Brezhnev - Control of the People Flashcards
Methods
Culture.
Cult of Personality.
Secret Police.
Religion.
Media
Showed socialist achievements and negative aspects of capitalism.
Media presented Brezhnev as old, senile, and unable to properly walk.
Difficult to control access to wider world info (Vogue).
Print media (Samizdat) more accessible as literacy rates increased - criticised gov.
Art
Brezhnev had little interest in it.
Vysotsky wrote songs about delinquency and sex - not a role model for youth.
Mitki Collective put on secret shows in Leningrad exposing hypocrisy of Communist officials. Encouraged supporters to drink cheap wine and wearing shabby clothes. These events were raided.
Suspicious of groups that championed freedom of expression.
Cult of Personality
Showed Brezhnev as a:
Great Leninist (joined Party in 1931)
Military hero (awarded himself 60 medals for Red Army)(no combat experience, assigned to a political commissar role in a tank battalion to maintain political and moral loyalty of troops).
Dedicated to world peace (Détente)(questioned due to military investment + Cold War).
True man of the people.
Backfired since he was mocked for over exaggerated claims of greatness.
Religion
Council of Religious Affairs ensured church services supported Soviet policies.
Persecuted priests. 1979, Father Yakunin sentenced to 5yrs for anti-Soviet propaganda.
Stopped attacks on Islam, hurt trade + international relations. Instead supported anti-American Islamic groups in Middle-East.
Secret Police
No terror, people still fearful.
1968, public protest against invasion of Czechoslovakia at Red Square (Moscow), only 7 people showed up - scarred to be sent to mental institutes.
Arrests only made with evidence.
KGB had to give official warnings introduced received by 70k citizens (1970s).
7k-8k opponents sent to psychiatric institutions, receiving “treatment” for their “paranoid reformist delusions”.
Dissenters
Small and insignificant to Soviet rule, Largely contained.
More terror = more dissidents.
Show trials (Sakharov) fueled dissent + reduced control over the people + hurt foreign trade/international relations.
Dissidents published homemade illegal material which was counter revolutionary.
Anna Akhmatova
People now arrested for something rather than nothing.
Why were Public Apprehensive?
Anxious about slow improvement in SOL
Dissatisfied with quality/availability of food + consumer goods
Resentful at privileges and corruption of Party members.
Result of Public Apprehension…
Increase in alcoholism.
Poorer labour discipline.
Increased church attendance.
Sympathy strikes for Poland.
Solutions for Public Apprhension
Operation Trawls - people encouraged to go back to work.
Anti-alcoholism campaigns - workers sacked for drunkenness.
Anti-absenteeism.
KGB visited parks/restaurants, arresting those drunk or absent from work.
