Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev Flashcards
What were the different positions of people under the collective leadership?
Malenkov- PM Molotov- Foreign secretary Bulganin- Deputy PM Khrushchev- Party secretary Beria- Head of the NKVP
What happened in Leningrad after 1945?
- Leningrad was considered a ‘window to the West’ and in 1948, there was a purge of 200 leading Leningrad party officials.
How did those in power regard reform and what was their attitude to terror?
- Wanted better relationships with the West. Used force against uprisings and censorship to deny it. Allowed more culture e.g. Literature- the thaw
What legal reforms did Khrushchev make?
- Citizens were given more security by a new cultural code. The length of imprisonment was significantly reduced and the death penalty restricted to treason.
What evidence is there to support MEDVEDEVs opinion that Brezhnev was vain and stupid?
- Ashamed of humble beginnings and wanted to be taken seriously as an intellectual.
- Exaggerated contributions
- Began to believe his own propaganda
- Denied serious and growing problems in his later years.
What was one of the issues associated with the Nomenklatura system which caused problems in BAM?
- ‘Expert’ advice was not always very good.
What does SERVICE say about the influence of Nazi atrocities on Soviet victory?
- ‘If it had not been for Hitler’s fanatical racism, the USSR would not have won’
How did relations between the Republics and Moscow develop under Brezhnev?
- Those appointed were always subject to supervision from Moscow by the practice of installing ethnic Russians in positions of power.
- Often those stationed in other states went ‘native’.
- All institutions became more Russified and an increasing proportion of the central committee were Russian with the Secretariat almost exclusively so.
Give an example of a dissident writer?
- Yuri Daniel imprisoned for satirical writings
What were Brezhnev’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
- Reliable
- Decorated more than Stalin
- ‘Dnieper mafia’- nepotism
- Listened to advisors
- Lots of background and experience; son of steelworker, youth wing, Komosol, war, Stalin, virgin lands, Khrushchev
- Shrewd- distance from Khrushchev
- Consensus rather than arguments
What was the political experience of 1945?
- New world superpower
- Stalin as a strong leader
What was the economic situation in 1964?
- Economic growth more than halved during Khrushchev’s reign
- Agricultural investment was unsuccessful
- Some attention had been given to consumer goods.
- Still predominantly heavy industry
What does SERVICE say about the Brezhnev era?
- ‘Nobody denies that by the end of the 1970s chronic absolute decline was in prospect.
How did tensions develop in the early years of the Cold war?
- USSR occupied centre stage in international diplomacy and communist regimes were in place in many liberated territories backed by Soviet armies.
- Allies had assisted White armies in civil war.
- Dropping of atomic bombs shocked Stalin but America refused to share the knowledge.
- American investment in Western Europe
- Comments made by Truman about Greek civil war.
- Division of Berlin
- US assisted South Korea in fight against communism
What were the aims of the economic plans during the war years?
- Focus on military production and heavy industry
- Moved factories and workers to other side of Ural mountains to make it more difficult for Germans to attack.
- Food production and rationing
- Organisation of workers and mass production
- Optimising large civilian population
Give examples of some countries which displayed dissidence towards the regime?
- Georgia
- Armenia
- Lithuania
What does NOVE say about decentralisation?
- ‘The most intelligent soviet economists consider that this must be an essential feature of any effective reform’
Give an example of a Jewish dissident?
- Anatoly Sharansky
What were the economic plans after 1945?
- Between 1945-50, almost 90% of industrial investment went into raw materials
- Railway reconstruction
- Investment in German occupied regions and use of assets
- Lack of concentration on consumer goods
- Very little attention paid to agriculture
- Continued focus on military production
What action did Bukovsky take?
- Circulated anti-soviet propaganda.
Give two different historical interpretations of Stalin’s leadership after 1945?
- KENEZ argues that Stalin was able to manipulate and control people and that although he was a figurehead he was still very powerful.
- Another argument is that he was purely a figurehead and it was others who made the decisions.
What was the big problem throughout the Communist regime?
- The centrally planned economy
What was the politburo?
- The main decision-making body of party/state
- Stalin sometimes by-passed it
- The British equivalent of a cabinet
What were the successes of Russia in the Battle of Kursk?
- Anti-turkish artillery guns placed on site where Germans would use tanks
- 300,000 civilians helped in defence
- Germans lost 350 tanks
What economic problems did Brezhnev face?
- Low agricultural production
- State farms hadn’t improved much on collective farms
- Failure of Virgin Lands
- Grain had to be imported from the west
- Industry wasn’t diverse enough
- Lack of consumer goods
- Although living standards rose, the economy began to stagnate.
What was the central committee and secretariat?
- An elected body but that wasn’t as powerful as the party side of the government.
What reason did the Soviet government give for their victory in the Great Patriotic War?
- The Soviet people were strong against German advances due to their devotion to communism
What were the social issues that still existed in 1964?
- De-Stalinisation
- Rebellion
- Dissatisfaction
- Housing shortage
What was the point of the 1977 constitution?
- Created to demonstrate ‘developed socialism’. It was adapted in each Republic.
How did Brezhnev’s leadership style/skill help establish his power?
- Promoted his family
- Stability + complacency
- Stalinist title of General Secretary
- Never seriously under threat
- No charisma but solid base of support
- No obvious deputy or successor
How did Brezhnev achieve his aims?
- Few changes to lower level administration
- Promoted supporters to the Politburo
- Control of the KGB
- Central committee size increased
- More frequent Politburo meetings
- Respected expert advice e.g. industry
- Established ‘Nomenklatura’ system
- Strict admission
- Style/skills
- Reforms
What evidence is there that living and working conditions didn’t improve under Brezhnev?
- Complaints about cultural, religious and intellectual freedom and the restrictions and rigidity of the USSR.
- Food shortages
- Disparities between regions. Babies in Turkmenistan were five times more likely to die than in Latvia.
- High divorce rates
- Cramped housing conditions and increasing dissatisfaction of women.
- Alcohol abuse were a factor in around 45% of divorces.
- Increase in single parent families, youth issues and illegitimacy
- Ageing population and a drop in life expectancy
- Pressure on social services
- ## Issues with healthcare
According to LAVER how did the public react to Khrushchev’s speech?
- A full written production of the speech was not allowed but it was read to several million citizens in workplaces and schools. It was also leaked and published around the world.
- Strong reactions to the speech within the USSR with it pleasing some and angering others.
- Due to closed society it is difficult to gage popular opinion.
- Speech was probably damaging to the party in the long term. The essential features of Stalinism remained although the use of arbitary terror disappeared for those who conformed.
What were the political negatives of Stalin’s leadership which led to victory in the great patriotic war?
- Stalin made the mistake of trusting Hitler and refused to prepare even when invasion became apparent.
What was the council of ministers?
- The party side of the government who were much more powerful and had far greater influence.
What was economic policy like under Brezhnev?
- Economy slowed and stagnated which can be conidered a reason for the USSRs collapse.
- Didn’t create the flaws in the command economy.
- Impressive recovery from WW2
- Had outstripped growth rates of the Capitalist west
- Impressive successes in areas like space and defence
- Soviet politicians all wanted to address defects within the confines of the system.
How did Conservatism increase opposition under Brezhnev?
- The arts were still heavily monitored and artists and writers sometimes prosecuted.
- Wanting to pursue art for arts sake.
- Rigidity in the system and bureaucracy
- Unsure of limits to political discussion
Give some examples which support the idea that the Soviet union won the war through the people’s devotion to communism?
- ‘Caught in the mighty surge of patriotism’- KRAVCHENKO
- Use of propaganda about German atrocities
- Common struggle and the relaxation of censorship
- People continued to work, longer hours than before and even reconstructing the city.
Did Khrushchev introduce new freedoms into the USSR?
NO:
- Artists were directed on what they were supposed to create
- Dr Zhiago wasn’t printed even though it had won a nobel prize
- Culture was only allowed if its served Khrushchev’s purpose.
- Regime continued to use oppression with 20,000 political prisoners and the secret police the KGB.
- De-stalinisation but not tolerance.
Give an example of a serious act of dissidence? What were its consequences?
- Alexander Dubech’s liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia resulted in invasion
How did State Planning and Preparation before WW2 lead to Soviet Victory?
- 5 year plans and the collectivisation of agriculture
- Economy devoted to military production
- Soviet system- centralised agencies responsible for output of a single type of weapon, central allocation of labour and resources
- Didn’t need to keep the business community content.
What were Khrushchev’s motives for economic reform?
- Wanted to address inflexibility and lack of initiative that increasingly hindered the planned economy.
- Needed more focus on efficiency and quality.
What were people’s militias?
- Volunteers formed by the regime to back the overstretched Red Army.
- Although they were often treated with suspicion they were used in a variety of situations including combat.
- However, they suffered many casualties and would probably have been more useful in the workforce.
What were the ‘helsinki’ groups?
- Soviet dissidents and human rights activists who tried to protest against the regime.
- Were largely dealt with by the KGB.
What was the economic situation in 1945?
- War economy- heavy industry
- Military gains
How did technology stop the economy from working under Brezhnev?
- Couldn’t adapt
- Change took years
- Outdated technology and machinery except in prestigious sectors like defence
- Technological gap between capitalist economies which had decreased in the 60s widened again in the 80s.
What role did the church play after 1945?
- During the war, the Orthodox church had been harnessed by Stalin to boost support for the regime.
- After 1945, religious practice was tolerated only so far as it conformed and presented no threat to the ‘States control of public opinion’. However, much religious sentiment was channelled into a glorification of the Stalin cult.
What was the economic situation in 1982?
- Widening of technological gap
- Economic stagnation
- Ninth five-year plan failed to make targets
What is dissent?
- Disagreement with an event, idea or situation
How did promoting his supporters to the politburo help establish his leadership?
- By 1981, 8 full Politburo members were his proteges and 4 had been with him since the 1940s.
- Between 1960 and 1980 the average age of Politburo members was nearly 70
- One of Brezhnev’s friends were given the resurrected post of minister of internal affairs in order to secure police support.
- Other important appointments included head of KGB and ministry of defence.
How did more frequent politburo meetings help Brezhnev establish his leadership and aims?
- Some decisions were made by a small inner group within the Politburo
- Included 2 future leaders
- Had supporters in all bodies
- Emphasis on consensus
What evidence is there that Brezhnev loved the trappings of power?
- Country estate outside Moscow
- Enjoyed entertaining colleagues and foreign guests.
- Fleet of cars
- Listened to the US ‘Voice of America’ radio programme in order to find out what foreign commentators were saying about him and the Kremlin.
Give a brief description of Soviet propaganda?
- Supervised by the Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee under Sheherbakov and administered by the newly established Soviet Information Bureau
- Boost morale
- Appear strong and well equipped even if that wasn’t true.
What was the Berlin blockade in 1948?
- Formed after the UK, USA and France united their zones to form West Germany.
- Lasted nearly a year
What was the economic situation in 1964?
- Economic growth more than halved during Khrushchev’s reign
- Agricultural investment was unsuccessful
- Some attention had been given to consumer goods.
- Still predominantly heavy industry
What was BAM?
- The Baikal- Amur railway project
What economic effects did the relationship between the Republics and Moscow under Brezhnev have?
- Some economic policies damaged Republican economies, most noticeably the regimes attempt to force the central Asian communities to focus their economies on cotton.
- Throughout the Republic there were similar failures
What was involved in BAM?
- Between 1974 and 1984, 30 billion roubles was spent on 3000 kilometres of railway.
Give a fact which showed Khrushchevs reforms were working
All sectors had shown improvement from 1958 levels by 1965
What kinds of dissent are there?
- Grumbling
- Terrorism
- Protest
- Arts and culture
- Organisations
What was the economic situation in 1982?
- Widening of technological gap
- Economic stagnation
- Ninth five-year plan failed to make targets
How did coercion help gain Soviet victory?
- ‘Smersh’ units were deployed behind the Soviet lines to ensure Soviet soldiers didn’t retreat.
- ‘Not one step back’ meant anyone who retreated or appeared weak was either shot or put in penal battalions to do terrible and suicidal jobs.
- Blocking battalions would march behind the army and shoot anyone who was slacking
What was the Marshall plan of 1947?
- Plan by general Marshall to help Europe recover using American money
What were the political experiences of 1982?
- ‘Nomenklatura’
- Resumed and Conservative
- Corruption
- Dissidence- ‘no public support’- LAVER
- Provided order, tranquility and predictability
- Satellite states
Who was in charge of the USSR in the years 1964-68?
- 4 years of collective leadership following Khrushchev
What was Beria’s position in Soviet Russia?
- Stalin’s agent in Caucasus in the 1930s
- Head of NKVD (secret police)
- Soviet secretary 1941-53
- Internal affairs- 1953
What does OXLEY say about the importance of patriotism?
- ‘The seemingly unlimited capacity of the Russian people to endure the worst possible disaster and still to struggle on’
What was article 19 of Brezhnev’s constitution?
- The people are the basis of the USSR and have control of it.
Give some facts about Khrushchev’s removal from power?
- Didn’t announce Khrushchev’s death
- Disliked within party
- Uneducated
- Erased from history
- Alienated everyone
- Travelled too much
What does MCCAULEY say about the influence of Nazi atrocities on Soviet victory?
- ‘Many non-Russians had welcomed the Germans’
What was article 19 of Brezhnev’s constitution?
- The people are the basis of the USSR and have control of it.
What was the aim of Germany in the Battle of Kursk?
- Improve morale after the defeat at Stalingrad
- To damage the relationship between the Russians and the allies
What does the Battle of Stalingrad tell us about why the Soviet Union won the war?
- In September 1942, a German commander, General Paulus and his army advanced on the city of Stalingrad.
- His primary task was to ensure oil fields in the Caucasus and then Baku and to do this Hitler ordered him to take Stalingrad.
- Stalingrad was also important as Russia’s centre of communication and manufacturing
- Stalingrad was very important for morale which is reflected by Stalin’s order of ‘not a step backwards’.
How was Brezhnev the butt of jokes?
- People liked to contrast his mediocrity with the personality cult created for him.
- Gap between the image of wise leader and the reality of growing complacency.
What were the results of agriculture reforms under Khrushchev?
- 5/6 maize wasn’t ripe.
- Initially, successful with grain production increasing by at least 50% by 1958.
- Land beyond Urals not as fertile
- After 1958 Virgin Land scheme a failure
- Serious faults in the planning and administration of the scheme including hasty planning, inexperienced management and coordination and lack of attention to living and working conditions of workers.
- Peasant incomes rose at a faster rate than other sectors.
Give some information about the First Secretary Brezhnev?
- Khrushchev was his patron
- Proletarian background
- Joined Komosol before becoming a full party member in 1931.
- Involved in purges of Ukraine
- Political commissar during war
- Exploited military links when engineering Khrushchev’s removal
- Supporters known as ‘Dnierper Mafia’
- Part leader in Moldavia
- Various important positions
What was operation Barbarossa?
- Germany’s plan to invade Russia
What purges occurred in 1948?
The leaders of culture such as poets and directors
How did coercion help the Soviet Union to victory?
- Historians are divided on the reasons why the population continued to work and fight.
- Some argue the people only endured such terrible conditions because of police brutality.
- Many worked because there was a genuine popular hostility to invasion and a core enthusiasm. ‘Patriotic war’ not ‘communist war’.
- Re-imposed control when it wasn’t necessary to make concessions.
- Labour camps for stealing
- Less political persecution
- Freedom for help in the war
- Propaganda
What were the strengths of Malenkov in Soviet Russia?
- High birth status
- Played several key roles
- Had administrative and political skills
- Ruthless
- Good relationship with Beria and Stalin
- Kept a low profile
What did Brezhnev do in 1977?
- Made the 1977 constitution which particularly related to social development and culture.
Why was terror used by Stalin in the 1930s?
- Terror was used as a way to exert control over people and enforce communism.
- It was also used to get rid of anyone who might try and oppose Stalin or the communist party.
- Many political opponents were put on trial including social revolutionaries and former Mensheviks. The people most at risk were the members of the party themselves and purges of the masses didn’t begin until 1937.
- Bolstered Stalin’s position and supported propaganda
What evidence is there that living and working conditions did improve under Brezhnev?
- Gradual increase in the overall standard of living
- In Khrushchev’s time 40% of Soviet citizens lived in shared or communal apartments but by 1985 this proportion had more than halved.
- In 1967, 5 day working week with 15 days of holiday increase from 12
- Real wages increased by 50% and the consumption of meat, fish and vegetables also increased by 50%.
- Satisfaction from material conditions, job security, social security and educational provisions.
How did quantity over quality prevent the economy from working under Brezhnev?
- If 3000 tractors were demanded, 3000 had to be given regardless of whether they worked or not.
- Despite huge investment in tractors, the no. of tractors didn’t increase
- No quality control
- No competition
- Environmental issues- Chernobyl, shrinking of Aral Sea
- Obsession with growth as an indicator of success
- Neglect of industries in which success couldn’t be quantitatively measured e.g. services and transport
- Short-term gains rather than long-term development
To what extent was Stalin’s leadership responsible for the soviet victory in the great patriotic war?
1) Patriotism
2) Nazi atrocities
3) German tactical errors and racism
4) War production
5) Allied resistance
6) Coercion
7) Weather
8) War hero
How did Nazi atrocities help Soviet victory?
- Germans murdered over 1 million civilians, people who were not loyal to Stalin and Russia but were turned against Germany by this.
What was the Truman doctrine of 1947?
- Warning issued to the American Congress that America had a responsibility to contain Communism.
What was the Cominform which was established in 1947?
- Combined various European communist parties
- Wanted Russian style communism
- Trade between non-communist countries discouraged
- Communist information Burea
What political problems faced Brezhnev?
- Lack of iniative
- Dead weight of bureaucracy
Who ran the Soviet government immediately after Stalin’s death?
- Collective leadership
How did collectivisation stop the economy from working under Brezhnev?
- Areas of Uzbekistan supposedly growing cotton were in fact uncultivated.
- Output of private plots was considerably larger than collective fields
- Farmers had no incentives to work hard
- More investment in agriculture resulted in a decline in industry.
- Collectivisation remained.
What were the results of Kosygin’s reforms?
- Inevitable clashes and compromises between innovative and conservative managers
- Many managers and administration were unenthusiastic or afraid to innovate.
- Old dilemmas persisted- fears of not meeting targets, quantity over quality and consumer goods not a priority.
- Prices centrally controlled with no consideration for cost, profit, demand or need. Prices of coal were too low, oil and gas profitable, light industry ran at a loss.
- No incentives- ‘we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us’.
- Reforms abandoned by 1970
- Younger economists wanted major change.
What was the battle of Moscow known as?
- ‘Operation Typhoon’
How did party control of KGB help Brezhnev establish his leadership?
- Yuro Andropov was made head of KGB in 1967
- Detailed reports of ‘nomenklatura’
- Reported increase in corruption
What action did the regime take against the dissident Bukovsky?
- Arrested in 1963.
- Confined to psychiatric hospitals
- Expelled from USSR in 1976.
How does OXLEY describe Brezhnev’s weaknesses as a leader?
- ‘The butt of countless jokes’
- ‘Cosy world of comrades’
What was the council of ministers made up of?
1) All-union Communist Party Congress
2) Republic communist party conferences
3) City and collective farm communist party conferences
Describe the structure of the elected soviets?
- Was a system which reached up from local, district, farm and city soviets.
- Although in theory the soviets elected the Central Committee and therefore the Politburo, in reality the Supreme Soviet meekly approved laws drafted by the party. However, the party chose those who were to be elected.
What were the political experiences of 1982?
- ‘Nomenklatura’
- Resumed and Conservative
- Corruption
- Dissidence- ‘no public support’- LAVER
- Provided order, tranquility and predictability
- Satellite states
What changes did Brezhnev make to agriculture?
- Peasants were given passports enabling them to move home and obtain the same security benefits as urban workers which reduced the standard of living gap.
- Farms were set slightly lower targets.
- Fewer restrictions on private plots
- Attempts at integration
- State investment in agriculture tripled.
- USSR became the world’s largest wheat producer.
- People earned more
- Food shortages in shops due to increased demand and control by the state.
- prices in the collective farm market doubled.
- Government were reluctant to risk unpopularity by raising prices.
- Increased dependence on foreign imports including wheat.
