Russia 1.4 Flashcards
(237 cards)
1
Q
What undermined the system’s capacity to provide benefits for all?
A
Economic problems
2
Q
What was a pragmatic reason for transforming society?
A
Social benefits in exchange for conformity and loyalty.
Equality of the sexes - more possible output. Also for the revolution to take place the vanguard of the revolution needed to be there in the first place, and then needed to be loyal to the state.
3
Q
What were ideological reasons for transforming society?
A
Destroying economic and sexist oppression seen in capitalist societies.
4
Q
In 1918, Lenin published the Declaration of the Rights of Toiling and Exploiting People. What did this include?
A
The Declaration abolished the private ownership of land. Capitalists could no longer make money by simply owning things.
The Declaration introduced universal labour duty - designed ‘to eliminate the parasitical layers of society’ by ensuring everybody worked - capitalists could no longer live off the labour of others.
5
Q
What caused economic chaos in 1917?
A
Both revolutions.
6
Q
Between March and August of 1917, how many industrial enterprises closed?
A
570
7
Q
By October 1918, how many were unemployed?
A
100,000
8
Q
War Communism was based on a relationship between who?
A
The government and workers. Workers had a duty to provide labour, and the government had a duty to provide food and basic amenities.
9
Q
What ended widespread unemployment and what ensured this?
A
Widespread unemployment ended by introduction of compulsory labour - from Sept 1918 able-bodied men between 16 and 50 lost the right to refuse employment.
People in work issued a work card - entitled them to food rations.
10
Q
At the height of the rationing system, how many products were being rationed and how many people were entitled to ration cards?
A
36 products
22 million
11
Q
What did a work card give access to, at least in Moscow and Petrograd?
A
Free public transport and rations.
12
Q
What percentage of people living in Moscow did the government claim were regularly fed in communal dining halls?
A
93%
13
Q
(Failure)
Why was compulsorily labour unsustainable in the conditions of the Civil War?
A
By July 1920 factories were closing due to fuel shortages - government response was forcing the unemployed to search for fuel or join food detachments (groups of men organised to search villages for food).
14
Q
(Failure)
How much of the food and fuel people needed to live on did War Communism actually provide?
A
50%
15
Q
Between 1917 and 1921 the Pertrograd population fell ____ . The total population of factory workers was reduced by ____ during the Civil War.
A
50%
25%
16
Q
What disappeared as a result of the NEP?
A
The relationship between government benefits and compulsory work disappeared under the NEP.
17
Q
Why was unemployment high after the Civil War?
A
1921 and 1922 millions of soldiers from the Red Army were demobilised.
Urban workers who had left the cities returned at the end of the Civil War.
Government sacked 225,000 administrators who were employed to administer War Communism.
18
Q
What was the unemployment rate in 1921 and in 1924?
A
5.5%
18%
19
Q
What ensured unemployment remained high?
A
Aims to increase productivity.
20
Q
The 1922 Labour Law
A
The 1922 Labour Law gave unions the right to negotiate binding agreements about pay and working conditions with employers.
21
Q
How many people did social insurance cover?
A
9 million
22
Q
Was the system of social insurance successful?
A
System of social insurance was the most comprehensive and extensive in the world. However peasants were excluded due to the government’s focus on the special position of the proletariat.
23
Q
Was there a gap between the urban workers and the rural peasants by the end of the NEP?
A
Yes. While unemployment remained a major problem, urban workers were clearly better off in 1926 - paid 10% more and ate more meat and fish while peasants did not benefit from the social insurance available.
24
Q
To Stalin, what were the Soviet workers and why did he want full employment?
A
For Stalin, Soviet workers were a crucial economic resource, central to building socialism - he wanted full employment to ensure rapid industrialisation.
25
By when had the USSR reached full employment?
1930
26
How many hired workers were there in 1927? In 1937?
1927 - 11.6 million
1937 - 27 million
27
What was the impact of full employment on workers?
Low productivity. In 1927, the average Soviet worker produced only half of what an average British worker produced. This only worsened.
Working conditions deteriorated - to Stalin, industrial workers were expendable.
Harsh labour laws.
28
What were the harsh labour laws which Stalin introduced?
Lateness was criminalised.
Unions lost the right to negotiate with factory managers.
Damaging factory property was criminalised.
Strikes were banned.
The ‘continuous work week’ - Factories and mines could work seven days a week. To meet production targets, managers used uninterrupted work - day and night shifts so that machinery could be kept busy 24 hours a day.
In 1939, absenteeism was criminalised since labour was in short supply.
29
Why was an internal passport system introduced and when was it introduced?
In 1932.
Managers feared not meeting targets due to labour shortages as people often changed their job in search for better employment.
Food rations were distributed through the work place - ensured workers were where they were needed.
30
Was the internal passport system successful?
Partly successful but even by 1937, 30% of all urban workers changed their jobs in each quarter of the year.
31
What was the issue with offering skilled workers higher wages in 1934 to incentivise more people to become skilled workers?
Higher wages were only a small incentive since there was so little to buy in shops.
32
What benefits did the Five-Year Plan bring?
Workers were entitled to food rations and by 1933 most Soviet citizens had access to electricity.
During the 1930s, 30,000 km of railways were built, increasing access to transport. Passenger traffic increased by 400% in the 1930s. The Moscow Metro opened in the 1930s.
Significant increase in healthcare provision - mass vaccination campaigns dealing with several diseases.
Factory and farm canteens provided meals for workers.
33
Why did Stalin makes benefits only accessible through factories or collectives in the 1930s?
This re-emphasised the link between work and social welfare and ensured that the only way to access benefits was through work. Disincentivised absenteeism.
34
Were peasants still worse off than urban workers?
Yes. Peasants benefited much less than workers - not entitled to rations, and food was much scarcer on farms than in cities (vast majority seized). During the late 1930s farm workers had to travel to towns to buy bread.
35
Why did Stalin place doctors at factories and collectives and why were they strict?
It was designed to keep workers healthy enough to keep working.
Doctors were strict about allowing people to have time off due to illness.
36
the number of doctors increased from _______ (1928) to _______ (1940) and the number of hospital beds rose from _______ (1928) to _______ (1939).
70,000
155,000
247,000
791,000
37
Was there inequality between Party officials and Soviet citizens in health are?
Soviet healthcare operated a ‘Party first’ policy - guaranteed vaccines and medicine. In a city in the Ukraine all Party officials were vaccinated but there were 26,000 cases of malaria in the working population (1933) up from 10,000 (1932).
38
The industrial workforce increased from _______ (1945) to _______ (1950)
8 milllion
12.2 million
39
What improvements in healthcare were made between 1940 and 1953?
Infant mortality declined by 50% between 1940 and 1950.
The number of medical doctors increased by two-thirds between 1947 and 1952.
Vaccines for common diseases were made universally available from 1947. Malaria declined rapidly from 1949.
40
Despite the expansion in healthcare, how did food shortages, poor housing and poverty caused by the worse counteract the expansion?
The planned economy struggled to produce simple commodities (soap, warm clothing and shoes) - greater health problems.
Food was a major problem. Work canteens used rotten food, animal feed and other products that were unfit for human consumption to make up for food shortages - led to illness.
Sanitation in factories and farms often inadequate - lice infestations and outbreaks of vomiting.
Hygiene education was poor - not until 1947 that there was a publicity campaign encouraging workers to ‘use the toilet in a civilised fashion’ and wash their hands afterwards.
41
How many days off a year did the average Soviet worker take due to illness in 1946?
10 to 13 days.
42
Under the NEP, what percentage of urban housing was denationalised?
60-80%
43
However, in 1923 and 1924 what was nationalised to create more housing. This is in addition to what other establishment.
In 1923-34 large town houses were ‘socialised’ - owners given a single room while working-class families moved in. Often the authorities thought that one room was enough for an entire family.
At the same time, Church property was nationalised, priests were evicted from their cottages and Church buildings were turned into stores or housing.
44
Under the NEP, how much of house building was undertaken by private companies?
89%
45
The urban population _____ between 1929 and 1940
Tripled
46
What were kommunalka?
What size was the average family kommunalka in 1930?
In existing cities Soviet authorities divided buildings into small kommunalka (communal apartments). Families shared one room and bathrooms + kitchens were shared. The average family kommunalka was 5.5 square metres in 1930.
47
By 1940 what was the average kommunalka and why?
Pressure on housing - kommunalka being redivided - by 1940 the average kommunalka was 4 square metres.
48
In the Lyubertsy district of Moscow, the _______ did not have a single ________.
650,000
Bathhouse
49
What else was converted into accommodation?
Who were ‘corner dwellers”?
How much could space in a corridor cost?
Coal sheds and under-stair cupboards converted into accommodation.
‘corner dwellers’ - lived in corridors or communal kitchens within kommunalka buildings - space in corridors could cost as much as half a month’s wage and corridor living was permanent
50
In 1936, what percentage of rented units of housing consisted of more than one room?
In 1936 what percentage lived in a kitchen or a corridor?
6%
8%
51
In Factory towns, instead of housing there were ________ which lacked ____________
Dormitories occupied by several families.
Basic necessities (paved streets, electric lights)
52
In Magnitogorsk, what percentage lived in mud huts?
20%
53
How much of urban housing was damaged or destroyed between 1941 and 1945?
1/3
54
The average worker living in dormitories had just _____ square metres?
3
55
Worries in Moscow coalfields had just 15,000 beds for how many workers?
26,000 workers
56
Under the Fourth Five-Year Plan, why did housing projects fail? Provide the example of Moscow.
House building not a major priority under the Fourth Five-Year Plan - budgets were small, and management inefficient. Workers were often reassigned to other projects. In the first half of 1948 house building projects outside Moscow spent 40% of their budget and were then suspended - not a single house was completed.
57
In the Ukraine, Khrushchev built gown many house in how many new farming villages and why did Stalin veto his same plan for Moscow?
919,000 houses in 4000 farming villages.
Expense.
58
Did Stalin’s policies create the housing crisis?
Industrialisation always took precedence over housing. In many ways, Stalin’s policies created the housing crisis, which worsened by the Great Patriotic War.
59
What saying by Khrushchev summarises his policies?
“What sort of Communism is it that cannot produce sausage”.
60
What labour laws were introduced in 1956 and 1957?
A minimum wage was introduced in 1956 to ensure no workers were below the poverty line, the working week was reduced in 1957 and the number of days’ paid holiday increased.
61
What early healthcare advancements were made?
The Soviet healthcare budget doubled - 21.4 billion roubles in 1950 to 44.0 billion roubles in 1959.
Infant mortality reduced from 81 per thousand live births in 1950 to 27 by 1965.
62
Which welfare reforms were made in regards to pensions, transport and lunches?
The pensions quadrupled between 1950 to 1965 - partly because the number of pensioners increased from 1 million in 1950 to 4.4 million in 1965 as it was expanded and the retirement age was reduced.
Major reforms introduced in 1961 improved social benefits:
Free lunches in schools, offices and factories.
Free public transport.
Full pensions and healthcare rights for farmers.
63
How much did consumption per capita increase annually under Khrushchev?
3.8%
64
Between 1960 and 1965 the amount of urban housing more than ______ from ____ million m² (1951) to _____ (1961).
Doubled
178
394
65
What were Khrushchyovka?
Cheap mass housing blocks that were designed to be temporary but became the standard for all new homes.
66
What was the K-7 apartment block?
It could be constructed quickly and easily from large prefabricated panels and standardised windows and doors.
67
How did Khrushchyovka transform Soviet family life?
They were 10 times bigger than the kommunalka.and allowed families to have an entire apartment.
Privacy was recreated and so the authorities could not longer keep a check on the population through informants in dormitories or kommunalka.
68
What was Brezhnev’s goal?
The promotion of a stable society.
69
What did the Soviet Constitution of 1977 guarantee in terms of welfare?
the Constitution also granted social and economic rights not provided by constitutions in some capitalist countries. Among these were the rights to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits. (Suggests Brezhnev saw a problem that needed to be addressed).
70
What was the ‘social contract’?
A rising standard of living and greater social benefits for obedience and conformity. In that sense, the Soviet people traded political rights for economic well-being.
71
What did Brezhnev’s ‘social contract’ guarantee?
Job security through guaranteed full employment.
Low prices for essential goods
A thriving second economy, free of government interference.
Social benefits - e.g. free healthcare.
Some social mobility.
72
How much did spending on health and pension grow annually under Brezhnev?
4 to 5%
73
Between 1950 and 1980, state welfare increased _________
Fivefold
74
Were pensions still insufficient?
Whilst pensions rose, they remained insufficient at 40 rubles per month in 1980. This encouraged many to continue to work part-time after retirement.
75
Did living conditions in the countryside improve?
Incomes of collective farmers increased when the government introduced regular wages in 1966 rather than payment based on a share of a farm’s income. By the mid 1970s the wages of rural workers were only 10% less than their urban counterparts.
76
How much did real wages increase by between 1966 and 1977?
50%
77
Why was greater spending power not always a good thing for Soviet citizens?
Soviet citizens more spending power, but most accumulated savings because of scarcity in the shops and that low prices were fixed by the government. Absenteeism was often the result of people having to stand in long queues for food.
78
By the 1970s at what percentage was hidden unemployment?
20%
79
How many unfilled vacancies were there in the late 1970s?
1 million
80
What percentage of Russians were out of work by 1985?
2%
81
What did infant mortality increase to in the 1970s and what did the life expectancy decrease to in the dame period?
In spite of increased health spending, Soviet health declined. Infant mortality increased from 3% to 7% in the 1970s while life expectancy declined from 68 to 64 years for men in the same period (Alcoholism).
82
Evidence for inequalities between urban areas (Moscow) and other republics?
Also major inequalities - best medical services in Moscow and then other cities whereas the Central Asian republics were particularly badly served - even as recently as 1988 some hospitals did not have heating or running water.
83
Why were there protests in 1962?
Why were there strikes and riots in Sverdlovsk in 1969 and in Gorki in 1980?
Why was there unrest in Kiev in 1969?
Wave of protests over increase in price of meat and dairy products in 1962. Strikes and riots over food shortages in Sverdlovsk in 1969 and Gorki in 1980. Unrest over poor housing provision occurred in Kiev in 1969.
84
What was the Freed Trade Union Association of 1977 and what was the government’s response?
The setting up of the Free Trade Union Association in 1977 was different - sought to represent grievances rather than having to rely on government-controlled, thus restricted, trade unions. The government took action quickly, the organisation’s leader was dismissed from his job and had his flat taken away - what the state had provided could be taken away. The Association gained little support.
85
What was the divorce rate in 1979?
34%
86
Between 1940 and 1980, by how much did the Soviet population grow? In the same period how much did alcohol consumption increase?
How many estimated alcoholics were there in 1987?
25%
600%
20 million.
87
What early measures took place to bring about the equality of sexes, and why?
Ideology.
In 1917, the Bolsheviks rushed through a series of decrees that gave women greater status and freedom within marriage: divorce was made easier and abortion was legalised.
Principle of equal pay passed into law in 1917 and maternity leave was granted. The Soviet constitution of 1918 declared that men and women were equal.
88
Which organisation recruited women from towns to fill jobs in nursing and food distribution?
Zhenotdel
89
How many women fought in the Red Army?
70,000
90
In 1922, what did the government close and of all unemployed in towns and cities, what percentage were women?
Crèches.
62.2%
91
What made female prostitution widespread in the 1920s?
During the 1920s, what estimated percentage of urban men used prostitutes?
High unemployment and the famine.
39%
92
The number of female workers rose by how much between 1928 and 1940?
1928 - 3 million
1940 - 13 million
93
By 1940 what percentage of workers in heavy industry were women?
41%
94
Women were paid only _______ of men’s wages for the same job.
60-65%
95
Women dominated which industry?
Light industry
96
In 1929, the government reserved what percentage of places for women and what percentage of higher education was being taken by women at that point?
20%
14%
97
By 1940 what percentage of engineering students were female?
40%
98
During the Great Patriotic War, women made up to what percentage of the workforce in some towns?
75%
99
During the 1960s, around _____ of industrial jobs went to women. Despite this:
________
________
45%
Production line work in light industry - intensive but required low levels of skills - e.g. textiles.
Heavy manual labour, which was also low skilled.
100
Between 1959 and 1965 less than what percentage of factory foremen in the textile industry were women?
1%
101
By the mid-1960s, what percentage of able-bodied people who did not work were female?
90%
102
What was the BAM?
A 4324 km rail line.
103
Why did Brezhnev initiate a campaign to recruit young female workers to the BAM?
What were they known as?
To provide company to the male workers.
Bamovokas.
104
What did advertising say this would allow women?
To gain liberation through work.
105
What was the reality?
Bamovokas were expected to preserve their ‘delicate female features’.
Many did important construction work but others were in low-paid positions such as waitressing.
106
How did the BAM recruitment exemplify the Soviet attitude towards urban women?
They were expected to be independent and equal, but in a way that serves the interests of men.
107
By the 1960s women made up what percentage of the Soviet Union’s graduates?
By 1985 what percentage of medical doctors were women?
50%
70%
108
During the 1920s-40s, a high proportion of women worked in agriculture and performed a ‘triple shift’. This meant:
provided agricultural labour, were responsible for the household chores and were often engaged in handicrafts to supplement the family income.
109
What job could earn a relatively high wage in agriculture?
Tractor driving.
110
During the NEP, only ______ female tractor drivers across the USSR - rose to ______ by 1940.
Eight
50,000
111
However, what percentage of rural women did female tractor drivers make up?
Just 0.5%
112
What was the impact on women in agriculture as a result of the Great Patriotic War?
Most able-bodied men from the collectives were conscripted and women provided the bulk of the workforce. Conditions made worse by the Red Army’s requisitioning of machinery and draft animals.
Even by 1950 it was possible to find villages entirely populated by women and children. Shortage of livestock - women had to shackle themselves to ploughs in order to till the soil.
113
What roles did women get in the Virgin Lands Scheme?
Milkmaids, gardeners and to start families - not recruited to work with machinery or drive tractors - emphasis on women as manual labourers and carers.
114
Why did the government want to recruit younger women?
What was their famous slogan?
Who was turned down for the scheme?
To entice men to move to the Virgin Lands.
‘Join us, girls, in the Virgin Lands.’
Single women over the age of 26 and single mothers were turned down for the scheme.
115
Less than ____ of the ____ women recruited in August 1958 worked in well-paid professional jobs. Majority were haymakers and milkmaids - wage about _____% of male tractor drivers.
450
6000
15%
116
By 1983 what percentage of work on farms was still unmechanised?
65%
117
By 1970, what percentage of the lowest paid Soviet farmers were women?
72%
118
By 1980, what percentage of farm managers were women?
2%
119
By 1945 how many women had served in combat roles?
800,000
120
Who was Lydia Litvyak and how many women received the Soviet Union’s highest military award?
Lydia Litvyak shot down 12 German planes before being killed in combat and 89 women received the Soviet Union’s highest military award.
121
After the war, what happened to women in the army, compared to men?
However, after the war many male soldiers went on to have long careers in the military whilst women were demobilised and denied entry to Soviet military academies.
122
In 1918, only ___% of delegates to the Party Congress were women. This figure did not exceed ___% before 1939.
5%
10%
123
In 1918, what percentage of Party members were women? And what did this reach by 1928?
10%
12%
124
What role were Female Party members encouraged to play in the 1930s?
Encourage to join the ‘movement of wife activists’ - engage in charity work and supervise factory canteens - essentially a mothering role for the whole of Soviet society.
125
Between 1959 and 1984 what was the increase in the proportion of women?
Whilst this was significant, why was it unimportant?
27% to 33%
Soviets played a very small role and in the most senior parts of the Soviet system, women never made up more than 10% of deputies.
126
1956-83, the proportion of women increased from ____% to ____%. However women were never more than ____% of the Central Committee between 1953 and 1985.
19.7%
26%
4%
127
Who was the first female Commissar and who was the first woman to be in the Presidium?
Alexandra Kollontai was the first woman to become a people’s Commissar, serving as Commissar for Public Welfare (1917-18). First woman to be in the Presidium, Ekaterina Furtseva, in 1957.
128
Why were attitudes towards women difficult to change in Islamic areas?
Particularly resistant to change were the Muslim areas of Central Asia - polygamous, male-dominated family was well entrenched. Women often shielded from the public, women - veiled and denied an education.
129
How did the Bolsheviks use young female activists and propaganda?
Encouraging unveiling, basic contraception, personal hygiene and childcare. The campaign against the veiling of women in 1927 met with some success.
Opportunities for Islamic women increased and female brigade leaders and tractor drivers were celebrated through films and posters.
130
Were these attitudes ever changed though?
Despite these changes, traditional attitudes towards Islamic women were slow to change and resistance often violent.
Baku - Zhedontel meeting was attacked by Muslim men with dogs and boiling water.
Women who refused to wear traditional dress were sometimes killed by family members in ‘honour killings’.
By the 1930s, the Soviet government took a more gradual approach to changing Muslims attitudes to women.
131
What role did women play in Soviet propaganda between 1917 and 1940?
Playing a supporting role
132
What was the ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman’ (1937)?
Why was this significant?
25 metre high stainless steel statue - male factory worker holding a hammer and a female kolkhoz worker holding a sickle. Soviet propaganda of this time tended to be a male industrial worker and a female peasant representing the nation.
According to Lenin’s writings, whilst both played an important role, industrial workers played the leading role, whereas peasants the supporting role. Routinely depicting men as industrial workers and women as peasants shows how the Soviet government believed that men played the primary role in society.
133
Who dominated Soviet propaganda in this period and who was ridiculed?
Men
Some Soviet propaganda ridiculed femininity - October (1928) mocked female soldiers who fought against the Bolsheviks. It also depicted the Bolsehviks’ opponents as feminine.
134
What does Soviet iconography in this period suggest?
That attitudes to women changed little during this period.
135
How were women represented in propaganda between 1941 and 1964?
Women at war and women in space.
136
What did ‘The Motherland is Calling’ present?
Presented a woman as the symbol of Russia and celebrated the vital work of women during the war.
137
How were women when served on the front line presented after the war?
Women who served on the front line were a feature of top level speeches, including Khrushchev’s Secret Speech, and of Soviet war films all the way through to the 1980s.
138
Who is Valentina Tereshkova and why was she signficiant?
Most notable example, who became a role model for Soviet women, was Valentina Tereshkova, who in 1963 became the first woman in space. Born on a collective farm, had lost her father in the Great Patriotic War and was a prominent member of the Communist Party. She is still revered as a hero in present-day Russia. The head of the Soviet Space Programme - she was nothing less than ‘Yuri Gagarin in a skirt’.
139
How were women presented in propaganda between 1964 and 1985?
Good mothers and absent mothers
Propaganda became more traditional.
140
What did the propaganda towards women target and encourage?
Women should be exemplary workers and caring wives and mothers. Became more conservative in the mid-70s - falling birth rates led to a campaign encouraging women to have babies.
By the late 1970s this was coupled with official criticism of women who ‘neglected’ their children by going to work - propaganda depicted working women as responsible for rising crime, drug taking, alcoholism and family breakup. View persisted and was reaffirmed by the last three Soviet leaders.
141
What did Alexandra Kollontai believe about the family and what did she advocate?
That it was an oppressive social organisation.
Advocated the ‘withering away of the family’ as an essential part of the emergence of the liberated ‘new woman’.
142
Between 1919 and 1930 how did Zhenotdel work with a variety of government departments to advance women’s rights?
Education: Zhenotdel worked with the Commissariat of Education to introduce co-education and set quotas to ensure that women were represented at all levels of education. By 1930, 28% of university students were women - 20% in Britain.
Legal Rights: Zhenotdel with the Commissariat of Justice gave women the right to equal pay and equal voting rights from 1919.
The Soviet Union was the first country to introduce a legal right to abortion and contraception was also legalised during the 1920s. Creches were encouraged.
Sexual Rights: Lesibiansim was not criminalsied before the revolution and was never regarded as a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. Prostitution also legalised.
143
Why were these legal rights meaningless?
Legal rights were difficulty to uphold because Soviet law courts had very little authority.
144
What was the family code of 1918?
Kollantai, under socialism ‘the family ceases to be necessary’ as she believed the state could take over the role of bringing up children. The Family Code of 1918 made divorce easier. A marriage could be made by either party without the need to give grounds.
145
By the mid 1920s, who had the highest divorce rate in Europe?
Russia
146
In 1926, the Family Code was revised to:
Make divorce even easier led to ‘postcard divorce’ where one partner ended a marriage by sending a letter/postcard.
147
By 1926 what percentage of all marriages in Moscow ended in divorce?
50%
148
In Moscow, abortions outweighed live births by a ratio of?
3:1
149
What did the high number of abortions show?
Contraception was in very short supply.
150
Why was Zhenotdel unwilling to help women who were sexually harassed?
Soviet law did not recognise it as a crime.
151
How had the Civil War affected children?
Many orphaned and formed ‘street gangs’, despite the government making adoption easier.
152
When and what was the Great Retreat?
1936-53 - government policy towards the family became much more conservative. Trotsky described it as the ‘Great Retreat’.
153
The number of nursery places ______ between 1928 to 1930.
Doubled
154
What was Stalin’s key aim?
To increase birth rates and cut divorce rates?
155
What legal changes did he make in 1936 to enforce this?
Abortion criminalised unless the life of the pregnant woman was in danger. Contraception was banned.
Male homosexuality was criminalised - five years in a labour camp. Lesbinaism was treated as a ‘disease’ - subject to hypnotherapy in an attempt to ‘cure’ them of their ‘unnatural’ desires.
Sex outside of marriage was stigmatised and divorces became expensive and difficult to obtain (first divorce was one week’s wages).
Following divorce, fathers had to pay part of their income to support their children or they failed prison.
156
What incentives were given to have children?
Pregnant women were guaranteed job security and maternity leave was extended to 16 weeks.
Stalin offered financial incentives for women to have children. Women with seven children received 2000 roubles a year for five years, 5000 roubles for eleven children. Policies backed up by a media campaign - Trud regularly carried stories about men who abandoned their wives as ‘wildness, degeneracy and baseness’.
157
Women also expected to carry out ‘double shifts’ - women spent _______ times longer on their domestic responsibilities than men during the 1930s.
Five
158
In 1944, a tax on who was introduced and why?
A tax on single people was introduced to encourage marriage.
159
What was Khrushchev’s stance on women and the family?
Generally, Khrushchev wanted women to continue to perform their traditional roles, but make them easier and re-emphasised their rights.
160
What was the promotion of women in Soviet soceity in 1939 and in 1959?
52%
55%
161
What series of policies did Khrushchev introduces to make life easier for all women?
In 1955 abortion was legalised and in 1956 state paid maternity leave increased from 77 to 112 days.
The Sixth Five-Year Plan - commitment to ‘improve in every way the working and living conditions of women workers’ including the expansion of childcare facilities and communal laundries.
The Seven-Year Plan aimed to eliminate the ‘double shift’ - introducing convenience foods, mass-produced clothing & widely-available fridges - ending need for women to shop daily, cook and sow.
162
What problems remained?
Contraception remained hard to acquire.
Some employers refused to recognise the new legal entitlements regarding maternity leave and pay.
Letters to women’s magazines indicate that creches opened late and closed early so women were still unable to work full days.
163
Evidence to show that the Sixth Five-Year Plan and the Seven-Year Plan failed to end the double shift.
Domestic appliances were less widely available and surveys continued to show that women spent more time doing household chores than men.
164
What was the view of Brezhnev to family policy?
Brezhnev continued to stress the centrality of the family to Soviet life. Under Brezhnev much less was done to try to improve the status of women.
165
What did the government official say about equality?
Officially, the government proclaimed that sexual equality has been achieved.
166
By 1982, official figures indicated that women spent _____ as much time doing domestic chores as men.
Did the government do anything to address this?
Twice.
No.
167
What did he lower the pension age to for women?
60 to 55
168
What was the birth rate in Russia and Western Republics?
1.9
169
What did the government discuss to try to raise birth rates?
A proposal to give women several years maternity leave.
170
How many deaths did alcoholism affect in the 1980s?
25%
171
What reform did Brezhnev introduce regarding pregnancy?
It became illegal to divorce a woman who was pregnant or within a year of the birth of a child.
172
What were the goals of education?
Lenin believed that a high level of education was an essential part of building socialism - would require industrialisation - skilled workforce necessary - lay the foundations for industrialisation.
173
What were the problems with education?
Education was traditionally associated with privilege. Millions were uneducated and the only educated were the elite, whom the Communists did not want to work with.
174
What was the literacy rate in 1914?
32%
175
In October 1918, what reforms did the decree issued introduce?
Established unified labour schools to provide free polytechnic education to all children aged 8 to 17.
Banned religious instruction in schools and allowed church buildings to be converted into schools.
Abolished corporal punishment, homework and exams.
Promised free breakfasts and medical examinations for school children.
Introduced co-education schools, ending gender segregation and made education compulsory for all.
176
How were secondary schools designed to be vocational?
Government proposed the creation of factory schools in which young people spent four hours in factories learning skills and another four hours being taught in school.
177
Only one pencil could be supplied for how many students during the civil war?
60
178
Why did these reforms largely fail?
Schools did not have the resources to provide free meals or medical check-ups and teachers continued traditional teaching methods as there was no reliable system for training teachers.
179
What cuts were taken in 1921 to education?
Some schools were forced to close to save money.
Fees were introduced to pay for primary and secondary education for all except the poorest children and the children of those unable to work due to war injuries.
Plans for children’s homes linked to schools for the 7 million orphaned by the Civil War were scrapped.
180
In the first 18 months of the NEP, the number of children in education _________ , as did the number of schools.
Halved.
181
What percentage of students paid fees to attend under the NEP?
97%
182
From when were fees for primary schools abolished?
1927
183
What percentage of children of primary school age were in school by 1928 and how much more was this to prior to the revolution?
60%
10%
184
Were there still inequalities?
Urban - four full years of primary education.
Rural - unlikely to get three years.
40% of working class students went to school and just 3% finished.
185
How the government failed in terms of content taught in the 1920s?
Many of the teachers continued to teach in the traditional and were trained before the revolution so taught the history of Russia in a way that reflected well on the Tsars.
186
What was the Decree on Illiteracy 1919?
It required all illiterate people between 8 and 50 to learn to read and write. It also gave the government the right to conscript literate people into the education system.
187
Why did Lenin want a literate population?
Literacy would ensure modern technical skills to be taught, widen the range of useful propaganda and loosen the hold of religion over the rural population.
188
What were the literacy rates in the Red Army in 1918? In 1921? In 1925?
1918 - 50%
1921 - 86%
1925 - 100%
189
What did Lunacharsky set up during the Civil war which offered a course in reading and writing.
Between 1920 and 1926 how many completed this course?
Lunacharsky set up tens of thousands of ‘liquidation points’ which offered six-week intensive courses in reading and writing. Between 1920 and 1926, 5 million completed these courses.
190
What did the government publish during the Civil War and why did it fail?
The government published 6.5 million textbooks that taught the alphabet - rise in people who could identify letters but no increase in genuine literacy.
191
Why was the Civil War literacy campaign set back?
The war economy did not produce educational products and many schools were requisitioned by the army and turned into stores or barracks. The war disrupted education across the country.
The government prioritised military victory and economic survival over education.
192
What percentage of the reading room network established during the Civil War was closed and why?
90% - to save money
193
What did the government announce in May 1925?
Was it successful?
In May 1925 the government announced an initiative to ensure all adults in the Soviet Union were literate by October 1927.
Working with trade unions the government set up libraries in factories. There were some successes. The Transport Workers Union achieved 99% literacy by 1927.
Educating the peasants proved harder so the goal was pushed back to 1933. Literacy rates overall increased to 55% in 1928.
194
What was relaunched at the Sixteenth Party Congress in 1930?
The campaign against illiteracy - set new targets to eliminate illiteracy.
195
How many Komsomol volunteers did the government recruit to educate workers and peasants?
3 million
196
Why were teachers attacked during the campaign and how many?
Campaign took place in the midst of Stalin’s campaign to collectivise agriculture. As a result teachers were attacked (associated with government). Around 40% were physically attacked in the first year of the campaign. Some beaten to death.
197
What also meant the campaign would not work?
Teachers were also poorly equipped and poorly supported. Often arrived with no writing materials. They had little to offer peasants who attended - unable to provide free school meals.
198
During the first Five-Year Plan, what percentage of Soviet adults had attended a literacy course?
90%
199
By 1939 what percentage of Soviet citizens were literate?
94%
200
In 1931, the decree which ordered curriculum reform included what?
The decree abolished the polytechnic focus, instead stated that core subjects should form the basis of a socialist education to ensure all people had a foundational level of education necessary for work in factories or farms.
The progressive methods advocated (1920s) were replaced with regimented discipline. A 1932 decree introduced new standards of discipline. Teachers were required to ensure students attended regularly and were punctual and had to set regular homework.
There was a national code of conduct which covered the correct way to stand and sit. School discipline was supposed to prepare students for the labour discipline that they would experience in Soviet factories.
In 1933 a new series of textbooks was launched and in 1935 a system of national examinations was introduced.
201
What was a required reading and who had edited this?
The History of the All-Union Communist Party - published in 1938 and a whole generation was educated into this views. Stalin had rewritten it.
202
Why were exams cancelled in 1956?
Khrushchev’s de-stalinisation policy led to a hurried rewriting of history and history exams were cancelled in 1956, The new official History of the Communist Party, published in 1959, accused Stalin of economic mistakes and systematically removed Stalin’s name from any favourable connection - credit was given to the Party and people instead.
203
What language did all have to learn and what theory were they all indoctrinated with?
All had to learn Russian - taught in their native language but the works of literature in their native language were rarely taught.
Marxist-Leninist Theory was the obvious indoctrination element of the curriculum. This course was compulsory at all levels of compulsory and higher education. Surveys of students from the 1980s reveal that this was the most boring part of the curriculum, but there was an acceptance that its exams had to be passed to secure further progress in their chosen field. Even at kindergarten - posters and little shrines of ‘Uncle Lenin’, ‘Uncle Stalin’ disappeared after 1956.
204
By 1932, how many children aged between 8 and 12 were enrolled in primary school? How does this compare to 1928?
95% (short of target of 100%)
65%
205
By 1929, how many Soviet citizens completed their secondary education and how does this compere to the final years of the NEP?
1.5 million (7%)
216,000
206
After the Great Patriotic War, what percentage of children gained a primary school education of four years?
How many received a secondary education?
Almost 100% of children 8-12 gained the full four years of primary education.
65% of children 12 to 17 gained some secondary education whilst 20% completed secondary education.
207
What were Labour Reserve Schools?
Established by the Ministry of Labour in 1940 in order to train young men (14 to 17) in specialisms in industry. In a sense, the LRSs were a form of industrial conscription. Quotas for compulsory recruitment were issued. They were enrolled in training courses, followed by a four-year work placement. For their ‘education’ they were provided with accommodation and food, but no pay.
208
Why were they important during the Fourth and Fifth Five-Year Plans?
deserted could face sentences of up to ten years in a Gulag.
During the Fourth and Fifth Five-Year Plans, LRSs played an important role in providing the skilled labour necessary for economic reconstruction. 1946-1952, LRSs recruited 4.2 million young people and trained them.
209
University enrollments in 1927? 1932? 1940?
1927 - 170,000
1932 - 500,000
1940 - 812,000
210
What percentage of courses were reserved for the working class from 1929? and what was the drop-out rate?
70%
210
What percentage of courses were reserved for the working class from 1929? and what was the drop-out rate?
70%
70%
211
Why was the quota system stopped in 1935?
The end of the quota system put emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
212
Number of university students in 1944 and in 1953?
1944 - 227,000
1953 - 1.5 million
213
Khrushchev ___________ the number of schools in towns and cities and invested in teacher training and recruitment.
doubled
214
How many teachers were there in 1953? in 1964?
1953 - 1.5 million
1964 - 2.2 million
215
___% of teachers had a university education, in 1964 this rose to ___%
19%
40%
216
___% of teachers had a university education, in 1964 this rose to ___%
19%
40%
217
When were fees for students attending school and university abolished?
1956
218
As a result of these reforms, the proportion of 17 year olds who completed secondary education rose from ___% in 1953 to ___% in 1959.
20%
75%
219
As a result of these reforms, the proportion of 17 year olds who completed secondary education rose from ___% in 1953 to ___% in 1959.
20%
75%
220
What did Khrushchev's 1956 reforms introduce and why?
Polytechnic education - reflected needs of Khrushchev’s industrial policy. Whereas Stalin needed disciplined, literate workers, Khrushchev’s light industries needed workers with more sophisticated skills.
221
By how much did practical training increase as a percentage of the curriculum between 1947 and 1959?
1947 - 8%
1959 - 28%
222
By how much did practical training increase as a percentage of the curriculum between 1947 and 1959?
1947 - 8%
1959 - 28%
223
What did the December 1959 Education Law enforce?
Made education compulsory for children aged 7 to 15.
Restructured education for students aged 16 to 19 so that most would complete their education through a combination of education in schools and vocational training in factories or farms.
Ensured that most academically gifted students would be given places at specialist academic schools.
New course, ‘the fundamentals of political knowledge’ for all 15 years to ensure they knew the benefits of the Soviet System.
224
What were Khrushchev's final reforms?
Stalinist discipline was relaxed in November 1960 - new code of conduct abolished rules about correct sitting and standing postures.
In 1961, Khrushchev ordered a new emphasis on learning foreign languages - rejection of Stalin’s emphasis on cultural isolation.
Requirement to set homework was dropped and final exams were replaced by continuous assessment,
In June 1962 teachers lost the right to expel underachieving students.
225
In how many schools were the curriculum reforms not implemented and why?
47% - they were deeply unpopular.
226
Which of Khrushchev's reforms did Brezhnev repeal?
Between 1964 and 1966 the Council of Ministers:
Ended the 11-year schools policy in favour of a gradual shift from 8-year schooling to 10-year schooling,
Drew up a temporary curriculum to restore the focus on academic education.
Ended vocational training for 16-19 year olds in factories or on farms.
Abandoned compulsory secondary education - replaced with a target that 100% of children would complete secondary education by 1970.
227
By 1976 what percentage of students finished secondary school?
60%
228
By 1978 what percentage of teachers had a university education?
70%
229
How many students in higher education by 1980?
5 million
230
How many universities did Brezhnev found in the non-Russian Republics?
18
231
By 1964 how many adults were attending part-time or correspondence courses?
2 million
232
By the 1980s how could adults access education programmes?
Radio and television programmes
233
What discouraged many people entering the teaching profession in the 1920s?
Low wages and low status.
234
How many schools were destroyed during the Great Patriotic War?
82,000
235
In the Uzbek Republic in 1955, girls made up only ___% of the school population in the final two years of secondary education.
26%
236
From 1929 to 1940, Komsomol grew from _________ members to __________ to ________ by 1982
2.3 million
10.2 million
40 million
