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.
