Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (46 page)

The non-subversive capacity of war rumours is also illustrated by the
fact that they were often passed on by ‘loyal rumourers’, who were well disposed towards the government. Rudskii, the Vice-Director of Rovenskii Oil Production base, despaired in August 1947 that, ‘It is clear to everyone that there will soon be a war; sooner or later the Soviets will be destroyed either way. The population do not support us . . . England and America are very strong and mighty states. The end is inevitably coming to us, we are destroyed.’
^{58
An August 1947 letter to Malenkov}
begged him to ask Stalin to lower bread prices. The writer claimed to understand that the state needed to stockpile bread for a forthcoming

^{52
On hoarding, see Hessler,}
A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail
Practices, and Consumption, 1917–1953 (Princeton, 2004), 11. Hessler describes hoard- ing as a response to subsistence crises; in this period hoarders often also explained their behaviour as preparation for war.

^{53
Sv. RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 425, l. 4.}

^{54
HIP. A. 17, 331, 12.}

^{55
Sv. Ibid., d. 2837, l. 12.}

^{56
Inf. GARF R9526, op. 1, d. 90, ll. 55, 111.}

^{57
Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 23, d. 1449, l. 24; d. 2835, l. 98.}

^{58
Sv. RGASPI f. 17, op. 122, d. 289, l. 62.}

Panics, Peace, and Pacifism 1945–53
139

war, but pointed out that the people needed to do so as well.
^59
A.D.V.
was prosecuted in 1945 for criticizing Soviet foreign policy from an ‘excessively loyal’ perspective. He argued that ‘it was necessary initially together with Germany to defeat America and then to finish with Germany.’ As it was, Britain and America were now ‘weaving webs against the USSR’ and preparing for war. In his defence he argued that he did not consider such comments to be counter-revolutionary.
^{60
Rumours of war were spread by those who were positively, as well as}
negatively disposed towards Soviet power.

War rumours succeeded in this period because ordinary Soviet citi-
zens deployed the ‘tactic’ of
bricolage
and inferred that conflict was likely. Government initiatives and shifts in policy were routinely inter- preted by ordinary citizens as signs that a new war was about to break out. The September 1946 ‘Campaign to Economize on Bread’, was interpreted as a pre-emptive initiative to conserve food before a new war in Moscow, the Crimea, Vologda, Ivanov, Novgorod, Pskov, Rostov, Leningrad, Kiev, and Estonia.
^{61
A mechanic of ‘Forward’ Artel, in the}
city of Tarangog, explained to his colleagues that, ‘On the Soviet Turkish border a war is going on. From there they are sending many wounded. They have begun the evacuation of the cattle from the Caucasus . . . This is the cause of the rise in prices for foodstuffs.’
^{62
The vigorous campaigns to collect the grain harvest were also repeatedly}
interpreted as signs of a coming war.
^{63
Even the arrival of an}
obkom
instructor in Shushvalevskii agricultural Soviet, Poltava
oblast’
, in July 1947 was interpreted as a sign that ‘a meeting would be called about the beginning of the war’.
⁶⁴

This process of logical inference, on the basis of information received
in the official press, sometimes led to full-scale war panics in this period. The reaction to Churchill’s speech at Fulton Missouri on 5 March 1946 was exceptional in this regard. On 11 March,
Pravda
ran a front-page article, ‘Churchill is Rattling His Sabre’, which emphasized the lack of support his speech had received in the capitalist world.
^65
However,

^{59
Let. GARF f. R5446, op. 80, d. 8, l. 222.}

^{60
Proc. GARF. f. R8131, op. 31a, d. 75634, ll. 5–6, 40–1.}

^{61
Sv. RGASPI f. 17, op. 88, d. 705, ll. 1–137; op. 125, d. 425, ll. 1–53; op. 122, d.}

188, ll. 9–29.

^{62
Sv. Ibid., op. 88, d. 705, l. 137.}

^{63
Inf. Ibid., op. 125, d. 420, l. 57; Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 23, d. 2837, l. 60.}

^{64
Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 23, d. 4557, l. 10.}

^65
Pravda
, 11.3.46, p. 1.

140
Being Soviet

many Soviet citizens read the article, applied the ‘tactic’ of
bricolage
and concluded that the untrustworthy British were about to launch a fresh invasion. Alexander Werth found the population of Moscow ‘badly rattled by the talk about “the next war”’ in the following days.
⁶⁶

In some areas, the reaction extended beyond the normal wave of
rumouring and descended into panic. The records of the Crimea
oblast’
demonstrate how sensitive the local population was to war rumours. In the five days following the speech, savers bombarded the Bank of Yalta with requests to withdraw their cash; some banks ran out of supplies altogether and were forced to close.
^{67
In this light, Stalin’s interview on}
14 March in
Pravda
looks like an attempt to restore order, as were the thousands of rapidly organized meetings across the USSR on 15 and 16 March.
^{68
The records of those meetings testified to a breakdown of}
obedience in some areas. On Kuibyshev
kolkhoz
, Kirov
raion
, ‘Amongst the villagers they are gathering their possessions, harnessing their cows and evacuating for Tambov
oblast’
.’
Kolkhoznitsa
Safonova publicly abused Agitator Bondarenko declaring his words to be ‘pure agitation . . . you should not hide things from us, the war has already started. We don’t want to remain in work.’ Only two of the reports use the word ‘panic’. However, they indicate that panic was exactly what had taken place. Over the coming days ten
raions
or
gorkoms
provided eleven lists of questions asked by the population at agitational meetings. They reveal a striking uniformity of concern. The population wanted to know whether the speech was a declaration of war and whether Presi- dent Truman supported Churchill. As one report noted, ‘At nearly every meeting the question was offered whether the speech of Churchill in Fulton was leading to a new war.’
^{69
The response in the Crimea was}
probably more dramatic than elsewhere. It was within striking distance of Turkey, and the recent deportation of the local Tatar population may have contributed to a heightened sense of instability. However, the Crimean panics were symptomatic of the wider expectation throughout Soviet society that a war was imminent. Bank withdrawals also spiked in Ukraine after Churchill’s speech, and attempts to flee the imaginary front line occurred at various times throughout this period.
⁷⁰

^{66
Mem. Werth,}
Russia: The Post-War Years,
112.

^{67
Inf. GAARK f. 1, op. 1, d. 2550, ll. 13–14, 40.}

^68
Pravda
, 14.3.46, p. 1; GAARK, f. 1, op. 1, d. 2550, l. 19.

^{69
Inf. GAARK, f. 1, op. 1. d. 2550, ll. 5–50.}

^{70
Sv. TsDAHOU f. 1, op. 23, d. 2523, l. 9; d. 4557, l. 102.}

Panics, Peace, and Pacifism 1945–53
141

The manner in which Soviet citizens passed on and responded to war
rumours is evidence, once again, of the centrality of the ‘tactic’ of
bricolage
within informal rumour creation and transmission in the USSR. Soviet citizens cross-referenced information from official and unofficial sources and acted accordingly. Ordinary citizens were already
predisposed to think the Allies might betray the USSR. However, they did not act on this until they had, what they mistakenly assumed to be, verification from an official source. The trigger was often the false interpretation of a ‘sign’ from above. Invasion stories were largely transmitted within the oral news network as information. They survive within the Soviet era archives because the state considered them to be socially corrosive. Yet it seems unlikely that the women of Saks
raion
, Crimea
oblast’
, who began mourning the fact that they would never see their sons and husbands again in February 1946 were engaging in anti- party discourse.
^{71
They were simply convinced of the credibility of the}
story that the USSR was once again either at, or on the brink of, war.

A PEACE-LOVING SUPERPOWER: SOVIET DIPLOMATIC IDENTITY IN THE EARLY

COLD WAR: 1947–1953

The emergence of the ‘two camps’ vision of international affairs in late
1947 was a profound shift within Official Soviet Identity. Since at least the early 1930s, the USSR had derived most of its security via associa- tion: with Britain and France during the Popular Front era, with Germany during the Pact Period, and with the Anglo-Saxon powers between 1941 and 1947. In 1947–8 the USSR struck out on its own as a superpower in its own right with the capacity to defend not just itself but also its sphere of influence in Europe and, later, East Asia.

Before Stockholm: a moral state

Official Soviet Identity from late 1947 onwards revolved around two
ideas: peace and might. The language of peace was by no means a novelty within the Soviet political lexicon. It had been a vital Bolshevik

^{71
Inf. GAARK f. 1, op. 1, d. 2550, l. 40.}

142
Being Soviet

slogan in 1917 and remained an element within official rhetoric
throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
^{72
It was also invoked as the justification}
for the Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939. However, it was not until 1947–8 that peace began to play a central role in the official version of what it meant to be Soviet. In September 1947 Vyshinsky launched a vicious attack on the Anglo-American ‘warmongers’, an assault that was quickly followed by a Soviet motion at the United Nations to ban ‘agitators for war’ throughout the world.
^{73
The rhetoric of peace continued to grow in}
importance throughout 1947–8. When Stalin wanted to express his support for Henry Wallace, the US presidential candidate, he focused above all on his contribution to global security, and when the UN nuclear commission collapsed into rancour in mid 1948, the Soviet press indulged in a fresh bout of attacks on US nuclear aggression.
⁷⁴

The rhetoric of war and peace became the central distinction between
the two camps after 1947. The Soviet press also criticized the imperialist pretensions of the Western powers, particularly American ‘enslavement’ of Europe during this period.
^{75
However, peace became the vital}
watchword of the era. Conferences such as the August 1948 World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace in Poland and the 1949 World Congress of Supporters for Peace received heavy coverage; they vividly demonstrated the ‘astronomical’ global movement against the war- mongers.
^{76
The Paris gathering established a World Peace Council}
which was joined by national and local affiliates throughout the world. The first Soviet All Union Congress in Defence of Peace took place in August 1949, followed by a World Day in Defence of Peace on 2 October 1949.