Chapter 19 - Culture and Society 1929-41

Question 1

What was culture used to do?

Answer 1

Promote and instil the propaganda ideals of the Soviet system

Question 2

Why was culture seen positively in the USSR?

Answer 2

It provided education, moral guidance and entertainment for the people and legitimacy for the Soviet state and its ideology

Question 3

Why was culture seen negatively in the USSR?

Answer 3

It was a weapon of repression and enforced conformity

Question 4

What was the impact of Stalinism on the Church?

Answer 4

• Religious school were closed down and the teaching of religious creeds was forbidden
• Sunday was abolished as the official day of rest. Workers worked 6 days a week, the day of rest could be any day
• Many priests were victims of the purges

Question 5

How many priests were imprisoned in the purges?

Answer 5

4000

Question 6

How many churches were destroyed?

Answer 6

40,000 by 1941

Question 7

Was Stalin able to completely wipe out religious belief?

Answer 7

No
The power of the Church as an institution was broken but religious faith continued to be important to many

Question 8

What was the impact of Stalinism on Soviet Muslims?

Answer 8

• Their property and institutions (land, schools and mosques) were seized
• Sharia courts were abolished
• Pilgrimages to Mecca were forbidden from 1935
• The frequency of prayers, fasts and feasts was reduced
• Many Imams were imprisoned or executed

Question 9

How did Soviet Muslims respond to their oppression?

Answer 9

There was backlash in the Central Asian regions where some traditionalist Muslims murdered those who followed the Soviet orders

Question 10

What was the impact of Stalinism on Judaism?

Answer 10

Jewish schools and synagogues were closed down

Question 11

What was the impact of Stalinism on Buddhism?

Answer 11

There were attacks on Buddhist institutions

Question 12

What did Trotsky call Stalin’s social policies and why?

Answer 12

The ‘Great Retreat’
They were seen as a retreat from the radical social experiments of the 1920s which aimed to liberate men and women from the bourgeois traditions and roles

Question 13

When did the ‘family code’ become law?

Answer 13

June 1936

Question 14

What did the ‘family code’ do?

Answer 14

• Made abortion illegal
• Banned contraception
• Gave tax breaks to mothers with 6 or more kids
• Made divorce more expensive and difficult to obtain
• Made adultery a criminal offence

Question 15

What were the reasons for the ‘family code’

Answer 15

• The falling birth rate (fell by 25% 1928-32)
• The loss of millions in the famine
• Youth crime, prostitution and homeless orphans resulting from broken families
• Stalin’s preference for traditional family roles, which he associated with stability and discipline

Question 16

What was the effect of the ‘Great Retreat’ on abortions?

Answer 16

1.9 million in 1935
570,000 in 1937
755,000 in 1939

Question 17

What was the effect of the ‘Great Retreat’ on birth rates?

Answer 17

After a slight rise, the birth rate fell again from 1938 and never reached pre-revolutionary levels

Question 18

What was the effect of the ‘Great Retreat’ on working women?

Answer 18

They were encouraged to give up paid work when they married but the number of women working in factories and on collective farms continued to increase
3 million working women 1928
13 million working women 1940

They were still expected to do housework and childcare instead of these tasks being shared

Question 19

What was the effect of the ‘Great Retreat’ on marriage and divorce?

Answer 19

In 1937, 91% of men and 82% of women in their 30s were married
Divorce rate remained high: 37% in Moscow in 1934

Question 20

What was education like in the 1920s?

Answer 20

It prioritised ideology over knowledge

Question 21

How did Stalin see the 1920s education policies?

Answer 21

As a disaster, failing to produce the skilled workers, scientists and technicians that the country needed

Question 22

How did education change in the 1930s?

Answer 22

Returned to more traditional education, emphasising technical subjects and practical skills

Question 23

What change was made to the education system in 1935?

Answer 23

The quota system was abandoned and selective secondary schools only accepted the most able, with no preference for children of proletariats

Question 24

What two things were reintroduced in the education system?

Answer 24

Discipline and exams (which Lenin had banned)

Question 25

How did higher education change?

Answer 25

It was put under the control of the Veshenkha
The emphasis was on producing industrial specialists through courses in maths, science and technology

Question 26

How did literacy levels change?

Answer 26

There was a USSR-wide focus on improving literacy
65% of people literate before 1917
94% of pop in towns and 86% of pop in the countryside literate in 1941

Question 27

How did selective secondary schools change?

Answer 27

They had a rigid academic curriculum, which also promoted nationalism and military training in the pre-war years

Question 28

What was the Soviet youth organisation for 10-28 year olds?

Answer 28

Komsomol
10-15 year olds were called ‘Young Pioneers’

Question 29

What did Komsomol encourage and discourage?

Answer 29

Encouraged: socialist values (e.g. organising voluntary work)

Discouraged: selfish or unhealthy behaviour (e.g. drinking alcohol)

Question 30

When did Komsomol become directly affiliated with the Communist Party?

Answer 30

Always had close links but became directly affiliated in 1939

Question 31

What were two perks of being a member of Komsomol?

Answer 31

There were special ‘palaces’ for Young Pioneers and free summer and winter holiday camps

Question 32

What did members of Komsomol do?

Answer 32

They took an oath to live, study and fight for the Fatherland and helped carry out Party campaigns and assisted the Red Army and police
It was a big commitment but offered a chance for social and political advancement

Question 33

What were many Komsomol members ethusiastic about?

Answer 33

Fulfilling the 5YP’s e.g. many volunteered for building mega-projects like Magnitogorsk and Komsomolsk

Question 34

What did the social disruption caused by collectivisation and rapid industrialisation contribute to?

Answer 34

A large rise in the numbers of orphaned and abandoned children

Question 35

What is one reason that children above the age of 12 who committed violent crimes were tried as adults?

Answer 35

The large number of orphaned children who were linked to ‘hooliganism’

Question 36

Who did Stalinism hit badly?

Answer 36

Unskilled workers

Question 37

What was the impact of Stalinism on skilled working men?

Answer 37

• Improved opportunities from training and education
• Wage differentials from 1931 meant skilled workers were paid more
• The Stakhanovite movement from 1935 gave some workers some power over managers
• A skills shortage in the 1930s meant good workers were in high demand

Question 38

What was the impact of Stalinism on unskilled working men?

Answer 38

• Many former peasants found harsh labour discipline hard to manage
• Many moved from place to place to avoid getting a bad working record
• Living conditions for the unskilled were poor and overcrowded, with little or no privacy

Question 39

Overall, where was life better in the 1930s?

Answer 39

Urban areas

Question 40

Overall, where was life better after 1941?

Answer 40

Rural areas, they could grow some food for themselves when rationing was reintroduced

Question 41

Positives of life in urban areas

Answer 41

• Regulated hours and wages
• Workplace canteens and shops
• Some public transport
• Free education
• Opportunities for skilled workers

Question 42

Negatives of life in urban areas

Answer 42

• Overcrowded living conditions
• Practically no privacy in communal apartments
• Denunciations from neighbours
• Often a lack of basic services e.g. sewage
• Water was rationed
• Problems with crime
• Food shortages (especially in 1933 and 1936)

Question 43

Positives of life in rural areas

Answer 43

• Better access to food
• Collective farms often had health clinics and schools
• Access to private plots
• Free education

Question 44

Negatives of life in rural areas

Answer 44

• State control over the countryside
• Trauma from collectivisation
• Fear of purges and continued focus on ‘kulaks’
• State requisitioning of most produce
• Grinding poverty
• Low status

Question 45

What were the ‘qualities of a socialist man and woman’?

Answer 45

• ‘Party-minded’: dedicated to the Party and its needs
• Educated in socialism and science
• Works for the good of everyone, not for themselves
• Urban and modern, not rural and traditional
• Part of a community; not independent or private
• Self-sacrificing: putting the Party above family or friends
• Enthusiastic campaigners for socialism and against bourgeois values

Question 46

What was the idea of the socialist man and woman linked to?

Answer 46

The pseudo-science of Trofim Lysenko, who believed that socialist qualities developed in one generation could be inherited by the next

Question 47

What does historian Dr John Barber suggest about the impact of cultural change?

Answer 47

That only 1/5 of workers fully supported the regime, and others weren’t persuaded by the regime’s propaganda

Question 48

What was the difference in views on Old Bolsheviks between Lenin and Stalin?

Answer 48

In Lenin’s USSR Old Bolsheviks carried authority
In Stalin’s USSR Old Bolsheviks had gone so the new generation owed everything to Stalin

Question 49

What was the difference in the secret police between Lenin and Stalin?

Answer 49

In Lenin’s USSR the Cheka was established
In Stalin’s USSR the NKVD had wide powers over society

Question 50

What was the difference in the use of terror between Lenin and Stalin?

Answer 50

In Lenin’s USSR terror was used against real or potential enemies
In Stalin’s USSR widespread terror and purges were used in a seemingly arbitrary way

Question 51

What was the difference in repression between Stalin and Lenin?

Answer 51

In Lenin’s USSR there was censorship and control but some opportunity to experiment in the arts, freedom in schools and limited Party influence in rural areas
In Stalin’s USSR there were strong elements of totalitarianism in all aspects of society and culture; little opportunity for independent thought and action