Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (31 page)

^{179
Sv. Ibid. p. 133.}

^180
Viola,
Peasant Rebels
, 48–65.

Perfidious Allies? 1941–45
77

workers, and peasants.
^{181
They also emerged in a variety of urban and}
rural locations throughout the USSR and circulated both at the front line and the rear.
^{182
The assumption that the Allies were taking advan-}
tage of the USSR also informed the comments of a number of ‘loyal’ individuals who were incensed by the perfidy of the Anglo-Americans. The changes, or anticipated changes, within Soviet society were often greeted with dismay as well as delight in the USSR. Doctor Cherkasskii of Frunzenskii
raion
in Ivanovo declared in response to the dissolution of the Comintern that, ‘It is a concession. To destroy the Comintern signifies to destroy the communist parties and I cannot tolerate that thought. Perhaps Churchill and Roosevelt demanded of us changes, and a few of them could have been made, but not this.’
^{183
Others de-}
nounced the declaration as, ‘an incorrect decision taken under the conditions of wartime,’ or ‘10 steps backwards’.
^{184
Comrade Simonov}
of 25 October Artel in Ivanovo complained in a similar vein that, ‘England and America are turning us back onto an old path. How else to understand this question when even the papers have begun to write about the patriarch?’
¹⁸⁵

Some went even further, taking what might be termed an ‘excessively
loyal’ view of the situation, and denouncing the government for failing to recognize the perfidy of the Allies. A. Shur wrote to Kalinin in November 1943 arguing that, ‘All of history confirms that England (the stronghold of capital) and the USSR cannot work together.’ He complained that millions of Soviet citizens were dying on account of the government’s naivety.
^{186
Others dismissed those who believed in}
long-term Anglo-Soviet collaboration saying, ‘It is high time they read some Lenin’.
^{187
Koriakov, a student at the Philosophical Faculty}
of Moscow State University, accused the party and Stalin of ideological degeneration in relation to their ‘closening with bourgeois countries’.
¹⁸⁸

^{181
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 122, d. 122, l. 10; Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d.}

30527, ll. 8–9; Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 23, d. 1477, l. 9; d. 1449, l. 43.

^{182
Proc. GARF f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 31773}
;, ll. 1–3; Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 122, d.

30, ll. 44–5. HIP. B8, 645, 10; Sv. TsDAHOU, f. 1, op. 23, d. 1449, l. 43.

^{183
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 594, l. 17.}

^{184
Sv. Ibid. ll. 30, 44.}

^{185
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 122, d. 122, l. 17.}

^{186
Let. Livshin and Orlov, eds.,}
Sovetskaia povsednevnost’
, 70. It does not seem necessary to question the sincerity of such sentiments which were likely to get the author into trouble.

^{187
Mem. Werth,}
Russia at War
, 942.

^{188
Inf. RGASPI M-f. 1, op. 46, d. 26, l. 8.}

78
Being Soviet

He was one of a number of individuals arrested during the war for
excessively negative comments about the Allies. A.D.V. was prosecuted for saying that ‘America and England are weaving webs against the USSR’ and that they were moving ‘intolerably slowly’ with the Second Front. In his defence he claimed that he ‘did not consider these com-
ments counter-revolutionary’. Others defended themselves in similar terms. Casting doubt on the likelihood of the Second Front ever being open was ‘incorrect . . . but not directed towards discrediting the Soviet Union’. This kind of speculation was understood by those who passed it on to be mainstream, if excessively anti-Allied, speech.
¹⁸⁹

‘Supporters’ and ‘resisters’ of the Soviet government, as well as
ordinary citizens who did not fit neatly into either category, applied the tactic of
bricolage
to the internal dynamics of the Grand Alliance and concluded that the Allies were exploiting the USSR. Allied exploitation was the preferred explanation for their unexplained failure to behave as true comrades of the USSR. It emerged as a highly successful rumour in various forms and at various times throughout the war. The Soviet press established a hegemony of perception, but not a hegemony of interpre- tation concerning the internal dynamics of the Grand Alliance. The rumours of allied meddling provide a clear example of the ‘tactic’ of
bricolage
in evidence. They did not function solely as vehicles of dissent, but survived and flourished because they were credible to large sections of the Soviet population.

SOVIET WARTIME MENTALIT E´ : THE ALLIED STATES AND THE RUMOUR NETWORK

Speculative rumours, such as those about allied manipulation, were
extremely widespread between 1941 and 1945, in part because of the relative disorder and news hunger of the wartime USSR. As official information networks collapsed, the oral news network became even more important as a means of plugging the gaps. The experience of wartime also reinforced the credibility crisis of the official press that had begun in 1939. The volte face of the Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939 was followed by the failure of the Soviet press to warn its audience about the coming invasion of 1941. Even A. Mar’ian, a rural activist before the

^{189
Proc. GARF f. 8131, op. 31a, d. 75634, ll. 5–41; d. 81080, l. 4.}

Perfidious Allies? 1941–45
79

war, was forced to admit in 1943 that, ‘in general the rumours are
always ahead of events’.
¹⁹⁰

The boundaries of what was considered possible also expanded during
the war. Soviet citizens wrote to the government suggesting ideologically aberrant ideas such as an official civil role for the Orthodox Church, or fundamental reforms of the
kolkhoz
system.
^{191
In June 1944, there were}
mass gatherings in Kazan (2,000) and Kuibyshev (500) of people who had heard fictitious rumours that a group of child-killers would be publicly executed.
^{192
Villages in Voronezh}
oblast’
were liable to descend into panic over stories that the Germans were returning in 1944.
^{193
Stories that the Allies were exerting pressure on the Soviet government}
for a systematic reform of the USSR flourished in this context of expand- ed credibility and weakened official mechanisms of communication.

However, the greater likelihood of speculative rumours during the
war does not explain why Soviet citizens repeatedly returned to the idea of allied perfidy when employing the tactic of
bricolage
. There is no causal connection between social conditions and specific collective behaviour.
^{194
The focus of wartime rumours on the idea of the allied}
manipulation and exploitation of the USSR reveals the kinds of narra- tives that were credible in wartime Soviet society. These rumours were successful because they were believable.
¹⁹⁵

Rumours of allied exploitation reveal the centrality of the ideas of
vulnerability and authority within the Soviet wartime
mentalit
^´
e
. This chapter has argued that many Soviet citizens identified strongly with the new diplomatic version of Official Soviet Identity, as an authoritative and powerful state, that emerged after Stalingrad. However, external allied pressure was also a widely credited lever behind internal changes within the USSR. These two narratives of authority and vulnerability might be considered mutually incompatible. On the contrary, however, the juxtaposition of these two ideas goes to the heart of the Soviet collective
mentalit
^´
e
in 1945. Indeed they reinforced one another to some extent. Rumours of allied perfidy were almost certainly fuelled

^{190
Mem. Mar’ian,}
Gody moi, kak soldaty
, 172.

^{191
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 136, ll. 192–3; Let. op. 122, d. 122, l. 13.}

^{192
GARF f. R9401, op. 2, d. 65, l. 199.}

^{193
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 136, ll. 192–3.}

^{194
See Darnton,}
The Great Cat Massacre
, 258–60.

^{195
Shibutani,}
Improvised News
, 80–6.

80
Being Soviet

by the righteous indignation of individuals who felt the need to defend
the global moral authority of the Soviet Union. It is clear that some Soviet citizens were so intoxicated with the might of their state, and in particular the Red Army, that they would not have taken rumours of allied interference seriously. Similarly, there were some Soviet citizens who were peculiarly convinced that the USSR was susceptible to exter- nal pressure. However, a very large number of people seem to have considered that both were true: the USSR had won great authority in the war and had risen in status, but also remained vulnerable to external meddling by the Allies. The balance of these two ideas was a distinctive feature of the manner in which Soviet citizens imagined their relation- ship with the outside world by the end of World War II.

The second aspect of the Soviet wartime
mentalit
^´
e
, which contributed to the spread of rumours about allied meddling, was the deeply rooted mistrust of Soviet citizens towards the Allies. Recent experience had demonstrated that allies could be unfaithful, and questioners at lecture gatherings openly speculated that Britain and America might ‘start a war with us’ as Germany had.
^{196
Other individuals were suspicions of the}
Allies because of their capitalist nature. This was particularly the case for the ‘excessive loyalists’ who decried the government’s naive friendship with the Allies. However, even for those who did not think explicitly within these Marxist-Leninist categories, over twenty years of denunci- ation of capitalist evil must have had an impact. Capitalism’s inter-war record of militarism, depression, and appeasement can hardly have endeared the allied powers to ordinary Soviet citizens. The drip feeding of Official Soviet Identity of the 1920s and 1930s made it more difficult for some Soviet citizens to adjust to the idea that the great capitalist states were now collaborating with the USSR.

This distrust of the capitalist states, particularly the distrust of Eng-
land also had longer term historical roots. Britain had been regarded as the ‘natural ally’ of Russia in the eighteenth century.
^{197
However, by the}
middle of the nineteenth century, Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia had transformed Britain into the natural competitor of the Romanov state.
^{198
Borisov argues that, ‘In both the public opinion and mass}

^{196
Inf. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 242, ll. 99–103.}