Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (50 page)

Panics, Peace, and Pacifism 1945–53
155

of agricultural flour in one day instead of the average of 15.
^{135
V.G.T.’s}
encouragements to his fellow villagers in Yaroslavskii
oblast’
, to stockpile in preparation for war, led to a run on salt which emptied the local shop.
^{136
A Senior Economist of L’vov}
oblast’
trade organization de- scribed how, in late 1950, ‘In anticipation of war nobody wants to do anything. They have harvested their kitchen gardens and the
kolkhoz
wheat and potatoes have still not been gathered.’
¹³⁷

As in the earlier period, some of these rumours were expressions of
distaste for the Soviet regime. G.O.V. told his fellow villagers how the Americans would liberate the Moldavians from Russian oppression before Easter 1950 and that they would live as well as they had under the Romanians.
^{138
Others did not carry subservice intent. V. I. Saevich,}
an assistant at the L’vov Veterinary Institute, was recorded in 1951 saying, ‘To think about a future war is simply awful to me. . . . You think that I might be able to work in the institute as an assistant under another power? I would never work, nor would they let me.’
^{139
Some over-}
zealous Communists even opposed the language of peace because they felt the USSR should pursue a more active and interventionist foreign policy. One individual in Pskov
oblast’
refused to sign a peace declara- tion because he claimed that only a global war would bring about the final Marxist eschaton and the destruction of the imperialists.
¹⁴⁰

Continued low-level war anxiety played a key role in the success of
the ‘Struggle for Peace’. However, those historians who have briefly examined the campaign have assumed this correlation was much sim- pler than is suggested by a close reading of the evidence. Zubkova depicts the Peace Campaigns as a sop to dampen down popular aspira- tions for change after 1945: (nj
Jl
mrj xnj yt ,s
Jl
j ,s djbys
).
^{141
Gould-Davies argues that the rhetoric of peace was intended for a}
global, rather than domestic audience. Soviet citizens’ enthusiasm was a symptom of ‘pacifist blowback’: they did not realize that their govern- ment was not really for peace.
^{142
Both these accounts present Soviet}
citizens engaging naively and passively with official rhetoric. However, a

^{135
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 959, l. 6.}

^{136
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 36578, ll. 6–7.}

^{137
Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 24, d. 15, l. 15.}

^{138
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 30466, ll. 5–7.}

^{139
Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 24, d. 786, l. 9.}

^{140
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 959, l. 58.}

^141
Zubkova,
Poslevoennoe sovetskoe Obshchestvo
, 130–5.

^{142
Gould-Davies, ‘Pacifist Blowback?’, 267–8.}

156
Being Soviet

close reading of the letters and speeches associated with the campaign
reveals that some of the most enthusiastic participants were not simply passive participants in a government dupe. The official rhetoric of the Soviet press called for a robust and muscular struggle (,jh,,f) against the capitalist powers. Soviet peace-loving had nothing in common with the passive spirit of bourgeois pacifism. However, the language Soviet citizens used, both in letters and at official meetings, owed far more to war anxiety than muscular activism. They were employing the ‘tactic’ of reappropriation to transform the ‘Struggle for Peace’ into a platform for the articulation of their personalized fear of war.

The Stockholm Campaign of 1950 was formally for the abolition of
nuclear weapons. In practice both the official press and the speeches of participants at local meetings focused on the Korean War. When Soviet citizens stood up to denounce the American ‘intervention’ they were speaking in line with official rhetoric. However, a number of speakers went further, voicing their concerns that US meddling would spark a wider conflict. More than 50 per cent of the questions asked at village level meetings in Arkhangel’sk
oblast’
during the 1950 campaign were about the Korean situation. Half of those questions, such as ‘Is it possible that we will intervene on behalf of the Korean Republic?’, ‘Is the USSR allied with Korea?’, or ‘Has the Soviet Union offered to help Korea?’ sought to establish whether the USSR might get dragged into the conflict there.
^{143
The most common phrase located in the archival}
records of the Peace Campaign meetings is ‘We do not want war’.
¹⁴⁴

Speakers at local meetings in defence of peace also tended to speak in
pacifist terms, about the evils of war in general. They did not focus their criticism on capitalist aggression, nor did they articulate a robust confidence in Soviet might and moral authority. As was often the case within other anti-war movements, the rhetoric of motherhood played an important role in these public meetings.
^{145
E. P. Timonina,}
of Lomonosov
raion
Arkhangel’sk
oblast’
, reminded the crowd that ‘During the war I lost my husband, I have had to live through many

^{143
Inf. GAOPDiFAO f. 8627, op. 1, dd. 26, 55, 77, 131, 208, 245, 308, 486. From}

a total of 57 questions asked.

^{144
Sv. E.g., TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 24, d. 786, l. 50.}

^{145
H. H. Alonso,}
Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History of the US Movement for World
Peace and Women’s Right (New York, 1993), 11–12. Fitzpatrick comments that this self- identification as a mother was a common feature of Soviet discourse. In the context of the Peace Campaigns, however, it became a dominant, and often emotional, language of self- expression. Fitzpatrick, ‘Supplicants and Citizens’.

Panics, Peace, and Pacifism 1945–53
157

difficulties. I think that there is not one woman or mother in the whole
world who would want war.’
^{146
Another woman wrote to the Commit-}
tee in Defence of Peace saying, ‘I am a mother. As a mother I want that our children live happily and so as a mother I am signing for peace.’
^{147
This personalized and emotionalized rhetoric of motherhood was root-}
ed in a pacifist aversion to the horrors of war and had little in common with the robust confidence of the official language of Soviet might.

The Soviet government was not unaware of the fact that much of the
enthusiasm for the campaign was motivated by pacifist sentiment.
Pravda
sometimes cautioned against failing to draw the distinction between robust struggling for peace and privatized pacifism: ‘The current all people movement for peace does not have anything in common with bourgeois pacifism and with passive dislike of war. No! This is mighty movement of the peoples . . . prepared boldly and manly (vy;tcndtyyj) to stand up for their rights, for life, for peace and security.’
^{148
An October 1952 Agitprop report complained, how-}
ever, that even some local newspapers demonstrated shortcomings in their treatment of the campaign. The author criticized the ‘superficial’ coverage of the ‘Struggle for Peace’ ‘abounding in pacifist sentiments’ and full of ‘poems about white doves written in sentimental pitiful tones’. Speaking of an article in the Armenian republican newspaper, the report complained, ‘The author of the article writes as a pacifist— against war in general, he does not underline the reactionary character of imperialist war.’
¹⁴⁹

The distinction between the struggling peace of a patron state and a
pacifist aversion to war was also revealed in the manner in which Soviet citizens opposed the Peace Campaigns. Those individuals who did contest the ‘Struggle for Peace’ rarely challenged the idea of peace itself. One common complaint was that war was inevitable, whether or not the signature-gathering campaigns were carried out.
^{150
Others objected on}
religious grounds. As three former monks in Penza
oblast’
explained,

‘We are for peace but we don’t want to sign the Declaration.’
^{151
A few,}

more hostile, critics argued that the campaigns were a cynical exercise:
the regime was mouthing the rhetoric of peace whilst pursuing an

^{146
Inf. GAOPDiFAO f. 296, op. 2, d. 1150, l. 29.}

^{147
Let. GARF f. R9539, op. 1, d. 58, l. 21.}

^148
Pravda
, 02.10.49, p. 1.

^{149
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 132, d. 507, ll. 13–17.}

^{150
Proc. GARF, f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 34939, l. 52.}

^{151
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 959, l. 5.}

158
Being Soviet

aggressive policy of foreign conquest.
^{152
F.A.Ia., of Kirovograd}
oblast’
, observed in the autumn of 1950 that the radio spoke of disarmament, ‘and at the same time we are increasing the armed forces’.
^{153
Only a}
small number of individuals criticized the campaigns because they actively hoped for a war that would bring them liberation.
^154
Those
who opposed the Peace Campaigns normally did so because they were not peaceful enough.

It is possible that official Soviet rhetoric itself contributed to this
pacifist sentiment. The campaigns against capitalist warmongering might well have whipped up fear, rather than muscular righteous indignation. There is a limited volume of evidence that this was the case. A retired Red Army Major, Leonov, wrote a lengthy letter to Stalin in December 1948 in which he explained that at least some Soviet citizens doubted the USSR’s capacity to resist the capitalist world.
^{155
However, he also noted that there were others who were excessively}
confident in Soviet strength. P. Bershadskii complained along exactly these lines to Stalin in March 1950. A report by Gottwald, of the Czech Central Committee had stated that any capitalist attack would be mathematical suicide. He asked ‘in that case why is the struggle of the workers of the whole world for peace necessary? . . . This will make the workers mood placid.’
^{156
The rhetoric of the Peace Campaigns could}
lead to over-confident passivity as well as pacifism.

There is very little evidence that the meetings and slogans of the Peace
Campaigns directly provided a stimulus for fresh waves of rumouring about war. News about international events and information obtained through the word-of-mouth network were far more likely to spark, via the process of
bricolage
, a fresh round of war rumours. The Peace Campaigns did not contribute to the climate of war expectation as much as they were driven by it. Participants in the campaign on a local level transformed the rhetoric of peace from a robust and muscular term into a pacifist aversion to war. Whether they deployed this ‘tactic’ of reappropriation intentionally or not is impossible to say. What is clear is that their enthusiasm for the Peace Campaigns was not a symptom of naive passivity, but rather of their capacity to transform