Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression (review)

This is an important study not only for Soviet historians but also for those scholars interested in labor and social history, political violence, popular mobilization, and populist components of terror. The book focuses on the participatory “democracy” campaign that accompanied the political terror as well as the role of the labor unions in it. Although some scholars have touched on the populist element of the terror from 1937 to 1939, few have taken it seriously or tried to explain its complicated relationship between repression and democracy. Goldman shows both the power and the injustices of “democracy” as practiced during the Stalin era. Although it encompassed popular participation, accountability before the membership, and freedom to criticize bosses, it also allowed unions to remove unpopular leaders from office and to punish those accused of poor leadership, corruption, and the like.

Party leaders mobilized workers’ shop-floor anger and resentment into a national campaign against “wrecking,” in which workers were encouraged to equate accidents with deliberate damage by union officials and managers. Responding to pressure from above to search for hidden enemies, unionists became active agents in the expulsion and repression of their fellows, and there were as many victimizers as victims. In the end, this new democratic power did not transform the union leadership; more often than not, it simply replaced one group of bureaucrats with another. Nevertheless, the populist process managed to spark a prolonged public struggle within the unions that empowered workers (for good or ill), as it melded with the campaign against enemies. The resulting mess was a continuing cycle of accusations and arrests. Lines and structures of authority were undermined and the center lost control. The “snake devoured its tail” and “chaos reigned,” in Goldman’s felicitous phrasing.

Using heretofore unexploited Moscow archives, this book deals with policymaking at the top of the Soviet pyramid, showing the indecision and miscalculation that characterized the development of the terror even at the apex of power. Avoiding the usual simplistic approaches in which Stalin successfully planned everything and victimized everyone else, Goldman provides a more realistic account of confusion, unintended consequences, shifting alliances, and chaos.

The book shows the variety of issues and conflicts that pervade labor history, including status and authority conflicts on the shop floor, factional struggles within the union leadership, and struggles between workers and union and party leaders. Fissures and connections ran in all directions—from the top down, from the bottom up, and sideways, conditioned by a tradition of scapegoating and blameshifting. This is one of the few studies that deals with Soviet labor unions before World War II. Although Goldman’s focus is on the politics of terror from above and from below, she also has much to say about the union activity, leadership, and structure.

Goldman’s story is replete with twists and turns, complicated maneuvers, and the often-opaque formulaic political discourse of the times. Nevertheless, she presents her analysis with grace and a lively writing style, generously interspersed with quotations from workers themselves.