levo

The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991

  • 19 subtopics
  • 57 things to know
  • Paper 3
  • Paper 3 themes option, chosen from sixteen

What The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991 covers

A Paper 3 option combining aspects in breadth on agriculture, living standards and feeding the population across 136 years with aspects in depth on the Great Reforms of Alexander II, the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and the reform attempts of Khrushchev and Gorbachev.

Where it is assessed

Paper 3

Themes in breadth with aspects in depth, one option of sixteen.

Check the Pearson Edexcel specification ↗

The 19 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Numbers

What is the difference between a kolkhoz and a sovkhoz?

Who and when

How did military reform connect to the other Great Reforms?

Key term

How complete was de-Stalinisation?

Evaluation

What was 'maize mania'?

Numbers

Which war exposed Russia's need for reform under Alexander II?

Numbers

Which war acted as a stimulus to the 1905 Revolution?

Numbers

What was Bloody Sunday (January 1905)?

Who and when

Who was murdered in December 1916?

Key term

Who led party resistance to Khrushchev in 1957?

Key term

What limited Khrushchev's cultural liberalisation?

Numbers

Which foreign war weakened the USSR before Gorbachev's reforms?

Key term

What was glasnost?

Key term

What was collectivisation (1928–32)?

Numbers

What were redemption payments?

Numbers

What relief did peasants gain in 1953–54?

Key term

Why was nineteenth-century peasant agriculture backward?

Key term

What was the significance of the 1891 famine?

Who and when

How did the Second World War affect food supply?

Who and when

What did the 1864 reform of the legal system introduce?

Numbers

What was the zemstvo statute of 1864?

Who and when

How did the 1866 attempt on Alexander II's life affect education policy?

Key term

What were the limits of press freedom after 1865?

Who and when

Why did Russia go to war with Japan?

Key term

What was the October Manifesto (1905)?

Numbers

What were the workers' councils formed in the two capitals in 1905?

Key term

What was the Vyborg Appeal?

Key term

What happened in the February Revolution of 1917?

Key term

Who organised the October Revolution alongside Lenin?

Who and when

What did Lenin contribute?

Who and when

What secret police did the Bolsheviks establish in 1917?

Numbers

What peace did the Bolsheviks make with Germany?

Numbers

How did Khrushchev emerge as leader?

Who and when

What was Khrushchev's personality and how did it shape his rule?

Numbers

What administrative reform did Khrushchev introduce?

Numbers

Which 1986 disaster damaged the regime's credibility?

Key term

What was perestroika?

Key term

Which rising politician became Gorbachev's main rival?

Key term

Who was Yegor Ligachev?

Key term

Why was serfdom abolished in 1861?

Key term

What was rural overpopulation?

Who and when

Did Soviet agriculture meet the country's food needs by the 1980s?

Key term

What was the significance of private plots?

Numbers

Who was Dmitry Milyutin?

Who and when

Which Russians were largely left outside the 1864 court system?

Numbers

What was the counter-reform of the 1880s?

Numbers

How did the war go for Russia?

Who and when

Who led the Bloody Sunday march and what did it ask for?

Key term

What was the Moscow rising of December 1905?

Key term

What two bodies shared power after February 1917?

Who and when

What happened at the Second Congress of Soviets in October 1917?

Who and when

What concessions did the Bolsheviks make early on?

Numbers

What was Khrushchev's housing programme?

Numbers

What were the effects of the speech inside the USSR?

Key term

What happened to the security apparatus under Khrushchev?

Key term

What was the state of the Soviet economy when Gorbachev took power?

Numbers

Which prominent dissident did Gorbachev free from exile?

Key term

What was the significance of Russian sovereignty in 1990?

Take The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Redemption payments vs New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced in 1921

    Redemption payments: instalments former serfs paid the state (spread over 49 years) to reimburse landowners for land allotted under the 1861 Emancipation. New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced in 1921: It let peasants sell surplus grain on the open market after paying a fixed tax in kind, replacing forced grain requisitioning.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    When was serfdom abolished in Russia, and by whom?

    Model answer

    In 1861, by Tsar Alexander II (the Emancipation Edict).

  2. 2

    What did Stolypin's agrarian reforms (1906–11) aim to achieve?

    Model answer

    To create prosperous, independent peasant farmers (kulaks) by letting peasants leave the commune (mir) and consolidate their strips into private farms.

  3. 3

    What did the Land Decree of 1917 do?

    Model answer

    It abolished private landownership and redistributed noble and church land to the peasants.

  4. 4

    What was the New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced in 1921?

    Model answer

    It let peasants sell surplus grain on the open market after paying a fixed tax in kind, replacing forced grain requisitioning.

  5. 5

    What was collectivisation (1928–32)?

    Model answer

    Stalin's forced merging of peasant farms into collective farms (kolkhoz), destroying private farming and the kulaks.

  6. 6

    What is the difference between a kolkhoz and a sovkhoz?

    Model answer

    A kolkhoz is a collective farm where peasants share the output; a sovkhoz is a state farm where workers are paid wages. State farms expanded at the kolkhoz's expense after 1945.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

The Crusades, c1095–1204
England, 1509–1603: Authority, Nation and Religion
Britain, 1625–1701: Conflict, Revolution and Settlement
Britain, c1785–c1870: Democracy, Protest and Reform

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

Luis de .
RequesensAlbaGranvelle

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AThe government admitted 96 dead and 333 wounded.
BOther estimates run to several hundred dead.
COpponents claimed thousands.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Robert Aske led the Pilgrimage of Grace.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991 revision questions

What does The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991 cover in Edexcel A-Level History?
19 subtopics: changes in government policy, 1855-1991, living standards and leaving the land, 1855-1991, reform, innovation and productivity, 1861–1991, feeding the population, 1861–1991, the crimean war and army reform, legal and local government reform, freedom of expression, universities and the press, the russo-japanese war as a stimulus to reform, bloody sunday 1905, repression of opposition in town and countryside, impact of defeat and suffering, 1916–17, reasons for the october revolution, the bolsheviks in power, 1917–18, khrushchev and the impetus to reform, de-stalinisation, administrative reforms, gorbachev and the impetus to reform, impacts of glasnost and perestroika and divisions in the reformist camp, conservative opposition. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991 organised?
By the Edexcel 9HI0 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.