History of Russia 2nd Midterm PDF

HISTORY OF RUSSIA – 2ND MIDTERM What After The Russian Revolution? How To Build A Post-Imperial Order? The October Revolution: the turning point On October 25, 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets declared all power to belong to the Soviets. The armed uprising was eventuall...

HISTORY OF RUSSIA – 2ND MIDTERM What After The Russian Revolution? How To Build A Post-Imperial Order? The October Revolution: the turning point On October 25, 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets declared all power to belong to the Soviets. The armed uprising was eventually the reason behind the road to civil war and dictatorship: rather than a multiparty socialist government, Bolsheviks declared war to the other members of “February Revolution” (including other socialist groups). Reasons behind the success: while the moderate socialist parties (Mensheviks and Socialist revolutionaries) tried to reconcile the interests of antagonistic extremes of Russian society (upper and lower classes), they lost the backing of key groups of workers and soldiers in favour of the radical Bolsheviks. From 1917 to 1927: from imperial rule to communism What is Russia after Revolution? 1. It is still a state involved in WW1 2. It is a state involved in civil war. 3. It is a state experiencing an economic and social crisis. These are the main preconditions (and constraints) behind the formation of Bolsheviks rule in the former Russian empire. What is the economic and social situation faced by Bolshevik Russia? 1) The war and the first year of revolution caused a dramatic economic crisis: more than 600 enterprises closed; unemployment grew; food supplies worsened. 2) Russia was the least appropriate country in Europe for the creation of a Marxist socialist state: (state-)capitalism only partially transformed economy; the working class was a minority of the population; most Russians were peasants, being hostile to a political and economic order privileging the industrial proletariat. What are the main challenges and priorities for Bolsheviks to consolidate their power? a. Internal political stability: from global revolution to the revolution of lower classes. The Bolshevik Revolution represented a break with the provisional government (upper classes: liberals, aristocrats, landowners). Yet an internal struggle among revolutionaries was taking place. Was there unity among lower classes? It was still a city-based revolution: what about the peasants? b. International context and political stability in territories of former Empire: from Bolshevik revolution to exit from war (and entering a new domestic civil war). ▪ Whites: from monarchists to liberals (often supported by the Allies) ▪ Reds: Bolsheviks and their supporters among working classes and former imperial soldiers. In-between actors: Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries aiming to restore a kind of democratic socialism. Does the revolution start after October 1917? Bolsheviks launched a triple revolution after taking power: 1. Political revolution: from autarchy to democracy (and back again to communist dictatorship); 2. Economic revolution: from war communism to state-capitalism (and back again to a centralized economic system); 3. From world revolution to socialism in one country. Political revolution. Why do we get from revolutionary democracy to dictatorship? There was no clear model to be followed: it was the particular historical context that influenced the emergence of the new state going against democratic tendencies: authoritarian, centralized and repressive. 1 Soviet state was a product of two major dynamics: A. The struggle against backwardness and civil war B. Bolshevik ideology and political culture, rejecting liberal parliamentary forms and capitalism. 1. First step creation of new state structures (October) A few hours after the fall of the Winter Palace in October, the new government of Soviet Russia was formed: I. All the power is assigned to Soviets (Workers’ assemblies) II. Upper level: the new government was formed around the so-called “Council of People’s Commissars” (Sovnarkom), made up only by Bolsheviks, who was responsible to the Congress of Soviets for the administration of State affairs. Composition: Lenin (chairman); Trotsky (Commissar of foreign affairs); Josif Stalin (Commissar of nationalities); Anatolia Lunacharskii (education). ▪ Lower level: multiparty Soviets (at this stage): still in most of the local contexts in Russia, Soviets were taking power as multiparty coalitions, ▪ All civil ranks, social privileges and class distinctions are abolished. ▪ Church and state were separated. ▪ All ethnic groups were declared equal, as were men and women. ▪ Expropriating the property rights of owners of large houses and dividing them among families in need. 2. Second step rise and fall of Constituent Assembly: the road to one-party system and civil war ▪ Mid-November: people across the new Soviet Russia vote in the new elections for the Constituent Assembly, i.e., a founding constitutional congress that had to decide on the future of the Russian state. ▪ Social Revolutionaries won 40% of the vote; Bolsheviks only 24% (but still more relevant in Moscow and Petrograd). ▪ January 1918 (first and only session of the Assembly): the Bolsheviks demand the Assembly to recognize the Soviet government, but the latter starts working apart from Sovnarkom. ▪ The day after, Lenin signs a decree dissolving the Constituent assembly. The forgotten dream of 1905 A democratically elected Constituent Assembly for the creation of a Russian Constitution was one of the main goals of all Russian Revolutionary parties since 1905 and had been already planned by the Provisional Government in November 1917. Dissolving the Assembly was a turning point for destiny of Soviet Russia: ▪ Excluding the participants to February Revolution from the institutions of the new state. ▪ Setting the ground for civil war with those unwilling to accept the Soviet power and socialist revolution. 3. Third step the exit from war and the final road to Bolshevik power 2  ▪ In the first months of the new regime (October 1917 – March 1918), Bolshevik primary foreign policy interest was to take Russia out of war. ▪ The very first act of the new soviet government still in October was the Decree on Peace by Lenin: he was convinced that Soviet Russia was too weak and could not wait to conclude a separate peace with Germany (the Allies did not recognize the new government and their diplomatic relations collapsed). ▪ March 1918: Soviet Russia signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovskl: Soviet Russia loses western areas of old Russian Empire, and Transcaucasia, which goes to Turkey (the treaty was then declared invalid after the defeat of Central powers in November 1918: new fronts of civil war). 4. Fourth step the exclusion of upper classes from political life and the one-party system ▪ In March 1918, the Bolsheviks change the name of the party from Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Bolsheviks) to Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks): this is the definitive break with moderate Social Democrats in Russia and in the West. ▪ One year later (March 1919), the Communist International (Comintern) was founded, to expand revolutions to other countries in Europe and America, through the use of existing parliament and underground extra-parliamentary activities. ▪ Between October 1917 and January 1918, the Bolsheviks eliminated the upper classes, the bourgeoise, and the clergy from political participation: this was ratified in the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in July 1918. ▪ Only workers, peasants and soldiers could vote for the Soviets. ▪ Until the exit from war, Soviets were made up of multiparty members: i.e., leftist groups (Mensheviks, Social Revolutionareis etc.) ▪ After the crisis over armistice, we witness the formation of a one-party government by Summer 1918. With the formation of new party organs (Politburo and Orgburo), the primacy of the party over the state was established (with the justification of war times). Since 1922, we will finally have the figure of the Secretary of the Party (Stalin). Economic revolution Bolsheviks adopted different economic policies, according to changing ideological position and social contingencies: 1. October 1917 to July 1918: before the start of civil war, attempts to maintain economic production and promotion of first harsh policies. 2. July 1918 to March 1921: during the civil war, Soviet state expands its role in the economy, nationalizes industries and proceeds with requisition of grain from peasantry and suppression of markets. 3. March 1921 to 1927. After civil warm, back to “state capitalism”, or what is termed as NEP (“New Economic Policy”) Economic Policy in early stages: the peasant revolution From October 1917 to July 1918, Bolsheviks inherited a weak state still involved in WW1. Working class was still the main actor of revolution, but in cities there were few workers (from 3.5 million before revolution, to 1.5 after that) and shortage of food. The first policies tried to maintain economic production through harsh policies: i. Compulsory labor ii. Forced requisition of grain iii. Elimination of money payments and legal markets. Urgent reforms: the land decree and the peasant questio In November 1917, the Bolsheviks issued a land decree (over 190 decrees issued in the first 6 months of government): ▪ There could be no ownership of land ▪ Land could not be sold, leased or mortgaged. ▪ All privately owned land was to be confiscated by the government with no compensation paid (disparity among peasants) 3 ▪ Confiscated land was handed over the land committees and district Soviets. 1. The approved land reform encouraged peasants all over Russia to seize land and expropriate landlords; paradoxically, the decree increaed the power of the communes. 2. By early 1919, 81 million acres had been transferred from the gentry, the state or the church to peasants. 3. The shortage of food in cities brings the Bolsheviks to launch from May 1918 a war against rich peasants, labeled as “kulaks”, who were considered responsible for the food crisis. War Communism (1918-1921): the internal war with peasants By fall of 1918, with the civil war, the forced requisition of grain though the use of “military food brigades” started. These policies privileged cities and industrial proletariat, but were hostile to peasants. I. The forced requisition of grain alienates peasants from revolution II. We witness the agreed formation of the first types of large-scale farms (sovnarkhozy): the origins of collective farms, were the land belong to peasants. This would be the ground for future “kolkhozy” in Stalin times. Generally, Soviet power remained weak in the countryside until Stalin’s forced collectivization in 1930s. 4  How to build a post-imperial Russia: the rise of the Soviet Union The same protagonists as the main actors in the late imperial era: the liberals, teh peasants, the army etc.. Talking about a state that came to be shaped in an economic and political way as a Marxist state. A new idea of post- imperial order, that emerge in times of political chaos. The main political moves of the Bolsheviks : use of force and radical decisions (i.e., closing and dissolving the political assembly) + a struggle of making the main resource of the peasants the main target of the first policies to be adopted. All the features of society are still there to be faced by a new ruling class. How did the Bolsheviks react to them? How to build a post-imperial Russia The hammer (role of the working class) and the circle (role of the peasants, union of the Lower class). This sign did not emerge in a straightforward way: it was the result a long fight that came to be experience by the working class and the peasants. In very few years, the Bolsheviks were able to reverse the processes and create a country which became highly industrialized: they changed Russia from within in a few decades. From 1917 to 1927: from imperial rule to communism What is Russia after Revolution? 1. It is still a state involved in WW1 2. It is a state involved in civil war. 3. It is a state experiencing an economic and social crisis. These are the main preconditions (and constraints) behind the formation of Bolsheviks rule in the former Russian empire. Afte the revolution, Russia was still involved in WW1 and also became engaged in a civil war: it experienced an economic and social state crisis. These are the main preconditions (and constraints) behind the formation of Bolshevik rule in the former Russian Empire. We did not have any kind of instructions for the Bolsheviks as for what it meant to build a socialist state: the way they enacted “political creativity” had not only to do with socialist ideology but also with pragmatic action to be made within society. Issues coming not only within Soviet Russia that was to emerge, but also from territories of imperial “oppressed people”: subjects of the empire recognized themselves as being part of some sectors of society. But new national movements emerged in the second half of the 19th century, as the result of emergence of new industrial centers: a struggle could not be fough not only in class terms, but also in national terms. People recognizing themselves as being part of something else. They start to promote their own ideas of post-imperial order. So the Bolsheviks not only had to fight against the upper classes and the other members of the February revolution, but also against the other members of national movements, that were trying to promote their own ideas of post-imperial Russia. Context created by peace conference ending WW1 where the principle of self-determination leading oppressed people: these people came to be legitimized and came to be recognized. At the same time, the USSR – the Bolsheviks – still represent the only multiethnic state keeping together the majority of the former Russian empire: internal structure and ideology acting as a “strange” element. The Bolsheviks managed to keep together such a diverse territory under their rule. The compromises taken by the Bolsheviks: the Soviet Union did not emerge from scratch, but was the result of several steps of the Bolsheviks. Many questions do arise while referring to the way the Bolsheviks dealt with the national question (new national movements arising in the empire): how to reconcile socialism with nationalism? To some extent, socialism was the property of intellectuals and activists; the Bolsheviks were able to find smart ways to deal with such contradictions (socialism/nationalism): we will understand how they reconciled these distant framework for realizing a post-imperial society. Another struggle of post-imperial Russia is the constant opposition between the idea of Russia as Rossijskaja (multiethnic empire) and Russia as Russkaja. Ethnic Russians vis à vis other ethnic minorities. Another question we should understand is how the Bolsheviks managed to reconcile the difference of the Russian empire: Soviet identity vs. Ethnonational identity. 5 The Bolsheviks adopted a series of political moves which lead to the birth of a federation. From the empire to the Soviet Union 1. Rossijskaja vs. Russkaja: until XIX century, Russian empire was a multiethnic empire. What was the role of Russians in the Soviet Union? 2. Socialism and nationalism: ideologies brough by intellectuals and activists (lower classes are not directly involved in this process). Nationalism was ideologically connected to the idea of capitalism: how to reconcile it with socialism? 3. Soviet identity vs. Ethnonational identity/ies: how are they shaped and what is their relation? The answer lies in the rationale and history behind the creation of the Soviet Union. ▪ An “Empire of Nations” (Hirsch 2005): beyond exceptionalism. It is not by chance that in the readings (suggested) we will find an “Empire of Nations” (Hirsch 2005) : it is paradoxically dedicated to the USSR. Exploring the log is the reforms adopted by the Union in early soviet times. Describing the union as an empire of nations: we may understand how soviet and Bolshevik leaders were able to reconcile the legacy of the empire and gather together with the newly formed framework, the national idea. “No issue was more central to the formation of the Soviet Union than the nationality questions. The Bolsheviks had set themselves the task of building socialism in a vast multiethnic landscape populated by hundreds of different settled and nomadic peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, confessional (religious) and ethnic groups. That they were doing so in an age of nationalism, against the backdrop of the Paris Conferenceps exaltation of the “national idea”, only added to this enormous challenge.” Hirsch : what the Bolsheviks were doing was not ignoring the multiethnic struggle / nationalist one, but rather it was the central issue in orienting the politics that would characterize the formation of the Soviet Union itself. From the empire to the Soviet Union – remapping Europe after WW1: towards a post-imperial order The collapse of multiethnic empires (Austro-Hungarian; Ottoman; German; Tsarist) creates the ground for a new reshaping of Eastern Europe along national lines. Whereby imperial rule managed diversity through inequality, nation- states tried to bring equality through homogeneity; in Eastern Europe, homogeneity was a utopian goal. From the imperial era to a national era in terms of dealing with politics within our territories. Whereby imperial rule managed diversity through inequality, nation-states tried to bring equality through homogeneity: in Easterm Europe, homogeneity was a utopian goal. The constant in Russia’s historical evolution is the tension between empire and the national: both the Tsarist and Soviet regimes attempted to negotiate the difficult path between the imperatives of a great and diverse state (1), and the particular concerns of ethnic and religious communities themselves (2). How did the Bolsheviks react to this situation? Tsarist rule ➔ Co-optation of the elites, assigning roles of leadership Bolsheviks ➔ Politic of difference + imperial peripheries granted specific degree of autonomy, resulting evident and visual by looking at some of the documents produced along the 20th century. We must disassociate our vision of Soviet Union as being made by only Russian people! From the empire to the Soviet Union – challenges for Bolsheviks in the wider “imperial space” Bolsheviks developed a nationality policy for the new Soviet government Rhea was based on an ideological compromise (nationalism/capitalism had to be overcome by class struggle): Soviet Russia itself was multinational. Urgency: to win over the non-Russian nationalities and to combat the natoonalists’ attempts to disintegrate the unitary state. Immediately after the Revolution, the new Sovnarkom included the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities (under Stalin): ▪ Still during the civil war, Bolsheviks accepted the principle of “federalism” for Soviet Russia by January 1918 (still with few possibilities of success in the external space): “the Soviet Russia republic is established on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet National Republics”. ▪ The first Soviet Russian Constitution in July 1918 included both federalism and national territorial autonomy. The Bolsheviks were able to develop an ideological compromise between class struggle and nationalism: in a sense, the Russian empire was a multiethnic empire; at the same time, the Soviet Union came to be a multiethnic state as well. 6 Not something so differnet from what we saw in imperial times: what really changed was teh way the ruling came to be structured in soviet times. Before the start of the civil war: urgency ➔ acquire the consensus of former empire and fight potential attempts of new people to form parallel national states. A specific principle along multinational lines: during civil war, Bolsheviks accepted the principle of “federalism” for Soviet Russia by January 1918 (still with few possibilities of success in the external space). This meant that only the territories that was under their control came to be shaped through federal lines. Soviet Russian republics were to be established on the bases of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet National Repubics ➔ a specific degree of autonomy. The first Soviet Russian Constitution in July 1918 included both federalism and national territorial autonomy: one of the pillars of the idea of restricting Russia empire. Why were the Bolsheviks doing so and finding such a compromise? The territories we can see in the map as pink were under the control of the Bolsheviks in 1919 : only territories of European Russia. At the same time, what happened in the territories of the former Russian empire ➔ ephemeral states: different state projects did emerge, to potentially arise after the takeover of Bolsheviks. From the ashes of the civil war: national experiences of revolution Starting from what the Bolsheviks inherited, we can get how difficult the tasks were. In Tsarist Russia, the rule over non-Russian population was quite mixed and contradictory: between assimilation, military government and forms of autonomy. Only in late XIX century, we have policies of cultural homogenization. ▪ Absence of widespread national movements: most of non-Russian peasants identified with their nearby ethnic compatriots. ▪ Nationalism: like socialism, it was an ideology brought by intellectuals and activists. Only those nationalities who were mostly affected by industrial capitalism (such as Georgians, Latvians and Estonians) developed political movements of great power. ▪ Peoples who were mostly absent from towns (such as Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) spent more time to develop widesprea national political movements: they did not get in touch with other ideas, they were mostly peasants. ▪ Even farther from social revolution of industrialism were the Muslim peoples of the Empire: teh vast majority of Central Asian were nomadic or semi-nomadic and had no contact with socialist or nationalist intelligentsia. Transcaucasia All three major peoples were deeply influenced by the intellectual debates and political developments in Russia. Among Armenians (mostly urban and merchants), nationalism overwhelmed socialism as leading ideology; among Georgians, Marxism predominated over nationalism; among Azerbaijanis, the loyalty to Islam overwhelmed any secular ideology. In times of war, the region was at the core of revolts and failed states: ▪ Azerbaijan declared independence in 1918, but after the Ottoman and british armies left the region, the Bolsheviks Red army took the power by force in 1920 only through the use of force they managed to get power. ▪ Georgia was dominated by Mensheviks, who grew in consensus in times of the Constituent Assembly: after the Revolution they gradually separated the region from Russia, declaring autonomy and independence for 3 separate independent republics. Only in February 1921 the Red Army entered Tbilisi. 7 ▪ In 1915, with Russia at war with Turkey, Armenians were living on both sides of the border. Those who were living in turkey became the target of systematic murdering and deportation. Now mostly living on the Russian side of the border, a fragile independent Armenian republic was created in 1918 (lasting till late 1920) in Yerevan. Under the attack of Turkish nationalist Kemal Ataturk, the government concluded an agreement with Soviet Russia to establish a Soviet government in Armenia. The entry of the Red Army would definitely bring Bolshevik rule also in this region. Ukraine After the February Revolution, an active Ukrainian nationalist elite made by middle-class professionals confronted both the Provisional Government in Petrograd and then the Sovnarkom in Moscow with demands for autonomy and self- rule. ▪ Following the February revolution, the Ukrainian People’s Republic was declared, with the election of the Central Council mainly composed of socialist parties: the republic’s autonomy was recognized by the Russian Provisional Government. ▪ After the October Revolution, the republic proclaimed its independence, lasting till 1920: Ukraine thus became the core of the Southern front of the civil war, where Reds, Whites, Anarchists and national groups fough till the victory of the Reds and the establishment of a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus Here a short-lived Belarusian democratic republic (1918-1919) existed during the conflict between German and Russian armies. Only after German retreat from war, Bolsheviks were able to establish a Soviet socialist republic. Poland An independent country did not exist until the outbreak of the war, but emerged as the result of the outcomes of the war. After a long war with Bolsheviks, in March 1921, the Treaty of Riga established a large Poland with Ukrainian and Belarusian areas within the State (lasting until 1939). The Bolsheviks had to agree to a loss of territories and the creation of a policy towards these states. Baltic states and Finland (Northwestern region of Russia) The only states that came to be independent after the civil war were the ones we find in this norther region…: Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. ▪ The Baltic region was in-between German and Russian domination: as a result of war developments, Estonian, Latvians, and Lithuanian national elites were able to establish their own independent states. ▪ Finland was under Russian control from 1809 to 1917, after taking it from Sweden. Since its presence within the Tsarist empire, Finland achieved a status of autonomous polity. In the first years of the revolution, Finnish socialists became the principal advocates of Finland’s independence from Russia. In December 1917, Finland declared itself an independent state and was recognized by the Soviet government in Petrograd. This was the start of a bloody civil war, with Finnish whites supported by the Germans, and the final coming to power of a conservative, pro- German elite. Islam and Central Asia By the time of revolution there were more than 15 million Muslims in the Russian empire: they spoke Turkic languages (or Iranian language, in the case of Tajiks), but distinctions among these people were quite fluid. Rather than identifying with specific ethnic or national groups, their affiliation was mainly with Islam. During the Revolution, Muslim leaders attempted to forge institutions of Muslim unity. Local Bolsheviks and Soviets tended to identity with local Russians, thus alienating the Muslims. Under the danger of foreign intervention (British colonial influence), only thanks to the help of the Red Army and agreements with local elites, it was possible for Bolsheviks to establish their rule in the region. ▪ At least 1 million people (from both Red and White factions) died in combat or as victims of terror. ▪ Several million people died from disease, hunger and cold. ▪ About a million people left the country. 8 Eventually, the Reds won the war but they were left with a devasteted country. Lenin was sensitive to the multiethnic character of the Russian and Soviet states, and he promised non-Russians self-determination and equal rights in a new socialist federation. Understanding of global dyamics in international relations: need for ideological tools for attracting “oppressed peoples” to join the Revolution (beyond the imperial era – as the result of WW1) The early Bolshevik elite was aware about such conditions, started to think about hw to grant autonomy.(?) ;both Stalin and Lenin at the beginning started to think about how to administer a state that could gather together all these entities resulting from the civil war. The new ideological tools adopted : for attracting “oppressed peoples” to join the Revolution (beyond the imperial era – as the result of WW1). Inspiring Revolutionary resistance to “imperial capitalism” abroad: 1. Already in 1921, there wer six Soviet republics: the Russian soviet Federated Socialist Republic, Ukraine, Belarus, and Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (then, in 1932 Transcaucasian Federation). 2. Relations among them are not clear: all ruled by Communist parties, but with a great degree of independence. 3. Struggle between Stalin and Lenin over the form of the new state (“Great Russian chauvinism” / Centralisation vs. Autonomy of non-Russian Soviets). Complexity of the moment for Bolshevik political creativity This letter to persuade elite to embark on the communist battle “If a Great Russian Communist insists upon the amalgamation of Ukraine with Russia, Ukrainians might easily suspect him of advocating this policy not from the motive of uniting the proleatarians in the fight against capital, but because of the prejudices of the old Great-Russian nationalism, of imperialism. Such mistrust is natural, and to a certain degree inevitable and legitimate, because the Great Russians, under the yoke of the landowners and capitalists, had for centuries imbibed the shameful and disgusting prejudices of Great-Russian chauvinism”. V.I. Lenin – “letter to te Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine Apropos of the Victories Over Denikin” (18 Dec. 1919) Between 1922 and 1923: Debates over the formalization of relations between the legally independent Soviet republics. In 1922, the first Treaty of Union between Soviet Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Soviet federation of Transcaucasia was approved. A Draft of the New Constitution rectifying a three-level structure is approved: I. Areas where the authority of the federal centre in Moscow prevailed (foreign affairs, defense, foreign trade, communications, post and telegraph) II. Areas shared by federal and republican authorities (finance; food economy; labour; control and inspection; state security). III. Areas for republic authorities (internal affairs, justice, health, social welfare, nationality affairs) Through this three-level sytem, the Bolsheviks thought that they could guarantee some degree of autonomy ▪ State structure of each republic based on the election of national “Supreme Soviet”. ▪ The federal government (now called, Central Executive Committee) was elected by a Congress of Soviets: each of the union republics and autonomous republics of teh RSFSR had its own representatives in the federal government. After the adoption of the Constitution on 31 January 1924, the USSR comes into being. At the same time, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was formed:  Every republic had its own Communist Party, BUT there was no separate communist organization for the Russian Soviet Republic. The Constitution of the USSR (January 1924) “Since the foundation of the Soviet Republic, the states of world have been divided into two camps: the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism. There, in the camp of capitalism: national hate and inequality, colonial slavery and chauvinism, national oppression and massacres, brutalities and imperialistic wars. Here, in the camp of socialism: reciprocal confidence and peace, national liberty and equality, the pacific co-existence and fraternal collaboration of peoples. The attempts made by the capitalistic world during the past ten years to decide the question of nationalities conflicts becomes more and more confusing, even menacing the capitalist regime. The bourgeoise has proven itself 9 incapable of realizing a harmonious collaboration of the peoples. It is only in the camp of the Soviets, only under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat that has grouped around itself the majority of the people, that it has been possible to eliminate the oppression of nationalities, to create an atmosphere of mutual confidence and to establish the basis of a fraternal collaboration of peoples. Make the national question an important one for the conquest of CONSENSUS. 10  Socialist Russia as a new model in the interwar period: First World War and its impact on Eastern Europe We saw a state emerging following an element that came to be crucial: the national paradigm, that played a role in the agreement between the Bolsheviks and the local elites = a union of socialist republics. It was not a ready made plan for the Bolsheviks, nor the result of a genuine interest of the Bolsheviks, but rather out of necessity to face some issues that had emerged in the aftermath of the revolution. 1st issue: the legitimacy of their power = several confrontations in order to make their power legitimate after fighting against the upper classes of society. The first step was the resolving of the Constituent Assembly, which could come to an agreement between the various segments of society. After taking the fight, we witness the civil war, that took place between the red army, the working class and the lower classes against the upper ones. Also the national movements playing a crucial role. It was a struggle of Bolshevik Russia against Russia itself. Another struggle came from the peasants: the struggle of the peasants, which became the target of the policies implemented by the Bolsheviks, who were trying to reconcile the urban centers and the peasantry. The first economic reforms by the Bolsheviks reflected the need to impact the balance in the country side (e.g., requisition of grain): trying to recreate a category of peasants that could be supporting the socialist experience. The kulaki as the legacy of the empire became their main enemy: Poor peasants – connected to the villages, those that were trying to promote a new form of “middle peasants”. When we use the term “political creativity” we refer to something truly concrete: how the ideological conviction can transform society from within. Socialist Russia became a model for other countries in the international arena. Conditions of the Russia Empire, which in 1922 – first treaty of the Union signed – came to create a complex system of Republics, that had to stay behind under the power of the central power. They had political borders, their local authorities and parties, had their own national languages to be promoted and standardized, under the early soviet policies. Need for the Bolshevism to create socialist elites within these countries: this is why the Soviet Union is often described as an “affirmative action empire”: a kind of system that has its own central power, but grants some sort of autonomy. “Enroutening policy”: idea of the Bolsheviks to let the other countries adopt their sense of belonging / helping them standardizing their langauages; and then creating a socialist content within these countries. National movements were still embodied in the power of elites: not having a real impact in the countryside of Russia (??) Acquisition of the consesus of the countryside and the process of creation of national elites would run in parallel of the first decades of Soviet Union. Empire and Bolsheviks: discontinuity and continuity The national and social questions Before WW1 and in imperial times we had a policy of incorporating territories culturally, economically and politically different. ▪ Expansion: incorporating territories culturally, economically, and politically different. ▪ Centralized power (tsar, nobility) ▪ Central role played by peasants (majority of population). They are mostly passive in pre-revolutionary era: in pre- revolutionary years a new class of rich peasants emerges, acquiring nobles’ lands (derogatorily, renamed “kulaki”). 11 After the First World War ▪ The rise of Marxist socialism as an instrument for state- and national-building (centralized power in the party – “one-party system”). ▪ From multiethnic to “nationally-based” regions: i.e., Ukraine. Before the war: Russian, Jewish, Polish, German, Tatar, Bulgarian minorities. In the interwar period: almost 2 millions of Jews are killed, expulsion of 1 million of Germans and Poles, and the new Russian immigration radically changes the situation. After WW1, the new system: the rise of Marxism-Socialism = the party embodied the central power, that is there to gather together the peripheries of the former empire, acting as a connecting force. We are still talking about a centralized system, embodied by the one-party centre. At the same time, another interesting point is the gradual emergence of the idea to recreate new “nationally-based” regions: i.e., Ukraine. The right for self-determination, the right of having their own degree of autonomy. The right to cultivate their local cultures: this is quite peculiar, because the Bolsheviks were telling people of other groups which were the nationalities they had to follow. Even for Ukraine, the 1920s = era of Ukrainization = great amount of publications in Ukrainian language; major development of this culture occurred paradoxically in the 1920s. All the people had to be privileged within such a system: in the 1920s, we have a need for distancing the new ruling system from Russian Empire. Instead, Russian chauvinism was the major threat for the Bolsheviks; they could have risked to distance themselves from other groups. “The origins of Russia’s third throng state were in communist ideology and harsh international realities. The two reinforced each other: the Bolsheviks’ ideology of class struggle made it difficult to coexist with the Western “capitalist” world, whereas the West’s hostility toward the USSR served to exacerbate the Soviet perception of insecurity”. (Tsygankov). This is also why the adoption and endorsement of the national ideology whiting the Svoiet state was trying to counteract the potential source of contraction which were coming from the West (e.g., Churchill’s ideas of national self- determination). The 6 nations being the founders of the Union = symbolic representation in the flag. Join the competition in the West and let the peoples of other ethnic groups know that Russia was letting them acquire their degree of autonomy = a strategical move of the Bolsheviks that was very much efficient. From the empire to the Soviet Union challenges for Bolsheviks in the wider “imperial space” Understanding of global dynamics in international relations: need for ideological tools for attracting “oppressed peoples” to join the Revolution (beyond the imperial era – as the result of WW1) Inspiring revolutionary resistance to “imperial capitalism” abroad: 1. In 1921, there were six Soviet republics: the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, Ukraine, Belarus, and Amernia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (then, in 1922 Transcaucasian Federation). 2. Relations among them are not clear: all ruled by Communsit parties, but with a degree of independence. 3. Struggle between Stalin and Lenin over the form of the new state (“Great Russian chauvinism”/centralization vs. Autonomy of non-Russian Soviets). Between 1922 and 1923: debates over the formalization of relations between the legally independent Soviet republics. In 1922, a Treaty of Union between Soviet Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Soviet Federation of Transcaucasia was approved. A Draft of the New Constitution ratifying a three-level structure is approved: a. Areas where the authority of the federal centre in Moscow prevailed (foreign affairs; defense; foreign trade; communications; post and telegraph) b. Areas shared by federal and republican authorities (Finance; food economy; labour; control and inspection; state security). c. Areas for Republican authorities (internal affairs; justice; health;social welfare; nationality affairs). Create a new grounf of relations, that came to be ratified in 1922 with the Treaty of Union: we had a centre of the union, embodied by the party, which was placed in the Kremlin and was the centre of the communist party, was there to guarantee the connection with the other parts of the Union. 12 A Draft of the New constitution ratifying a three-level structure is approved: jhaving its core in the communist party in Moscow. Every republic had its own communist party. Each republic had its own parliament and its own Soviet: elections through communist party members. ▪ State structure of each republic based on the election of national “Supreme Soviet”; ▪ The federal government (now called, Central Executive Committee) was elected by a Congress of Soviets: each of the union republics and autonomous republics of the RSFSR had its own representatives in the federal government. After the adoption of the Constitution on 31 January 1924, the USSR comes into being. At the same time, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was formed: ▪ Every republic and its own Communist Party, BUT there was no separate communist organization for the Russian Soviet Republic. A new history made by man power: the political creativity went beyond, creating a State that had nothing in common with the Russian Empire. Territoriality at the heart of the Soviet nationality policy Territoriality became the main theme: the definition of borders within the former territories was an issue to be faced by the Bolsheviks = maintain a central role of the party within the institutions of the former empire. “Ukraine and Belarus exist at present in the form of separate Soviet republics. In this way the question concerning their political status has been resolved today. However, this does not in any way mean that the Russian Communist Party should declare itself to be a federation of independent communist parties… every decision of the PCR and its governing bodies is unconditionally binding on all local party organizations, regardless of their national composition.” (Program of the Communist Party 1919). In 1920s, Russian Bolsheviks create autonomous regions and republics around the former Empire. The States are renamed as “Soviet Republics”. Creation of autonomous territories on national basis takes shape not only at the West (i.e., Ukraine and Belarus), but also in those territories where the indigenous population did not aspire to national autonomy (see Central Asia). ▪ Here we have all the nationalities to receive a specific form of territorial-national autonomy. Repercussions of Lenin’s “Utopia” “Utopia”: complex web of internal borders – to reflect the possibility a specific degree of autonomy. Granting of autonomy to a small territory even within the Georgian republic, because they had provided help in winning the war - Georgia was mainly dominated by Mensheviks during the war! Peoples differing not only in religious and language markers of identity, but mainly in social position and level of economic development. Nationality is not developed among all the peoples of the former Empire. Common marker: land, peasantry and social scale. The success of the Revolution in the borderlands of Empire is tied to the emerging convergence of nationality and class questions. The idea was to ideologically guarantee the freedom of the Republics but to put it under the control of the party. Gradual process that brought the birth of republics only of those whose elites showed a level of co-optation that could permit so. Ideology and pragmatism always run in parallel. Mainly, in the empire the nationality question was predominantly a peasant question. The overlap of social and national factors in the Russian empire is behind the growth of national movements. From this situation stems the principle of national-territorial autonomy in the Bolshevik programme: Soviet republics, autonomous regions etc. 13 USSR: empire or nation-builder? “Sovietization” as an interactive and participatory process, not only through coercion and force. Soviet leaders; experts (former imperial ethnographers, geographers, economists and anthropologists); local elites. Specific goals: (a) changing the individual and group identities of the population of the former Russian Empire; (b) integrating the “national idea” into new administrative-territorial structure of the Soviet Union. ▪ Alliances with former imperial experts ▪ Loyalties of local elites. Categorization of people according to nationality. Categories not only reflecting national characteristics, but also the level of loyalty of local elites. This was due to strategic reasons. Since the Union was the first socialist “country”, it was looked by other countries in the international world as the first experiment. Interviews coming to the borders were even suggesting how to describe their national belonging: Ukrainian could recognize themselves as peasants rather than Ukrainians. First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union (1926) The idea was to transform the imperial Russian society into a Soviet one, using the national categories through the creation of a list of ethnicities (narodnosti) of the USSR: the Bolsheviks thus also created the “titular nationalites” (each nationality should be titular of a specific degree of autonomy). To recreate the balance of nationalities. In order to go beyond a specific attachment to a specific gorpup and to create the grounds of nationa affiliations of the citizens, the “korenizacija” policies (1920s) = enrooting policies = formation of local elites in “national communist parties”. “National in form, socialist in content”. A socialist content that was important for the balance in the war with the peasants. Central tool in Federal State-building: transforming the Imperial Russian Society into a Soviet one. ▪ Creation of a list of ethnicities (narodnosti) of the USSR: worked out by ethnographers, justifying the border-making between autonomous territories. ▪ Giving nation, land and rights to all the narodnosti. Around 130 millions people and more than 100 nationalities. 14 Continuity and Discontinuity: ideology and the national question (1920s) 1. Post-Revolution: civil war in the borderlands of the empire (i.e., Ukraine) is perceived as a “class conflict”, not as a war stemming from national questions. 2. “Korenizacija” (enrooting) policies (‘20s): formation of local elites in “national communist parties”. “National in form, socialist in content”. ▪ Encouraging the development of local cultures and languages. ▪ Creation of national alphabets (for more than 60 nationalities); funding to publications in local languages; education in primary school. ▪ The rise of true processes of “nationalizations” (i.e., Ukrainization) Format tools of “nationalizing” processes: Not only cultural reforms that were needed for the sake of empowering the elites; but also in some cases played the role of creating a new balance in terms of the potential external involvement: ▪ Institutionalization of territorial autonomies on ethnic and language basis. ▪ New “revolutionary alphabets”: to isolate national cultures from “historical roots”. I.e., Tatar, Tajik, Azeri, Uzbek languages to Latin script. VIDEO: Arrival of a new means of production : tractor – witnessed by the peasants The Soviets portrayed the differences in the peasants: kulaks were opposing the arrival of new machines, because they could weaken their power. Poorer peasants are happier and looking at these machines as an opportunity to improve their conditions. A quite powerful message conveyed to a society that had remained static for many decades. Another element: the role played by the local authorities = telephone call received by the local authorities. Dependence between local and central authorities. The idea of not assigning a superior role to Russians paved the way for a multinational character of leadership Against a “unifying national idea”: Russian communists are in favour of ethnic pluralism. No superior role to Russians. i.e., multi-national composition of local parties leadership: “the leadership of republics and autonomous territories needs to be mainly made by people belonging to the native population, able to speak local languages and familiar with national-related issues”. For National Equality and “Friendship of Peopls” Unifying actor: the Party 15 The roots of Eastern Europe in the interwar period There was a certain logic to treating Eastern Europe as a whole in the interwar period. From 1919 to 1939, these were the “successor states”: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were the nation states carved out of the wreckage of the German, Russian, Austrian and Turkish empires. While for some of these states formal political indepdence and come before 1919, in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, all the “successor states”, despite their manifest differences, faced similar social, economic and political reforms. The Soviet Union was in an ideological terms was granting equal rights to the lower members of the societies and to other nationalities; new countries looking at Russia as the one which could sort some issues out. Common concern of all the other people experiencing the transition from the pre-empire to the post-empire era. The “Short Century” – Eastern Europe encounters the Nation-State The First World War: the Nation-State in Eastern Europe ▪ Radicalization of imperial processes in WW1 ▪ From the ashes of the three empires, in 1918-19, we witness the rise of new independent nation-states, others than the USSR – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Turkey, Yugoslavia. How to build a post-imperial order along new national lines? Acceleration of “national” dynamics – First World War and fall of the great multiethnic empires in East Central Europe. Configuration of the new inter-war Europe: a mosaics of State-Nations. 1. Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920): Wilson’s principles – “readjusting State frontiers along national and language frontiers”. 2. Oppressed peoples within empires are opponessed “national minorities” within nation-states now. The alternative and parallel state construction came with the Russian Revolution and rise of “inter-nationalism” as tied to the social question. World War I and the Principle of Self-Determination: Lenin vs Wilson ▪ Both sought legitimation by invoking two different ideas of freedom: (a) radical; (b) liberal-conservative ▪ Use “self-determination” to win international audiences to their ideologies and policies. Historical context: in times of WWI ▪ Internationalized in 1918 in the political context of WWI, as reaction to Lenin’s referees to the subject. ▪ Trying to resolve territorial settlements after WWI. ▪ Wartime ideological rivalry at heigh: Socialism vs USA ▪ Wilson noted: “this war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own allegiances and their own forms of political life”. ▪ Importance of his global image and USA’s international prestige What happened all around these territories is that in thw following decades: the radicalization of the imperial process and the rise of new independent nation-states, entailing that – going beyond the border of the USSR – the idea of granting self-determination to the opponesse people came to assume another understanding and another direction. The main promoters who embodied such difference were Wilson and Lenin: he promoted the national self-determination in a “socialist” sense = pursuit different paths. Peace settlement: in Lenin’s understanding, this implied a revolutionary process (secession and establishment of a new people). Two models of post-imperial order 1) liberal-democratic 2) communist path. The radical vision of self-determination will characterize the intensification of the debate, which was won first in teh intra-socialist debate. Lenin tried to use the slogan as being an herald of his own campaign, while Wilson never used the concept of “granting self-determination of people”, but rather he defined it in his famous 14 Points. Wilson was doing so because he knew that Lenin was his rival in the stability in the European continent. In this conflict different project of Eastern Europe emerged. Fourteen Points Speech – January 1918 ▪ Explicit reply to December 1917 Bolshevik referencing self-determination: 16  ▪ Party attempt to involve them in a dialogue and persuade them to stay of the Allied side. ▪ Party to compete with the global attraction of socialist ideas and draw the world towards American ideology and politics. ▪ No actual mention of “self-determination” but seen as the point where it was internationalized (even if it lacked of clarity). Wilson’s understanding was to recreate a peace condition within Europe, by granting the right of self-determination to peoples of the former empires = specific degree of autonomy. In the 14 Points speech, he pushed for an idea of granting to the elites that were considered “reliable” the possibility of having their internationally recognized borders. Self determination Lenin Wilson ▪ Denounced domination, dependence and ▪ Equated freedom of “free nations” with their peace inequality – as well as interference with peoples in and unencumbered trade the forms of capitalist and imperialist oppression ▪ Presenting instability and other forms of disruptive and exploitation. interference as the main threats to state freedom ▪ Progress toward freedom as equality in ▪ Concern for interference in ECONOMIC field – free international socialism trade ▪ Seek revolutionary obverthrow of capitalism, ▪ Freedom of peaceful order and non-interference. supporting the peoples use of force ▪ Anti imperialism / colonial liberation Both conceptualized self-determination as connected to idea of freedom BUT… Lenin: Wilson: 1. “Radical” idea of freedom, which if realized, would 1. “Liberal-conservative” freedom, as a tool for necessarily imply the option of complete resolving concrete territorial settlements resulting independence and the creation of new states; from WWI 2. Freedom as “equality” in the form of socialist 2. Freedom in the form of peace and stability for the internationalism; suitable political agents 3. His reflections are theoretically and ideologically- 3. His reflection arise in wartime, when ideological based: they emerge in the frame of the intra- rivalry is at its height and practical and diplomatic socialist debate concerns are urgent. 4. Distinction between the right as a “principle” and 4. Involvement of experts (Commission of Inquiry – the right as “practice” 1917) 5. Nationalism and national identity are a phase of 5. Defining state boundaries: self-determination as a bourgeois capitalism (fight against capitalist concept defined in national terms (cases of Poland, imperialism) Italy and Austria-Hungary) 6. Conditionality: the right of self-determination 6. Conditionality: freedom of “free nations” equated could remove the incentive to secede. It had to be with their peace and free trade. Principle against functional to internationalist socialist struggle. “instability” (the main threat to state freedom). Self-determination as “the consent of the governed”. Ability vs (in-)ability to self-rule. 17  The Soviet Union before (and after) the rise of Stalinism: towards a centralized system The soviet system: from Tsarist to Socialism “The international and domestic conditions led to the establishment of an extremely centralized political system. It core features included single-party rule, communist ideology, state control over economy and a high degree of territorial centralization, and isolation from the outside world.” “The Soviet system reproduced parts of the old tradition in a sharply disfigured form. State attempts to control the Church were replaced with atheist ideology, the traditional autocratic state with the rule of the Communist Party, the old service class with the party nomenklatura, and the old patrimonial practices with the complete control over the economy by the state. The overall control over public and private life was unprecedented.” (A. Tsygankov 2014). CRUCIAL ISSUES: They do not disappear but are now reframed – same challenges, but different answers. 1. Peasants and control over the agricultural goods. 2. From imperial to soviet modernization and industrialization 3. Autarchia (party) and the devolution of powers 4. National question and federalism The creation of the USSR is the result of a new way of administering and restructuring the old State in completely new post-imperial times (in global terms). Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) ▪ Few states were created that had not existed before the war ended, and left large dissatisfied minorities outside of “mother countries”: Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Austria; Hungary and Romania involved in this process. ▪ Self-determination makes the work of intellectuals in former Empires conceptualizign the nation “politically effective” to justify the new balances. ▪ The “imperial situation” remains unsolved: the “successsor states” still experience domestic constraints in achieving their “national liberation”. The “Short Century” – Eastern Europe encounters the Nation-State Repercussions on Eastern Europe: ▪ Crisis and collapse of three empires (Tsarist, Habsburg, Ottoman). ▪ Rise of new “nation-states” ▪ Migration flows ▪ Deportations of “minorities” ▪ Ethnic cleansing ▪ New ideologies ▪ Renewed attempts of “empire-building”. From 1917 to 1927: from imperial rule to communism Economic revolution Bolsheviks adopted different economic policies, according to changing ideological positions and social contingencies. 1) October 1917 to July 1918: before the start of civil war, attempts to maintain economic production 2) July 1918 to March 1921: during the civil war, Soviet state expands its role in the economy, nationalizes industries and proceeds with requisition of grain from peasantry and suppression of markets. 3) March 1921 to 1927: after civil war, back to “state capitalism” (or what is termed s NEP, “New Economic Policy”). Economic policy in early stages: the peasant revolution From October 1917 to July 1918, Bolsheviks inherited a weak state still involved in WW1. Working class was still the main actor of revolution, but in cities there were few workers (from 3.5 million before revolution, to 1.5 after that) and shortage of food. The first policies tried to maintain economic production through harsh policies: 18 i. Compulsory labor ii. Forced requisition of grain iii. Elimination of money payments and legal markets. Urgent reforms: the Land decree & the peasant question In November 1917, the Bolsheviks issued a land decree (over 190 decrees issued in the first 6 months of government): ▪ There could be no ownership of land. ▪ Land could not be sold, leased or mortgaged. ▪ All privately owned land was to be confiscated by the government with no compensation paid (disparity among peasants) ▪ Confiscated land was handed over the land committees and district Soviets. The Peasant Revolution a) The approved land reform encouraged peasants all over Russia to seize land and expropriate landlords: paradoxically, the decree increased the power of the communes. b) By early 1919, 81 million acres had been transferred from the gentry, the state or the church to peasants. c) The shortage of food in cities brings the Bolsheviks to launch from May 1918 a war against rich peasants, labeled as “kulaks”, who were considered responsible for the food crisis. War Communism (1918-1921): the internal war with peasants By fall of 1918, with the civil war, the forced requisition of grain through the use of “military food brigades” started. These policies privileged cities and industrial proletariat, but were hostile to peasants. 1. The forced requisition of grain alienates peasants from revolution. 2. We witness the agreed formation of the first types of large-scale farms (sovnarkhozy): the origins of collective farms, were the land belonged to peasants. This would be the ground for future “kolkhozy” in Stalin times. Generally, Soviet power remained weak in the countryside until Stalin’s forced collectivization in 1930s. From the ashes of empire: ideology and the social question The Peasant question Origin: in 1920 new peasants’ revolts against Bolshevik centralizing management of lands (requisition of stockpiles and militarization). A New Economic Policy (NEP – March 1921): this was a clear concession to peasants for the alliance of workers and peasants. ▪ Abolishment of forced grain requisition: state controls foreign trade and industry, while private individuals can own small enterprises. ▪ Recognition of the peasants’ right to manage their land and trade their products: introduction of a state tax on farmers, which could be paid with raw products. NEP and the “compromise with capitalism” “Although Stalin became the de facto ruler of the Soviet system immediately following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, the mass mobilization projects did not begin until the late 1920s. The NEP adopted by Lenin at the 10° Party Congress in March 1921 was successful in generating the revenue required for stabilizing the Soviet state… The Bolshevik leader made a call to “learn from capitalism” in economics while preserving strict control of the “commanding heights” in politics. The peasantry was to obtain greater freedom in selling its products…” (Tsygankov) Towards Stalin’s revolution (from above) Stalin (1879-1953) was the son of a poor shoemaker and in his childhood had an Orthodox education in Tbilisi. After entering the Georgian Maxist circles and organizing the first strikes in Batumi, he soon moved to Baku, where he joined the ranks of the Transcaucasian Bolsheviks. In imperial times, he was arrested several times and spent several years in Siberian exile. 19 Even before Lenin died, Stalin had accumulated enormous power within the party. He was renown as a moderate and pragmatic man of teh center, who supported the compromise of NEP and was unwilling to risk Soviet power to pursue socialist revolutions abroad. He was the first Secreatry of the Central Communist Party (1922). Stalin was the product of the particular poltiical culture and internal party practices of Bolshevism. ▪ In early months of Soviet rule, Stalin worked at the very center of power, close to Lenin. First, people’s commissar of nationalities (1917-1923) and of worker-peasant inspection (1920-1922). ▪ Since Lenin’s incapacitation in 1923 (due to a series of strokes), Stalin soon became a central figure, supported by his political Kamenev and Zinoviev, against the influence of Trotskij. ▪ Taking control of the Politburo (Policy Committee) and Orgburo (Administrative committee), the power soon passed to the Secreatry of the Party (Stalin was member of all the three institutions). In times of NEP, Zinoviev (chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and the Communist International) and Trotskij (Commissar of War and leader of the Red Army) were considered the two party leaders most likely to succeeed Lenin. ▪ After Lenin’s third stroke in 1923, an open challenge for power between Trotskij and Stalin started during the 12° Party Congress: Trotskij accused Stalin of promoting a practice of “secretarial bureaucratic” (a privilege for nomination, rather than election, to key party posts). The party rejects his stance. ▪ In January 1924, Lenin dies. After his death, party leaders promoted a cult of the dead leader (from Petrograd to Leningrad; mummification of Lenin’s body and creation of the mausoleum in Red Square). In the new political environment in which loyalty to Lenin was the cornerstone of political orthodoxy, Stalin, who had seldom differed openly with Lenin, flourished, while Trotskij, who had joined the party only in 1927 and had openly criticized Lenin in his prerevolutioanry writings, withered. ▪ Even if Lenin, together with Trotskij, had denounced bitterly the dictatorial attitude of Stalin in his so-called testament, the party decided not to release it and not to make it public. ▪ Stalin remained in charge of the general secretariat of the party, while Trotsky was officially condemned by the Party as non-loyal to Lenin. Already in January 1925, the Central Committee removed Trotskij from the prestigious post of President of the Revolutionary Military Council. Lenin’s testament (1922-1923): On the future leadership of the Soviet Union “Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution… Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.” Saved by Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaja; made available only in the West; only in Khrushev’s times (1956), the document was made available. What after NEP? Town vs. Countryside Few in the party thought that a market-oriented NEP could be permanent: it was seen as a retreat, a concession to peasantry, a detour to the ultimate goal, and eventually as a step which could lead back to the restoration of capitalism. ▪ Years of NEP (1921-) followed the destruction of the civil war: 1. Industrial output was only 21% of what it had been in 1913. 2. Agriculture had declined by 1921 to 60% of prewar level, and the harvests of 1920 and 1921 were particularly poor. NEP reverted the decline, both in agriculture and industry: by 1924, agricultural production reached prewar level. Disturbing for party leaders was the drop in percentage of grain that was marketed by peasants (by 1924, only 60% of the whole marketed in prewar times). ▪ This meant that the peasants were eating better to the detriment of the towns and cities, and they had control of the major economic resource of the country, agriculture. ▪ Russian towns and industry needed agricultural products, not only to feed the population, but as a raw material for processing industries and to export abroad in order to buy foreign machinery. 20 ▪ Still in 1924, industrial output was only 45% of prewar level. It was clear that industry could not grow without greater inputs from agriculture; workers could not work if they were not fed properly; productivity could not be significantly raised without mechanization. Stalin on “brighter future”: economy and ideology Problem: to have a functional industry, Soviet leaders needed to squeeze more grain out of peasantry. Solution: forging a statist economic system “that the West would call totalitarian and the Soviet leaders would identify as socialism” (Suny 2011) ▪ Contrary to the 1917 revolution: this revolution takes place from above and (soon after 1924) the full isolation of the USSR in the capitalist continent brought Soviet leaders to support the idea to have “socialism in one country”. ▪ Even if by 1926 the pre-war economy was restored, the lack of industrial goods still persisted. 21  The Pinnacle of Stalinism: a revolution “from above” Revolution from above: Stalin while taking his position needed to consolidate such power: in order to do so, he tried to bring the Union to a more stable position, being it the first socialist country. Union: the Stalin system, that impacted also the development all around Eastern Europe (after WW2). This is not just the history of Russia, but also the history of a broader social movement. Behind the Greates Revolution experienced by Russia in the XX century: the Soviet Union vis-a-vis the “West” “Before the Second Wolrd War, Stalin launched radical policies of mass collectivization and industrialization to catch up with the West, while some scholars compare to conservative Tsarist modernizations. Like his Tsarist predecessors, he was thinking in terms of overcoming Russia’s backwardness, which he viewed as a potential threat to his country’s survival, to catch up to the West.” (Tsygankov) When coming to power, Stalin had a quite clear goal in terms of going behind the capitalist remains of Lenin’s legacy: reforms going towards the direction of ideology (rooted in ideological conception of Stalin’s power) but also to consolidiate his power vis-a-vis the former Lenin’s generation. == purges are about deconstructing the legacy and re- establishing a new elite from above. Following these lines, economy needed to be reconstructed as well. Beyond the NEP and ideological compromises 1. By 1927/1828 we have a turning point in Soviet Policies. The 15° Party Congress in 1927 calls for a “Five-year Plan of economic development”, a “socialist offensive” and the liquidation of capitalist elements in the countryside and in the towns. 2. The need for “accelerating” economic modernization: building a “different modernity” in USSR. “Transforming rural areas” is the key for change: State turns to heavy industry. 3. New Peasants’ revolts (Grain stockpile crisis in 1927). Stalin orders new policies against peasants, ordering military-type operations against peasants (in Ukraine, Volga, North Caucasus and Siberia) 4. State-Peasants War (1930s): “dukulakization”, or to eliminate the economic and political elite in rural areas; “forced collectivization”, or to gather together peasants families in collective farmers in roder to optimize tax collecting (see the case of Holodomor in Ukraine). 5. Approval of the first “five years’ plan” (1928): towards industrialization of Soviet economy. 6. The rise of “forced labour” (1929) Stalin proposed a new economic system, to fully industrialize the Soviet Union = he launched since 1924 a new set of reforms that are usually remembered as “Stalin’s reforms”, leading to the preservation of socialist in one country (focus on Soviet Union as being the only socialist country in the world) and at the same time putting the Soviet Union in a competition with the West = recover the economic situation of the empire pre WW1, and promote a modernization of the Soviet Union. The main processes that brought to this objective: Stalin, while implementing these changes, was also targeting a specific sector of society, peasants-citizentry. He became even more cruel and harsh than in Lenin’s times. New military operations to be conducted against peasants These regions were crucial for reverting the economic system of the Union: before being described as Nazis, the Ukrainians were described as being Mazepinskes (??): there was thus a continuity of potential threat from peripheral regions of the Union. Even harsher policy implemented by Stalin, that came to be known as the “dekulakization”: trying to identify a category of middle-peasants (emerging from the new economic reforms) as his own target, to get the control of the countryside and eliminate potential threats that could gather together and go against the central power. Stalin was able to reconstruct a balance of power between urban centers and countryside. 22 Another reform that came to be conducted in 1928 was the structuring of the industrial production: to be respected all around the different venues of the Soviet production, reproduced and respected by every source of economic income within the Soviet economy. Not by change, all along these reforms, we also have a the establishment of the “forced labour” (1929): concentration camps were implemented in order to make even the opposition to the central system somehow FUNCTIONAL to the development of the Soviet Union, under force conditions. Social Question affecting Nationality Policies: the turn in 1930s From 1930s to 1950s: ideological turn follows the developments in the social question (grain collection crisis in Ukraine and North Caucasus). - Implementation of new policies of collectivization and forced industrialization in the 1930s: re-centralization of power an huge transformation of social (and national) life in the USSR. By the end of 1930s, most of the national communists of 1920s are arrested: “Russification” (1930-1950) under Iosif Stalin. Nationality and Citizenship in the USSR Two different legal concepts and “dual identity” in the USSR: - (soviet) citizenship: political status - Nationality: ethnically-based, member of the same ethnic nation (Soviet/Ukrainian; Soviet/Belarusian etc…) The Soviet concept of nationality was institutionalized in 1932, with the introduction of the internal passports – including the nationality / ethnicity of the holder – and the passport for travel abroad. They were issued by institutions in Soviet republics (as for the former, in both Russian and the language of the republic). The Soviet Union was born as a result of ethnic federalism by granting a specific degree of nationhood to the oppressed people of the empire. But, in times of Stalin’s leadership, there was an attempt to reverse this process: the idea of creating national cultures came to be understood as a potential threat, since the gathering together of local leadership could go against the centre of power. Already from the 1940s onwards, also in the realm of national policies, Stalin changes the balance of power within the provinces. Some educational reforms came to be adopted and became the pillar of a new identification of the people of the USSR, as belonging not only to their national group, but also to the “Motherland”: in order to recreate a new balance of power between the centre of power and teh peripheries. Institutionalisation of the concept of nationality as being a second, legal layer of citizenship: ▪ Internal passports: each citizen as being connected legally to the Soviet State ▪ Second layer of identification, linked to the legacy of Lenin: the ethnicity/nationality was included as part of his legal identity. By creating this double layer, each citizen could feel more attached to the idea of being part of the USSR: it was through the second, national layer that most of the post-Soviet era conflicts reverted around. Social Question affecting nationality policies: the turn in 1930s Working on a “new supra-national idea”: the rise of Soviet Patriotism From “internationalism” to “ethnocentrism”: ▪ 1938 decree makes the study of Russian language (language of inter-ethnic communication) compulsory. ▪ 1939 Alphabets in Latin script passed again to the Cyrillic script (i.e., the case of Kazakh language). Between social practices and legal-symbolic institutions Language still remains a crucial marker of ethnic identity (Census-Nationality) In Soviet times: ▪ Russian is the language of “interethnic (mezhnazional’nogo) communication” ▪ While the national languages of the republics were legally described as “titular languages”, i.e., spoken by the ethnic majority of the republics (the titular nation). ▪ “Asymmetric bilingualism” is the norm. 23 Gradually moving to the idea of a new sovranaitonal homeland, moving from “internationalism” to “ethnocentrism”: when referring to Lenin, we referred to the urgency to win the civil war (Russian chavinism as being the national group had to be put aside to grant the rise of local powers). Under Stalin, after stabilization, is the implementation of the Russification, along the lines of making the study of Russian language compulsory. Decision by making Russian the language of inter-ethnic communication: each citizen had the change to study their own nationality language, but all of them HAD to study Russian language. As being the lanagueg at the core of cooperation / brotherhood, and being the glue of the people living in the USSR, this created several concerns in terms of having Russian-speaking people. Russian language as the language of social prestige. Such policies as concerning “ethnic / social engineering” created the idea of the Soviet Union being one country and gather high together different peoples in a homogenous way. “Asymmetric bilingualism “ was the result of such policies: all the peoples knew the language of their national group. This created discrepancies in Ukraine for example, as for the presence of Ukrainians who describe them as Russian- speakers: Ukrainians started to study and use Russian language as their communication method; and the position of local languages came to be downgraded. Most of the issues arising in the contemporary era ae exactly the result of such a pattern set by the Stalin system. Stalin’s revolution from above: between social practices and legal-symbolic institutions Josif Stalin, who came to power in 1924, behind theorization of nationality policies: Marxism and the National Question (1913) ▪ Korenizatsiia (early 20s – mid 30s): elaborated by Stalin – during the October revolution he was theorizing about the nationality policies. Countering the long-term effects of Russification of the non-Russian populations = cultural autonomy to non-Russian nationalities within a federal systemic under the aegis of the Communist Party. ▪ Re-centralization from late 30s: threat of imminent war and the need for finding a common language and “national core”. Now it is “bourgeois nationalism” to be eradicated (deporatations; repressions – i.e., executed renaissance). Another layer of conflcit within Soviet policies. In Ukraine generation of intellectuals emerging in the 1920s as being the “exterminated generation/renaissance”: this means that most of the protagonist of the national experiences of the 1920s were accused and were subject to repression, and even exterminated sometimes. Such eradication had to go through the promotion of a new Soviet state. What Stalin came to be realized was the final union between urban workers and peasants within Soviet society = reflected by the statue in Moscow. The flag of the Union embodying the red flag of the socialist movement, the star representing the leading role of the party and the hammer + sickle (embodying the alliance between peasants and workers)…. Was going into another direction: the first flag we saw embodied the hammer and sickle and the slogan in each of the national language of the Six nations of the USSR: in this case, we loose these references and the portray is that of a single state, no specific reference to other nations. Looking at the representation of the union as a single state : the great friendship of people. All the national groups were fighting for one, the same homeland, and were granted the rights to preserve their national connotations and ethnic cultures. All the people of the Union were all embodying the same goal of construction of the empire. 24 The Soviet legacy: between social practices and legal-symbolic institutions Spontaneous and forced migration in Soviet times 1. In the USSR, spontaneous social change (internal migration in the Union, mixed marriages) intersected with centralized policies from the top (re-distribution of the Russian ethnic group; need for specialized manpower in the regions; ethnical-linguistic mixture in the make up of the party elite in the republics; maintaining high diffusion of the Russian language in the Union. 2. “Displaced” ethnic groups: it was not only the Russians to play a special role in the party-led migration for specialized manpower at the borderlands. I.e., 6 millions of Ukrainians, 2 millions of Belarusians and Uzbeks do not live in their “assigned territory”. The policies promoted by the leadership: when talking about ethnic engineering within the empire, we can refer to migration phenomena as being crucial, since the state promoted migration all around the empire. Displacing ethnic groups out of their residence and placing them outside: in contemapry Kazakistan = Russian speaking minority: in the years following Stalin’s period, some entire ethnic groups were displaced from their historical homeland (case of Crimean Tatars) in order to recreate a new balance in terms of territories that were to become less loyal to the system. Only after the WW2, the central role of the Russians in the “friendship of peoples” comes to be clear. i.e., famous Stalin’s Victory Day toast to the Russian people in May 1945: “I would like to raise a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, before all, the Russian people. I drink, before all, to the health of the Russian people, because in this war they earned general recognition as the leading force of the Soviet Union among all the nationalities of our country”. These reforms after WW2 became even more relevant in order to recreate a balance of power: the central role of the Russian in the “friendship of peoples” comes to be clear/evident, especially at times of WW2. From 1928 to 1934, the political structures and social conditions for the Stalinist system were formed with particular ferocity. ▪ The final step of this revision was the new Constitution (known as the “Stalin Constitution”) adopted in 1936: it specifically mentioned the leading role of the All-Union Communist Party in Moscow. ▪ Now the new Presidium of the Supreme Soviet exercised the full powers, and its Chairman became the titular head of state of the Soviet Union, while the Council of Ministers acted as the executive arm of the government. ▪ All Union Republics were named after the primary nationality, and the Transcaucasian Republic was dissolved into three Union Republics (Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijan). Gradually, reversing of policies impacting economy, society and national identification of people, creating what we refer the “revolution from above”. The system came to be crystallized through the adoption of a new Constituion: Stalin was able to touch all aspects of social life (economy, politcs, society, education). Stalin’s “Great Purges”: against the defeated political opposition to Stalin Following the approval of the new Constitution, repression intensified in 1936. All Communists were required to unmask the “hidden enemies, and the principal targets became former oppositionists. ▪ Show trials and executions addressing “enemies of the people” (e.g., Zinoviev and Kamanev, leaders of the opposition to Stalin in late 1920s and close allies of Lenin: they were accused to join Trotskij, who was in exile abroad, to form a bloc against the Soviet leadership with the aim of assassinating Stalin). ▪ Intelligentsija, army and political leadership as the main targets. ▪ Purges eliminated the power of the old Bolshevik elite: by 1939, 60% of those who were party members in 1933 had been out of the party; out of the 2000 delegates to the 17° Party Congress, 1,100 were arrested as counterrevolutionary. Paradoxically, what remained from the revolution from below and the only survivor of Lenin’s first governmen was basically only Stalin. The Stalin Constitution adopted in 1936: central communist party to play the major role in the administration of the country. Introduction for all the republics of a new name: three different republics from the Transcaucasian Republic. 25 Internal balance within the party, that was reverted by the “Great Purges”: these purges represented a way of repression to identify internal enemies within the party; this was still the legacy of another revolution, the October Revolution. In the years preceding the eruption of WW2, elimination of potential rivalrs among the nomenklatura, through show trials to target the potential enemies. The most accurate estimates of the number of victims of the purges come from the official KGB numbers revealed for the first time in 1990s. ▪ By late 1930s: 3.5 million people were arrested, and 1.4 million people were in labor camps. ▪ In 1937-38, the authorities executed 681.692 people. ▪ From 1930 to 1953, 3.8 million people were sentenced for counterrevolutionary activity, and almost a million were executed. At the 18° Party Congress (1939), on the eve of WW2, the hunt for internal enemies was declared to be finished, and attention could be now turned to external enemies: all limits to Stalin’s power had been removed. - In 10 years (1928-1937), collectivization of farms moves from 1.7% to 93%: it was possible to put the peasantry in the countryside under the control of the system. History subverted the dynamics of the imperial era. Europe in the 1930s: USSR as the only socialist state By mid-1920s, the Soviet Union was recognized by all the major powers, except the United States (that did it only in 1933). “The Soviet Union remained a relatively weak state, without dependable allies, and because much of the rest of the world failed to respond its revolutionary inspiration, it turned inward to build its own economy, culture and society. This more nationally oriented, less internationalist and revolutionary outlook was well represented by Stalin, the Soviet leader who exemplified a program of strengthening the state and its economy internally and subordinating its sympathizers abroad to the preservation of the “first socialist state” (Suny 2011) WWII marks a turning point: from isolation to model for other countries. As for the international arena, URSS presenting itself as the only socialist state. Promotion of the role as being a potential model all around the globe. The Union experienced a period of isolation, that was reverted by one of the major events taking place, WW2: the major event in Russian hisotry, because it is out of WW2 that the URSS went global, reaching a global status and a replication of its model outside. 26  The Soviet Union as a global actor: victory in the “Great Patriotic War”, revolution and road to socialism in East-Central Europe USSR: an experience between destruction and recovery “In the twentieth century the peoples of the Soviet Union experienced six phases of general catastrophe and destruction: World War I, the civil war and famine, collectivization and famine, the Great Purges, World War II, and the period of decline and collapse in the 1990s. In between the lived through four periods of restoration and recovery: the New Economic Policy, which raised the economy to pre-World War I levels; the industrialization, urbanization and spread of popular education and upward mobility of the mid-1930s; the recovery after World War II; and the years of post-Stalin reforms. In the vicissitudes of seventy-four years of Soviet power, undoubtedly the most catastrophic experience occurred in the years of 1941 to 1945.” (Suny) World War II – the Eastern European Experience Two different stories and backgrounds ▪ For the Soviet Union, it still represents the stage of greatest visibility and prestige in the world arena (“the great Patriotic War”): the peak of Stalin’s rise to power ▪ For East-Central Europe, it is the turning point towards the “liberation from the authoritarian rule” and the new “revolutioanry roads to socialism”: heterogenous experience of war and revolution. The emergence of socialism as a true alternative at international level: from the Soviet Union to the Eastern half of Europe. Historical context in interwar period: fertile ground for communism in East-Central Europe Common constraints: 1. The only successor state to have a developed industrial base was Czechoslovakia: most of this wealth was concentrated in the Czech lands rather than in Slovakia 2. The regions was predominantly based on peasants: Poles (63%), Hungarians (55%), Romanians (78%), Albanians, Yugoslavs (75%) and Bulgarians (80%). 3. The industrial development in the region was the product of foreign investment (in the 1920s: France and Britain; in the 1930s: Germany). Domestic political struggles based on economic backwardness 1. The link between social inequalities and the failure to resolve economic problems was a product of the poltiical system dominating interwar period (peasant societies claiming for land reform and economic investment); 2. From democratic regime in 1919-1920 to right-wing dictatorships: by the 1930s the whole of Eastern Europe was ruled by dictatorship of one kind or another (with the only exception of Czechoslovakia). Such a combination of circumstances created a fertile ground for communism among Eastern European intellectuals - Stalin-Lenin’s model in the USSR becomes attractive: a) The region was backwarded, and subject to foreign investments as Imperial Russia was; attractiveness of the economic growth based on peasants corporative farms that was achieved by Lenin’s Russia in the interwar years. b) The Second World War embodied the turning point for the dramatic increase of (previously alienated) communist activity in the region. “This shared Leninist ideology was what enabled historians to consider the varied states of Eastern Europe as a composite whole after the Second World War: from the “successor states “ to the states which “went communist” (G. and N. Swain) Communism vs Capitalism (or Fascism?) “Fascism was a reaction to the initial successes of the Bolsheviks and their allies in Europe in the years 1917-1921. But Communists both in the Soviet Union and outside consistently underestimated the potential threat of fascism” (Suny 1998) 27 While the capitalist world was experiencing the Great Depression (1929-1939), the greatest economic collapse that international economy had ever suffered, total production in the world dropped by one-half: governments reacted by attempting to isolate their economies and political systems. Generally, the crisis shook capitalism and liberalism to its foundations: the Comintern interpreted this period as a suitable platform for new revolutionary opportunities. Europe in the 1930s International context: Europe from Autocracies to Parliamentary democracies (and back again to authoritian system). ▪ Almost all the stages emerging from WW2 succumbed to dictators or new authoritarianism: - Hungary in 1920 with the Admiral Nicholas Horthy; - Mussolini in 1922 in Italy; in 1926 coups overthrew parliamentary governments in Portugal and Poland; in 1928- 29 Albania and Yugoslavia succumbed to royal dictatorships. ▪ Tendency was confirmed in the 1930s - In 1933 Hitler comes to power in Germany; Austria, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania became dictatorships in 1938. - By the start of WW2, only Czechoslovakia in East europe retained a democratic political system. The Soviet Union as a new global actor in the world stage Eastern Europe as a “socialist unit”: paradoxically, it is an “unexpected result” of WW2. Between 1945 and 1989 the countries of Eastern Europe were governed by communist parties. However, in the interwar period communists were seen as a “great danger”, and they were marginalized in the new national political contexts. Defeat of Fascism by the wartime Allies (Britain, United States and the Soviet Union) provided communists throughout Europe with a new opportunity for taking the stage. Communism vs Fascism: a pragmatic ideological shift Only in the second half of the 1930s, when the Fascist threat became clear (after Hitler withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933 and violated the Versailles treaty in 1935 by decreeing compulsory military service in Germany), Soviet policy shifted towards greater accommodation with the West. ▪ In 1934, the USSR joined the League of Nations and in the following months signed pacts of peace and friendship with several Western actors: the Soviet Union was now allied with countries that it had denounced in the previous decade (the supporters of the Versailles settlement). ▪ The Comintern now led communists to fight “fascist imperialism, not bourgeois capitalism and democracy”: this was the result of chaotic international relations, beyond ideology. Towards a new “imperialist war” Stalin’s main aim: to defend and preserve the USSR Vision: to avoid involvement in imminent war and to prevent a European bloc directed against the