By painting a portrait of Soviet society, from Lenin to Gagarin, a young historian kaleidoscopes two decades of historiographical contributions. A successful work of synthesis, in the absence of a political interpretation.
The idea of proposing a new synthesis of Soviet society, twenty years after the disappearance ofUSSRwas certainly in tune with the times. It was still necessary to take action, and this is why we must salute the work of Alexandre Sumpf, who is taking head-on the achievements of a profoundly renewed, and now largely internationalized, research. Entire sections of Soviet social history, which the latest syntheses in French could not address due to lack of sources, have been assimilated “ greedily » by this young specialist in Russian social and cultural history ; he skilfully restores them, echoing his personal research.
The reader will be easily carried away by fluid, lively writing, masterfully combining different scales, from the global approach to the biographical study. This being said, in the absence of a chronological framework and educational reminders, the work will be more easily mastered with solid notions of Russian and international history.
A global history of Soviet society
The ambition to write a social history of the Soviet Union, or rather a global history of Soviet society, led Sumpf to choose a thematic progression. At a presentation of four “ crucial points » of Soviet historiography and mythology – the proletarian nature of the State, the kulaks, the ideology of the plan and the Gulag – follow three main sections: “ Being Soviet “, “ Be a citizen ” And “ The bright future “. Each of the chapters proceeds by thematic flashes, key, turning or emblematic moments, skillfully linked, opening onto a broader reflection.
The first part, “ Being Soviet », addresses in its first chapter the question of “ center » and the “ periphery “, namely the control and organization of territories, nationality policy, migration, the relationship with internal and external foreigners (xenophobia and nationalism, exile “ white », Comintern). The second chapter offers a portrait of the “ new man » Bolshevik, seen through education, youth, gender and sexual relations, health, sport, but also propaganda and the monopoly of information. The evolution of the family, from the disintegration of the Russian rural patriarchy to the appearance of the notion of private life in theUSSR of Khrushchev, particularly benefited from “ the historical school of self » appeared in the 1990s. This balances standardized ideals with daily practices now accessible through new sources, such as diaries.
The social changes linked to economic upheavals are then addressed (in chapter 4), taking care to recreate as closely as possible the consequences of massive State intervention in the economy on the organization of work, the notion of career or social protection, the evolution of worker and peasant professions, housing or town planning. The issues of the history of consumption had long been neglected, in the political logic of a regime which placed the question at the bottom of the priorities of socialist society. Alexandre Sumpf clearly shows the interest in a detailed approach to official policies (for example, what is “ luxury » Soviet ?) and the expectations of citizens, but also the study of particular practices. Some were known (queues, rationing), others less so, such as the massive looting in Soviet-occupied zones in Germany, the imitation of Western fashions through trafficking or home sewing or, conversely, the appropriation of a mode of consumption “ socialist » through the collections of tin badges.
The second part, “ Be a citizen », tackles, in chapter 5, the key question of a “ partitioned political space “, starting from the top: the knowledge of the leaders, the circles of power, the nomenklatura, has been substantially nourished by the contribution of new archives, even if these are far from all being open yet. The author then takes care to change scale, to deal with the difficult question of electoral participation and to present forms of mobilization specific to theUSSR. Particularly fascinating are the passages which analyze the diversity of “ social organizations » heirs of Russian associative vitality from the beginning of the XXe century, whether they are para-state levers like the “ friends of… », authorized elitist lobbies like the “ society of Old Bolsheviks », or refuges for citizen investment such as heritage or ecology defense collectives. The Soviets’ particular relationship with politics also involves modes of expression that are now well studied, from the most authoritative (letters to newspapers, denunciations) to the most risky: rural or urban disorder, dissidence. Alexandre Sumpf can then conclude that “ there is therefore one, and even Soviet public opinions “.
Chapter 6 offers, under the somewhat elliptical title of “ The invention of a “sociological base” », a very new reflection on the assigned typologies. While the Revolution abolishes the states (soslovia) who organized tsarist society and proclaimed equality without distinction of status, the confrontation between the notion of class and social realities raises not only professional, but political and private issues. Especially since exile, purges and repression regularly reshuffle the cards of an exceptionally fluid Soviet society marked by insecurity of positions, at least during the Stalinist period. The author presents the actors of this policy: the party, weakened intermediary bodies (the soviets, the cooperatives), the “ repressive forces » (army and police), justice, the administration of the gulag, whose social history is still in its infancy.
In chapter 7, the gallery of “ soviet heroes » emphasizes three “ types » overvalued, but instead ambiguous — intellectuals, workers and soldiers. The miner Stakhanov symbolizes the search for a working elite, but also an image which screens the fault lines structuring the Soviet industrial world, in particular the tension between the technocratic approach and the mobilizing dimension, the distrust towards the recent worker of peasant origin, the ideology faulted by the real conditions of life, of work, by social benefits which do not work. The presentation of an army politicized in an unprecedented way ends with the comparison between the two world conflicts, as issues of memory and social experience.
Interpreting Soviet society ?
Shorter, the last part, “ The bright future “, endeavors to decipher three main sources of identification with the “ Soviet » — the Second World War known as “ Great Patriotic War », the triumph of socialist science, sport and the body, finally, more unexpected, the tourist space-time, which with paid leave, offers the citizen an educational moment and an experience of the collective, in sanatoriums or on the shores of the Black Sea. Then, Sumpf presents the social issues of culture, its production, its diffusion and its reception, to end, in the last chapter, with a reflection on the resistance of religions in the face of official atheism, then with a questioning on the existence of a “ soviet faith “. This is addressed through its rituals (admission to the pioneers or to the party, return to school from the 1950s), its moral code and its norms, more than through its dogma. If the elements of analogy, even continuity with orthodoxy are evoked, the question of transcendence in the “ religion » Marxist remains underlying.
This last chapter is undoubtedly the least convincing, and this is perhaps no coincidence, because it is the one which confronts most closely the question of ideology – the very term of “ Communism » is significantly used very little by the author – and to global interpretations of the Soviet regime. However, we cannot blame the author for not having presented and discussed the gigantic debate which has mobilized, since the 1920s, philosophers, historians, sociologists and politicians (Marxist or not) around the notion of “ secular religion » (according to the expression of Raymond Aron) which would have been developed by the Bolsheviks and/or Stalin.
Because the logic of this book, symptomatic of the political and historiographical moment in which it is located, is precisely to offer a synthesis of recent work, without offering a polemical or political interpretation. This is a story “ normal » of theUSSRfully post-Soviet history which is based on non-specific issues (imperial history, history of the body, war cultures, etc.) and uses in the same pen terms from historiographies which were violently hostile: “ totalitarian “, “ Party-state “, “ State-propaganda “, but also “ cultural revolution “, “ welfare state “, “ consensus ” And “ identification “.
Ultimately, the author lets the reader construct an image from multiple points of view. As a result, we do not really understand what singularity the society of Stalinism bears – or not – in relation to the Bolshevik period and the post-Stalinist period. If Alexandre Sumpf obviously has personal historiographical positions, and leads a sometimes vigorous discussion in the notes, the gap between discourse and experience, the desire to model nature and man, the permanent uncertainty of everyday life, there “ unparalleled state violence », form an implicit interpretative framework, which leaves ultimately dissatisfied. The time of great stories is undoubtedly over, but something resists and remains terribly singular in the history of “ social experience » Soviet.