Unit 3, AOS 1
How did the Russo–Japanese War (1904–05) contribute to revolution in Russia?
Military humiliation at Port Arthur and Tsushima exposed regime incompetence, deepened economic hardship, and shattered the myth of Tsarist invincibility- fueling unrest that culminated in the 1905 Revolution (e.g., Bloody Sunday), strikes, peasant revolts and sowing longer-term revolutionary resentment.
How did the Constituent Assembly and its dissolution challenge consolidation (Jan 1918)?
The SR plurality in the Nov 1917 elections undercut Bolshevik electoral legitimacy. Dissolving the Assembly after one sitting (Jan 1918) alienated moderates, fed civil-war narratives, and forced the regime to justify power via soviets and revolutionary necessity rather than ballots.
How did the Northern Expedition (1926–28) contribute to revolution?
The drive against warlords advanced state-building, but the Shanghai Massacre (Apr 1927) - Jiang's purge of communists - fractured the movement and pushed the CCP toward rural insurgency. Japanese interventions - the Nanjing Incident (1927), the Jinan Incident (1928), and Huanggutun (1928) - inflamed nationalism and exposed GMD weakness, deepening the conditions for continued revolution.
What challenges accompanied social improvements (women, health, literacy)?
The 1950 Marriage Law (free choice, divorce rights) met patriarchal resistance and occasional unrest; integrating women into work/cadres collided with childcare and local norms. Patriotic Health Campaigns (mass vaccinations, sanitation, anti-epidemic drives) faced doctor shortages and logistics, yet reduced mortality and enhanced legitimacy.
How did the post-October “New Decrees” balance change with continuity?
Change: Decree on Land legitimised peasant seizures; Decree on Peace prioritised exit from WWI; Workers’ Control recognised factory committees and sped nationalisation (Vesenkha). Continuity/compromise: reliance on old administrators and “bourgeois specialists,” centralised command, and emergency rule (Cheka) tempered egalitarian aims.
How did the October Manifesto (17 Oct 1905) contribute to revolution?
By promising civil liberties and a Duma, it split the opposition (moderates vs radicals) yet proved hollow when rights were curtailed and power re-centralised (Fundamental Laws, 1906). The resulting disillusionment radicalised activists and eroded faith in constitutional reform.
In what ways did the “White Terror” complicate Bolshevik consolidation (1918–20)?
White armies and associated reprisals/anti-Jewish pogroms, backed variously by foreign aid, opened multi-front warfare, draining resources and destabilising the rear. The violence intensified societal polarisation; while it helped the Bolsheviks legitimise the Red Terror, it prolonged crisis and governance breakdown.
How did the First United Front (1923–27) contribute to the outbreak of revolution?
GMD–CCP cooperation (Comintern-backed) enabled rapid labour and peasant organising, party schooling (Whampoa), and anti-imperialist legitimacy. The 1927 “White Terror” purge destroyed the alliance, radicalised the CCP, and transformed cooperation into civil war.
How did Fanshen and land reform challenge consolidation (1950–52)?
Mobilising poor peasants to “settle accounts” toppled village elites but brought violence, class labelling, and production shocks. Removing local notables also dismantled tax/irrigation know-how, creating administrative gaps. Despite backlash risks, redistribution forged a loyal rural base for the regime.
How did artistic experimentation advance or compromise revolutionary ideals?
Advance: Proletkult, Constructivism, agit-prop trains, posters and film turned art into mass mobilisation and reimagined everyday life. Compromise/continuity: by 1920 Proletkult was subordinated to Narkompros; censorship (e.g., Glavlit, 1922) narrowed pluralism—innovation persisted, but under a tightening party line.
How did the Dumas (1906–17) contribute to revolution?
Repeated dissolutions and electoral manipulation undercut legitimacy, while debates publicised grievances and trained opposition leaders. Stolypin’s reforms were too partial/late; the Dumas became a school of politics that channelled frustration towards extra-parliamentary solutions.
How did policies of State Capitalism create challenges (1917–18)?
The transitional mix - nationalising banks/key sectors, creating Vesenkha, and endorsing limited worker control - produced blurred authority, supply chaos, and falling output. Criticism from Left Communists and factory-committee friction pushed the regime toward harsher centralisation (War Communism, mid-1918).
How did the early Republican era contribute to revolution?
The assassination of Song Jiaoren (1913) and closure of the National Assembly (Jan 1914) by Yuan Shikai shattered parliamentary legitimacy. Yuan’s autocracy (and 1915–16 imperial bid), ensuing warlordism, and foreign humiliations (e.g., Twenty-One Demands, Versailles/Shandong) fuelled May Fourth (1919) nationalism and Marxist currents - priming revolutionary mobilisation.
How did the First Five-Year Plan (1953–57) complicate consolidation?
A Soviet-style heavy-industry push strained planning capacity, rural grain procurement, and transport. Rapid moves toward agricultural cooperatives (1953–56) created friction and shortages, while urban bias widened disparities. Nonetheless, visible steel/coal/rail growth boosted regime prestige and state capacity.
How did education initiatives reflect ideals and pragmatic concessions?
Advance: The Decree on the Unified Labour School (1918) created a single, secular, co-educational, tuition-free system with polytechnic curricula; Narkompros drove Likbez literacy and Rabfak pathways, with avant-garde inputs. Compromise/continuity: teacher/material shortages, reliance on pre-1917 expertise, and tightening ideological supervision curtailed radical pedagogy even as mass schooling expanded.
How did the Dual Authority (Feb–Oct 1917) contribute to revolution?
Power was split between the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet (Order No. 1), producing paralysis on war, land, and bread. This vacuum enabled the Bolsheviks to present a clear programme (“Peace, Land, Bread”) and gain mass support for an insurrection.
What initial problems did Sovnarkom face when trying to consolidate power (late 1917–early 1918)?
Financial paralysis and political blowback from early decrees. Private banks and the State Bank refused credit and froze funds, wages and tax receipts collapsed, and gold/foreign credit were inaccessible - forcing bank nationalisation (Dec 1917) and emergency seizures. The Decree on the Press (27 Oct 1917) provoked legitimacy attacks and civil-service resistance. Meanwhile Left SR partners pushed competing agendas (broad socialist coalition, peasant priorities) and soon broke with the Bolsheviks over Brest-Litovsk, culminating in confrontation in 1918.
How did the Jiangxi (Kiangsi) Soviet (1931–34) contribute to revolution?
Mao/Zhu De built the Red Army, refined guerrilla warfare, and trialled land redistribution and soviet governance. Encirclement campaigns and the Long March (1934–35) forged cadre cohesion and a compelling revolutionary mythos.
What problems did “Thought” reform and early mass campaigns create?
Compulsory study, self-criticism, and denunciation enforced ideological conformity but bred a pervasive climate of fear, self-censorship, and informant culture. The Three-/Five-Anti drives disrupted firms and universities, diverted talent from productive work, triggered brain-drain/withdrawal among intellectuals, eroded trust in work units, and prioritised political loyalty over competence - denting creativity, research quality, and urban output even as Party control tightened.
How did the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956–57) reflect change vs continuity, and why did it end in compromise?
Change: Brief opening to “let a hundred schools of thought contend” suggested space for socialist democracy and policy correction. Continuity/compromise: Criticism quickly threatened party authority; the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957) reversed course, imposing purges and self-censorship. Leaders preserved supremacy, trading consultative ideals for discipline and conformity.
How did the Kornilov Affair (Aug 1917) contribute to revolution?
The perceived coup attempt discredited Kerensky, exposed the Provisional Government’s weakness, and led to arming and legitimising Bolshevik militias (Red Guards). Bolshevik credibility surged, clearing the path to the October seizure of power.
Why was the Kronstadt Revolt a critical threat (Mar 1921)?
Once loyal sailors demanded “soviets without Bolsheviks,” echoing Petrograd strike slogans (“bread, freedom”). Its suppression saved the regime but exposed mass exhaustion and lost support, compelling a strategic retreat to the NEP - a tacit admission that prior methods endangered Bolshevik rule.
How did the Nationalist (Nanjing) Decade (1927–37) contribute to revolution?
Despite currency and infrastructure reforms, the New Life Movement’s proto-fascist moral-discipline campaign (backed by Blue Shirts policing) re-entrenched patriarchal norms and set women back (chastity/domesticity codes), while corruption, rural neglect and growing Japanese aggression eroded GMD legitimacy - driving support towards CCP promises of land, order and national salvation.
What challenges arose in implementing a new political system after 1949?
The CCP consolidated a one-party “people’s democratic dictatorship,” curtailing the “New Democracy” promise of plural participation. Building a Leninist party-state meant absorbing/neutralising minor parties, subordinating courts and press, and running tightly managed, indirect congress elections. Loyalty campaigns (e.g., Thought Reform, Suppression of Counter-revolutionaries) secured control but shrunk civic space, trading revolutionary-era democratic ideals for stability - creating a permanent legitimacy tension between mobilisation rhetoric and authoritarian practice.
How did the Socialist Education Movement balance ideals with practical constraints?
Change: The “Four Clean-ups” (politics, economy, organisation, ideology) and “learn-from” campaigns - Learn from Lei Feng (moral emulation), Learn from Daqing (industry) and Learn from Dazhai (agriculture) - sought to revive the mass line, purge corruption and standardise grassroots practice. Continuity/compromise: Heavy use of work teams, inspections and rectification reaffirmed bureaucratic control; local production and trust suffered, and unresolved tensions primed the Cultural Revolution, revealing limits to egalitarian ideals within a rigid party-state.