The Spell of Stalinism

Discussion Question: To what extent did prisoners see themselves as participants in the Revolution?

The final scene of the reading by Ekaterina Olitskaia involves the prisoners singing the patriotic song “Wide is my Country”, despite the fact that the country they are praising is putting them in prison and dehumanizing them. This raises the question of whether, despite their imprisonment, the prisoners still feel a part of the Soviet project? As a side note, notice how the prisoners sing “Wide is my Country”, a song that is about Russia, as opposed to “The Internationale”, a song centered around the struggle for international socialism, perhaps showing the prisoners’ allegiance to a “socialism in one country” ideology as opposed to the permanent, international revolution espoused by Trotsky.

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek claims that the difference between Stalinism and fascism is that in the gulgas, the prisoners signed a birthday card to comrade Stalin, while in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, no such thing ever took place. This is emblematic of the fact that under fascism, the group in power has the responsibility of ridding the earth of “impure” elements, while in Stalinism, even the prisoners, those who are seen as saboteurs of the state are still in their imprisonment considered a part of the revolutionary effort.

Obviously the narrator of the primary document does not see herself as part of the Stalinist program, as she still considers herself to be an SR even after the party was banned by the Bolsheviks. But what of the other people mentioned? Zinaida Tulub even after being imprisoned still considers herself a loyal Communist, even though she was never a member of the Communist Party. She views the fact that her book was approved by the party as validation by the party, despite the fact that she is now in prison. She almost views her imprisonment as a type of duty to the state, saying, “I’ll stay in prison, if I have to.” (Pg. 427) She goes further in downplaying the severity of her imprisonment to the extent that the thing she is most worried about is her cats at home, and not her livelihood overall.

The prisoner’s also demonstrate an attachment to the Soviet project by the fact that little solidarity among them forms. This is most poignantly seen in the scene in which the prisoners are angered over Olitskaia distributing the onions to the dorms equally. Instead of viewing themselves as a group oppressed by the state, they instead view themselves as individuals who are not really prisoners, but rather “mistaken prisoners”.

Another example of a woman who, despite her imprisonment still views herself as part of the revolutionary effort is the Tajik woman. Due to the fact that she was depicted in the newspapers handing flowers to Stalin, she believes that her imprisonment must have been a mistake, but that all of the people are around her are traitors. The Tajik women may not view her imprisonment as part of the Soviet program, but it is excusable, as the program of imprisonment in general is doing good work in making sure that wreckers are being purged.     

There are of course people in the reading who do not hold such views, such as the woman who miscarried after being beat by a guard. But was that the cruelty needed to break the spell of Stalinism?

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4 Responses to The Spell of Stalinism

  1. ianfries says:

    I think the prisoners were mostly confused as to why they were being sent to labor camps. Most likely many of them were actually innocent of the crimes were accused and turned in ultimately because of personal vendettas or other non-criminal reasons. People were also certainly caught up in Stalin’s cult of personality. I don’t necessarily know if this means they were “part of the Revolution.”

  2. rodriver says:

    My cynical view here (not that that’s a surprising mood to be in when on the topic of police states) is that if Hitler wanted to make prisoners in the concentration camps sign cards for him, he could have.

    I just reread the post and realize that the prisoners in the gulag sound like they were doing it of their own free will… huh. Now it sounds like more of a petition to me.

    Where did they get the supplies for this card?

  3. sowelld says:

    This answer can only be conjecture at best.
    The unbelievable way that the revolution happened, the jubilation surrounding it, and the huge promises surrounding the new state, the proletariat, and what Russia’s future would be blinded the political prisoners. The cult of Stalinism undoubtedly played a role, but even if its spell were to be broken over an individual (or even a whole group of prisoners), they would still be unwilling to think that everything they’d fought for and thought the Party stood for was lies, and that so many high-ranking people were complicit. At the time, saying such an opinion would be the same as someone today explaining an unbelievable conspiracy theory, but with an added dose of extreme treason.

  4. Danielle says:

    This is an interesting question and it is with good reason that the prisoners view themselves as “mistaken prisoners,” as many of were imprisoned for something so mundane as cracking a little joke and it is understandable that they would be like a fake prisoner and just locked up for show, to show the rest of the country that Stalin does not play.

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