Tag Archives: Soviet

The Demise of the Romanov Dynasty

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After over three hundred years of Russian rule by the Romanov Dynasty, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne in March of 1917. The Russian leader was facing popular unrest over an enormous wealth gap and then chose to thrust his nation into an expensive and bloody war against Germany. Nicholas’ rule had experienced an uprising in 1905 which persuaded him to call a supposedly representative body known as a Duma, but the Tsar’s refusal to accept any of the body’s proposals only fueled discontent among the people. By 1917, Nicholas “recognized that it [was] for the good of the country that [he] should abdicate the Crown of the Russian State and lay down the Supreme Power.” ((Abdication of Nikolai II)) The Tsar blamed the domestic strife for further stunting the war efforts, but he claimed that “the moment [was] near when our valiant Army, in concert with out glorious Allies, will finally overthrow the enemy.” ((Abdication of Nikolai II)) Despite his apparent optimism, he decided to leave the Crown to his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich, who was equally hesitant about shouldering the burden of the Russian State. Mikhail dubbed the power bestowed on him as a “heavy task” ((Declaration from the Throne by Grand Duke Mikhail)) and left control to a provisional government. He hoped to avoid further public outcry by promising the populace a role in deciding what type of government would next rule over Russia.

The First Provisional Government proposed a liberal set of guidelines in the wake of the Tsar’s downfall. The people the cabinet presided over were meant to have freedom of speech, relative freedom of religion, universal suffrage, the power to elect those who will hold office, and universal pardons for anyone accused of political crimes. ((The First Provisional Government)) It would not hold true to its promise of a direct vote for the constitution and form of government that would lead Russia. Multiple provisional governments would be established before the so called Bolshevik Revolution just a few months later in November of 1917. The Revolution was technically a bloodless coup, orchestrated by Vladimir Lenin who would hold power until his death.

Russian_Imperial_Family_1911

L’viv Hippies and the Soviet Child

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The hippies in L’viv were acting upon feelings of isolation in a modern industrial world, their perceptions of hypocrisy of Soviet Communist organizations, and a general yearning for individualism. Unlike Natalia and Gennadii, who were introduced to us in Raleigh’s “Sputnik Generation”, these hippies of the late 1960s and ’70s did not feel the same natural obligation to obey their parents and the soviet societal structure. In fact, many youths were drawn to the hippie culture by family conflicts. Also, unlike Western hippies of the time, the L’viv hippies were acting within a state in which the communist party attempted control over all aspects of the public sphere. Because of such communist control, the hippies rebelled against societal norms by following typical behavior of the Soviet identity. For example, although hippies saw the Communist Youth Organization as “veiled in hypocrisy”, hippie groups imitated the elements of structure and hierarchy as seen in the practices of communist youth organizations. Therefore, hippies were rebelling against Soviet society by structuring themselves in a way that was, in fact, Soviet.

Just as gender discrepancies were brought to light in Natalia’s discussion of her work and family, hippie gatherings and the hippie culture in general also raised the question of a woman’s role in society. Even in a movement embodying Soviet counter-culture, men still dominated in numbers and power. Women’s participation in the hippie movement was viewed as inappropriate and outside of the natural sphere, just as Natalia’s position as the head of the language department remained outside the normal role for women. Like the Sputnik Generation, the hippies were living within an era of conservatism. What pushed the hippies to rebel against Soviet society in the 1970s while others, such as Natalia and Gennadii, were content to grow up within the Soviet structure? Because the Soviet period spanned over vacillating periods of tradition and change, as well as political stagnancy and progression, there can be no typical “Soviet child”. There may be a continued ideal for a child’s behavior throughout the Soviet period, but this ideal is never met (or challenged) in the same way throughout Soviet generations.

 

Sevastopol – Mythmakers

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The extreme hubris of  municipal and naval officers created difficulties faced by party officials who tried to redefine the traditional Russian past of Sevastopol and conform it to a more acceptable past dictated by the central authority.  Professor Qualls argues that party members were unable to force conformity among the people of Sevastopol, at least in their traditions, and instead the city held fast to its roots to the motherland. His use of the word “mythmakers” to describe party official designated to re-invent Sevastopol’s past is absolutely applicable because they tried to do exactly that.  The main idea behind Soviet mythmakers was to create saint-like civilian heroes, who were saved by party intervention, for the people to rally behind.  Sevastopol’s municipal and naval officers however were instead able to draw on wartime heroes who were attached to a Russian past, which allowed the history of Sevastopol to retain its Russian qualities.  “Heroism, resistance, and self-sacrifice became synonymous with Sevastopol.” How were the people of Sevastopol able to escape their primordial ascription?  In my opinion, their reliance on a distinctly Russian past especially during a time of war, as to avoid complications with the Soviets, allowed them to do so.

 

Circus as a metaphor for Soviet Collectiveness

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The film “Circus” portrays a white American actress Marion Dixon attempting to integrate into Soviet culture while struggling to conceal the existence of her black child. After fleeing from the racial West (specifically America), Marion moves to Moscow to join the circus with her manager, who blackmails her and threatens to expose her secret. However, Marion’s career in the circus provides her with a sense of community and belonging. When her manager attempts to humiliate her, he exposes her baby to the entire audience and is shocked when the audience warmly embrace the baby and proclaim that they do not discriminate against children. Marion is then welcomes warmly into Soviet life and the film concludes with her marching in a Soviet parade. In this film, the circus is the setting of Marion’s transition from an oppressive former life to a liberated new existence.

When Marion debuts at the circus, she performs alone. However, once she joins the circus, she develops a group of friends, a companionship and romance with ideal Soviet man Martinov and establishes herself not as an outsider with a secret, but as a part of a greater, benevolent collective. The circus represents a platform for which groups of individuals perform for their audience. When Martinov and Reya (and later Marion) perform, they do not perform as solo artists but always with a group. The tricks of the circus are so spectacular because they involve precision and multiple people (as was the case in the first scene when dogs were jumping over horses) – everything was timed, rehearsed and orchestrated, which made is all the more outstanding. By becoming part of the circus, Marion is able to appreciate and identify with the collective and is transitions into Soviet life.

Nationalism and the Soviet State

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In Trey Martin’s article, “Modernization or Neo-traditionalism? Ascribed Nationality and Soviet Primordialism”, he argues that the Soviet state most clearly mirrors a neo-traditional model, primarily evident in the Soviet approach to nationality, which was initiated through industrialization. According to Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationality, industrialization destroyed village folk culture by uprooting peasantry and placing them into an urban industrial environment. This led to the formation of a new high, or shared, culture to establish a base for national identity. The Bolsheviks viewed nationalism as a potentially harmful and powerful mobilizing ideology. So, soviet policy sought to remove national identity from this newly developing high culture so that socialism (NOT nationalism) would unify the Soviet state. To avoid the emergence of a greater nationalism, the Soviet state sponsored national republics, each with their own national culture, which would eventually result in one high culture. How did the state hope to achieve a universal acceptance of a high culture through the promotion of Soviet citizens’ national identities?

One detail of this plan that stood out to me was the requirement of all children to attend native-language schools, even if their parents did not speak said native language and wanted their children to attend Russian language schools. What did this instruction in native language hope to achieve? Was this all done in order to prevent defensive nationalism? While this practice of ethnic labeling essentialized national identities, how did it help to achieve Stalin’s “revolution from above”?

Martin ends his article by stating that the Soviet state’s nationality program asserted itself as a neo-traditional model. The soviet state blended the most characteristic forms of modernization, such as universal education and industrialization, while also retaining features of traditional, pre-modern societies, as seen in the view of nationality as primordial. The emergence of new folk-national cultures was not natural but was the result of state invention and intervention. Inherent to understanding the article and putting it into context is the awareness of Stalin’s definition of a nation, that it is “not racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people”. The Soviet nationalist policy certainly promoted the idea of nationalism as not being tied or related to one race, but was it successful in developing any national identity at all? Was the over-arching goal of the support of individual nationalities to prevent unification? What did these policies achieve?

 

 

 

The workers of Manitostroi

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The trouble with planning out every aspect of life is that you simply can’t. You can’t account for unexpected drought or famine or war- and especially not for the will of the individuals. Stalin and the Bolsheviks discovered this the hard way, with the implementation, and subsequent failures of their “Five Year Plan.” One of the most notable examples, Magnitostroi, is presented by Stephen Kotkin in his article, “Peopling Magnitostroi.”
The poor, the illiterate, and the exiled were all shuffled off to a desolate city, Magnitostroi, to spend months at a time laboring away at products they would never be able to enjoy. Entirely dependent on the train, their only connection to the outside world, inhabitants were cut off from family and friends. The city grew from twenty-five people to 250,000 in the space of three years, but this was no indicator of its prosperity. Many of the workers were given advances to convince them to work in Manitostroi, but even those who received money often fled after short periods of time. The government was unable to account for the simple misery of the residents of the city. According Kotkin, “even for the standards of the day, living conditions on the site were harsh” ((Kotkin, Stephen. “Peopling Magnitostroi: the Politics of Demography” in Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization. Berkley: University of California, 1993: 84.)) No amount of money in the world (and certainly not the amount the workers were receiving) was enough to entreat most to stay.
So why did the government insist on building a city out of nothing, on shaping and sculpting a desolate patch of ground to its every whim? Was it in a show of power- to prove that nothing was stronger than the willpower of the people, forced by the hand of the government? Was populating Magnitostroi truly an achievement, as officials claimed, or was it a blatant imposition on free will?

The Factory of Man Himself

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With the reshaping of a nation into something never before seen on earth, Russia in the early twentieth century was asking its people to become something utterly unique. The Russian people were tasked with transforming their nation into the world’s largest communist state, and that task came with the responsibility of becoming citizens capable of making fundamental changes to their lives to allow the system to prosper.  With a population of a quarter million growing over the span of three years, the development and growth of Magnitostroi was dependent on the wrangling of vocational school graduates, urbanites, even decommissioned military regiments. The need for specialists to guide the labor of the unskilled workers was greater than ever, and the desire of specialists to serve was nonexistent. Many skipped out on work, or never reported when assigned. Citizens sent to Magnitostroi were met with empty steppe-land instead of the chrome furnaces they expected. The desire to go was so low that the government sponsored national campaigns to drive up enthusiasm. With documentaries and press releases more akin to wartime propaganda than industrial recruitment, authorities fought to lure more workers to the site. A major source of labor was the deportation of kulaks, peasant people who were perceived to own more than others, thus qualifying them as traitors to the ideals of communism. As punishment for their misdoings, real or imagined, many were sent to work on the construction of the giant city. Despite general dislike for the project, the work performed by many was legendary, with workers struggling around the clock to complete building construction in freezing temperatures. Eventually the sense of commitment to work the cadre desired was fostered, with many work brigades holding competitions to achieve the most progress. Dam construction became an epic saga in which one could win glory for the nation, never mind the poor quality of the civic planning.

O-90: Can the maternal bond be broken?

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We, a dystopian novel written by Yevgeny Zamyatin in the 1920s, explores the trials and tribulations of a cipher, named D-503. D-503 tells the story through journal entries (known as ‘records’), which he intends to have sent up on the Integral, a spaceship being built and scheduled to launch in the near future.

Schedules appear to dominate the ciphers: they are assigned times to walk, have sex, appear in auditoriums. It seems that nothing is done without the instruction of a higher power. D-503 is engaged in a sexual relationship with 0-90, a female cipher.

At the beginning of the novel, O-90 appears to follow every rule required of her by the One State. She engages in sexual activity only when permitted and presents herself as a law abiding citizen. As the story unfolds, however, it becomes evident that O-90 struggles to squash her maternal extinct. After becoming pregnant, O-90 must come to terms with the idea that her baby must be given to the State to be raised once it’s born.

It seems strange that the One State would tear mother and child apart, or even that a mother would feel fully conscionable in giving up her newborn. O-90, herself, struggles with this reality, ultimately deciding to flee the One State and live beyond the Green Wall.

O-90, however, is just one woman with one baby. How did the One State convince women to give up their children? Was the indoctrination so deep that these women believed it to be acceptable? Did they perhaps just see it as the only option in a world so completely transparent?

Terror and Surveillance

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“Surveillance means that the population is watched; terror means that its members are subject on an unpredictable but large-scale basis to arrest, execution, and other forms of state violence.” ((Fitzpatrick, Sheila. “A Time of Troubles,” in Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. (Oxford University Press, 2000), 190.)) This is the theme of Chapter 8 of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism, in which the modes of Soviet public repression and purging are explored in detail.

The development of the Communist “Great Purges” in the 1930s was a self-propelling loop of suspicion, witch-hunts, and above all else, terror. Initially, excessive disfranchisement of Communist party members led to large amounts of ex-Communists, who were all assumed to be enemies of the state. At first, there was no method of integration by which these ex-members might become respectable citizens once more- the “black marks on the record could not be expunged”. ((Fitzpatrick, “A Time of Troubles,” 193.)) Because of their inability to operate in a country under such intense surveillance and suspicion, many of these blacklisted individuals assumed new identities, oftentimes forging passports and moving and changing their names. This caused the Soviet regime to perceive an even greater threat of disguised corruption, resulting in more purges.

Soviet officials frequently attacked their “enemies” with hypocritical claims. Despite possessing these characteristics themselves, they accused party enemies of engaging in favoritism, the creation of cults, and luxurious lifestyles. The accusers were no different in this regard than the accused, but they painted the victims in such a light as to use them as scapegoats, providing an outlet for the regime. ((Fitzpatrick, “A Time of Troubles,” 197.)) Newspapers even “carried a wealth of startling information about the sins of leading Communists”, creating even more unrest and suspicion among the masses. ((Fitzpatrick, “A Time of Troubles,” 195.)) This particular notion seemed odd to me at first; wouldn’t this cause people to lose faith in the party? However, upon further reading, I came upon the surprising fact that there existed a great deal of resistance to Communist rule during the 1930s- a particular quote regarding taking revenge during World War II (apparently much anticipated) bridged that gap of continuity. ((Fitzpatrick, “A Time of Troubles,” 205.))

“Show trials” were also characteristic of the Great Purges. However, because of the amount of Communist officials that were placed on trial outside of Moscow, these had a distinctively “populist” aspect, which furthers the idea of resistance to the regime. ((Fitzpatrick, “A Time of Troubles,” 203)). These shows of public resistance intrigue me. How did the Soviet regime deal with the deposition of their leaders in rural areas? Perhaps it makes sense that entire villages were emptied and their inhabitants sent off to the Gulags.

A Soviet official crushing the snake of deceit.

One final thought: the fact that most, if not all, of these Purges were state-instituted and not publicly supported, as Fitzpatrick seems to suggest, implies that much of the violence rampant in Stalinist Russia was primarily implemented by the state. Where was the public support that Beyond Totalitarianism tells us was necessary for such violence to exist?

Public Works

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The chapter “Public Works” from Schivelbusch’s Three New Deals covers the transformation of undeveloped land through industrial means as a form of social mobilization. It is first explained that all major powers looked to the Soviet Union’s collectivism for inspiration. Prior to the Great Depression, Western countries perceived the Soviet agenda as “fantasy”- but as capitalism failed those countries leading up the the 1930s, they began to imitate Soviet policies. ((Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. “Public Works” in Three New Deals, 140-141. New York: Picador, 2006.))

Fascism in Italy was the first to take the reigns on this matter through the project of the Agro Pontino. Mussolini’s regime attacked the problematic swampland, transforming it into a productive area through various policy initiatives. They also used it to public effect, presenting the problem as a matter of national participation. Three New Deals contrasts this to the Tennessee Valley Authority, claiming that the Agro Pontino focused more on settlement than development. Following this segue, the reader is presented with a detailed look at the operations of the TVA. Its works are described as “monuments to the New Deal”, a comparison with the symbolism of the public works of the Fascists. ((Schivelbusch, “Public Works”, 160.)) The common vein here, as Schivelbusch argues, was that both regimes used these works as propaganda in themselves, to appeal to the national attitude and move the public to action. ((Schivelbusch, “Public Works”, 167.))

Finally, the German Autobahn is addressed. Finding commonality with the New Deal but difference from Mussolini’s policies in its emphasis on technology, it served as a powerful form of public mobilization. However, emphasis was placed on making it stand out from the environment, unlike the works of the other two nations. What qualities of the Nazi regime, I wonder, led the Germans to try to make more of a distinction?