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Soviet Historians and Perestroika: The First Phase PDF

307 Pages·1990·8.335 MB·English
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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

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