Grand Valley Review
Volume 6 | Issue 2 Article 20
1991 Book Review: The Great Terror: A Reassessment Edward Cole Grand Valley State University
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Recommended Citation Cole, Edward (1991) "Book Review: The Great Terror: A Reassessment," Grand Valley Review: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 20. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/gvr/vol6/iss2/20
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Grand Valley Review by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. thy industrial culture. It occurs to me that the Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reas and narrati sweet despair I comfortably enjoy might it sessment. New York: Oxford University cipline. r self be an industrial artifact 1hat is possible. Press, 1990. Richard Pi But maybe these comforts are anesthetic, mind, but 1 numbing one's animal nature, making sub Over the past two decades, students of than Robel jectivity abstract, cerebral. Maybe my inter Soviet history have watched with fascination on many 1 nal life is not nearly as intense as that of a as two interpretations emerged and torians hav primitive hunter-gatherer. 1hat too is pos diverged in an effort to discover the truth Soviets in 1 sible, and maybe the avatars of reason will about the great Communist experiment in andhistoq explain why one possibility is more proba the Soviet Union. There has been agree presumat ble than the other. ment on such issues as the failure to alter uniquely~ human nature and to direct a monolithic history is tl AN1HONY PARISE world conspiracy from the Kremlin. What and misru has divided the interpretations has been the from ideo!( question of the meaning of the course of like agent: events as they have proceeded since 1917. stacks, sp One" team· of historians has been united by greatest m the idea that Soviet history has been a muniste:x.T militant variation on the great theme of political, aJ modernization. Another has seen it as the is a defon disastrous consequnce of modern ideolol West. ogy. Althougl The "A Team," clearly the sentimental the author favorite of academia, featured powerful have had t, scholars such as Sheila Fitzpatrick, Moshe has been d Lewin,). Arch Getty, and Jerry Hough, all tainty clai masters of social science wizardry. Under However, their skilled hands what common sense had through 19 seen as a cautionary tale of ideological folly ever have and sinister pathology was transmogrified ment. Sue into the story of a painful but necessary and for a ti march into the modern age of urbanization, to seewh< industrialization, and equality. Boiled down, was not a the A Team arguments came to this: the dotted witl Soviet people had been through hell all camps wa right, but at least it had been progressive populatioJ hell, and by the 1980s the country exhibited turning w most of the primary indices of a modernized pressed Ia society. out of the While grateful for the data generated by modernize social science methodology, the "B Team," BTeamlec remained faithful to the traditional analytic Central1
80 · Grand Valley Reriew ,.error: A Reas and narrative approach of the historical dis been Robert Conquest's history of Stalin's rd University cipline. Names like Leonard Shapiro, purges of the Communist Party in the Soviet Richard Pipes, and Adam Ulam spring to Union. The only comprehensive study of its mind, but none has been more prominent subject, it was written two decades ago from ~s, students of than Robert Conquest. Though they differ readily-available published sources, includ rith fascination on many points, in general, B Team his ing official Soviet documents (always merged and torians have shown a willingness to see the suspect) and the highly-colored accounts of over the truth Soviets in the context of their own culture survivors and defectors. Does the new data ~xperiment in and history rather than as manifestations of of the glasnost years compel a revision? A s been agree presumably universal (but probably new version of The Great Terror, subtitled ailure to alter uniquely Western) laws and trends. Soviet "A Reassessment," is the author 's own a monolithic history is that of a peasant empire captured answer. Cremlin. What and misruled by a ruling class decended The Reassessment has about one third IS has been the from ideological fanatics and their gangster more references than the original, thereby the course of like agents, and despite forests of smoke indicating the new volume of material in ed since 1917. stackS, space launches and the world's corporated into the teA-t. There is an entirely :>een united by greatest military establishment, the Com new chapter on the "Cultural Front" and the y has been a munist eA-periment has ended in economic, old chapter about the "Nation in Torment" ~eat theme of political, and moral ruin. The final product has been pluralized to embrace the restless ; seen it as the is a deformed caricature of the modern republics. There is an epilogue ominously )dern ideolol- West. titled "The Terror Today." Compared to the Although they have often longed to enjoy original editions, the new book is much ~ sentimental the authority of modern science, historians more informative and useful. The horrifying red powerful have had to recognize that their discipline statistics which were a major feature of the 'atrick, Moshe has been denied the kind of empirical cer work have been updated according to the rry Hough, all tainty claimed by the scientific method. latest evidence. Conquest's estimates have ~ardry. Under However, in the Soviet Union, from 1986 proved to be remarkably accurate, in error, non sense had through 1989, the gods came as close as they as he imagined, only on the low side. eological folly ever have to running a historical experi It may be that at long last general ·ansmogrified ment. Suddenly the clouds cleared away, academic assumptions about Soviet history mt necessary and for a time glasnost permitted the world will change. The old view has a long f urbanization, to see what Communism had wrought. It pedigree. For example, in the 1930s Sidney Boiled down, was not a pretty picture. A vast rustbelt and Beatrice Webb assured Professor Tcher 1e to this: the dotted with mass graves and old slave-labor nyavin that he was mistaken in thinking that ·ough hell all camps was the setting for a disoriented he had survived a slave-labor camp because n progressive population stampeding this way and that, slave labor could not profit the Soviet State, ntry exhibited turning without fail to ancient and sup and therefore slave labor could not exist in a a modernized pressed loyalties in an effort to find ways rationalized, planned economy. Such well out of the mess. Hardly the picture of a intentioned skepticism flourished even after generated by modernized society, and just about what the Khrushchev's revelations in 1956. Though the "B Team," B Team led us to eA-pect praised by the critics in the mid-1960s, the tiona! analytic Central to the B Team interpretation has first edition of The Great Terror had surpris-
Grand Valley Reriew · 81 ingly little effect on an academic consensus Francine du Plessix Gray. Soviet Women: Gray's exce that veered off in the direction of the above Walking the Tightrope. New York: endeavorp< mentioned panglossian sociological inter Doubleday, 1989. glasnost, pt pretations based on the indices of moder ( democrati2 nization. For hundreds of years visitors to Russia Sumarokov Now that the serried ranks of witnesses have returned home with tales both latter's soci have stepped forth, the memoirs have been wondrous and bizarre. However diverse the follows the published, and the mass graves have been accounts, they all dwell on the curiosities of travels fron opened, Conquest's interpretation has life in Rus', Muscovy, Russia, or the Soviet Great Russi gained new force. In characteristic B Team Union. Most often travelers stress the nega find out wt fashion, it emphasizes the terror implicit in tive aspects of the country, for these unfor what are th the Communist program from the outset, tunately tend to dominate. Such an atmos the book 1 the peculiar nature of the historical cir phere has produced within Russia a long volume abl cumstances, and the character of Stalin and tradition of fine social satire, most of which and elegant his associates. How has this been received official censorship quickly suppressed. In short-lived' among the living victims of Soviet Com the mid-eighteenth century, Alexander the Soviet 1 munism? When Conquest recently visited Sumarokov wrote a satirical song, "Chorus to Soviet men Moscow, he was lionized by the new intel a Topsy-Turvy World," in which a bird who the current lectuals and carried off in triumph to deliver has flown abroad returns to Russia to tell of riages; expl an ex-temporaneous university lecture. strange lands where people are moral, men, famil~ In one or two details the original The straightforward, rational, honest, pious, dis and create. Great Terror is better than the Reassessment. creet, educated, respectful, industrious; Plessix Gra For example, the author has removed from where "drunken men do not roam the Almost no< the preface his comments on the profound streets" (Segel, The Literature ofEighteenth the latest ve philosophic issues raised by his researches. Century Russia, I, 246). world This is a loss, because it made clear to the A century later the greatest of Russia's Like most reader the strength of a historical method "civic" poets, Nikolai Nekrasov, explored the Union, du which did not seek to delete the moral con sufferings of the Russians, especially the Russian tent of the sources in the name of some sort peasants with what one critic calls" social grandmotl of abstract social science. And Conquest no compassion· (Mirsky, A History of Russian magical o longer apologizes for harboring "the Literature, 229). In order to settle an argu abound n prejudices ... of most civilized men." But per ment among themselves, several peasants 1980s the v haps the human cost of Soviet Communism, wander around the country asking people phrase 'We now obvious to all, has rendered apologies of various classes the question of Nekrasov's as a result c of this sort unnecessary. masterpiece, Who is happy in Russia? They and on the are "told tales of extraordinary moral tion to he EDWARD COLE achievements, heroism, and crime and the womanwa poem ends on a note of joyful confidence in to stay at h the future of the people with the help of the and childn new democratic intelligentsia" (Mirsky, 231). clean hom Mirsky's description of Nekrasov's poem nice clothe could also apply to Francine du Plessix Even the
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