STALIN’S SOCIAL POLICIES THE ROLE OF WOMEN

The role of women changed after the revolution, with opportunities opening for careers as engineers and doctors, however there were not many women inside the Communist Party and none in the Politburo. The freedom afforded by the revolution, easy divorce, abandonment of children and the ease of abortion threatened the growth of the population. To encourage population growth, abortion was made illegal, divorce was discouraged and medals were given to women who gave birth ten or more children. There was a slight improvement in the birth rate by 1937, but it fell in 1939. Women also had to play part in the expansion of the Russian economy, women worked on the collective farms, on the construction brigades, they helped to rebuild the destroyed cities after 1945. Women were trained as pilots during the war as well as snipers.

http://www. telegraph. co http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/features/8610709/Russian-women-pilots-the-Nazis-feared.html RELIGION The Russian Orthodox Church had for centuries been a strongly nationalistic mainstay of Russian society. (East-West Schism 1054) Under Lenin and Stalin, all religious celebrations were prohibited. Churches were destroyed, bells were melted down, priests were sent to the gulags. Where Islam was predominant, mosques were closed down, imams suffered the same fate as priests. Practices such as the veiling of women, fasting during Ramadan, polygamy, travelling to Mecca were forbidden. Any religious celebration and practice were held underground by the worshippers. When WWII began, Stalin changed his approach to the Church and used it to gather support from the people for the war effort. Religion was linked to nationalism.

ART AND CULTURE Stalin did not understand music but he didn’t fear it either. The compositions of Prokofiev and Shostakovich gained critical acclaim and would surely be considered among the finest music of the 20th century. The School of Soviet Realism produced paintings that resembled propaganda posters intended to both entertain and educate masses. Even when people were starving, they were surrounded by images of well-fed, healthy men and women working in sunlit fields.

Writers who found favor with the regime were well looked after and led lives of privilege. Nikolai Ostrovsky glorified the workers of the new Soviet Union in How the steel was tempered – 1934. Mikhail Sholokhov focused on the heroic years of the revolution and civil war in Quiet flows the Don. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. Sergei Eisenstein produced the film Ivan the Terrible, but the sequel was seen as a critic to Stalin. Eisenstein was criticized and dismissed as the head of the Moscow Film School. EDUCATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY The children of the better-educated were more likely to go on higher education, but that was to perpetuate an elitist system. Lenin attempted to make education more accessible, but the curriculum in school didn’t change much. In 1928, it was pronounced that 65% of those entering higher technical education had to be of working-class origin and 14% had to be women.

Non-party lecturers and professors were rejected. Students needed to be literate and have an understanding in basic science that’s why there were officially prescribed textbooks, tests and exams were restored, the teaching of history had to focus on political events and great men. By the end of 1930 all schools were required to attach themselves to an enterprise in order to introduce closer links between education and practical work experience. The dismissal of schoolteachers who were not party members or were educated before the revolution, opened up opportunities for social mobility as younger Red Specialists were given teaching posts. Urbanization and access to education made possible for some former peasants to change their lives. Some moved to the cities where a few became managers and with a little luck, rose within the party which led to privileged lives.

STALIN’S AIMS Securing his own position as the leader of the party and the state Stalin removed his rivals by the end on the 1920s, but it didn’t mean he had the total control. Stalin’s policies were not always popular which led to critics, everything changed when the Great Terror began. Stalin knew the impact of his policies (the human cost, the famine, the difficult targets). Other knew that and were not afraid to voice their concerns. Defending the USSR According to Stalin the USSR was a fragile state. It wasn’t very industrialized and outside its borders there were countries which feared the spread of communism. Fascism was already established and Nazism was rising. Both had their roots in Socialism but they opposed Communism. In a war, the USSR had to defend its borders and have a well-trained and equipped army.