Working, Struggling, Becoming: Stalin‐Era Autobiographical Texts

Abstract

One of the assumptions most deeply ingrained in the Western imagination of the Stalinist regime is that at their core, members of Soviet society resided externally to state policies and Bolshevik ideology. Though the "system" was successful, through a combination of propaganda and coercion, in enforcing a degree of outward popular conformity, individuals were able to mitigate these pressures by retreating into private spheres unaffected by "official" ideology. In search of Soviet citizens' concealed or repressed selves, scholars have placed high hopes on the newly available "hidden transcripts" (James Scott) of Soviet society: secret NKVD reports and interrogations, unpublished correspondence, diaries. It is in this body of unofficial or secret sources that the authentic scripts of individual selfhood, the essence of their subjectivity, is expected to be uncovered. In the Stalinist context subjectivity, which I define as a capacity for thought and action derived from a coherent sense of self, is thus regarded as a quality that manifests itself against, and in spite of, the policies of the Soviet state. 1 A related, but more pessimistic view casts doubt on Soviet citizens' ability to develop any notion of individual subjectivity at all. According to this view, all political initiative was monopolized by the revolutionary state, and revolutionary politics by their very nature undercut the production of stable identities. As a consequence, Soviet citizens were jolted I am grateful to Igal Halfin, David Hoffmann, Peter Holquist, and the workshop and conference participants at the

Monumental Names

“…Some scholars of Soviet history argue that theories of totalitarian propaganda limit the possibilities of self-identification with the state to either indoctrination or cynicism among Soviet citizens. This generalisation overlooks internal contradictions and ambiguities as well as purposeful efforts to fashion a revolutionary self and to gain a sense of coherence between revolutionary subjectivities and Soviet realities by exercising introspection, self-critique, and "hermeneutics of the soul" among Soviet citizens in the 1930s (Slezkine 2017;Fitzpatrick 2017;Hellbeck 2001). However, the activists' opposition to the mass man of a totalitarian society stems from their appreciation of "the value of each person, taken separately" (tsennost zhizni kazhdogo otdelno vzyatogo cheloveka) (Ulitskaya 2018: 5).…”

The Future as Perceived by Soviet Schoolchildren of the 1930s

“…52 However, as Jochen Hellbeck demonstrates in his study of Soviet subjectivity in diaries, feelings of the extraordinary and heroic content of the epoch, as well as one's desire to live up to it, was a fairly common feature among different age groups. 53 Young students' aspirations to accomplish great things reflected their claims to exclusivity and were indicative of their elitist self-consciousness. This tendency found expression not only in young people's search for a professional vocation, but also in the plans they formulated for the results of their careers, results that would be commensurate with the great era in which they lived.…”

Voice and Frames in the Soviet Nenets’ Auto/Biographies

“…Right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, research on Russian life writing focused on either private texts, such as unpublished diaries and testimonial texts, or on public biographies produced, for example, for Party organisation (see Fitzpatrick 2000;Hellbeck 2002;Steinberg 2002;Petersen 2009;Halfin 2011;Herzberg 2015). However, the auto/ biographical mode had already become canonical in Soviet literature, where the factual and ideological and individual and social were in constant tension (Clark 1983, 44;Holmgren 2003, xxii-xxiii, xxvii-xxix;Jones 2018).…”