Argument material

Evidence & interpretations

Use precise evidence to prove a claim, then explain its significance and limitations.

Statistics and interpretations are attributed teaching evidence, not uncontested truth. Check the claim’s scope and use it to support reasoning rather than as decoration.

AOS1 · social

The 1897 census recorded 122.9 million people; a contemporary class model used in the textbook places approximately 82 per cent in the peasantry and 4 per cent among industrial workers.

Use it to: Establish the agrarian character of Russia and the narrow but concentrated industrial workforce.

Malone, Analysing the Russian Revolution, 4th ed., p. 34

AOS1 · economic

St Petersburg grew from about 1.03 million people in 1890 to 1.91 million in 1910, while rail track expanded from 31,216 km in 1891 to 70,160 km in 1913.

Use it to: Show how industrial modernisation produced both capacity and new social pressure.

Malone, p. 38–40

AOS1 · social

By 1914 many industrial workers averaged around 60 hours each week; a 1904 housing study recorded severe urban crowding.

Use it to: Support explanations of strike militancy without treating workers as the population majority.

Malone, p. 77

AOS1 · military

At Tsushima the Baltic Fleet lost 35 of 45 ships; more than 10,000 Russian sailors were killed or captured.

Use it to: Demonstrate the scale and reputational effect of defeat in the Russo-Japanese War.

Malone, p. 75

AOS1 · political

After the 1907 electoral change, electing one deputy required roughly 230 landowner votes, 60,000 peasant votes, or 125,000 industrial-worker votes.

Use it to: Demonstrate how constitutional forms preserved unequal political influence.

Malone, p. 97

AOS1 · military

Russia mobilised about 13 million soldiers; the textbook reports more than four million losses in the first year and a total casualty estimate of 9.5 million.

Use it to: Support the argument that war destabilised the army, households, and confidence in government.

Malone, p. 116

AOS1 · economic

The textbook reports wages rising about 50 per cent while the prices of goods rose between 100 and 500 per cent during the wartime crisis.

Use it to: Connect war finance and transport disruption to urban hardship and protest.

Malone, p. 120

AOS1 · social

Protest grew from about 90,000 participants on International Women’s Day to 200,000 the next day and 240,000 by 25 February Old Style.

Use it to: Trace how a food and anti-war protest became a general political crisis.

Malone, p. 135–39

AOS1 · political

By the Second Congress of Soviets, Bolsheviks held about 59 per cent of 670 delegates.

Use it to: Qualify the claim that October had no representative support while distinguishing soviet strength from an all-Russian majority.

Malone, p. 171

AOS2 · political

In the Constituent Assembly election the Socialist Revolutionaries won 370 seats while the Bolsheviks received under one quarter of the vote.

Use it to: Evaluate the tension between electoral legitimacy and Bolshevik claims to soviet power.

Malone, p. 226–28

AOS2 · military

Brest-Litovsk ceded roughly one million square kilometres and territory containing about 45 million people.

Use it to: Explain opposition to the treaty and Lenin’s prioritisation of regime survival.

Malone, p. 229–32

AOS2 · political

The Cheka grew from 23 personnel at the end of 1917 to about 10,000 within six months and approximately 100,000 by 1921.

Use it to: Demonstrate the institutional expansion of revolutionary coercion.

Malone, p. 221

AOS2 · military

The Red Army expanded to approximately five million personnel by 1920.

Use it to: Evaluate Trotsky’s organisation and the mobilisation underpinning Bolshevik Civil War victory.

Malone, p. 262–65

AOS2 · economic

By the end of War Communism, industrial output was about 15 per cent and agricultural output about 60 per cent of pre-war levels; the industrial workforce had roughly halved from 1917.

Use it to: Measure the economic and social crisis behind opposition and the NEP retreat.

Malone, p. 277–78

AOS2 · military

Approximately 60,000 attackers were used against a Kronstadt garrison of about 16,000 sailors.

Use it to: Assess the regime’s determination and the imbalance behind suppression.

Malone, p. 285–93

AOS2 · economic

During the 1923 scissors crisis, industrial prices peaked at about 290 per cent of their 1913 level.

Use it to: Show that NEP recovery was uneven and generated new tensions.

Malone, p. 304

Historiography

Named arguments to test

Attribute, contextualise, compare, and decide which interpretation the evidence best supports.

AOS1 · industrialisation

Hans Rogger

Industrialisation destabilised politics because society changed faster than the inflexible state could accommodate.

AOS1 · fall of Tsarism

Orlando Figes

Nicholas repeatedly rejected the accountable government that might have preserved the throne.

AOS1 · October

Richard Pipes

October is best understood as a coup; the label emphasises organisation and limited direct participation.

AOS1 · Bolshevik success

Sheila Fitzpatrick

The Bolsheviks matched popular mood by discarding Marxist caution and declaring readiness to take power.

AOS1 · Provisional Government

Michael Lynch

Continuing the war supported international survival but destroyed the government’s domestic prospects.

AOS2 · Kronstadt and NEP

Orlando Figes

The 1921 crisis represented a popular revolt that forced a desperate retreat and exposed Bolshevik tyranny.

AOS2 · NEP

Sheila Fitzpatrick

NEP was improvised under desperate conditions but produced rapid economic effects.

AOS2 · NEP

Robert Service

Economic relaxation was necessary because force alone could not pacify the peasantry.

AOS2 · one-party rule

Isaac Deutscher

Civil War conditions made one-party rule appear an unavoidable requirement of survival.

AOS2 · Lenin and coercion

Dmitri Volkogonov

Lenin normalised terror and built the new order through coercion at the expense of liberty.