and concentrates largely on the Tsar’s reactions. It is also rather vague in place (“further concessions”). Ultimately, the sources have more use when utilised together than separately, for giving a fuller picture of the events of 1905.

(b) (i) The Okhrana were the Tsar’s secret or political police, used to round up opponents of the autocracy, but also as spies, and for running informers within the political opposition.

(ii) Bloody Sunday saw a march of 200 000 workers to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar, their ‘little father’, whom they hoped would help them. Instead they were massacred by government troops (Cossacks), with 500 killed and thousands wounded. The events helped to spark off the 1905 revolution.

(iii) Stolypin did not have enough time in office. He was only chief minister for five years. His plans were too ambitious and the Tsar was not really supportive enough of them. Many conservative landowners opposed his plans to abolish the mir and redemption payments; while his plan to create a rich class of peasants (kulaks) took too long and the peasants’ banks he set up made too few loans. His ideas about settling peasants along the Trans-Siberian railway also failed. There was not enough farming land in Russia to go around, for an increasing population.

(iv) In some ways the Russian people stayed loyal to Nicholas. Strikes and riots decreased, especially when Stolypin was in power. The Orthodox Church helped to keep the peasants loyal to their ‘little father’ by teaching them the Tsar was appointed by God to rule them. The middle, and especially upper, classes were largely loyal to a regime that benefitted them the most. They had welcomed the reforms Nicholas had carried out after 1905. The army never mutinied. However, in other ways Nicholas was losing support. The Social Democratic Party and SR’s were becoming more popular. The events of 1905 had turned many away from the regime. The Tsar was now ‘Bloody Nicholas’ to many. The Fundamental Laws had shown that Nicholas II would not contemplate serious reform. The Okhrana and exile to Siberia were the sticks Nicholas used to coerce his people. While many ethnic groups like the Jews and Poles continued to hate the Tsar. It would not take much to break Nicholas’ lose hold on many of his subjects.