In his new book The Stalinist Era(Cambridge University Press, 2018), David L. Hoffmann focuses on the myriad ways in which Stalinist practices had their origins in World War I (1914-1918) and Russian Civil War era (1918-1920). These periods saw mass mobilizations of the population take place not just in Russia and the early Bolshevik state, but in many other nations, too.
In order to place Stalinism in this more comparative context, Hoffmann draws on a variety of primary archival sources. The Stalinist Era also provides a broad synthesis of recent work on Stalinism, and so interested readers will be able to follow his bibliography to much of the key historical work on the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Following its treatment of the Russian Civil War, The Stalinist Era takes readers through the NEP (New Economic Policy) period, the “building socialism” era of crash industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture, the Purges of the late 1930’s, the Second World War, and the final postwar Stalin years. Finally, Hoffmann suggests, there are important ways in which Stalinism did not die with Stalin himself.
The Stalinist Era combines an effective synthesis of the entire Stalin period, while at the same time, putting forth a specific and engaging argument that Stalinism mirrors many broader trends in modern nations. Historical writing should encourage comparative thinking, and Hoffmann’s book does exactly that.
Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism.
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Give it a try at mid mobile comm slash save Whatever you're ready $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month new customers on first three month plan Only taxes and fees extra speed slower above 40 gigabytes seat details Welcome to the new books network Hi, this is Aaron Whylach with the Russian Studies section of the new books network and today We're talking with professor David Hoffman about his new book a Stalinist era So thanks for being with us here professor Hoffman Okay, glad to be near suppose you could start off by giving us a bit of bio on yourself how you Came to study Soviet history to begin with and who you studied with and so on to do that yeah, sir I actually only got interested in Russian history when I was in college I I started out college as a math major and I went to Morris University a liberal arts college in Wisconsin and Took a history course and was amazed at how interesting it was I never had in taught history in an interesting way in high school. So I had Professors there Charles Brunig and Michael Hiddle who got me very interested in Russian history and in fact the question that intrigued me most was The about the Russian Revolution. I wondered why the October Revolution Which seemed to promise liberty and equality for all people Resulted not in a communist utopia, but instead in a Stalinist dictatorship So that's in fact what I went on to study in much of my research Including in graduate school and beyond so since I got so interested in the Russian Revolution and Soviet history I decided to Continue to go on to graduate school and I went to Columbia University I studied there with Leopold Eameson and Mark von Hagen and I wrote a dissertation on Really a social history Topic as in migration and working-class formation in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and I got intrigued by that Topic because I thought it might actually answer my question That is why why Stalinism why did the revolution result in Stalinism? I was especially intrigued by some of the things that Michia Lewin had written In his book the making of the Soviet system about peasant patriarchalism and how this might have provided a social basis for Stalinism, but then in my Research my dissertation research very much Contradicted that idea so my conclusions were in fact that the millions of peasants moving to Soviet cities during the 1930s actually provided enormous obstacle for Soviet officials and if anything sort of impeded the way that the Soviet regime tried to shape the population and make an efficient working class so that did not really really answer my question and I moved on from there to cultural history So my dissertation I did publish as a book on peasant metropolis social identities in Moscow 1929 to 41 But then I that book was on my qualifying exams. Oh, is that right? Oh good. I was okay. Well, I'm glad you read that yeah, I did I I moved on sort of from social history and actually switched to cultural history for my next research in topic and That actually resulted in my book Stalinist values the cultural norms of Soviet modernity 1917 to 41 so I look I was looking at official culture in the Soviet Union and One of the things I discovered when I was reaching researching that book. I had a chapter on Soviet family policy And I was struck by some of the parallels between what was going on in the Soviet Union and what was going on in countries throughout Europe What what you see in in the Soviet case in the 1930s Was previously described as a sort of Thermador a turn away from revolutionary values and this is on social conservatism higher, you know patriarchy hierarchy and sort of an essentialist view of women that said that they had to be mothers, you know This was a time when abortion was outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1936 And so forth so I I was struck at the parallels that the same sorts of things were happening in countries throughout Europe and these include ashes countries and a fascist Italy Nazi Germany, but also liberal democratic countries like France and in all those instances There were efforts to try to have more conservative social values Not so much for a family autonomy, but instead to use the family as an instrument of the state and instrument of Reproduction trying to increase the population So then for my next book. I actually did this on a bigger scale. The next book was cultivating the masses modern state practices and soviet socialism 1914 to 1939 and I actually Compeared social policies in the Soviet Union with those in countries Across Europe and around the world in fact to try to put Stalinism in a more international context And I've looked not only at reproductive policies and family policy, but also at health policy And their valence state violence and and so forth So some of my findings really from from all three of these previous monographs Found their way into my my new book the Stalin Astira because This is a more synthetic work which tries to sort of cover everything about Stalinism, but but very much takes that approach of putting it in an international context to try to get a new New perspective on it. So does I'm just curious then since your Your book here depends so much on on comparison and talks about world war one and so on I was thinking of like French note pro-natalist policies You know, you think the same thing applies there that you know Ultimately like interwar pro-natal wisdom results from a reaction to the first world war as well. Yes. Yes very much so the first world war Really had enormous impact on a lot of different policies Throughout Europe and including what became the Soviet Union as well, of course So you mentioned in France You know the first world war and the rise of mass warfare made perfectly clear the fact that military power and national defense depended very much on having a large and healthy population so in France is actually the country where these concerns arise First even before the first world war, but but definitely after the first world war French policies German policies even under Weimar even for the Nazis and the power Italy is a very good example Almost every country in Europe in fact tries to increase the birth rate for the sake of having a large population which translates as I said into military power and also provides labor during this year of Industrial production having a large population Translates into economic power as well I am curious then to you know get back to the the actual Russian case. We're in the first chapter there you talk about just the conditions that set up the the Russian Revolution and You emphasized in there Nicholas the second fundamental wishy washing is I guess is the the right word So I was wondering it seems to me like the only thing that he's really iron-willed about is refusals for reform of reform So I'm wondering what it counts for if his overall You know personality is so wishy washy to follow whatever's been said last and so on What accounts for this this unique lack or you know iron will not to permit any real reforms? Right. Well, I think that you know, he had he was somewhat narrow-minded and so Really the only thing he could kind of hold on to was this desire to preserve the Russian democracy and the Romanov dynasty and so He had gotten the idea that conservatism and Not reforming was was in fact import way to do that But more generally he just clearly was not cut out to be a world leader In fact, he himself sort of admitted this the he he admitted that he didn't know How to lead the country he didn't know how to talk to the ministers even You know clearly not cut out for the job and yet under the System the monarchical system, you know, the person who became the ruler that was not determined by merit or ability They were determined by by birth. So It showed a fundamental weakness in the monarchy and one that Was essentially a fatal weakness for the monarchy when it came to the strains of the First World War Though I'm not surprising that revolution resulted and when I when I read your book I was thinking maybe it's you know total lack of imagination or something like that that That contributes to that attitude of his Yeah, right. I think you know if he had been able to Look at other examples and systems of government parliamentary systems are even constitutional monarchies that that he might have embraced as more effective and Tried some sort of reforms before a crisis broke out. It's always dangerous to be reforming during a crisis That that certainly that that would have helped, you know, he only really takes steps towards reform During the Revolution of 1905 and that's only at the insistence of it to another advisors who are trying to save the monarchy Issues the October Manifesto and so forth, but even then is unwilling to Allow the duma of the Russian Parliament to the function and have all its powers and so, you know, the result is really a lack of a successful transition to constitutional monarchy and No development of a elementary tradition that Russia might have built on somehow I'm still on your first chapter here it reminded me of the hilarious line from Dr. Zhivago where he says that it wasn't until the Civil War era that the problems of food and firewood became problems of fuel supply and Allibentation and and I've always loved that line and so I was wondering you were talking about Mass mobilization is being a really important theme throughout the entire book So I was wondering if you could comment that on on how does how does mass mobilization work out as during the You know during the Civil War era. How do the how are the Bolsheviks successful in mobilizing people? Yeah, that that's a good question because mass mobilization of course is something that Already it becomes an enormous challenge for all the combatants during World War one so so Russia has Already during the First World War begun to take some steps towards Mobilization mobilizing both resources natural resources and also the population or the war effort and then the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution during the Civil War they then continue many of these Practices of mobilization so it means that in particular state control of the economy at wartime economy is one in which The government is able to control and channel resources towards Armaments production is able to Mobilize or conscript labor as well as soldiers and also trying to control food food supply, which is an enormous problem again at all countries during the First World War we're facing including Russia and then during the Civil War it means because you know trying to requisition grain in order to be the armies be the cities and so forth. So so it's all these measures of state intervention which lead to just enormous growth of state bureaucracy that once again is is characteristic of 20th century states around the world, but it it takes a particularly virulent form in the Soviet Union in its early years because As you brought up the fact that the Bolsheviks are fighting the Civil War This is a life and death struggle. They need to Mobilize all resources for the effort and then a crucial fact is That the Soviet state is born at this moment of total war So these are not just temporary wartime measures Instead they very much become Institutionalized within the new Soviet state so things for example like state planning state control of the economy those get institutionalized You have the secret police which When it was created the Czecha created during the Civil War it was supposed to be Emperor organization, but it's institutionalized as well and so it never disappears in fact it only grows over time and plays a Greater and greater role various practices such as Your valence and here I got on the work of Peter Holquist who showed that all countries in Europe began to exercise mass surveillance of their populations during the First World War and that in fact that was something that the Soviet Union or the Soviet leaders did during the Civil War and Essentially did on a permanent basis from then on So I'll go ahead. Oh, go ahead Yeah, so so anyway in all these respects through various state practices and institutions the Soviet state is intervening in people's lives to a far greater degree than you know had been traditionally the case and And then continues to do so and that it provides a basis for Stalinism so then they For our listeners, I was wondering if you could explain About the NEP period and then my my main question for you about that was if you think that you know did the net period Those policies really have a chance. I mean, you know Was there a different road not taken in NEP or was that always going to be a temporary compromise with the capitalists? Yeah, that's a good question and one that scholars have debated in Soviet history There's this idea that there might have been a real alternative to Stalinism If only the new economic policy had been continued is something sometimes referred to as the book of car and alternatives since the car and wanted a continuation of NEP and I I think it's important to Recognize two things First of all, you know historians don't like to talk about something as being inevitable So it's not as if Stalinism had to happen that would be overly deterministic to argue that but when you look at the Soviet state Both how it formed and the practices that used to rule as well as the international context it was in It there are definitely reasons that the new economic policy was not continued after 1928 and among those are What I was discussing a minute ago the these institutions of state control Are already there these practices of surveillance coercion? all of these are Firmly established and they actually did not disappear in the 1920s the 1920s were not quite as much of a golden era as sometimes is thought because there still was quite a bit of state violence especially on the periphery of the country the Soviet leaders were consolidating control in the caucuses in Central Asia. They were using methods of state violence that included You know deportations mass arrests and so forth That we sort of think of as characteristic of Stalinism So the fact that that those things are happening You know even during the net period Shows that there were definite antecedents or Stalinism there and then the other thing I mentioned a minute ago the international situation Soviet leaders were painfully aware that they were ruling your Marxist party But they're ruling a overwhelmingly peasant country one that was underdeveloped one that could not compete militarily with more advanced countries of Western Europe and Increasingly there there is this rat In fact throughout the 20s. There's this sense of capitalist encirclement, which means that Soviet leaders realized they need to industrialize quickly to defend the country And then of course this this threat becomes even more clear by the early 1930s in particular Nazi Germany and Japan poses enormous security threat the Soviet Union so this need to industrialize quickly Is very much on the minds of all Soviet leaders even those who want to continue the new economic policy did want industrialization to speed up so that Those sorts of factors really account for the fact that the new economic policy This market road to socialism was not really followed that instead of much more coercive approach Don't we know a Stalinism was followed instead? They kind of think it's the end of the substance of your your second chapter there on the building socialism So I was wondering if maybe you could comment on the difference between What collectivization was supposed to achieve and what it actually in fact achieved mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a good question so collectivization It was a way to try to most modernize the country countryside and to Switch from a capitalist mode of production to a socialist mode So it meant the elimination of private ownership of the means of production ownership of land livestock and our machinery and the collectivization of those things so ideally Soviet Activists leaves a could persuade the peasants that this was a better way to do things that that the old ways were backward if they were to Consolidate all the land work it collectively Work it not with horse-drawn plows, but with tractors that this would greatly increase agricultural prosperity Be better for the peasants as well as being as well as helping state leaders to modernize the country But of course You know this was something that was not where the promises that were made were not really fulfilled and Instead collectivization became very much a way to increase state control of the countryside So there'd been these various problems with I like getting enough rain Green boasts to be the growing cities during industrialization also to export in order to import modern machinery and technology And through collectivization because these collective farms were controlled by the state it was possible for Soviet leaders to take as much grain as they wanted they at once collectivization was completed they they controlled the grain supply they no longer had to go from hut to hut trying to take acquisition grain from the peasants something that was difficult to do instead they it controlled The collective farms and control the grain supply But the other thing that I think is very important about collectivization is is how It was carried out because this is something that Shows that Stalinism was not Yes an ideological Movement are a result of ideology. It certainly was partly that it was an attempt to eliminate private ownership of the means of production and to shift from capitalism to socialism But they could have gone about it much differently they could have had a series of incentives and tax penalties who induced peasants to join collective farms and instead it was the collectivization was carried out like a military operation where they would have Brigades of activists go into villages Use violence or the threat of violence you force peasants to join collective farms those who are labeled koolocks rich peasants or last enemies in the village they were forcibly dispossessed and many of them deported so this was as he said a sort of military operation where not only are you forcing peasants to join collective farms where you're actually taking a large portion of the population that you view as hostile that you view as unwilling to cooperate or even ready to sabotage collective farms and physically removing them from the village so many of these peasants of course were Deported to what they called special settlements It's something that land viola describes in her book the unknown gulag which I cite in my book the Stalin mistera and this was a way to Presumably get These class enemies out of the village so that collective farms could function without any opposition sabotage And then have a labor force in the sort of far-flung region. So the far north of Siberia Of course the result was tremendous suffering and Yes, many of these peasants deported as cool ox died of malnutrition or disease or exposure in these northern regions entire families were Deported in the middle of winter and sent to places where there was no shelter. They were just told to start logging the forest and Meet their work quotas and in their fair moments try to build housing where they could live So that's something else I described in the book just You know, not only the way Collectivization was carried out, but the human toll that it took the human suffering that resulted from it It's that time of the year Your vacation is coming up. You can already hear the beach waves feel the warm breeze Relax and think about Work you really really wanted all to work out while you're away Monday calm gives you and the team that peace of mind when all work is on one platform and everyone's in sync Things just flow wherever you are tap the banner to go to Monday calm. I Was I was wondering In the section on collectivization And obviously the famine in the Ukraine is as it was then and is now a pretty contentious topic I was wondering if you could comment on what you think the best argument is What forth by the people who argue that it was kind of intentional and and perhaps even genocide Well, obviously you take a somewhat different point if you I was just wondering what you think the best evidence is that the other side sites Right. Yeah, so this is a controversial issue I think the best evidence that the other side sites is simply the The death rates in Ukraine you have, you know, enormous loss of life during the famine and some Villages some regions the population population is almost entirely wiped out So it does theme genocide all in that sense a huge number of Ukrainians die in the famine of 1932 33 and it's also true that the famine was caused by Soviet policies So it you from from that if you put those two things together It seems like well the Soviet leaders, you know, they forced peasants to join these collective farms They took the grain away they left people to starve. It does look like a deliberate policy of of mass killing Now sort of to take the other side I point out several things that I think make it makes the famine in Ukraine and something that can be distinguished from genocide and Namely that this was not actually an attempt to wipe out the Ukrainian population It did kill several million people and it was the result of Soviet policies, but Soviet leaders actually were nearly alarmed when in late 1932 they began to realize that the famine was overtaking parts of the countryside and that Millions of peasants were starving and it wasn't out of any sort of sympathy You know, they were mainly alarmed because this was greatly disruptive to Soviet industrialization drive and in fact it Did cause industrial growth to grind virtually to a halt in 1932 or I'm sorry in 1933. There was virtually no economic growth in the country as a result of the famine and its effects so So this was not something they that they intended, you know, genocide is something that is in fact intentional And the other point that I make in the book is that other populations suffered as well roughly one and a half million Kazakhs died During the 1932-33 famine There were Tatars who died there were ethnic Russians who died. It was not something that was directed simply at one nationality so more Ukrainians died than any other national group And obviously this was a terrible tragedy and as I said, it was the fault of Soviet leaders and their policies But I think that we still need to distinguish that from Genocide the way, you know, for example the Nazis Genocide of the Jews. This was an intentional policy that tried to wipe out all European Jews, so That is something that's much different than a policy than a bit of reckless Policy on the part of Soviet leaders. It ends up killing several million people It's not the same as a deliberate policy To try to wipe the Jewish genome off the face of the earth. That's genocide in the You know true sense of the word Yeah, I was wondering we get to shift gears here a little bit One of the other really interesting things I thought they're in your building socialism chapter was all the material on nationalism and or on yeah national national feeling and I was wondering if you could elaborate on how it is that a state which Fundamentally ideologically rejects the whole concept of nationalism somehow ends up creating more of it in spite of itself That seems like a big question Yeah, yeah, that's that's a real paradox in so be history and So it's one of the things that I address in this book The important thing to notice When it comes to Soviet nationality policy Is the fact that Soviet leaders actually leave they of course were against nationalism They wanted to establish socialism, but they had a certain teleology. They saw humankind as progressing through stages and this was partly because they were Marxist, but this this sort of progression Is a was a more general part of European enlightenment thought that that saw people progressing through stages from tribes to ethnic groups to nations so Soviet leaders actually thought if there were Peoples in the Soviet Union that did not have a sense of national identity that they actually needed to Cultivate and instill that In order for these people to move along this evolutionary timeline towards socialism in other words, they had to Teach the peoples of central Asia They had to establish national identities and instill those and it was only through those that people would eventually supersede a sense of nationalism and Proceeded on to socialism So it's something that Francine Hirsch describes in her book empire of nations this sense of state-sponsored evolutionism where These different ethnic groups and it is very important that the Soviet union had a large number of national ethnic groups within it But these groups that they had to develop a sense of national identity In order then to become part of this sort of socialist family of nations and eventually they would move beyond Nationalism that would wither away and they would achieve socialism and ultimately communism That was that was the idea. Of course, the reality Was quite the opposite once people developed a sense of national identity It never went away. And so ultimately the Soviet Union breaks up Along national lines and becomes 15 separate countries corresponding to the national republics of the Soviet Union that established I thought that was one of the more poignant moments in your book where you described how People who hadn't had much before in the way of a you know a national Aspiration or national culture then later got punished for it by the same state that helped them create it That was uh, I don't know that I thought about it in quite that way before and that was Makes you sit back in your chair and think a bit Right, right. It's the the Soviet leaders um And Stalin was particularly sensitive on this issue of nationality And national separatism. Soviet leaders wanted a certain type Of national identity among these national minorities One that would sort of you know still be part of the Soviet union and Soviet socialism They did not want what they call bourgeois nationalism, which might lead to nationalist separatism. So um Stalin was sort of very ruthless in trying to eliminate any um Anyone who we thought was a bourgeois nationalist as as he called it some if someone had a sense of national identity that actually meant that um You know their nationality should have Independence that they should become independent country, you know, whether it was Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian so forth then he he very um Was was ready to use coercion to have those those people arrested in some cases executed as well to eliminate that threat he thought that the integrity of the soviet union depended on eliminating any sort of national separatism and having only these sort of tightly circumscribed and controlled national identities that that also Um entailed allegiance to soviet socialism and the soviet state So is there is there an international comparative context for this the uh, you know promoting national identity Uh at the same time Actually, um, it is very fruitful to compare the soviet union uh with other empires um but any comparison um And you know the other comparisons i make in the book i try to point this out as well any Any comparison is only valuable if you point out the differences as well as the similarities Uh, so in this case you see mostly differences. Um, for example, you can compare um the soviet union As an empire you can consider it an empire Uh, and yet it's very different from the colonial empires of western european countries Because those countries you know when they established colonial empires Uh overseas they they very much tried to differentiate Themselves that is the colonizers from those who were colonized Uh, and this in the soviet case There's an effort to actually promote the development of national cultures national languages even if in some cases in central asia if there was no written language they actually would develop that uh in order that people's they are could be Attagrised and as usbeks cause ox and so forth uh, and then Developed their national cultures and eventually assimilate Uh into this sort of larger larger body So that instead of trying to differentiate um Russians from Ukrainians and togiques and so forth they they wanted to put everyone Along the moving along the same evolutionary timeline towards socialism Uh, so so I think uh, you know, you raised a question of comparison there It is uh valuable to compare The soviet empire was other empires, but you see um Essential differences there which uh are things I tried to highlight in the book I think uh, I wanted to add a few questions. I was wondering if you can comment on in your third chapter their uh socialism attained uh Maybe you could uh comment some on the shock work in this kind of light movement as you have people You know getting excited about uh building Building socialism and so on. What's uh, who were the staccana vites and how do they fit into this kind of mass mobilization picture your building here? Yeah, so the staccana vites Were of course the hero workers that were held up as examples for other workers to emulate Beginning beginning in 1935 Uh, they set production records Uh, the movement of course named after alexa staccana vu Mind 100 tons of coal in a single shift Uh, so he and others were Held up as examples Or other workers to emulate to try to increase labor productivity Um, that was something that was of course Essential to the industrialization drive to try to industrialize the country quickly um, they needed to Increase labor productivity Um, but I also sort of put uh staccana vites in the from what broader context in the book because I um I think that they actually Provided an example of the new soviet person One of the things that's interesting. You see this in staccana vite radiographies other publicity about staccana vites. They're not only shown to be productive workers. They're actually shown to be cultured individuals modern people who were literate their well-dressed a value um Finallyness punctuality sobriety with other values that the soviet government was trying to instill in people um and they're also shown to be sort of prospering from the fruits of their own labor Uh, and this is something that that actually came out um in the mid 1930s, you know in 1934 um Stalin at the 17th party congress declared that the basis of socialism had been attained So that's in fact how that's where I took the chapter title from socialism attained that soviet leaders declared that the day had actually uh eliminated capitalism and by creating a completely state-run economy they had Uh created the basis of socialism And so at that point it was possible for this ideal of the new soviet person to be realized so workers the staccana vites in particular were sort of held up as the personification of the new soviet person people who Through their labor and through the way they lived cultured lives could sort of be examples of what all uh, soviet citizens would achieve under socialism Well, certainly that you know, you went back and you know pointed out how important the civil war where it was and so on I mean the the idea of talking about the new people I mean Russian radicals have been talking about that since tergenia of insurance Shevsky, so that's a long tradition there too right right it does go back before the revolution in fact this idea of the new person so so that's what they're kind of building on and as I said It's only at this moment when they believe they have actually attained socialism uh by mid 1930s that That the new person was no longer just a theoretical ideal that they actually could come into being And so this the kind of lights as I said or the Solification of the new soviet person there it's it's proof. It's sort of living proof that a New person who is is fundamentally different than workers under Capitalism because they're no longer he created and exploited and they're no longer selfish ingredients that they're actually um supposed to get Rid of the vestiges of capitalism and egotism and so forth and sort of instead embrace collectivism That's that's one of the values of soviet socialism that's being promoted Through the example of these of these people On the subject to the new people, uh, I was not familiar with the uh had a good rovite I guess would be how you pronounce that uh movement and it you kind of left me hanging What I really wanted to know is what happened to those 25,000 women that got selected to head east do you know? Wow, so so some of them actually returned to Moscow or other places near p in russia, but a lot remain there Continue to work. Um, it certainly did not live up to their expectations you know part of the campaign of course was to try to um increase the the population in the soviet far east And there was this real security threat. This is in the late 1930s Uh, this this threat particularly from japan um So, you know, there's a there's a sense that they need to increase the population there Uh, and that's why they're sending these women out to sort of participate in the building of socialism In the far east that they're they're going to help populate the region Help develop it economically and it helped have a a stable population there That can also help support National defense measures if necessary, but but the realities of course were that Conditions there were extremely difficult. Um, it was a region of the country where they had large amounts of worst labor, you know gulag prison camps located out there and so many of the women who went out with These sort of idealistic notions of building socialism they encountered a very harsh Physical and social reality once they got there. Um, so I'm not sure that it was Very fulfilling for them, but um, but many of them did did remain there and works there lived there and so forth. So it it did Contribute in some ways to the the goal of state leaders Well, certainly there's been some comparative work on that kind of thing done too I believe like the american idea of manifest destiny and Siberia is kind of this empty vessel that we fill with our hopes and dreams And so I think you know mark bassin. I think is written about that as I recall Right, right. Yeah, Siberia is uh, sort of the Russian equivalent of the american west Um, so you can definitely draw parallels there Uh, I was in that same same chapter there. Uh, you made a point of emphasizing Uh, how this this fear of external enemies you refer to earlier to capitalist and circle men and so on How that that helped drive the purges or kind of moving into the later into the thirties here and that some i've always wondered about is uh If Stalin is that paranoid about external enemies, then how do we square that with his kind of late hour Denial that the germans were actually invading if he spent all this time Worrying about in circle, but And then yet right before june of uh, 41 he seems to be kind of in denial. Do you have any insight on that? Uh, it it of course difficult to Um, you can see inside the mind of Stalin Uh, I think that the important thing to recognize is that He of course saw an enormous threat all the soviet leaders did Uh, see an enormous threat from nazi germany Um, so it's not really true What some people assume that Hitler somehow duped Stalin into Uh, you know signing the nazi soviet pact and then leaving there would not never be an invasion Instead, um, I think Stalin's miscalculation Aim from his belief that nazi germany would never Invade the soviet union while it still had a western front content of that and of course The fighting battle of britain was was still going on at this time Um, so it was really it was really a miscalculation now Of course other soviet leaders and soviet military leaders um Including jukkoff who became the beating soviet commander during world war two They uh, they definitely saw this threat They were urging Stalin to put troops on alert Um prior to the nazi invasion june 22nd 1941 But something that I cover in the the chapter on world war two Is the fact that um That Stalin's failure to do that was of course extremely costly It it in fact almost lost the war for the soviet union the it was such a catastrophe At the beginning of the war when nazi germany was able to launch this surprise invasion in circle thousands of soviet troops Uh, decimate the soviet air force on the very first day of the war, you know, all of these things um We're just a calamity for the soviet union and for their their defense efforts and it made it Extremely difficult to recover and win the war in fact Moscow almost you know fell in late 1941 Uh, if they had not held there and won the battle Moscow the not even clear that they they could have survived and won the war um so So I think it it's you know on the one hand you mentioned Stalin trying to eliminate enemies and um Seeing enemies everywhere. I think That's definitely true and um not only Stalin others others saw um not only foreign enemies but internal enemies uh within the soviet union and that's something that That you old the purges. Um, but but then Yeah, somewhat ironically when when the crucial moment comes to actually um put troops on alert and realize that the Nazi invasion is imminent Stalin there um as a great miscalculation of very costly one and uh, and one that Look a great deal of of struggle to recover from You uh, I was I was thinking about your section there where you're talking about how uh, the mule modern states scientifically quote unquote Catalog the population classify the population and so on and that was you know related to the purges You know finding internal enemies and so on Uh, I was wondering if uh, if zigment bowman's metaphor here of the gardening state Is the kind of thing you had in mind where you know modern states? You know, they they foster the good plants and pull up the weeds and so on is that is that an apt metaphor? Do you think? Yeah, so I definitely think so I Uh, my previous book cultivating the masses. I actually explored that in more adapts But I do refer to it in this uh, this book the Stalinist era as well Um, because I think that very much communicates the thinking of um, soviet leaders and and and other leaders as well um, around the world that this this attempt to categorize the population and to identify, you know, both supporters or positive elements within the population and then then negative elements um that need to be somehow Eliminated or at least removed from society. So the whole notion of having You know these massive um gulag labor camps is not only to um, you know, put these people to work Uh in remote regions in Siberia and so forth But to physically remove them from the rest of the population that that is a way to sort of eliminate any and a social contamination uh negative influences and also possible You know sabotage or espionage. I mean one of the things I discussed um the end at the chapter after I discussed the purges I talk about the mass operations and the national operations And the fact that many of the the aspirin nationalities are singled out as untrustworthy um because they actually have a state or um a possible allegiance outside the soviet union And therefore they can't be trusted. They might possibly, um for example, you know, ethnic Germans ethnic polls um They might possibly be spying for Foreign power hostile foreign power. So so what we see in 1937 38 Or hundreds of thousands of people arrested and executed um not only as part of the the um great purges but as part of these mass operations and national operations You know, we're getting getting close to out of time here. I got to uh just one one more kind of big question for you about your about your book um You you suggested at the end that world war two kind of has this unfortunate effect of vindicating all of Stalin's processes and then uh, I was quite uh taken earlier where you quoted uh Stalin as having told that I want to say it was his daughter. He said, you know, I'm not Stalin, right? So they're the ideas that Stalinism is bigger than Stalin the person Um, so I guess my question is uh, what made if Stalinism is bigger than Stalin then what made it end when it did? uh, you know, what how do we explain uh, Khrushchev's uh About face and in 56 if Stalinism is more than just Stalin the person Right. That is something I address. Yeah, um in the the conclusion of the book Uh, because I I talk about Khrushchev's de-stalinization Uh, the fact that in particular he denounced the cult of personality The Stalin cult that is uh as well as the the purges purges of communist party members um, but equally important are Other elements of Stalinism that he did not denounce Uh, and that he in fact supported uh, so things such as collectivization Uh, the state ran economy and rapid industrialization you know the The gulag itself, um Khrushchev of course did release a lot of people from the gulag but the gulag system was not Abolished it was continued So from those things you can see that Stalinism You know some of the bases of the Stalinist System actually did continue even after Stalin's death And so in in that sense, it's more than just Stalin's real part Um, I mean in the in the book I define Stalinism in terms of a number of elements and those do include Stalin's dictatorship over the communist party and over the country and Stalin's cult of personality um And you know the use of state violence against communist party members. So those things come to an end under Khrushchev But other elements of Stalinism Including as I mentioned collectivization the state ran economy Um, the planned economy rapid industrialization Uh, and so forth those actually continue So, um, so in that sense Stalinism was was bigger than just Stalin himself And that's why I tried to explain it Not just as the result of Stalin and his You know personal vindictiveness and drive for power but actually as a result of of these various state practices of state intervention and mobilization Uh and control that are very much institutionalized within the Soviet system and many of those elements in fact continued right up to the very And of the Soviet union in 1991 I'm imagining a subtitle that your conclusion that says reports of Stalinism's death are great Exaggerated Yes, I guess that you could say that it it it points out the ways that um That that not every element but many elements of Stalinism Uh that did continue and and I think more generally it's um For historians, it's it's better to Look at something like Stalinism more broadly that it's not just the product of one individual that it's Actually that it actually was an entire system and a set of date practices Um that characterized Stalinism Well, I'm I'm wondering then uh, David if you could comment since we're about out of time here Uh, I I hadn't quite put this together when you described your previous work at the beginning about how how much each of those successive books Builds uh on the on the previous so uh, where are you headed now that you're done with this one? Yeah, I'm actually um now beginning a project on the memory of the second world war So this will take me more into the post war and post Stalin era um, the second world war it actually became uh, the most important symbol of legitimacy for the soviet government in the post war era and so there was an enormous effort to try to commemorate the war Through monuments through museums through written accounts and so forth Uh, so I'm very interested in in the way that um The war was remembered and one of the things I'm want to look at in particular um in fact the title of this new project i'm working on is war gender and memory in the soviet union um Is uh, sort of gendered representations of the war you see this in war monuments for for example where the monuments Uh very much are um focused on trying to represent soldiers as men and um sort of to build up uh images of masculinity a strong masculinity um and the only images of women tend to be as um martyrs or as Mothers in mourning that is mothers mourning the death of their their sons who were soldiers uh, and yet that very much um sort of ignores the fact that Large numbers of women 800 000 women served in the red army during world war ii including over 100 000 in combat positions Uh, so the representation of gender in war memorials museums written accounts and so forth uh very much had in effect You know on the the post war gender order in the soviet union That sounds like a uh a sequel Uh to uh karen patron's book on the same subjects in the first world war then That's right. Yeah for a book on the memory of the first world war and this This uh, this would be a look at memory of the second world mirror I've got a i've got a picture from a classroom. I used to study russian and in vlautomer with a giant World war ii memorial silver looming over the top of my desk. Maybe I should send that uh send that picture to you Oh, yeah, that that would be great. I'm actually uh, very interested in looking at a different war memorial These were of course were erected and did it all around the country and Some, you know some similarities of course they have some common themes but uh, that's that's part of what I hope to do is analyze different uh representations and monuments of the war Oh, maybe when you get that far, I can give you a shout and we can talk about your next book Yeah, yeah, okay. You're and that would that be great Well, thanks for I thanks for being with us professor hoffman. It's been nice chatting with you Okay, thank you and thanks very much. You bet. Bye. Bye [Music]
