STALIN SOCIETY 1924-41

Question 1

THE PROLETARIAT

If anything they got worse in Stalin’s early years, as peasants were herded into the collectives and more emigrated to the towns - almost doubling the urban labour force by 1932. The drive for industrialisation brought a seven-day working week and longer working hours. Arriving late or missing work could result in

Answer 1

dismissal, eviction from housing and loss of benefits. Damaging machinery or leaving a job without permission was a criminal offence and strikes were illegal.

Question 2

THE PROLETARIAT

From 1931, the introduction of wage differentials, bonuses, payment by the piece designed to increase productivity and opportunities for better housing to reward skills and devoted application, produced a more diverse proletariat.
Workers were allowed to

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choose their place of work and could therefore move to improve their lot, while disciplinary rules were eased. Huge propaganda campaigns, including the Stakhanovite movement, increased socialist competition, which, in turn, produced a new proletarian elite. More peasants moved to towns, more town workers became managers and more children of workers benefited from the increased educational opportunities that Stalinist
Russia offered.

Question 3

THE PROLETARIAT

THE STAKHANOVITE MOVEMENT
Stakhanov was a miner who, in August 1935, extracted, in 5 hours 45 minutes, the amount of coal normally expected from a miner in 14 times that length of time. He was therefore hailed as an example of how human determination and endeavour might increase productivity.
Competitions were arranged for others to emulate Stakhanov’s achievement and by December the number of broken records had entered the world of make-believe and filled two volumes. The Stakhanovite movement became a way of

Answer 3

forcing management to support their workers so as to increase production; failure to fulfil targets (which were increased on average by ten er cent in 1936) meant managers might be branded saboteurs’ and removed.

Question 4

THE PROLETARIAT

Stalin’s industrialisations drive thus produced new opportunities for social advancement. In addition, his purges reduced the numbers competing for jobs and created plenty of vacancies at the top. In 1933, Stalin could announce, life has become better, comrades, life has become more joyous.

Nevertheless, the realities of daily life remained

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grim throughout this period. Living conditions in the countryside remained primitive, while, in the towns, workers had to live in extremely cramped communal apartments and cope with inadequate sanitation and erratic water supplies. Public transport was over-crowded, shops were often empty and queues and shortages were an accepted feature of life.

Question 5

THE PROLETARIAT

Although real wages increased during the Second Five Year Plan, they were still lower in 1937 than they had been in 1928 - and in 1928 they had been little better than in 1913. Rationing was phased out in 1935 but market prices were high. Furthermore while those in positions of importance in the socialist system (for example, Party cadres), could obtain

Answer 5

more goods more cheaply, this was not the case for ordinary workers, whose living standards stagnated and may even have fallen slightly in the last years before the war.

Question 6

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ON WOMEN

In the 1930s, Stalin reverted to more traditional policies. This was driven by several factors, including a fall in population growth - not helped by the purges nor by living conditions on the collectives and in the kommunalka; and also fears of war. The family became the focus of a new propaganda wave, in which Stalin was presented as a father figure and ideal family man, and divorce and abortion were attacked.
The importance of

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marriage was re-emphasised, wedding rings were reintroduced and new-style wedding certificates were issued. Even in films and art, women were portrayed in a new way - less the muscular, plainly dressed women who had helped to build Soviet Russia in the 1920s, than the more feminine family woman with adoring children.

Question 7

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ON WOMEN

From 1936, a number of measures were introduced which reversed the earlier changes:

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Answer 7

• Large fees were introduced to deter divorce, with the added penalty that men. would be expected to contribute 60 per cent of their income in child support.
• Adultery was criminalised (and the names of male offenders published in the press).
• Contraception was banned and only permitted on medical grounds.
• Financial incentives were offered for large families. Tax exemptions were granted for families of six or more and there were bonus payments for every additional child to ten in the family.

Question 8

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ON WOMEN

Despite the new emphasis on family life, and encouragement for women to give up paid employment when they married, many continued to work. The number of female industrial workers grew from

Answer 8

3 million in 1928 to 13 million in 1940, and 43 per cent of the industrial workforce was female by 1940.

Question 9

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ON WOMEN

Numbers of women in education also doubled over this period and large numbers of women worked on the collective farms. A growth in the provision of state nurseries, crèches and canteens, as well as more child clinics, all helped women to cope with work and family, although, on average, women earned

Answer 9

40 per cent less than men and the higher administrative posts were mostly held by men.

Question 10

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ON WOMEN

Furthermore, the divorce rate remained high
and there were still over 150,000 abortions to every 57,000 live births.
Indeed, although the encouragement to traditional marriage meant that in 1937,

Answer 10

91 per cent of men and 82 per cent of women in their thirties were married, the years 1928 to 1940 saw a falling rate of population growth.

Question 11

EDUCATION

Under Stalin, some of these more liberal trends were reversed. Although, for the less able, increasing amounts of ‘practical’ work - linking to the Five Year Plans - were encouraged, the bulk of expansion at secondary and higher level involved more formal teaching so as to develop the skills needed in a modern industrial society. Many schools became

Answer 11

the responsibility of the collective farms or town enterprises while the universities too were seen as agencies for delivering economic growth and put under the control of the economic planning agency, Veshenka.

Question 12

EDUCATION

The quota system, whereby a high proportion of working-class children were given places at secondary school, was abandoned in 1935 and selection reappeared for all, including non-proletarians. For the selected, a rigid academic curriculum, formal teaching, report cards tests and uniforms permitted young people to obtain a strong academic education. Sometimes this took place in single-sex schools. The core subjects

Answer 12

were reading, writing and science with 30 per cent of time devoted to Russian language and literature, 20 per cent to Maths, 15 per cent to Science and 10 per cent to Soviet-style History. Nationalism was promoted and military training introduced into middle and higher schools and universities in the years before the war.

The Stakhanovite movement also extended to the teaching profession and teachers were encouraged to set high targets for themselves and their students.
However, if students failed to do well, teachers could be blamed and purged.

Question 13

EDUCATION

Teachers and university lecturers were closely watched and could be arrested if they failed to live up to the expected principles.
By 1941, the Soviet experimentation had produced marked educational improvements:

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Answer 13

• 94% of the 9-49 age groups in the towns were literate and 86 per cent in the countryside, while at university level, the USSR was turning out particularly strong science graduates.
• Furthermore, education had proved itself a vehicle for social mobility, even though the numbers of working-class students reaching university and the higher classes at secondary level fell when the quota system was abandoned.

Question 14

YOUTH ORGANISATIONS

In 1926, the youth organisation was renamed ‘Komsomol’ and the age range extended to include children from 10-28 years.
The organisation taught communist values:

Answer 14

Smoking, drinking and religion were discouraged, while volunteer social work, sports, political and drama clubs were organised to inspire socialist values. Young Pioneer Palaces were built, which served as community centres for the children and summer and winter holiday camps were organised free of charge.

Question 15

YOUTH ORGANISATIONS

There were close links with the Party, to which it became directly affiliated in 1939. Members took an oath to live, study and fight for the Fatherland ‘as the great Lenin has instructed’ and as the Communist Party teaches me, and they helped to carry out Party campaigns and assisted the Red Army and police. Komsomolskaia Pravda was published as a youth newspaper, encouraging young people

Answer 15

to protect family values and respect their parents. It also promoted sexual abstinence.

Question 16

YOUTH ORGANISATIONS

Membership of Komsomol and the Young Pioneers demanded full-time commitment, but also offered a chance for social mobility and educational advancement. The uniform, with its red neckerchief and rank badges, singled these young people out and helped smooth their educational path.
Of course, not all young people wanted to become involved in these youth movements. Some were more interested in

Answer 16

Western culture. Their tastes lay in cinema, fashion and jazz - despite the regime’s condemnation of such preoccupations as ‘hooliganism.
Some simply opted out, but there were also a number of small secret ‘oppositional’ youth organisations. However direct confrontation between these organisations and state authorities was rare.

Question 17

RELIGION

Christian festival days disappeared when New Year’s Day replaced Christmas and May Day replaced Easter as holidays with public celebrations.
In 1929, worship was restricted to registered congregations only and from 1932, the introduction of an uninterrupted six-day work week’ prevented

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a ‘holy day’ of church attendance.

Question 18

RELIGION

Stalin’s 1936 constitution criminalised the publication or organisation of religious propaganda, although priests regained the right to vote.
As with the Orthodox Christians, in the early years of Bolshevik rule, Muslims were treated leniently. However, during and after the civil war, Muslim property and institutions (land, schools and mosques) were confiscated and their Sharia courts were abolished. This produced a split within the

Answer 18

Islamic Church with the New Mosque movement taking a pro-Soviet line. Pilgrimages to Mecca were forbidden from 1935, the frequency of prayers, fasts and feasts reduced and the wearing of the veil forbidden. This led to a backlash in some of the central Asian Muslim communities where traditionalists murdered those who obeyed the Soviet injunctions. Many Muslim priests were imprisoned or executed.

Question 19

RELIGION

The anti-religion drive also extended to Buddhists and the Armenian and Georgian Churches. In each case, while the power of the Church as an institution was broken, faith remained strong. By 1941, nearly

Answer 19

40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 Muslim mosques had been closed and converted into schools, cinemas, clubs, warehouses, museums and grain stores.
Nevertheless, there was plenty of evidence of strong religious belief - and this was possibly strengthened by the attacks during the period of collectivisation and the purges.

In 1937, 57% of the population defined themselves as believers.

Question 20

NATIONAL MINORITIES

Nevertheless, all the major nationalities, including the Jews, were given separate representation within the Communist Party and in 1926, Soviet Jews were given a special national homeland’ settlement in which they could maintain their cultural heritage. This was in part of the far eastern province, which became an autonomous republic in 1934. By 1941, about a quarter of that region’s population was Jewish. Furthermore, the early communists promoted

Answer 20

literacy campaigns which encouraged the use of national languages and, with the abolition of all anti-Semitic laws in 1917, Yiddish became an acceptable language, although Hebrew, with its religious connotations, did not.

Question 21

NATIONAL MINORITIES

However, Stalinist policy in the 1930s veered towards greater centralisation and less tolerance of the ethnic groups as he sought to create a single ‘Soviet identity. Nationalism meant Russian nationalism and

Answer 21

the leaders of the different republics that formed the USSR were purged as bourgeois nationalists if they deviated from the path laid down in Moscow. From 1938, learning Russian became compulsory in all Soviet schools. Moreover, Russian was the only language used in the Red Army. So, despite the propaganda which proclaimed the family of nations, embracing a variety of different peoples, the Russians were firmly at the head.

Question 22

NATIONAL MINORITIES

Stalin began his deportations of non-Russians in the 1930s. This decade also saw antisemitic attitudes revive, especially in rural areas during the campaigns against ‘saboteurs. When two million Jews were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939-40, as a result of the invasion of eastern Poland and the Baltic republics, many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested in these areas.
However, the Stalinist state remained officially

Answer 22

opposed to racial discrimination and inter-marriage was welcomed as a way of assimilating the different national groups. Indeed, most of the campaigns of the period were politically, rather than racially motivated.

Question 23

PROPAGANDA

Stalin reinforced his own position through the associations made between himself and Lenin.
These were further emphasised by slogans like,

Answer 23

Stalin is the Lenin of today: Peasants even created a red corner’ of the great leaders in their homes, in the same way that they might have created a saint’s corner in tsarist times.

Question 24

PROPAGANDA

A cult of personality grew enormously under Stalin. Lenin had never sought cult status, but it occurred, after his death, largely through the efforts of Stalin, who wanted to appear his disciple. By the later 1920s, Lenin was being treated like a god, whose words held the answer to all Russian problems.
Stalin even insisted (against Lenin’s widow Krupskaya’s wishes) that his body be embalmed, and Lenin’s tomb was turned into a shrine. The word ‘Lenin’ appeared everywhere as roads, cities and squares were re-named after him - most famously, Petrograd became Leningrad.
Once Stalin was well established in power, he consciously

Answer 24

developed his own cult. His self-promotion was an important aspect of his consolidation of power.

Question 25

CULTURAL CHANGE

This was all to change under Stalin who viewed cultural pursuits in much the same way as he viewed pure propaganda. Literature, art, architecture, sculpture, the theatre, film and music alike were all considered only valuable and legitimate if

Answer 25

they supported socialist ideology and the creation of the ‘new socialist man. Art for its own sake had no place in the Soviet state and writers were expected to be engineers of the human soul. The creativity of the 1920s thus gave way to conformity in the 1930s.

Question 26

CULTURAL CHANGE

From 1932, all writers (whether of newspapers, magazines, plays, novels or poems) had to belong to the ‘Union of Soviet Writers’ while similar bodies were established for musicians, filmmakers, painters and sculptors. These exerted control over both what was created and who was allowed to create, for non-membership meant artistic isolation with no opportunity for commissions or the sale of work. Individual expression was deemed politically suspect.
The new norms demanded adherence to the doctrine of ‘social realism’.
According to the writers’ union this meant,

Answer 26

that writers (and all other artists) were not to represent Soviet life exactly as it was at that time; they were to show what it might become (and was moving towards) in the future. In this way people were to be led to appreciate socialist reality and to see the reflection of the future in the present. Literature and art were to be used to show how the ‘march to communism’ was inevitable.

Question 27

CULTURAL CHANGE

The frame of reference for writers was laid down by Zhdanov in April 1934 at the first congress of the Union of Soviet Writers, However, the principles applied to all art forms. Works were expected to glorify the

Answer 27

working man, and particularly communities working together and embracing new technology. The messages conveyed were to be uplifting, optimistic and positive. It was an era of happy endings.

Question 28

CULTURAL CHANGE

In 1936, for example, Pravda published a damning critique of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mrsensk, under the headline, Chaos instead of Music. Stalin had recently heard this modernist work and, despite the popularity the opera had enjoyed since the premiere in 1934, the composer was accused of leftist distortions. Although Shostakovich himself avoided arrest, a theatre director who spoke in his defence was

Answer 28

seized, brutally tortured by the NKVD and shot; the director’s wife was also stabbed to death.

Question 29

CULTURAL CHANGE

While new artistic endeavour was constrained by political demands, there was also much interest in Russian works of the nineteenth century.
Although Soviet culture was designed to be for the ordinary people (the proletariat), there was no attempt to create a new proletarian culture which was in any way distinct from the ‘upper class/bourgeois’ culture of the pre-revolutionary era. So, the great works of the nineteenth century were much read, seen, heard and copied, since it was believed that the ordinary people could understand and relate to these. The Stalinist era thus brought

Answer 29

solid and imposing classical forms in architecture and recognisable real’ subject matter in painting. Landscape art was revived as a favoured medium - particularly scenes that showed nature being tamed by Soviet industrial endeavour. In music, there was a return to the Russian classical composers Glinka and Tchaikovsky; in literature, to Pushkin and Tolstoy.

Question 30

Summary

By 1941, the communist dictatorship brought profound changes to society:

Answer 30

Some groups benefited, some lost out, but perhaps the biggest change was that society and ‘culture became part of the broader political framework.
Individuals were no longer able to live their own lives, unimpeded by the State.
Ideology and state directives affected everyone.