Clark, Katerina. Moscow, The Fourth Rome

Clark, Katerina. Moscow, The Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931-1941. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011.

Agenda of Katerina Clark (Yale University) is to examine the development of Soviet culture in the late 1930s from the perspective of Moscow cultural elites, shifting a focus from the repressive policy of Stalinism as the contemporaneous cultural focus to the production of cultural meanings in the wider context of European culture. As Clark puts it, “this book seeks to chart the evolution of Soviet culure without circumscribing its account with an intellectual iron curtain” (8). She argues that Soviet leaders aspired to build a world culture (hence Fourth Rome) on the basis of socialist culture, and therefore Stalin took responsibility for the ultimate regulator of cultural affairs. She therefore regards the Soviet Union as an aesthetic state where the aesthetic and the political were intrinsically interconnected to form new cultural forms that people used to “sustain and elaborate their social and cultural unity” (12). Stalinist Russia as an aesthetic state focused on “literary texts” (13). Moscow as the “paradigm” of Soviet beauty. Appropriation of West European culture to create a new cultural center. While the agenda in urban and cultural politics of the 1920s was to “purify” the space, in the 1930s it changed to “the enhancement of space and the hierarchization of both space and time in a chronotope” (27).

The first chapter focuses on intellectual “cross-fertilization” between Sergey Tretyakov and a number of European intellectuals, in particular, Walter Benjamin and Bertold Brecht.  In chapter 2, she discusses the Bolshevik obsession with the written word, esp. sacralisation of Stalin through his relationship to writing (as author). A comparison between Moscow and sacred (Stalin’s) text: “…the “new” Moscow occupied a place that was homologous with Stalin’s (or, more broadly, the leadership’s) place vis-à-vis the populace at large, and, ooking more broadly, in relation to the entire world (a “Rome”). Moscow was to be both an exemplary text in its own right and the site where all authoritative texts could be generated” (94).

In chapter 3 Clark looks at the architectural thinking behind the redesign of Moscow during the 1930s, arguing that new architecture served to embody and transmit narratives of power (including, in particular, the narrative of historical progress, in which Communism was the heyday of the humanity). She also contemplates in detail on the connection between ideology and aesthetics. “Moscow represents achieved socialism, an ideal city, and the hero of a novel functions as an emissary, binding Moscow and the provinces, imperfect space. His reaching Moscow intimates that the Soviet Union is on track to its destination in communism” (123). Chapter 4 explores how these attempts placed Moscow not only in the center of the Soviet space, but (as envisioned by Soviet leaders) in the center of transnational world of Soviet Communism. She focuses, in particular, on the cultural production by her protagonists, Ehrenburg, Tretyakov and Koltsov, describing it as a process of dialogue with European lefts, and on German émigrés (after the Nazis’ takeover of power in 1933). The next chapter (5. World literature/world culture and the era of popular front) looks at the shift of Soviet transnationalism from Berlin to France. An increased number of Western names in Soviet culture of that time (e.g., 1935 – the year of Shakespeare, as Clark puts it).

Chapter 6 looks at the period of the Great Terror, which led to intensified state control over all forms of artistic and literary production. Clark interprets this through a metaphor of a paradigm shift, from a Soviet incarnation of Enlightenment to a Soviet incarnation of Romanticism. She then writes of purges as having elements of theater and theatricality (“to tear off masks” as one of dominant metaphors of the Great Terror) and compares them with Stanislavsky’s writings. When it comes to show trials – perhaps, yes, but the praxis of the Great Terror as such? Chapter 7 deals with the Soviet involvement in the Spanish Civil War on the level of cultural production, both by Soviet and Western authors. In Chapter 8, Clark offers her interpretation of the soviet culture of the late 1930s as a search for the sublime that had to create the Soviet audience in terms of awe, pride and similar emotions. In Chapter 9, she develops this idea by discussing a final shift (1937 to 1941) from internationalism to Soviet patriotism, which she, in particular, develops taking the case of an encrypted Erasmus-Machiavelli dialogue in Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (cosmopolitanism vs. hegemony).

Golfo Alexopoulos. Stalin's Outcasts: Aliens, Citizens, and the Soviet State, 1926-1936

Golfo Alexopoulos. Stalin's Outcasts: Aliens, Citizens, and the Soviet State, 1926-1936. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003.

This book by Golfo Alexopoulos (University of South Florida) focuses on the history of disenfranchised people in Soviet Russia/the Soviet Union as a separate social group, looking at how they were constructed as a group from outside (i.e., by the state), how  they were constructed by local communities (from aside) and what identities they ascribed to themselves. Part of social engineering efforts to create a new man, which included a reward for successful social self-transformation and, thus, stimulated disenfranchised people to engage in a dialogue with power that would reforge them. Discusses social stratification, but – once again – in terms of class. Imposition of a new culture where “opposing behaviors associated with the two classes provided the salient markers of insiders and outsiders” (11).

In chapter 1, Alexopoulos discusses reasons which lay in the basis of the institute of disenfranchisement in the Soviet Union, interpreting it mainly as attempts at social engineering of the Soviet society.  Certain economic and cultural (religion) behaviour, as well as personal history (belonging to certain groups in pre-1917 society). 1930 as the turning year when being disenfranchised came to mean real social disadvantages, rather than simply inability to vote. Political and economic marginalization (esp. in terms of food supply). Ritual of rehabilitation. In chapter 2, Alexopoulos examines what social groups were vulnerable to disenfranchisement and argues that while a certain pattern might be traced, actually this punishment was often used in an arbitrary manner. She offers no statistical analysis whatsoever, which makes her analysis of the material in this chapter somewhat useless: this group was addressed, that group, too, and this one, and that one—what’s the point?

In chapter 3, Alexopoulos analyses Soviet discourse which regulated the practice of disenfranchisement, but her only instrument of discourse analysis is a search for the ways definition of the enemy was applied to potentially “alien” social elements. Her tendency to personify the Bolshevik leadership doesn’t make her a good favor: “Bolshevik leaders deeply distrusted their ability to track what they believed was an elusive and deceptive enemy” (94). In Chapter 4, Alexopoulos follows Hellbeck in her analysis how disenfranchised people constructed (in her case, reduced) their Selves through writing. She analyzes different narrative strategies that the disenfranchised used in their appeals, and argues that these strategies (of misfortune/ignorance/compulsion) worked to reinforce the relations of paternalism (see Siegelbaum in Fitzpatrick’s Stalinism. New directions). In Chapter 5, she looks more broadly at how they struggled to become re-enfranchised by conforming to the requirements of what it meant to be a Soviet citizen (one can add: delineating these requirements in the process).

Chapter 6 looks at the results of the Soviet disenfranchisement policy. “Through its policy of disenfranchisement and rehabilitation, the party forced people to transform their identities, change their economic practices and dependencies, and become productive and loyal laborers of the Soviet state—this in exchange for the full rights of citizens.” (159) She then builds links between the practices of disenfranchisement and the Great Terror.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila (ed.). Stalinism: New Directions

Fitzpatrick, Sheila (ed.). Stalinism: New Directions. New York: Routledge, 2000.

In the introduction, Fitzpatrick sets the agenda: to delineate directions of new (methodologically, as well as in terms of materials involved) research on Stalinism, which increasingly takes shape of socio-cultural research. She describes the dominant trends in the field, including a growing interest to the Soviet subjectivity, construction of social and ethnic entities, voluntary participation of Soviet citizens in the Stalinist practices, etc.

The first essay by Sheila Fitzpatrick “Ascribing class. The construction of social identity in Soviet Russia” reverses the Marxist maxima that thesis that class identities are created by socioeconomic circumstances: instead, as Fitzpatrick argues in her book, they did not exist as part of social reality, but were instead discursive constructs created through Soviet political writing and praxis. She looks at the initial moment of the revolution to describe how sosloviia were dissolved and, instead, new institutions and principles introduced to restructure the Soviet society in class terms (restriction to education or administrative positions to exploiting classes, e.g.). New personal strategies to avoid ascription to stigmatized classes (bourgeoisie, kulaks, etc.) emerge, as do also rituals of “unmasking” class enemies. Internal passport system as a means to fix the ascribed class identity.  A reverse trend towards soslovnost where social position in the Soviet society was determined by the service to the state.

Sarah Davies (Durham) in “‘Us against Them’: Social Identity in Soviet Russia, 1934–1941” explores how new identities were reinforce through ‘negative identification’ with Soviet power-holders. The research is based on examination of the NKVD and party files with reports on “political state of mind” among the population, and extrapolation of this material to social relations in the USSR is tricky. Eventually, the purpose of the chapter is not very clear. She argues that “some people continued to view their world as polarized between two groups, those with power, and those without.” (66) But this is on the basis of a very biased source, and rather obvious, and what then?

Jochen Hellbeck (Rutgers University) examines the writing of a diary as a process which facilitated the internalization of Soviet values. “Individual subjectivity as a constitutive element of the Soviet system” (78). Writing as a means to “overcome doubts” in the building of Communism. How Stepan Podlubnyi accepted the stigma of being a kulak’s son and decided to reforge himself into a new Soviet man. His attempts at incorporating the official state values lead to their very deep internalization; when he rebels against repressive state practices, this turns out to be a schizophrenic rebellion. It’s interesting: Hellbeck doesn’t make this conclusion, but wasn’t Podlubnyi’s experience of reading all Marxist literature that exact experience which taught him elements of critical theory and gave him optics to re-assess the Stalinist regime. Also: later phenomenon: “good communists” build Communisms on their own, without the help from the Communist Party – this could be an early indication of a similar phenomenon.

Vladimir Kozlov (GARF)’s “Denunciation and its functions in Soviet governance” offers a classification of types of denunciation, which is actually not very convincing, since he starts with differentiating them into “disinterested” and “interested,” but not offering any insights, e.g., into interests behind seeming “disinterestedness”: what were/could be political, social or cultural factors which forced people to engage in this kind of activities? Alexei Kozhevnikov offers a re-interpretation of the post-WWII management of science and academic scholarship in the Soviet Union by looking at the link the use of the institution of intraparty democracy (diskussiia, kritika i samokritika) by different groups to win/confirm superiority in the system of management of Soviet scholarship. He analyzes post-war debates in philosophy, biology and linguistics to argue that upgraded social status of Soviet scholars brought about their tighter communication and contact with party elites and forced them to learn the language games of the latter. He also argues that a symbiosis emerged, in which Soviet bureaucrats “prescribed certain operative procedures with open agendas and outcome” to provoke debates and conflict among scholars. They, then, regulated and moderated these debates and conflicts, thus confirming their superior authority over scholarship. In return, Soviet scholars had to master the language of bureaucratic elites in order to get promoted and, sometimes, even survive (167).

Julie Hessler “Cultured Trade. The Stalinist Turn towards Consumerism” looks at discourse of “cultured trade” as a way to bridge the gap between the reality of shortages of nearly everything and the promised advances in material life that socialism was supposed to bring with it. Also, “education” of Soviet people through “cultured” trade. Style of commodities as important as their material value. The abolition of food rationing in 1935 as that point of entry when the Soviet government enters into a new relationship with Soviet people – that of encouraged materialism. Influence of American consumer model. The didactic role of exhibitions of consumer goods. One thing is, however, rather dubious: discussing magazine advertisements, Hessler writes: “the advertisements purveyed a bourgeois and civilized lifestyle along with the goods that formed their nominal subject.” (197) Why bourgeois? What makes her argue that this tendency in the development of Soviet consumer culture was “bourgeois”? It seems to be a convenient label, but it imposes a very specific interpretation of her material, and a not very convincing one. “Alliance” between Soviet ideologists and “bourgeois housewives” – why, once again, bourgeois? Why a cultural category instead of an analytical category?

Vadim Volkov discusses the concept of kulturnost’ in its dynamics of development in the post-war Soviet society. He argues that through this concept, the Stalinist state attempted to invade and conquer the private sphere of Soviet people. This changed the status of material things in the process, making them materialization of kulturnost. Speech: learning rhetorical models as a way to become a true Soviet person.

Lewis Siegelbaum’s “‘Dear comrade, you ask what we need.’ Socialist paternalism and Soviet rural ‘notables’ in the mid-1930s”  looks at one particular case of Soviet paternalism: that is, the system of legitimation of power through production and consumption (products are granted not as result of acquisition or exchange, but as result of service). He discusses what material things kolkhoz workers who became shockworkers asked as reward and argues that it was one of form of socialist paternalism. Curiously, while his cases bring in numerous examples of how this paternalism didn’t actually work (on the practical level—it did on the discursive one, though) due to bureaucracy, he doesn’t discuss it.

James R. Harris (University of Leeds) in “The Purging of Local Cliques in the Urals Region, 1936-7) discusses how local party bureaucracy used its power resources to avoid early Stalinist purges, only to create an impression of a full-scale conspiracy which led to its total repression in the Great Terror. Paul Hagenloh (Syracuse University) looks at the repression of criminals as a ‘bridge’ (in terms of repressive practices) between the collectivization campaign and the Great Terror, arguing that they became a ‘testing ground’ for practices that would be used in a larger scale after 1936.

Goldman, Wendy Z. Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Terror.

Goldman, Wendy Z. Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Terror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Wendy Goldman’s agenda is to examine how the implementation of the Great Terror was facilitated by Soviet social institutions, such as professional unions, or, to put it in another way, how the social roles that people occupied made them engage in accusing and attacking each other, thus bringing an additional momentum to the whirlpool of the Stalinist repression. She starts (Chapter 1) with the analysis of social crises of the Soviet industrialization which, in a way, flared up tensions between different social and professional groups in the Soviet society (new plans and demands, lack of housing, food shortages). She then explores how the Great Terror was staged (chapter 2), focusing on the rhetoric of vigilance which became the language to express these social tensions. During the show trial processes, she argues, common workers learned how to use this rhetoric, which then became a major weapon to attack each other and the managerial staff during the Great Terror. In chapter 3, Goldman looks at how the Soviet leadership mobilized popular support for the Great Purge by using rhetoric of enemy advance and by appealing to workers’ initiative in exterminating the “internal threat.” She then focuses on the Soviet campaign for “democratization” in professional unions, which became a venue for dissatisfied workers to apply the newly learned skills in using accusatory rhetoric to their work environment. In chapter 5 and 6 Goldman analyzes specific cases when people were accused at work meetings, arguing that “by 1938, ‘unmasking’ had developed an internal, self-generating organizational dynamic.” (247)

Dunham, Vera. In Stalin's Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction.

Dunham, Vera. In Stalin's Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1990.

An exploration of the so-called Big Deal between the Stalinist leadership and what Dunham describes as “Soviet middle class.” Dunham argues that in order to govern the Soviet society, the VKP(b) abandoned the revolutionary agenda and instead “a tacit concordat was formed by Soviet leadership with the resilient middle class… The leadership had been forced to put a premium on skill, on productivity, on performance, instead of on political adroitness and ideological orthodoxy.” (4-5). Without any access to archival historical sources and very sceptical of official Soviet documents, Durham took Soviet “middlebrow fiction” as a historical source to prove that a conversion of values occurred in the period of late Stalinism. She argues that socialist realism acted as a middle ground between Soviet leadership and the Soviet middle class: the first shaped values it required, the second used it to provide feedback to the regime.

Her approach is, however, very straightforward. Dunham takes fictional details as elements Soviet social reality: this approach stripped all other functions of literary writing off, as if they did not exist. Also, due to the nature of her sources, Dunham had to deal with cultural categories (intelligentsia and meshchanstvo, in particular) as they were used in Soviet socialist realism as social categories. This made her perspective very dependent on the perspective of her sources; she in many cases reduced to analysis to pure functionalism (this detail/element of a plot is used in order to achieve a certain social function). On p. 48, for example, she discusses a fragment from a novel about a Soviet shock-worker who, in reward of his work feats, was given a private house. Dunham argues that this is an evidence of a kind of tacit rehabilitation of private property; but the excerpt itself (she quotes it extensively) is framed in very different metaphors: not those of property, but those of rural life. And the most important thing she doesn’t mention: it implies a different mode of social relations: the official Soviet discourse of the first post-war decade, both on textual and visual levels, did not deem it appropriate that material things could be used for social differentiation; neither was it a proper “concordat” between the Soviet leadership and the Soviet “middle class,” since material objects had to be regarded not as objects of consumer desire, as an objects of purchase, but rather as a reward for state service. This is very different from “middle class values”: this is a totally different work ethics.

While the approach was novel and is certainly very stimulating, the mixing of Western social categories (middle class) as experienced by Dunham in her American life with Soviet cultural categories (intelligentsia) as described in Soviet postwar novels proved to be very misleading for her.