Magazine: Canadian Journal of History, April 1999

                     REVIEWS: MODERN EUROPE

                         ----------------------

    Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934-1941, by Sarah
    Davies. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997. xix, 236 pp. $59.95 U.S.

    During the inter-war years western diplomats often reported statements by Soviet officials
    about "public opinion" and how it constrained or influenced Soviet foreign or domestic
    policy. The typical western reaction to such statements was derision: Soviet public opinion
    from the mid-1920s onwards meant whatever the red tsar, I.V. Stalin, thought it meant.

    Sarah Davies of the University of Durham now has produced a study which shows that
    these dismissive western attitudes were not correct. There was a Soviet public opinion, not
    in the western sense, as expressed in the print and broadcast media and by opposition
    politicians, but opinion and popular moods as reported by Soviet police and other
    governmental and communist party agencies.

    Davies's work originated as doctoral thesis and is based on impressive research in Russian
    archives primarily in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The study is organized topically rather
    than chronologically on subjects such as workers and the economy, foreign policy,
    elections, and the Terror. Davies shows that Soviet citizens were not unthinking, terrified,
    and mute, but thinking, critical, and also, sometimes, supportive of Soviet leaders and the
    Soviet government in general. Davies gives the reader an impressionist view rather than a
    quantified study. In fact, the author is careful -- perhaps too much so -- to indicate the
    constraints imposed by her subject matter and the limits of her research.

    The Soviet Union of the 1930s was a coercive society subjected to intense propaganda.
    Ordinary citizens could be arrested for "anti-Soviet agitation" simply for expressing opinions
    contrary to acceptable standards. Public opinion meant what individuals might say in the
    workplace and it was distilled by Communist party or police reporters and informants.
    Reports focused on what interested government officials, for example political themes, and
    not necessarily what interested ordinary people, like the price of bread or of a pair of
    shoes. All this is reminiscent of French police reports found in the Archives nationales in
    Paris. Davies's research is focused on the St. Petersburg city and region, and thus may not
    be entirely representative of opinion in such a vast country. Nevertheless, the author asserts
    that "there were certain consistent traits of popular opinion" (p. 12) which were prevalent in
    city and countryside. Davies is also careful to reiterate that her research does not allow for
    quantification, and so she sticks to "typical and recurring themes" (p. 16).

    Such themes were the high cost of food, low wages, and high taxes, the latter incidently
    being nowadays a topic of complaint among many Canadians. Instead of a homogeneous
    working class with a single-minded world view, there were different classes of workers,
    some more privileged and making more money than others. The Stakhanovites, those
    workers who did extra shifts and produced more, were rewarded by the government, but
    resented by colleagues. The author tells us then current jokes and ditties of ordinary people,
    for example: "Oh, you Stakhnovite, let's have a smoke. The work won't go away" (p. 33).

    There was widespread discontent about living and working conditions. Privileged
    government and party officials, who travelled in cars, were singled out for criticism and
    resentment. Instead of a government representing the interests of the working class, we
    discover more traditional discontents against a governing elite. The author stresses that
    discontent made the Communist party "especially vulnerable to popular criticism when it
    failed to live up to the claims of [communist] ideology" (p. 48).

    Peasant farmers disliked collective farms, the kolkhozy. There should be no surprise here,
    as the author notes, "In 1917 Russian peasants had a single overwhelming aspiration --
    land" (p. 49). Opinion among peasant farmers was of course "less audible" than that of the
    more concentrated and articulate workers, except of course, when the peasantry burned
    their grain or slaughtered their livestock to resist collectivization.

    Such resentment spilled over into opinion about international relations and in particular the
    rise of Nazi Germany. Most people expected war, and discontented peasants, for example,
    hoped that war would bring down the Soviet government. "The revolutions of 1905 and
    1917 had both occurred in the midst of Russian defeat in war, and the idea of war as a
    catalyst for change clearly remained potent" (p. 95). The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact
    (August 1939) provoked mixed reactions. Jokes circulated about Hitler and Ribbentrop,
    the foreign minister, making applications to join the Communist party. But would they be
    admitted?

    Many people expressed disapproval of the Stalinist purges because old Bolsheviks and
    heroes of the civil war were executed. On the other hand, there was also indifference to the
    purges, which were quarrels among the "high-ups." It was more important to worry about
    getting enough to eat, and to stay out of the way, lest the little people pay the price. This
    was a traditional Russian view: Les seigneurs se battent mais c'est les serfs qui paient les
    pots casses. In fact, there was also a view that Bolshevik "bosses" were getting what they
    deserved.

    This is an interesting, impressively researched study. However, it suffers a little from its very
    virtues for there is too much "one worker" or "one letter" saying this or that. The reader
    does not get a sense of how representative or how important these opinions were. The
    author excuses herself, saying the evidence does not permit firm opinions, and yet she
    herself uses expressions like "it was clear that..."; it was "probably" true; "it seems that...";
    or "what does seem likely .... "In the vernacular, these are called "weasel" words. This is a
    quibble and yet it is not a quibble. Davies's book will nevertheless be of interest to all
    scholars trying to understand the perspectives and opinions of the menu peuple of the
    Soviet Union.

    ~~~~~~~~

    By Michael Jabara Carley, University of Akron

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