Stalinist society

Question 1

describe changes to proletarianism and workers:

Answer 1

-during 5YPs there were harsher living and working conditions e.g. 7 day working week, crime to leave job without permission
-from 1931 wage differentials, bonuses, payment by the piece and opportunities for better housing were introduced, which created a more diverse proletariat
-Stakhanovite movement: propaganda campaign to encourage competition and increase productivity
-his purges left vacancies in managerial positions
-realities = primitive living conditions in countryside, cramped and unsanitary conditions in communal living
-real wages did increase BUT they were still lower in 1937 than they had been in 1928
-market prices were very high
-there was corruption as party officials could obtain goods more cheaply - this disproves theory that USSR had become a soviet system
-dekulakisation

Question 2

describe continuity in proletarianism:

Answer 2

-continued class attacks e.g. on NEPmen
-agenda of new socialist man continued

Question 3

describe changes for women:

Answer 3

-stalin reverted to more traditional policies due to population decline and fear of war - encouraged idea of family
-divorce and abortion carried big social stigmas
-large fees to deter divorce
-adultery made illegal
-contraception banned
-financial incentives for big families
-however many women continued to work e.g. by 1940 they made up 43% of industrial workforce
-number of women in education doubled
-growth in state provision of nurseries etc helped ease burden of working women
-women earned 40% less than men
-3x as many abortions as live births

Question 4

describe changes to education:

Answer 4

-liberal changes made under Lenin were reversed
-emphasis on formal teaching to help Russia develop into a modern industrial society
-collective farms and town enterprises put in charge of education, making education linked to industrial workforce
-selection for secondary schools reopened for all
-promoted reading, writing and science
-promoted nationalism and military training for all
-teachers were closely watched and could be arrested if they didn’t follow the party line and live up to expected principles
-clear educational improvements - by 1941 there was 94% literacy in cities and 86% in countryside, and education proved a vehicle for social mobility

Question 5

describe changes to religion:

Answer 5

-move against religion intensified under Stalin
-1932 introduction of 6 day working week prevented a holy s
day of church attendance
-1936 constitution criminalised religious propaganda
-restrictions for muslims
-by 1942 40,000 christian churches and 25,000 mosques had closed, and they often got turned into young pioneer palaces (true socialist policy - replacing religion with political doctrine)
-but in 1937 57% of pop, still identified as believers

Question 6

describe changes to national minorities:

Answer 6

-there was a keen sense to include national minorities as a way of furthering the soviet union, however there was high repression for national minorities that didn’t align with Stalin’s aims
-stalin wanted to create a single soviet identity
-leaders of republics formed under the USSR were purged as borgeois nationalists (if they deviated from the moscow path)
-learning russian was compulsory in schools
-deportations of non-soviets began in 1930s
-revival of anti-semitic attitudes e.g. arrested rabbis
-BUT state ‘officially’ opposed to racial discrimination, with campaigns against NMs being politically not racially motivated
-from 1939 onwards the baltic states were incorporated into the soviet union
-encouragement of inter-marriage to gradually erase different national groups

Question 7

describe changes to young people:

Answer 7

-Komsomol became directly affiliated with party in 1939
-emergence of young pioneer palaces
-membership of komsomol offered a chance for social mobility and educational improvement
-any resistance to the communist youth movement was passive