OppositionLessons week b4 last

1. Who were the Populists?

2. Who were the Social Democrats?

3. Which party did Lenin briefly allow a few members to be a part of his government?

4. What was the event called when Kerensky armed the Bolsheviks?

5. What was a propaganda slogan of the Bolsheviks?

6. What was it called when the Provisional Government and the Duma both held power?

7. Name the three people in the United Opposition Group.

8. Who did Stalin ‘liquidate as a class’?

9. Who was the only person that Khrushchev purged?

11. Why did emancipation lead to greater peasant unrest?

12. Why did Witte’s Great Spurt lead to greater proletariat unrest?

Opposition from National Minorities

News – You aren’t far away from being able to attempt your first essay on opposition (next assessment, next week):'Alexander III was more successful at dealing with opposition than any other ruler of Russia.' How far do you agree? June 2013

'Lenin was more successful in dealing with opposition than any other ruler of Russia in the period from 1855 to 1964.' How far do you agree with this view? Jan 2012

'The peoples of Russia were consistently repressed by their rulers.' How far do you agree with this view of the period 1855 to 1964? June 2012

'Opposition to Russian government was ineffective in the period from 1855 to 1964.' How far do you agree with this view?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a look at these:http://history.ossettacademy.com/knowledge-podcasts-and-some-sheets.html

What else could you use? What paragraphs could you choose?

Opposition from National Minorities

You will either be:

• Polish• Ukrainian• Caucasian• Finnish• From the Baltics• Jewish

You have died and gone to the afterlife, which happens to be a history lesson. Your people believe that they were treated worst under the Soviets. You must argue this. You may have visual aides. You may use any book. You may use the whole internet.

Opposition from National Minorities

Plenary

1. Were the National Minorities a serious problem for those in authority?

2. Which National Minority posed the most serious threat?

Opposition from National Minorities

Homework and End of Lesson

Create your own revision aide on opposition from national minorities. I’d suggest a piece of A3 divided into 6 but you can do whatever you like.

The Poles

You’ve never felt a part of the Russian empire and often tried to break away over the centuries. You were suspicious of the appointment of Prime Minister Wielopolski from 1862-63 who you thought was nothing but a tsarist lapdog, so after reforms failed to materialise in 1863, you joined others in rebelling against him and forced him to flee. The Russian War Minister Milyutin was put in charge and a revised Emancipation Statute was introduced that provided fairer distribution of land, this stopped the revolt.

From the 1890s many of you became interested in politics because of the industrialisation of Poland and in particular the communists were popular. A Social Democrat party was set up, as well as the National Democrats who were Polish nationalists and they both had men elected to the first and second Dumas. The Fundamental Laws made that difficult later though. The treaties at the end of the First World War finally gave you independence but the Red Army tried to re-take Poland in the Civil War; thankfully Polish nationals defeated them.

You were free until the Second World War when you suffered more than most nations, were invaded twice (by the Nazis and Soviets, then by the Soviets) and ended up as a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

The Ukrainians

You have never been as nationalistic as the Poles and never made such dramatic demands but you wanted to retain your identity. Early on this was done thoguh literature and the arts until Alexander II issued decrees banning the publication of things written in Ukrainian. Alexander III and his Russification campaign helped to back up the punitive rules established by his father.

The ending of the First World War briefly gave you independence but, unlike Poland, you were unable to prevent the Red Army re-taking you.

You are crucial to the Russian economy as the main grain producing region but resent Russian interference and domination. Stalin’s collectivisation was strongly opposed and in true Stalin style this meant that many Ukrainians were purged in the 1930s.

The Stalin Constitution of 1936 was supposed to give you more power as you were included in the federation of soviet states but it didn’t change that you were dominated by Russia.

A large amount of Ukrainians were hanged or sent to gulags for collaboration with the Germans during the Second World War.

The Caucasians

You are made up of Georgians, Armenians, Chechens and many of national minority groups. Low levels of literacy made Russification quite straightforward in your region but you still opposed those in authority at times.

The Georgian Mensheviks were particularly antagonistic towards Nicholas II. In 1920 you got independence for the briefest of moments, before the Red Army quickly regained control.

Things really focussed on Georgia in the 1920s when Georgian communists opposed being joined with Armenia and Azerbaizhan and Stalin ordered his representative in Georgia to bring the dissidents under control. His representative, Ordjonikidze, caused a storm by punching one of the Georgian communist leaders in the face, and Stalin made things worse by defending his actions. This upset Lenin who condemned Stalin’s authoritarian approach and claimed it would have a destabilising effect on Georgia and the entire Soviet Union. This incident may have led Lenin to write of the unsuitability of Stalin as leader, shortly before he died.

Just like the Ukraine the Stalin constitution of 1936 theoretically gave you greater representation in the soviet of nationalities but in reality you were still just dominated by Russia.

The Finns

You got quite lenient treatment at times, for example Alexander II gave you a separate Finnish parliament in 1863 and a constitution in 1865.

Nicholas II soon brought you back into the fold though by appointing Bobrikov as Governor General of Finland and he fully integrated Finland into the Russian Empire and set about attempting to Russify Finland. The Finnish army was disbanded, the parliament was shut down and Russian became the official language. Bobrikov was assassinated in 1904 by Finnish terrorists but the damage had been done.

In 1905 you were astonished to find you had been told you were to be granted full autonomy to rule yourselves, but very quickly Stolypin stopped that from becoming a reality. Thankfully the treaties signed at the end of the First World War gave you independence which you managed to keep.

In the Second World War you fought first with the Germans against the USSR and later at the end you helped to fight German soldiers and expel them from Finland. You still managed to retain independence and avoid communism after 1945, you even managed to trade with both the USSR and (a bit more secretly) the Western Powers.

People from the Baltics

You have an abundance of raw materials in your area. You are made up of what is now Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Because of your raw materials your economy developed quicker than most other parts of the empire and as a result lots of ethnic Russians moved to your area – in particular, Riga in Latvia. This meant a great deal of Russification happened naturally, with Russian language and place names integrating into everyday life quite naturally.

There was some nationalism but not a strong enough movement to cause much trouble and in the Stalin Constitution you were easily absorbed into the new federal system of Soviet government.

During the Second World War the region was exploited by the Nazis and then ruthlessly re-taken by the Soviets who deported anybody they suspected of collaborating. There were mass deportations.

After the war there were very few incidents of rebellion in the Baltics.

The Jews

Back in 1835 you had been forcibly settled in a place called the Pale of Settlement which was a long piece of land that included parts of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. Alexander II allowed Jews to move and live in other areas however Alexander III clamped down on this. Nicholas II followed suit and the Jews were persecuted up to the First World War. The Jews were not really a threat but they were perceived to be a big threat. They were blamed for something called the Ignatiev Memorandum (1876) in which Russia’s ambassador to Constantinople gave a note to Serbia saying that Russia would assist them in a war if they chose to declare war on Turkey, despite nobody in Russia ever agreeing to this. The Jews were thought to be secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes. This led to an outbreak of pogroms in the Pale of Settlement and the establishment of a group called the Holy League. From 1882 onwards the Jews were:• Confined strictly to the Pale of Settlement• Banned from purchasing land in rural areas• Disqualified from holding senior positions in the military or in medicine• Removed from the electoral registers of the zemstvaNicholas II accused the Jews of being revolutionaries and indeed many of them understandably supported opposition groups. He did however make some important concessions to the Jews including allowing them to sit in the duma.

The communists were also repressive towards the Jews with ‘special’ settlements being set up in the 1930s. By the Second World War a ban had been imposed on the Jewish religion, Jewish schools were closed and Jewish publications were banned. In 1953 the Doctors Plot was announced by Stalin in which he alleged a US-Jewish group had plotted to kill seven high-ranking Soviet officials. Fifteen Jewish doctors were tried and executed. In his secret speech Khrushchev that Stalin hinted to him to incite anti-Semitism in Ukraine, saying, "The good workers at the factory should be given clubs so they can beat the hell out of those Jews.” There was a continuation of the fear and suspicion of Jewish subversiveness even throughout the Khrushchev era though, for example a number of prominent Jewish technical specialists were executed for anti-communist activity.