Control of the People Flashcards
(183 cards)
1
Q
How did Khrushchev have a personality cult? (3)
A
- used photography to stay relevant
- man of the people
- made his son the editor of a government newspaper
2
Q
Why was Khrushchev deemed hypocritical?
A
He criticised Stalin’s cult but attempted to forge one for himself
3
Q
How did Brezhnev have a personality cult? (3)
A
- awarded himself at least 100 medals
- considered good looking and popular
- remained in power whilst being basically dead
4
Q
How many Hero of the Soviet Unions did Brezhnev award himself?
A
4
5
Q
What is evidence of Lenin’s personality cult? (3)
A
- remained in power in spite of War Communism
- official ideology named ‘Marxist-Leninism’
- St Petersburg renamed Leningrad
6
Q
What is evidence of Stalin’s personality cult? (3)
A
- Statues at every major landmark
- Stalingrad site of WW2 victory
- Awarded medals
7
Q
How did Stalin use hagiographies?
A
To officially produce lies and exaggeration
8
Q
What were the 3 stages of Stalin’s cult?
A
- Myth of 2 Leaders - Lenin’s successor
- The Vozhd - Father of the nation
- High Stalinism - God-like
9
Q
How did Khrushchev use newspapers?
A
Pravda reported on Stalin’s terror but not on major disasters
10
Q
How did Khrushchev use Red Blockers?
A
To prevent foreign stations from broadcasting in the USSR
11
Q
How many TVs were in the USSR in 1958?
A
3 million
12
Q
How did what did TV broadcasts in the Khrushchev era present?
A
The USSR as prosperous and life under capitalism as deprived, violent and criminal
13
Q
Which magazine had to carrying political propaganda on the front page?
A
Sovetskii Sport
14
Q
What was Radio Lighthouse?
A
Station broadcasting controlled foreign music
15
Q
How did Brezhnev control radio?
A
- Radio Lighthouse
- Government radios made cheap with limited range
16
Q
What did Brezhnev ban on TV?
A
All aspects of sex, nudity, violence and language
17
Q
What was Glavlit?
A
Censorship office
18
Q
How did Lenin control newspapers?
A
- nationalised the press in 1921
- Pravda made national paper, controlled by the propaganda
19
Q
How did Lenin control radio?
A
- collective listening
- Spoken newspaper (news and propaganda)
20
Q
What was collective listening?
A
Broadcast of programmes on loud speakers to encourage communal mindset
21
Q
How did Stalin use Pravda?
A
Reported false production figures to exaggerate the success of economic plans
22
Q
What did Stalin broadcast on the radio?
A
Red Square Speech 1941
23
Q
How many TVs were in the USSR in 1950?
A
10,000
24
Q
How did Brezhnev control art well? (3)
A
- control and treatment of dissidents was a good deterrent
- people conformed to guidelines
- artists given incentives to write pro-government propaganda
25
How did Brezhnev control art badly? (3)
- Western music was very popular
- underground dissidence
- dissidents remained influential in exile
26
What was Samizdat?
Underground dissident literature movement
27
What did Andropov allow in 1982?
20% of music to be non-Soviet
28
Why did Khrushchev attempt to ban Doctor Zhivago?
It contained criticisms of the revolution
29
Why did Khrushchev hate modern art?
He hated non-conformity and could enforce restrictions on it
30
How did Doctor Zhivago cause the USSR international embarrassment?
It was smuggled abroad and awarded a Nobel Prize despite being banned in the USSR
31
Who was Joseph Brodsky?
Non-conformist poet accused of being a parasite
32
What was the Brodsky controversy?
- sentenced to 5 years hard labour for 'adding no value to society'
- court records were smuggled abroad and he was released due to international pressure
33
Who were Sinyavsky and Daniel?
Dissident writers, accused of anti-Soviet propaganda
34
How did Sinyavsky and Daniel show a weakness and a strength in Brezhnev's control?
- arrests were protested
- they were still sentenced in labour camps
35
How did Khrushchev de-Stalinise art? (2)
- lifted some censorship
- allowed non Socialist Realist
36
How did Solzhenitsyn show de-Stalinisation?
Was allowed to publish anti-Stalinist writing and won a Nobel Prize
37
What was Solzhenitsyn not allowed to publish?
Gulag Archipelago
38
What was Khrushchev's modern art outburst?
Exploded in rage at a modern art exhibition in 1962, filmed by Western journalists
39
What was Stalin's view on art?
Avant garde artists were allowed too much freedom and art should glorify workers
40
What were the aims of Socialist Realism? (3)
- inspire workers
- celebrate economic achievements
- easy to understand
41
What was Socialist Realist art?
Photographic-realist paintings simply reflecting socialist values in order to inspire the masses
42
How was Socialist Realism enforced?
Terror
43
Who was an example of terror enforcing art?
Isaac Babel, arrested and executed for not conforming
44
What was Prolekult art?
Revolutionary art dominated by the Proletariat and free from central control
45
When was Prolekult a national organisation?
1918-20
46
Why was Prolekult shut down?
Lenin became increasingly suspicious of its independence
47
What was Avant Garde art?
New, modern and experimental art, deemed elitist and inaccessible
48
What was Agitprop?
Department of Agitation Propaganda - controlled avant garde
49
What were Khrushchev's policies towards religion?
Increased attacks, closing religious institutions and spreading anti-religious propaganda through the space race
50
Why did Brezhnev reduce persecution of the Church?
Bad reputation in the West
51
How did Brezhnev's government compromise with the church?
The Church was allowed some operation but only if it supported Soviet policies and helped the vulnerable
52
How did Stalin justify initial attacks on the Church?
Linked it to kulaks
53
What happened when churches were closed under Stalin?
Demolished and bells melted down to fund industrialisation
54
What percentage of churches were still open in 1939?
1 in 40
55
What happened to the Cathedral of Christ Our Saviour?
Dynamited with the intention of building the Palace of the Soviets
56
How were Stalin's religious policies resisted?
Congregations met in secret and holy days continued
57
What percentage of Russians were still religious in 1937?
50%
58
What happened to the League of Militant Godless between 1932-38?
Lost 3/4 of members
59
Why did Stalin change religious policy after the outbreak of WW2?
Needed the church to motivate soldiers
60
What were Stalin's religious policies post 1939? (3)
- closed League of Militant Godless
- re-opened churches
- declared WW2 a holy war
61
What was Stalin proclaimed as by the Patriarch?
A 'God chosen leader'
62
When and what was the Degree of Separation of the Church and State?
- 1918
- declared the church could not own property, religion schools was outlawed
63
What was the purpose of the League of Militant Godless?
Spread atheism through propaganda
64
What did the propaganda of the League of Militant Godless portray?
Mary desperate for abortion and women and children being liberated by secularism
65
How many were executed between 1921-2 for resisting seizure of church valuables?
8,000, including 28 bishops
66
Why were Priests massacred in Moscow in the 1920s?
Excommunicated Bolsheviks
67
When was the Living Church established?
1921-46, ended due to little support
68
What was the purpose of the Living Church?
Rival the Orthodox church and divide Christianity
69
Who was Patriarch Tikhon?
Head of the Russian Orthodox church
70
What happened to Patriarch Tikhon after resisting seizure of valuables?
Arrested, freed, demoted and replaced by a member of the living church
71
Who was KGB leader 1967-82?
Andropov
72
What can Andropov's KGB be compared to?
The Stasi
73
How did Andropov reform the KGB?
Brought the KGB closer to Stalinism as he believed dissident movements were very dangerous
74
What were the main 4 methods of Brezhnev's secret police?
- harassment and surveillance
- emigration and exile
- psychiatric hospitals
- media campaigns
75
How did Brezhnev's secret police use harassment and surveillance?
Writers were threatened with blacklisting, warning letters and surveillance
76
How did Brezhnev's secret police use emigration and exile?
High profile dissidents were encouraged to emigrate or internally exiled in Gorky
77
What was Gorky?
A closed city for dissident academics
78
How did Brezhnev's secret police use psychiatric hospitals?
Argued anti-Soviet thinking was a mental illness and heavily 'treated'
79
How did Brezhnev's secret police use media campaigns?
Famous dissidents were smeared and discredited in the media
80
How was dissidence successfully controlled? (3)
- fear and intimidation suppressed movements
- no wide-scale protests
- KBG became more professional and subtle
81
How was dissidence not successfully controlled? (3)
- Samizdat flourished
- USSR gained a poor international reputation
- Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn were rewarded internationally
82
What are 3 examples of Khrushchev's use of terror?
- Execution of Beria
- Hungarian Uprising
- Novocherkassk Strikes
83
When was Beria executed?
1953
84
When was the Hungarian Uprising?
1956
85
What was the Hungarian Uprising?
Reformers aimed to break away from the USSR, 4,000 killed by Soviet tanks
86
When were the Novocherkassk Strikes?
1962
87
What caused the Novocherkassk Strikes?
Increasing prices and decreasing wages
88
What happened during the Novocherkassk Strikes?
- 10,000 workers went on strike, walking over tanks and carrying red flags and portraits of Lenin
- Stormed party headquarters and killed 23 people
89
How did the government cover up the Novocherkassk strikes?
Repaved the entire square to cover up the blood
90
How did Khrushchev reform the secret police? (4)
- criminal code
- scaled down gulags
- reduced size and independence of the KGB
- socialist legality
91
What was the 1960 criminal code?
Banning of night-time interrogations and arrests
92
What is dissidence?
Opposition of governing ideals and the status quo
93
What did political dissidents believe?
The Government are accountable for the lack of human rights
94
What did religious dissidents believe?
Resisted forced restrictions on religious practices
95
Who were refuseniks?
Soviet Jews denied emigration to Israel
96
What did nationalist dissidents believe?
Demanded recognition of their national languages and cultures
97
What did intellectual dissidents believe?
Resisted restrictions on their work and writing
98
When was Yagoda NKVD leader?
1934-36
99
What were Yagoda's developments to the NKVD? (3)
- began Gulag expansion
- created system of forced labour which supported rapid industrialisation
- show trials
100
What was the nickname for Yezhov?
'Poisoned dwarf'
101
When was Yezhov NKVD leader?
1936-38
102
What were the mistakes of Yagoda?
Too slow at organising show trials and failed to catch Trotsky
103
What happened to Yagoda?
Purged in a show trial in 1938
104
What were Yezhov's developments to the NKVD? (3)
- increased executions with order 447
- encouraged denunciation
- execution quotas
105
How many were shot for crimes against the state under Yezhov?
1 million
106
Why was Yezhov executed?
Scapegoated by Stalin, accused of being an enemy of the people
107
When was Beria NKVD leader?
1938-53
108
Why was Beria so feared? (3)
- kidnapped and raped women
- doubled gulag production
- order 270
109
What was order 270?
Treated retreating or captured soldiers as enemies of the state
110
Who were Stalin's 3 NKVD leaders?
- Yagoda
- Yezhov
- Beria
111
How was the Cheka linked to the state under Lenin?
Dzerzhinsky was in the Central Committee and the Politburo
112
Manipulation - Figes (HE by FSP to AM of T and B)
'human engineering by formulating social policies to alter modes of thinking and behaviour'
113
Socialist Realism - Figes (it I a DC on A and W, who were now E to be UO about SL and EA to the M)
'it imposed a deadening conformity on artists and writers, who were now expected to be uniformly optimistic about Soviet life and easily accessible to the masses'
114
Denunciations - Figes (P often WD in the SC that they were P their D as C)
'people often wrote denunciations in the sincere convictions that they were performing their duty as citizens'
115
Consequences of terror - Figes
'Terror atomised society. It broke up the collective unities'
116
Psychological terror - Solzhenitsyn
'beat the dog once and you only have to show him the whip'
117
Propaganda - Stalin
'the production of souls is more important than the production of tanks'
118
Literature - Figes (in no other C did LA as much A - as the V and C of the P - as it did in SR)
'in no other country did literature attain as much authority - as the voice and consciences of the people - as it did in Soviet Russia'
119
How was Islam attacked in the 1920s?
- most mosques shut down
- Imams removed
- Sharia courts phased out
- Ramadan condemned
120
What aspects of Islam were condemned in the USSR for their subjugation of women?
Polygamy and wearing veils
121
Why was radio an easy medium to nationalise for Lenin?
It was very new so didn't have a tradition of independence
122
What was the guiding principle of early Bolshevik newspapers?
Partiinast (party-mindedness)
123
What was banned in media in November 1917?
All non-socialist newspapers
124
How were papers distributed under Lenin?
Made cheap and widely available - given out on the street and in the workplace
125
How did Lenin view newspapers?
As mouthpieces of the bourgeoisie
126
Which institution centralised radio?
The Commissariat for Posts and Telegraph
127
How had radio broadcast the October revolution?
In morse code
128
What was the main benefit of radio in the 1920s?
Allowed the spread of propaganda to the 65% of the population who were illiterate
129
Why were the Bolsheviks so anti the Russian Orthodox Church?
It had been closely tied to the Tsar and presented an alternate ideology to Marxism, also individual centred
130
Religion - Marx
'opium of the masses'
131
What did Lenin attempt to replace baptisms with?
Octoberings
132
What were church valuables seized for under Lenin?
To support the war effort and famines
133
What did surveys of peasantry in the mid-1920s reveal?
55% were still Christian
134
How many bishops had been executed by 1923?
28
135
What did the Cheka change to in 1922?
The GPU then the OGPU in 1923
136
How did the secret police evolve in the 1920s?
Became increasingly independent from the influence of other state institutions
137
In 1939, how many bishops were still at liberty?
12 out of 163
138
How many of the existing churches were closed between 1958-62?
10,000
139
What was the Council of Religious Affairs?
Used by Brezhnev's government to monitor religious services and classify the clergy according to loyalty to socialism
140
Why were Jews and Baptists treated with less tolerance under Khrushchev and Brezhnev?
They were more likely to be critical of the regime and be evangelists
141
What percentage of people believed in God in the USSR in the 1980s?
25%
142
What were the aims of Stalin's personality cult?
Manoeuvre into power in the 1920s and reinforce a personal dictatorship in the 1930s
143
How was Stalin painted in relation to Lenin?
As his natural successor and closest colleague - revolution and civil war hero
144
What is a hagiography?
A writing which deliberately praises a person, turning them into a saint-like figure
145
What is an example of a title that was Stalin awarded?
'Brilliant Genius of Humanity'
146
What were the outcomes of Stalin's personality cult? (3)
- officials sometimes didn't recognise him in comparison to his propaganda
- retained power after Operation Barbarossa
- stampedes and mass mourning after his death, even in gulags
147
What was the aim of Khrushchev's personality cult?
To help him emerge from the collective leadership
148
How did criticising Stalin's personality cult help Khrushchev?
Helped him push de-Stalinisation
149
What was the outcome of Khrushchev's personality cult?
Deemed hypocritical - one of the reasons for his removal
150
What was the aim of Brezhnev's personality cult?
Emerge from the collective leadership as 'first among equals'
151
What was the role of the personality cult of the leader in Soviet society? (3)
- provided a human face and figurehead for the concept of Socialism
- filled a gap left by religion
- continued traditional Russian attitudes to authority that had be shown to the tsars
152
What was the party's aim in controlling art and culture?
Creating a 'new Soviet man', constructing a new culture to replace that of the Tsarist regime
153
What was created under Lenin to support and encourage artists?
The Commissariat of Enlightenment
154
What 3 things influenced avant-garde art?
- the destruction of the old world following WW1
- Modernism
- Futurism
155
Why was art so important for the Bolsheviks?
Extended control to the illiterate population
156
What is an example of avant-garde theatre?
Mystery Bouffe (1918) - a fantasy based on workers beating their exploiters, too confusing and cancelled after one performance
157
What was the Cultural Revolution of the late 1920s?
A further attempt to sweep away old bourgeois elements
158
What did Stalin call artists and writers?
'engineers of the human soul'
159
What policed the Socialist Realist movement?
The Union of Soviet Writers
160
Why was the saxophone banned in the USSR in the 1940s?
The Government's perceived decadent associations with jazz
161
What is an example of Stalinist baroque?
The Moscow Metro, decorated with chandeliers and murals showing the endeavours of workers
162
Which literature movement emerged under Khrushchev?
'Literature of conscience' - depicted spiritual concerns, bleakness of life, abuse and alcoholism
163
Who wrote Doctor Zhivago?
Boris Pasternak
164
Where did the first version of Doctor Zhivago first appear?
Italy, 1957
165
When did Pasternak win a Nobel Prize for literature?
1958
166
When was the trial of Brodsky?
1964
167
When was the trial of Sinyasvsky and Daniel?
1966
168
When was Solzhenitsyn expelled from the Soviet Union?
1974
169
Why did control of art and culture become more important throughout the history of the USSR?
Because terror and censorship decreased
170
Which serious disaster in 1957 was not reported on in newspapers in the USSR?
Kyshtym - nuclear explosion resulting in at least 200 fatalities and 270,000 exposed to dangerous radiation levels
171
What was allowed in newspapers in the 1970s?
Published letters of complaint - but criticising party leaders was not allowed
172
What did Government TV channels provide?
News and documentaries on the achievements of socialism and cultural programmes
173
What was the slogan of the Novocherkassk strikes?
'cut up Khrushchev for sausages'
174
What did Beria call Khrushchev before he came into power?
'moon-faced idiot'
175
What was the KGB?
The Soviet Security and Intelligence Service, established 1954 - organisation that controlled the secret police
176
What did Anna Akhmatova say about Brezhnev's terror?
That people for were no longer just arrested for nothing
177
Who is an example of an intellectual dissident?
Sakharov - nuclear scientist
178
Who is an example of the use of psychiatric hospitals as terror?
Bukovsky 1967
179
What is an example of the insignificance of dissident groups?
1968 uprising in Red Square to protest Czechoslovakian invasion was only attended by 7 people
180
How did Andropov's measures against dissidents succeed?
Their groups were small and divided and in a state of mutual mistrust
181
What was the purpose of labour camps under Lenin?
Reforming class enemies
182
What was the role of the secret police during WW2? (3)
- dealing with desertions
- deporting minorities deemed suspect e.g. Volga Germans
- overrunning areas previously captured by the Germans
183
What was the Doctor's Plot?
The accusation of a group of doctors in 1953 for trying to assassinate Stalin - most were Jewish
