Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (20 page)

The broader interpretation, that these laws were a sign of vulnerabil-
ity, demonstrated the extent to which the Winter War had shaped popular thinking. However, rumours of military weakness and tales of losses at the front were not a symptom of widespread resistance within Soviet society. Official Soviet Identity in diplomatic terms during the Pact Period, more than any other covered in this book, was just as likely to confuse its audience as it was to impose a vision of Sovietness on them. Under those circumstances, it was inevitable that ordinary citizens would turn to the word-of-mouth network and the tactic of
bricolage
in order to make sense of the world around them.

Engaging with the cultural identity of the USSR

Official Soviet Identity in relation to the cultural and artistic products of
the outside world did not evolve significantly in this period. The major theoretical scientific debate of the Pact Period, an October 1939 con- ference on genetics organized by the journal
Under the Banner of
Marxism, did little other than affirm the direction of current policy. However, the manner in which the debate was conducted demonstrates the extent to which Soviet scientists needed to deploy the ‘tactics of the

^{167
Sv. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 2, ll. 90–1, 111, 122–9, 130, 133.}

^{168
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 13026, l. 14.}

^{169
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 2, ll. 33–71; d. 7, l. 38.}

^{170
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 15, ll. 56–8.}

The Liberator State? 1939–41
33

habitat’ in order to survive and succeed. In April 1939, two Soviet
geneticists, V. Kirpichnikov and A Malinovskii, wrote a long letter to P. S. Zhemchuzhina, the Commissar of Fisheries and Molotov’s wife, complaining about the behaviour of the agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko.
^{171
Lysenko had risen to prominence in the 1930s by attacking}
the idea of chromosomal inheritance; Lysenko argued instead that species adapted within their lifetime. Throughout his battles with the geneticists, Lysenko depicted his methodology as ‘Marxist’, ‘Darwinist’, and ‘materialist’ in contrast to the capitalist influenced ‘Mendel- Morganism’ of his rivals.

The turn against foreign influence in the late 1930s reinforced
Lysenko’s claims that genetics was capitalist and degenerate, and by 1938 his followers had secured a stranglehold over institutional posi- tions of power. The genetics community had been at the forefront of international scientific cooperation and so suffered particularly badly during the Purges.
^{172
However, Lysenko had never been able to fully}
drive home his advantage and a number of prominent Soviet geneticists remained in positions of influence. Kirpichnikov and Malinovskii’s letter was one of a number written in 1939 when an alliance with Britain and France looked likely. It attempted to turn Lysenko’s argu- ments on their head by arguing that the USSR was in danger of falling behind the capitalist world in this key arena.
^{173
By the time of the}
October 1939 debate, however, Official Soviet Identity had shifted, and the Lysenkoists were able to exploit the recent turn against Britain, France, and America to argue that imperialist genetics did not belong inside the USSR. The debate merely reaffirmed the status quo, but in the summer of 1940 Vavilov, the head of the Academy of Sciences Institute of Genetics, was arrested as a British spy. The Lysenkoists attacked him over his continued correspondence with British research- ers and his attempts to get work published overseas.
^{174
Their success}
demonstrated the tactical advantages that could be secured from reap- propriating the power of the state and directing it against one’s rivals. Their victory was not secured in the scientific but the political arena,

^{171
A. Ia. Livshin, I. B. Orlov, and O.V. Khlevniuk,}
Pis’ma vo vlast’, 1928–1939:
Zaiavleniia, zhaloby, donosy, pis’ma v gosudarstvennye struktury i sovetskim vozhdiam (Moscow, 2002), 449–54.

^{172
Krementsov,}
Stalinist Science
, 55–63.

^{173
Livshin, Orlov and Khlevniuk,}
Pis’ma vo vlast
’, 449–54.

^{174
Krementsov,}
Stalinist Science
, 78–80.

34
Being Soviet

where they had deployed the ‘tactics of the habitat’ more effectively than
their rivals.

The scant availability of non-Soviet cultural products meant that they
were not a vital arena of identity construction for ordinary citizens during the Pact Period. Whilst American films starring Clark Gable were packing out the theatres in Berlin, the USSR showed almost no foreign movies in this period.
^{175
That is not to say that Soviet citizens}
had entirely forgotten the glamour of Hollywood. In January 1941 an agitator reported that he had been asked,‘Tell us why in the USSR are there such boring and dull films that are all about how the Reds beat the Whites? Why don’t they make films like “The Great Waltz?”’ (an American-made musical about Johann Strauss).
^{176
Utesov’s more}
moderate, almost swingless, style continued to be performed, but Soviet citizens were more isolated than ever before from the cultural products of the outside world.

Soviet citizens’ primary sphere of interaction with the outside world
was with material goods and people from the newly occupied border- lands during the Pact Period. The USSR arrived in the borderlands as a self-proclaimed liberator and this rhetoric of freedom resonated power- fully with some Soviet citizens. In October 1939 three students wrote to Stalin and Molotov to celebrate the arrival of Soviet civilization in these regions. ‘The deep seated dream not only of the workers of Western Ukraine but all the leading Soviet Ukrainian intelligentsia’ had been fulfilled.
^{177
Similar sentiments were expressed in relation to the Baltic}
States; one soldier was even moved to poetry to celebrate this extension of the Soviet way of life.
^{178
The rhetoric of liberation also appears in the}
letters of some of those who wanted to volunteer during the Winter War. In January 1940 a Komsomol member wrote that he wanted to go into battle against ‘all those who don’t want the happiness of being a liberated people’. Others expressed the desire to bring the Finns a ‘happy, joyful life under the sun of the Stalin constitution’.
^179
Some
Red Army soldiers also expressed similar sentiments. A. I. Azarov boasted to his brother that he had already ‘participated in the liberation of the Polish people’ and was now fighting to ‘liberate the Finnish

^{175
Mem. W.L. Shirer,}
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent,
1934–1941 (New York, 2002), 240.

^{176
Inf. Livshin and Orlov,}
Sovetskaia Propaganda
, 77.

^{177
Let. Livshin and Orlov, eds.,}
Sovetskaia povsednevnost’
, 401–2.

^{178
Let. Ibid. 34–5, 25–6, 33.}

^{179
Let. RGASPI f. M1, op. 23, d. 1439, ll. 50–60.}

The Liberator State? 1939–41
35

people from the Finnish white bandits’. Another wrote of the ‘happiness
of giving help to these people’ in what had been Poland.
^{180
The identity}
of the USSR as a liberator state made Soviet citizens liberator citizens. Even those who were prosecuted for criticizing the takeovers seem to have assumed that the residents of the borderlands were willing participants in the great Soviet family. N.N.P. noted that although the Baltic peoples were ‘glad of their unification’ they would soon live to regret it.
¹⁸¹

However, the process of actually interacting with these liberated
peoples often challenged the vision of the USSR as a liberator state. The Red Army attempted, at least initially, to limit contact between soldiers and local residents in the borderlands. Embassy insiders in the Baltic were particularly worried about sexual relationships between soldiers and local women.
^{182
However, the reality on the ground was}
that the two groups could not be kept apart, and the occupation forces went on spectacular spending sprees, buying watches, clothes, bicycles, and food.
^{183
The comparative abundance of these recently ex-capitalist}
states provided a sharp contrast with the USSR and presented a once in a lifetime opportunity. P. Gonev remembered that ‘upon entering a town, our troops descended upon the stores and bought up everything in sight’. One respondent to HIP remembered similarly that ‘all of us went on a buying spree . . . Some officers bought as many as six of the cheap watches.’
^{184
The orgy of acquisition was repeated after the}
occupations of Finland, the Baltic, and Bessarabia. Soviet soldiers stripped watches off the dead bodies of Finnish combatants, and ‘officers and non were buying consumer goods like mad since there was so much more of it in Bessarabia than in Ukraine’.
^{185
The Estonian}
ambassador himself admitted that ‘the diversity of goods in the shops of Tallinn and the low prices on objects of consumer goods (shoes, suits, and so on) is inflaming the appetites of the rank and file staff.’
¹⁸⁶

On their return to the USSR, these soldiers brought tales of the
unexpected material wonders of the capitalist world that circulated

^{180
Let. Zenzinov,}
Vstrecha s Rossiei
, 525, 330.

^{181
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 8837, l. 6.}

^{182
Inf. Komplektov,}
Polpredy Soobshchaiut
, 196–206.

^183
Gross,
Revolution From Abroad
, 28–48.

^{184
Int. Fischer,}
Thirteen who Fled
, 36; HIP. B4, 193, 4; Mem. L. Heiman,
I Was a
Soviet Guerilla (London, 1959), 17–18.

^{185
Mem. Carlow,}
Politruk Oreshinin
, 132; HIP. A. 21, 431, 28; B9, 497, 5.

^{186
Inf. Komplektov,}
Polpredy Soobshchaiut
, 196–7.

36
Being Soviet

rapidly within the word-of-mouth network. John Scott heard stories of
‘mountains of eggs, tubs of butter, clothes, wristwatches, and good woollen material’ in Tallinn.’
^{187
Several individuals were prosecuted}
during the Pact Period for passing on rumours about the luxuries of life in the borderlands. V.I.K. praised the life in the former Poland saying that ‘there there were beautiful bicycles, motorcycles, cars, lacquered shoes, especially boots . . . these “slaves” were better dressed and better fed than us in the USSR’.
^{188
More important than the stories they told,}
were the material goods the Red Army soldiers began shipping home to family and friends. One respondent to HIP did not believe the claims of a lieutenant who had visited Poland until he saw his ‘wonderful boots’.
^{189
Bicycles, suits, and watches from the Baltic flooded the}
Moscow department stores in the autumn of 1940 sending prices into a downward spiral.
^{190
Those individuals who posted or brought goods}
back were not doing anything new. Artists and diplomats often brought large quantities of foreign merchandise into the USSR during the 1930s.
^{191
What changed during the Pact Period was the number of people who}
were involved in and benefited from this semi-licit contraband.