Imperialism As the Highest Stage of Socialism

Abstract

The Soviet Union was an empire-in sense of being very big, bad, asymmetrical, hierarchical, heterogeneous, and doomed. It was also Utopia in power and a prison of peoples (sentenced to life without parole or death through eventual fusion). But was it a modern colonial empire? Does it belong on same trash heap as Dutch, French, and British imperial states that consisted of a national core and overseas dependencies? Paula Michaels seems to think that it does, but does not explain why. Her essay describes Soviet cleansing of Kazakh persons and practices, subjugation of Kazakh bodies to state medical authority, and denigration of traditional Kazakh social, cultural, and economic structures by a state that knew better than Kazakhs themselves how to care for their physical selves, their domiciles, and their villages. Since this sounds very much like progress and health care that Foucault would bemoan and most modern states would promote, question is whether there was anything specifically colonial or specifically Soviet about way campaign was conducted. On colonial score, Michaels argues her case indirectly, by suggesting that attempt by modernizing Soviet state to civilize its citizens was also a effort to reshape Kazakhs in their own image, a crosscultural encounter between civilization and Kazakh life. One could quibble that anonymous doctor from essay's opening lines might have been just as likely to pine for Belorussian marshes, Caucasian peaks, or Ukrainian steppes as for dense birch forests of Central Russia, or that sinister-named agents of Russian cleanliness Minlos and Akodus were ably assisted by Nurpeisov, Tleugabylov, and Salim, but general point seems valid and potentially very productive. Michaels does not pursue it, however, stating elsewhere that the experiences of Kazakhstan and Central Asia mirror that of other regions, including rural Russia. This weakens her argument somewhat, it seems to me-for if medical authorities used same tools of empire to sanitize Kazakh nomads and Slavic peasants, then what is utility of ''colonial empire as a comparative framework? One way to answer this question is to argue that mutual perceptions are as good a gauge of colonialism as behavior of medical missionaries or shape of state that bred them. Would Minlos and Akodus have described Tambov backwardness differently? Did most Kazakhs regard alien healers as Russian? Would a yes on both counts strengthen colonial argument? I expect so, but I would like to see more evidence.