Abstract
To get a broad picture of the changes of minds and attitudes during the last decades of the Soviet Union contemporary western research on professional and other indirect groups is offering some material. Thesis is, that although the political system did not allow open discussions using hard facts considerable differences of opinions are documented in the Soviet media. The indirect groups though communicating in these media did not have a chance for a transition to preparliamentary organisations within the Soviet system (raising by comparison the question, whether such transitions will work in other Communist countries).
Keywords
The narrative “the intelligentsia against communism”
The intellectual history of the Brezhnev-Period mostly has been written as history of a relatively small and locally focussed minority, the “intelligentsia” fighting against Communism and the Bolshevik state. Dietrich Beyrau has described this history as “selfemancipation within a society characterised by force”. 1 Beyrau followed mainly the causes célèbres from Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago to Solzhenicyn's Archipel Gulag and in that context the development of “informal communities of solidarity and mind” within the intelligentsia. 2 Alexei Yurchak followed the same narrative of the life of the intelligentsia from Stalin to Gorbachev, emphasising the virtuality of their intellectual world, in which constructs of mind claimed an eternal appearance, as if they were forever – only to vanish completely following 1990. 3 Vladislav Zubok focussed on the years following the (Non-)-publication of Dr. Zhivago and Pasternaks funeral 1960. 4 He gives an especially vivid account of one of the main localities, the obshezhitie, where half a dozen or more students were living together in one room. His catchword for groups in the intellectual milieu is “company”. 5 Zubok characterises intelligentsia as Anti-Bolshevik from the very beginning of the Soviet Union. That is turning the classical interpretation upside down – classically Socialism was seen as part of the Russian intelligentsia, or as Peter Struve even put it 1909: “Up to the reception of socializm there existed no Russian intelligentsiia, there only was an <educated class> and different directions within that”. 6
Beyrau, Intelligenz 156–255, chapter “Selbstbefreiung im Zwangsstaat”.
Ibid., 197: “informelle Gesinnungs und Solidargemeinschaften”.
Yurchak, Everything Was Forever.
Zubok: Zhivago's Children.
Ibid., 33–51.
Struve, Intelligentsiia i revoliutsiia, 151. For the change of many intellectuals against Marxism before 1917 – see Smirnov, Ot marksizma k idealizmu.
In my understanding the victory of the Bolsheviks – a party led by intellectuals in 1917 – has to be analysed within “the writings and ideas that have helped to shape the social and political consciousness of modern Russia”. 7 It would be inconsistent to emphasise the influence Russian intellectuals had on Russia and the modern world in general, 8 while excluding Bolshevism from the intelligentsia – the world has taken interest in the history of the Russian intelligentsiia mainly because it was seen as one of the roots of the revolutions of 1917 and the global role, the Soviet Union played for some decades, most of all between the defeat of Germany in 1945 and the breakup of the Union in 1991.
Raeff Anthology, 66 (introduction).
Malia, Intelligentsia?
The narrative “the intelligentsia against the state”, or against Communism is not wrong, and it is corresponding to many facts offered by the narrators. It is telling though, that the research, which in the 1960s and 1970s was conducted on the intellectual histories of more middle of the road Soviet people like professional groups, does not appear in the lists of literature, which Beyrau and Yurchak offer. Or, to put it shortly – following this narrative it is difficult to tell the whole story. Stephan Merl 9 has questioned recently, whether we really understand much of modern dictatorships, if we interpret them purely as quelling of a population, which we presume to be freedom-loving right from the start, maybe by their nature (or even by their “Wesen”). History does seem to be more complicated, than the narrative of the intelligentsia against communism implies. Obviously some dictatorships are capable to communicate with considerable parts of “their” people. The concepts, which these people develop and put forward, and sometimes the feelings of bargaining-power in the face of the powerful even may turn out as illusions. But communication there was, and starting changes of mind are discernable. This new interest in communication in dictatorships is inviting to recall some of the research done in the 1970s on the less outstanding groups of Soviet society than the intelligentsia was.
Merl: Kommunikation in der Diktatur.
Reading literary texts like Dr. Zhivago or highly sophisticated ones like some Medvedevs “Truth is our strength” might obscure the fact, that many arguments against the powerful were simple. The risk to call crimes by their names was great for a Soviet poet and could really be deadly for a common person. But powerful Party-Members used, under circumstances, language common to all of us and called a misjudgement a failure and a willfull killing barbarious. Within the Communist Party itself, within the organisation of perpetrators many were aware, that the masscrimes committed were monstruous and the resources spent without rationality were enormous. Differing to my knowledge from NS-Texts, within the inner circle they did not camouflage these crimes but called them by name. 10
Used to reading the camouflaged talk of NS-perpetrators of masscrimes this struck me as a difference. The latter talk of “Aktion”, “Aussiedlung”, “Umsiedlung” “Evakuierung” etc. when talking about genocide; see Longerich, Ermordung. The propaganda in the occupied territories of the SU differed and was in some nationalistic publications more plainspoken, see Alt'man, Zhertvy nenavisti. 49–54.
For instance in the meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU (TsCP) of January 30th. and February 1st. 1956, where the “secret speech” of Chrushchev on the 20th. Party.convention was discussed beforehand, positions varied between Molotov and Kaganovich and the Secretary General (Gensek) and Mikojan. The first insisted, that in his speech the Gensek should point out, that Stalin's leadership brought socialism, while the Gensek emphasised, that Stalin was “using most barbarious means, destroyed the Party and was no Marxist”. 11 Comparably on May 26th. 1961, where the meeting of Kennedy and Chrushchev in Vienna scheduled for June was prepared, the Gensek upheld the position, that in the West “in my opinion the social powergroups are rising and that there will be no war”, while Mikojan countered “in my opinion, they might start military measures without using Atomic warfare”. 12
Fursenko, Presidium CK, 97.
Ibid., 498.
Similar in the meeting of the Presidium of the Tsentral Committee of October 13th. 1964, 13 during which Chrushchevs term as secretary was ended, we find quite differing but mostly plain language arguments. Besides Chrushchev and Brezhnev 15 members took the floor with a longer statement. Some of the arguments were repeatedly used, others not. For instance almost all agreed, that Chrushchevs political stile had led to a new personality-cult around him. Mzhavadnadze from Georgia put it simply – you think, “everything is allowed to you”, Voronov put it as a replica of Chrushchevs criticism of Stalin – “a new personality-cult”; Suslov coined more theoretically as “violation of Lenins principles of political leadership”. Shelest’ from the Ukraine made that point quite explicitly. Many criticised, that Chrushchev had weakened the role of the party, governed by “zapiski” and not argued his decisions collectively. Five criticised Chrushchevs campaign against the production-managements – Shelest’, Voronov, Efremov, Grishin and Rashhidov – four of these were party-workers from districts with heavy industries – Ukraine, Ourals, Kursk and Moscow. Five criticised the plans to divide obkomy and rajkomy – Shelest’, Voronov, Mzhavadnadze from Georgia, Mikojan and Rashhidov. Four criticised Chrushchev for using family-ties in politics, three the lack of care for military technology – Voronov from Chelyabinsk, Kossygin and Podgornyj. Two attacked the housing-problems, but Shelest’ was the only one to satirically point to the loss of power of the republics: “responsibility and rights of the republics: there is responsibility, but no rights”. Many criticised the agrarian politics, Shelepin as “merrygoround”, but only Poljanskij made a point in attacking the situation in the villages with growing criminality. Only Grishin made the quite general remark, that the technological level was staying behind (behind whom he did not explicate, but it does seem obvious, that he was comparing with the West).
Ibid., 862–872.
In Foreign politics Shelepin said, that generally the course against imperializm should have been more unrelenting, and criticised the Soviet stand in Suez – “on the brink of war” – Berlin – “a loss” – and Kuba – “adventurous”. Mazurov pointed to the rise of nationalism as a result of Chrushchevs politics, Suslov attacked Adzhubej's activities in foreign politics and Podgornyj was satirical. The critic of Shelest’ was more fundamental: “1957 we declared as our aim, to catch up with and overtake the US, but that was a complete failure. We discredited our actions” – but his analysis was not discussed in this circle.
It hardly is possible to interpret all these arguments as acts of representation of some special interest, maybe with the exception of Shelest’, who later was accused of Ukrainian nationalism. Plain words were in use, and a failure was called that way. But we do not see a “fraction” or a political party within the Communist Party. Rather the protocol is indicating, that there were no organised “parties” (“fractions” were forbidden 14 ), despite the importance of the act and despite different opinions on the topic and at least on the reasons, for which the decision should be taken. The “One-Party-System” showed, how it functioned – the main decision had been taken before the meeting was convened. The contributions in the meeting were not purely acclamatory and a couple of interesting points was made, but the discussion lacked the political structure necessary to lead to a decision. Chrushchev accepted the critic from the beginning, Mikojan defended him and some others payed him respect, but in the end all voted unisono to send him into pension.
Brunner, Parteistatut, statute 1952 171–183, § 28; 1961, 185–200, § 27.
The stage was set for politics in the Brezhnev-Period. Our view tends to be, that the discussion of politics in that period was channelled with the highest bodies of the Party. The retirement of Chrushchev had shown, that within the Party-oligarchy a sense of common interest had developed, including the most basic acknowledgement of personal safety. But as fear receded – how did political discussions within the Party, the “new class”, 15 work? And: was there a chance for political discussions in the public, or even political interest groups which might be seen as nuclei of political “fractions” within the Communist Party, although these were strictly forbidden?
Djilas neue Klasse. The most convincing Marxist analysis of “really existing socialism” originated in Poland: Kuron, Modzelewski: Monopolsozialismus.
Concept
Contemporary (and recent) research has been looking for signs of broader political debates within Soviet society during the 1960s and 1970s. While the concept of totalitarianism in the analysis of the SU receded to a certain degree, many researchers were using concepts related to the “Behavioural Revolution”.
16
It offered a new way of looking at societies – neither with the Marxist concept of class constituted by property of means of production, nor by political systems constituted by formal power. Davies
17
in this context already had pointed to the difference between
Direct groups – people who knew one another – research on such groups connected easily with research on clientele-systems – and Indirect groups, who act meaningful together without necessarily knowing one another, for instance by supporting a religious group, paying fees to an association, acting within a national culture or reading the same newspaper – interest groups.
Kanet, Behavioral Revolution and Communist Studies.
J. C. Davies: Human Nature in Politics, esp. p. 62.
My proposal was to adopt the terms of Davies to Soviet conditions and discern between two kinds of groups:
Old indirect groups as religions, ethnic groups and nations, and the intelligentsia, and New indirect groups. The most obvious of these in Brezhnev-times were the “we”, the “my” of regional or urban localisms, from Brezhnev himself to Putin.
18
In many cases these were “new”, since the elites had been moving or were being moved throughout the enormous territory, but of course there also were “old” local “my”, for instance in the Moscow intelligentsija. Looking for connections or something like networks within the political system the professional groups did seem most promising.
19
In his war-memoirs “little country” Brezhnev actually offered a catchword for such a localisms: Brezhnev: Malaja zemlja. For Putins “we” of the “Pitertsy” see Gevorkjan et al, Ot pervogo litsa, for instance 120.
Nolte, Gruppeninteressen 46–61.
First of all the religions in the Soviet Union formed numerous indirect groups. We have a couple of contemporary studies on the intolerance of the Soviet System, 20 but of course the religions carried on and especially publications on social contexts of religion in that system are promising for our question. Definitely (open) adherence to a religion had political consequences for the believer – he could not be a member of the Party and therefore not reach the better paid jobs, which were limited to the nomenklatura. 21 The influence of religion as “milieu” for historically Orthodox, Lutheran, Armenian, Uniate, Jewish, Sunna, Shia or Buddhist ethnic groups is difficult to determine though. We know, that such milieus existed and had influence on clientele-groups. In Foreign politics we know, that some religious hierarchies as that of the Russian Orthodox Church played a special role in Soviet Peace-politics and for instance in contacts to the German Protestant Churches. 22
As Bourdeaux, Hebly Religious Liberty in the Soviet Union, or Janice Brown: Conscience and Captivity. In a more historic vein for the periods up to 1945 Nolte, Glaubensgemeinschaften.
Lane, Christian Religion; Nolte, Religiosität und Unterschicht.
Kirchenamt der EKD, Hinhören, 98–211.
For the intelligentsia in the late 1960s a new form of communication developed, coming from the old Russian tradition of writing letters, which would be copied and sent around: “samizdat”, edited by the author. In the SU books and whole Journals were typed and distributed to be copied at some other place. The movement was difficult to control. In the West these texts were collected and printed, not only by the exile-press, but also in translations for a broader public. 23 Some of the most famous “letters” of Andrej Sacharov were published in Samizdat first and then in the West, but not in the SU. 24
Belotserkovskiji, SSSR. Demokraticheskie al'ternativy, Medwedjew: Aufzeichungen.
Sacharow, Stellungnahme.
A new generation of the Russian intelligentsija had developed, characterised by often excellent University-Degrees and opposition to the government. That reminded of course to the old “Tsarist” intelligentsia – in which you had to be against the regime to belong to it. 25 Dietrich Beyrau has put the new generation into the context of government-politics and associations, 26 and Vladislav Zubok has explained the topics and problem of this “new Vanguard”. The intelligentsia in Russia is an old indirect group with an intriguing intellectual history, differing from the intellectual history of the bureaucracies and the professionals in many regards. For the intelligentsia “the sources on the period are rich and amazingly varied: fiction and nonfiction publications that reflect the issues, debates, and moods of the time, and manuscripts in samizdat, …”. 27 The intellectuals were (and are, I differ here from Zubok, who thought he had witnessed the “last intelligentsia”) – people who like to write and sometimes seem to be addicted to writing. Of course they look to it, that their writings are published and kept in archives. But these groups, which commanded such an enormous degree of media and public in the west, were not the decisive groups 1990/1991.
Berlin, Russische Denker, especially on the dispute between Belinskij and Gogol p. 233–239; see Churchward, Intelligentsia, especially 108–134.
Beyrau: Intelligenz und Dissens.
Zubak, Zhivago's Children 438.
As we know now, ethnic and national “belongings” characterised the decisive groups in the end of the SU. 28 Not only, since national emigrations – Ukrainians, Baltics, Georgians, Tatars etc. – were keeping up national and ethnic agendas outside of the borders of the SU, but also, since national republics constituted a fundamental institution of the SU from within. Further, since the nation state was the dominant political form of in the West in Soviet times, Western interests were focussed on the question of ethnic groups and nations in the SU. Fundamental for research in Germany was Gerhard Simons book on national politics. 29 Of course, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse's book influenced research in Germany also. 30 Both Simon and Carrère d'Encausse saw the end of the SU as victory of the nations over “the Empire”; 31 ; my own research followed nation-building by the cadres of the different national republics.
For an overview Katz et al, Handbook of major Soviet nationalities, New York 1975; Rakowska-Harmstone in: Problems of Communism..
Simon: Nationalismus, overviews Martiny, Nationen; Halbach, Nationalitätenfrage.
Carrère d'Encausse: l'empire éclaté; translation to German with the rather misleading title “Risse im Roten Imperium” Vienna 1979.
Carrère d'Encausse: La gloire des nations; Simon: Verfall und Untergang.
Not only with the knowledge of the latecomer we may note, that nationalism formed one of the structural problems of the Union. But what influence did national sentiments or more precisely the governments of the national republics have on Foreign Politics of the SU?
In terms of internal relations within the SU the republics first were important as statistical units. Comparing the National-Product (the SU did not collect data for BIP), membership in the Party or tertiary education per head the republics differed considerably, and the differences rose – in National-Product per head roughly from 2:1 between the Baltic and the central-Asian republics in 1965 to 3:1 in 1989. 32 The gap between the Soviet “North” and “South” widened, despite efforts of the Central Government to reduce it. The gap did, at least following the official data, not widen as far as in the West; 33 but that comparison was of no political importance, since the Party did not make that comparison. In the breakup of the SU economic differences certainly played a role – for the Baltic republics, where solidarity for Central Asia was questioned, and for Russia and Azerbaidzhan, where the low energy-prices were questioned, since these two republics were paying for it.
Nolte, Geschichte Russlands, 381.
Nolte, Weltgeschichte, 237–260.
As we know now, neither religions nor ethnic differences developed into “cracks in the Empire”. Rather the existing national republics developed into nuclei of the post-soviet polities. Neither Idel-Ural nor a Muslim Central–Asia materialised, but several “subjects” of the Russian Federation between Kasan and Ufa as well as five sovereign states between Bishkek and Ashchabad. Tatar attempts to correct their borders to Bashkortostan according to ethnic majorities failed just as Russian ideas, that Northern Kazakhstan with its Russian majority should become part of the RF. The existing republics within their 1991 borders developed into nation-states, led by their bureaucracies. These republics claimed national traditions and underscored the importance of national studies worldwide, although as mentioned ethnic groups and national republics did not coincide. Today samizdat or underground-Journals or political action of importance to the new nations (which tend to consider themselves as quite old) are part of their historical traditions. 34 In fact the “confrontation between the National Intelligentsia and the Communists” as Jan Zaprudnik has written, was to a large degree, at least in Belorussia, organised by letters and samizdat-papers, which then led to marches and protests 35 and in reaction of cadres of the republics to such publicised opinions to independence.
Sharifzhanov, Tatarstan; Zakiev: Istorija Tatarskogo naroda, 476–485.
Zaprudnik, Belarus, 121–144.
But not only did a new generation of intelligentsia develop in Brezhnevs time, but also within the bureaucracy different positions in politics, different worldviews became more open. The sources for these groups are not at all as well researched and documented, maybe, because their views are not as rewarding to Western researchers, because they are not as afformative; maybe of course also, because they are more middle of the road and not attempting to solve in their own the problems of humanity, as is a tradition in the intelligentsia.
Different professional groups in the SU were recognised in Post-Stalin-Times. For instance in the debate on more polytechnical education and a year of manual work following school as obligatory in 1958 the Komsomol and Chrushchev stood openly for this Proletarian change in the school system, but were opposed in educational and literary Journals, and in the end the Komsomol did not succeed: in the school reform no compulsory year of factory-labour following school was introduced. 36
Schwarz, Keech: Group Influence; Stewart: Soviet Interest Groups.
The concept of “interest-groups” had, as H. Gordon Skilling noted, already been used in the late 1950s and for instance by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1966. 37 Together with Franklyn Griffiths Skilling presented a collection of essays on the topic; Boris Meissner followed up with a collection of German research, and some introductory articles were published. 38 Milton C. Lodge opened research on this part of the society more generally by analysing Soviet professional Journals. 39 Lodge in his 1969 publication studied “the full-time Party-functionaries (the apparatchiki) and four specialist elites: the economic administrators, the military, the literary intelligentsia, and the legal profession. By content analysing representative periodicals for each elite, data are collected on elite attitudes toward the Soviet political system. The overall goal is to determine the extent to which the apparatchiki dominate the political process …”. 40 For the Party-Apparatus he choose the Journals Kommunist and Partijnaja Zhizn; for the Economic Elite Voprosy ėkonomiki and Ekonomicheskaja gazeta, for the Military Krasnaja Zvezda, for the legal profession Sovetskoe gosudarstvo and Sovetskaja justitsija and for the Literary Elite Oktjabr, Literaturnaja Gazeta and Novy Mir. He established for instance, what preferences the different elites had in resource-allocations. The five groups researched by content analysis of these Journals showed quite different and in the years changing positions. One main finding was, that in the years 1959–1965 41 in the researched Journals of the legal profession no article was published advocating more allocations in the military, but more than half of the examples advocated more allocations in agriculture; and the other way round: three quarters of the sample of articles from military Journals advocated more allocations in the military and none more allocations in Education. Lodge established also, that within the professional elites many thought, that they should have more influence, and came to the conclusion, that “the Soviet political system is competitive. By 1959–65 participatory elite attitudes and Party-elite conflict reach levels which are incompatible with the ideological model. Party-specialist elite interdependence, not apparatchiki dominance, characterizes Party-elite relations.” 42 In 1981 Lodge published a more explicit study on his methods. 43
Skilling: Group Conflict.
Skilling, Griffiths, Interest Groups; German Pressure Groups in der Sowjetunion (Vienna 1974); Meissner, Brunner, Gruppeninteressen.
Lodge, Soviet Elite Attitudes.
Ibid., 1.
Ibid., 76 f.
Ibid., 115. Compare Merl Kommunikation, 134–186.
Lodge, Magnitude Scaling.
Lodge's study set the scene for more research on group-interests, even in Soviet foreign policy. 44 One had to keep in mind, that hard facts on foreign policy were still more difficult to find than those on general policy, so any analysis had to put the weight on soft facts – travel accounts, commentaries etc. In the German context Jürgen Ritsert had presented the methods of qualifying text-analysis. 45 There were some studies on journals at the time, most of them aiming to establish the image of Western Germany in the Soviet Union without asking for the differences between the Journals and in fact mostly on the Pravda. 46
Nolte, Gruppeninteressen.
Ritsert, Inhaltsanalyse.
Buchholz, Dietrich, Deutschland in der sowjetischen Publizistik; Menzel, Pfeiler, Deutschlandbilder; HSFK-Gruppe: Rezeption der Ostpolitik.
My question was, how the image of Germany changed or remained the same for different interest groups following the treaty of Moscow between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union in 1970. Following Lodge I hoped to find an answer in professional Journals and selected the years 1970–1972 for my analysis. It was clear from the very beginning, that my study would not reach the reliability of Lodges, since I did not find a colleague to do reliability-tests.
For the literary professions I choose the Journals Novyj Mir and Oktjabr; for the economic Voprosy ėkonomiki, for the Party Kommunist and Partijnaja Zhizn and for the Military Krasnaja Zvezda. Since I worked alone, I could not rely on quantifying as much as Lodge did and started with normal historical text-analysis of articles published in these six Journals during the three years. The differences were obvious. For instance in Novyj Mir in 1971 Aleksandr Ovcharenko published an article “Again at the Rhine” stressing, that the federal Republic was changing, that many people showed interest to the Soviet Union, and that during the lectures he offered some critics – the SU as antisemitic, its interior politics as questionable – were fended off by the Germans themselves. 47 In the Journal of the Military profession Krasnaja Zvezda on the other hand, colonel Markov wrote, that the Moscow treaty might generate some support for the peace-politics of the SU, but in the “camp of imperializm” many were trying to hinder such a development, that NATO was holding maneuvers and the US-Fleet was roaming in the Mediterranean. 48 I corroborated these findings by a quantifying analysis for Krasnaja Zvezda, using five categories from very negative ones to positive ones and comparing the image of the Federal Republics with that of France and the United Kingdom. In contrast to the friendly image of France the Federal Republic in these three years was shown with overwhelming percentages of negative news – excepting only the time of the visit of Brandt in Oreanda and the final ratification of the Moscow Treaty in Bonn itself. The image of the Federal Republic as fascist receded over the years; but negative news about the United Kingdom accumulated “instead” – from a mixed picture in 1970 to an almost exclusively negative one in 1972. 49
Ovcharenko: Snova na Reijna. That Twardowski had lost his job did not end the liberal role of the Journal Novyj Mir.
Mar'kov: Palki v kolesa.
Nolte Gruppeninteressen 116 f.
In political terms the analysis of the professional papers showed, that the Military kept their worldview of the SU as in active military danger by imperializm despite the Moscow Treaty, while literarily oriented people welcomed the news, that the West was changing. Together with the findings of Lodge on resource-allocations cited above we may argue, that the Military had found arguments, which legitimated the high rate of defense-costs, which the SU kept up. The Party, commanding a monopoly on hard facts and on political decisions, followed the arguments of the Military.
Lena Jonson has investigated the newspapers Pravda, Krasnaja Zvezda, Sovetskaja Rossija and Literaturnaja Gazety for their tendencies towards the Federal republic, also combining some methods of qualitative and quantitative content analysis. She sums up, that “Pravda presents an image of West Germany as a <partner>, while the >enemy< image dominates in Krasnaja Zvezda. The position of Sovetskaja Rossija is not as clear-cut but mainly an >enemy< image is presented. Regarding images of the Western Alliance, Pravda describes the alliance as >divided<, Krasnaja Zvezda as >united< and Sovetskaja Rossija again takes a position somewhere in between”. 50 My own follow-up research on the Journals Kommunist Vooruzhennych Sil, Novy Mir and Voprosy ėkonomiki for the year 1980 confirmed the results – the Journal of the Military showed a worldview of growing military dangers, while the Economic Journal pointed to the fast development of capitalism and called for investments. 51 We know, that the Party decided, to increase the defense burden.
Jonson, Soviet Policy Debate 122.
Nolte, Globale Politik 70.
The differences of opinions between the professional Journals concerned general worldviews and habitus, soft facts, and it is difficult to connect these to political decisions. Jiri Valenta though has convincingly reconstructed the Soviet decision to intervene 1968, mainly using Czechoslovak remembrances, and identified a “coalition of the Advocates of Military Intervention”, namely representatives of the western republics, TsC officials for Ideology, leading Party-members from some cities, the safety-personnel and most (not all) representatives from the armed forces. 52 Ragna Boden has shown the role of scientific institutions in Soviet foreign politics, and their limits – using inter alia the scientific publications of the institutions. Her example is Indonesia. 53
Valenta: Soviet Intervention 21–25.
Boden, Grenzen der Weltmacht.
For reasons of academic hierarchy, lack of funds and not the least inaccessibility of Soviet leaders for interviews questioning “the unity of the Party” it was not possible to go on with this research in the 1980s. Following the end of the SU conditions for research improved, as the possibilities to use archival material in Russia or the other republics increased, at least for Chrushchevs period, less for Brezhnevs. Collections of sources were published, as the Protocols of the TsK quoted in the beginning. That will inform about the opinions or at least positions of political leaders. What sources are there?
On the history of dissidents there are letters and written protests not only of intellectuals, but also of for instance of more middle of the road imprisoned people from this period, and some already early were printed in the West. 54 Oppositional writings from the intelligentsia, mostly in Samizdat, have been collected and published in the West early. 55 The different pieces of samizdat also were archived in the West – the archive in Bremen, founded by Wolfgang Eichwede, is owning more than 100.000 texts of all kinds from dissidents in Eastern Europe. 56 Publications of articles, which could not be published before 1991, of course also belong to these informations about changes of mind in the Intellgentsia. 57 The decisions of the Ideological Committee of the CP by the way are being published. 58
Bassmann, Halbach ed., Politische Gefangene.
Lewitzki, Politische Opposition; Lewitzki, linke Opposition; see Medwedew, Wahrheit and Medwedew, Sowjetbürger in Opposition, 95–108.
Forschungsstelle Osteuropa an der Uni Bremen, Klagenfurter Str, D-28359 Bremen.
For instance Michail Gefter: Vysochina Autsaider. See also, translated to German Gefter: Mensch gegen Menschen.
Ajmermakher, Kul'tura i vlast’.
What sources are there though to inform us on the changes of mind of the people in the middle of society? Obviously Egotextes will play a growing role. Diaries have been successfully used for the period of Stalinism. 59 John Hellbeck has carried on his studies into Brezhnev-times, and Irina Savkina has analysed the diary of a “Soviet girl” 1968–1970. 60 There ought to be many more diaries still in the cupboards and desks.
Garros-Castaing, Facetts, Grechanaja: Bibliography; Helbeck: Revolution on my mind. For the diary of one of the perpetrators see Scherbakowa: Tagebuch. I used the diary of the historian N. M. Druzhinin on 1941–1942: Nol'te: Ot sovetskogo patriotizma k rossijskomu nacionalizmu.
Hellbeck: Last Soviet Dreamer; Savkina: Dnevnik Sovetskoj Devushki.
Oral history not only is a precondition for everyday-history – as Niethammer has demonstrated on post-war-Germany, 61 but also may contribute to political history, as Valenta showed. Oral history testimonies have been used extensively on the history of the 2nd. World-War, not only the history of the victims. 62
Niethammer, Die Jahre, die weiß man nicht.
Some of the first to do this kind of research was the group connected with Ales’ Adamovich: Zusammen mit dem Volk. My experience in this field: Nolte, Häftlinge aus der UdSSR.
Then there were and continue to be memoires – first thousands of them from the 2nd. World-War, from generals of all the sides, from soldiers and civilians, from some, who were children at the time 63 also from victims. 64 From Soviet actors, as of course Chrushchev, but also from emigrants. 65 Of course we all know, that memoires tend to show the author in too friendly lights.
For our topic see Bernd Bonwetsch ed.: Kriegskindheit und Nachkriegsjugend in zwei Welten, Essen, Klartext, 2009.
Abramowitsch, Nolte: Die Leere in Slonim; Svirnovskaja, Überleben.
For instance for our topic Yanov: Détente.
Another very interesting source for worldviews and opinions are, surprisingly, elections. There have been studies on the “missing one percent” earlier. New research is focussing on the election-campaigns, in which – for instance in Moscow – some 15% of the population took part. The elections are seen as “highly ritualised forms of communication” – citizens are confronted with the “power” and asked for consent. That did offer maneuvering-space for voters also, if mainly on the local and regional levels, since the careers of bureaucrats depended on 99%. 66 Another source might be the history of exchange-students, who had visited the US or other Western countries. 67
Jessen, Richter, Voting, 17.
Richmond: Cultural exchange.
For sentiments, concepts and daily life of the people from the higher echelons of the Party to poor Old believers or old women living in the countryside the Media in general and Newspapers and Journals in special will most probably remain a strong place for research, at least in the west, since the costs are not as high as for interviews and research in the social archives in Russia itself. Generally newspapers are not too difficult to find and not to expensive to work with. For radio and TV one may have to ask archival permissions. There is introductory research on the Media, a discussion of methods and some first overview. 68 Mass-Media grew in importance in this period, and the number of TV-sets in Soviet households increased between 1955 and 1969 from 1 to 25 millions. 69
Mickiewicz: Media; Paderin: Obshhestvennoe mnenie; Koschwitz, Massenkommunikation.
Roth-Ey, Television, here p. 282.
The Media still now promise insights to the 1970s and 1980s in the SU – diversifying of worldviews and changes of minds.
In 1979 the conclusion was, that the Soviet System acted against the rules of international politics, keeping up a high rate of arms production and defense-status, while making treaties with international partners (in my case the Federal Republic) who worked for a general Détente including lowering defense-costs. Of course parliamentary systems make similar mistakes in not adjusting their political options to a changing international scenario, but the fact, that the changes of mind in the nonmilitary professions could not be argued openly and recurring on hard facts, definitely made it more easy for the Party to keep to an inadequate decision.
The idea, that the SU was in fact endangering the West never was very convincing to anybody who knew, how little effective Soviet institutions and Soviet economy were. Therefore it was difficult to follow the understanding, that the Soviet military buildup really was threatening NATO. 70 Rather on the other side the conclusion might be, that the decision to carry on with a rate of defence of more than 15% of the BSP in order to keep up “parity” with the West was one of the reasons for the fall of the SU; in case the government would have put 10% less of the resources into defense and much of these into RAD and new investments, the economy would have fared better. 71 Therefore it does seem safe to judge, that keeping defence costs high was a heavy political mistake. From the view of classical democracy theory it does seem probable, that a political system offering room for open discussions between representatives of different old and new indirect groups would have had more chances to avoid this mistake.
As for example Poser, Militärmacht Sowjetunion did. More convincing to me was Lutz, Die Rüstung der Sowjetunion.
Nolte, Geschichte Russlands, 377 f.
E negativo though it is obvious, that despite changing minds in different indirect groups on important issues no organised Multi-Party-System had been in the making in the 1970s. In order to tell, what really was in the making and whether there were other options than the breakdown, more research seems promising. My thesis is, that these differing worldviews, these changes of mind in a broader public set the scene for the intelligentsia and is fightings for more publicity in the debates. But for a change in direction of a Parliamentary system it did not suffice to allow different worldviews and differing informations on soft facts, rather it was necessary to allow fractions or outspoken political groups disputing the hard facts also (for instance the biased mistakes of the Statistical Office).