History 12
Ms. Lacroix
Name _________________________________
DISCONTENT UNDER THE TSAR – Document Based Questions
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6
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Source B –Adapted from a secondary text:
Russian losses averaged 300 000 a month. Troops were put
into the front lines without arms. They fought with clubs
until the death of a comrade freed a rifle. Artillery reserves
were exhausted by November 1914. The transport system
fell apart. Despite conscription of peasants… women,
children, and older men managed to plant and harvest large
crops… But these could not be moved to the cities and only
with enormous effort was the army kept fed. The cities
began to feel the pinch while huge stocks built up in the
country side. In Siberia butter sold for a few kopeks a kilo,
in Moscow it could hardly be bought.
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Source C – from a Russian historical
novel:
Some of the regiments lost half of their
complement of men and horses. Four hundred
Cossacks and sixteen officers were killed and
wounded in Listnitsky’s regiment alone. “We
may lose a few hundred thousand soldiers, but
it is the duty of everyone this country has
nurtured to defend the fatherland from
enslavement.” Listnitsky puffed at his cigarette
and removed his pince-nez to clean his glasses,
staring the while at Bunchuk with his shortsighted eyes. “The workers have no
fatherland,” Bunchuk stamped the words out.
“There is the deepest truth in these words of
Marx. We never have had, and we still have no
fatherland. This accursed country gave you
your food and drink, but we workers grow like
wormwood on the steppe… we and you can’t
flourish together.”
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Source D – Lenin, in a pamphlet
published in 1916
The tens of millions of dead and maimed left by
the war open the eyes of the tens of millions
who are downtrodden, oppressed, and duped
by the bourgeoisie… Thus out of universal ruin
caused by the war, a world-wide revolutionary
crisis is arising which… cannot end in any other
way than in a proletarian revolution and its
victory.
1. What problems were faced by people living in Russia during the Great War?
2. To what extent were problems within wartime Russia caused by poor government?
3. How important were the effects of war in bringing about a revolutionary situation within Russia
by 1917? Explain
4. How reliable are Sources A and D as evidence of the effects of war on the Russian people?
5. Do Sources C and D provide similar or differing view on the effects of war within Russia?
Explain.
6. Were the views put forward in Source D shared by many Russians in 1916? Support your
answer.