Communist Russia Alevel Flashcards
When did Stalin’s wife commit suicide?
1932
Name of state planning agency?
Gosplan
When was the first Moscow metro line opened?
1935 (people’s palace)
Harvest comparison 1921 to 1913
1921 harvest was 46% of 1913 harvest
When was the NEP introduced?
1921
Grain harvest 1920 compared to 1926?
1920: 46million tons
1926: 77million tons
When was the first FYP?
R
1928 - 1932
Second FYP?
R
1933 - 1937
Third FYP?
R
1938 - 1941
foused on rearmament -> 30% state budget
Coal production 1927 - 1940?
1927: 35 million tons
1940: 166 million tons
Oil production 1927 - 1940
1927: 12 million tonnes
1940: 31 million tonnes
Steel production 1927 - 1940
1927: 4 million tons
1940: 18 million tons
Example of poor housing under Stalin?
650,000 people no access to bathhouse in Liubertsy district in Moscow
Number of pigs slaughtered 1928 - 1934?
11 million
Russian Empire secret police?
Okhrana
How many Communist Party members 1921?
+700,000
Russian for government after 1917?
Sovnarkom
Who became Commissar of War in 1918 & made the Red Army effective & disciplined?
Leon Trotsky
When was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed?
March 1918
What happened October 1917?
October Revolution: Bolsheviks seize power
When did Lenin ban factions?
1921
How many Mensheviks arrested 1921?
5000
Details of Brest-Litovsk Treaty?
Russia lost:
Baltic States, Finland, Ukraine, parts of Caucasus region
Number of Red Army troops by the end of Civil War?
5 million had served
What was the Kronstadt Mutiny?
Sailors in Kronstadt naval base in 1921 rebelled against Bolsheviks.
Brutally crushed by Red Army.
Shock because these sailors had participated in Bolshevik Revolution.
2,000 executed
Tambov Rising?
1920-1921 peasant uprising in central Russia against Bolshevik grain requisitioning.
Grew in popularity.
force grew to +50,000 anti-communist fighters
brutally crushed by Red Army + 100,000 people deported to labour camps
What do the Tambov Rebellion & Kronstadt Mutiny suggest?
Growing resentment against Bolsheviks
Lenin’s official positions…
Chair of Sovnarkom
&
Politburo member
Communist Party organisation…
Politburo
^ Central Committee
^Party Congress
^Regional Communist Party
Key role for Stalin 1922?
Stalin becomes General Secretary
What was established in 1922?
USSR
What does the USSR stand for?
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Nomenklatura system?
System of appointing people to jobs from list approved by Party leadership.
Encouraged loyalty as promotions meant better life.
Caused corruption & nepotism
When was the Cheka created?
December 1917
How many did Cheka kill during Civil War?
200,000 people killed
Chitska early 1920’s how many Party members purged?
1/3
Felix Dzerzhinsky
Polish aristocrat
Head of Cheka
Ruthless, dedicated, single-minded
Died 1926 heart attack
Chitska?
Russian for cleansing
Usually used for purges occurred under Lenin.
After Lenin’s death what happened to Party leadership?
Collective leadership
1924-1928
Useful advantage of Stalin as General Secretary?
Access to +26,000 personal files ofParty members
+ could appoint new Party members & positions
Stalin’s early opponents in the Politburo?
Trotsky
Zinoviev
Kamenev
Bukharin
By 1934 secret police called?
NKVD
Chitska 1932-1935?
22% Party purged by 1935
When was the Great Terror?
~1934-1938
Military Victims of Great Terror?
37,000 military officers purged
3 out of 5 Marshals shot
Victims of purges by Stalin 1929-1939?
~24 million
Killed/ Gulag/ Starvation
When was Yezhov executed?
1940
Leningrad Affair 1949?
100 officials shot
2000 arrested
NKVD officers purged by Yezhov?
3000
Gosplan?
State Planning Authority
Decree on Land date?
1917
War Communism dates?
1918-1921
How many people died due to the famine caused by War Communism?
6 million people in rural areas
What happened with grain & coal production in NEP?
Doubled
By how much did industrial production grow during NEP?
Roughly 10 times
What replaced NEP & when?
Stalin’s Great Turn, 1928
What were the collective farms called?
Kolkhoz
What replaced the ‘Mir’, the decision-making elders, in the countryside due to collectivisation?
Party representatives (commissars) who controlled the collectives
What percentage of peasant households had been collectivised by the late 1930s?
90%
How many tractors sent to the MTS by 1933?
100,000
When did livestock numbers finally recover after the first years of collectivisation?
R
Late 1940s
Ukrainian famine 1932-1933?
Holodomor famine
How many Collective farms shared one MTS?
About 40
What were the Stakhnovites?
Propaganda movement promoting hardworking & productive workers.
What was an effect of war economy 1941-1945?
Grain production fell by 2/3
Oil production fell by 1/3
What was the USSR’s biggest export 1930s?
Grain
What did Kirov criticise at the Congress of Victors 1934?
The quick rate of collectivisation.
How many people moved from rural to urban due to Stalin’s economic policies?
14 million
How many villages destroyed WW2?
70,000
Successes of the three FYP of 1930s?
By 1941 USSR overtakes Britain & Germany in industrial production.
Coal production increases by 600%
What did fourth & fifth FYP focus on after WW2?
Reconstruction & reconversion
How many people used to construct the Belomor Canal in 1931-1932 & how many died?
180,000 used as slave labour
10,000 died
Magnitogorsk population increased from 25 people in 1929 to …
250,000 by mid 1930s
How many people were released from Gulag camps between 1953-1960?
2 million
How much did Party membership increase between 1954-1964?
From 7M to 11M
“An iron fist in a velvet glove”
?
Khrushchev
- Suppression Hungarian Revolt
- Building Berlin Wall
Year of Cuban Missile Crisis?
1962
Year of Hungarian Revolt?
1956
Yagoda was head of the NKVD from…
1934-1936
Main action taken by Yagoda as head of NKVD?
Expansion of Gulag system
Yezhov was in charge of NKVD from…?
1936-1938
Name of NKVD execution & judgement squads used by Yezhov?
Troikas
Who was the chief executioner of the NKVD during the 1930s?
Vasily Blokhin
During the Yezhovchina how many people were arrested?
10% of adult male pop
Beria was head of the NKVD from…?
1938-1953
What additional important position was Beria put in charge 1945?
Soviet nuclear program
Gulag economic output 1937?
2 billion roubles
Gulag economic output 1940 thanks to Beria?
4.5 billion roubles
Who were the dissidents?
Citizens who refused to conform to expectations of Soviet government.
Andropov was head of the KGB from…?
1967-1982
Which famous work did Pasternak produce in 1950s?
Doctor Zhivago
Not allowed to be published in USSR
What happened to Sakharov eventually?
Sent to internal exile
advocated human rights(nuclear physicist)
How many people received warnings from the KGB in the 1970s?
70,000
Warnings prevented the formation of how many subversive groups in the 1970s?
2000
Name given to illegal, self published magazine?
Samizdat
How many people protested against actions of Prague Spring?
7 people protested on Red Square
Prague Spring?
Czechoslovakia 1968
What Commissariat was created under Lenin to oversee the control of art & culture?
Commissariat of Enlightenment
Who was head of the Commissariat of Enlightenment?
Lunacharsky
How many artists were part of Proletkult by 1920?
84,000
How many studios were set up under Proletkult by 1920?
300
Some examples of Agitprop?
‘Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge’ 1918
Eisenstein film ‘October’ 1927
What year was
‘Morning of our Motherland’
by Shurpin painted in?
1949
What was the Cult of the Little Man?
Propaganda & art focused on the heroism of the everyday worker.
What year was the World Youth Festival in Moscow held?
1957
Brezhnev’s approach to controlling the arts?
Conservatism & action when this threatened.
In what year was the forceful shutting down of the ‘Bulldozer Exhibition’?
1974
When were men & women declared equal?
R
1918, first constitution
How many women fought in the Civil War?
R
70,000
Who was the famous Bolshevik feminist in government?
Alexandra Alliluyeva
How many women workers by 1940?
13 million
What percentage of the workforce were women by 1960?
49%
How many marriages resulted in divorce under Brezhnev?
1 in 3
Under Lenin how many pencils for every 60 students?
1 pencil only
What did minority groups complain about Education?
Russification
What were the Rabfak?
Schools for adult dropouts after Revolution
What was Komsomol?
Communist group for teenagers
When were all non-socialist newspapers banned?
1917
What is Pravda newspaper of?
Party
What is Izvestia newspaper of?
The Government
What was Glavlit?
Body responsible for censoring all publications.
Name of popular sports magazine?
Sovietskii Sport
When was Stalin’s famous Red Square speech broadcasted live on radio?
November 1941
How many TV sets in the Soviet Union by 1950?
10,000 TV
How many TV sets in Soviet Union by 1958?
3 million TV
When did Lenin officially separate the State from the Church?
1918
How many bishops & priests executed during Red Terror?
28 Bishops + 1000 priests
What percentage of peasants were still active Christians by the mid-1920s?
55%
How many bishops were still in liberty by 1939?
12/163
How many churches did Khrushchev close during his first 4 years?
10,000
What else did Khrushchev do in his anti-religion campaign?
Harassed priests with secret police.
What did the Communists do against Islam?
Most mosques closed down
When were internal passports introduced?
R
1932
to stop free movement
Party elite had special access to … goods shops?
consumer
In … peasants allowed to share garden produce to incentivise production?
R
1939
How many factories created between 1928 - 1937?
5,000
Who was Aleksey Stakhanov?
1935 ‘mined 102 tonnes of coal’
Became national hero
Used for propaganda
Glavlit?
govt. censorship office
established 1922
RAPW?
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers
- founded 1925
- promoted ‘socialist realism’
RAPM
Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians
Agitprop?
agitation & propaganda section of CC
How did 1917 Decree on Land affect the Church?
peasants could now take land from the Church
Sufi groups, living in Turkestan, had been wiped out by … ?
1936
During WW2 St re-opened how many churches?
+400
Khr made … a school subject?
atheism
Nov. 1917 elections Bolsheviks get how many votes?
25%
When was the tsar & family murdered?
July 17 1918
When did Russian Civil War start?
spring 1918
When was the October Revolution?
Nov. 1917
Bolshevik takeover Provisional Govt.
what was Proletkult?
proletarian cultural movement
1920 Lenin placed Proletkult under control of?
Commissariat of education
& cut funding
What did Lenin not like about proletkult?
too avant-garde
not controlled by Party
Literature example of socialist realism?
1924 Gladkov’s novel `Cement’
follows workers who built cement factory
reformer brought into the politburo by Gorbachev?
Nikolai Ryhkov
Why did the government crest Soviet Nationalism?
Inspire loyalty to USSR
What was the initial weakness of the USSR economy?
Inefficiency in agriculture
By 1985, how much of the Soviet GDP was allocated to defence?
17% of GDP
How many joint economic venues were there by the end of 1990?
3,000
Which Soviet reformer put forward the 500 Days programme?
Stanislav Shatalin
Which was the last 5 year plan in Russia?
13th FYP
In the Twenty-seventh Party congress what set of priorities were adopted (select two)?
Improving socialism
Working towards democracy
What was the Russian name for the Moscow News?
Moskovskie Novosti
How many officials were murdered in the Katyn Massacre?
up to 22,000 Polish military officers & intelligentsia
How many informal protest groups & clubs were there by 1989?
60,000
meetings fro political reform
In 1988 Gorbachev set out a number of proposals, what were these proposals for?
“worker’s paradise”
In the 1989 election, what percentage of the seats did the communists win?
80% of seats
Who out of the Radicals won a large percentage of the vote in Moscow?
Yeltsin
1989 Yeltsin won what % of votes for Moscow?
85%
1988 Glasnost extended to criticise Marx & ?
Lenin
Where did the break up of the Soviet Union start?
Eastern Europe
Which satellite state was the first to have a non-communist prime minister?
Poland
When was the fall of the Berlin Wall?
November 1989
Most pressing reason for resurgence in nationalism?
Glasnost
Which territory held an unofficial referendum to join Armenia in 1988, resulting in nationalist tension?
Nagorno-Karabakh
Why did the nationalist protests in Tbilisi in 1989 damage Gorbachev & the USSR?
Gorbachev sent Red Army &
19 killed
The growth of nationalism in which area posed the greatest threat to the USSR?
Baltic States
Which occurrence nearly caused civil war in January 1991?
Red Army’s occupation of Vilnius
In which year did Gorbachev introduce his ‘Sinatra Doctrine’?
1989
What was the impact of the Sinatra Doctrine?
Made USSR powerless to intervene against rising nationalism in satellites & soviets republics
When did Estonia declare itself a sovereign state?
1988
When was Gorbachev’s new Union Treaty, which guaranteed more autonomy to soviet republics, supposed to be signed?
August 1991
What did Yeltsin do to destroy Gorbachev’s Union Treaty?
Agreed with 10 other republics to form a new Commonwealth of Indepeden
Why did the Coup of 1991 take place?
Hardliners in the CP wanted to remove Gorbachev & immediately halt his reforms
Why did the 1991 Coup fail?
lost support of Army
What was the Minsk Agreement?
Agreement between Russia, Belarus and Ukraine to replace USSR with CIS
When did Yeltsin denounce the privileges of Party leaders & advocated a renewed focus on equality?
27th Party Congress 1986
What effect did Yeltsin’s resignation have on Party membership?
During 1990 Party membership dropped from 19.2M to 16.5M
When did Yeltsin become Russian president?
1991
What was Zhenotdel?
women’s affairs section of CP
set up 1917
Kulak victims?
close to 2M killed or sent to Gulag
During WW2 women composed how much of urban workforce?
75%
Status of Women & Family
Ln?
PROS
PROS: - 1918 Legal equality
- CW women conscripted to workforce + 70,000 Red Army
- Zhenotdel established
- abortion legal + divorce
Status of Women & Family
Ln?
CONS
CONS:
- 1917-1928 70% divorces initiated by men
Status of Women & Family
St?
PROS
- 1940 40% engineering students women
- 800,000 women fought WW2
- 1940 +13M women in workforce
Status of Women & Family
St?
CONS
- abortion outlawed
- divorce made expensive
- women worked x5 more than men in domestic labour
- Traditional family values reasserted
- tax on single people
Status of Women & Family
Khr?
- by 1960 49% workforce women
- abortion re-legalised 1955
- Valentina Tareshkova 1st women in space 1963 = role model + icon
- Furtseva 1st women in Politburo
Status of Women & Family
Brezhnev?
- 1/3 marriages ended in divorce
- divorce made harder
- abortion banned
- Pronatal campaign
Fourth FYP?
1945-1950
88% budget went to heavy industry
80% increase in industrial output
fastest growing economy world
