What was the life in the USSR after the Second World War. USSR in the post-war years. Monetary reform and the abolition of cards
The end of the Great Patriotic War was a huge relief for the inhabitants of the USSR, but at the same time it set a number of urgent tasks for the government of the country. Issues that had been delayed for the duration of the war now needed to be resolved urgently. In addition, the authorities needed to equip the demobilized Red Army soldiers, provide social protection for war victims and restore destroyed economic facilities in the west of the USSR.
In the first post-war five-year plan (1946-1950), the goal was to restore the pre-war level of agricultural and industrial production. A distinctive feature of the restoration of industry was that not all evacuated enterprises returned to the west of the USSR, a significant part of them were rebuilt from scratch. This made it possible to strengthen industry in those regions that did not have a powerful industrial base before the war. At the same time, measures were taken to return industrial enterprises to civilian life schedules: the length of the working day was reduced, and the number of days off increased. By the end of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, the pre-war level of production had been reached in all the most important branches of industry.
Demobilization
Although a small part of the Red Army soldiers returned to their homeland in the summer of 1945, the main wave of demobilization began in February 1946, and the final completion of demobilization took place in March 1948. It was envisaged that the demobilized soldiers would be provided with work within a month. The families of the dead and disabled of the war received special support from the state: their homes were primarily supplied with fuel. However, in general, the demobilized fighters did not have any benefits in comparison with citizens who were in the rear during the war years.
Strengthening the repressive apparatus
The apparatus of repression, which flourished in the pre-war years, changed during the war. Intelligence and SMERSH (counterintelligence) played a key role in it. After the war, these structures filtered prisoners of war, Ostarbeiters and collaborators returning to the Soviet Union. Organs of the NKVD on the territory of the USSR fought organized crime, the level of which increased sharply immediately after the war. However, already in 1947, the power structures of the USSR returned to the repression of the civilian population, and at the end of the 50s the country was shocked by high-profile lawsuits (the case of doctors, the Leningrad case, the Mingrelian case). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, “anti-Soviet elements” were deported from the newly annexed territories of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Moldova and the Baltic states: intelligentsia, large property owners, supporters of the UPA and “forest brothers”, representatives of religious minorities.
Foreign policy guidelines
Even during the war years, the future victorious powers laid the foundations of an international structure that would regulate the post-war world order. In 1946, the United Nations began its work, in which the five most influential states in the world had a blocking vote. The entry of the Soviet Union into the UN Security Council strengthened its geopolitical position.
At the end of the 1940s, the foreign policy of the USSR was aimed at creating, strengthening and expanding the bloc of socialist states, which later became known as the socialist camp. The coalition governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia that appeared immediately after the war were replaced by one-party ones, monarchical institutions were liquidated in Bulgaria and Romania, and pro-Soviet governments proclaimed their republics in East Germany and North Korea. Shortly before this, the Communists had taken control of most of China. Attempts by the USSR to create Soviet republics in Greece and Iran were unsuccessful.
Intra-party struggle
It is believed that in the early 50s, Stalin planned another purge of the top party apparatus. Shortly before his death, he also carried out a reorganization of the party's management system. In 1952, the VKP(b) became known as the CPSU, and the Politburo was replaced by the Presidium of the Central Committee, which did not have the post of General Secretary. Even during Stalin's lifetime, there was a confrontation between Beria and Malenkov on the one hand and Voroshilov, Khrushchev and Molotov on the other. Among historians, the following opinion is widespread: members of both groups realized that the new series of trials was directed primarily against them, and therefore, having learned about Stalin's illness, they made sure that he was not provided with the necessary medical care.
The results of the post-war years
In the post-war years, which coincided with the last seven years of Stalin's life, the Soviet Union turned from a victorious power into a world power. The government of the USSR managed to relatively quickly rebuild the national economy, restore state institutions and create around itself a bloc of allied states. At the same time, the repressive apparatus was strengthened, aimed at eradicating dissent and at "cleansing" party structures. With the death of Stalin, the process of development of the state has undergone drastic changes. The USSR entered a new era.
Despite the fact that the USSR suffered very heavy losses during the war years, it entered the international arena not only not weakened, but became even stronger than before. In 1946-1948. in the states of Eastern Europe and Asia, communist governments came to power, heading for the construction of socialism on the Soviet model.
However, the leading Western powers pursued a power policy towards the USSR and the socialist states. One of the main deterrents was atomic weapon, which the United States enjoyed a monopoly on. Therefore, the creation of an atomic bomb became one of the main goals of the USSR. This work was headed by the physicist I. V. Kurchatov. The Institute of Atomic Energy and the Institute of Nuclear Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR were created. In 1948, the first atomic reactor was launched, and in 1949, the first atomic bomb was tested at the test site near Semipalatinsk. In the work on it, the USSR was secretly assisted by individual Western scientists. Thus, a second nuclear power appeared in the world, the US monopoly on nuclear weapons ended. Since that time, the confrontation between the US and the USSR has largely determined the international situation.
Economic recovery.
Material losses in the war were very high. The USSR lost a third of its national wealth in the war. Agriculture was in deep crisis. The majority of the population was in distress, its supply was carried out using a rationing system.
In 1946, the Law on the five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy was adopted. It was necessary to accelerate technological progress, to strengthen the country's defense power. Postwar five-year plan marked by large construction projects (hydroelectric power station, state district power station) and the development of road transport construction. The technical re-equipment of the industry of the Soviet Union was facilitated by the export of equipment from German and Japanese enterprises. The highest rates of development were achieved in such sectors as ferrous metallurgy, oil and coal mining, construction of machines and machine tools.
After the war, the countryside found itself in a more difficult position than the city. In the collective farms, tough measures were taken to procure bread. If earlier the collective farmers gave only part of the grain "to the common barn", now they were often forced to give all the grain. The discontent in the village grew. The sown area has been greatly reduced. Due to the depreciation of equipment and the lack of labor, field work was carried out late, which negatively affected the harvest.
The main features of post-war life.
A significant part of the housing stock was destroyed. The problem of labor resources was acute: immediately after the war, many demobilized people returned to the city, but the enterprises still lacked workers. We had to recruit workers in the countryside, among the students of vocational schools.
Even before the war, decrees were adopted, and after it continued to operate, according to which workers were forbidden, under pain of criminal punishment, to leave enterprises without permission.
To stabilize the financial system in 1947, the Soviet government carried out a monetary reform. Old money was exchanged for new money at a ratio of 10:1. After the exchange, the amount of money the population had sharply decreased. At the same time, the government has reduced the prices of consumer products many times. The card system was abolished, food and industrial goods appeared on open sale at retail prices. In most cases, these prices were higher than rations, but significantly lower than commercial ones. The abolition of cards has improved the situation of the urban population.
One of the main features of post-war life was the legalization of the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. In July 1948, the church celebrated the 500th anniversary of self-government, and in honor of this, a meeting of representatives of local Orthodox churches was held in Moscow.
power after the war.
With the transition to peaceful construction, structural changes took place in the government. In September 1945, the GKO was abolished. On March 15, 1946, the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissariats were renamed into the Council of Ministers and ministries.
In March 1946, the Bureau of the Council of Ministers was created, the chairman of which was L. P. Beria . He was also instructed to supervise the work of the internal affairs and state security agencies. Pretty strong positions in the leadership held A.A. Zhdanov, who combined the duties of a member of the Politburo, Orgburo and party secretary, but in 1948 he died. At the same time, the positions G.M. Malenkova, who had previously held a very modest position in the governing bodies.
Changes in party structures were reflected in the program of the 19th Party Congress. At this congress, the party received a new na-sha and ne - instead of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), they began to call it Communist Party Council and Union (CPSU).
USSR in the 50s - early 60s. 20th century
Changes after the death of Stalin and the XX Congress of the CPSU.
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. The closest associates of the leader proclaimed a course towards the establishment of collective leadership, but in reality a struggle for leadership developed between them. Minister of the Interior Marshal L.P. Beria initiated an amnesty for prisoners whose term was no more than five years. He put his supporters at the head of several republics. Beria also proposed to soften the policy towards collective farms and advocated detente of international tension, improvement of relations with Western countries.
However, in the summer of 1953, other members of the top party leadership, with the support of the military, organized a conspiracy and overthrew Beria. He was shot. The fight didn't end there. Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov were gradually removed from power, G.K. Zhukov was removed from the post of Minister of Defense. Almost all of this was done on the initiative N.S. Khrushchev, who since 1958 began to combine party and state posts.
In February 1956, the XX Congress of the CPSU was held, on the agenda of which were an analysis of the international and domestic situation, summing up the results of the fifth five-year plan. At the congress, the question of exposing Stalin's personality cult was raised. The report "On the cult of personality and its consequences" was made by N.S. Khrushchev. He talked about Stalin's numerous violations of Lenin's policy, about "illegal methods of investigation" and purges that killed many innocent people. They talked about Stalin's mistakes as a statesman (for example, a miscalculation in determining the date of the start of the Great Patriotic War). Khrushchev's report after the congress was read throughout the country at party and Komsomol meetings. Its content shocked the Soviet people, many began to doubt the correctness of the path that the country had been following since October revolution .
The process of de-Stalinization of society took place gradually. At Khrushchev's initiative, cultural figures were given the opportunity to create their own works without total control of censorship and strict party dictates. This policy was called the "thaw" after the name of the then popular novel by the writer I. Ehrenburg.
During the "thaw" period, significant changes took place in culture. Works of literature and art have become more profound and sincere.
Reforms in the field of economy. The development of the national economy.
Reforms carried out in the 50s - early 60s. 20th century were controversial. At one time, Stalin outlined the economic frontiers that the country was to reach in the near future. Under Khrushchev, the USSR reached these milestones, but in the changed conditions, their achievement did not have such a significant effect.
The strengthening of the national economy of the USSR began with changes in the raw sector. It was decided to set acceptable prices for agricultural products, to change the tax policy so that the collective farmers were materially interested in selling their products. In the future, it was planned to increase the cash income of collective farms, pensions, and soften the passport regime.
In 1954, at the initiative of Khrushchev, development of virgin lands. Later, they began to reorganize the economic structure of the collective farmers. Khrushchev suggested building urban-type buildings for rural residents and taking other measures to improve their life. Relaxation in the passport regime opened the floodgates for the migration of the rural population to the city. Various programs were adopted to improve the efficiency of agriculture, and Khrushchev often saw a panacea in the cultivation of any one crop. The most famous was his attempt to turn corn into the “queen of the fields”. The desire to grow it, regardless of the climate, caused damage to agriculture, but among the people Khrushchev received the nickname "maize".
50s 20th century characterized by great success in the industry. The production of heavy industry has grown especially. Much attention was paid to those industries that ensured the development of technology. Of paramount importance was the program of continuous electrification of the country. New hydroelectric power plants and state district power plants were put into operation.
The impressive success of the economy aroused the confidence of the leadership headed by Khrushchev in the possibility of even greater acceleration of the pace of the country's development. The thesis was put forward about the complete and final construction of socialism in the USSR, and in the early 60s. 20th century headed for construction communism , that is, a society where every person can satisfy all his needs. According to the new party program adopted in 1962 by the XXII Congress of the CPSU, it was supposed to complete the construction of communism by 1980. However, the serious difficulties in the economy that began at the same time clearly demonstrated to the citizens of the USSR the utopianism and adventurism of Khrushchev's ideas.
Difficulties in the development of industry were largely due to the ill-conceived reorganizations of the last years of Khrushchev's rule. Thus, most of the central industrial ministries were liquidated, and the leadership of the economy passed into the hands of economic councils, created in certain regions of the country. This innovation led to a rupture of ties between regions, which hindered the introduction of new technologies.
Social sphere.
The government has taken a number of measures to improve the welfare of the people. A law on state pensions was introduced. In secondary and higher educational institutions, tuition fees have been abolished. Heavy industry workers were transferred to a reduced working day without reducing wages. The population received various financial benefits. The material incomes of the working people have grown. Simultaneously with the increase in wages, prices were reduced for consumer goods: certain types of fabrics, clothes, goods for children, watches, medicines, etc.
Many public funds were also created, which paid various preferential benefits. Due to these funds, many were able to study at school or university. The working day was reduced to 6-7 hours, and on pre-holiday and public holidays the working day lasted even less. The working week has become shorter by 2 hours. On October 1, 1962, all taxes on the wages of workers and employees were abolished. From the end of the 50s. 20th century began selling durable goods on credit.
Undoubted successes in the social sphere in the early 60s. 20th century were accompanied by negative phenomena, especially painful for the population: essential products, including bread, disappeared from store shelves. There were several demonstrations of workers, the most famous of which was a demonstration in Novocherkassk, during the suppression of which the troops used weapons, which led to many casualties.
Foreign policy of the USSR in 1953-1964.
Foreign policy was characterized by the struggle to strengthen the position of the USSR and international security.
The settlement of the Austrian question was of great international importance. In 1955, at the initiative of the USSR, the State Treaty with Austria was signed in Vienna. Diplomatic relations were also established with Germany and Japan.
Soviet diplomacy actively sought to establish the most diverse ties with all states. The Hungarian uprising of 1956, which was crushed by Soviet troops, became a severe test. Almost simultaneously with the Hungarian events in 1956, arose Suez Crisis .
On August 5, 1963, an agreement between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain on the ban on nuclear tests on land, in air and water was signed in Moscow.
Relations with most of the socialist countries had long been streamlined - they clearly obeyed the instructions of Moscow. In May 1953, the USSR restored relations with Yugoslavia. A Soviet-Yugoslav declaration was signed, which proclaimed the principle of the indivisibility of the world, non-interference in internal affairs, and so on.
The main foreign policy theses of the CPSU were criticized by the Chinese Communists. They also challenged the political assessment of Stalin's activities. In 1963-1965. The PRC laid claim to a number of border territories of the USSR, and an open struggle broke out between the two powers.
The USSR actively cooperated with the countries of Asia and Africa, which won independence. Moscow helped developing countries create national economies. In February 1955, a Soviet-Indian agreement was signed on the construction of a metallurgical plant in India with the help of the USSR. The USSR provided assistance to the United Arab Republic, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Syria and other countries of Asia and Africa.
USSR in the second half of the 60s - early 80s. 20th century
The overthrow of N. S. Khrushchev and the search for a political course.
Development of science, technology and education.
The number of scientific institutions and scientists increased in the USSR. Each union republic had its own Academy of Sciences, which was subordinate to a whole system of scientific institutions. Significant progress has been made in the development of science. On October 4, 1957, the world's first artificial Earth satellite was launched, then the spacecraft reached the Moon. On April 12, 1961, the first manned flight into space took place. The first ascent of the space CSM became Yu.L. Gagarin.
New and more powerful power plants were built. Aircraft construction, nuclear physics, astrophysics and other sciences were successfully developed. Scientific centers were created in many cities. For example, in 1957 Akademgorodok was built near Novosibirsk.
After the war, the number of schools dropped catastrophically, one of the tasks of the government was the creation of new secondary schools. The increase in the number of high school graduates has led to an increase in the number of university students.
In 1954, co-education of boys and girls was restored in schools. The tuition fees for high school students and students were also abolished. Students began to pay scholarships. In 1958, compulsory eight-year education was introduced, and the ten-year school was transferred to 11-year education. Soon, work in production was included in the curricula of schools.
Spiritual life and culture of "developed socialism".
The ideologists of the CPSU sought to quickly forget Khrushchev's idea of building communism by 1980. This idea was replaced by the slogan of "developed socialism". It was believed that under "developed socialism" nations and nationalities were drawing closer together, a single community had formed - the Soviet people. They talked about the rapid development of the country's productive forces, about blurring the lines between town and countryside, about the distribution of wealth on the principles of "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work." Finally, the transformation of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a nationwide state of workers, peasants and the people's intelligentsia was proclaimed, between which the lines are also continuously blurred.
In the 60-70s. 20th century culture has ceased to be synonymous with ideology, its uniformity has been lost. The ideological component of culture receded into the background, giving way to simplicity and sincerity. Works created in the provinces - in Irkutsk, Kursk, Voronezh, Omsk, etc., gained popularity. Culture was given a special status.
Nevertheless, ideological tendencies in culture were still very strong. Militant atheism played a negative role. The persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church intensified. Temples were closed in the country, priests were deposed and defrocked. Militant atheists created special organizations for preaching atheism.
Russian history. XX century Bokhanov Alexander Nikolaevich
§ 4. Life after the war: expectations and reality
“In the spring of forty-five people - not without reason - considered themselves giants,” E. Kazakevich shared his feelings. With this mood, the front-line soldiers entered civilian life, leaving - as it seemed to them then - beyond the threshold of war the most terrible and difficult. However, the reality turned out to be more complicated, not at all the same as it was seen from the trench. “In the army, we often talked about what would happen after the war,” recalled journalist B. Galin, “how we would live the next day after the victory, and the closer the end of the war was, the more we thought about it, and a lot to us painted in rainbow colors. We did not always imagine the size of the destruction, the scale of the work that would have to be carried out in order to heal the wounds inflicted by the Germans. “Life after the war seemed like a holiday, for the beginning of which only one thing is needed - the last shot,” K. Simonov continued this thought, as it were. It was difficult to expect other ideas from people who had been under the psychological pressure of an emergency military situation for four years, which often consisted of non-standard situations. It is quite clear that “a normal life, where you can “just live” without being exposed to every minute danger, was seen in wartime as a gift of fate. The war in the minds of people - front-line soldiers and those who were in the rear, brought a reassessment of the pre-war period, to a certain extent idealizing it. Having experienced the hardships of the war years, people - often subconsciously - also corrected the memory of the past peacetime, preserving the good and forgetting the bad. The desire to return the lost prompted the simplest answer to the question "how to live after the war?" - "as before the war."
“Life is a holiday”, “life is a fairy tale” - with the help of this image, a special concept of post-war life was also modeled in the mass consciousness - without contradictions, without tension, the development of which was actually only one factor - hope. And such a life existed, but only in movies and books. An interesting fact: during the war and in the first post-war years, there was an increase in demand for literature of the adventure genre and even fairy tales in libraries. On the one hand, this interest is explained by the change in the age composition of those working and using libraries; during the war, teenagers came to production (at individual enterprises they accounted for 50 to 70% of employees). After the war, the readership of the library of adventures was replenished by young front-line soldiers, whose intellectual growth was interrupted by the war and, because of this, after the front, returned to the youthful circle of reading. But there is another side to this issue: the growth of interest in this kind of literature and cinema was a kind of reaction to the rejection of the cruel reality that the war brought with it. We needed compensation for psychological overload. Therefore, even in the war one could observe, for example, veteran M. Abdulin testifies, “a terrible thirst for everything that is not connected with the war. I liked the simple film with dancing and fun, the arrival of artists at the front, humor. The thirst for peace, reinforced by the belief that life after the war would quickly change for the better, persisted for three to five post-victory years.
The film "Kuban Cossacks" - the most popular of all post-war films - was a huge success with the audience. Now he is being sharply and in many respects justly criticized for inconsistency with reality. But criticism sometimes forgets that the film "Kuban Cossacks" has its own truth, that this fairy tale film carries very serious mental information that conveys the spirit of that time. Journalist T. Arkhangelskaya recalls an interview with one of the participants in the filming of the film; she told how hungry these well-dressed guys and girls were, who cheerfully looked at models of fruits on the screen, an abundance of papier-mâché, and then added: “We believed that it would be so and that there would be a lot of everything - both bicycles, and what you want. And we really needed everything to be smart and to sing songs.
Hope for the best and the optimism that it nourished set the rhythm of the beginning of post-war life, creating a special - post-victory - social atmosphere. “My entire generation, with the exception of perhaps some, experienced ... difficulties,” the famous builder V.P. recalled at that time. Serikov. - But they didn't lose heart. The main thing is that the war was over ... There was the joy of work, victory, the spirit of competition. The emotional upsurge of the people, the desire to bring a truly peaceful life closer with their work made it possible to quickly solve the main tasks of restoration. However, this attitude, despite its enormous creative power, also carried a different kind of tendency: a psychological attitude towards a relatively painless transition to peace (“The hardest is behind!”), The perception of this process as generally consistent, the further, the more came into conflict with reality, which was in no hurry to turn into a "life-tale".
Conducted in 1945-1946. inspection trips of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recorded a number of "abnormalities" in the material and living conditions of people's lives, primarily residents of industrial cities and workers' settlements. In December 1945, a group of the Propaganda and Agitation Directorate of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks conducted such an inspection of the enterprises of the coal industry in the Shchekino district of the Tula region. The survey results were very disappointing. The living conditions of the workers were deemed "very difficult", with repatriated and mobilized workers living particularly poorly. Many of them did not have underwear, and if they did, they were old and dirty. The workers did not receive soap for months, the dormitories were very crowded and overcrowded, the workers slept on wooden trestle beds or two-tiered bunks (for these trestle beds the administration deducted 48 rubles from the workers' monthly earnings, which was a tenth of it). The workers received 1200 g of bread per day, but despite the sufficiency of the norm, the bread was of poor quality: there was not enough butter and therefore bread forms were smeared with oil products.
Numerous signals from the field testified that the facts of this kind are not isolated. Groups of workers from Penza and Kuznetsk addressed letters to V.M. Molotov, M.I. Kalinin, A.I. Mikoyan, which contained complaints about difficult material and living conditions, the lack of most of the necessary products and goods. According to these letters, a brigade of the People's Commissariat left Moscow, which, based on the results of the check, recognized the complaints of the workers as justified. In Nizhny Lomov, Penza Oblast, workers at Plant No. 255 opposed the delay in bread cards, while workers at the plywood factory and the match factory complained about long delays in wages. Difficult working conditions after the end of the war remained at the reconstructed enterprises: they had to work in the open air, and, if it was winter, knee-deep in snow. The premises were often not lit or heated. In winter, the situation was aggravated by the fact that people often had nothing to wear. For this reason, for example, the secretaries of a number of regional committees of Siberia turned to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with an unprecedented request: to allow them not to hold a demonstration of workers on November 7, 1946, motivating their request by the fact that "the population is not adequately provided with clothing."
A difficult situation developed after the war in the countryside as well. If the city did not suffer so much from a lack of workers (there the main problem was to organize the work and life of existing workers), then the collective farm village, in addition to material deprivation, experienced an acute shortage of people. By the end of 1945, the total population of collective farms (including those who returned after demobilization) decreased by 15% compared with 1940, and the number of able-bodied people - by 32.5%. The number of able-bodied men decreased especially noticeably (out of 16.9 million in 1940, by the beginning of 1946, 6.5 million remained). Compared with the pre-war period, the level of material security of collective farmers also decreased: if in 1940, on average, about 20% of grain and more than 40% of the cash income of collective farms were allocated for distribution according to workdays, then in 1945 these indicators decreased, respectively, to 14 and 29%. Payment in a number of farms looked purely symbolic, which means that collective farmers, as before the war, often worked "for sticks." A real disaster for the countryside was the drought of 1946, which engulfed most of the European territory of Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. The government used the drought to apply harsh measures of surplus appropriation, forcing collective farms and state farms to hand over 52% of their crops to the state, that is, more than during the war years. Seed and food grains were confiscated, including those intended for distribution on workdays. The grain collected in this way was sent to the cities, the villagers in the areas affected by crop failure were doomed to mass starvation. Accurate data on the number of victims of the famine of 1946-1947. no, since medical statistics carefully concealed the true cause of the increased mortality during this time (for example, other diagnoses were made instead of dystrophy). Infant mortality was especially high. In the famine-stricken regions of the RSFSR, Ukraine, and Moldavia, whose population numbered approximately 20 million people, in 1947, compared with 1946, due to flight to other places and an increase in mortality, there was a decrease in mortality by 5–6 million people, from According to some estimates, the victims of famine and related epidemics amounted to about 1 million people, mostly the rural population. The consequences were not slow to affect the mood of the collective farmers.
“Throughout 1945-1946. I came across very closely, studied the life of a number of collective farmers in the Bryansk and Smolensk regions. What I saw made me turn to you, as to the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, - this is how I began my letter addressed to G.M. Malenkov, a student of the Smolensk Military-Political School N.M. Menshikov. - As a communist, it pains me to listen to such a question from collective farmers: “Do you know if the collective farms will soon be dissolved?” As a rule, they motivate their question by the fact that “there is no strength to live like this anymore.” Indeed, life on some collective farms is unbearably bad. Thus, on the Novaya Zhizn collective farm (Bryansk, oblast), almost half of the collective farmers have not had bread for 2–3 months, and some do not even have potatoes. The situation is no better in half of the other collective farms in the region. This is not unique to this area."
“A study of the state of affairs on the ground shows,” a similar signal was sent from Moldova, “that famine covers an increasing number of the rural population ... An unusually high increase in mortality, even compared with 1945, when there was a typhus epidemic. The main cause of high mortality is dystrophy. The peasants of most regions of Moldova eat various poor-quality surrogates, as well as the corpses of dead animals. Lately, there have been cases of cannibalism… Emigrant moods are spreading among the population.”
In 1946, several notable events took place that in one way or another disturbed the public atmosphere. Contrary to the fairly common belief that at that time public opinion was exceptionally silent, the actual evidence suggests that this assertion is not entirely true. At the end of 1945 - beginning of 1946 there was a campaign for elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which took place in February 1946. As expected, at official meetings, people mostly spoke out "for" the elections, unconditionally supporting the policy of the party and its leaders . As before, on the ballots on election day one could find toasts in honor of Stalin and other members of the government. But along with this there were judgments of a completely opposite kind.
Contrary to official propaganda emphasizing the democratic nature of the elections, people said something else: “The state is wasting money on elections, it will no matter who it wants”; “All the same, it won’t be our way, they will vote for whatever they write”; “We have too much money and energy spent on preparing for the elections to the Supreme Council, and the essence is reduced to a simple formality - the registration of a pre-selected candidate”; “The upcoming elections will not give us anything, but if they were held, as in other countries, then it would be a different matter”; “Only one candidate is included on the ballot, this is a violation of democracy, since if you want to vote for another, the one indicated on the ballot will still be elected.”
Rumors spread among the people about the elections, and very different ones. For example, in Voronezh there was talk: voter lists are being checked in order to identify those who are not working to be sent to collective farms. People closed their apartments and left their homes in order not to be included in these lists. At the same time, there were special sanctions for election evasion; in the statements of some people one can read a direct condemnation of this kind of “stick democracy”: “Elections are conducted incorrectly, one candidate is given per electoral district, and the ballot is controlled in some special way. In case of unwillingness to vote for a certain candidate, it is impossible to cross it out, this will be known to the NKVD and sent where it should be ”; “There is no freedom of speech in our country, if I say anything today about the shortcomings in the work of Soviet organs, then tomorrow they will put me in jail.”
The inability to express one's point of view openly without fear of sanctions from the authorities gave rise to apathy, and with it subjective alienation from the authorities: “Whoever needs it, let him choose and study these laws (meaning the laws on elections. - E. Z.), but we are already tired of all this, they will choose without us”; “I am not going to choose and I will not. I did not see anything good from this government. The Communists appointed themselves, let them choose."
During the discussion and conversations, people expressed doubts about the expediency and timeliness of holding elections, which spent a lot of money, while thousands of people were on the verge of hunger: . No one benefits from it”; “What to do with idleness, they would better feed the people, but you can’t feed them with elections”; “They choose well, but they don’t give bread on the collective farms.”
A strong catalyst for the growth of discontent was the destabilization of the general economic situation, primarily the situation in the consumer market, which has been going on since the war, but at the same time has post-war causes. The consequences of the drought in 1946 limited the volume of the marketable mass of grain. However, the already difficult situation with food was exacerbated by the increase in ration prices carried out in September 1946, that is, the prices of goods distributed by cards. At the same time, the contingent of the population covered by the rationing system was declining: the number of supplied population living in rural areas was reduced from 27 million to 4 million, 3.5 million non-working adult dependents were removed from the bread rations in cities and workers' settlements and 500 thousand cards were destroyed by streamlining the card system and eliminating abuses. The total consumption of bread for rations was reduced by 30%.
As a result of such measures, not only the possibility of guaranteed supply of basic food products (primarily bread) was reduced, but also the possibility of acquiring food products on the market, where prices quickly went up (especially for bread, potatoes, vegetables). The scale of grain speculation increased. In a number of places it came to an open expression of protest. The most painful news of the increase in ration prices was met by low-paid workers and large families, women who lost their husbands at the front: “Food is expensive, and a family of five. The family does not have enough money. They waited, it would be better, and now there are difficulties again, but when will we survive them? “How to survive difficulties when there is not enough money to buy bread?”; “The products will either have to be abandoned, or redeemed for some other means, there is nothing to think about buying clothes”; “Before, it was hard for me, but I had hope for food cards with low prices, now the last hope is gone and I will have to starve.”
Even more frank were the conversations in the lines for bread: “Now you need to steal more, otherwise you won’t live”; “A new comedy - the salary was increased by 100 rubles, and food prices were increased three times. They did it in such a way that it was beneficial not for the workers, but for the government”; “Husbands and sons were killed, and instead of relief, prices were raised for us”; “With the end of the war, they expected an improvement in the situation and waited for improvement; now it has become more difficult to live than during the war years.”
Attention is drawn to the unpretentiousness of the desires of people who require only the establishment of a living wage and nothing more. The dreams of the war years that after the war “there will be a lot of everything”, a happy life will come, began to land rather quickly, devalue, and the set of benefits included in the “limit of dreams” became so scarce that a salary that makes it possible to feed a family and a room in a communal apartment were already considered a gift of fate. But the myth of “fairy tale life”, which lives in everyday consciousness and, by the way, is supported by the major tone of all official propaganda, presenting any difficulties as “temporary”, often interfered with an adequate understanding of cause-and-effect relationships in the chain of events that excite people. Therefore, finding no apparent reasons to explain "temporary" difficulties that would fall under the category of objective ones, people looked for them in the usual emergency circumstances. The choice here was not too wide, all the difficulties of the post-war period were explained by the consequences of the war. It is not surprising that the complication of the situation inside the country was also associated in the mass consciousness with the war factor - now the future one. Questions were often raised at the meetings: “Will there be a war?”, “Is the price increase caused by the difficult international situation?”. Some spoke more categorically: “The end of peaceful life has come, a war is approaching, and prices have increased. They hide it from us, but we figure it out. Before a war, prices always go up.” As for the rumors, here the popular fantasy knew no bounds at all: “America broke the peace treaty with Russia, there will soon be a war. They say that trains with the wounded have already been delivered to the city of Simferopol”; “I heard that the war is already going on in China and Greece, where America and England have intervened. If not today or tomorrow, the Soviet Union will also be attacked.”
The war in the minds of the people will be perceived for a long time as the main measure of the difficulties of life, and the sentence “if only there was no war” will serve as a reliable justification for all the hardships of the post-war period, for which, apart from it, there were no longer any reasonable explanations. After the world crossed the line of the Cold War, these sentiments only intensified; they could keep under wraps, but at the slightest danger or a hint of danger they immediately made themselves felt. For example, already in 1950, during the war in Korea, panic among the inhabitants of Primorsky Krai intensified, who considered that since there was a war nearby, it means that it would not pass the borders of the USSR. As a result, essential goods (matches, salt, soap, kerosene, etc.) began to disappear from stores: the population created long-term "military" reserves.
Some saw the reason for the increase in ration prices in the fall of 1946 as the approach of a new war, others considered such a decision unfair in relation to the results of the past war, in relation to front-line soldiers and their families who had gone through a difficult time and had right to something more than a half-starved existence. In many statements on this subject, it is easy to notice the feeling of offended dignity of the winners, and the bitter irony of deceived hopes: “Life is becoming more beautiful, more fun. The salary was increased by one hundred rubles, and 600 were taken away. We fought, the winners! ”; “Well, here we are. This is called taking care of the material needs of the working people in the Fourth Stalinist Five-Year Plan. Now we understand why meetings are not held on this issue. There will be riots, uprisings, and the workers will say: “What did you fight for?”.
However, despite the presence of very decisive moods, at that time they did not become predominant: the craving for peaceful life turned out to be too strong, the fatigue from the struggle, in any form, was too serious, the desire to get rid of extremeness and associated with her harsh actions. In addition, despite the skepticism of some people, the majority continued to trust the leadership of the country, to believe that it was acting in the name of the people's good. Therefore, the difficulties, including those brought with it by the food crisis of 1946, were most often, judging by the reviews, perceived by contemporaries as inevitable and someday surmountable. Quite typical were statements like the following: "Although it will be difficult to live as a low-paid worker, our government and the party have never done anything bad for the working class"; “We emerged victorious from a war that ended a year ago. The war brought great destruction and life cannot immediately enter into a normal framework. Our task is to understand the ongoing activities of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and support it”; “We believe that the party and the government have well thought out this event in order to quickly eliminate temporary difficulties. We believed the party when we fought for Soviet power under its leadership, and we still believe that the ongoing event is temporary ... "
Attention is drawn to the motivation of negative and "approving" sentiments: the former are based on the real state of affairs, while the latter come solely from faith in the justice of the leadership, which "never did anything bad for the working class." It can be definitely asserted that the policy of the leaders of the first post-war years was built solely on the credibility of the people, which after the war was quite high. On the one hand, the use of this loan allowed the leadership to stabilize the post-war situation over time and, on the whole, to ensure the transition of the country from a state of war to a state of peace. But on the other hand, the trust of the people in the top leadership made it possible for the latter to delay the decision of vital reforms, and subsequently actually block the trend of democratic renewal of society.
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The Great Victory also had a Great Price. The war claimed 27 million human lives. The economy of the country, especially in the territory subjected to occupation, was thoroughly undermined: 1,710 cities and towns, more than 70,000 villages and villages, about 32,000 industrial enterprises, 65,000 km of railway lines were completely or partially destroyed, 75 million people lost their homes. The concentration of efforts on military production, necessary to achieve victory, led to a significant impoverishment of the resources of the population and to a decrease in the production of consumer goods. During the war, the previously insignificant housing construction was sharply reduced, while the country's housing stock was partially destroyed. Later, unfavorable economic and social factors came into play: low wages, an acute housing crisis, the involvement of an increasing number of women in production, and so on.
After the war, the birth rate began to decline. In the 1950s it was 25 (per 1,000), and before the war it was 31. In 1971-1972, there were half as many children born per 1,000 women aged 15-49 in a year than in 1938-1939. . In the first post-war years, the working-age population of the USSR was also significantly lower than the pre-war one. There is information at the beginning of 1950 in the USSR there were 178.5 million people, that is, 15.6 million less than it was in 1930 - 194.1 million people. In the 1960s, there was an even greater decline.
The fall in the birth rate in the first post-war years was associated with the death of entire age groups of men. The death of a significant part of the country's male population during the war created a difficult, often catastrophic situation for millions of families. A large category of widow families and single mothers has emerged. The woman fell on double responsibilities: material support for the family and care for the family itself and the upbringing of children. Although the state took over, especially in large industrial centers, part of the care of children, creating a network of nurseries and kindergartens, but they were not enough. Saved to some extent by the institution of "grandmothers".
The difficulties of the first post-war years were exacerbated by the enormous damage suffered by agriculture during the war. The occupiers ruined 98,000 collective farms and 1,876 state farms, took away and slaughtered many millions of heads of livestock, and almost completely deprived the rural areas of the occupied regions of draft power. In agrarian areas, the number of able-bodied people decreased by almost one third. The depletion of human resources in the countryside was also the result of the natural process of urban growth. The village lost an average of up to 2 million people per year. The difficult living conditions in the villages forced young people to leave for the cities. Part of the demobilized soldiers settled after the war in the cities and did not want to return to agriculture.
During the war, in many regions of the country, significant areas of land belonging to collective farms were transferred to enterprises and cities, or illegally seized by them. In other areas, the land has become the subject of sale. Back in 1939, the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party of the Central Committee (6) and the Council of People's Commissars issued a resolution on measures to combat the squandering of collective farm lands. By the beginning of 1947, more than 2,255 thousand cases of appropriation or use of land were discovered, in total 4.7 million hectares. Between 1947 and May 1949, the use of 5.9 million hectares of collective farm land was additionally discovered. The higher authorities, starting from the local and ending with the republican, brazenly robbed the collective farms, charging them, under various pretexts, in fact dues in kind.
By September 1946, the debt of various organizations to collective farms amounted to 383 million rubles.
In the Akmola region of the Kazakh SGR, the authorities in 1949 took from the collective farms 1,500 head of cattle, 3,000 centners of grain and products worth about 2 million rubles. The robbers, among whom were leading party and Soviet workers, were not held accountable.
The squandering of collective-farm lands and goods belonging to the collective farms aroused great indignation among the collective farmers. For example, at the general meetings of collective farmers in the Tyumen region (Siberia), dedicated to the decree of September 19, 1946, 90 thousand collective farmers participated, and the activity was unusual: 11 thousand collective farmers spoke. In the Kemerovo region, 367 chairmen of collective farms, 2,250 members of the board and 502 chairmen of the audit commissions of the former composition were nominated at meetings for the election of new boards. However, the new composition of the boards could not achieve any significant change: the state policy remained the same. Therefore, there was no way out of the impasse.
After the end of the war, the production of tractors, agricultural machinery and implements quickly improved. But, despite the improvement in the supply of agriculture with machines and tractors, the strengthening of the material and technical base of state farms and MTS, the situation in agriculture remained catastrophic. The state continued to invest extremely insignificant funds in agriculture - in the post-war five-year plan, only 16% of all appropriations for the national economy.
In 1946, only 76% of the sown area was sown compared to 1940. Due to drought and other turmoil, the 1946 harvest was lower even compared to the paramilitary 1945. “In fact, in terms of grain production, the country for a long period was at the level that pre-revolutionary Russia had,” admitted N. S. Khrushchev. In 1910-1914, the gross grain harvest was 4,380 million poods, in 1949-1953, 4,942 million poods. Grain yields were lower than in 1913, despite mechanization, fertilizers, and so on.
Grain yield
1913 -- 8.2 centners per hectare
1925-1926 -- 8.5 centners per hectare
1926-1932 -- 7.5 centners per hectare
1933-1937 -- 7.1 centners per hectare
1949-1953 -- 7.7 centners per hectare
Accordingly, there were fewer agricultural products per capita. Taking the pre-collectivization period of 1928-1929 as 100, production in 1913 was 90.3, in 1930-1932 - 86.8, in 1938-1940 - 90.0, in 1950-1953 - 94.0. As can be seen from the table, the grain problem worsened, despite the decline in grain exports (from 1913 to 1938 by 4.5 times), the reduction in the number of livestock and, consequently, the consumption of grain. The number of horses decreased from 1928 to 1935 by 25 million heads, which saved more than 10 million tons of grain, 10-15% of the gross grain harvest of that time.
In 1916, there were 58.38 million cattle on the territory of Russia, on January 1, 1941, its number decreased to 54.51 million, and in 1951 there were 57.09 million heads, that is, it was still below the level 1916. The number of cows exceeded the level of 1916 only in 1955. In general, according to official data, from 1940 to 1952 the gross agricultural output increased (in comparable prices) by only 10%!
The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in February 1947 demanded even greater centralization of agricultural production, effectively depriving the collective farms of the right to decide not only how much, but what to sow. Political departments were restored in the machine and tractor stations - propaganda was supposed to replace food for the completely starving and impoverished collective farmers. Collective farms were obliged, in addition to fulfilling state deliveries, to fill up seed funds, set aside part of the crop in an indivisible fund, and only after that give money to collective farmers for workdays. State deliveries were still planned from the center, harvest prospects were determined by eye, and the actual harvest was often much lower than planned. The first commandment of the collective farmers "first give to the state" had to be fulfilled in any way. Local party and Soviet organizations often forced more successful collective farms to pay with grain and other products for their impoverished neighbors, which ultimately led to the impoverishment of both. Collective farmers lived mainly on the products grown on their dwarf household plots. But in order to take their products to the market, they needed a special certificate certifying that they had paid off the obligatory state deliveries. Otherwise, they were considered deserters and speculators, subjected to fines and even imprisonment. Increased taxes on personal household plots of collective farmers. Collective farmers were required in the form of natural deliveries of products that they often did not produce. Therefore, they were forced to purchase these products at the market price and hand them over to the state free of charge. The Russian village did not know such a terrible state even during the time of the Tatar yoke.
In 1947, a significant part of the European territory of the country suffered a famine. It arose after a severe drought that engulfed the main agricultural granaries of the European part of the USSR: a significant part of Ukraine, Moldova, the Lower Volga region, the central regions of Russia, and the Crimea. In previous years, the state took the harvest cleanly at the expense of state deliveries, sometimes not even leaving the seed fund. A crop failure occurred in a number of areas that were subjected to German occupation, that is, many times robbed by both strangers and their own. As a result, there were no food supplies to get through the hard times. The Soviet state, on the other hand, demanded more and more millions of poods of grain from the completely robbed peasants. For example, in 1946, a year of severe drought, Ukrainian collective farmers owed the state 400 million poods (7.2 million tons) of grain. This figure, and most of the other planned tasks, was arbitrarily set and did not correlate with the actual possibilities of Ukrainian agriculture.
Desperate peasants sent letters to the Ukrainian government in Kyiv and to the allied government in Moscow, begging them to come to their aid and save them from starvation. Khrushchev, who at that time was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) U, after long and painful hesitation (he was afraid of being accused of sabotage and losing his place), nevertheless sent a letter to Stalin, in which he asked for permission to temporarily introduce a rationing system and save food for supply for the agricultural population. Stalin, in a reply telegram, rudely rejected the request of the Ukrainian government. Now the Ukrainian peasants faced starvation and death. People began to die by the thousands. There were cases of cannibalism. Khrushchev cites in his memoirs a letter to him from the secretary of the Odessa Regional Party Committee A.I. Kirichenko, who visited one of the collective farms in the winter of 1946-1947. Here is what he reported: "I saw a terrible scene. A woman put the corpse of her own child on the table and cut it into pieces. She spoke insanely when she did this:" We have already eaten Manechka. Now we will pickle Vanichka. This will support us for a while ". Can you imagine it? A woman went mad because of hunger and cut her own children to pieces! Famine raged in Ukraine.
However, Stalin and his closest aides did not want to reckon with the facts. The merciless Kaganovich was sent to Ukraine as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine, and Khrushchev temporarily fell out of favor, was moved to the post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine. But no movement could save the situation: the famine continued, and it claimed about a million human lives.
In 1952, state prices for supplies of grain, meat and pork were lower than in 1940. The prices paid for potatoes were lower than the cost of transportation. Collective farms were paid an average of 8 rubles 63 kopecks per centner of grain. State farms received 29 rubles 70 kopecks for a centner.
In order to buy a kilogram of butter, the collective farmer had to work ... 60 workdays, and in order to purchase a very modest suit, an annual salary was needed.
Most of the country's collective and state farms in the early 1950s had extremely low yields. Even in such fertile regions of Russia as the Central Black Earth region, the Volga region and Kazakhstan, the harvests remained extremely low, because the center endlessly ordered them what to sow and how to sow. The point, however, was not only stupid orders from above and insufficient material and technical base. For many years, the love for their work, for the land, was beaten out of the peasants. Once upon a time, the land rewarded for the labor expended, for their devotion to their peasant cause, sometimes generously, sometimes poorly. Now this incentive, which has received the official name "incentive of material interest" has disappeared. Work on the land turned into free or low-income forced labor.
Many collective farmers were starving, others were systematically malnourished. Saved homesteads. The situation was especially difficult in the European part of the USSR. The situation was much better in Central Asia, where there were high procurement prices for cotton - the main agricultural crop, and in the south, which specialized in vegetable growing, fruit production and winemaking.
In 1950, the consolidation of collective farms began. Their number decreased from 237 thousand to 93 thousand in 1953. Consolidation of collective farms could contribute to their economic strengthening. However, insufficient capital investment, mandatory supplies and low procurement prices, the lack of a sufficient number of trained specialists and machine operators, and, finally, the restrictions imposed by the state on the personal household plots of collective farmers deprived them of an incentive to work, destroyed their hopes of breaking out of the clutches of need. The 33 million collective farmers who fed the 200 million population of the country with their hard work remained, after the convicts, the poorest, most offended stratum of Soviet society.
Let us now see what was the position of the working class and other urban strata of the population at that time.
As you know, one of the first acts of the Provisional Government after the February Revolution was the introduction of an 8-hour working day. Prior to this, the workers of Russia worked 10 and sometimes 12 hours a day. As for the collective farmers, their working day, as in the pre-revolutionary years, remained irregular. In 1940 they returned to the 8 o'clock.
According to official Soviet statistics, the average wage of a Soviet worker increased more than 11 times between the start of industrialization (1928) and the end of the Stalin era (1954). But this does not give an idea of real wages. Soviet sources give fantastic calculations that have nothing to do with reality. Western researchers have calculated that during this period the cost of living, according to the most conservative estimates, increased in the period 1928-1954 by 9-10 times. However, the worker in the Soviet Union has, in addition to the official wages received in his hands, additional, in the form of social services rendered to him by the state. It returns to workers in the form of free medical care, education and other things part of the earnings alienated by the state.
According to the calculations of the largest American specialist in the Soviet economy, Janet Chapman, additional increases in the wages of workers and employees, taking into account the changes in prices that have occurred, after 1927 amounted to: in 1928 - 15% in 1937 - 22.1%; in 194O - 20.7%; in 1948 - 29.6%; in 1952 - 22.2%; 1954 - 21.5%. The cost of living in the same years grew as follows, taking 1928 as 100:
This table shows that the growth in the wages of Soviet workers and employees was lower than the growth in the cost of living. For example, by 1948 wages in monetary terms had doubled compared to 1937, but the cost of living had more than tripled. The fall in real wages was also associated with an increase in loan subscriptions and taxation. A significant increase in real wages by 1952 was still below the level of 1928, although it exceeded the level of real wages of the pre-war 1937 and 1940s.
In order to form a correct idea of the position of the Soviet worker in comparison with his counterparts abroad, let us compare how many products could be bought for 1 hour of work expended. Taking the initial data of the hourly wage of a Soviet worker as 100, we get the following comparative table:
The picture is striking: in the same time spent, an English worker could purchase in 1952 more than 3.5 times more food, and an American worker 5.6 times more food than a Soviet worker.
The Soviet people, especially the older generations, have an ingrained opinion that, they say, under Stalin, prices were reduced every year, and under Khrushchev and after him, prices were constantly growing. Hence, there is even some nostalgia for Stalin's times.
The secret to lowering prices is extremely simple - it is based, firstly, on a huge rise in prices after the start of collectivization. Indeed, if we take the prices of 1937 as 100, then it turns out that the yen for baked rye bread increased 10.5 times from 1928 to 1937, and by 1952 almost 19 times. Prices for beef of the 1st grade increased from 1928 to 1937 by 15.7 times, and by 1952 by 17 times: for pork, respectively, by 10.5 and 20.5 times. The price of herring rose by 1952 by almost 15 times. The cost of sugar rose by 1937 by 6 times, and by 1952 by 15 times. The price of sunflower oil rose from 1928 to 1937 by a factor of 28, and from 1928 to 1952 by a factor of 34. Egg prices increased from 1928 to 1937 by 11.3 times, and by 1952 by 19.3 times. And finally, the price of potatoes rose from 1928 to 1937 by 5 times, and in 1952 they were 11 times higher than the 1928 price level.
All these data are taken from Soviet price tags for different years.
Having once raised prices by 1500-2500 percent, then it was already quite easy to pull off the trick of lowering prices every year. Secondly, the price reduction was due to the robbery of collective farmers, that is, extremely low state delivery and purchase prices. Back in 1953, procurement prices for potatoes in the Moscow and Leningrad regions were ... 2.5 - 3 kopecks per kilogram. Finally, the majority of the population did not feel the difference in prices at all, since the state supply was very poor, in many areas meat, fats and other products were not brought to stores for years.
This is the "secret" of the annual decline in prices in Stalin's time.
A worker in the USSR, 25 years after the revolution, continued to eat worse than a Western worker.
The housing crisis worsened. Compared to pre-revolutionary times, when the problem of housing in densely populated cities was not easy (1913 - 7 square meters per 1 person), in the post-revolutionary years, especially during the period of collectivization, the housing problem became unusually aggravated. Masses of rural residents poured into the cities, seeking salvation from hunger or in search of work. Civil housing construction in Stalin's time was unusually limited. Apartments in the cities were received by senior officials of the party and state apparatus. In Moscow, for example, in the early 1930s, a huge residential complex was built on Bersenevskaya Embankment - the Government House with large comfortable apartments. A few hundred meters from the Government House there is another residential complex - a former almshouse, converted into communal apartments, where for 20-30 people there was one kitchen and I-2 toilets.
Before the revolution, most of the workers lived near factories in the barracks, after the revolution the barracks were called hostels. Large enterprises built new dormitories for their workers, apartments for the engineering, technical and administrative apparatus, but it was still impossible to solve the housing problem, since the lion's share of appropriations was spent on the development of industry, the military industry, and the energy system.
Housing conditions for the overwhelming majority of the urban population worsened every year during the years of Stalin's rule: the population growth rate significantly exceeded the rate of civil housing construction.
In 1928, the living area per 1 city dweller was 5.8 sq. meters, in 1932 4.9 sq. meters, in 1937 - 4.6 square meters. meters.
The plan of the 1st five-year plan provided for the construction of new 62.5 million square meters. meters of living space, but only 23.5 million square meters were built. meters. According to the 2nd five-year plan, it was planned to build 72.5 million square meters. meters, was built 2.8 times less than 26.8 million square meters. meters.
In 1940, the living area per city dweller was 4.5 sq. meters.
Two years after Stalin's death, when mass housing construction began, there were 5.1 sq. meters. In order to realize how crowded people lived, it should be mentioned that even the official Soviet housing standard is 9 square meters. meters per person (in Czechoslovakia - 17 sq. meters). Many families huddled in an area of 6 square meters. meters. They lived not in families, but in clans - two or three generations in one room.
The family of a cleaner of a large Moscow enterprise in the 13th century A-voi lived in a hostel in a room of 20 square meters. meters. The cleaner herself was the widow of the commandant of the border outpost who died at the beginning of the German-Soviet war. There were only seven fixed beds in the room. The remaining six people - adults and children were laid out on the floor for the night. Sexual relations took place almost in plain sight, they got used to it and did not pay attention. For 15 years, the three families who lived in the room unsuccessfully sought resettlement. Only in the early 60s they were resettled.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of inhabitants of the Soviet Union lived in such conditions in the post-war period. Such was the legacy of the Stalin era.
The victory in the Second World War promised the USSR significant changes. Citizens were also waiting for these changes, many of whom, during the liberation of Europe, saw bourgeois life, from which they had previously been fenced off by the iron curtain. After the Great Patriotic War, the inhabitants of the USSR expected that the changes would affect the economy, agriculture, national politics, and much more. At the same time, the overwhelming majority were loyal to the authorities, since the victory in the war was considered the merit of Stalin.
In September 1945, the state of emergency was lifted in the USSR, and the Defense Committee was also announced to be disbanded.
In the post-war years, mass repressions began in the USSR. First of all, they touched those who had been in German captivity. In addition, repressions were directed against the peoples of the Baltic states, western Ukraine and Belarus, whose population most actively opposed the Soviet regime. In such a cruel way, order was restored in the country.
As in the pre-war years, the repressions of the Soviet government affected the military. This time it was due to the fact that Stalin was afraid of the popularity of the high military command, which enjoyed popular love. By order of Stalin, the following were arrested: A.A. Novikov (Aviation Marshal of the USSR), Generals N.K. Kristallov and P.N. Monday. In addition, some officers who served under the command of Marshal G.K. were arrested. Zhukov.
In general, the repressions of the post-war years affected almost every class of the country. In total, during the period from 1948 to 1953, approximately 6.5 million people were arrested and shot in the country.
In October 1952, the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, at which it was decided to rename the party into the CPSU.
The USSR after the Great Patriotic War radically changed its foreign policy. The victory of the USSR in the Second World War led to the aggravation of relations between the USSR and the USA. As a result of this aggravation, the Cold War began. Soviet power, in the post-war years, increased its influence on the world stage. Many countries of the world, especially those that were liberated by the Red Army from fascism, began to be controlled by the communists.
The United States and Britain were seriously worried that the growth of the influence of the USSR could lead to a decrease in their influence on world politics. As a result, it was decided to create a military bloc, the function of which would be to counteract the USSR. This bloc was called "NATO" and was formed in 1949. The Americans could no longer delay the creation of NATO, since in the same year the Soviet Union successfully tested the first atomic bomb. As a result, both sides were nuclear powers. The Cold War continued until Stalin's death on March 5, 1953. The main result of the post-war years was the understanding by the parties that issues must be resolved peacefully, since the Cold War, with the stubbornness of the parties, can develop into an armed one.
