LibGuides: VCE History: Area of Study 2: Social &amp; Cultural Change: Russia: 1920s-1930s

Peasant life pre-revolution

Peasant life
The small size of peasant communes (most villages contained between 200-500 people) and their scattered distribution shaped the worldview of Russian peasants. There was little or no formal education so the majority of peasants were illiterate. Few peasants travelled and returned, so not much was known about the world beyond their village.

Russian agriculture in the last 150 years of serfdom [Journal article]
This article provides a complete economic history on the state of Russian agriculture. Spanning from the rule of Peter I to the rule of Alexander II, Blum provides a complex analysis on the statistics of crop cultivation, comparing Russian serf production to other areas of Europe. At the same time, the author gives a substantial portrayal of the poor technological conditions under which both serfs and half-free peasants had to work under, among other things. From this journal article, the reader will get a view of serfdom both from an agricultural and economic perspective.
Blum, Jerome. “Russian Agriculture in the Last 150 Years of Serfdom.” Agricultural History 34, no. 1 (1960): 3-12.

Collectivisation

Collectivisation and Industrialisation
In November 1927, Joseph Stalin launched his “revolution from above” by setting two extraordinary goals for Soviet domestic policy: rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. His aims were to erase all traces of the capitalism that had entered under the New Economic Policy and to transform the Soviet Union as quickly as possible, without regard to cost, into an industrialized and completely socialist state.
Collectivization
Chronic shortfalls in state procurements of grain and a rising tide of working-class protests over shortages combined to persuade Stalin and his supporters within the party leadership to abandon the market as the main mechanism by which goods from the countryside were obtained. Having supervised the application of “extraordinary” (read, coercive) measures in the Urals and western Siberia during the winter of 1927-1928, Stalin hit on the idea of organizing collective and state farms as a potentially more effective and longer-term solution to the problem of extracting grain.

Russian society pre-Revolution

Russia’s social structure was often depicted and lampooned in visual propaganda. For example, there were several versions of the ‘Russian wedding cake’ (see picture above). In these depictions, Russian society is shown as a feudal pyramid. The upper classes are propped up by the labour of the working masses, who are kept in check with work, religion and the threat of violence.

In reality, the base of this cake was significantly broader than these images suggest. The poor peasantry and the industrial working-class made up more than four-fifths of the population, while Russia’s educated and professional middle classes were tiny compared to those of Britain, France and Germany.

The 1897 census categorised the Russian people into the following classes:

Industrialisation

Source: Making History at Macquarie

Modern History Sourcebook: Joseph Stalin (1879-1953): Industrialization of the Country, 1928
Between 1928 and 1933, Stalin inaugurated the First and Second Five-Year Plans to achieve his goal of rapid industrialization. In many respects he was successful - by 1939 the USSR was behind only the United States and Germany in industrial output. The human costs, however, were enormous. Josef Stalin on the "Industrialization of the Country", 1928.

Article: The Failure of Soviet Orphan Policies, 1918-1939 by Stephen Wong
Posted on November 11, 2019

The word besprizornye meant abandoned and orphans in Soviet Russia. From 1918 to 1939, the massive number of orphans was one of the social problems the Soviet Union was facing. The history of orphans during the interwar period can be categorized into two periods: the first wave from 1918, the establishment of the Soviet Union throughout the civil war, to 1922, the beginning of the New Economic Policy (NEP) period...

The second wave of orphans appeared from 1930 to 1939, and this wave was caused by Stalin’s policies on collectivization, forced industrialization and terror. Read more

Religion

Anti-religious campaigns
The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.
Anti-religious propaganda
Among the most important tasks that the Bolsheviks set themselves upon coming to power in 1917 was to emancipate Soviet citizens from the scourge (or as Karl Marx put it, the “opiate”) of religion. Along with the literacy campaign with which it was intimately connected, antireligious propaganda was a key component of the “cultural front” during the 1920s. A protracted affair, the struggle against religion was complicated by the difficulty of defining goals as much as working out how to achieve them.