Chapter 23

Question 1

What were some of the many issues that cultural dissidents opposed?

Answer 1

Greater democracy, human rights, the rights of nationalities, religious feeling, the violation of artistic freedom

Question 2

What is tamizdat?

Answer 2

The act of publishing and printing banned writings abroad, as seen by ‘Dr Zhivago’

Question 3

What is samizdat?

Answer 3

Dissident activity whereby individuals reproduced and distributed illicit content

Question 4

Which of the two forms of written dissident was more dangerous?

Answer 4

Samizdat due to the personal contact and had a high punishment in the kabour camps

Question 5

What was the name of a student group that set up an underground journal?

Answer 5

‘The Youngest Society of Geniuses’ and the journal was ‘The Sphinxes’

Question 6

Regular readings of poetry in Moscow were dedicated and named after which poet?

Answer 6

Vladmir Mayakovsky

Question 7

Who were the most typical attendees of Mayak poetry readings?

Answer 7

Typically, they were attended by students and members of the intelligentsia

Question 8

Why was publisher and editor Alexander Ginzburg arrested and sent to numerous labour camps?

Answer 8

As the editor of a poetry magazine ‘Syntaxis’ he was arrested for exposing human rights abuses and demanding reforms

Question 9

What are some examples of ‘dissident’ magazines?

Answer 9

Boomerang, Phoenix, Novy Mir

Question 10

How many cultural dissidents were arrested in 1961 and why were they?

Answer 10

130,000 because they were intellectuals whose writings were considered hostile by the regime

Question 11

Who is a Nobel laureate who was similarly charged with ‘social paratism’?

Answer 11

Joseph Brodsky

Question 12

How was music a form of cultural dissidence?

Answer 12

Musicians made illegal recordings and passed between friends, so that diverse styles were heard around the USSR

Question 13

How did Khrushchev’s argument on the effectiveness of art impact artists?

Answer 13

His challenge only encouraged painters to pursue their art in private, challenging official artistic reality

Question 14

What was the name of a musician who reacted to political events in their work?

Answer 14

Yuliy Kim

Question 15

What were some examples of nonconformist arts of the period?

Answer 15

Oleg Vassiliev, Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Edik Steinberg, Vladmir Yankilevsky

Question 16

How were artists able to avoid the persecution that writers faced?

Answer 16

Most artists managed some ‘legal’ work and authorities found their work less damaging than the writers

Question 17

Who was arguably the most famous of the Khrushchev defecters?

Answer 17

Ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev

Question 18

Who led the most prominent division during Khrushchev’s rise to power?

Answer 18

The liberal reformers, such as Bulganin, and the conservative pro-Stalinists Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich

Question 19

Why did the hardliners seek to remove Khrushchev from power?

Answer 19

Not because of his policies nor his reorganisation but rather a desire to restore Stalinism

Question 20

To what positions were Khrushchev’s opposition demoted to?

Answer 20

Molotov became an ambassador to Mongolia, Malenkov became director of a HEP station in Kazakhstan and Kaganovich became director of the Sverdlovsk cement works

Question 21

How many political prisoners’ appeals had been considered and how many had been released by 1955?

Answer 21

250,000 appeals had been considered but only 4% of these had been approved

Question 22

How many political prisoners were rehabilitated in 1956?

Answer 22

Eight to nine million former or present political prisoners

Question 23

Why did Khrushchev’s lenient treatment of political opposition spreat more dissent?

Answer 23

Dissidents and the intelligentsia saw it as an opportunity to discuss and debate issues such as elections and human rights

Question 24

Who were the orchestrators of Khrushchev’s ousting from power?

Answer 24

Leonid Brezhnev, Nikolai Podgorny and Mikhail Suslov

Question 25

What was the reason officially given to the public which explained Khrushchev’s resignation?

Answer 25

They blamed it on his ‘advanced age and ill health’

Question 26

What were the personal reasons for Khrushchev’s ousting?

Answer 26

He was accused of having a ‘one-man style’ and of having an overbearing style, embarrassing and flamboyant behaviour and creating his own personalty cult

Question 27

What were the decentralisation reasons for Khrushchev’s ousting?

Answer 27

His decentralisation policies upset central Party members who lost control of regions and localities and regional party secretaries were offended by the division of their responsibilities

Question 28

What were the agricultural reasons for Khrushchev’s ousting?

Answer 28

The failure of the Virgin Lands Scheme and the shortfall in food supplies were seen as Khrushchev’s personal resonsibility as he set himself up as an expert

Question 29

What were the industrial reasons for Khrushchev’s ousting?

Answer 29

His decision to promote production of consumer goods offended those who thought he was giving inadequate attention to heavy goods

Question 30

What were the military reasons for Khrushchev’s oustings?

Answer 30

He offended the military by wanting to reduce expendiure on conventional arms and concentrate on nuclear arms

Question 31

What were the foreign policy for Khrushchev’s oustings?

Answer 31

There was widespread disapproval of Khrushchev’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and he was personally blamed for poor relations with China