Lenin - Control of the People

Question 1

Lenin’s Methods

Answer 1

Cult of Personality.
Economic Policies (1917-18).
Media.
Secret Police.
Religion.
Art & Culture.
Youth Groups.

Question 2

Cult of Lenin

Answer 2

Promoted gov & Party from 1918.
Lenin dubbed the “Hero of the Revolution”, giving it a face.
Image used in newspapers, cinemas and statues, didn’t approve this.
Petrograd –> Leningrad, 1924.
Predominantly used by Stalin as a tool to portray him as the defender of Lenin’s work and his rightful successor.

Question 3

Prolekult

Answer 3

1917-32.
A movement to serve the needs of the working class and help establish a socialist society.
Highlighted class consciousness via films.
Proletarian Culture - worker identity.

Question 4

Bolshevik Economic Policies

Answer 4

Land Decree.
Decree of Workers Control.
State Capitalism.
War Communism.
NEP.

Question 5

War Communism, 1918-1921

Answer 5

Extremist methods (Prodrazverstka & Cheka) used promote communism.
Military style discipline in factories - strikes = death penalty.
Censorship + Nationalisation of press.
Propaganda to get people to fight.
Red Terror = total control + 2m killed.
Trotsky’s train boosted morale.

Question 6

Literature

Answer 6

Dzerzhinsky introduced Glavlit - oversaw publication.
All books investigated for anti-Communist bias, compiling a list of censors employed who were punished by Cheka
Soviet libraries purged of politically dangerous books - “book gulags” held banned books.

Question 7

Censorship + Nationalisation of Newspapers

Answer 7

Newspaper = mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie.
Decree on Press (11/1917) gave gov emergency power to shutdown counter-revolutionary newspapers.
Nationalised Petrograd Telegraph (11/1917).
Revolutionary Tribunal of Press (01/1918) gave the power of censorship.
By 1921, 2000 newspapers and 575 printing presses shutdown.
Early 1920s, non-Bolshevik newspapers banned.
Pravda & Izvestiya.
Glavlit, 1922, approved publishing - partiinost proganda.
Trips to Arctic = triumphs over nature. Prohibited natural disasters.

Question 8

Radio

Answer 8

1921, first voiced.
Installed loudspeakers in public places. Receivers expensive, wanted to spread news to everyone.
Restricted access to foreign stations, cheap radios with limited range & jamming foreign broadcasts.

Question 9

Secret Police War Communism

Answer 9

Cheka, 1919 –> GPU, 1922 –> OGPU, 1923.
Cheka acted against counter-revolution, led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.
Civil War, no interference from legal bodies.
Red Terror (09/1918). Shot/executed 200k Mensheviks/SR first 3 months.

Question 10

Secret Police NEP

Answer 10

Terror on a smaller scale by GPU.
Predominantly enforced policies (censorship) and attacked political opposition.
Persecuted priests.
Monitored semi-capitalist marketplace created by the NEP:
* Imprisoned NEPmen who had grown too rich.
* Harassed women who dressed in Western styles
* Persecuting young people who listened and danced to jazz.

Question 11

Secret Police, Surveillance & Deportations

Answer 11

1920s, Lenin suspicious of Tsarists loyalists and intellectuals who didn’t support gov.
1922, Dzerzhinsky put Tsarists officers, now in Red Army, under surveillance, and supervised deportation of suspected anti-Communists.
GPU reported drunkenness, gambling and signs of inequality to Central Committee.

Question 12

Secret Police, Political Trials

Answer 12

Lenin insecure about future of revolution.
Feared economic compromise of NEP = political overthrow.
Dzerzhinsky set up political trials of the leading socialist opponents. SR leaders accused of treason, sabotage, and plotting to overthrow Soviet state. 08/1922, all of the defendants were sentenced to death.

Question 13

Religion

Answer 13

Bolsheviks hated its influence.
Deemed it a waste of time - an “opium of the masses”.
Saw it as an instrument of social control + threat to socialist values.
Didn’t like how Sunday = day of rest in Christianity.

Question 14

Control of Christianity.

Answer 14

1918, Decree on Freedom of Conscience - separated Church from state, losing privileges, deprived of land + religious education outside of home banned.
1918, head of ROC (Tikhon) arrested.
Civil War, increased attacks, valuables seized, priests lost right to vote + denied rations + persecuted in Red Terror.
Overall ineffective, survey in mid 1920s showed 55% of peasants still Christians.

Question 15

Control of Islam

Answer 15

More ingrained than Christianity.
Harder to remove influence.
Threatened social cohesion of state, links with minorities.
Tried to reduce influence of sharia law courts, schools and mullahs (Islamic priest).

Question 16

Art & Culture.

Answer 16

Commissariat of Enlightenment - artists more freedom to create what they wanted.
“Fellow travellers”, artists who were not communists but sympathetic to the revolution, creating revolutionary art were supported by Trotsky + Lenin, but not all Bolsheviks.
Bogdanov and Lunacharsky (head of CoE) promoted to Proletkult - collect socialist artists to create art for a social + political purpose.
Emphasis on collective of workers > individualism.
1920s = restrictions
Avant-garde
Mayakovsky created propaganda for gov (futuristic world).
Theatre propaganda was too confusing + complex for Soviet people and didn’t clearly convey political messages.

Question 17

Youth Group

Answer 17

1920, Komsomol & Young Pioneers.
Wore uniform & participated in activities (camping/hiking).
Meant to be disciplined, keen supporters of the Communist Party, but had a rep for drunkenness, promiscuity, and hooliganism.