AQA 7042 · 2N · R19 - Culture and society: church; women, young people and working men
Stalin's government claimed that socialism was creating a new kind of citizen, yet cultural change did not reach every person in the same way. This lesson examines the Church, women, young people and working men, paying particular attention to urban–rural differences and to the ideal of the “socialist man.” The central enquiry is how far Stalin transformed the social project begun under Lenin, and how far older beliefs, unequal burdens and varied responses survived.
Remaking daily life, 1929–1941
Here, culture means more than literature or art. It includes the values, habits, family roles, organisations and standards of behaviour through which people understood what a good Soviet citizen should be. The regime did not merely ask people to obey laws: it tried to reshape how they worked, worshipped, learned, raised children, used leisure and related to the collective.
The phrase “socialist man”, often expressed as the New Soviet Man, named an ideal rather than an accomplished social type. The exemplary citizen was meant to be educated, secular, physically healthy, technically capable, self-disciplined and committed to collective goals. Although the masculine wording was often treated as a model for all citizens, official examples were gendered. A man was commonly presented as a productive worker, defender and public activist; the “New Soviet Woman” was expected to be a worker and public citizen while also carrying special responsibility as mother and household organiser.
Four phases locate the change:
| Phase | Direction of change | Historical significance |
|---|---|---|
| Lenin's government, 1917–1924 | Separated Church and state, attacked clerical power, changed family law, promoted women's legal emancipation, organised Communist youth and treated labour discipline as necessary to socialism | The ambition to create a secular, collective citizen began with the Revolution, not with Stalin |
| Stalin's “revolution from above,” 1929–1932 | Intensified the attack on religion and older customs while industrialisation and collectivisation moved millions into new workplaces and collective institutions | Social transformation became faster, more disruptive and more coercive |
| Consolidation, 1932–1936 | Centralised cultural authority and praised skill, discipline, education, family responsibility and “cultured” living; the 1936 Constitution advertised social rights | Stalinism combined revolutionary modernisation with hierarchy and some more traditional social values |
| Enforcement, 1937–1941 | Repression, movement controls and tighter labour rules narrowed safe public behaviour, even while private belief and informal resistance persisted | Public conformity grew more uniform than private conviction or lived experience |
This sequence prevents two misleading claims. Stalin did not abandon the Bolshevik project of remaking society: he enlarged it. Nor did he simply carry Lenin's programme forward unchanged. Stalin's state combined secular modernity and mass mobilisation with stronger command, reward differences, patriotic respectability and a more authoritative family.
The Church: institutional destruction and surviving belief
Bolshevik hostility to organised religion supplied a clear continuity. Lenin's government separated Church and state, removed religion from state schooling and confiscated Church property. During the 1922 church-valuables campaign, Lenin urged violent action against clergy and believers who resisted. The underlying argument was that religion upheld an older social order and competed with the party's claim to explain the world.
Under Stalin the assault became wider and more systematic. From 1929, religious associations faced severe restrictions; churches and other places of worship were closed or converted, clergy and active believers were arrested, and atheist messages entered schools and public organisations. The Russian Orthodox Church was the largest target, but Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants and other religious communities also faced state pressure. The Library of Congress summarises the institutional collapse starkly: by 1939 only about 500 of more than 50,000 Orthodox churches remained open. That comparison is evidence about organised capacity, not a count of personal faith.
The difference between law, institution and belief matters. Article 124 of the 1936 Constitution formally recognised freedom of religious worship as well as anti-religious propaganda, yet the state continued to close worship spaces and persecute religious personnel. The recovered 1937 census returns showed that just over half of adults who answered still described themselves as believers. Declaring belief under an anti-religious state is strong evidence that closing churches had not automatically produced atheists.
The impact also varied by place. Cities concentrated schools, workplaces, youth organisations and media through which official atheism could be repeated; they also made public religious practice easier for authorities to monitor. In many villages, religious memory, household ritual and community ties proved harder to remove. Yet the countryside was not an untouched refuge: collectivisation, local officials and militant activists could close rural churches and punish believers. The most precise conclusion is therefore that Stalinism destroyed much of religion's public institutional power more successfully than it eliminated private and local belief, with belief generally more persistent in rural society.
Women: equality, employment and the family
The early Bolsheviks attacked women's legal dependence and imagined that communal childcare, dining and laundry services would eventually reduce unpaid household labour. Abortion was legally permitted in state hospitals from 1920, partly as a public-health response to dangerous illegal procedures, and divorce was made easier. These were substantial legal changes, but civil war, poverty and limited services meant that a law did not instantly free women from domestic work or unequal relationships.
Stalin's rapid economic transformation drew women into paid work on an unprecedented scale. Women rose from 24 per cent of Soviet workers and employees in 1928 to 39 per cent in 1940. They entered industries that had previously been treated as male, as well as education, health and administration. Article 122 of the 1936 Constitution proclaimed equality in work, pay, education and public life and promised maternity protection, nurseries and kindergartens. Paid employment could give women wages, skills, education and a public identity that had been unavailable to many before 1917.
At the same time, the state redefined emancipation around service to production and motherhood. The decree of 27 June 1936 prohibited abortion except where pregnancy seriously endangered health or life, or a grave parental disease might be inherited. It also made divorce progressively more expensive, strengthened enforcement of maintenance payments and promised greater maternity aid and a larger network of nurseries and kindergartens. This was not a simple return to the pre-revolutionary family: women remained workers and legal citizens. It was a Stalinist combination in which the state expected women to produce for the economy and reproduce and stabilise the family.
Lived equality therefore lagged behind constitutional equality. Studies of inter-war households show a double burden: paid work increased while women retained most cooking, cleaning and childcare. Women were also concentrated disproportionately in lower-skilled and lower-paid work. The official image of a male production hero supported by a wife who created an orderly home shows how gender hierarchy could be built into the culture of “socialist” achievement.
Double burden
Combining paid employment with continuing primary responsibility for unpaid household work and childcare.
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