Imperial Chancellery In Russia

As Russia gradually modernized between 1801 and 1939, it continued to rule over the people by intimidation with the incorporation of the secret police force. The secret police force would continue to play a large part of Russia’s attempts in controlling its people while the different forms of governments constantly changed due to the people’s discontentment. At the same time, Russia changed itself from an agrarian based economy to an industrialized nation through a slow, gradual approach of accepting its utmost importance to catch up with the other major world powers that threatened its power. The impacts of the continuity of the secret police and changes of governments and industrialization all eventually led to Russia’s “new identity” as

the USSR by the end of 1939.
A continuity in Russia from 1801 to 1939 was that Russia’s leaders incorporated the secret police as part of their rule by intimidation since 1825 with the creation of the Third Section of Imperial Chancellery during the reign of Nicholas I as a way to protect the threat of his power due to the Decembrist Revolt.

As it served as a way to prevent possible revolutions, the size of the Third Section of Imperial Chancellery was still quite small, but that soon led ended when it was replaced by the Ohkrana in 1881. The Ohkrana was created in response to the assassination of Alexander II with similar motives for the original creation of the previous secret police force. In addition to its original purposes, the Ohkrana protected the tsar, royal family, and the Russian autocracy. However, its organization’s motives soon expanded to an Empire-wide campaign to silence terrorists, revolutionaries, and minority groups. This was because they posed as threats that could eventually have the power to overthrow Russia’s absolute monarchy

if they organized together from the increasing dissatisfaction of the economic, social, and political conditions. Although by the time absolute monarchy ended in Russia since the abdication of Nicholas II, the Bolsheviks and Lenin created an updated version of the secret police called Cheka. Like the motives of the past secret police forces, the Cheka also served as an organization to investigate and extinguish counterrevolutionary crimes. Unfortunately, the Cheka was replaced by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) during the dictatorship reign of Joseph Stalin in 1934. For Stalin, the NKVD served as a powerful instrument against his opponents during the Great Terror in the 1930’s, which was a time of repression and pitted one against another in Russia.
Industrialization was a drastic change experienced by Russia throughout this period by transforming its agrarian based economy to manufacturing and factories. Since the middle ages, serfdom was not abolished in Russia until 1861 by the decree of the Emancipation Edict, which reveals that Russia was slowly modernizing. However, Russia’s gradual modernization did not make a big impact until after the Crimean War. It was Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War that proved that the nation was still well behind and poorly equipped for modern war due to their lack of industry for efficient production, few railways for quick transportation, and outdated weapons for their military. This loss was what spurred the Russians to agree to the concept that they needed to industrialize in order to survive. Fortunately, another progress was made in 1897 when Sergei Witte became Minister of Finance in Russia, and he encouraged heavy industry and expansion of railroads. Another enormous project was undertaken under the reign of Nicholas II with the Tran-Siberian Railroad in which its purposes was to provide an efficient and fast method of transport that may improve Russia’s economic problems. Despite all of Russia’s efforts towards industrialization, the epitome of its progress was when Stalin launched his first five-year plan in 1928 in order to revolutionize the Soviet Union into an industrial country by emphasizing maximum production of weapons and capital goods. As a consequence of the large efforts of Stalin to spur Russia’s transformation from a backward society, the nation succeeded in quadrupling the production of heavy machinery and oil production. Furthermore, between 1928 and 1937, steel production, an increasing demand at that time, increased from 4 million to 18 million tons per year.
Between this period, Russia also experienced another change in its form of government by the evidential overthrow of several governments before it became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

First, Russia became absolute monarchy and an empire when Peter I became the first Russian emperor in 1721. From then on, the imperial Romanov Family continued to rule Russia for nearly two centuries; however, the tsarist government became unprepared for the problems that arose from World War I, along with its failure to bring any substantial changes after the Revolution of 1905. With the additional series of military and economic disasters, it caused the aristocrats, peasants, and middle class to become more embittered with the tsarist government. As a consequence, the March Revolution in 1917 represented Russia’s last piece of patience towards the ill fit tsarist regime. The Duma soon then assumed its government responsibility by forming a provisional government and abdicating Nicholas II despite the tsar’s attempts to dissolve the legislative body. However, the dissatisfaction among the Russians continued to grow because the Provisional Government continued Russia’s participation in World War I, hence the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government. With the new control of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Lenin announced a new Soviet government called the Council of People’s Commissars on November 8, 1917. Unfortunately, the Russians were still unhappy that Lenin still did

not bring peace, which resulted to the Russian Civil War between 1918 and 1921, but the Bolshevik regime triumphed again. Respectively, the Bolshevik transformed Russia into a bureaucratically centralized state dominated by a single party, the Communist Party that created a new state called the USSR. Later on, Stalin succeeded Lenin after his death and transformed Russia again by creating a totalitarian state that strictly controlled peoples’ daily lives.
Many societies during around this period also faced similar changes experienced by Russia with its industrialization and varying forms of governments. In fact, many nations were impelled to industrialize in efforts to compete with other industrialized nations at the same level and to protect themselves from possible threats of modern weapons. By industrializing, it offered the nations to have a better form of transportation and efficient production that would eventually improve its economy and power, which was why many other nations were willing to do so. Moreover, this trend was also evidential in China and Vietnam with its gradual efforts to industrialize in order to keep up with major world powers that have industrialized a long time ago. Before, China and Vietnam were under foreign control, but by industrializing it would lessen the threat of stronger foreign powers invading them. Additionally, political unrest and change in Russia was largely magnified by World War I. With the differing opinions towards the war and its destruction, many people revolted against their governments in efforts to improve their welfare. For instance, the Young Turks revolted against the Ottoman Empire due the empire’s inability to solve its problems and Germany replaced its an imperial government to a republic, which was mainly caused by their defeat from the war.