3.16 Leninist/ Stalinist society

Question 1

When was the ‘class hierarchy’ abolished?

Answer 1

November 1917

Question 2

What happened to the houses of the burzhui?

Answer 2

requisitioned + turned into kommunalka for the workers

Question 3

What did rationing allocations depend on?

Answer 3

‘work-value’
- workers and soldiers received most
- essential civil servants + professionals received less
- burzhui received barely enough to survive on

Question 4

When was there a slight reprieve in the class battle?

Answer 4

during NEP - admission that Soviet Russia still needed bourgeois ‘specialists’ for economic growth

Question 5

What did socialists want to create?

Answer 5

a new ‘socialist man’ - sense of social responsibility + would willingly give service to state - in factory, fields, in battle

Question 6

what was an important step within the creation of the ‘socialist man’?

Answer 6

proletarianisation

Question 7

did Stalin achieve proletarianisation?

Answer 7

the urban labour force was almost doubled by 1932

Question 8

What created a more diverse proletariat?

Answer 8

From 1931:
- the introduction of wage differentials
- payment by the piece
- better housing to reward skill

Question 9

Effect of the Stakhanovite movement

Answer 9

increased ‘socialist competition’ –> produced new ‘proletarian elite’

Question 10

What did Stalin announce in 1933?

Answer 10

‘life has become better, comrades, life has become more joyous’

Question 11

Real wages, 1935, 1928,1913

Answer 11

Although real wages increased in Second Five Year Plan, they were still lower in 1937 than in 1928, and little better in 1928 than they had been in 1913

Question 12

Lenin in improving the lives of women

Answer 12

• sex discrimination decreed against in November 1917
• Divorce made easier less expensive
• given right to work in paid employment

Question 13

benefit to state of women working

Answer 13

they not only gained right to work, but were expected to + most did - however still had to attend to all family needs

Question 14

Stalin social change for women

Answer 14

(partly driven by fall in population growth)
- large fees introduced to deter divorce
- contraception banned
- financial incentives for large families

Question 15

How did the number of female industrial workers grow from 1928 to 1940?

Answer 15

3 million in 1928
–> 13 million in 1940
(43% of the industrial workforce)