Test: Socialism in Europe & the Russian Revolution (Term II)- 1

Solution: The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party, committed to the ideas of Karl Marx. They believed that the working classes would, at some point, liberate themselves from the economic and political control of the ruling classes. Once they had achieved this, a genuine socialist society based on equality, could be established.

Solution: (i) Russia became the first country to establish a communist state. Soon after it, communist parties were formed in many countries.

(ii) The Bolsheviks encouraged colonial peoples to follow their experiment.

(iii) Many non-Russians from outside the USSR participated in the Conference of the Peoples of the East (1920) and the Bolshevik-founded Comitern, an international union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties. Some received education in the USSR's Communist University of the Workers of the East.

(iv)Socialism became popular by the time of the outbreak of the Second World War. By the end of the twentieth century, the international reputation of the USSR as a socialist country had declined though it was recognised that socialist ideals still enjoyed respect among its people. But in each country the ideas of socialism were rethought in a number of ways.

Solution: The communist ideology was developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and is the opposite of a capitalist one, which relies on democracy and production of capital to form a society.

Solution: Socio-economic condition of Russia before the Revolution of 1905

(i) About 85 percent of the Russian population earned their living from agriculture.

(ii) Industry was found in pockets and craftsman took much of the production.

(iii) Most industries were the private property of industrialists.

(iv) In craft units and small workshops, the working day was sometimes 15 hours.

(v) Accommodation varied from rooms to dormitories.

(vi) Workers were divided in social groups.

(vii) Women made up 31 percent of the factory Inborn and were paid less.

Three major effects of the First World War in Germany are:

(i) World War I, ended with the Allies defeating Germany and the Central Powers in November 1918. The Peace Treaty at Versailles with the Allies was a harsh and humiliating Treaty. Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13 percent of its territories, 75 percent of its iron and 26 percent of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.

(ii) The Allied Powers demilitarized Germany to weaken its power. Germany was forced to pay compensation amounting to 6 billion.

(iii) The Allied armies also occupied the resource-rich Rhineland.

Solution: The first Duma opened on 27 April 1906 after the 1905 revolution and was established by Nicholas II in his October Manifesto, with around 500 deputies; most radical left parties, such as the Socialist Revolutionary Party had boycotted the election, leaving the moderate Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) with the most deputies (around 180). Second came an alliance of slightly more radical leftists, the Trudoviks (Laborites) with around 100 deputies. To the right of both were a number of smaller parties, including the Octobrists. Together, they had around 45 deputies. Other deputies, mainly from peasant groups, were unaffiliated.

Solution: Conservatives

i) Conservatives were opposed to radicals and liberals.

ii) Earlier, in the eighteenth century, conservatives had been generally opposed to the idea of change.

iii) By the nineteenth century, they accepted that some change was inevitable.

iv) They believed that the past had to be respected and change had to be brought about through a slow process.

Solution: Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’État against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and within two days had formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Bolshevik Russia, later renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was the world’s first Marxist state.

Solution: On Sunday, 25th February, the government suspended the Duma. Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government to run the country.

Solution: Workers in England and Germany began forming associations to fight for better living and working conditions. They set up funds to help members in times of distress and demanded a reduction of working hours and the right to vote.

Solution: The year 1904 was a particularly bad one for Russian workers. Prices of essential goods rose so quickly that the real wages declined by 20%. During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma as it was called in Russia.