Prisoners of the Soviet Self?--Political Youth Opposition in Late Stalinism

References

• Zubkova, Russia after the war, pp. 110-111.
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• Knizhnoe obozrenie, 1988, 46, p. 8.
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• Hellbeck . “ 'Speaking Out: Languages of Affirmation and Dissent' ” . 72 Such an objection to a 'cold war' interpretation of Stalinist state and society has already been voiced by
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• Zubkova , Elena . 2000 . Poslevoennoe sovetskoe obshchestvo , Moscow : Rosspen . A slightly longer chapter on youth that rightly links phenomena such as stilyagi with political youth opposition can be found in
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• Hellbeck, p. 91 ; see also Jochen Hellbeck, 'Fashioning the Stalinist Soul: the Diary of Stepan Podlubnyi, 1931-1939', in Fitzpatrick (ed.), Stalinism, pp. 77-116.
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• Davies , Sarah . 1997 . Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934-1941 , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . The discussion on the classical workers' and peasants' resistance has always been hampered by the fact that economic and political demands were hopelessly mingled both in the minds of the protesters and in the perceptions of their persecutors. Many incidences of popular discontent were directly linked with pressing personal material concerns. This was true for many (but not all) of the more critical personages in Davies' study on popular opinion as well as for Rossman's Teikovo cotton workers or Viola's peasants
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• As Rittersporn pointed out in his paper on dissent, it was not necessary for the NKVD/MGB to forge these documents, since there were plenty of cases when people could be convicted without any evidence against them (Rittersporn, "The Great Cause', p. 6).
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• Maya and Ulyanovskaya , Nadezhda . 1994 . Istoriya odnoi sem'i , Moscow : Vest' VINO . Zhigulin describes many instances of confessions obtained under torture. Maya Ulyanovskaya and Alia Reif both confirm that often the protocol s they had to sign were in essence what they said, but with twisted words and meanings
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• Tumanova , Alia and pravo , Shag . 1995 . shag leva , Moscow : Progress .
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• Kotkin , Stephen . 1995 . Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization , Berkeley : University of California Press . To name just a few: Davies, Popular Opinion;
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• Zhigulin , Anatolii . 1988 . 'Chernye Kamni' . Znamya , : 7 – 8 .
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• Pilkington , Hilary . 1994 . Russia's Youth and its Culture , London : Routledge . On youth and youth culture in the perestroika years see
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• Rittersporn, "The Great Cause,' p. 2.
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• Ibid, p. 1.
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• M. Sokolov, 'Uroki Pravdy', Sobesednik, 1988, 35.
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• Tumarkin , Nina . 1983 . Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia , 252 Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press .
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• Indeed, their allegiance to the revolution went so far that they deplored the fact that worldwide revolution had not been pursued harder. It is unclear whether they were aware of the Trotskyite implication the demand for worldwide revolution carried. In any case, it appealed to their youthful enthusiasm and idealism. During the war the idea of carrying the achievements of the revolution across borders gained the unlikely friend of pacifism. In Moscow a few 16-year-old s confronted the usual hate propaganda. During the panic of October 1941 these schoolchildren founded an underground group in order to safeguard the international principle against the onslaught of war. The Union for Saving the Revolution had four core principles: (1) One for all, all for one, (2) Weapons into the sea, (3) All people are brethren--give peace without borders. (4) Deadly fight against all outlaws. The discovery of this programme a few years later was enough to send them to prison (Mikael Pozdnyaev, Ode moi semnadtsat' let?', Sem'ya, 1988, 44, pp. 12-13).
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• Iziael Mazus, Istoriya odnogo podpol'ya (Moscow,Prava Cheloveka, 1998), p. 307; Programme SDR, Memorial Archive, Moscow, Fond Boris Slutsky, f. 1, op. 2, d. 3896, 11. 22-28. Moreover, Boris Slutsky's father had been arrested in 1937 as a 'Trotskyite'.
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• Liebich , Andre . 1997 . From the Other Shore, Russian Social Democracy after 1921 , 235 Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press . Memorial Archive, Moscow. Fond Boris Slutsky, f. 1, op. 2, d 3896, 1. 22; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 216, 1. 165. Theories about two forms of capitalism strongly reflect similar thought s developed by émigré Mensheviks. While such ideas might have been passed down to youth by elderly friends, it is also possible that these conclusions were their own. Studying Marx and Engels, they read, at least partly, the same literature as the Menshevik emigration. Liebich remarks in his book on the Menshevik emigration that already in the 1930s 'the vital contact with Soviet youth sought so desperately by the Mensheviks could no longer exist, not only because of physical barriers erected by Stalin but also because of mental barriers that relegated Mensheviks to objects of ignorant hatred and contempt' Liebich's conclusion about the complete discrediting of Mensheviks seems to be borne out by the programmes of the anti-Stalinist youth organisations. With the exception of the programme of the SDR, which quoted Trotsky, no other organisation referred to any revolutionary apart from Lenin. It is, however, always possible that Menshevik and Trotskyite ideas floated within society without names attached
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• On the upheaval in post-war Soviet society in general see Zubkova. Poslevoennoe obshchestvo; on workers in particular see Donald Filtzer, "The Standard of Living of Soviet Industrial Workers in the Immediate Postwar Period, 1945-1948, Europe-Asia Studies, 51,6,1999, pp. 1013-1038 and Donald Filtzer, 'Socializin g the next Generation: The Position of Young Workers ', Chapter 4 in his forthcoming study on late Stalinist workers' politics.
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• Morrissey , Susan . 1998 . Heralds of Revolution : Russian Students and the Mythologies of Radicalism , 20 – 23 . Oxford : Oxford University Press . RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d 216,11.157-158,166. On the influence the novel had among students in the middle of the 19th century see
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• Prishchena , A. 1998 . Inakomyslennye na Vraie , Surgut : SGU . The term 'neo-Leninism ' is now frequently used by Russian scholars of opposition such as loffe, Etyudy ob optimizme, and
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• Pechuro, Ya blagardaryu sud'bu; interview with Susanna Pechuro, Moscow, 7 June 2000. The split occurred due to a disagreement that is as old as revolutionary movements: Slutsky favoured a reformist approach, while Gurevich wanted to use terrorist actions.
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• The term was coined by the Webbs, who decided to use it with a question mark, and revived by Kotkin, who argues that the facets of Stalinism are indeed so manifold and complex that it constitutes its own civilisation (Beatrice & Sidney Webb, Soviet Communism: a new Civilisation? (London, Longmans, Green, 1935; Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain). Several memoirs of young Stalinist citizens demonstrate that indeed they saw their personal life intertwined with the rules, norms and practices of Stalinism. Traumatic experiences such as the arrest of parents could quickly destroy more than just one's immediate family. Despite still being free and in school Maya Ulyanovskaya remembers that she was alone in a world which had become alien to her. She is overjoyed when she meets Evgenii Gurevich, who is not only equally alienated from the Stalinist habitat because of his experiences of Jewish discrimination but also offers her the opportunity to participate in a new collective. Isaak Dinaburg describes a similar feeling of relief when meeting Genii Bondarev. He agreed to form an organisation with Bondarev, even though their world vision was quite different, with Bondarev tending to neo-leninist ideas and Dinaburg trying to formulate his anti-Sovietnes s in a coherent framework (interview with Isaak Dinaburg, St Petersburg, 8 March 2001).
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• Stiles , Richard . 2000 . “ 'Soviet Russian Wartime Culture: Freedom and Control, Spontaneity and Consciousness ' ” . In The People's War: Responses to World War Hin the Soviet Union , Edited by: Thurston , Robert and Bonwetsch , Bernd . 171 – 184 . Chicago : University of Illinois Press . For a discussion of the impact of war-time culture see
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• Weiner , Amir . 2001 . Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Revolution , 43 – 46 . Princeton : Princeton University Press . Weiner, in his study of World War II, pointed out that there was indeed a counter-tendency which dispensed with the old-style Civil War commander's old bolshevism and championed the leadership of the new professional. The two observation s do not in essence contradict each other, since the characters ' approach to fulfilling their duty might have changed but the call to resort to sometimes unorthodox methods remained. If anything the new-style professional is pictured as even more of a fanatic than his predecessor However, it does seem that youth literature went slightly astray with its top novel Molodaya gvardiya; a lot of the original glorification of independent youth activity was toned down when Fadeev re-wrote the novel
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• Thurston , Robert . 1991 . "The Soviet Family during the Great Terror, 1935-1941' . Soviet Studies , 43 ( 3 ) : 553 – 574 . Indeed generational conflict was promoted even into the late 1920s. The most famous example of endorsed generational conflict was of course the tale of Pavel Morozov, who betrayed his father as a kulak. The 1930s saw a radical change in family policies and in general a return to more traditional values. On that theme see especially
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• The information on Anatolii Ivanov I owe to Kolya Mitrokhin, RGGU, who kindly put his interview transcript s at my disposal. On pacifism: interview with Isaak Dinaburg, St Petersburg, 8 March 2001; Pozdnyaev, 'Gde moi semnadtsat' let?', pp. 12-13.
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• Fitzpatrick , Sheila . 1979 . Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934 , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .
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• Zhigulin, p. 244; Zhigulin was convinced of this by his friend Vladimir Filin, who had been a member of the Astrakhan organisation Free Thought and subsequently died as a result of self-induced tonsilitis. Generally, contact with other young dissenters and long-term political prisoners proved to be a political school for the young anti-Stalinist s that shook their belief not only in the Soviet system as such but also exposed them to long forgotten Menshevik, Trotskyite and non-communist ideas. In the subsequent years of de-Stalinisation the influences from Eastern Europe, in particular Imre Nagy's Hungary, dominated the programmes of post-Stalin underground youth groups such as Lev Krasnopevtsev's in Moscow and Viktor Trofimov's at the Leningrad Pedinstitut ('Materialy k istorii samodeyatel 'nykh politicheskikhob "edinenii v SSSRp osle 1945 goda", inPamyat',5 (Moscow, 1981; Paris, Edition La Press Libre, 1982)).
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• Weapon s were widely available in post-war Russia, especial! y in the former! y occupied territory. However, there was no instance of organised armed resistance, despite the fact that a number of members of oppositional organisations confessed to carrying weapons and deliberating the use of them. While some reserve d the use of force for a later, more appropriate date, others decided against it given its futility. Only one organisation renounced violence as a medium of opposition. Three are known to have declared their intention to use violence. The Kiev organisation Democratic Youth of Russia and Ukraine, reflecting the spread of anti-Semitism, included in their programme 'the burning of the houses of Jews and their subsequent murder'. Evgenii Gurevich's self-declared terrorist Union for the Liberation of the Working Classes was prevented by arrest from putting its plans into practice. Likewise Ella Markman's Death to Beriya remained wishful thinking in regard to Beriya or any of the other Georgian NKVD officials whom they intended to kill (interview with Kommunella Markman, Moscow, 25 January 2001 ; Lyudmila El'yashova, 'Vechnozelenaya Elka', Dvortsovaya 26: Almanakh literatumog o ob" edineniya Yuriya Slepukhina, Vyp. 2 (St Petersburg 1999), pp. 144-151).
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• Ernst Neizvestnyi, Govorit Neizvestnyi (Franksfurt am Main, Possev, 1984), pp. 32-36; similar cultural protests seem to have erupted at the end of the war in several artistic institutes. A journal of the Faculty of Directing at the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow deplored the dominance of 'isms' in art and implied that contemporary art such as Simonov's poem 'Wait for me' or recent films such 'She defends the fatherland' did not live up to art classics such as Goethe's Faust, Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' or Eisenstein's 'Battleship Potemkin'. Interestingly the authors did not see the necessity to remain anonymous (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 212,11. 187-200).
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• Interview with Viktor Kosmodamyansky, a former stilyaga, Moscow, 9 October 2000; Mark Edele, 'Strange Young Men in Stalin's Moscow: The Birth and Life of the Stiliagi 1945-1953', seminar paper. University of Chicago, March 2000.
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• Fitzpatrick , Sheila . 1993 . 'How the Mice Buried the Cat: Scenes from the Great Purges of 1937 in the Russian Provinces ' . Russian Review , 52 Kotkin does not assume that everybody in Magnitagors k simply used 'speaking Bolshevik', but implies that this was true for quite a number of people. His point is that it 'was not necessary to believe. It was necessary, however, to participate as if one believed' (Kotkin, p. 220). See also
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• Petrone , Karen . 2000 . Life has become more joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin , Indianopolis : Indiana University Press .
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• Rolf , Matte . 2000 . 'Constructing a Soviet Time: Bolshevik Festival s and Their Rivals during the First Five Year Plan. A Study of the Central Black Earth Region' . Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History , 1 ( 3 ) : 447 – 473 .
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