Table Of Contentistorical arratives in
H N
the oviet nion and
S U
ost- oviet ussia
P S R
This page intentionally left blank
istorical arratives in
H N
the oviet nion and
S U
ost- oviet ussia
P S R
estroying the ettled ast,
D S P
reating an ncertain uture
C U F
Thomas Sherlock
HISTORICALNARRATIVESINTHESOVIETUNIONANDPOST-SOVIETRUSSIA
© Thomas Sherlock,2007.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-7450-1
The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not purport to
reflect the position of the United States Military Academy,the Department
of the Army,or the Department of Defense.
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2007 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 and
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire,England RG21 6XS
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-53516-3 ISBN 978-0-230-60421-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230604216
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sherlock,Thomas.
Historical narratives in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet
Russia :destroying the settled past,creating an uncertain future /
Thomas Sherlock.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Soviet Union—Politics and government.I.Title.
DK268.4.S47 2007
947.084—dc22 2006050300
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:May 2007
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ontents
C
Acknowledgments vii
1 Myth and Legitimacyin the Soviet Union and
Post-Soviet Russia 1
2 Authorizing Reform by Uncovering the Past 29
3 Leninist Mythology and Reform 49
4 Assessing the Genesis of Stalinism 67
5 The Legitimation of Insurgent Narratives 93
6 Myth, History, and Separatism in the Periphery 125
7 Destroying a Settled Past, Creating an
Uncertain Future 149
Notes 187
Bibliography 241
Index 263
This page intentionally left blank
cknowledgments
A
T
he foundation for this book is my doctoral dissertation, completed at
Columbia University over ten years ago. Since that time, the original
manuscript has been altered and lengthened, but the central argument has
remained the same. My initial conceptualization of the problem of histori-
cal memory in the Soviet Union profited from long conversations with the
faculty and students of the Harriman Institute at Columbia. Particular
thanks are due Mark von Hagen and Alexander Motyl, who read versions
of the dissertation with remarkable patience and diligence. The project
matured during fellowships at the Kennan Institute in Washington and at
Radio Liberty in Munich, where I was fortunate to share an office with
Vera Tolz, whose advice and insights were most appreciated.
Participation in several projects devoted to memory and politics helped
me develop more clearly the linkages between myth and legitimacy in the
Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. In this regard, the program on
History and the Politics of Reconciliation, ably guided by Lili Cole of the
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York City, was
most useful, as was the project After Mass Crime: Rebuilding States and
Communities, which was led by Beatrice Pouligny, Simon Chesterman, and
Albrecht Schnabel. Both of these undertakings incorporated diverse case
studies which encouraged me to think of the importance of historical narra-
tives in comparative terms. I remain grateful to Joke van der Leeuw-Roord
and the Netherlands-based EUROCLIO, the European Standing Conference
of History Teachers’ Associations, for inviting me to present my argument at
a workshop in Golytsino, Russia in February 2004. Thanks are also due to the
editors of Ab Imperio for publishing a version of chapter 6 on history and
myth in the Baltic republics during perestroika (no. 4, 2002).
As I extended the argument of my dissertation to incorporate post-Soviet
Russia, I made numerous research trips to that remarkable and often frustrat-
ing country. I have been fortunate in making many lasting professional ties
and personal friendships during my visits. From Igor Dolutskii I learned the
real meaning of intellectual courage. From Tamara Eidelman, Sasha Shevyrev,
and their colleagues I came to understand better the fragile but vital existence
of Russian civil society as they worked with organizations like EUROCLIOto
make learning history in the classroom an exciting and meaningful experience.
viii Acknowledgments
Tatiana Parkhalina demonstrates on a daily basis that liberal intellectuals could
fight against, and sometimes partially stem, the contraction of pluralist dis-
course in Russia.
Many others in Russia contributed valuable insights to the present
work, including Liudmilla Aleksashkina, Genadii Bordiugov, Maxim
Brandt, Alexander Danilov, Boris Demidov, Denis Fomin-Nilov, Sergei
Glebov, Galina Klokova, Andrei Kortunov, Masha Lvova, Sergei Markedonov,
Andranik Migranian, Aleksei Miller, Nikolai Petrov, Alexander Golts, Andrei
Piontkovskii, Andrei Riabov, Alexander Semionov, Lilia Shevtsova, and
Vladimir Iadov.
For the past eleven years I have taught in West Point’s Department of
Social Sciences, where officers and civilians effortlessly blend dedication to
national service and commitment to critical inquiry. I am particularly grateful
to my colleagues Cindy Jebb, Ruth Beitler, and Jay Parker for their friendship
and professional support over the past many years. My courses at West
Point on Russian Politics, Democracy and Democratization, and Comparative
Politics allowed me to weave together and then test the various strands of
the argument of this book in the classroom. The intellectual curiosity and
love of debate of the Academy’s cadets uncovered many weaknesses in my
argument, happily early enough for me to correct many of them.
My greatest thanks go to my family. My wife Cynthia Roberts, who has
listened to my arguments about history and politics longer than either of us
cares to admit, brought her extensive knowledge of political theory and
Russia to the writing of this book. She also increasingly assumed many of
my quotidian responsibilities, both large and small, to allow me the time to
finish this project amid her own demanding schedule of teaching and
research. Andrew, our eleven-year-old son, who has been a constant source of
joy and fascination, helped me put a seemingly endless project into its proper
perspective just by his very existence. I dedicate this book to both of them.
Thomas Sherlock
West Point, New York
1
yth and egitimacy in
M L
the oviet nion and
S U
ost- oviet ussia
P S R
History is the most political of all the sciences. History is politics of the past,
without which one is unable to practice politics of the present.
M.N. Pokrovskii1
I am struggling in the noose of contradictions, wholly rejecting Stalin but not
knowing how not to “hurt” the people and socialism.
Leon Trotskii2
I
n 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved, ending over seven decades of exis-
tence. Although scholars have conducted numerous postmortems on the
Soviet state, most have neglected the role of symbolic discourse in explain-
ing the dramatic Soviet collapse. Under perestroika, the opening of public
space permitted the emergence of heterodox reconstructions of the Soviet
past that challenged the legitimacy of the Soviet regime and state. These
insurgent narratives nurtured a powerful if loosely aligned opposition that
undermined the Soviet Union from within and without, strongly con-
tributing to its demise.
After the Soviet collapse, the heterodoxy of late perestroika was trans-
formed into orthodoxy in many of the new states that emerged from under
the Soviet rubble, providing the metanarratives that helped construct new
national identities. But in post-Soviet Russia the insurgent discourse that
had worked to delegitimate the Soviet system was itself gradually stripped
of legitimacy in the first decade of the reborn Russian state. The resurrected
bureaucracies that were disgraced by historical revelations during pere-
stroika—particularly the armed forces and the security services—took
revenge in post-Soviet Russia, attempting to resacralize the Soviet past to
provide symbolic support for their values and interests. Paradoxically, these
efforts were approved in large part by Russia society when only several years
earlier it had condemned the Soviet system.
