Enduring Repression: Narratives of Loyalty to the Party Before, During and After the Gulag

Abstract

This article documents the attitudes—especially those of loyalty—among Gulag prisoners and returnees toward the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and seeks to ascertain how their incarceration subsequently influenced those sentiments. It is paradoxical that some prisoners—many of whom were falsely convicted—endured gruelling, barely survivable, lengthy terms of labour camp and prison and emerged maintaining their loyalty toward the system of government that was responsible for their imprisonment. With the materials that have become available, we can now begin to understand this phenomenon. Explanations include the ‘traumatic bond’ (Stockholm Syndrome), communism (the Party) as a surrogate for institutionalised religion, cognitive dissonance and functionalism. This issue may offer insight into the larger question of how repressive regimes are maintained.

Notes

This research, part of a larger study entitled The Communist Within, was made possible by a generous ‘Innovative Research’ grant from the Netherlands Scientific Council (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NWO), and by the support of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the University of Amsterdam. I am deeply indebted to my friend and colleague, Erik van Ree, for his sharp, unconventional observations and critical remarks. I would also like to express my heartfelt appreciation to Stephen Cohen for his indispensable advice and input. Finally, this article benefited substantially from the informed comments of the anonymous referees to whom I acknowledge my gratitude.

The political history of the prisoner's family was relevant because oppositional family sentiments sometimes resulted in successive generations of Gulag prisoners. Prominent examples of intergenerational Party membership, dissidence and incarceration include the Bogoraz-Daniel family and the Yakirs.

Though beyond the scope of the present study, generally speaking, there were few discernable differences between the motivations of men and women subjects for maintaining loyalty.

Lev Razgon, response to questionnaire for project on the return from the Gulag, 8 December 1994. This research project, conducted from 1994 to 1998 culminated in the publication of The Gulag Survivor: Beyond the Soviet System (2002). Sources included questionnaires, distributed in 1994 and 1995 to approximately 100 respondents, and oral histories. The current study, which asks different questions, has mined some of the unused resources from the 1990s returnee project.

Olga Konstantinovna Shireeva, questionnaire, 12 December 1995. For more on Gorbachev-era motivations to appeal for Party reinstatement or apply for membership, see the interview with Len Karpinsky in Cohen and Vanden Heuvel (1989, pp. 286–306); for the perspectives of rank-and-file workers (striking miners) on their faith in the Party, their negotiation and their demands for accountability, see the documentary film Perestroika from Below (Daniel J. Walkowitz & Barbara Abrash, Icarus Films, 2008). My thanks to the referee who directed my attention to this film.

According to S. S. Vilenskii (2004, p. 65), approximately 1.5 million works related to the memory of the Gulag were published by 2004.

See, for example, Greene (1999, pp. 393–403), Horvath (1998, pp. 331–47) and see also Courtois et al. (1999).

Yezhov and Beria are prominent examples. Their ‘victim’ status raised the controversial question of their eligibility for rehabilitation in the 1990s (Pilyatskin 1998a, 1998b).

Author's interview with Roy Medvedev at his Moscow dacha, 19 June 2005.

Natal'ya Alekseeva Rykova, response to author's questionnaire, 12 December 1995.

Author's interview with Natal'ya Alekseeva Rykova, Moscow, 18 October 2005.

One of the only assessments has been made by Russian historian V. N. Zemskov (1991a). His focus is on special population groups and exiles. Some information on rehabilitation can be found in Yakovlev (2000); see also Ellman (2002).

With exiles included, the figure would come to between seven and eight million. For more concrete statistical findings, see also Elie (2005). For a broader and deeper look at the returnee experience, see also Cohen (2009, 2010), both based on pioneering research that Cohen conducted in the early 1980s.

Rossiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (RGANI), fond 6, opis 6, delo 1077, ll. 4–5. More specifically, a report by Shvernik on the work of the Party Control Commission (Komitet Partiinogo kontrolya pri TsK KPSS, KPK) from February 1956 to June 1961 states that 30,954 communists received Party rehabilitation, many posthumously (RGANI, f. 6, op. 6, d. 1165, l. 2). Elsewhere this report states that 24,038 appeals from former prisoners of war were sent to the 20th and 21st Party Congress, and 12,498 other applicants appealed to the KPK for restoration of Party membership. Approximately 55% of the appeals to the 20th Party Congress, and 40.6% of those to the 21st Party Congress, were honoured (Yakovlev 2003, pp. 363, 252). A 1957 report attributes the high percentage of reinstatements to the fact that ‘among the applicants were many rehabilitated [persons], who were excluded from the Party for political reasons’ (RGANI, f. 6, op. 6, d. 1077, l. 2). The figures are at best inconclusive because appeals to the 20th Party Congress could also come from petitioners excluded for other reasons (see RGANI, f. 6, op. 6, d. 1091, l. 213). It is also difficult to calculate the number of repressed communists because Party cards were often confiscated prior to arrest, in which case the arrestee was categorised as ‘bezpartinyi’ (Rogovin 1997, pp. 486–89). Additionally, tens of thousands more were to apply for Party membership only a few decades later. This backlog was handled during Gorbachev's de-Stalinisation. According to a memorandum by Boris Pugo, chairman of the Party Control Commission from 1988 to 1990, 80,000 applications for Party membership were honoured (Yakovlev 2004, p. 520).

Both types of belief provide a way of making sense of events as well as a supportive community of believers, but they perform different tasks. Evidence-based beliefs are used for such practical pursuits as purchasing a car or going to the Moon, while faith-based beliefs are used to satisfy the human need for meaning and purpose in a universe that may not readily provide either. As the pan-historic, pan-cultural belief in religion attests, it satisfies this need. A faith-based belief will not get people to the Moon, but it may inspire them to try, and it can make life on Earth more bearable.

‘Segodnya’, NTV, 18 October 2005.

‘A Battle to Ensure Russia's Future Doesn't Resemble its Past’, The National, CBC, 14 January 2003.

Anne Applebaum has asserted (2003) that this question needs further exploration.

From the Greek Karas, meaning ‘love’, the same root as caring or charity. My thanks to Erik van Ree for drawing attention to this determinant. For Weber's conception of charisma, see Weber (1985).

For an example of a current discussion on the aftermath of being compelled to comply, in this case in North Korea, see Sang-Hun (2007).

Mikhail Trofimovich Adeev, ‘Beda i bol'shevistkaya sovest'’, Memorial, f. 2, op. 1, d. 2, l. 0001 2909 0067, 0068, 0070.

Memorial, f. 2, op. 1, d. 2, l. 0001 2909 0105.

Memorial, f. 2, op. 1, d. 2, l. 0001 2909 0112.

One might say that these petitioners were aiming high. Applications for (judicial) rehabilitation—a requirement for Party rehabilitation—were sent to the General Procuracy. Once rehabilitated, an applicant would petition the Party Control Commission for reinstatement; appeals for reinstatement had to go to a Party office within the Central Committee apparatus. Nevertheless, according to many of the documents I came across, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet received and fielded many appeals, and generally forwarded such correspondence to the appropriate agency.

Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii (hereafter GARF), f. 7523, op. 85s, d. 255, l. 20.

GARF, f. 7523. op. 85s., d. 255, l. 20.

Venyamin Borisovich Epshtein, Memorial, f. 1, op. 1, d. 5479, l. 0036 1502 0054.

Members of this group accepted a prophecy, believed to be transmitted from extra-terrestrials, that a flood would engulf the earth. It was further believed that their group would be rescued from this fate by a flying saucer. In preparation for this evacuation, the group members gave up their homes and jobs to work for the cult, thus assuring their safe deliverance from this imminent disaster. The flood did not come. Those members of the group who were alone when the time prophesied for the flood came and went did not maintain their belief. However, those group members who were waiting expectantly in each others' company interpreted the flood's absence as confirmation of the cult's belief, claiming that God held back the flood because of the group's existence and role in the world as a force for good. On the dynamics of group systems, see Adler and Hammett (1973, pp. 861–64).

For further discussion of the ‘belief–disconfirmation paradigm’, see Burris et al. (1997). This was characterised by the members' efforts to persuade others of their beliefs in order to make their cognitions consonant.

‘Svodka pisem po povodu Ukaza Prezidiyuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR ob amnistii’, GARF, f. 7523, op. 85s., d. 235, l. 6. The letters cited here were excerpts from letters published in Pravda as they were filed in Pravda's Editorial Board records. The associate responsible for this compilation writes: ‘In connection with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on amnesty, many letters are sent to Pravda. Their authors express their attitude toward this important governmental act. Here follow some excerpts from the newspapers’.

For biographical information on Serabryakov and Sokol'nikov, see Yakovlev (2004, pp. 663, 665).

See footnote 3.

Author's interview with Zorya Leonidovna Serabryakova, Nikolina Gora, 19 April 2006.

Author's interview with Roy Medvedev at his Moscow dacha, 19 June 2005.

L. Iaronts, response to questionnaire, 12 December 1995.

N. I. Zadorozhnaya, response to questionnaire, 12 December 1995.

GARF, f. 7523, op. 107, d. 235, ll. 7–8.

Author's interviews with Herbert M. Adler, psychiatrist, clinical professor, Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, New York, 28 and 29 December 2005.

Halfin (unpublished, p. 67) which is a lengthier version of chapter 2 in Halfin (2009). I acknowledge my gratitude to Professor Halfin for sharing this pre-publication manuscript with me.

This trend is manifested in, among others, official unwillingness to exhume newly discovered mass graves and the steady restoration of Soviet-era (or Stalin-era) symbols (Adler 2005a, pp. 1093–119).

My thanks to Amir Weiner for his critical reflections on this research, and particularly for his insightful reference to the war as the ‘elephant in the room’. The war cultivated allegiance even in Gulag prisoners, many of whom tried to be released in order to serve the motherland. (Those who were released were often sent right to the front. Political prisoners were generally considered too suspect to defend their country.) Fighting Nazism gave communism a better name, and victory was the triumph of good over evil. War veterans and Gulag survivors competed for decades to attain privileged status, but this discussion is beyond the scope of the present article. For more on veterans' views, see Merridale (2006).

Mariya Il'inichna Kuznetsova, interview, Moscow, 15 March 2008.

Mariya Il'inichna Kuznetsova, interview, Moscow, 15 March 2008.

Such questions could be settled by the re-interpretative process of cognitive dissonance. A different psychosocial process might be employed by those whose ‘conversion’ (Adler & Hammett 1973) to the regime's form of communism was rewarded. Such rewards included the promise of psychosocial, political, vocational and material benefits. Survival was enhanced by authentically embracing the ideology.