Russia: Social Developments 1917-85

• War Communism: All soviet citizens 16-50 must work
• 1918 Declaration of the Rights of Toiling & Exploited people, removed private ownership, introduced labour duty
• Food & Fuel rationed by Prodraspred
• Urban population fell by 25% during civil war
• The NEP: Unemployment returned as soldiers were immobilised
• By 1924 18% of urban workforce were unemployed
• Entitled to Social Insurance (disability benefits), 1922 Labour law gave unions power
• Govts focus on proletariat excluded peasants
• Under Stalin: Compulsory work reintroduced, Labour discipline harsh and criminalised
• Construction of over 30,000km of railways
• Vaccines universally available for typhus by 1947
• Problems: peasants benefitted much less, not entitled to rations
• Food shortages, used rotten food leading to illness, Sanitation was poor leading to dysentery
• Housing: 1920s redistribution of land
• NEP 89% housing privatised
• Stalin, Kommunalka, entire families lived in 4.5m2 rooms
• Moscow Coal fields 15k bed for 26k people
• 1941-45 1/3 of housing damaged

• Welfare under K: Doubled spending on healthcare 1950-59
• Quadrupled pension budget 1950-65
• In 1961 introduced free lunches in schools, free pensions & healthcare for farmers
• Deathrate dropped by 2.4 1950-65
• Infant mortality (per 1k live births) 81 to 27
• Housing: 1953-85 K-7 housing block, allowed families who apartments 
• This continued through 1970s 80s

• Brezhnev 'Social Contract': Abandoned K's goal of communism by 1980
• Welfare part of 'social contract' between people and govt
• Guaranteed: job security, low prices, second economy, subsidised living costs 
• 1960s-70s high standard of living, Policies broadly achieved social stability 
• Social Problems: Based on traditional roles of women
• female unemployment as high as 10% in some areas
• Alcoholism caused life expectancy to decline from 68 to 64 during the 1970s

• Civil War: Zhenodtel, women's department of the communist party
• recruited women to work in creches and orphanages 

• NEP: Women working in industry sacked
• Widespread unemployment & limited benefits led to prostitution (39% of men used prostitutes)

• Stalin's Industry: Over 10Mil joined workforce by 1940 (increase of 300%)
• During WW2 made up 75% of workforce, BUT paid 40-60% of male wage

• 1953-85: 1960s 40% of industry jobs were women
• Restricted to: production line, heavy manual labour 
• Mid-1960s: 74% clerical jobs women
• By 1985 dominated: 70% medical doctors, 75% employees at uni's

• 1920-40s high proportion of women in agriculture
• Virgin Land Schemes 1958, 450/6.4k women got well-payed jobs
• By 1970, 72% lowest paid farmers were women
• By 1980, 2% of teachers women, 2% of farm managers women

• The Family 1917-35: Lenin was conservative but supported reforms suggested by Zhenotdel:
• Abortion on demand, contraception, accessible divorce, legalisation of Gay & Prostitution.

• The Great Retreat 1936-53: Stalin much more conservative
• Abortion criminalised, contraception banned, homosexuality criminalised 
• Lesbianism a disease, Sex outside of marriage stigmatised, Divorce expensive
• Financial incentive for having children (5k roubles for 11 children)

• The Family 1953-64: Legalised abortion, increased paid maternity, Mass produced clothes (wanted to end the double shift for women) 
• Problems: contraception hard to acquire, Creches prevented women full working days

• The Family 1964-85: 
• By 1979, 1/3 of soviet marriages ended in divorce 
• 1970s- Pronatalist, coupled with propaganda against women going to work that have children

1917 30% of the population could read and write

• Civil War: 1918 50% soldiers illiterate, 1925 100%
• Lunacharsky set up network of reading rooms 
• Learning was not a priority outside of the Red Army 

• NEP: Metalworkers union reported 14% to 4% illiteracy in 1926
• 38% 1914 to 55% by 1928

• Under Stalin: FYP failed to eradicate illiteracy as 40% of teachers attacked by 1939 94% 

Kosmol & Young Pioneers 1918&1922: Meant to be young representatives of the CP instead had reputation for drunkenness and hooliganism. Expected to spy on parents under Stalin 

• K had large faith in Kosmol (playing leading roles in factories)
• Brezhnev was superstitious, viewed as potentially dangerous. 

• Schooling 1917-28: Before 1921 many schools requisitioned for barracks
• 1927 fees abolished By 1928 60% were in primary education
• Only wealthy got secondary education

•  Under Stalin: core subjects, history of 'great men', strict discipline 
• 100% 8-12 y/o gained 4 years of primary education
• 65% 12-17 secondary
• 20% 15-17 completed
• University education expanded from 170k to 1.5million by 1953 (fees maintained)

• K's Reforms: merged small country schools
• doubled number of schools in towns 
• Invested in teacher training 
• Abolished secondary fees by 1956 

• Brezhnev: Reinstated traditional education
• Vocational education ended 
• By 1985 same curriculum as 1947