Stalinist Reconstruction and the Confirmation of a New Elite, 1945–1953 PDF
Preview Stalinist Reconstruction and the Confirmation of a New Elite, 1945–1953
Stalinist Reconstruction and the Confirmation of a New Elite, 1945-1953 This page intentionally left blank Stalinist Reconstruction and the Confirmation of a New Elite, 1945-1953 J. Eric Duskin Assistant Professor of History Northern Illinois University DeKalb Illinois USA © j. Eric Duskin 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 2001 978-0-333-91894-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, london Wl P OlP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PAlGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PAlGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of st. Martin's Press llC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers ltd (formerly Macmillan Press ltd). ISBN 978-1-349-42392-7 ISBN 978-1-4039-1945-8 (eBook) DOI10.1057/9781403919458 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duskin, j. Eric. Stalinist reconstruction and the confirmation of a new elite, 1945-1953 / j. Eric Duskin. p. cm. Originally published: landham, Md. : University Press of America, 1999. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-349-42392-7 1. Soviet Union-Economic conditions-1945-1955. 2. Industrial management-Soviet Union. 3. Elite (Social sciences)-Soviet Union. \. Title. HC335.7 .D85 2000 338.94 T009'045-dc21 00-041512 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Contents Tables VI Acknowledgments Vll Introduction The Price of Victory 11 2 Educating a New Elite 41 3 Recruiting Industry's Supervisors 63 4 Anointing the Masters of the Workplace 95 5 The Implications of Stalin's Technocracy 129 Notes 141 Bibliography 169 Index 183 v Tables 1.1 Number of Prisoners in Gulag Camps and Colonies 25 1.2 Selected Targets of the Fourth Five -Year Plan 34 3.1 Heavy Machine-Building Industry: ITR Composition 67 3.2 Heavy Machine-Building Industry ITR, 1950 67 3.3 Moscow Oblast Cotton Manufacturing Industry: Total Praktiki/Total ITR 73 3.4 Moscow Oblast Cotton Manufacturing Industry: Female ITRITotal ITR 76 3.5 Moscow Oblast Cotton Manufacturing Industry: Female Praktiki/Total Praktiki 77 3.6 Glukhovskii Cotton Manufacturing Complex: Female ITR 79 3.7 Glukhovskii Cotton Manufacturing Complex: ITR Age Distribution, 1950 79 4.1 Fourth Five-Year Plan Rationalization Suggestions 124 VI Acknowledgments As I labored to transform my dissertation into this book, many graced me with their assistance, guidance, and support. I am indebted to the friends and scholars who took time to read all or part of this work and offer helpful suggestions. This group of altruistic readers included Bar bara Anderson, Geoff Eley, Jonathan Harris, Padraic Kenney, Lewis Siegelbaum, and Ronald G. Suny. lowe my greatest intellectual and personal debt to Professor William G. Rosenberg, who has allowed me to extend his job as graduate advisor into a lifetime appointment. Pro fessor Rosenberg taught me by example what integrity and profession alism mean, and without Bill Rosenberg's advice and friendship this book and my career as a historian would never have existed. I must also acknowledge some of the many people whose friendship and support helped me to keep working on this project no matter how Sisyphean the task sometimes seemed. My colleagues at Northern Illi nois University, Bruce Field, Jim Schmidt, Simon Newman, and Sam Kinser, have been my comrades and friends and have helped make me a better teacher and historian. I must thank Ian Whitman at the OECD for inviting me to travel across Russia with his inspirational team of spe cialists: Jaak Aaviksoo, Maree Bentley, Mary Canning, John Coolahan, Johanna Crighton, Boris Galabov, Friedrich Kuebart, Aims McGuin ness, and Douglas Windham. I also owe great thanks to my friends in Oak Park and at Barbary Lane whose conversation and company have been invaluable and always welcome. This band of merry pranksters includes Curt Hicks, Scott and Wendy Baxter, Bill Lohnes, Jamie Damato, Derek Rose, Katherine Larson, and Gian DiLoreto. My friends Andrei, vii Acknowledgments Igor, Sasha, and Sergei in Moscow always helped make my visits to Russia pleasant and memorable. I thank them greatly. I am also indebted to Matthew Howard for his patience, good humor, and willingness to walk me through the process of academic publishing. Finally, my mother, Betty, my sister, Meg, and my dog, Toby, have been the best family a struggling academic could ever hope for. Their support was boundless and they always said what I needed to hear. The research for this work was carried out over a period of many years. Among the funding organizations that made my research and writ ing possible were the Institute for International Education, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, the Rackham School of Gradu ate Studies at the University of Michigan, the Northern Illinois Graduate School, and the Northern Illinois History Department. I would also like to express my gratitude to the many helpful and caring employees at the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Russian State Archive of the Economy in Moscow and at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I thank Camille Smith as well for her fine and timely copyediting. It goes without saying that I am solely responsible for the views and errors found in this book's pages. Vlll Introduction The Soviet people learned on March 6, 1953, that their leader for the last quarter-century had died. Three days later Stalin was laid to rest in the Soviet Union's most hallowed site, inside the Red Square Mausoleum, next to Lenin. People say that upon hearing of Stalin's death every man, woman, and child in the Soviet Union wept. Russia, in that month when winter turns to spring, was a nation in mourning, and hundreds ofthou sands journeyed to Moscow to view the General Secretary's body. Andrei Sakharov, the noted Soviet nuclear physicist and future leader of Russia' s successful anti-Communist movement, wrote that for days after Stalin died "people roamed the streets, distraught and confused, with funeral music in the background. I too got carried away."l Only in the dictator's notorious labor camps was the news of Stalin's passing greeted with nearly unanimous shouts of joy. The upwelling of grief that opened the post-Stalin era shocked Stalin's Kremlin survivors. They had expected trouble. Army units around the country had been placed on alert, and the capital's streets were lined with gun-wielding soldiers. Stalin's lieutenants had good cause for concern. Some of the grief-stricken had lived in regions where, only twelve years earlier, many had hoped German troops would be libera tors. Millions more were peasants who had used the Red Army's 1941 retreat and the government's disarray as an opportunity to flout local authorities and reestablish more traditional ways of life, and who had resented the government's postwar enforcement of collectivized agri culture. Why were so many Soviets distressed and saddened when told of the General Secretary's demise? Why were so few Muscovites, even in the privacy of their own homes, toasting the end of a brutal dictator-
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