Social developments

• Khrushchev - employment

  
  

  • Full employment continued and remained a key feature of the economic industry and agriculture.
  • Virgin Land Scheme provided women with horrible working conditions
  • 450/6500 women recruited for VLS found well-paid professional jobs
  • Women were paid 15% of what a male tractor driver made
• Khrushchev - social benefits

  
  

  • Increased social healthcare budget from 21.4 billion in 1950, to 44 billion in 1959
  • Death rates and infant mortality decreased
  • Healthcare free for farmers
  • Free lunches in schools, offices and factories
  • Public transport now free
  • 1950-65 the pension budget increased by 4x
  • "What sort of communism is it that cannot produce a sausage"
• Lenin - housing

  
  

  • In 1918, workers began taking property by force, owners killed and local soviets were given power to take over property and redistribute it to the poor.
  • People left cities during Civil war and the empty houses were destroyed for timber and fuel.
  • Houses expensive to build so weren't priority
  • Under NEP, 89% of houses were undertaken by private companies
• Brezhnev - education

  
  

  • Ended the 16-19 year olds' vocational training scheme
  • 1970s textbooks updated to reflect latest scientific knowledge
  • 70% of teachers uni educated
  • Aimed for 100% attendance by 1970, used free meals and textbooks as incentive
  • Funded Armenian universities
  • 19% of the population had a degree
  • Only 60% of people finished secondary school in 1976
• Brezhnev - employment

  
  

  • Banned political dissidents from the right to work, leading to a further 2% of the population being unemployed
  • 'Hidden employment' where 20% were paid but not working
  • Publicly stated that there was full employment in Russia, which was very misleading
  • Labour shortages with 1 million unfilled vacancies in industry jobs
• Stalin - employment

  
  

  • Working conditions deteriorated
  • lateness and damaging property criminalised
  • Trade unions lost right to negotiate pay and rights
  • in 1940 internal passports were introduced to track movement of workers searching for better pay
  • Continuous work week
  • Canteens provided meals for workers in factories or collectivised farms
  • Full employment continued after WW2, increase of 4.2 million in 1945-50
• Lenin - women

  
  

  • During the Civil War, women recruited to fill jobs in nursing and food distribution as to fit with 'nursing role'
  • 1919 legal rights to equal pay and voting
  • Postcard divorces made it easier to escape abusive relationships, also led to men abandoning pregnant wives
  • Legal right for abortions for the first time in the world
  • Few employment opportunities during NEP, only 3 million in factories
  • 39% of men in cities had prostitutes due to lack of opportunity
  • Made up 10% of the party
• Khrushchev - housing

  
  

  • Halted construction of new government buildings in grand architectural style and instead ordered that the money be invested in housing for ordinary people.
  • Stopped building communal housing and instead designed a new style of apartment called K-7 blocks.
  • Each flat had a kitchen and bathroom with 10x more space than Kommunalka
• Lenin - education

  
  

  • October 1918 Unified Labour Schools - education compulsory and free up to 17, religion banned, exams and homework banned
  • First 18 months of NEP, children in education halved
  • Under NEP, schools closed to save money and orphan schools scrapped, leaving 7 million uneducated
  • In 1928 60% of children were in school, 25% of MC finished but only 3% of WC did
  • 1919 Decree on Literacy - 6 week reading courses, 6.5 million textbooks and by 1925, all army soldiers could read and write
  • Schools turned into army stores, in 1920 there was only 1 pen for every 60 students
• Stalin - education

  
  

  • By 1939, 94% were literate, but only 90% of women compared to 97% of men
  • 40% teachers attacked in 1930 due to Collectivisation, some were locked in burning schools and some had acid thrown on them
  • 1934 Decree on Civic History - had to teach Peter The Great
  • 1932 Decree In Discipline - national exams in 1935, homework and corporal punishment
  • 1940 Labour Reserve Schools - industrial training for men aged 14-17, trained 4.2 million
  • Increased unis by 800%, led to 800,000 uni educated academics in 1939
  • Schools closed during WW2
• Stalin - women

  
  

  • Great Retreat - abortion and contraception criminalised, lesbianism treated as an illness, price of divorce increased to a weeks wages
  • During WW2, women depicted as needing male protection through posters of German soldiers enslaving them naked
  • Discouraged premarital sex and tested their purity with 'medical virginity tests'
  • 13 million worked in industry in 1949, 49% of the workforce
  • Paid 65% of men's earning, despite making up 75% of WW2 workforce
  • WW2 plan squadron called 'Night Witches'
  • 5x more domestic duties
  • Offered 5000 roubles for having 11 kids
• Lenin - social benefits

  
  

  • Social insurance provided free healthcare for 9 million
  • Food rations based on class, upper class got 25% of what working class got
  • Working class had work cards that allowed free public transport
  • Communal dinning halls fed 93% of Moscow workers
  • Wages were 1% higher in 1926 due to the NEP
  • Black market provided 60% of food
• Khrushchev - women

  
  

  • VLS - low paid jobs like milkmaids or haymakers, earned 15% of male tractor driver
  • Blamed for sexual assaults and some forced to marry their rapists
  • Contraception still hard to acquire but abortion legalised in 1955
  • Triple burden
  • Paid maternity leave rose from 77 days to 112 days
  • Magazines like 'Peasant Women' and 'Woman Worker' highlighted inequalities
  • Divorce fully liberalised in 1965, meant that 33% of marriages ended in divorce by 1979
  • Ended domestic job of daily shop by introducing convenient stores and refrigerators
• Lenin - employment

  
  

  • War Communism ended high unemployment
  • Labour compulsory for all able bodied men aged 16-50
  • Unemployment at 100,000 by 1918
  • Work cards gave food rations
  • Labour law in 1922 gave trade unions the right to negotiate pay and working conditions
• Stalin - social benefits

  
  

  • Vaccines for smallpox, malaria and typhinia
  • Infant mortality fell 50% from 1940 - 50
  • Doctors increased by 66% over 5 years
  • 1947 campaign teaching peasants to use toilet
  • Lack of soap led to disease
  • 'Party First Policy' all cadres treated for malaria despite 10,000 Ukrainian workers suffering too in 1932
  • 5YPs, communal eating cost 200 roubles a month
  • Rotten food and animal feed at mess halls
  • Moscow metro and 30,000 kilometres of railway built for workers
  • 1947, 1 meal a day costed half of your wage
  • Only had one day off a week, called 'Continuous work week'
• Brezhnev - social benefits

  
  

  • Social contract was an unspoken agreement between the government and the people, which traded political rights for better standard of living
  • Decline in healthcare, infant mortality up from 3% to 7% during the 70s
  • life expectancy went down from 68 to 64 in the same period
  • Decreased cost of rent and utilities like water and electricity to the point where they were almost free
  • Government offered subsides on holidays for workers in 1970
• Brezhnev - housing

  
  

  • Not an issue due to Khrushchev's policies.
  • People had 10x the living space than under Stalin.
• Brezhnev - women

  
  

  • Made up 4% of Communist Party
  • Working women blamed for social issues like alcoholism, juvenile delinquency and divorce
  • 72% of the lowest paid agricultural workers were women in 1970
  • 'Baikal-Amur' railway project hired women to make job appealing to men
  • Tried to raise birth rates with a campaign that emphasised biological differences and the idea that women needed a strong man
• Stalin - housing

  
  

  • Housing destroyed during WW2, was expensive so not priority
  • Tried to deal with crisis with small communal flats called Kommunalkas.
  • Provided poor living conditions, like no sanitation or running water.
  • Average size of one in 1947 was 4 square metres
  • A family of 6 lived in under the stairs.
• Khrushchev - education

  
  

  • Doubled the amount of schools and merged small county schools
  • Teachers rose from 1.5m in 1953 to 2.2m in 1964
  • Teachers with degrees rose from 19% to 40%
  • 1956 school fees abolished and rural kids got free lunches and textbooks
  • Secondary school kids rose from 200 in 1953, to 750 in 1959
  • 17 year olds in education up 55%
  • 1959 28% of school day involved practical training with school trips to farms and factories, unpopular with parents