Social Situation

• Communist control in the country increased as ‘communal’ values were established. Peasants lived and worked in the kolkhoz and firmly under the supervision of Party officials.
• Peasants were watched by the NKVD units stationed at each Motor Tractor Stations and increased urbanisation created a far stronger proletariat.
• A new 'mass Culture' used to claim that socialist values had been fulfilled. However, Stalinism never entirely reshaped public opinion in the USSR because although people supported welfare program they still lived in hope that their life would improve and escape the stagnation.
• No substantial improvements in living standards. Low rations, poor housing and lack of consumer goods were no longer acceptable once the Civil War had finished.
• Rather than a classless society there was a hierarchical society dominated by a privileged elite organised around the Party and nomenklatura. Urban and rural classes were no longer exploited by capitalist employers and instead ruthlessly driven by their Soviet masters. Instead of ‘withering away’ the State had become more formidable, extensive and brutal.