Hoffmann, David L. Stalinist Values. The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917-1941.

Hoffmann, David L. Stalinist Values. The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917-1941. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.

David Hoffman (Ohio State University) aims to study the production of new social norms and values in interwar Soviet society. Borrowing a term from Katerina Clark, he speaks of “cultural ecosystem,” a kind of symbiosis between Soviet elites and intellectuals created to achieve cultural transformation of the society. He also argues that the reforms of the 1930s were not a “retreat” from Communism, but rather an attempt at consolidation of socialist reforms. Actually, it is hard to say what new this book brings into the discussion about Stalinism. Hoffman writes about establishment of norms for the Soviet population (chapter 1), for VKP(b) members (chapter 2), sexual norms and gender policies (chapter 3), Soviet consumer policy (chapter 4), and attempts of Soviet leaders to create cultural and social unity (chapter 5). It all has been discussed before from the same perspectives; and he doesn’t succeed in contributing anything new to this dialogue, because primary sources remain deeply secondary in his analysis—remove them, and his argument won’t be principally disabled (a more illustrative role). This is an excellent compilation and a textbook, but the novelty of research is pretty much non-existent.

Also, sometimes Hoffman takes ideological/cultural explanations for granted: “Collectivization… was an attempt by Paty leaders to accelerate evolutionary time toward communism” (49). Sometimes a good skill to speak in commonsensical phrases (which is, once again, good for a textbook) makes him greatly simplify his analysis: “The Great Purges were… orchestrated by the Stalinist leadership to eliminate enemies and potential opposition within the Party and the country as a whole… The Party’s discourse on morality and purification was intended to justify the purges in the eyes of Party members” (71). A useful term: participatory (instead of democratic) politics as the nature of the Soviet political process.