Secret Police Notes

Question 1

Lenin’s cult of personality

Answer 1

As soon as
Lenin was buried, he was being hailed as the hero of the Revolution. Images of Lenin appeared in
many forms. The newspapers, statues and the cinema all contained endless images of Lenin. His
likeness was used to motivate the population to imitate his commitment to the Revolution. The
embalming of Lenin’s body for display in the mausoleum in Red Square, in the centre of Moscow,
was the most striking example of the use of Lenin as a focus for political purposes. Petrograd was
renamed Leningrad in 1924 in honour of his achievements for the Revolution. There is no doubt that
there was a wave of support for Lenin at the time of his death and the Soviet government was able
to build on this. The long queues to see the embalmed body of Lenin were evidence of this support.

Question 2

How did STALIN use the cult of personality

Answer 2

The cult of Stalin was invaluable in supporting Stalin’s career. firstly, by linking him to Lenin to
highlight his loyalty to the Lenin legacy during his manoeuvring for power in the 1920s; secondly, as a
way of reinforcing his personal dictatorship in the 1930s. Soon after Lenin’s death in 1924, the slogan ‘Stalin is the Lenin of today’ became widely used by.
sections of the rank and file Party membership.

Question 3

Paintings identified

Stalin with the achievements of the Five-Year Plans, for example

Answer 3

Stalin posing at the Ryon hydro-

electric complex in 1935.

Question 4

STALIN WW2 cult

Answer 4

• Posters of Stalin in military uniform were common during the Second World War. Images of Stalin
in front of masses of Soviet troops and military hardware clearly conveyed the message that Stalin
was the defender of Mother Russia.

Question 5

Stalin gathered titles and honours

Answer 5

Brilliant Genius of Humanity’ and Gardener

of Human Happiness’

Question 6

More examples of STALIN developing a cult

Answer 6

Poets were used to add to the quantity of material disseminated
in praise of Stalin, Statues of Stalin were erected in most cities and towns, Films for the cinema featuring Stalin were also used to
highlight his prominent role in events.

Question 7

By the early 1950s, this cult of personality was to rise to ever more
ridiculous heights.

Answer 7

By 1953, many towns had been renamed after

Stalin. The Volga-Don Canal littered with statues

Question 8

By WW2, STALIN cult

Answer 8

Stalin’s popularity had grown and
many Soviet citizens viewed him as a benefactor, inspiration and
as the saviour of socialism and Mother Russia. Even those who
did not like Stalin often had respect for him as a leader.

Question 9

What did personality cult do for Khrushchev

Answer 9

a cult
allowed him to be seen as the more important Party leader when
power had originally been shared after 1953 with Malenkov. He also made
use of radio, cinema and television for self-publicity

Question 10

For Brezhnev, a personality cult was useful after 1964 as

Answer 10

Brezhnev
sought to emerge as ‘first among equals’ in the power struggle
with Kosygin and Podgorny that followed Khrushchev’s removal.

Question 11

HOW DID THE USE OF THE SECRET POLICE CHANGE

THROUGH THE PERIOD 1917 TO 1985?

Answer 11

Established by Lenin, the Bolsheviks’ secret police force was enlarged greatly under Stalin and terro
became an essential feature of Stalinist Russia. Although terror became less cruel after Stalin’s death
it remained a key feature of Soviet life until the collapse of the USSR.

Question 12

Andropov’s suppression of dissidents,

1967-82

Answer 12

After Stalin’s death, the use of terror declined considerably, even
if the fear that it engendered did not. Surveillance of perceived
enemies continued. From 1953, this was the work of the KGB.
In 1967, the organisation was headed by Yuri Andropov. One of the most important changes that developed under the
KGB was that, in the words of poet Anna Akhmatova, people
were no longer arrested for nothing’, now they were at least
arrested for something.

Question 13

Dissidents- intellectuals

Answer 13

develop independent ways of thinking, constantly
came up against restrictions, usually of a political nature. They
were also expected to participate in politics if they wanted
promotion. One of the most famous examples was Andrei
Sakharov, the nuclear scientist. Science was a field where the
exchange of ideas with foreign colleagues, reading foreign
research papers and using foreign equipment was important.
All of these activities were restricted. In frustration, Sakharov
and other leading scientists wrote a letter to Brezhnev in 1970,
detailing their irritations with the system. The authorities
banned him from further military research.

Question 14

Political dissidents

Answer 14

were people who tried to hold the
government to the account of its own laws. These groups
were usually concerned with abuses of human rights that
broke Soviet law and international agreements signed by the
USSR. Groups were established to monitor the Soviet Union’s
application of the UN Declaration on Human Rights signed
in 1948 and the Helsinki Accords of 1975.

Question 15

Nationalists dissidents

Answer 15

Groups of Ukrainians,
Latvians, Lithuanians and Georgians existed that called for
greater status for their own national languages and cultures;
some for independence from the USSR.

Question 16

Other groups of dissidents

Answer 16

Religious dissidents and the refuseniks
soviet Jews who had been denied their wish to emigrate to
Israel. This group had strong support in the US Congress and
remained a difficult issue at international summits between the
leaders of the USA and the USSR

Question 17

Actions of dissidents

Answer 17

producing
material that shared their concerns and criticisms of the soviet
system. These illegal, self-published materials, often little more than
handwritten notes, were known as samizdat and their production
became a popular hobby in the late 1960s. They contained poems
handwritten newsletters and transcripts of Voice of America radio
broadcasts. One of the most well-known of the samizdat materials
was the Chronicle of Current Events’, an underground newsletter
that highlighted human rights abuses and the treatment of dissidents

Question 18

Actions taken against the dissidents

Answer 18

The secret police would conduct surveillance and harassment
of suspected dissidents. Intellectuals were often threatened with
expulsion from their professional organisation, they might be
denied permission to publish or they might be dismissed from
their post. Houses were searched and any material or apparatus
that could be used to produce or spread material was confiscated.
Arrests might follow

Question 19

The label of dissident would also mark them out in civilian life:

Answer 19

discrimination at work, failure to gain a place at university,
continued surveillance and harassment. By the mid-1970s,
Amnesty International estimated that there were, at most, 10,000
political prisoners, a small but not insignificant number.

Question 20

Article 70

Answer 20

A new criminal code in 1960 had abolished night-time interrogations
and limited the powers of the KGB. provided the
authorities with the useful catch-all powers of dealing with anything
considered anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. those now arrested had to be dealt with by
a court of justice. Court records of proceedings were kept, a significant
development that allowed dissident groups to publicise their cases.

Question 21

One important development in the treatment of dissidents

Answer 21

use of psychiatric hospitals. had the advantage that
It discredited the dissidents in the eyes of the Soviet public. special hospitals’ were run by the NKVD and patients’ were held
until they were ‘cured’, which usually meant they agreed to change
their views and opinions of the Soviet state. Those patients who
refused were ‘treated’ with electric shocks and drugs. overcrowded and unhygienic

Question 22

Another method used to limit the impact of dissidents was

Answer 22

to send
them into internal exile. Troublesome academics were sent to out-
of-the way places. severely restricted means of communication with supporters.
For those who continued to write works critical of the regime,
expulsion from the USSR remained an option for the government.

Question 23

The impact of the dissidents internationally

Answer 23

Records of court cases were smuggled out of the USSR and
used by human rights groups in the West. Bad publicity. The Soviet leadership had become increasingly
concerned with its international reputation, especially in the light
of the Helsinki Accords signed in 1975. The 33 countries that
signed the Accords had agreed to respect ‘freedom of thought,
conscience and belief!. The treatment of dissidents was highlighted
by human rights groups as a violation of this agreement. In the
age of growing mass communication on a worldwide scale, news
of the arrest of a prominent dissident could embarrass a Soviet
leader and damage Soviet diplomacy.

Question 24

We’re dissidents significant in the USSR

Answer 24

No- Within the USSR the dissidents had little support from the general
public and, despite government fears, they never threatened the
social or political stability of the country. The dissidents were a
collection of individuals and never a coherent group, let alone
a movement. They struggled to organise public demonstrations
and, when they did, it revealed their limited support. In 1968,
dissidents organised a public protest at the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in Red Square, Moscow. Only seven people
turned up. Fear of the secret police played a part in preventing
more people joining the protest.

Question 25

Was Andropov successful in suppressing dissidents

Answer 25

By the end of the 1970s, Andropov’s measures had succeeded in
keeping the dissident groups small and divided and in a state of
mutual mistrust. Methods of dealing with opposition had changed
considerably from the terror and torture of Stalin’s years. Andropov’s,
methods were more subtle and, with developments in surveillance
technology such as electronic bugging devices, they were becoming
more sophisticated. The professionalism, reputation and status of
the KGB grew considerably under Andropov’s leadership.

Question 26

Andropov’s monitoring of the dissident groups was increased in
1982 and members of the ‘Chronicle of Current Events’ recall
this period as

Answer 26

being one of the most difficult in which to operate.

Question 27

The stereotypical image of plain-clothes secret police officers
in long leather coats, following people in the streets, had some
basis in fact, but methods of monitoring were becoming more
sophisticated as a result of new technology. Examples

Answer 27

Conversations were
recorded using tape and cassette recorders and listening devices
and cameras were secreted in briefcases and bras. The KGB were
well informed of the criticisms of the Soviet system put forward by
the dissidents, and their threat to social and political stability had
been effectively neutralised.

Question 28

Why was Andropov particularly worried about economic concerns

Answer 28

He was greatly concerned with the growing inefficiency
in the Soviet economy and believed that if the Soviet government
did not deliver a reasonable standard of living the discontent
was likely to spread. The communist government in Poland had
faced serious popular unrest in 1980-81 sparked by a decision to
raise food prices. Andropov was therefore aware that economic
issues could threaten instability in the USSR. Andropov told his
doctor, We’ll make enough sausages, and then we won’t have any
dissidents.

Question 29

Andropov used
the secret police to clamp down on alcoholism and absenteeism
in the workplace:

Answer 29

KGB officers did spot checks on factories to

record attendance and combed the streets for truanting workers.

Question 30

Was the clampdown on alcoholism successful

Answer 30

Unfortunately, this tactic upset many female workers who
had to juggle a full-time job with queuing for food at shops.
The queues were partly a result of cheap government-set
prices, which meant that goods sold out quickly after arrival
in the shops. Being in the right queue at the right time was an
important part of a Soviet mother’s daily life. What Andropov’s
actions revealed was that the general public preferred queuing
to higher food prices.

Question 31

What did Andropov say that showed a remarkably different approach to that of previous
Soviet leaders.

Answer 31

Andropov to tell the Politburo that the leadership needed
‘to acquire an understanding of the society in which we live’. He recognised that economic reform was needed and that
the Party leadership was made up largely of old men who had
become out of touch with the concerns of the general population.

Question 32

What did Andropov do in terms of visiting for economic reform

Answer 32

Andropov took the lead by visiting factories to talk to workers.
In February 1983, he visited a Moscow factory, but the whole
event was rather contrived. Andropov was well-meaning and
genuine in his desire to listen to the views of the public, but he
was humourless, austere and lacked charm. Workers who met
him felt restricted by the fact that they were talking to the ex-
head of the KGB.

Question 33

A more effective method of tapping into public concerns

was

Answer 33

the appointment of new government advisers. Andropov
surrounded himself with people who were relativelv free
thinkers, more often journalists or academics, who were
in touch with the causes of popular discontent. He made
particular use of a group of sociologists and economists from
Novosibirsk, especially Tatyana Zaslavskaya, who argued that
the arbitrary nature of much of Soviet administration was a kev
cause of resentment.

Question 34

Within the Party leadership, Andropov made a conscious

effort to

Answer 34

promote a younger, more reformist generation, whose
experience in the lower ranks of the Party meant they were
more in touch with the realities of daily life in the Soviet Union.
Among those promoted were Mikhail Gorbachev, Yegor
Ligachev and Nikolai Ruzhkov,

Question 35

Was the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s socially unstable

Answer 35

There was
little public criticism of the government and social conflict was
rare. A well-worked system of propaganda, censorship, rewards
and sanctions was highly effective, but this should not necessarily
be taken to mean that the Soviet public was happy. Grumbling was
a popular Soviet pastime.