Stalin Control

Question 1

Describe Stalin’s cult of personality

Answer 1

1. He created an image of himself as a caring leader whose genius had saved the Soviet Union from tis enemies
2. People told Stalin was the essence of all that was good and wise, almost a God-like being
3. School children taught from textbooks especially designed to exaggerate Stalin’s importance int he Revolution. There was even a communist you organisation called Komsomol

Question 2

How did Stalin control the Arts?

Answer 2

1. Books and articles had to be submitted to committees before they were published
2. Writers had much less freedom under Stalin than in the 1920s
3. Artists were forced to produce work which glorified the achievements of Soviet workers and peasants or of the revolution, inspire people with socialism
4. Socialist Realist novels as their heroes ordinary people helping to build the new Soviet society
5. Artists and writers were forced to adopt a style called Soviet Realism
6. Paintings showed happy collective farm workers in the fields or workers striving in the factories

Question 3

What happened to artists who did not follow Stalin’s criteria?

Answer 3

1. Anything that did not follow his criteria was called ‘Bourgeois’
2. Artists accused of bourgeois tendencies could find their work never published or seen
3. They might loose their livelihood as the state paid their wages
4. Or if they went too far they could find themselves in a labour camp

Question 4

How did Stalin change history?

Answer 4

1. He got ride of all the Old Communists who knew about the past and they were now ‘enemies of the people’
2. History was rewritten and photographs doctored so that these people disappeared from Soviet history
3. At the same time Stalin also wanted Russians to think that he had been the most important person, after Lenin is planning and carrying out the Revolution
4. He wanted to associate himself with Lenin, who was treated like a god in Soviet society
5. Stalin encouraged the ‘cult of Lenin’, and had paintings done to show how close to Lenin he had been in the revolutionary days

Question 5

How did Stalin control education?

Answer 5

1. Education was strictly controlled and in 1932 a rigid programme of education was introduced
2. Discipline was strict and examination was brought back
   - HOWEVER: this was good in LT cause no longer created poorly educated pupils
3. What was taught in schools was laid down by the government, history was particularly important and it was re-written to suit Stalin. As the old Communists were purged, their pictures were pasted out of textbooks. Trotsky disappeared early on, and later generations of Soviet children knew little about him
4. Stalin had a new book: A short history of the USSR, written for school students which gave him a more important role in the Revolution

Question 6

How did Stalin control education outside of school?

Answer 6

1. Children joined political youth groups, which trained them in Socialism
2. Children aged 8-10 joined the Octobrists and those aged 10-16 joined the Pioneers and young people aged 19-23 joined the Komsomol
3. These groups were taught political ideas through activities such as sports, camping, model-making and so on

Question 7

How did Stalin control the Church?

Answer 7

1. Attacks on the Orthodox Church and religious places increased in the 1930s
2. The ‘League of the Godless’ smashed churches and burned religious pictures
3. Members of the religious groups, such as the Baptists were arrested in large numbers and sent to labour camps
4. The Orthodox Church was hit harder as the purges continued, with most of its bishops being arrested
5. Trying to spread religious ideas was a passport to prison
6. By 1939 only one in 40 churches were holding regular services in the USSR
7. Muslims were banned from practising Islamic law and women encouraged to abandon the veil
8. 1917: 26,000 mosques in Russia but by 1939 there were only 1,300
9. Despite this aggressive action in the 1937 census, around 60 per cent of Russians said they were Christians

Question 8

Describe a totalitarian state

Answer 8

1. A state in which the government, often centred on one individual or clique, exercises almost complete and total control
2. Control over markets and money
3. Elimination of opposition
4. Apparatus of a police state
5. No independent legal system or judiciary
6. Large amounts of inaocmination and propaganda, often to glorify the leader or ruling clique

Question 9

Why did Stalin commit the Purges?

Answer 9

1. Stalin believed that he needed to ensure that the Communist utopia was not polluted
   - The purges protected industrialisation and collectivisation from failing as it stopped there being opposition
   - This meant that Russia could grow stronger, more self-sufficient and defeat Germans in 1941 (Stalin was convinced there would be an attack)
2. To protect his position as leader
   - Kirov murdered in 1934
   - 1/5 of Party members cleared out by end of purges
   - Purges removed his opposition and created fear so that no on was prepared to insult or criticise Stalin
3. Removal of Old Bolsheviks deflected criticism away from Stalin, his regime and Stalin was happy to exploit this
4. Allowed Stalin to destroy his rivals and shift blame
   - Stalin had seriously weakened the USSR by removing so many able individuals
   - Stalin had also succeeded in destroying any sense of independent thinking
   - Everyone who was spared knew that their lives depended on thinking exactly as Stalin did
5. Stalin lost control which meant that the purges escalated
6. A means for people to settle old scores as by allowing people to snitch on each other for being Bolsheviks, many were left fearful of neighbours and each other, 1 woman supposed to have denounce 8,000 people

Question 10

Describe Stalin’s actions from the start of his rule until 1935

Answer 10

1. Regular mass-expulsions from the party had taken place since the revolution
2. 1928: Shakhty mines un Ukraine failed to reach targets and were beset with problems: 53 ‘wreckers’ tried and 5 executed after being found guilty of conspiring with former capitalist mine owners; this trial provided a blue-print for future policy
   - He did this arguably to make others so scared that they would work so hard to reach their targets and thus increase industrial output and efficiency
   - To show Stalin’s power and control
   - To set president
3. 1928-1932: First FYP
4. 1932-1937: Second FYP
5. 1st December 1934: Murder of Kirov
6. 1935: Stakhanovite movement began

Question 11

Describe Stalin’s actions from 1936-1937

Answer 11

1. 1936: Yezhov appointed head of NKVD
2. 1936: Moscow Trials began; Zinoviev and Kamenev found guilty of conspiracy and shot
3. 1937: Introduction of NKVD troikas for express implementation of “revolutionary justice
4. 1937: Purges of Armed Forces began. This included The CiC of the Red Army, (supreme commander Marhsal Tukhachevsky)
5. August 1937: NKVD order 00485 that all ethnic Poles were defined as “spies”, “saboteurs” and “wreckers” leading to the execution of around 110,000

Question 12

Describe Stalin’s actions in 1938

Answer 12

1. March 1938: The Trial of the ‘Twenty-one’; Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda were found guilty and shot
2. August 1938: Beria appointed Yezhov’s assistant;
3. Novemeber 1938: Beria replaced Yezhov

Question 13

What were the results of the Purges?

Answer 13

1. Stalin was the sole survivor of the original Soviet government upper tier
2. Stalin personally signed the death warrants for over 40,000 people
3. Well over 2 million members of the party ‘disappeared’
4. Over 90% of the Red Army’s command structure had been purged. When the Nazi’s invaded the USSR in 1941 there were around 82,000 officers. This included 3/5 marshals and all of the admirals
5. Arch Getty estimated around 22 million people had been sent to labour camps by 1939 and approximately 14 million of these people died or were executed

Question 14

What was a show trial?

Answer 14

• The people who might oppose him, particularly Bolsheviks who had been important in the past were put on trial in full view of the world and these were broadcasted on the radio
• In which leading old Bolsheviks “confessed” to crimes against the Soviet Union
• Getting confessions were important as it showed that the state and Stalin were right
• Many were not true with bizarre evidence

Question 15

Describe the three major show trails

Answer 15

1. 1936: Zinoviev and Kamenev along with fourteen others were accused of organising the murder of Kirov and planning to assassinate Stalin, they and the others were all executed
2. 1937: When senior Party members were accused of industrial sabotage and spying
3. 1938: Bukharin and Rykov and Yagoda, they knew too much about old revolutionary days and so B and Y were short and Y had been the previous head of the NKVD

Question 16

What happened in 1932 with Ryutin?

Answer 16

• He was a senior member of the Communist Party, and he criticised Stalin’s economic policies
• Stalin had him and his supporters arrested and put on trial
• Ryutin was expelled from the party and sent into exile
• Would have scared other potential critics of Stalin so would probably not speak out in public about this

Question 17

What happened in 1934 at the Seventeenth Party Congress?

Answer 17

1. Stalin’s popular politburo colleague, Sergei Kirov, criticised Stalin’s industrialisation policy and said it should be slowed down
2. He received a greater applause than Stalin and there was even talk that he might replace Stalin as a leader
3. Shortly after the Congress, on 1st December 1924, Kirov was shot outside his office in Leningrad, probably on Stalin’s orders
4. Stalin claimed this was part of a plot against the Communist Party, and used this as an excuse to order thousands of arrests
   - This was significant as it showed how prepared Stalin was to keep control, at the risk of hunting someone in the Communist party, his own party and someone who the people liked more (self centred and desired total control)

Question 18

What were the political effects of the purges?

Answer 18

1. By the end of the purges there was an estimated over 1/5 of members had been expelled or shot
2. Of the 1,961 delegates at the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934, 1,108 were arrested
3. Of the 139 central committee, over 90 were shot
4. 5/11 of the Politburo of 1934 were dead, some in mysterious circumstances
   - This allowed Stalin to control opposition from government officials and stops them from getting public support and potentially overthrowing Stalin

Question 19

What was the effect of the Purges on ordinary people?

Answer 19

1. Anybody who was suspected of opposing Stalin was to be removed
2. Nobody was safe and people were taken away without warning and often never seen again
3. Often people did not know what crimes they had committed or some offence would be made up usually connected with sabotage
4. Children were encouraged to inform on their peasants and neighbours to denounce each other
   - 1 woman was supposed to have denounced 8,000 people
5. Informing on others was a way of proving one’s loyalty or settling old scores, it was part of the hysteria which was created by the atmosphere of terror, people lived in fear of denunciation in the factory, office, farm, street and home

Question 20

When was the end of the purges? What had happened?

Answer 20

• 1934-1938 purges lasted
  1. 1938 Stalin called a halt to the purges
  2. It was getting out of hand and was pulling Soviet society out of hand
  3. The NKVD was purged
  4. Mass graves of people killed in the 1930s have been found
• As a result of the Terror, Stalin’s position was unchallengeable. He had created a Party which was loyal to him, who carried out his orders and had no memory of the old heroes of the Revolution. Moreover, all sources of opposition outside the Party had been crushed

Question 21

How far was Stalin personally responsible for the Purges?

Answer 21

• Stalin orchestrated the whole idea of purging to create a new system of dictatorship of himself and save Communist utopia and send terror to ensure his rule and control army and remove potential threat to his power at risk of a weak army. He said to people to denounce each other, even if leads to out his control, he began it
• But officials may take their order from Stalin out of control, but ultimately Stalin’s ideas
• People wanted to settle old scores

Question 22

What was the new constitution?

Answer 22

• In 1936 Stalin created a new constitution for the USSR
• It gave freedom of speech and free elections to the Russian people
• This was, of course, a cosmetic measure, it was simply intended to convince the outside world that the USSR was a ‘free society’
• Only Communist Party candidates were allowed to stand in elections, and only approved newspapers and magazines could be published
• It confirmed Stalin’s dictatorship. The government kept close control of both the central government and the government of each republic

Question 23

How did Stalin control the news?

Answer 23

1. Newspapers were censored or run by government agencies
2. Radio under state control
3. The State used propaganda extensively in posters information leaflets and through public events like organised street theatre and processions
4. Soviet citizens could get very little information from the world outside apart from through state controlled media

Question 24

What was the Great Retreat?

Answer 24

• By the mid 1930s there was a movement to return to traditional family values and discipline, often called the ‘Great Retreat’
• Retreat away from liberal social policies after 1935

Question 25

What were the policies of the Great Retreat?

Answer 25

1. Abortion was made illegal except to protect the health of the mother
2. Divorce was made more difficult and divorcing couples had to go to court and pay a fee
3. Divorced fathers had to pay maintenance for their children
4. Mothers received cash payments of 2,000 roubles per year for each child up to the age of five
5. A new law in 1935 allowed the NKVD to deal harshly with youth crime. There was even a death sentence introduced for young criminals, although there are no records of it being used
6. Parents could be fined if their children caused trouble. Their children could be taken to orphanages and their parents forced to pay for upkeep

Question 26

What was the impact of the Great Retreat?

Answer 26

1. Divorce rates did not fall and absent fathers meant women took the major role in holding family life together and became breadwinners as well - more independence?
2. Overall, it seems that family life did not decline further in the 1930s and interviews with survivors of the period seem to suggest that most people supported the Great Retreat policies

Question 27

How had living standard changed under Stalin?

Answer 27

1. Positive:
   - Rose in 1930s, high ranking party officials and skilled factory workers did well, as did peasants who could command high prices for food grown on private plots
   - Lots of money put into building a health service and so an increase in facilities and doctors
2. Negative:
   - Shortages of food and other goods, difference in wages
   - Demand on health service was overwhelming. It was rigid and people were forced to do what they were told including having operation they did not need

Question 28

How had housing changed under Stalin?

Answer 28

1. Positive:
   - Some progress in industrial towns by the end of the 30s
2. Negative:
   - Little overall improvement: in Moscow only 6% of households had more than one room. Shared toilets, thing walls, same furniture, same portrait of Stalin
   - Housing was scare and expensive

Question 29

How had religion changed under Stalin?

Answer 29

1. Churches closed or pulled down, priests deported
2. Priests not allowed to vote, by 1939 only 1 in 40 churches had regular services
3. Muslims banned from practising Islamic law and women encouraged to abandon the veil

Question 30

How had women’s rights improved under Stalin?

Answer 30

1. Women gained much more freedom and opportunity
2. Women were given the same educational and employment opportunities as men
3. Women entered the workforce in increasing numbers and by 1935, some 42% of industrial workers were women
4. Crèches and kindergartens opened up
5. Communists thought that women should not be tied down to men by marriage, so divorce was made very easy and there was abortion on demand
   (Before Great Retreat)
6. Some Women were enrolled into technical training programs and management positions

Question 31

How had censorship changed under Stalin?

Answer 31

1. Newspapers censored or run by government agencies
2. Radio under State control
3. Propaganda posters, information leaflets, public events like street theatres
4. Hard to get news from the outside world
5. Music and other arts carefully monitored by the NKVD
6. Poets, playwrights and composers praised Stalin and lived in dread of his disapproval
7. Artists had to adopt Soviet Realisms, a style which glorified ordinary workers, inspire people with socialism and help build the future

Question 32

How did social life change under Stalin negatively?

Answer 32

1. Difficult to get clothing and shoes, queuing being normal
2. Collectivisation split up many families, leading to millions of homeless children
3. Shortages of food and other goods, great difference in wages
4. Difficult to get a promotion
5. Buying power of a worker’s wages fell over 50% during the first FYP
6. The average worker in 1930s Moscow ate only 20% of the meat and fish he ate in 1900

Question 33

What were the negative impacts for women rights under Stalin?

Answer 33

1. Women still found hard to achieve promotion and most remained in relatively low paid industrial jobs or traditional roles
2. Evidence of women facing resentment from male colleagues
3. Reality did not live up to dream as many men abandoned and divorced women as soon as they became pregnant and in 1927 2/3 of marriages in Moscow ended in divorce
4. The promised state kindergartens did not materialise and thousands of women were left to manage as best as they could with jobs and children
   (Before Great Retreat)

Question 34

How did society change under Stalin?

Answer 34

1. Class divides grew: Skilled workers, foremen, supervisors and technicians were paid more
2. There was an amy of managers and bureaucrats and they proliferated (increase), and they created jobs for the secretaries who handled their paperwork. The manager could also get items like clothing and luxuries in the official Party shops; senior party members could buy scare goods in Party shops
3. At the very top was the nomenclatura which was the special group loyal to Stalin who had all the top jobs in the party and government. They got privileges such as better housing, food and clothes
   - The groups mentioned above had done well out of the new industrial society and their support for Stalin was vital in helping him control Soviet society

Question 35

How did education change under Stalin?

Answer 35

1. Strict programme of work for key subjects
2. History textbooks rewritten to show Stalin’s view
3. Compulsory lessons in socialist values and how citizens should behave
4. Reformed the system emphasising discipline of teachers and parents

Question 36

How did social life change under Stalin positively?

Answer 36

1. Health care improved enormously
2. Education improved and public libraries became available as literacy became a high priority
3. Sports facilities were good in most towns and cities
4. Trade unions and collective farms provided clubs, sport facilities, films and festivals
5. Each worker was entitled to take a holiday each year and holidays were unknown for ordinary Russians prior to the revolution
6. New City of Magnitogorsk: ten theatres, ballroom dancing popular there and about 20,000 people a month went to the cinema

Question 37

How were the nationalities treated under Stalin?

Answer 37

1. The attack on Islam was also in effect an attack on nationalities as the national identities of many nationalities such as the Crimean Tatars, Kazhaks, Balkars and Azerbaijans) were bound up with their religion
2. In 1932 a new regulation was brought in that required Soviet citizens to carry identity booklets and these documents included a section in which they had to specify their nationality, another form of control
3. Many nationalities found that their homelands were dramatically changed by the arrival of large numbers if Russian immigrant workers who were sent there to develop new industrial projects
4. Between 1935 and 1938 Stalin carried out deportations against at least nine different ethnic groups
5. This became a large-scale systematic process once war broke out with Germany in 1941 as Stalin feared they would co-operate with the invading German forces and groups deported included Chechens in the south of the USSR and Poles, Lithuanians and other peoples of the Baltic territories
6. Jew stills suffered discrimination
7. Finnish population in the region around Leningrad fell by one third during the 1930s

Question 38

In what ways was Stalin’s control over the Soviet Union complete by 1941?

Answer 38

• In the Purges:
  1. Removed all the old Bolsheviks capable of forming an alternative government and replacing his as leader
  2. Removed the main officers in the army likely to cause him any trouble
  3. Cowed intellectuals in education, sciences and the arts, making them unlikely to voice criticisms of his policies
  4. Terrified the population at large who did not know where the accusations of disloyalty might come form and feared being picked up by the secret police
  5. Got rid of many of the unruly and disruptive elements in society by sending them to the Gulag where they might prove more useful as slave labour
• Also vast organisation of the secret police, the NKVD stood behind Stalin and behind the NKVD lay the terror of the Gulag concentration camps

Question 39

How was Stalin’s position cemented by his cult of personality?

Answer 39

1. Stalin’s position was cemented by the cult of personality, which led many Russians to regard him as an almost superhuman leader whom they revered and even loved
2. Those who did not go along with this were very reluctant to voice their views in public
3. Stalin had complete control of the media and propaganda, which repeated the message that Stalin was great and the only person who could lead Russia to a bright future
4. Some social changes where good and industrial output did increase

Question 40

In what ways was Stalin’s control over the Soviet Union not complete by 1941?

Answer 40

1. Stalin found it difficult to control regions way from Moscow. People including Communist officials, ran their own areas to suit themselves and would not always carry out instructions from the centre
2. There was a lot of bribery and corruption, especially as everybody had to reach production targets in industry. Nobody, even Communist Party officials, wanted to be accused of not fulfilling targets, so they fiddled the figures, produced sub-standard goods or simply did not tell the centre what was going on
3. Even those higher up cheated and manipulated the system so they could escape any blame. The whole central planning system was rough and unwieldy despite the fact that it achieved its broad aims
   - Stalin tried to control things personally as far as he could, and he sent out a constant stream of notes and letters giving very specific instructions about what should be done, even down to particular industrial plans

Question 41

How had the stability of Russia changed during the rule of Stalin?

Answer 41

• Soviet Russia in the 1930s was never very stable
  1. Millions of people moved around as industrialisation created vast new centres and peasant were thrown off the land
  2. People came and went seeking jobs and accommodation or trying to escape the authorities. Thousands changed jobs regularly so that they could not be tracked down and subjected to the harsh labour laws, or to get better wages, especially if they were skilled workers
  3. In all this fluid mix there were embittered, rebellious and criminal elements as well as young people who would not conform to Soviet laws, rules and regulations

Question 42

How did Stalin control the countryside?

Answer 42

1. Stalin had subdued the peasants through collectivisation but most were still aggrieved by the loss of their land and independence
2. They adapted to the Stalinist system but resisted where they could
3. They made life difficult for farm managers, were insubordinate, neglected jobs, were apathetic and generally did not work hard
4. Agriculture never performed as well as it should have done