Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (17 page)

laws; and engaged in
bricolage
, fusing the contents of the official press with information obtained via alternative sources. Such behaviour was typical of the way in which ordinary citizens related to Soviet power under Stalin.

It is not possible, with the sources currently available, to describe
‘popular opinion’ in response to the Nazi–Soviet Pact. The sources that survive from the period are non-quantitative, offering snapshots of various viewpoints but little statistical sense of how widespread such views were. However, it is possible, and more interesting, to evaluate the collective
mentalit
^´
e
of Soviet citizens during these years. Certain rumours about the outside world were particularly successful in this period. These thriving collective narratives offer important insights into the way Soviet citizens imagined the world around them. Like jokes from another era, these rumours are windows into Soviet citizens’ shared consciousness and frames of meaning in the Pact Period.

The broad range of sources available reveals that there was a broad
range of responses to the Nazi–Soviet Pact. A significant number of Soviet citizens interpreted the Pact within the framework provided by the Soviet press, as a mechanism for bringing peace and security to the USSR. Alexander Werth describes the ‘rather reassuring impression’ created by the rapprochement with Germany and the sense, after the bloodless takeover of Eastern Poland, that ‘neutrality paid’.
^{100
A worker}
at the Stalingrad Factory in Leningrad stated that ‘the conclusion of a pact with Germany is more correct than with England and France. It has been clear for a long time that England is a country with a two-faced policy.’ Others voiced similar opinions that ‘events will show how England and France lost out in these events’.
^{101
Various respondents}
to HIP also remembered that they had ‘real faith in the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression Pact’, and ‘believed it was completely honest’.
^{102
Metalworker V. I. Motorin wrote in November 1939 to the Presidium}
of the Supreme Soviet in related terms, praising the ‘wisdom’ of Soviet foreign policy that had secured peace and expanded its borders.
¹⁰³

^{100
Mem. Werth,}
Russia at War
, 61, 65.

^{101
Sv. V. S. Gusev, N. A. Lomagin, O. N. Stepanov, K. K. Khudolei, and}

S. V. Chernov, eds.,
Mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie glazami Leningradtsev 1941–45
(St Petersburg, 1996), 4–5.

^{102
HIP A. 23, 468, 6; 3, 25, 38.}

^{103
Let. A. Ia. Livshin and I. B. Orlov, eds.,}
Sovetskaia povsednevnost’ i massovoe
soznanie 1939–1945 (Moscow, 2003), 15.

22
Being Soviet

However, a large number of Soviet citizens also seem to have doubted
the capacity of the Pact to rescue the USSR from the threat of war. Army commissar Oreshin, confided his anxieties to his diary, ‘with regard to the enemy we must be most careful when he swears his loyalty’.
^104
A
svodka
produced in Leningrad immediately after the Pact also noted that some people still had a ‘lack of faith in the German government’. Others even dubbed it a ‘joke’, saying it was a victory for German, rather than Soviet, foreign policy: ‘Germany in this agreement has freed its hands in relation to Poland and the Baltic countries.’
¹⁰⁵

What united both those who embraced and those who were critical
of the official line was their surprise at the decision itself. Scott notes how there were ‘huge queues’ for copies of the next day’s papers and that ‘most people registered astonishment. “What the hell! Pact with the Fascists?”’
^{106
This account was echoed by respondents}
to HIP who compared the news to an exploding bomb.
^{107
Agitators}
were bombarded with questions such as ‘How can we conclude that the basic source of war and the centre of aggression has suddenly concluded an agreement about non-intervention?’
^{108
As one propagan-}
dist candidly admitted in a letter to Zhdanov, many agitators struggled to respond clearly.
^{109
Some of those who expressed surprise were quite}
negative about the new posture of the USSR. Engineer D. asked, ‘How are our historians going to feel about themselves now? They shouted about Alexander Nevsky, now they will have to shout about centuries of friendship.’ Others struggled to comprehend how ‘suddenly Stalin has become a friend of the pogromites’.
^{110
However, for some individuals,}
the shock of the Pact was a sign of the greatness of Soviet foreign policy.

V. I. Motorin wrote to the Supreme Soviet in November 1939 and
exclaimed: ‘Ask yourself who truly could have read the articles in the newspapers and not been surprised and not had a smile on their face and not laughed . . . and said “This is excellent!”’
^{111
Whether it shocked their}
Bolshevik principles or simply their previous expectations, the events of

^{104
Mem. M. Carlow,}
Politruk Oreshinin Pa
^{¨
iva
¨
kirja,}
Lytdybr gj
Kbnh
yrf Jhtibyf
: The Diary of Politruk Oreshin
(Helsinki, 1941), 116.

^{105
Sv. Gusev et al.,}
Mezdunarodnoe polozhenia
, 6–8.

^{106
Mem. J. Scott,}
Duel for Europe: Stalin versus Hitler
(Boston, 1942), 28.

^{107
HIP. A. 3, 26, 61.}

^{108
Sv. Gusev et al,}
Mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie
, 3.

^{109
Let. Nevezhin,}
Sindrom Nastupatel’noi Voiny
, 58.

^{110
Sv. Gusev et al,}
Mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie
, 8–11.

^{111
Let. Livshin and Orlov, eds.,}
Sovetskaia povsednevnost’
, 15.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
23

August and September 1939 generated surprise and some confusion
amongst all sectors of the Soviet population.

September 1939–June 1941

The confusion generated by the Nazi–Soviet Pact deepened in the
following months. The fragmentation of Official Soviet Identity in diplomatic terms exacerbated the lack of clarity generated by the Pact and produced an almost limitless variety of interpretations of the relationship between the USSR and the outside world. George Gushin, the
News Chronicle
Correspondent in Moscow, noted in early 1940 that the ‘average Soviet citizen feels that Britain is now determined to launch an anti-Soviet crusade’ against the USSR.
^{112
Others were}
convinced that Germany remained the real enemy. In January 1941 a Red Army agitator, Eremeev, wrote to the journal
Sputnik Agitator
to ask for help. At the same meeting his audiences were asking ‘Won’t Germany attack the USSR from the West and Japan from the East in the spring of 1941?’ and ‘Why has the USSR not declared war on Britain and France?’
^{113
Respondents to HIP also reflected this diversity}
of viewpoints. One remembered that he ‘thought that there must be a war with England and America’,
^{114
another that ‘In 1940 the talk went}
about that war with Germany was inevitable’.
^{115
Werth claims that the}
intelligentsia were peculiarly pro-British whilst Scott argues that many ordinary citizens hoped for long-term cooperation with Germany.
^{116
The fluidity and uncertainty of official rhetoric made a variety of}
different interpretations feasible.

Faced with an inconclusive official narrative, Soviet citizens deployed
the ‘tactic’ of
bricolage
in order to understand the international situation better. As one respondent to HIP explained, ‘Before 1939 the Germans were the greatest enemy of the Soviet Union. In 1939 the Germans became the best friends of the Soviet Union. It was not said why. But I tried to think why.’
^{117
The most persistent and successful rumour of}
the Pact Period, that went far beyond the dark hints provided by the

^{112
Osborn, ‘Operation Pike’, 82–3.}

^{113
Inf. A.Ia. Livshin and I. B. Orlov,}
Sovetskaia Propaganda v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi
Voiny: ‘Kommunikatsiia Ubezhdeniia’ i mobilizatsionnye mekhanizmy (Moscow, 2007), 76.

^{114
HIP. A. 6, 84, 54.}

^{115
HIP. A. 6, 6, 54.}

^{116
Mem. Werth,}
Russia At War
, 99–100; Scott,
Duel for Europe
, 61.

^{117
HIP. A. 32, 1460, 46.}

24
Being Soviet

official press, was that a war was coming. These rumours were particu-
larly widespread in August–September 1939. John Scott remembered that the movement of Red Army troops towards Poland generated a range of rival theories about who they might fight: ‘Some said they were going to fight the Germans. Some said it was the British. Some ventured that they were going to invade Poland.’
^{118
A number of individuals}
faced prosecution for making comments such as ‘Hitler is following a peace policy with us whilst he is busy, but when he has dealt with the other countries he will turn against us’ in the immediate aftermath of the Pact.
¹¹⁹

Rather than declining after August 1939, war rumours remained
a consistent feature of the word-of-mouth network during the Pact Period. I. Azarov, a naval agitator, remembered that in early 1941 almost all conversations on trains and amongst work colleagues concerned the possibility that the USSR might get dragged into the European conflict.
^{120
Respondents to HIP also remembered that ‘al-}
though the radio spoke of peace . . . people said that there would be a war’.
^{121
The Milewski family, Poles deported to Arkhangel’sk after the}
occupation, excitedly recorded false outbreaks of war three times in their diary between June 1940 and June 1941.
^{122
A large number of people}
were prosecuted for passing on war rumours in this period, such as S.L.L., who concluded in early 1940 that the Western powers would ‘free their hands and move against the USSR’.
^{123
Such stories were}
taken seriously enough for people to act on them, buying up sugar, salt, flour, and fish in preparation for the forthcoming shortages.
^124
War
rumours were so widespread during the Pact Period that the Soviet press was forced into a series of denials that conflict was imminent, most famously in June 1941.
¹²⁵