GCSE HISTORY COURSEWORK

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GCSE HISTORY COURSEWORK
MR B POLAND HISTORY DEPARTMENT ST JOHN HOUGHTON
CATHOLIC SCHOOL
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GCSE HISTORY COURSEWORK

• Similar to KS3 essays.
• 3 questions to be answered in 3 sections
• Q1. Explain Trotskys contribution to the success
  of the Bolsheviks up to 1922?
• Q2.Explain Why Stalin and not Trotsky, emerged as
  Lenins successor?
• Q3.In the 1930s Stalin maintained his position
  as supreme dictator of the Soviet Union using two
  main methods
• 1 Control by terror 2 Control of Ideas

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GCSE HISTORY COURSEWORK

• 12.5 of final mark
• Must be word processed and organised to a
  professional standard.
• STICK TO THE QUESTIONS ASKED
• Must use facts/sources and evidence
• Marked in levels by criteria
• Use of

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GCSE HISTORY COURSEWORK

• Use of textbook important.
• Proof read and assist each other.
• No copy n paste.
• Own research important but stay focused.
• Plan before compete.
• Dont panic use Mr Poland/McNally dont be afraid
  to ask for help.

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Good Links

• http//mars.wnec.edu/7Egrempel/courses/wc2/lectur
  es/rev1917.html
• http//www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture5.html
• http//www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture6.html
• http//www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture7.html
• http//www.marxists.org/history/ussr/
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/
  mwh/russia/
• http//www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930
  -hrr/ these are Trotskys own writings (primary
  source)
• http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Russia.htm
• See also my handouts on Trotsky and Lenin.
• See also The war of the world C4 TV and book by
  Prof Naill Ferguson

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Timeline of the Russian Revolutions and their
effects

• 1905 Jan Bloody Sunday - Tsarist troops open fire
  on a peaceful demonstration of workers in St
  Petersburg. 1905 October General Strike sweeps
  Russia which ends when the Tsar promises a
  constitution.
• 1905 December In response to the suppression of
  the St Petersburg Soviet the Moscow Soviet
  organises a disastrous insurrection that the
  government suppresses after five days
• 1906 The promised parliament, the Duma, is
  dissolved when it produces an anti government
  majority even though elected on a narrow
  franchise.
• 1911-1914 A new wave of workers unrest ends with
  the outbreak of the First World War
• 1917 Feb After several days of demonstrations in
  Petrograd (formally St Petersburg) the government
  orders troops to open fire. The next day these
  troops mutiny. The Tsar abdicates when he hears
  that Moscow too has joined the Revolution. An
  agreement is reached between the Petrograd Soviet
  and the Provisional Government headed by Lvov.
• 1917 March 12th Abolition of the death Penalty
• 1917 April 18th Milyukov note. Milyukov tells
  allies that war aims unchanged.
• 1917 April 20 - 21 The April Days. Opposition to
  the Foreign Minister Milyukov boils over due to
  his refusal to renounce annexations.
• 1917 May Milyukov resigns. Members of the
  Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries join
  the government.
• 1917 June 3 First All-Russia Congress of Workers
  and Soldiers Soviets opens.
• 1917 June 18 Offensive launched by Russia against
  Austria Hungary.
• 1917 July The July Days. (3rd and 4th) Workers
  and soldiers in Petrograd demand the Soviet takes
  power. Sporadic fighting results and the Soviet
  restores order with troops brought back from the
  front. Trotsky arrested. Lenin goes into hiding.
  A new provisional government is set up with
  Kerensky at it's head (8th).
• 1917 July 12th Death Penalty reintroduced for the
  front.
• 1917 Aug The Kornilov putsch. An attempt by
  General Kornilov to establish a right wing
  dictatorship is a disastrous flop. Chernov the
  leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries resigns
  from the government denouncing Kerensky for
  complicity in the plot.
• 1917 Sept The Bolsheviks win control of the
  Petrograd Soviet.In the countryside peasant
  seizure of land from the gentry continues and
  reaches the level of near insurrection in Tambov.
  
• 1917 Oct The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional
  government on the eve of the meeting of 2nd
  All-Russia Congress of Soviets.
• 1917 26/27 Oct Soviet proclamations on land and
  peace. Death Penalty abolished.
• 1917 30 Oct Kerensky repulsed outside Petrograd
• 1917 2 Nov Bolsheviks gain Moscow

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Timeline of the Russian Revolutions and their
effects

• 1918 Jan 5th The Constituent Assembly in which
  the Bolsheviks are a minority meets for one day
  before being suppressed. Earlier that day a
  demonstration is fired on by Bolshevik units and
  several demonstrators are killed
• 1918 10-18 Jan 3rd Soviet Congress
• 1918 Jan 28th Trotsky denounces the German Peace
  Terms as unacceptable and walks out of the peace
  negotiations at Brest- Litovsk.
• 1918 Feb 1/14 Russia adopts Western (Gregorian)
  calendar.
• 1918 Feb 18th The Germans invade Russia which is
  all but defenceless as virtually the entire army
  has deserted.
• 1918 March The Bolsheviks accept the dictated
  peace of Brest-Litovsk. The Left SRs denounce the
  peace and leave the government.
• 1918 April 12th Moscow headquarters of the
  anarchists surrounded and attacked by Bolshevik
  troops
• 1918 May 9th Bolshevik troops open fire on
  workers protesting at food shortages in the town
  of Kolpino
• 1918 May (late) The Czechoslovak legion mutinies
  against the Bolshevik government. Using the
  railways they are able to sweep away Bolshevik
  control from vast areas of Russia. The Socialist
  Revolutionaries support the rising.
• 1918 July Fifth Soviet Congress. The left SRs
  assassinate the German ambassador and are in turn
  crushed by the Bolsheviks.
• 1918 16 July Gorkys Novaia Zhizn , the last
  opposition paper, banned.
• 1918 23rd Aug 3 ministers of the Siberian
  Government are arrested by supporter of
  Mikhailov, the finance Minister, when they arrive
  in Omsk. They are told to resign their posts. Two
  agree. The third, Novoselov, refuses and is
  hacked to death.
• 1918 22nd Sept Siberian Oblast Duma dismisses
  Mikhailov and is itself dispersed by Mikhailov
• 1918 18th November Kolchak, stages a coup against
  the Directory, the multi party government in
  Siberia, and establishes a counterrevolutionary
  despotism.
• 1918 Dec Perm falls to Kolchak's Whites
• 1919 Jan Mensheviks legalised and allowed to
  publish Vsegda Vpered in Moscow. Era of relative
  freedom begins in Bolshevik controlled Russia
• 1919 25 Feb The Cheka closes down Vsegda Vpered.
  This marks a return to despotic rule by
  Bolsheviks.
• 1919 White Armies attack the Bolsheviks from all
  directions but the Red Army is finally
  victorious.
• 1920 25 Apr Poland invades Russia.

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Q1.Main Elements

• Trotsky contribution to the success of the
  Bolsheviks
• Gaining power Nov 1917.
• Keeping hold of power during the civil war
  1917-1922.
• Minor points that must be covered are his
  success as a writer. His success in keeping the
  Revolution alive 1906-1917.
• Key element Context of Nov 1917. War, misrule,
  tsar policies, March revolution

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Key Elements

• Key element Context of Nov 1917.
• Failure of war on the Eastern Front,
• Misrule,
• Tsars policies,
• March Revolution,
• Provisional Government failure
• Return of Lenin and Trotsky from exile

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Key Elements

• Key element Context of Nov 1917.
• Slogan Peace Bread Land,
• The July Uprising (July days)
• Kornilov Revolt
• Organisation and timing of Nov 1917.
• Revitalisation of Bolsheviks by Lenin/Trotsky

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• There were three governments in Russia in 1917. 
• Czar Nicholas II abdicated (or left) the throne
  in February, 1917.
• A. Nicholas had engaged Russia in World War I.
  Many lives had been lost and a victory seemed
  unattainable. 
• B. The czars family became associated with a
  faith healer named Rasputin. Rasputin's
  scandalous behaviour shocked Russia. 
• C. There were many food shortages during the cold
  winter of 1916-1917. The people demanded food,
  but  Nicholas instead sent troops in to keep the
  people from demonstrating.   
• 2. A provisional (or temporary) government ruled
  Russia from March to November, 1917.
• A. The new government proclaimed civil liberties
  and promised democratic elections. 

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• B. The government was unable to withdraw Russia
  from World War I.  This government became
  associated with the destruction of the war. 
• C. Workers and peasants revolted against the
  landlords and factory owners. Peasants
  expropriated (or took over) land and factories
  were closed when workers refused to work.   
• 3.The Bolsheviks defeated the democratic
  government in a civil war.
• A. The violent Bolsheviks believed in the
  teachings of Karl Marx. Lenin was their leader. 
• B. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, remained
  in hiding as an enemy of the government. He
  encouraged a revolt against landlords and factory
  owners. 
• C. On the night of November 6, the Bolsheviks
  attacked the Russian capital and met little
  resistance from the provisional government.

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Vladimir Lenin (1870 - 1924)
One of the leading political figures and
revolutionary thinkers of the 20th century, Lenin
masterminded the Bolshevik take-over of power in
Russia in 1917 and was the architect and first
head of the Soviet state. He posthumously gave
name to the Marxist-Leninist ideology, but by the
death of the communist system in 1991, his legacy
was largely discredited. Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov
grew up in a well educated family in provincial
Russia. He excelled at school and went on to
study law. At university, he was exposed to
radical thinking, and his views were also
influenced by the execution of his elder brother,
a member of a revolutionary group.
Vladimir Lenin, 1922 
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Expelled from university for his radical
policies, Lenin managed to complete his law
degree as an external student in 1891. He moved
to St Petersburg and became a professional
revolutionary. Like many of his contemporaries,
Lenin was arrested and exiled to Siberia, where
he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. The real love of
his life, however, was Inessa Armand, whose death
in 1920 left him distraught. After his Siberian
exile, Lenin - the pseudonym he adopted in 1901 -
spent most of the subsequent decade and a half in
Western Europe, where he emerged as a prominent
figure in the international revolutionary
movement and became the leader of the 'Bolshevik'
faction of the Russian Social Democratic Worker's
Party. In 1917, exhausted by the First World War,
Russia was ripe for change. Assisted by the
Germans, who hoped that he would undermine the
Russian war effort, Lenin returned home and
started working against the provisional
government which had replaced the tsarist regime.
He eventually led what was soon to be known as
the October Revolution, but was effectively a
coup d'etat. Almost three years of civil war
followed. The Red Army emerged victorious, and
the Bolsheviks assumed total control of the
country.
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During this period of revolution, war and famine,
Lenin demonstrated a chilling disregard for the
sufferings of his fellow countrymen. In his
merciless destruction of any opposition, he was
instrumental in creating the conditions for
Stalin's dictatorship. Lenin was ruthless but
also pragmatic. When his efforts to transform the
Russian economy to a socialist model stalled, he
introduced the New Economic Policy, where a
measure of private enterprise was still
permitted. This policy continued for several
years beyond his death. In 1918 Lenin survived an
assassination attempt. His long term health was
affected, and in 1922 he suffered a stroke from
which he never really recovered. In his declining
years, he worried about the bureaucratisation of
the regime and also expressed concern over the
increasing role of Stalin. On a personal level,
Lenin was a modest man and disapproved of
adulation. But after his death, he became the
subject of a personality cult of grotesque
proportions which lasted until the final years of
the Soviet system. Lenin's embalmed corpse
remains in a mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square.
Once a place of communist worship, it has now
become a symbol of a political ideology and
system which ultimately failed miserably.
16
Members of St. Petersburg group of League of
Struggle for the Emancipation of Labour, February
1897.  Lenin in centre
Clean-shaven Lenin wearing a wig in August 1917,
hiding in Finland
17
                                               
                                  Speech at the
Red Square, Moscow, with Trotsky and Kamenev on
the steps, May 5, 1920
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Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940)
A key figure in the Bolshevik seizure of power in
Russia in 1917 and the man who built up the Red
Army during the subsequent civil war, Trotsky was
second only to Lenin in the early stage of Soviet
communist rule. But this gifted intellectual lost
out to Stalin in the power struggle of the 1920s,
was forced into exile and ultimately murdered by
an agent of his political nemesis. Born Lev
Davidovich Bronshtein and of Jewish origin,
Trotsky became involved in underground activities
as a teenager. He was soon arrested, jailed and
exiled to Siberia. Eventually, he escaped and
spent the majority of the next 15 years abroad,
including a spell as war correspondent in the
Balkans. While Lenin assumed leadership of the
Bolshevik faction, Trotsky became a Menshevik and
developed his theory of 'permanent revolution'
Leon Trotsky, head of Red Army, 1920 
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After the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd in
February 1917, he made his way back to Russia.
Despite many previous disagreements with Lenin,
Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks in August 1917 and
played a decisive role in the communist take-over
of power the same year. His first post in the new
government was as foreign commissar, where he
found himself negotiating peace terms with the
Germans, before taking over as war commissar. In
this capacity, he built up the Red Army which
prevailed against the White forces in the Civil
War, and thus, Trotsky played a crucial role in
keeping the Bolshevik regime alive. He saw
himself as Lenin's heir apparent but he was not a
team player, his intellectual arrogance made him
few friends, and his Jewish background may also
have worked against him. When Lenin fell ill and
subsequently died, Trotsky was easily
outmanoeuvred by Stalin. In 1927, he was thrown
out of the party, and internal, then foreign,
exile followed. Trotsky ended up in Mexico, from
where he continued to criticise Stalin. The
Soviet dictator caught up with him in 1940, Ramon
Mercader, having infiltrated Trotsky's household,
stabbed him with an ice axe.. His political
legacy was kept alive for decades, mainly in the
corridors of Western European universities
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Trotsky in his cell in the Peter-Paul Fortress,
awaiting trial, in 1906
Leon Trotsky addresses Red Army soldiers in
Moscow in 1918
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Q 2. Why Stalin took control and NOT Trotsky

• Stalin
• Trusted Why?
• Cunning- How?
• Key position with the party.

• Trotsky
• Distrusted-Why?
• Arrogant Why?
• Health problems.

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Q 2. Why Stalin took control and NOT Trotsky

• Stalin
• Power to appoint his allies and demote Trotsky's
• Played different groups against each other.
• Built alliances e.g. Znioniev Kamenev
• Stalin underestimated and perceived as not a
  threat.
• 20 years a Bolshevik.
• Socialism in one country
• Appeal to middle ground not split party
• Stalins flexibility e.g. changed his mind on the
  N.E.P
• Slowly gained control over party
• Machiavellian

• Trotsky
• Permanent revolution not popular push money to
  other countries
• Radical politics danger of splitting the party
  loss of support
• Trotsky perceived as ago rant hated stupid people
  
• Joined 1917
• Had control of red guard fear of him being
  dictator
• Health and critically Lenins funeral

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Why Stalin took control and NOT Trotsky after
Lenins death
24
                                               
                         Lenin with Stalin at
Gorki in 1922.  Picture taken by Lenin's sister
Maria.          
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Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)
One of the most powerful and murderous dictators
in human history, Stalin was the supreme ruler of
the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His
regime of terror caused the death and suffering
of tens of millions of his subjects, but he was
also in charge of the war machine that played a
significant role in the defeat of Hitler's armies
during World War II. A Georgian by birth, Iosif
Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili grew up in modest
circumstances and only learned Russian at school.
He studied at a theological seminary but never
graduated, instead embarking on a life as a
professional revolutionary. This included robbing
banks to fill the Bolshevik party chest and
spending years in Siberian exile.
Joseph Stalin 1922
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Stalin was not one of the decisive players in the
Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, but he soon
rose in the ranks. In 1922 he was made General
Secretary of the Communist Party, a post which
was not considered particularly significant at
the time but nevertheless became the base from
which he launched his bid for supreme
power. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin
promoted himself as his political heir and
gradually outmanoeuvred rivals. Unlike Trotsky,
Stalin believed that socialism could be
introduced in one country without being
accompanied by a world revolution. By the late
1920s, Stalin was effectively the dictator of the
Soviet Union.His forced collectivisation of
agriculture cost million of lives, while his
industrialisation programme made his country
militarily strong but provided little material
welfare for its citizens. Moreover, the
population suffered immensely during the Great
Terror of the 1930s, during which Stalin and his
henchmen purged the Party of 'enemies of the
people' and sent millions to the Gulag system of
slave labour camps. The purges severely depleted
the Red Army officer corps, and despite many
warnings, Stalin was ill prepared for Hitler's
massive attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941.
His political future hung in the balance, but he
recovered to lead his country to victory. As
usual with Stalin, the human cost was enormous,
but that mattered little to him.
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His general disregard for human lives included
his own family - his eldest son perished in
German captivity, his second wife committed
suicide, and many in-laws were caught up in the
terror. After World War II, the Soviet Union
entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire
which included most of Eastern Europe.
Increasingly paranoid, Stalin himself became a
victim of the fear he had induced in his
subjects. Having suffered a stroke at night, he
lay helpless on his floor for many hours, because
no one dared disturb him. He died on 5 March
1953. A large part of the Soviet population
reacted to his death with hysterical grief, but
soon his former comrades-in-arms denounced his
policies of terror and persecution. Today,
Stalinism is a symbol of totalitarian rule and
limitless personal power. His birth home in Gori
forms part of the Stalin Museum, a bizarre and
somewhat eerie Soviet monument to one of
history's most bloodthirsty tyrants.
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Q3 Stalin

• Q3.In the 1930s Stalin maintained his position
  as supreme dictator of the Soviet Union using two
  main methods
• 1 Control by terror
• 2 Control of Ideas

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• Q3. Stalin and his hold over of power in the
  1930s
• The gradual accession of Stalin to power in the
  1920s eventually brought an end to the
  liberalization of society and the economy,
  leading instead to a period of unprecedented
  government control, mobilization, and
  terrorization of society in Russia and the other
  Soviet republics. In the 1930s, agriculture and
  industry underwent brutal forced centralization,
  and Russian cultural activity was highly
  restricted. Purges eliminated thousands of
  individuals deemed dangerous to the Soviet state
  by Stalin's operatives.

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• CollectivisationThe vast majority of the
  population in Russia were peasants, earning their
  living from farming. However, not enough food was
  reaching the cities to feed the workers, In 1929
  to solve the problem of the shortfall, Stalin
  announced that farms would be collectivised. This
  meant that instead of each individual family
  working their own farm, groups of 50-100 families
  would work a collective farm. It was hoped that
  this would be more efficient, and allow more
  modern methods, such as tractors, to be used. The
  peasants would not be allowed to sell grain for a
  profit, but would instead sell their grain to the
  government at a fixed price.Stalin knew that the
  richer peasants, known as Kulaks, would oppose
  this idea, so he deported about 1.5 million of
  them, many of whom later died from cold or
  starvation. However, many other peasants opposed
  collectivisation, which took away their incentive
  to produce more food, since they could not sell
  it for profit. They destroyed animals, crops and
  machinery in protest, and this led to a serious
  drop in food production. As a result of
  collectivisation 5-6 million people starved to
  death in the following three years.
• .

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• The Great Terror
• The Great Terror (Purge), is the name given to
  campaigns of political repression and persecution
  in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin
  during the late 1930s. Stalin's purges began in
  December 1934, Stalin launched a purge of the
  Party, aimed at expelling unreliable members.
  Anybody could be denounced for being Trotskyites
  or counter-revolutionaries, even on the evidence
  of a single comment. Millions were expelled from
  the party and sent to labour camps. In 1936 the
  Show Trials began, where important Party members
  were put on public trial, found guilty and
  executed. In 1937 the armed forced were also
  purged - by 1939 every admiral, three of the five
  top army commanders, and about half of all
  officers had been shot. By now the whole of
  Russia was living in terror. Children were
  encouraged to denounce their parents, and some
  did, and you could even be arrested for failure
  to denounce suspicious people. The terror
  undoubtedly ensured Stalin's domination of the
  country, but both the economy and the armed
  forces suffered from the loss of so many
  experienced leaders
• .

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• Five Year plans and Labour (Gulag) camps
• Russia was a very backward country compared to
  the rest of Europe, and Stalin realised that if
  communism was to survive then it had to modernise
  quickly. A series of five year plans were
  introduced with the aim of rapidly increasing
  Russia's industrial production. Though the plans
  did not always achieve the targets that had been
  set, it is undoubtedly the case that Russia's
  industrial capacity grew enormously as a result.
  By 1940 Russia had overtaken Britain in
  production of iron and steel. However, although
  some workers, such as the Stakhanovites worked
  hard out of patriotism, others only worked out of
  fear - failure to meet production targets could
  result in a labour camp sentence.
• By the end of the 1930s there were labour camps
  in all parts of Russia, and by 1938 they
  contained 8 million people. The work was
  extremely hard, and conditions in the camps very
  poor. About 20 of the prisoners in the camps
  died very year cold, over-work and lack of food,
  but this did not matter as Stalin's Terror
  ensured there were always others to take their
  place.
• .

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• Stalins Totalitarian Regime
• To create the new socialist state required the
  compliance of the citizenry. The traditional
  tools of totalitarian regimes were used to ensure
  that compliance.
• Unrestricted police terrorism was characteristic
  of Stalin's regime.
• Stalin eliminated any opposition within the
  Communist party. A series of public trials of
  well-known Communists were staged. Forced
  confessions became the standard feature of these
  trials. All potential political rivals were
  eliminated
• The ordinary citizen was not immune to the
  intrusion of the state.
• There was continuous propaganda campaign to
  indoctrinate the citizen and glorify the
  revolution, socialism, and Stalin. This campaign
  intruded into every aspect of the citizen's life.
  
• Party activists lectured the factory workers and
  the peasants on the new collective farms.

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Five Year Plan Propaganda
35
Notice the deaths of rivals by 1938
36
Gulag Prisoners
37
Modern day comparisons
38
Stalin and the cult of personality
39
Monument to the victims of Soviet Communism in
Prague
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Stalins Legacy

• It is believed by most historians that with the
  famines, forced migrations, state terrorism,
  prison and labor camp mortality and political
  purges, Stalin and his colleagues were
  responsible for the deaths of millions. How many
  millons died under Stalin is greatly disputed.
  Although no official figures have been released
  by the Soviet or Russian governments, most
  estimates put the figure at between eight and
  twenty million. Comparison of the 1926-39 census
  results suggests 5-10 million deaths in excess of
  what would be normal in the period, mostly
  through famine in 1931-34. The highest estimates
  put the figure as high as 50 million from the
  1920s to the 1950s.

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