... autocracy for a limited time only, as these reforms didn't mean better living standards, this led to the growth of discontent and oppositional threats. The establishment of the secret police, the Okhrana was successful to an extent in preserving autocracy during 1855-1900 as they prevented earlier assassination attempts on the life of Tsar Alexander II but did not ... not use terror as a means to preserve a dictatorship, rather he reversed all limitations Stalin had created through terror through the First Thaw, for example, the power of the secret police, became limited, media censorshi...

• Word Count: 1853
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... was Kirov who was assassinated on December 1, 1934. This was a turning point in Stalin's relationship with the rest of the Communist Party. The assassin--who had been hired by the secret police, the NKVD--was shot, along with all his close relatives (this would become a typical Stalinist tactic). Then, in quick succession, a number of minor Party men who had supported Kamenev and ... better, they might rebel. Thus he now began a drive to maintain control at all costs. His inner circle was shaken up: Lavrenti Beria remained in power as head of the secret police, but Molotov began to fade...

• Word Count: 5151
• Approx Pages: 21
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... who had to put up with it through the false trials, pressure from managers and even being hijacked themselves, as well as having to pay bribes to their managers, the police and other administrators as the corruption in the Soviet Union grew. However, there were also eventually many benefits to the soviet people from industrialisation. In 1936, all food rationing was ... slave labour from these, but apart from the elimination of the Kulaks, this was a result of Stalin's paranoia and insecurity in power which resulted in him setting up secret police and even police for the secret police. ...

• Word Count: 5589
• Approx Pages: 22
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . The officials were often brought up on fictitious charges usually having something to do with spying or rebellion and demonized as enemies of the state. Stalin set up his own secret police, NKVD, that were extremely obedient and given unlimited power. According to Robert Conquest, writer of The Great Terror - A Reassessment, before 1934 there was still some underground opposition to Stalin in ... state it could still overrule him. After the murder of Sergei Kirov, Leningrad Party chief, in 1934 Stalin launched a campaign of terror to eliminate the party of all opposition. The secret po...

• Word Count: 1728
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... them, however they refuse to do so. Soon after, the Duma steps up and forms the Provisional Government. The Tsar advocates without the use of resistance, and his armies and secret police disintegrate within the next few days. WW I is the decisive factor in the overthrow of the regime, because the people could now blame the Tsar for all of their problems ... by the Bolsheviks. Therefore, the Provisional Government never really held any power, as it is always at the mercy of the majority. After the Tsar fell, his institutions such as police, army, etc, fall with him. The constitutional or...

• Word Count: 1522
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... restrictions based on social, religious and national grounds. 4 Immediate preparation for the calling of a constituent assembly, elected by universal, equal, secret and direct suffrage which will determine the form of government and the constitution of the country. 5 The replacement of the police by a national militia with elective officers, subject to the organs of local self government. 6 Elections of the organs of local ... self-government to be carried out on the basis of universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage. 7 the military units which took part in the revolutionary movement...

• Word Count: 1584
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of representation among the people considering that Tsar easily ignored the Duma, a body that was elected in the year 1905. The emperor thwarted any form of opposition by employing the secret police forces and so the freedom of expression was really limited and this included the spread of information through the newspaper, and even books. The rebellion against the royal family was ... a new paper and called it Pravda as the earlier newspaper and this annoyed Trotsky so much that he wrote a letter to Mensheviks denouncing Lenin, though it was intercepted by the police. The World War I wa...

• Word Count: 3845
• Approx Pages: 15
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Russia in 1906 describing Nicholas as 'the gentle but uneducated Emperor, weak on every point except his own autocracy.' The Okhrana, or the 'protective section' were a group of secret police that helped Nicholas main autocratic rule, silencing those who criticised the Tsar and censoring books and newspapers. The Tsar's ideology of supreme Autocratic rule yet having no leadership qualities in ... ...

• Word Count: 1021
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... to authoritarian measures. This repression that characterized the imposing of Bolshevik control over Russia later became known as the terror. Every Bolshevik activist suffered at the hands of the cheka (secret police) and no opposition within the Red Army was tolerated, with execution being imposed for desertion or disloyalty. ...

• Word Count: 337
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... 1918 to March 1921 (New Economic Policy- NEP). Working hours rose to 10-11 hours, and all paper money lost its value. Peasants could only watch helplessly as the Cheka (Secret police) ruthlessly seized most of their grains to distribute to the townspeople and the army. Between 1918-1920, 8 million perished, 7.5 million due to hunger and diseases. The "Red Terror", enforced by ... ...

• Word Count: 1454
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... suspected of opposing Stalin's regime were killed or imprisoned. During this period, the practice of mass arrest, torture and imprisonment or execution without fair trial of anyone suspected by the secret police became commonplace. About one million people were shot during the periods of 1935-38, 1942 and 1945-1950, and millions of people were transported to Gulag labour camps. Several show ... ...

• Word Count: 1356
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . Also prominent in winning the civil war was the concept of war communism, in which the government took control of food supplies and all of the banks. The Cheka, Lenin's secret police, dispersed riots and instilled a type of terror in the hearts of the people. The Bolsheviks successful rise from a small socialist group to its seizure of power in 1917 was due ... ...

• Word Count: 975
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... both the peasant uprisings of 1905-6 and the opposition political parties in that same period. Fitzpatrick states that "there clearly were strong elements of continuity between the Tsarist and Soviet secret police", but that is where the similarities end. The responses enforced through these organs were vastly different for each regime; Tsarism was reactionary and repressive, and ultimately inflexible in its responses ... ...

• Word Count: 956
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate