Religion, Minorities, Propaganda + Cultural Change

• Marx famously described religion as "the opium of the people". This statement was meant to keep the lower classes quiet.
• Lenin recognised that the Russian people were very religious. He flexibly allowed different religious worships.
• Lenin launched a campaign to weaken the Orthodox Church's powers. The Church's lands were seized.
• Church schools were taken over by Muslim schools. Monasteries were turned into schools, hospitals and prisons.
• Many Orthodox priests lost their lives.
• Stalin destroyed rural churches. He confiscated bric-a-brac.
• Stalin's anti-rural Church perspective aroused huge opposition. He labelled his opponents as "Kulaks".
• 500 churches were open for worship by 1940. This is 1% in comparison to 1917.
• The Bolsheviks promised national self-determination for the ethnic minorities in 1917. The Finns opted for independence.
• Anti-Semitic Tsarist laws that concerned minorities were abolished. Yiddish became more widely used as a result.
• The Soviet Union became a centralised state under Stalin. Russian had to be taught in schools from 1938 and it was primarily used in the Red Army.
• The October Revolution led to a burst of artistic creativity. Lenin encouraged this.
• Lenin solely believed that art and literature "should serve the people". Stalin was even more clear about this.
• Stalin wanted art and literature to promote socialism. This meant conforming to Stalin's standards by the 1930s.
• Stalin believed writers were "engineers of the human soul" to people. He believed art was really about shaping Soviet society.
• All writers had to belong to The Soviet Union of Writers by 1934. They were meant to strive towards "socialist realism">
• Writers had to ensure their work could be understood by workers. The characters were meant to politically represent socialism and "class enemies".
• Maxim Gorky praises Stalin's first FYP. He described it as "high-spiritual value".
• Anti-Stalin writers were taken to labour camps. Many writers committed suicide as a result.
• Shostakovich had to famously tread a fine line after his controversial operas. "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" was an example of a controversial opera written by them.
• Lenin and Stalin both appreciated propaganda to reach the masses. They tried to win the masses over with socialism.
• Stalin particularly exploited visual propaganda to make him appeal as a worthy successor. He portrayed himself as a "father figure".
• Stalin claimed to guide the masses through collectivisation and industrialisation. A socialist paradise was promised.
• The Communist Party machine manufactured Stalin's image. The media controlled this.
• Stalin sought to become a political icon. He strengthened his political power in turn.