AS History₇₀₄₁

This option allows students to study in breadth issues of change, continuity, cause and consequence in this period through the following key questions:

• How was Russia governed and how and how did political authority change and develop?
• Why did opposition develop and how effective was it?
• How and with what results did the economy develop and change?
• What was the extent of social and cultural change?
• How important were ideas and ideology?
• How important was the role of individuals and groups and how were they affected by developments?

Autocracy, Reform and Revolution: Russia, 1855–1917

Trying to preserve autocracy, 1855–1894

• Political authority and the state of Russia: autocracy; the political, social and economic condition of Russia in 1855 and the impact of the Crimean War
• Political authority and attempts at reform: Alexander II; emancipation of the serfs and attempts at domestic and military reform
• Government and Tsars: Alexander II and Alexander III as rulers; attitudes to and imposition of autocracy; key developments
• Political authority in action: Russification; treatment of ethnic minorities and Jews
• Opposition: ideas and ideologies; individuals; liberals and radical groups and the Tsarist reaction
• Economic and social developments: industrial developments and the land issue; social divisions; nobles, landowners and position of the peasantry; the cultural influence of the Church

The collapse of autocracy, 1894–1917

• Political authority, government and Tsar; Nicholas II as ruler: political developments to 1914; 1905 Revolution; Duma government
• Economic developments to 1914: industrial and agricultural growth and change
• Social developments to 1914: change and conditions of working and living in towns and countryside; social divisions; cultural changes
• Opposition: ideas and ideologies, liberalism, socialism; Marxism; individuals and radical groups
• Political authority, opposition and the state of Russia in wartime: the political, economic and social problems of wartime; opposition and the collapse of autocracy; the political developments of 1917
• Political authority, opposition and government: the Bolshevik takeover and the establishment of Bolshevik government by December 1917; opposition