Control of the People

Question 1

How comprehensively was Lenin able to control the Russian people?

Answer 1

• The success of the October revolution and subsequent success in the Russian Civil War gave the Bolsheviks almost unquestioned political authority.
• Lenin’s need for control was motivated by his ideology, namely his will to transform Russia into an entirely communist state, which required not only a new government but a new principle for society and way of thinking that each Russian person followed.
• He had some success in controlling the people through propaganda techniques, media censorship and removal of political opponents, but his reluctance to commit to terror tactics prevented him from exerting full control over the Russian people.

Question 2

How did Lenin control the Russian people?

Answer 2

1. Religion - Lenin thought that freeing people from religion was a vital part of the Communist revolution. He saw religion as a method of social control e.g. Marx said ‘the opium of the masses.’
   - Terror was used against the Russian Orthodox Church e.g. in January 1918 there was a massacre of priests in Moscow.
   - Lenin created his own church so that the Bolsheviks would have control over religious Russians e.g. it was called The Living Church and was created in 1923.
2. Terror - Lenin used the Cheka to personally instil terror in his opponents e.g. the Cheka helped to enforce War Communism by hunting down peasants that were hoarding grain and monitoring those engaging in private trade. They were also used to forcibly shut down the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, a democratically elected organisation dominated by the Bolshevik’s rivals; the Social Revolutionaries.
3. Culture - Lenin believed that art could be used to inspire people to support the Bolshevik government, so developed a gov. department in 1920 known as Agitprop to create art e.g. El Lissitsky’s poster ‘Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge’ and Vladimir Tatlin’s sculpture ‘Monument for the Third International’.
   - Lenin believed that cinema would be the most important form of art in the 20th century, so encouraged the development and production of Russian film e.g. Sergei Eisenstein’s experimental films telling a romanticised version of the rise of the Bolsheviks, such as Battleship Potemkin.
4. Mass Media - Lenin made press censorship more systematic following the Russian Civil War e.g. establishing a new organisation in 1922 called ‘Glavlit’. They employed professional censors, compiled a list of banned books and purged libraries.
   - Lenin organised a Bolshevik newspaper and outlawed all non-socialist newspapers, e.g. the Bolshevik paper, Pravda, was the highest circulating publication by the early 1920s and by 1921 2,000 newspapers had been shut down. Bolsheviks also closed 575 printing presses and had control of ink and paper supplies due to War Communism.
5. Propaganda - A ‘cult of Lenin’ was developed to strengthen Bolshevik power, portraying him as Russia’s great hero in propaganda e.g. statues and busts of Lenin were erected around Russia, his survival of an assassination attempt in 1918 was described as miraculous and exaggerated to make it seem as though Lenin suffered for his people, and from 1920, he was portrayed as an ordinary man of the people to make him popular with industrial workers, often pictured wearing a simple cap.

Question 3

In what area did Lenin have most control over the Russian people?

Answer 3

Lenin had the most control over mass media, as he censored or purged all other means of press or media and created his own, for example the Bolshevik paper, the Pravda, was the highest circulating publication by the early 1920s.

Question 4

In what area did Lenin have the least control over the Russian people?

Answer 4

Lenin had the least amount of control over propaganda, mainly because the most effective way he could utilise this was by creating a cult of personality, which he did’t want but considered it necessary to the communist movement.

Question 5

To what extent did Stalin increase government control of the Russian people?

Answer 5

• For Lenin, control of the people was motivated by his ideology and desire to transform Russia into a communist state, but Stalin wanted to control the people to eliminate his political rivals, create a climate of fear and consolidate and preserve his own personal power whilst stepping out from Lenin’s shadow.
• Similarly to Lenin, he made great use of media censorship, but notably increased the use of terror and in general had a much more brutal approach to all areas of control.

Question 6

How did Stalin control the Russian people?

Answer 6

1. Religion - Stalin only attacked religion when it disrupted his policies as it did not bother him from an ideological approach. E.g. Closed many Russian Orthodox churches during collectivisation as they were assisting peasants in hiding their grain to prevent it being requisitioned.
   - Religious minorities often challenged Stalin’s political authority so he set targets for the number of people her wanted purged e.g. by 1936Sufi Muslim groups had been virtually eliminated in Turkestan.
   - During WW2 he realised religion could be used to inspire people in a way that Communism could not, so reopened 414 churches.
2. Terror - Stalin made far more extensive use of terror, in particular against his own party, in order to protect his power and purge opposition whilst creating a climate of fear e.g. He set up a new secret police force in January 1934 called the NKVD, led by Yezhov. He and Yezhov organised the Great Terror, which featured interrogations, tortures, murders and arrests of about 10% of the population.
3. Culture - Stalin was critical of the influence of foreign culture, particularly western fashion and music, which he argued encouraged sexual promiscuity, so tried to prevent this e.g. using the secret police to break up jazz parties.
   - Stalin felt that workers did not understand avant-garde art, so developed a new art style from 1932 called Social Realism. It was simple, depicted a straightforward version of socialist reality and had simple plots with relatable characters e.g. Fyodor Gladkov’s 1924 novel ‘Cement’.
   - There was some limited dissent from artists, who did this by celebrating Lenin rather than Stalin, e.g. Dziga Vertov’s 1934 film trilogy ‘Three Songs about Lenin’.
4. Mass Media - Stalin tightened censorship in order to consolidate and preserve his own power, undermine his opponents, hide his failures and promote his successes e.g. in the mid-1920s, the works of political rivals such as Kamenev and Trotsky were purged from libraries, in 1938 stalin wrote two books highlighting his role in the revolution and banned the publication of bad news such as industrial accidents to create the impression that the USSR was a place where only good things happened.
5. Propaganda - Propaganda was focused on creating a cult of personality around the leader, and Stalin was comfortable with and encouraged this e.g. a key aspect was the ‘Myth of the Two Leaders’, the idea that the October Revolution and Civil War was co-masterminded by Lenin and Stalin, created by altering photographs and the publication of two histories of the Communist Party, published 1938. Another key message was that Stalin was Lenin’s natural heir, presented in Grigory Shegals’ painting ‘Leader, Teacher, Friend’. Propaganda also frequently referred to Stalin as the Vozhd, the Russian word for leader.

Question 7

In what area did Stalin have most control over the Russian people?

Answer 7

Stalin had the most control over people due to his use of terror, as he had the most extensive use of terror of any Russian leader. He set up a new secret police force in January 1934 called the NKVD, led by Yezhov. He and Yezhov organised the Great Terror, which featured interrogations, tortures, murders and arrests of about 10% of the population.

Question 8

In what area did Stalin have least control over the Russian people?

Answer 8

Stalin had least control over Russian culture at the time, because although he changed the style of art at the time, artists found their own loopholes to ensure their works didn’t become Stalin’s personal propaganda. For example, although their works became a part of ‘Social Realism’, artists and filmmakers often based their works on Lenin instead of Stalin, such as Dziga Vertov’s 1934 film trilogy ‘Three Songs about Lenin’.

Question 9

How did Khrushchev control the Russian people?

Answer 9

1. Religion - Khrushchev was ideologically opposed to Religion, viewing it as a method of social control and a threat to communism. He launched an anti-religion campaign in 1958 e.g. closing down the churches Stalin re-opened after WW2, targeting women as 80% of protestant churchgoers were female and using the space programme to undermine religion; Yuri Gagarin, 1st man in space, said it confirmed his atheism.
2. Terror - Khrushchev was highly critical of Stalin’s extreme use of terror and aimed to end it as part of de-stalinisation. E.g. Permitted debate, released political prisoners and made less arrests.
3. Culture - Khrushchev wanted to allow greater freedom of expression than Stalin, but realised that too much threatened Communist power, so was quite hot and cold e.g. allowed intellectuals to criticise Stalin for example Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’. However when he felt expression passed the boundaries of acceptable he was quick to take action, for example he banned Boris Pasternak’s ‘Doctor Zhivago’ as he felt it was too critical of Lenin.
   - Still granted less cultural freedom to women, discouraging western fashions e.g. ‘Loose Women’ campaign encouraged women to pursue a semi-official plain standard of beauty.
4. Mass Media - In order to promote the development of a consumer society and increase de-stalinisation, K slightly relaxed control of the media, e.g. allowing popular magazines with letters of criticism from the public, such as domestic violence in ‘The Woman Worker’. He did however, use media to his advantage, e.g. television ownership increased in K’s last years, and he used this form of media to promote his broader aims, e.g. the successes of ordinary people and society as a whole instead of individuals. For example, a broadcast about the first woman in space highlighted her upbringing on a normal collective farm.
5. Propaganda - Despite openly speaking out against Stalin’s cult of personality, arguing that promoting hero-worship was inherently anti-Communist, K took steps to revive a cult of personality around Lenin, portraying him as approachable, ordinary and hard-working, in order to remind people Communism was about Lenin’s revolution, not Stalin’s terror. K’s own cult of personality made him seem like a bit of a joke, and he began to become undermined by it during the 60s, as it was based on the idea that he was a successful political innovator, but the failure of his policies made this seem laughable.

Question 10

How did Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko control the Russian people?

Answer 10

1. Religion - Brezhnev was also opposed to religion, but saw the value in taking a pragmatic approach. As a result, he abandoned Khrushchev’s overt campaign against religion and instead encouraged belief in atheism, rather than criticising religion. He set up Institute for Scientific Atheism in 1968. It published articles and newspapers promoting atheism and instructed teachers on how to spread atheism in the classroom. Brezhnev’s efforts to promote atheism were unsuccessful. The proportion of people professing a religious faith remained constant at 20% from 1960 until 1985.
2. Terror - Brezhnev was suspicious of the relatively high level of freedom permitted under Khrushchev, but knew people would not accept a return to the widespread terror that existed under Stalin. Therefore, when Yuri Andropov was appointed head of the KGB in 1967, he was told to exert the maximum level of control over people with the minimum amount of violence. Andropov initially dealt with dissidents in a very public way. He issued KGB Order No. 0051. This order increased the surveillance of dissidents and permitted action by the authorities against them. These actions included highly public trials of artists from 1964 to 1966. However, these trials prompted outcry from abroad and were an embarrassment to the government.
3. Culture - Brezhnev was highly critical of Khrushchev’s cultural thaws as he felt they weakened Communist rule. A KGB report in 1965 found that there were 1,292 anti-Soviet authors who had written 10,000 anti-Soviet documents under Khrushchev. Brezhnev would be less willing than his predecessor to allow art and literature that was critical of any aspect of Communist rule. In spite of Brezhnev’s efforts, cultural dissent became increasingly common. For example, there was a thriving underground art movement led by artists like Ilya Kabakov, Natalia Zhilina and Dimitry Shagin.
4. Mass Media - Control of the media relaxed even further under Brezhnev. Ownership of radios and televisions increased and even more popular magazines began to be published. This was all part of working towards the economic aim of creating a consumer society. Brezhnev was initially able to use television to his advantage. His government tightly controlled the footage available to news broadcasters so that they could not show news that presented the government in a bad light. For example, footage of the War in Afghanistan was very limited.
5. Propaganda - The cult of Brezhnev was based on the ideas that he was a successor to Lenin, a military hero, dedicated to ensuring world peace and a man of the people. He promoted this image through speeches, photographs and set piece occasions, like the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The overall effect of the cult of Brezhnev was to make the leader the butt of jokes and to create popular cynicism towards politics as the public realised that the claims of politicians were in no way related to the truth.