The making of a dominant myth: The second World War and the construction of political identities within the Soviet polity

Russian Review

Volumn 55, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 638-660

  Weiner, Amir ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 10944232769     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/131868     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, 1987), x
2. Michael Urban, An Algebra of Soviet Power: Elite Circulation in the Belorussian Republic, 1966-1986 (Cambridge, 1989)
3. See the influential article by Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Stalin and the Making of a New Elite," Slavic Review 38 (September 1979): 377-402
4. idem, "Postwar Soviet Society: The 'Return to Normalcy,' 1945-1953," in The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union, ed. Susan J. Linz (Princeton, 1985), 129-56
5. idem, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York, 1994), 313-20, where the entire postwar era is summarized in five pages and the argument for continuity in the countryside after the early 1930s is based on scanty and rather impressionistic accounts
6. Moshe Lewin, "The Civil War: Dynamics and Legacy," in Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War, ed. Diane Koenker et al. (Indiana, 1989), 399-423
7. and idem, The Gorbachev Phenomenon: A Historical Interpretation (Berkeley, 1988)
8. On the articulation and practices of Bolshevik Marxist eschatology see Igal Halfin, "From Darkness to Light: Student Communist Autobiographies in the 1920s," Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas (forthcoming)
9. Leszek Kolakowski, The Presence of Myth (Chicago, 1989), offers the most insightful theoretical treatment of the structure and role of myth
10. See also the excellent studies by Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy (Princeton, 1995)
11. and Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago, 1995)
12. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), 142-46, 162-64
13. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, 1981), 204-25
14. and Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977), 72-95
15. In their discussion of the viability of dominant myths both Steven Kotkin and Richard Wortman establish convincingly the link between perceptions of viable competing myths in the international arena and the cohesion of the ruling elites at home. Just as the global crisis of the 1930s elevated the appeal, cohesiveness and steady course of the Soviet messianic drive at home, so did the rhetoric and imagery of the French Revolution and the diminishing influence of Russia in Europe trigger the erosion of belief among the Imperial Russian elite. See Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, 1995)
16. See "Rech na predvybornom sobranii izbiratelei Stalinskogo Izbiratel'nogo okruga goroda Moskvy," in I. V. Stalin, Sochineniia, 3 vols. , ed. Robert H. McNeal (Stanford, 1967), 3 (16):4-7
17. (an extension of I. V. Stalin, Sochineniia, 13 vols. [Moscow, 1946-51])
18. Referring to the impact exercised by "the kind of history that common men carry in their heads," Carl Becker noted that it was particularly noticeable "in times of excitement, in critical times, in time of war above all. It is precisely in such times that they form (with the efficient help of official propaganda!) an idealized picture of the past, born of their emotions and desires working on fragmentary scraps of knowledge gathered, or rather flowing upon them, from every conceivable source, reliable or not matters nothing. " See Carl Becker, "What Are Historical Facts?" in Detachment and the Writing of History: Essays and Letters of Carl L. Becker, ed. Phil L. Snyder (Ithaca, 1958), 61-62
19. John A. Armstrong, The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite: A Case Study of the Ukrainian Apparatus (New York, 1959)
20. Boris Lewytzkyi, Die Sowjetukraine, 1944-1963 (Cologne, 1964)
21. T. H. Rigby, "Crypto-Politics," Survey, no. 50, (1964): 192-93
22. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985 (Minneapolis, 1992), 55-56
23. The presence of particularistic spaces in the Soviet system received, so far, little attention in Western historiography. Two rare exceptions are the studies by Barrington Moore, Soviet Politics - The Dilemma of Power (Cambridge, 1950), esp. 339-40, concerning the role of kolkhoz democracy
24. and Yuri Slezkine, "The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism," Slavic Review 53 (Summer 1994): 414-52
25. The permeation of the myth throughout the population at large and the transformation of the countryside in particular is discussed in Amir Weiner, "Myths and Identities: The Second World War and the Construction of Collective Identities in the Vinnytsia Region, 1943-1975" (Ph. D. diss. , Columbia University, New York, 1994), chap. 2
26. Valentin Ovechkin, Z frontovym pryvitom (Kiev, 1946). The novel was originally published in Russian in the May 1945 edition of the journal Oktiabr'. The Russian edition was circulated in 100,000 copies, and the Ukrainian edition in 25,000. It triggered a wide response in the press, though it is not clear whether other leading officials followed Stakhurskii's initiative
27. Ovechkin, Z frontovym pryvitom, 19
28. See the sarcastic comments by Alexander Shtein at a writers' conference in 1947, as cited in Konstantin Simonov, "Zadachi sovetskoi dramaturgii i teatral'naia kritika," Novyi mir, 1949, no. 3:191
29. Vladimir Pomerantsev, "Ob iskrennosti v literature," ibid. , 1953, no. 12:218-45
30. and Fedor Abramov, "Liudi kolkhoznoi derevni v poslevoennoi proze," ibid. , 1954, no. 4:210-31
31. This aspect of Soviet literary discourse is best treated in Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago, 1981)
32. Semen Babaevskii, Kavaler zolotoi zvezdy; in his Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1979), 1:221, 462-63
33. Vasilii Kostenko, then the secretary of Komsomol of the Ukrainian Communist party, described Stakhurskii as a "natural force. " According to Kostenko, Marshal Rokossovskii was so impressed by Stakhurskii's indefatigable working capability at the Stalingrad front that he asked Stalin to promote the latter, who was at the rank of captain at the time, to a lieutenant-general. Stalin consented. Interview with Vasilii Semenovich Kostenko, 23 March 1993, Kiev, Ukraine. For Rokossovskii's praise of Stakhurskii's wartime performance see his memoirs, Konstantin Rokossovskii, A Soldier's Duty (Moscow, 1985), 214
34. See Petliak, F. A. , "Vosstanovlenie i ideino-organizatsionnoe ukreplenie partiinykh organizatsii Ukrainy posle ee osvobozhdeniia ot nemetsko-fashistskoi okkupatsii, (1943-1945 gg. )," in Voprosy istorii KPSSperioda Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, ed. F. P. Ostapenko (Kiev, 1961), 135
35. Ever since Preobrazhenskii demanded at the Thirteenth Party Congress in May 1924 that a spade be called a spade and that the real targets of the current purge be revealed, the prevalent interpretation of the process entailed, if only partially, a notion of Machiavellian manipulation by the leadership against opposition groups. See Trinadtsatyi s''ezd RKP(b). Mai 1924 goda. Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1963), 192-93
36. and the biographical sketch of Bevz that Burchenko drew in his memoirs, Reid k Iuzhnomu Bugu (Kiev, 1978) 19-20
37. Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, no. 20, 19 May 1965, 4
38. Leonid Leonov, "Nashestvie," Novyi mir, 1942, no. 8
39. Alexei Tolstoy, "Stranaia istoriia," Krasnaia zvezda, 28 August 1942
40. I. V. Stalin, "Otchetnyi doklad na XVIII s''ezde partii o rabote TsK VKP (b), 10 marta 1939 g. ," in Sochineniia 1 (14):395
41. Nevertheless, Front, the well-known play by Oleksander Korniichuk that was published in Pravda between 24-27 August 1942 and, according to Korniichuk, was initiated by Stalin himself, endorsed the "sharp turn taken by the Central Committee" (namely, the Terror) to remove the vain ignoramuses from managerial posts in industry. See Korniichuk, Front (Moscow, 1942), 22
42. Shortly after the publication of the play, Korniichuk told Alexander Werth that the "general idea" of the play had been given to him by Stalin. See Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941-1945 (New York, 1964), 423
43. In his review of the first edition of Medvedev's book, which served also as Medvedev's obituary, Petro Vershyhora, the famous partisan commander and author, underlined that Medvedev was well aware of the probable consequences of his actions. See P. Vershyhora, "Zhizn' v bor'be," Literaturnaia gazeta, 17 December 1957
44. In 1945, Alexander Fadeev, a prominent writer and at that time the secretary of the Executive Board of the Union of Soviet Writers, published a novel about the Komsomol underground in Krasnodon, Donbas. Although the book was well received and won a First-Class Stalin Prize in 1946, a year later it was subjected to harsh criticism, mainly for its alleged downplaying of the party's role in planning and guiding the underground organization in favor of spontaneity and youthful enthusiasm. Fadeev was obliged to introduce corrections in this spirit in the second edition, issued in 1951. The affair drew broad attention, and is well documented. See Harold Swayze, Political Control of Literature in the USSR, 1946-1959 (Cambridge, MA, 1962), 42-45, 148-49
45. and Alexander Werth, Russia: The Post-War Years (New York, 1971), 338-39
46. Dmitrii Medvedev, Na beregakh iuzhnogo Buga (Moscow, 1957), 5. This comment was omitted from the preface to the 1962 edition, published in Kiev, yet fully restored to the 1987 edition
47. Teodor Gladkov, Ostaius' Chekistom! (Moscow, 1987), 124
48. Olga Dzhigurda, "Teplokhod 'Kakhetia': Zapiski voennogo vracha," Znamia, vol. 1 (1948): 3-86
49. Matthew P. Gallagher, The Soviet History of World War II: Myths, Memories, and Realities (New York, 1963), 121. Among the speakers who stood up for Dzhigurda were the editor of Krasnyi flot and the deputy chief of the Political Administration of the Navy
50. Petro Vershyhora, "O 'byvalykh liudiakh' i ikh kritikakh," Zvezda, 1948, no. 6:106. To sharpen this point, Vershyhora implicitly drew the distinction between baptized-by-fire veterans and behind-the-desk servicemen. Criticism of Dzhigurda's portrayal of panic and fear under fire could come only from those who have never experienced it
51. The steady Ukrainianization of the leading cadres in the midst of an official crackdown on the slightest perceived expressions of Ukrainian separatist sentiments attracted the attention of observers of the postwar Ukrainian scene. Interpretations referred to this as a phenomenon of inertia, resulting from the return of a critical mass of ethnic Ukrainians from the front. John Armstrong and Yaroslav Bilinsky agree that the war played a major role in setting this course either by mass influx of demobilized Communists or the entrenchment of partisan leaders whose familiarity with local conditions seemed useful for the postwar tasks. See Armstrong, The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite, 16-17
52. and Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine after World War II (Princeton, 1964), 233. These valid assumptions, however, gloss over the strong prescribed ethnic undertone which shaped the local political arena
53. For the vagueness, though not to be confused with impotence, of the codification of "socialist culture" owing to the imprecision in conceptualizing its "bourgeois" counterpart see Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 180-92
54. Postyshev concluded that Karpov, the person to whom he referred, had always been an enemy. This, however, was omitted by Khrushchev when he cited Postyshev's comment in his de-Stalinization speech at the Twentieth Party Congress, and thus Postyshev entered historiography as a principled opponent of the Terror. See J. Arch Getty, "The Politics of Repression Revisited," in Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, ed. J. Arch Getty and Roberta Manning (Cambridge, 1993), 56 n. 65
55. Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, trans. and ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston, 1971), 629-30
56. See Jochen Hellbeck, "Fashioning the Stalinist Soul: The Diary of Stepan Podlubny (1931-1939)," Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas (forthcoming)
57. and Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia," Journal of Modern History 65 (December 1993): 745-70
58. Werth, Russia at War, 763
59. For the impact of these developments on the structuring of Soviet rituals see Christopher A. P. Binns, "The Changing Face of Power: Revolution and the Accommodation in the Development of the Soviet Ceremonial System," Man, vol. 15, no. 1 (1980): 171-72
60. Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm (London, 1956), 27
61. See, for example, Petro Vershyhora, Liudi s chistoi sovest'iu (Moscow, 1946)
62. and Medvedev, Na beregakh iuzhnogo Buga