Differing Experiences of Social Groups

Question 1

List 5 features of urban working conditions.

Answer 1

• The conditions were tough and similar to the pre-revolution ones
• Workers were sacked if absent for more than a day
• Workers were paid poorly and money’s value went down by 50%
• Failures were blamed on saboteurs who were shot or sent to gulags
• Strikes and demands for better pay were seen as selfish when the USSR’s existence hung in the balance

Question 2

List 7 features of urban living conditions.

Answer 2

• There were shortages of everyday goods
• Crime, alcoholism and juvenile delinquency increased
• Trade unions provided clubs, sports facilities, film shows and other entertainment
• There was no unemployment, and there was a free health service, paid holidays and health insurance
• Women and girls did not find it hard to be employed
• Other than in Moscow, the infrastructure could not cope with the increase in population (up by 11 million in 4 years)
• In Moscow only 6% of households had more than one room

Question 3

List 3 features of rural working conditions.

Answer 3

• The mechanisation and modernisation of farming made it easier and faster
• Peasants were tied to their collectives like serfs from the 1800s
• Secret police at MTS also spied on them

Question 4

List 3 features of rural living conditions.

Answer 4

• Peasants had lost the land given to them after the Bolshevik Revolution
• There often were food shortages
• Collective farms did provide clubs, sports facilities, film shows, schools and hospitals

Question 5

What type of people did Stalin want in the Communist Party?

Answer 5

• Peasants
• Members of the proletariat
• This worked as it produced leaders like Khrushchev and Brezhnev

Question 6

Give 2 advantages that party members had.

Answer 6

• Better healthcare
• Better housing- including a ‘dacha’ (villa)

Question 7

How many urban workers were promoted under the first 5 year plan?

Answer 7

• 1.5 million

Question 8

Give figures showing women’s positions in higher education.

Answer 8

• 1929: 20% of places reserved for them
• By 1940: 40% of engineering students were female

Question 9

How did the high divorce rate of the 1920s affect life in the 30s?

Answer 9

• It had created many broken homes; lots of children were homeless, begging and robbing

Question 10

How easy was it to obtain a divorce or abortion in the 1930s and why?

Answer 10

• It was harder than it had previously been
• By the mid-1930s the family was back in favour and there were incentives to keep it that way (e.g. child allowances for married couples)

Question 11

When was Zhenotdel abolished, and why?

Answer 11

• 1930
• Women’s problems were said to have generally been solved
• Any other problems would be solved by the whole party like other issues

Question 12

Why didn’t Stalin like national groups?

Answer 12

• He was distrustful of them and wanted them to be Soviet citizens

Question 13

Starting from 1935, what did Stalin do to national groups? What was the most extreme example of this?

Answer 13

• They were forcefully moved from border areas
• In 1936 the whole Korean community (172,000 of them) in Vladivostok were accused of being Japanese spies and moved by the NKVD

Question 14

How many people were forcefully deported under Stalin? What were 2 of the ethnic groups?

Answer 14

• 1.25 million
• Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars

Question 15

Give 2 examples of Stalin controlling Ukraine.

Answer 15

• They were deliberately starved in the famine of 1932-33 to keep them obedient
• 5000 Ukrainian intellectuals were murdered/ deported to Siberia on false charges