HISTORY LAB #2 - GROUP NOTES

INSTRUCTIONS: As a group, develop questions that, if answered, would allow you to put forth a really strong argument in response to the question “To what extent did the Great War cause the Russian Revolution?”
AS YOU PROCEED INTO NEW ROUNDS OF INQUIRY...
New Lines of Inquiry: If you feel a question has been fully answered, then come up with a brand new line of research and pursue it.
Refined Lines of Inquiry: If you feel a question has been partially answered, and the spirit of the question was right but the direction needs to be adjusted, refine.
Continued Lines of Inquiry: If you feel you whiffed and a source didn’t answer your question, or if you feel you only scratched the surface, continue along with the same question.

Record group member names to the right, and color-code the text Grilled Radish Steamed Radish Baked Radish Sautéed Radish
that each person will write in below.

Each group member should begin their line of inquiry in a different column below.
-Include questions (numbered, caps, bold) and notes in box below. -Write and number questions and your notes in the box below. -Write and number questions and your notes in the box below. -Write and number questions and your notes in the box below.
-Note source of information in parentheses. -Note source of information in parentheses. -Note source of information in parentheses. -Note source of information in parentheses.
-Color-code by person in alignment with key. -Color-code by person in alignment with key. -Color-code by person in alignment with key. -Color-code by person in alignment with key.

WHAT WAS RUSSIA’S ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
STATUS LIKE BEFORE THE WAR STARTED?
_______________________________________________
*The purpose of this question is to observe what
conditions (both economically and socially) were like in
Russia BEFORE the war started. By doing this specific
research we will then observe these status’ after the
war (in the next question) and into the revolution and
see how much change took place and if these results
were directly because of the war, or if there were
outside reasons why these status’ change, and if these
conditions were the reasons for the revolution
https://www.bolshevik.info/the-russian-revolution-before-
1917-the-gathering-storm.htm
● ECONOMIC STATUS
● Before the war, Russia was considered to be a
“stable power” in Europe
● Fast growing economy
○ Economic strength fueled by peasant work
force
○ Industrial centers in Petersburg and
Moscow
HOW DID THE GREAT WAR IMPACT RUSSIA’S
ECONOMY AND SOCIETY AT THE START OF
AND DURING THE REVOLUTION?
https://voxeu.org/article/russia-s-national-income-war-
and-revolution-1913-1928
- Russia joined the war in 1914 and suffered an
economic decline for years until Stalin brought
them out of the dumps with his industrialization
tactics
- The economy suffered through wars, civil wars,
famines, and more
- Records of the Russian economy only go back to
1885
- The economy was growing from 1885 to the
1910’s and was set to become even more powerful
- Between 1913 and 1922, Russia gave up 3% of its
territory
- That meant that 1/5th of its pre-war population
living there had to depart from Russia and adjust to
a new life under a new country
- Russia suffered 13 million premature deaths from
conflict and famine during this time period (1913-
1928)
WERE THE LEADERS OF THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION ALSO INVOLVED IN THE GREAT
WAR? WHO WERE THEY AND WHAT DID THEY
BELIEVE?
Sources
https://www.history.com/topics/russia/vladimir-lenin
- After the February Revolution, which was a strike
for the scarcity of food, the provisional government
comes to power after Tsar
- Council of People’s Commissars withdraws Russia
from the war
- 1918, the tsar and his family are killed
- Leader russian revolution: Vladimir Lenin
- Lenin began plotting an overthrow of the
Provisional Government.
- The Bolsheviks seized power of the government
and proclaimed Soviet rule, making Lenin
leader of the world's first communist state.
- When Lenin returned home to Russia in April
1917, the Russian Revolution was already
beginning
- Lenin began plotting an overthrow of the
Provisional Government. To Lenin, the
Q.1 WHAT WERE THE ISSUES THAT TSAR
NICHOLAS II PRESENTED TO RUSSIA DURING
THE GREAT WAR AND WHY DID HIS REIGN
EVENTUALLY COLLAPSE?
Q.2 WHAT WAS RUSSIA’S POLITICAL STATUS
BEFORE THE GREAT WAR STARTED?
NICHOLAS II (FIRST RULER)
○ https://www.britannica.com/biography/N
icholas-II-tsar-of-Russia
○ Soon after his accession, Nicholas II
proclaimed his uncompromising views in
an address to liberal deputies from the
zemstvos, the self-governing local
assemblies, in which he dismissed as
“senseless dreams” their aspirations to
share in the work of government.
○ He met the rising groundswell of popular
unrest with intensified police repression.
○ In foreign policy, his lighthearted attitude
toward international relations sometimes
embarrassed his professional diplomats.
 ● Army was reformed - This was 1 in 10 of the population
● “Autocracy regained confidence and stability after - Studies have been made that shows Russia’s
the 1905 revolution” economy completely collapsing and repairing itself
● From 1895 all the way to 1913, the russian between 1913 and 1928, no doubt affecting their
economy had grown by 5% each year performance in the Great War as well
● Russia’s economy was one of the fastest growing - The economic collapse also was most likely caused
in the world by the war itself, as Nicholas II directed the whole
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918- economy towards the war front and getting troops
online.net/article/organization_of_war_economies_russian out to fight against the Central Powers
_empire - He was also neglecting the people who weren’t on
● The reason that it was growing so rapidly was the battlefield with a damaged economy, causing
because of its international markets as well as these people to deal with less money and less food
domestic demand - Nicholas II was also printing more money to
● However Russia was lacking coordinated increase war preparations, so inflation was a big
economic policy because everything was in the factor in this situation as well.
hands of the Tsar, without actually consulting - The economy during the war was declining, but no
anyone else in the cabinet more so than any other country involved, asides for
○ Many disagreements were “commonplace” Britain
- The strength of modern mobilization was pulling
● SOCIAL STATUS these countries’ economies apart, including
● Tsar and the concept of tsarism was “envied by the Russia’s
elites” - By 1919, Soviet Russia’s economy was devastated,
○ This was because all the power over the with average incomes being as low as 600
economy and institutions was all in the international dollars (1990 prices)
hands of just one man - That total was less than half of the average
https://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/russia/ incomes just 6 years earlier in 1913, before the war
● Some say that Russia was only a major European and the Revolution
power before the war because of its “sheer size and - Incomes this low had not been seen in Eastern
population” Europe since the 17th century
● Russia had a very rigid social structure - In Petrograd in 1919, the average worker’s intake
○ 14 different ranks was at around 1600 calories, about half the level
○ More than ⅘ of the population was before the war
peasants - Spreading hunger also met its match with waves of
■ Uneducated and illiterate typhus, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid, with even
more deaths coming from those diseases
- The grain harvest also collapsed in 1921
- These combined left Soviet Russia with 5 million
premature deaths at their disposal
- The economic decline was most prevalent in 1918
- Bolshevik policies of economic mobilization and
class warfare acted independently to spread chaos
and decline
- These policies were intensified during the Civil
War in 1920, and contributed to famines in 1921
- Economic recovery didn’t begin until 1922
- It was very rapid until Soviet leaders reverted to
civil war mobilization tactics
- In russian history the state has either had too little
capacity or too much
- The state had not enough capacity to regulate the
war economy during WWI
- In the 1920’s the state regained its capacity and
increased mobilization efforts
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-
online.net/article/social_conflict_and_control_protest_
and_repression_russian_empire
- Russia was freed from serfdom from 1861
- An expanding economy beckoned villagers to
come to cities
provisional government was a “dictatorship of
the bourgeoisie
- Vladimir Lenin was founder of the Russian
Communist Party, leader of the Bolshevik
Revolution and architect and first head of the
Soviet state.
- Aleksandr’s involvement in oppositional politics
was not an isolated incident in Lenin’s family.
In fact, all of Lenin’s siblings would take part to
some degree in revolutionary activities.
- In late 1917 Lenin led what was soon to be
known as the October Revolution, but was
essentially a coup d’état. Three years of civil
war followed. The Lenin-led Soviet government
faced incredible odds.
- Out of the revolution was born the Provisional
Government, formed by a group of leaders of
the bourgeois liberal parties.
- In both spheres, Lenin was plagued by breaks
within the ranks of Bolshevik leaders.
- He left Russia to continue his revolutionary
activities abroad. Lenin opposed World War I
which he saw as an imperialist struggle.
- In 1905, workers rebelled across Russia, but it
was not until 1917, and Russia’s disastrous
involvement in World War I, that Lenin
realized that the opportunity for Communist
revolution had come. In March 1917, the
Russian army garrison at Petrograd defected to
the Bolshevik cause, and Czar Nicholas II was
forced to abdicate. Lenin immediately left
Switzerland and crossed German enemy lines to
arrive at Petrograd on April 16, 1917. Six
months later, under his leadership, the
Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, and Lenin
became virtual dictator of the country.
However, civil war and foreign intervention
delayed complete Bolshevik control of Russia
until 1920.
- Stalin was the second president of the USSR
- were rampant. The tsar’s reactionary
○ Nicholas considered all who opposed him,
regardless of their views, as malicious
conspirators. Disregarding the advice of his
future prime minister, he refused to make
concessions to the constitutionalists until
events forced him to yield more than might
have been necessary had he been more
flexible.
○ On March 3, 1905, he reluctantly agreed to
create a national representative assembly,
or Duma, with consultative powers, and by
the manifesto he promised a constitutional
regime under which no law was to take
effect without the Duma’s consent, as well
as a democratic franchise and civil
liberties. Nicholas, however, cared little for
keeping promises extracted from him under
duress. He strove to regain his former
powers and ensured that in the new
Fundamental Laws (May 1906) he was still
designated an autocrat.
○ He patronized an extremist right-wing
organization, the Union of the Russian
People, which sanctioned terrorist methods
and disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda.
○ Riots over the scarcity of food broke out in
the capital, Petrograd, and, when most of
the Petrograd garrison joined the revolt,
Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.
When his brother, Grand Duke Michael,
refused the throne, more than 300 years of
rule by the Romanov dynasty came to an
end.
● POLITICAL STATUS AFTER NICHOLAS II
○ https://www.britannica.com/event/Russia
n-Revolution
○ By 1917 the bond between the tsar and
most of the Russian people had been
broken.
○ Governmental corruption and inefficiency
policies had spread dissatisfaction even to
moderate elements. The Russian Empire’s
many ethnic minorities grew increasingly
restive under Russian domination.
○ A committee of the Duma appointed a
Provisional Government to succeed the
autocracy, but it faced a rival in the
Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies.
○ On March 1, the Soviet issued its famous
Order No. 1, which directed the military to
obey the orders of the Soviet and not those
of the Provisional Government. The
Provisional Government was unable to
countermand the order.
○ All that now prevented the Petrograd Soviet
from openly declaring itself the real
 - Russia’s middle class rapidly expanded and government of Russia was fear of
challenged the nobility in terms of wealth provoking a conservative coup.
- The active nobles were also transforming their ○ But while the Provisional Government’s
families into a business class (upper-middle class) power waned, that of the soviets was
- Russia entered the war with a society in extreme increasing, as was the Bolsheviks’
flux with numerous social issues left unsolved influence within them.
- Industrial workers had been on strike for over two ○ By September the Bolsheviks and their
years when the war began allies, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries,
- They were angry at the entrepreneurs and had overtaken the Socialist Revolutionaries
proprietors since they made them work long hours and Mensheviks and held majorities in both
for inadequate pay the Petrograd and Moscow soviets.
- The pre-war bourgeoisie showed sympathy for the ○ The Provisional Government was
workers’ plight and advocated for them in the reorganized twice over its eight-month
government existence, each time as a coalition of
- The government used patriotism to suppress several political parties.
worker unrest and drove socialist parties and labor ○ At no point, however, was it able to
unions underground adequately address the major problems
- The worker strikes completely stopped once the afflicting the country, and it was swept
war broke out from power in a bloodless coup by the
- Peasant unrest was at a fairly low level for most of Bolsheviks in the second phase of the
the war Russian Revolution.
- High casualties, inflation, food shortages, massive ○ By autumn the Bolshevik program of
mobilization efforts, government incompetence, “peace, land, and bread” had won the party
and the tsar’s unpopularity destroyed the potential considerable support among the hungry
social peace Russia seemed to have. urban workers and the soldiers, who were
- Growing amounts of worker strikes basically led to already deserting from the ranks in large
the February Revolution numbers.
- The nobility supported the war
- Workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia hated the
government for their entrance into the war, their
mishandling of the war, and the wartime repression
as well
- Peasant unrest in the previous decade broke the
regime’s dream of peasant royalty
- Revolutionary parties contained people of Baltic,
Polish, Armenian, Georgian, Tatar, and Jewish
descent

OUTLINE FOR FINAL POSTER:

● THESIS: While the Russian Revolution was partly impacted by the Great War in economic aspects, the main cause of the Revolution was due to Russia’s internal weaknesses, both socially and politically, before the war even started..
○ TOPIC SENTENCE 1 (CONCESSION): Great War caused economic collapse, leading peasants and lower class to revolt (Great War was a catalyst - speeds up a reaction, but does not create it)
○ TOPIC SENTENCE 2 (ASSERTION): Tsar problems before Great War
○ TOPIC SENTENCE 3 (ASSERTION): Labor issues and peasant problems before Great War