Read Online Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 by Stephen Kotkin - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Kotkin
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watch the officially banned film Easy Rider . Soon, almost every Soviet high school and factory acquired its own rock-and-roll band, which the Komsomol hired to perform at official events.
By the late Brezhnev era, Soviet public spaces were decor-ated not just with official slogans but also with graffiti about sports teams, rock music, sex, and the merits of punk music versus heavy metal. Schoolchildren ‘ranked’
each other by their jeans, with Western brands being the highest.
This infatuation with the Western consumer culture was a far cry from the heroic October revolution and Civil War, the 1930s building of socialism, or the Second World War, which had shaped earlier generations. Despite prominent post-war campaigns to settle ‘virgin lands’ and build a second railroad through Siberia, it was clear that the mobilizational style of political participation and socialization was losing much of its force. Equally important, the party’s grand historical teleology had to be abandoned. As the predicted date of 1980 for the transition to Communism passed, ideologues replaced Khrushchev’s utopian promise with the here and now of ‘developed’ socialism. 9 Was life simply a question of washing machines, refrigerators, private cars, TVs, popular music, and jeans, and, if so, what did that portend for socialism’s struggle against capitalism?
43
reviving the dream
Abiding allegiance to socialism
Even as the Soviet population began to sense the prosperity gap with the US, Japan, and Western Europe, the overwhelming majority still responded to the incessant propaganda about the Soviet Union’s lack of unemployment, gulf between rich and poor, race riots, or Vietnam War. Mass construction of self-contained apartments had given rise to the celebrated urban ritual of the ‘kitchen table’, where Soviet families and trusted friends assembled out of earshot of nosy neighbours and the authorities to discuss the absurdities of their lives. Indeed, jokes about the Soviet system became something of a private and sometimes public activity, and very little love was lost on apparatchiks. But, beyond desiring a degree of liberalization, most people simply wanted the Soviet regime to live up to its promises of inexpensive housing, health care, paid maternity leave, public education, and consumer goods. A strong allegiance to socialism—understood as state responsibility for the general welfare and social justice—remained very much a part of ordinary people’s world view, confirmed by such facts as the near impossibility of being evicted from their state-provided apartments, whatever the circumstances. 10
Substantial legitimacy for socialism was also derived from the commemoration of the Second World War in films, memoirs, veterans groups, and monuments, all of which, like military-patriotic education, were expanded in the 1960s. The main Soviet holiday, Revolution Day 44
reviving the dream
(7 November), became a showcase for Soviet military hardware, though for many it was noteworthy for the extra consumer goods and alcohol made available. But Victory Day (9 May) was a powerful collective ritual, involving family trips to the cemetery, whose meaning was shared by almost the entire country. Victory Day also underscored the attainment of superpower status and reinforced the respect for the Armed Forces. Of course, coercion remained an integral aspect of maintaining allegiance.
‘The KGB was a repressive, not an educational organ,’
wrote Filipp Bobkov, a veteran of forty-five years who rose to become first deputy chairman. ‘Nonetheless, we tried, when possible, to use prophylactic measures,’ meaning summoning individuals to local KGB headquarters, and blackmailing them to inform on their colleagues. 11 Many people collaborated with the authorities’ requests without much pressure, and more than a few came forward on their own.
The KGB, like the Western media, was obsessed over manifestations of what it regarded
By the late Brezhnev era, Soviet public spaces were decor-ated not just with official slogans but also with graffiti about sports teams, rock music, sex, and the merits of punk music versus heavy metal. Schoolchildren ‘ranked’
each other by their jeans, with Western brands being the highest.
This infatuation with the Western consumer culture was a far cry from the heroic October revolution and Civil War, the 1930s building of socialism, or the Second World War, which had shaped earlier generations. Despite prominent post-war campaigns to settle ‘virgin lands’ and build a second railroad through Siberia, it was clear that the mobilizational style of political participation and socialization was losing much of its force. Equally important, the party’s grand historical teleology had to be abandoned. As the predicted date of 1980 for the transition to Communism passed, ideologues replaced Khrushchev’s utopian promise with the here and now of ‘developed’ socialism. 9 Was life simply a question of washing machines, refrigerators, private cars, TVs, popular music, and jeans, and, if so, what did that portend for socialism’s struggle against capitalism?
43
reviving the dream
Abiding allegiance to socialism
Even as the Soviet population began to sense the prosperity gap with the US, Japan, and Western Europe, the overwhelming majority still responded to the incessant propaganda about the Soviet Union’s lack of unemployment, gulf between rich and poor, race riots, or Vietnam War. Mass construction of self-contained apartments had given rise to the celebrated urban ritual of the ‘kitchen table’, where Soviet families and trusted friends assembled out of earshot of nosy neighbours and the authorities to discuss the absurdities of their lives. Indeed, jokes about the Soviet system became something of a private and sometimes public activity, and very little love was lost on apparatchiks. But, beyond desiring a degree of liberalization, most people simply wanted the Soviet regime to live up to its promises of inexpensive housing, health care, paid maternity leave, public education, and consumer goods. A strong allegiance to socialism—understood as state responsibility for the general welfare and social justice—remained very much a part of ordinary people’s world view, confirmed by such facts as the near impossibility of being evicted from their state-provided apartments, whatever the circumstances. 10
Substantial legitimacy for socialism was also derived from the commemoration of the Second World War in films, memoirs, veterans groups, and monuments, all of which, like military-patriotic education, were expanded in the 1960s. The main Soviet holiday, Revolution Day 44
reviving the dream
(7 November), became a showcase for Soviet military hardware, though for many it was noteworthy for the extra consumer goods and alcohol made available. But Victory Day (9 May) was a powerful collective ritual, involving family trips to the cemetery, whose meaning was shared by almost the entire country. Victory Day also underscored the attainment of superpower status and reinforced the respect for the Armed Forces. Of course, coercion remained an integral aspect of maintaining allegiance.
‘The KGB was a repressive, not an educational organ,’
wrote Filipp Bobkov, a veteran of forty-five years who rose to become first deputy chairman. ‘Nonetheless, we tried, when possible, to use prophylactic measures,’ meaning summoning individuals to local KGB headquarters, and blackmailing them to inform on their colleagues. 11 Many people collaborated with the authorities’ requests without much pressure, and more than a few came forward on their own.
The KGB, like the Western media, was obsessed over manifestations of what it regarded
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