Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #2

Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization 

Stephen Kotkin

Paperback: 639 pages

Published: 1997

ISBN-10: 0520208234

      Stephen Kotkin’s Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization is a detailed monograph on the Soviet industrialization drive and “building socialism in one country” in the 1930s. Although specifically focused on the gigantic Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Complex (MMC) in the South Urals and the life that sprung around it, the author nonetheless presents a comprehensive picture of the social transformation and political upheaval that took place across the vast masses of the Soviet Union during Stalin’s push for modernization and industrialization in the first two Five-Year Plans. With the city of Magnitogorsk as the setting for Magnetic Mountain - it could as well be Anytown, USSR - the author presents a recurring theme of the human element and its adaptability and survival in the harshest of environments, both natural and artificial, imposed by the Stalinist regime. 

      In the first part the book the author sets the backdrop of the draconian effort and absurdity of the Soviet system and the sheer human cost of industrialization and “building socialism” on the frontier. In the second part Kotkin describes and analyses in detail the new “socialist society” in transition and ultimately reveals its irrationality and failure to attain its goals. Although the state introduced constraints and expressed intentions of achieving unquestionable control, people engaged the “rules of the game” of urban life and often challenged and circumvented the system.  

      As the Soviet authorities embarked on building a model socialist city the urban inhabitants knew how to make the best of their lot. New housing construction plans “restricted by a lack of funds, building materials and effective coordination” grossly underestimated housing needs of the population resulting in acute housing shortages.  Urban residents often squatted in unoccupied apartments, forged or stole documents in order to receive propiska and later passports, registered non-primary household member as the main occupant to safeguard against losing their home in the event of being fired. Some residents continued to live in mud huts (zemlianki) in order to allow for more privacy as opposed to barracks or communal housing even though the state opposed this practice. In short, the housing emerged as an important arena in which the relationship between individuals and the state was defined and negotiated. 

      Before internal passports were introduced in 1933 the workers of Magnitostroi, the biggest shock construction in the country, were free to move and go back to their villages or cities if they chose to. Nothing held workers at construction sites and although the state advocated and recruited them, it was nothing it could do retain them. Kotkin states that “people were coming and going by the tens of thousands, and in between, they were not staying very long.”  In 1931 the average stay of employee was 186 days; for engineering and technical personnel, 221 days. 

      Other strategies of survival the “socialist city” included letter writing and denunciations often using politically charged language of the times (“wrecking” and “sabotage”, “non-Communist lifestyle”), attempts to move up the latter and become a party member, exceed production targets, even though it sometimes involved damaging equipment because of the strain put on it or become a Stakhanovite. Whatever the methods were, the main goal was to adopt and survive Stalinism.

      Kotkin’s work is superb because of the comprehensive and thoughtful manner in which he presented the subject of “building socialism” and the magnitude of the human toll paid by the Soviet citizens as a result of the mass industrialization and modernization drive of the Stalinist era. He has demonstrated that socialism was not only built but lived by people – individuals with hopes, fears, a capacity for survival, and no small amount of inventiveness. 

Dr. W: You made a number of important points, although I think you overstated some of them. You also need to devote some attention to Kotkin's analysis of the Great Terror. Your essay suffered from some stylistic problems, which didn't affect your grade since I know English isn't your native language, but which you should work to correct. A-

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #1

Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization

Sheila Fitzpatrick

Paperback: 416 pages

Published: 1996

ISBN-10: 0195104595

    

      Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization is a detailed and excellent work on the Soviet policy of collectivization and its effects on the rural population in the Soviet Union, although primarily focused on Russia, in the 1930s. The author contends that dekulakization and collectivization was such a devastating, violent and all-encompassing brutal assault on the peasant values by the regime that it left no real chance for meaningful resistance. Instead the peasantry used indirect strategies for survival and in the process sent ripples back affecting Soviet society and the government to which it reacted in kind.

      Fitzpatrick states that violent uprisings against collectivization were rare in the Russian heartland both because of the ruthless nature of Stalinism and the lack of a potential fighting force as young peasant males left en masse to work in towns or on the new industrial construction sites.  Instead, some of the most common methods of struggling against repression employed by the collectivized peasants included missing work, shirking, sabotaging or stealing from the collective farm (kolkhoz), attempts to obtain a seasonal working permit to urban areas (otkhod) which often resulted in permanent resettlement in the cities, retaining mixed household with one family member working for the kolkhoz and the other as independent as well as more traditional methods of bribery, illegal profiteering, activism, denunciations, and sometimes violence. 

Fitzpatrick’s work represents an in-depth analysis and discussion on dekulakization and collectivization citing various sources and providing ample historical evidence from not only the central Russian region, but also from non-Black Earth belt, Ukraine, Siberia and North Caucasus.  These strategies of passive resistance occurred everywhere in the USSR throughout the 1930s and are documented by her through newspaper articles, achieve documents, peasant letters and others presented in the book.

      Even though the peasants could not stop the collectivization drive outright or protest against their treatment by the government as second class citizens (they still had no state benefits comparable to workers’, passports, and were paid in kind for their kolkhoz work, etc.) they were still able to put pressure on the system to which it reacted, sometimes bending to the will of the peasants and sometimes squeezing them further. 

      In March 1930 Stalin called for a halt in “excesses” of collectivization declaring his policy of “Dizzy with Success,” in 1935 he supported the extension of maternity leave for kolkhozniks, and allowed dekulakized families to come back and join the kolkhoz in their old villages. However, typical of the duplicity and confusion of the Stalinist era, many restrictions and repressive policies that demoralized peasants remained (for example collectivized household could not own a horse, repression of religion, etc).  During the winter 1932-33, the regime punished the peasantry for not meeting procurement targets and sent brigades to extort anything that was left causing a famine in Ukraine. One of the reasons that internal passports were introduced in the Soviet Union in 1933 was to stop starving peasants from leaving the countryside for town in search for food and thus revealing the magnitude of the famine. Also, for the same exact reason, in 1933 the government hastily passed a new otkhod law that was much more restrictive.   Of course the peasantry understood this and was very hostile to Stalin himself, more so than even to the regime itself.

      I think that one of the most important contribution by Sheila Fitzpatrick to our knowledge about collectivization in the Soviet Union is her scholarship on various aspects of the village life and how collectivization has affected it and its different classes, genders, occupations, and even its reflection on different concepts directly related to kolkhoz (for example, oblast, raion, rural soviet, village, kolkhoz, brigades, households, and finally individual peasants, etc.)

Dr. W: Don't end with a sentence that addresses issues not discussed in your essay! A strong critique except for a weak concluding sentence. A-