Author: Sarah Dugan

After losing the safeguards of the Soviet Era, artists and fans alike felt nostalgic for the safety of rights such as housing and health care, and the safety of a job. It reminds me of a passage I read in an earlier class about single mothers in post-Soviet Berlin, who missed the childcare provided by the government so that they could work. In an ideal world, we could have both the freedom of speech and the freedom from want (in this case, I would categorize that as basic human rights such as housing, healthcare, childcare and another category of work provided by the state). However, this is obviously not the case and so the choice has to be made. Things go awry when the freedom of speech is taken away. Things also go awry when freedom of speech without consequence takes place, as we have seen in the last five years (ex we have public displays of nazism). I think in this case, however, freedom of speech still outweighs the freedom of want. It guarantees that social change can occur when things start going wrong and can help keep minorities protected. Without freedom of speech there would not be any civil rights movements, or women’s rights movements, free love, etc. However, the nostalgia for safety is something that needs to be taken into account. The struggle of the average person is something that can be greatly lessened with social change.

The Stiliagi are an interesting group of people from this period in history – especially because it was after WW2, and one would expect them to be more interested in Soviet culture, music, fashion, etc. as a form of patriotism, rather than the Western culture which had always been depicted as the enemy to a safe and decent society. Historians stated that this fascination came from a few different events. One was that the Stiliagi were dissidents, especially in the face of the “macho” war veterans who were showing off their toxic masculinity (pg 164). Historians believed that the Stiliagi were using this fashion and western culture to bring themselves out of that tough and difficult lifestyle that the “macho” Russian veterans were presenting as. Another reason historians believe that the Stiliagi could have been interested in western culture is because it showed a life that was extremely different from their own — which included hunger, the spreading of disease, overcrowding, and in some places the lack of basic necessities such as running water (pg. 165). I find this explanation to be the most convincing of all explanations offered by historians. I think as young people, they wanted to change the world they lived in and experience better lives than that of the generation before them. Even though they saw themselves as uninterested in politics, I think this movement was extremely political. It showed their lack of happiness with the society presented to them and expressing that in itself is inherently political. 

Do the triumphs of the Stalinist era justify the tragedies? While some will argue that his policies caused more problems for the citizens of the Soviet Union, Stalinist policy actually provided a successful industrial society while also preparing the Soviet Union for the hardships that would be ahead. Some of the most major successes came from the buildup of the Soviet military, the early completion of the first Five-Year Plan, and the basic economic development that took place during each of Stalin’s 5 Year Plans. The Soviet military undertook a major set of changes during this period in order to keep pace with other already industrialized nations. This meant the development of more advanced weapons, vehicles, and equipment. One such success of the Soviet design bureau was the MiG 1 and its improved successor, the MiG 3, two high altitude interceptors made possible under a fighter development program initiated by none other than Stalin himself. By the time of Germany’s invasion of Russia in 1941, the Red Air Force had over 1,200 Mig 3’s and a similar number of the older Mig 1, a substantial achievement for a nation that up until the late 1930s had produced mainly antiquated biplanes according to John H. Lienhard of the University of Houston. Could such advancements have been possible without Stalinist policies? Possibly, but given these examples, we know that Stalin’s swiftness in kicking Soviet industry into gear led to some notable technological advancements in a very short amount of time, including the partial adoption of a semiautomatic rifle for the Soviet Red Army, something which was still several years out of reach for all other countries besides the United States, and which was revolutionary for the USSR, as the main arm of the Soviet military through the 1930s was a refined bolt action rifle introduced back in 1891 under the Tsar’s Imperial Army. Naturally, both of these developments made the Soviet Union a force to be reckoned with, and a slight alteration in how the programs progressed could have had a very negative impact on where the USSR was by the time Russia was entered WWII in 1941. These successes, and by extension those of Stalinist policy as a whole, were further exemplified by the fact that the first Five-Year Plan was, despite all expectations, completed early, and led to a rise in the industrial workforce from 3.12 million in 1928 to 6.01 million at the end of the plan in 1932 according to Stephen Hansen’s book Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions. Economically, the capital goods sector saw a 158% increase in productivity, and the consumer goods sector saw an 87% increase, which made for a total increase of 118% according to James R. Millar in an article in the Slavic Review. Clearly, while some of the effects of Stalinsim were negative in how they affected particular individuals, the struggles endured by the Soviet people were worth it due to the miraculous economic success and industrialization, which, without a strong leader with strong policies, likely would not have been possible, culminating in an incredibly vulnerable nation behind the rest of the world on the eve of one of humanity’s largest conflicts.

Behind the Urals, a story about the young men who entered the workforce after the Bolshevik takeover, shows a lot of perspectives that tend to be overlooked as people study history. This story shows not only the difficulties of being a rigger in the 1920s, it also show the lack of organization that the Soviet Union faced in it’s early years. For example, as they talked in the dining hall, Popov mentioned that a bricklayer had fallen down on the inside of a swirler a day before. It was met with casual sentiments that the “safety-first trust” needed to enforce some of their regulations. This was just one example of the lack of organization that the Soviet Union had to tackle. Did the early failures of the new nation foreshadow the eventual collapse of the socialist society? How could this have been avoided?

In chapter four of the book “Russias Long Twentieth Century”, the authors explore the affects of the 1917 Revolution in regards to women’s rights, children, and sexuality in newly founded Soviet Russia. The introduction opens with a description of the celebration of International Women’s Day on 8 March 1927: “Women throughout Uzbekistan participated in a dramatic public mass unveiling. Thousands of Muslim women tore off their paranoia and tossed them into bonfires.” (Chatterjee et al., 69). They go on to mention an account from an Uzbek woman named Rahbar-oi Olimova, who stated that the “act of liberation” made her happy. After reading about this demonstration by the Uzbek women, I was reminded of the many mentions of liberations made by Anna Litveiko as she began working for the Bolsheviks to help the revolution. Throughout our readings, in fact, there is a lot of examples of women who felt liberated after the Bolsheviks took power. Could the 1917 Revolution have been a turning point for the women’s rights movement, and for movements for those who would have been previously oppressed by the autocracy in general? Did Lenin and the Bolshevik party use the oppression of minorities to gain followers?