chapter 16: Leninist/stalinist society

Burzhui

Term used against anyone who would be considered a hindrance to worker or peasant prosperity.

What was abolished in November 1917?

The 'class hierarcchy', where everyone became a plain citizen.

What were former nobility prevented from doing under Lenin?

Not allowed to work a forced to undertake menial tasks, with houses requisitioned and turned into kommunalka for the workers.

Kommunalka

A communal dwelling, with building committees allocated to housing blocs. Typically two to seven families shared a hallway, kitchen and bathroom, with each family with their own room.

What did rations depend on the civil war?

Depended on 'work value' with workers and soldiers receiving the most, while essential civil servants received barely enough to survive on.

What did the NEP reprive?

The more capitalist policy evidenced agar Russia still needed bourgeois specialists for economic growth.

Byt

The campaign against a bourgeois 'way of life'.

What was a 'socialist man'?

A new type of citizen wig publicly engaged with the community, with a sense of responsibility and willingly give service to the state.

Proletarianisation

To turn the mass of the population into urban workers; it was believed that this would achieve a socialist state. Ridding society of selfish capitalist attitudes.

What were issued during the civil war?

Internal passports, preventing workers from leaving their employment.

How was the urban labour force doubled by 1932?

forced Peasant collectivisation under Stalin.

What did the drive for industrialisation bring?

A 7-day working week and longer working hours.

What was introduced from 1931?

Wage differentials, bonuses and piece rate payments allowing a more diverse proleteriat.

What eased workers restrictions?

From 1931, workers were allowed to choose their place of work and disciplinary rules were eased.

Who was Aleksei Stakhanovite?

in August 1935 mined 102 tonnes of coal in 6 hours, 14 times the normal amount, hailed as an example of human determination.

Effect of Stakhanovite movemner

Competitions arranged to emulate Stakhanov's achievement, resulting in a number of world records. Became a way of forcing management to support their workers to increase production.

What did Stalin's industrialisation do for society?

Provided new opportunities for social advancement, with his purges reducing competition for jobs creating vacancies at the top.

What were the realities of workers life under Stalin?

Living conditions in the countryside remained primitive, while in towns workers lived in communal apartments with poor sanitation and water supplies.

What was phased out in 1935?

Rationing, but market prices remained high and those important positions could obtain goods more cheaply.

What was reintroduced on the prospect of war?

Discipline for workers, being 20 minutes late became a criminal offence, in 1940 the free labour market was ended.

Role of women before the revolution

Peasant women were expected to attend to households and children, also expected to play part in farming and small-scale domestic economy , but without legal privileges.

What was decreed against in November 1917?

Sex discrimination and women given the right to own property.

What influence was removed in November 1917?

Church influence, recognising only civil marriage.

What was made easier and less expensive?

Divorce, in November 1917

What was legalised in 1920?

Abortion, to protect against high mortality rates.

What gave women in 'common law' marriages?

A new family code in 1926, in 1928 wedding rings were banned.

Role of women in work (Lenin)

Given the right to work and expected to, but in reality were also expected to attend to households tasks swell as paid employment, with double the burden of work.

What did Stalin focus propaganda on?

Family, where Stalin presented himself as a father figure , attacking divorce and abortion, re-emphasisng the importance of marriage.

How were women presented under Stalin?

More famine and maternal with the role of attending to children.

What was introduced to deter divorce in 1936?

Large fees, with added penalty rear neb would have to pay 60% of income in child support.

What was criminalised in 1936?

Adultery, with names of male offenders published in press.

What were offered to large families from 1936?

Financial incentives, with tax exemptions for families of 6 or more and bonus payments for every additional child from 10.

How did the female industrial workforce change?

3 million in 1928 to 13 million in 1940 (43% of industrial workforce). Number of women in education doubled and many worked on collective farms.

What helped women cope with family and work?

Growth in state nurseries, creches and canteens under Stalin, but still earned 40% less than men.

Effects of Stalins changes on women

Divorce rate remained high, 37% Moscow 1934, with over 150,000 abortions to 57,000 live births with a falling rate of population growth.

What was the Commissariat of Enlightenment?

Set up by Lenin, provided free education at all levels in coeducational schools.

What was abolished under Lenin?

Old secondary gimnazii, replaced by new secondary schools that combined general education and vocational training.

What was abolished in schools in the 1920s?

Textbooks and examinations, as there were insufficient textbooks with a communist framework but physical punsihment was banned.

What did Stalin reintroduce into schools?

Involved more formal teachings under 5 year plans, schools became the responsibility of collective farms or town enterprises.

Who were in charge of universities under Stalin?

The veshenka

What was abandoned in schools in 1935?

The quota system, which previously allowed working-class children places at secondary schools. Replaced by a system of selection.

Curriculum under Stalin

Reading, writing and science with 30% of time to Russian language and literature, 20% to maths, 15% to science, and 10% to soviet style history.

What was introduced into schools before the war?

Military training

What happened if students failed to do well?

Techers would be blamed and purged.

Improvements in Education under Stalin

By 1941, 94% of the 9-49 age group were literate in towns and 86% in the countryside.

What was formed in 1918?

A Russian Young Communist League (RKSM), for those aged 14-21, extended in the 1920s to become the youth division of the communist party. Renamed Komsomol in 1926, and extended from those aged 10-28.

What did Komsomol teach?

Communist values, discouraging smoking, drinking and religion but encouraging volunteer social work and sports.

What served as community centres in Komsomol?

Young pioneer palaces, with summer and winter holiday camps were organised free of charge.

What did Komsomol members become increasingly associated with?

The party, from 1939 swore an oath to live study and fight for the Fatherland 'as the Great Lenin has instructed'.

What was Komosomolskaia Pravda?

A Youth newspaper which encouraged young people to protect family values and respect their parents.

What did Marx describe religion as?

the opium of the people

What did Lenin allow toleration of?

Freedom of religion worship after revolution, and accepted the christian orthodoxy majority.

What were seized in 1917?

Church lands, and church schools and seminaries were taken over by the state, with official separation of church and state in 1918.

What was forbidden in schools from 1921?

The teaching of religion.

What became state property from 1921?

Monasteries, turned into hospitals, schools prisons and barracks.

Who was arrested in 1922?

The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church Tikhon, due to his opposition to the direction of government policy, he was related and given a state funeral in 1925.

Why was Sergius, patriarch of the Orthodox Church released in 1927?

Agreed to signing a document to stay out of politics in return for state recognition of the orthodox church, to be accepted by all priests.

How did the Church suffer during the civil war?

Bells were seized and melted down and sold to support famine relief.

What was founded in 1923?

'The Godless', newspaper and in 1925 later formed 'League of the Godless to coordinate anti-religious propaganda.

Changes in religion under Stalin

1929 worship was restricted to 'registered congregations' and 'uninterrupted six-day work week' prevented a holy day of church attendance from 1932.

What was criminalised under the 1936 constitution?

The publication or organisation of religious propaganda.

Treatments of Muslims

After civil war, muslim property and institutions were confiscated and sharia courts were abolished. Pilgrimages to Mecca were forbidden from 1935 with the frequency of prayers, fasts and feasts reduced.

Converted religious buildings

By 1941, 40,000 christian churches and 25,000 mosques had been converted into various state buildings. But in 1937 57% of population still defined themselves as believers.

What did Finland become in 1917?

An independent state

Who were given separate representation in the party?

All the major national minorities.

What were Jews given in 1926?

A 'national homeland', part of the far eastern province, became an autonomous republic in 1934.

What encouraged greater cultural centralisation?

Stalin's drive in the 1930s, to create a single 'soviet identity', with leaders of different republics purged.

What became compulsory in schools form 1938?

In all soviet schools, learning Russian.

When did deportations of non-russians begin?

In the 1930s, alongside a growth of anti-semitic attitudes.

What did Stalin divide central asia into?

Five separate republics, forcing the migration of muslim ethnic groups to weaken loyalty to a single muslim state.

What was granted with the Nazi-soviet pact?

A soviet sphere of influence in the baltic states, Finland, eastern Poland and Bessarabia.

What did Stalin rely on to harness support for collectivisation?

Propaganda, distributing pictures full of happy, productive workers with role models such as stakhanov.

Who was Pavlik Porozov?

Displayed as a model citizen in propaganda, denounced his father as a kulak and was killed by angry relatives.

What was Stalin displayed as in propaganda?

As a natural continuation from Marx to Engles to Lenin then Stalin in progression.

What did Peasants often create in their homes?

A 'red corner', of the great leaders in their homes.

What was the 'silver age' of Russian culture?

Lenin encouraged freedom of expression, stimulating artistic creativity and innovation.

What did Stalin consider art as?

They were only valuable if they supported socialist ideology and the creation of the new socialist man.

What was the 'Union of Soviet writers'?

From 1932, all writers had to belong to it, exerting control over both what was created and who was allowed to create it, with individual expression deemed politically suspect.

What was 'social realism'?

The truthful historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development. Writers were to show what soviet Russia was to become.

Who was Andrei Zhdanov?

Andrei Zhdanov was a former Bolshevik, who had worked his way up through party ranks to replace sergei kirov as party secretary in Leningrad in 1934, died suddenly in 1948.

What was the frame of reference for writers?

laid by Zhdanov in 1934, works were expected to glorify age working man and community working together and embracing new technology.

What was 'Chaos instead of music'?

Published in Pravda in 1936, criticised Dmitry Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, with Stalin accusing the composer of leftist distortions.

What did the stalinist era see a return to?

19th century Russian works, as the 'ordinary people' could understand and relate to it, with Landscape art revived and return to Russian classical composers such as Tchaikovsky.

What epitomised socialist realism in architecture?

Transformation of Moscow, with Lenin's shrine in the red square, in 1935 five red stars replaced imperial eagles. Aswell as the Moscow metro in 1935, with mosaic patters and marble floors to inspire pride and reverence.