Siegelbaum, Lewis. Soviet State and Society Between Revolutions, 1918–1929

Siegelbaum, Lewis. Soviet State and Society Between Revolutions, 1918–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

An attempt at a synthesis, a coherent narration of Soviet history from the Civil War to the end of NEP. Focus on changing attitudes between state and society, a negotiation on cultural, political, etc. forms between them.

Chapter 1 “Bequeathals of the Revolution” starts with analysis of how revolutionary theory had to be adjusted to political practices after the revolution of 1917 catapulted Bolsheviks into power. Siegelbaum argues that “the Soviet state evolved after 1917…. As a constellation of four functionally distinct sub-systems or networks – a military and police state, a civilian state focused on the soviets, an economic state revolving around the commissariats and the trade unions, and a political state residing within the Bolshevik… Party” (12-13). An interesting idea; while the classification is too rigid, it can be developed: there were, indeed, different spheres of activities which the RKP(b)/VKP(b) initially did not fully control, but which it gradually colonized throughout the 1920s and then the 1930s were a period when this process was intensified. This situation was aggravated by the fact that the Soviet state inherited form pre-revolutionary time part of imperial bureaucratic system, including technical and military specialists. Another problem – whether to allow initiative from below (one conception based on soviets and workers’ committees in factories) or to centralize everything (another conception).

Another interesting observation – experience of establishing Soviet rule in Caucasus, Ukraine and Belorussia without Soviets (without element “from below”), but rather through military rule (p. 19) – another experience in centralization. Influx of new members to the VKP(b) during the Civil War – emergence of a new bureaucracy which had stakes in promoting “party dictatorship.” Extreme conditions of the Civil War had a consequence in form of “party dictatorship” and, within the party, of “strict discipline.”

Civil War also became an experience in “de-proletarization” of Soviet Russia. Huge diminution of the number of workers and of urban population. A discussion of how this process was linked with the political dictatorship of the RKP(b). Argues after Fitzpatrick that appeals to “revolutionary” or “class consciousness” do not really explain this link; instead, suggests that the turmoil of the war was so huge that it created a fluid and very mobile social environment. “What is so fascinating but also confusing about the first years of the soviet republic is the extraordinary degree of indeterminacy in the social division of labor simultaneous with a powerful impetus from the ruling Communist Party to impose its own representation on that fluid reality. That representation itself was at one and the same time retrospective, referring to the pre-revolutionary class structure that was now in ruins… and anticipatory (Lenin’s “new social bond”) (31).

This is important, because when the labor discipline and level of production plummeted, the Party started to impose new disciplinary measures on their “social support.” By 1920, total militarization of the labour force.

When it came to peasants, the socialization of land led to redistribution of land which included: elimination of large landed property, levelling of households and general support of Bolsheviks during the Civil war. It also strengthened village community. Polarization of village as a result of prodrazverstka (food supply dictatorship). Then prodrazverstka leads to increasing antagonism between rural society and power. Still, an important aspect: return of former Red Army soldiers into village communities as people educated in revolutionary language and ideas and conveyors of Bolshevik ideas, including those of politics and management. Red Army service in the Civil War as a school of life.

Intelligentsia as a force with which new regime grudgingly cooperates, but which it considers to be unreliable. Penetration of former imperial bureaucrats into new revolutionary structures. In sum: these areas (management, culture, education) are those which resisted a Bolshevik assault during the Civil War and had to be conquered later, i.e., during the Cultural Revolution.

Conclusion to the first chapter: Civil war brought the end to early Bolshevik utopianism and a retreat from ambitious ideological plans. What is lost here is the great idea that there was a significant difference between the ways Soviet leadership envisioned its population and actual politics which were determined in negotiations with this populations.

Chapter 2 looks at the transitory period from ‘war communism’ to NEP, i.e. at 1920 and 1921. Siegelbaum starts with the question why Bolsheviks continued their “military” politics well into 1920 and the beginning of 1921, although the Civil War was over. His answer is: while food crisis was important, the actual reason was a “wrong” perception by Bolshevik leaders of the current situation in Russia: hopes for a fast economic recovery, international cooperation, feasibility of state-sponsored methods in economic stimulation, etc. Equally, he suggests contextualizing current political thinking (that of Lenin, first of all) behind the move to the NEP. Economic reforms were a concession to peasants and workers; simultaneously, however, the party responded to the crisis by reinforcing the party discipline within its own ranks (defeat of the Working Opposition). Misses a point that it also was the time when, together with concessions made, an extremely important decisions was made that RKP(b) personnel would ‘duplicate’ non-party members of economic bodies.

Chapter 3 “The Perils of Retreat and Recovery” starts with common knowledge that there was no such thing as “introduction of NEP” (for which the Tenth Congress is usually taken): instead, it was a piecemeal dealing with the crisis. Siegelbaum traces how Soviet government ceded its positions in rural areas, not only in the sphere of production, but also in culture; in market distribution (the emergence on NEPmen with their specific culture); in industrial relations, the recovery was slow and the labor market experienced oversaturation with unqualified labor force and scarcity of qualified labor force. Pressure of unemployment and former Red Army veterans. Active intellectual life which was supported by Bolsheviks so far, because artists, poets, etc. attacked bourgeois way of life. Gamble in the nationalities policy: construction of the Soviet Union from ethnic republics and territories through concessions.

At the same time, the 1920s was used as a time to strengthen party discipline and party’s control over all other sections of Soviet life. “Burgeoning party and state bureaucracy,” which turned into the most privileged social group in the USSR.

Chapter 4 “Living with NEP” examines new forms of social organization through “a myriad of unions, leagues, societies, and institutes promoting one or another cause – contemporary music, “massism” in literature, cinema attendance, conservation, militant atheism, support for the fledgling air fleet, labor hygiene, physical culture, support for the blind and deaf, and so on,” (136) but while this promise sounds promising, he actually betrays it when he returns to the analysis of how the VKP(b)’s policy in different spheres of life was shaped, losing all other agency on the way.

Siegelbaum starts with an analysis of party’s changing attitude to wealthy peasants and elements of market economy, particularly in the exchange between urban and rural areas. He moves then to address gender policy of Soviet leadership, tracing how “liberation of the woman” led to unexpected consequences (social insecurity of women, a large number of orphaned children, etc.) which Soviet leaders had later to deal with. Organization of anti-religious campaigns went simultaneously with lax cooperation with the Orthodox Church. He concludes with the industrialization debates of the mid and late 1920s, drawing parallels between internal party struggle and different views on how socialist industrialization had to proceed. Makes a wrong (or, at least, too bold) statement regarding Stalin’s proclamation in 1925 that Soviet Russian would pursue autonomous development: regards it as an abrupt discontinuation of a link between industrialization and westernization (171-2). This is what happens when a scholar is unable to exit the hermeneutic circle. Simultaneously, an influx of workers into the VKP(b)’s rows softened future resistance to accelerated industrialization. Falling productivity of labor by the late 1920s – one of reasons for introduction of new measures by the turn of the 1930s.

Chapter 5 “Dangers and opportunities” examines 1927 and 1928 as the time of crisis which was used by the ruling Bolshevik circles (read Stalin) as an opportunity to impose his vision of national development. He starts with the agricultural crisis of 1927 when Soviet tax organs failed to collect agricultural tax, which was partly due to peasants’ resistance. It, in particular, gave Soviet power the basis for a reconsideration of their social policy among rural population. But Siegelbaum’s explanation of why the VKP(b) leadership moved to enforce accelerated industrialization sacrificing agriculture in the process. Enthusiasm of the new revolutionary generation (Komsomol) as a resource to try new methods of intensification of labor (shock working, competitions, etc.).

A common feeling from reading this book – it is submerged in Sovietology and doesn’t have a primary basis on primary sources, therefore, among some interesting insights, there’s mostly reiteration and recompilation of older ideas based on public sources and official ideology.