Topic Four

• Describe a background to russian minorities (2) - Over half of the people who lived in the empire were not russian, stemming from the expansion of russian empire from the grand duchy of moscovy, meaning the empire was a diverse micture of groups - 1897 census revealed 44% of the population was russian, 70% orthodox, 10% catholic and 12% muslim
• Describe the tsarist attitudes towards national minortities (3) - Tsars sought to preserve control of minorities and preserve the three pillars - Different nationalities had different relationships with the tsars, either loyal, disloyal or jewish, loyals included the finns aand baltic germans while the poles were disloyal - Alexander II was reactive, alexander III and nicholas were more proactive
• What are the three factors we judge the tsarist policy towards national minorities - Constitutional Rights - Repression - Culture
• What is the tsarist policy towards national minorities - Russification
• What are the national minorities we focus on (particularily with the tsarist policy) (5) - Poland - Ukraine - Baltic States - Finland - Jews
• Describe constitutional rights under Alexander II towards poland in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (2) - Following 1863 polish revolt alexander II divided poland and lithuania into 10 military provinces and placed military governors restrictine constitutional rights be enforcing harsh control - Zemstvas did not extend into national minorities and by 1914 only 37 out of 90 russian provinces had a zemstva
• Describe constitutional rights under Alexander II towards Ukraine, baltic states, finland in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities - Zemstvas were not introduced into national minorities and by 1914 only 37 out of 90 russian provinces had a zemstva
• Describe constitutional rights under Alexander III towards finland in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities - Tried to reduce the diets influence by ensuring russian laws were prevalent over finnish laws, he was key in influencing the 1892 attempts to reduce the finish influence over russian laws
• Describe constitutional rights under Alexander III towards Jews in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (2) - Tolstoys 1882 temporary rules forced greater enforcement of laws relating to the pale, the 1882 minister of war declared jews could not occupy more than 5% of the armies medical personnel - 1890 Zemstva act denied jews the right to vote in county elections
• Describe constitutional rights under Nicholas II towards finland in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (3) - Like alexander II he tried to reduce the diets influence with the february 1899 manifesto taking powers away from the finnish diet - Nicholas was forced to give power back to the diet in 1905 after the 1905 revolution - 1906 Vyborg manifesto - led to finland becoming a hive of radicalism, leading to the 1910 law of all empire legislation procedures, removing finnish legislative powers from the diet to the duma and 1912 law of equality opening finnis...
• Describe repression under Alexander II towards Poland in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (2) - Alexander II divided poland into 10 provinces with military governors, russified the university of warsaw in 1869 and confiscated 1400 polish estates and granted to royalists - General Muraviev (one of the 10 governors) was a military governor exiled 70,000 to siberia and hanged 400 poles following the revolt
• Describe repression under Alexander II towards Ukraine and Baltic States in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (2) - Russification was carried out in a peaceful manner as there was no move for ukrainian independance and russification faced less resistance - The baltic states, like ukraine were part of the loyal group and there was no move for ukranian independance
• Describe repression under Alexander III towards Ukraine and the Baltic states in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities - Russification was peaceful, with both groups part of the loyal group so russification was more peaceful
• Describe repression under Alexander III towards Jews in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (3) - Following alexander II assassination russians blamed the jews and embarked on pogroms targetting jewish property, like those in keiv and odessa in may 1881, authorities did little to prevent these from occuring - Tolstoy became minister of the interior in 1882 and implemented the temporary rules including the investigation of jewish economic activity and forbidding jews from living or owning property outside large towns even within the pale - 1887 Delyanov, mi...
• Describe repression under Nicholas II towards Ukraine and the baltics in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities - Russification was peaceful in terms of repression under nicholas II - he obviously clamped down more on the consitutional rights of finland
• Describe culture under Alexander II in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities - In poland alexander II clamped down on polish identity following the polish revolt in 1863, russian became the official language and polish was banned with the university of warsaw being russified in 1869
• Describe culture under Alexander III towards poland and ukraine in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (2) - Polish national landguage was banned in public instutions, polish national bank was closed down in 1885 and catholic churches were closed with religion restricted - this was part of his proactive policy - Ukraine had its own language and culture, alexander III took a more peaceful apporach to russification focussing mainly on their language, books were not allowed to be published in ukranian for example
• Describe culture under Alexander III towards baltic states and jews in terms of the tsarist policy of russification towards national minorities (2)( - In the baltic states between 1855 and 1889 russian was introduced into offices, schools and legal systems, university of dorpat was closed and reopened as Yuryev a russian university - In terms of jews from 1887 jews were expelled due to their religion, in 1891 a large number of jews were expelled from moscow univeristy and over the course of his regin 2/3 of jewish students were forced to leave
• Describe the provisional governments attitude towards national minorities (2) - The absence of central power after the february revolution allowed minorities to form separatist movements and independant national institutions, but the government were actually united by the desire to maintain the empires borders - They attempted to put the matter of national minorities off until they gained legitimacy through elections
• What were the provisional governments policies towards national minorities (2) - Ukraine formed the rada on the 4th march 1917, aiming for greater autonomy within the empire, lvov was forced to comprimise and give the rada autonomy to prevent ukraines independance - 23rd June 1917 finland unilaterally declared independance, in July the provisional government, like alexander II reactively sent troops to the border and forced the finns to back down
• Describe the communist attitudes to national minorities (2) - Tsars wanted to impose autocracy and russification, communists wanted to spead marxist ideology and communist revolution with class transcending the idea of nationality, classes would unite rather than nations - In order to spread communist ideology they needed to control national minorities so in some ways were similar to the tsars, they adopt similar approaches but their intended outcomes were different
• Describe constitutional rights in terms of lenins treatment of minorities in the 1903 to 1917 pre power era (2) - issued the decree on nationalities which was signed by both lenin and stalin in october 1917, granting greater freefoms and development of national minorities, and a marked shift away from russification - Finland was granted independance just weeks after the seizure of power and between january and march 1918 ukraine and georgia also followed suit with a number of other countries
• Describe repression in terms of lenins treatment of minorities in the 1903 to 1917 pre power era - Lenins decree on nationalities in october 1917 granted national minorities free self determination and free development
• Describe constitutional rights in terms of lenins treatment of minorities in the 1918-1924 civil war and 1924 constitution era (3) - Introduced the 1924 constiution creating the USSR from the RSFSR, each ssr had autonomy and control over education and local law - However following the success of 1924 constitution the SSRs aoutonomy was superficial, with the moscow communist party makinf decisions which were unifrmly enforced in the SSRs helping lenin maintain power - lenin also reversed his policy with the decree on nationalities and aimed to create a federal republic to spread marxist ideolog...
• Describe culture in terms of lenins treatment of minorities in the 1918-1924 civil war and 1924 constitution era (3) - 1924 constitution gave SSRs the right to control education and law and there were no attempts to russify national minorities, they had more cultural autonomy than ever before - All schools in minority regions were taught their own regional languages - However, like the tsars as cultural independance gre more minorities wanted political independance, like georgias nationalist uprising in 1924, which was crushed similar to that of the polish uprising, despite georgias right to ...
• Describe constitutional rights in terms of Stalins treatment of minorities in the 1928-1945 Sovietisation era (2) - 1936 stalin constitution expanded the number of SSRs to include kazakhstan, with the intention of spreading the sovietisation policy - In the build up to war stalin annexed eastern poland with the 1939 molotov ribbentrop pact and five new ssrs were added to build up a buffer zone to the nazis
• Describe sovietisation (2) - Aimed to make people more loyal to the soviet union by forcing people to adopt a way of life and culture modelled after the soviet union, ending lenins tolernat policies - Sovietisation was similar to russification but was justified by marxist internationalist principles
• Describe repression in terms of Stalins treatment of minorities in the 1928-1945 Sovietisation era (3) - Repression increased to whole new levels during sovietisation, holodomor famine killed 5 million between 1932 and 34, attributed as a purge of ukranians resistant to sovietisation - Ukranian, belorussian and other minority communist parties were purged under stalins great purge to enforce sovietisation - Became more extreme in the build up to war, Katyn massacres in spring 1940 where the NKVD executed 22,000 polish officers who could pose a threat to sovietisation
• Describe Culture in terms of Stalins treatment of minorities in the 1928-1945 Sovietisation era (3) - Sovietisation wanted to create a singular soviet identity which enabled him to enforce totalitarian regime and his collectivisation policy - Ethnic cleansing of 2 million crimean tartars and 600,000 volga germans as they did not conform to the soviet values of sovietisation - Sovietisation also introduced pro russian policies with russian being made coomposory in all schools across the USSR from 1938
• Describe constitutional rights in terms of Stalins treatment of minorities in the 1945-1964 Soviet Sphere of inluence era - World war 2 transformed the USSR into a global superpower and allowd stalin to export sovietisation into europe, creating satellite states, where the USSR did not officially have control by moscow heavily influenced, like hungary
• Describe repression in terms of Stalins treatment of minorities in the 1945-1964 Soviet Sphere of inluence era - Gretaer levels of repression to enforce sovietisation amongst the sphere of influence, georgian revolt was repressed following the 1951 attempt to use its right to leave the soviet union, leadership was purged and replaced with loyalists
• Describe repression in terms of Khrushchev's treatment of minorities in the 1945-1964 Soviet Sphere of inluence era (2) - 1953 uprising came as a result of sovietisation amongst the sphere of influences, soviets put down the uprising with soviet tanks stationed in germany to ensure sovietisation could continue - 1956 Hungarian uprising, called for reforms after the destalinisation speech, 3000 were killed and Imre Nagy leader of the hungarian communist party who called to leave the warsaw pact was replaced and executed
• Describe culture in terms of Stalins treatment of minorities in the 1945-1964 Soviet Sphere of inluence era - Stalin introduced anti-semetic policies, jewish schools and libraries were shut down and jews in public offices were purged