Power, Discourse, and Subjectivity in Soviet History

273 Ab Imperio, 3/2002 David L. HOFFMANN POWER, DISCOURSE, AND SUBJECTIVITY IN SOVIET HISTORY In the past decade, new sources and new methodological approaches have combined to produce a range of exciting new scholarship in the field of Soviet history. Some of the most important and innovative research has focused on the topic of Soviet subjectivity.1 This research has demonstrated that Soviet state power was not only repressive, but also productive, in that it created new forms of self-identification which some people accepted and internalized. In order to gauge citizens’ internalization of officially prescribed identities, it is necessary to gain access to their inner thoughts, and to analyze how the Soviet system shaped their sense of self. Because individuals think and act according to their understanding of themselves and their place in the world, their sense of self determines their ability to become subjects, or actors, in everyday life. Subjectivity – the capacity to 1 Drawing on the ideas of Michel Foucault, Stephen Kotkin was the first person to raise the problem of subjectivity in the study of Soviet history; Stephen Kotkin. Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization. Berkeley, 1995. Pp. 22-23. Since then, Igal Halfin and Jochen Hellbeck have undertaken the most extensive examinations of subjectivizing practices under the Soviet regime; Igal Halfin. From Darkness to Light: Class, Consciousness, and Salvation in Revolutionary Russia. Pittsburgh, 2000; Jochen Hellbeck. Fashioning the Stalinist Soul: The Diary of Stepan Podlubnyi, 1931-1939 // Jahrbьcher fьr Geschichte Osteuropas. 1996. Vol. 44. No. 3. 274 D. L. Hoffmann, Power, Discourse, and Subjectivity in Soviet History think and act based on a coherent sense of self – is therefore a crucial area of inquiry for historians of the Soviet period. The totalitarian model presented the Soviet system as terrorizing the population into complete subservience, forcing people to hide their true selves or eliminating their sense of self altogether. Revisionists and historians of resistance countered that individuals in Soviet society did have a sense of themselves and their interests, and that they supported or opposed policies based on self-interest. But some post-revisionist thinkers have argued that Soviet citizens’ sense of themselves and their own interests did not arise independently of the system in which they lived. These scholars have criticized the tendency to assume that people had a pre-existing sense of selfinterest that transcended the historical specificities of their time and place.2 According to this view, historical agency exists, but it is not the agency of free-thinking, self-made individuals, as depicted in liberal thought. Instead, state power, official discourse, and subjectivizing practices play a role in constituting individuals as subjects.3 Jochen Hellbeck has persuasively argued that Soviet authorities purposefully set out to make people into revolutionary subjects.4 Rather than seeking to repress or obliterate people’s sense of self, Soviet institutions and propaganda were intended to foster conscious citizens, who would voluntarily participate in the building of socialism and derive their sense of self from doing so. In this way, state power was productive, for it offered people a coherent sense of self and purpose. The objective of Soviet authorities was to make citizens understand their lives as part of the larger revolutionary project. For those who accepted their place in this project, Soviet power offered an opportunity to contribute to something of world historical importance, the creation of a socialism that heralded a new era for humankind. 2 See, for example, Anna Krylova. The Tenacious Liberal Subject in Soviet Studies // Kritika. 2000. Vol. 1. No. 1. 3 Even in liberal democracies the state plays a role in shaping people as self-interested subjects. Through private property rights and a discourse on individualism, the state helps give citizens an understanding of themselves and their world. One might add that in Western societies, microscopic networks of power and non-state institutional practices, from religious confession to psychoanalysis, also constituted individuals as subjects. See Michel Foucault.The Subject and Power // Idem. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics / Ed. by Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow. Chicago, 1982. 4 Jochen Hellbeck. Working, Struggling, Becoming: Stalin-Era Autobiographical Texts // The Russian Review. 2001. No. 3. 275 Ab Imperio, 3/2002 Jochen Hellbeck...