Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda

Conclusion: Epic Revisionism and the Crafting of a Soviet Public

The late s were turbulent for the USSR. Fascist Germany loomed to the west; Old Bolsheviks were accused of treachery and executed; peasants migrated to the city in waves, driven by fear and opportunity. On the positive side, a new constitution was adopted, Soviet explorers investigated the polar wastelands, and massive construction projects went up throughout the country. Atop and seemingly in control of this maelstrom was Stalin, general secretary of the communist party and the most powerful man in the land. Demands on Stalin’s time were overwhelming, whether he was reviewing the budget of a construction project, receiving foreign dignitaries, or approving a list of party members to be purged. Yet near the top of his agenda for half a decade remained a task that few other statesmen would have considered worthy of their time: the development of a state-endorsed historiography, and its dissemination to popular audiences . In aggregate and in context, the time that Stalin devoted to the project is impressive. He read a stream of scholarship on various figures of Russian history, wrote detailed and often harsh critiques of many books, reviewed plans for curricular materials and textbooks, and even attended scholarly conferences. Far from a historian himself, Stalin was nevertheless articulate and well-informed on historical issues. Even if we bemoan many of his opinions, we cannot label him a dilettante. Why then did Stalin, a statesman as versed in realpolitik as any in the twentieth century, devote so much energy to the phantoms of the past at a time of such political turmoil? As the chapters in this book demonstrate convincingly, history was statecraft for Stalin, a statecraft that enlisted the efforts of thousands of  Conclusion Epic Revisionism and the Crafting of a Soviet Public
J  G historians, teachers, journalists, writers, and artists throughout the USSR, and that reached millions of readers and spectators. Complex historical figures such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, state builders and breakers of men who had been dismissed outright by the simplistic Marxism of early Soviet historians, were lionized during the mid- to late s. Plays, poems, movies, and novels were devoted to their state-building skills, to their campaigns against invaders from abroad and dissent at home. Readers will note the obvious echoes with Stalin’s own program, as he consolidated his personal power, as well as the power of the public over the private, of the capital over the periphery, and rid Soviet Russia of its deference to foreign ideas and cultures. History in such a context became a system of communication within a society in which the public sphere had ceased to exist. While the authors of this volume detail the involvement of the Soviet hierarchs, they insist on looking at the actions of less exalted citizens as well. If practical politics were at the foundation of Stalin’s new history, what motivated the writers and historians who produced it? Was it simply fear and ambition, or, as seems to be the case, was their participation keener? And what about the audiences and readers? Surely the tools of statecraft did not elicit their responses, which were enviably positive. There was a deeper resonance, as they recognized something familiar and appealing—a greater good—in the principles inscribed in the new history. By charting the flow of information and communication through the system, this collection provides a sense of what constituted the Soviet public in the late s and how it functioned. One of the ironies of the s is that public culture boomed just as the public sphere, the somewhat utopian field of autonomous nonstate discourse described by Jürgen Habermas, was being closed down.1 The harshness of the time cannot be discounted. Poets and writers were shackled by the canon of Socialist Realism, silenced by the censor, or condemned to even worse fates at the hands of the NKVD. Political alternatives were extirpated , and even the most loyal of the Old Bolsheviks were subject to repression . Schoolchildren were presented with a newly regimented educational system, in which the teacher was a master who offered unquestioned facts and figures to be memorized. Their role model was the young peasant Pavlik Morozov, who denounced his father to the authorities, a frightening prospect for millions of Soviet parents. Healthy dialogue was slowly excluded from the public sphere (and often from the private sphere as well), leaving a vacuum of silence and fear in its place.  Conclusion Yet few visitors to the...