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2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953

  • 17 subtopics
  • 83 things to know
  • Component 2

What 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 covers

Option 2N is a depth study of Russia under Lenin and Stalin, taken as one of the Component 2 choices. It covers the revolutions of 1917, Bolshevik consolidation, Stalin's rise, and the economy, society and terror of his dictatorship.

Where it is assessed

Component 2

A depth study, of which a student sits one.

Check the AQA specification ↗

The 17 subtopics

Each one has its own page. AQA AS History students sit this topic in the first year.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What type of rule did Tsar Nicholas II exercise before February 1917, and what was his attitude toward political reform?

Key term

How did the war effort affect Russia's railway network, and what supply problems resulted?

Key term

How did Rasputin's influence during Nicholas's absence at the front affect the monarchy's reputation?

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What was the immediate cause of the February Revolution?

Key term

What role did mass demonstrations play in the February Revolution?

Key term

According to Order Number One, under what condition should soldiers obey the Provisional Government?

Key term

When and how did Lenin return to Petrograd in 1917?

Key term

What financial measure did the April Theses propose?

Key term

What was confusing about Kerensky's initial response to Kornilov's advance?

Key term

Who opposed immediate insurrection within the Bolshevik leadership, and what was the Central Committee's decision on 10 October 1917?

Key term

What was the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), and what role did it play in October 1917?

Key term

What happened during the storming of the Winter Palace on 25–26 October 1917?

Key term

What happened to Russian banks in December 1917, and why was this significant?

Key term

Which party won the largest share of votes in the November 1917 Constituent Assembly elections, and approximately what percentage did the Bolsheviks receive?

Key term

When and why did Trotsky convert to Bolshevism?

Key term

What organisation did the Bolsheviks use to suppress political opposition?

Key term

How was political power organised under Bolshevik one-party rule?

Key term

Which party won the majority in the Constituent Assembly elections?

Key term

What territories did Russia lose to Germany under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?

Key term

How did foreign powers contribute to the causes of the Civil War?

Key term

Why did opposition to Bolshevik policies contribute to the Civil War?

Key term

What methods did Trotsky use to maintain discipline in the Red Army?

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Why did the Bolsheviks execute the Tsar and his family?

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How did the lack of coordination among White forces contribute to their defeat?

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Why did conflicting political aims weaken the White movement?

Key term

How did Bolshevik propaganda portray the White forces?

Key term

How did the Bolsheviks obtain grain from the countryside during the Civil War?

Key term

What methods did the Cheka use during the Red Terror?

Key term

What economic demand did the Kronstadt sailors make?

Key term

At which party meeting was the ban on factions introduced?

Key term

Which two countries signed the Treaty of Rapallo?

Key term

Who was the Zinoviev letter attributed to?

Key term

What event in January 1924 created a leadership crisis within the Communist Party?

Key term

What happened to Lenin's Testament in 1924, and how did this affect Stalin?

Key term

How did Lenin describe Bukharin in his Testament, both positively and critically?

Key term

What was Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution?

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What was Stalin's theory of Socialism in One Country?

Key term

What was the Triumvirate, and what was its purpose between 1923 and 1925?

Key term

What was the Great Turn?

Key term

Why was rapid military-industrial development seen as necessary in the late 1920s?

Key term

What was the class objective of collectivisation regarding kulaks?

Key term

How did the structure of government change under Stalin in the late 1920s?

Key term

What event in December 1929 marked a significant development in the cult of personality?

Key term

What secret arrangements characterised Soviet-German relations in the 1920s?

Key term

What were kolkhozy?

Key term

What forms did peasant resistance to collectivisation take?

Key term

What arguments support the view that collectivisation was successful?

Key term

What were the priorities of the First Five Year Plan (1928-1932)?

Key term

What was the Dneprostroi Dam and why was it significant?

Key term

How did women's participation in the industrial workforce change during the 1930s?

Key term

In what ways was Stalin's image promoted throughout Soviet society?

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What specific requirements did Socialist Realism impose on artists?

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How was Soviet cinema used during the 1930s?

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What were the strengths of the Soviet economy by 1941?

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Describe the mixed picture of social conditions in the USSR by 1941.

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What was the defining characteristic of Stalinism as a political system?

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Who was targeted in the early purges of 1932-1934?

Key term

What were the show trials of 1936-1938?

Key term

Who were the main defendants in the first Moscow show trial of 1936 and what happened to them?

Key term

Who were the main defendants in the third Moscow show trial of 1938?

Key term

What was the Yezhovshchina?

Key term

Which groups were targeted by mass terror at the central level?

Key term

What was the scale of the Red Army purges of 1937-1938?

Key term

Which diaspora nationalities were specifically targeted in national operations and why?

Key term

What were conditions like in the gulags?

Key term

Who replaced Yezhov as head of the NKVD and what change did this bring?

Key term

What are the intentionalist and revisionist interpretations of responsibility for the Terror?

Key term

What was the League of Militant Atheists?

Key term

How did Soviet-German cooperation continue after 1929?

Key term

How did the Munich Agreement of 1938 affect Stalin's view of Britain and France?

Key term

What was Operation Barbarossa and when was it launched?

Key term

How was the Soviet wartime economy transformed to meet military needs?

Key term

What role did climate and terrain play in Germany's defeat on the Eastern Front?

Key term

Define 'High Stalinism'.

Key term

What were the key features of totalitarianism under High Stalinism?

Key term

Which groups were targeted by the renewed Terror after 1945?

Key term

What factors made the USSR a superpower after 1945?

Key term

How was political opposition eliminated in Soviet satellite states?

Key term

What characterised the Cold War conflict between the USSR and the capitalist West?

Process

How did Stalin's state attack religion and discipline young people and workers?

Process

What was Operation Barbarossa, and how did Stalin respond to it?

Process

What early social and religious changes did the Bolsheviks make?

Process

Where was the ban on factions introduced, who intervened in the Civil War, and how committed were they?

Take 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Bolshevik vs Menshevik

    Bolshevik: member of the disciplined revolutionary faction led by Lenin. Menshevik: member of the rival socialist faction favouring a broader party.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What type of rule did Tsar Nicholas II exercise before February 1917, and what was his attitude toward political reform?

    Model answer

    Nicholas II held autocratic power, ruling without constitutional constraints and resisting meaningful political reform despite the existence of the Duma.

  2. 2

    Under the Fundamental Laws of 1906, what specific powers did the Tsar retain that limited the Duma's effectiveness?

    Model answer

    The Tsar retained authority to dissolve the Duma, veto legislation, and control the military and foreign policy, limiting genuine parliamentary power.

  3. 3

    Approximately how many Russian military deaths and wounded had occurred by 1917, and which early battles exemplified these losses?

    Model answer

    Approximately 1.7 million military deaths and 5 million wounded, with massive losses at battles including Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes.

  4. 4

    How did the war effort affect Russia's railway network, and what supply problems resulted?

    Model answer

    The war strained Russia's inadequate railway network, causing supply failures that left soldiers without rifles and ammunition while cities faced food shortages.

  5. 5

    By approximately how much did prices rise in Russia between 1914 and 1917, and what was the effect on urban workers?

    Model answer

    Prices rose approximately fourfold while wages failed to keep pace, severely reducing urban workers' living standards.

  6. 6

    What demographic change occurred in Petrograd during the war, and why did this create political instability?

    Model answer

    Petrograd's population swelled with war workers, creating overcrowded conditions and concentrating a volatile, politically aware workforce in the capital.

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2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 revision questions

Is 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 examined at AS in AQA History?
Yes. It sits in Component 2, which you take in the first year, so it is on the AS paper as well as counting towards the full A level.
What does 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 cover in AQA AS-Level History?
17 subtopics: tsarism and the strain of war by 1917, the february revolution, the provisional government and the april theses, the october revolution, the first decrees, the constituent assembly and the leaders of 1917, the cheka and the rise of one-party rule, brest-litovsk and the causes of the civil war, trotsky and the building of the red army, why the reds won the civil war, bolshevik social reform, war communism and the red terror, tambov and kronstadt, the new economic policy, foreign intervention, the comintern and soviet diplomacy, lenin's death, his testament and the contenders for power, permanent revolution and socialism in one country, the defeat of the oppositions and the great turn and the stalin cult and soviet foreign policy in the 1920s. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 organised?
By the AQA 7042 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953, on a schedule.

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