4: Khrushchev Social Policy

Question 1

Workers benefits

Answer 1

Pension scheme for elderly
Reduction in working week to 40 hours
Increase in minimum wage
Wage equalisation - differentials lower than any other industrialised country

Question 2

How did privileges for the upper strata remain, if not in wages?

Answer 2

Medicine, cars, housing etc

Question 3

How far did Khrushchev’s treatment of political opponents differ to Stalin?

Answer 3

No change: uses force on protestors (1956 Tbilisi riots 22 deaths 200 arrested)
Change: mass release of prisoners and rehabilitation of reputations, demotes political opps rather than murder, Khrushchev consequently not feared as much

Khrushchev was not really tested in the same way as Stalin, and may have acted with greater severity if faced with the same opposition

Question 4

How many political prisoners were released?

Answer 4

4 million after 1956

Question 5

What tax did Khrushchev remove?

Answer 5

The tax aimed at childess couples

Question 6

Who was able to claim state pension for the first time?

Answer 6

Peasants

Question 7

Central policy of cultural change under Khrushchev

Answer 7

Greater personal freedom
Censorship lifted on foreign literature and radio
International Soviet performances shown on TV

Question 8

Problems with lifting censorship and increasing personal freedom under Khrushchev

Answer 8

Majority of teens 1961 were motivated by materialism
Detracted from socialism
Western radio and literature was new source of discontent with Soviet life

Question 9

Artists and writers under Khrushchev

Answer 9

Rehabilitation of those persecuted under Zhdanovschina (Shostakovich)
Books critical of Stalin allowed (impressive sales)
Western books allowed
But did not enjoy complete freedom as Khrushchev’s tastes were conservative and works criticising socialism/communism were outlawed

Question 10

Churches under Khrushchev

Answer 10

Revived campaign against Orthodox (14,000 closed) and Islamic churches
Parents forbidden from teaching religion and children banned from church 1961
Labour camps used as punishment

Question 11

Ethnic minorities under Khrushchev

Answer 11

Anti-semite
Policy of fusion of nationalities (same under Stalin)
Jewish people restricted and not allowed to emigrate to Israel

Question 12

What was evading censorship by publishing abroad called?

Answer 12

Tamizdat

Question 13

Example of novel that began as Tamizdat

Answer 13

‘Dr Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak

Question 14

What was evading censorship by making illegal recordings?

Answer 14

Magnitizdat

Boogie-woogie

Question 15

What was evading censorship by reproducing books by hand or type-writer called?

Answer 15

Samizdat

Question 16

How many people were identified as leading an ‘anti-social parasitic way of life’ under Khrushchev?

Answer 16

130,000 by 1961

Question 17

What formed in response to Khrushchev’s cultural thaw?

Answer 17

Underground societies
e.g. ‘The Youngest Society of Geniuses’

Question 18

What was the name of the exhibition of nonconformist art that Khrushchev visited?

Answer 18

1962 Manezh Art Exhibition
(Khrushchev’s negative reaction only encouraged nonconformism)

Question 19

Who defected to the West in the late 1950s political thaw?

Answer 19

Rudolf Nureyev (Russian ballet dancer)