Stalinist Culture and Society

Question 1

How had Lenin taken power away from the Orthodox Church?

Answer 1

Church lands were seized; births, marriage, deaths and schools were all secularised; priests were persecuted

Question 2

What did Sergius, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, promise in 1927?

Answer 2

To stay out of politics in return for state recognition of the Orthodox Church

Question 3

How did Stalin attack the Orthodox Church?

Answer 3

Religious schools were shut down, and many churches were destroyed or deconsecrated. Sunday ceased to be a day of rest as, as workers were employed for a six day week and the day they had off work changed

Question 4

How did the 1936 Constitution restrict religion?

Answer 4

It banned the publication of religious propaganda

Question 5

By 1941 how many religious buildings had been closed?

Answer 5

nearly 40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 mosques

Question 6

How did Stalin undo the liberation of women in the 1930s?

Answer 6

Divorce and abortion were attacked and the family became the focus of a new wave of propaganda. The importance of marriage was stressed, and wedding rings were reintroduced

Question 7

How were women increasingly portrayed in Soviet films during the 1930s?

Answer 7

feminine family women, in contrast to their portrayal as muscular and plainly dressed builders of the revolution in the 1920s

Question 8

What did the Family Code of 1936 set out?

Answer 8

It made abortion illegal, made it harder to get a divorce by introducing large fees and forcing both parties to be present at proceedings, contraception was banned, mothers with six or more children were given tax exemptions, and child support payments from fathers were fixed at 60% of their income

Question 9

What did the Family Code of 1936 restrict?

Answer 9

Homosexual acts and prostitution

Question 10

In 1937 what percentage of men and women in their thirties were married?

Answer 10

91% of men and 82% of women

Question 11

What happened to the rates of participation of women in the highest levels of politics in the USSR in the 1930s?

Answer 11

They fell

Question 12

What was the literacy rate in the USSR in 1926?

Answer 12

56%

Question 13

What was the literacy rate in the USSR in 1937?

Answer 13

75%

Question 14

How did schools become more restrictive in the 1930s?

Answer 14

Schools were required to use Party approved textbooks, strict discipline was enforced in schools and a system of public exams was reintroduced

Question 15

What happened to the number of students studying at university during the 1930s?

Answer 15

It grew

Question 16

What was the name of the youth organisation of the Communist Party?

Answer 16

Komsomol

Question 17

Who was able to join the Komsomol?

Answer 17

Anyone between the ages of 14 and 28 years old

Question 18

What was the name of the Communist Party youth organisation for under 14 year olds?

Answer 18

Young Pioneers

Question 19

What did the Komsomol discourage?

Answer 19

Smoking and drinking

Question 20

What did the Komsomol organise?

Answer 20

social work, sports and drama clubs

Question 21

Which major building project had members of the Komsomol enthusiastically volunteered to help to build?

Answer 21

Magnitogorsk

Question 22

What was the average level of food consumption in 1933?

Answer 22

Lower than in 1900, with meat consumption just 1/3 what it had been in 1928

Question 23

Which opera did Pravda condemn in 1936?

Answer 23

Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Question 24

What was the most borrowed book from the Magnitogorsk library in the 1930s?

Answer 24

How the Steel Was Tempered

Question 25

What art form is Maxim Gorky known for?

Answer 25

Fiction - he wrote socialist realist novels

Question 26

Who wrote Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it out of the USSR after WW2?

Answer 26

Boris Pasternak