MARY BUCKLEY. Mobilizing Soviet Peasants: Heroines and Heroes of Stalin's Fields. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. 2006. Pp. xv, 367. Cloth $80.00, paper $39.95

Abstract

This book takes as its subject Stakhanovism: the short-lived movement to achieve maximum productivity on collective farms in the mid to late 1930s, rather than its better-known variant in the factories. Mary Buckley finds more significance in rural Stakhanovism for the Stalinist countryside than any scholar before her. Her book focuses on the thousands of people, mostly women, who for various reasons devoted themselves to Stakhanovism in the countryside. In this study, Buckley sets out “to capture something of the atmosphere surrounding rural Stakhanovism on farms, in conference settings, and on movie screens,” in addition to its appearance and representation in party and legal settings. Buckley is interested in the ideology of Stakhanovism, the mobilization of Stakhanovites, the social backing for the phenomenon, and its impact on gender roles. Because most rural Stakhanovites were female, the book focuses on women's experiences. The author has scoured the press and central archives for information about rural Stakhanovites, and this level of detail is one of the most impressive aspects of the study. Buckley argues that people became Stakhanovites for a number of reasons, including self-interest, conformity, personal enthusiasm, and self-defense. A strength of the work is Buckley's attempt to show how local motivations interacted with and modified central directives and ideology to shape the nature of the phenomenon at the grass roots.