USSR Social Developments

- Labour conscription during war communism 

- 1 million soliders unemployed 1926

- NEP: greater job security and real wages rise - greater gap between skilled and unskilled workers

- Arteli come about during NEP

- 1928-27 - workers rise from 11.6 mill to 27 mill

- Hostile division between skilled and unskilled 

- Trade Unions no longer allowed to improve working conditions but must provide social insurance

- Oct 1930 - unemployment benefits cancelled

- Low productivity - 1927 Soviet worker produces 1/2 of British worker

- Passport system introduced to prevent workers constantly changing jobs 

- Honours and medals used to motivate workers - Stakhanovites

-1939 - absenteeism becomes illegal

- Free work clothes and cheap canteen food

- 2 weeks paid holiday

- TUs organise sick pay

- Vaccinations against lice-spread tyhpus (1918-20) and cholera (1921)

- Hospital beds from 247K 1928 to 791K 1939

- All medicines cost money but cheap

- 1917 - land redistribution

- Low rent

- Peasants expected to provide their own housing 

- New cities lack proper facilities

- Stalingrad loses 90% housing and Leningrad loses 1/3 in WW2

- Brezhnev 'developed socialism'

 - Soviet Constitution 1977 guarantees full employment - wages grow by 50% 1967-77 but low satisfaction

- High job security

- More consumer goods

- Control maintained via nomenklatura system

- Education system instils socialist values

- Housing space provided from 178 to 394 million metres squared 

- Health benefits like sanatoria (rest homes) and polyclinics (all-purpose)

- 1970's - rural wage only 10% less than urban wage

- Many grew up without a fatehr figure from WW2 (hooliganism, alcoholism)

- Temirtau 1959 -appalling living conditions so they burn down canteen and hang local police chief

- Rise in price of dairy and meat - 70 killed in Novocherkassk

- Food shortages in Sverdlosk and poor housing in Kiev - attempted assassination of Brezhnev

- Free Trade Union set up but quickly eliminated

Changing Status:

- 1917 - Zhenotdel formed as women's branch of the Central Commitee

- Divorce easier and abortion legalised

- Dec 1917 - Equal pay for men and women

- 1918 Constitution - men and women have equal status

Civil War:

- 70K women in Red Army 

- Millions in factories but lack of childcare

- War and famine leaves many women homeless with a rise in prostitution

Changing Status:

- 1917 - Zhenotdel formed as women's branch of the Central Commitee

- Divorce easier and abortion legalised

- Dec 1917 - Equal pay for men and women

- 1918 Constitution - men and women have equal status

Civil War:

- 70K women in Red Army 

- Millions in factories but lack of childcare

- War and famine leaves many women homeless with a rise in prostitution

- Encouraged unveilings and explained contraception, childcare and hygiene

- Unveiling campaign 1927

- Attitudes slow to change 

- Zhenotdel closed in 30s

Countryside:

- Collectivisation left to women with less wages and fewer services

- Social provision under Brez. and Krush. improves

Towns:

- All women have to work in FYPs

- 1929 - 20% higher ed. places reserved for women 

- Wives of social elite do 'social work' - classes on hygiene and make curtains for workers' dorms

- 800K in army in WW2 - 89 receive highest military award

Politics:

- 1917 - Women given vote

- 1932 - only make up 16% party membership

- Alexandra Kollontai - first female People's Commissar 1917-18

- Ekaterina Furtsev - first woman in presidium 

Role Models:

- Famous ballerinas - Natalia Bessmertnova

- Valentina Tereshkova - first woman in space 1963

- Ludmila Savelya - famous actress

Family Code:

- Abortion legalised - Moscow abortion to live births 3:1

- Divorce easier - 1926 postcard divorces

- 1926 - 50% marriages end in divorce

- 1927 - equal status to official and unofficial marriages

The 'Great Retreat':

- Stalin wants to raise status of trad. families

- Awards for women with 10+ children and more resources for nurseries and daycare

- Homosexuality illegal and tax introduced on single people

- Divorce from 4 to 50 roubles

- Abortion illegal unless mother at risk

Changes under Khrushchev:

- 1960 - 49% women in workforce

- Abortion legalised 1955

- Increase in social provisions 

Developed Socialism under Brezhnev:

- New Family Code 1968

- Early 80s - proposals to give more money to larger families 

- Alcoholism - 1982 average adult consumes 18L spirits per year

- Almost 1/3 marriages end in divorce

- Illegal to divorce pregnant woman or within a year of childbirth

- 1917 - Anatoly Lunachevsky launches programme to provide free ed. 7-17

- 1934 - 4 years primary, 3 years secondary, 2-3 years complete secondary ed.

- 30's - 14 million 1929 to 20 million 1931 with growth in standard

- Lack of resources

- Low teaching wages

- Low attendance in rural areas

- Lack of school transport

- 1940s - tuition fees introduced

- WW2 - 82K schools destroyed

Adult Education:

- Mostly illiterate adult pop.

- Rabfak schools give basic courses in literacy and numeracy

- Khrushchev increases oppurtunities with 2 million in 1964

- 1970s - extensive programme of adult ed.

Higher Education:

- Owned by Bolsheviks - specialist schools or academic schools

- 1929 - entry requirements reduced

- 70% places allocated to working class - abolished by 1953

- 100K 1914 to 5.4 mill 1980

- 1916: 35% literacy level - 1939: 94% in urban areas and 86% in rural areas

- 10Ks of 'liquidation points' for basic literacy courses. All the Red Army had to attend

- Instil socialist values

- Attack on old practises and beliefs 

- Bring a sense of unity

- Ensure people have skills needed for FYPs

- From more progressive methods of teaching to more trad. methods in Stalin's 'Great Retreat'

- Restores discipline and gives authority back to teachers

- Textbooks prescribed by gov. 

- More trad. subjects

- Equal teaching for boys and girls

- Marxist-Leninist Theory complusory

- 'History of the All-Union Communist Party' under Stalin - history then rewritten by Khrushchev 

- Minor changes after 1950

- Khrushchev reforms 1958-59 - greater emphasis on specialist and vocational ed.

- Breznev drops controversial changes

- Octoberist (5-9) - Pioneerrs (10-14) - Komsomol (14-28) 

- Essential to be part of Komsomol to join the party

- Komosomol build industrial centres and root out class enemies in Cultural Rev.

- Komsomol membership from 2.3 mill 1929 - 10.7 mill 1940 - 40 mill 1982