Soviet Historians and Perestroika: The First Phase

307 Pages·1990·8.335 MB·English

by  Donald J. Raleigh

Soviet
Historians
a n d
Perestroika
Titles in the Series
NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOVIET SOCIAL THOUGHT
An Anthology
Murray Yanowitch, ed.
PERESTROIKA AND THE ECONOMY
New Thinking in Soviet Economics
Anthony Jones and William Moskoff, eds.
PARTY, STATE, AND CITIZEN IN THE SOVIET UNION
A Collection of Documents
Mervyn Matthews, ed.
THE SOVIET MULTINATIONAL STATE
Readings and Documents
Martha B. Olcott, ed.
SOVIET HISTORIANS AND PERESTROIKA
The First Phase
Donald J. Raleigh, ed.
Soviet
Historians
a n d
Perestroika
The First Phase
Edited by
Donald J. Raleigh
M. E. Sharpe, Inc.
ARMONK, NEW YORK
LONDON, ENGLAND
Copyright © 1989 by M. E. Sharpe, Inc.
English translations © 1988, 1989 by M. E. Sharpe, Inc.
Translated by arrangement with VAAP, the Soviet copyright agency.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form without written permission from the publisher, M. E. Sharpe, Inc.,
80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504
Available in the United Kingdom and Europe from M. E. Sharpe,
Publishers, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Soviet historians and perestroika : the first phase : an anthology /
edited by Donald J. Raleigh,
p. cm.
Articles translated from the Russian.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-87332-554-0
1. Soviet Union—Historiography—History—20th century.
2. Perestroika. 3. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1985-
4. Soviet Union—Intellectual life—20th century. 5. Historians—Sovi­
et Union—History—20th century. I. Raleigh, Donald J.
DK38.S68 1989 89-10724
947 '.0072—dc20 CIP
Printed in the United States of America
©
BB 10 987654321
To Anya, Dasha, Vanya, Masha, Egor, and Adam
in the hope that they shall become friends

Contents
Introduction Donald J, Raleigh ix
Part On© GIVING CLIO A FACE-LIFT 3
The Energy of Historical Knowledge
lu. Afanas'ev 5
Apropos of Iu. Afanas'ev’s Article 11
Talking about the Past, We Must Keep the Future
of Socialism in Mind
Iu. Af anas'ev 15
Some Questions Regarding the Work of Soviet Historians
S. L. Tikhvinskii 19
The Historian and Perestroika
V. A. Kozlov 32
Part Two THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOVIET SOCIETY
PARTY HISTORY AND THE SOVIET MEMORY HOLE 49
Basic Stages of the Development of Soviet Society:
A Roundtable of the Journal “Kommunist” 51
The Role of the Journal “Voprosy istorii KPSS” in
Restructuring Party History
F. N. Smykov 77
On the Personality Factor in the History of the CPSU
V G. Veriaskin 106
Part Three REWRITING THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT
OCTOBER REVOLUTION 117
On Restructuring in the Study of the October Revolution
/. I. Mints 119
The Study of the History of the Great October Revolution:
Results and Prospects 130
Part Four THE CHALLENGE FROM THE PUBLICISTS 163
Roots
Vasilii Seliunin 165
“He Wanted to Make Life Over Because He Loved It”:
An Interview with Bukharin’s Widow 209
Khrushchev: Strokes on a Political Portrait \J
Fedor Burlatskii ^ 228
Part Five SOVIET HISTORIANS RESPOND 241
Historical Science under Conditions of Restructuring:
A Roundtable Discussion 243
Index 283
About the Editor 291
Introduction
DONALD J. RALEIGH
The highly politicized Soviet historical profession responded sluggishly to
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev’s calls for reform. Reverberations of the pro­
cesses that have been recasting Soviet society since 1985 first became noticeable
within the historical profession in 1987. By early 1988, however, it was clear that
the reform-minded historians were not only on the offensive, but also in control of
the prominent historical journals. The most sensitive issues in Soviet history had
become topics of debate. Maverick historians, whose research had been fettered
during the Brezhnev years, now published broadly and helped to shape the
profession’s future. To be sure, within the discipline opposition to reform contin­
ued, but it was more subtle and subdued. This transformation of the conservative
Soviet historical profession is remarkable precisely because it represents systemic
adjustment.1
Soviet historians responded cautiously to the call for change because the
profession’s intellectual integrity had been destroyed during the Stalin years,
when historians became creators and defenders of historical myths. When Gorba­
chev came to power, the generation of historians trained during the Stalin period
still predominated. The brief flood of revitalization that swept the discipline in
the decade or so following the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956 taught historians
an important lesson in caution: the limits of historical reassessment were never
clearly spelled out by the party’s factional leadership, but only became clear once
revisionist historians were censured for passing beyond them.
A case in point is the Burdzhalov Affair of 1956-1957, when Eduard Nikolae­
vich Burdzhalov published two sensational articles on the role of the Bolsheviks
in the February Revolution and, as assistant editor of the historical profession’s
major journal, Voprosy istorii (Problems of History), facilitated publication of
materials that challenged orthodox interpretations within Soviet historiography.
Dismissed from his editorial position and from his teaching post at Moscow
University, Burdzhalov carried on his struggle and eventually published his
exceptional study on the February Revolution of 1917.2 Burdzhalov’s book and
several other revisionist accounts were published just before the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Afterward, S. P. Trapeznikov, head of the Science
and Education Section of the CPSU Central Committee under Leonid Brezhnev,
IX
x INTRODUCTION
launched a crackdown in the cultural realm that sharply circumscribed what
historical topics could be studied. Those independent sorts who sought to car­
ry out their research in the spirit of the Twentieth Party Congress found it
increasingly difficult to function professionally. Many of the nonconformists
came under fire and suffered setbacks. The above scenario helps explain why
historians responded warily to appeals for reform before 1987, but also why
dissatisfaction with the status quo had existed long before Gorbachev came to
power.3
The presence of reformist currents within the profession, then, helps explain
why historians finally came around in 1987-1988. But there are several other
reasons as well. First, Gorbachev’s criticism of the Brezhnev regime’s predilec­
tion for ignoring mistakes and failings in Soviet history, made at the January 1987
plenum of the Central Committee, amounted to a call for a candid reexamination
of Soviet history. This same plenum retired Central Committee Secretary Mikhail
Zimianin, who had upheld a conservative line in the key disciplines of history and
philosophy, clearing the way for Gorbachev’s protégé, Aleksandr Iakovlev,4 who
encouraged personnel changes and lamented prevailing conditions in academic
institutions. Gorbachev himself set the tone for new appraisals of the past by
informing the public of Stalin’s role in the purges of the 1930s and of his
responsibility for Soviet unpreparedness at the start of World War n. This signal
by Gorbachev, as well as similar appeals by Iakovlev and others for honest writing
about the past, altered the professional landscape: such authoritative statements
made it possible to publish on topics that heretofore had been banned, and even
drove opportunists to start giving lip service to restructuring.
A second consideration that helps us understand the transformation that oc­
curred in the historical profession, though one that is difficult to assess with
precision, is the constructive impact of Western influences and of Western histori­
ans, previously depicted as ideological opponents rather than as colleagues prac­
ticing the same craft. The public revelations about the Soviet past that now
disoriented the Soviet people, all of which were known outside the country,
exonerated Western writers. One of the significant changes of 1987 concerned the
status of foreign historians. ‘ ‘Bourgeois historians” became 1‘non-Marxist his­
torians.” It soon became fashionable to read them, cite them, and hobnob with
them.
Finally, in February, following Gorbachev’s address at the January 1987
plenum, the Soviet leader met with a group of prominent editors and instructed
them that “there should not be any blank spots in either our history or our
literature.” Retirements and replacements swept across the media. The result
was that historical themes and questions were now posed more audaciously than
in the past in films, on television, in newspapers, and in Soviet literary journals.9
The public affairs writers, or publicists (mainly writers, economists, and journal­
ists), with amazing dispatch, and with greater autonomy from the party leader­
ship than the historians displayed, raised critical historical issues. In so doing