Good day Hivers,
In an earlier post I wrote a part review, part rant-article about the book shown above: 'The Sorrow of Russia: daily life on the countryside since 1945'. In it, the authur Marius Broekmeyer shows the way Russian peasants had to live, deal with the authorities and try to build a future, mostly to be thwarted. Poverty was the norm, hunger was often experienced. Many left towards the city, to find a job in industry or the services-sector.
The book totals about 300 pages, and is too wide a scope to do justice in a short review. For this reason, there are some themes and motifs that I would like to revisit here, both mentioned inside the book and things I read somewhere else earlier (will mention if I can remember from where exactly). Let's dive into it.
The forgotten countryside
Revolutions have often been an urban affair. The Russian Revolution was not different. Marxist ideology leans towards the urban life as well: an industrial proleteriat is urbanized by definition. That there was not yet much of an industry to speak of in Russia, seems to contradict the requirements set by Marx for a communist revolution. Lenin did manage however, industry or not.
Holding the cities also became a significant part of the Red victory against the Whites (a collection of various non-communist groups) in the civil war following the Revolution. The whites held vast swathes of the Russian countryside, but they were very loosely organized in part due to vast ideological differences, and not able to overcome the Reds in St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd) and Moscow.
Industrialization was something that the Soviets, especially under Stalin towards and during WWII, seemed to excel at. A while ago I read the memoirs of Heinz Guderian, a German Panzer-commander during WWII who served during the attack on Poland, France and on the eastern front against the Soviets. He despaired at the rate at which Soviet T-34 tanks came rolling to the front-lines from 1942. They were well-matched against the Panzer IV, and were quickly outnumbering their German counterparts. It dawned on Guderian that the Soviets were gaining an industrial advantage on top of their numerical one against the Germans.
Centrally ruled from Moscow and Petrograd, the higher-ups in the Soviet administrations were bound to stay in the big cities. Their grasp of how things were in the vast Russian countryside slipped, if they ever had such a grasp. Khrushchev made a determined effort to do something about this in 1953: 30.000 party-members were sent on a three-month practical training course, and after that they were sent in to the countryside to strenghthen the exiting leadership there. Did this work? Not really. Firstly, it added to the already overbearing bureaucracy that existed in the Soviet countryside (and Union overall). In some cases, other leadership that did not turn out well was kicked to the curb, but this was the exception. Secondly, the farmers at this point were very wary of outsiders coming to tell them what to do. Even if some of the 30.000 were capable and willing to do good, they were often too distrusted by the farmers to lead to a good relation and better outcomes. Some of the 30.000 were forced into this career path, or else their party membership was revoked. Since the last step would basically end their career anyway, those forced went along grumbling.
Party above all
Radical egalitarianism might be THE most important pillar of communist thought. Yet in Soviet Russia, some were clearly more equal than others, both in terms of status and income. There was one thing that seemed to guarantee some degree of status and income, and that was a membership card of the Communist Party. In the countryside, being a member of the Party basically meant you did not have to do any manual labor: in sharp contrast to the peasants, who worked from dawn until dusk (and night, if necessary) to eke out a meagre existence. Farmers were seldom members of the party, or any organizations more or less affiliated with the party. Sometimes all the inhabitants of a small village were subscribed to a communist newsletter; why everyone? Because a higher-up forced them to, and the cost of the inscription was then kept out of their (low) pay.
Another tenet of communism is atheism. This was in clear contrast to what Russians were used to, as an Orthodox county. Many rural homes kept small shrines in their home, with a certain icon in the centre. Almost all villages had a church, which formed one of the societal and cultural centres of the village. These were, sadly, often demolished by the authorities, and this left a hole in village life, literally and figuratively. No real substitute came to be, although the Party had tried with their 'clubs'. These however, often ended up as a drinking den, fuelling the already rampant alcoholism that Russia is notorious for around the world until this day.
The worst of both worlds
With the rise of Gorbatsjov and Yeltsin, the reformist camp within Russia would end up dismantling Soviet Russia: the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Union was disbanded in 1991. Privatization was THE new thing. Broekmeyer's book reached until 1995, and in the epilogue he writes about the first few years of privatization, and how this affected the countryside.
In short, I'd say the Russian peasantry got the worst of both worlds (those worlds being socialism and capitalism) over the course of the 20th century: an overbearing bureaucracy and taxation in the Soviet era were replaced by some of the worst aspects of capitalism. One is the monopolization of wealth and resources. The best land, materials and funding was secured by a select few, often the commissars and local leaders in the old system. Thus, the communist advocates of the 80s became the capitalist oppressors they had derided in the 90s. A remarkable turn of events.
The Russian government found the old Kolchoz-system to be more entrenched than they had hoped: many farmers were essentially dependent on the subsidies given to them through that system, and would collapse if the kolchoz-system was ended overnight. The situation, for a change, demanded evolution, not revolution. Privatization unleashed more uncertainty on the Russian peasants, and while things clearly got better for some, things got worse for others, remarkably enough.
To wrap things up
I feel like the two articles combined will give a more well-rounded view on the situation of rural Russia during and shortly after the Soviet era. It should be kept in mind, however, that there is no such thing as THE situation, or THE village. Russia is vast, and situations varied respectively. Broekmeyer had focused on the less fertile (i.e. Ukraine and surrounding black-earth excluded) portions of Russia, which included areas as divergent as Siberia and Kazachstan. Local problems require local solutions. This, however, is something that both socialism (1 solution globally) and capitalism (a different solution, but still globally) are not often able to produce and/or allow. Picking the best of both worlds is a difficult task, and as I have argued, I think Russia has gotten the opposite, i.e. the worst of both worlds.
To view the rural situation of Russia since 1995 is outside of the scope of this article, though it would be interesting. No clue what the Russian government and its accompanying oligarchy have been up to in this regard, it might be interesting to look into another day. For now, I hope you've enjoyed reading, I'll see you all in the next one,
-Pieter Nijmeijer
(Top image: my own)