Stalin, the Leningrad affair, and the limits of postwar russocentrism

Russian Review

Volumn 63, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 241-255

  Brandenberger, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34248053870     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9434.2004.00315.x     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Volkov's detractor noted that he had stopped talking about the RKP(b) project in late 1949, apparently in response to rumors that Kuznetsov had been arrested and shot. For another example of a denunciation mentioning such rumors see N. K. Smirnov's complaint about Leningrad VKP(b) city party secretary A. D. Verbitskii, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (RGANI), f. 6, op. 2, d. 139, l. 61.
2. Scholars may never resolve all of the mysteries surrounding the Leningrad Affair. Critical documents were destroyed by G. M. Malenkov between 1953 and 1957, while others held in the presidential archive, the former archives of the Central Committee, the NKVD, and the Leningrad party organization remain classified or inaccessible. In the late 1980s, T B. Toman, a researcher at the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, spoke of the relevant files as having been thoroughly purged. See "O tak nazyvaemom 'Leningradskomdele,'" Izveifna TsKKPSS, 1989, no. 2:133-34;
3. and Viktor Demidov, "Leningradskoe delo: Popytka rekonstruktsii," Zvezda, 1989, no. 1:145.
4. V. I. Demidov and V. A. Kutuzov, eds., Leningradskoe delo (Leningrad, 1990), 177-262.
5. (cited in R. G Pikhoia, Sovetskii Soiuz:Istoriia vlasti, 1945-1991 [Moscow, 1998], 66. Pikhoia enjoyed access to still-classified files like this indictment while director of Rosarkhiv in the 1990s).
6. A. Sobchak, Iz Leningrada v Peterburg: Puteshestvie vo vremeni i prostranstve (St. Petersburg, 1999), 91. Sobchak admits that the RKP(b) issue was "no more than rumor and supposition, but the persistence with which it was repeated forces us to wonder about whether it might have been the case." Although Sobchak apparently tried to investigate the Leningrad Affair while mayor, he claims to have lacked sufficient access to the city's archives to document his suspicions.
7. See S. Kuniaev, "Post Scriptum I," Nash sovremennik, 1995, no. 10:184-98;
8. O. Platonov, Tainaia istoriia Rossii: XX vek (Moscow, 1996), 304-11;
9. and I. Shafarevich, "Russkie ν epokhu kommunizma," Moskva, 1999, no. 11:158.
10. and A. Pyzhikov, "Leningradskaia gruppa: put' vo vlasti (1946-1949)," Svobodnaia mysl', 2001, no. 2:89-104.
11. Aside from the archival revelations, new sources include the publication of memoirs like D. T Shepilov, "Vospominaniia," Voprosy istorii, 1998, no. 6:3-45;
12. and A. I. Mikoian, Takbylo:Razmyshleniia o minuvshem (Moscow, 1999), 559-68.
13. For a detailed accounting of the affair's victims see "O tak nazyvaemom 'Leningradskom dele,'" 126-37
14. (republished in Reabilitatsiia: Politicheskieprotsessy 30-50-kh godov, ed. A. N. Iakovlev [Moscow, 1991], 311-22).
15. Other accounts of the affair include William McCagg, Stalin Embattled, 1943-1948 (Detroit, 1978), 118-48;
16. Werner G. Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 1947-1953 (Ithaca, 1982), 122-29;
17. Michael Parrish, The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953 (Westport, 1996), 215-22;
18. and V. A. Kutuzov, "Tak nazyvaemoe 'Leningradskoe delo,'" Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1989, no. 3:53-67.
19. Only G. V. Kostyrchenko has drawn attention to the nationalist dimensions of the affair in his "Malenkov protiv Zhdanova: Igry stalinskikh favoritov," Rodina, 2000, no. 9:85-92;
20. Tainaia politika Stalina: Vlast' i anti-semitizm (Moscow, 2001), 288-309;
21. and V plenu u krasnogofaraona: Politicheskie presledovaniia evreev v SSSR v poslednee stalinskoe desiatiletie-dokumental 'noe issledovanie (Moscow, 1994), 24, 190-91.
22. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 565.
23. Leningrad party secretary F. Z. Kozlov claimed in 1957 that "tens of thousands of innocent people were deported from Leningrad into exile, many of whom were imprisoned or executed, and many others of whom perished." See Plenum TsK KPSS (iiun' 1957 goda): Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1958), 91.
24. For a considerably more modest accounting of victims in the Leningrad region see O. Khlevniuk et al., eds., Politbiuro TsK VKP(b) i Sovet ministrov SSSR, 1945-1953 (Moscow, 2002), 306-7.
25. Khrushchev paraphrased the charges against the Leningrad party organization as "nationalism" in his memoirs. See N. S. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia: Vremia, liudi, vlast', vol. 2 (Moscow, 1999), 21, 23-29
26. (initially published as "Memuary Nikity Khrushcheva," Voprosy istorii, 1991, no. 11:44-48).
27. For Russian nationalist interpretations see Peter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (Cambridge, England, 1999), 182;
28. Robert Service, A History of Twentieth-Century Russia (Cambridge, MA, 1998), 314;
29. Geoffrey Hosking, The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within, 2d rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 312;
30. and David L. Hoffmann, Stalinist Values: The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917-1941 (Ithaca, 2003), 165-66.
31. Pikhoia, Sovetskii Soiuz, 41-56.
32. Although charges of "great power chauvinism" were aggressively prosecuted in the 1920s, the last prominent group of "Russian nationalists" to be tried had been sentenced in 1934. See F. D. Ashnin and V. M. Alpatov, Delo slavistov: 30-e gody (Moscow, 1994).
33. Differentiating russocentrism from Russian nationalism is critical to understanding the essence of this argument. Whereas the former is an expression of ethnic pride and is derived from a strong, articulate identification with Russian history and culture, the latter-according to the theorist Ernest Gellner-is a much more politicized concept referring to group aspirations for sovereignty or self-rule along national lines. Such a differentiation is critical, as the party hierarchy never endorsed the idea of Russian separatism and vigorously suppressed all those who did, consciously drawing a line between the positive phenomenon of national identity formation and the malignancy of full-blown nationalist ambitions. See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, 1983).
34. Generally, see David Brandenberger, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931-1956 (Cambridge, MA, 2002).
35. 26Party ranks were apparently divided in the 1940s between those who used russocentric rhetoric to express a sense of Russian patriotism and those who invoked this rhetoric in support of the regime. Arespondent interviewed by the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System drew a distinction between these conflicting loyalties, noting that "a party man can be a Russian nationalist, but no Communist or Stalinist can be a nationalist as these two groups do not have Russia's interests at heart." See the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System (Harvard University), no. 25, schedule A, vol. 3, 31-32.
36. I. V. Stalin, "Vystuplenie I. V. Stalina na prieme ν Kremle ν chest' komanduiushchikh voiskami Krasnoi armii, 24 maia 1945 goda," in O Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine Sovetskogo Soiuza (Moscow, 1947), 197.
37. (published in Moskvaposlevoennaia, 1945-1947: Arkhivnye dokumentyi materialy [Moscow, 2000], 52-53).
38. Amir Weiner, "The Making of a Dominant Myth: The Second World War and the Construction of Political Identities within the Soviet Polity," Russian Review 55 (October 1996): 638-60.
39. Timothy Dunmore, Soviet Politics, 1945-53 (New York, 1984), 130;
40. John B. Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton, 1984), 23-28;
41. Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 9-13, 19-20, passim;
42. and McCagg, Stalin Embattled, 1943-1948, esp. 98-117, 249-54.
43. On Pushkin in 1947 see Marcus C. Levitt, Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 (Ithaca, 1989), 167-68.
44. For an overview of the era see Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, chaps. 11-14.
45. For a republican case study see Serhy Yekelchyk, "Celebrating the Soviet Present: The Zhdanovshchina Campaign in Ukrainian Literature and the Arts," in Provincial Landscapes: Local Dimensions of Soviet Power, 1917-1953, ed. Donald J. Raleigh (Pittsburgh, 2001), 255-75.
46. Generally, see Lowell Tillett, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians and the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill, 1969), chaps. 5-9;
47. and Evgenii Dobrenko, "Sumerki kul'tury: O natsional'nom samosoznanii kul'tury pozdnego stalinizma," Druzhba narodov, 1991, no. 2:249-71, esp. 263-67.
48. Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, 1994), 304.
49. (cited in Pyzhikov, "Leningradskaia gruppa," 92).
50. See the statement of S. D. Voinov, Kuznetsov's former adjutant on the Leningrad military council, quoted in Aleksandr Afanas'ev, "Pobeditel', " Komsomol'skaia pravda, 16 January 1988
51. (reprinted in Vozvrashchennye imena, vol. 1 [Moscow, 1989], 330).
52. Molotov also vaguely recalled Zhdanov's involvement with the RSFSR bureau, although he misremembered the details. See the second edition of Chuev's famous conversations with Molotov, F. Chuev, Molotov: Poluderzhavnyi vlastelin (Moscow, 2000), 268.
53. A bureau for RSFSR affairs actually existed between 1926 and 1927, and 1936 and 1937. Both incarnations lacked the administrative mandate and authority that was envisioned under Zhdanov's postwar proposal and neither were particularly influential. See Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca, 2001), 394-401, 414.
54. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, 26-27.
55. Other hierarchs like Molotov also disliked the idea of a Russian party. See Chuev, Molotov, 268;
56. (cited in Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, 399).
57. Kutuzov, "Tak nazyvaemoe 'Leningradskoe delo,'" 56;
58. Leningradskoe delo, 61.
59. Unverifiable rumors allege that the whole discussion was provoked by Stalin's mention of possible successors. His retirement from active political life would apparently have made it possible to "relieve the VKP(b) Central Committee of the burden of direct administration of the Russian Federation and create an RKP(b) with its own Central Committee based in Leningrad. A reorganization of the Central Committee was to take place at the same time, with the creation of an honorary chair for the VKP(b) Central Committee. Stalin would assume this post, passing on the role of general secretary to Zhdanov. Voznesenskii would chair the USSR Council of Ministers; Kuznetsov would become first secretary of the RKP(b); and Rodionov would move from his position in the RSFSR Council of Ministers to take Kuznetsov's place in the VKP(b) Central Committee. Popkov, the secretary of the Leningrad party organization, would take over the newly fused Ministries of State Security and Internal Affairs." See A. Avtorkhanov, Zagadka smerti Stalina (Zagovor Beriia) (Frankfurt am Main, 1976), 76.
60. "Sobchak, Iz Leningrada v Peterburg, 91-92.
61. The authors of a recent official study of Soviet nationality policy note on the basis of classified material from the FSB archive that "judging from their case files, the accused A. A. Kuznetsov, P. S. Popkov, N. A. Voznesenskii, and other Leningrad leaders engaged in 'hostile and antiparty' discussions about economic, political, and spiritual (dukhovnoi) discrimination against the RSFSR and the Russian people." See V. A. Mikhailov et al., eds., Natsional'naia politika Rossii: Istoriia i sovremennost' (Moscow, 1997), 361 n. 137. Mikhailov was minister of nationalities of the Russian Federation in the late 1990s.
62. Demidov, "Leningradskoe delo: Popytka rekonstruktsii," 147.
63. (cited in Kostyrchenko, V plenu u krasnogofaraona, 72).
64. See also A. Kuznetsov, "Vazhneishie zadachi leningradskoi partiinoi organizatsii," Leningradskaia pravda, 3 July 1945.
65. See also M. Rodionov, "Razvitie khoziaistva i kul'tury RSFSR ν novoi piatiletke," Bol'shevik, 1947, no. 1:38-55;
66. and M. Rodionov, "Tridtsat' let Rossiiskoi sovetskoirespubliki, " Bol'shevik, 1947, no. 21:18-32.
67. (cited in Kutuzov, "Tak nazyvaemoe 'Leningradskoe delo, '" 56).
68. Strident russocentrism is visible in articles written by staffers in Popkov's party organization. See, for instance, S. Beliaev, "O rabote tovarishcha Stalina 'Marksizm i natsional'nyi vopros,'" Leningradskaia pravda, 11 September 1946.
69. (discussed in A. V. Pyzhikov, Konfiguratsiia i funktsionirovanie vlasti v SSSR (1945-1953 gg.) [Moscow, 1999], 21).
70. Bulychev, the official in question, remembers that "Stalin remained silent and didn't comment on the proposal, but some whispered that he had disliked it. " See S. Konstantinov, "Nesostoiavshiesia nasledniki Stalina: Sposobny Ii byli Nikolai Voznesenskii i Aleksei Kuznetsov vozglavit' stranu?" Nezavisimaia gazeta, 5 October 2000. A historian by training, Konstantinov worked as a journalist until his death in 2001.
71. Sobchak, Iz Leningrada v Peterburg, 92-93;
72. and "O tak nazyvaemom 'Leningradskom dele,'" 133-34.
73. Stalin's commentary echoed his objections to a Russian Communist party years earlier during the 1920s. See Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, 399.
74. G V. Kostyrchenko arrives at a similar conclusion in "Otets narodov: Leninskaiai stalinskaia natsional'naia politika,"Rodina, 2003, no. 2:12.
75. A. Poskrebyshev, "Velikoe mnogonatsional'noe sovetskoe gosudarstvo," Pravda, 30 December 1952.
76. Platonov, Tainaia istoriia Rossii, 304-11.
77. A. G Malenkov, O moem ottse Georgii Malenkove (Moscow, 1992), 61.
78. S. L. Beriia, Moi otets, Lavrentii Beriia [Moscow, 1994], 325-30).
79. Generally, see Yitzhak Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991 (Cambridge, MA, 1998);
80. and Nikolai Mitrokhin, Russkaia partiia: Dvizhenie russkikh natsionalistov v SSSR, 1953-1985 gody (Moscow, 2003).