WELCOME TO

YEAR 13…
Russia and its
Rulers
1855-1964
What do you know?
 What is on the Paper?
• The Paper is the longest one (as it is the most
heavily weighted unit), at 2 hours and 30
minutes.
• You have to complete three questions:
– One is a comparison of interpretations on a
Russian Ruler’s domestic policies worth 30 marks.
– Two thematic essays that analyse an aspect of
Russian history across the whole 109 year period,
both worth 25 marks and 50 marks in all.
 How we will break it down!
Time period Study
Term 6 Year 12 ‘The Story of Russia 1855-1964’
Term 6 and Summer Homework The ‘Meaty Pile of Domestic Policy
Learning’
Term 1 Year 13 Interpretations of Domestic Policy
Term 2 Year 13 The Nature of Russian Government and
Opposition
Term 3/4 Year 13 Russian Economy and Society
Term 4 Year 13 The Impact of War and Revolutions
Term 4/5 Year 13 Empire, Nationalities and the Minorities
Term 5 Revision

Note:
With the teacher of 4 lessons in Year 13, you will be completing your coursework
investigation. The deadline for completion will be February half term. Following this
you will revise Year 12 Tudors and Cold War topics in those lessons for A-Level
standard examination on the units.
 How did Russia come to exist as we know it
it?

Watch this interesting (if a bit weird) crash course in ancient Russian history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etmRI2_9Q_A
 Russia in 1855
• As suggested in the video, following Ivan the Terrible’s
reign, Russia’s Tsars maintained the principle of complete
autocracy. They had total one man rule over the entire
nation.
• There was no national Parliament or any form of elective
government. He chose government ministers, who were
essentially advisors with no real power.
• He was head of the armed forces and Head of the Russian
Orthodox Church, which supported his autocracy through
the idea that he was ‘the Little Father’, essentially, God’s
representative on Earth who should be obeyed.
 Russia in 1855
• Russia was also, as began by the Mongols, a very subservient
society with a clear hierarchy.
• The ‘slave’ element of the Russian past had been ingrained
into the principle of ‘serfdom’. 80% of the Russian population
were serfs, who were the personal property of landowners.
• They farmed the land for their landowner and whilst not
technically slaves, had severe social controls open them –
they could not just uproot and begin their own independent
lives.
• Russia had more in common with Medieval feudal England
than it did with the rest of Europe at the time.
 Russia in 1855
• Most notably Russia had not begun an industrial revolution, that had spread
out of Britain by 1800 to the rest of Europe.
• The new Tsar by 1855, Alexander II, had inherited a Russia that Nicholas I his
father had refused to update, sticking to ‘slavophile’ principles and maintaining
a conservative attitude to the agrarian basis of the nation.
• There was no industry, no middle class, no innovation or technology and a
large but ill prepared serf army that classed as a military.
• In 1812 Napoleon’s vastly superior Grand Armee had invaded Russia and been
defeated by serfs who rose up nationalistically to remove the ‘infidel’. This had
created huge pride, but also arrogance, believing that Russia was invincible.
• The reality of 1812 had been the poor timing of the French invasion to coincide
with winter and the fact that actual Russian army forces had inflicted a lot of
damage at the Battle of Borodino.
• Therefore in 1854 when Russian forces entered the Crimea they were totally
unprepared for the modern war that met them.
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

Alexander II – ‘The
Tsar Liberator’

1855-1881
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

Alexander III – ‘The

Reactionary’

1881-1894
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

Nicholas II – ‘The Last

Tsar’

1894-1917
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

The Provisional
Government – ‘The
Whimper’

1917
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

Lenin – ‘The Red Tsar’

1917-1924
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

Stalin – ‘Man of Steel’

1927/8-1953
Meet the Rulers who had to pick up this
mess…

Khrushchev – ‘The
Shoe-Banger’

1956(ish)-1964
 Post-it!
What do you now know about Russia that you
did not know before?

Post-it Post-it

Post-it Post-it

Post-it Post-it