Lesson video

Hello, everybody, and welcome to your history lesson at Oak National Academy, with me Miss Porter.

Today we're going to be starting a new inquiry on the Bolsheviks.

So for today's lesson, I just need you to make sure you've got a pen or a pencil to write with, and some paper to write on.

And just to make sure that you've moved yourself away from any distractions before getting started with today's lesson.

Once you've done that, you'll be able to write today's title which is, The Bolshevik Coup d'etat.

So, today we're going to be starting an inquiry, which asks, what were the Bolsheviks trying to achieve? Now, this unit is based on Russia in the 20th century.

And to start, we will want to look at what Russia was like in the 1900.

But here you can see a world map for the year 1900 at the start of the 20th century.

The area highlighted in green is Russia.

The country we will be studying in this unit.

As you can see, it is a very large country.

The cap is a top part of Asia and Europe.

Russia was so large that at its largest, it covered one sixth of the earth's surface.

But to help you understand the size of Russia, we can compare it to the size of Europe that was roughly outlined by the pink box on this map.

The sheer size of Russia made it difficult to rule over.

It was also difficult to rule over because it had a large population.

In 1905, Russia had a population of roughly 125 million people.

And 95% of these people, were workers and peasants.

Now you've learned more about what Russia was like in 1900.

We're going to have a little look at how it was governed.

The ruler of Russia in earlier 20th century, was Tsar Nicholas the second.

Tsar was the title used for a Russian monarch.

Now he is the man pictured in these images.

And on the left, you can see him pictured with his wife, Alexandra and their five children.

Now Tsar Nicholas the second, was actually the last Tsar of Russia.

And he ruled between 1894 and 1917.

He was also an absolute monarch.

And this means that he was a ruler with unlimited power.

Therefore, he was extremely powerful and he did not have to share his power with any other body, such as a parliament.

He believed that he had been appointed by God and that God had chosen him to rule over Russia.

Therefore he did not accept anybody questioning his authority.

This meant he could often be cruel and had his enemies sent to prison, exiled to Siberia, which was in the far East of Russia or even executed for opposing him.

Now in the previous slide I described Tsar Nicholas the second as an absolute monarch.

What does this mean? I'd like you to pause the video and choose which option from A to D is the best definition of an absolute monarch.

You can then resume the video when you're ready.

Okay.

Welcome back everybody.

Hopefully you thought the best definition for an absolute monarch was option B.

A ruler with unlimited power.

Excellent work if you got that correct.

Now, Russia had entered the first world war in 1914, and Tsar Nicholas the second, took control of the Russian army a year later.

The war did not go well for the Russian army and it caused food and fuel shortages in Russia, which made life extremely difficult for ordinary Russian citizens.

In the image here you can see a drawing of a bread queue in a Russian city.

As due to the lack of resources, people had to queue for basic necessities, such as bread to survive on.

This made life extremely hard for most Russian citizens during the first world war.

While though it was dangerous to oppose the Tsar, the impact of the war caused opposition to grow in Russia in the early 1900s.

On top of food and fuel shortages, Russia also experienced military defeats in the war.

And by the end of the first year of the war, over 1 million Russian soldiers had died.

As a result, the Tsar became less popular, and opposition to him began to grow.

However, people also opposed the Tsar, as he was an absolute monarch, as we've seen previously, this means he had unlimited power.

Therefore ordinary people did not have a say in how their country was run.

The Tsar Nicholas the second was also very wealthy.

Where as the majority sorry of Russians were poorer workers and peasants.

Therefore, despite the danger faced, people began to oppose the Tsar more during the first world war.

Now I'd like you to think about the answer to the following question.

Why did people oppose Tsar Nicholas the second? I'd like you to see if you can think of two or even three reasons why people oppose the Tsar.

You can pause the video here and resume when you're ready.

Now, if you all finding it a little more difficult to think of two or three reasons why people opposed the Tsar, I've given you a couple of clues here.

So firstly, Nicholas the second was an absolute monarch.

So you can think of a reason why that could have caused people to oppose him.

And the second clue is world war one.

Why might that have caused people to oppose Tsar Nicholas the second.

So see if these can help you think of a couple of reasons why.

again if needed, pause the video here and resume once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back everybody and well done for attempting that question.

I'm now going to provide you with some reasons I thought of.

Remember my answers may be slightly different to yours and that's absolutely fine.

So firstly, one reason people oppose Nicholas the second was because he was an absolute monarch.

Therefore you could say he had unlimited power and ordinary people, such as workers and peasants were not able to have a say in how the country was run.

You could also have thought that world war one caused people to oppose the Tsar.

As the Russian army suffered military defeat and the war caused a shortage of food and fuel in Russia.

Very well done if you've got any of those points, or you might've made some additional points of your own.

Now due to the Tsar's refusal to share power and the conduct of the first world war, opposition groups began to grow.

One group who'll oppose the Tsar were the Bolsheviks.

And they are going to be the focus of our inquiry question over the next few lessons.

So the Bolsheviks were a small group of revolutionaries.

This means people who wanted a revolution.

Or by that we mean, to significantly change the political system.

So the Bolsheviks opposed the Tsar and wanted the workers to have more power.

They were led by a man called Vladimir Lenin between 1903 and 1924.

You can see him pictured here on the right.

This group referred to as the Bolsheviks are going to be the focus of the next few lessons as we look at what they were trying to achieve.

So some aims the Bolsheviks were trying to achieve were.

Firstly, the Bolsheviks wanted to start a communist revolution.

This meant they wanted to change the existing political system by removing the Tsar and making society more equal.

So they wanted ordinary people such as those with pictured who cued for bread or who experienced fuel shortages because of the war to have a greater share of the wealth and property in Russia, thus making society more equal.

The group they wanted to give power to specifically were the workers.

Now I'd like you to see if you can test your knowledge of the lesson so far by completing these sentences.

As you can see, each sentence has at least one gap and you need to choose one of the words from the box below to complete each gap in the sentence.

You can pause the video to complete the task and continue with the video after you're finished to check your answers.

Welcome back everybody, and really well done for completing those sentences.

I'll now take you through the answers.

So feel free to pause the video any point to make any corrections or to tick through your work.

So, Nicholas the second was the Tsar of Russia between 1894 and 1917.

The Tsar was unpopular because of his leadership during World War One.

It was the Bolsheviks who opposed the Tsar and they wanted a communist revolution in Russia and to make society more equal.

Brilliant work if you've got some or even all of those answers correct.

So the opposition to the Tsar grew worse in 1917, and the following events occurred.

So problems caused by the war, such as the deaths of soldiers, shortages of food and fuel, continued to get worse and thousands of people began to protest against the Tsar in Russian cities.

As a result in March 1917, the czar abdicated.

This means he stopped being the ruler of Russia.

In his place, a temporary or provisional government governed Russia.

During this time, Lenin made plans to take power with the Bolsheviks.

In October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

Lenin had managed to do this by gaining support for the Bolsheviks from workers and by using armed force at the right time.

Now this event has also been referred to as a Coup d'etat.

An event where a group of people suddenly takes control of a country by force.

Therefore in 1917, Lenin had achieved his first goal.

The Bolsheviks had taken control of the Russian government.

Now in this picture here on the right, you can see some Russian soldiers marching holding a banner.

And this actually reads communism.

It's in the Russian alphabet so you might not be able to read it, But it shows that in 1917, the Bolsheviks actually had support from the workers and some of the soldiers during world war I.

Now in a minute I'll say, you'll be able to complete this lessons reading to find out more about the Bolsheviks seizure of power in 1917.

At the end of your reading, you'll need to answer the following questions.

So briefly talk you through them now.

So the first question asked.

Who was the Tsar at the start of the 20th century? So I'm just looking for you to be able to recall his name there.

The second one asks you to describe one reason why people oppose the Tsar.

The third asks, what did Lenin and the Bolsheviks want to achieve in 1917? So what were some of the aims for Russia following 1917.

The fourth asked how did the Bolsheviks gain control of Petrograd a Russian city in October 1917? And the challenge question, which I'd like you all to attempt is why might communist ideas have been attractive to the Russian population? So why in particular were these ideas based on communism? Why might they have been attractive? Why might ordinary Russians citizens have found them, positive or something that they might want to agree with? So I would like you to now pause the video, complete the reading and answer the questions at the end.

There is a glossary to provide you with some definitions of the key words, if you need them.

And once you're finished, you can return to the video to check through your answers and continue with the lesson.

Welcome back everybody, and very well done for completing those questions.

So we will now go through these answers together.

Remember that my answer maybe different to yours, which is okay.

You may want to pause the video after each question to check through your work or to make any changes.

So the first question asked, who was the Tsar at the start of the 20th century? So an acceptable answer is Nicholas the second.

A good answer might put this into a full sentence such as, Russia's at the start of the 20th century was Nicholas the second.

The second question asks you to describe one reason why people oppose the Tsar.

So there's a few acceptable answers here.

So you might have, he did not listen to ordinary Russian people or he was blamed for military defeats.

A good answer could describe this in a little more details, such as one reason why people opposed Tsar Nicholas the second was because they blamed him for the military defeats in the first world war and the economic problems caused by the war.

Third question asked, what did Lenin and the Bolsheviks want to achieve in 1917? So again, there's a few acceptable answers here such as to overthrow the Tsar and to start the communist revolution.

A good answer will be into full sentences again such as, the Bolsheviks wanted a communist revolution in Russia in 1917.

To achieve this, they wanted to overthrow the Tsar and take control on behalf of the workers.

Fourth question asked, how did the Bolsheviks gain control of Petrograd and October, 1917? So acceptable maybe that they took over key positions.

A good answer could give some examples of these such as the Bolsheviks gained control of Petrograd in October 1917, by taking over key positions in the city, such as the railway, police and power stations.

As the Provisional Government could not gain any support to resist the Bolsheviks, they were able to seize control with little resistance.

And the challenge question was, why might communist ideas have been attractive to the Russian population? So an acceptable answer could be, as it would make society more equal.

A good answer could be that communist ideas might have been attractive to the Russian population as it advocated a more equal society.

The Bolsheviks would have been attractive to the poor workers as they wanted workers to take over the sources of wealth.

This would allow wealth to be shared more evenly.

So really well done if you managed to link the idea of communism to making a more equal society or by sharing wealth something like that.

Now you may want to spend a few minutes now adding some extra detail to your answers.

If so, pause the video here and again, really well done for completing those questions.

You can resume the video once you're ready.

And we are now going to look at what Lenin and the Bolsheviks believed.

We refer to a set of ideas or beliefs about politics as ideology.

So Lenin the leader of the Bolsheviks based his ideology on the ideas of a German philosopher called Karl Marx.

He developed his political beliefs in the 19th century.

He believed that there were a series of steps that led to revelation in industrialised societies.

This was called Marxism, and you can see this ideology in the flow diagram on the left.

You can pause the video here to read through the diagram, and then I will explain it for you.

So firstly Marx believed in a capitalist society.

That's a society where individuals owned businesses to make a profit and that factory owners made money from the work done by their employees.

So Marx is applying his ideas here to one of those societies as opposed to somewhere more like Russia.

So he believes that as factory owners made more money, they would build more factories and employ more workers.

And then in turn, they'd continue to earn more and more money.

As the number of workers increased and they saw their employers becoming more wealthy, the workers would eventually rise up against their employers and take control.

In time, Marx believed a more equal communist society would be created where resources are shared.

Marx believed this would take place over a long period of time.

He also based his theories on industrialised countries, such as Britain and Germany.

However Lenin adapted or changed Marx's ideas to fit the situation in Russia.

Russia was not as industrialised as other European countries, and it did not have a large group of workers.

Instead it's population as we know, it was mostly peasants.

Therefore Lenin believed you could speed up or even skip some stages of Marx's theory and start a revolution in Russia.

As there were not enough workers, Lenin believed the Bolsheviks could lead the revelation themselves and take power on behalf of the workers.

And this is what occurred in October 1917 in Russia.

So we are now going to move on to a writing activity, which is to complete a paragraph based on your understanding of today's content.

So I would like you to write a paragraph in response to the following question.

What did Lennon want to change about Russia in 1917? To answer this question firstly you will want to describe what Russia was like in 1917, prior to the Bolsheviks coming to power.

You will then want to explain some of the changes Lenin wanted to make.

For example, we know he wanted to overthrow the Tsar and the provisional government.

He also wanted to make a more equal society.

You could perhaps even refer to his ideas regarding communism and Marxism, as we saw on the previous slide.

So to support you with your paragraph, I provided you with some sentence starters below to help you structure your answer.

If you're confident starting without these that's excellent.

But you may want to look at them to help you sequence your writing.

On the right hand column, I've added some key words you may want to include in your paragraphs to.

You can now pause this video and begin this final writing task.

Well done everybody for completing today's lesson and thank you for your hard work.

Really well done for completing your paragraphs too.

Please now complete at the end of lesson quiz to check your understanding, and I look forward to teaching you in your next lesson.