Stanlinism

Nick Lampert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315487830
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Although scholars have devoted much attention to the impact of technology on society, they have tended to slight the question of how technology is affected by social systems. The authors of this volume take precisely this approach in their examination of the "Soviet model" of development.

1 Grappling with Soviet Realities: Moshe Lewin and the Making of Social History

Roland Lew

The Analysis of Soviet Society

For a long time, studying Soviet society seemed an impossible task. For many, in fact, understanding the Soviet Union was not simply a question of knowledge, since political and social issues, even civilisation itself, were at stake. Hence it was a topic far too important to be left to researchers. Would a sane person leave war to the military alone?

For decades one saw the triumphant reign of either apology or rejection. There was an ever more depressing contrast between the doctrinal promises of socialism and their outcome, For opponents of the USSR, the explanation was based on one massive idea, namely the preeminence of politics. In this one can recognise the central theme of the theories of totalitarianism. Although these theories were not the direct result of the study of the USSR - in fact they came initially from Mussolini and then from a very critical analysis of Italian fascism and German nazism - they nevertheless became increasingly focused on the Soviet system. Thanks to this concentration on the phenomenon of the 'homeland of socialism', the theories of totalitarianism acquired their maximum influence during the cold war period. They even became an instrument of this latent war. The USSR and the Socialist Bloc were thus presented as the embodiment of totalitarianism.

The central idea of the theory of totalitarianism was built on the search for the conditions that led to the emergence of an entirely new type of society, a system that completely crushes people and yet is deeply interiorized by them, that desires to smash individuals, to transform them into desocialised specks of dust. According to the theory, the success of totalitarian power led to an immobilization of society and to making the system permanent and immutable. In this context one can recall George Orwell's impressive fictionalized description of such a society in his novel 1984 (published in 1949).

After the Second World War, the Soviet Union seemed the perfect candidate to exemplify this new and terrifying type of power. Politics was dominant, with an overwhelming presence of the state and a relentless and ostentatious ideological manipulation with constantly weakened and fragmented society. Why then was it necessary to look into the bowels of society to explain something that was so openly stated in the ideological discourse and in the state system of manipulation and repression? And why bother to study it when the most important thing was to light it? Thus the theory soon degenerated into an anti-ideological ideology.¹

On the other side, among the enthusiastic supporters of the USSR, one found the diametrical opposite, namely, a fervour for the Soviet system decked out with the most marvellous, the most magical, the most unreal, the most out-of-this-world attractions. Doing research in these conditions required special virtues - a certain intellectual courage, a highly developed critical faculty. And a great deal of sobriety.

How was it possible in this unusual situation to analyse and to understand rather than to make judgments about Soviet society? Research oscillated between the tendency to offer a normal study of an abnormal society, and an abnormal analysis of a normal society. Should one use the usual conceptual tools when faced with Soviet uniqueness? Or was it vital to devise an ad hoc theory, that would account for the pathology of a world full of familiar figures (cities, industry, decline or rural life . . .)?

The idea of the specificity of Russia, a recurrent theme that had become a stereotype of Russian intellectual life since the nineteenth century, was also widespread in the West. That idea was extended in a natural way to encompass the Soviet Union, amplifying all the traditional pre-1917 theories about Russian peculiarities and the immemorial continuity of these traits. It was a view that was unable to explain the complexity of an ever-changing situation. Something essential was missing: history and above all its vital social components.

The most recent period has seen the emergence of a more sober look at Soviet realities. It is clearly the result of the Gorbachev era and the discovery of a diversified and rapidly-evolving Soviet universe. In both the Eastern Bloc and in the West, people are increasingly open to the idea that all modern societies are subject to common problems, though there are undeniable Soviet peculiarities (backwardness, blockages, lack of coordination of the various levels . . .). It is thus that a multi-dimensional analysis becomes possible, leading to a study of the Soviet system and society in the framework of the long-term trends of Russian history and of the modernising process. It also becomes possible to see the stakes for which the revolutionaries were playing and their pre-1917 roots as well as the torment of the birth of a new society that claimed to be founded 011 these ideas, yet became radically separated from them.

This way of thinking about the Soviet Union has forerunners, one of whom is the social historian Moshe Lewin. As assessment of his work is long overdue.

The Road Towards a Social History of the USSR

Moshe Lewin is above all a historian of the Stalinist period which is at the heart of Soviet history. Yet Lewin's work is as much a defence and a demonstration of the value and necessity of a social history of the USSR, in line with Braudel's concept of 'la longue durée'. It is a question of finding an alternative to the political theory and ideology of the totalitarian school. This project was initially implicit but has become explicit more recently.²

The conception of 'totalitarianism' had taken a firm hold in the field of Soviet studies. This term denotes the idea of a terroristic government seeking total control of the population by massive use of indoctrination, police and ideological brainwashing, monopoly of power as well as direct control over the economy:

Though the term served quite well in its ideological function, it was useless as a conceptual category. It did not have much to say about where it was heading, what kind of changes it was undergoing, if any, and how to study it critically and seriously. In fact, the term was, in this context, itself 'totalitarian' in its empty self-sufficiency: it did not recognize any mechanism of change in the Soviet Union and had no use for even a shadow of some historical process.³

The change of perception in the 1960s led to the abandoning of the concept of totalitarianism and to the publication of serious studies. But Lewin adds;

On the whole, these analyses shared one important assumption with the "totalitarian school", the focus remained the study of the state-run economy, to the exclusion of most other aspects of Soviet experience ... In sum, what had been missing was the idea of a Soviet "social system" and, in turn, the conceptualization of a dynamic process in which all the subsystems interact in time and space yielding ever more complex and intricate patterns.⁴

This rejection of the totalitarian school cannot be separated from Lewin's socialist and Marxist background, even if his research became increasingly separated from Marxism. Lewin's work is dominated by the desire to penetrate into the heart of a society, to grasp its inevitably complex structure and to measure its development. This requires a critical distance from one's own preconceived ideas, a lucid recognition of weaknesses in their explanatory power, a willingness to confront them with new historical facts.⁵ Such a social history might be called materialist, though Lewin does not deny the exceptional nature of the events with which he is concerned. One should not forget that Lewin observed and lived enriching, dramatic and painful experiences in several countries, including the USSR during the Second World War. This helps to explain why his analysis has an ethical dimension. As in the case of the philosopher Simone Weil, this is one way to escape the madness of collective social pressures and to return to the lost paradise of the communion of the human spirit with the universe.⁶

A leitmotiv of Lewin's research is Spinoza's famous maxim: 'neither laugh nor cry, just understand'. It is this requirement that forces him to refrain from expressing his deep convictions as a passionate socialist intellectual, to the extent of holding in check his sensitive humanism in order to remain reserved and even cool in his scholarly writings. It is the same requirement that initially forced him to fulfill the meticulous 'ministry' of the historian (as Marc Bloch called it, or scholarship as vocation, in Max Weber's terms) with the indispensable carefulness that this task implies and the patient research which is the historian's daily lot. In addition, he also has the necessary qualities of imagination and intuition that guide his investigations and give his work such fertility.

These are the basic criteria of historical work. They are so evident that one should not have to mention them. Nevertheless, it is not as simple as that. Many historians have studied the USSR. Some remarkable works have been produced (we need only mention E. H. Carr who is admired and often quoted by Lewin). Yet social history of the USSR was, and still is, a long and difficult conquest for which Lewin has been struggling, essentially as a pioneer. This is especially true for his exploration of the phenomenon of Stalinism. That Lewin could become a pioneer in this field in the 1960s, when the USSR as well as Lewin himself was approaching a fiftieth anniversary, gives an indication of his qualities as a historian, as well as highlighting the derisory state of research done by a large part of the academic establishment.

In his publications, as well as at his seminars, Lewin has insistently reminded us, even recently, of the enormous gaps in our knowledge of Soviet social history of the 1920s and 1930s. This state of affairs has broad implications. Soviet realities - society, regime and history - are a web of enigmas. They are not quite like Churchill's famous formula on the enigma surrounding a mystery, but rather a series of problems that have never really been systematically examined according to the strict rules of historical and social research. From this point of view Lewin's approach is a lesson and a vast 'work in progress' which calls for a great collective and critical research effort.

History as the History of Stages

In the approach of the totalitarism school the most important thing is to find a 'Principle' that is at work. It can be a new 'Principle' lodged at the core of a special type of modernity, or an old 'Principle' that is still unfolding (e.g. the 'Russian soul', irreducible Slavic characteristics, etc . . .). One must understand this 'Principle', how it functions and what distinguishes it from all other 'Principles'. History has nothing to do here.⁷ Familiar and ordinary ways of acting in or managing society are at best subordinate to the 'Principle'. There is no history and, therefore, no presenting of the stages and development of the system.

Lewin's approach is the exact opposite. Even if, for him, the 1930s and the Stalinist period are central to the formation of the USSR the book which brings together his main studies of the topic, has the suggestive title of The Making of the Soviet System - it is only a stage preceded by several others and followed in turn by the formative moments of the present-day Soviet Union, a country that is experiencing profound changes Which can no longer be ignored. This aim to define these stages is present in almost all of Lewin's works:

If we take the year 1914 or even 1917, we still have in place the main traits of the pre-revolutionary social system. But when we operate a leap to the not too far away 1921 - certainly a turning point - we discover immense changes. The peasantry of course was still there . . . but the ruling and privileged strata, aristocracy, gentry, the upper crust of the bureaucracy were all gone; capitalism and the capitalists were also wiped out, the old political system had gone. Towards the end of the NEP the main components of the post-Civil War social landscape remained the same, though somewhat complicated by the reappearance of the Nepmen and of some richer peasants. Important changes occurred in the party but otherwise Soviet Russia was a case of a developing society. Let's now move up again by some 7 years to 1936. The old social structure didn't reappear . . . Skipping the war period next we observe after Stalin's death, his crisis-ridden system ushering in a long period of rather peaceful and mostly gradual developments . . . The transition to a stage of different tonality and intensity of social development was remarkable and new.⁸

The determination to situate the 1930s in their broad but delimitated framework is well illustrated in an important book whose publication in 1974 was a kind of turning-point: Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates. This is an analysis of the critical views of Soviet economists in the 1960s on the growing problems of Soviet society and its economy. It was not only a matter of showing that the suggested solutions were a return to the great debates of the 1920s and above all to Bukharin's proposals - even if this was the main theme of the book. It was equally a question of setting out the stages of Soviet history.

Lewin distinguished at least two mam stages for the period prior to the Stalinist years - War Communism and NEP. There is perhaps a third period, if one adds the brief stage of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Notes on the Contributors
• 1 Grappling with Social Realities: Moshe Lewin and the Making of Social History
• 2 Demons and Devil's Advocates: Problems in Historical Writing on the Stalin Era
• 3 Gorbachev's Socialism in Historical Perspective
• 4 The Tsar, the Emperor, the Leader: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Anatolii Rybakov's Stalin
• 5 The Omnipresent Conspiracy: On Soviet Imagery of Politics and Social Relations in the 1930s
• 6 Soviet Peasants and Soviet Literature
• 7 Masters of the Shop Floor: Foremen and Soviet Industrialisation
• 8 Urban Social Mobility and Mass Repression: Communist Party and Soviet Society
• 9 Construction Workers in the 1930s
• 10 Nationality and Class in the Revolutions of 1917: a Re-examination of Categories
• 11 The Background to Perestroika: Political Undercurrents reconsidered in the light of recent events
• 12 Legality in Soviet Political Culture: a Perspective on Gorbachev's Reforms
• Index