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Social Changes - Coggle Diagram
Social Changes
Urban and rural housing
Tsars (urban housing)
- by the end of the 19th century 15% of the population were in towns and cities
- the tsar didn't put a huge amount of effort into housing, most ended up poor quality, lacked heat, had inadequate draining, lacked sanitation (disease spread quickly due to overcrowding e.g. chlorea caused 100,000 deaths in St Petersburg in 1910)
- over half of houses constructed from wood and prone to fire damage
- only 74 towns had access to electricity and 35 to gas
- huge demand for better housing due to the amount of people moving about (population in main cities doubled by 1914) but the government could not meet the demand
Lenin (urban)
- Decree on peace issued
- dwellings handed over to the proletariat from private owners
Stalin (urban)
- housing conditions deteriorated
- 25 % of the Moscow population in the mid 1930s were living in one room shared between 2 households
- Stalinist policy to allocate space rather than rooms
- Stated sacrifices had to be made for the better of the economy (five year plans didnt focus on housing)
- over 25 million Russians made homeless during WW2
Khrushchev (urban)
- huge housing programme
- between 1955-64 the housing stock doubled
- communal living was abandoned
Rural
- housing for the average peasant remained the same throughout the period (single room wooden hut, heated by an oven)
- overcrowded and shared with their animals
- peasant families had control on how it was used
- Stalin constructed special housing blocks for some peasants located on collected farms
- Khrushchev built rural housing quickly and cheaply due to focus on urban
- little was done by any leader to improve rural housing
Famine
1891 famine (Alex III)
- up to 400,000 died from hunger and disease due to the food shortages
- Vyshnergradsky raised tax on consumer goods so peasants started to sell surpluses of stored grain which made the food shortages worse
- reawakened Russian Marxism and populism
- gov failed to provide adequate relief and it was left to volunteer groups
1918 (Lenin)
- agriculture land lost due to the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk
- introduced grain requisitioning
- peasants responded with violent protests demanding surplus supplies of grain
- by 1920 the Cheka and Red Army had been instructed to seize all food surpluses for redistribution
1921 famine
- death toll of 5 million
- Ukraninaian food production fell by 20%
- Lenin partly to blame as he was slow to response and relectuant to accept aid from American as charitable donations were seen as suspicious
1932-42 (Stalin)
- combination of collectivisationa and poor harvests
- around 5 million deaths
- Stalin responded with more repression which peasants responded to by slaughtering animals etc…
- death penalty imposed for stealing grain
- by 1935 conditions improved and food production increased
Wars
- during WW1 grain was prioritised to feed troops
- transport was occupied by the military
- queues for bread up to 8hrs
- during WW2 collectivisation policies were relaxed and production rose but they was a famine in 1947
Living/working
conditions
due to
- mass movement of people
- increased population
- fewer agriculture jobs and less food production
- new factories/ industry jobs created before infrastructure
Tsars (rural)
- workers were governed by 'natures clock' (worked sunrise to sunset)
- less was done in the winter due to shorter hours and bad weather
- lacked technological advancements
- workers owed the land so set their own agenda
Urban
- also worked long hours due to legislation
- bad working conditions and low pay due to lack of legislation
- no factory inspections until 1882 and even then they had little effect due to their limited powers
Communists (rural)
- communal farms had set targets, long hours and bad conditions
- collectivisation
- technological advancements (tractor to maximise productivity)
- more regulated
Urban
- strong legislation on working conditions and pay but a strong change during five year plans
education
Alex II
- before only 7% of army recruits were literate
-major educational reform in 1864, responsibility of elementary schools placed with the Zemstva (from the Orthodox Church) which increased the number of available school places
- open to women and the lower class
- introduced the ‘new gymnasia’ which taught more modern subjects
- number of students in secondary schools doubled between 1855-65
- Unis could govern themselves which allowed teachings on subjects other than traditional Russian literature
- allowed the development of political thought
Stalin
- 8 million attending primary schools in 1929 increased to 18 million in 1930
- teaching on Tsarism replaced with teaching on communist ideology and the importance of the party
- 1930 compulsory education for all under 12 introduced to create a more educated and capable workforce which fit the Stalinist system
- 1931, 2.5 million attending secondary increased to 6.9 million in 1932
Khrushchev
- got rid of Stalins school fees, closed a large number of boarding schools, focused on specialist academies to help the economy and called for teh rewriting of teh history books including Stalin