Wartime and post-war Stalin - Society

Question 1

Soldiers in wartime

Answer 1

-discipline in the army tightened
-an offence to be taken captive, family rations cards taken
-red army seen as expendable, 8.6million killed 1941-45

Question 2

Life for workers in wartime

Answer 2

-dec 1941, all undrafted 16-55 men and 16-45 women sent to work to help the war effort
-12 hour working day 70-77 hour working week
-punishments for negligence, lateness, absenteeism

Question 3

Living conditions in wartime

Answer 3

-1/4 of the 25 million deaths due to starvation
-rationing allowance low, only for those who worked
-many forced to leave homes due to factories/germans
-gulag labour used, death rate 25% in labour camps

Question 4

Propaganda in wartime

Answer 4

-played on patriotism to harness people for war effort
-violent anti german letters published in pravda
-1943, socialist anthem replaced with nationalist song

Question 5

Culture in wartime

Answer 5

-artists given more freedom, previously banned returned
-maria yudina, pianist flown into leningrad during seige, performed live and on the radio
-shostakovich composed symphony no7 ‘leningrad’ played at height of siege 9th august 1942

Question 6

Churches in wartime

Answer 6

-russian patriarch was restored, clergy released from camps but had to swear an oath to the soviet state
-stalin wanted church to lift morale, attendance encouraged
-no autonomy, christian denominations under orthodox control

Question 7

The family in wartime

Answer 7

-july 1944 measures to encourage birth rates
-divorce laws tightened, abortion forbidden, property inheritance
-mothers of 2+ made ‘heroins of the soviet union’

Question 8

Women in wartime

Answer 8

-expected to work and raise large families
-1/2 of workers and 4/5 land workers female by 1945
-half a million women fought in soviet armed forces
-pay rates fell from 1930-45

Question 9

Partisans in wartime

Answer 9

-citizens and soldiers trapped behind german lines 1941
-formed partisan groups, used guerilla tactics to sabotage the germans
-1943, 300k+ and 1m+ by 1945

Question 10

Impacts of war on the people

Answer 10

-25m had nowhere to live but wooden huts
-western films, books, music made it to the ussr

Question 11

Zhdanovshchinas purge of journals

Answer 11

-adventures of a monkey by mikhail zoshchenko
-journal of anna akmatovas poetry
-publishers purged and authors expelled from usw
-boris pasternak condemned for apolitical poems

Question 12

Stalinist and Marxist takeover

Answer 12

-study of maths,physics,chem marxist governed
-1950 stalin decided russian would be language of ussr
-stalin published his own views on economic theory 1952

Question 13

The removal of western influence

Answer 13

-non-communist foreign papers, books, radio blocked or translated into russian
-very few soviets allowed to visit the west
-novels/films that were pro soviet and anti-us favoured

Question 14

Living standards 45-53

Answer 14

-peasants income 20% of urban workers
-diets were poor, housing, services in short supply
-working week remained at 12 hours per day
-90% devaluation of rouble in 1947 removed savings