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The Soviet Experiment

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In 1900 the head of the Russian state was _______?
Nicholas II (1894-1917)
From the time of _________, the law declared that the monarch was "not obliged to answer for his actions to anyone in the world."
Peter the Great
Who enserfed the Russian peasantry in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
The tsarist government
Who handsomely rewarded the landed gentry when he freed the serfs from bondage in the 1800s?
Tsar-Liberator, Alexander II (1855-81)
Who thought of themselves as the proper governing class of the empire, particularly in the provinces, even though those nobles who stayed in the countryside lost much of their influence to the highest hereditary nobles nearer to court? (ca1800s)
Landed nobles
Who gave legal freedom to the serfs?
The tsar
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the amount of land held by peasants increased until by (year) peasants owned about (amount) of the arable land.
1905

two-thirds
Often viewed as a period of reactionary policies and social repression.
Reign of Alexander III (1881-94)
The monarchy made a strong effort to improve the position of the nobility during the reign of _______.
Alexander III (1881-94)
Which emperor, who was an avowed anti-Semite, once said, "In the depth of my soul I am happy when the Jews are beaten up."
Alexander III (1881-94)
Prepared to quash any resistance or opposition to the smooth functioning of his state, he sought to surround himself with "true Russians" as advisors. Who was he?
Alexander III (1881-94)
What was the upper house of parliament called in Russia?

And the lower house?
State Council

Duma
Who secularized the church's enormous land holdings and deprived it of its serfs and much of its revenues?
Catherine the Great
The Russian Orthodox church's greatest challenge came from an antireformationist movement known as ________.
Old Belief
Who said, "the state was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous."
Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci
From the early nineteenth century those distinguished from the rest of society by education and their reformist attitudes were known collectively as _________.
the intelligentsia
A group of men and women of different social origins united by vague feelings of alienation from society and dedicated to changing Russian society and politics.
Intelligentsia
With the ascension of this emperor, a new era of somewhat freer expression and reform began.
Alexander II
With the outbreak of revolutions in western Europe, when did the tsar crack down hard on dissident politics within his empire?
1848
_________'s early reign was also a time in which non-Russian peoples of the empire enjoyed relatively benign treatment by the tsarist government.
Alexander II's
What nationality was Karl Marx, and when did he live?
German

1818-83
What was the name of the first Russian Marxist organization?

Where was it formed, and in what year?

Who formed it?
Liberation of Labor Group

Geneva in 1883

Plekhanov and his comrades
Who was Vladimir Ulianov?
Lenin
When was Russia's first industrial revolution?

When did industrial growth slow down?
In the 1880s and 1890s

Around 1900
In Russia, what are the years 1905-07 referred to?

What did the October Manifesto do?
The "first Russian Revolution."

It established a limited constitutional regime.
When was the first time in Russian history political parties and trade unions were allowed to exist legally?
Following the October Manifesto.
What event was the last straw that cracked the back of tsarism?
World War I
Which Russian prime minister hoped to create a "Great Russia" through a careful program of internal reforms and believed that for this he required "twenty years of peace?"
Petr Stolypin (1906-11)
Which prime minister's most significant reform was to encourage peasants to leave the commune and become independent farmers on their privatized land?
Petr Stolypin
With who's demise did effective government in Russia cease?
prime minister Petr Stolypin
When did Russia emerge from the deep economic depression that had halted the industrialization of the 1890s?
1909
When was the Soviet system established?
In November 1917
When was Marxism destroyed?
1991
When was the Chernobyl disaster?
1986
What percent of the globe does Russia comprise?
one-sixth
How many times zones are in Russia?
Eleven
When did the Russian ruble become devalued, leading to financial collapse?
1998
When did the great Russian novelist Lev Tolstoy die?
1910
What did the Russian Orthodox Church consider the great Russian novelist Lev Tolstoy to be?
A heretic.

(a person who holds religious beliefs in conflict with the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church)
Who were considered the most radical socialists?
The Bolsheviks
Over time ______ had prevented the development of an autonomous civil society, repressed the emergence of the independent institutions and channels of communication from society to the state.
tsarism
What was the Russian imperial line that ruled from 1613 to 1917 called?
Romanov
The troops most loyal to the tsar?
Cossacks
Who was the last tsar of Russia?
Nicholas II
The Russian Revolution of 1917 ended how many years of monarchy?
A thousand years
Which group presented themselves as the most radical of the socialist parties?
The Bolsheviks
What did Lenin's "April Theses" do?
It rejected support for the Provisional Government.
Whose slogan was this:

"All power to the soviets!"
Lenin
Which group committed themselves to the idea of class government, of rule by the lower orders of society and the elimination from political power of the people of property?
The Bolsheviks
A Russian member of the left-wing majority group that followed Lenin and eventually became the Russian communist party.
Bolshevik
Derived from Russian word loosely translated as "majority"
Bolshevik
Russian Communist: a member of the radical group within the Russian Socialist party that became the Communist Party in 1918
Bolshevik
Communist or Communist sympathizer: somebody who is a Communist or is sympathetic to Communism
Bolshevik
political radical: any revolutionary or radical socialist ( disapproving )
Bolshevik
Of all the major political parties in revolutionary Russia, (person)'s followers were unique in opposing the coalition government that attempted to link the top and bottom of society in a common political effort.
Lenin's
The ______ committed themselves to the idea of class government, of rule by the lower orders of society and the elimination from political power of people of property.
Bolsheviks
What group formed the first government in world history to call itself socialist?
Bolsheviks
What are the three Cs of late communism?
Coerion, Consent, and Consumerism
Who was known as the 'tsar-liberator'
Alexander II
Khrushchevs agricultural reforms resulted in an increase in agricultural output of ____ percent, in ruble terms, from 1953 to 1964.
74
By the end of the 1950s, agriculture began to ________.
suffer
Who improved the lot of the collective farmer?
Khrushchev
Who raised the standard of living of industrial workers between 1952 and 1964?
Khrushchev
What does the name Sputnik mean?
It's the first space satellite, and it means "fellow travler."
When was Sputnik launched?
October 4, 1957
What was the name of the dog orbiting the Earth in the Russian rocket?
Laika
What was the name of the first human in space?

When did this occur?
Yurii Gagarin

April 1961
What is the year of Khrushchev's fall?
1964
Khrushchev remained committed to the _________ inherent in Marxist theory.
egalitarianism
When did the Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional Government?
November 1917
What years did the Bolshevik Revolution span?
1900 - 1930
non-class book (ncb)

Before 1917 Russia and her empire were ruled by...
the tsars of the Romanov dynasty.
ncb

Nicholas II was overthrown in the ______, and the ensuing Provisional Gov't of liberals and socialists lasted ____
February Revolution

merely a few months.
ncb

Who organized the October Revolution in 1917?
Vladimir Lenin and his communist party.
ncb

Who organized the the world's first communist state, when did it occur and how long did it survive?
Vladimir Lenin

It occurred in October 1917, and it survived until the USSR's abolition in 1991 (74 yrs).
ncb

After the October [1917] Revolution, a _______ broke out across Russia and her former empire.
Civil War
ncb

Who introduced a New Economic Policy in 1921 which made temporary concessions especially to the peasantry?
Lenin
ncb
When did Lenin die?
1924
ncb
By the end of the 1920s, who hurled [Russia] into a campaign for forced-rate industrialization and forcible agricultural collectivization? What follow in the late 1930s?
Iosif Stalin

The Great Terror
ncb
When did Stalin bring Eastern Europe under Soviet dominion?
After Germany's defeat in 1945.
ncb
When did Stalin die? Who followed him?
1953

Nikita Khrushchev
ncb
Who created a totalitarian state by purging all opposition?
Stalin
ncb
Who's rule produced such political instability and resentment that in 1964 he was ousted by his colleagues?
Nikita Khrushchev
ncb
Who was Khrushchev's successor?
Leonid Brezhnev
ncb
When did Leonid Brezhnev die?
1982
ncb
When did Mikhail Gorbachev become communist party leader, and what did he introduce?
1985

He introduced radical reforms of policies and institutions.
ncb (non-class book)
Russia and other Soviet Republics were independent by (year).
1992
ncb
Under who's leadership was a Commonwealth of Independent States formed?
Boris Yeltsin
ncb
Who ordered the storming of the Russian White House in Oct 1993 and the arrest of his opponents? What precipitated this?
Boris Yeltsin

recurrent conflict among politicians
ncb
Who was Yeltsin's successor?
Vladimir Putin
ncb
What left the USSR as a world power at last?
WWII
What was the first step toward [Soviet] dictatorship following the October Revolution?
To exclude the upper and middle classes of Russia from political participation. In other words, the elimination of the upper classes, the bourgeoisie, and the clergy. This occurred btwn Oct 1917 and Jan 1918.
What was the second major step toward dictatorship following the October Revolution?
The formation of a one-party gov't (by the summer of 1918).
Onelook.com
A Russian member of the liberal minority group that advocated gradual reform and opposed the Bolsheviks before and during the Russian Revolution.
Menshevik(s)
Onelook.com
A Russian member of the left-wing majority group that followed Lenin and eventually became the Russian communist party.
Bolsheviks
(Encarta)
1. Russian Communist: a member of the radical group within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party that became the Communist Party in 1918.
Bolshevik
(Encarta)
moderate Russian Marxist: a member of the moderate minority faction of the Marxist Social Democratic Party in prerevolutionary Russia that advocated a gradual approach to social reform, in contrast to the Bolsheviks.
Menshevik(s)
(Encarta)
1. Bolshevik ideology: the ideology and policies of the Bolsheviks, especially advocacy of the forcible overthrow of capitalism.
Bolshevism
(Encarta)
2. Communist or Communist sympathizer: a Communist or somebody who shares the ideals of Communism.
Bolshevik
True or False

Its earliest incarnation soviet government was potentially one of the most democratic in history?
True
What was the Central Executive Committee of Soviets elected by?
The congresses of soviets
The early soviet democratic political arena was steadily limited in what five successive steps:
The exclusion from political activity of the propertied classes, the establishment of a one-party government, the elimination of rival political parties and the monopolization of politics by the Communist Party, the suppression of dissent and factions within the Communist Party, and finally the rise of a single faction dominated Stalin.
The immediate effect of the October Revolution and the drive for a Soviet government was to...
exclude the upper and middle classes of Russia from participation. Only workers, peasants, and soldiers were permitted to vote for the soviets. The old Duma parties, from the liberal Kadets to the monarchists and nationalists, were completely eliminated from the soviet structure.
In its earliest incarnation soviet government was to be immediately responsible to...
the Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK)

Deck Info

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