By the early 1970’s many Soviet controlled cities were experiencing similar problems such as economic stagnation, food price increases, and generally low morale. The Solidarity movement in Poland  fought against these problems and promoted a non-violent and anti-communist social movement that would lead to successful and lasting changes. Solidarity’s roots began in December of 1970 in the Polish port town of Gdansk. There, the workers at the Lenin Shipyards marched to the Polish Communist Party headquarters and set it on fire- beginning a wave of strikes and resistance that would continue for nearly two decades.

In August of 1980, electrician Lech Wałęsa led workers in a massive strike (over 15,000 workers) that succeeded in the government not only giving workers the right to strike, but also allowing for a trade union independent of the communist party control (the first in any Warsaw Pact country). This strike led to the formation on September 22 of a nation-wide trade organization called Solidarity (Solidarnosc ). Lech Wałęsa became the first president of the trade union and it quickly transformed into a social movement with a membership of over a quarter of the Polish population. The goal of Solidarity was to “create dignified conditions of life in an economically and politically sovereign Poland. By this we mean life free from poverty, exploitation, fear and lies, in a democratically and legally organised society” .  The movement was careful to never use violence, and the Communist government could not find a way to control the movement without suppressing it. As you could guess, this did not impress the Soviet Union, and the Central Party Committee forced Polish First Secretary, Stanisław Kania to resign. Kania was replaced by hardliner Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski whose solution to the problem was simple: Martial Law. On December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski delivered a speech to the Polish people and described their country as falling apart. He believed it was his duty to fix the situation, so he proclaimed:

I announce that today a Military Council of National Salvation has been established. Today at midnight, the Council of State, in accordance with the Constitution, introduced martial law throughout the country. I want everyone to understand the motives and the aims of our action. We are not striving for a military coup, for a military dictatorship. The nation has enough strength, enough wisdom to develop an efficient democratic system of socialist rule. In such a system the Armed Forces will be able to remain where they belong-in the barracks. No Polish problem can, in the long run, be solved through force. The Military Council for National Salvation is not replacing constitutional organs of power. Its sole task is the protection of legal order in the country and the creation of executive guarantees that will make it possible to restore order and discipline. This is the last path we can take to initiate the extrication of the country from the crisis, to save the country from disintegration….

“In this difficult moment I address myself to our socialist allies and friends. We greatly value their trust and constant aid. The Polish-Soviet alliance is, and will remain, the cornerstone of the Polish raison d’etat, the guarantee of the inviolability of our borders.

Poland is, and will remain, a lasting link in the Warsaw Pact, an unfailing member of the socialist community of nations….”

(Wojciech Jaruzelski, Announcement of Martial Law in Poland and TASS Reaction. December 13-14, 1981)

General Wojciech Jaruzelski announces martial law as a means to restore Poland

Martial Law in Poland, 1981

After the announcement, over 5,000 members of Solidarity, including many leaders were arrested. By October of 1982, Solidarity was banned. The martial law officially lasted until July of 1983, but all civil liberties were not retained. The arrests and official ban on Solidarity may lead one to speculate that the movement would eventually die down. This was the case with many previous resistances to communism, but it was not the case with Solidarity. The movement survived as an underground organization throughout the 1980’s with tens of thousands of members and hundreds of different newspapers. One reason that this movement was able to continue despite so much governmental opposition was the support from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Solidarity was playing out live on the international stage, and rather than work with Solidarity, the communist party repeatedly scored bad PR with the West.  In 1983, Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, however the government denied his passport and he was unable to travel for its acceptance. One particularly bad episode occurred in 1984, with the murder of Pro-Solidarity priest, Jerzy Popiełuszko.

In addition to Wałęsa, another immensely influential Pole was the Catholic Archbishop of  Kraków,  Karol Wojtyla. In October of 1978, Wojtyla was elected as Pope and became Pope John Paul II. Professor Veronica Shapovalov wrote of the importance of the election of a Polish Pope (the first non-Italian in 455 years), 

“I remember when the Polish pope was elected. That was a very bad blow for the Soviet propaganda because before it was totally that the Vatican and the Catholic Church were supported by capitalists and imperialists. But now the Pope was from Socialist Poland.”

(Shapovalov, 2012)

Pope John Paul II visited Poland in June 1979 in what was called ‘Nine Days that Changed the World”. He is credited with emboldening the worker-activists, as his initial visit coincided with the formation of the Solidarity movement. In later trips, the Pope gave tacit support for Solidarity. In addition to Polish support, the Solidarity movement had plenty of support abroad. Respected world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan supported the movement in Poland. Some media from the United States on the Solidarity Movement includes:  “Let Poland Be Poland“, a film produced by the US Information Agency in 1982 and Ronald Reagan’s address to the United States in 1981 on the Situation in Poland (he feared a Soviet Invasion like that in Czechoslovakia).

Two Poles who made a difference:
Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa

Margaret Thatcher was the first Western leader to meet with Lech Walesa at the Gdansk Shipyard 

Obviously, one group of leaders that did NOT support Solidarity was the Soviet Union. A. Petrov wrote a piece on “The Intrigues of Socialist Poland’s Enemies” in 1980. He wrote on the Solidarity movement,

“They are inflicting direct damage to real socialism in the Polish land. They want to destroy the link between the party and working class, the chief source of strength of the PUWP and the Polish state. It is precisely for this reason that the antisocialist elements find support among Poland’s enemies operating from outside. It is precisely for this reason that the mass information media in the West are building up a slanderous and provocateur campaign against the Polish People’s Republic” 

(Pravda)

Solidarity was officially outlawed in Poland, but the support from foreigners combined with non-direct Soviet intervention allowed the organization to prosper underground throughout the 1980’s. Solidarity was finally legalized in 1989 and they fielded candidates in that year’s elections. The election produced a majority of non-communist victors, and the majority of the seats went to Solidarity or coalition members. The peaceful fall of communism in Poland, as a result of the Solidarity movement of the 1980’s prompted the fall of many other communist governments throughout the Eastern Bloc. The fall of communism in the satellite states has a direct link to the Gdansk Strike of 1980. It may have taken nearly two decades, but eventually Lech Walesa’s Solidarity came out on top.

Solidarity will forever claim the legacy as a key factor in the communist fall in Poland

By the way, a Lech Walesa biopic from this year was is nominated for an Oscar in the best foreign films category. It is called Walesa: Man of Hope.

This week I chose the “Solidarity in Poland” module for the topic of my blog post. It is found here:

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1980solidarity&Year=1980

The Freeze text helped with some background information, as well as this web page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Solidarity

I used some primary sources from the 17 Moments site such as:

Martial Law in Poland: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1980jaruz1&SubjectID=1980solidarity&Year=1980

Veronica Shapavalov: http://85856021.nhd.weebly.com/shapovalov.html

and Soviet Evaluation of Polish Solidarity Crisis: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1980petrov1&SubjectID=1980solidarity&Year=1980

The images that I used were from these sites in the order in which they appear:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/europe_solidarity_in_poland0/html/1.stm

http://prodos.thinkertothinker.com/poland-on-the-eve-of-martial-law-prodos/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Poland

http://www.polishgreatness.com/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/8523996/Margaret-Thatcher-dies-Lech-Walesa-on-valuing-her-good-spirit-and-decisiveness.html

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/81233.htm

http://www.filmfestivals.com/blog/robert_bodrog/wajdas_walesa_biopic_to_debut_at_venice_film_festival

The year 1968 provided for a considerable amount of cultural and historical material all around the world. In Czechoslovakia, 1968 represents the year of the Prague Spring and the attempted liberalization of the Eastern Bloc country. During the 1960’s, De-Stalinization had begun under the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Antonín Novotný. By late 1967, Novotný was losing support and even Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev began to oppose him. A major source of the opposition came from members of the Czech writers union and other intellectuals. Many citizens supported the opposition because of the struggling economy that the almost-Western country faced under the Soviet model of industrialization. Novotný was eventually ousted, and on January 5, 1968 reformer and career party politician,  Alexander Dubček took over as First Secretary. Soon after, on the anniversary of “Victorious February” (the communist takeover celebration),  Dubček delivered a speech advocating change. He wanted socialism to fit the historical context of Czechoslovakia. The avenue that he used for his reforms was called the Action Program which would allow for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, availability of more consumer goods, limited power to the secret police, and the possibility of an eventual multiparty government. For us these reforms are cornerstones built into American history, but to an Eastern Bloc country, these had the possibility to be viewed as extremely dangerous measures (Perestroika and Glasnost, anyone?). Dubček’s slogan for his new agenda was “Socialism with a Human Face” and sounds a bit hostile to the Marx-Leninists in the motherland.

Dubček in Czechoslovakia

After Dubček took over, scholar Eduard Goldstucker became editor in chief of the formally strictly communist controlled paper  Literarni listy (renamed from  Literarni noviny) and head of the writers union. He tested  Dubček’s loyalty to reform by criticizing Novotný’s leadership and the lack of Czechoslovakian economic progress and Dubček passed and earned the writer’s trust. Everything seemed to be optimistic and peaceful in Czechoslovakia during the Dubček reforms, which came to be known as Prague Spring (the predecessor to Beijing Spring, Croatian Spring, and most relevant to us: Arab Spring).. that is until members of the Warsaw Pact, (Brezhnev) began to grow concerned. Negotiations between the “Warsaw Five” and Dubček began to take place almost immediately after the launch of the Action Program. Dubček did his best to defend his reforms despite some opposition in his own party, and attempted to compromise. In the end, even if Dubček had really wanted to, he likely could not have reeled in the fervor that had resulted from the liberalizations attained during the Prague Spring.  The Soviet Union was not happy with this and in The Warsaw Letter it is clear that Czechoslovakia’s communist deviance would soon be met with force as it reads,

…”a bold and decisive offensive should be launched against right-wing and anti-socialist forces; that all the defensive means set up by the socialist state should be mobilized; that a stop should be put to the activity of all political organizations that come out against socialism; that the party should take control of the mass-information media-press, radio, and television-and use them in the interests of the working class, of all working people, and of socialism; that the ranks of the party itself should be closed on the principled basis of Marxism-Leninism; that the principle of democratic centralism should be undeviatingly observed; and that a struggle should be undertaken against those whose activity helps the enemy…

We express the conviction that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, conscious of its responsibility, will take the necessary steps to block the path of reaction. In this struggle, you can count on the solidarity and all-around assistance of the fraternal socialist countries.” (The Warsaw Letter, July 18, 1968)

Throughout the rest of the summer of 1968, negotiations between the Warsaw Pact and Czechoslovakia were not satisfactory to the Soviet Union. By the end of August, it was clear that the only way to put down the Prague Spring, was through force- This would become known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. This doctrine was to be the means through which the Soviet Union would get socialist governments to subordinate to their national interests and the interests of socialism, and if force was necessary it was to be used.

On August 20, the Warsaw Pact countries sent in their tanks and invaded Czechoslovakia with troops in the hundreds of thousands and with the backing of the Politbiuro . The invasion killed a little over one hundred citizens and barely took a day to take control of the country.

The Soviet Press printed a “Letter to Brezhnev” (which it turned out had not come from the Czechoslovakian leadership) in which the KSČ government had invited the invasion. A line from the “letter” reads (in Russian, not Czech or Slovak, by the way),

“We realize that for both the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government, this ultimate step to preserve socialism in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic will not be easy. Therefore, we will struggle with all our power and all our means. But if our strength and capabilities are depleted or fail to bring positive results, then our statement should be regarded as an urgent request and plea for your intervention and all-round assistance.” (Letter to Brezhnev, August 1968)

To the credit of Dubček, he asked his citizens not to respond violently. The public relations disaster that followed this was bad enough for the Soviet Union. In addition to much Western criticism, Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, and countries like Romania and Finland saw it as a scandal as many saw this invasion as an act of imperialism. In Red Square, eight demonstrators were arrested for protesting against the invasion and for supporting Czechoslovakia.

Red Square protester banner:
“FOR YOUR FREEDOM AND OURS”

The Current Digest of the Russian press provides us with the voice to the Soviet about the situation in their satellite country a few months after the invasion. The author writes,

“There is a growing understanding in Czechoslovakia of the need for truly socialist development of the country.

…Many Czechoslovak patriots emphasize in their statements and letters that the allied troops have helped to defend the state’s socialist foundations and to thwart the intrigues of internal reaction and external imperialist forces-particularly the West German revanchists, who have still not renounced their claims to Czechoslovak soil.”

The article continues to denounce the anti-socialist aims of Czechoslovakia, and expresses a genuine need for Czechoslovakia to put their media under communist control (so that articles like this can be mass read in Czechoslovakia). So at first glance you may ask, ‘What is the significance of this?’. After all, we just finished discussing a similar situation in Hungary that had to be put down a little over a decade earlier. In my opinion, this act of rebellion was different. It was not different in that it produced a result that was not a communist victory, but it was different in that it produced a concrete idea that would have lasting effects for the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and the rest of the world two decades later. Future Soviet Premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, would later admit that he saw the need for Perestroika and Glasnost (Socialism with a Human Face) from the events of the Prague Spring. In fact, Gorbachev and Dubček were both students at the Moscow State University in the 1950s and had mutual associates. Gorbachev told a Slovak newspaper in 1998 that he “found courage and strength to start fundamental changes” in the 1980s because of the events of the Prague Spring. I took the idea for the title of this entry from the Czechoslovakian novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera which was set during the Prague Spring. Kundera took the title from an idea furthered by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that essentially says that the events of the earth have already occurred and will continue to occur forever, and sought to challenge the idea in the novel. In 1989, when a similar situation occurred in East Germany that would have normally been met with the force under the Brezhnev Doctrine, Gorbachev did not repeat history’s precedent; He let change happen- Change that Brezhnev was not ready to allow in 1968.

I used the module 1968: Crisis in Czechoslovakia for the topic of my post this week. The module can be found at:

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1968czechoslovakia&Year=1968

Some primary sources that I used in this post can be found at the following sites:

Warsaw Letter: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1968spring1&SubjectID=1968czechoslovakia&Year=1968

Letter to Brezhnev: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1968bilak1&SubjectID=1968czechoslovakia&Year=1968

Current Digest of the Russian Press: http://dlib.eastview.com/searchresults/article.jsp?art=12&id=13759124

I also used the Wikipedia article Prague Spring to frame a lot of my background information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring

And finally this article for some interesting points: http://www.aworldtowin.net/resources/PragueSpring.html

The photos are found at theses sites in the order in which they appear:

http://prague-stay.com/lifestyle/review/128-the-20th-century/, https://wikiwillows2011.wikispaces.com/Cold+War+Era, http://www.walesartsreview.org/two-thousand-words-on-two-thousand-words-by-ludvik-vaculik/, http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2008/08/page/2/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Za_vashu_i_nashu_svobodu.jpg,  and http://all-that-is-interesting.com/iconic-photograph-1968-prague-spring

In 1917, women took to the streets of Saint Petersburg on International Women’s Day and demanded “Bread and Peace” in what ultimately initiated the February Revolution. After the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin made International Women’s Day an official holiday of the Soviet Union. Lenin wrote On International Women’s Day in 1920 that  “the main task [of the working women’s movement] is to draw the women into socially productive labour, extricate them from “domestic slavery”, free them of their stultifying and humiliating resignation to the perpetual and exclusive atmosphere of the kitchen and nursery”. During the early days of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks turned the country into the most progressive nation in terms of redefining gender. The idea of equality became curtailed in the days of Stalin. In 1936, legal abortions were abolished mainly due to the declining birthrate and concerns about the future population. Stalin propagandized the importance of giving birth and building a large family. While Soviet women may have been seen as progressive due to their status as workers, the push for them to build these large families led to a double burden for them. Women became responsible not only for their working hours, but they also had the “burden” of maintaining the home and family as well.

Seventeen Moments in Soviet History notes in “What’s a Woman to Think?” that many who sought to continue the cause for the female emancipation that began with the October Revolution would have been confused during the  1950’s as traditional gender roles were reinforced. The idea of “femininity” was stressed throughout Soviet culture and women were given role models such as teachers and housewife. Seventeen Moments points to the consumer economy as one reason for these traditional roles being reinforced because it enabled women to buy new items for their homes and their selves.

A 1954 Poster ad for a vacuum targeted at the Soviet Women reads, “Electric Vacuum Cleaner. Cleans dust from rugs, clothes, furniture and walls quickly and well”

A woman prettying up her feet in a 1956 Soviet salon.

While it seemed as if Soviet culture was moving away from gender equality, events were also occurring that did not reinforce the traditional gender roles. The Party Central Committee sent out a decree on International Women’s Day in 1954 praising the female workers. An except of the decree, which not only praised the Soviet woman but also denounced the capitalist woman reads, “A numerous army of women specialists is working fruitfully, on equal footing with men, in all branches of the socialist economy, science and culture and in the state apparatus. Soviet women have a prominent place in science and art. More than 2,700,000 women are working in scientific, educational and cultural-enlightenment establishments in our country. Women scientists, engineers and technicians, agronomists and zootechnicians are enriching Soviet science by their research, inventions and discoveries. Women writers, artists and workers in the theater and in cinematography have made important contributions to the development of Soviet arts.”. Of course, we know that the degree of the equality being propagandized here is a bit exaggerated, but the way that the party stresses the woman as a worker is a clear contradiction of any kind of traditional gender role (especially that which existed in the United States during this decade).  Later, the decree goes on to mention just how important it is for the Soviet woman to be a mother as she has, “an important and honorable task-the upbringing of children, the future builders of communism”. Surely the party had to have realized that the task of being a worker and a mother was a difficult one. A typical Soviet mother would work a full work day and then come home to an almost equal amount of work in her home. Another major contradiction existed with the repeal of the 1936 abortion ban in 1955.  The repeal acknowledged that the woman had a right to choose , but it also acknowledged the governments right to choose to reinstate the ban. While it may have been legal to get an abortion, the government spent a great deal of time denouncing the action of actually getting one. In For You, Comrade Men, Soviet men are discouraged from giving their wife the “right” to make the decision to have an abortion and are told to protect her life and their familial happiness.

Poster for L. Aristov’s “For You, Comrade Men”

The 1950’s were not the first or the only time that the “cult of motherhood” and the ideal soviet worker would clash in Soviet history. The Soviet mother would go on to get a stereotype as a self-sacrificing hard worker whose day seemed to have no end. A question that I would like to pose in regard to the conflicting ambitions giving to women is: Was it a flaw in the Soviet system? Did the government fail to provide working mothers with adequate help in raising the children and working their full work week (Lenin had promised cafeterias, nurseries, and daycare whose usefulness is up for debate) ; or is the double burden just a fact of life for a working mother that is present in every society today?

The main module that I used for this blog post was 1954’s “Whats a Woman to Think?” found at http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1954women&Year=1954 . The modules, “The Double Burden” and “Repealing the Ban on Abortion”, provided a lot of complementary material and can be found at http://www.soviethistory.org/index.phppage=subject&SubjectID=1968burden&Year=1968 and http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1956repeal&Year=1956 .

I used a primary source with the Current Digest of Post-Soviet Press called, “CONCERNING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY, MARCH 8.-Decree of Party Central Committee” which can be found at http://dlib.eastview.com/searchresults/article.jsp?art=35&id=13843939 .

Some other primary sources that I used were Lenin’s “On International Womens Day” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/mar/04.htm), and L. Aristov’s “For You, Comrade Men” (http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1956men1&SubjectID=1956repeal&Year=1956)

The images that I used are from these websites and are in the order in which they appear:

http://kcmeesha.com/2012/03/07/old-photos-women-of-the-ussr/

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1954women&Year=1954&navi=byYear

http://kcmeesha.com/2010/01/24/old-photosfeeling-pretty/

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1956repeal&Year=1956&navi=byYear

The Great Patriotic War, or World War II to us, was a time of resilience for the Soviet Union and would end in international power and prestige for the once backward country. The cost that the Soviets paid for victory, however, was outstanding. Our Freeze text estimates that about 8.6 million Soviet troops were killed and 17 million civilians had perished in addition to that. Americans fought the war abroad and while the home front had a distinct wartime character, the Soviet Union’s home front was the war. Nazi Germany completely destroyed the major cities of the Soviet Union in their attempted Operation Barbarossa. The city of  Leningrad, now and previously Saint Petersburg, underwent a terrible Nazi siege that began on September 8, 1941 and went on to last 872 days. The siege, often referred to as the “900 Days”  is credited to be one of the most destructive and deadly of any siege to a modern city.

Soviets observe the ravaged city of Leningrad

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in August of 1939. Two years later, in June of 1941, the Germans began plotting their attacks on the Soviets and began to mobilize their army. Despite receiving over eighty warnings of a German attack, Stalin refused to believed the truth and even ordered his army not to shoot at the Germans. In September, the German Army Group North (with help from the Finns) began encircling Leningrad and by November they had severed the last rail line to the city. Then the bombings began. The Germans bombed hospitals, schools, homes, industrial site, and everything in between. The siege of Leningrad is an important episode of the war because it highlights the extreme cost that the civilians paid to win the war. As if the constant bombings were not bad enough, the real problem (as it seems was usually the case for Russia) was hunger. Germany’s plan had been to “terrorize and starve the population to surrender” (Seventeen Moments) and this plan fit perfectly into Hitler’s so called war of extermination. Despite officials reassuring the city’s citizens that food and supplies would be available, they virtually disappeared by the winter.

Pictured here is a ration card. The vast majority of the city struggled with hunger despite the rations. Ration status was given out according to need, but need meant those vital to the city’s survival- not those starving. An average ration card entitled the holder to 125g of bread per day (about 300 calories worth), so the citizens began to get.. resourceful in their methods of procuring food. Lena Mukina was a teenager at the time of the Siege and kept a diary that was recently published and has likened her to be the “Anne Frank of Leningrad“. In one passage, Lena writes, “Today we had delicious soup with meat and macaroni. The cat meat will be enough for two more meals. It would be good to get hold of another cat somewhere. I never thought cat meat would be so good and tender.” It was not uncommon for a family to sacrifice their pet for a meal, and there are many accounts of citizens resorting to cannibalism in order to survive. In addition to the terrible hunger, the citizens were battling the winter weather. The citizens underwent three terrible winters in the city with no heat, and many who had been displaced by the bombings underwent the winters without homes.

The above picture was not an uncommon sight during the Siege. From the many accounts of diaries it was apparent that citizens often lost their entire families to starvation. Eleven year old Tanya Savicheva famously penned in her diary a timeline of her family members’ deaths and ended with, “Everyone died. Only Tanya is left.” (Tanya herself died in 1944 and her diary was later read during the Nuremberg Trials). The only relief came from the route known as the “Road to Life” which was not a road, but rather a frozen lake. Lake Ladoga was covered with ice in the winter months and the Soviets had some luck transferring supplies to Leningrad, but all too often something went wrong on the on the trip. The Road to Life also was used to evacuate over a million citizens from the city.

Despite all of the awful conditions that Leningraders were subjected to for 900 days, the citizens continued to persist. The war industries continued as people kept coming to work, students continued studying, and Dmitrii Shostakovich wrote and performed his famous Seventh “Leningrad” Symphony. The people refused to surrender and that in itself epitomizes the Soviet war effort. Today, people come to Piskarevskoye Cemetery to pay tribute to the approximate 1.5 million soldiers and civilians lost in the siege. Most visitors bring flowers to be placed on the mass graves at the cemetery but others lay loaves a bread in a sad remembrance of what brought those victims to their graves.

Background information from the Freeze text:

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

I used Seventeen Moments in Soviet Histoy’s 900 Days:

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1943leningrad&Year=1943

as well as other sites for more information:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035490/Lena-Mukhina-Diary-Russian-teenager-survived-900-day-Nazi-siege.html

http://www.saint-petersburg.com/history/siege.asp

http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2011/sep/15/siege-leningrad-history-anna-reid#/?picture=378780232&index=0

http://www.pravmir.com/article_238.html

In addition, here are the links to the images used in the order in which they appeared:

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=essay&SubjectID=1943leningrad&Year=1943&navi=byYear

http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2011/sep/15/siege-leningrad-history-anna-reid#/?picture=378780232&index=0

http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2011/sep/15/siege-leningrad-history-anna-reid#/?picture=378780240&index=1

http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2011/sep/15/siege-leningrad-history-anna-reid#/?picture=378780245&index=2

Uzbeks listen to a Soviet speaker in front of a Mosque

In the 1920’s Russia began the implementation of the Bolshevik ideology after their victory in the Civil War. It was a time of great change politically and economically, but the great cultural change was most important. The Bolsheviks were professional revolutionaries and they knew that they must transform “values, myths, norms, mores, aesthetics, popular images, and traditions” (Freeze 329) for their new socialist state to be successful. In short, they sought to create “The New Soviet Man”. In the beginning, this was a challenge everywhere in Russia, but it had the most resistance in the Muslim East of Central Asia. In 1922, the Soviet Union was formally created when the Declaration of Union and a Treaty of Union were approved. This was an important moment, but since “the Russian Empire was not at all a Russian state” (M. N. Pokrovskii) it contained a huge minority population that had fundamentally religious and cultural customs that differed from the ethnic Russians. It would prove to be difficult for the New Soviet Man to catch on in the minority areas of the Union.

Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian SSR (1925)

While the Orthodox Christian religion had been defeated during the Civil War, many concessions had been made to the Islamic religion in an effort to keep Central Asia in the Bolshevik hands. This meant that their religious practices, which were a huge part of their national identity, were allowed to continue. During the 1920’s there were many cultural changes sweeping the empire, including redefining the family and the individual and subsequently giving more rights to women. The New Soviet Person was to be “unblinded by distinctions of nationality and gender” (Seventeen Moments). This was particularly hard to implement in the Muslim areas in the East because of the patriarchal nature of the Muslim religion. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History’s “Making Central Asia Soviet” section describes that during the 1920’s the Communist Party launched campaigns against many Islamic practices that were considered demeaning to women, such as polygamy, bride-price, forced marriage, and wearing the veil. Many women there embraced this liberation, and celebrated by burning their veils in town centers in masses of thousands. Their liberation did not go smoothly, and there were extremely violent retaliations by resisters. The situation reminds me of the Taliban’s violence against women in our century. When women were given new rights after the fall of the Taliban, they underwent  (and still do now) terrible violence for exercising these rights. Throughout the 1920’s and into the 1930’s the local communist parties were required to abide by the campaigns that gave more rights to women, but the party members simply evaded the requirement. Seventeen Moments mentions the party’s concentration on women in Central Asia as being a result of the lack of proletariat in the area, which makes me wonder if they would have been given the same concentration of a proletariat existed there. Besides the campaigns for women, the communist also promoted other Islamic defiance. For example, the man pictured below is was proudly disobeying the Islamic law that prohibited contact with pork.

The transition to being culturally soviet was an ongoing process in Soviet Central Asia. The defiance of Soviet practices in favor of their traditional culture persisted. The Bolsheviks understood that they needed to make Soviet in people’s natural conscious, but in a place where soviet ideology clashed so dramatically with the people’s customs and ideals, they would never truly be able to be Soviet. I think that this clash is shown really well in the picture that I used to open the post. It shows Uzbeks dressed in their traditional clothes listening to a Soviet speech given outside of a Mosque. They were able to support the Soviets, but they still favored their traditional dress and their religion was truly at the center of their lives.

Background information from the Freeze text:

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

I used Seventeen Moments in Soviet Histoy’s Union Treaty and Making Central Asia Soviet sections respectively:

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1924union&Year=1924

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1929sovietization&Year=1929

Links to the images in the order in which they appear are:

http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Large/1929/RUSU1647.jpg

http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Large/1924/RUSU718.jpg

http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Large/1929/0-21740.jpg

Finally, I linked an article in the post to M. N. Pokrovskii’s  Russia as the Prison of Nations

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1924pokrovskii1&SubjectID=1924union&Year=1924

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