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Give two things Lenin did early on to reduce opposition to media
Decree on the Press (Nov 1917) - government could close down counter-revolutionary newspapers
Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press (Jan 1918) - censorship, Cheka punished journalists
Closed 2000 newspapers by 1921
What measures did Lenin take to help spread Bolshevik propaganda?
Nov 1917 - state monopoly of advertising
All-Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA) distributed all news
High circulation for Pravda
What were the features of the early cult of Lenin?
Depicted as a modern day Christ following assassination attempt
Leader of the Revolutionary Proletariat
Man of the People
What was the censorship office called and when was it established?
Glavlit (1922)
Give two things Glavlit did
Banned books (housed in book gulags)
Employed professional censors
How was censorship expanded under Stalin?
Purged works by Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky
Edited Lenin’s works to remove statements favourable to Stalin’s rivals
1928 - censored bad news (eg. natural disasters, industrial accidents)
How was propaganda expanded under Stalin?
Rewrote Soviet history to emphasise Stalin’s role
Socialist Realist art
Cult of personality
Heroic Soviet workers (eg. ‘The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman’)
How did the medium of propaganda change under Khrushchev?
More consumer culture - magazines, radios, TV
Give an example of Soviet media not supporting Khrushchev
Magazines publishing letters about problems in Soviet society (eg. ‘The Woman Worker’)
How did cinema change under Khrushchev?
Victory in WW2 and Civil War, but now about ordinary people rather than Stalin (eg. ‘Ballad of a Soldier’)
What was TV used for under Khrushchev?
Celebrating the Space Race (eg. Yuri Gagarin 1961)
TV news show - ‘News and Mail’ (1961)
How did film and TV change under Brezhnev?
More about working people and daily lives
About fashionable people living in luxury - encouraged consumerism
How did Brezhnev use TV to help propaganda?
Limited coverage of the war in Afghanistan
Transmitted Brezhnev’s speeches
How did media undermine Brezhnev’s rule?
Footage of him exposed how frail he was becoming
Western magazines increasingly available on black market - showed Western lifestyles
Give two purposes of the cult of Stalin
Give him legitimacy as a leader
Create trust and respect for Stalin
Make them blame daily problems on local officials
What was the ‘Myth of Two Leaders’?
Revolution and Civil War victory achieved by Stalin and Lenin
How did Stalin promote the Myth of Two Leaders?
Edited two histories of the Communist Party (1938)
Altering photos to take out rivals
Socialist Realist paintings of Stalin and Lenin
Photomontages by Klutsis of leaders from Marx to Stalin
Give two other features of the cult of Stalin
Vozhd (leader) - unlimited power
Generalissimo (war leader) - after WW2, focusing on Stalin as a military genius
How was the cult of Stalin promoted?
Photos
Newspapers praised his wisdom
Parades on his birthday
Give three features of Khrushchev’s cult of personality
Reformer who was completing Lenin’s work
Responsible for success in Space Race and Virgin Lands
Authority of literature, art, science, agriculture
Give two reasons why Khrushchev’s cult of personality failed
Linked to failure of Virgin Lands Scheme and Corn Campaign
Highlighted foreign policy failures eg. Cuban Missile Crisis
Give three features of the cult of Brezhnev
Continuing Lenin’s work
Military hero
Dedicated to world peace (détente)
Man of the people
Give two reasons the cult of Brezhnev failed
Exaggerated role in WW2
Young people unconvinced by dedication to peace
Luxurious lifestyle
Subject of many jokes and cynicism
Give three similarities between the cult of Stalin and the cult of Khrushchev/Brezhnev
All linked themselves to Lenin
Emphasised their role in WW2
Leader was focused on unity and loyalty during difficult periods (WW2, Cold War)
Give three differences between the cult of Stalin and the cult of Khrushchev/Brezhnev
K & B were much less successful at winning respect from people
Stalin’s far larger scale
K & B never had such a total personal dictatorship
Give two reasons Lenin disliked religion
Marx saw it as ‘opium of the masses’
Orthodox Church was wealthy and allied to the Tsar
Give three religious minorities in the USSR and where they mostly lived
Muslims - central Asia
Catholics - Lithuania
Baptists - Ukraine
Give three laws on religion that Lenin passed
Decree on Land - peasants could seize Church land
Separation of Church and State - Church land nationalised, religious education banned in schools
Constitution (1922) - freedom of conscience
Give three examples of terror being used against religious groups under Lenin
Bishop of Kiev shot in Jan 1918
Orthodox priests in Moscow massacred
Politburo authorised mass executions of prietss in Nov 1918
How did persecution of the Church increase in the Civil War
Confiscated property
Propaganda blamed priests for sabotaging relief efforts
How was early policy towards Islam less confrontational?
Muslim schools still funded
Encouraged Muslims to join the Party
How was religious policy changed after the Civil War?
Less executions/deportations, more subtle, indirect
Komsomol’s anti-religious propaganda campaigns
What was the Living Church?
Claimed to be a reformed version of the Orthodox Church, deposed of Patriarch Tikhon
Give two anti-Muslim policies of the 1920s
Closed mosques
1927 - Campaign against the veil (aiming for gender equality)
Give two anti-religious policies of Stalin
League of the Militant Godless - propaganda promoting atheism and science
Attacked Muslim priests and intellectuals
why did Stalin make an alliance with the Church during WW2?
Increase patriotism (linked to Russian identity)
Comfort for bereaved families and soldiers
Give two examples of how Stalin treated religion better during the war
Stopped anti-religious propaganda
414 churches reopened
What was Khrushchev’s approach to religion?
Revived anti-religious campaigns from 1958
Give three examples of Khrushchev’s anti-religious measures
Closed 3000 churches
1500 religious activists in gulags
Highlighted space program to undermine religion
Give one way Khrushchev’s anti-religious policy failed
Marches and pamphlets circulated defending religion - new dissident movement
Give two measures Brezhnev took towards religion
Institute for Scientific Atheism (1968)
Stopped anti-religious propaganda and Church closures
What statistic shows the failure of Brezhnev’s religious policy?
20% of people calling themselves religious in 1960 and still in 1985
When was the Cheka created and who was its leader?
Dec 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky
Who did the Cheka target?
All enemies of Bolshevism (including other socialists)
What principle shaped and justified the Cheka’s actions?
‘Revolutionary justice’
Give three ways the Cheka supported early Bolshevik rule
Requisitioned grain and prevented private trading
Extreme violence against enemies
Closed opposition newspapers
Give three examples of continued terror under the NEP
Show trials of SRs in 1922
Made surveillance reports to the Party about moral problems
Deported professors and engineers in 1922
How did Yagoda contribute to the growing terror?
Head of the NKVD 1934-36
Turned the NKVD against the Party
What was the Great Terror also known as?
Yezhovschina
How many people were arrested during the Great Terror?
1.5 million (10% of adult male population)
What evidence is there that terror was directed from below?
Workers and peasants organised their own show trials of officials/factory managers
Who became head of the NKVD in 1938?
Beria
How did terror change during WW2?
Targeted ethnic minorities (eg. deported 460,000 Chechens in 1944, 170,000 dead)
Give three examples of post-war terror
Interrogated 1.5 million Soviet POWs, most sent to Siberia
Leningrad Affair (1949)
Doctors’ Plot
How did terror change under Khrushchev?
Ended mass terror, rehabilitated thousands of Party members and released many from gulags
Promoted popular oversight - people police each other
Psychiatric treatment of dissidents
When did Andropov become head of the KGB?
1967
What was the priority of the KGB under Andropov?
Control dissidents with minimum violence
Move from repression to prevention
Give three ways Andropov carried this out
KGB Order 0051 to increase surveillance and actions
Established special branch ‘Directorate V’ in 1967
Expanded use of repressive psychiatry (1969) easier to hide repression
What did Andropov begin in 1979?
Law and Order Campaign
Give two policies Andropov used from 1982 to deal with discontent
Anti-corruption
Anti-alcohol
Operation Trawl - against drunkenness and absenteeism