Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (38 page)

Soviet officials and the visiting sailors also routinely described the
other side as ‘backward’. The Director of the International Club lamented in 1943 that the ‘bad behaviour of the foreign sailors’ was a product of their ‘exceptionally low cultural level’. They drank in excess, brawled, wore coats inside the building, talked in the cinema, lay on the sofas, and smuggled in alcohol.
^{112
His monthly reports expressed the}
hope that the backward seamen might be acculturated via contact with Soviet institutions. By 1945, ‘under the influence of the workers of the club’ they were ‘refraining from the untrammelled “evils” of hooliganistic behaviour’.
^{113
From the perspective of the convoyers, it was the citizens of}
Arkhangel’sk who lived in ‘primitive’ conditions.
^{114
They describe how}
they were ‘ashamed of our smart uniforms amid so much squalor’.
^{115
This struggle to label the other as backwards went to the heart of Official}
Soviet Identity as a civilization. It was a mechanism for asserting, in the

^{107
Mem. R. Hughes,}
Flagship to Murmansk: A Gunnery Officer in H.M.S. Scylla
1942–3 (London, 1975), 128.

^{108
Int. Percy Price, Oxford, September 2005. PQ was the Royal Navy’s designation}

system for the convoys. PQ convoys sailed to the USSR, QP back to Britain or Iceland.

^{109
Mem. Tye,}
Real Cold War
, 165. Internal party reports admit that there were major problems with unloading and transport: Inf. GARF f. R9401, op. 2, d. 64, ll. 2–5 and 54–5.

^110
Woodman,
Arctic Convoys
, 164.

^{111
Let. GAOPDiFAO f. 296, op. 1, d. 1136, ll. 8–9.}

^{112
Inf. GAAO f. 1649, op. 2, d. 2, l. 34.}

^{113
Inf. Ibid. d. 6, l. 24.}

^{114
Mem. Tye,}
Real Cold War,
31, 48, 56, 101.

^115
Woodman,
Arctic Convoys,
169.

Patrons or Predators? 1941–45
105

face of these unusual visitors, that the Soviet way of life was superior to
that of the outside world.

It was inevitable that the complexities of cross-cultural inter-allied
relations would generate some tension in the wartime Arctic ports. However, the bitterness with which the languages of bravery, incompe- tence, spying, and backwardness were invoked, points to the tensions the sailors’ presence generated in relation to the status and honour of Soviet civilization. It is striking how infrequently official reports refer to the visiting sailors in class terms, or to their capitalist origins. The language of status and reputation that lay at the heart of Official Soviet Identity was a far more potent concern than Marxist-Leninist ideology in the wartime Arctic ports.

Local party administrators feared that these degenerate aliens would
have a corrupting influence on vulnerable elements within the Soviet community. However, they could not publicize their view that the visiting sailors were backward cowards and spies. Official policy was, therefore, to keep contact between convoyers and local residents to a minimum. Soviet bureaucrats made it extremely difficult for the visiting sailors to obtain shore passes.
^{116
When they did come ashore, the}
convoyers were encouraged to attend the International Club. One aspect of the Club’s role was to create a positive impression of the USSR. However, its primary function was to minimize contact between impressionable Soviet citizens and the visiting sailors. In a letter to Moscow in 1942, Rita Rait, a local activist, urged the establishment of an additional International Club in Molotovsk on exactly these grounds: its absence had led to unhealthy liaisons between the foreign guests and Soviet citizens.
^{117
Even the Club’s employees were not}
allowed to sit and share a drink with the customers they served.
¹¹⁸

The drive to enforce separation gathered momentum as the war
proceeded. In late 1944 the International Club in Arkhangel’sk intro- duced a membership list, to limit the contact between vulnerable local citizens and the convoyers.
^{119
Griffith’s account of his 1941 Soviet}
sojourn differs decidedly in tone from that of Ronald Phelps, who visited between February and October 1945. As the British Mission in

^{116
Mem. P. Lund and H. Ludlam,}
PQ 17—Convoy to Hell: The Survivors Story

(Slough, 1968), 176.

^{117
Let. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 219, ll. 153–4.}

^{118
Inf. GAAO f. 1649, op. 2, d. 2, l. 26.}

^{119
GAAO f, 1649, op. 2, d. 3, l. 56. Such a system had been under consideration for}
some time, see: f. 296, op. 2, ll. 36–48.

106
Being Soviet

Arkhangel’sk drew to a close, the members of Naval Party 200 felt
increasingly embattled and isolated.
^{120
They barely socialized with}
Russian civilians. As Ronald Phelps remembered, ‘During those last few months we had machine guns ready to defend ourselves, because we thought that we might be attacked at any time.’
¹²¹

Although they regarded all unsupervised interaction as unhelpful, the
local Bolshevik administrators seem to have concluded that the British sailors were a particularly pernicious force. The Director of the Interna- tional Club’s monthly reports often made unfavourable comparisons between the conduct of the British, as opposed to American, visitors. The Royal Navy was denounced as distastefully hierarchical, and the reports complain that the sailors often took a high-handed approach towards the local Russian population.
^{122
When there were tensions}
between the British and Americans, the Soviet administrators usually sided with the US sailors.
^{123
The distinction between the Americans}
and British was by no means total, the Spanish and French sailors were clearly preferred to both of them, but it was a persistent sub-text of the official reports produced by the Club.
¹²⁴

Interpersonal interaction in the port cities

Many residents of the Arctic ports, particularly Soviet servicemen,
shared their government’s disdain for the visiting foreigners and shunned the convoyers during their time in the USSR. Until late 1944, the Arkhangel’sk International Club was open to Russian citizens as well as foreign guests. During the winter months, members of the

^120
Woodman,
Arctic Convoys,
160. The shore mission in Murmansk was known as Naval party 100 and in Arkhangel’sk Naval Party 200.

^{121
Int. Ronald Phelps, Oxford, September 2005. This memory almost certainly}
reflects the exaggerated effect of the passing of time. Nonetheless his comments capture the mood of 1945 when the guns, which had probably been there for some time,

acquired an added significance.

^{122
Inf. GAAO f. 1649, op. 2, d. 4, l. 30; d. 6, l. 25.}

^{123
Inf. Ibid. d. 6, ll. 14, 25; d. 3, ll. 85–7.}

^{124
The preference accorded to the French and Spanish sailors was in part a conse-}
quence of the fact that they were often communist sympathizers. However, it is notable that the Director of the International Club praised them, above all, for their criticism of the British and Americans with regard to the absent Second Front and their cowardice at sea. Inf. GAAO f. 1649, op. 2, d. 3, ll. 8–11, 35; d. 4, l. 50; d. 5, ll. 21–2.

Patrons or Predators? 1941–45
107

Soviet Union of Sailors made up the majority of visitors to the club.
^{125
During the navigation season, however, when large numbers of foreign}
sailors were in the city, the club received very few visits from Soviet servicemen.
^{126
When Russian sailors did attend the club, fights often}
broke out. The allied failure to take their share of the military burden was a major source of tension, and the presence of hundreds of foreign sailors in the port cities does not seem to have alleviated this frustration. Towards the end of 1943, the club’s administrators regularly had to evict Soviet servicemen for abusing the foreign sailors about the absent Second Front.
¹²⁷

Many non-combatant residents of Arkhangel’sk also shared the local
government’s contempt for the foreign sailors. Joseph French com- plained in later years that in 1943, ‘British and Americans were being subjected to disgraceful behaviour by certain local elements, being pushed and jostled in the street and having pockets picked.’
^{128
It was}
common for the convoy veterans to ascribe any frostiness on the part of the local Arkhangel’sk residents to the omnipresent Secret Police.
^129
It
is clear, however, that many Soviet citizens shared their local adminis- trators’ sentiments with regard to the convoyers. The anti-sailor mood was reflected in a report by a worker at the Molotovsk International Club who commented that she ‘often heard our people saying that we “have made enough fuss over the Allies”’.
^{130
A female Arkhangel’sk}
resident, writing to a local newspaper many years later remembered that, ‘Like the majority of the youth I was educated in a strong patriotic and moral spirit . . . All of the boys were called up into the army and sent to fight. The majority of the girls could not meet with foreigners: it was considered immoral.’
¹³¹

Stories about the convoyers’ cowardice also circulated beyond the
reports of the party administrators. Nikolai Vasil’evich, a Russian veteran of PQ 16 described how he had witnessed the abandonment and scuttling of an American ship in these terms. ‘The facts remain the

^{125
There were 635 foreign guests in the month of December 1943 and 300 every day}
(9,000 a month), in May–June 1943. GAAO f. 1649, op. 2, d. 3, l. 8; d. 4, l. 30.

^{126
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 219, l. 151.}

^{127
GAAO f. 1649, op. 1, d. 3, l. 1.}

^{128
Mem. Tye,}
Real Cold War,
123–4.

^{129
Mem. See B. Edwards,}
The Road to Russia: Arctic Convoys 1942
(Barnsley, 2002), 69; Woodward,
Arctic Convoys
, 164.

^{130
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 219, l. 153b.}

^{131
Poleznaia Gazeta}
(Severodvinsk), 14.09.2001.