Stalinist simplifications and Soviet complications : social tensions and political conflicts in the USSR, 1933-1953 PDF
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Gabor Tamas Rittersporn Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications Social Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR 1933-1953 hanvood academic publishers Sta lin ist Sim plificatio n s an d Soviet C o m plicatio n s Social Orders A series of monographs and tracts Edited by Jacques Revel and Marc Augé Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France VOLUME 1 THE LAST ARAB JEWS: THE COMMUNITIES OF JERBA, TUNISIA Abraham L. Udovitch and Lucette Valensi VOLUME 2 STATE AND STATISTICS IN FRANCE, 1789-1815 Jean-Claude Perrot and Stuart J. Woolf VOLUME 3 THE PREGNANT MAN Roberto Zapperi VOLUME 4 STALINIST SIMPLIFICATIONS AND SOVIET COMPLICATIONS: SOCIAL TENSIONS AND POLITICAL CONFLICTS IN THE USSR, 1933-1953 Gabor Tamäs Rittersporn This book is part of a series. The publisher will accept continuation orders which may be cancelled at any time and which provide for the automatic billing and shipping of each title in the series upon publication. Please write for details. Sta lin ist Sim plificatio n s an d So viet C o m plicatio n s SOCIAL TENSIONS AND POLITICAL CONFLICTS IN THE USSR, 1933-1953 By Gâbor Tamâs Rittersporn Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France h # harwood academic publishers V U chur • reading • paris • Philadelphia • tokyo • melbourne Univ. Library, UC Santa Cruz 1993 Copyright © 1991 by Harwood Academic Publishers GmBH, Poststrasse 22, 7000 Chur, Switzerland. All rights reserved. Harwood Academic Publishers Post Office Box 90 3-14-9, Okubo Reading, Berkshire RG1 8JL Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169 United Kingdom Japan 58, rue Lhomond Private Bag 8 75005 Paris Camberwell, Victoria 3124 France Australia 5301 Tacony Street, Drawer 330 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19137 United States of America Originally published in French as Simplifications Staliniennes et Complications Soviétiques: Tensions sociales et conflits politiques en URSS, 1933-1953 © 1988 by Gordon and Breach Science Publishers S. A. Cover design shows a Soviet cartoon from a spring 1937 issue of Krokodil depicting an official puzzled by the news in the party daily. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ritterspom, Gâbor Tamâs, 1948- [Simplifications Staliniennes et Complications Soviétiques. English] Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications : social tensions and political conflicts in the USSR, 1933-1953 / by Gâbor Tamâs Ritterspom. p. cm. - (Social orders : v. 5) Translation of : Simplifications staliniennes et complications soviétiques. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-7186-5107-6 - ISBN 3-7186-5105-X (pbk.) 1. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1936-1953. 2. Stalin, Joseph, 1979-1953. 3. Soviet Union-Social Conditions—1917- I. Title II. Series. DK267.R46 1991 90-24384 947.084-dc20 CIP No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing form the publishers. Printed in the United States of America. 3K > 7 m l CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii A Note on Terminology ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Society and the State Apparatus in the USSR: 30 Contradictions and Interferences in the 1930s 2 Between Two "Great Moscow Trials": Social 64 Tensions and Political Manoeuvres, 1936 3 "Enemies of the People" Fighting Each Other: 113 Terror and Chaos, 1937 4 Stalin in 1938: Rhetorical Apotheosis, 183 Political Defeat 5 From the Gulag of the Memorial to the History 229 of Penal Policy in the Soviet Union, 1933-1953 Conclusion: The Longue Durée of Soviet History 319 Index 331 v For É.M. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to Yuri Okamoto and her family, without whose help and encouragement this work would not have been completed. I undertook some of my research in Japan where I was able, thanks to Masanori Kikuchi, to benefit from the support of the Institute for International Affairs at the University of Tokyo. In the United States the help of James H. Billington and the hospitality of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies (Wilson Center, Washington) enabled me to consult a great number of sources. For the possibility to complete my documentation in German archives and to revise and enlarge the French edition of this work, I am indebted to the generous support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Among colleagues who have helped me in France I owe particular thanks to Clemens Heller, Jacques Revel, Daniel Bertaux, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Robert Desrimon, Marc Ferro, François Furet, Marcel Gauchet, Alain Guéry, Georges Haupt, Claude Kamoouh, Basile Kerblay, Roland Lew, Henri Mendras, Pierre Nora and Roger Portal. I am all the more grateful for their support, since I benefited from it in spite of serious disagreements which have at times divided our opinions in certain questions; this breaks with some of the traditions of academe. I am equally indebted to the editorial staff of the Annales, Libre and Critique Politique as well as the Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, who published the first versions of some of my studies. Warm thanks too to those friends who have patiently weeded out the more bizarre features of my style; any that remain I have managed to save by outwitting their vigilance. As well as performing most of this thankless task, Jacques Emsalem has given me precious help by his brotherly support for more than twelve years. I must express my gratitude too to J. Arch Getty who was vii Acknowledgements viii working on the same topic in parallel with me for a long time without either of us knowing of the other's existence. I have learned much from his comments and our talks, and I hope that he has noticed their effects in many places in this book during his unpleasant labour in correcting the English version. On the other hand I am afraid that Moshe Lewin will be unhappy with me for some of the conclusions that I draw here, in spite of the seminal influence that his writings and teachings had on my research. But it would be hard to list all the people to whom I have become indebted in the course of my labours. Scattered almost worldwide, few of them whether close friends or casual acquaintances would realise how much they have helped me with their comments (sometimes on topics far removed from the subject of my studies) and above all by standing by me. Finally, I cannot possibly mention all those who have helped me to understand the true importance of the problems that have occupied me, from East European intellectuals who think much as I do, to the Uzbek driver, my host in a backwater of Central Asia, an ex-convict who in 1956 "liberated" my native Budapest. G. T. R. A NOTE ON TERMNIN OLOG Y The term "region" is used in the Soviet acceptance of the 1930s and 1940s and denotes the regions and territories (oblasti, kraia) as well as the autonomous and federated republics that the Party statutes of the time placed on the same hierarchical level. "Local" organisations and administrations are those of districts (raiony) and cities, as well as districts within larger cities, once again in accordance with the hierarchy of territorial division as established by the Party statutes. "Apparatus" is applied in the broad sense of the term to denote the ensemble of institutions and bodies directing political, ad ministrative and economic activities throughout the country. "Cadres" are officeholders of these institutions and bodies who are supposed to represent the interests of the Party-State and realise its policies, regardless of their position in a hierarchy that goes from managing and engineering personnel of the industry or grassroots officials in charge of agricultural affairs to people's commissars and secretaries of the Central Committee. Though far from all cadres are leading officials or functionaries, each of them can influence the implementation of political decisions in their daily work through compliance or noncompliance with such decisions. As a rule, "Party members" refer only to full members of the CPSU, while "membership" or "militants" include the category of candidate members.
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