Changes

===Industry===

===Industry===

The space industry demonstrated that modern management could be applied in Russia; it was much applauded but seldom emulated.  There was little reform in heavy industry. Instead of adopting modern principles of management as practiced in other industrialized countries, from the 1950s to the 1990s there was a continuation of the old Soviet pattern of inner-circle intrigues, shuffling the same old bureaucrats and functionaries around the same old posts and flailing around from one set of measures to another. The military carved out its own industrial sector, where productivity was somewhat higher.

The space industry demonstrated that modern management could be applied in Russia; it was much applauded but seldom emulated.  There was little reform in heavy industry. Instead of adopting modern principles of management as practiced in other industrialized countries, from the 1950s to the 1990s there was a continuation of the old Soviet pattern of inner-circle intrigues, shuffling the same old bureaucrats and functionaries around the same old posts and flailing around from one set of measures to another. The military carved out its own industrial sector, where productivity was somewhat higher.

===Urban Russia===

===Housing===

Khrushchev presided over the construction of millions small drab, poorly built apartments for 108 million residents. Most were 5-story walkups (elevators were too expensive for the poor nation); people called them "Krushchoby" (combining his name with the word for slums).  The apartments boosted his popularity because they marked a dramatic improvement over the horrid housing they previously enjoyed, and led to a form of "ownership" whereby tenants were locked into their specific apartment with very little opportunity to move around--rather like rent controlled apartments in New York at the same time.<ref>Taubman (2003), p 382;  Mark B.  Smith,  "Individual Forms of Ownership in the Urban Housing Fund of the USSR, 1944-64," ''Slavonic & East European Review'' 2008 86(2): 283-305, </ref>  

Khrushchev presided over the construction of millions small drab, poorly built apartments for 108 million residents. Most were 5-story walkups (elevators were too expensive for the poor nation); people called them "Krushchoby" (combining his name with the word for slums).  The apartments boosted his popularity because they marked a dramatic improvement over the horrid housing they previously enjoyed, and led to a form of "ownership" whereby tenants were locked into their specific apartment with very little opportunity to move around--rather like rent controlled apartments in New York at the same time.<ref>Taubman (2003), p 382;  Mark B.  Smith,  "Individual Forms of Ownership in the Urban Housing Fund of the USSR, 1944-64," ''Slavonic & East European Review'' 2008 86(2): 283-305, </ref>  

[[File:Kitchen-debate.jpg|thumb|Vice president Nixon boasts to Khrushchev of the superiority of American kitchens; Leonid Brezhnev, who later overthrew Khrushchev, is on the right]]

[[File:Kitchen-debate.jpg|thumb|Vice president Nixon boasts to Khrushchev of the superiority of American kitchens; Leonid Brezhnev, who later overthrew Khrushchev, is on the right]]

A central feature of the new apartments was the kitchen--people no longer had to eat in cafeterias. The Soviet kitchen was presented as a model of efficiency where one could find a bit of privacy. The kitchen gained ideological importance and was viewed as a central element of the grand program of socialist modernization, further proof of the ultimate triumph of socialism through its superior living standards. Women were to play a special role, and a number of programs and courses offered them training in home economics. The new kitchen was, above all, to be efficient, and the media portrayed this penetration of technology into everyday life as a key element of socialist modernity. In practice, women found that the promised benefits did not materialize, and to the dismay of Soviet propagandists, American Vice president [[Richard Nixon]] came to Moscow in 1959 and in his "kitchen debate" with Khrushchev demonstrated how much superior were American kitchens.<ref> Susan E. Reid, ''The Khrushchev Kitchen: Domesticating the Scientific-Technological Revolution," ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 2005 40(2): 289-316, </ref>

A central feature of the new apartments was the kitchen--people no longer had to eat in cafeterias. The Soviet kitchen was presented as a model of efficiency where one could find a bit of privacy. The kitchen gained ideological importance and was viewed as a central element of the grand program of socialist modernization, further proof of the ultimate triumph of socialism through its superior living standards. Women were to play a special role, and a number of programs and courses offered them training in home economics. The new kitchen was, above all, to be efficient, and the media portrayed this penetration of technology into everyday life as a key element of socialist modernity. In practice, women found that the promised benefits did not materialize, and to the dismay of Soviet propagandists, American Vice president [[Richard Nixon]] came to Moscow in 1959 and in his "kitchen debate" with Khrushchev demonstrated how much superior were American kitchens.<ref> Susan E. Reid, ''The Khrushchev Kitchen: Domesticating the Scientific-Technological Revolution," ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 2005 40(2): 289-316, </ref>

===Religion===

===Religion===

Under Lenin and Stalin before 1939 all churches were persecuted and ridiculed; there was a pause during World War II. Khrushchev was no friend of the [[Orthodox Church]], and greatly increased persecution in the late 1950s because he identified it with old-fashioned superstitions that would slow his schemes for the rapid modernization of agriculture. Khrushchev had the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1954 issued a secret resolution, "On the Serious Defects in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda and Measures for the Improvement Thereof," which demanded new and more scientific standards of struggle against religion. An antireligious campaign, the exact causes and chain of command of which are still debatable, was launched in the second half of the 1950s, and systematic efforts were used to fight not just priests and churches but also to identify and track all and isolate all Christians. Khrushchev wanted to reach the very essence of the people's religiousness in order to "cure" them.  Half the remaining churches were closed; the others were taxed. The campaign perhaps worked in Latvia, which did give up Lutheranism. In Russia, however, at the local level cures were few. More often, ways were found in which religion and the Soviet system could coexist. The Party found it expedient to ignore religious activity that did not interfere with technological improvements, and the peasants and workers found quiet ways to ensure their religious practices were compatible with participation in the new society. Outward repression like the closing of churches and the prohibition of pilgrimages occurred but were not enough to attain the primary goal of replacing the religious person in rural Russia with the Soviet person.  He predicted the end of Christianity in the Soviet Union and boasted that the last Christian would be paraded on Soviet television within a few years.<ref>http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=2462&cid=125&p=22.05.2006</ref> In fact, Christianity outlasted Khrushchev, and even outlived Communism in Russia.  He tried to change the soul of Russia and failed.<ref>Andrew B. Stone, "'Overcoming Peasant Backwardness': the Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union," ''Russian Review'' 2008 67(2): 296-320, </ref>  

Under Lenin and Stalin before 1939 all churches were persecuted and ridiculed; there was a pause during World War II. Khrushchev was no friend of the [[Orthodox Church]], and greatly increased persecution in the late 1950s because he identified it with old-fashioned superstitions that would slow his schemes for the rapid modernization of agriculture. Khrushchev had the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1954 issued a secret resolution, "On the Serious Defects in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda and Measures for the Improvement Thereof," which demanded new and more scientific standards of struggle against religion. An antireligious campaign, the exact causes and chain of command of which are still debatable, was launched in the second half of the 1950s, and systematic efforts were used to fight not just priests and churches but also to identify and track all and isolate all Christians. Khrushchev wanted to reach the very essence of the people's religiousness in order to "cure" them.  Half the remaining churches were closed; the others were taxed. The campaign perhaps worked in Latvia, which did give up Lutheranism. In Russia, however, at the local level cures were few. More often, ways were found in which religion and the Soviet system could coexist. The Party found it expedient to ignore religious activity that did not interfere with technological improvements, and the peasants and workers found quiet ways to ensure their religious practices were compatible with participation in the new society. Outward repression like the closing of churches and the prohibition of pilgrimages occurred but were not enough to attain the primary goal of replacing the religious person in rural Russia with the Soviet person.  He predicted the end of Christianity in the Soviet Union and boasted that the last Christian would be paraded on Soviet television within a few years.<ref>http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=2462&cid=125&p=22.05.2006</ref> In fact, Christianity outlasted Khrushchev, and even outlived Communism in Russia.  He tried to change the soul of Russia and failed.<ref>Andrew B. Stone, "'Overcoming Peasant Backwardness': the Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union," ''Russian Review'' 2008 67(2): 296-320, </ref>