The First World War

Model answer

The Progressive Bloc was an alliance formed in August 1915 by a majority of Duma deputies, including the Kadets and Octobrists, after the defeats of 1915. It demanded a 'government of public confidence', meaning ministers who had the trust of the Duma and the nation, but Nicholas refused and suspended the Duma.

Model answer

Interpretation A presents the war itself as the cause of the shortages. It says the war took the workers' men and the bread went to the front to feed the army, while prices rose so that wages bought less every month, until by the winter of 1916 people queued all night for bread that often never came. Interpretation B rejects the idea that Russia simply ran out of food: it argues that the 1916 harvest was still large, and that the cities went hungry because the government could not organise - the overloaded railways could not move grain, and the government printed so much money that peasants would not sell their grain. So A blames the war and its demands, while B blames the government's mismanagement of transport and money.

Model answer

Interpretation A has some evidence to support it. The families of soldiers received government allowances, and the army bought grain, horses and fodder. Because there were few manufactured goods to buy and money was losing its value, many peasants did hold back their grain, fed it to their animals or waited for higher prices, which helps to explain why the cities went short while many villages had enough to eat. A is also right that the peasants still wanted the landowners' land, as they showed by seizing it in 1917. However, the author was a landowner who resented the peasants' land hunger and may exaggerate their prosperity; experiences also varied greatly from one region and household to another.

Interpretation B is more convincing. Well over 10 million men were conscripted during the war, most of them peasants, and about 1.7 million soldiers were killed, with millions more wounded or captured, so death notices reached almost every village. The army took large numbers of horses, leaving women, old men and children to farm with worn-out tools, and manufactured goods such as tools, nails and cloth became scarce and expensive. Inflation meant that the money peasants received for grain bought less and less. War-weariness spread from the villages to the peasant soldiers, and desertion rose. B is a Soviet history, which stressed suffering to show the war as an imperialist war, and it ignores the peasants who did benefit.

Overall, B is more convincing because conscription, casualties, the loss of horses and the shortage of goods affected almost every village. A identifies a real point - that hoarding left many villages better fed than the cities - but its picture of a prosperous peasantry ignores the human cost of the war, which turned the peasant soldiers against it.

Model answer

The effects of the war on the cities did a great deal to weaken the regime. Prices rose roughly three or four times between 1914 and early 1917, much faster than wages, and food and fuel ran short. By the winter of 1916-17 women in Petrograd were queuing for hours for bread, factories were closing for lack of fuel, and the city was overcrowded with new workers and refugees from the western provinces. Strikes increased in 1916. Because Petrograd was the capital, unrest there threatened the government directly: the February Revolution began with strikes and bread protests on International Women's Day, 23 February 1917, and within days there was a general strike in the city.

The effects of the war on the countryside were also important. Most of the well over 10 million men conscripted were peasants, and about 1.7 million soldiers were killed in the war. The army requisitioned horses, leaving women, old men and children to farm the land, and manufactured goods became scarce and expensive. Peasants held back their grain because their money bought little, which worsened the food shortages in the cities. Above all, war-weariness spread from the villages to the peasant soldiers, desertion rose and the army became unreliable.

Overall, the effects on the cities did more to weaken the regime, because it was in Petrograd that the regime finally collapsed. The protests of February 1917 were caused by urban hardship - hunger, cold and inflation - and they took place at the centre of government. However, the countryside played a vital part: peasant hoarding helped to cause the urban food crisis, and the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison who mutinied on 27 February were mostly peasants in uniform who were tired of the war. The cities provided the spark, but the countryside had already drained away the loyalty of the army that might have saved the Tsar.