The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World

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Lewin's other concern is in differentiating Stalinism from other, very different, stages of Soviet history. Kruschev's reforms may have largely failed, but his immediate move to begin dismantling of the key aspects of Stalinism succeeded. Political repression may have remained a part of Soviet policy but mass terror never returned, and the infamous gulag system disappeared entirely by the late 50's. One of the interesting details Lewin uncovered was the seemingly widespread policy of “prohylaxis”, wherein the KGB would identify dissidents and, instead of arresting them, throwing them in prison or simply shooting them in the head, would essentially give them a stern talking to and a warning to cut it out. While still obviously oppressive, this policy, which Andropov, the secretly liberal KGB chief in the 60's and 70's was apparently a big proponent of, is a pretty far cry from the menacing reputation the KGB had in the West, and is massively different from the arbitrary way the NKVD operated under Stalin. Schlögel – assisted by his excellent translator, Rodney Livingstone – is an eloquent writer and a captivating travel guide around this Soviet “lost world”."—Stephen Lovell, Times Literary Supplement

Karl Schlögel has created a rich and fascinating mosaic of Soviet culture focusing on the manifold sensory qualities and experiences of everyday life. His insatiable curiosity leads him to wide panoramas and meaningful closeups of a culture that lives on in histories, memories, and appropriations.”—Joes Segal, The Wende Museum

Increasingly, the system which had turned a vast rural, semi-feudal empire into a modern industrial powerhouse transformed itself into a great engine of wastefulness, buying its citizens off with the promise of an easy, quiet life in exchange for their tacit consent. ‘We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us’ became the defining feature of the stagnation which set in during 1970s. Utilising cutting edge research and analysis, Moshe Lewin reveals that the Soviet leadership were often completely aware of the problems that beset them, but, having discarded the tools of mass coercion, were completely incapable of responding effectively. As the great machine of the planned economy began to wind down in the second half of the 20th century, the people operating it were unable to do anything other than manage its decline. The Soviet Union possessed vast reserves of resources in areas with no surplus labour to exploit them, while at the same time maintained huge levels of overstaffing and in areas with massive labour surpluses, leading to plummeting productivity.

I was pretty surprised that there's no citation of this speech since all of the writings and speeches of Stalin are published somewhere. If it's a quote from an archive, I would still expect a citation. But this quote also stands out because Lewin extrapolates a lot of Stalin's character traits from it. It's mentioned over and over again so I decided to try and find it myself. By the fortune of me speaking in Russian, I've tried to google something akin to "speech Stalin Sverdlov Party University 1924". As it turns out, it's not a speech, but a series of lectures called "Foundations of Leninism", that Stalin gave at the aforementioned university in 1924. These lectures do not contain the said quote. If it's a thing from memoirs, why not mention who wrote the memoir or whatever the source might be? How should the reader verify that the quote even exists if it's ungooglable and basically impossible to verify?Lewin also seeks to engage purely with the history of the Soviet Union, and regularly castigates partisan historians on both sides - though he reserves a particular portion of his epilogue for excoriating the notion of "anti-communist history" as an ideology masquerading as genuine scholarship. German historian and journalist Schlögel casts a discerning eye on the things that surrounded the Soviet Union and its people. A detailed examination of the relics of ordinary communist life. Perfect for dipping into."—Fred Studemann, Financial Times D. The question which he wrestles with at length, of whether the state was controlled by the party or the party became a tool of the managerial strata of the institutions owned by the state (which is to say, all institutions of any significance in the entire country) seems to have an urgency for Lewin that he cannot convince the reader (at least this reader) merit such urgency. The last section was the most interesting, as it was a general high-level discussion of the overall "meaning" of the Soviet Union, which included interesting arguments such as the idea that the USSR was a "no-party state", where the communist party was totally toothless and irrelevant, and where even the leaders of the state were unable to really control the vast bureaucratic machine that ran day-to-day life.

B. Lewin is no apologist for Stalinism. He reports the body count, the level of imprisonments and exile, the arbitrary application of state power, without flinching.

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After reading it I feel like things might have gone quite differently had it not been for Stalin as an individual. For example there seem to have been several people who led various things after his time, where they seem to have been energetic and brave reformers, and what they achieved was to un-Stalinize things. So if those same people had inherited a less horrific situation then they probably could have achieved a lot more with the same energy. Soviet Russia is my jam. I’ve been reading about it for over ten years and am totally captivated by the politics and impact it had around the world. And the period spanning the revolution to Stalin’s death? Don’t even get me started on that. That’s the sweetest plum. Weaknesses aside, I believe I did gain information that helps me understand why the Soviet system failed. I also am now able to better refute lame arguments that socialism is bad because COMMUNISISM and THE SOVIET UNION! Hint: the Soviet Union was never socialist and actually never really claimed to be.

This is a dense book, which is part of the reason it took me so long to finish - at times it truly is difficult to slog through. At other times, however, it provides a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the Soviet Union. Lewin ultimately concludes that in the post-Stalin era, the USSR was what he terms "bureaucratic-absolutist." "In the Soviet case," he writes, "it was the bureacracy which, in the final analysis, collectively acquired undivided and unchallenged power." Indeed, the book explores numerous moments in which particular individuals saw the flaws in the Soviet system and sought to engage in much-needed reform, but who were ultimately stymied by the conservative nature of the system and the total power of the bureaucracy.It took me a couple of weeks to read this weighty volume, and even longer to convince myself to sit down and write this review. Why? Because, like many of my fellow Ukrainians, I now tend to instinctively recoil from anything related to the Soviet Union and/or Russia. The sensation is probably similar to the anti-German sentiment that prevailed in Britain during and immediately after the Blitz. An obvious knee-jerk reaction, but hard to contain when Ukrainians are being murdered daily in their hundreds by the invaders. In Lewin (and Lenin)'s perspective, the bolshevik party was in danger of losing its identity and being consumed if it got too involved in bureaucratic administration following the end of the civil war. Rapid urbanization and mass growth in administrative infrastructure, coupled with the large influx of uneducated party members without any strong attachment to the revolutionary struggle, was a powerful social process that undermined the position of the party. Also, I kinda feel like the son of a Wehrmacht soldier should show a little more humility to the people his father's generation tried to exterminate off the face of the Earth, but that's just me. Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman.