Stalins Intolerance
- Created by: hannahgittinsx
- Created on: 30-04-15 15:45
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- Stalins Intolerance
- Political
- 1921 Decree Against Factionalism
- 1936 Constitution
- Party was the key institution & party interests came before any personal or group interests
- Recognised only 1 political party
- Destruction of Kulaks
- Purges - expulsion of individuals considered to be suspect in their loyalty to the party
- 1 million members expelled
- Great Purge 1936-38
- Followed Criticism of Stalin by Ryutin
- Caused by murder of Kirov 1934
- Ensured Stalins power could not be challenged
- 1936 August Show Trial of Zinoviev & Kamenev
- Publicly destroyed those who offered alternative ideas
- 1940 Assassination of Trotsky in Mexico
- Regional Communist parties purged = 30,000 official arrested & 10000 executed in Georiga
- All Ukrainian Politburo members arrested
- Armed forces purged, 3/5 marshals executed
- 1941 - Gulags contained estimated 8 million prisoners (mainly purged party members)
- Historians - Robert Conquest 'Stalin carried out the purges to explicitly destroy potential opposition
- BUT J.Arch & Thurston: Purges were the result of complex social & economic circumstance (Stalin was reacting to circumstance& feared for his own life after assassination of Kirov = gave NKVD more powers to protect party leadership
- Religion
- Committed to destroying organised religion + religious beliefs as no alternative to the one true set of ideas could be allowed
- Churches turned into grain stores in attempt to break religion in the countryside
- Attack on Ukraine Church - bring republic under control
- Law 1929 - Illegal to engage in religious activity outside Churches + only officially licensed congregations allowed to meet
- League of the Godless 1925 - membership 1 million 1929
- 1930 Islam on the verge of destruction : 10000/12000 mosques closed
- BUT April 1931 : Bullard wrote in his diary that churches in the city were crammed for Easter
- BUT 1937 census: 57% of population described themselves as having a religion - Bolsheviks could not break religion
- After Nazi invasion June 1941 Stalin reopened Churches & used religion as a unifying factor to mobilise support for the regime
- 1930's Churches closed & anti -religious museums opened in churches
- All but 87 of Moscows Orthodox churches closed
- Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Mosow destroyed to make way for new palace of soviets
- 1937-1939 105200 Orthodox Priests executed & 87500 arrested
- 1939 only about 100 churches open & 12/163 Bishops survived
- Only 1 Catholic Priests in Leningrad for 36000 Catholics
- Cultural
- Control of press & arts = only official doctrine communicated to the people
- Pravda & Izvestiya 2 main newspapers
- Radio controlled by the State
- New style 'Socialist Realism' had to be followed in all creative work
- 1932 Union of Soviet Writers
- Artistic & intellectual freedom destroyed & replaced with poor quality works
- 1930 Cinema reorganised
- Foreign films no longer imported
- Stalin approved scripts
- 1940 = 28000 cinemas
- Foreign films no longer imported
- Party Youth organisations - Pioneers (Under 14's) & Komosomol (14-28) - membership 10.2 million 1940
- 1930 Compulsory primary education = 1941 35 million children in schools
- BUT teachers regarded as 'bourgeois' in country districts (no rations virtually & delayed salaries) = shortage of teachers = effectiveness of education reduced
- 1936 Constitution 'most liberated women in the world'
- BUT womens section of the party shut down 1930 (politics male sphere of life)
- 1936 Abortion illegal except on medical grounds
- Mothers became a symbol of stability = mothers given to families of large children : 5 = Medal of Motherhood, 10 = Mother Heroine of Soviet Union
- Contraception no longer availabe
- BUT Birth rate in 1930's failed to increase
- Women as cheap labour: 1928-1940 women in employment = 3 million to 13 million
- Forced to take dangerous & physically hard jobs e..g heavy industry + chemical industry
- 1934 Homosexuality illegal, prostitution condemned
- Ethic differences greatest threat to socialist unity
- Purges of non=russian Bolsheviks in the republics
- Excessive grain collection in Ukraine
- Control of press & arts = only official doctrine communicated to the people
- Political
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