Regional Oral History Office University of California the Bancroft Library Berkeley, California
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Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California University of California History Department Oral History Series Martin Edward Malia HISTORIAN OF RUSSIAN AND EUROPEAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY An Interview Conducted by David Engerman in 2003 Copyright © 2005 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ************************************ All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The regents of the University of California and Martin Edward Malia, dated December 16, 2003. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Martin Edward Malia, “Historian of Russian and European Intellectual History,” an oral history conducted in 2003 by David Engerman:, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2005. Copy no. ______ Martin Edward Malia TABLE OF CONTENTS—Martin Edward Malia Interview History by David Engerman i Interview 1: December 16, 2003 1 [Audio File Malia 01 12-16-03] Childhood, family and education 1 Early intellectual development in the late thirties and early forties 3 Language studies at Yale 4 George Trager’s Russian course at Yale 5 Initial interest in Russia 6 V-12 Program 7 Coursework at Yale 8 College life at Yale 13 Midshipman’s School 17 Meeting Russians in Dutch Harbor, Alaska; forming antipathy to the Soviet system 19 Interview 2: December 17, 2003 [Audio File Malia 02 12-17-03] Entering Harvard in Slavic studies 25 Michael Karpovich 26 Isaiah Berlin’s seminar 34 More on Karpovich 36 Discovering Alexander Herzen 38 Influence of Crane Brinton; interest in revolutions 40 Making connections at Harvard; trips to France, 1948-51 45 The postwar generation of French intellectuals; influence of communism on French thought 52 Influence of trips to France; finishing the doctoral dissertation 58 Interview 3: December 18, 2003 [Audio File Malia 03 12-18-03] Final thoughts on École Normale 61 Teaching at Harvard; curriculum reform 61 Becoming a tenure-tracked assistant professor 66 First trip to the Soviet Union as part of the Library of Congress book exchange program 66 Trip to Vladimir and Gor’kii 71 Meeting Karpovich’s family in Moscow 76 Gaining Karpovich’s approval after returning from the Soviet Union, 1956 78 Cultural exchanges with young Soviets 78 Meeting Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev 80 Final reflections on first trip to the Soviet Union 82 Observations in 1956 about the weakness of the ideological structure of global communism 83 Meeting Allan Dulles, head of the CIA, in Washington 84 Harvard Department of History faculty, late fifties 86 Russian Research Center 87 Denied tenure at Harvard; takes position at Berkeley, 1957 88 Karpovich retires, 1957 90 George Fisher 91 Meeting George Kennan 92 Karpovich’s Russian history lecture notes 93 The UC Berkeley Department of History, late fifties and early sixties 94 Interview 4: December 19, 2003 [Audio File Malia 04 12-19-03] Anti-Soviet joke 97 More on appointments at Harvard and Berkeley 97 Working with graduate students 100 Russian history courses at Berkeley 101 State of Russian and Soviet studies, late fifties to early sixties 103 Climate at Berkeley prior to the Free Speech Movement 105 Teaching at École Pratique des Hautes Etudes 106 Spending time with Communist intellectuals in Paris 106 Intellectual connections in the United States 112 Developing an intellectual framework for the comparative study of revolutions 112 Second trip to the Soviet Union, 1962 114 Trip to Warsaw, 1962 118 More on trip to Soviet Union, 1962 120 Meeting Anna Akhmatova in Moscow 121 Interview 5: December 21, 2003 [Audio File Malia 05 12-21-03] Advent of social history in the sixties 125 More on Anna Akhmatova 125 Krushchev’s denunciation of “degenerate art” at a Manezh art exhibit, 1962 128 Oleg’ Ginzburg 129 Denunciation of Malia in Pravda 129 “Russian career over until 1988” 130 Meeting Reginald Zelnik in Leningrad 131 The Free Speech Movement 133 Meeting with Clark Kerr 134 “The Two Hundred” 136 December 8 faculty meeting; Greek Theatre event 137 “The Slate Slate” 139 The Filthy Speech Movement 141 Carl Landauer’s December 8 speech 143 The Vietnam Day Committee 145 Thoughts on the anti-Vietnam War movement 145 Anti-war march to Oakland from Berkeley against the “Oakland Wall” 146 Effect of protests on the history department 150 Advocating “the Eugene McCarthy approach” 150 “It would flare up, recede, but it was always there;” student activism in 1966 151 Retiring from the battle, 1967-71 154 The collapse of the sixties movement 156 Interview 6: December 22, 2003 [Audio File Malia 06 12-22-03] More on the cause and legacy of the sixties’ student activism 159 Situating the sixties “revolution” in comparison with modern Western political revolutions; developing a comparative revolutions theoretical framework 161 Shifting career interests to general European history 163 The seventies, the decade of “Euro-Communism:” the experiment of popular leftist fronts 165 Traveling to Poland, summer of 1981 170 Pilgrimage to Czestochowa 174 Solidarity Congress in Gdansk, September 1981; realization that communism is mortal 175 Writing two articles on Solidarity in the New York Review of Books, 1982-83 178 Crackdown on Solidarity in 1981 179 Re-entering the American Slavic studies field 181 Debate in the history department over Gorbachev 183 Returning to the Soviet Union and Russian history, 1988 185 “Z” article in Daedalus 187 Interview 7: December 23, 2003 [Audio File Malia 07 12-23-03] Debate over Gorbachev in France 189 Glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet Union 191 Article in Daedalus, 1990 191 Losing anonymity as “Z” 194 Trip to Russia, 1991 198 Retirement in 1991 199 Articles in the New York Review of Books, 1991 199 Falling out with the New York Review of Books; writing for Commentary and The New Republic 201 Thoughts on post-Sovietism 202 “Reforming the field” of Soviet and Russian studies 203 Differences with Richard Pipes 204 Situating communism in the longue duree of European history 209 The end of the social welfare state 212 Interview 8: December 23, 2003 [Audio File Malia 08 12-23-03] More on the Age of Ideology 215 Questions for interviewer David Engerman, posed by Martin Malia; reasons for entering the field of Russian history 215 Engerman’s graduate studies at Rutgers and Berkeley 217 Controversy over Arno Mayer’s Judeocide argument 221 Discussion of Revisionism 223 Malia’s criticism of current trends in stasiology 226 Discussion of American exceptionalism 228 i INTERVIEW HISTORY by David Engerman Martin Malia, a historian of Russian and European intellectual history, taught at Berkeley from 1958 until his retirement in 1991 – though he remained an active presence in Dwinelle Hall until his death in November 2004. He came to Berkeley’s department as it was expanding its offerings in Russian and Soviet history; Nicholas Riasanovsky had been on the faculty for three years when Malia arrived, and within a few years they were joined by Reginald Zelnik. By his own account, Malia was “not an organization man.” Nevertheless, he was involved in some of the central issues at Cal during his long career there. Most notable here were Malia’s experiences during the controversy over the Free Speech Movement in fall 1964. He reports beginning the semester in favor of the students although he quickly grew disenchanted with the FSM and other student movements. His scholarly interest in revolutions – the topic of his final book, left incomplete – intersected with his political observations. His frequent comparisons of 1960s social movements with the French and Russian Revolutions only bolstered his opposition to student protests in his own time. Malia played an important role in Berkeley’s Russian history program, working with many Berkeley graduate students during the best years of the Russian program. Many of these students came together to produce a Festschrift in his honor: The Cultural Gradient: The Transmission of Ideas in Europe, 1789-1991 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). That volume was edited by two of his most successful students, Catherine Evtuhov at Georgetown and Steven Kotkin at Princeton. The range of topics makes a fitting tribute to Malia’s capacious intellectual interests; essays covered comparative topics over two centuries of European history.