Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union by Geoffrey Hosking (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 141 In the last chapter, 'Christian Hungary as History', Hanebrink enters into almost uncharted territory,thatofperceptions of and about the church during the post-war years of Communization, concluding with some brief but very timely remarks on post-1989 attitudes. Using extensive archival material and some published research as second ary sources, Hanebrink has produced a study that should inspire scholars of the church in Slovakia, Romania and Croatia to further research territories which have experienced a similar fatal dynamic between nationalism and religion. CummingsCenter for Russian andEastern European Studies Raphael Vago Tel-Aviv University Hosking, Geoffrey. Rulers and Victims:The Russians in theSovietUnion. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2006. xi + 484 pp. Appendix. Notes. Index. ?22.95. During the Cold War it was common for outside observers to assume that the Communist world was homogenous and totally under the sway of the Kremlin. The Soviet Union, therefore, it seemed, must similarly be a mono lithic, uniform state, completely dominated by the rule of the Communist Party. Historians such as Geoffrey Hosking have successfully challenged this myth by highlighting thefissiparous nature of the Soviet Union, most obvious in the often tense relations between itsvarious nationalities. In his latestwork, Hosking develops the theme central to his earlier book, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-igiy (London, 1997), inwhich he argued that theRomanovs built an empire, but they never built a Russian nation. Here Hosking argues that, despite being perceived as 'the ruling nation', theRussians 'had sufferedfrom the depredations of the Soviet decades as much as, ifnot more than, other peoples' (p. ix).Ultimately itwas the failure of the Soviet leadership to de velop a Soviet national identitywithin their empire that led theRussian peo ple, rather than the national minorities, to repudiate the Soviet Union and bring about itsdemise. Under Bolshevik rule a traditionalRussian Orthodox messianism, based on the belief that Moscow was theThird Rome, the only trulyChristian nation, was replaced with a socialist internationalist messianism, which was, in the long term, incompatible with the interests of the Russian people. Lenin, deeply hostile to Russian chauvinism as a force contrary to his socialist inter nationalism, was determined to 'cut Russians down to size as one nationality among others' (p. 71).This was to lead to a Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic as a member state of theUSSR, but containing a patchwork quilt of autonomous national republics, regions and districts, lacking separate institutionsand completely overshadowed by the institutionsof Soviet rule in Moscow. To prevent Russians predominating in the new state, theBolsheviks routinely favoured other nationalities, 'as a result ofwhich Russians with good reason felt themselves disadvantaged' (p. 76).When Stalin gained power and instituted the collectivization of agriculture, Ukrainians certainly suffered 142 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 200g more than did Russians. Indeed, Stalin concluded that Russians were more reliable than other nationalities, and also supplied by far the greater reservoir of the technical skills his transformation of the Soviet Union required. In consequence a policy ofRussification was introduced, and certain nationalities were victimized, some being deported from theirhomelands. Yet theRussians did not feel a favoured nationality. During Stalin's collectivization 'the two strongholds of traditional Russia, the church and the village commune, were destroyed simultaneously' (p. 136).Russia's cultural memory was being erased and Russians were as likely to be victimized by the state as anyone else. In 1941,with the German invasion, theOrthodox Church was rehabili tated,Russia's heroic past was again celebrated and in the course of thewar 'German pressure soldered Russian and Soviet patriotism together' (p. 193). Victory in 1945 aroused great expectations for change at the same time as it further legitimized Soviet rule. There was an opportunity for Stalin to build a Soviet national identity in thewake of victory, but 'wise leadership was not forthcoming' (p. 227). Instead Stalin chose to promote a form of Russian Soviet patriotism and stifleall hopes of change. The opportunity was lost ? in the circumstances of theCold War as itdeveloped, a civil society beyond the control of the statewas unthinkable. When Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost' seething resentments came to the surface. Non-Russians articu lated their anger at perceived Russian exploitation, to the astonishment...