Thursday 21 May 2015

How to tackle a turning point essay

A2 OCR History F966/02 Russia and her Rulers

How to tackle a turning point essay

Turning Point Essays
·         In the June 2011 and January 2012 Chief Examiner’s reports these essays have been identified as causing candidates problems.
·         This is because ‘they simply produce a list of possible turning points and then analyse each one in turn, but this does not allow synthesis or comparison between different turning points’.
·         In other words although 4 or 5 possible turning points are discussed, each has its own separate paragraph with comparison missing until the end.
·         The Chief Examiner recommends 2 good approaches:
·         Select 4 or 5 major events and then approach the essay thematically by analysing their impact in terms of issues such as political, social, economic etc. In this way candidates will ensure that they compare the events in each paragraph and can conclude that event X might be most important in terms of political change, but event Y is more important in terms of economic development.
·         However this approach is hard to use if the question specifies ‘most important turning point in the development of Russian government’. Then writing about social or economic developments seriously damages the essay.
·         The Chief Examiner recommends 2 good approaches:
·         Select 4 or 5 major events and then analyse events separately, but in each paragraph make comparison with both the named turning point in the essay question and with other possible turning points so that synthesis is clearly present.

         Unfortunately some candidates still use abbreviations such as Alex II, AIII, N2 or PG; some even state at the start that this is what they will do. This short-hand neither looks good nor reads well’.
Chief Examiner’s Report – June 2011

·         A turning point essay requires you to focus on a specific event or individual, as being the most significant or important event or turning point during the period of Russia history from 1855 to 1964.
·         For instance Stalin, being an important turning point

·         Question styles
·         Government before / after 1917
·         Aims – what did each ruler want to achieve
·         Methods – how did each ruler rule; their policies (reform / repression)
·         Outcomes – how successful was each ruler in achieving their aims
·         Essays asking whether one ruler was better than the rest at ‘something specific’.
·         Essays comparing the nature of Russian government before and after 1917
·         TURNING POINT essays especially related to turning points in how Russia was governed
·         Essays about opposition
·         Which ruler / regime controlled opposition most successfully
·         When and why was opposition more / less successful
·         Living and working conditions – society and the economy
·         Peasants
·         Proletariat                          (or BOTH together)
·         Essays about whether WARS or REVOLUTIONS changed Russian government most






         Turning Point Essays, The Tsarist and Communist Rulers
         A good case could be made that Alexander II’s accession to the throne in 1855 was a significant turning point in the government of Russia. His decision to ‘reform from above’ led to the Emancipation Edict in 1861. In one fell swoop he ended serfdom and brought Russia and its peasants out of medieval feudalism.
         However, this case is flawed. The inadequacies of emancipation were quickly apparent. The lives of the peasants remained grim as exemplified by the famine of 1891.
         For the purposes of an essay about RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT is it relevant? How can you make this relevant? by explaining how freeing the serfs led to changes in government?
         In 1881 the assassination of Alexander II, the ‘Tsar Liberator’, brought a final end to the period of reform dominated by his emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His successor, Alexander III, ruled repressively and autocratically; his reign is often referred to as ‘the Reaction’.
         It has been argued that the assassination of Alexander II marked the last chance that the Romanovs might reform sufficiently to save their doomed dynasty. This argument has some validity but Alexander II, faced with a rising tide of opposition abandoned any serious attempt to reform and modernise Russia long before the Peoples Will sentenced him to death.
         Alexander III’s reactionary policies restored stability during his reign, but as Trotsky has argued, his legacy to Nicholas II was to be the revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
         The Romanovs were on collision course with catastrophe; Alexander II’s assassination was a significant event but it was not the most important turning-point in the development of Russian government in this period.
         The Russian Revolution of 1905 led to the October Manifesto, the apparent abandonment of autocracy and introduction of a constitution & the formation of the Duma, 4 of which existed between 1906 and 1917.
         It could be argued that this was an important turning-point in the development of Russian government because it was the only period in which Russian government deviated from its autocratic / dictatorial norm.
         However, Nicholas II’s announcement of the Fundamental Laws and reassertion of autocracy before the Duma had even sat, his sacking of the first two Dumas within months of the elections and his blatant rigging of subsequent elections for the third and fourth Dumas all suggest that this was a façade.
         Nicholas II announced the October Manifesto as a ‘divide and rule’ strategy to avoid being overthrown in 1905. The differences this made to the reality of absolute rule were negligible and short-lived.
         The ending of autocracy when Nicholas II abdicated in February 1917 gave Russian Government a window of opportunity in which to develop a constitutional and democratic model.
         However the Provisional Government made so many mistakes that it was swept aside in October before the planned elections to the new Constitutional Assembly could take place.
         The revolutions of 1917 profoundly changed the course of Russian history, ending the Romanov dynasty and creating the world’s first communist state. Even if Berdiaev was correct when stating that ‘All of the past is repeating itself, and acts only behind new masks’, this was a fundamental change of significant importance in Russian and world history.
         The replacement of autocratic Tsarism with the world’s first communist government during the revolutions of 1917 was of major importance. By 1956 a significant part of the world was communist and predominantly under the direct influence of the USSR. All of this was a direct result of the events of 1917 and the Bolshevik seizure of power.
         Lenin seized power in October 1917, finally ending the liberal dream that Russia might develop a constitutional / democratic government in the period studied.
         He established the world’s first communist state and destroyed the power of the old elites – the Russian Orthodox Church and the landowning class; everyone was a ‘comrade’ now;
         However his dictatorial style of government, including his banning of factions in the Communist Party and crushing of the Kronstadt Revolt owed much to the ‘autocratic’ model, winning him the label the “red tsar”.
         Stalin’s rise to power was of immense significance.
         Stalin’s acquisition of total power had a huge impact as the countless victims of de-kulakisation, the terror, the gulags and the Show Trials could testify. As Khrushchev admitted in 1956 under Stalin ‘Soviet citizens came to fear their own shadows’. Stalin’s betrayal of the principles of the revolution led to what Lynch has described as ‘the replacement of one form of state authoritarianism by another’.
         Since the opening up of the old Soviet archives many historians now claim that Stalinism grew directly out of Leninism, Volkogonov, stating: ‘everything done in Russia after Lenin’s death was done according to his blueprint’.
         Khrushchev’s announcement of de-Stalinisation in his ‘secret speech’ of 1956 promised the Russian people reform from above.
         Khrushchev’s ‘Thaw’ was a welcome respite after the brutal excesses of Stalin but his reforms didn’t lead to a significant overhaul of the communist system.
         In 1956 Khrushchev crushed the Hungarian Revolt despite his criticisms of Stalin’s regime and his announcement of ‘peaceful co-existence’.



Task 1

·         Using the above notes plan and write in timed conditions (with and without notes) the following turning point questions.

1.      How far do you agree that the October revolution of 1917 was the most important turning point in the development of Russia government in the period from 1855 to 1964? (June 2010)

2.      “The nature of Russia government was changed more by Stalin than any other ruler.”  How far do you agree with this view of the period from 1855 to 1964? (January 2010)

3.      Stalin’s rise to power was the most important turning point in the development of Russian government.  How far do agree with this view of the period from 1855 to 1964? (June 2012)










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