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The Debate on De-Stalinization in the USSR, 1961-1972

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The Debate on De-Stalinization in the USSR, 1961-1972 FINAL REPORT T O NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H TITLE : The Debate on De-Stalinization i n the USSR, 1961-1972 : Novyi Mir vs . Oktiabr ' AUTHOR : Alexander Yanov CONTRACTOR : The Regents of the University of Californi a (Berkeley ) PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR : Carl G . Rosberg COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER: 621-1 3 The work leading to this report was supported in hole or i n part from funds provided by the National Council for Sovie t and East European Research . SUMMAR Y The bitter struggle in the USSR between reform, an d the semi-Stalinist reaction to it, surfaced throughou t most of the 1960s and early 1970s in the form of a vicious debate between the two main literary journal s Novyi Mir (The New World) and Oktiabr' (October) . Thi s study, by one of the contenders now in emigration , extrapolates from the debate to identify the majo r elements of the society in conflict and their conyictions , passionately held and diametrically opposed, on suc h crucial questions as relations with the West, militar y superiority, management of the economy, corruption of th e of the Party and society, and the purpose of socialism . This overt debate was finally suppressed (involving th e dismissal of the editorial board of one journal and th e suicide of the chief editor of the other) with the spokes - men for the reaction in ascendance . The importance of th e study lies in the author's belief that the conviction s and the struggle are only submerged, ready to burs t forth in mortal combat again at any time, perhaps especi- ally in the 1980s with the impending successions of leade r ship and under the pressures of still unresolved critica l domestic and foreign problems . In the USSR literature is a major political and ideo- logical instrument, made totally subservient under Stali n to the propaganda purposes of the Party by merciles s suppression, sometimes physical, of insubordinate voices , and exhorbitant rewards of prestige, publication, wealt h and power for diligent servants . The literary world was , and with few exceptions still is, part of a massiv e industry of "pseudo-culture" through which the Part y exercises a virtual monopoly on literature, art, music , education and the humanities . The emergence of a decade - long debate between the two prominent journals bespeak s a broad cultural confrontation within Soviet society an d particularly within the Party and power structure ove r the issues in question . At stake were not only th e reputations, financial security, and power of the literat i immediately involved, but those of whole echelons of interes t groups behind them for whom they spoke . The central issue was no less than the course of Sovie t society epitomized by first Khrushchev's and then Brezhnev' s policies of de-Stalinization within Soviet society, and o f detente and expanding civil interchange rather than con- frontation with the West . In fact, neither side supporte d the policies of Khrushchev and Brezhnev . The reformists, grouped around the journal Novyi Mir , started by restoring aesthetic criteria based on classica l Russian literature not only to their own journal but t o Soviet literature as a whole, launching a savage attack o n the literary standards of the pseudo-cultural apparatus - 2 - and its journal Oktiabr', dictated as they were by propagand a and political expediency . Thus the orthodox literature o f Oktiabr', based upon orthodox (Stalinist) ideology and proclaimin g previously unassailable orthodox values, was subjected t o merciless criticism and found no protection from the state tha t controlled both journals . As the debate progressed the Novy i Mir group voiced their convictions that the reforms of de - Stalinization did not go far enough and were inadequate . The y proposed an alternative program of reforms . To the Oktiabris t orthodox stereotype of hostile capitalist encirclement , they contrasted the "human face" of the West . To the Stalinis t hypertrophied centralized "vertical" management of economy, the y posed horizontal managerial autonomy and regulation by th e "socialist market ." To the chronic stagnation of collectivize d agriculture, they proposed a fundamental reorganization on th e basis of a "link system" and the elimination of overbearin g direction by rural "little Stalins ." To the mystique o f professionalism centered on ideological and moral vigilance , they projected the secularization of Party work and it s subordination to rational economic criteria . The Oktiabrists strongly opposed the reforms of de - Stalinization . They rejected the goal of economic rather tha n ideological and military supremacy over the West ; the elevatio n of the consumer as the primary beneficiary of the state ; th e relaxation of cultural controls within the society and th e opening to cultural interchange with the West . They sought a s a minimum to freeze the movement to reform and to reverse i t if possible . They adhered to the image of the infallibilit y and omnipotence of the Party and its representatiyes and the y postulated hostile Western encirclement with agressive intent , a "fifth column" of enfeebling reformists, and a never-endin g condition of economic and political "temporary difficulties " at home in justification of that Party role . They saw in th e Khrushchev program the danger of corruption leading to th e irreversible degeneration of socialism ; for the worker s excessive material welfare leading to consumerism and a n unhealthy private-property instinct ; for the intelligentsi a access to Western bourgeois culture leading to individualis m and a pro-Western lobby ("fifth column"), for the Part y professional dissolution into economic work and the abandon- ment of the sacred moral and ideological mystique . All of tha t in head-on collision with reformers for whom it was precisel y Stalinist orthodoxy that was the source of corruption an d degeneration of society . In their search for support th e Oktiabrists finally turned to the military as the island o f purity and dedication to true orthodoxy in a society awash wit h reformist sin . That led to a reiteration of the dogma o f asceticism, sacrifice, and the subordination of all else i n support of the military in their eternal vigilance and goal o f military superiority over the West . - 3 - It is more difficult to identify the interest groups o r elements of society for whom the two journals spoke . The refor m minded seemed everywhere from Khrushchev and Brezhnev down , characterized by Oktiabr' as "economic and artistic muddleheads, " who usually have advanced degrees . .,they speak foreig n languages, are urbanized, civilized, and as a rul e are concerned exclusively with the interests of thei r careers and the privileges connected with these . Sometimes they fly very high . Well known examples ar e the Academician and Director of the Institute of th e USA and Canada Institute, Georgii Arbatov, the Academi- cian and Director of the Institute of World Economy an d International Politics, Nikolai Inozemstsev, and th e former assistant Secretary of the Central Committe e and editor-in-chief of the journal, Voprosy Filosofii , Ivan Frolov . These people are 'high-brow experts .' The y head institutes and edit journals . .They are in th e waiting rooms of the Ministers and Secretaries of the Centra l Commitee and on the staffs of some members of th e Politburo . A study in 1968 revealed that the readers of Novyi Mir cam e predominantly from large cities and were by profession writers , journalists, and scientists . The same study indicated that the readership of Oktiabr ' consisted largely of party professionals in the provincia l cities . This was consistent with the fact that the positiv e heroes of literature of the Stalinist era were precisely th e "little Stalins," the obkom and raikom Party secretaries , the regional dictators whose careers would be destroyed by an y reform of the Party political structure through de-Stalinization . From the priests of the pseudo-culture connected with Oktiabr' , they received the legitimation of their role and their statu s as positive heroes in the Stalinist period ; they supported th e priests in the post-Stalinist period in the hopes of retainin g that status . The winning combination proved to be that between th e Oktiabrists and the military, who proceeded to work togethe r toward their mutual goal of freezing reforms and interna l dissent . The implication of this study, however, is that th e internal political struggle in the Soviet establishment , which was focused in the 1960s with such remarkable openness i n the debate on de-Stalinazation, continues to have potentia l significance in the period of transition ahead . THE DEBATE ON DE-STALINIZATION 0F THE USSR (1961-1972) : NOVYI MIR VS . OKTIABR ' (Final Report to the National Council of Soviet an d East European Research : Jan . 1 - Dec . 31, 1980 ) Alexander Yanov Introduction : The Alternativ e Is there an alternative to the deepening economic, intellectual an d political stagnation which has gripped the USSR (and systems of the Sovie t type) in the 1970s? Are these systems doomed to economic bankruptcy, a s has already happened in 1980 in Poland? 0r to gradual degradation? 0 r to political collapse? 0r will they live through a militarist action o n a global scale, fraught with the restoration of a one man dictatorship ? The materials analyzed in the present work give us a serious basi s for assuming that in the 1960s the Moscow liberal intelligentsia, groupe d around the journal Novyi Mir, tried to work out an alternative to th e approaching stagnation . The Novyi Mir alternative was remarkably ana- logous to the one which was being worked out at the same time by the libera l intelligentsia in Prague and in Budapest .
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