What are the (relative) advantages of the revisionist interpretations of Stalinism?
I think one of the most important advantages of the a revisionist interpretation of Stalinism is that it becomes easier through one to understand how and why Stalin undertook the mass repressions that he did. For instance, although the "traditional" historians and revisionists both agree that Stalin ordered mass repression, e.g., in the Great Terror, it is only the revisionist version that engages the social science underlying how a dictator who was geographically quite distant from the scenes of actual violence could order murder and actually have it carried out. Some of the "credit," of course goes to the sequence of secret police chiefs upon whom Stalin relied, but even they ultimately needed to be able to exploit some aspect of the executioners' situation. Whereas the scholarship on Nazi Germany has considered this sort of question for more than twenty years (i.e., Täterforschung), I had not seen such considerations in the literature on Stalin until I read Arch Getty's two books on the Great Terror.[1] Having done so, I can see how the expansive bureaucracy of Stalin's USSR lent itself to the kind of manipulation that, in Germany, culminated in the Holocaust. This to some extent explains the how of Stalin owing to revisionism.
The why is more complex, but again, it is a question I had not seen seriously considered until I read revisionist historians. Here, the emphasis is on going beyond the ascription of mere insanity to Stalin and understanding more completely why he ordered mass violence. Here, although I'm unsure whether she would be correctly identified as a revisionist, given her political conservatism (although I assume she at least relies on revisionists), Anne Applebaum's essay is helpful in undersatnding the actual political motivations: "[Stalin's] violence was not the product of his subconscious but of the Bolshevik engagement with Marxist-Leninist ideology."[2] If we consider Stalin from this vantage, rather than as a crazy person, and if we consider Stalin additionally as building on basic concepts inherited from Lenin, then it becomes much easier to understand his thinking and – perhaps more importantly – the interior logic of that thinking.
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[1] J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1999); and J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 (New York: Cambridge UP, 1985).
[2] Anne Applebaum, "Understanding Stalin," The Atlantic, November 2014, available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/understanding-stalin/380786/
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Stalinist Totalitarianism
3.1. Stalin’s regime is an archetype (or model) of totalitarianism. Do you agree?
I don't think it's much of a question of whether Stalin's regime was totalitarian. Rather, I think the dispute that has arisen is not over whether it was totalitarian but rather over how well and accurately the term had been defined before the advent of revisionism. This is a question to which I've dedicated quite a bit of thought over the years, but I hope to make my point here without being too verbose. I think there are essentially two points that should be made in justifying Stalin's archetypal status as a totalitarian dictator: the extent to which totalitarianism can be defined abstractly; and the extent to which it can be distinguished from garden-variety authoritarianism.
On the first point, as I mentioned in class on Thursday, Jan Gross (in Revolution From Abroad) offers an interesting definition of totalitarianism, using Stalin's regime as a test case. If we consider totalitarianism from the standpoint of the tendency of totalitarian governments to eliminate public, collective forms of action unless it sponsors those forms itself, then, as Gross writes, "it thus appears that the totalitarian state confiscates the private realm."[1] However, he continues, this is untrue; it is in fact the opposite "because of the privatization of the public realm."[2] What Gross means is that the Soviets established totalitarian control – at least in its occupation of the Kresy from September 1939 to June 1941, was to make people feel as if participation in public forms of collection action was a way to express private desires, whether it was personal empowerment or settling scores with one's enemies. Clearly Stalin's methods in evoking denunciations, e.g., falls under this definition.
On the second point, since it's unlikely that one would define Stalin as anyone but one or the other (authoritarian or totalitarian), I found an article by Paul C. Sondrol particularly helpful in distinguishing the two terms.[3] Comparison Fidel Castro (totalitarian) to Alfredo Stroessner (the Paraguayan authoritarian dictators), Sondrol suggests seven criteria by which to judge an historical situation: Stalin meets six of these seven (role conception as a function, public ends of power, minimal corruption, official ideology, lack of pluralism, and high legitimacy). Where Stalin seems to have fallen short of one of Sondrol's criteria is in lacking personal charisma, although as noted by Philip Boobbyer remarks, among others, Stalin is able to form a personality cult by advancing one for Lenin and connecting himself as the nature evolution in the Soviet leadership.[4]
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[1] Jan T. Gross, Revolution From Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1988), 117, italics in original.
[2] Ibid, italics in original.
[3] Paul C. Sondrol, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfred Stroessner," Journal of Latin American Studies, 23, no. 3 (1991): 599-620.
[4] Philip Boobyer, The Stalin Era (London: Routledge, 2000), 15-16.
On the first point, as I mentioned in class on Thursday, Jan Gross (in Revolution From Abroad) offers an interesting definition of totalitarianism, using Stalin's regime as a test case. If we consider totalitarianism from the standpoint of the tendency of totalitarian governments to eliminate public, collective forms of action unless it sponsors those forms itself, then, as Gross writes, "it thus appears that the totalitarian state confiscates the private realm."[1] However, he continues, this is untrue; it is in fact the opposite "because of the privatization of the public realm."[2] What Gross means is that the Soviets established totalitarian control – at least in its occupation of the Kresy from September 1939 to June 1941, was to make people feel as if participation in public forms of collection action was a way to express private desires, whether it was personal empowerment or settling scores with one's enemies. Clearly Stalin's methods in evoking denunciations, e.g., falls under this definition.
On the second point, since it's unlikely that one would define Stalin as anyone but one or the other (authoritarian or totalitarian), I found an article by Paul C. Sondrol particularly helpful in distinguishing the two terms.[3] Comparison Fidel Castro (totalitarian) to Alfredo Stroessner (the Paraguayan authoritarian dictators), Sondrol suggests seven criteria by which to judge an historical situation: Stalin meets six of these seven (role conception as a function, public ends of power, minimal corruption, official ideology, lack of pluralism, and high legitimacy). Where Stalin seems to have fallen short of one of Sondrol's criteria is in lacking personal charisma, although as noted by Philip Boobbyer remarks, among others, Stalin is able to form a personality cult by advancing one for Lenin and connecting himself as the nature evolution in the Soviet leadership.[4]
====
[1] Jan T. Gross, Revolution From Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1988), 117, italics in original.
[2] Ibid, italics in original.
[3] Paul C. Sondrol, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfred Stroessner," Journal of Latin American Studies, 23, no. 3 (1991): 599-620.
[4] Philip Boobyer, The Stalin Era (London: Routledge, 2000), 15-16.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Why Lenin?
2.2. To what extent was Bolshevist Marxism adapted for the age of imperialism?
I think Bolshevism was fairly adapted to the conditions of imperialism and specifically to the conditions of Imperial Russia. The underlying assumption of the need for a party vanguard, as expressed by Lenin in What Is to Be Done?, is that a class of professional revolutionaries is needed to direct the energy of a revolutionary mass of people toward a political goal, using a concrete ideology such as Marxism. Lenin writes, "At this point, we wish to state only that the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory."[1] Further underlying this assumption is that, in a country like Russia, which lacks an industrial proletariat with class consciousness, a revolution can only be successful when such a vanguard exists.
This consideration does raise the question of whether a country like Germany, which Marx saw as being the ripest ground for revolutionary socialism against an industrial bourgeoisie, would require a vanguard to mount a revolution on the order of that in Russia. Two main points of evidence argue against this viewpoint. First, the more "organic" of the changes in government in 1917, the February Revolution, seems to have lacked a party vanguard directing it, so even a revolution in a country without a formal class of professional revolutionaries could be successful, to the extent that the February Revolution could be considered successful. Second, the revolution that actually did break out in Germany in November 1918 also lacked a party vanguard directing public unrest toward a specific ideological goal. Rather, mutiny in the military culminated in the German Empire's collapse. Thus, even in other imperial age states, a vanguard might not be essential.
Perhaps then the best answer is that Leninism/Bolshevism was adapted for the imperial age in the specific national context of Russia and the specific period of the Provisional Government, but not for the age of imperialism generally. In so far as the ideological goal of a revolution led by a vanguard would be the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletaria, we must consider the Bolshevik seize of power successful.
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[1] V.I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement in Collected Works, volume 5, translated by Joe Fineberg and George Hanna (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm, emphasis in original.
I think Bolshevism was fairly adapted to the conditions of imperialism and specifically to the conditions of Imperial Russia. The underlying assumption of the need for a party vanguard, as expressed by Lenin in What Is to Be Done?, is that a class of professional revolutionaries is needed to direct the energy of a revolutionary mass of people toward a political goal, using a concrete ideology such as Marxism. Lenin writes, "At this point, we wish to state only that the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory."[1] Further underlying this assumption is that, in a country like Russia, which lacks an industrial proletariat with class consciousness, a revolution can only be successful when such a vanguard exists.
This consideration does raise the question of whether a country like Germany, which Marx saw as being the ripest ground for revolutionary socialism against an industrial bourgeoisie, would require a vanguard to mount a revolution on the order of that in Russia. Two main points of evidence argue against this viewpoint. First, the more "organic" of the changes in government in 1917, the February Revolution, seems to have lacked a party vanguard directing it, so even a revolution in a country without a formal class of professional revolutionaries could be successful, to the extent that the February Revolution could be considered successful. Second, the revolution that actually did break out in Germany in November 1918 also lacked a party vanguard directing public unrest toward a specific ideological goal. Rather, mutiny in the military culminated in the German Empire's collapse. Thus, even in other imperial age states, a vanguard might not be essential.
Perhaps then the best answer is that Leninism/Bolshevism was adapted for the imperial age in the specific national context of Russia and the specific period of the Provisional Government, but not for the age of imperialism generally. In so far as the ideological goal of a revolution led by a vanguard would be the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletaria, we must consider the Bolshevik seize of power successful.
===
[1] V.I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement in Collected Works, volume 5, translated by Joe Fineberg and George Hanna (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm, emphasis in original.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
The Road to October
Do you think that the October Revolution would have happened with or without the Bolsheviks?
I think a revolution of some kind would have occurred without the Bolsheviks but probably not a coup on the level of what the Bolsheviks actually pulled off. Because Kerensky's government refused to end the war and it was fairly clear that Russia would end up on the losing end of that conflict unless Germany was defeated sooner rather than later, it is unlikely that Kerensky's government would have been able to forestall widespread mutiny for very long. The threat of mutiny in and of itself might have resulted in a coup from the military itself on the order of the Kornilov coup or perhaps even from the military rank and file. Of course, it's also true that Germany was on a course to lose the war by the time American troops deployed in Europe, but that deployment was more or less coincident with the October Revolution. The other possibility is that some faction from within the Provisional Government, perhaps the Left SRs, would make a play for power in the environment of widespread mutiny and ride a wave of rank and file military support to political power. Whether that power would exist within the context of the Provisional Government, a military-backed coup, or some combination of the two is difficult of say, obviously, but it does seem to me that the ongoing war was a guarantee of the Provisional Government disappearing at some point.
To elaborate on these points, first, it's necessary to distinguish what the Bolsheviks actually did from the possibilities listed in the previous paragraph. While it is true that the Bolsheviks controlled the Petrograd Soviet at the time that they staged their coup, they were quite far from being able to claim a popular mandate outside the city, much less outside that city's soviet. This being the case, it becomes clear that seizure of power in the capital is more of a decapitating movement than an expression of popular revolt. Nothing else proves this point more than the elections to the Constituent Assembly and the move by Lenin et al. to nullify the results of the election and rule by decree. Orlando Figes in quite clear in his book that Lenin had no interest in drawing political power from a deliberative body but rather to create a dictatorship. Figes writes, "The 'class struggle' and the defeat of the 'counter-revolution' demanded the consolidation of Soviet power and, unless the Assembly was ready to recognize this, 'the entire people' would agree that it was 'doomed to politiical extinction'. It was a declaration of intent to abolish the Assembly, unless the Assembly agreed to abolish itself."[1] Figes's use of inverted commas here is intended not only to provide direct quotation but also to sneer not so subtly at the terminology used by Lenin to deligitimize the institution. Any other party attempting to seize power would have had to do so while maintaining the legitimacy of the Provisional Government or at least of the Duma. In this regard, Lenin's decision to boycott the Provisional Government was wise.
Finally, the Bolsheviks' emphasis on a party vanguard allowed them to harness the popular unrest and violence of the immediate period of the Provisional Government's collapse. Whereas civil wars are commonly environments in which petty violence and personal score-settling become commonplace,[2] and Russia in the fall of 1917 was no exception, the Bolsheviks, operating on the basis of an ideological mandate to direct the power of the masses, could determine how best to tolerate the street violence until their control of power was firm. It is unlikely that any other single party would have had to discipline to take control of such a volatile situation.
I think a revolution of some kind would have occurred without the Bolsheviks but probably not a coup on the level of what the Bolsheviks actually pulled off. Because Kerensky's government refused to end the war and it was fairly clear that Russia would end up on the losing end of that conflict unless Germany was defeated sooner rather than later, it is unlikely that Kerensky's government would have been able to forestall widespread mutiny for very long. The threat of mutiny in and of itself might have resulted in a coup from the military itself on the order of the Kornilov coup or perhaps even from the military rank and file. Of course, it's also true that Germany was on a course to lose the war by the time American troops deployed in Europe, but that deployment was more or less coincident with the October Revolution. The other possibility is that some faction from within the Provisional Government, perhaps the Left SRs, would make a play for power in the environment of widespread mutiny and ride a wave of rank and file military support to political power. Whether that power would exist within the context of the Provisional Government, a military-backed coup, or some combination of the two is difficult of say, obviously, but it does seem to me that the ongoing war was a guarantee of the Provisional Government disappearing at some point.
To elaborate on these points, first, it's necessary to distinguish what the Bolsheviks actually did from the possibilities listed in the previous paragraph. While it is true that the Bolsheviks controlled the Petrograd Soviet at the time that they staged their coup, they were quite far from being able to claim a popular mandate outside the city, much less outside that city's soviet. This being the case, it becomes clear that seizure of power in the capital is more of a decapitating movement than an expression of popular revolt. Nothing else proves this point more than the elections to the Constituent Assembly and the move by Lenin et al. to nullify the results of the election and rule by decree. Orlando Figes in quite clear in his book that Lenin had no interest in drawing political power from a deliberative body but rather to create a dictatorship. Figes writes, "The 'class struggle' and the defeat of the 'counter-revolution' demanded the consolidation of Soviet power and, unless the Assembly was ready to recognize this, 'the entire people' would agree that it was 'doomed to politiical extinction'. It was a declaration of intent to abolish the Assembly, unless the Assembly agreed to abolish itself."[1] Figes's use of inverted commas here is intended not only to provide direct quotation but also to sneer not so subtly at the terminology used by Lenin to deligitimize the institution. Any other party attempting to seize power would have had to do so while maintaining the legitimacy of the Provisional Government or at least of the Duma. In this regard, Lenin's decision to boycott the Provisional Government was wise.
Finally, the Bolsheviks' emphasis on a party vanguard allowed them to harness the popular unrest and violence of the immediate period of the Provisional Government's collapse. Whereas civil wars are commonly environments in which petty violence and personal score-settling become commonplace,[2] and Russia in the fall of 1917 was no exception, the Bolsheviks, operating on the basis of an ideological mandate to direct the power of the masses, could determine how best to tolerate the street violence until their control of power was firm. It is unlikely that any other single party would have had to discipline to take control of such a volatile situation.
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[1] Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1996), 513.
[2] This is a point made well in Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2000.
[1] Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1996), 513.
[2] This is a point made well in Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2000.
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