Russia 1917-85- social developments
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- Created on: 14-05-19 11:15
Full employment, housing and social benefits, 1917
Labour market under Lenin
- collapse of industrial production during the civil war made factory workers drift to the countryside
- demobilisation of Red Army left soldiers in the cities looking for work
- food shortages in the countryside and collectivisation made peasants drift into the cities
- arteli- workers who offered their services and were paid in a group
- number of hired workers rose from 11.6 million in 1928 to 27 million in 1937
Industrialisation and full employment
- trade unions could no longer negotiate with trade unions
- health and safety ignored
- In October 1930, unemployment benefit was cancelled in the light of full employment
- In 1927, the average Soviet worker only produced half of what a British worker did
- managers had to schedule day and night shifts so make the machines work 24/7
- In 1932, an internal passport system was needed to change jobs
- governemnt used honours and medals to motivate the workforce
- by 1939, absenteeism was made a criminal offence
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Full employment, housing and social benefits, 1917
Housing
- In 1917, the Bolsheviks confiscated large houses from the rich, partitioned them and rented them to families of workers
- housing recieved few resources and low priority
- workers had to sleep in tents, make shift huts and sometimes the factories
- In 1936, only 6% of rented units consisted of more than one room and in 24% of cases it was part of one room
- improvements to rural housing was even worse- peasants were expected to provide their own housing
- lack of housing was made worse by WW2
- housing was not a priority of the Fourth and Fifth Year Plans
Social benefits
- by the early 1930s, cheap was food was available in workforce canteens
- workers were given two weeks payed holiday
- compulsory vaccination programme implemented in 1921 for cholera epidemic
- many doctors fled Russia in 1917, weakening healthcare
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Promotion of a stable society, 1953-85
- Soviet Constitution of 1977 guarenteed citizens employment, but jobs were made that were sometimes pointless
- wages rose by 50% between 1967 and 1977
- minimum wage introduced in 1956
- low standards of work discipline often ignored by managers
- working week reduced in 1957 and paid holiday days increased
- economic resources turned towards consumer goods
- Ninth Five Year Plan (1971-75)- higher rate for consumer goods than heavy industry
- due to the nomenklatura systen, a worker's employment depended on securing an internal passport and dwelling permit
- party membership grew from 6.9 million in 1953 to 17 million in 1980
- By the end of the 1970s, 20% of all males over 30 were Party members
- education became one of the most important vehicles for gaining a good socila status in Soviet society
- boys and girls had equal access to eductaion by the 1980s
- youth groups made young people into committed Comunists
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Promotion of a stable society, 1953-85 (2)
- between 1950 and 1980, social welfare spending increased five fold
- in 1956 the pension scheme was expanded and retirement age reduced
- since pensions were still insufficient, many still searched for part time work after reaching retirement age
- housing blocks were nicknamed khrushchoby (Khrushchev slums) as they were drab, uniform and often poorly finished in a rush to meet targets
- in 1978, there were over 2000 sanatoria (rest homes) and 1000 rest homes linked to medical care
- provincial cities had fewer healthcare services and those in rural areas were limited
- incomes of collective farmers were increased in 1966
- by the mid-1970s, the wages of rural workers were only 10% less than their urban counterparts
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Role of women 1917-85
- Islamic women were often veiled and denied an education, so young female activists encouraged unveiling while explaining basic contraception, personal hygiene and child care
- Islamic attitudes were slow to change and there was often violence
- Women provided the bulk of the agricultural workforce, and in rural areas traditional attitudes to women were slower to change
- As late as the 1950s you could find villages populated only by women and children
- In the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, maternity benefits were extended to the countryside
- Although the extension of the passport system to collective workers in 1974 allowed women to move to towns, it was more likely for young men to do this
- There were 3 million female industrial workers in the 1928, and 13 million in 1940
- In 1929, the government reserved 20% of higher education places for women
- by 1940 over 40% of engineering students were female
- those married to Party officals or industrial managers were encouraged to do social work, such as providing classes on hygiene
- 800,000 women served in the Red Army from 1941-1945
- In 1932, women made up 16% of party membership
- Alexandra Kollontai was the first woman to become a people's commissar, serving as the people's Commissar for Public Welfare in 1917-18
- Only 7 women were on the Central Commitee pre-WW2
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Attitudes to the family
- youth groups were encouraged to attack the 'capitalist tyranny of parents' and women were encouraged to be more independent
- Party thought that the role of the family unit could be taken over by the government
- Family Code of 1918- new rights and freedoms for women, such as rights within marriage and making divorce easier. abortion was made legal and créches were encouraged
- By the mid-1920s, Russia's divorce rate was the highest in Europe and in 1926, 50% of all marriages in Moscow ended in divorce
- In Moscow, abortions outnumbered live births by 3:1
- Great Retreat 1936 worked to restore the traditional family
- divorce was made more expensive, male homosexuality declared illegal, abortion outlawed unless the mother's life was at risk, gold wedding rings, previously labelled bourgeois, reappeared in shops
- new view that the family was a necessary unit of a socialist society
- By 1960, women made up 49% of the workforce, placing a double burden of work and family
- Soviet society respected the elderly , resulting in many multi-generational family units
- alcoholism undermined the family and historian Nemstov concluded that it contributed to a quarter of all deaths per year
- Family Code 1968 required couples to give one months notice before a wedding took place
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The growth of education
- In 1917, Lunachevsky and the Bolsheviks lauched a programme to provide free, universal and compulsory education for all children 7-17
- Teachers were poorly paid and were expected to teach classes of 40 or more as well as clean the school unpaid
- number of children in education increased from 14 million in 1929 to over 20 million in 1931
- in the 1980s the government turned many general academic schools into specialist schools, for things like science, maths and foreign languages
- Under the NEP spending on schools declined
- low wages discouraged people from entering teaching
- parents were expected to pay for uniforms, textbooks and individual equipment
- The Fifth Five Year plan (1951-55) implemented a ten-year compulsory education for urban schools by 1955 and rural schools by 1960
- Russification- imposing Russian language and culture on ethnic minorities
- short courses taught adults basic literacy and numeracy
- In 1964, 500,000 people were studying in hugher education part-time
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Reduction of illiteracy
- In the final years of the Tsarist regime, the illiteracy rate was at about 65%
- Bolsheviks aimed to make everyone between 8 and 50 literate
- tens of thousands of liquidation points were set up. where people could undertake literacy courses
- between 1920-26, five million people undertook these courses
- all soldiers recruited into the army had to attend literacy classes
- particular emphasis on women- 14 million of the 17 million who were illiterate in 1917 were women
- In 1939, literacy rates were 94% in urban areas and 86% in rural areas
- By 1959, literacy rates were 99% in urban areas and 98% in rural areas
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State control of the curriculum
- propaganda in education indocrinated children from and early age
- important method of Russification
- all students studied the same curriculum until the last years of secondary school
- particular attention on mathmatics and sciences
- all history taught had to be approved by Stalin first
- all students were required to learn Russian
- emphasis given to vocational education increased with Khrushchev's reforms of 1958
- Marxist-Leninist theory woven into the curriculum
- no difference between what was offered to boys and girls
- Communist scouts (not actually called that)
- Octoberists (ages 5-9)
- informal gatherings with nursery rhymes and simple games
- Pioneers (ages 10-14)
- members had to promise to follow to teachings of Lenin and the Communist Party
- Komosol (ages 14-28)
- expected to support community schemes
- Octoberists (ages 5-9)
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