Khrushchev
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- Created on: 02-03-21 16:22
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- Khrushchev
- Economic developments
- Decentralisation and industrial planning failed
- Too few administrators to make it work properly
- Bonuses given to enterprises according to success in targets, given higher targets the next year - people worked less hard so as not to have targets raised
- Output targets assessed by weight - heavy goods favoured despite needs of community
- USSR divided into economic regions, each with its own economic council
- Decentralisation and industrial planning failed
- Social developments
- Neither fourth or fifth year plans raised standards for peasants - lived on poor income, diet, housing etc
- Re-emphasis on consumer goods and housing initiatives
- 1958 - compulsory voluntary subscriptionsto the state abolished - also improved pensions
- Reduced working hours to 40h, increased wages
- Better and more widely available education
- But privileges still remained in non-wage forms, particularly for those higher in the hierarchy - undermined claims of an equal society
- Agricultural developments
- Stalin's forth and five year plans meant that the state procured 70% of the 1946 harvest, with peasants receiving nothing.
- Agriculture was still behind industry and not yet at the level of 1940.
- State procurement and taxes reduced
- Modernisation; linking more farms to electricity etc
- Virgin Lands scheme - cultivate land not already ploughed
- 1956 - 35.9 million hectares of 'virgin land' was ploughed
- Several campaigns for new crops - eg maize good for animal fodder and food
- Stalin's forth and five year plans meant that the state procured 70% of the 1946 harvest, with peasants receiving nothing.
- Opposition
- Khrushchev forced to resign 1964
- Reformers supported Khrushchev in fear of returning to old regime + police rule
- In treating opposition, he released most political prisoners - by 1957 only 2% of prisoners were political
- Publishing etc used for dissident literature and spark change - illegal printing etc
- Many social nonconformists such as famous dancer Nureyev
- Hard-liners opposed Khrushchev more due to a want of revival to Stalinism
- Industrial development
- WW2 destroyed 70% of the USSR's industrial capacity
- Stain utilised the fourth and fifth five year plans to 'catch up' with the US
- Use of decentralisation and industrial planning
- Sixth five year plan launched 1956 but targets were optimistic and it was abandoned after 2 years
- USSR divided into economic regions, each with its own economic council
- Sixty Moscow ministries were abolished
- State committees and a new supreme Economic council set up to supervise a new 7yr plan
- Success in 7yr plan, shift to 'modern industries' - but not entirely successful
- Cultural change
- Increase in contact with the west caused changes particularly in the youth - increased vandalism, skipping lectures etc
- Cultural restrictions and censorship largely lifted
- Religion
- Atheism reintroduced to school curriculum
- 1959 - 22,000 monasteries. 1965 - 8000.
- Parents forbidden to teach religion to children, children banned from church services
- No attempts for independence for minorities
- 22nd Party congress 1961 - ultimate aim was for ethnic distinctions to go, replaced with a single language / culture etc.
- Fall from power
- Controlled announcement of the resignation via media
- Forced to sign a resignation paper
- Pravda later denounced him
- Khrushchev summoned to an emergency meeting a of Presidium - many voiced criticisms of him
- Initially very surprised at amount of hostility - not allowed access to public to appeal support
- Public told it was due to old age and health
- Economic developments
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