18Post-Stalin Era: Economy and

Society

Overview

A. Main Themes

B. Demography

C. Economy

D. Society

A. Main Themes

1. Significant shifts in demographic patterns: rising life expectancy, decreasing fertility (except Asians)

2. Urbanization 3. Agriculture: from panacea to panic4. Industrial Sector: from high rates of growth to

stagnation, decline5. Growing reliance on primary commodities6. Abortive reformism7. Ecological disasters8. From egalitarianism to inequality

B. Demography

1. Population increase

2. Ethnic differences

3. Dynamics: fertility and mortality

4. Urbanization

5. Social problems: housing, alcoholism, crime

C. Economy1. Overview

• Agricultural investment, crisis, stagnation

• Industrial spurt to stagnation and decline

C. Economy2. Agricultural Sector

a. Patterns

b. Khrushchev Era1. Reorganization

2. Virgin lands

3. Intensification: kolkhoz, maize, agronomics

4. Crisis of early 1960s

c. Brezhnev Era1. New approaches

2. Reforms: modernization, labor, plots

3. Negative results

4. Why?

Khrushchev’s Souvenir from Iowa (1959)

Khrushchev: Corn Panacea

Krokodil: Anti-Corn Cartoon

Satire: One plows, the rest grab for the spoon

C. Economy3. Industrial Sector

a. Patternsb. Khrushchev era

1. Decentralization (sovnarkhozy)2. Reprioritization3. Results

c. Brezhnev era1. Modernizing Marxist economics2. Kosygin reforms3. Cybernetics4. Why the stagnation?

Sputnik (1957)

Iurii Gagarin: World’s First Cosmonaut (1961)

Gagarin in Space: Komsomolskaia Pravda (1961)

Shoddy Apartment Construction

Needle Factory: Waste (1966)

Prize: 100,000th Person to Write in the “Complaint Book”

Abel Aganbegian

C. Economy4. Dysfunctions

a. Black market

b. Environmental disasters

c. Social unrest

Lake Baikal: Birth of Soviet Environmentalism

Aral Sea, 1989-2003

Aral Sea: Contraction, Breakup

Aral Sea: Scenes of Devastation

Chernobyl (1986)

Novocherkassk Leader (1962)

D. Society

1. Patterns

2. Income Structures

3. Consumerism

4. Social Services

5. Nomenklatura: Elites

6. Workers and Peasants

7. Women and Family

“Women’s Day”: Soviet Patriarchy1963 Satire

E. Conclusions