The 1930s occupy a very special place in the relatively short history of the Soviet system. First, because they took the form of a high-intensity drama in a country that had not yet fully recovered from the aftermath of the First World War and the Civil War of 1918–21. Second, because the short-lived New Economic Policy (NEP) of the 1920s, although quite successful in restoring the country to minimal levels of physical (biological) and political viability, still left it short of what was required to confront the internal, and especially external, challenges that were looming on the horizon. The sudden launch of the five-year plans (piatiletki) triggered a chain of utterly unexpected, startling events. The first surprise was the Stalinist ‘big drive’, which occurred against the backdrop of the deep economic recession that engulfed the US and Europe but stopped short at the borders of the USSR. The second was a series of internal upheavals consequent upon this new policy. The unprecedented national effort dictated and executed by a determined elite and a ruthless supreme leader, heavily reliant on the state’s coercive machinery, generated a spate of radical changes in all directions, which had a significant rebound effect on the regime itself. They shaped it in a way that amounted to the formation of a new, sui generis, state system, which, at least in its early stages, seemed to some actors, but also to outside observers, to embody the aspiration to a higher form of social justice. Others – especially some years later – regarded it as a new form of state slavery.
It might legitimately be asked how one and the same system could elicit such incompatible judgements in these years. But one fact is undeniable: the country was undergoing extremely rapid changes. A (hypothetical) party or government official, who for some purpose or other had been on a foreign mission during the first years of the plan, would certainly have been struck on his return by the astonishing changes that had occurred in the interim. Much more so, at any rate, than a White Russian returning to the country in the 1920s (there were such cases) and comparing Russia under the NEP with Tsarist Russia. However irritated by the novelties introduced by the regime, the latter would still have seen all around him the ‘Mother Russia’ he knew. He might even have felt quite reassured. By contrast, the Soviet official returning to Moscow in the 1930s would have found virtually none of the institutions he was familiar with in the 1920s. The press, the nepmen, the stores, the supply system, the political debates, most cultural life – all this had gone. The workplace, the pace of life, the slogans, and also (on closer inspection) the party itself – all were transformed. Political life and the policies adopted were different and impetuous. Stalin’s image and slogans extolling him now covered the walls of towns and village squares alike. Initially portrayed alongside Lenin, he soon invariably came to be represented alone. The meaning of these iconographic switches would not as yet have been readily apparent.
This state system early on received the name of ‘Stalinism’, and the man at the helm was manifestly and unambiguously in control. This does not mean that the system’s characteristics are to be ascribed exclusively to its head. In many ways, they transcended the leader’s way of running things. The considerable changes that occurred in the way the regime was managed after Stalin’s death indicate this. But the converse is also true: many basic characteristics remained in place. Determining what actually did change, and what endured, is a key problem in understanding the country’s history. But it also presents the historian with a recurrent obstacle, which pertains to the philosophy of history: how much can be attributed to an individual leader? Is he an independent agent, i.e. an autonomous factor? If so, all we need is a biography. Or is he a product of historical circumstances and conditions, of the country’s traditions, of its potential and limitations? In that case, we need a work of history.
The 1930s do not present historians with an easy task, regardless of whether they are dealing with personal or objective factors. As has been suggested, these years contain enough contradictory elements for some people to depict them in glowing colours, while for others they were nothing but a Calvary. And many autobiographies reveal their authors oscillating between these extremes. The fact that so many people, at the time or subsequently, refused to believe in the image of Stalin as the criminal organizer of a regime of terror may have had much to do with those aspects of his policies that unquestionably served the country’s interests. As many Russian and non-Russian observers agree, the USSR’s victory in the Second World War was an epic that saved the country and had great international impact. But it could not have been achieved by Tsarism or a similar regime. On the other hand, ignorance – fruit of the secretive character of the Stalinist state – also certainly contributed to the successful propagation of the image of the ‘great Stalin’ as imposed by its subject.
A scholarly approach cannot ignore these ‘extremes’. But its purpose does not consist in wavering between such determinist notions as ‘There was no alternative’ and ‘Stalin was inevitable’, or contrary views stressing the fortuitous, usurpatory and arbitrary dimensions of the Stalinist phenomenon. It is preferable to concentrate on the actual course of history, analysing the context – i.e. the full interplay of relevant factors – that contributed to the making of a regime which abandoned the requisite rules of the political game – rules it still unquestionably possessed in the early years of the NEP. Stalinism was precisely the flip side of a party system that had lost control over its political existence. That many vital state functions continued to be taken in charge does not alter this fact. However, it is also an incentive to carry on exploring the way in which the various factors remained active. Stalin’s arbitrary power was never immune from the rebound of developments – from what was advancing or slowly decaying in the country, around him and, ultimately, inside him.
The period 1928–39 unquestionably stands out because, although brief, it condenses all the past and future problems of the Soviet system. Understanding the Stalinist period is indispensable. But this does not mean that we subscribe to the widespread cliche according to which that is all there is to know. It cannot be repeated too often that many features distinguished the Stalinist system both from the NEP and from the post-Stalinist system, and yet at the same time all three periods have much in common. Study of the 1930s should help to clarify not only this point, but also a series of other problems that constitute so many knots in the historical tangle of Russia.
We are now in a position to disclose one of our findings: it transpires that while history had rendered Stalin’s regime profoundly dysfunctional, it also prepared the factors and actors that would make it possible to proceed to the subsequent chapter in Soviet history.