Sedition : Everyday Resistance in the Soviet Union Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev / Edited by Vladimir A
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annals of communism Each volume in the series Annals of Communism will publish selected and previ- ously inaccessible documents from former Soviet state and party archives in a nar- rative that develops a particular topic in the history of Soviet and international communism. Separate English and Russian editions will be prepared. Russian and Western scholars work together to prepare the documents for each volume. Doc- uments are chosen not for their support of any single interpretation but for their particular historical importance or their general value in deepening understanding and facilitating discussion. The volumes are designed to be useful to students, scholars, and interested general readers. executive editor of the annals of communism series Jonathan Brent, Yale University Press project manager Vadim A. Staklo american advisory committee Ivo Banac, Yale University Robert L. Jackson, Yale University Zbigniew Brzezinski, Center for Norman Naimark, Stanford Univer- Strategic and International Studies sity William Chase, University of Pittsburgh Gen. William Odom (deceased), Hud- Friedrich I. Firsov, former head of the son Institute and Yale University Comintern research group at Daniel Orlovsky, Southern Methodist RGASPI University Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Timothy Snyder, Yale University Chicago Mark Steinberg, University of Illinois, Gregory Freeze, Brandeis University Urbana-Champaign John L. Gaddis, Yale University Strobe Talbott, Brookings Institution J. Arch Getty, University of California, Mark Von Hagen, Arizona State Uni- Los Angeles versity Jonathan Haslam, Cambridge Univer- Piotr Wandycz, Yale University sity russian advisory committee K. M. Anderson, Moscow State Uni- S. V. Mironenko, director, State versity Archive of the Russian Federation N. N. Bolkhovitinov, Russian Acad- (GARF) emy of Sciences O. V. Naumov, director, Russian A. O. Chubaryan, Russian Academy State Archive of Social and Political of Sciences History (RGASPI) V. P. Danilov, Russian Academy of E. O. Pivovar, Moscow State Univer- Sciences sity A. A. Fursenko, secretary, Department V. V. Shelokhaev, president, Associa- of History, Russian Academy of Sci- tion ROSSPEN ences (head of the Russian Editorial Ye. A. Tyurina, director, Russian Committee) State Archive of the Economy V. P. Kozlov, former director, (RGAE) Rosarkhiv N. S. Lebedeva, Russian Academy of Sciences Sedition Everyday Resistance in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev Edited by Vladimir A. Kozlov, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Sergei V. Mironenko Compiled by V. A. Kozlov and O. V. Edelman with assistance from E. Yu. Zavadskaia English edition edited and introduced by Sheila Fitzpatrick Translated by Olga Livshin English edition annotated by Andrew Janco New Haven & London This volume has been prepared with the cooperation of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) of the Federal Archival Agency of Russia (Rosarkhiv) in the framework of an agreement concluded between GARF and Yale University Press. Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of William McKean Brown. Copyright © 2011 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by James J. Johnson and set in Sabon Roman type by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan. Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kramola—inakomyslie v SSSR pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve, 1953–1982 gg. English. Sedition : everyday resistance in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev / edited by Vladimir A. Kozlov, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Sergei V. Mironenko ; compiled by V. A. Kozlov and O. V. Edelman ; with assistance from E. Yu. Zavadskaia ; English edi- tion edited and introduced by Sheila Fitzpatrick ; translated by Olga Livshin ; English edi- tion annotated by Andrew Janco. p. cm. — (Annals of communism) Translation of: Kramola—inakomyslie v SSSR pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve, 1953– 1982 gg. : rassekrechennye dokumenty Verkhovnogo suda i Prokuratury SSSR. Moscow : Materik, 2005. ISBN 978-0-300-11169-9 1. Human rights—Soviet Union—History—Sources. 2. Dissenters—Soviet Union— History—Sources. 3. Government, Resistance to—Soviet Union—History—Sources. 4. Propaganda, Anti-Soviet—History—Sources. 5. Evidence, Criminal—Soviet Union —History—Sources. 6. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1953–1985— Sources. I. Kozlov, V. A. (Vladimir Aleksandrovich) II. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. III. Mironenko, S. V. IV. Edel’man, O. V. (Ol’ga V.) V. Zavadskaia, E. IU. VI. Soviet Union. Verkhovnyi Sud. VII. Soviet Union. Prokuratura. VIII. Title. JC599.S65K7313 2011 323Ј.044094709045—dc22 2010021558 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10987654321 Yale University Press gratefully acknowledges the financial sup- port given for this publication by the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Historical Re- search Foundation, Roger Milliken, Lloyd H. Smith, Keith Young, Keith Young, Jr., the William H. Donner Foundation, Joseph W. Donner, Jeremiah Milbank, and the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation. This page intentionally left blank Contents introduction to the english edition Popular Sedition in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union, by Sheila Fitzpatrick 1 introduction to the russian edition The Meaning of Sedition, by Vladimir A. Kozlov 25 chapter 1. Stalin Is Dead! 65 chapter 2. The Voice of the People 95 chapter 3. Heretics and Profaners 153 chapter 4. Get Out the Vote! 167 chapter 5. Lone Protesters 189 chapter 6. Leaflets and Anonymous Letters 199 chapter 7. Authors and Their Suggestions for the Improvement of Life 251 chapter 8. Underground Groups and Organizations 284 Notes 333 Glossary 385 Name Index 389 Place-Name Index 408 vii This page intentionally left blank Sedition This page intentionally left blank introduction to the english edition Popular Sedition in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union SHEILA FITZPATRICK E ARE USED to picturing the Soviet Union, even after Sta- lin’s death, as a totalitarian state with iron controls, a per- Wvasive secret police, general conformity with ideological orthodoxy, and a cowed population. This book about popular sedition (kramola) presents a different, though not necessarily incompatible, picture. The secret police are well to the fore, certainly, for it is thanks to their investigative efforts that we have information about popular sedition in the first place; prominent also is the regime’s obsessive con- cern with preventing “heresy” and enforcing ideological conformity. But viewed through the prism of prosecutions for “anti-Soviet” speech and actions, the population looks a lot less cowed than might have been expected. What these archival records show is a society where grumbling and jokes about the government were endemic and where drunken outbursts involving abuse of the authorities and desecration of the flag occurred regularly. They show us Soviet citizens venting their anger by criticizing the regime in anonymous letters to the au- thorities and leaflets, making idealistic blueprints for a return to “true Leninism,” and—influenced by stories of the Bolsheviks’ exciting life in the revolutionary underground before 1917—“playing at revolu- tion” by forming tiny clandestine organizations, whose members chose code names, observed rules of conspiracy, and argued about political philosophy but virtually never attempted any concrete actions against the regime. 1 2 Introduction: Popular Sedition Everyday resistance is the subject of this book. Its forms range from dropping abusive notes in ballot boxes and defacing statues to hand- ing out leaflets and demonstrating with a placard in a public place. The time span is the 1950stothe1970s, that is, the first three decades after Stalin’s death. Typically the subversive words or actions came from individuals, although there were also small conspiratorial or- ganizations of a few like-minded friends. These were not serious, large- scale threats to the regime1 and almost never involved violence.2 Nor were the participants usually intellectuals, so the story of popular sedi- tion must be distinguished from the story—much more familiar in the West—of the intellectuals’ dissident movement.3 To understand the acts of resistance that are the subject of this book, we have to enter into the “us” and “them” mentality that was so in- grained in Soviet citizens.4 “They”—the political leaders, the privi- leged elite—were the ones who ran things, often cruelly and arbitrarily and in their own self-interest, while “we” were the masses, whose com- mon skepticism about the probity and good intentions of all rulers was taken for granted. Kramola, the title of the Russian edition of this book, is the old Russian term for “sedition,” dating back at least to Muscovite times; and its use in the Russian edition of this book points to the roots of Soviet popular subversive speech and actions in the “traditional opposition in Russia between the state and the people,” as well as emphasizes the equally traditional sensitivity of both earlier Russian and Soviet rulers to all forms of heretical expression. We are dealing, in short, with popular behaviors