Social and Cultural Transformation - Russia essay

Repression and Terror - Content

The Great Purges (1936-38) - mass executions + fear
NKVD - Targeted political dissidents + enemies of state
Reversal of indigenisation - Organised mass deportations of ethnic minorities (172,000 Koreans deported to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan)
Religious suppression - Destruction of The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
Arrests of thousands of clergy during terror of 1937-38.
Use of agitators + sympathisers - ‘League of Militant Atheists’
Gulags - system of labour camps: imprisoned, tortured and killed political and social opposition.
1937 - approx. 18 million sent to labour camps, 10 million dead.

Repression and Terror - Religious suppression quote

“an attempt to erase centuries of tradition, but faith endured despite state pressure.” (Pipes)

Repression and Terror - Climate of constant fear: Gulags

“They had become a means of eliminating political enemies and creating an atmosphere of fear and submission” (Applebaum)

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: enshrined idea of free/universal health care.

1936 Soviet Constitution

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: limitations of healthcare

Limited by lack of funds and resources - some clinics well resourced, others suffered shortages of staff.

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: Urban migration stat

USSR’s working population - industrial workers went from 10% (1924) to 34% (1939)

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: Urban migration implication for quality of life

Required modern planning to improve quality of life - never achieved: 80% of citizens lived in kommunalka (communal apartments) with little privacy, no more than 1/3 of residents had running water.

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: Urban migration implication for quality of life quote

Stalin’s policies industrialised the USSR, but “did so at the cost of the workers’ quality of life”

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: Women

Expected to be loyal workers outside of home through manual labour.
Family code of 1936: Divorce made difficult to obtain, Birth bonuses granted to women who had 7 children or more, Abortion illegalised, Homosexuality and prostitution made illegal.

Social and Economic Impact (Healthcare + Living conditions) - content: Return to conservative attitudes ‘Great retreat’ quote

Stalin’s cultural polices were designed to “effectively stifle dissent and promote totalitarian control” (Fitzpatrick)

Education + Youth Indoctrination - content: Restructuring of education

Stalin emphasised practical subjects like physics and maths
Structured timetables/strict programming - more rigid and disciplined.
History rewritten to glorify Stalin, Trotsky was erased.
Began to be dominated by Marxist-Leninist ideology

Education + Youth Indoctrination - content: Education improvement stats

Funding for education in the USSR - increased by 400% (1932-1937)
Number of children in schools - 12 million to 31 million (1928-40)
Compulsory schoolin in 1937 - literacy rates 75%, however limited education in “bourgeoise” fields.

Education + Youth Indoctrination - quote: Nature of education

Stalin’s education policies aimed to create “a disciplined and loyal workforce rather than free-thinking individuals” (Fitzpatrick)

Education + Youth Indoctrination - content: Youth groups

Komsomol - promoted loyalty to the Communist Party to millions of youths.

Control of Media and Propaganda - content: Socialist realism

Promoted ideal Soviet citizen and silenced opposition
Drew on traditional myths + stories to promote heroic individuals and groups.
Artists who produced works favourable to government - received benefits such as better housing, food, money, influence.

Control of Media and Propaganda - quote: Socialist realism

“Designed to create a new Soviet identity” (Fitzpatrick)

Control of Media and Propaganda - content: Film

Expanded despite censorship, shaped to emphasise ideology of state.
Number of cinemas - 17,000 to 31,000 (1927-37)

Control of Media and Propaganda - content: News + Radios

State controlled all major newspapers and radio stations
Subject to censorship e.g. famine of 1932-33 covered up.
60 radio stations in Soviet Union (1933), 3.5 million receivers (1927)

Control of Media and Propaganda - content: Music

The Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians - attacked anything experimental, modern or ‘bourgeois’

Control of Media and Propaganda - content: Censorship quote

“Stalin transformed the arts into a tool of the state” (Lewin)