Impact of Stalinism on Society (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Impact of Stalinism on Society
The Church
Marx described religion as 'the opium of the people' and argued that it served to justify upper-class power over the working population. Lenin had permitted freedom of religious worship whilst simultaneously dismantling much of the institutional power of the Russian Orthodox Church. Church lands were confiscated, births, marriages and deaths were secularised, schools became state-run, priests faced persecution, and atheistic propaganda circulated widely. In 1927, Sergius, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church (the head of the Russian Orthodox Christian Church), agreed to abstain from political involvement in exchange for state recognition of the Orthodox Church.
Under Stalin, the Orthodox Church experienced intensified persecution that went far beyond Lenin's policies. Religious schools were shut down and the teaching of religious doctrine was prohibited. Worship became restricted to 'registered congregations' only, whilst numerous churches were physically destroyed or desecrated.
Between 1929 and 1940, the traditional holy day of Sunday was abolished. Workers were employed for six days out of seven, with a sixth day off on a rotating basis.
Although anti-religious campaigns briefly relaxed in 1935, they resumed with renewed intensity as the Terror expanded. Stalin's 1936 Constitution criminalised the organisation of religious propaganda, and priests lost their voting rights (which they had forfeited in 1918). During the later 1930s, many priests became victims of the purges, accused of political subversion, and large numbers were sent to the gulags. Despite this onslaught, Orthodox congregations persisted, supported by voluntary donations from believers.
Soviet Muslims experienced comparable suffering. Their property and institutions (including land, schools and mosques) were seized, and Sharia courts (courts which judged people according to divine Islamic law) were abolished. This created division within the Islamic community, with the 'New Mosque' movement adopting a pro-Soviet stance. From 1935, pilgrimages to Mecca were forbidden, the frequency of prayers and fasts was reduced, and the wearing of the veil was banned. These measures provoked backlash in some central Asian Muslim communities, where traditionalists murdered those who complied with Soviet injunctions. Many Muslim religious leaders were imprisoned or executed.
The anti-religion campaign extended to other faiths as well. Jewish schools and synagogues were closed, and attacks were launched on Buddhist institutions and the Armenian and Georgian Churches. Whilst the institutional power of religious organisations was broken, faith itself remained resilient.
By 1941, nearly 40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 Muslim mosques had been closed and repurposed as schools, cinemas, clubs, warehouses and grain stores. Nevertheless, abundant evidence demonstrated the persistence of religious belief, potentially strengthened by the attacks during collectivisation and the purges.
Despite the regime's efforts to suppress 'controversial' views, the 1937 census recorded over half a million Soviet citizens describing themselves as religious believers. The actual figure was certainly much higher. The regime ultimately discovered that it could not eradicate religious belief and observance.
Women
Soviet propaganda under Lenin had celebrated the 'liberation' of women. Sex discrimination was outlawed, divorce and abortion became more accessible, the family was regarded as a bourgeois remnant, and women entered the workforce alongside men.
However, during the 1930s, declining population growth (exacerbated by the purges, harsh living conditions on the collectives, overcrowded urban apartments, family disruption and war anxieties) prompted Stalin to reverse course towards more traditional policies. This 'Great Retreat' represented a conscious repudiation of post-revolutionary social experimentation. The 'family' became the centrepiece of a new propaganda campaign, with Stalin presented as a paternal figure and the ideal 'family man'. Divorce and abortion came under attack. The importance of marriage was re-emphasised, wedding rings were reintroduced, and new-style wedding certificates were issued. Films and art began portraying women differently – moving away from the muscular, plainly dressed women who had helped build Soviet Russia in the 1920s, towards more conventionally feminine representations showing women with adoring children.
The 1936 family code
A new 'family code' was proposed in May 1936 and enacted into law in June, following a Central Committee decision. The measures included:
- Abortion became illegal, which had the effect of increasing the birth rate in the late 1930s
- Obtaining a divorce became more difficult; substantial fees were introduced and both parties had to attend the proceedings
- Contraception was banned and permitted only on medical grounds
- Mothers with six or more children received tax exemptions and bonus payments for every additional child under ten in the family
- Child support payments by fathers were fixed at 60 per cent of income, though collection proved difficult as many men married several times
- Children who committed violent crimes were to be treated as adults from the age of 12
- Adultery was criminalised, and the names of male offenders were published in the press
- New decrees were introduced against prostitution and homosexuality, although the authorities regarded these as 'capitalist vices' and were reluctant to acknowledge their existence or extent
Reality versus propaganda
Despite the new emphasis on family life and encouragement for women to abandon paid employment upon marriage, the numbers of women working in factories continued to increase, and substantial numbers also worked on the collective farms, where status and conditions were poor. Furthermore, the divorce rate remained high (37 per cent in Moscow in 1934), and there were over 150,000 abortions for every 57,000 live births. Though the encouragement of traditional marriage meant that in 1937, 91 per cent of men and 82 per cent of women in their thirties were married, the years 1929 to 1940 witnessed a falling rate of population growth.
Single and divorced women were more susceptible to unemployment and received no compensation. Women increasingly appeared on the margins of society; for example, the number of prostitutes in cities rose. The failure of women to secure redress for injustices through the courts led to strikes and protests, but only the most committed women were prepared to sacrifice time for activities such as attending Party-organised workplace meetings.
Female participation in senior Party politics actually declined during the 1930s.
Overall, there was no substantial improvement for women during the 1930s. Poorer women were still expected to care for their children and homes whilst simultaneously bearing the additional burden of contributing more extensively to the full-time workforce as part of the drive to construct socialism. Women in the Asian Islamic Republics experienced even lower status.
Young people
Education
Education was regarded as essential in constructing a socialist society. Free education was provided at all levels in co-educational schools during the 1920s. However, Stalin considered the results of these experiments disastrous. An industrialising USSR required a better-educated and more skilled workforce. The new-style education was failing to produce the skilled workers, scientists and technicians the country needed. Consequently, the Central Committee decided on a substantial policy change during the 1930s, introducing a more organised school structure and reverting to traditional teaching methods and discipline.
Centralised control of education was exercised by Narkompros (the People's Commissariat for Education), which provided nursery schools for children at three years, infant schools until seven years, and secondary school until at least 15 years. Parents were expected to contribute towards the cost of secondary schooling. Numerous adult education institutions were also established.
Many schools became the responsibility of the collective farms or town enterprises, whilst the universities were also regarded as agencies for delivering economic growth and placed under the control of the economic planning agency, Veshenkha.
The quota system, whereby a high proportion of working-class children were allocated places at secondary school, was abandoned in 1935, and selection was reintroduced for all, including non-proletarians. This meant that the academically able received a strong academic education. Greater emphasis was placed on the advanced training of specialists who could contribute to the industrialisation drive, with courses in mathematics, science and technology. For the less academically able, increasing amounts of 'practical' work (linked to the Five Year Plans) were encouraged. The importance of duty and loyalty to the Party and the State was fostered at all levels.
Teachers were granted higher status and were increasingly likely to be Party members. However, teachers and university lecturers were closely monitored and could be arrested if they failed to meet expected high standards. They were encouraged to set ambitious targets for themselves and their students under the Stakhanovite system (a movement encouraging workers to exceed production targets), and if students failed to perform well, teachers could be blamed and purged.
The selective secondary schools possessed a rigid academic curriculum, formal teaching methods, report cards, tests and uniforms. Some were single-sex. The core subjects were reading, writing and science, with 30 per cent of time devoted to Russian language and literature, 20 per cent to mathematics, 15 per cent to science and 10 per cent to Soviet-style history. Nationalism was promoted and military training was incorporated in the years before the war.
One of the notable successes of education during the 1930s was the spread of literacy, especially in rural areas. Only 65 per cent of the population had been literate before the revolution. By 1941, 94 per cent of the 9 to 49 age group in the towns was literate and 86 per cent in the countryside. For the communists, this was particularly desirable, as a literate population could more readily absorb extensive propaganda.
There were also marked improvements at university level, and the USSR produced particularly strong science graduates, even though the numbers of working-class students reaching university and the higher classes at secondary level fell when the quota system was abandoned.
Youth organisations
From 1926, the youth organisation 'Komsomol' (the all-Leninist Union Young Communist League; the youth division of the Communist Party, which was represented in its own right in the Supreme Soviet) catered for those aged 10 to 28 years. This organisation expanded and became more substantial under Stalin.
The organisation promoted communist morality. Smoking, drinking and religion were discouraged, whilst volunteer social work, sports, political and drama clubs were organised to inspire socialist values. Special 'palaces' were constructed to serve as community centres for the 10 to 15-year-old 'Young Pioneers', and free summer vacation holiday camps were organised.
Komsomol maintained close connections to the Party and became directly affiliated in 1939. Members took an oath to live, study and fight for the Fatherland and helped execute party campaigns and assist the Red Army and police. Komsomolskaia Pravda was published as a youth newspaper, encouraging young people to respect their parents. Many members of Komsomol became highly enthusiastic about the industrialisation drive and joined activist groups, flocking to projects such as the building of Magnitogorsk.
Membership of Komsomol and the Young Pioneers demanded full-time commitment but also offered opportunities for social and educational advancement. The uniform, with a red neckerchief and rank badges, distinguished these young people and helped ensure they were favoured within the Soviet system.
However, not all young people wished to become involved in these youth movements. Some were more interested in Western culture, such as cinema, fashion and jazz, despite the regime's condemnation of such preoccupations as 'hooliganism'. Some simply disengaged, whilst others joined small secret 'oppositional' youth organisations, though direct confrontation with the Soviet system was rare.
Working men
The establishment of the Soviet state had been undertaken in the name of the proletariat, and generally, urban working men were enthusiastic about Stalin's policy of rapid industrialisation. They hoped this would generate more employment opportunities and raise their standards of living. Ambitious workers perceived advantages in the attack on foreigners and bourgeois managers as offering more opportunities for advancement.
Those who benefitted most from Stalinist policies were the skilled workers. With the expansion of technical education and increased opportunities for training, the introduction of wage differentials from 1931, and the Stakhanovite movement, determined and loyal workers discovered new avenues to improve themselves. The acute skills shortage during the 1930s meant that those prepared to acquire expertise could command good pay, provided they were willing to conform to the harsh labour laws. Such men were able to raise their living standards in the later 1930s, although as war approached in 1940 to 1941 and resources were diverted elsewhere, their income declined.
However, life for the mass of unskilled working men, many of whom were former peasants forced into the towns by collectivisation, was harsh. Unaccustomed to strict labour discipline, they were likely to move around from job to job, attempting to avoid remaining too long in one place so as not to acquire an unfavourable working record.
Living conditions were difficult; overcrowding strained family life and meant there was little, if any, privacy. Petty crime and excessive drinking proliferated, and during the time of the Terror they could be deprived of all they possessed for the smallest misdemeanour or unguarded word.
Some workers found it difficult to secure employment because of something in their own or their family's history. Coming from a 'bourgeois' family could be a genuine disadvantage, as was belonging to a family in which someone had been purged; this automatically created suspicion as a possible 'enemy of the people'. Workers learned to conceal their backgrounds or even fabricate information about them.
Key Points to Remember:
- Stalin intensified religious persecution from 1929, closing nearly 40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 Muslim mosques by 1941, yet religious belief persisted despite state efforts to eradicate it.
- The 1936 family code marked a 'Great Retreat' from revolutionary social policies, criminalising abortion, making divorce more difficult, and offering financial incentives for large families, though in practice women's conditions did not improve and divorce rates remained high.
- Education was reformed in the 1930s with a more structured, traditional approach, producing remarkable literacy gains (94 per cent urban, 86 per cent rural by 1941) and strong science graduates, whilst youth organisations like Komsomol promoted communist values and loyalty to the state.
- Skilled workers benefitted from industrialisation through wage differentials and the Stakhanovite movement, whilst unskilled workers (many former peasants) endured harsh labour discipline, overcrowding, and the constant threat of denunciation during the Terror.