StalinismOne

Stalinism

the Great Terror as a plebeian bacchanal?

Ong, Luria, Flynn; Rosenfeld

from Moshe Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System (Pantheon Books, 1985) p. 16

The direct and indirect impact of rural religiousity (or for that matter, religious beliefs in society at large) on Soviet politics and culture is not easy to show convincingly, although some broad phenomena are well know and their religious origins obvious. A culture so deeply imbued with different creeds, inherited from ages of cultural experiences and preserved in different stages of integrity or decomposition (sometimes even recomposition[new right]) until the most recent times, must have colored the feelings and thoughts of people reacting to the tremendous changes that occurred around and to them. . . A mentality still strongly addicted to the trappings of magic, a Manichaean view of the real and the imaginary worlds--Christ and the saints versus the Devil and his countless hosts of lesser spirits--coupled with remnants of older cults, must also have an impact in many still unexplored ways on the polity itself, however secular and committed to rationalism. At times of crisis and tremendous tensions, the rational is under strain, too, and neither modernizing states nor modern individuals are that immune to the less rational springs of power and of political strategems, if they are available. Even if the problem, as conceived by the state, is simply to counter backward influences and superstitions, the idea of combatting a cult by some countercult is already an example of a real impact of the very object to be exorcised.

from Moshe Lewin, Russia/USSR/Russia: the drive and drift of a superstate (The New Press, 1995)

. . . Stalinism recreated in Russia, although just provisionally, the last model of a sui generis "agrarian kingdom. (p. 13)

"Because of the destruction of so many previous cultural, political, and historical advances, the country and the new state became more open and vulnerable to some of the more archaic features of the Russian historico-political tradition and less open to the deployment of its forward-looking and progressive features." (p. 69)

from S.A. Smith, Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History (Cambridge Univesity Press, 2008)

if one does not give due weight to the resilience of 'tradition', it becomes difficult to explain the apparent resurgence of 'traditional' values and orientations during what Crane Brinton called the 'thermidorean' phases of revolution, i.e. high Stalinism in the Soviet Union and high Maoism in the People's Republic of China . . . " (p. 21)

Cultural-Historical Context of Stalinism

Boris N. Mironov, "Peasant Popular Culture and the Origins of Soviet Authoritarianism," in Cultures in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia, Stephen P. Frank and Mark D. Steinberg, eds. (Princeton University Press, 1994)

The cognitive model of socialization set forth by Piaget and other psychologists suggests that the development of the cognitive, emotional, and moral structures of personality occurs during the process of schooling. In particular, the adult, "mature intellect"--which is capable of deductive reasoning and of constructing hypotheses, in contrast to the incapacity of the "childlike" intellect for formal operations--is formed in the concrete and situational learning process that occurs up to the age of fifteen. As the research of A. R. Luria indicates, a person who does not go through the instructional process in school will continue to possess a childlike intellect throughout life. This has a strong influence on personality and behavior, especially in a realm where authoritarian relations function. Perhaps it was from this shortcoming that the peasantry's "infantilism" stemmed--a characteristic occasionally referred to by scholars of the Russian countryside. (68)

Leonid Heretz, Russia on the Eve of Modernity: Popular Religion and Traditional Culture Under the Last Tsars (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

The development of modernity into materialism in the ninetenth century has intensified our difficulties in understanding religion-based traditional cultures. For the various materialist schools of thought, religious ideas have no existence in themselves, but are merely reflections of socio-economic realities, and they represent an inferior mode of comprehension or a "false consciousness." Although interpretations based on this assumption have reached new heights of subtlety and insight, in the Russian case the results have usually been more meager and crude. Present-day Western scholars might be tempted to lay all the blame for "vulgar materialism" on now-discredited Soviet Marxism and to minimize the extent to which we are all living "in an age in which the understanding of anything that surpasses the material level has practically ceased to exist." [P. Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West, p. 50] If anything, Marxism, with its fundamental humanism, does not even approach the utter materialism of present-day Western trends such as neoliberal economic theory, "rational choice" political science, neurochemical psychology, and reductionist Darwinist/geneticist sociology. Given the pervasive materialism of our contemporary worldview, we must make a great effort of empathy to understand the culture of people vitally concerned with things which mean nothing to us. (p. 9)

The material presented in the following pages constitutes an attempt at enhancing the historical picture by highlighting the persistence of traditional modes of thought and behavior among the Russian peasantry and townsfold in 1905. This will, in turn, support the notion that the revolutionary events of that year were primarily the work of active, organized elites and not the result of a broad popular movement. (p. 157)

The goal of this chapter . . . [is] to demonstrate the continued vigor of tradition in a time of revolutionary turmoil, and to show the ways in which the traditional worldview could maintain its coherence even when under assault by drastically new and unsettling developments. In particular, we will focus on the following issues: (1) the persistence of Tsarism, even in the context of what would appear to be new, modern forms of political activity, (2) the cultural /linguitic chasm which separated the oppositional parties from the traditional elements of the population, (3) the traditionalist reaction which ensured when the anti-Tsarist and anti-religious aspects of the revolutionary movement became apparent, and (4) the means by which the traditional mind could explain the frustration of its hopes while at the same time maintaining its faith in the Tsar. (p. 157-8)

the ancient motif of treason (p. 160)

The breakdown of order in 1905 opened, at least in principle, the possibility for modern political conepts to enter into the consciousness of the Russian peasantry, as socialists with their dream of democracy and liberals with their faith in constitutionalism were able to take their messages to the people. The introduction of new ideas that might have undermned traditional Tsarism was greatly hindred by the lingusitic/conceptual chasm tha tseparated educated society from the mass of the population. (p. 170)

1/3: the cultural /linguistic chasm

Leonid Heretz, Russia on the Eve of Modernity: Popular Religion and Traditional Culture Under the Last Tsars (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

The development of modernity into materialism in the ninetenth century has intensified our difficulties in understanding religion-based traditional cultures. For the various materialist schools of thought, religious ideas have no existence in themselves, but are merely reflections of socio-economic realities, and they represent an inferior mode of comprehension or a "false consciousness." Although interpretations based on this assumption have reached new heights of subtlety and insight, in the Russian case the results have usually been more meager and crude. Present-day Western scholars might be tempted to lay all the blame for "vulgar materialism" on now-discredited Soviet Marxism and to minimize the extent to which we are all living "in an age in which the understanding of anything that surpasses the material level has practically ceased to exist." [P. Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West, p. 50] If anything, Marxism, with its fundamental humanism, does not even approach the utter materialism of present-day Western trends such as neoliberal economic theory, "rational choice" political science, neurochemical psychology, and reductionist Darwinist/geneticist sociology. Given the pervasive materialism of our contemporary worldview, we must make a great effort of empathy to understand the culture of people vitally concerned with things which mean nothing to us. (p. 9)

The material presented in the following pages constitutes an attempt at enhancing the historical picture by highlighting the persistence of traditional modes of thought and behavior among the Russian peasantry and townsfold in 1905. This will, in turn, support the notion that the revolutionary events of that year were primarily the work of active, organized elites and not the result of a broad popular movement. (p. 157)

The goal of this chapter . . . [is] to demonstrate the continued vigor of tradition in a time of revolutionary turmoil, and to show the ways in which the traditional worldview could maintain its coherence even when under assault by drastically new and unsettling developments. In particular, we will focus on the following issues: (1) the persistence of Tsarism, even in the context of what would appear to be new, modern forms of political activity, (2) the cultural /linguistic chasm which separated the oppositional parties from the traditional elements of the population, (3) the traditionalist reaction which ensured when the anti-Tsarist and anti-religious aspects of the revolutionary movement became apparent, and (4) the means by which the traditional mind could explain the frustration of its hopes while at the same time maintaining its faith in the Tsar. (p. 157-8)

the ancient motif of treason (p. 160)

The breakdown of order in 1905 opened, at least in principle, the possibility for modern political conepts to enter into the consciousness of the Russian peasantry, as socialists with their dream of democracy and liberals with their faith in constitutionalism were able to take their messages to the people. The introduction of new ideas that might have undermned traditional Tsarism was greatly hindred by the lingusitic/conceptual chasm tha tseparated educated society from the mass of the population. (p. 170)

2/3: Lenin on Cognitive Development as the sine qua non of Social Democratic Praxis

from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, What Is To Be Done? (1902)

We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[2] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. In the period under discussion, the middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won over to its side the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia. pp. 17-18

Attention, therefore, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the “working masses” as the Economists wish to do, or to the level of the “average worker” as Svoboda desires to do (and by this ascends to the second grade of Economist “pedagogics”). I am far from denying the necessity for popular literature for the workers, and especially popular (of course, not vulgar) literature for the especially backward workers. But what annoys me is this constant confusion of pedagogics with questions of politics and organisation. You, gentlemen, who are so much concerned about the “average worker”, as a matter of fact, rather insult the workers by your desire to talk down to them when discussing working-class politics and working-class organisation. Talk about serious things in a serious manner; leave pedagogics to the pedagogues, and not to politicians and organisers! Are there not advanced people, “average people”, and “masses” among the intelligentsia too? Does not everyone recognise that popular literature is also required for the intelligentsia, and is not such literature written? Imagine someone, in an article on organising college or high-school students, repeating over and over again, as if he had made a new discovery, that first of all we must have an organisation of “average students”. The author of such an article would be ridiculed, and rightly so. Give us your ideas on organisation, if you have any, he would be told, and we ourselves will decide who is “average”, who above average, and who below. But if you have no organisational ideas of your own, then all your exertions in behalf of the “masses” and “average people” will be simply boring. You must realise that these questions of “politics” and “organisation” are so serious in themselves that they cannot be dealt with in any other but a serious way. We can and must educate workers (and university and Gymnasium students) so that we may be able to discuss these questions with them. But once you do bring up these questions, you must give real replies to them; do not fall back on the “average”, or on the “masses”; do not try to dispose of the matter with facetious remarks and mere phrases. pp. 83-4

3/3: 21 Years Later, Validmir Lenin Peers into the Abyss

from V. I. Lenin, Better Fewer, But Better ( Written: March 2, 1923)

In the matter of improving our state apparatus, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection should not, in my opinion, either strive after quantity or hurry. We have so far been able to devote so little thought and attention to the efficiency of our state apparatus that it would now be quite legitimate if we took special care to secure its thorough organisation, and concentrated in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection a staff of workers really abreast of the times, i.e., not inferior to the best West-European standards. For a socialist republic this condition is, of course, too modest. But our experience of the first five years has fairly crammed our heads with mistrust and scepticism. These qualities assert themselves involuntarily when, for example, we hear people dilating at too great length and too flippantly on "proletarian" culture. For a start, we should be satisfied with real bourgeois lenin

culture; for a start we should be glad to dispense with the crude types of pre-bourgeois culture, i.e., bureaucratic culture or serf culture, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping measures are most harmful. Many of our young writers and Communists should get this well into their heads.

Thus, in the matter of our state apparatus we should now draw the conclusion from our past experience that it would be better to proceed more slowly.

Our state apparatus is so deplorable, not to say wretched, that we must first think very carefully how to combat its defects, bearing in mind that these defects are rooted in the past, which, although it has been overthrown, has not yet been overcome, has not yet reached the stage of a culture, that has receded into the distant past. I say culture deliberately, because in these matters we can only regard as achieved what has become part and parcel of our culture, of our social life, our habits. We might say that the good in our social system has not been properly studied, understood, and taken to heart; it has been hastily grasped at; it has not been verified or tested, corroborated by experience, and not made durable, etc. Of course, it could not be otherwise in a revolutionary epoch, when development proceeded at such break-neck speed that in a matter of five years we passed from tsarism to the Soviet system.

Lenin’s Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 487 - 502