Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (15 page)

By the spring of 1941, Official Soviet Identity was becoming con-
fused: it boasted of might and peace whilst warning of war and criticized the Western powers without demonstrating much enthusiasm for the Germans. This uncertainty was reinforced by the tentative leakage of counter-messages that, in reality, fascism remained the USSR’s true enemy. After August 1939, anti-German films such as Minkin and Rappoport’s
Professor Mamlock
, and Eisenstein’s
Alexander Nevsky
were taken off the screen and the word ‘fascist’ disappeared from the official press.
^{60
However, when Simonov’s play}
A Young Man from Our
Town first aired in March 1941, one observer noted that some actors were ‘adding more emotion to any lines that had anti-German implica- tions’.
^{61
More significantly a wave of rumours circulated that senior}
leaders were saying in closed auditoriums that ‘we married the Germans out of expediency not love’.
^{62
Several respondents to HIP claimed that}
they had heard ‘off stage’ anti-German rhetoric during this period: ‘There was no anti-German propaganda in the newspapers but anti- German propaganda was spread amongst the officers who spread it amongst the men (after the spring of 1940).’
^{63
A. Lobachev argued}

^58
Pravda
, 26.06.1940, pp. 1–4. See: R. Thurston,
Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia,
1934–1941 (1996).

^{59
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 28, ll. 1–17.}

^{60
T. Dickinson and C. De la Roche,}
Soviet Cinema
(London, 1948), 59.

^61
Figes,
The Whisperers
, 374.

^{62
L. Fischer,}
Thirteen Who Fled
(New York, 1949), 36.

^{63
HIP. B4, 139, 8.}

14
Being Soviet

with his fellow agitators over the fact that they should take a more
negative line against the Germans, ‘diplomacy is one thing and political work in the army is another’. Not all of his colleagues agreed.
^64
Their
debates reflected some of the growing tensions at the heart of Official Soviet Identity as the Pact Period drew to a close.

April 1941 to June 1941: uncertain times

This growing confusion about the diplomatic identity of the USSR
within the international community became even more pronounced after April 1941. The contents of the various official narratives did not change in the final months before war, but the tensions between the different strands became more marked. The decisive event, in terms of relations with Germany, came in early April when the Wehrmacht moved to support the Italian forces in the Balkans. On 5 April the USSR signed a Friendship and Non-Intervention Agreement with Yugoslavia. The Agreement guaranteed nothing other than friendly relations in the event of war.
^{65
However, its timing was choreographed}
to give the Germans a bloody nose when they invaded Yugoslavia the next day. This cautious negativity about Germany expanded gradually throughout the spring of 1941. Sergei Eisenstein was awarded the Stalin Prize for cinematography in April 1941 despite not having produced anything since the now banned
Nevsky
in 1938. A thematic plan for propaganda produced in June 1941 required, amongst other things, that TASS publish material about the ‘imperialist character of the [German] New Order in Europe’.
^{66
However, this negativity about}
German activities did not signal an abandonment of anti-British narra- tives.
Pravda
offered a distinctly pro-Iraqi view of the Anglo-Iraqi crisis in April 1941, claiming that the British capitalist lords were attempting to extend their influence over the region.
⁶⁷

The central narrative through these final months remained that the
USSR was demonstrating its wisdom and greatness by staying out of the European conflict. The key message of the Iraqi crisis was that it

^{64
A. A. Lobachev,}
Trudnymi Dorogami
(Moscow, 1960), 120. Such claims of foresight must be treated with some caution but seem possible in the light of the wider ongoing conversation about the international situation.

^65
Pravda
, 05.04.1941, p. 1.

^{66
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 28, ll. 34–8.}

^67
Pravda
, 18.05.1941, p. 5.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
15

demonstrated the evils of war and the ‘unenviable lot of the small
countries upon whom both warring camps look as current or future bridgeheads’.
^{68
Meanwhile, the Soviet Pact of Neutrality with Japan in}
April 1941 was held up as yet another symbol of the wisdom of Soviet peace policy whilst
Ogon¨ek
continued to print dramatic pictures of the destruction produced by the Anglo-German air war.
⁶⁹

However, this confident talk of peace and security jarred against the
ongoing discussion of, and preparation for, war. Every major city in the USSR underwent blackout and bombing rehearsals in early 1941.
^70
At
the same time, a June 1941 review of political propaganda in the Red Army warned of the ‘danger of unexpected incidents’ in the interna- tional arena and called for ‘constant preparedness to go onto a shattering offensive against the enemy’.
^{71
When Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, flew}
to Scotland in May 1941, the story received only scanty coverage, reflecting the growing unease about the international situation.
^72
Mean-
while the behind-the-scenes anti-German campaign grew in intensity. A model lecture for the Red Army, produced in late May warned that it was an error to conclude that the ‘German National Socialists have abandoned their anti-Soviet plans’. This language was echoed in a June 1941 report that criticized German imperialism and described the Wehrmacht as ‘enforcers and enslavers’.
⁷³

Official Soviet Identity, with its emphasis on peace but warnings
of war, became increasingly incoherent as the summer of 1941 approached. In May 1941 a local agitator wrote to Moscow to report a ‘very strange’ propaganda method being deployed in Rostov-on-Don. In Budeenyi Prospekt a large map had been erected in a window that was covered with National Socialist flags to ‘daily mark the advance of the German armies’. The display had become a popular feature and was surrounded ‘day and night’ by crowds discussing the international situation.
^{74
This largely positive image of Germany as a friend of the}
USSR contrasted sharply with I. Azarov’s experience in June 1941 when he was sent to Odessa with specific instructions to warn the sailors of the

^68
Ibid.

^69
Pravda
, 19.04.1941, p. 5; 22.05.1941, p. 5;
Ogon¨ek
, 05.1941: 15, p. 10.

^{70
Iu. M. Luzhkov and B. V. Gromov, eds.,}
Moskva Prifrontovaia, 1941–1942
(Moscow, 2001), 31, 46, 51–2; J. Scott,
Duel for Europe: Stalin versus Hitler
(Boston, 1942), 244–5.

^{71
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 27, ll. 72–82.}

^72
Pravda
, 14–15.05.1941, p. 5.

^{73
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 27, ll. 72–82, 84–121.}

^{74
Ibid. d. 29, l. 29.}

16
Being Soviet

threat of German aggression. However, the credibility of his message
was seriously undermined shortly after he arrived, on 14 June, when TASS issued a statement denying that relations with the Germans had deteriorated or that an invasion was imminent. Azarov was left uncer- tain what to say.
^{75
The Central Committee’s slogans in celebration of}
May Day captured this sense of uncertainty. The global proletariat was appealed to but their oppressors were not named: Britain and France were not the enemy, but neither was Germany an ally.
^{76
The diplomatic}
identity of the USSR within the global community had become falter- ing and incoherent.

THE IDENTITY OF THE USSR AS A CIVILIZATION

The new Soviet identity as a liberator state, extending the gift of Soviet
civilization to the residents of the former Polish state, remained a central feature of Official Soviet Identity until the outbreak of World War II.
Pravda
’s cartoons continued to excoriate the British, French, and American governments for making their citizens’ lives unbearable.
⁷⁷

As Theodore Draizer explained in a November 1940 article, entitled
‘What does the USSR represent in the current world?’, workers in the capitalist sphere faced inequality and poverty, but life in the USSR offered freedom, opportunity, and bounty.
⁷⁸

Meanwhile, the improvements in living conditions and freedom
experienced in Western Ukraine and Belorus remained a constant feature of the official press. The first Soviet elections in the region were celebrated as a ‘holiday of the liberated peoples’ when the ‘sun of the Stalinist constitution’ had begun to shine on them.
^79
Mikhail
Romm’s 1943 film
Mechta
, was originally written during the Pact Period. It told the story of a girl whose aspirations could only be fulfilled once the USSR had expanded to her region of Poland.
^{80
In later years,}
Molotov confessed to signing hundreds of death warrants, but never admitted that the Secret Protocols of the Nazi–Soviet Pact had allowed

^{75
I. I. Azarov,}
Osazhdennaia Odessa
(Moscow, 1962), 9–11.

^76
Pravda
, 29.04.1941, p. 1.

^77
Pravda
, 20.10.1939, p. 5; 08.11.1939, p. 5;
Ogon¨ek
, 09.1940: 26, p. 3.

^78
Pravda
, 07.11.1940, p. 5.

^79
Pravda
, 24.03.1940, p. 1.

^{80
V. A. Nevezhin,}
Sindrom Nastupatel’noi Voiny: Sovetskaia Propaganda v Predverii
‘Sviashchennykh Boev’, 1939–1941 gg. (Moscow, 1997), 60–1, 95–7.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
17

for the division of Poland.
^{81
The identity of the USSR as a liberating}
force was too important to be damaged by this revelation.