Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (18 page)

Soviet citizens drew upon the stories and ideas from the official press,
fused them with information obtained by word-of-mouth or personal

^{118
Mem. Scott,}
Duel for Europe
, 40.

^{119
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 45534, l. 3; d. 12794, l. 5.}

^{120
Mem. Azarov,}
Osazhdennaia Odessa
, 3–5, 7.

^{121
HIP. A. 25, 284, 48.}

^{122
T. Pitrowski,}
The Polish Deportees of World War II: Recollection of Removal to the
Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World (London, 2004), 40–50.

^{123
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 13026, ll. 3–4.}

^{124
Mem. Scott,}
Duel for Europe
, 37–8, 107. Such invasion preparations were common in the 1920s. See: A. V. Golubev,
‘Esli Mir Obrushitsia na nashu Respubliku . . .’
Sovetskoe Obshchestvo i Vneshniaia Groza v 1920–1940-e gg. (Moscow, 2008), 118–22.

^{125
Gorodetsky,}
Grand Delusion
, 216.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
25

observation and inferred, via the process of
bricolage
, that war was imminent. A whole variety of events were capable of sparking war rumours in this period. Troop movements remained a common cause.
^{126
However, political events such as the Axis Agreement of}
January 1941, Stalin’s appointment as head of the Council of People’s Commissars in May 1941, and the departure of German embassy staff in June 1941 were also capable of fuelling another round of stories that conflict was coming.
¹²⁷

The process of creative
bricolage
was particularly evident in the various rumours concerning the relationship between the USSR and Nazi Germany. One species of rumour suggested that the USSR and Germany were moving closer together and that perhaps the National Socialist and Bolshevik parties were about to unite. K.K.M. speculated that the Soviet Union and Germany were ‘dividing the whole world into two parts; Germany will take Europe and the Soviet Union will take Asia’.
^{128
Others suggested the exact opposite, that the Germans were}
exploiting the USSR and taking advantage of them. The Milewski family recorded in their diary that the Germans were applying pressure on Russia to return the deported Poles, whilst A.I.R. was arrested for speculating that the peace treaty with Finland had been forced on the USSR by German pressure.
^{129
The vague coverage of Molotov’s trip to}
Berlin resulted in a double wave of conjecture: some suggested that he had been browbeaten by the Germans and others that he had ‘begun to cooperate with the Germans as a deserter!’
^{130
The confusing coverage of}
the Hess affair also sparked speculation that the Germans were about to betray the USSR and sign an agreement with Britain.
¹³¹

Many of these war rumours are described within the official docu-
ments as acts of resistance intended to subvert Official Soviet Identity. There is no doubt that a portion of the comments, as recorded, contain explicitly anti-Soviet sentiments. Some individuals clearly harboured the hope that a conflict might lead to the collapse of Bolshevik

^{126
HIP. B4, 193, 8; Mem. G. Temkin,}
My Just War: The Memoir of a Jewish
Red Army Soldier in World War II (Novato, Calif., 1998), 31.

^{127
Let. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 46, l. 4; Mem. Werth,}
Russia at War,
123;

Gorodetsky,
Grand Delusion
, 306–9.

^{128
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 12902, l. 2: d. 64008, l. 26.}

^{129
Inf. For similar ideas also see: RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 46, ll. 4–7; Proc. GARF,}

f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 10284, l. 2; Mem. Pitrowski,
Polish Deportees
, 42.

^{130
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 79817, l. 7; d. 90262, l. 16.}

^{131
Mem. Azarov,}
Osazhdennaia Odessa
, 7; Beria,
Beria: My Father
, 67.

26
Being Soviet

power.
^{132
The idea that war might bring liberation was particularly}
powerful amongst the newly integrated Polish and Baltic minorities. In February 1940, collective farmers in Avgustskii
raion,
Belostock
oblast’
, were spreading rumours ‘about the rapid arrival of England and France who will restore the Polish state’.
^{133
In Latvia, local}

groups also ‘looked to the western front, to England and France’ for
liberation and dreamed of a time when they could ‘evict the Soviet army into the sea’.
^{134
Anti-Soviet underground groups in the border-}
lands gathered weapons, disrupted elections, and refused to pay taxes during the Pact Period. Such activities lend credibility to the idea that at least some individuals passed on war rumours in order to under- mine the Soviet state.
¹³⁵

War rumours might also have served as a rhetoric of subversion for
religious groups that were at odds with Soviet power. The cult leader Iakov in Astrakhan is alleged to have predicted that England, Turkey, and Bulgaria would ‘carry out an invasion of the USSR directly through the Caucases and as soon as the war begins then one can expect an uprising from the people’.
^{136
Others were driven by a dislike of the}
economic realities of Soviet life. A.N.E. hoped an invasion would bring capitalist government and liberation from the harsh labour regulations of June 1940.
^{137
A whole range of state generated and non-state}
generated sources suggest that war rumours could, and did, function as a rhetoric of resistance for some individuals in this period. Those passing them on had stepped outside of the Soviet ‘habitat’ and invoked an alternative order, as a means of opposing Soviet power.

However, war rumours were simply too widespread to be explained
solely as acts of resistance. They flourished in a context where official narratives about the relationship between the USSR and the outside world had begun to fragment. The struggle to understand sometimes led to public disagreements at official meetings, hardly the place to engage in ‘subversive’ speech. In November 1939 a Red Army political

^{132
HIP. A. 3, 26, 49. At least some respondents may have exaggerated their hopes of}
liberation to the largely American interviewers in the late 1940s.

^{133
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 2, l. 16, 27.}

^{134
Inf. V. G. Komplektov,}
Polpredy Soobshchaiut . . . Sbornik Dokumentov ob otnoshe-
niiakh SSSR s Latviei, Litvoi i Estoniei Avgust 1939 g. – Avgust 1940 g. (1999, Moscow), 185, 207.

^{135
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 2, l. 114; d. 27, l. 2; op. 122, d. 12, l. 17; V. I. Pasat,}

Trudnye Straintsy Istorii Moldovy. 1940–1950-e gg.
(Moscow, 1994), 146–8.

^{136
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 44, ll. 75–80.}

^{137
Proc. GARF f. R 8131, op. 31a, d. 88089, ll. 41–2.}

The Liberator State? 1939–41
27

meeting ended with an argument over whether Poland had ‘induced
Germany to invade’ or Germany had acted aggressively.
^{138
One respon-}
dent to HIP remembered that the conceptual volte-face required by the Pact was too much for some party members who ‘did not have sufficient intellectual ability to follow the latest move’ and had to be purged.
^{139
Il’ia Ehrenburg confided to his diary that he could not change his}
views: ‘fascism remained for me the chief enemy.’
^{140
As argued in the}
Introduction, these individuals were not resisters in any meaningful sense of the term.

The social upheavals of this period also made many Soviet citizens
more susceptible to war rumours. The harsh labour laws of June 1940 and the new drive for production placed unprecedented pressure on ordinary Soviet citizens. These stressful conditions were particularly notable in the newly occupied borderlands. Tens of thousands of politically ‘suspect’ new subjects were deported to the remote internal regions of the USSR and the German-speaking population was volun- tarily resettled to Germany.
^{141
This social turmoil lowered the credibil-}
ity thresholds of Soviet citizens, making them more likely to pass on speculative rumours.
^{142
The success of war rumours in this period was}
not a symptom of widespread subversion, but rather a product of the incoherence of official narratives and the tensions under which ordinary citizens were living.

A significant number of people who speculated about war in this
period were also ‘loyal rumourers’. Vselevod Vishnevskii, a fierce Soviet patriot, noted in his diary in 1940: ‘Germany and the USSR are going to have to fight to the death—this is not a European joke war any longer.’
^{143
An anonymous author wrote to Vishnevskii in March 1940 to warn him}
that the Germans were cooperating with nationalists and religious sects to ‘stab the Soviet Union in the back’, whilst M. Krivstov wrote in July 1940 warning the government of an imminent Anglo-Turkish attack on

^{138
Let. Livshin and Orlov, eds.,}
Sovetskaia povsednevnost’
, 19, 17.

^{139
HIP. A. 37, 1745, 49.}

^{140
Mem. Nevezhin,}
Sindrom Nastupatel’noi Voiny
, 53–4.

^141
Gross,
Revolution From Abroad
, 197–212; D. Crowe,
The Baltic States and the
Great Powers: Foreign Relations, 1938–1940 (Oxford, 1993), 121–40.

^{142
Rosnow and Fine,}
Rumour and Gossip
, 51–2.

^{143
Mem. Cited in: Brandenberger,}
National Bolshevism
, 108.

28
Being Soviet

the USSR.
^{144
The memoirs of the Soviet leaders themselves demonstrate}
that they expected an attack on the USSR. Khrushchev claims that he moved to Kiev in June 1941 so as to be there when the war began, and Molotov asserts that he knew that the war was coming but not when.
^{145
One common form of ‘loyal rumourer’, who faced prosecution in this}
period, was the convinced Marxist who believed that the Soviet Union had abandoned its principles by allying with Germany. A.I.R. was con- victed of counter-revolutionary agitation for suggesting that the Pact was a ‘betrayal of the democratic countries on behalf of fascism’. He and others believed that the policy of friendship with Germany had blinded the leadership to the reality of forthcoming war.
^{146
Despite their critical}
posture, these rumourers were not seeking to subvert the Soviet state but rather to rescue the Stalinist leadership from its foreign policy blunders. The prominence of war rumours and
bricolage
should not mask the extent to which some individuals understood the world around them largely or even completely within the framework of Official Soviet Identity. The most compelling evidence for this during the Pact Period comes from a collection of over 250 letters, both to and from the front, retrieved from the corpses of Red Army soldiers during the Finnish War. As might be expected, the letters contain little negative sentiment. However, the terms in which many of the authors wrote demonstrated not just compliance with but enthusiastic engagement with the official language of the Soviet state. A number of the authors echoed official denunciations of the Finnish ‘bandits’ and encouraged their loved ones to, ‘give a Bolshevik answer to the enemy who is trying to cross our border’.
^{147
Several of the letters also echo press denunciations of the}
British and French, who had driven the Finns against the USSR.
^148
The
rhetoric of settling scores with the bandits and defending the children of the motherland clearly resonated with a large number of Soviet citizens. Particularly where it coincided with the emotions and anxieties of its target audience, Official Soviet Identity could play a powerful role in