A LEVEL HISTORY A: PAST PAPER 1:
RUSSIA AND ITS RULERS 1855–1964. ALL
ASSESSMENT & MARK SCHEME FINAL
TEST 2026 QUESTIONS WITH CORRECT
ANSWERS GRADED A+
◍ Cult of personality.
Answer: Promotion of an idealized and heroic image of Stalin, often through
propaganda
◍ Nicholas II (Changes to living conditions).
Answer: Urban: Industrial workforce exploded, but workers lived in squalid
dormitories or shared rooms with 11.5-hour workdays; 40% of St.
Petersburg homes lacked sewage systems by 1911.Rural: Land hunger
worsened; Stolypin's reforms tried to create independent "Kulak" farmers
but only benefited a minority, leaving the rest in deep poverty.
◍ What did Stalin's collectivisation policy involve?.
Answer: Combining farms into state-controlled kolkhozy/sovkhozy,
removing kulaks, 93% of farms collectivised by 1937
◍ Who ruled Russia between 1855-1964?.
Answer: AII (1855-81), AIII (1881-94), NII (1894-1917), PG (Feb-Oct
1917), Lenin (1917-24), Stalin (1928-53), Khrushchev (1953-64)
◍ Alexander II (Changes to living conditions).
Answer: Peasants: "Tsar Liberator" who emancipated serfs (1861), granting
them personal freedom but saddling them with 49-year redemption
payments for small, often poor-quality land plots.Urban: Rapid
industrialisation began, leading to early overcrowding and unsanitary
, "kommunalka" (communal) housing.
◍ Why was Stolypin's land reform significant?.
Answer: Attempted to create a class of loyal kulaks; allowed private land
ownership; limited long-term impact
◍ What did the 1936 Constitution claim?.
Answer: Gave USSR universal suffrage and civil rights — in practice, party
still had total control
◍ What was Sovietisation?.
Answer: Spread of USSR's political and economic model to satellite states;
often involved repression
◍ What was the Decree on Workers' Control (1917)?.
Answer: Allowed workers to manage factories; later reversed under War
Communism
◍ limitations on religious freedom of workers.
Answer: Experienced a dramatic shift from living under an official State
Church to an officially atheist state. In both eras, religious freedom was
tightly controlled to ensure loyalty to the government.
◍ Warsaw Pact (1955).
Answer: Military alliance of Eastern Bloc countries, response to NATO
◍ Limitations on political freedoms of workers.
Answer: Characterised by state-imposed restrictions designed to maintain
autocracy or party control, with only brief interludes of expanded rights.
◍ What was the Red Terror?.
Answer: Cheka-led repression to eliminate opponents (1918-21), executed
over 100,000 people
◍ Vladimir Lenin (Changes to working conditions).
Answer: Militarisation: Under "War Communism," labour became
militarised with compulsory work and harsh discipline to support the Red
Army.State Control: Trade unions were stripped of independence and
, transformed into "transmission belts" for Bolshevik policy.
◍ What was the Zemstva?.
Answer: Local government bodies introduced by Alexander II in 1864,
allowed limited self-governance for nobles and professionals
◍ What was the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939)?.
Answer: Non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin; secretly agreed to
divide Poland
◍ Deaths in Stalin's Great Terror (1936-38).
Answer: Approx. 700,000 executed, 1.5 million arrested
◍ Provisional Government (Changes to living conditions).
Answer: Crisis: Conditions plummeted due to WWI; inflation rose 600%
and food supplies to cities dropped by 75%.Failure: Refused to redistribute
land until a Constituent Assembly met, leading peasants to forcibly seize
estates and desert the army.
◍ Who were the Okhrana?.
Answer: Secret police under AIII and NII used to suppress opposition, arrest
revolutionaries, operate outside legal system
◍ Impact of War communism.
Answer: Economic Collapse: Total industrial output fell to 20% of 1913
levels. Currency became worthless, leading to a barter economy and a
massive illegal black market.Agricultural Ruin: Forced grain requisitioning
(Prodrazverstka) discouraged farming, causing food production to drop by
40% and triggering a famine that killed 5+ million people.Social Crisis:
Starvation led to urban depopulation (Petrograd lost 70% of its workforce)
and harsh "militarisation of labour" where strikers faced execution or the
Cheka's Red Terror.Political Instability: Extreme hardship sparked major
uprisings, specifically the Tambov Rebellion and the Kronstadt Mutiny,
which threatened Bolshevik control.The NEP Pivot: The manifest failure of
these policies forced Lenin to abandon "pure" communism in 1921 in favour
of the New Economic Policy, reintroducing limited private trade.
RUSSIA AND ITS RULERS 1855–1964. ALL
ASSESSMENT & MARK SCHEME FINAL
TEST 2026 QUESTIONS WITH CORRECT
ANSWERS GRADED A+
◍ Cult of personality.
Answer: Promotion of an idealized and heroic image of Stalin, often through
propaganda
◍ Nicholas II (Changes to living conditions).
Answer: Urban: Industrial workforce exploded, but workers lived in squalid
dormitories or shared rooms with 11.5-hour workdays; 40% of St.
Petersburg homes lacked sewage systems by 1911.Rural: Land hunger
worsened; Stolypin's reforms tried to create independent "Kulak" farmers
but only benefited a minority, leaving the rest in deep poverty.
◍ What did Stalin's collectivisation policy involve?.
Answer: Combining farms into state-controlled kolkhozy/sovkhozy,
removing kulaks, 93% of farms collectivised by 1937
◍ Who ruled Russia between 1855-1964?.
Answer: AII (1855-81), AIII (1881-94), NII (1894-1917), PG (Feb-Oct
1917), Lenin (1917-24), Stalin (1928-53), Khrushchev (1953-64)
◍ Alexander II (Changes to living conditions).
Answer: Peasants: "Tsar Liberator" who emancipated serfs (1861), granting
them personal freedom but saddling them with 49-year redemption
payments for small, often poor-quality land plots.Urban: Rapid
industrialisation began, leading to early overcrowding and unsanitary
, "kommunalka" (communal) housing.
◍ Why was Stolypin's land reform significant?.
Answer: Attempted to create a class of loyal kulaks; allowed private land
ownership; limited long-term impact
◍ What did the 1936 Constitution claim?.
Answer: Gave USSR universal suffrage and civil rights — in practice, party
still had total control
◍ What was Sovietisation?.
Answer: Spread of USSR's political and economic model to satellite states;
often involved repression
◍ What was the Decree on Workers' Control (1917)?.
Answer: Allowed workers to manage factories; later reversed under War
Communism
◍ limitations on religious freedom of workers.
Answer: Experienced a dramatic shift from living under an official State
Church to an officially atheist state. In both eras, religious freedom was
tightly controlled to ensure loyalty to the government.
◍ Warsaw Pact (1955).
Answer: Military alliance of Eastern Bloc countries, response to NATO
◍ Limitations on political freedoms of workers.
Answer: Characterised by state-imposed restrictions designed to maintain
autocracy or party control, with only brief interludes of expanded rights.
◍ What was the Red Terror?.
Answer: Cheka-led repression to eliminate opponents (1918-21), executed
over 100,000 people
◍ Vladimir Lenin (Changes to working conditions).
Answer: Militarisation: Under "War Communism," labour became
militarised with compulsory work and harsh discipline to support the Red
Army.State Control: Trade unions were stripped of independence and
, transformed into "transmission belts" for Bolshevik policy.
◍ What was the Zemstva?.
Answer: Local government bodies introduced by Alexander II in 1864,
allowed limited self-governance for nobles and professionals
◍ What was the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939)?.
Answer: Non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin; secretly agreed to
divide Poland
◍ Deaths in Stalin's Great Terror (1936-38).
Answer: Approx. 700,000 executed, 1.5 million arrested
◍ Provisional Government (Changes to living conditions).
Answer: Crisis: Conditions plummeted due to WWI; inflation rose 600%
and food supplies to cities dropped by 75%.Failure: Refused to redistribute
land until a Constituent Assembly met, leading peasants to forcibly seize
estates and desert the army.
◍ Who were the Okhrana?.
Answer: Secret police under AIII and NII used to suppress opposition, arrest
revolutionaries, operate outside legal system
◍ Impact of War communism.
Answer: Economic Collapse: Total industrial output fell to 20% of 1913
levels. Currency became worthless, leading to a barter economy and a
massive illegal black market.Agricultural Ruin: Forced grain requisitioning
(Prodrazverstka) discouraged farming, causing food production to drop by
40% and triggering a famine that killed 5+ million people.Social Crisis:
Starvation led to urban depopulation (Petrograd lost 70% of its workforce)
and harsh "militarisation of labour" where strikers faced execution or the
Cheka's Red Terror.Political Instability: Extreme hardship sparked major
uprisings, specifically the Tambov Rebellion and the Kronstadt Mutiny,
which threatened Bolshevik control.The NEP Pivot: The manifest failure of
these policies forced Lenin to abandon "pure" communism in 1921 in favour
of the New Economic Policy, reintroducing limited private trade.
