DAILY LIFE in the SOVIET UNION the Greenwood Press "Daily Life Through History" Series
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DAILY LIFE IN THE SOVIET UNION The Greenwood Press "Daily Life Through History" Series The Age of Charlemagne The Holocaust John J. Butt Eve Nussbaum Soumerai and Carol D. Schulz The Age of Sail Dorothy Denneen Volo and The Inca Empire James M. Volo Michael A. Malpass The American Revolution Maya Civilization Dorothy Denneen Volo and Robert J. Sharer James M. Volo Medieval Europe The Ancient Egyptians Jeffrey L. Singman Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs The Nineteenth Century American The Ancient Greeks Frontier Robert Garland Mary Ellen Jones Ancient Mesopotamia The Old Colonial Frontier Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat James M. Volo and Dorothy Denneen Volo The Ancient Romans David Matz Renaissance Italy Elizabeth S. Cohen and Thomas V. Cohen The Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth The Spanish Inquisition David Carrasco with Scott Sessions James M. Anderson Chaucer's England Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty Jeffrey L. Singman and Will McLean Charles Benn Civil War America The United States, 1920-1939: Dorothy Denneen Volo and Decades of Promise and Pain James M. Volo David E. Kyvig Colonial New England The United States, 1940-1959: Shifting Claudia Durst Johnson Worlds Eugenia Kaledin Early Modern Japan Louis G. Perez The United States, 1960-1990: Decades of Discord 18th-Century England Myron A. Marty Kirstin Olsen Victorian England Elizabethan England Sally Mitchell Jeffrey L. Singman World War I Neil M. Heyman DAILY LIFE IN THE SOVIET UNION KATHERINE B. EATON The Greenwood Press "Daily Life Through History" Series GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Eaton, Katherine Bliss. Daily life in the Soviet Union / Katherine B. Eaton. p. cm. — (The Greenwood Press "Daily life through history" series, ISSN 1080-4749) Includes index. ISBN 0-313-31628-7 (alk. paper) 1. Soviet Union—Social life and customs. 2. Soviet Union—History. I. Title. II. Series. DK266.4.E17 2004 947.084—dc22 2004012486 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2004 by Katherine B. Eaton All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004012486 ISBN: 0-313-31628-7 ISSN: 1080-4749 First published in 2004 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www. greenwood .com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 987654321 Copyright Acknowledgments The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission for use of the following: Extracts from Katherine Bliss Eaton, ed. Enemies of the People: The Destruction of Literary, Theater, and Film Arts in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Evanston, IL: North western University Press, 2002, and Victor Terras, translator. Copyright © 2001 from Censorship: A World Encyclopedia by Derek Jones. Repro duced by permission of Routledge/Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. Recipe for Russian Kulich courtesy of Fleischmann's Yeast, a division of Burns Philp Food, Inc. Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The author and publisher will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowl edgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions. For Henry, Stephen, and Jonathan Eaton There are secrets galore in the Soviet Union, but the principal and most carefully guarded state secret is the daily life of the Soviet people. —Vladimir Voinovich contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi A Note on Transliteration xiii Brief Chronology of Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century XV Maps xix 1. The Soviet Union, 1917-1991 1 2. Ethnic Groups and Nationalities 37 3. Government and Law 55 4. The Military 79 5. Economy, Class Structure, Food, Clothing, and Shopping 107 6. Rural Life 131 7. Housing 153 8. Health Care and Health Problems 175 9. Education 209 10. The Arts 235 viii Contents 11. Mass Media, Leisure, and Popular Culture 257 12. Religion 281 Glossary 303 For Further Reading 313 Index 317 preface The idea of "daily life" implies an orderly routine in a stable environment, the ability to go about one's business confident that life is reasonably pre dictable, that the ground rules of one's society and upbringing will hold and not suddenly, horribly, evaporate. The Soviet period, which lasted 73 years, was a time of repeated seismic shifts in people's everyday lives. Add to that the sheer size of the Soviet empire, with its scores of ethnic groups, nationalities, cultures, and languages; its variety of religions; and the wide gaps in the lifestyles of different social classes. How, in a book on "daily life," do we include mass starvation, terror, war deaths, executions, and imprisonment of innocent people for decades on end, among all social classes and nationalities? At the same time, millions of people lived out their lives relatively undisturbed; millions more survived terrors and kept on going, perhaps even finding joy in their existence. In this book I have focused on the day-to-day experiences of average people, mainly those who lived and worked in Russia's cities and on farms. But I have not ignored other regions. Similarly, although this book is not about USSR concentration camps or dispossessed families, no chap ter overlooks the dark side of Soviet existence. For many Soviet citizens, terror was a distant backdrop against which they played out their ordi nary lives, but for many others, it was the very fabric of life itself. In describing the conditions of Soviet reality, whether ghastly or hum drum, I found works of literature especially useful. Because artists so tren chantly communicate the texture of life, I have frequently drawn upon the words of fine Soviet authors to illustrate a point. In most cases, those words were banned from publication in their time. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I appreciate the assistance of the Greenwood editors who worked with me on various manuscript drafts: Barbara Rader, Kevin Ohe, and Michael Hermann. Thanks also to the copyeditor, Barbara Juhas Walsh, for her excellent work and thanks to the staff at Impressions. It helped a lot to par ticipate in the University of Illinois Russian and East European Center's Summer Research Lab for two weeks in the summers. The rest of the time, I made heavy use of the library facilities at the University of North Texas, including Interlibrary Loan. With the help of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division librarians, I was able to find many fine pictures, and in that regard I want to particularly mention Marilyn Ibach, who quickly found answers to my questions. Special thanks to Cyndi Lewis. Above all my husband, Henry Eaton, was the biggest help because he read and edited each chapter. I benefited from his expert knowledge of Russian and Soviet history and editing skill. Any defects remaining in the final version are my responsibility. This page intentionally left blank A Note on Transliteration In transliterating the sounds of Russian from the Cyrillic to the Roman alphabet, I have generally followed the systems (I and II) outlined by J. Thomas Shaw in The Transliteration of Modern Russian for English-Language Publications (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967). However, I made exceptions, especially where certain spellings that do not follow Shaw's system would look more familiar or be less confusing to readers. This page intentionally left blank Brief chronology of Russia and the soviet union in the Twentieth century 1898 Formation of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP or SDs). 1901-02 Formation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs); terrorist sec tion of SRs devoted to assassination of government officials. 1903 RSDLP split: Bolsheviks under Vladimir I. Lenin, Mensheviks under Yuly Martov. 1905 Revolution: Bloody Sunday (Jan. 9 [old style]); massive strikes; Nicholas II issues October Manifesto (Oct. 17 [old style]) estab lishing elected legislative assembly, the Duma. 1906-11 Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin intensifies police actions against anti-tsarists and introduces a promising program of major agri cultural reforms. In 1911 Stolypin is assassinated by a double (police/revolutionary) agent. 1914-18 World War I. 1917 February Revolution (March 8-16 [new style]); two popular assemblies form themselves by March 12-14 (new style): Provi sional Government (which grew out of the Duma) and Petro- grad Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (soon composed mainly of SRs, Mensheviks, and Bolsheviks); Nicholas II abdicates (March 2 [old style]/15 [new style]); Bol sheviks overthrow Provisional Government and seize power (October 24-25 [old style]/ November 6-7 [new style]). XVI Brief Chronology 1918 Constituent Assembly (elected in November 1917, SRs domi nate) meets once on January 18-19 and is then dissolved by Bolsheviks; Nicholas II and family executed on July 17. 1918-20 Civil War between Reds (mainly Bolsheviks), who called their war policy "War Communism," and Whites (widely different political groups joined to fight Bolsheviks); United States, Britain, France, and Japan assist Whites. 1921 Kronstadt Revolt in March crushed by Bolsheviks; end of War Communism; great famine of 1921-22. 1921-29 New Economic Policy (NEP), door partly opened to private enterprise. 1920s Stalin situates himself in top Party committees; elected General Secretary of Party in 1922. 1922 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) founded on Decem ber 30. 1922-24 Lenin impaired by three strokes (May 1922-March 1923); dies January 21,1924. 1924-29 Stalin outmaneuvers other leading Bolsheviks in struggle for political power.