Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #5

Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin

The Social Dynamics of Repression

Wendy Z. Goldman

Wendy Z. Goldman’s Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin shines the light on our understanding of the Great Terror of 1937-38 from bottom up focusing on the human agency and how it contributed to the devastation and ultimately the devouring of the mid- to high- level party cadres and workers’ unions. She argues that Stalin’s encouragement of the mass criticism and assault on regional party leaders, managers, and unions by the rank-and-file – the so called democracy – bears the dictator’s clear intent to exterminate the remnants of political opposition. This dynamic between party leaders and their “family circles,” the unions, the NKVD, and the workers as well as the free-for-all and the mass frenzy of denunciations and self-preservation was critical to the all-encompassing spread and participation in the terror that engulfed the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

 Goldman focuses her examination on the relationship between the unions and the workers during the terror largely on heavy industrial enterprises and textile factories, though smaller shops are also mentioned. Because of the duress of the forced collectivization and mass industrialization drive as well as an economic collapse characterized by chronic shortages of consumer goods, housing, and food, workers lived and worked in appalling conditions. Fatal accidents and death from the toxic environment and pestilence in factories was common place. 

Goldman writes that with the Kirov murder and the opposition trials the paranoia surrounding Stalin and the highest echelons of party heightened. Stalin never believed that the Trotskyites were completely eliminated, but instead he thought they was dispersed and hidden among the middle level managers and cadres. Industrial accidents were common, but the party leadership scapegoated them on the opposition and its many “ever-present agents” that were trying to “wreck” and sabotage socialist progress. Given the widespread discontent and rumbling among the starving masses and their knowledge about the devastation and famine in the countryside due to the forced collectivization, Stalin unleashed terror that not only eliminated his enemies at the top, but also targeted workers’ union organization and the mid level party officials as he was concerned for the survival of the regime and growing discontent.

Because of the undemocratic structure of the Communist party, powerful fiefdoms of middle managers and union officials have emerged with their entrenched allies and networks of patronage. In an effort to dismantle this structure and eliminate the opposition, during the Central Committee Plenum of February-March 1937 Stalin proposed to mobilize the rank-and-file by organized secret-ballot elections within unions. The author argues that because of the relative democracy (although opinions critical of the government were never permitted), the workers’ ability to elect their party committees and union members as well as the regimes scapegoating of wreckers encouraged and created the atmosphere of a denunciation frenzy and a witch-hunt atmosphere. Since the party used denunciations as a method to uncover opposition and thought there was a secret ring of Trotskyites anyone who could be linked to the denounced, anybody with questionable social origins, links to the opposition even if he or she had renounced, or anybody with connections to already arrested people was in danger of being denounced. Factory foremen and managers were at risk of being denounced by the rank-and-file for industrial wrecking. Such conditions guaranteed that nobody was safe and this created an atmosphere of hysteria, panic and pre-emptive denounciations.

Wendy Goldman does an excellent job of presenting the context of the democracy-terror paradigm by explaining the socio-economic conditions and the political climate of the time that was conducive to such an outcome. Aside from doing a good job by explaining how the secret ballot and democratic voting on the union level coexisted with the terror, I think her argument of its actual impact or contribution to the terror is weak since it appears that denounciations were motivated by personal reasons of surviaval and were not directly linked to the outcome of elections in the factories since she argues they did not make much of a impact beyond the immediate level of factories.

Dr. W: A strong critique despite the minor stylistic problems. A-