Russia After Lenin: Politics, Culture and Society, 1921-1929

280 Pages·1998·2.08 MB·English

by  V. Brovkin

Russia after Lenin
Following the Russian Revolution, the cultural and political landscape of Russia
was strewn with contradictions. The dictatorship, censorship and repression of
the Communist Party existed alongside private enterprise, the black market and
open debates on socialism. In Russia after Lenin, Vladimir Brovkin offers a
comprehensive cultural, political, economic and social history of developments
in Russia in the 1920s.
By examining the contrast between Bolshevik propaganda claims and social
reality, the author explains how Communist ideas were variously received,
resisted and acted upon by workers, peasants, students, women, teachers and
party officials. He presents a picture of cultural diversity and rejection of
Communist constraints through many means including unauthorized protest,
religion, jazz music and poetry.
In Russia after Lenin, Brovkin argues that these trends, if left unchecked,
endangered the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power. The Stalinist
revolution and terror can thus be seen as a pre-emptive strike against this
independent and vibrant society, as well as a product of Stalin’s personality and
Communist ideology.
Vladimir Brovkin is NATO Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the
American University, in Washington DC.
Russia after Lenin
Politics, Culture and Society, 1921– 1929
Vladimir Brovkin
London and New York
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1998 Vladimir Brovkin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Brovkin, Vladimir N.
Russia after Lenin: Politics, Culture and Society,
1921–1929 / Vladimir Brovkin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1917–1936.
2. Soviet Union—Civilization. 3. Soviet Union—Social
conditions-1917–1945. I. Title.
DK266.5.B76 1998
947.084′2–dc21
97–39751
CIP
ISBN 0-203-97933-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-17991-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-17992-0 (pbk)
FOR MY DEAR WIFE, ALYONA
Contents
List of illustrations viii
List of abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Revolutionary identity 1
Russian socialism 3
The Bolshevik value system 5
Utopian vision, 1917 8
Smashing the bourgeois state 10
NEP society 13
1 Extracting socially alien elements 19
Political parties and intelligentsia 20
Operation “The Living Church” 26
The “former” people 29
2 The culture of the new elite, 1921–5: ascetic knights and 37
drinking pals
Old habits and new tastes 37
Educating the new party cadres 48
Dissident voices 52
3 Bolshevik actions and peasants’ reactions, 1921–5: face the 57
village, face defeat
Who knew what 58
Peasant concerns 60
Strategies of coping 66
Elections, 1925 70
vi
4 Propaganda and popular belief 81
Agitprop: eradicating alien influence 81
Potemkin villages on the ideological front 84
Anti-religious campaigns 93
Popular religiosity 98
5 The Komsomol and youth: a transmission belt that snapped 107
Representations 107
Rural cells: hooliganism and drunkenness 108
Workers: vodka, sex, and defiance 112
Students: poverty, “decadence,” and dissent 125
6 Women: false promises, dashed hopes and the pretense of 133
emancipation
Rural women: staying out or getting involved? 133
Factory women: from complaints to protest 141
A new Soviet woman: dating, fashions, and fox-trot 144
Bolshevik women 148
7 Towards showdown in the countryside, 1926–8 155
Rural Party: adaptation, defiant rejection, and intervention 155
Radicalization, 1926 161
Elections, 1927 164
Bolshevik dilemmas, 1928 168
8 The proletariat against the vanguard 173
New bosses, old problems, 1921–5 173
Was there an NEP in industry? 179
New radicalism, new labels, 1926–9 183
9 The Bolshevik old guard and the upstarts, 1924–9: down and 191
out and up and coming
The new Communists 192
Political opinion 200
The crisis of Bolshevism 208
vii
1 0 Conclusion 213
Bolshevik culture 213
Recasting society 214
Representations 215
Social reality 216
Confidential discourse 219
Showdown 221
The culture of Sovietism 222
Notes 225
Bibliography 255
Index 263
Illustrations
1 The Three Epochs 39
2 Revolutionary Comrade 47
3 The Spring Freshet 116
4 Unfortunately, not a fairy tale 120
5 Buzutyor Special Edition on Hooliganism 120
6 The Old in the New 140
7 “Social Position” 147
8 Either Way You Lose 151
9 Warm Reception 198
10 Materialistic Approach 203
11 A Step to Grace 204
Abbreviations
Agitprop Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central
Committee
CC Central Committee
CEC Central Executive Committee
CheKa Chesvychainaya Kommissiya—Extraordinary Commission
Chon Chasti Osobogo Naznacheniya—Special Purpose Units
Comintern Communist International
CP Communist Party
EC Executive Committee
GK Gorodskoi Komitet—City Committee
GPU Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenia—Main Political Directorate
Gubkom Gubernskii Komitet—Province Committee
Glavlit Glavnyi Literaturnyi Komitet—Main Literature Committee
Gublit Gubernskii Literaturnyi Komitet—Province Literature section
KA Komsomol archive
Komsomol KSM Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodezhi—Communist
Youth League
LK Leningradskii Komitet—Leningrad Party Committee
MK Moskovskii Komitet—Moscow Party Committee
MRC Main Repertoire Committee—Glavrepertkom
NS Narodnye Sotsialisty—People’s Socialists
Orgraspred —CC Cadres Department
PSR Party of Socialist Revolutionaries
Proletkult Proletarskaya Kultura—Proletarian Culture
RCP(b) Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks—RKP(b)
SR Socialist Revolutionary
VKP(b) Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Bolshevikov—
All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks