04 Control of the People 1917-1953

Question 1

Lenin’s Cult of Personality

Answer 1

-Created after his death against his wishes
-Used as a national figurehead as the people were used to looking up to the Tsar, legitimised the Party
-e.g. St Petersburg renamed Leningrad in 1924
-e.g. Lenin permanently on display in Lenin’s Tomb in the centre of Moscow in 1930

Question 2

How was Stalin’s own Cult of Personality developed in the 1930s to strengthen his dictatorship?

Answer 2

Stalin’s cult allowed him to build a huge powerbase in the Party, due to him closely linking himself with Lenin and his works
Stalin’s popularity majorly grew, and soviet citizens viewed him as a benefactor, inspiration and saviour of socialism and the Mother Russia

-After Lenin’s death, the slogan ‘Stalin is the Lenin of today’ was widely used by sections of the rank-and-file party membership
-Town of Tsaritsyn renamed Stalingrad in 1925
-Images portray him as a benefactor, inspiration, and defender of Socialism – paintings identify him with achievements from the Five-Year Plans

Question 3

How was the Great Patriotic War used to further strengthen Stalin’s Cult of Personality during and after the war?

Answer 3

-Films for cinema featuring Stalin were used to highlight his prominent role in events

-Posters of Stalin in military uniform during WW2, images of him in front of masses of Soviet troops conveyed the message that he was the defender of the nation

-Battle at his namesake city of Stalingrad (1942-43) linked him to a turning point in the war

Question 4

State control of the mass media - Newspapers

Answer 4

-Lenin viewed newspapers as mouthpieces of the bourgeoisie

-The Press Decree in November 1917 banned all non-socialist newspapers

-The Glavlit was the censorship office and gave approval to all articles

-Main newspapers were the Pravda (Truth) which was the paper of the communist party and Izvestiya (The News) which was the paper of the Soviet government

Question 5

State control of the mass media - Magazines

Answer 5

-Vast selection for a wide range of interests, many were aimed at workers, farmers, soldiers or teachers

-Areas of limit: sex, pornography, crime and religion as the government didn’t want to spread those ideas

-Main sports magazine was Red Sport which was produced by the state, gained respect for their honesty even if they had to have communist propaganda on the front page, begun production in 1924

Question 6

State control of the mass media - Radio

Answer 6

-was controlled by the government and conveyed official messages by 1920 with the First voice programmes in 1921

-Bolsheviks installed loudspeakers in public places which was very effective as it allowed the government to convey their propaganda to the 65% of the population that were illiterate

It was very useful during WW2 as Stalin’s speeches could be widely spread to reassure the Soviet population

-The government tried to restrict the access to foreign stations by producing cheap radios with limited range and by jamming foreign broadcasts

Question 7

State control of the mass media - ‘distraction stories’

Answer 7

-Papers contained endless details about achievements of socialism, with production figures related to meeting or even better exceeding targets of the latest economic plan

-This fixation in the 1930s was on Aviators who flew over the North Pole were presented as conquering heroes, who represented bravery, adventure, and the pushing back of frontiers

-When German forces were 50 miles away from Moscow in 1941, Stalin started giving a live speech on radio from Red Square centre of Moscow, to commemorate the October Revolution

Question 8

Attacks on religion - The Russian Orthodox Church - Problem with it

Answer 8

-Ideologically an issue as Marx claimed religion was ‘opium for the masses’
-Politically an issue because it gave people something other than the leadership to worship, and it was tied to the Tsarist regime

-The church was opposed to communist ideals, and the Orthodox Church was very wealthy and was thus the enemy of communism
-Churches tended to act independently of the state and this could not be allowed

Question 9

Attacks on religion - The Russian Orthodox Church - What was done with it

Answer 9

-In 1918, the Decree on the Separation of Church and State separated the Orthodox Church from the state and thus the Church lost its privileged status, was deprived of its land without compensation, and its publications were outlawed

the end of 1918 the head of the Orthodox Church called Patriarch Tikhon was under house arrest

-During the famine of the civil war, attacks on the Church increased and valuables were seized to pay for supplies and priests were denied the vote, denied rations during the war, and were victims of the Red Terror of 1921-22.

-By 1923, 28 bishops and more than 1,000 priests had been killed

-In 1929, the League of the Militant Godless was established by the Bolsheviks as part of a propaganda campaign against religion

Question 10

Attacks on religion - Religious policy under Stalin

Answer 10

-Religious policies had to take a pragmatic approach due to WW2 as the Russian Orthodox Church linked to the Russian national identity and so it was an appeal to patriotism to boost morale and inspire them to fight meant working with the Church

-It was a pragmatic alliance and Stalin asked leaders to help support the war effort e.g. Metropolitan (title) Sergey, the Russian Orthodox Church’s most senior figure proclaimed Stalin as “God’s chosen leader”

-In return, churches were kept open and anti-religious propaganda was ended, over 400 churches reopened during WW2

-Easing in Church restriction led to growth, priesthood expanded from 9000 in 1946 to almost 12,000 in 1948

Question 11

Attacks on religion - Influence of Islam - restrictions

Answer 11

-There was a significant number of Muslims in the central region of Russia

-Bolsheviks feared that the influence of Islam links to national minorities within the USSR might threaten the social cohesion of the state

-Not until the 1920s when the real persecution of Islam began: Mosques were closed down, Sharia courts were phased out, Mullahs were removed as part of the collectivisation process and forced to publicly admit they were deceivers of the people

Question 12

Attacks on religion - Influence of Islam - benefiting women

Answer 12

-Campaign against the veiling of women began on International Women’s Day 1927 where many women cast off their veils and threw them into the bonfire

-Polygamy (having more than one wife) was prohibited on the grounds of subjection of women

Question 13

Secret police - Lenin’s use of the Secret Police - general

Answer 13

-Lenin believed in using terror and the secret police was essential for maintaining control of the people, idea arisen from the French Revolution

-Believed in was a temporary measure for establishing control

-Cheka created in 1917 as a political police

Question 14

Secret police - Lenin’s use of the Secret Police - during the Civil War

Answer 14

-Lenin had established the norm of a liberal use of violence during the Civil War when he approved the Cheka’s execution of 300,000 people between 1918-1920

-Executed/arrested political opponents – e.g. Cheka took intense actions against the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the Red Terror 1921-22 where 200,000 opponents were shot

-Seized food from the peasants

-Employed ‘revolutionary justice’ but did not follow the law

-Brutally suppressed uprisings like the Kronstadt Mutiny and the Tambov Uprising, also made sure the Red Army did not switch sides in these uprisings

Question 15

Secret police - Lenin’s use of the Secret Police - during the NEP

Answer 15

-Reduction in level of violence but still active

-They kept surveillance of Tsarist officers now serving in the Red Army

-Monitored public opinion to ensure the Communist Party had the support of the people

-Harassed women dressed in Western styles, young people who listened to jazz, Nepmen who had grown too rich

-Organised trial of Socialist Revolutionary leaders in 1922, all sentenced to death but most just imprisoned

Question 16

Secret police - Stalin’s use of the Secret Police - general

Answer 16

-Secret police transformed under Stalin, where Lenin had used the secret police to protect the Party, Stalin used the secret police to focus inwards against the Party

-Stalin’s justification for a radical extension of terror was the ‘sharpening of the class struggle’

-The NKVD under Yezhov reflect this new theory by: Purge of the secret police itself in 1937, Recruitment of new agents that had not been part of the early communist party where they had split loyalties

Question 17

Secret police - Stalin’s use of the Secret Police - Countryside

Answer 17

Dekulakisation (removing the slightly richer peasant - as part of collectivization 1929-40 - 2 million peasants deported or killed

Great Famine 1930-1933 (Holodomor 1932-1933, deaths of Ukrainians perhaps to decrease separatism), caused by collectivization, 5 million peasant deaths

Question 18

Secret police - Stalin’s use of the Secret Police - Party

Answer 18

-During the Great Purge (1936-38) 1.2 million party member were arrested and 600,000 executed

Leningrad Affair of 1949 – Stalin became afraid that Leningrad would become too autonomous after them surviving on their own in WW2, therefore in 1949 Stalin accused them of being traitors and dispersed them across the country

Beria was essentially running a state within a state, he was in charge of the secret police – The Mingrelian Affair of 1951 involved a purge of the Party in Georgia that removed some of Beria’s allies.

Question 19

Secret police - Stalin’s use of the Secret Police - Military

Answer 19

-80% of generals and admirals executed and 35,000 officers were either shot or imprisoned

-Stalin became afraid of the popularity of Zhukov had after he led Russia through the war, in 1946, Zhukov was demoted to a regional position and had medial posts ever after.

-Order 270 (anyone who surrendered was to be treated as a prisoner) meant that 1.5 million Soviet POWs returning from camps in Germany were sent to gulags

-SMERSH was created in April 1943 to remove hostile elements from the Red Army

Question 20

Secret police - Stalin’s use of the Secret Police - General Population

Answer 20

-Yezhovshchina 1936-1938 - 1.5 million people arrested - This was 10% of the male population

-July 1937 Stalin called for removal of all ‘anti-Soviet elements’ from Society - Yezhov then issued Operational Order 00447: 250,000 ‘enemies of the state’ to be arrested by end of the year.

Question 21

Secret police - Stalin’s use of the Secret Police - National Minorities

Answer 21

-Secret police organised mass deportations to crush nationalist movements
-In 1944 500,000 Chechen’s deported, 170,000 died
-By 1950 300,000 Ukrainians and 400,000 Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians deported
-3% of Estonia’s population seized in a week-long operation in March 1949

Rising anti-semitism from 1952 - Jews sacked from positions of responsibility in government and industry, Jewish schools shut down, Restrictions paced on Jewish worships

Question 22

How the scale of terror could be overstated

Answer 22

-The USSR was populated by 170 million people so many areas went completely untouched

-Even in Leningrad the quota of 4,000 execution and 10,000 exiled was only around half a percent of the total Leningrad population

Question 23

Use of Culture and the Arts - Proletkult - rise

Answer 23

-Lunacharsky, the People’s Commissar of Enlightenment, believed that following the revolution a new form of proletarian culture should be allowed to flourish and that art should reflect the views and concerns of the working class

-Between 1918-20 it became a national movement with branches all across Russia

-Bukharin was a supporter of the Proletkult movement, promoting it throughout the Civil War

-By 1920, 300 stuidios had been set up across Russia for ordinary people

Question 24

Use of Culture and the Arts - Proletkult - fall

Answer 24

-Lenin also did not like the fact that it was independent of party control. He believed that Proletkult was dominated by socialists associated with opposition movements such as anarchism

-In October 1920 Proletkult lost its independence and became part of the Commissariat of Enlightenment. Funds for its radical projects were cut and money was diverted to traditional arts such as ballet

Question 25

Use of Culture and the Arts - The Avant-garde and fellow travellers - rise and fall

Answer 25

-Many leading painters, sculptors and film makers were genuinely inspired by the events of the Revolution

-Although many were not communists, they willingly experimented with new styles and techniques in an effort to produce new, revolutionary art

-From the mid-1920s the freedom of avant-garde artists began to be reduced as they faced mounting criticism from the Soviet authorities

-The Petrograd State Institute of Artistic Culture, a leading centre for the avant-garde, was forced to close in 1926 following a campaign against avant-garde in Pravda. The newspaper claimed that the art school was using government money to encourage individualism and debauchery.

Question 26

Use of Culture and the Arts - The Avant-garde and fellow travellers - artist examples

Answer 26

-El Lissitzky, a graphic designer and photographer, created the poster ‘Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge’ in 1918, one of the most famous experimental posters of the Civil War

Question 27

Use of Culture and the Arts - Socialist Realism - rise

Answer 27

-State controlled art

-Stalin had strong views on art. He was suspicious of the avant-garde and experimental techniques. In 1930, Stalin wrote an article in The Bolshevik, which argued that revolutionary art should reflect government priorities rather than individual creativity.

-From the early 1930s all forms of art had to be in the ‘Socialist realist style’. It needed to be easy to understand by the Soviet people and it needed to inspire people to devote themselves to the construction of socialism.

-Under Stalin, art was produced in a similar way to other goods. Artists were set targets for the number of paintings or sculptures they were required to produce

Question 28

Use of Culture and the Arts - Socialist Realism - artist examples

Answer 28

-Fedor Shurpin’s ‘Morning of our motherland’ (1949) shows Stalin standing in a landscape transformed by collectivisation and industrialisation

Question 29

Use of Culture and the Arts - Post WWII & The Zhdanov Doctrine

Answer 29

-As the Cold War set in, creative freedom was further restricted. Stalin placed Andrei Zhdanov in charge of the Soviet Union’s cultural policy. He led a campaign to remove Western influences from Soviet culture. These were deemed ‘Anti-Soviet’

-The State Museum of Modern Western Art was closed down in 1948

-Zhdanov launched a bitter attack on Anna Akhmatova, one of the Soviet Union’s greatest poets and accused her of poisoning the minds of Soviet youth with her ‘bourgeois’, she was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, without membership of this government controlled body it was impossible to have work published

-A campaign against ‘formalism’ and other ‘decadent Western influences’ in Soviet music led to the official blacklisting of several composers, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev

Question 30

Use of Culture and the Arts - Youth organisations and political rituals

Answer 30

-The Party youth organisations for young adults, Komsomol, played a central role in the Cultural Revolution of the early 1930s

-Komsomol had 2 million members in 1929, rising to 10 million in 1940

-Stakhanovite movement (founded in 1935) was built upon the hopes of workers for a better life in the Five-Year plans

Question 31

Use of Culture and the Arts Leisure and public celebrations

Answer 31

-Celebrations of the anniversary of the October Revolution became large government managed events
-Public events used to celebrate the achievements of the Five-Year Plans

-Moscow’s agricultural exhibition of 1939 attracted 30,000 visitors every day

-By 1949, there were 30,000 cinemas in the USSR, state approved movies