Life in Soviet Russia

1. Life in Soviet Russia – A Communist Country Chapter 17

2. What Will I Learn? • Examine life in Soviet Russia, a communist country • Explore the Nature of History

3. Communism in Russia • What is communism? • Communists believe in the overthrow of factory owners and landowners. They want to abolish private property (private ownership), which they said caused people to get richer and some to be poorer. They favour instead, state (government) control of industry and agriculture. • Features of the communist system in Russia • One party dictatorship • Government (state) ownership and control of industry and agriculture • Cult of personality • Propaganda • Control of press, radio, TV and cinema • Police state, show trials, executions • Gulags (labour camps) See Skills Book p. 148

4. Life in a Communist Dictatorship • Communist Party control • Controlled civil service, the army, industries • Controlled press, radio, cinema • News censored • Use of propaganda • Secret police • Labour camps (gulags)

5. Propaganda and the Cult of Personality Source 2 Source 1 Stalin was like a god to us. We just believed he was an absolutely perfect individual, and he lived somewhere in the Kremlin, a light always in his window, and he was always thinking about us, about each of us. That was how we felt. (Memories from childhood, quoted in J. Lewis and P. Whitehead, Stalin: A Time for Judgement) Great Stalin – a symbol of the friendship of the people of the USSR (Soviet Union)

6. Propaganda and the Cult of Personality Source 4 Ode to Stalin You, O Stalin, have faced many trials, And for the people suffered much. When we protested the Tsar crushed us, And left women without husbands. You have opened a new way for us. Behind you, we joyously march. Your vision is our vision, O leader of the people! Your thoughts are our thoughts, indivisible! You are the banner flying from our mighty fortress! You are the flame that warms our spirit and our blood, O Stalin, Stalin! (Composed by Sergei Prokofiev, ‘Zdravitsa’, in 1939 for Stalin’s 60th birthday) Source 3

7. Purges, Show Trials and Gulags Stalin’s Purges Civil servants and teachers Party members Red Army commanders and officers Engineers, scientists in industry Stalin’s Show Trials • First Show Trial, 1936 • 16 leaders tried • All executed • Second Show Trial, 1937 • 17 leaders tried • 13 executed, four sent to gulags • Great Show Trial, 1938 • 21 leaders tried • 18 executed, three sent to gulags

8. Purges, Show Trials and Gulags Changing names of the Secret Police Cheka GPU OGPU NKVD KGB

9. Life in the Gulags Source 1 Source 2 It is impossible to describe the need, grief, pain and humiliation which we are suffering here. Everyone is forced to work, from the age of 12 to 70 and over, in fact everyone who is still able to stand on his feet; some of them are even taken from their sick beds. Many die of hunger in the woods and are simply buried in the snow without clothing. Try to work day and night on 300 grams of bread a day, without rest! (Letters smuggled from a gulag) A drawing by a gulag prisoner of other prisoners chopping down trees

10. Life in the Gulags Source 4 A cartoon published in France in the 1930s: Visit the pyramids of the USSR! Source 3 The camp consisted of a huge, dirty yard surrounded by barbed wire; it stank intolerably of ammonia and chloride of lime, which forever was being poured down the toilets. Before dawn we were marched to a bleak open field. Until 1.00 pm we hacked at the frozen soil with spades. We ate between 1.00 and 1.30 pm at the camp, trying to warm ourselves over the stove. From 1.30 until 8.00 pm we worked again. (Yevgenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind (1968), who was detained in a labour camp In Siberia) • Source 5 • Life and Death in Stalin’s Russia • 19 million people passed through the gulags between 1929 and 1953 • At least 1.6 million people died in the gulags • 29 million people carried out forced labour between 1929 and 1953 • 786,000 political executions by secret police between 1934 and 1953 • Six to eight million died by starvation in famine of early 1930s

11. How did Industrialisation Affect People’s Lives? GOSPLAN (state planning) set targets for all industries Each region set targets for factories, mines Each manager of set targets for foremen and workers Stalin said in 1931: We must create in our country an industry which would be capable of re-equipping and organising not only the whole of our industry but also our transport and our agriculture. The history of Russia shows that because of her backwardness she was constantly being defeated. We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in ten years. Either we do it or we will go under.

12. The Five Year Plans Source 2 Building a new city Brigades of young enthusiasts from every corner of the Soviet Union arrived in the summer of 1930 [to begin building Magnitogorsk, beyond the Ural Mountains]. About three-quarters of the new arrivals came of their own free will, seeking work, bread cards, better conditions. The rest came under compulsion. …. The city of Magnitogorsk grew and developed from the dirty chaotic construction camp of the early 1930s into a reasonably healthy and habitable city. John Scott, Behind the Urals (1942), an American who volunteered to go to Russia to build a new country.

13. Stakhanov, Hero of Socialist Labour We do love Stakhanov (1936)

14. Consequences of Five Year Plans See Skills Book p. 149

15. How did Collectivisation Affect People’s Lives? • Government took over all land • Aim to increase mechanisation and food supply • Collective farms formed • Kulaks killed or sent to gulags • Famine killed millions

16. How did Collectivisation Affect People’s Lives? Source 3 The poor peasants of the village get together in a meeting and decide: ‘So-and-so has 6 horses; we couldn’t get along without those in the collective farm; besides, he hired a man to help him in the harvest.’ They notify the secret police, and there you are. So-and-so gets 5 years [in the gulag]. They confiscate (take over) his property and give it to the new collective farm. Sometimes they ship the whole family out. Source 4 OleskaVoitsyskhovsky saved his and his family’s lives by consuming the meat of horses which had died of diseases. He dug them up at night and brought the meat home in a sack. (Based on accounts from villagers in the 1930s) See Skills Book p. 150

17. How did Women’s Lives Change in Soviet Russia? • Women got more equal footing with men • 50% – proportion of women in workforce • Creches, kindergartens • Child allowances • Divorce more difficult to obtain

18. Health and Education • Health care free • Hospitals built • Doctors trained • Free and compulsory education • Huge literacy campaign • Education for propaganda • Stalin the Great Leader • Stalin’s role in history exaggerated • Youth organisations • Housing - shortage Communist Youth Organisations Little Octobrists 7 to 9 years Young Pioneers 10 to 14 years Komsomol 15 to 28 years See Skills Book p. 152

19. What was Life like in Soviet Russia during World War II? Source 2 I watched my mother and father die. I knew perfectly well that they were starving. But I wanted their bread more than I wanted them to stay alive. And they knew that. That’s what I remember about the blockade: that feeling that you wanted your parents to die because you wanted their bread. (A survivor of the siege of Leningrad)