Editor's introduction: Petitions and denunciations in Russian and Soviet history

Russian History

Volumn 24, Issue 1-2, 1997, Pages 1-9

  Fitzpatrick, Sheila ^a,b  

^a University of Chicago ^*

^b UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039598601     PISSN: 0094288X     EISSN: 18763316     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/187633197X00014     Document Type: Editorial

References (72)

1. Thanks to Jonathan Bone for research assistance in the preparation of assistance. Matthew Lenoe also contributed a great deal as grant-coordinator and assistant conference organizer conference, see note 32 this issue this issue, Jenifer Stenfors for Russian typing, and Susan Jones for technical assistance. Matthew Lenoe also contributed a great deal as grant-coordinator and assistant conference organizer. For more acknowledgements in connection with the "Letters" conference, see note 32
2. On Muscovite petitions, see Horace W. Dewey and Ann Marie Kleimola "The Petition (Chelobitnaja) as an Old Russian Literary Genie," The Slavic and East European Journal 14 (1970): 284-301 and
3. S. S. Volkov, Leksika russkikh chelobitnykh XVII veka. Formuliar etiketnye i stilevye sredstva traditsionnye etiketnye i stilevye sredstva (Leningrad: Izd. Leningradskogo Universiteta, 1974)
4. On petitions in the imperial era, see Gregory L. Freeze, From Russia Supplication to Revolution: A Documentary Social History of Imperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988)
5. Margareta Mommsen, Hilf mir, mein Recht zu finden. Russische Schrecklichen bis Gorbatschow Bittschriften von Iwan dem Schrecklichen bis Gorbatschow (Frankfurt: Propyläen Verlag, 1987)
6. and Andrew Verner, "Discursive Strategies in the 1905 Revolution Vladimir Province Peasant Petitions from Vladimir Province," Russian Review 54 (1995): 65-90
7. See A. M. Kleimola, "The Duty to Denounce in Muscovite Russia," Slavic Review 31 (1972): 759-79
8. Evgenii Anisimov, "Donos," Rodina, no. 7 (1990): 26-29
9. and Jeffrey Burds, "A Culture of Denunciation: Peasant Labor Anathematization in Rural Russia, 1860-1905 Migration and Religious Anathematization in Rural Russia, 1860-1905," Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 786-818
10. Two distinguished exceptions are Merle Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule (London: Macmillan, 1958), ch. 20: The Right to Petition, and Mommsen, Hilf mir. In her discussion of Soviet petitions, Mommsen, like Fainsod, draws her material from the Smolensk Archive. Rule (London: Macmillan, 1958), ch. 20: "The Right to Petition," and Mommsen, Hilf mir. In her discussion of Soviet petitions, Mommsen, like Fainsod, draws her material from the Smolensk Archive
11. See A. Inkeles and K. Geiger, "Critical Letters to the Editors of Complaint the Soviet Press: Areas and Modes of Complaint," American Sociological Review 17 (1952): 694-703
12. and idem, "Critical Letters to the Editors of the Soviet Press Characteristics and Interrelations of Critics and the Criticized Social Characteristics and Interrelations of Critics and the Criticized," ibid. 18 (1953): 12-22
13. C. Revuz, Ivan Ivanovitch Écrit à la Pravda (Paris Editions Sociales, 1980)
14. Stephen White, "Political Communications in the USSR: Letters to the Press Party, State and Press," Political Studies 31 (1983): 43-60
15. Nicholas Lampert, Whistle-blowing in the Soviet Union: A Study of under State Socialism Complaints and Abuses under State Socialism (New York: Schocken Books, 1985)
16. Small Fires: Letters from the Soviet People to 'Ogonyok' Magazine 1987-1990 1987-1990, selected and ed. by Christopher Cerf and Marina Albee with Lev Gushchin (New York: Summit Books, 1990)
17. and Dear Comrade Editor. Readers' Letters to the Soviet Press under Perestroika, trans. and ed. by Jim Riordan and Sue Bridger (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1992). Perestroika, trans. and ed. by Jim Riordan and Sue Bridger (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1992)
18. Two recent dissertations making extensive use of citizens' letters are Sarah Daviesropaganda and Popular Opinion in Soviet Russia, 1934-1941 (D. Phil. diss., Oxford Univ., 1994), Sarah Davies, "Propaganda and Popular Opinion in Soviet Russia, 1934-1941" (D. Phil. diss., Oxford Univ., 1994)
19. and Golfo Alexopoulos, "Rights and Passage: The Disenfranchised in Soviet Russia, 1926-1936" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1996)
20. On intercepted private letters, see Vladlen S. Izmozik, "Voices from the Twenties: Private Correspondence Intercepted by the OGPU," Russian Review 55 (1996): 287-308
21. On denunciations, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Signals from Below Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s," Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 831-66
22. and Vladimir A. Kozlov, "Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance: A Study of Denunciations and their Bureaucratic Handling from Soviet Police Archives, 1944-1953, ibid: 867-98, as well as a publication by N. Teptsov, Tainyi agent Iosifa Stalina. Dokumental'naia istoriia o donosakh i donoschike, in Neizvestnaia Rossiia. XX vek 1 (1992): 56-128. Governance: A Study of Denunciations and their Bureaucratic Handling from Soviet Police Archives, 1944-1953," ibid: 867-98, as well as a publication by N. Teptsov, "Tainyi agent Iosifa Stalina. Dokumental'naia istoriia o donosakh i donoschike," in Neizvestnaia Rossiia. XX vek 1 (1992): 56-128
23. For a typology of Soviet letters to authority in the Stalin period, see 1930s Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s," Slavic Review 55 (1996): 78-105
24. This is a very interesting line of exploration that awaits investigation and archival research. One collection of letters to a public figure (Otto Schmidt, the Polar explorer) is used in John McCannon's Ph.D. dissertation, Red Arctic: The Political and Cultural Significance of the Arctic in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939 (Univ. of Chicago, 1994, Suggestive of the magnitude of the phenomenon is the statement from Academician Ivan Pavlovublished in Izvestiia, 25 Jan. 1936, 6. In it Pavlov complained he was being deluged with letters asking for medical help and advice: from every side of our broad fatherland letters are flooding in in batches (from five to ten every day) with passionate prayers for help, beginning with trifles like having one's face flush when one is embarrassed or having thin hair and so on and ending with the most severe untreatable illnesses. If I answered all these lettersavlov wrote, I would have no time left to th and archival research. One collection of letters to a public figure (Otto Schmidt, the Polar explorer) is used in John McCannon's Ph.D. dissertation, "Red Arctic: The Political and Cultural Significance of the Arctic in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939" (Univ. of Chicago, 1994). Suggestive of the magnitude of the phenomenon is the statement from Academician Ivan Pavlovublished in Izvestiia, 25 Jan. 1936, 6. In it Pavlov complained he was being deluged with letters asking for medical help and advice: "from every side of our broad fatherland letters are flooding in in batches (from five to ten every day) with passionate prayers for help, beginning with trifles like having one's face flush when one is embarrassed or having thin hair and so on and ending with the most severe untreatable illnesses." "If I answered all these letters," Pavlov wrote, "I would have no time left to think about my own business." Therefore he begged his correspondents to desist
25. In RTsKHIDNI, the archive of the Sekretnyi otdel TsK contains some files of letters to Stalin from the period 1925-27: for example, RTsKhIDNI, f. 17, op. 84, d. 1030; and 1031, op. 95, d. 492. of letters to Stalin from the period 1925-27: see, for example, RTsKhIDNI, f. 17, op. 84, d. 1030; and 1031, op. 95, d. 492
26. Kalinin's personal archive is in RTsKhIDNI, f. 78. The title of the Hoover Institute/Chadwyck Healy microform publication is Leaders of the Russian Revolution. Series: Archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1994-). Hoover Institute/Chadwyck Healy microform publication is "Leaders of the Russian Revolution. Series: Archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party" (1994-)
27. GARF, f. 5446, op. 81a (Vyshinskii), op. 82 (Molotov), op. 3 (Kaganovich). These letters were sent to the addressee in his capacity as chairman/deputy chairman of Sovnarkom. (Kaganovich). These letters were sent to the addressee in his capacity as chairman/deputy chairman of Sovnarkom
28. See Joshua Sanborn's article in this issue
29. Sarah Davies' article in this issue makes extensive use of the letters libraries, contains many letters to Rumiantsev, the pre-Purges First Secretary of the Western obkom files in the former Leningrad Party archive files in the former Leningrad Party archive, TsGA IPD. Even the Smolensk Archive, available on microfilm in most US research libraries, contains many letters to Rumiantsev, the pre-Purges First Secretary of the Western obkom
30. On the OGPU/NKVD's surveys of public opinion (forwarded to Party leaders under the title Spetssoobshcheniia or Svodki o nastroenii ..., Matthew Lenoe's article in this issue; Vladlen S. Izmozik, Glaza i ushi rezhim. Gosudarstvennyi politicheskii kontrol' za naseleniem Sovetskoi Rossii v 1918-1928 gg. (St. Petersburg: Izd-vo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta ekonomiki i finansov, 1995); under the title "Spetssoobshcheniia" or "Svodki o nastroenii ...," see Matthew Lenoe's article in this issue; Vladlen S. Izmozik, Glaza i ushi rezhim. Gosudarstvennyi politicheskii kontrol' za naseleniem Sovetskoi Rossii v 1918-1928 gg. (St. Petersburg: Izd-vo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta ekonomiki i finansov, 1995)
31. and Markus Wehner, "Die Informationsberichte des sowjetischen russischen Bauern in den Jahren der Neuen Ökonomischen Politik Geheimdienstes zur Lage der russischen Bauern in den Jahren der Neuen Ökonomischen Politik (1921-1927)," Jahrbuch für historische Kommunismusforschung 2 (1994): 64-87
32. Important recent studies of letters in a European context include Roger Chartier, ed., La Correspondance: Les Usages de la Lettre au XIX siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1991) Chartier, ed., La Correspondance: Les Usages de la Lettre au XIX siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1991)
33. and David Fitzpatrick, Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1995)
34. Studies of specific genres of letters to authority include Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault, Le désordre des familles. Lettres de cachet des archives de la Bastille (Paris: Gallimard, Julliard, 1982); and Michel Foucault, Le désordre des familles. Lettres de cachet des archives de la Bastille (Paris: Gallimard, Julliard, 1982)
35. Arlette Farge, Subversive Words: Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century France, trans. Rosemary Morris (University Parka.: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1994)
36. Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Sixteenth-Century France Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1987)
37. On totalitarian denunciations, see Robert Gellately, "The Gestapo Case Files and German Society: Political Denunciations in the Gestapo Case Files," Journal of Modern History 60 (1988): 654-94
38. idem, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990)
39. and articles by John Connelly ("The uses of Volksgemeinschaft the NSDAP Kreisleitung Eisenach, 1939-40) and Robert Gellately (Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany: Aspects of Self-Policing in the Third Reich and German Democratic Republic) in a special issue on Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789-1989, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Gellately, Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 899-930 and 931-69. Letters to the NSDAP Kreisleitung Eisenach, 1939-40") and Robert Gellately ("Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany: Aspects of Self-Policing in the Third Reich and German Democratic Republic") in a special issue on "Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789-1989," ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Gellately, Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 899-930 and 931-69
40. On denunciation in general, see Nichole Czechowski and Jacques Hassoun Paris: Autrement eds., La Délation: un Archaisme, une Technique (Paris: Autrement, 1992)
41. and Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Gellately, "Introduction to Practices in Denunciation in Modern European History," Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 747-67
42. For studies of specific types of denunciatory letters, see André Moreau Halimi, La Délation sous l'Occupation (Paris: Editions A. Moreau, 1983)
43. and Luc Boltanski, "La Dénonciation," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 51 (1984): 3-40
44. (also, in revised form, in his L'Amour et la Justice comme Compétences [Paris: Editions Metailie, 1990]), analyzing letters denouncing injustices sent to Le Monde in the 1980s. Compétences [Paris: Editions Metailie, 1990]), analyzing letters denouncing injustices sent to Le Monde in the 1980s
45. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, 1st ed. (New York Scribner's, 1974)
46. Ken Jowitt, New Word Disorder. The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: Univ of California Press, 1992)
47. Graeme Gill, The Origins of the Stalinist Political System (Cambridge approximates this framework Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990). Fainsod's chapter on petitions also approximates this framework
48. Freeze, From Supplication to Revolution
49. At the same time, the paternal role was sometimes a burden. See the about overload from Khataevich (obkom secretary in Dnepropetrovsk) at the February-March (1937) Central Committee plenum: I'd like to say a few words about the conditions of work of the leading Party aktiv. These conditions are very taxing. I'll say something about myself. Every day I receive 250 personal letters from workers and kolkhozniks, in addition to business correspondence. I am able to read and do read 30 of these letters, answering the majority of them personally Voprosy istorii, no. 11-12 [1995, 6, Thanks to Terry Martin for drawing my attention to this complaint about overload from Khataevich (obkom secretary in Dnepropetrovsk) at the February-March (1937) Central Committee plenum: "I'd like to say a few words about the conditions of work of the leading Party aktiv. These conditions are very taxing. I'll say something about myself. Every day I receive 250 personal letters from workers and kolkhozniks, in addition to business correspondence. I am able to read and do read 30 of these letters, answering the majority of them personally" (Voprosy istorii, no. 11-12 [1995]: 6). Thanks to Terry Martin for drawing my attention to this
50. "Ein guter Mensch sein! Ja, wer wär's nicht gern?" sung by Die Unsicherheit menschlicher Verhältnisse Peachum in "Die Unsicherheit menschlicher Verhältnisse."
51. N. S. Timasheff, The Great Retreat: The Growth and Decline of Communism in Russia (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1946)
52. The best treatment of this is Yuri Slezkine's Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994). the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994)
53. Jerry F. Hough, The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977)
54. Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979
55. Theodore H. Friedgutolitical Participation in the USSR (Princeton, NJ Princeton Univ. Press, 1979)
56. Donald Schulz and Jan S. Adams, eds.olitical Participation in Communist Systems (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981). the works on letters to newspapers cited in n. 4. Communist Systems (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981). See also the works on letters to newspapers cited in n. 4
57. E.g., Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992)
58. Two recent dissertations on this topic are Steven R. Coe, "Peasants Slate, and the Languages of NEP: The Rural Correspondents Movement in the Soviet Union, 1924-1928 (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1993), the Slate, and the Languages of NEP: The Rural Correspondents Movement in the Soviet Union, 1924-1928" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1993)
59. and Jennifer Clibbon, "The Soviet Press and Grassroots Organization Movement, NEP to the First Five-Year Plan The Worker Correspondent Movement, NEP to the First Five-Year Plan" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Toronto, 1993)
60. V. Markovich, "Vnimanie zhalobam trudiashchikhsia," Izvestiia May 29, 1934, 2
61. See Lucien Jaume, Le discours jacobin et la démocratie (Paris Fayard, 1989)
62. and Colin Lucas, "The Theory and Practice of Denunciation in the French Revolution," Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 768-85
63. For arguments along these lines, see see Jan T. Gross, "A Note on 367-76, and Fitzpatrick the Nature of Soviet Totalitarianism," Soviet Studies 34 (1982): 367-76, and Fitzpatrick, "Signals."
64. See articles by Lenoe and Davies in this issue
65. See Golfo Alexopoulos's article in this issue; Catriona Kelly, "The First-Person 'Other': Sof'ia Soboleva's 1863 Story 'Pros and Cons' (I pro, i contra), Slavonic and East European Review 73 (1995): 61-81; First-Person 'Other': Sof'ia Soboleva's 1863 Story 'Pros and Cons' (I pro, i contra)," Slavonic and East European Review 73 (1995): 61-81
66. Andrew Wachtel, Battle for Childhood: Creation of a Russian Myth (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press)
67. Jochen Hellbeck, ed., Tagebuch aus Moskau, 1931-1939 (Munich: DTV, 1995)
68. Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Lives under Fire. Autobiographical Narratives Stalin's Russia Mélanges Marc Ferro and their Challenges in Stalin's Russia," in De Russie et d'Ailleurs. Feux croisés sur l'Histoire. Mélanges Marc Ferro (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Slaves, 1995)
69. Véronique Garros, Natalia Korenevskaya and Thomas Lahusen Intimacy and Terror: Soviet Diaries of the 1930s (New York: New Press, 1995)
70. See Fitzpatrick, "Supplicants and Citizens," 82-83
71. See her article in this issue
72. Articles in this issue originally presented at the conference are by Pyle, Siegelbaum, Lenoe, Chulos, Alexopoulos, Davies and Fitzpatrick. Other conference contributors and commentators were Vadim Volkov, Aleksandr Livshin, and Oleg Kharkhordin; I would like to thank them and other conference participants for their contributions in the discussions, which have helped me a great deal in writing this introduction. Thanks also to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the University of Chicago's Council for Advanced Studies in Peace & International Cooperation (CASPIC), David Laitin, and Matthew Lenoe for in different ways making the conference possible, and to Matthew Light for his lucid summary of conference proceedings. Pyle, Siegelbaum, Lenoe, Chulos, Alexopoulos, Davies and Fitzpatrick. Other conference contributors and commentators were Vadim Volkov, Aleksandr Livshin, and Oleg Kharkhordin; I would like to thank them and other conference participants for their contributions in the discussions, which have helped me a great deal in writing this introduction. Thanks also to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the University of Chicago's Council for Advanced Studies in Peace & International Cooperation (CASPIC), David Laitin, and Matthew Lenoe for in different ways making the conference possible, and to Matthew Light for his lucid summary of conference proceedings