Russia- Theme Three

Newspapers

• Lenin removed freedom of the press
• In November 1917 non-socialist papers were banned and in the early 20s non-bolshevik papers were also banned.
• All articles had to be approved by the censorship office- plane crashes & natural disasters were not covered as this would of been seen as mother nature winning. 
• In local papers, local officials could be criticised, as well as local issues. On the other hand, higher level officials were off limits.

Magazines

• Off limit topics included; sex, ***********, crime and religion.
• Mostly aimed at groups of workers, like farmers or teachers

Radio

• 1917 Radio was new and uncontrollable.
• News of the October revolution was transmitted in Morse Code
• Radios were expensive so loud speakers were set up in workplaces and clubs.
• Helped get messages across as 65% of the country was illiterate.
• News and Propaganda was made more intertesting with the addition of classical music in '20s
• Helpful in WWII as it reassured people.
• Control took place through jamming.

Television

• 1950- 10,000 TV sets in the USSR and by 1958 there were 3 million.
• 1960s- mass production meant most of the population could have a TV
• Capitalism presented as joyless, full of homelessness and crime.

Results

• Soviet people got used to reading around censorship and propaganda.

Cult of Stalin

• Stalin and Lenin's links were highlighted- 'Stalin is the Lenin of today' was promoted.
• Huge portraits portrayed him as 'the leader' or 'the boss'.
• Protector of Socialism, with achievements of the Five-Year plans attributed to him.
• Official biographies had Stalin's life embellished or lied about.
• All of the above worked- even Gulag prisoners wept when the heard of Stalin's death.

Cult of Khrushchev

• Always met with Soviet citizens- good photo oppourtunities.
• Became desperate as his plans began to fail.

Cult of Brezhnev

• Brezhenv enjoyed the trappings of power.
• Awarded over 100 dubious medals.
• Cult took a practical use later on- during the last six years of his life Brezhnev was clinically dead.

The Russian Orthodox Church

• Bolsheviks saw religion as a threat to socialism. Bolsheviks= athiets
• Christianity's focus on supremacy of God challenged both Soviet leadership and collective basis of socialism.
• Measures were introduced to limit the power and influence of religion.
  • Decree on Freedom of Conscience 1918 separarted church and state.
  • Church was deprived of its land.
  • During the civil war famine, valuable church positions were taken to pay for food supplies.
  • Priests were deprived of the right to vote, denied rations and were victims of the red terror (1921-22).
  • Baptisms replaced with Octoberings.
• Mid 50s- 55% of peasants were still christians.
• End of 1930- four fiths of village churches were destroyed.

Changes to religious policy under Stalin

• Religious repression accompanied collectivisation. Priests were labelled as Kulaks and even more churches were shut down.
• Great Purge ('36-'39) saw more attacks- by '39 only 12 out of 163 bishops were still at liberty.
• German invasion of the USSR saw relaxation. Church supported war effort- new churches were set up & training centers for priests.
• Church repression was reintoduced afer the war.

Khrushchevs anti-religious campagin

• Anti-religious and persued repression similar to Stalin.
• The campagin launched in 1958-59 lasted until his removal from office.
• Priests were limited to spiritual advice only, and parish councils were placed under control of Party Officials.
• Within 4 yrs, 10000 churches were closed. 

Brezhnev's policy towars the Church

• Active persecution went down, and allowed them to operate within the defined limits.
• The orthodox church was expected to support soviet policy , especially in areas of social policy where they could provide for the poor.
• Some church members hated the submissive attitude.
  • 1976- group of orthodox priests set up the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believer's Rights which drew attention to human rights abuse.
  • Brezhnev responded by sentencing its leader to five year in prions.

Influence of Islam 

• Central Asion regions of the USSR contained many Muslims
• A poblem for the Bolsheviks- religion was far more ingrained into their lives than most people in the Soviet Union.
• In the first instance, Bolsheviks did not make any attempts to end Sharia law.
• By the mid-20s they were confident enough to attack islam by, closing down most Mosques and on international womens day a campaign anist veils was launched.
  • Large number of women threw off their viel into a bonfire.

Brezhnev's policy towars the Church

• Active persecution went down, and allowed them to operate within the defined limits.
• The orthodox church was expected to support soviet policy , especially in areas of social policy where they could provide for the poor.
• Some church members hated the submissive attitude.
  • 1976- group of orthodox priests set up the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believer's Rights which drew attention to human rights abuse.
  • Brezhnev responded by sentencing its leader to five year in prions.

Influence of Islam 

• Central Asion regions of the USSR contained many Muslims
• A poblem for the Bolsheviks- religion was far more ingrained into their lives than most people in the Soviet Union.
• In the first instance, Bolsheviks did not make any attempts to end Sharia law.
• By the mid-20s they were confident enough to attack islam by, closing down most Mosques and on international womens day a campaign anist veils was launched.
  • Large number of women threw off their viel into a bonfire.

• The Cheka was created by Lenin in 1917, working against sabotage and counter-revolution.
• During the civil war, the Cheka worked with little interference from other legal bodies, so it could act quickly against possible enemies.
• During the Red Terror or 1921 & 22, actions against the SRs and Mensheviks were stepped up. Up to 200,000 were shot.
• 1922- The secret police were reorganised after the civil war and became the OGPU.
• 1934- Power of the secret police increased and it was merge with the Interior Ministry and named the NKVD.
• The NKVD deportd Kulaks and arrested plan wreckers.
• After the trial of Zinoviev and Kamanev (1936), the number of political opponents grew.

Yagoda- head of the secret police from 1934

• Yagoda was keen to show his loyalty to Stalin, and build up a power base.
• Saw the Gulag grow in size and be transformed into slave labour camps.
• He used his influence to ensure that the secret police could deal with opponents without the courts becoming involved.
• Empahsis changed from ideology (reform camps under Lenin) to economic resources.
• Yagoda's influence grew as the Gulag grew during the Great Purge of 1936.
• Stalin had Yagoda shot in 1936 after he was removed from office for being a Trotskyite.

Yezhov

• Loved to personally torture suspects.
• He sped up the arrest, trial, imprisonment process. By September 1937 the courts were dealin with 231 prisoners each day.
• Believed that the Gulag was underused and increased the number of inmates.
• Introduced execution orders within the Gulag camps.
• Plain clothed officers were introduced and the number of detectives increased.
• Stalin accused him of being responsible for excesses of purges and he was dismissed in 1938.

Beria

• Went round the streets of Moscow looking for young women to ****.
• Good organisational skills and energetic.
• Felt that indiscriminate arrests were a waste of manpower.
• Conventional methods of working were reintroduced and courts were evidence based.
• Surveillance continued, but only led to arrests when there was evidence.
• Oversaw the murder of Trotsky.
• Improved the Gulag and food rations were increased to get prisoners to work harder.

• 1941- given powers of supervison over the Red Army.
• NKVD gievn control over deportations of minorities who were not 100% loyal to the USSR.
• Beria set up special departments in ex-german occupied areas. Anyone suspected of working with the Germans was shot or sent to the Gulag.

• After the death of Stalin, Khrushchev moved to remove him from the politburo. he had immense power and needed removing.
• The Politburo moved to limit the independence of the secret police. They were brought firmly under party control.
• Khrushchev dismantled the Gulag amd forced labour was not seen again in the soviet economy.

Responsibility for the apparatus of terror 

• Gulag roots began in the Lenin era, however the growth was under Stalin. Terror was the part that Stalin was interested in.
• Evidence of Stalins responsibility;
  • He personally signed many death warrants.
  • Gave the NKVD targets to meet
  • Colletivisation required terror.
• However, the secret police also played a role;
  • All three leaders had sadistic tendancies
  • All three added to death lists 
  • Gulag was heavily influenced by all- & conditions were terrible.

• 1953- KGB job was to monitor people
• 1967- this was the work of Andropov

Dissidents= intellectuals

• Often went against the thoughts of the Soviet Union
• Their thinking was limited by political restriction
• Political dissidents
  • Tried to hold the government to account of its own laws
  • Often concerned human rights
  • groups were set up to monitor if the government was abiding by UN declaration on human rights
• Nationalists- often Ukranians, Latvians or Lithuanians
  • Wanted greter protection of their language and custom
  • Some wanted their rpublic to formallly withdraw from the Soviet Union
• Religious Dissidents
  • Baptists and Catholics
  • Faced worship and practices restriction
  • Baltic republics had many Catholic dissidents

• Harrased by the secret police and monitored by them.
• Intellectuals had the threat of being sacked from their job.
• Houses were searched
• The label of 'dissident' would result in discrimination- this meant they were denied places at university and often failed to recieve job promotions
• Criminal Code 1960- abolished night-time interrogations
• In all cases a court of justice had to be used and all records were kept.

• 1967- Politburo made the decision that leading dissident Bukovsky should be put in a mental hospital
• This became common.
• The 'hospitals' were run by the NKVD and 'patients' were held until cured. A cure usually reffered to subscribing to Soviet socialism.
• Patients who refused treatment were 'treated' with elctro-shock therapy.

• Court case records were smuggled into the West and used by human rights groups.
• International condemnation sometimes led to the release of dissidents.
• Little public support- collection of people not a group
• No threat posed to the Soviet State

• 1982- Andropov became leader
• Adminent that popular discontent could lead to an uprising.
• New technology created advanced ways of spying with the use of video and audio tapes.
• Andropov was aware that discontent was most likely to be based on economic circumstances.
• Used the secret police to clamp down on alcoholism and absenteeism.

• Ideal socialist who thinks and acts according to socialist values.
• Governemnt wanted to create this through the use of art and culture.
• A new culture would have to be developed.
• Then was looked at seriously after the civil war
• Many artists and writers were not willing to work within restrictions and they were repressed.
• 70s- distinct Soviet culture was created 

• For Lenin, culture was important.
• Lenin's cultural tastes were conservative and he had a love for classic Russian culture 
• Lenin created the Commissariat if Enlightenment, a ministry of culture, to support and encourage artists.
• Aritsts welcomed this idea because it ended censorrship that had taken place during thr Tsarist regime.

• Second strand of culturl policy.
• It was argued that the state should us its resources to create a new 'Proletarian Culture'- prolekult.
• He felt that art should be created by a new group which served a cultural and political purpose.
• Key strand of the group= 'constructivists', who wanted to create a culture based on the worker and industrial technology.
• Emphasis= workers class, not individualism.
• Workers and peasants would be given the encouragement to make their own culture, through writing books and theatre productions.
• Socialist festivals set up- extra food rations were given to those who attneded in order to attract larger crowds.
• 1920- anniversary of the revolution was celebrated 
• Prolekult= direct challenge to high culture.

• Wave of experimentation 
• Modernism- focus on abstract art, with futurism.
• Visual arts were prioritised as the country was mostly illiterate.
• Jazz was introduced and it recieved mixed reviews.

• Late-20s the freedom allowed by Lenin was reigned in.
• Fellow Travellers were replaced by genuine socialists.
• The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) made attacks on the Fellow Travellers and condemned any new innovative individualistic techniques.
• RAPP preferred works which showed the achievements of the workers- wanted to create a 'cult of the little man'.

• 1932- RAPP closed down and replaced by Union of Soviet Writers.
• This ended the cultural revolution.
• The Union of Soviet Writers rewarded those who complied and restricted those who did not.
• For example; Zoshchenko (a writer) conformed but the levels of quality went down. On the other hand, others refused and emigrated.

Art

• No anstract art
• ideal images of life under the Five-Year plan was promoted.

Literature

• Moved away from the 'cult of the little man' to heores of the party.
• Books were subsidised and widely available.

Music

• Militray songs preffered over jazz
• in the 40s the saxaphone was banned.

Architecture

• Classic lines were used

Film

• Revolution was glorified in Eisenstien's October.
• During WWII, the focus was socialism.

Culture during Stalins's last years

• After the second world war there was some freedom.
• Zhadovschine campaign launched- attacked western artists.

The impact of de-Stalinisation on culture.

• Khrushchev did allow work which was critical of Stalin.
• Work previously censored under Stalin was allowed.
• Some focus on previous taboos- adultery.
• Some groups listened to pop music from the west in the 60s.
• Anyone who wore new Western fashions were labelled stilyagi by the authorities. They were described as rude and ignorant freaks.

Non-conformity under Brezhenv

• No return to socialist realism, however there were more restrictions.
• Emphasis was on the achievements of the party and socialism.
• Non-conformity did exist- Russian nationalism was allowed by the governemnt.