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Edexcel History A Level Russia > theme 3: control of the people 1917-1985 > Flashcards

theme 3: control of the people 1917-1985 Flashcards

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1
Q

in what year were all non-socialist newspapers banned?

A

1917

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2
Q

how was the decree banning newspapers elevated and in what year?

A

in the 1920s any non-Bolshevik newspapers were also banned

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3
Q

what did lenin view newspapers as?

A

mouthpieces of the bourgeois

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4
Q

how where newspapers used for propaganda under stalin?

A

exaggerated achievements of industrialisation and collectivisation. reported production targets being exceeded

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5
Q

what were the two biggest newspapers in the USSR?

A

Pravda and izvestiya

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6
Q

how did the government ensure high readership?

A

papers were cheap and widely available. Pravda had a circulation of 10.7 million in 1983

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7
Q

what topics were prohibited in newspapers?

A

plane crashes and natural disasters

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8
Q

example of something that happened that wasn’t reported

A

july 1972 big fire in Moscow, population had to wait a month before blue haze over city was explained

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9
Q

What were local newspapers permitted to do?

A

publish letters criticising minor bureaucrats and poor housing in the 1970s but never party leaders.

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10
Q

Who did magazines target?

A

specific groups of workers such as soldiers, farmers or teachers as well as young children and sports fans as newspapers generally did not comment on sport

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11
Q

how else did Bolsheviks get their message out to the people?

A

radio receivers were expensive so the Bolsheviks installed loudspeakers in public places and factories. group listening was used to make sure everyone got the right message

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12
Q

why were radios especially useful early on under lenin and stalin?

A

their message was sent to the 65% of the population who were illiterate. during the german invasion in 1941 stalin used it to commemorate the October revolution to assure the population all was not lost in the war

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13
Q

until what year was there only 1 radio station?

A

1964

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14
Q

how did the government restrict access to foreign radio stations?

A

mass producing cheap radios with limited reception range. they also threatened to arrest anyone listening to foreign radio.

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15
Q

why did the government restrict access to foreign radio?

A

to restrict the level of public debate

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16
Q

how many TV’s were there in 1950 compared to 1958?

A

10,000 sets 1950 3 million 1958

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17
Q

by what date did most of the rural population have televisions?

A

1980s

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18
Q

what was portrayed over television?

A

that soviet life was joyous and life under capitalism was full of crime, homelessness and violence

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19
Q

why was censorship and restriction of information not always successful?

A

the population got used to reading in between the lines

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20
Q

why were cult of personalities used?

A

to reinforce power of leaders and detach them from a collective leadership

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21
Q

key features of Lenin’s cult of personality

A
  • images, statues, films and newspapers all depicted lenin as a hero
  • his body was embalmed and put on display
  • Petrograd renamed Leningrad 1924
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22
Q

why did stalin create a cult of personality for lenin

A

to seem like his rightful heir

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23
Q

key features of stalin’s cult of personality up until 1930

A
  • links between lenin and stalin enforced, pictures doctored to remove political opponents
  • 1925 a town renamed Stalingrad
  • slogan “Stalin is the Lenin of today” used
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24
Q

key features of stalin’s cult of personality up until 1950

A
  • images of stalin widely used giving the impression of his being godlike, all knowing and all powerful
  • pictures of stalin with children enforced father figure image, images of him meeting average people
  • portrayed as down to earth, simple, happy man
  • family home turned into shrine, happy childhood painted despite only seeing his mother 3 times in 40 years
  • statues, films and biographies made of stalin
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25
Q

key features of stalin’s cult of personality up until death

A
  • many towns named after stalin
  • genuine admiration after second world war, said even people in gulags wept at his death
  • cult of personality provided big image during health decline
  • large celebrations for 70th birthday
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26
Q

how stalin’s cult of personality changed

A

originally to make himself seem as the rightful heir, from 1930s used to solidify personal dictatorship and image, continued to rise to higher extremes from the 1950s

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27
Q

how did Khrushchev feel about cults

A

criticised stalin for having one in 1956 secret speech. yelled “You call this a cult” when accused of making his own cult of personality

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28
Q

key features of Khrushchev’s cult of personality

A
  • made him seem as a more important leader than Malenkov during shared power in 1953
  • adulation through articles, books and posters with images of him meeting workers
  • used radio, tv and cinema for self-publicity. increased newspaper publicity when son-in-law became editor
  • used it to downplay policy failures
  • reason for dismissal in 1964
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29
Q

key features of Brezhnev’s cult of personality

A
  • awarded himself over 100 medals, as a result became the butt of political jokes such as he must get his chest expanded to accommodate for all his medals
  • genuinely popular
  • substitute for real power when his health declined
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30
Q

Bolshevik attitude to religion

A

saw as threat to socialist ideology, dismissed religion as little more than superstition. called it the ‘opium of the masses’ and aimed to destroy the church and influence of religion

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31
Q

what was the 1918 decree on freedom of conscience?

A

separated the orthodox church from the state and it lost its status. deprived of its land, banned religious education outside of the home, publications outlawed

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32
Q

measures taken against churches

A

-churches destroyed or used for other purposes, closed all monasteries, head of orthodox church under house arrest 1918
-during civil war priests denied rations and the vote
-by 1923 due to red terror 28 bishops and over 1000 priests killed
-religious rituals attacked
by the end f 1930 4/5ths of village churches destroyed or inactive

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33
Q

what was the 1929 league of the militant godless

A

campaign to disprove existence of god, involved taking peasants in planes to show there was no heaven. propaganda against religion

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34
Q

changes to religious policy under stalin

A

more churches closed and priests labelled as kulaks and deported
when Germany invaded stalin took more liberal approach and reopened some churches and the patriarchate was reinstated to provide moral as the church supported the war effort

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35
Q

religious policy under khrushchev

A

very anti-religious. within 4 years 10,000 existing churches closed. surviving priests harassed. jews and Baptists also had severe restrictions on worship

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36
Q

religious policy under brezhnev

A

allowed church to act under defined limits to benefit foreign policy. council of religious affairs monitored services. churches expected to support soviet policies

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37
Q

church resistance under brezhnev

A

1976 Christian committee for the Defence of Believers Rights. step too far, leader sentenced to 5 years imprisonment
jews and Baptists who were more likely to be critical were treated with less tolerance

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38
Q

soviet actions towards islam

A

only in 1920s felt confident enough to attack Islamic institutions and rituals

  • religious ownership of land prohibited
  • mosques closed down
  • sharia courts phased out
  • polygamy prohibited
  • campaign of unveiling of women
  • Ramadan fasting condemned
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39
Q

results of religious policy

A

mid 1920s survey of peasants revealed 55% still active Christians despite measures
during 1980s it was found only 25% of the population believed in god, far fewer engaged in religious worship

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40
Q

when was yagoda the head of the secret police

A

1934-1936 shot 1939

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41
Q

main things yagoda did

A
  • expanded gulags and used prisoners as labour for industrialisation, those deported to labour camps either starved or froze to death whilst working
  • white sea canal hand dug by labourers from gulags, 10,000 died
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42
Q

why yagoda was dismissed

A

couldn’t get confessions out of people and accused of not pursuing opposition with enough enthusiasm

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43
Q

When was the red terror and how many people were shot?

A

1921-22 200,000

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44
Q

What did the Cheka become in 1922?

A

GPU

45
Q

What did the GPU become in 1923

A

OGPU

46
Q

Under yagoda what was the new name of the secret police and when did the change happen

A

1934 NKVD

47
Q

In what year did the NKVD become the KGB?

A

1954

48
Q

Who replaced yagoda?

A

Yezhov

49
Q

What was yezhov’s nickname and how did he get it?

A

The bloody dwarf because during his time the NKVD indulged in the most excessive purged of all time. Yezhov also widely used torture to extract confessions from people, including zinoviev and lameness which yagoda failed to do

50
Q

Example of the process of trial, arrest and imprisonment being sped up

A

In 1937 one court processed 231 people a day

51
Q

How were the purges expanded?

A
  • Quotas were made for how many people had to be arrested
  • Opponents were considered to be any who wasn’t showing enough enthusiasm and commitment to the cause
  • Members of the NKVD themselves were purged
  • Surveillance of the public increased as did a network of ‘informers’
52
Q

Why was yezhov dismisses and when

A

Stalin worried in 1938 that the purges were demoralising people with German invasion threat looming. Dismissed yezhov in 1938 and blamed him for the excess of terror

53
Q

How did Beria ‘improve’ things over yezhov?

A
  • surveillance continued but arrests were only made with sufficient evidence
  • improved food rations for inmates in 1939 (although only to get the maximum work out of them)
54
Q

Beria’s achievements (according to Stalin)

A
  • oversaw the murder of Trotsky 1940
  • gulag economic productivity increased 2.5 bill roubles 1927 to 4 bill roubles 1940
  • in 1949 he purged 2,000 members of the Leningrad party branch to gain Stalin’s favour
55
Q

How did the role of the secret police change during the Second World War?

A
  • NKVD given control over deportations if national minorities who’s loyalty was under suspect
  • 1943 started to overrun areas previously captured by the Germans
  • department SMERSH felt with suspected spies and murdered 4000+ polish officers
  • any soviet troops who surrendered during initial invasion were held in camps, some were made to clear mine fields simply by walking through them
56
Q

What was theMingrelian affair and when was it?

A

1951, a purge targeted at a minority which Beria belonged to in order to threaten him for trying to secure power during power struggle with Stalin’s declining health

57
Q

What was the purge statin was planning before his death

A

The ‘Doctor’s Plot’ of which most of the accused were Jewish.

58
Q

Evidence Stalin’s was responsible for terror

A
  • personally signed death warrants
  • gave NKVD quotas, if they were not met NKVD officers were added to the list
  • aspects of terror reflected Stalin’s paranoid personality such as Kirov and the doctors plot
59
Q

Impact on the removal of Beria on terror and when was he removed

A

1953 and the politburo restricted the independence of the secret police and bought it firmly under state control. Khrushchev dismantled the gulags and forced labour was never used again in sov economy

60
Q

Who was the KGB headed by from 1967-82

A

Andropov

61
Q

Who were the dissidents that Andropov faced?

A 
Intellectuals
Political dissidents
Nationalists 
Religious diffidence 
Refuseniks
62
Q

Who were nationalist dissidents and what did they want?

A

Groups of Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Georgians who wanted greater status for their own languages and cultures, some wanted independence from the USSR

63
Q

what did political dissidents want?

A

wanted to hold the government accountable for their own laws. groups were established to monitor the soviet unions application of the UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and the Helsinki Accords of 1975

64
Q

who were the refuseniks and what did they want?

A

soviet jews who were denied their wish to emigrate to Israel.

65
Q

what did the intellectuals want?

A

more freedom of expression

66
Q

example of an intellectual dissident

A

Andrei Sakharov the nuclear scientist who wanted the ability to exchange ideas with foreign scientists which was prohibited. in frustration him and other leading scientists wrote to Brezhnev and were banned from further military research.

67
Q

what actions were taken against dissidents?

A
  • intellectuals threatened with expulsion from their professional organisations
  • any material or apparatus that could be used to print and distribute material
  • arrests were made
  • dissidents were sent to psychiatric hospitals
  • exile
68
Q

what did the new criminal code of 1960 do

A

it abolished night-time interrogations and limited the powers of the KGB

69
Q

why did the state use psychiatric ward to deal with dissidents?

A

it discredited the dissidents in the eyes of the public.
special ‘hospitals’ were run by the NKVD and the ‘patients’ were held until they were ‘cured’ i.e. changed their opinions, patients who refused were ‘treated’ with drugs and electric shocks

70
Q

impact of dissidents

A

despite fears from the government dissidents had very little support and impact. they were not a coherent group of a movement

71
Q

what did Andropov become in 1982?

A

General secretary of the communist party

72
Q

in 1982 how did Andropov’s monitoring of dissident groups increase?

A

surveillance was highly increased, conversations were recorded using tape and cassettes, listening devices and cameras were hidden in briefcases and bras.

73
Q

what did Andropov do to reduce the number of dissidents

A

tried to visit factories and hear the views of the public but many felt intimidated and scared to complain to the former head of the KGB

74
Q

what was created in 1917 for culture

A

Commissariat of Enlightenment

75
Q

what was lenins attitude towards culture

A

lenin did not have much censorship because he enjoyed traditional Russian culture

76
Q

what did Trotsky label those who created traditional Russian culture as?

A

Fellow Travellers

77
Q

what was prolekult/proletarian culture?

A

media that reflected the lives of ordinary people such as poems about machines of factories. peasants were encouraged to produce their own culture

78
Q

what was used to promote prolekult

A

festivals were used with food rations as incentive for attendance

79
Q

what were people creating prolekult culture called/

A

constructivists

80
Q

what was the problem with prolekul culture?

A

the government were concerned about the number of viewpoints expressed

81
Q

what cause avant garde?

A

WW1 and the sweeping away of old Russia created the opportunity for experimentation

82
Q

what was avant garde?

A

abstract and modern art with futuristic themes. propaganda was genuinely innovative.
emphasis on visual art due to low literacy levels
caused first appearance of jazz in Russia to mixed reviews

83
Q

what was the problem with avant garde culture?

A

often too sophisticated for audiences to understand. did not represent the peoples values and beliefs.
some theatre pieces were cancelled after one showing as no one could understand them

84
Q

what was the cultural revolution and what was the role of the Komsomol?

A

sweeping away of old bourgeois elements of society, included attack on traditional writers and artists previously tolerated under lenin
Komsomol members encouraged to boo at the playa of suspects

85
Q

what was RAPP and what did they do?

A

Russian Association of Proletarian Writers who made attacks on Fellow Travellers and condemned individualist writers

86
Q

what was the cult of the ‘little man’? and example of such material

A

novels that glorified the achievements of industrial workers and collective peasants.
Kataevs ‘Time Forward’ novel 1932 recounted record breaking shift at Magnitogorsk

87
Q

when was RAPP closed down and what was it replaced with?

A
  1. Union of Soviet Writers, bought cultural revolution to an end
88
Q

what was Socialist Realism?

A

art presenting idealised images of socialist life to inspire the population and convince them of stalins statement that “life has become more joyous”

89
Q

literature under socialist realism

A

focused away from cult of the little man to heroes of the party. population access to books was increased through low prices and tenfold growth in library acquisitions.
party controlled what was and was not published
artists wither let their work suffer, gave up writing, smuggled material abroad to be published or die in labour camps. some committee suicide

90
Q

music under socialist realism

A

favoured military songs over jazz. banned saxophone in 1940s

91
Q

architecture under socialist realism

A

‘Stalinist baroque’ / wedding cake architecture. Moscow university rebuilt in this style 1945
Moscow metro had chandeliers and elaborate murials

92
Q

art under socialist realism

A

no experimentation. many statues of stalin started to appear

93
Q

films under socialist realism + example

A

centred around achievements of revolution. Eisenstein used live ammunition in his retelling of the storing of the winter palace causing more deaths of extras then deaths of the real event

94
Q

did people like socialist realism?

A

whilst it was out of touch with reality it inspired many party members and provided effective escapism for the population

95
Q

what happened after ww2 with culture?

A

artists were allowed greater freedoms. anna Akhmatova and boris Pasternak were allowed to give readings of their unorthodox poems

96
Q

what renewed oppression in culture after WW2

A

Zhdanovschina campaign expelled all western influences so all freedom disappeared again

97
Q

what did Khrushchev allow?

A

previously banned work could be published such as Isaac babel who was shot during the purges
jazz made a reappearance which Khrushchev hated

98
Q

what was nonconformity like under Khrushchev?

A

writings about bleak rural life, criticisms of the soviet state and society were made. which Khrushchev came increasingly less tolerant of in his last months of power

99
Q

issues with youth culture under khrushchev

A

late 1950s youth culture adopted music taste and styles from the west. in 1955 western music was broadcasted into the ussr. audiences at concerts were small but music was distributed with tape recorders which made it hard to control

100
Q

examples of Khrushchev personally attacking culture

A

he hated abstract art and criticised one at exhibition but no action was taken
without reading a book he banned it, however it was smuggled into Italy and published and won a literature award which was embarrassing for khrushchev

101
Q

how did Brezhnev change limits on what artists were allowed to do

A

increased limits on what was acceptable, many artists preferred the explicit boundaries but continued to push them

102
Q

what did official culture focus on under brezhnev

A

focused on propaganda and achievements of socialist. encouraged Russian nationalism. majority of population preferred this even if it was undemanding for artists

103
Q

In the 1970s how did culture chane

A

culture became more conservative and artists could get in more trouble for sexual themes over political themes

104
Q

how did Brezhnev try to limit spread of western influence in popular youth culture

A

exercised control over radio and record companies. this was undermined with development of cassette recorders which were widely available by the early 1980s

105
Q

Trial of Joeph Brodsky

A
  1. poems were read to secret gatherings. sentenced 5 years hard labour in prison for ‘parasitism’ ad not producing anything of material value for the soviet state. showed despite khrushchevs cultural thaw, Brezhnev had limits
106
Q

trials of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuki Daniel

A
  1. arrested and accused of non-Soviet propaganda for short novels depicting harsh reality of soviet life under pseudonyms. resulted in demonstration of 200 + students. sinyavsky for 7 years, daniels for 5
107
Q

what happened to an art gallery director displaying dissident art?

A

he got 8 years in prison

108
Q

what did Andropov do to take control of youth culture issues?

A

recognised accommodation for popular music was necessary and reduced output of official soviet music to 20% of airtime
all rock groups had to be vetted before being allowed to perform
Komsomol groups patrolled streets and reported any unacceptable activity

Edexcel History A Level Russia (7 decks)

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