MYP Individuals & Societies • Unit 3
The Russian Revolution
By understanding long-term and short-term causes of discontent within relationships of power, one can understand how revolutions lead to radical change.
Change — power, discontent and radical change
Original AdornGeo sequence
Unit learning
Introduction
Mapping Russia & Russian Geography
Setting the Scene
Catalysts for the Revolution
Social Inequality
Characteristics of Revolutions
Introduction
Start with the question that framed the original AdornGeo unit: why do revolutions happen? Build a working timeline from the 1905 Revolution to October 1917, identify the groups competing for power, and distinguish the February and October revolutions before judging which turning point mattered most.
The Russian Revolution in seven minutes
The Russian Revolution — overview, part one
Mapping Russia & Russian Geography
Reconstruct the original geographical foundation. Locate the Russian Empire, Moscow, Petrograd, the main industrial regions and the Eastern Front; then connect Russia’s scale, climate, transport distances and uneven population distribution to food supply, military mobilisation and political control.
Russia and the Republics — physical geography
Setting the Scene
Examine late-imperial Russia before 1917. Build a social pyramid for the Tsar, nobility, clergy, industrial workers and peasants; annotate the autocratic system; and use evidence to explain why rapid industrialisation and limited political reform increased pressure on the regime.
Catalysts for the Revolution
Separate long-term causes from short-term catalysts. Trace the effects of Bloody Sunday, the 1905 Revolution, the First World War, military defeat, inflation, food shortages, strikes and the loss of army loyalty. Finish with a ranked causal web showing how the factors reinforced one another.
The Russian Revolution of 1905 — Bloody Sunday
The Russian Revolution of 1917
Social Inequality
Investigate how unequal access to land, food, income, political voice and working conditions shaped different experiences of the empire. Compare a peasant, an urban worker, a soldier and an elite family, then use corroborated evidence rather than hindsight to explain why their interests did not always align.
Characteristics of Revolutions
Return to the unit’s wider concept of change. Test the Russian case against recurring characteristics of revolutions: structural inequality, declining legitimacy, crisis, mobilisation, competing ideologies, state breakdown and a new concentration of power. Conclude with an evidence-led judgement: was 1917 a popular revolution, a state collapse, a coup, or a combination of all three?
The Russian Revolution explained — causes and Bolshevik takeover