Topic 3 facts Culture and Society

Question 1

What was Stalin’s ‘Great Retreat’?

Answer 1

reversed the social experiments of Bolshevism after the revolution

Question 2

what were the qualities of the socialist man and woman?

Answer 2

• party-minded
• educated in socialism and science
• works for the good of everyone
• urban and modern

Question 3

what was the divorce rate in Russia like in the 1920s?

Answer 3

• highest in Europe
• 25 x higher than Britain
• easy divorce often led to women being abandoned
• only 7% of divorces were by mutual agreement

Question 4

what was life like for women in 1920s?

Answer 4

• easily be divorced
• domestic violence and rape still common
• survey showed women worked 8 hr day outside home and 5hrs of domestic tasks at home
• 12.8% of party in 1928 were women

Question 5

what was the Komsomol?

Answer 5

the young communist league made up of mostly unmarried women engaged in politics

Question 6

what was the Zhentodel and when was it set up?

Answer 6

• set up in 1919

- a women’s department that focused on social services, education and protecting women in work

Question 7

when was the new family code written?

Answer 7

1936

Question 8

what did the new family code comprise?

Answer 8

• abortion outlawed
• contraception banned
• divorce made harder and more expensive
• mothers with 6 children rewarded with 2000 roubles a year for 5 years
• adultery was criminalised

Question 9

did the new family code have any significant impact?

Answer 9

• divorce rate remained high (37% in Moscow in 1934) and there were over 150k abortions to every 57k live births
• the years 1929-40 saw a falling rate of population growth

Question 10

what were the impacts on the church during Stalin’s great retreat?

Answer 10

• between 1929-2940, the holy days of Sunday was abolished
• Stalin’s 1936 constitution criminalised the publication or organisation of religious propaganda
• many priests were victims of the purges (800 higher clergy and 4000 priests imprisoned)
• by 1941, 40k christian churches and 25k Muslim mosques were closed and used for other purposes

Question 11

who were Narkompros?

Answer 11

the people’s commissariat for education which provided nursery schools, infant schools and secondary schools.

Question 12

what percentage of teachers were communists in the 1920s?

Answer 12

only 3.1% in primary and 5.5% in secondary

Question 13

what were the impacts on education during Stalin’s great retreat?

Answer 13

• the quota system was abandoned in 1935 and selection reappeared for all
• only 65% of the population had been literate before the revolution. By 1941, 94% of 9-49 yr olds in towns were literate and 86% in the countryside

Question 14

what percentage of time was devoted to each subject?

Answer 14

• 30% russian lang and lit
• 20% maths
• 15% science
• 10% soviet style history

Question 15

what was the Komosomol and when was it founded?

Answer 15

• founded 1926
• a youth organisation who catered for those aged 10-28 yrs
• it taught communist values and had close links to the party

Question 16

when did the Komosomol become directly affiliated with the party?

Answer 16

1939

Question 17

how were the workers affected by Stalinist policies?

Answer 17

• skilled workers did the best as there was a spread of technical education and training opportunities
• the introduction of wage differentials from 1931 and the Stakhanovite movement benefited skilled workers
• living standards dropped considerably with 1933 being the worst year
• overall food consumption in 1933 lower than in 1900 and meat consumption was 1/3 of 1928 figure

Question 18

what was The Proletkult?

Answer 18

• the Commissariat of popular enlightenment (ministry of education and culture) set up by the Bolsheviks after the revolution

Question 19

who headed the Proletkult?

Answer 19

Anatoly Lunacharsky

Question 20

what did the Proletkult do?

Answer 20

• focus moved away from high art to art directed at the mass audience. Workers and peasants were encouraged to produce their own culture
• some radical spoke of getting rid of existing libraries, art galleries and the bourgeois culture of the past

Question 21

how many members and art galleries did the Proletkult have?

Answer 21

400k members with 80k active art stuidos

Question 22

when and why was the Proletkult closed?

Answer 22

• its popularity and size worried the Bolsheviks

- regional offices were closed in 1921 and 1922

Question 23

what was Avante-garde?

Answer 23

• rejected old styles
• many artists welcomed the revolution as an opportunity for cultural experiment and ending Tsarist censorship
• the style was modern and used straight lines and geometrical shapes

Question 24

what was social realism?

Answer 24

• in 1934 the newly founded Union of Writers proclaimed Socialist Realism to be the ‘definitive Soviet artistic method’. Avante garde artists were excluded
• Stalin liked realism as it was easily understood by the masses to tell a story (good vehicle for propaganda)

Question 25

how did Cinema change during this period?

Answer 25

• soviet cinema audiences preferred the works of Hollywood rather than explicit propaganda films
• cinema grew fast, 300 million tickets sold in 1928 alone, though this was nearly entirely restricted to the cities
• between 1936-7, 68 films of 150 had to be withdrawn in mid-production and another 30 taken out of circulation

Question 26

what was Proletkino?

Answer 26

formed specifically for the production of political films in line with party ideology

Question 27

how was Theatre impacted during this period?

Answer 27

• 10 out of 19 plays and ballets were ordered to be withdrawn 1936-7
• 1937-8 60 plays were banned from performance
• 10 theatres closed in both moscow and leningrad
• re-enactment of the storming of the Winter palace in Nov 1920. It involved 10k people and included the palace istself

Question 28

how many writers were killed during the purges?

Answer 28

1500

Question 29

what did Robert Service note about Stalin in his biography?

Answer 29

‘More great intellectuals perished in the 1930s than survived’

Question 30

what was the impact on literature during this period?

Answer 30

• novels used simple, direct language and cheap mass edition books accessible to new literature readership
• titles like: Cement, The driving Axle, The Great Conveyor belt

Question 31

who was Gorky?

Answer 31

a highly esteemed socialist writer who left Russia in 1921 due to the direction of the Bolsheviks. Stalin got him to return and become president of the Soviet Writers’ Union. Main street in Moscow named after him