Monday 20 December 2010

Grrrr

Just had an email back from my tutor: I need to post my answers to him. That means with Xmas, postal delays etc that I am unlikely to hear back from him for at least two weeks. grrr.

Sunday 19 December 2010

A Level History: One Month In

I've been working on the A Level now for exactly a month. Its still a lot of fun and I have made great progress. I'm still smarting that I won't be able to do the exam in May as I had planned though.

The major news for this week was that my tutor got back in touch with me after having read my the material that I sent him. The good news was that he said that they were "many ways very good answers - the focus on each question was good and they were mostly well written". The only real issue was that I need to make sure that I don't "skimp on evidence".

I spent Friday working on my end of unit questions, that again get sent to my tutor. I was really happy with my answer on Alexander II's reforms (although it was much longer than I would be able to write under exam conditions), although I wasn't 100% happy with my answer on how far and with what consequences Russia was industrialised by 1914. I think that I covered all the relevant material, but it just felt like something was lacking in the answer. well, I'll know soon(ish) enough.

I'm also trying to get my head around the structure of the A2. I thought that I just had to do one unit and the coursework, but the ICS pack includes two units (one of which looks like the one that I began back in 1990!). I'll look into that, as I would prefer to write the 3.5k piece rather than do another unit (and another exam)

Monday 13 December 2010

Russia 1855-1917 Update

I've now finished my notes for Russia 1855-1917, using a combination of the the AQA Tsarist Russia book, Russia 1848-1917 by Jonathan Bromley, and The Modernisation of Russia 1856-1985 by John Laver. The notes have been organised into the 5 topics for the unit.

I'm still a bit gutted that I won't be able to sit the exam in June and, instead, will have to wait just over a year to sit it. This will mean rethinking my plan of how to tackle the A Level and, ironically, will force me back to my original plan of really immersing myself in the material. My plan now is to:

1. December - February: Spend time reading some general texts on the topic. I'm currently reading Across the Revolutionary Divide by Theodore Weeks, and after that I have A People's Tragedy by the naughty Orlando Figes and The End of Imperial Russia by Peter Waldron on my Xmas list.

2. February - April: Move onto the next topic, Britain & Appeasement, 1919-40. As with Russia, I'll use a combination of the ICS pack and some supplementary texts.

3. May - September: I'm going to see whether my tutor will supervise the coursework part of the A2 in this period. If not, I'll spend my time doing the day-job and reading more general texts.

4. September - January 2012: hardcore revision time, involving producing plans and drafts of as many past questions as I can get my hand on.

Thursday 9 December 2010

shitshitshitshit

Just discovered the the AS exam in May is taking place when I'm out of the country. The double irony is that I missed a job interview as a consequence of attending the same conference last year!
Sooo this means that it will now be the AS in Jan 2012 and the A2 in June 2012.

Saturday 4 December 2010

Russia 1855-1917 Complete?

I've finished my notes for Russia 1855-1917 and just have to finish the 2 questions for 1917 in the AQA Book. I'm pretty confident that I have a grasp of the broad period now, although I need to do some more work on the two revolutions of 1917 (and/or hope that a question on them doesn't come up in the exam!). I also need to go back through my notes and try and condense them into a sheet which shows the major developments of the era.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

AQA-Style Question 4b

How Far Was Nicholas II’s Response to the Crisis of 1905 ‘Totally Inadequate’?

This is a revised version. I posted an initial version and then thought some more about it and realised that I was perhaps being too soft on the Tsar. I said that it had been a success as he had at least bought off the liberals (although no one else). I should have gone for the glass was half empty rather than half full.

Nicholas’ response to the crisis of 1905 - the October Manifesto - was totally inadequate. Its only real success was was to seemingly promise the liberals what they had been asking for for decades. It did not solve any of the underlying problems behind the 1905 crisis and, in many ways, radicalized the existing opposition to the Tsar.

In 1905, Russia was seemingly heading for revolution. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War had both highlighted and exacerbated longstanding problems within the country; problems that had not been resolved despite half a century of reform. Indeed, many of the reasons for the poor military performance - such as long supply lines and poor leadership - were the same as those that led to defeat in the Crimean War that prompted Alexander II’s reforms. There were also growing calls for reform from the liberal Intelligentsia, coupled with calls for revolution from the social democrats and the social revolutionaries, calls for independence from nationalist groups, and growing unrest from among the peasants and urban workers.

Nicholas’ response to the crisis - the October Manifesto, that promised much of what the liberals had been asking for for decades, such as the establishment of an elected Duma and the (re)establishment of freedom of speech and assembly was, on one level at least, a success. The Manifesto succeeded, as Witte had predicted, in splitting the liberals (who would work with the Tsar and who sought reform) from the revolutionary groups. Indeed, it could be argued, given Nicholas’ well-documented inability to make decisions, that it was the most successful move of his rule to this point. It was also a success in the short term as it was greeted by most segments of Russian society who saw it as the beginning of a shift away from autocracy.

However, the October Manifesto did not solve any of Russia’s underlying problems. The revolutionary left denounced it and called for an armed uprising - such as the one that took place in December 1905 - to overthrow the Tsar. Equally strike action continued and, indeed, grew with a second General Strike breaking out in St Petersburg in November. Unrest also continued in both the army and navy, where there were a number of mutinies, and in the countryside, where peasants took the promises contained within the Manifesto as an opportunity to seize land and murder landowners. Indeed, within months of the Manifesto, the Tsarist regime embarked on a series of repression in order to reassert its authority.

In this way, while the Tsar’s response was a relative success in gaining the support of the liberals; breaking them away from the revolutionaries by seemingly giving them what they had been asking for for decades, it did not appease many other segments of Russian society (such as the peasants and revolutionary left) and, in some ways, led them to become more aggrieved and radicalized. However, fundamentally it can be seen to be completely inadequate as it did nothing to solve the underlying problems that led to the crisis of 1905, and merely deferred them.

AQA-Style Question 4a

Explain Why Stolypin Altered The Electoral Franchise Before Summoning the Third Duma

Stolypin altered the electoral franchise at the request of Nicholas II in order to remove radical groups from the Duma and replace them with representatives who were supportive of the Tsar and, in the immediate term, would accept his agrarian reforms.

The Second Duma has been characterised as the ‘Duma of National Anger’. Dominated by those of the radical left and right and with the liberal Kadets in a minority, this meant that not only was compromise to the Tsar not on the agenda, but that the Duma became effectively crippled by the radicals who did not want the Duma experiment to succeed. Nicholas and Stolypin’s response was to dissolve the Duma and alter the electoral franchise so that those groups who would dominate - landlords and nobles - would be those who supported the Tsar and who would therefore pass the Stolypin’s reform bill.

Neither Stolypin nor the Tsar supported the Duma, the latter seeing it merely as a consultative body and he was frustrated with the way in which it potentially could block his legislation. This disdain is manifested by the way in which he dissolved the Duma and used emergency powers retained by the Tsar in the Fundamental Laws to alter the franchise. He was also aware of the urgent need to reform Russian agriculture; an ongoing theme in Russian politics since at least the 1850s. Stolypin believed that agricultural reform would both strengthen the Tsar’s position (by producing a class of prosperous peasants who would support the status quo) and would improve the economy as well. He also saw it as a way of stemming the tide of growing peasant unrest that had followed the October Manifesto. He therefore saw any attempts to block the legislation as potentially making the political situation within the country - particularly the position of the Tsar - as more dangerous.

Stolypin altered the electorial franchise, then, predominantly in order to return a more compliant Duma who would support the Tsar and the reform bill. Disdaining the Duma and the radical left, and believing that the bill was the only way to improve the lot of the peasants and thereby produce a class or prosperous, conservative peasants and improve the economic situation in the country, he sought to amend the rules of the political game in order to push his legislation through.