Stats and Figures Flashcards
Practice exam questions
State propaganda (due to the regime’s control of the mass media and its ability to restrict access to foreign sources of information) provided most of the USSR’s population with its world view in the years 1917-53.
- In November 1917, all non-Socialist newspapers were banned, and by the early 1920s, all non-Bolshevik papers were eliminated.
- Newspapers carried endless details about the achievements of socialism, with production figures related to meeting or, better still exceeding targets of the latest economic plan; this fixation was especially true of the 1930s, under Stalin’s push to industrialise.
- Prohibited topics, or those subject to delayed reporting, included plane crashes and natural disasters, and so citizens believed the Soviet Union was a good place and had no need to complain.
- Glavlit was the State censorship office.
The personality cults built around Lenin and Stalin also functioned as important mechanisms to generate popular acceptance of the regime.
- Petrograd renamed Leningrad in 1924
- Lenin made to look like a Christ-figure following an assassination attempt in August 1918
- As early as 1925, the town of Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad
- Soon after Lenin’s death in 1924, the slogan “Stalin is the Lenin of today” was widely used by the Party and its members
- In the 1930s, images of Stalin were used to reinforce his power by giving the impression of the all-present and all-knowing leader. Presented as the “big hero” or “the vozhd (boss)”
Soviet control of the arts and culture (e.g. Prolekult, avant-garde and Socialist Realism) was also deployed to establish popular endorsement of the new socialist society.
- Assembled a new group of Proletarian artists and the achievements of the workers, and the Party that ruled in their name, were reinforced through the arts. (give examples.)
- In a country where literacy rates were so low, the avant-garde and visual arts were very useful BUT avant-garde was not good for culture as workers often found it too sophisticated and confusing - Sergei Eisenstein’s “Strike” or Meyerhold’s “Mystery Bouffe” play (1918).
- Socialist Realism was used to present idealised Soviet life; it was used to convince the population that Stalin’s statement of 1935, “Life has become more joyous” was true. e.g. the sculpture “The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman.”
The Soviet regime’s widespread use of violence and intimidation to retain political control
- Red Terror: The Cheka persecuted and arrested thousands of opponents to the government. Between 1918 and 1921, it is thought they were responsible for the executions of 200,000 people
- Purges and trials of the 30s: The Trial of the 21 in 1938 involved the arrest and execution of 21 members of the Soviet government, including the former head of the Secret Police, Yagoda.
- The Leningrad Affair of 1950. - 6 shot and 300 given lengthy prison sentences of 10-25 years.
The persecution of religious beliefs and practices to remove rival belief systems (4)
- During the famine of the Civil War, attacks on the Church increased and valuable objects were seized to help pay for food supplies. Priests were deprived of the vote, denied rations during the civil war and suffered as victims of the Red Terror.
- By 1923, 28 bishops and more than 1000 priests had been killed
- 1929, the League of the Militant Godless set up.
- Attacked once again during the Great Purge of 1936-38 and in 1939, only 12 out of 163 bishops were still at liberty.
The limitations of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation programme encouraged political stagnation
Despite Khrushchev’s claim that were no political prisoners in the USSR in 1958, political criticism could still result in internal exile or confinement in a psychiatric hospital.
Khrushchev’s limited reforms to restrict the tenure of high-ranking positions
Khrushchev’s limited reforms to restrict the tenure of high-ranking positions to three years left many conservatively-inclined senior party figures in post and deeply resentful of his attempts to change the system; these were the same bureaucrats who ended up removing him in 1964.
Khrushchev’s initiatives to decentralise decision-making
Khrushchev’s initiatives to decentralise decision-making did little to shift power away from the conservative forces at the top of the Soviet system and the opposition of this ‘anti-reform’ faction contributed to his fall in 1964.
Brezhnev encouraged political stagnation
By reversing several of Khrushchev’s reforms e.g. limits on the tenure of office.
Under Brezhnev, by the early 1980s the party leadership had developed into a self-serving, ageing and conservatively-minded oligarchy only interested in preserving the status quo.
Brezhnev made no attempt to deal with the Stalinist legacy which also encouraged growing political stagnation
Khrushchev attempted to focus on light industry, chemicals and consumer goods
Khrushchev attempted to focus on light industry, chemicals and consumer goods (rather than heavy industry) to broaden the Soviet economy e.g. the Seven Year Plan (1959-65).
-Increased production targets for things such as synthetic fibres increase from 168,000 in 1965 to 666,000 to 1968.
Khrushchev’s greater investment in agriculture
Virgin Lands scheme, helped to raise the status of agriculture, increased food production and raised farmers’ income.
Percentage of budget spent on agriculture increased from 3% in 1954 to 12.8% in 1959
35% increase in the output of crops
Brezhnev also accepted the need to boost consumer industries
The Ninth Five Year Plan - 1971-75.
The rate of growth in production of consumer goods was higher than that of heavy industry.
By 1980, 85% of families had televisions an 70% had washing machines.
Brezhnev recognised the need to push for greater agricultural investment
By 1976, 26% of all investment was in agriculture.
The Virgin Lands Scheme was dropped - steady rise in overall production combined with a steady decline in workers’ productivity.
Problems with agriculture under Brezhnev?
- large, unskilled workforce
- equipment and machinery prone to breaking down
- roads often impassable
- the failure of food production to meet rising demand- the result was not famine, but a shortage of foodstuffs available in state shops.
How far the priorities for Soviet industry and agriculture did not change
- The Soviet military-industrial complex, with its enduring attachment to heavy industry, remained a dominant influence in economic policy-making throughout this period.
- After Khrushchev, the USSR reverted to the methods of the command economy established under Stalin e.g. the Brezhnev regime gave greater economic powers to Gosplan. • The Kosygin reforms launched in 1965 to improve production and give incentives for managerial initiative were effectively side-lined by conservative opponents by 1968.
