A* OCR A LEVEL HISTORY RUSSIA NOTES - got me an A* in the 2024 exam

THE ONLY RUSSIA RESOURCE YOU NEED TO PURCHASE

includes:

• summary narrative of entire period
• topics organised thematically and then into subtopics with key facts and statistics by ruler condensed into easy bite sized chunks for breadth questions
• depth topics organised into essay plans including key facts and statistics
• exam technique including advice directly from examiners
• past paper questions with essay plans
• two exemplar essays

collated based off my own class notes, teacher resources and other tes resources - this is why they are the most detailed notes you will come across for that guaranteed A*!!!

example of thematic notes:

GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

PEASANT OPPOSITION:

Alexander II:

• Used army 150 times to deal with peasant unrest between 1855-1860
• 1861 Bezdna revolt, 57 peasants killed, leaders executed
  Alexander III:
• 1893 army must deal with peasant unrest 19 times
  Nicholas II:
• 1902 army must deal with peasant unrest 522 times
• 1905 agrarian revolt ‘Jacquerie’ uprisings by peasant soldiers returning from Japan following 1905 revolution, 3000 manors seized - 45,000 sent to exile in Siberia and 15,000 hung - effective as led to Stolypin’s reforms
• 1906-14 peasant unrest decreased from 3000 in 1905 to 128 in 1913 due to partial content with Stolypin’s reforms
  Provisional government:
• Peasants ignore orders and seize land from nobles, by July 237 peasant land seizures reported - still do not distribute land
  Lenin:
• Peasants resist grain requisitioning during Civil War meaning had to send Red guards under Food-Supplies Dictatorship into countryside to seize it forcibly
• 1917-1920 ⅔ of new Bolshevik members were peasantry
• 1920 Tambov Revolt led by Green Army which Red Army had great difficulty in suppressing during Red Terror
  Stalin:
• 1928 peasants burn crops and kill animals due to collectivisation and passively resist eg slow work, in Smolensk action against kulaks so severe they begin killing themselves and their families - unsuccessful but did delay introduction through pause in 1929 when Stalin said enforcers had gone dizzy with success - influence on pace of change
• By 1933 murder of rural Communist party members was regular occurrence

OVERVIEW: height of peasant unrest under Nicholas II’s 1905 agrarian revolt (most effective) and then during collectivisation under Stalin (most drastic but least effective), lowest point under A3 probably due to repression, also relatively low under Lenin