Turning Points In 20th Century Russia

In Russia, Westernization was nothing new as the late nineteenth century had rolled around, for they had already been immersed in political conflicts of Western Europe by the earlier parts of the century. Russia’s Westernization had even been started by Peter the Great. Being so well adapted to the politics of the West, the conservative Russian nobility had feared revolutions by the liberal West. Russia then had attempted to

The reforms the Tsar made did nothing to help and this was only aggravated by Russia’s shortcomings in Austria-Hungry and the growing agricultural failures the serfs were facing. Russia had far less superior weapons and the gap between Russian industry and the rest of the world was

In the 1800’s Russia was facing a very difficult time. Russia’s recent defeat in the Crimean war was a wake up call to the autocracy. This defeat proved to the autocracy that Russia had fallen dangerously behind their western neighbors, ultimately making it easy for other countries to attach and invade. At that point, Russia knew it was time for a change and it started with Tsar Alexander II. Alexander II took over as emperor due to his fathers (Nicholas I) death in St. Petersburg. Some say the reason for Russia’s backward spiral was because of him. However, in 1855 the reign of Alexander II in Russia began and during his time he directed a period of political and social reforms. Some of the reforms Alexander II thought had to be changed included: education, military, government, and judicial. Even after trying to make multiple changes and reforms to better the government, someone was still not clicking in the Russian government. The main reason the society had so many problems dealt with the peasants. As many soviet historians have claimed, these reforms were put in place to pacify the peasantry in order to ward off revolution. During this time the peasants had to work on their lord owners land and didn’t have many other options. While under the new Tsar Alexander II the government ran into a dry wall and needed a way out. Alexander II did something that to this day goes down as two perspectives. The first one can be seen as a charter of freedom

History Professor Steven G. Marks, from Clemson University, asserts Russia significantly influenced the world both politically and culturally, particularly between 1880 and 1980 in How Russia Shaped the Modern World. Regardless of Russia's inner turmoil, their detachment from Western values became an emblem of opposition for those who held animosity to the West. Another integral part of Russia's involvement in world history is the Western reaction to its impact a few decades ago. By creating and spreading concepts Russia shaped the twentieth century, taking this into consideration allows new insight on modern history. The chapters go into specific examples, in terms of politics how anarchism and modern terrorism, as adopted by those fighting

His arguably most fundamental reform was the emancipation of serfdom in 1861. As he said, “It is best to abolish serfdom from above than to wait until it abolishes itself from below”. This quote demonstrates his realization that reform was needed. Many saw serfdom as Russia's biggest handicap in development into a new modern era, to be the equal of other European powers. There

One more important discussion in modern historical studies of the Great Reforms is what kind of a “watershed” were they in Russian History. Whether or not the Great Reforms can be counted as a line of demarcation in Russian history is hotly debated. The Reforms uncontestedly constitute a watershed in the history of the serfs, but Russia as a whole, in terms of political and social development, is not agreed upon. Some historians like Bruce Lincoln, see the reforms as a missed watershed. A subtle attempt at reform that continued the old regime and did not alleviate problems, but compounded them. Much of recent scholarship does seem to agree that the reforms had another more important “watershed” development: they undermined the state ideologically.

As mention in his book Mein Kampf, Hitler viewed all of Eastern Europe as “Untermenschen” (sub-human) and assert that Aryan German need to secure more living space, by killing Russian and take it place with purely German.

Serfdom was a problem for Russia because it caused “military incompetence” as well as food shortages, over population, civil disorder, and industrial backwardness. This all meant that Russia was weaker than ever which was then proven in the Crimean war in which the allies defeated Russia leaving Russia humiliated. Because these excuses were so oversimplified “it was, therefore, a particularly easy target for the intelligentsia, those intellectuals who in their writings argued for the liberalising of Russian society, beginning with the emancipation of the exploited

Scholars of the Russian Empire during the twentieth-century were preoccupied with trying to determine what went wrong during the nineteenth-century to cause the events that transpired in 1917. The nineteenth-century became the catalyst of Russia’s downfall both socially, political, and economically during the early years of the Cold War. Historians of Russia’s Great Reforms of 1961 not surprisingly followed this rhetoric as well. The Great Reforms of 1861 assumed a facade of automatic failure in light of the events of 1917. Soviet Scholarship took the reforms as the autocrats last hope of retaining control and often presented them during the Cold War as Russia’s attempt to develop a capitalistic system and ultimately a continuation of the

After the thirteenth century, capital of the Russian Federation became a cultural center. By the eighteenth century, the Tsardom of Russia had become the large Russian Empire, stretching from the Polish border eastward to the Pacific Ocean. expansion in the western direction made Russia aware of its separation from a lot of of the remainder of Europe and shattered the loneliness in which the initial stages of expansion had occurred. ordered regimes of the nineteenth

It is here that the trajectory of Russia, while going towards communist ideals, is shockingly comparable to the French revolution. Russia, like France, had a mighty monarch whose control stretched across the entire system as a whole. The Tsars however, were shockingly efficient and putting down revolutions. Their ability to mobilize massive armies, and their tendency to dominate their enemies created a system in which the Tsar was afforded consistently, the ability to remain in absolute power. Complex bureaucratic systems, along with an intertwined noble-serf/peasant relation left all aspects of society under the Tsar’s control (Skocpol 82). While Russia was able to continue its rapid expansions and military endeavors, industrialization proved to be its downfall. Like the French revolution, the monarch and his noble classes refused to adapt to the changes of society. As the Western nations advanced, Russia met with the difficulties of industrializing its vast, populated landscape through a fully centralized system of feudal relations (Skocpol 83). Here, Russia met with a predicament the Tsars could no longer come out of, the world was progressing faster than it could will its people to without creating tensions. While the Tsar would create an industrialization from above, it would come at the cost of

Russia was struggling to keep up in the intense competition between the European countries. The agricultural economy and absolute monarchy had caused Russia to lack far behind in modernization. Russia’s absolute monarch, the Tsar, ruled over the four social class, the nobility, the clergy, the workers and the peasants. There was an enormous gap between the upper and lower classes. The Tsar at the time, Nicholas II, dealt with this growing problem by censoring the newspapers, oppressing the riots and banning any forming political parties. Although he tried to suppress almost all opposing ideas, the people went on a revolution to overthrow Nicholas II. In March 1917, the people created a provisional government and forced the

The country of Russia has a rich history which, unfortunately, cannot be discussed in its entirety within the context of this briefing book. It should be noted that early modern Russia is often characterized by the strong rulers that presided at the time, and the legacies they left that have helped shape Russia.

Russia has a rich history filled with over 100 nationalities from around the world. Our History began with East Slavs who were Slavic people who spoke Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. We evolved from the medieval state of Kievan Rus into Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian people during the 17th century. Russia is the largest country and the most diverse in the world. The USSR was formed after the collapse of the rule of tsars of the Russian empire due to the revolutions of 1917 which were a series of revolutions that swept Russia due to building social and political unrest. The February revolutions lead to the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II and an installment of a leftist provisional government. The October revolution resulted in the

The Russia of today is not that of the past; Russia throughout history has encountered countless changes in regards to the type of governmental powers they have possessed. Previously, Russia was known as the Russian Empire, being categorized as an unlimited government in which leaders have all the power. “Alexander the Terrible” is considered the original Czar—emperor of Russia; the ruling of Czars ended during the Russian Revolution which followed with the interaction in World War I. Thus, leading to the exoneration of Nicholas II in 1917. Following the involvement of World War I, what was known as the Russian Empire evolved into the Bolshevik party which finally became the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin was the leader of this transition