HOW SIGNIFICANT WAS WAR IN THE MAKING OF MODERN RUSSIA IN THE YEARS 1856-1964?

The making of modern Russia can be defined as a period when Russia went through a lot of trials, errors and successes to get to their progressive state, since they were once a backwards country. War was a main factor that brought about the progression in Russia through social, economic and political means as Wells states, war was a highly important part of Russias development in this period. The Crimean War revealed the backwardness of Russia while the Civil War helped in bringing the Bolsheviks into power and the WW2 established the reign of the Red Tsar. However, there are other factors like the role of the individuals that led to various decisions being made by the leaders on behalf of Russia and the ideologies brought about by these individuals. Nonetheless, it is the individuals that brought about the main changes and built Russia to its standing point. The Crimean War was the first and most important catalyst to the making of modern Russia. It exposed how backwards Russia was especially industrially. The war made the people question the power of Russia internationally and brought about a hunger to grow and keep its powerful position in the world. To improve a position downgraded due to the war, AlexanderII brought about reforms like the emancipation of the serfs. This was a social reform that was brought about to boost industrialisation. The serfs were emancipated and this influenced changes in the social life and political lives of people. Holland corroborates with this stating; as serfdom had underpinned the way in which Russian society was structured, organise and administered, it was natural that the abolition of it would lead to some change in the way Russia was to be governed. The emancipation of serfs resulted in the diminished political roles of the nobility at local level leading to the generation of the Zemstva Russias first glance of democracy. However, this was undermined because members were chosen through their acquisition of land and if the Zemstva did anything unacceptable by the Tsar, he could repress them. The serfs were used to work with industrialisation and the development of the railway system was brought about as the war revealed how slowly Russia had been to mobilise resources compared to their competition. The Crimean War was the start of a growing and industrialised Russia and had a very significant role in the making of modern Russia. The Civil War led to another era of change in political, social and economic areas. The Civil War led to the economic policy of war communism brought by Lenin, leading to peoples starvation and fear of the Bolsheviks including change in views of who the people were willing to support. War communism was used during the war to provide for the soldiers and this resulted in a strong red army. With war communism leaving the people detesting communism and in doubt of whether they wanted the Bolsheviks in power, the NEP was formed to correct the casualties of war communism. The NEP was more of a capitalist reform than a communist reform which led to internal disapprovals of Lenins decisions. However, the new reform brought about stability in Russias economy. This improvement was needed to advance support for the Bolsheviks and it did. The Civil war also led to the emancipation of women as they were needed for the war and this brought about freedom for the women and in return helped the country grow industrially since the women were able to work in whatever job desired. Unfortunately, Lenin took this chance back from the women after the war because he was done using them for his credit. During the Civil War women were thought the communist ways and so with every child born Lenins ideologies were brought to life and formed in their way of life. The Civil War also brought a huge change to the government as it put Lenin in power and led to the fall of the provisional government. It played a significant role in the making of

modern Russia as without it Lenin would not have been able to consolidate power and bring to fruition his ideologies as well as ensure conformity and limit oppositions. Another war that made a huge contribution to the making of modern Russia was WW2. The war brought back the emancipation of women helping in the growth of Russia by socially forming the minds of people to equality. WW2 also resulted in the return of religion due to of Stalins plans to attract more popularity and gain more support. The army leaders were also released from the Gulags proving Russia to be a less repressed country. This all brought about a change that the people were lacking at the beginning of the Crimean War. They were now bold enough to say that they were catching up with the rest of the main powers of the world. With Stalin gaining so much popularity due to his reforms, he was able to consolidate absolute power bringing about the Red Tsar. He had the ultimate power because of WW2 and this resulted in the final change in power from 1856-1964. WW2 made a huge contribution to the making of modern Russia. In contradiction to the fact that war was the most significant factor in the making of modern Russia is the role of the individual. Tsar NicholasII played an important role in the making of Russia as he brought to life the end of the reign of Tsars. He made changes but mainly to consolidate power, for instance the 1905 October manifesto rendered useless by the reinstatement of the 1906 Fundamental Law. Nicholas main goal was to assert power and keep autocracy as he believed that he was ordained by God to reign over Russia. Unfortunately for him he only made matters worse due to his way of handling the country for instance, leading the army in WW1 and leaving the country behind to be led by his German wife and Rasputin. His lack of leadership skills and knowledge on how to control the country led to the undermining of his power by the people. As Hans Rogger stated; Nicholas had no knowledge of the world of men, of politics or government, to help him make the difficult and weighty decisions that the Tsar alone could make. NicholasII choices for the country led to the revolution against the reign of Tsars and a cry out for a more democratic society. Adding to the making of modern Russia was also Lenin who brought about ideologies that he believed would help the country grow both economically and socially. His policies brought various changes to the country, like the NEP policy that helped in building the country financially. Including his role in the Civil War which helped him consolidate power and remove factions from the party. Lenins pragmatic nature helped in building Russia into a better country and was the start of a new totalitarian regime although not completely fulfilled. Stalin played the final role of bringing absolute communism to the country. He started leading Russia with paranoia leading to the purges of whoever he thought to be a threat; with this he was able to have trusted people around him meaning he had no opposition. As a result of the WW2 Stalin became more pragmatic and instead of using fear to gain absolute control as before, he gave the people what they wanted. An example being the return of religion, also increasing popularity was the emancipation of women. With the end of WW2 the people took Stalin as a god-like figure as stated by Wood. Eventually resulting in Stalin being called the Red Tsar. In total, NicholasII aroused the end of the reign of the Tsars leading to the rise of the Bolsheviks which was brought about by Lenin. Lenin was able to make a better economy and bring about the idea of communism which brought forth the later reign of Stalin who was able to take over the leadership of the country and make Russia a totalitarian state. Showing how the leaders of Russia brought about a huge contribution to the making of modern Russia.

Ideologies made a significant amount of contribution to the making of modern Russia. At the beginning of 1856, Russia was an autocratic country ruled by the Tsar, but when this ruling family was challenged they took preventative means to try to preserve their autocratic powers. Alexander II made political, social and economic reforms to try to appease the people to stay in power; one of the policies being the creation of the Zemstva. Nicholas II also created the Duma to preserve his power and keep autocracy; however the lack of real provision for the desires of the people and the rigidness of autocracy like the reinstatement of the fundamental laws 1906 led to its demise. The fall of autocracy led to democracy, unfortunately for the government there was an existence of dual authority within it. The Petrograd soviet which consisted of mainly communists and socialist revolutionaries had the control while the government had none. Their belief in different views and different solutions to problems led to their fall. Lenin was in control of the Petrograd soviets and was looking to bring about communism. With the fall of democracy came democratic centralism which involved a few people holding the power until everyone was communist and seeing as the people had not gone through the complete dialectic cycle to get into communism, this was the closest solution. In 1924 Lenin banned factions within the party because they were trying to challenge him over the NEP. Lenin died in 1924 and with Lenins death Stalin began to use the banned factions to get a strong hold on the party. Stalin was secretary and so was able to choose and remove members to form a party to his liking. Removing all opposition within the party and making him leader. Stalin did not believe in bringing world communism at once, he believed in building Russia up to be a perfect communist state before influencing other countries and so socialism in one country was initiated. Once Stalin was leader he began to purge all opposition e.g. the army, society and political leaders. This brought about conformity through fear, but this did not last long as when Russia went into the war he made several reforms and changes that please the people, and he brought them out of the war in victory. With this Stalin came out as a god and owned all leadership, with no political oppositions due to the purges and praise from the people totalitarianism was brought about through the formation of the Red tsar who was Stalin. The ideologies in Russia brought about many changes and reforms progressing as it went on, this was a main contribution to the making of modern Russia reducing the role of war. In conclusion, although war was a major contribution to the making of modern Russia through the Crimean War that brought about the realisation of the need for change, and the Civil War that helped in the production of the NEP, as well as WW2 that brought about the Red Tsar. There were other huge contributors to the making of modern Russia like the role of the individuals that brought about the change in policies and the ideologies that made Russia the unique country it was. The role of the individuals is the most important as without the leaders the policies would not have been brought across; the individuals also generated the ideologies and implemented them. It was also the individuals that brought about realisation after the wars as AlexanderII realised that Russia was backwards after he war. Without the individuals Russia would not have been the country it was in 1964.

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