The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials

Оглавление

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION. Theme 1. THE STUDY OF MODERN RUSSIAN HISTORY: MAIN CHARACTERISTICS AND TRENDS

Theme 2. RUSSIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY: ITS SELF-IMAGE, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, AND CONTRADICTIONS OF ITS DEVELOPMENT

Theme 3. FESTIVAL OF THE OPPRESSED OR SOCIAL DISEASE? THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS

Theme 4. EMERGENCY MEASURES AND THE «EXTREME EMERGENCY REGIME» IN THE SOVIET REPUBLIC AND OTHER STATE FORMATIONS ON THE TERRITORY OF RUSSIA, 1918‒1920

Theme 5. FROM «WAR COMMUNISM» TO THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY: CONTRADICTIONS OF THE NEP

Theme 6. NEP DOWNSIZING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE POLICY OF EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES INTO A PERMANENT SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT

Theme 7. THE 1930S: CRISES, REFORMS, REPRESSIONS

Theme 8. THE HIERARCHY OF THE GREAT TERROR

Theme 9. ILLUSIONS AND AWAKENING OF THE GENERATION OF 1930S

Theme 10. THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 1941‒1945: MAIN EVENTS AND POPULAR MOOD IN THE UNOCCUPIED SOVIET UNION

Theme 11. THE PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS OF THE POST-WAR ERA

Theme 12. THE KHRUSHCHEV’S THAW AND ITS REVERSE SIDE

Theme 13. SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES: FROM REFORMS TO STAGNATION

Theme 14. THE 1980S: THE SPACE OF POWER AND A SEARCH FOR NEW WAYS OF HISTORICAL PROGRESS

Theme 15. AUGUST PUTSCH OF 1991 AND THE TERMIDOR OF YELTSIN

CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA. WITH WHAT DOES RUSSIA ENTER THE NEW MILLENNIUM?. Theme 16. THE REALM OF POWER UNDER VLADIMIR PUTIN

Theme 17. REFORMS AND THE HIERARCHY OF NATIONAL PROJECTS

Theme 18. LOCATING OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD OF 1917 IN RUSSIAN HISTORICAL MEMORY

Theme 19. THE GREAT VICTORY OF 1945 IN HISTORICAL MEMORY

Theme 20. TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN UTOPIAS: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE AS IMAGINED BY THE STATE AND DESIRED BY THE INTELLIGENTSIA

MAIN EVENTS, DATES AND GLOSSARY

SELECTED BIOGRAPHIES

Для бесплатного чтения доступна только часть главы! Для чтения полной версии необходимо приобрести книгу

Theme 20.
TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN UTOPIAS: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE AS IMAGINED BY THE STATE AND DESIRED BY THE INTELLIGENTSIA

The Twentieth century provided opportunities to fundamentally reengineer social consciousness; it was a period when intellectuals sought to recover the lost promise of the French Revolution. Characteristically one of the first actions of the Bolsheviks, who clung to power for three quarters of a century, was to reorder Time itself. They altered the calendar to make 1917 the dawn of a new era; Soviet time was to be measured by decades passed since revolution, by ruling periods of Soviet leaders, by Five-year plans (piatiletki), and by the so-called «objective stages» of socialist construction. Although the importance of time in structuring consciousness has been noted since Kant only in the twentieth century was it used to systematically incubate a new, Modernistic social order. As historian Elias Canetti suggested, the shared, social understanding of time can unite geographically scattered peoples — who can’t possibly know each other personally — into a virtual Collective, thus overcome the classic contradiction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. When networks of small hordes and tribes grow more complex, common measuring of time becomes necessary. Time is the road to the future.

But what sort of future? What structure does it have? Mass consciousness ignores distinctions between Present and Future while, as Karl Mannheim demonstrated, utopias always imply a program of moving towards as yet unrealized ideal. Therefore the ideology that underpins mass culture can never be truly utopian. Instead, utopias have been produced by specific sub-cultures, notably public intellectuals and the so-called intelligentsia. Real contradictions in utopia-making ineluctably arose when members of the intelligentsia attempted to implement utopian ideals at the government level because the State has its categories of organizing reality and its own world-view. The twentieth-century has thus witnessed an implacable struggle between the intelligentsia and the State for establishing an ideology of development. Both sides have well understood Arnold Toynbee’s dictum: «It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it».

The State and the intelligentsia, nonetheless, promoted their utopias in different ways. The State continually had to convince the populace of the exclusive and righteous nature of its vision. Therefore it was forced to promise ever grander utopias; the State discussed less and less actual circumstances and, instead focused on a Promised Land of future abundance. The intelligentsia, on the other hand, was guided by two main sets of ideas, by the utopian culture in the 1920s and the futurism in the 1960s. In general the intelligentsia had fewer problems in promoting its utopias than the State, because the arts and science are necessarily oriented to the future, while they are less bound by concrete dogmas. As James Billington argued, utopianism was especially important in Russian-style of patterns of thought. If it is true that Russian intellectuals are motivated principally by noble causes and high purposes, then Russian Communism was the grand, quixotic quest of the twentieth century.

At the beginning of twentieth century Russia was geographically the largest empire in the world. Historian Kliuchevsky indicated that Russia was similar to continental Europe in terms of population density, but its geography resembled Asia. The urban population was overwhelmed in number by the rural population. Moreover, the tranquil pace of peasant life, measured by seasonal cycles, did not appear to be threatened by any sort of future cataclysm. Economic conditions were, however, forcing millions of peasants to leave the countryside for the city; migration and shifting social dynamics were altering society. An additional factor of instability was that Russia was the in a sense the youngest country in the world (nearly half of the population was under 20 years old) and had one of the highest fertility rates. These factors inevitably fed millenarian expectations and sweeping aspirations.

The State, however, stuck to the outdated doctrine «Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Nationality», developed by Uvarov under Nicholas I as an official ideology. Though the age was calling for constitutionalism, the state still clung to the ways of the ancien regime.

In 1902 leading members of the intelligentsia published Problems of Idealism which reconsidered the philosophy of idealism and offered a new ideological synthesis. According to this manifest, the leading ideas of the age as formulated by Marx, Nietzsche and Freud were all leading to anarchistic subjectivism, to the notion that everything is permitted. The end result would be an anthropological catastrophe. Russian thinkers such as Sergey Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev argued that the only antidote was to return to Kant and to declare ethics to be ontologically valuable in itself. Ethics must rest above politics. In particular, the Russian authors proposed to reintegrate «truth-value» with «truth-justice». This «metaphysical synthesis» was man’s true destiny. But the main themes of Problems of Idealism remained vague and ambiguous. In particular, there was little mention about how any of its declared goals could be achieved.

The failures and frustrations surrounding the Revolution 1905 dealt a substantial blow to the Empire’s political environment and to ideology principles that had once been considered unshakable. The publication of Vekhi («Signposts») was a result of the soul-searching provoked by the events of the years 1905–1907. Unlike Problems of Idealism, which had proposed a new ideological model, the tone of Vekhi was negative. It contained a devastating critique of the Russian intelligentsia. Yet this acerbic manner did not necessarily exclude the articulation of a real program for action, although one that was destructive and not constructive. (This approach indeed typifies many radical programs which follow Napoleon’s principle «on s’engage et puis on voit.») Vekhi offered a sweeping criticism of Russian traditions in the spirit of Chadaev. Its authors focused on the failed nature of Russian political culture, which from the time of Peter the Great was based on an overly mechanistic approach towards society and state. These rancid traditions, therefore, debased the fundamental value of lichnost’ (personality). The authors of Vekhi, especially Sergei Bulkagov, were true products of the intelligentsia they sought not merely fresh ideas but keys to the City of God.

The February and October revolutions of 1917 not only intensified Russia’s ambition to economically «overtake» Europe, but also fostered an eagerness to offer Europe Russia’s own brand of utopia. The slogan «To overtake and surpass Europe» was an essential part of all the programs of the February-era political parties; only the means to that end differed.

This utopianism can be seen by surveying the platforms of the leading parties. For example, the party of the Kadets (Constitutional Democrats) considered legal transformations the main priority. They proposed an overly-egalitarian elections laws that surpassed those of France and the United States of America. The Kadets not only proposed that women be given the right to vote, a right enjoyed at that time only by women in Norway and Denmark. They also wanted to establish voting rights for soldiers, abolish all property, residency, and literacy qualifications, and allow citizens to vote at age 20. These were unheard of at the time. The Bolsheviks offered even more amazing and unprecedented social-reform projects, which included giving all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers, and «expropriating the expropriators». It seemed that the State itself was to be abolished. Lenin, at the head of the Soviet of People’s Commissaries, at times seems to have been convinced of the practicability of a huge commune-state; this was to be a state without police, without bureaucracy, without a regular army, and without any privileged people, who would be separated from or superior to the masses. In this City of the Sun everyone would become a bureaucrat and therefore nobody could really become a true bureaucrat. The government saw reality through the prism of world revolution and communistic ideas that seemed to be just at hand. As Nikolai Berdyaev ironically claimed, communism was a new «scientific» religion which would «the discipline and organize the chaotic forces of the masses. No half-measures or gradual steps were acceptable in the movement towards grand ideals.

История Bordyugov G., Devyatov S., Kotelenet E. The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials

История Bordyugov G., Devyatov S., Kotelenet E. The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials

The XXth Century Political History of Russia presents lecture materials for academics working with undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers of Russian history.<br /> The chapters are an unusual insight into the Russian past, which makes the readers think, analyze and also reconsider some events of the Russian history. It is an exciting blend of stories of the past and future trends, allowing to make forecasts and predictions.

Внимание! Авторские права на книгу "The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials" (Bordyugov G., Devyatov S., Kotelenet E.) охраняются законодательством!