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Bourgeoisie As Internal Orient in the Soviet Lithuanian Literature: Roses Are Red by A Journal of Baltic Studies ISSN: 0162-9778 (Print) 1751-7877 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbal20 Bourgeoisie as internal orient in the Soviet Lithuanian literature: Roses Are Red by A. Bieliauskas, 1959 Rasa Balockaite To cite this article: Rasa Balockaite (2016) Bourgeoisie as internal orient in the Soviet Lithuanian literature: Roses Are Red by A. Bieliauskas, 1959, Journal of Baltic Studies, 47:1, 77-91, DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2015.1103510 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2015.1103510 Published online: 12 Jan 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 122 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rbal20 Download by: [Vytautas Magnus University] Date: 11 July 2017, At: 04:40 JOURNAL OF BALTIC STUDIES, 2016 VOL. 47, NO. 1, 77–91 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2015.1103510 Bourgeoisie as internal orient in the Soviet Lithuanian literature: Roses Are Red by A. Bieliauskas, 1959 Rasa Balockaite Department of Social and Political Theory, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania ABSTRACT In this paper, the concept of internal colonization is applied to the Soviet initiatives of re-socializing the large parts of the population and creating a socialist working class from peasantry, artisans, and residues of the bourgeoisie. The internal coloniza- tion, or the power relations between native Communists and their subalterns in Lithuania, is analyzed on the basis of Roses Are Red, a novel by Bieliauskas. Here, class is invented as substitute of race. The Soviet socialists stand for hegemonic standards of “normalcy,” whereas bourgeoisie is portrayed as subject of difference, as internal Orient and as internal colony, and the relationship between the two can be legiti- mately defined as internal colonialism. KEYWORDS Internal colonialism; Soviet colonialism; bourgeoisie; Soviet socialism; class; race; representation; Lithuania During our study years, in Kaunas, it was in 1967, we went to the restaurant ‘Eglė’ to celebrate our friend’s birthday on February 16. Most of the visitors in the restaurant were of middle age, very well dressed, gold jewelry, evening dress, laces, fur collars . I had not seen anything like that before. Everybody was very quiet, mysterious; there was no loud talking or songs. They danced very well. it was so weird for us . We began to wonder, and the waiter whispered to us, ‘it is the former high society, of the independence period, they are celebrating Lithuanian independence’, there . it was the first and the last time I ever saw such a thing. (Baločkaitė 2011, 418) Soviet internal colonialism: an internal schism The concept of “colonialism” has undergone significant transformations during recent years. Originally, the definition of colonialism referred to western European overseas expansion, where the colonist and the colonizer are of a different race and separated from each other by large quantities of water. It was believed that one cannot colonize people of his own race; that the colonies are overseas, so the great empire is at peace with its own neighbors (Thompson 2000, 91). The two components – physical distance and racial difference – shaped general understanding of colonialism, and Said himself used these arguments against proponents of Russian colonialism: “Unlike Britain or France, which jumped thousands of miles beyond their own borders to other CONTACT Rasa Balockaite [email protected] Department of Social and Political Theory, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University, Gedimino g. 44-102, LT-44246 Kaunas, Lithuania © 2015 Journal of Baltic Studies 78 R. BALOCKAITE continents, Russia moved to swallow whatever lands or people stood next to its borders, which in the process kept moving further and further east and south” (Said 1993, 10). However, due to Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism (1951 [1958]) and her thesis of “boomerang effect” explaining the relation between two largest totalitarian regimes, the twentieth century and the lessons of violent governance learned in colonies, the concept of colonialism has been increasingly applied in different con- texts to describe power relations between people on the same continent and in the same country, resulting in concepts of continental colonialism and internal colonialism. Continental colonialism indicates that both a colonist and a colonizer are on the same continent and of the same race, but there is a developmental gap, real or imagined, between the two. The German continental colonialism, or German expansion into Eastern Europe, was analyzed by Baranowski (2010), Kopp (2009), Nelson (2009), and Langbehn and Salama (2011); Austrian continental colonialism was examined by Ruthner (2002), among others. Russian continental colonialism, that is, the Russian territorial expansion into Siberia, Caucasus, Central Asia, and into Eastern Europe, was examined by Slezkine (1994), Thompson (2000), Khodarkovsky (2002), and Bassin (2006). Internal colonialism refers to the process when elites “colonize” their own people, seeing them as different, exotic, and barbarian. Both the colonized and the colonizer are in the same country and of the same race, separated by the developmental gap alone, that is, physical distances are substituted with social distances. The concept of internal colonialism was applied by Lenin (1899 [1964]), when he argued that internal inequalities within the country play, in the process of development, the same role as external ones. Later, the concept of internal colonialism was applied by Blauner (1972) to explain race relations in the US. Hechter (1975) applied it to explain relationships between England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and Weber (1976) argued that state building in France was similar to processes of “internal colonization.” In Russian studies, the idea of internal colonialism has been applied by Groys (1993), Kagarlitsky (2003), Viola (2009), Condee (2009), and Etkind (2011). To understand the phenomenon of Russian colonialism, it is important to keep in mind that Russian colonialism was both continental and internal. The continental colonialism includes Russia’s territorial expansion toward Siberia, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, which was based on Russia’s economic and cultural dom- ination over non-Russian ethnic groups. Internal colonialism refers toward processes within the borders of the state, that is, differentiation of society into two culturally distant social groups, whereas of one them feels entitled for the governance and reeducation of the latter. Etkind (2011) applies the concept of “internal colonization” toward Petrine and post Petrine Russia. Petrine reforms, he argues, inflicted schism on Russian society, between westernized elites and their orthodox subalterns. The Big Shave reform fixed the difference at the physical level – westernized nobles became recognizable by their shaved faces, and “shave” became a substitute a “whiteness.” The Russian nobility increasingly projected fantasies of sectarianism, promiscuity, and communal lifestyles on their own peasantry, seeing them as backward, irrational, primitive. Simultaneously, they felt they were not at home and estranged, and they saw themselves as aliens among “folks of their own blood” (Etkind 2011, 109). “Estate,” as Etkind argues, was invented in Russia as a substitute for “race.” Up to now, the Soviet colonialism was seen as part of and continuation of Russian continental colonialism, that is, Russian territorial expansion into neighboring territories as JOURNAL OF BALTIC STUDIES 79 Siberia, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. The seminal work of applying postcolonial paradigm toward Baltic states is Baltic Postcolonialism (2006), edited by V. Kelertas, including contributions by D.Ch. Moore, P. Peiker, K. Racevskis, among others. Here in this volume, the postcolonial condition is understood as a period after Russian domination over their continental territorial expansions in the Baltic states. However, it is necessary to make a distinction between Soviet continental colonial- ism and Soviet internal colonialism. Whereas the continental colonialism was directed toward accession of new territories, internal colonialism was directed against the residues of bourgeoisie within the territory of the state. After the Revolution, the Soviet authorities initiated the processes within their territories that might be legiti- mately called “internal colonization”–attempts to re-socialize, both by force and by education, a large part of the population within the territory of the state to destroy residues of the bourgeois regime and to create a new society. This had to be achieved by fostering industrialization and urbanization (Sunny and Siegelbaum 1994; Brunnbauer 2008), introducing new rites and rituals (Bogdanov 2009; Lane 1981), controlling linguistic developments (Kelly 2002; Gorham 1996), shaping new habits of domestic life (Reid 2005), and modeling human behavior according to the idea of kul’turnost’ (concept, referring to the ideal type of the Soviet subjectivity) (Kelly 2002). Soviet internal colonialism inflicted both a chronological schism as a radical rejection of the past and a social schism as the division between adherents and opponents of the Soviet socialism. Here, the racial superiority of the colonizer was replaced by the superiority of the socialist working
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