Theme 3 Flashcards
Art successful 1917-85
‘new soviet man’ - Constructivists
Proletkult stressed collective > individual
Poster: Mayakovsky, Theatre (Meyerhold– 1918– mystery bouffe)
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Cult of the Little Man: Kataev’s Time Forward
RAPP: activities in factories
Literature: HIGH: hero from people driven by party to greater things - Sholokhov (‘And quiet flows the Don’)
1927: Eisenstein (October)
WAR: Alexander Nevsky
Library acquisitions grow 10fold
R.Stites; range of functions
1949: Shurpin: Morning of our Motherland
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K fit de-stalinisation: ‘thaws’
- 1953-54 new lit: Ehrenburg’s The Thaw
1961-62: S body removed - Solzhenitsyn (One Day)
‘popular oversight’: Fomichev poster campaign (1961 The Lazy Bureaucrat)
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TV & doc on achievements of socialism: life in SU good
Citizens preferred official culture; undemanding & non-conformists viewed as indulgent.
Examples of control of art being unsuccessful 17-85:
Proletkult (300 studios) run by Lunacharsky: too avant-garde, different voice (independent of Party control): Lenin disliked and lost independence 1920
Rodchenko photo montage: too complicated etc.
Indeed, in CR Stalin replaced RAPP with Union of Soviet Writers
1940: Saxophone banned
Mayakovsky committed suicide (Babel: the genre of silence)
But then dissidents emerged under K
Pasternak 1954
‘loose women’ stilyaga compaign: PROBLEM: 1955 Voice of America broadcast: western culture appealed
Trial of BDS (S and D over 200 letters)
Dissidents under B:
1968 Goriunova Forest Ritual
1970s Moscow Conceptualists Samizdat
Problems: Jazz (1962: ‘its indecent’)
Sholokov: ‘grey trash’
Galich (Guitar poet) : new themes, alienation (Magnitizdat)– Vysovtsky (1980 grief) CASEETTE RECORDERS
Derevenshchiki Village Prose, Russites
Subtext
ANDROPOV: 20% air-time
BUT GOV EFFECTIVE AT CONTROLLING:
1970: Novosibirsk Art Director 8years
Komsomol patrol
Threaten with expulsion (1974 Solzhenitsyn) vs rewards
state subsidies
Article 70 ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’
ensure radio access// jamming
talk from officials
Was control of religion successful 1917-85?
YES:
1918 Decree on Freedom of Conscience: lost land, separated church, converted monasteries etc (Red Terror; 1923 over 1000 priests killed, no rations) (mid-1920s 55%)
1925: metropolitan Sergei of Moscow: seek accomodation/support
end of 1930: 4/5 of village churches destroyed/off
1929: League of Militant Godless (+ Octoberings)
1939: only 12/156 bishops still at liberty (+ Great Purge, ‘kulak’ collectivisation)
mullahs: ‘deceivers of the people’
War: some accomodation (Patriarchate re-established)
1958-59: K campaign: 10,000 Churches in 4 years
NO:
Not islam initially as hold too strong: then ‘tariquat’ & 28-9 violent revolts Chechens.. private v public
intensified commitment of faithful (underground: Baptists & Jews)
1976: Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers Rights
1980s: 25% believed in God
Creation of One Party State paragraph
Lots of opposition before (remember nationalists!)
Kamanev called for socialist coalition: but TROTSKY: “Go where you belong: to the dustbin of history’
Jan 1918: calling of Constituent Assembly (democratically elected- good for SRs (populism, peasantry))
Bolsheviks: 9m votes VS SRs: 21m votes
^^^^ L dissolved after one meeting (bourgeois); All-Russian Congress of Soviets (Bolshevik) instead. no forum.
- ‘bourgeois classes’ denied vote: opposition parties denied support
- Menshevik (1917 larger membership) & SRs v hard to publish newspapers
- March 1918 left wing SRs walked out in protest of pulling out of WWI & lost all influence
- March 1918 Bolshevik renamed Communist Party; 1921 all other parties banned
- April 1921: ‘The place for the Mensheviks and SRs is in prison’: first 3 months of 1921 5,000 Mensheviks arrested; ceased to exist as organised parties 21-22
CW
end of 1920 all white strongholds defeated
Bleak @ beginning: core in Moscow stretching to Petrograd, surrounded by White forces
White amalgam; divisions in military strategy, long front, allied help inefficient
Trotsky: fighting machine, Red Guards and Pro-Bolshevik elements of old Tsarist forces. over 5m
Gov direction over economy to mobilise resources (War Communism); large scale nationalisation & requisitioning– enough food
adopt highly authoritarian / centrally controlled system
+ Active support (1917 Land Decree); political dimension
Kronstadt Mutiny
Tambov Rising
1921 ‘Soviets without Bolsheviks’
1920-21 (Green Army, requisitioning, over 50,000 Bolshevik troops)
Soviet government relied wholly on Secret Police to maintain power 1928-85
1934: merged with NKVD more powerful
range of opponents due to rapid industrialisation: Kulaks deported to Gulag
post 1936: number identified as political opponents rose
OGPU Chief Siberia Zakovsky: handbook on torture methods. Show trial if high profile.
YAGODA: 1934. rapid expansion of Gulag.
ensured SP deal without interference from courts
economic: hostile environments, exploit. White Sea Canal (180k, 10k)
Yezhov: YEZHOVSHCHINA (gov districts ghost towns) men 30-45 target) most obsessive: ideological
- arrest > imprisonment speeded up: TROIKAS: 3 people (1 was regional NKVD boss) September 1937: Karelian Troika 231 prisoners/day)
- Gulag underused: inmates rose: July 1937 quotas for the execution of prisoners
- surveillance increased: Plain-clothed police officers + informers (+ Soviet Criminal Code)
detectives quadrupled & extra staff to torture
- scope widened to those not showing sufficient commitment; stepping out of line = threat to freedom
strong enough to demoralise
economic reasons: Beria: profitable paert: 1939 rations improved
Stability in war: troika, deportations Crimean Tartars.
Beria removed: limit independence: answerable to KGB; never forced labour; Lubyanka no longer prison- Gary Powers last person 1960
1967: terror declined, but fear did not & surveillance continued– Andropov
used to target dissidents: Intellectuals (Sakharov, Medvedev, Solzhenitsyn), Political dissidents (adherence to UN 1948), Nationalists (Gov tried to ban 150th anniversary of Shevchenko 1964), religious dissidents (baptists)
restricted freedom: threatened with expulsion, dismissed, searched, confiscated, arrests. Article 70 catch all of ‘anti-soviet propaganda’.
1967: POlitburo agreed Bukovsky should be placed in ‘special mental hospital’- discredit, indefinite, drugs and shocks
Medvedev ‘sluggish schizophrenia’
internal exile (excellent academic work @ Siberian deivision of Academy of sciences)
expulsion (Solzhenitsyn)
more subtle
mid 1970s: 10,000
internal exile restricted communication
1982: monitoring increased (methods more sophisticated), used SP to clamp down on alcoholism/absenteeism: spot checks
understand society in which they live
visit factory. Novosibirsk group (zaslavskaya)
Chronicle of Current Events one of hardest periods to operate; well informed of dissident criticisms so threat neutralised
Secret Police were not relied upon wholly 28-85 as there were economic/social incentives and stability
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Women’s lives improve? family
There was progress, and a genuine improvement, however this was undercut by continued social issues; v different at different periods.
‘the more you beat your wife, the better the soup will taste’: party sections to educate women on how to be assertive & independent (baba)
Followed through in Family Code 1918: de-jour improvement, but often undercut:
- laws that made wife obey husband abolished (+ no longer needed permission for HE)
- Divorce made easier (+ abortion 3:1): 70% initiated by men (leave w child & no support)– exacerbated 1926 Postcard Divorces– 50% Moscow
(not seen in CAR: polygamous, male-dominated, entrenched. campaign against veiling of women 1927 young female activists (some success, opportunities increased) but traditional, slow to change, violent– Baku: Zhenotdel attacked by dogs & boiling water, ‘honour’ killings: softer approach 30s)
Social problems– Stalin Great Retreat 1936 (no longer unnecessary ‘bourgeois’ concept but necessary socialist unit)
- Divorce 4 -> 50; family responsibilities taken seriously
- pregnant women guaranteed lighter work: maternity leave 16 weeks
- number of nursery places doubles 28-30
- 2y prison sentence
K: PROMOTED 4 SOCIAL STABILITY
- ‘double burden’: 49% of work-force 1960
- lessened by babushki & increased social benefits (much better than S, though insufficient)
(aware of strain: 1955 abortion)
FAMILY CODE 1968 aware of growing social problems
- population growth just 0.8% 1982: extra pressure on £ women
- Shortage of adequate housing = strain, but 70s improvement
- ALCOHOLISM: high abuse/divorce: 1982 nearly double 1970– NEMTSOV: over 1/4 of deaths early 80s: Gov unable & unwilling– shops rarely short of cheap vodka
- + WWII lack of father figure sociologists
Women in politics?
improvements here far more limited; despite some initial successes, women remained severely under-represented at all levels.
- 1917: Zhenotdel set up - women’s issues, socialist notions of equality
—— BUT 1930 closed down (achieved! always 1/2 hearted…)
- KOLLONTAI: first woman to be a member of government in Europe (CC: Influence family, health); Commissar for Public Welfare 1917-18 & head of Zhenotdel 1920
—— BUT influence waned after 1921: Oslo 1923: Stalin disliked her progressive ideas & measures reversed 30s
SERIOUSLY UNDERREPRESENTED. NO. OF ACTIVE IN POLITICS LIMITED!
- 16% of party membership 1932
- female delegates at Party congresses did not exceed 10% before 1939
- esp higher levels: only 7 members of CC before WWII (one was Krupskaya)
- first women in presidium Ekaterina Furtseva 1957, & only again 1988 (Alexandra Biryukova)
——
telling that the places women were more represented & encouraged was role models like ballerinas (Natalia Bessmertnova) @ Bolshoi & Gymnastics (Olga, Munich 1972)
could rise: Valentina Tereshkova 1963
Women: Employment
Improvement. sometimes made their lives worse, but able to work & encouraged to: stark contrast from West and Tsarist Russia and does indicate growing equality despite significant issues that arose & lingering inequalities
COLLECTIVISATION:
men departed & some deserted, sending no money.
lower wages & fewer services; lower status– WW2 accelerated: women = bulk (no animals)
despite internal passport system 1974 (men) & slowly improving social position, low status work left to females (villages as late as 1950)
TOWNS & CITIES:
CW: practical > ideological millions of women in factories (but inadequate childcare)
many lost jobs when soldiers returned & traditional attitudes (unsuitable for manual work, less likely to stay due to pregnancy) persisted. disruption left many destitute.
INDUSTRIALISATION: socialist duty > liberation. needed.
1928: 3m
1940: over 13m
dominated light industry, but also ‘male’ jobs like lumbering & engineering
Role models (Tractor: Proskovia Angelina)
higher education: 1940- over 40% of engineering students
less in skilled jobs, but increase 30s
high % in healthcare, education (neither high wages, top men)
30s… ‘social work’… The Socially Active Woman; social divisions
importance increased 1940s jobs, but again lost when war over
MILITARY:
CIVIL WAR: over 70,000 in army, but few held high rank
WWII: Women could join red army: 800,000 served, 89 highest award (Hero of the Soviet Union)
line between male & female work more blurred
1950s: expected to work & could do so in a range
but double burden (career progression tough)
1960: 49% of workforce
WOMEN revision guide employment
CIVIL WAR: zhenotdel (innate differences) creches: ‘natural nurturing role’ & then NEP (closed down): prostitution: 39% of workforce used 1920s
STALIN:
- 3m to 13m etc
WW2: 75% of urban workforce
BUT only paid 60-65% mens wages
verbal & physical abuse in factories
not promoted
1960s: 45% of industrial jobs went to women
BUT restricted to production line work in light-industry (intensive, but low skill- textile)
heavy manual labour (low-skill)
CLERICAL/ADMIN:
mid-1960s, 74% of those employed in clerical positions in health/education were women.
1970s dominated certain professions:
1985: 70% of medical doctors
75% of employees in universities
65% of art & culture
pay scales lower in ‘feminised’ industries
COUNTRYSIDE: ‘triple shift’: labour on farms, household chores, handicrafts to supplement income.
VLS: recruited women for specific roles– milkmaids, gardeners, start families; NOT WORK WITH MACHINERY / DRIVE TRACTORS; manual labourers & carers]
did lowest paid & most demanding jobs: of 6,400 recruited in August 1958, fewer than 450 found work in well-paid professional jobs.
LOW-STATUS, LOW-PAID 70s&80s: 1970- 72% of lowest-paid Soviet farmers women.
professional opportunities reflected prejudice that women played nurturing > leadership role.
1980 80% of teachers in rural schools women BUT 2% of farm managers women
Reduction of illiteracy
1917: only 32% literate (or 65% easier)
Decree on Illiteracy 1919: all illiterate people 8-50 learn (modern tech & prop & loosen religion)
(emphasis on women (CAR): 14m of 17m illiterate 1917 were women; Zhenotdel)
CIVIL WAR: unsuccessful outside army (not priority)
- TROTSKY: Red Army literacy classes - 1925: 100%
- Lunacharsky: reading rooms (likpunkty); 6-week courses; 90% closed BUT 1920-26: 5m completed Rabfaki (10s of 1000s of liquidation points; factories)
- unsuccessful outside: 6.5m textbooks (simple rhymes; not genuine improvement)
insufficient resources (teachers didn’t support; military)
Priority under NEP– Trade Unions; libraries & classes: minor successes– Metal Worker’s Union decline in illiteracy from 14% to 4% (25-26)
1914: 38% —> 1928: 55%
harder in rural areas. uneven.
THEN MAJOR SUCCESS UNDER STALIN; 16th PC 1930
- FYP: 90% of soviet adults attended literacy course, 68% literate at end
- military: ‘cultural soldiers’; 3m Komsomol volunteers
- despite 40% of teachers being physically attacked when sent to countryside (& being poorly equipped),
- 1939 94% urban 86% country, rising to 98% country 1959
Higher Education/Adult education?
THE REAL SUCCESS OF SYSTEM For elite (TSAR) BUT NARKOMPROS: open to all!! courses to prepare those w/o qualifications (communist rector for equality- 70% quota 1929, only reached once & dropped 35, but intention). opportunities consistently better than pre 28
STALIN:
EXPANDED: 170,000 (1927) –> 1.5m (1953)
No of universities: 800%:
1914 - 105
1939- 817
1928 Great Turn: Stalin needed to replace the bourgeois who ran industry-
expanded from 1927 figure to 812,000 by 1940s
reflected needs of economy: construction, transport & factory production
decimated WWII: 1944 only 270,000 @ uni
KHRUSHCHEV: abolished uni fees 1956 (+grants)
rose to 5m (19% of pop) in university 1980
reflect needs of light industry (electronics, radio, agricultural chemistry) technical institutions widened participation.
Brezhnev founded 18 universities in Kazakhstan (though scared education lead to political non-conformity.
ADULT:
many adults uneducated; Rabfak = short coursess, evening classes
-> return to education part-time: 2m by 1964
-> 1970s diplomas from vocational, update workers’ skills
-> TV 1980; correspondence cources
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: largest scientific-technological intelligentsia in world 1970s: 8 got Nobel Prize
COMPULSORY EDUCTION
technical schools for mc few & confined to larger cities: 88% of rural failed to complete primary. several thousand peasant run schools/ROC but not important part of life.
PROVISION:
CW lack of resources (1/60), 40+ classes, 2.77y av child 1926. low wages no teachers.
1927 fees abolished: majority 4 year primary, 1928 10% more than pre-rev.
STALIN: primary increased significantly– 95% by 1932 (60% 1928) (30s!!), so that by 1953, almost 100% 8-12 4y primary (limited as collectivisation removed teachers)
Uzbek republic 1955: girls only 26% of school pop in final 2y of secondary
KHRUSHCHEV:
doubled number of schools; improve standards in rural areas (new schools)- attitudes heres hard to overcome (headteacher Kyrgyzstan: not till November)
Invested in teacher training: 1.5m (1953) to 2.2m (1964)– by 1978 almost 70% of teachers had uni education
really low participation in secondary (20% 15-17 1953) rose to 75% 1959
1976: slowdown, only 60% complete secondary
ECONOMICS:
Stalin: disciplined patriots for factories (discipline 1932 decree, could be expelled); unwilling to spend more than needed
Labour Reserve Schools: Minister of Labour 1940- train young men 14-17 to become specialised in industry (conscription, quotas). Vital during WWII & conditions harsh; important reconstruction 4.2m 4th & 5th trained metallurgy, electricity
1956 reforms: vocational: polytechnic: S disciplined & literate, K light, sophisticated.
1947-59: 20% increase in practical training, trips
(1970 School Statute updated science textbooks)
80s specialised schools; both genders
SOCIALISM
standards rose in rural areas due to Great Terror!
Abolished fees secondary 1956 (but paid for stuff; rural)
K: 1959 established special funds to maintain poor students (textbooks, clothes, dinners)
K concerned about rural/urban gap: reserved places for 2y work experience but dropped (rural disadvantage: 2/3 from urban schools)
attempt to expand higher education for children of workers, but reversed
1970s: attempts to increase peasant participation in schools: hot meals & free textbooks
ASIDE FROM DURING THE WAR, NO DIFFERENCE IN WHAT WAS OFFERED TO BOYS OR GIRLS
STABILITY/INTEREST OF PARTY
(November 1960 discipline relaxed, fit with de-S)
K introduced ‘the fundamentals of political knowledge’ for all 15yo: benefits of C.
Russification: had to learn Russian, teachers Russian
improved for elite mainly; influenced by elite who wanted kids separated; dominated by white-collar elite
curio unchanged 70s&80s: same mix as 47
bribery
