Stalin's Russia

1. Stalin’s Russia
Savannah Criado
Ryan Fernandez
Sydney Howard
Ricardo Ruiz

2. Typical Theoretical Social Policy of a Communist
● Social classes- A textbook communist would agree that there are no social
classes in true communism , and that everyone is equal
● Education- Education was theoretically highly valued in a communist system,
as shaping the minds of skilled workers and revolutionaries was very important
to the communist
● Religion- On a broader definition of communism, religion isn’t always out of the
question. Yet, marxism specifically was against religion, calling it an “opiate of
the masses”
● Media- In communist systems, control of the media is usually pretty strong, as
influence over the opinions of the masses are key in keeping control

3. Stalin’s social policies objectives
● Education:
○ Lenin and the Bolsheviks initially wanted to reject bourgeois standards by attacking book
learning and traditional academic subjects.
○ By the time Stalin came to power, the system had gone too far. .
○ Stalin introduced policy to modernize the Soviet Union and he believed that to achieve this, the
population, especially the young, must be literate.
○ Also, he was able to control the textbooks and the history the youth was reading and it allowed
him to rewrite history to make Communism look like a good thing for Russia.
● Control of the media:
○ Ensure that the people were only getting the Stalinist messages and weren’t receiving influence
from anybody but him; total domination.
○ Media portrayed only the good parts of him, allowing him to continue to do wrong without a rebellious
nation.

4. Stalin’s social policies objectives (cont.)
● Women and the family
○ Women's rights (i.e. working in factories) benefited the economy because of the influx of new
workers, and the economy was one of Stalin's main focuses.
○ Increasing the birth rate would provide more factory workers to accomplish his Stalin’s
economic Five Year plans.
○ Providing women with rights ultimately benefited Stalin's other policies, so he gave them more
rights to benefit his own policies rather than the women themselves.
● Control of Religion
○ Stalin didn’t want religion to be a distraction from his Communist ideology so he followed in Lenin’s
footsteps and completely abolished religion.
○ He wanted the Russian people to respect and worship his ideologies, making him the only God the
Russian people will ever need.

5. What Best Explains Stalin’s Social Policy?
❏ Stalin’s Social Policy can best be described as a Hit or a Miss
❏ Stalin gained complete control of everything, some policies produced helpful results while
others created misery
❏ Education Reform: Reversed completely what the Bolsheviks and Lenin had
done
❏ Some of the key features included: regular required homework, 10 years of schooling for all
children, State prescribed textbooks, mandatory uniform, state organised tests and books
❏ RESULTS OF THIS REFORM:
❏ Impressive, between 1929 and 1940 school enrollment rose from 12 million to 35 million
❏ Between 1926 and 1940 the literacy rate for the population over 9 years old rose from
51% to 88%
❏ Attack On Religion
❏ Stalin believes there is no place for religion in a socialist society
❏ Prohibition of orthodox churches, monasteries, synagogues and mosques
❏ People who refused to cooperate were arrested and some even sent to exile

6. What Best Explains Stalin’s Social Policy?
❏ RESULTS OF CONTROL ON RELIGION
❏ Revolts began in the rural areas due to the peasants becoming angry
❏ Resistance against the USSR became widespread throughout these areas
❏ Authorities began to brand religious protestors as “Kulaks” and seize their property, priests
were publically humiliated and forced to perform demeaning tasks
❏ Created complete misery, and international attention when Pope Pius XI announced a prayer
throughout the churches for victims
❏ Stalin ordered the guards to ease off but of course this didnt last and the terror against these
people was brought back in late 1930’s
❏ Women and Family reform
❏ End of the 1930’s divorce was at its highest causing Stalin to emphasize the importance of
family
❏ 1944: mothers with 2 or more children were made heroines, taxes increased on parents with
fewer than 2 children; women begin having more rights when it comes to working due to the

7. What Best Explains Stalin’s Social Policy?
❏ RESULTS OF WOMEN REFORM
❏ Mothers now fulfilled two roles, raising children to work when they become older and becoming
essential members of the work force
❏ Deaths of men in the war of 1941-1945 caused women to be indispensable
❏ In the Great War over half a million women fought, instead of improving the way women were
seen this made things worse
❏ Confessions from Red Army Veterans reveal that women were sexually abused especially by
senior officers
❏ Women were EXPLOITED if anything under Stalinism
❏ In 1945 half of all soviet workers were female but they received no reward
❏ Women's pay rate actually dropped

8. What Best Explains Stalin’s Social Policy?
Stalin’s Social Policy overall was a hit or a miss. The only time Stalin was extremely
successful was when he took over education, forcing people to learn out of terror is
guaranteed to get this result. When parents have no other option but to send their
child to school of course it will be effective. As for women and the control of the
church complete misery was insured. Peasants felt attacked, with no place to turn
to anymore since the church was all they had. And women although they were
getting more rights were being taken advantage of. Stalin took complete control
over Russia, and anything he said would go.

9. “Realism and not Idealism”
To what extent does this explain social policy in Russia between 1929 and 1941?
This means was Stalin’s social policy based on how a communist state should be
ran or was he running it based on what he thought was actually needed at that time
in Russia. To answer this question you have to look at social policy as a whole.

10. Idealism
● Russification
● Women Rights (Encouraged to
work)
● Education
Realism
● The Great Purges
● Control of the Media
● Gulags
● Totalitarianism

11. To a good extent his social policy of Russian between the time of 1929 and 1941
was based on Realism and not Idealism. When looking at the great purges it isn’t
very communist to kill people to suppress opposition. There is the control of media
which is shown through the use of propaganda to glorify Stalin, his economic plans,
and communism in general, even to the point of changing history books and
photographs. The gulags and Russia in general had class distinctions such as the
suppression of minorities rights clearly everyone wasn’t equal. Stalin was not in the
same class as a common Russian working hard at the Gulag he was forced to be at.
This overall ties with the totalitarian type of government that leads to suppression,
class distinction, and generally not communist.
But points against this can be said in Russia encouraging women to work. This
shows making everyone equal. Also russification, as much as it was suppressing
minorities it was making everyone equal and the same.