Memory production, vandalism, violence: Civil society and lessons from a short life of a monument to Stalin

Abstract

On September 15th 2016, the leaders of youth group the “Russian Spirit,”2 unveiled a monument to Stalin in the Siberian city Surgut, located in central Russia. The bust was erected a few meters away from a display board, which states, “In some time at this place there will be a monument to the victims of Soviet Repressions.”3 Someone poured red paint over Stalin's bust twice and wrote “henchman” on the side. The first time vandalism occurred was the day after the installation. The local municipalities removed the monument three weeks after due to the absence of state authorization and also because the monument lacked “public toleration.” The defacement of the statue and the formulation of the city council of Surgut, triggered an inquiry on what is “public toleration” and how should one react to monuments of perpetrators in a public domain? Should the memorial exist, in the spirit of toleration of the views which disturb, outrage, and lack respect for the millions of victims? Or is the approach of the municipalities that banned the monument and the “good” civil society that repeatedly vandalized the monument appropriate? I argue for the latter. Traditionally, civil society is perceived as a “watchdog” of society, a guarantor of democracy, and as an inherently positive institution. This work calls for a reimagination of the role of civil society engaged with memory initiatives and argues that limits to toleration of “uncivil” civil society exist. We should not presume that civil society initiatives are always respectful of victims, tolerance, and diversity. An analysis of the qualities or “textures” and “temperature,” of civil society gives a more accurate picture of civil society operating in a particular milieu (Krygier, 2002). This work assesses the posts on social media, the official website of the organization “Russian Spirit,” newspaper articles, and secondary interviews from September 2015 (a date before the erection of the monument), to the present day to examine the qualities of the civil society. The paper first provides a working definition of the term “civil society.” I then examine the power dynamics behind memory politics through the history and historiography of memory production and the specifics of Stalinist and anti-Stalinist attitudes in the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. This paper further outlines the characteristics of “uncivil” civil society. The work concludes by discussing potential paths of enduring revisionism, elaborating on the possibilities of toleration, resistance, condemning violence, and imposing restrictions through legal means. The definition of “civil society” is disputed and not static; it evolves and differs depending on the context and on the continually changing modes of participation and communication. The key characteristics, attributable to the concept of “civil society” as defined in the 19th century, are: “individuality, plurality, publicity” (Cohen & Arato, 1994, p. 14). The concept of “civil society” implies the realization of the social dimension but also of “individual development and ethical choice” (Cohen & Arato, 1994, p. 14). It also suggests that diverse groups of people form civil society and articulate their views publicly through the available communicative channels. The 20th century contributed to three primary attributes of civil society (Cohen & Arato, 1994). The first attribute relates to civil society as a site of contestation of ideas and contribution to the collective identity (Cohen & Arato, 1994). The second conveys that civil society also consists of “informal networks, initiatives and social movements” (Cohen & Arato, 1994, p. 14). The emphasis is put on detachment from the formal and institutionalized organizations. The third attribute relates to the development of the concept of “public sphere” as outlined by Habermas (1989). Thus, the deliberative and communicative functions of civil society were further developed (Cohen & Arato, 1994). This can be seen in the fact that modern democracies are based on the idea that the actions and policies formulated from “above” are subject to contestation and affirmation from “below.” This shift means that the citizens can question the practices of a government in public deliberative settings (Cohen & Arato, 1994). The scope of the concept of “civil society” is now broader, which enables new forms of civil society to appear and be recognized. Gready and Robins (2017) suggest that the notion of civil society should apply broadly to every type of collective action and should not be restricted to nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that focus on human rights. For a posttotalitarian context, an extended definition, which transcends the narrow understanding of civil society based on institutions and political activities, is essential due to the danger that the state might restrict traditional channels of operations of civil society through legal means. The term “civil society” has different meanings in the West and the postcommunist space. Civil society in the postcommunist countries is perceived in a strictly political, often oppositional, sense. In contrast, in the West, civil society is linked to associational life, as famously coined by Putnam (1995). Another tendency concerning civil society in the former republics of the Soviet Union is pointing to the “uncivil” nature of civil society, which increasingly has embarked on nationalism and populism (Kopecky & Mudde, 2003). These bleak prospects are due to the narrow definition of civil society and selective use of the term, which would include only “prodemocratic” civil society, leaving everything that does not meet this criterion, behind (Kopecky & Mudde, 2003). Kopecky and Mudde (2003) state that “uncivil” civil society in Eastern Europe is closer to the needs of the local people than the Western NGOs, which the authors call “virtual civil society” because they do not contribute to the democratization efforts locally but are driven by the global elite's interests. They exist only on paper rather than have any tangible effect (Kopecky & Mudde, 2003). Keeping the ambiguities and indecisiveness associated with “the much-contested but yet fashionable term” (Crocker, 2008, p. 500) “civil society” in mind, this work defines “civil society” as not state-run and noncommercial goals driven groups. The paper focuses on civil society that engages with memorization of the past and attempts of post-Soviet Russian society to overcome the legacies of the Soviet repressions. Following Habermas (1989), the essay deems the communicative dimension and the ability to transfer a message to the public sphere to be at the core of the concept of civil society. The activities of civil society can be dispersed in time and space. Although the “Russian Spirit” is not a registered group, and it does not represent a positive development as it endangers democratic institutions, the “Russian Spirit” is nonetheless a part of civil society. The liberal understanding of the term “civil society” is not illustrative of the condition of civil society in postconflict or postauthoritarian societies, where the society is divided, and the local actors question the legitimacy of the new government (Wallis, 2019). In Russia, where the state is strong, civil society does not represent a threat to the government. To the contrary, the nationalist, right-wing civil society often endorses the state's agenda. It is not a case of a “good” state after “transition” and a “bad” civil society undermining its legitimacy. On the opposite, civil society at focus either explicitly or implicitly supports the state's approach to the past—it also engages in whitewashing and rewriting of history. Concerning the monument to Stalin in Surgut, we examine both the actions of the “Russian Spirit” and the discourse around them. The “Russian Spirit” is an organization created to be an alternative source of news—“useful” and “nonelite,”4 as their website states.5 The official social media page on Vkontakte,6 the Russian analogue of Facebook declares that May 9th, 1945, is the “date of birth” of the organization. The identification with WWII Victory Day points to the glorification of the war by the group and attribution of the victory to Stalin. Stalin's myth, on which the “Russian Spirit” draws, is based on the myth of World War II, employed by both the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, for various purposes. During the Soviet period, it was used for rebuilding the country postwartime. The WWII myth was used for boosting economy, creating a sense of national pride, justifying a gulag system, reaffirming the Leninist myth of socialism as the ultimate model of governance, and creating a heroic narrative. Dismantling the myth of Stalin began with Khrushchev; first during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party on February 25th, 1956, and then the 21st Congress in October 1961. Both speeches were half-hearted, yet essential measures to delegitimize the cult of the personality of Stalin. Khrushchev's secret speech was a vital milestone, which nevertheless did not end gulags and did not result in greater democratization of the system. The myth of WWII was already strongly rooted in the minds of Soviet citizens, for whom the memory of the war was still fresh. The cleansing of system from Stalin's henchmen, by summarily executing the henchmen on false charges of espionage and treason was more of “a self-serving tactic” by Khrushchev (Nuzov, 2013, p. 287). This way he wanted to eliminate party fractions and to create, for himself, a fruitful foundation for leadership, rather than attempt to bring to accountability the mass murderers (Nuzov, 2013, p. 287). Khrushchev numerously contended that he was complicit in crimes by saying, “I have blood on my hands up to my elbows” (as quoted in Nuzov, 2013, p. 285). Faced with strong neo-Stalinist opposition, Khrushchev still managed to rehabilitate a significant number of people (Nuzov, 2013). After Khrushchev no longer held power and until Gorbachev's leadership, during Brezhnevite Stalinist myth reconstruction, the topic of Stalinist repressions became taboo, and the terror victims were “relegated to the status of silent witnesses” (Adler, 2012, p. 332). Brezhnev's rule, together with the ban on a critique of Stalin, was marked with the resurrection of authoritarian rule, as well as the invasion of Czechoslovakia, accompanied by the violent suppression of protests, and resumed purges against Soviet intelligentsia. Perestroika, Gorbachev's liberalization of the system and the rethinking of the Soviet experience was a time when people wanted to discover the truth about the Stalinist crimes. Stalin's supporters formed a marginal minority at that time. The Soviet myth-making was dependent on the status of actors, who shaped and transmitted the myth, as well as creating “personal bonding in making elites” (Weiner, 1996, p. 640). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the start of the economic downturn in Russia, people were protesting on the streets, demanding to open archives and show the places of burial of the executed victims. Before perestroika, most of the population accepted the Soviet myth. Perestroika policies resulted in rapid destruction of the myth and “destabilization of the system,” or a “mental revolution, a logical screw” (Sherlock, 2007, p. 22). The article by Andreeva, “I cannot compromise on principles,” in 1988,7 was one of the primary counterperestroika triggers. In this article, a teacher of chemistry made a harsh assessment of perestroika. The teacher was praising Stalin for combatting Nazism, demanding adherence to Marxist–Leninist principles, which, in her views, Gorbachev betrayed by being pro-Western and cosmopolitan. Gorbachev successfully overpowered the response that the article created with the article by Yakovlev on the principles of perestroika, signifying revolutionary thinking. A foundational myth, for example, the myth of Lenin and October Revolution, allows the power to justify its “privileged position of the strategic elite” (Sherlock, 2007, p. 20). The creation of a foundational myth was on the agenda of all the presidents of Russia after the transition. This involved rethinking the past to create a metanarrative people could identify with (Sherlock, 2007, p. 21). The myth creation relates to the “dramatic rendition of past events” to signal that the problems of today are resolved (Sherlock, 2007, p. 5). It provides a feeling of identification, appealing to emotion in a way that the population is an active participant in the process as well (Sherlock, 2007, p. 5). So, the relationship between myth production and reproduction between the state and society at large is mutually reciprocal. Understanding the need for appealing to the public, Putin took a different form of Yeltsin's reluctant efforts of myth making. Instead, he adopted an “uplifting narrative of tsarist and Soviet past” (Sherlock, 2007, p. 21). One of the most quoted phrases is Putin's portrayal of the breakup of the USSR as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.”8 Putin's creation is “the myth of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ [which] is crucial to the understanding of Putin's regime because it initiated the ideological consensus between the authorities and society” (Khapayeva, 2016, p. 64). The popular WWII myth generates an emotional attachment among society and proves that “nationalism may idolize heroes, and it likes victories” (Brown & Ní Aoláin, 2015, p. 141). Fish (2001, p. 74) purports that Putin's strategy concerning ideology is the replacement of communism with the three “readily visible institutions as objects of affection and respect”: “the presidency and the President himself,” the military, and the law. The appeal to the identity construction and the myth creation is visible in “the political slang which came into popular currency during Putin's reign (successor, agents of influence, demographic crisis, stabilization fund, internal enemy, spiritual confusion)” (Etkind, 2009, p. 191). To further the trend, the Ministry of Education endorsed the history textbook by Filippov (2007), which refers to Stalin as “an effective manager”. President Medvedev in 2010 introduced a short-lived and ridiculed Historical Commission, referred by commentators as the “Orwellian initiative,” with the imposition of administrative liability for those engaged in “falsifications of history to the detriment of Russia's interests.” Medvedev's Commission is another example of the state's control over the interpretation of history and memory production. A variety of factors determines memory politics; a balance of power is essential, yet not the only factor. In the Russian context, a need for identity building was one of the critical factors that shaped memory politics. For many Russians, the Leninist and the WWII myths were the only belief systems they had (Adler, 2012). The memory of the past determines the construction of national identity: “the past becomes the benchmark against which the self attempts to verify its present identity” (Mälksoo, 2016, p. 10). The fall of the Soviet Union for Russian citizens resulted in an identity vacuum. To fill this vacuum, Putin endorsed the WWII myth. As convincingly argued by Grandville (2012), if the national identity is linked to past crimes, the memory construction will not lead to the democratization process, as the relationship between memory and identity is reciprocal. Here we draw on the shift of who is an agent of memory, envisioned by Benjamin (1968), and how collective memory, personal, and family memory became dominated by cultural memory. Cultural memory manifests in arts, film, different kinds of media, and public education. The agents of memory are not so much ethnicities or nations as a group (Halbwachs, 1992), or the three generations of victims and those who bore witness (Assmann, 2018),9 but those actors, who dominate the cultural domain. It is the fight over winning of hearts and minds of people through cultural means of reproduction and public education, which are mostly monopolized by the state. As argued by Chambers (2001, p. 150), “… the more serious problem is with groups that spread a culture of hate rather than engage in violence. Here the defense must be alternative venues of cultural creation…” It is unlikely that someone in Russia, who is not driven by personal or professional interest, will consult archives, read monographs and memoirs, or read the (not so optimistic) literature on the period. Most likely, that person will consume (not selectively), the information provided by the state most often, through state-controlled television, without seeking any alternative sources of evidence. The state narrative dominates over individual or group accounts of victims. The narrative of the “Russian Spirit” mostly follows the metanarrative of the state. They have adopted the political slang of Putin's reign, namely, “moral crisis, decaying West, degradation of masses, support for destructive tendencies in society, Russia's unique spirit, protecting children from harmful information, and agents of influence.”10 The group focuses on “the popularization of Russian worldview” and pays particular emphasis on national identity (“Russian—is not a nationality, but the belonging to the great and ancient civilization”).11 The group adopts exclusionary rhetoric of “obsolete unitary notion of culture” an “us vs them” rhetoric and the claim over monopoly on truth and righteousness (Huyssen, 2011, p. 619). Little information about the “Russian Spirit” is available on their website, last updated three years ago.12 As it is not a registered group, they do not mention the number of members nor the criteria for joining. The leader of the group, Denis Khanzhin, is a graduate of Surgut State University in automated systems and computer technology. Khanzhin works for a public organization called “Chornyi Mys,” and is a member of the “Working Youth of Siberia.”13 An estimated twenty people attended the ceremony opening the monument to Stalin in Surgut, with lying of flowers (red carnations, often used for WWII celebration) and pronouncement of speeches. Two people dressed in Soviet army uniforms stood guard at the monument. After the first-time red paint was poured on the monument; someone removed the paint straight away. But no one removed the paint after the incident reoccurred. The monument had the following quote of Stalin engraved with golden letters: “After my death, much garbage will be brought to my grave. But the wind of history will blow it away.”14 The wind blew away two letters from the sign, leaving Stalin's bust facing the river Ob with red paint on his head and an incomprehensive quote with missing letters. The bust was made in the Ossetia region of Russia, which has a rather large number of Stalin's monuments, and therefore, the creation of the bust was quick. The fundraising campaign lasted for three weeks. A total of 246 people donated 165,033 rubles for the monument.15 People donated the money to the personal bank account of the leader of the group, Denis Khanzhin. According to Khanzhin, the older generation met the initiative of the monument with great enthusiasm, but the younger people, “had more questions to ask.” Khanzhin explains it by the “degradation” of youth and degrading education.16 Khanzhin argues that the Khanty-Mansiysk region's policies do not always correspond to the ones in Kremlin.17 Khanzhin considers himself one of the few people who advances Putin's politics in the region. According to Khanzhin, “Stalin was a victim of political repressions of Khrushchev.”18 Khanzhin received a warning from law enforcement officials for “propaganda of Nazi paraphernalia and symbolism,” for appearing at an event dedicated to the victims of the Soviet Repressions with a portrait of Nazi sympathizer, Andrei Vlassov.19 The motivation behind such actions, according to the supporters of Khanzhin, was to demonstrate that not everyone persecuted during Stalin's rule could be considered a victim of political repressions.20 According to the activists of the Surgut victim-support group called “Our Memory,”21 forcefully transferred people constituted a third of the population of Surgut by 1932. There were no gulags around Surgut. A silver lining of the appearance of Stalin's bust in a public space in Surgut is that it attracted the attention of the city council that promised to help with the installation of the monument to the victims of repressions. For the first time in ten years, thanks to the monument to Stalin, they have finally started talking about the monument to the repressed victims.22 The “Russian Spirit” imitates a typical and much favored civil society of the Soviet period. It is not clear whether the membership in such groups as the Communist Party and Komsomol during Soviet times was a personal choice or a quest for the benefits of such memberships: promotion, guaranteed higher pensions, vacations, state-budget apartments, and even goods—from food to socks (Merridale, 2000). Smaller associational groups, like the “Russian Spirit,” were usually based on “celebrated virtues of personal hygiene, abstinence from alcohol, cross-country-running” (Merridale, 2000, p. 242). These “virtues” are the foundations of the activities of the “Russian Spirit.” The rhetoric of WWII, a need for a “strong leader,” a paternalistic figure who stands for his words, is omnipresent in the videos in favor of Stalin's monument by the “Russian Spirit.” “The heritage of Stalin includes his works on economics, politics, sociology. Stalin has established foundations of a new society; a fair distribution of welfare; development of physical and spiritual qualities; a publicly available and effective education; career development for workers from people as opposed to ethnic clans in power,” says the leader of the “Russian Spirit,” Khanzhin. The “Russian Spirit” appeals to empty signifiers as the “will of common, simple people”; the group is against corruption and poverty. They often refer to Stalin's modest lifestyle: his children worked for the country, he left just a “broken mug and two suitcases worth of belongings” after his death.23 Other discourse of the group points at the disenchantment with modernity. They are against alienated social relations, against consumerism, in support of sports and healthy lifestyle, and against immunization. The bust of Stalin remains the biggest project of the organization. The “Russian Spirit's” beliefs are not about the “clash” of two Stalins—“Stalin the tyrant and Stalin the victor in the Great Patriotic War” (Dubin, 2010, p. 48). For the “Russian Spirit,” Stalin is primarily associated with the WWII victory, but they also acknowledge that he was responsible for atrocities. Dubin argues that Stalin combines the two essential sides of the Russian identity—that of the victor and that of the victim. The symbol of “Russia as a victor” is manifested in the narrative of the WWII victory, a powerful empire. (Dubin, 2010, p. 48). The “Russia as a victim” myth points at a martyr, a sufferer who endures and does not complain, who can bypass whatever fate sends, who is poor and honest (Dubin, 2010). Stalin corresponds to both of these myths. Dubin (2010) argues that a more accurate explanation of the perception of Stalin by the Russian population is not that of admiration or hatred, but rather indifference or a sense of mystery. The percentage of those who consider something about Stalin is still unknown is at its height, according to the data in 2008 (Dubin, 2010). The statistics in 2008 suggested that the poorest people, those over 50 years old, and those living in the periphery, are most likely to support Stalin. Dubin (2010) contends that the Stalinist myth will not have any future as the young generation is not adhering to it. It is difficult to give a viable estimate of how accurate the prediction of Dubin (2010) is; especially when considering the increased use of the WWII victory narrative after the annexation of Crimea. However, Dubin (2010) accurately explains and predicts that the image of Stalin will be revoked each time there will be a need to reassure the population in the sacredness of the leader. Some argue that Russia's approach to the past lacks mnemonic aspects—thus calling it “organized forgetfulness” or “mass amnesia” (Grandville, 2012, p. 384). But the opposite is true—too many memories exist in Russia. In Etkind's (2013) words, it is a multihistorical environment of nonlinear memory because of the absence of any consistent discourse. We see the logical incongruencies with Putin, celebrating 100 years of existence of the KGB one day, and the next day opening the Memorial to the Victims of Soviet Repressions, quoting Solzhenitsyn's wife that we should “acknowledge, remember, punish, and only then—forgive.” The heroic narrative is dominant in Russia, leaving no space for the victims in the state rhetoric. The re-Stalinization of the 2000s reached its climax in 2014; after the annexation of Crimea, it was a considerable part of Russia's Realpolitik (Khapaeva, 2016). The largest number of monuments to Stalin is located in the North Ossetia region—24 (Khapaeva, 2016). In 2001, several major Russian cities erected a monument to Stalin, usually with the lobbying of the KPRF (the Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and under the pretext of tribute to the WWII victory (Khapaeva, 2016). We cannot make a simplistic analogy between actions of the "Russian Spirit” to that of the state, because actions of the state do not fit a frame of historical amnesia or positive restructuring of the past. One can still provide numerous examples of what would be positive initiatives to foster constructive dialogue about the past, but nearly all the initiatives of the state fall short in commitment, design, implementation, monitoring, the follow-up, failing to consult victims or to take into consideration the interests of those concerned. One example of such initiative is an exposition located in St. Petersburg Museum of Political History in the form of a labyrinth. The exposition is meant to allow the viewer to form his/her/their judgment about the Stalinist regime. The lowering of threshold does not work when it comes to memory, as could be seen from the Monument to the Victims of the Soviet Repressions in Moscow (“the Wall of Sorrow”), commissioned by the state, which did not become “the place of memory.” The nature and the scope of violations require more explicit approaches than that. Adler (2012) argues that what we see is “two competing narratives of the repression—the story of the victims and survivors, and the story of the repressive state's survival” (p. 335). As was persuasively argued by Remnick (2001), “It's as if the regime was guilty of two crimes on a massive scale: murder and the unending assault against memory” (p. 101). The “Russian Spirit” is a by-product of the state's ambivalence to address the Soviet past constructively. The issue of “civility”24 is discussed because commentators focus only on quantitative aspects of civil society (the more civil society groups—the better approach), failing to analyze the qualities civil society has. The line between civil and “uncivil” society is hard to draw, as no set standards exist. One argument against the dangers of labelling a group as “uncivil” is that civil society is inherently fluid; its actions should be evaluated on a case by case basis. As Kopecky and Mudde (2003) concluded, the same organization through different periods of time can be referred to as a “good” civil society and then “bad” a few years later. We still need adjectives when we discuss civil society. When evaluating the qualitative characteristics of civil society, one needs to clarify if we look at words or actions, as deeds do not always correspond to words. Although words wound, we are not dealing with issues of hate speech exclusively. The monument is material, visible, and hard to erect or dismantle with no one noticing (Etkind, 2013). A monument is a zone between symbolic and physical, temporal, and spatial, when words and intentions become actions. Monuments are key tools of memory politics; Etkind (2013) argues that they represent “hard memory” - the physical, as opposed to “soft memory,” such as story-telling, arts, and culture. Monuments are meant to generate public discussion. The “Russian Spirit” and its monument, forces one to question whether a tension between “tolerant pluralism” and communitarian attachments based on “nationalist, religious, and ethnic” principles exists (Krygier, 2002, p. 240). Agnes Heller (2001) argues that for civil society to have cultural memory, it should form an identity. Civil society, according to Heller (2001), cannot be a single-issue movement or based on nostalgia solely. Another reason why such a strong label as “civility” is applied because one associates civil society (and particularly the Soviet dissent) with morality. For the Soviet dissent, as Tismaneanu (2001) contends, “[t]he primary impulse in the phenomenology of resistance is moral” (p. 982). The dissidents themselves had increasingly used the notion of morality as they could not find legitimation in the Soviet legal system. “Uncivil” for Krygier (2002) means “intense, particularistic, exclusive, and immoderate,” but important nevertheless (p. 240). It can potentially ‘threaten the possibility not merely of civil society, but of any society at all” (Krygier, 2002, p. 240). Avishai Margalit (1996) in his book The Decent Society also differentiates between “civil” and “uncivil” society. “Civility” is when individual members of society do not humiliate others.25 Nonhumiliation implies treating others with dignity, respect and recognition; especially those with whom we disagree. Civility is manifeste