History Russia In Revolution Personal, Daily Life Crises

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Russia in Revolution “Personal”, Daily Life Crises
Introduction
Various decisions by an individual or a group of people may affect the culture of a particular society, which may prompt the government to take some action to counteract the effect of such decisions. Different aspects of culture may be affected by some activities orchestrated by an individual or a group of persons. States may take actions to punish the parties involved in violating a certain norm in the society. For instance, several activities at individual and group levels affected the cultural activities of the Russian community in the 20th century (Bremzen 1). Different aspects including religion, superstition, ethnicity and moral values, among others, were significantly affected. Some individuals referred to as dissident resisted the socialist system of governance, which led to the cleansing of some ethnic groups such as Germans, Jews, and Greeks, among others by these administrations (Bremzen 1). The practice of prostitution led to a divided opinion among the socialists and capitalists, and affected the entire society. Further, religion was another issue of contention, where different individuals and groups had different views about religious matters. This had a tremendous effect on the society as a whole, where some people were murdered for practicing certain religious beliefs. This paper analyzes how different cultural aspects affected the Russian culture in the 20th century.
Ethnicity
Communism dominated the culture of Russians in the 20th century, where several families lived in the same apartment, cooked together, slept in the same room and did almost everything as a group (Bremzen 1). During this time, people lived in abject poverty. Only individuals from elite families had better lives, and a large gap existed between the poor and rich. In urban areas where the rich lived, every aspect of life was made more comfortable than in the places where poor people lived (Gladkov 10). For example, in urban areas, there were better roads, hospitals, and other social amenities than in rural and remote areas. Poor individuals were subjected to poor diets, which made them dream of living in the United States and other European countries where people had better lives. In her book, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking,  HYPERLINK "/author/show/95729.Anya_von_Bremzen" Anya von Bremzen explains how various generations starting from that of her grandparents had suffered oppression under elite families who firmly held power in their hands (Bremzen 1). In her book, it is clear that several people were living under high levels of poverty, where they could not afford decent food. Poverty made some people resist various regimes such as Khrushchev, Stalin, and Bherzhnev (Thurston 3). The people who opposed the Soviet Union government were referred to as dissidents. In this book, the author’s mother is one of the dissidents who disagrees with particular features the Soviet Union applied to rule its subjects (Bremzen 1). Dissidents were the individuals who were willing to speak against the oppressive regimes.
The political repressions started to counteract such resistance and dealt with the most vigorous persons, ethnic, social and religious groups who participated in any form of revolution. The Soviet Union government applied a policy referred to as population transfer, which was categorized into various broad classes: deportation of the population that was anti-Soviet often referred to as enemies of workers, labor force transfers, deportation of nationalities, and opposite migration to fill in the spaces that were left by the deported ethnic groups (Bremzen 8). The transferred ethnic groups were taken to remote areas with low population as a punishment for their resistance nature. The ethnic groups that collaborated with the enemies of the Soviet government during World War II were collectively punished. About nine ethnic groups, who resisted the proceedings by the Soviet Union government were deported to areas with little developments. These ethnic groups include ethnic Germans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, ethnic Greek, Balkars, ethnic Poles, and Kalmyks. They were taken to under-populated regions of the country such as Siberia, and Kazakhstan. During these transfers, victims were subjected to massive suffering, which led to the death of millions of people.
Between 1932 and 1933, a great famine hit the Soviet Union. The government of the Soviet Union played a significant role in the occurrence of this calamity due to the actions it engaged in, such as food confiscation, prohibition of meat, restriction of food delivery, prevention of the migration of the starving population, and the banning of the release of information about the famine (Bremzen 1). All these actions undermined any effort to organize relief strategies to save millions of individuals. Over the period of one year, approximately 8 million people were affected by this famine. Thus, it is evident that the Soviet Union government resorted to using ethnic cleansing to compensate for its failures.
Drinking
In the 20th century, the Soviet Union experienced the biggest problem of alcoholism among its citizens (Rosenberg 2). This behavior affected the implementation of economic and social policies and functional proletarian law. The problem of alcoholism resulted from oppressive conditions associated with socialism type of government. Elimination of such harsh conditions would help to get rid of alcoholism issue. However, controlling the problem was not an easy task since it was not possible to implement strict laws (Nemtsov 148). The Soviet Union government had repeatedly tried to fight alcoholism, but with little or no success. Before 1917, the government had formulated four reforms to try and mitigate the issue of alcoholism, but never succeeded. Further, in 1958, 1972 and 1985, the government launched large-scale measures designed to combat the drunkenness problem in the country (Nemtsov 148). However, none of those strategies worked, and alcoholism continued to be a massive problem in USSR society. The consumption of alcohol was common even among the red guards. Control of alcohol abuse was also hindered by the inadequate law enforcement personnel, and insufficient, treatment and prevention programs. Also, some decisions made by leaders led to increased consumption of alcohol in the Soviet Union. For example, Pr...