Communisme sous stalin biography

Sous la direction de Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen, Andrew Flinn, (eds.)

Bern, Peter Lang, 2005, 319 p.
ISBN : 3-03910-075-0, US-ISBN : 0-8204-6891-6

Using Comintern archives, oral interviews and a wide range of other sources, this collection presents a sample of some of the exciting new work currently being produced in the field of communist biography. Geographically, the contributions take in North America and New Zealand as well as a range of European countries. Some chapters focus on individuals like Clara Zetkin, William Z. Foster, Umberto Terracini, William Gallacher or Jozsef Pogány. Others adopt a collective approach to explore communist cultures in rural Austria or the Netherlands, or the impact of institutions like the International Lenin School. There are also chapters on communist institutional biographies, the role of general secretaries and the significance of generations and family links.

SOMMAIRE

Part 1 : Methodologies

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  5. By Deeds Alone: Origins of Individualization in Soviet Russia

  1Individualization of the population under the Stalinist regime is a relatively well established topic in Russian studies. Researchers of the two formerly dominant schools in interpreting Soviet historical experience – the totalitarians and the revisionists – seem to agree on this point, even if they contradict each other on most other points. Thus, Raymond Bauer, echoing Hannah Arendt’s thesis that totalitarianism was based on atomization of the masses, stated in his classic 1952 study that the Soviet concept of man was characterized by “responsibility, rationalism, individualism, all seeming contradictions in a totalitarian society” (Bauer 1952: 177). Similarly, works of revisionist historiography appearing some thirty years later noted the extreme individualization of the workforce which was brought about by the Stakhanovite movement (Kuromiya 1988; Siegelbaum 1988). Donald Filtzer recently summed up the shared beliefs of all, perhaps, when he wrote that “economic and political life in the Soviet Union becam

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  Stalinism and Popular Culture

  Notes

  1. M. Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System (New York, 1985).

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  2. R. Tucker, ‘Stalinism as Revolution from Above’, in Stalinism R. Tucker (ed.) (New York, 1977) pp. 77–108.

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  3. Sh. Fitzpatrick, ‘New perspectives on Stalinism: The View from Social History’, paper presented at the panel on ‘Stalinism’ at the 3rd World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, Washington, DC, 2 November 1985; ‘NEP Society and Culture: Introductory Remarks’, paper prepared for the Conference on NEP Society, Bloomington, In., 2–4 October 1986.

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  4. J. Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read (Princeton University Press, 1985).

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  5. R. Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (England, 1957).

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  6. N.A. Dobrolyubov, ‘O stepeni uchastiya narodnosti v razvitii russkoi literatury’, in Sobr. soch. (Moscow, 1961–64) II, pp. 218–72.

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  7. V. Terras, Handbook of Russian Literature (Yale University Press, 1985) p. 293.

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  8. B. Brecht, Brecht on Theatre trans. J. Wil