Shane Tomashot
Review: Contending with Stalinism-Resistance-Viola, Ed.
Lynne Viola
has edited a group of essays concerning resistance to Stalinism during the
1930’s entitled Contending with Stalinism: Soviet Power & Popular
Resistance in the 1930’s. The stated
goal of the work is “to explore the ways in which resistance can serve as an
analytical tool to inform our understanding of Stalinism” (p. vii). By analyzing resistance, Viola contends, the
tome’s authors seek insight into the previously obscure social and cultural
phenomena of Stalinism. The authors
utilize archives that were finally made available in the late 1990’s. In terms of resistance, most authors focus on
“social and economic disobedience or strategies of self-protection and
survival” (p. 2). “Resistance” as a
practice, Viola points out, is open to interpretation depending on how it is
perceived and interpreted by both society and the state. Because the term “resistance” is so nebulous,
Viola claims that in the end, it is up to the reader to discern and define the
true meaning of resistance under Stalin.
In the
opening essay, Viola points out that resistance under Stalinism was not as
monolithic as has been portrayed in much of the literature. The Stalinist state was not “a homogenous
political environment” (p. 42).
Resistance existed “in a wide continuum of societal responses” to
Stalinism “that included accommodation, adaptation, acquiescence, apathy,
internal emigration, opportunism and support” (p. 43). Peasant resistance was rooted in the long and
rich social history of Russia itself.
Many ideas for which the peasants fought in the 1930’s were the same as
those of 1917. Moreover, the state’s
attempts at repression often preserved “what it sought to destroy” (p. 40). This opening chapter guides the remaining
essays, which focus on specific cases of resistance.
The essays
by Jeffrey Rossman and Tracy McDonald are case studies of two different
uprisings in 1932 and 1930, respectively.
Rossman takes a day by day look at a massive worker’s strike in the
Ivanovo Industrial region (IPO) in April 1932.
This essay addresses a major theme of the book, noting the perception of
the state as opposed to the workers themselves.
The Party leadership, by the 1930’s, was divided over the “widespread
suffering” of the workers due to food shortages. Party officials called for changes in Party
leadership. The strike itself, as
Rossman points out, “illustrates the dynamics of working class resistance under
Stalin” (p. 47). The strikes of 1932
were the catalyst of government economic program alteration (as the strikes
laid bare the problem of food rationing) as well as the Great Terror and purge
of Party officials in 1938.
McDonald describes the ramifications of a
massive peasant uprising in Riazan province in 1930 against
collectivization. In a vein similar to
Shelia Fitzpatrick, McDonald analyzes “foot dragging” techniques carried out by
peasants as a means of resisting collectivization as well as the spread of
rumors that exacerbated rebellion. The
Pitelinskii Uprising itself was not the “kulak uprising” that authorities
claimed, but rather an uprising that consisted of every class of peasant. In the end, over 300 were arrested (p.
91). The unrest contributed greatly to
the mass migrations of peasants from the collective farms as well as the scape-goating
of local officials by the central authority.
McDonald’s analysis of the sel’sovets (the officials who acted as “a
bridge between the peasant and state”) is enlightening as well (p. 107). The central authority feared local officials
such as the sel’sovets who subverted central authority by, in a sense, siding
with the peasants. The sel’sovet-peasant
relationship, however, prevented more rebellions similar to the Pitelinskii
rebellion according to McDonald.
Douglass
Northrop and Dan Healy, in separate essays, analyze two specific sectors of
Soviet society. Northrop evaluates Uzbek
resistance to Soviet/Stalinist laws.
Uzbeks resisted Soviet intrusions upon Uzbek customs and traditions,
especially marriage, through petitions and protests or by simply defying the
law outright. Healey investigates
homosexuality in the Soviet Union as a form of resistance. As with Uzbek society, although there is
limited evidence, homosexuals circumvented soviet attempts at cultural policing
and the enforcement of “byt laws.”
Moreover, as a general theme in this set of essays, “the state transformed
what it saw as objectionable aspects of national culture into resistance”
unintentionally (p. 39). National
cultures were forced underground where they became perhaps even more cohesive
than they were in pre-Soviet society.
The final two essays concern economic
resistance. Elena Osokina directly
investigates economic disobedience under Stalin while James Harris looks at
administrative resistance to central planning in the Urals. Osokina points out that the state acquired a
plethora of resources after its take-over of private industries and
assets. The central authority, though,
focused on the development of heavy industry and military production rather
than food and consumer goods production.
This created not only a need for rationing by the central authority, but
also a large black market. “’Illegal
produce’ became a mainstay of peasant trade” by the late 1930’s (p. 185). Theft also increased, as citizens leaked
goods to the black market to sell for profit in times of economic hardship.
Harris’s
essay investigates the relationship between “wreckers” and regional officials
in the resource rich Ural Mountains. The
central authority required large production quotas of the regional managers in
the Urals. “Moscow refused to accept
anything less than 100-percent plan fulfillment.” Furthermore, Moscow would not accept “any
discussion of the reality of the plan itself” (p. 202). Because regional officials could not fulfill
the audacious demands of the five-year plans, lies and deception became keys to
survival. Regional officials worked to
conceal information about the regional economy from Moscow officials. Moreover, regional officials often “found an
‘enemy of the people’” to blame when regional quotas were not met (p. 204). This led to an abundance of regional show
trials to expose “wreckers” and “saboteurs” who had a “hidden ‘conspiracy’
against the regime” (p. 205). District
committees and factory party committees blamed each other for protecting
counterrevolutionaries. These tensions
did not cease until the mid to late 1950’s during the period of
de-Stalinization.
This set of
essays provides a critical assessment of resistance under Stalinism. They show the intricacy of resistance
movements, both esoteric and blatant.
Resistance under Stalin was complex and broad. Resistance itself became not only an act of
defiance and disobedience, but moreover an act of survival, culturally,
spiritually and physically.
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