Culture. – significant place in USSR, it was used to promote and instil the propaganda ideals of the Soviet system and was part of the transformation of mass society. On the one hand, culture was seen as a positive force, providing education, moral guidance and entertainment for the people, as well as legitimacy for the Soviet state and its ideology. On the other hand, culture was also a weapon of repression and enforced conformity.
The impact of Stalinism on the Church:
Under Stalin, the Church came under more sustained attack:
Religious schools were close down and the teaching of religious creeds was forbidden. By 1941, nearly 40,000 churches had been destroyed.
Sunday was abolished as a religious day of rest. Workers worked for six days a week, with one-sixth of all workers having their day off on any one day of the week.
Many priests were victims of the purges. For example, 4000 priests were imprisoned.
However, while the power of the Church as institution was broken, religious faith continued to be important to many Soviet citizens.
Other religions:
Other religions were also targeted:
soviet Muslims suffered as their property and institutions were seized and their Sharia courts were abolished. Pilgrimages to Mecca were forbidden from 1935 and the frequency of prayers, fasts and feasts was reduced. This led to a backlash in Central Asian regions where some traditionalist Muslims murdered those which followed the Soviet orders. Many Muslims were also executed or imprisoned.
Jewish schools and synagogues were closed down, and there were attacks on Buddhist institutions.
The impact of Stalinism on women:
Trotsky called Stalin’s social policies on the ‘Great Retreat’, as they were seen as a retreat from the radial social experiment of the 1920s, which aimed to liberate women and men from bourgeois traditions and roles. A new ‘family code’ became law in June 1936 which: made abortion illegal, banned contraception, gave tax breaks to mothers with six or more children, made divorce more difficult to obtain and more expensive, made adultery a criminal offence.
Reasons for the ‘Great Retreat’:
The falling birth rate.by 25% between 1928 and 1932
The loss of millions in the famine
Youth crime, prostitution and homeless orphans resulting from broken families.
Stalin’s preference for traditional family roles, which he has associated with stability and discipline
Impact of the ‘Great Retreat’:
Limited effect:
Number of abortions dropped sharply from 1.9 mil in 1935 to 570,000 in 1937, but then began to increase again, reaching 755,000 in 1939. This was despite abortions becoming a criminal offence in 1936.
After a slight rise, the birth rate fell again from 1938 and never reached re-revolutionary levels.
Although women were encouraged to give up paid work when they married, the numbers of women working in factories and on collective farms continued to increase. In 1928 there were 3 mil women working n the USSR; by 1940 this had increased 13 mil.
Encouraging traditional marriage meant that in 1937, 91% of men and 82% of women in their thirties were married, bur divorce rate remained high
Working women were still expected to do housework and childcare rather than thee tasks being shared by both men and women.
The impact of Stalinism on young people:
In the 1920s, education prioritised ideology over knowledge. Stalin saw the 1920s’ education policies as a disaster, failing to produce the skilled workers, scientists and technicians that country needed. In the 1930s the USSR returned to more traditional education, emphasis technical subjects and practical skills.
In 1935, the quota system was abandoned, and selective secondary schools now accepted only the most able, with no preference for children of proletariats.
Selective secondary schools had a rigid academic curriculum, which also promote nationalism and military training in the pre-war years. Discipline was reintroduced. Exams which Lenin had banned were reintroduced.
Higher education was put under the control of Vesenkha. The emphasis was on producing industrial specialists through courses in maths, science and technology.
There was a USSR- wide focus on improving literacy. From around 65% of people being literate before 1917, by 1941 around 94% of the population in towns were literate and 86% in the countryside,
Komsomol:
Soviet youth organisation – increased importance under Stalin:
Komsomol – 1028-year-olds with 10–15-year-old being ‘young pioneers’
Komsomol – encouraged socialist views and discouraged selfish or unhealthy behaviour like drinking alcohol
There were special palaces for Young Pioneers, and free summer and winter holiday camps
Komsomol had always had close links to the Communist Party and became directly affiliated in 1939.
Members took an oath to live, study and fight for the Fatherland. They helped carry out Party campaigns and assisted the Red Army and police.
Many Komsomol members were enthusiastic about fulfilling the FYPs.
Komsomol membership – big commitment but offered a chance for social and political advancement.
The social disruption caused by collectivisation and rapid industrialisation contributed to a large rise in the numbers of orphaned and abandoned children. The regie linked these children to hooligans. This was one reason why children 12 or older committed violent crimes were to be tried as adults.
Although, a minority of youths did not conform to the Party’s expectations and were interested in Western culture, direct confrontation between young people and the Soviet system was rare, despite the regime’s preoccupation with hooliganism.
The impact of Stalinism on working men:
Revolution had promised all power to the soviets, but while skilled working men generally did well, Stalinism but the unskilled workers badly.
Skilled working men:
Improved opportunities from training and education
Wage differentials from 1931 meant skilled workers were paid more
The Stakhanovite movement from 1935 gave some workers some power over managers
A skills shortage in the 1930s meant good workers were in high demand
Unskilled working men:
Many former peasants, escaping collectivisation, found harsh labour discipline difficult to manage.
Many unskilled workers moved from place to avoid getting a bad working record.
Living conditions for the unskilled were poor and overcrowded, with little or o privacy.
Urban and rural differences:
Overall, life in the 1930s was better in urban areas than in the countryside. This changed after 1941 as rationing was reintroduced, as rural inhabitants could grow soe food for themselves.
Life in the USSR under Stalin:
Urban areas:
Positives: regulated hours and wages, workplace canteens and stops, some public transport, free education, opportunities for skilled workers
Negatives: overcrowded living conditions, practically no privacy in communal apartments, denunciations from neighbours, often a lack of basic services, warmer was rationed, problems with crime, food shortages.
Rural areas:
Positives: better access to food, collective farms often had wealth clinics and schools, access to private plots, free education
Negatives: state control over the countryside, trauma from collectivisation, fear of purges and continued focus on kulaks, state requisitioning of most produce, grinding poverty and low status.
The socialist man and woman:
Building socialism was partly about building a new type of citizen: the socialist man and woman. This was linked to the pseudo-science of Trofim Lysenko, who believed that socialist qualities developed in one generation could be inherited by the next.
Qualities of the socialist man and woman:
Party minded dedicated to the Party and its needs
Educated in socialism and science
Works for the good of everyone, not for themselves
Urban and modern, not rural and traditional
Enthusiastic campaigners for socialism and against bourgeois values
Self-sacrificing putting the Party above family or friends
The impact of cultural change:
Stalin’s insistence that Soviet culture must help build socialism was taken up enthusiastically by Komsomol members and some creative figures, who produced socialist realist works or attacked those creating bourgeois art
However, many of the atists and writers of the time who are valued today were targeted by the regime or realised it was best to remain silent, such as the poet Anna Akhmatova, the novel Boris Paternak, and Mikhail Bulgakov, and the composter D Mitri Shostakvich.
Historian Dr John Barber suggested only 1/5 of workers fully supported the regime, with others not persuaded by the regime’s propaganda.
Similarities and differences between Lenin’s and Stalin’s USSR:
| Lenin’s USSR by 1924: | Stalin’s USSR by 1941: |
| Old Bolsheviks carried authority | Old Bolsheviks had gone; the new generations owed everything to Stalin |
| Secret police (Cheka) established | Secret police (NKVD) had wide powers over society |
| Terror used against real or potential enemies | Widespread terror and purges used in a seemingly arbitrary way (although worst had passed by 1940) |
| Censorship & control but some opportunity to experiment in the arts; freedom in schools & limited Party influence in rural areas | Strong elements of totalitarianism in all aspects of society & culture; little opportunity for independent thought & action |