Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc: Youth Cultures, Music, and the State in Russia and Eastern Europe ed. by William Jay Risch (review)

The renowned rock critic Robert Palmer contended that rock and roll at its best is subversive and insurgent. As William Jay Risch and his authors contend in this illuminating collection of well-crafted essays, Soviet bloc governments (and Yugoslavia) feared rock’s latent political influence upon restless and resentful youth. Nevertheless, Communist authorities did not necessarily ban the music despite its perceived capitalist degeneracy; instead, they attempted to co-opt it and give it a “socialist beat.” The essays indicate that rock, like nationalism, was modular. Despite the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, music (and fashion) permeated to the East, evoking its youth’s imagination and attraction of the West, which became more compelling as the Soviet system declined and disintegrated.

In his introduction, Risch explains that his collection “challenges assumptions that young people aimed their choices in music, fashion and lifestyle against Communist regimes.” For example, “Soviet hippies drew from the practices and symbols of the Pioneers and Komsomol [Communist youth organizations] as well as symbols, music, and fashions from San Francisco” (11). Contributor Dean Vuletic describes Yugoslavia’s reluctance to confront and condemn Western music for political reasons since it “could diminish its distinctiveness from the rest of Eastern Europe in the eyes of the West” (38). David Tompkins reviews efforts by Poland and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to develop alternative homegrown popular music conveying socialist idealism. Gleb Tsipursky explains that Nikita Khrushchev’s “thaw” still included the suppression of Western “style-obsessed” stiliagi. Risch contributes a comparative study regarding rock and counterculture in Lviv and Wroclaw (featuring a hippie named “Zappa”). Sándor Horváth discloses how the Hungarian government portrayed Western-fashioned youth as delinquent and “deviant” as a means to assert socialist values. Sergei I. Zhuk explores how détente amplified music in Soviet Ukraine. (Even Komsomol members established discotheques.) Kate Gerrard examines the two “waves” of punk music that reached the GDR from the UK. The Stasi broke up the first wave, but the second endured. East German youth directly related to the Sex Pistols’ claim of “no future.” Polly McMichael recounts Leningrad’s apartment rock movement, where musicians and fans shared intimate musical experiences despite police threats. Gregory Kveberg considers how discotheques became a cultural battleground between Komsomol “conservatives” and “pragmatists.” Tom Junes relates that Poland’s increasing liberalism within the Soviet bloc provided opportunity for greater access to protest music ranging from punk to reggae, contributing to the fall of the Communist government. The Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), Soviet Russia’s last great infrastructure socialist mobilization, failed to live up to its expectations. However, according to Christopher J. Ward, the construction of cultural houses along the way provided exceptional venues for rock bands. Jonathyne Briggs concludes the collection and contends that “rock and roll . . . was . . . a part of Communist society in a similar way to how it was in Western Europe: an object of consternation, youthful idealism, and ultimately reluctant acceptance” (281). The reaction to rock and youth counterculture in the East and West was not that different.

The contributors’ research is impressive and underscores the wealth of sources available for social historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and musicologists. Risch’s collection, emphasizing culture and society, is a welcomed approach given predominantly political Cold War studies. The authors humanize the Cold War era and implicitly question how much the West knew about the East and its youth. This book deserves immediate inclusion in university collections.