Written by a Cambridge Law student with an A* at history A-level.
Outlines the methods of controlling the Soviet population including the Secret Police, control of mass media, control of Art and Culture, attacks on religion and personality cults.
Each category goes chronologically through each S...
Lenin
- During civil war, CHEKA (secret police created after Oct revolution under leadership
of Dzerzhinsky) to deal with counter revolutionary threat given sweeping powers
to act extra judicially against perceived enemies
SRs, Mensheviks, anarchists + other extreme left wing groups arrested en masse
(5000 Mensheviks 1921)
~300,000 prisoners shot in cities for ‘counter revolution’
Seized food from peasantry during civil war 1918-21, causing famine (6 million
deaths) important in sustaining war effort
- GPU (State Political Administration) then OGPU mainly used for surveillance after
civil war
Deporting outstanding writers + scholars as a warning to intelligentsia against
criticising gov
Harassing NEPmen who became too rich to keep ‘capitalist tendencies’ under
control, women dressed in western styles + young ppl who danced to jazz
Stalin
- Opponents detained + sent to gulags
Network of gulag systems established, 1929-1950, 180,000 – 2.5 million
filled with social marginals, eg priests + kulaks (esp after Stalin called for
‘liquidation of kulaks as a class’ 1929, resulting in 2 million ‘kulaks’ sent to
gulags) AND Ukraine famine (5 million deaths)
- Played important role in purges, esp after Stalin called for removal of all ‘anti-Soviet
elements’ from Society 1937, justifying it with sharpening class struggle (increased
resistance from enemies as Russia became closer to communism)
- Surveillance of general pop
Plain clothes police officers + network of informers used to monitor
behaviour of individuals + root out opposition (under Stalin number of
detectives in NKVD quadrupled + extra staff used to torture suspects)
effective at suppressing dissent as terrified pop in disproportion to numbers
(believed everywhere)
, Khrushchev + Brezhnev
- KBG created 1954 + continued to monitor pop (opening emails, tapping phones etc)
1959, detained political opponents + put them in ‘psychiatric hospitals’ after
declaring them mentally ill
Continued under Brezhnev + those who refused to change views + opinions
‘treated’ with drugs and electric shocks first victim under Brezhnev was
leading dissident Bukovsky, confined for 12 years (portrayed USSR as an
“illegal society” + called for its democratisation)
- Also suppressed dissent
Intellectuals threatened with expulsion from professional organisations, eg
1970 nuclear scientist Sakharov banned from further military research after
writing letter criticising Brezhenv for restrictions on accessing foreign
academic research + equipment
Political opponents threatened with imprisonment or deportation (eg 1974
Solzhenitsyn expelled from USSR, author of numerous critical works incl ‘A
day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ + ‘The Gulag Archipelago’)
Mostly successful in containing dissent activities had little support from
public + not threat to stability (eg 1968 dissenters organised public protest
to intervene in Czechoslovakia in Red Square Moscow but attended by only
seven ppl)
Andropov
- Used secret police in Operation Trawl (cracking down on absenteeism + alcoholism)
improved national income by 3% + productivity by 3.5%
Limitations
- Gulag system dismantled under Khrushchev (no longer played important role in
economy as it had done in past, eg 1940 generated 4.5 million roubles + early 1950s
over 1/3 of country’s gold + much of timber + coal produced there)
- Lubyanka prison closed (described by Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag Archipelago, made
to endure long periods of silence, punctuated only by occasional screams or wails)
last used 1960 for Gary powers, pilot of U2 spy plane shot down
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