Back to school! Here's my first discussion post for my Modern Russia class.
====
Having read the textbook chapters for the week and the readings by Alice Gomstyn and Richard Pipes, as well as having very recently read J. Arch Getty's two books on the Great Purges, I have come to the conclusion that both the totalitarian and revisionist schools of thought on Soviet history have strengths, but they are both more characterized by weaknesses. Like many cases in which schools of thought operate at odds with each other, it is more likely that the truth lies somewhere between their respective versions.
The chief strength of the totalitarian school is its authority. As the older of the two schools, it benefits from the greater longevity of the narrative that it has established. Its primary weakness, in my opinion, is that it owes too much to the "Great Man" theory of history of Thomas Carlyle,[1] with the man in question in this case being Stalin. While it is attractive to see Stalin as exercising complete control over the fate of the Soviet Union during his rule, it is also likely overly simplistic. The chief strength of the revisionist school is its recognition of the contributions of complex forces in the unfolding of historical events. Its primary weakness, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the extent to which it de-emphasizes Stalin's historical role, highlighting instead the contributions of regional party leaders and local elites in processes of repression, for instance.
Those things said, there does remain some relevance for both schools of thought. For instance, the totalitarians have been largely vindicated by the publication of the Venona project decrypts having revealed the extent of Soviet espionage. Additionally, as Gomstyn points out, much of the material from the archives has largely their suspicions that repression in the USSR was widespread and deeply resented by the people. The totalitarian viewpoint thus remains valid for largely moral reasons, although as Gomstyn also notes, this moralizing can be reductive, e.g., the labeling of Getty by Martin Malia as engaging in a form of denial.[2] In contrast, the emphasis by the revisionists of Soviet scientific achievement, avoids throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, although it does run firmly up against the totalitarian view that the ends do not justify the means. Thus, the revisionist viewpoint remains relevant in part for the same reason why we do not avoid building divided highways, although it was the Nazis that introduced them.
Regarding the article by Pipes, it become clear relatively early in reading it that he comes from the totalitarian school. He chalks up the weaknesses of Nicholas II's reign to the tsar's inability to adjust to the economic growth of the country and the social changes they wrought.[3] In emphasizing the tsar's role in his own downfall, Pipes simultaneously de-emphasizes the role of the people, choosing instead to hang blame on a radical intelligentsia and a peasantry unable and unwilling to adapt to industrialization. In this way, Pipes evokes a "great man" theory based on Nicholas II, while dismissing or denying more complex social-historical forces.
The counter-arguments against Pipes are offered at least in part in the textbook. For instance, Dziewanowski is able to substantiate the claim of an angry and alienated peasantry by emphasizing, as Pipes does not, that with emancipation of the serfs came a series of new problems not the least of which was binding them to the village commune and to land captains. While Pipes is satisfied to dismiss the peasants' desire for further reforms are greed for land,[5] Dziewanowski is more willing to entertain a more nuanced interpretation of the peasants' situation that fueled their concerns. While I do not whether Dziewanowski would consider herself a revisionist, it is clear, at least from this week's readings, that she is not a totalitarian.
-----
[1] Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (London: Chapman and Hall, 1840),https://books.google.com/books?id=kCo-AAAAYAAJ
[2] Alice Gomstyn, "Where the Cold War Still Rages," Chronicle of Higher Education 50, no. 22 (2004): para. 7,http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/docview/214684560?accountid=3783
[3] Richard Pipes, "Reflections on the Russian Revolution," Alexander Palace Time Machine, accessed April 10, 2016,http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/pipesrevolution.html, para. 23.
[4] M.K. Dziewanowski, Russia in the Twentieth Century, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2003), 43-44.
[5] Pipes, ibid, para. 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment