Challenging Traditional Views of Russian History

260 Pages·2002·29.961 MB·English

by  Stephen G. Wheatcroft (eds.)

Studies in Russian and East European History and Society
Series Editors: R. W. Davies, E. A. Rees, M. ]. Ilic and J. R. Smith at the Centre
for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham
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Challenging Traditional
Views of Russian History
Edited by
Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Associate Professor in
Russian and Soviet History,
University of Melbourne
pal grave
macmillan
© Selection and editorial matter © Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Chapters 1-10 © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-75461-0
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ISBN 978-1-349-41342-3 ISBN 978-0-230-50611-4 (eBook)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Challenging traditional views of Russian history I edited by
Stephen G. Wheatcroft.
p. cm. - (Studies in Russian and East European history and society)
lncludes bibliographical references and index.
1. Russia-Historiography. 2. Soviet Union-Historiography.
3. Russia (Federation)-Historiography. I. Wheatcroft, S. G. II. Series.
DK38 .C38 2002
947'.007'2-dc21 2001059829
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 OS 04 03 02
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Tables ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Notes on the Contributors xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvii
PART I: THE PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1
1 The Kaghanate of the Rus': Non-Slavic Sources of
Russian Statehood 3
David Christian
1.1 The background: peasant migrations, Khazar power and
expanding trade 4
1.2 Volga Bulgaria 13
1.3 The Kaghanate of the Rus' 14
1.4 The turn to the Dnieper 19
1.5 Conclusions 21
2 The Crisis of the Late Tsarist Penal System 27
Stephen G. Wheatcroft
2.1 Developments in the Russian prison system in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries in comparison with the West 29
2.2 Detailed materials from the annual reports of the Tsarist
Prison Administration from the 1880s to 1905: the years of
imprisonment 33
2.3 Changes in prison developments, 1906-14 39
2.4 Conclusion 42
3 The Russian Army and American Industry, 1915-17:
Globalisation and the Transfer of Technology 55
Frederick R. Zuckerman
v
vi Contents
PART II: THE STALIN PERIOD 67
4 The Soviet Famine of 1932-33 and the Crisis in
Agriculture 69
R. W. Davies and S. G. Wheatcroft
4.1 The grain harvest 69
4.2 Why was grain production so low in 1931 and 1932? 71
4.3 The grain crisis of 1932-33 78
4.4 Changes in the grain balance 87
4.5 Conclusion 88
S Patronage and the Intelligentsia in Stalin's Russia 92
Sheila Fitzpatrick
5.1 Who were the patrons? 94
5.2 What could the patrons do for their clients? 97
5.3 How to acquire a patron 98
5.4 Brokers 99
5.5 How to write to a patron 100
5.6 The human factor: affective ties between patrons and clients 101
5.7 Hierarchies of patronage 103
5.8 Perils and pleasures of patronage 104
6 Towards Explaining the Changing Levels of Stalinist
Repression in the 1930s: Mass Killings 112
S. G. Wheatcroft
6.1 Stalinist mass killings in perspective 113
6.2 The 1930-31 wave of mass killings, and why the killings
were drastically reduced in July 1931 114
6.3 The reduction in mass killings from the second half of
1931 to 1936 123
6.4 The Ezhovshchina and the resumption of mass killings,
1937-38 129
6.5 Conclusions 138
7 The Great Terror: Leningrad- a Quantitative Analysis 147
Melanie !lie
7.1 The purges: historiographical debates 147
7.2 Sources 149
7.3 Methodology 150
7.4 Sex ratios 150
7.5 Age profile 151
7.6 Residency 151
7.7 Communist Party membership 152
7.8 Nationality 154
Contents vii
7.9 Social composition 154
7.10 Dates of arrests, trials and executions 157
7.11 Number of days between arrest and trial, trial and execution 161
7.12 State organisation responsible for conducting trials 162
7.13 Statute Code 163
7.14 Women 166
7.15 Family ties 166
7.16 Conclusions 167
PART III: THE POST-STALIN PERIOD 171
8 The Dissident Roots of Glasnost 173
Robert Horvath
8.1 Leninist sources of Gorbachev's glasnost 175
8.2 The demand for glasnost 176
8.3 The weapon of glasnost 182
8.4 The practice of glasnost 185
8.5 Official glasnost versus dissident glasnost 189
9 Rethinking Yermolov's Legacy: New Patriotic
Narratives of Russia's Engagement with Chechnya 203
Julie Elkner
9.1 Seeing the Chechen through Yermolov's eyes 207
9.2 Yermolov's tragedy 209
9.3 Punishing civilians 210
9.4 Conclusion 212
10 Stalinism and the Fall of the Soviet Union 217
Graeme Gill
10.1 The emergence of the Stalinist power structure 218
10.2 Reform of the power structure? 225
10.3 The collapse of the power structure? 230
Name index 235
Subject index 240
List of Maps and Figures
Maps
1.1 The Khaganate of the Rus' 5
1.2 The Khazar empire, 630-965 8
Figures
2.1 Russian crude death rates per thousand population: civil
adjusted and prisoner, 1885-1906 38
2.2 Russian crude death rates per thousand population: civil
adjusted and prisoner, 1906-15 41
viii
List of Tables
2.1 Russian and British execution rates per million population 30
2.2 The scale of Russian exile in comparison with British exile to
America and Australia: average per year and estimates of
transportation mortality rates 31
2.3 Annual migration beyond the Urals in thousands 32
2.4 Death sentences and executions per year, 1876-1913: various
sources 40
2.5 Russian prisoners according to institution 45
2.6 Russian prisoners according to category within institution 46
2. 7 Russian prisoners according to time spent within each category
in year equivalents each year 48
2.8 Russian prison mortality for different categories of prisoners:
Crude Death Rate per thousand population SO
4.1 Grain production, 1909-13-1933: alternative series
(million tons) 72
4.2 Grain collections (zagotovki), 1931-32 and 1932-33
(thousand tons) 79
4.3 State grain collections, agricultural year July 1932-June 1933:
peasant sector (kolkhozy plus individual peasants)
(thousand tons) 80
4.4 State grain resources and allocation, 1931-32 and 1932-33
(thousand tons) 85
6.1 Comparative international data on death sentences and
executions 114
6.2 Main periods of upsurge of repression as indicated by death
sentences in Russia and the USSR 115
6.3 Cases prosecuted by the security agencies, 1926-32: all cases
and especially those with death sentences, for USSR, Moscow,
Tomsk and Altai 118
6.4 Death sentences 1930-36 prosecuted by the security agencies:
All-USSR, Moscow and other regions 125
6.5 Death sentences, 1936-39 prosecuted by security agencies:
All-USSR, Moscow and other regions 130
6.6 The growth in numbers of prisoners in Western Siberian
prisons (excluding camps) and in the USSR as a whole 135
6. 7 Available figures on initial limits and increases in limits for
NKVD operation 00447 138
7.1 Age profile, in percentage terms, of Leningrad adult population
(1939) and victims of the purges (1937) 152
ix