17: the Stalinist society Flashcards
What type of man was the socialist man that Stalin wanted to create
The type of man who was publicly engaged and committed to the community
What would the socialist man have a sense of and what would he give to the state
A sense of social responsibility and would willingly give service to the state
Why did class based attacks continue in earnest in Stalin’s rule
Due to his decision to halt the NEP
What agenda was there in Lenin and Stalin’s time in creating new polcicies (socialist manG
The outcome had to be an environment in which the socialist man could flourish
Did the harsh living and working conditions experienced in Lenin’s time persist through Stalin’s rule
They got worse in Stalin’s early years
Why did living and working conditions get worse in Stalin’s early years
Peasants were herded into collectives and more emigrated to towns
What did the drive for industrialisation bring to workers
7 day working week and longer workers hours
What could arriving late or missing work result in
Dismissal, eviction from housing and loss of benefits
What became criminal (workers)
Damaging machinery or leaving a job without permission
Were strikes illegal
Yes
When were wage differentials, bonuses and payment by the piece introduced
1931
What did the introduction of wage differentials etc produce
A more diverse proletariat
What did it mean that workers were allowed to choose their place of work
They could move to improve their lot, while disciplinary rules were eased
Examples of propaganda campaigns which increased socialist competition
Stakhanovite movement
What did the Stakhanovite movement produce
A new proletarian elite
Why did Stalin’s industrialisation produce new opportunities for social advancement
- more peasants moved to towns
- more town workers became managers
- more children of workers benefitted from educational oppuritinies
What reduced the numbers competing for jobs and created plenty of vacancies at the top
Stalin’s purges
What did Stalin announce in 1993
‘Life has become better, comrades, life has become more joyous’
What we’re living condiditons like in the countryside
Primitive
Living conditions in towns
- workers lived in cramped communication apartments with inadequate sanitation
- public transport overcrowded, shops empty
When did real wages increase
In second 5 year plan
What were wages in second five year plan still lower than
Still lower in 1937 than they had been in 1928
When was rationing phased out
1935 but market prices were high
What could those in positions of importance in socialist system obtain
More goods more cheaply
What did Stalin revert to in 1930s with women
More traditional policies
What drove Stalin’s reversion to more traditional policies with women
Fall in population growth
Women: what became the focus of a new propaganda wave
Family
Women: how was Stalin’s portrayed in new family propaganda wave
As a father figure and ideal family man
Women: what was attacked under new propaganda wave
Divorce and abortion
Women: importance of what re-emphasised under family campaign
Marriage
Wedding rings reintroduced and new style wedding certificates issued
Women: in what new way were women portrayed in films and art
Muscular, plain dressed women who helped to build soviet Russia in 1920s and more feminine family woman with adoring children
Women: when were a number of meandered introduced which reversed earlier changes
1936
Women: what was introduced in 1936 to deter divorce
Larger fees and added penalties that men would be expected to contribute 60% income in child support
Women: what was criminalised 1936
Adultery
Women: when was contraception permitted
Only on medical grounds, banned if not
Women: who were financial incentives offered for
Large families
Tax exemptions granted for families of 6 or more and there were bonus payments for every additional child to 10 in the family
Women: growth in female industrial workers 1928-1949
1928 3 million
1940 13 million
Women: what percentage of industrial workforce was female by 1940
43%
Women: what was introduced to help women cope with work and family
Growth in provision of state nurseries, crèches and careens and more child clinics
Women: how much less did women earn than men
40%
Higher administrative posts held by men
Women: did divorce and abortion rate remain high
Yes still over 150,000 abortion’s to every 57,000 love births
Education: what was encouraged for less able
Increasing amounts of practical work encouraged
Education: what did the bulk of expansion and secondary and higher level involve
More formal teaching so as to develop the skills needed in a modern industrial society
Education: what did many schools become the responsibility of
Collective farms/town enterprises
Education: what were universities seen as
Agencies for delivering economic growth
Education: who were universities put under control of
Veshenka
Education: what system was abandoned in 1935
The quota system and selection reappeared for all
Education: what type of education existed for the selected
Rigid academic curriculum, formal teaching, report card tests and uniforms
Education: what were the core subjects
Reading writing and science 30% time devoted to Russian language and literature 20% maths 15% science 10% soviet style history
Education: what was introduced into middle and higher schools
Nationalism promoted and military training jntroduced
Education: to what profession did the Stakhanovite movement extent to
The teaching profession
Education: what were teachers encouraged to do under Stakhanovite movement
Set high targets for themselves and their students
Education: what could happen to teachers if students failed to do well
Teachers could be blamed and purged
Education: what percentage of 9-49 age groups in towns were literate by 1941
94%
Education: in what field were the USSR turning out strong graduates
Science
Youth organisations: what was RKSM renamed in 1926
Komsomol
Youth organisations: what was the age range of Komsomol extended to include
Children from 10-28 years
Youth organisations: what percentage of eligible youth had joined Komsomol 1926
Only 6%
Youth organisations: what did Komsomol teach
Communist values
Youth organisations: what was discouraged under Komsomol
Smoking drinking and religion
Youth organisations: What was encouraged under Komsomol
Volunteer Social work, sports, political and drama clubs
Youth organisations: what did young pioneer palaces serve as
Community centres for children
Youth organisations: when did Komsomol become directly affiliated with the party
1939
Youth organisations: what did members of the Komsomol take a path to live, study and fight for
The fatherland ‘as the great Lenin has instructed’ and ‘as the communist party teaches me’
Youth organisations: what was the name of the youth newspaper
Komonsolskaia Pravda
Youth organisations: what did komonsolskia Pravda encourage
Young people to protect family values and respect their parents
Youth organisations: how did membership of Komsomol and young pioneers offer chance for social mobility and educational advancement
The uniform singles these young members out and helped smooth their educational path
Youth organisations: what was opposition to komsomol like
Small number of secret oppositional youth organisations
Direct confrontation between organisations and state authorities rare
Religion: what was worship restricted to in 1929
Registered congregations
Religion: what prevented a holy day of church attendance from 1932
Introduced of an uninterrupted 7 day work week
Religion: what did Stalin’s 1936 constitution criminalise the publication of
Religious propaganda
Religion: when did priests regain the vote they had lost in 1918
1936
Religion: what was confiscated from Muslims during and after civil war
Muslim property and insitutiotins confiscated and sharia courts abolished
Religion: what did confiscation from Muslims produce
A split within Islamic church
‘New mosque’ took pro soviet line
Religion: when were pilgrimages to Mecca forbidden
1935
Religion: what led to backlash in central Asian Muslim communities 1935
Frequency of prayers, fasts and feasts reduced and wearing of veil forbidden
Religion: what was the fate of many Muslim priests
Imprisoned/executes
Religion: what did the anti religion drive also extend to
Buddhists and the Armenian and Georgian churches
How many churches and mosques closed by 1941
C- 40,000
M- 25,000
Religion: what strengthened religious belief
Attacks during period of collectivisation and purged
National minorities: what were soviet Jews given in 1926
A special national homeland settlement in which they could maintain their cultural heritage
National minorities: where was national homeland for Jews and what did it become in 1934
In far eastern province and became an autonomous republic in 1934
National minorities: what year were anti Semitic laws abolished
1917
National minorities: which language became acceptable
Yiddish but Hebrew didn’t because of religious connotations
National minorities: what did Stalinist policy in 1930s veer towards
Greater centralisation and less tolerance of the ethnic groups as he sought to create a single ‘soviet identity’
National minorities: what happened to the leaders of the different republics that formed the USSR if they deviated from the path laid down in Moscow
They were purged as bourgeois nationalists
National minorities: from when did Russian become the only language used in the red army
1938
National minorities: what happened despite propaganda which proclaimed the ‘family of nations’
Russians were firmly at the head
National minorities: when did Stalin begin his deportations of non Russians
In the 1930s
National minorities what was also revived in the 1930s
Anti Semitic attitudes especially in rural areas
Natuonal minorities: what were the motivations behind most of the campaigns
Politically rather than racially motivated
Propaganda: why did Stalin rely heavily on propaganda
To harness support for collectivisation and industrial policies
Propaganda: what reinforced the socialist message
Pictures of happy productive workers
Propaganda: example of heroes who were extolled as role models to copy
Stakhanov
Propaganda: what was every new initiative sold as
The inspiration of the all knowing leader
Propaganda: what did posters often show
Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin in continuous progression, bringing enlightenment to Russian people
Propaganda: throughbwhat associations did Stalin strengthen his own position
Those made between himself and Lenin
‘Stalin is the Lenin of today’
Propaganda: what did some peasants have in their homes
A red corner of the great leaders
Propaganda: why did a cult of personality for Lenin grow under Stalin after Lenin’s death
Stalin wanted to appear as his disciple
Propaganda: how was Lenin being treated in the late 1920s
Like a god, whose words held the answer to all Russian problems
Propaganda: what did Stalin insist about Lenin’s body
That it be embalmed and Lenin’s tomb be turned into a shrine
Propaganda: what did Petrograd become
Leningrad
Cultural change: when was literature, art, architecture etc considered valuable
Only if it supported socialist ideology and the creation of the new socialist man
Cultural change: what kind of art had no place in the soviet state
Art for its own sake
Cultural change: what were writers expected to be
Engineers of the human soul
Cultural change: from 1932, what did all writers have to belong to
The union of soviet writers
Cultural change: what did the union of soviet writers exert control over
What was created and who was allowed to create
Cultural change: what was individual expression deemed
Politically suspect
Cultural change: what did the new norms demand adherence to
The doctrine of socialist realism
Cultural change: what did socialist realism mean according o the writers
The truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development
Cultural change: what does socialist realism mean in simpler terms
Writers were not to represent soviet life exactly as it was at the time, they were to show what it might become
Cultural change: what were literature and art used to show
How the march to communism was inevitable
Cultural change: who was the frame of reference for writers laid down by
Andrei zhdanov
Cultural change: when was the frame of reference for writers laid down
April 1934 at first congress of union of soviet writers
Cultural change: what were works expected to glorify
The working man, and particularly communities working together and embracing new technology
Cultural change: era of
Happy endings
Cultural change: what did the mid 1930s see a ruthless attack on
The avant-grade
Cultural change: what did Pravda produce a damning critique of in 1936
Dmitry shostakovichs opera lady Macbeth of mtensk
Cultural change: what was Shostakovich accused of
Leftist distortions
Cultural change: what was there no attempt to create
A new proletarian culture which was in any way distinct from the upper class/bourgeois culture of ore revolutionary era
Cultural change: what kind of culture was promoted
Folk culture
Cultural change: what did the folk theme tie in well with
Stalin’s commitment to national values and praise for Russians great heritage
