The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization: Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era

297 Pages·2005·1.636 MB·English

by  Polly Jones

The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization
Stalin’s death in 1953, and Khrushchev’s criticism of Stalin in the ‘Secret
Speech’ of 1956, ushered in years of upheaval in Soviet society and party
policy. Many of these changes were linked to the desire to ‘de-Stalinize’
the Stalinist state, reducing its emphasis on terror and regimentation,
whilst also reinvigorating and revitalizing the socialist project. This volume
reveals the many meanings and consequences of the de-Stalinization that
was carried out under Khrushchev, with a particular focus on popular
opinion, Soviet identity, and social and cultural change.
The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization provides a comprehensive history of
Khrushchev-era reforms, about which a great deal of information has
become available since the opening of the former Soviet archives, casting
new light on how far official policies correlated with popular views. The
volume considers wide-ranging, but interlinked, developments in Soviet
culture including the renunciation of Terror, the denunciation of Stalin,
aesthetic experimentation and changes to the private lives of ordinary
Soviet citizens. Overall the book appraises the extent of ‘de-Stalinization’
and whether developments in the period represented a real desire for
reform, or merely an attempt to fortify the Soviet system along different
lines. Particular emphasis is placed on the varying interpretations of the
aims and extent of de-Stalinization that were advanced by different social
groups, suggesting the creation of a new, post-Stalinist relationship
between the party and the Soviet people.
This book presents the first wide-ranging and archivally based appraisal
of the social and cultural impact of de-Stalinization, and will be of interest
to scholars and historians with an interest in Stalin, Khrushchev and the
Soviet Union.
Polly Jonesis Lecturer in Russian at SSEES-UCL. She has published art-
icles on the Stalin cult and de-Stalinization in the journals Totalitarian
Movements and Political Religions, Genèses and Forum for Modern Lan-
guage Studies. She is co-editor of The Leader Cult in Communist Dictator-
ships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc(Palgrave, 2004).
BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European
Studies
Series editor:
Richard Sakwa, Department of Politics and International Relations,
University of Kent
Editorial Committee:
George Blazyca, Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University
of Paisley
Terry Cox, Department of Government, University of Strathclyde
Rosalind Marsh, Department of European Studies and Modern
Languages, University of Bath
David Moon, Department of History, University of Strathclyde
Hilary Pilkington, Centre for Russian and East European Studies,
University of Birmingham
Stephen White, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow
This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for
Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, high-
quality, research-level work by both new and established scholars on all
aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in
humanities and social science subjects.
1 Ukraine’s Foreign and Security Policy, 1991–2000
Roman Wolczuk
2 Political Parties in the Russian Regions
Derek S. Hutcheson
3 Local Communities and Post-Communist Transformation
Edited by Simon Smith
4 Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe
J.C. Sharman
5 Political Elites and the New Russia
Anton Steen
6 Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness
Sarah Hudspith
7 Performing Russia – Folk Revival and Russian Identity
Laura J. Olson
8 Russian Transformations
Edited by Leo McCann
9 Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin
The baton and sickle
Edited by Neil Edmunds
10 State Building in Ukraine
The Ukranian parliament, 1990–2003
Sarah Whitmore
11 Defending Human Rights in Russia
Sergei Kovalyov, dissident and Human Rights Commissioner,
1969–2003
Emma Gilligan
12 Small-Town Russia
Postcommunist livelihoods and identities: a portrait of the
intelligentsia in Achit, Bednodemyanovsk and Zubtsov, 1999–2000
Anne White
13 Russian Society and the Orthodox Church
Religion in Russia after Communism
Zoe Knox
14 Russian Literary Culture in the Camera Age
The word as image
Stephen Hutchings
15 Between Stalin and Hitler
Class war and race war on the Dvina, 1940–46
Geoffrey Swain
16 Literature in Post-Communist Russia and Eastern Europe
The Russian, Czech and Slovak fiction of the changes 1988–98
Rajendra A. Chitnis
17 Soviet Dissent and Russia’s Transition to Democracy
Dissident legacies
Robert Horvath
18 Russian and Soviet Film Adaptations of Literature, 1900–2001
Screening the word
Edited by Stephen Hutchings and Anat Vernitski
19 Russia as a Great Power
Dimensions of security under Putin
Edited by Jakob Hedenskog, Vilhelm Konnander, Bertil Nygren,
Ingmar Oldberg and Christer Pursiainen
20 Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940
Truth, justice and memory
George Sanford
21 Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia
Philip Boobbyer
22 The Limits of Russian Democratisation
Emergency powers and states of emergency
Alexander N. Domrin
23 The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization
Negotiating cultural and social change in the Khrushchev era
Edited by Polly Jones
The Dilemmas of
De-Stalinization
Negotiating cultural and social change
in the Khrushchev era
Edited by Polly Jones
First published 2006
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2006 selection and editorial matter, Polly Jones; individual
chapters, the contributors
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
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ISBN 0-415-34514-6(Print Edition)
Contents
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements xii
Glossary xiii
Introduction: the dilemmas of de-Stalinization 1
POLLY JONES
PART I
Responses to the Thaw(s): de-Stalinization and public
opinion 19
1 ‘Show the bandit-enemies no mercy!’: amnesty, criminality
and public response in 1953 21
MIRIAM DOBSON
2 From the Secret Speech to the burial of Stalin: real and ideal
responses to de-Stalinization 41
POLLY JONES
3 ‘Democracy’ or ‘despotism’? How the Secret Speech was
translatedinto everyday life 64
SUSANNE SCHATTENBERG
4 Naming the social evil: the readers of Novyi mirand
VladimirDudintsev’s Not by Bread Alone, 1956–59 and
beyond 80
DENIS KOZLOV
viii Contents
PART II
Forging old/new identities: de-Stalinizing the Stalinist self 99
5 Forging citizenship on the home front: reviving the socialist
contract and constructing Soviet identity during the Thaw 101
CHRISTINE VARGA-HARRIS
6 De-Stalinizing Soviet childhood: the quest for moral
rebirth, 1953–58 117
ANN LIVSCHIZ
7 The arrival of spring? Changes and continuities in Soviet
youthculture and policy between Stalin and Khrushchev 135
JULIANE FÜRST
8 From mobilized to free labour: de-Stalinization and the
changing legal status of workers 154
DONALD FILTZER
PART III
Rewriting Stalinism: in search of a new style 171
9 Thaws and freezes in Soviet historiography, 1953–64 173
ROGER D. MARKWICK
10 The need for new voices: Writers’ Union policy towards
young writers 1953–64 193
EMILY LYGO
11 Modernizing Socialist Realism in the Khrushchev Thaw:
the struggle for a ‘Contemporary Style’ in Soviet art 209
SUSAN E. REID
12 ‘Russia is reading us once more’: the rehabilitation of
poetry, 1953–64 231
KATHARINE HODGSON
13 Renouncing dogma, teaching utopia: science in schools
underKhrushchev 250
MICHAEL FROGGATT
Select bibliography 267
Index 276
Contributors
Miriam Dobsonis Lecturer in Modern European History at the University
of Sheffield. She completed her PhD at SSEES-UCL in 2003, entitled
‘Refashioning the Enemy: Popular Beliefs and the Rhetoric of
Destalinisation, 1953–64’.
Donald Filtzer is Professor of Russian History at the University of East
London. He has authored four major studies of Soviet workers in the
Stalin, Khrushchev and Gorbachev periods: Soviet Workers and Stalinist
Industrialization: The Formation of Modern Soviet Production Relations,
1928–1941(London, 1986); Soviet Workers and De-Stalinization: The Con-
solidation of the Modern System of Soviet Production Relations, 1953–1964
(Cambridge, 1992); Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika: The
Soviet Labour Process and Gorbachev’s Reforms, 1985–1991(Cambridge,
1994); and Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration
of the Stalinist System After World War Two(Cambridge, 2002).
Michael Froggatt is Lecturer in Modern European History at the Univer-
sity of Durham. He has recently completed his doctoral thesis at St.
John’s College, Oxford, on the portrayal of science and scientists in the
propaganda and popular culture of the Khrushchev period.
Juliane Fürst is a Junior Research Fellow at St. John’s College, Oxford.
She completed a PhD at the London School of Economics on youth and
youth cultures in late Stalinism. She is the author of several articles on
youth in the Stalin era, and is currently completing a book titled Stalin’s
Last Generation: Youth, Culture and Identity in the post-war Soviet
Union 1945–56.
Katharine Hodgson is Senior Lecturer in Russian at the University of
Exeter. She has published books on the twentieth-century Russian poet
Ol’ga Berggol’ts, and on Russian poetry of World War II, as well as art-
icles about twentieth-century poetry and women’s writing.
Polly Jones is Lecturer in Russian at SSEES-UCL. She completed her
DPhil at Oxford in 2003. She is the author of several articles on the