Stalin - Status of Women and Treatment of Religious Groups and National Minorities

What are some examples of Stalin's purges on national minorities?

1. 1940, take over of Baltic states resulted in 2 million people being deported. 2. 1941, to prevent peoples of Western Europe supporting Germany, Stalin ordered deportation to Siberia for various groups, led to the deaths of one third of the four million involved.

The Soviet Union culture and society in a decade of turmoil SUMMARY

1. The Cultural Revolution of 1928-31 coincided with industrialisation and collectivisation. It saw a return to the class struggle of the Civil War. 2. The Komsomols were particularly active in enforcing the Cultural Revolution in education and art and intensifying the attack on religion. 3. After the Cultural Revolution there was a return to traditional values in many areas of Soviet society. This had been called the Great Retreat. 4. Abortion was outlawed and divorce was made harder after the introduction of the 1936 Family Code, which emphasised the value of family life. 5. In education, discipline, exams and traditional procedures were brought back. 6. Socialist Realism was the guiding principle for all artists from 1932 onwards. 7. Art was even more tightly controlled than it had been in the 1920s. Artists rose, like Brodsky, or fell, like Meyerhold, depending on how closely they followed the dictates of Socialist Realism. 8. Great writers like Pasternak were silent; lesser ones produced novels about the Five Year Plans. 9. The Soviets were trying to produce a new type of man. 10. Their success was very limited. In spite of Stalin's terror, the Soviet people were survivors and remained sceptical. 11. There has been debate among historians about whether there was a Great Retreat or not.

How many Soviet people were uprooted by 1945?

20 million (Lynch)

How many churches were open for worship in 1940?

500, one per cent of that figure for 1917.

What were Stalin's changes in social policy when the 'Great Retreat' towards the status of women?

A decree in June 1936 1. Unregistered marriages were no longer recognised 2. Divorce was made more difficult 3. Right to abortion was severely restricted 4. Family was declared to be the basis of Soviet society 5. Homosexuality was outlawed

What were some of Stalin's policies against Jewish people?

Anti-Jewish prejudices remerged in some sections of the population, especially in rural areas during the 1930s. Further, during the war, many Jews were murdered by the Nazis. However, Communists, unlike the Nazi Party, believed all races equal and welcomed inter-marriage as a way of assimilating the different national and ethnic groups.

How did Stalin's policy change during the War?

Between 1928-1940 - Soviet population growth declined continuously. Fear of war due to Hitler's rise to power (1933). Conscious of both the falling birth rate and of how many people were dying in the War, new measures were introduced in July 1944: 1. Restrictions on divorce were tightened 2. Abortion was outlawed 3. Heavy taxes imposed on parents with fewer than two children 4. Women were rewarded with medals for giving birth to ten or more children (birth rate rose slightly 1937, but dropped again 1939)

How did the status of women in the Soviet Union change under Stalin?

In keeping with their Marxist rejection of marriage as a bourgeois institution, Lenin had made divorce easier and had attempted to liberate women from the bondage an family. However, by the end of the 1930s, the Soviet divorce rate was one in every two marriages. Most of this was by men would abandoned women when they became pregnant. Also, due to a housing shortage, divorced couples often continued living together, leading to domestic violence and rape. Moreover, when the government was not willing nor able to fund facilities to free women from child-care and housework, begging, stealing, and prostitution became common. The number of orphans also rose, that in the 1920s there were between seven to nine million orphans. This led Stalin to stress the value of family as a stabilizing influence in society, he called this 'The Great Retreat'. With collectivisation and industrialisation, Stalin was trying to create some form of balance by emphasising traditional social values attaching the role of the women to home-makers and child-raisers.

What was the impact of the war on women's status?

Married women with children carried a double burden as they were required to work and raise the young. The loss of men at the front meant that women became indispensable (9 million to 15 million women in workforce in 9 years). Shockingly, over half a million women fought in the Soviet armed forces and by 1945 half of all Soviet workers were female. Yet they received no comparable reward and were paid less. Thus women under the Stalin regime were increasingly exploited. However, compared to Nazi Germany where women were seen as inferior, Communists believed in total equity between the sexes in education, employment and the law.

How did religion continue?

Persecution resulted in many 'underground' churches being formed. In 1937, the census showed that 57% of the population would still define themselves as 'believers.'

What was change in position of working women?

Position of working women improved significantly: actively encouraged to contribute to economic development; all employment was open to women; same rights as male workers. 1939 - 1/3 of engineers & 79% of doctors were women. 1940 - 43% of industrial workforce were women; many female 'hero-workers' in Stakhanovite movement. But, access to higher administrative posts was unequal & patriarchal tradition was still widespread.

Why was religion persecuted under Stalin?

Religious faith had no place in a communist society.

What are some of the policies Stalin put in place to persecute national minorities?

Russification of education, with a clear policy of equating Soviet patriotism with Great Russian nationalism. Russian became the official language. Stalin's actions were directed against what he saw a reactionary nationalism. Many of the resettlements were due to fear, and the war.

How did Stalin deal with the minority peoples within the Soviet Union?

Stalin aimed to promote the dominance of Russia, and feared minority rights would encourage challenges to his authority. A basic method Stalin used to suppress potential opposition was to deport whole peoples from their homeland to a distant region of the USSR.

How did the denunciation of religious faith aid Stalin?

Stalin now became an icon, a God.

What was the impact of the war on religious persecution?

The War brought a respite to the persecution of churches. Stalin was shrewd enough to enlist religion in fighting the Great Fatherland War. Churches were re-opened, and people were encouraged to celebration religious events. For a period of the war, the Soviet authorities under Stalin played down politics and emphasised nationalism. In turn, the clergy turned their services into patriotic gatherings. They urged their congregations to rally around Stalin. The reward for the Church's co-operation was the lighting of the anti-religious persecution.

What was religious persecution like after the War?

The improved Church-state relations continued after the war, and more churches were re-opened. However the price for being allowed to exist openly was their total subservience to the regime. The Church came under the authority of the Soviet Union. They were not allowed to become a source of political opposition.

Which group of women, and why, felt that they had lost out under the Stalin regime?

The intelligentsia, as the regime discouraged the notion of the independent female. Soviet propaganda spoke of women's equality, however little was done. Stalin was too focused on the need to build a war economy, so their plight seemed largely irrelevant.

What was the difference in religious persecution in urban and peasant areas?

The suppression of religion in urban areas proved a fairly straightforward affair. However, the destruction of rural churches led to revolts and resistance. Authorities failed to understand that religion for peasants was a precious part of their tradition. They responded by declaring that those who opposed the restrictions on religion were really doing so to resist collectivisation. They therefore branded the religious protestors as Kulaks and seized their property.

Was there a 'Great Retreat'?

Trotsky denounced Stain as the leader of a new privileged class and saw this a part of Stalin's betrayal of the revolution. The 1930s were a time of great shortage so access to special food rations and other scarce goods at low prices in special elite stores, together with access to better services and housing, was at the heart of privilege. Does this inequality, combines with the change by the middle of the 1930s to more conservative policies on family values, divorce, abortion, education and the arts which we have already noticed, signify a retreat? Historians have debated this issue. Some like Sheila Fitzpatrick argue that there was a retreat, contrasting the revolutionary spirit of the Civil War and Cultural Revolution with the mid-1930s. They point to: - The acceptance of hierarchy and social privilege - Respect for authority and tradition - The return to traditional values in education, the family and the arts. Historians who challenge this interpretation, like Stephen Kotkin and Ewan Mawdsley, argue that the created of the new working class and the new intelligentsia meant that: - There was no retreat on private ownership of land and the means of production or on hiring labour - The rest of the world saw Communist Russia as still distinctly anti-capitalist - Stalinist culture may have embraced many of the traditions of 19th century Russian realism but the content was 'modern': it was promoted to achieve objectives which the regime chose to stress - economic activity, the socialist utopia, national defence and adulation of the leader. It reflected a changing and advancing rather than retreating society.