Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (63 page)

The comments of several individuals at the K.R. discussions demon-
strated an awareness that the success of foreign films relied to some extent on these glamorous associations. V. G. Skokorokhod observed that, ‘Amongst us many people praise the external beauty of foreign films . . . ’
^{206
Comrade Kabanov of Minsk noted that amongst the youth}
you often heard comments like, ‘They have the ability to take a light theme, entertaining people, helping them to relax, they are able to foster in a person a sense of recognition of the beautiful.’
^{207
A number of my}
interview respondents reiterated the same theme. Natalia Leonidovna reminisced about foreign movies that, ‘ . . . everyone wanted to look at something beautiful and bright, it was pleasant’.
^{208
Svetlana Ivanovna}
also remembered that ‘ . . . the foreign films had beautiful costumes and people in them. They were very good.’
^{209
One respondent to HIP}
described how they had loved foreign films when living in the USSR. However, they lost some of their appeal once the respondent emigrated to the USA.
^{210
The world beyond the border is often}
imbued with exotic and exciting associations and foreign chic became a powerful and exotic aspect of the late-Stalinist collective
mentalit
^´
e
.
^{211
It is also clear that, at least some Soviet citizens continued to assume}
that the West was technologically more advanced than the USSR.

^{205
On the exotic other, see Arenas,}
Utopias of Otherness: Nationhood and Subjectivity
in Portugal and Brazil (London, 2003); Campbell,
The Witness and the Other World:
Exotic European Travel Writing 400–1600 (Ithaca, 1988)
.

^{206
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 122, d. 285, l. 60.}

^{207
Inf. RGASPI M. f. 1, op. 6, d. 468, l. 10.}

^{208
Int. Natalia Leonidovna, Moscow, May 2004.}

^{209
Int. Svetlana Ivanovna, Moscow, July 2004. See also: Fu¨rst, ‘The Importance}
of Being Stylish’, 213–14.

^{210
HIP. A. 32, 1123, 18.}

^{211
See: M. R. Campbell,}
The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel
Writing 400–1600 (Ithaca, 1988), 47–65; S. Boym,
Common Places: Mythologies of
Everyday Life in Russia (London, 1994), 23–4.

Subversive Styles? 1945–53
207

This idea was not, in itself, contrary to at least some of the comments of
the official press, which called for improved output to catch up with and overtake the West. Nonetheless, the idea of Western technological excellence could also be employed as a language with which to critique the Soviet regime. The widespread nature of this idea of Western
scientific brilliance may have owed something to the influence of
Amerika
,
Britanskii Soiuznik
, and the VOA. However, it also dated

back to the nineteenth century and earlier.
^{212
The post-war ideological}

campaigns were aimed, in part, against this long-term assumption about
Russo-Soviet technological backwardness. They were at least partially successful in reinforcing civic pride in the achievements of the Soviet science. However, the idea that the Western world was technologically further ahead continued to influence the thinking of many Soviet citizens from scientists, who desired access to foreign research, to admirers of American trucks. It was not exclusively associated with resistance, but existed in an uncertain relationship with Official Soviet Identity, as an important aspect of the late-Stalinist collective
mentalit
^´
e
.

CONCLUSION

The actions of Soviet scientists, musicians, dancers, cinema watchers,
and even counter-cultural
stiliagi
demonstrated the whole array of ‘tactics of the habitat’ in operation. Once again this behaviour almost always implanted the individual within the infrastructure of Soviet power more than it extracted them from it. In order to reappropriate an ideological campaign, or delicately balance the demands of official policy and popular taste at a jazz concert, one had to be a highly skilled resident of the late-Stalinist ‘habitat’. Even the
stiliagi
, who ostentatiously inverted official rhetoric, did so in public and on show before their peers. Fashionable young people, Soviet scientists, and jazz lovers lived their lives creatively and carefully within the confines of Soviet power. Their strategic behaviour was the mechanism by

^{212
Rogger, ‘America Enters the 20th Century: The View from Russia’, in I. Qver-}
bach, A. Hillgruber, and G. Schramm, eds.,
Felder und Vorfelder Russicher Geschichte:
Studein zu Ehren von Peter Scheibert (Rambach, 1985), 165–7; Borisov et al.,
Rossiia i
Zapad, 142.

208
Being Soviet

which the Soviet state’s attempts to refashion Official Soviet Identity
were embedded within everyday life. As with the Struggle for Peace, the post-war ideological campaigns were often most popular amongst those who reappropriated them for other objectives, such as advancing their career or launching a wholesale attack on the Jewish popula- tion.
^{213
Soviet propaganda campaigns seem to have been most suc-}
cessful when they were open to multiple interpretations, and perhaps even deliberate misinterpretations.

^{213
Yekelchyk, ‘The Civic Duty to Hate: Stalinist Citizenship as Political Practice and}
Civic Emotion (Kiev 1943–53)’,
Kritika
, 7.3 (2006), 554.

Conclusion

What it meant to be Soviet changed dramatically between 1939 and
1953. The Nazi–Soviet Pact, Great Patriotic War, occupation of East- ern Europe, Cold War, and the rise of communist China could not fail to transform Soviet self-understanding. Official Soviet Identity on the international stage was primarily articulated in two spheres: the diplo- matic posture of the USSR and the global significance of Soviet civil- ization. America and Britain played leading roles within that official version of what it meant to be Soviet throughout this period.

By the end of the 1940s a new version of Official Soviet Identity had
crystallized that established the broad parameters for the relationship between the USSR and the outside world until the end of the Bolshevik project. At its heart was a diplomatic vision of the USSR as a global superpower, standing up for peace and justice in a divided world. It also contrasted the greatness of Soviet science and art with the economic exploitation and spiritual emptiness of the capitalist West. This version of Soviet identity proved successful and resilient.
^{1
When they looked}
beyond their borders, Soviet citizens, of whatever nationality, derived status from being members of a great, peace-loving state that extended its patronage to the world’s oppressed.

One of the core arguments of this book has been that the official
rhetoric of Soviet identity played a powerful role in shaping the way ordinary citizens imagined the world around them. A small number of individuals understood the world exclusively through the categories of state-sponsored films, plays, and newspapers. An equally small number of individuals sought to subvert the rhetoric of the Soviet state and ‘resist’ Soviet power. Most people did neither.

^{1
See Yurchak on the popularity of Soviet and socialist values in the late-Soviet years:}
Yurchak,
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation
(Princeton, 2006), 8.

210
Conclusion

The vast majority of ordinary citizens responded to the ebb and flow
of Official Soviet Identity by deploying a number of creative ‘tactics of the habitat’. They melded together information from official sources, foreign radio stations, rumours, and pre-existing assumptions about international affairs via the ‘tactic’ of
bricolage
. They also reappropriated the campaigns associated with Official Soviet Identity to gain promo- tion, pursue vendettas, or express their personal grief; and they deployed the tactics of avoidance and performance in order to create the impres- sion of conformity whilst pursing their personal agendas. This list of ‘tactics’ is not exhaustive. However, it provides a model for how Soviet citizens engaged with Soviet power that escapes the false dichotomy of ‘support’ and ‘resistance’.

This creative, tactical behaviour did not undermine the Bolshevik
project in Stalin’s time. It took place within the Soviet ‘habitat’ and it defined what it meant to ‘be Soviet’ just as much as the rhetoric of Official Soviet Identity. Indeed ‘tactical’ behaviour reinforced Soviet power in this period. It made up for shortfalls in food, friendship, entertainment, and information. State-sponsored mass media and the ‘tactics of the habitat’ were not necessarily in competition.

However, the ‘tactics of the habitat’ did eventually play their role in
the destruction of the USSR. The seeds of that collapse were sown, to some extent, via the steady erosion of the authority of the Soviet mass media. The volte-face of the Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939, failure to admit to the difficulties of the Finnish War, denial that war was imminent in June 1941, refusal to discuss the defeats at the front in 1941–2, and claims that the USSR were not in any way engaged in the Korean War steadily undermined the credibility of the Soviet press. This process was often reinforced by the contact ordinary Soviet citizens had with the outside world after 1939. Whilst it cannot be demonstrated empirically, it is clear that by 1953 ordinary Soviet citizens relied more on informa- tion obtained by word-of-mouth when constructing their image of the outside world. The Soviet press retained an important place within their thinking: there was no simple dichotomy between rumour ‘truth’ and press ‘lies’. However, its authority was starting to ebb away. As a result, Soviet citizens resorted more and more to ‘tactics’ like performance,
bricolage
, and avoidance.
^{2
By the 1980s rumours, rock and roll, and}

^{2
Yurchak talks of a ‘performative shift’ that began in the 1950s. This process began}
earlier and involved a much wider series of ‘tactics of the habitat’. Yurchak,
Everything Was Forever
, 26.

Conclusion
211

reappropriation had grown out of all proportion. In time the ‘tactics of
the habitat’ simply overwhelmed the government-sponsored version of reality. Rather than the ‘habitat’ defining the ‘tactics’, the ‘tactics’ began to structure the ‘habitat’ of Soviet life. Eventually the ‘habitat’ collapsed. The weakest link within the rhetoric of Official Soviet Identity transpired to be the Cold War language of the USSR as a civilization. The language of peace, might, and patronage was broadly successful. Certain aspects of it have outlived the USSR in the rhetoric of contem- porary Russian foreign policy. However, the cultural aspect of what it meant to be Soviet was less compelling. In that regard, the Soviet leadership were unfortunate to find themselves confronted by America, rather than Britain, as their post-war opponent. America presented a much more difficult enemy. American movies, music, and culture exerted a powerful appeal throughout the world in the second half of the twentieth century.
^{3
When Soviet citizens listened to rock and roll,}
and enjoyed American-made movies they were not resisting the Soviet state. However, over time such behaviour sapped the power of official claims about the greatness of Soviet civilization. America and American civilization presented a much more challenging opponent than dour