IB History Regional Study 7: the Russian Revolution Key Definitions

The programme Lenin announced on his return to Petrograd in April 1917, calling for no cooperation with the Provisional Government, an end to the war, transfer of land to the peasants, and all power to the soviets. It broke sharply with Bolsheviks who had supported the Provisional Government and reoriented the party toward seizing power.

A system of government in which the tsar held total, unrestricted power, answerable to no parliament, constitution, or elected body. Nicholas II swore at his coronation in 1894 to preserve the principle of autocracy exactly as his father Alexander III had left it.

22 January 1905, when troops fired on an unarmed crowd led by Father Georgy Gapon marching peacefully to the Winter Palace to petition Nicholas II. Hundreds were killed or wounded, destroying the popular myth of the tsar as a caring father figure and triggering the 1905 Revolution.

The Bolshevik secret police, founded in December 1917 under Felix Dzerzhinsky to fight counter-revolution and sabotage. It operated outside the normal legal system, carrying out arrests, executions, and hostage-taking during the Red Terror and the Civil War.

A national body elected by universal suffrage in November 1917 to write Russia's constitution and settle who would govern. The Socialist Revolutionaries won the largest share of seats, but the Bolsheviks dissolved the Assembly by force after its first session in January 1918 rather than accept a result that denied them a majority.

The arrangement after February 1917 in which the Provisional Government held formal state authority while the Petrograd Soviet controlled the loyalty of soldiers and workers through Order No. 1. Neither body could govern effectively without the other's cooperation, which produced paralysis rather than shared rule.

The elected national assembly created by Nicholas II in 1906 after the 1905 Revolution. It had limited legislative power because the tsar retained the right to veto laws, dissolve the Duma, and rule by decree, so it never became a genuine check on autocratic authority.

Russia's elected national assembly, created after the October Manifesto. Four Dumas sat between 1906 and 1917, but the Fundamental Laws let the tsar dissolve them, veto legislation, and rule by decree when they were not in session.

The decree issued by Alexander II in 1861 that freed roughly 23 million serfs from legal bondage to the nobility. Freed peasants had to pay redemption payments for their land allotments over 49 years, and land was allocated to the village commune, or mir, rather than to individual households.

Spontaneous armed demonstrations by soldiers, sailors, and workers in Petrograd in July 1917 demanding the soviets take power. The Bolsheviks, caught between restraining the crowds and being blamed for the unrest, were discredited when the government published evidence of Lenin's German funding and drove the party underground.

A failed march on Petrograd in late August 1917 by General Lavr Kornilov, commander in chief of the army, which Kerensky first appeared to support before turning against him. Kerensky armed the Bolshevik-led Red Guards to stop Kornilov, which rebuilt Bolshevik credibility and gave the party weapons it kept.

A revolt by sailors at the Kronstadt naval base in March 1921, once among the most committed supporters of the Bolsheviks, demanding free soviet elections, free speech, and an end to grain requisitioning. The Red Army crushed it within days, but it convinced Lenin that War Communism could no longer continue.

The traditional Russian village commune that collectively owned and periodically redistributed farming land among peasant households and was jointly responsible for their redemption payments and taxes after the 1861 emancipation.

Russian revolutionaries of the 1860s to 1880s who believed the peasant commune, or mir, could form the basis of a uniquely Russian socialism, bypassing capitalism. Their 1874 campaign to agitate peasants directly, known as going to the people, largely failed, pushing some toward terrorism.

The process by which a government takes ownership of privately owned businesses, industries, or property. In post-1975 Vietnam, the Communist government nationalized private enterprises as part of its transition to a socialist economy.

The policy Lenin introduced in March 1921 that replaced grain requisitioning with a tax in kind, allowed peasants to sell surplus produce, and let small businesses operate for profit, while the state kept control of large industry, banking, and foreign trade. It was a tactical retreat from War Communism meant to revive the economy and ease peasant unrest.

A declaration issued by Nicholas II on 17 October 1905, drafted by Sergei Witte, promising civil liberties and an elected Duma with legislative power. It split the opposition and ended the general strike that had paralysed the country.

The tsarist secret police, created in 1881 after the assassination of Alexander II. It infiltrated revolutionary groups with informers, monitored the press and universities, and could arrest and exile suspects without trial.

A directive issued by the Petrograd Soviet on 1 March 1917 instructing soldiers to obey the Provisional Government only when its orders did not contradict the Soviet's own decisions, and to form elected committees in every military unit. It broke the officer corps' control over the army and gave the Soviet real coercive power.

The highest decision-making body in a communist party. In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh served as chairman of the Politburo, which approved major military and political decisions.

The policy under War Communism that forced peasants to hand over grain surpluses to the state at fixed low prices, enforced by armed requisitioning squads. Peasants responded by hiding grain and planting less, which deepened the food shortages it was meant to solve.

The temporary administration formed by Duma politicians after Nicholas II abdicated in February 1917. It promised to govern until a Constituent Assembly could decide Russia's future, but it shared power uneasily with the Petrograd Soviet and collapsed when the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917.

A campaign of mass arrests and executions launched by the Bolsheviks in September 1918 after an assassination attempt on Lenin, carried out mainly by the Cheka against former nobles, priests, officers, and suspected opponents. It ran alongside the Civil War and killed tens of thousands of people.

An elected council modelled on similar organisations in the Soviet Union, especially during the revolution, in which decisions and responsibilities are generally determined collectively. The Chinese Communist Party established soviets in areas it controlled, such as the Jiangxi Soviet.