THEME 3: CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE – HOW DID THE USE OF THE SECRET POLICE CHANGE THROUGH THE PERIOD 1917-85?

Question 1

Summarise the first paragraph that provides an overview of this period.

Answer 1

Government control over the people was reinforced by an atmosphere of terror, implemented through the heavy use of an extensive state apparaus based on the activites of the secret police. Established by Lenin, the Cheka was enforced greatly under Stalin and terror became an essential feature of Stalinist Russia. Although, it became less cruel after 1953, it became a key feature of Soviet life until the collapse of the USSR.

Question 2

How did Lenin establish the principle of the use of terror and secret police between 1917 and 1922?

Answer 2

Lenin established the Cheka in 1917 under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky. Its taks was to act against counter-revolution and sabotage, a task it undertook with great ruthlessness. During the civil war, the Cheka were given powers that allowed it to act with minimal interferance with other legal bodies. This meant that it could act quickly to deal with actual and percieved enemies. The attemoted assassination of Lenin by Fanya Kaplin in August 1918 prompted a wave of arrests. The Cheka intensified its actions against Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks during the Red Terror of 1921 and 1922. Up to 200,000 opponents were shot: execution now became the rule rather than the exception.

Question 3

How did the reorganisation of the Cheka impact the role and power of the secret police?

Answer 3

The Cheka was replaced by the GPU in 1922 and in the following year it became the OGPU. The significance of these changes was the growing indeoendance of the secret police from interferance from other state institutions. The secret police became a body that only took orders and instructions from the leadership of the Communist Party. The power of the secret police increased further in 1934, when the OGPU was merged with an enlarged Interior Ministry, referred to as the NKVD.

Question 4

Who did Stalin target during the period of 1928-39?

Answer 4

The kulaks and other peasants who opposed collectivisation were deported to the Gulag, run by the secret police. The number of those identified as political opponents rose after the show trial of Zinoviev and Kamanev in 1936. The urges of the Right of the Party, such as Bukharin, and members of the Red Army, who were accused of working with foreign countries to undermine the USSR, resulted in widespread denunciations to the secret police.

Question 5

How did the secret police use coercion and torture during this period?

Answer 5

Those arrested were taken to the Lubyanka building in Moscow, where they were subjected to torture until they confessed. The OGPU chief for Siberia, Leonid Zakovsky, had helpfully produced a widely used handboo on torture methods. For high-profile victims, a show trial would follow where the accused would admit their crimes before being sentenced to death. Part of the deal exacted with the accused was that a public confession would save the victim’s family from prison - a promise not always kept. The other deal was naming associates in plots to undermine the state.

Question 6

How did Yagoda’s time in power change the Gulag?

Answer 6

Became head in 1934 and he oversaw the rapid expansion of the Gulag, the Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps. Under Lenin, labour camps were used as places to reform class enemies. In 1930, they were expanded under the Gulag and transformed into a vast system of forced labour to support industrialisation. Y used his influence with Stalin to ensure the secret police could deal with these opponents without interferance from the regular courts. The emphasis changed from ideology to economic considerations. The camps were to provide a pool of labour for exploiting the economic resources of the Soviet Union in areas where no one would live of their own free will. Those depoted to labour camps were often placed in the most hostile of environments, where many died of extreme cold or starvation, a fate often shared by their guards and guard dogs.

Question 7

What were the ‘achievements’ of Yagoda’s Gulags?

Answer 7

The completion of the White Sea Canal - 141-mile canal used up to 180,000 labourers from the Gulag, digging by hand rather than using machines. The canal was completed under budget in less than two years but at the cost of at least 10,000 lives. To cut costs, the canal was only dug to a depth of 12 feet, making it useful for most shipping.

Question 8

Why did Yagoda’s time in power end?

Answer 8

Ultimately, and perhaps inevitably, recriminations eventually named Yagoda himself. In 1936, he was accused of incompetence in safeguarding Kirov, whose murder had precipitated the purges, and for not pursuing the opposition with sufficient enthusiasm. Yagoda was removed from office and Stalin had him shot in 1938.

Question 9

What is Yezhov most known for doing whilst in charge of the NKVD?

Answer 9

Brought to Stalin’s attention for his enthusiasm for personally torturing prisoners. At only 5 feet tall, Yezhov was nicknamed the ‘bloody dwarf’. Under his leadership, the NKVD indulged in the most excessive phase of the purges. One of his skills was to frame the purges in ideological terms by accusing those arrested of political opposition to communism and the communist state.

Question 10

How did Yezhov adapt the judicial processes within the USSR?

Answer 10

The process of arrest, trial and imprisonment was speeded up by Yezhov. Courts (Troikas) made up of three people, one of whom was the regional NKVD boss, dealt with cases. In September 1937, the Karelian Troika processed 231 prisoners each day.

Question 11

How did the use of the Gulag change under Yezhov?

Answer 11

Y considered the Gulag to be underused and numbers of inmates rose considerably, as did deaths within the camps. In July 1937, Y issued orders that required camps to meet quotas for the execution of prisoners. NKVD officers who carried out the executions were awarded medals, but were often executed themselves a few months later in order to meet quotas.

Question 12

How was surveillance increased under Yezhov?

Answer 12

Plain-clothed police officers were used, alongside a system of informers from the general public themselves, to collect information on the behaviour of individuals. Considerable use was made of the Soviet criminal code to condemn people for anti-Soviet activity. The number of detectives recruited to the NKVD quadrupled and extra staff were employed to torture suspects.

Question 13

What was Yezhov’s opinion of torture?

Answer 13

Y delighted in undertaking the torture of suspects himself and once attended a Politburo meeting with the cuffs of his shirt covered in fresh blood from torturing ‘enemies of the Revolution’.

Question 14

What happened to Yezhov?

Answer 14

Y, whose health began to suffer from his frenetic work rate and excessive drinking, was dismissed in 1938. Stalin accused him of being responsible for the excesses of the purges. There is no doubt that there was some truth in this accusation, but it suited Stalin to use Yezhov as a scapegoat as he wished to reduce the level of terror.

Question 15

What qualities did Beria have as the head of the secret police?

Answer 15

An energetic man of impressive organisational skills and unsavoury characteristics.

Question 16

What does Butler suggest about Beria?

Answer 16

That he was repulsed by all and disliked for his ‘sexual proclivities [that] were both perverted and insatiable’, yet, despite this, his position meant that this went unchallenged.

Question 17

What initial reforms did Beria put in place?

Answer 17

Beria felt that indiscriminate arrests were inefficient and a waste of manpower - a more productive method was needed. Beria reintroduced more conventional methods of police procedure and public trials were only held where solid evidence was available. Surveillance continued, but it only led to arrests when evidence was found. One of Beria’s achievements was to oversee the murder of Trotsky, killed by a Stalinist agent in Mexico in 1940.

Question 18

How did Beria modify the Gulags?

Answer 18

Beria wanted to make the Gulag a profitable part of the Soviet economy. In 1939, food rations for inmates were improved, not due to humanitarian concerns but to get maximum work out of prisoners. Beria was instrumental in using the technical skills of inmates for specialist tasks. As a result, 1,000 scientists were put to work on various projects that - according to Beria’s subsequent boasts - created many new pieces of military hardware. Although this claim was dubious, among the scientists were Andrei Tupolev, the aviation engineer, and Sergei Korolev, who played an essential part in the development of the Soviet space programme. Early releases from the camps were cancelled so that prisoners’ expertise could continue to be used.

Question 19

What evidence is there to suggest Beria had successfully developed the Gulag into an economic powerhouse?

Answer 19

These measures resulted in a growth in Gulag economic activity from 2 billion roubles (1937) to 4.5 billion roubles (1940). Under Beria, the Gulag reached its biggest expanse and by the early 1950s, it was a major contributor to the Soviet economy. Over one-third of the country’s gold and much of its timber and coal was produced through the Gulag.

Question 20

What powers were the secret police given during the Second World War?

Answer 20

In 1941 they were given some powers of supervision of the Red Army with responsibility for monitoring disloyalty and dealing with any desertions.
NKVD was given control over deportations of those national minorities whose loyalty to the Soviet state was considered suspect. This included the Crimean Tartars, Volga Germans and Chechens. Their forcible removal to designated areas was conducted by three-person Troikas who were given powers outside of the law.
By 1943, the Red Army had begun to overrun areas previously captured by the Germans. In these areas Beria set up Special Departments to root out traitors, deserters and cowards. Anyone suspected of co-operating with the Germans was either shot or deported to the Gulag. One department, called SMERSH, dealt with suspected spies and it was probably involved in the murder of more than 4,000 Polish officers in Katyn in 1943.
Order 270 treated all Soviet troops who had surrendered to the Germans during the initial invasion as traitors. Returning prisoners of war were automatically held in detention camps run by the secret police: some were used to clear minefields by simply walking through areas where mines had been laid by the enemy.

Question 21

What did Beria do to gain Stalin’s favour as his health began to fail?

Answer 21

Launched a fresh wave of purges - the target was the Leningrad branch. In 1949, over 2,000 members were imprisoned or exiled.

Question 22

What happened during the Mingrelian Affair of 1951?

Answer 22

Involved a purge of the Party in Georgia which seemed to be targeted at people who were of Mingrelian ethnicity, a group to which Beria belonged.

Question 23

What happened during the Doctors Plot?

Answer 23

In 1953, there is evidence that Stalin was planning another major purge before he died. In January a group of doctors were arrested , accused of trying to assassinate Stalin. The ‘Doctors’ Plot’ was also notable in that most of the accused were Jewish - this may have been the prelude to a campaign of terror against Soviet Jews, but it was more likely to have been the first step towards the elimination of Beria and possibly other figures in the leadership. Before the purge could take place, Stalin died.

Question 24

How powerful was Beria at the time of Stalin’s death?

Answer 24

He controlled the secret police, the network of Soviet spies around the world, the Gulag system and its associated links to industry. Beria’s enormous power was the reason why his Politburo colleagues moved so quickly to remove him from his position in June 1953. The lead was taken by Khrushchev, whom Beria had fatally underestimated as a ‘moon-faced idiot’.

Question 25

What did Khrushchev do to reform the role of the secret police?

Answer 25

It was brought firmly under Party control, answerable to a new organisation, the Soviet Security and Intelligence service, otherwise known as the KGB. Khrushchev dismantled the Gulag system and forced labour never again played a part in the Soviet economy. Even the Lubyanka building ceased to be a prison. The last person to be held there was Gary Powers, the US pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the USSR in 1960.

Question 26

What was the KGB?

Answer 26

The Committee for State Security. It was established in 1954 and was the organisation that controlled the secret police. It had been set up after the death of Stalin to ensure the secret police were brought back under Party control. Its main tasks were to deal with internal security, intelligence gathering both at home and abroad, and espionage.

Question 27

What evidence is there to suggest that Stalin was personally responsible for the development of the terror?

Answer 27

Personally signed many death warrants and often added his own names/asked his henchmen to add more.
Gave NKVD quotas to meet and if they weren’t met, the local officers were expected to add their own names to the list.
Terror accompanied Stalin’s policies and was an essential part of them - collectivisation required the kulaks and those peasants who opposed the policy to be swept away. The unrealistic demands of the Plans put pressure on officials to explain a failure to meet targets. It was often essential, for their own personal survival, for managers to label people as saboteurs or shirkers.
Historians such as Ivan Chukhin have suggested that the huge expansion of terror in the 1930s was the result of the demand for slave labour to ensure the targets of the Plans were met. Forced labour played a big part in the building of prestige projects - perhaps no coincidence that top geologists in the S.U were arrested on the eve of a camp being set up to exploit oil reserves in the Komi Republic.
S set parameters for the purges - death of Kirov started the Great Purge of the Party, and dismissal of Yezhov in 1938 slowed them down.
Many aspects reflect Stalin’s paranoid personality - Kirov and The Doctors’ Plot (anti-Semetic views, coupled with suspicions that the Kremlin doctors were trying to kill him.

Question 28

What evidence is there to suggest that it was Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria that were responsible for the development of the terror?

Answer 28

All three men had sadistic tendencies and had little, if any, moral conscience about using torture or terror.
None of them had much impact on the targets of the terror - decided by Stalin and stemmed from the requirements of his policies and personality. Yet all three took the opportunity to add to the death lists the names of those who stood in their way. Where the leaders did have influence was in the implementation of terror and the operation of the Gulag. Under Yagoda, the Gulag expanded greatly but struggled to cope with the vast increase in inmates resulting from collectivisation. Under Yezhov, terror was speeded up - partly driven by his sadistic and frenetic personality. Anne Applebaum stated: ‘Stalin selected the victims - and his subordinates leaped at the opportunity to obey him’.

Question 29

What does Nove argue about the use of terror?

Answer 29

While not condoning the use of terror, he saw terror as a product of the time and circumstances which Stalin had to operate. If a minority group like the Bolsheviks wanted to bring about rapid change, then terror was the only way this could be achieved. Persuasion through concessions and propaganda might have worked, but their use would have made the process of change much slower and, with the growing likelihood of invasion from Germany, this was not an option. Thus, terror was an integral part of Stalin’s policies of industrialisation.

Question 30

What does James Harris (1997) argue about the use of terror?

Answer 30

That the use of terror and the expansion of the Gulag after 1928 were consequences of the pressure exerted by the government on local Party officials and managers to meet targets for economic performance. Forced labour was used as one way of trying to ensure production increased at a time when there were labour shortages. Stalin’s own recognition of the role of slave labour in boosting production is highlighted by his diversion of workers to pet projects such as the White Sea Canal. Stalin supported the methods used by Naftaly Frenkel, who applied ‘rational’ methods to exploit slave labour involving the distribution of food based on a prisoner’s capacity to work and the elimination of ‘useless extras’. Terror was also used to ensure scientists, technicians and engineers were arrested and sent to camps to where their skills were needed.

Question 31

What is the counter argument for Harris’ argument?

Answer 31

The secret police often declared amnesties for political prisoners, often to relieve overcrowding in the camps. Even as late as 1937, there were some political prisoners who were forbidden to work. Stalin may have wanted prisoners to be put to economic use, but this not seem to have been the prime reason for arrests. Among the prisoners were many women, children and elderly people who were of limited use for the heavy manual work of most camps. The Gulag was a chaotic and inefficient organisation that struggled with the demands placed upon it, with camp commanders unprepared for each new wave of arrests.

Question 32

What happened after Stalin’s death in relation to terror?

Answer 32

Khrushchev did not need, nor had the desire, to use terror to control the Soviet people. The Party’s hold on power was now sescure and it could rely on other methods of control that it had at its disposal, such as propaganda and welfare provision.

Question 33

What still remained of the terror after 1953?

Answer 33

Surveillance of percieved enemies continued. From 1953, this was the work of the KGB. In 1967, this was headed by Yuri Andropov.

Question 34

What did Anna Akhmatova argue about the change of the terror?

Answer 34

That people were no longer arrested ‘for nothing’; now they were at least arrested ‘for something’.

Question 35

What were the main targets of police action?

Answer 35

The dissidents - this term was applied to those who criticised the Soviet stateor system and included a diverse range of people.

Question 36

Who was Andrei Sakharov and what happened to him?

Answer 36

Andrei Sakharov was a nuclear scientist. Science is a field where the exchange of ideas with foreign colleagues, reading foreign research papers and using foreign equipment was important. All of these activities were restricted. In frustration, Sakharov and other leading scientists wrote a letter to Brezhnev in 1970, detailing their irritations with the system. The authorities banned him from further military research.

Question 37

Which other dissidents were targeted?

Answer 37

Writers, such as Roy Medvedev and his brother Zhores (a scientist) and novelist Solzhenitsyn, complained about the restritions on their freedom as proffessionals. They also found their ability to work and travel restricted by the government. Political dissidents were people who tried to hold the government to the acount of its own laws. These groups were usually concerned with abuses of human rights that broke Soviet law and international agreements signed by the USSR. Groups were established to monitor the Soviet Union’s application of the UN Declaration on Human Rights signed in 1948 and the Helsinki Accords of 1975.

Question 38

What evidence is there that the government tried to silence nationalist groups under Andropov?

Answer 38

Groups of Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Georgians existed that called for greater status for their own national languages and cultures; some for independance from the USSR. A growing awareness by Ukrainians of their own culture caused alarm by the authorities, who tried to ban celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, in 1964. At the same time, a mysterious fire destroyed the Ukrainian archive at the Academy of Sciences in Kiev. The police arrested 20 leading nationalists in an attempt to deter further displays of dissent. Alarm was caused in 1974 when four Lithuanian groups joined together to form a National Popular Front, calling for Lithuanian to be the recognised language for their republic and calling for an end to Soviet colonisation. Further arrests followed . These nationalist groups often recieved encouragement from their compatriots abroad.

Question 39

Who were the

refuseniks?

Answer 39

Soviet Jews who had been denied their wish to emigrate to Israel. This group had strong support in the US Congress and remained a difficult issue at international summits between the leaders of the USA and the USSR.

Question 40

How did dissidents often express their discontent with the system?

Answer 40

Their actions were often limited to producing material that shared their concerns and criticisms of the Soviet system. These illegal, self-published materials, often little more than handwritten notes, were known as samizdat and their production became a popular hobby in the late 1960s. They contained poems, handwritten newsletters and transcripts of Voice of America radio broadcasts. One of the most well-known of the samizdat materials was the ‘Chronicle of Current Events’, an underground newsletter that highlighted human rights abuses and the treatment of dissidents. By the 1970s, the dissidents had become more diverse but also bolder, and they were using a wider range of methods to promote their views, including making use of the foreign press to advance their case.

Question 41

How did Andropov deal with the dissidents rather than through obvious terror tactics?

Answer 41

The secret police would conduct surveillance and harassment of suspected dissidents. Intellectuals were often threatened with expulsion from their professional organisation, they might be denied permission to publish or they might be dismissed from their post. Houses were searched and any material or apparatus that could be used to produce or spread material was confiscated. Arrests might follow, but this group of opponents knew why they had been arrested; they claimed the status of political prisoners of conscience and were therefore separated from criminal prisoners. The label of dissident would also mark them out in civilian life, with discrimination at work, failure to gain a place at university, continued surveillance and harassment. By the mid-1970s, Amnesty International estimated that there were, at most, 10,000 political prisoners, a small but not insignificant number.

Question 42

What does the new criminal code in 1966 suggest about Andropov’s desire to tackle dissent?

Answer 42

New criminal code (1960) abolished night-time interrogations and limited powers of KGB, but Article 70 provided authorities with the useful catch-all powers of dealing with anything considered ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’. In 1966, the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, two dissident writers, had revealed difficulties applying this new code because of the necessity of proving intent when accusing someone of anti-Soviet activity. As a result, new articles were added to the criminal code in 1966 that dropped this requirement. Nonetheless, those now arrested had to be dealt with by a court of justice. Court records of proceedings were kept, a significant development that allowed dissident groups to publicise their cases.

Question 43

How were psychiatric hospitals used under Andropov?

Answer 43

In 1967, the Politburo agreed that the leading dissident, Vladimir Bukovsky, should be placed in a ‘special mental hospital’. This action, which quickly became a common method of dealing with dealing with leading dissidents, had the advantage that it discredited the dissidents in the eyes of the Soviet public. These ‘special hospitals’ were run by the NKVD and ‘patients’ were held until they were ‘cured’, which usually meant they agreed to change their views and opinions of the Soviet state. Those patients who refused were ‘treated’ with electric shocks and drugs. Zhores Medvedev, a writer and scientist, was diagnosed with ‘sluggish schizophrenia’ and sent for treatment. Conditions were overcrowded and unhygienic and did little to improve the international reputation of the USSR.

Question 44

What was internal exile and how was it used?

Answer 44

Troublesome academics were sent to out-of-the way places, a fact that accounted for the excellent academic work at the Siberian division of the Academy of Sciences. In 1980, Sakharov was sent to Gorky, a city closed to foreigners. This severely restricted his means of communication with supporters. For those who continued to write works critical to the regime, expulsion from the USSR remained an option for the government, as befell Solzhenitsyn in 1974.

Question 45

Why was the sneaking of records to the West challenging for the Soviet government?

Answer 45

Records of court cases were smuggled out of the USSR and used by human rights groups in the West. The bad publicity this generated was a constant source of irritation to the Soviet government. The Soviet leadership had become increasingly concerned with its international reputation, especially in light of the Helsinki Accords signed in 1975. The 33 countries that signed the Accords had agreed to respect ‘freedom of thought, conscience and belief’. The treatment of dissidents was highlighted by human rights groups as a violation of this agreement. In the age of growing mass communication on a worldwide scale, news of the arrest of a prominent dissident could embarrass a Soviet leader and damage Soviet diplomacy. International condemnation sometimes led to a release of dissidents.

Question 46

What support did the dissidents get from the general public?

Answer 46

Little support and, despite government fears, they never threatened the social or political stability of the country.

Question 47

How threatening were the dissidents to the leadership of the Communist Party?

Answer 47

The dissidents were a collection of individuals and never a coherent group, let alone a movement. They struggled to organise public demonstrations and, when they did, it revealed their limited support. In 1968, dissidents organised a public protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in Red Square, Moscow. Only seven people turned up - fear of the secret police played a part in preventing more people joining the protest.

Question 48

What evidence is there to suggest Andropov succeeded?

Answer 48

By the end of the 1970s, Andropov’s measures had succeeded in keeping the dissident groups small and divided and in a state of mutual mistrust. Methods of dealing with opposition had changed considerably from the terror and torture of Stalin’s years. Andropov’s methods were more subtle and, with developments in surveillance technology such as electronic bugging devices, they were becoming more sophisticated. The professionalism, reputation and status of the KGB grew considerably under Andropov’s leadership.

Question 49

How did Andropov escalate the monitoring of dissident groups after 1982?

Answer 49

The stereotypical image of plain-clothes secret police officers in long, leather coats, following people in the streets, had some basis in fact, but methods of monitoring were becoming more sophisticated as a result of new technology. Conversations were recorded using tape and cassette recorders and listening devices and cameras were secreted in briefcases and bras. The KGB were well informed of the criticisms of the Soviet system put forward by the dissidents, and their threat to social and political stability had been effectively neutralised.

Question 50

What did Andropov consider the main concern regarding the cause of mass dissident activity?

Answer 50

He was greatly concerned with the growing inefficiency in the Soviet economy and believed that if the Soviet government did not deliver a reasonable standard of living the discontent was likely to spread. The communist government in Poland had faced some popular unrest in 1980-81 sparked by a decision to raise food prices. Andropov was therefore aware that economic issues could threaten instability in the USSR. As Andropov told his doctor, ‘We’ll make enough sausages, and then we won’t have any dissidents’.

Question 51

How did Andropov attempt to use the KGB to improve the efficiency of the Soviet Union?

Answer 51

To clamp down on alcoholism and absenteeism in the workplace. KGB officers did spot checks on factories to record attendance and combed the streets for truanting workers. Unfortunately, this tactic upset many female workers who had to juggle a full-time job with queuing for food at shops. The queues were partly a result of cheap government-set prices, which meant that goods sold out quickly after arrival in shops.

Question 52

How did Andropov attempt to ‘understand the society in which we live’?

Answer 52

In February 1983, he visited a Moscow factory, but the whole event was rather contrived. Andropov was well-meaning and genuine in his desire to listen to the views of the public, but he was humourless, austere and lacked charm. Workers who met him felt restricted by the fact that he was the ex-head of the KGB.

Question 53

Who did Andropov surround himself with?

Answer 53

People who were relatively free thinkers, more often journalists or academics, who were in touch with the causes of popular discontent. He made particular use of a group of sociologists and economists from Novosibirsk, especially Tatyana Zaslavskaya, who argued that the arbitrary nature of much Soviet administration was a key cause of resentment.

Question 54

How did Andropov adapt the Party leadership?

Answer 54

He made a conscious effort to promote a younger, more reformist generation, whose experience in the lower ranks of the Party meant they were more in touch with the realities of daily life in the Soviet Union. Among those promoted were Mikhail Gorbachev, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, all of whom would later play key roles in attempting to reform the Soviet Union.

Question 55

What do Andropov’s methods suggest about his time in power (1982-84)?

Answer 55

That he had a greater desire to meet the needs of the general population and reinforced his belief that reform was needed.

Question 56

Was the Soviet society unstable by 1985?

Answer 56

Despite the failure of the government to address those issues that irritated the Soviet population, it would be wrong to view the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s as socially unstable. There was little public criticism of the government and social conflict was rare. A well-worked system of propaganda, censorship, rewards and sanctions was highly effective, but this should not necessarily be taken to mean that the Soviet public was happy. Grumbling was a popular Soviet pastime.