CHANGING TO LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS OF RURAL AND URBAN PEOPLE

Question 1

What percentage of the Russian population lived in towns and cities at the end of the nineteenth century? How does this compare to Britain and USA?

Answer 1

R: 15%
B: 80%
USA: 40%

Question 2

Where had the population doubled by 1914?

Answer 2

Riga and Kiev

Question 3

What did overcrowding lead to?

Answer 3

Spread of disease such as cholera.

Question 4

What did a survey of 12,000 St Petersburg workers present?

Answer 4

93% drank heavily and developed this habit before their seventeenth birthday.

Question 5

How many towns and buildings were there at the start of WW1?

Answer 5

Over 1000 towns and 2 million buildings.

Question 6

How many deaths were due to cholera in St Petersburg in 1910?

Answer 6

100,000

Question 7

What was the Decree on Peace?

Answer 7

Issued after the Bolsheviks seized power partly focused on what the party intending to do about property, including housing.

Question 8

What happened to the population in Moscow in the mid-1930s regarding overcrowding?

Answer 8

25% of the population was living in one room that was shared between two or more households.

Question 9

How much had the living space fallen from in 1905 and to in 1935?

Answer 9

8.5m in 1905 to 5.8m by 1935.

Question 10

What did the second world war resulted in for urban housing?

Answer 10

Swathes of Russia becoming depopulated and over 25 million Russians being made homeless.

Question 11

What happened to the housing stock between 1955 and 1964?

Answer 11

The housing stock doubled and the principles behind communal living were abandoned.

Question 12

What benefitted better off professionals in Khrushchev’s time?

Answer 12

The emergence of housing cooperatives.

Question 13

What was the ‘average’ peasant home over the whole period?

Answer 13

Izba

Question 14

How was peasant housing changed under Stalin?

Answer 14

Construction of ‘special’ housing blocks located on the periphery of collective farms.

Question 15

What rural housing did Khrushchev construct?

Answer 15

Self-contained ‘agro-towns’.

Question 16

What was the issue with ‘agro-towns’ under Khrushchev?

Answer 16

Built quickly and cheaply and was subsequently of poor standard.

Question 17

What were the main four reasons for famines across the period?

Answer 17

• a tendency towards monoculture.
• the restrictive practices of the mir.
• severe weather conditions in particular years.
• governmental policies.

Question 18

What had AII done in an attempt to end food shortages and famines?

Answer 18

1864: he placed the Zemstva in charge of drawing up emergency measures to deal with famines.

Question 19

How many deaths resulted from the 1891 famine?

Answer 19

350,000

Question 20

How did AIII attempt to counter criticisms over the 1891 famine?

Answer 20

Banning exports of grain, setting up a Special Committee on Famine Relief and funding emergency help from two ‘extraordinary’ lorries.

Question 21

What did the Zemgor do in WW1?

Answer 21

Transported food to soldiers.

Question 22

What was grain used for in WW1? What did this result in for ordinary civilians?

Answer 22

Feed troops.

Issues getting foodstuffs into urbanised areas and bread queues of 8 hours or longer were the norm.

Question 23

Why did peasants continue to hoard in 1918?

Answer 23

Valuable agricultural land had been lost as a result of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk.

Question 24

How did the Bolsheviks respond to grain hoarding in 1918?

Answer 24

Introducing grain requisitioning.

Question 25

What had the Cheka and Red Army been instructed to do by 1920?

Answer 25

To seize all food supplies for redistribution and not simply surpluses.

Question 26

How much did Ukrainian food production fall in the famine of 1921?

Answer 26

Fell by 20%

Question 27

Why was Lenin partly blamed for the famine of 1921 as AIII had been in 1891?

Answer 27

Slow in his response and reluctant to accept aid from the American Relief Administration.

Question 28

What were kulaks blamed for by the mid-1920s?

Answer 28

Hoarding grain.

Question 29

How did the treatment of kulaks worsen by 1928?

Answer 29

The introduction of the Urals-Siberian method.

Question 30

What were three elements of the Stalinist regime that made the famine of 1932-4 worse?

Answer 30

• the death penalty was imposed for stealing grain.
• discussion of the grain crisis was banned.
• animals were slaughtered in preference to handing them over to the authorities.

Question 31

How much had the consumption of meat and fish fallen by the late 1930s?

Answer 31

By 80%

Question 32

What were the five main events that impacted the conditions in which peasants were working?

Answer 32

• emancipation of the serfs.
• appointment of land captains.
• grain requisitioning.
• collectivisation.
• virgin lands scheme.

Question 33

When was the factory inspectorate introduced?

Answer 33

1882.

Question 34

What did the 1882 banning of child employment (under age twelve) in factories mean?

Answer 34

It was possible for employers to continue to use child labour as they were unlikely to be found it.

Question 35

What was introduced in February 1920? Why was this a backward step?

Answer 35

Rabkrin (the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate), however this became a talking shop rather than one that enforced industrial law.

Question 36

What were workers threatened with? For what?

Answer 36

Being purged if they were considered to be anti-revolutionary.

Question 37

What were the workers hours in 1896? Compared to 1939? Compared to 1958?

Answer 37

1896 - 11 hour working day (10 hours on Saturday).
1939 - 7 hour working day
1958 - 7 hour working day

Question 38

Where was there evidence of the gender pay gap?

Answer 38

Women received less than men on average even when they were employed in the same work.

Question 39

How was low pay partly offset?

Answer 39

By the introduction in 1903 of a workers’ insurance scheme, and under the communists, bonus schemes.

Question 40

How much did real wages fall from the beginning to the end of the first 5YP?

Answer 40

50%

Question 41

When did real wages begin to reach the levels of the early 1920s?

Answer 41

Not until 1954.