Khrushchev Flashcards

Question

To what extent did Khrushchev transform agriculture - Move towards Sovkhozes

Answer 1

-Initially wants to expand agricultural output, as peasants had been deprived and persecuted by Stalinist regime. Output and morale was chronically low by 1953. Leaders agrred that collectivisation of agriculture had not solved the problem of food production and supply and major change needed, agrued he had a special knowledge of agriculture. -After visiting the US, and seeing lowa, the corn capital of US, became convinced of its course. -Therefore Khrushchev settles for amalgamating the kolkhozy (collective farms) into sovkhozy (state farms) which caused severe social distress in some areas and much upheaval in the countryside. Although smaller collective farms benefited from this scheme, many peasants did not like change and were suspicious of it. However, Khrushchev raised pay to incentivise peasants to work as hard on the collective plots as their private plots and donated more livestock as compensation. -Idea was to encourage local decision makingand increase incentives, -The number of kolkhozy fell from 125000 in 1950 to 69 100 in 1958 as a result of Khrushchev's policies and output of grain rose dramatically in the state sector - up 75% in 1953-8. -Workers on sovkhozes enjoying taxes on farming profits were reduced and experts were sent from Moscow to work and advise at local level. The machine tractor stations (MTS) built in Stalin's time were sold to the farmers. -Guaranteed, fixed wages and received social benefits, not least the prospect of a pension. Also with produce of the sovkhozes flooding into the industrial towns and cities and those working private plots no longer having to make compulsory deliveries to the State, the living standards of rural workers improved considerably. Between 1952 and 1958 farm-workers' incomes more than doubled. Although farm wages were still much lower than those of industrial workers, prospects of real economic advancement were greater than at any time since the NEP

Answer 2

-In 1958, owing to a bad harvest the year before, Khrushchev decided that farms needed access to better equipment, which was in part true. -K sets about decentralising soviet system of agriculture by granting greater autonomy to local Party administrators. By allowing the sovkhozes to purchase their own agricultural machinery, he freed the state farms from their dependence on the Motor Transport Stations. -In 1958 MTS abolished. -By January 1959, around 8000 MTS had been abandoned, leaving only 39 remaining. -Speed of refrom devastating. They had maintained and hired out machinery, now the kolkhozy had to buy the machinery. They had to pay too much and too quickly for machinery and there were not the barns on farms to store it. Mechanics from the former MTS tended to go to the towns where living standards were higher and didnt get same benefits under sovkhozy and so there was not enough expertise to maintain or repair the machinery properly and it was left to rust away, forcing many farmers to return to harvesting crop by hand. -Artificially too high prices also meant that little money for investment in other projects such as dairy production, which was also desperately needed. The cumulative effect of these policies was to create milk scarcity and force prices up in 1962. This provoked disturbances in Novocherkassk (near the Ukrainian border) so severe that armed garrisons from nearby towns had to be brought in to quell the rioters, killing 22 and injuring 39 of the demonstrators.

Answer 3

Khrushchev promised the people in 1961, at the Twenty-Second Party Congress, that by 1980 the Soviet Union would have overtaken the USA in meat production. This would have meant trebling the figures, which, to anyone who knew anything about agriculture, was impossible. Still, it was characteristic of Khrushchev that he didn't heed the advice and instructed the local party secretaries to carry out the plan. One particular secretary (by the name of Larionov) was very keen to impress and managed to treble meat supplies in the region of Ryazan within a year. He did this by foolishly slaughtering every animal in sight, even young animals not really ready for slaughter; he even ordered the slaughter of the region's dairy herds and had to buy meat from other nearby regions to complete his targets. He later committed suicide when his actions were uncovered. The upshot of this was to increase levels of bureaucracy by implementing measures that restricted the number of slaughters that could take place on Sovkhozy. This had the unintended consequence of livestock building up and being wasted, as they became too old to slaughter in the state farms, and animals often became a drain on resources.

Answer 4

Khrushchev eager to associate himself with movement to a new stage in the development of Soviet Society.Khrushchev always remained a 'true believer' in communism, which he interpreted as meaning a better life for ordinary people. Khrushchev wanted to issue an effective summons to action and to revive the mood of the 1920s that there was 'no fortress a Bolshevik cannot storm'. The New Party Programme of 1961 was Khrushchev's contribution and was delivered at the 22nd Party Congress. It has been described as a remarkable combination of self-delusion, wishful thinking and utopianism. Below are some parts of it: -SU already built socialism and was on the way to creating communism -The Communist Party was now a party of the whole people, it was no longer a dictatorship of the proletariat -Communist Party was to be the key institution in the march towards communism -It was to be more accountable to the membership with limits on terms served and rotation of office -A communist society would be complete by 1980 -By 1970 there will be wo housing shortage and the Soviet Union will have overtaken the United States in per capita production. -By 1980 the real income per head will have increased by more than 250 per cent. These claims were made without any proper regard for the views of experts. A classic example of Khrushchev's bravado

Answer 5

-Secret envelopes of cash bonuses for party officials who met targets were stopped. Perks such as chauffeurs and private cars for factory directors were also brought to an end. -Differences between the social classes were reduced, wage differentials were smaller and the differences between town and the countryside, industry and agriculture were being reduced -‘Rule 25’ limited the number of years any official could stay in office and party membership was increased to include more of the working class. -Khrushchev wanted education to be available to all and he spoke out against the high proportion of students from wealthy backgrounds attending university. -Education provision was expanded. The numbers in higher education almost trebled. -In 1958 the school leaving age was increased from 14 to 15 years. Fees for secondary education were abolished.

Answer 6

-Women still shouldered the bulk of domestic responsibilities which still including much queuing for scare items. Russia had the highest rate of female unemployment. -Under the Soviet system, everyone participated in the labor force regardless of gender, says Koenker. In 1967, women made up 41% of engineers there, compared to 2% in the years following the creation of the Soviet Union in 1917.

Answer 7

-In 1964 the improved pension scheme was extended to include collective farmers. They also saw wages increase in this period. -Women and the elderly still carried out much of the agricultural labour as the young were keen to leave for the urban areas.

Answer 8

-In 1956 pensions for elderly, disabled and sick workers were increased from 10 to 30 roubles a month. Particularly important given the impact of the war meant many were left as invalids. -In 1960 the working day was reduced to seven hours (six on a Saturday). In the same year the minimum wage was increased and holiday pay introduced. -1957 housing programme launched. The cheap, and simple design of the prefabricated housing meant the annual rate of housing construction almost doubled 1956-65. -Life in urban areas was still considered better than rural hardship so young people in particular continued to migrate to urban areas -The new housing meant families previously living in communal apartments now had their own private space. Approx. 108 million people moved into new apartments -Khrushchev re-established polytechnical education brought in by Lenin. This was vocational training with work experience. It wasn’t very successful. -More hospitals were built and more doctors trained. More consumer goods were available. Fridges, tvs and washing machines appeared in Soviet homes for the first time. Fridges grew rapidly, rising from 4% in 1960 to 11% in 1965 and 65% by 1975. -The fierce labour laws against absenteeism and changing jobs without permission were repealed. TUs were given greater influence in employment negotiations.

Answer 9

-Atheism was introduced as a school subject. Young people were banned from attending Church services and some were even removed from their parents so they couldn’t be influenced by their religious beliefs. -The party taught that ethnic distinctions would ultimately disappear and restrictions on Jews were maintained -There had been an attitude of tolerance to towards the Church after the war but Khrushchev sought a return to militant atheism. -Anti-religious propaganda and taxes on religious activity were increased. 1959-64 , about three-quarters of all churches and monasteries were closed. Mosques and synagogues were attacked too.

Answer 10

-Khrushchev promoted literature which supported his policies. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovch detailed a prisoners harsh life in the gulags and Khrushchev insisted the Presidium members read it. -Pravda published a poem attacking Stalin and warning against a resurgence of Stalinism – The Heirs of Stalin, 1962. -Literature criticising Stalin was now acceptable but criticism of the Party or the present Soviet way of life was not. The Soviet Writers' Union still controlled what could be published -Boris Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago was not published as it was felt the novel was against the revolution and depicted the Soviet way of life negatively. -Restrictions on contact with Western culture were relaxed. Foerign literature and radio broadcasts were permitted. -There was a partial thaw in cultural life following the ‘secret speech’. Many writers who had been banned under Stalin were able to write again e.g. writer Anna Akhmatova and composer Dmitri Shostakovich -Dr Zhivago was published in Italy and Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for literature. Illegal copies circulated in the USSR. P was expelled from the Writers’ Union and forced to renounce his NP -In 1957 Moscow hosted a World Festival of Youth hoping to win young people over to the Soviet way of life. Instead the Soviet youth embraced the West’s jeans and jazz. -In 1961 the KGB confiscated a manuscript written by Vasily Grossman about the Second World War. It was considered even more damaging than Dr Zhivago. -Manage Affair- Khrushchevs thunderous denouncing of modern art at an exhibition at the Moscow Manage

Answer 11

-Town in Ukraine, takes place on 1 June 1962. Previous day the price of butter had increased by 25% and meat by 30%. Sharp price increases coincide with the announcement of wage cuts at the large electrical works. -The insensitivity of works directors when confronting the crowd of workers inflamed the situation, and unrest spread rapidly. A passing train was stopped with a placard hung on it, reading 'cut up Khrushchev for sausages' -In response to crowds, troops brought in and opened fire and killed 28 people and wounded over 80. -Uprising dealt with swiftly with a 7 ring leaders executed and over 200 arrests , the area was given the highest priority for food supplies and local officials blamed for letting the situation get out of hand and placed under strict orders so there would be no repetition. -Square where shootings take place covered in asphalt overnight to hide blood and bodies buried in existing graves. Unlike under Stalin there were no claims that the unrest was the product of spies and counter revolutionaries. Instead there was a successful news blackout and the full story only came out 30yrs later. -The Novocherkassk uprising was exceptional only in its number of caulaties. The reasons for it, the fact it was workers involved, was typical. There was not mass dissident movement, but it has been estimated that 500,000 soviet citizens participated in mass disorders, disturbances and demonstrations, protest meetings and strikes between 1953 and 1964. -After Novocherkassk there was a decline in the frequency and scale of protests largely because the authorities took greater care to prevent unrest occurring in the first place. Working-class grievances were particularly worrying in an era of rising expectations. The workers' standard of living had to be raised with more consumer goods and above all food prices had to be kept down. From this time on food prices were held down however strong the case for bringing them more closely in line with the costs of production. It was another problem for the command economy:

Answer 12

-Although Khrushchev did not use terror to the same extent as Lenin and Stalin the Soviet Union was still a police state under the KGB (set up in 1954) -Outright opposition from the people remained minimal with Novocherkassk and Tbilisi as the exceptions. Tbilisi – March 1956, violent nationalist demonstrations were held at Tbilisi, Stalin’s birth place, in protest against K’s ‘secret speech’. Political demands such as the change of the central government in Moscow and calls for the independence of Georgia from the Soviet Union appeared. The army was sent to crush the riots. Estimates of the number of casualties range from several dozens to several hundred. -A dense network of informers was maintained: 1957 – ‘Parasite Law’ created armies of citizens to inform on anyone not working - vagrants -Anti-Soviet views were still not tolerated. Dissenters were arrested and threatened - sometimes physically. Although the no. of political arrests decreased -Prison camps remained (although no longer known as gulags) and some were forced into psychiatric hospitals (psikhushkas). In the Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were often used by the authorities as prisons, in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. As such, psikhushkas were considered a form of torture. The official explanation was that no sane person would be against socialism. They were used into the 1980s. -Large-scale economic crimes received the death penalty e.g. Two currency dealers who had made a personal profit of 2 million roubles were executed -Yet, following the secret speech the KGB were reformed. Top officials were replaced by Komsomol members who had formed their careers in the party rather than the police. The KGB was also led by the party rather than an individual. The state was still politically authoritarian but far less feared than it had been under Stalin.

Answer 13

-The 'thaw' allowed for more artistic and intellectual freedom and a new group of cultural dissidents' emerged. Most were keen to promote human rights and greater democracy because the Soviet Union was still a highly authoritarian state with a network of spies and informers. The written word, in particular, was a way of expressing political views, either through works published abroad and then smuggled into the country or through samizdat. This practice entailed the rewriting and retyping of articles, poems and books which were then distributed through personal contacts. It became a genuine underground press, spreading information and opinion on Soviet politics and society. Several writers were imprisoned for criticising the regime and thousands more were condemned for their 'anti-social, parasitic way of life'. -In the early 1960s, Russian Journal 'Novy Mir' changed its political stance from being a Communist propaganda promoter to a more dissident position. In November 1962, the magazine had a circulation of about 150,000 copies per month and became famous for publishing Solzhenitsyn's novella. The magazine continued publishing controversial articles and stories about various aspects of Soviet and Russian history despite the fact that its editor-in-chief, Alexander Tvardovsky, who faced significant political pressure, resigned in February 1970. Solzhenitsyn was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, but many others, such as the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, faced so much harassment they simply defected to the West during the 1960s. -Poetry readings in Mayakovsky Square in Moscow expanded in scope to include controversial issues. The KGB intervened and broke them up. The young Vladimir Bukovsky was taken to a police station, beaten up, and warned: 'Don't ever go to Mayakovsky Square again. Next time we'll kill you!'. He became a leading dissident, best known for exposing the use of psychiatric hospitals against dissidents; he himself had been so confined between 1963 and -Cultural dissidents were, by the 1960s, the most articulate opponents of communism and Solzhenitsyn became one of the chief of their number. The Khrushchev era saw the rapid development of samizdat

Answer 14

1957- Khrushchev was supported by the Central Committee in his removal of the Anti-Party group, opponents of Khrushchev unanimously condemned for factionalism and demoted to border territories. By 1964- The presidium and the central committe voted to remove him. The vote was unanimous. Khrushchev was called to an emergency meeting of the Presidium led by Brezhnev where his personality and policies were criticised. The following day the Central Committee voted to remove him and Brezhnev became Party Secretary.

Answer 15

-After becoming PM in 1958, Krushchev tried to weed out corruption in the party and govt by ending secret envelopes of cash bonuses,for meeting targets, and perks such as chauffeurs and private cars for factory directors. Also instigated 'Rule 25' limiting the number of years any official could stay in office. This caused higher turnover of regional party structure and seemingly made secretaries less loyal or reliant on K in the LR. So, by doing away with the abuses of power, K certaintly built enemies within the party who would sow the seeds of his own downfall, particularly as many of his policies sought to concentrate power in his own hands, such as stalins policies had done. -K also liked to shake up institutions but had no wish to use stalins methods of doing so, this left perssuasion and reshuffling of personnel as the only means avaliable to him: -1956-1961- he replaced over 2/3 of the members of the council of ministers, presidium, loyal party secretaries and half the central committee -1961 limited number of times that leading officials could be elected to the same office to 3. Turnover of at least half the members of the Party committe at lower levels, a third at higher levels -In 1962 he divided the party between parallel hierarchies responsible for agriculture and industry. Especially unpopular among provincial party secretaries who had previously ran the party throughout the province and were asked to chose between industry and agri thus drastically reducing thier power. -What is more, the Party Secretaries had great influence in the Central committe, whose members already resented the limits imposed on their time in office . These people had formed Khrushchev's main power base, and he would have to face the consequences in October 1964. All these changes were reversed very soon after Khrushchey was removed from power. -Khrushchev also extended his policy of decentralisation into industry by abolishing Moscow-based ministries and replacing them with sovnarkhozy (not to be confused with sovkhozes). A sovnarkhoze was largely independent of central control and was free to regulate industrial activity within an area. Each sovnarkhoze covered an area of one of the administrative divisions of the country. Altogether there were 105 and, in 1962, a national sonarkhoze was set up to replace the long established Gosplan and become responsible to the management of the Soviet economy. The local sovnarkhoze were, in part, politically controlled since they were intended to allow local Party leaders to have a greater say in the running of Soviet industry. Khrushchev also wanted the Party to gain the credit for the improved living standards of the Russian people. in 1959, the Sixth Five-Year Plan introduced in 1956 was abandoned in favour of a Seven-Year Plan (1959-65). It was intended to expand the manufacture of chemicals, fertilisers, man-made fibres and plastics and increase the production of oil and natural gas. It was also intended to increase the level of production of consumer goods. Local party officials annoyed by increased interference at a local level and those at centre angered by their loss of authority.

Answer 16

-Khrushchev was seen as unpredictable and explosive and got into the habit of insulting colleagues, who neither forgot nor forgave him. Arrogance was one of the main charges against him when his colleagues deposed him in October 1964. Once committed to an idea he often pursued it without proper consultation. Hence the charge levelled against him of hare-brained scheming) His weaknesses were highlighted in three areas berween 1962 and 1964, all of which contributed to his downfall. -Khrushchev was an enthusiastic traveller and he visited the United States in 1959. However, his international diplomacy could be marred by the most extreme boorishness. The most infamous example was when he banged his shoe on the table at the UN General Assembly in 1960. His interpreters and colleagues were appalled and humiliated at being represented on the world stage by such a leader.

Answer 17

In his diplomacy Khrushchev was determined to show that the USSR was capabl of defending its own interests vigorously. For years the existence of American nuclear missiles in Turkey on the USSR's border had been bitterly resented. A communist revolution in Cuba 90 miles (145 km) from the coast of the United States gave Khrushchev an opportunity to put similar pressure on the USA by placing Soviet missiles on Cuban bases. American spy planes detected the scheme before it was complete and President Kennedy placed a naval blockade around Cuba. The world stood on the brink of a nuclear war that Khrushchev never intended to launch. He drew back. The missiles were removed. In the compromise that defused the situation the USA had promised both to dismantle its nuclear facilities in Turkey and never to invade Cuba. However, part of the compromise was that this should remain secret so the Soviet Union appeared humbled in the eyes of the world. Although Khrushchey had consulted the Presidium throughour the crisis the missiles had been his idea and he alone was blamed.

Answer 18

-In 1958, owing to a bad harvest the year before, K decided that farms needed access to better equipment, which was in part true. It was decided that the MTS should be abolished. By Jan 1959, around 8000 MTS had been abandoned, leaving only 39 remaining. The effect of the speed of this reform was devastating: sovkhozy were forced to buy the machinery from the MTS, which was often old and damaged. Workers who operated the machinery left agriculture altogether, as working for the MTS had come with benefits, which were not found in sovkhozy. This left machines which farmers couldn't operate idle in fields and many state farms returned to harvesting crops by hand, ruining production levels. The machinery was sold to farmers at artificially high prices too, leaving them no money for investment in other projects such as dairy production, which was also desperately needed .Donald Filtzer (1993) offers the example that for a farm to purchase four new tractor tyres, they would have had to have sold 13 tonnes of wheat, putting enormous strain on the sovkhozy. The cumulative effect of these policies was to create milk scarcity and force prices up in 1962. This provoked disturbances in Novocherkassk (near the Ukrainian border) so severe that armed garrisons from nearby towns had to be brought in to quell the rioters, killing 22 and injuring 39 of the demonstrators. -In 1963, the dry summer, the problems of the Virgin Lands campaign and the ellect of devoting 100 much land to maize, meant that the grain harvest was 107 million tonnes and was judged against Khrushchevs boasting and the planned target of 170-180 million tonnes. Khrushchev would take no risks after Novocherkassk. Precious gold and currency reserves were used to buy grain from the West. This was a humiliation for Khrushchev in what he regarded as his field of expertise. When in October 1964 Khrushcher was summoned to a meeting of the Presidium he was accused of gross mistakes in agricultural organisation.

Khrushchev Flashcards

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