Book Reviews
Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold
War, Jeffrey Brooks. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
2001. xx+319 pp. $18.95 paperback.
There are two main approaches to the study of Stalin and Stalinism. One digs
from below and eschews high politics. Its most eminent practitioner is Sheila Fitzpatrick. In a recent book, Everyday Stalinism, she focuses on urban life and
reveals how living standards plummeted in the 1930s. It is a story dominated by
Petty bureaucrats carving out their little empires and making the lives of ordinary
citizens a misery. Neighbors are encouraged to denounce neighbors to advance
their lot. The secret police are omnipresent and the purge trials have a devastating effect on many lives. Is someone behind the mayhem, and if so, what agenda is he following? That is not considered because Fitzpatrick's book approaches the subject from below.
The other school of thought about Stalin and Stalinism starts from aboye. It
concentrates on Stalin, the man and the politician. It takes for granted that all
major initiatives were Stalin's. He deliberately set out to create a new society, a
socialist society, in his own image. Because he was never quite sure how to
achieve this, his directives were often couched in vague language, allowing free
rein to bureaucrats who wanted to get on the fast track to promotion. Everyone
tried to overfulfill the norms that carne from the center. The rationality of the order
was not their concern; their task was to implement it. That approach was brilliantly successful in achieving quantitative economic growth during the 1930s
and in winning the war against the Nazis and Japanese between 1941 and 1945.
Afterward, until Stalin's death in 1953, it did not deliver the results expected.
Jeffrey Brooks's book is an original and penetrating contribution to the second school of thought. It concentrates on the main media and reveals how Soviet public culture was so dominated by the state that the slogan "ThankYou, Comrade Stalin" was replicated millions of times in cities, villages, and hamlets
throughout the country. The media were saturated with Stalin's thoughts to the
extent that most citizens identified every benefit as coming from the great leader,
the father of the nation. Brooks skillfully traces the evolution of the Stalin cult
and the fusing of state and society. He shows how the Soviet Union under Lenin
was quite different from the country under Stalin.
From day one, Lenin instituted a state monopoly over the media that embraced
the press, literature, film, art, music, radio, and science. Given the population's
modest level of culture, Lenin's policy was to reveal what was acceptable and not
to promote reflection or debate. His goal was to replace the personal view with
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DEMOKRATIZATSIYA
the mass approach. Metaphors such as the "Leninist path" and the "socialist path"
soon emerged, indicating that there was a straight route to the promised land, the
land of socialism and communism. Those who deviated from the path were enemies who were trying to prevent citizens from realizing their goal. Slogans such
as "Literacy is the path to communism" and the "Worker's press is a torch illuminating the path to a new life" graphically illustrated the message. Under central planning, the path represented moving from one period to another. The future
was always more important than the present. The public's attention was focused
on those who were on the path and legitimized the views of those who claimed
to know the path. Stalin was fond of saying: "We are on the correct path"
Brooks points out that labor is the source of value in a market economy, but
in Stalin's economy value was determined by the state. Pilots, shock workers, scientists, and others who made significant contributions to development were glorified and richly rewarded. They then became indebted to the state and had to
work harder. It is not an accident that the number of awards increased every year.
Another striking innovation, traced in fascinating detail by Brooks, was the
concept of insiders and outsiders. The former were the good guys and the latter
the had guys. Class enemies were rodents and rats under Lenin, and under Stalin they were wreckers, vermin, reptiles, and scoundrels. As such they could be
exterminated. The suggestion was that if society were cleansed of its detritus, a
better world would come into being. There was a Manichean distinction between
good and evil. Indeed, as Brooks emphasizes, Christian language was often used.
For example, "sacred duty," "testa.ment," and "immortal teachings" occur and
recur. One can see communism as a substitute religion with Stalin as God the
Father. Many competed to be his disciples.
An intriguing question, but one that is not part of Brooks's brief, is whether
Stalin actually believed that he was creating a new society. Or was it all geared
to raising his own legitimacy and making him unassailable? Toppling him would
be tantarnount to toppling God. Yet his cult proved very fragile. Within three years
Khrushchev had debunked him and consigned him to the rubbish bin of history.
This is a powerful book about hum,an vanity and transient glory.
MARTIN MCCAULEY
University of London
The Global Political Economy and Post-1989 Change: The Place of the Central European Transition , Elizabeth De Boer-Ashworth . New York: St.
Martin 's Press, 2000 . 203 pp. $65.00 clothbound.
Elizabeth De Boer-Ashworth is associated with the University of Limerick, where
she lectures in governance and publlic management. In The Global Political Econonty and Post-1989 Change: The Place of the Central European Transition she
examines the changes since 1989 in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary,
Book Reviews 279
following the demise of Soviet communism. The first three chapters outline the
nature of the global political economy, Western developmental approaches toward
Central Europe before and after1989, and the basis for using these three countries for study. A chapter is devoted to each, and the penultimate chapter covers
the relationship between the European Union and Central Europe as well as EU
enlargement to the East. A brief summary concludes the text.
There is much here that will interest a nonspecialist. The first three chapters
are noteworthy because they combine historical analysis with a discussion of the
dominant Western economic view of development, an unusual approach in contemporary economics. These chapters and those following on individual countries elaborate the theme of reintegration of Central Europe into the West at the
latter's insistence, chiefly through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), based on policies tied to financial assistance. This meant, in De
Boer-Ashworth's view, that financial liberalization, the freeing of prices and
international capital flows, and privatization were forced on countries desperate
for resources: "Central Europe was not given the opportunity to choose a model
other than one that was strictly liberal and economically neo-classical" (51). The
cost was vast economic dislocation, falling production and employment, sharply
rising prices, and widespread human suffering. In turn, those conditions proved
to be politically destabilizing, and leaders supporting them were soon voted out
of office by an increasingly restive population. The return to economic growth
in the mid-1990s is attributed less to the policies than to the growing association
between the economies of Central Europe and the European Union. Today, it is
pointed out, policies of the World Bank and the IMF are being examined with a
view toward mitigating some of the negative aspects of old-style structural adjustment and policy conditionality.
This book is basically a descriptive sketch of one side of the argument that the
Western approach to Central Europe was fundamentally flawed, and a different
approach should have been followed that recognized a more prominent role for
government and that placed greater emphasis on social and political institutions
as foundations for free markets. De Boer-Ashworth states without developing the
point that alternative approaches were available (for example, the suggestions of
the French and Germans).
The extensive bibliography (including Web cites and e-mail addresses of
sources) will be helpful to students of this subject. Unfortunately, the text is littered with grammatical and typographical errors, some merely annoying and others requiring deciphering. There are bits of jargon scattered about (for example,
the "Enlightenment project" is repeated in various forros and sometimes not capitalized). Commas are often misplaced. The appearance of so many technical production errors is surprising in a commercial press.
DONALD BOWLES, PROFESSOR EMERITUS
American University