Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia

Transcription

1 Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia

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3 Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia A View from Within Alter L. Litvin Professor of History and Historiography Kazan State University Translated and Edited by John L. H. Keep Professor Emeritus University of Toronto

4 Alter L. Litvin and John L. H. Keep 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Litvin, A. L. (Alter L vovich) Writing history in twentieth-century Russia : a view from within / Alter L. Litvin ; translated and edited by John L. H. Keep. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Historiography Soviet Union. I. Title. DK38.L dc

5 Contents Preface Acknowledgements vii xi Part I Russia s Historical Profession 1 1 Did the Scholarly Tradition Survive? 3 Part II Fiction and Fact in Soviet History 39 2 Approaching the Past 41 3 The October Revolution 47 4 The Civil War 57 5 The Age of Stalin 71 6 The Great Terror 85 7 World War II 105 Part III Russia and the Wider World The Nationalities Problem Soviet Foreign Policy Conclusion 139 Appendix A: Decisions of the NKVD Triumvirate 148 Appendix B: The Hunt for the Party s Gold 149 Notes 151 Bibliography 177 Index 191 v

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7 Preface I am happy to have the opportunity to present to English-speaking readers these reflections on historical thought and writing in Russia over the past hundred years or so. I hope they may be of interest to the general reader as well as to specialists. Partly for reasons of space, I have confined myself to material dealing with the twentieth century and Russian problems. This does not mean that the work of my colleagues who write on remoter epochs, or on other countries, is unworthy of interest, but it would take several monographs to do justice to their output. As it is, in this slim volume the treatment of issues has been rather selective. I have not had much to say about socio-economic or cultural questions, whose importance is likewise undeniable. This political emphasis is also due to the heavy legacy of the Soviet past, which to a large extent still shapes the way people in Russia think and act today, as I hope to make plain. This means that I have paid a good deal of attention to some of the more violent episodes in Russia s twentieth-century experience. Some Western readers may be shocked by this, but I venture to hope that they, too, may find the shock a salutary one. After all, there is no advantage to be gained by closing our eyes to unsavoury negative phenomena where they are of historical significance. Would we write the history of Germany between 1933 and 1945 without mentioning the Holocaust? I have lectured on Russian historiography at Kazan State University and other institutions for some thirty years, and have made use of my teaching materials here; where it seemed appropriate, I have also drawn on my own life experience outside the university walls, so that this is to some degree a personal account of the historiographical scene, as the book s subtitle suggests. I trust this approach will not be thought presumptuous; after all, one man s fate may encapsulate that of a whole cohort of his peers, and if some of my colleagues feel tempted to offer their own appreciations of the topic, I would be the first to welcome this. vii

8 viii Preface It has not been easy for me to write this book in Kazan. Although the Tatarstan capital is a large city with a rich historical heritage and cultural life, local libraries have large gaps, especially in regard to works published abroad. Fortunately I have been able to obtain some titles I needed elsewhere, or as gifts from colleagues and friends abroad. John Keep helped in many ways, by adding some references, compiling the bibliography and index, and streamlining my text to make it more readable. Our partnership has been smooth and mutually enriching. The idea for this volume was partly his, but the responsibility for the opinions expressed is mine alone. By Western standards the situation of historians in twentiethcentury Russia has been rather odd unenviably so. They have lived through turbulent times. The form of state changed rapidly in 1917, from monarchical absolutism through democracy of a kind to Bolshevik dictatorship; Soviet rule lasted for over seventy years, passing through several different phases but retaining an underlying continuity; then in 1991 the USSR collapsed, giving way to a parliamentary republic with a strong presidential power. People of a single generation might have found themselves singing five different national anthems: God Save the Tsar (to 1917), La Marseillaise (1917), The Internationale ( ), Union Unbreakable... ( ), and since 1993 a song without words set to music by Mikhail Glinka. In late December 2000 President Putin confirmed as Russia s state symbols the tricolour flag, the coat-of-arms with the double-headed eagle, and... the old Soviet anthem with a text revised by the 87- year-old Sergei Mikhalkov, who had first composed it in 1944 (and updated it in the 1970s). The public reaction varied. Many people were afraid that the old symbols of tsarist and Soviet imperialism might suggest that the country was moving back to its recent totalitarian past. But I hope this will not happen and that in time Russia will adopt new state symbols and a more appropriate national anthem. Among historians there were always a fair number who placed their pens at the service of the existing order. Paradoxically, they were often among the first to be subjected to repressive measures, particularly in Soviet times. Others tried to adapt but failed; and a few stoutly refused to conform to the political leaders

9 Preface ix requirements, remaining true to the highest standards of their profession. I must admit that for a long time I was not in the latter category. I was born under Stalin and from my boyhood onward bore a dual stigma: my father was categorized as an enemy of the people and our family is Jewish. This meant that my chances of a career were limited and I could not choose an area of specialization freely. In 1950 I graduated from a school for working youth in Kazan with a silver medal and applied for admission to the Physics faculty of Kazan State University. This academic discipline was fashionable at the time. But my application was turned down on the grounds that admission was restricted to politically loyal students. It was suggested that I try the Historical philological faculty instead, which I did. I had to earn my living as a school teacher and assistant in a local museum, and when I took my examination for the candidate s degree I did not have the benefit of having gone through seminar training (aspirantura). In my first scholarly writings I conformed to the demands made upon me. Several times I was penalized by having articles censored, but luckily enough was not seriously victimized. Like many of my colleagues, I wanted to survive, but not at any price a viewpoint I came round to under my own steam, so to speak. We historians understanding of our craft did not undergo radical changes until Gorbachev s policies of perestroika and glasnost (openness in lieu of secrecy), which led in 1991 to the collapse of the CPSU with its crushing ideological monopoly. Professional historians responded positively, if with some delay, to these changes. Those nostalgic for the Communist past turned to other means of earning a living or else sought ways of making themselves useful to the new (or not-so-new) authorities. But the main thing was that after 1991 scholars were no longer afraid. They saw that the functionaries who had once exerted authoritative guidance over them were emperors who had no clothes, and they felt ashamed of their former subservience. At the present time Russian historians are gradually emerging from the lengthy crisis brought about by the politicization of their discipline. Many of them feel, as I do, that it is important to publish new documentation and to open the archives to researchers. The debate ought not to be one between historians

10 x Preface but rather between the sources they use, once these have been authenticated as genuine and reliable. This means that there is plenty of work to be done. There are 10.6 million files in the secret archives of the former KGB alone! 1 Masses of papers have yet to be examined properly in the archives of the various ministries, notably those of Foreign and Internal Affairs. Unless these treasure-troves of knowledge are explored thoroughly it is hard to see what future the writing of history can have in our country. Historians can never claim to have arrived at the final answer to any question. Only totalitarian rulers like Stalin or Hitler claimed that they knew what was right for their peoples and that their power was firmly based for eternity and we know what happened to them! On the eve of the new millennium Russian pollsters asked who had been the greatest figure of the twentieth century. Well-informed respondents put forward the names of Lenin, Stalin and A.D. Sakharov. Political control of scholarship is disastrous. It should not be allowed to happen again. This book attempts to draw some lessons from Russia s past and to make it more comprehensible. If it succeeds in doing so, even if only slightly, I shall feel that I did not labour in vain.

11 Preface xi Acknowledgements The author and translator gratefully acknowledge the invaluable help they have received from Mr T.M. Farmiloe (Macmillan, now Palgrave); Professor Alexander Mazo (Kazan ); Dr Alfred Steinegger (Venthône); Mr Christophe von Werdt, Ms Irmela Schweizer and others at the Schweizerische Osteuropa-Bibliothek, Bern, which provided an ideal working environment for the preparation of this translation. xi