Russian Society

Stalin:

- The Great Retreat was a consious rejection of Lenin's social experiments

- The New Family Code was introduced in May 1936

      1. Abortion became illegal (newspapers printed horror stories to discourage women + brith rate rose but there were over 150,000 abortions to every 57,000 live births)

      2. Divorce was made more difficult and expensive (divorce declined but so did marriage)

Lenin:

- extolled the new 'liberation' of women (but by 1928, only 12% of part members were women)

- Divorce was made cheap and easy (by the mid-1920's the USSR had the highest divorce rate in Europe)

- Abortion legalised (but not socially accepted suggesting little change)

Stalin:

- religion under more direct attack (closed nearly 40,000 churches and 25,000 mosques)

- by 1939, only 1 in 40 churches were still functioning (but a 1937 census discovered that 1/2 million russians were religous)

- in 1939, priests regained the right to vote (depsite illegalised religious propaganda)

Lenin:

- Marx described religion as the 'opium of the people' (continued by Stalin)

- 1918, Decree on the Separation of Church and State (priests lost the right to vote)

- resistance: more than 8000 citizens were executed in 1922

Stalin:

- education law of 1935 re-introduced 'bourgoeis' report cards and testmarks abolished in the 1920's

- 10 years of compulsory schooling for all children (by 1937, the total literacy rate was 75%)

- 1930's education focused on learning about Great Russians like Ivan the Terrible to encourage patriotism (while Lenin focused on development of personality)

Lenin:

- in 1920, only 24.9% of children were educated in school and illteracy grew rapidly

- Youth Organisation, Komsomol had 2 million members by 1927 (despite growing negativity towards Communists)