Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 by Timothy Johnston Page B
Authors: Timothy Johnston
Tags: General, History, 20th Century, Europe, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Modern, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Social History
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United States of America 1945–1959’, PhD Diss. University of North Carolina (2006).
111 C. Kelly, ‘“The Little Citizens of a Big Country”: Childhood and International Relations in the Soviet Union’, Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and
Societies: Approaches to Globality, 8 (2002), 20.
xlii Being Soviet
talked about it . . . ’ 112 The battles, displacements, and occupations of World War II offered millions of Soviet citizens an opportunity to interact personally with the outside world. The German occupation brought foreign soldiers and technology into the villages and homes of the USSR, and the Red Army’s counter-attack across Europe carried large numbers of Soviet citizens beyond their own borders. For the first time, every collective farm had several members with personal experi- ence of life beyond the USSR. 113 This contact with the outside world continued into the post-war period, with Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany until the end of the Cold War.
The war also provided large numbers of Soviet citizens with direct experience of their wartime Allies. Between 1941 and 1945, Arkhangel’sk, Murmansk, and Odessa hosted thousands of Anglo-American sailors and military experts. British and US-made film, music, and literature were also popularized in an unprecedented manner between 1941 and
1945. 114 Personal interaction with foreign citizens was sharply curtailed during the late-Stalin years, but the launch of radio stations such as the Voice of America and BBC Russian language broadcasting and screen- ing of American-made films such as the Tarzan series, offered new avenues for information. The large volume of personalized information about the outside world, and in particular about Britain and America
after 1939, provided Soviet citizens with a rich vein of information that they could fuse with official sources to create a composite picture of the outside world.
The Official Soviet Identity of the USSR touched on the political campaigning, music tastes, movie watching, clothing styles, and rumour transmission of ordinary Soviet citizens in the period 1939–53. They engaged with Official Soviet Identity in a manner that traversed the binary poles of support and resistance. Personal responses to jazz music or foreign movies, were subtle and complex, resisting the simple cate- gories of pro-Soviet or anti-Soviet. Most Soviet citizens deployed a whole array of ‘tactical’ behaviour in order to carefully negotiate their relationship with Soviet power. Those ‘tactics of the habitat’, along with
112 HIP. B9, 136, 43 (B schedule interview, subject 9, respondent 136, page 43. Davis Centre Library, Harvard University).
113 For discussions of the impact of this process see: E. Zubkova, trans. H. Ragsdale, Russia After the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945–1957 (Armonk, NY, 1998), 25–6.
114 R. Stites, ed ., Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Indianapolis, 1995).
Introduction xliii
the rhetoric of Official Soviet Identity, shaped what it meant to be Soviet in Stalin’s last years.
MENTALIT E´ AND SOURCES
The manner in which these ‘little tactics of the habitat’ were deployed provides an opportunity to evaluate how ordinary Soviet citizens im- agined the world around them. This is made possible by the study of ‘successful’ rumours and patterns of behaviour during this period. Successful rumours, dance tastes, or music styles are those that prolif- erated in time and space, rather than being isolated examples. They are collective phenomena. Rumours survive on the basis of ‘natural selec- tion’. Those rumours which are credible to those who transmit them are passed on and become successful; rumours which are not credible do not survive. 115 In the same way, the popularity of a particular film or haircut demonstrates that it resonated with the collective imagination of the society within which it succeeded. A haircut’s success relied on a
111 C. Kelly, ‘“The Little Citizens of a Big Country”: Childhood and International Relations in the Soviet Union’, Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and
Societies: Approaches to Globality, 8 (2002), 20.
xlii Being Soviet
talked about it . . . ’ 112 The battles, displacements, and occupations of World War II offered millions of Soviet citizens an opportunity to interact personally with the outside world. The German occupation brought foreign soldiers and technology into the villages and homes of the USSR, and the Red Army’s counter-attack across Europe carried large numbers of Soviet citizens beyond their own borders. For the first time, every collective farm had several members with personal experi- ence of life beyond the USSR. 113 This contact with the outside world continued into the post-war period, with Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany until the end of the Cold War.
The war also provided large numbers of Soviet citizens with direct experience of their wartime Allies. Between 1941 and 1945, Arkhangel’sk, Murmansk, and Odessa hosted thousands of Anglo-American sailors and military experts. British and US-made film, music, and literature were also popularized in an unprecedented manner between 1941 and
1945. 114 Personal interaction with foreign citizens was sharply curtailed during the late-Stalin years, but the launch of radio stations such as the Voice of America and BBC Russian language broadcasting and screen- ing of American-made films such as the Tarzan series, offered new avenues for information. The large volume of personalized information about the outside world, and in particular about Britain and America
after 1939, provided Soviet citizens with a rich vein of information that they could fuse with official sources to create a composite picture of the outside world.
The Official Soviet Identity of the USSR touched on the political campaigning, music tastes, movie watching, clothing styles, and rumour transmission of ordinary Soviet citizens in the period 1939–53. They engaged with Official Soviet Identity in a manner that traversed the binary poles of support and resistance. Personal responses to jazz music or foreign movies, were subtle and complex, resisting the simple cate- gories of pro-Soviet or anti-Soviet. Most Soviet citizens deployed a whole array of ‘tactical’ behaviour in order to carefully negotiate their relationship with Soviet power. Those ‘tactics of the habitat’, along with
112 HIP. B9, 136, 43 (B schedule interview, subject 9, respondent 136, page 43. Davis Centre Library, Harvard University).
113 For discussions of the impact of this process see: E. Zubkova, trans. H. Ragsdale, Russia After the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945–1957 (Armonk, NY, 1998), 25–6.
114 R. Stites, ed ., Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Indianapolis, 1995).
Introduction xliii
the rhetoric of Official Soviet Identity, shaped what it meant to be Soviet in Stalin’s last years.
MENTALIT E´ AND SOURCES
The manner in which these ‘little tactics of the habitat’ were deployed provides an opportunity to evaluate how ordinary Soviet citizens im- agined the world around them. This is made possible by the study of ‘successful’ rumours and patterns of behaviour during this period. Successful rumours, dance tastes, or music styles are those that prolif- erated in time and space, rather than being isolated examples. They are collective phenomena. Rumours survive on the basis of ‘natural selec- tion’. Those rumours which are credible to those who transmit them are passed on and become successful; rumours which are not credible do not survive. 115 In the same way, the popularity of a particular film or haircut demonstrates that it resonated with the collective imagination of the society within which it succeeded. A haircut’s success relied on a
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