1 / 9

The nature of government

The nature of government. The nature of government

claude
Download Presentation

The nature of government

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The nature of government

  2. The nature of government Candidates should know, understand and be able to explain autocracy, dictatorship and totalitarianism; change and continuity in central administration; methods of repression and enforcement; the extent and impact of reform; the extent and effectiveness of opposition both before and after 1917.

  3. Government structures and institutions • Government 1855-1905 largely the same and paternalistic • Pressure for change 1905 • Progressive bloc- members of Duma who want a national government • Nic II suspends the Duma 1915, but opens a year later • Petrograd soviet formed alongside Duma feb 1917

  4. Lenin and the Bolsheviks • ‘All Russian congress of Soviets’: new government • ‘Peoples Commissars’ (ministers) met in a council, Lenin chairman • Sovnarkom ‘Peoples commissars council’: elections from district soviets • Appears democratic…. But soviets dominated by the Bolsheviks

  5. Stalin and the USSR • Continue democratic centralism • 1936 constitution appears democratic • Supreme Soviet elected council of peoples commissars, two houses (democratic?) • Many organs: politburo, council of commissars • Soviets abandoned

  6. Local government • The mir • Zemstvos 1894, elected membership (property qualification), only in Great Russia • 1870: urban equivalent: Duma, qualification tougher to exclude the urban proletariat • Zemstvos and duma: health, education, transport • Central government began to dislike: councils largely members of the intelligentsia

  7. Judicial changes • 1864: reforms under Alex II • Alex III less liberal: terror, land captains • 1921: legal to use terror to stop counter revolutionaries

  8. Autocracy and dictatorship the same? • Structure of government always hierarchical, lacks representation of the bulk of the population • Opposition throughout the era tended to be a handful of individuals, and often fragmented – Hell, People’s Will, Land and Liberty – Bolsheviks, Mensheviks – Left Opposition, Right Opposition

  9. Turning points? • 1905? • 1917?

More Related