Lenin: Theme 4

Lenin: Theme 4

1. Industrial and employment benefits

   • Successes
     • Vast number of jobs created
     • Piecework rates expanded, increasing opportunities to earn more money
     • Rewards for model workers
     • More women employed giving them more opportunities
   • Failures
     • Division at work between industrial workers and peasants
     • Poor working conditions
     • Low productivity
     • Labour shortages
     • Long working hours
     • Wage gap

2. Housing benefits

   • Successes
     • Low rents
   • Failures
     • Slow to make an impact
     • Not enough housing to meet the needs of all
     • Distribution of housing based on rank within the communist party

3. Social benefits

   • Successes
     • Cheap food in work canteens
     • Work clothes given for free
     • State subsidised vacations
     • Sick pay was given
     • Healthcare controlled epidemics
     • Cheap medicines
   • Failures
     • These provisions generally not available in rural areas

4. Women

   • No longer needed husband's permission to take a job or study at university
   • Equal pay for men and women made legal in Dec 1917 with maternity leave granted, but this was slow to have an impact
   • Impact of civil war
     • Women worked in factories, but childcare provision was inadequate
     • Government lacked resources to build creches
     • Women lost jobs when soldiers returned
     • After the war many were left homeless, causing a rise in prostitution
   • Islamic Women
     • Opportunities increased and female brigade leaders and tractor drivers were celebrated in films and posters
     • But traditional Islamic attitudes were slow to change with resistance often violent
   • Politics: female role was limited throughout the existence of the USSR

5. Education

   • Under Lunachevsky
     • 1917: programme to provide free compulsory education for all aged 7-17
     • 1918: existing church schools taken over by the government, education at primary and secondary level based on comprehensive model
     • Lack of resources during civil war meant compulsory education didn't materialise
     • Higher education: from 1917, universities were opened to all with courses laid on for those with no formal qualifications
   • Obstacles to expansion
     • Civil war caused lack of resources so many schools had to shut during winter
     • Low wages and status discouraged people from becoming teachers
     • School transport underfunded
   • Adult education: short courses introduced to teach adults basic numeracy and literacy, with evening classes as well
   • Reduction of illiteracy
     • 1919: Bolsheviks launched programme to make all citizens between 8 and 50 literate
     • Liquidation points set up where people could take literacy classes
   • Purpose of the curriculum
     • Key role in instilling socialist values into the population, securing support for the regime and providing social stablility
     • Used to attack traditional practices and beliefs by reducing hold of religion and superstition
     • Bought sense of unity to different ethnic groups
     • Enabled population to acquire skills and expertise needed in modern economy
   • Early radicalism
     • Corporal punishment forbidden
     • Classrooms renamed "laboratories of learning"
     • Children to have influential voice in running of school
     • Study themes like farming and nature, no traditional subjects and tests abolished
     • Teaching emphasised discovery, play and group work
     • Heavily influenced by those who wished to use schools as miniature copies of socialist society
   • Youth groups and informal education
     • Octobrists: aged 5-9, simple nursery rhymes and games played
     • Pioneers
       • aged 10-12 had to undergo an initiation ceremony
       • Had to promise to love their country and follow Lenin's teachings
       • Had to wear a uniform
       • Encouraged good behaviour in schools and also provided sports, drama and leisure activities which gave it more appeal
     • Komsomol
       • Aged 14-28, essential if you wanted to be in the communist party