Soviet Leadership Research Articles

The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects by Brandon M. Schechter (review)

Reviewed by: The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects by Brandon M. Schechter Gwendal Piégais (bio) Brandon M. Schechter, The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019). 315 pp., ill. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-3979-8. Most historians agree that the Soviet victory in World War II owed much to precise technical and material choices: above all the choice of weapons and devices that would be robust, easily manageable, and replaceable. In the book under review, Brandon M. Schechter goes further. Using ethnographic and anthropological methodology, he aims to analyze the experience of war through objects, from which he reveals the duties and obligations of a soldier toward the state and vice versa, as well as the bonds built between soldiers. By doing so he deepens our knowledge of the mechanism of Soviet victory and the regime's consolidation. In this history, based on a vast array of sources ranging from military orders, manuals, and reports to diaries and oral testimonies, objects are considered as the medium for communicating information concerning a variety of pragmatic and symbolic problems (P. 3). The progression of the chapters [End Page 283] follows the men's metamorphosis into warriors. Thus, the first part of the book starts from the army's most elementary resource, the soldier's body, moves the focus to military uniforms, stripes, and medals, and then to what the soldier eats. In the second part, Schechter addresses two elementary dimensions of the soldier's life: shelters and dwellings at the front, and his weapons. Finally, in the third part, the author draws our attention to the ordinary and extraordinary objects in a soldier's life, from letters to relatives, to booty and trophies taken from enemy territory. From June to December 1941, the Red Army lost more than 3.1 million men (killed, captured, or missing), and 5.6 million men of draft age were left behind enemy lines. In 1943, an infantry regiment had a loss rate of 243 percent (P. 21). Chapter 1 looks at the resources that had to be remobilized to constantly re-create the Red Army: men and material. A group of individuals had to be equipped and transformed into coherent groups of fighters capable of handling weapons – to build what has been called in the U.S. Army a primary group of soldiers. But the Soviet leadership oscillated between distrust and a desire to control the mass of soldiers: even if the commanders tended to prioritize experience and competence over the class origins of men, they were still concerned with the men's geographical origins, especially if they came from the occupied territories where they had relatives (P. 35). The army also continued to assert full ownership of the soldiers' bodies, as clearly expressed in orders 270 (August 16, 1941) and 227 (July 28, 1942) forbidding them to surrender or retreat. After all, commanders retained a great deal of discretionary power in their struggle against desertion, for which they prosecuted 376,000 soldiers (P. 38). The Red Army was in constant tension between the need to maintain a unit's cohesion and the understanding of a soldier as a dispensable resource (P. 42). In chapter 2, Schechter moves on to the aesthetic and symbolic reform in the Red Army that affected the design of banners and uniforms and introduced shoulder straps (pogony) instead of collar tabs. Taking an ethnographic approach, Schechter reads these innovations as a text deserving as much attention as archival documents (P. 50), which communicated a certain identity that the Soviet state attempted to forge. The significance of this wholesale rebranding was underscored by its timing between October 1942 and January 1943, when the Red Army was retreating and suffering terrible casualties. The textile industry was out of stock and it had to allocate additional resources for switching to the production of newly designed uniforms for the entire army. According to Schechter, [End Page 284] in this case, symbolism took precedence over pragmatic concerns (P. 59). For Stalin, pogony symbolized order and discipline and invoked the history...

The main trends in the development of the Soviet-Romanian relations at the highest level in the second half of the 1970s — the first half of the 1980s

Since the beginning of the 1960s, in Romanian foreign policy, the desire to pursue a more independent course, which puts at the forefront not the interests of the entire Soviet Bloc, but national priorities, has led to a complication of relations with the Soviet Union. Differences between the two parties became most acute in August 1968, when Romania condemned the intervention of five of its Warsaw Pact allies in Czechoslovakia. In subsequent years, efforts were made from both sides to restore friendly relations between the two countries, which was manifested in the signing in 1970 of a new Soviet-Romanian treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance. The next important milestone in the development of the bilateral relations was the exchange of highest-level visits in 1976. During regular meetings, L. I. Brezhnev and N. Ceauşescu showed not only disagreements on a number of key issues of international relations (problems of disarmament, the question of the expediency of the Soviet military action of 1979 in Afghanistan), but also differences in approaches to the very principles of relations between Socialist countries. Nevertheless, the parties managed to avoid sharp conflicts. In comparison with L. I. Brezhnev, his successor Yu. V. Andropov took a tougher stance on issues that were the subject of Soviet-Romanian disagreements. A new positive turn in Soviet-Romanian relations took shape in 1984, on the very eve of Perestroika. By this time, the Soviet leadership showed a greater understanding of the motives of the Romanian official position. In addition, the deterioration of the situation in the Romanian economy increased the interest of the Romanian leadership in developing close economic ties with the USSR.

The USSR – Czechoslovakia Commission of Historians: Particularities of Creation and Activities in the 1960s

In the article, the authors examine the history of the establishment and early years of the USSR – Czechoslovakia Commission of Historians. The relevance of the subject in question is conditioned, on the one hand, by the growing interest in the problem of the formation and functioning of “socialist science” in Russian and international historiography and, on the other hand, by the study of the methods and instruments by which the Soviet leadership reacted to the liberalisation of the political regime in Czechoslovakia and the search for ways to influence its intellectual elite. The authors draw on the archive collections of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Archive of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In addition, they draw on sources of personal origin, contrasting official party documents with curious evaluative sketches. On the basis of these sources, the authors construct a study in two dimensions. The authors conclude that the creation of the commission was a political and ideological project, a circumstance which determined both the composition of the Soviet section of the institution and the topics chosen for joint studies. The Commission was established far too late to become an effective instrument for maintaining the prestige and authority of the Soviet Union even among Czechoslovak intellectuals, let alone the population at large.

«…Создадим новую игрушку для советской детворы»: о советских игрушках 1940-х гг. На архивных материалах Горьковской области

The article addresses the problem of providing Soviet children with toys and toys production in the USSR in the 1940s. On the basis of modern historiographical material, situation in the “toy” industry of the 1940s is reflected. When presenting the material, a large number of interesting and valuable examples is given, as well as fragments from memoirs of the “children of war.” All these materials mention that toys of the difficult 1940s were mostly homemade. There was an acute shortage of factory-made toys and there were problems with their quality and high cost. Throughout the 1940s (and even in the wartime), Soviet leadership attempted repeatedly to solve these problems. Lack of toys for Soviet children was recognized by the authorities as a problem demanding urgent solution. Drawing on unique archival material of the Gorky region, which is being introduced into scientific use, the article narrates of the competition organized in 1947-48 by the Scientific Research Institute of Toys and aimed at development of new samples of toys and games, improvement of their quality, and launch of their mass production. According to the typology of toys cited in the competition regulations, there were 16 categories of toys for children of all ages, ranging from dolls and balls to a variety of construction kits, cardboard games, and educational materials. The main criteria were complete safety, possibility of mass and, preferably, inexpensive production from local materials, and compliance with educational tasks set by the state. Soviet citizens, enterprises and artels, children’s institutions were invited to participate in the competition; there were prizes amounting to 120,000 rubles or more. Given the realities of 1947, this seems an important marker of the state’s attention to organization of children’s leisure and education, which was deemed an integral component of combatting child homelessness and neglect. The article identifies main trends in solving the problem of toy shortage in the second half of the 1940s. It is to complete the picture of everyday life and consequences of the Great Patriotic War.

구소련 국가들의 주권에 대한 러시아 측 시각과 소비에트 시기 민족공화국의 법적 지위: 러시아 문명주의 역사관에 대한 일고찰

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which is obviously the violation of the sovereignty of the independent Ukraine, called attention to Russia’s current perspective on the sovereignty of the former Soviet states. Justifying his decision, the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, argued that Ukraine’s sovereignty is groundless both legally and historically because it was given and thus made possible only by the policy of the former Bolshevik leaders, namely Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. They were the ones, who decided to uphold the principle of national self-determination, including the right of secession.BR Scrutinizing the historical developments of the legal status of the national republics of the former Soviet Union, this paper argues that Leninist viewpoint of guaranteeing the principle of national self-determination proved not a mistake, as Putin asserts, but a tactical success that enabled the Bolshevik leaders to rally support from various ethnic groups during the civil war and later on. Recognizing its crucial significance, the subsequent Soviet leadership continued to hold the principle of self-determination, ensuring the right of secession, by maintaining the articles in the Constitution of the Soviet Union even though there had been a series of attempts to undermine the legal status of the national republics of the Soviet Union. Therefore, as the current Russian Federation inherited various crucial parts of the legacy of the Soviet Union, it can be seen as the beneficiary of the historical and political achievements of the Soviet past, which was rested upon the ideological building of nationalities, who welcomed and voluntarily joined the Soviet cause through the agreement on the principles of national self-determination and secession.

Как разрушалось господство "научного атеизма" в советском обществоведении (1960–1980-е гг.)

As an integral part of Marxism-Leninism, scientific atheism was being protected fromcriticism with the help of an information blockade. Teaching its basics (from 1959) in higher education institutions formed such a theoretical attitude to religion, which practically excluded from the socio-cultural and scientific space any full-fledged knowledge about religion, religious institutions, religious figures and thinkers. But if atheism in the USSR was planted using the full power of ideological services and the entire system of higher education of the country, then resistance to it was an individual matter. And it remained so throughout the entire Soviet period. Realizing the negative attitude of society towards the anti-religious and anti-church campaigns, Soviet leaders stopped to destruct churches. Shortly after the fall of N. Khrushchev, the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPiK) was created, which began to be legal opposition to anti-church policy. Since the late 60s , religious samizdat has begun to develop. Our article is devoted to two special cases from the history of destruction in the scientific space of the information blockade on religious and ecclesiastical matters. This blockade breakthrough was carried out by employees of two major Soviet ideological institutes: the editorial office of the Philosophical Encyclopedia and the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences (INION of the USSR Academy of Sciences). Preparation of The Philosophical Encyclopedia started during the years of the anti-religious and anti-church campaign. It seemed that the situation itself excluded any resistance to the ideological policy of the CPSU. But it was in this edition that the young philosophers, led by Renata Galtseva, with their articles on Russian religious philosophy, dealt a tangible blow to the monopoly of scientific atheism. The second blow was inflicted by INION employees with their abstract collections. They managed to show what role religion and churches have played and continue to play in people's lives, in socialist countries including. The author was a contemporary, and in some cases a participant in the events described in the article.

Looking for Economic Cooperation between Austria and the Soviet Union during Khrushchev’s Thaw

This article aims to contribute to the development of a more correct model of the relationship between East and West. The traditional view of Europe after 1945 with its opposite and mutually exclusive military and economic organizations is characterized in traditional historiography by the existence of a symmetrical and parallel development of two ideological blocs during the bipolar confrontation of the systems. In the context of modifying this model, the article proposes to consider the continent as a complex space where parallelism, asymmetry, and convergence coexist, and which has seen multi-level cooperation between a wide range of subjects in various fields. All this will allow a new assessment of the degree of involvement of the USSR in global economic relations. Particular attention is paid to the compensatory supply of goods in accordance with the State Treaty after 1955, as well as the attempts of the Soviet leadership to establish bilateral trade. A comparative analysis of the mechanisms for the implementation of Soviet-Austrian economic cooperation makes it possible to show more clearly how fundamentally different socio-economic systems could interact and how they adapted to the new economic reality. The author mostly refers to documents from the Russian State Archive of Economics and the Bruno Kreisky Archive Foundation, which have not been used previously, and are first introduced into scholarly circulation.

FIGHTING EPIDEMICS IN ULYANOVSK REGION DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Using the example of Ulyanovsk region, the article examines the activities of Soviet healthcare in the fight against infectious diseases during the Great Patriotic War. The purpose of the publication is to study the development of the sanitary service, the experience of interaction between Soviet, party authorities, medical institutions and the local population on the issue of preserving the epidemiological well-being in Ulyanovsk region during the war period. At present, when the issue of finding new methods of combating a new coronavirus infection remains open, it is relevant to study the experience of the USSR healthcare in minimizing the harmful effects of infectious and acute infectious diseases common at that time. During the indicated period, it was possible to prevent mass epidemics on the front line and in the rear regions, with the exception of certain local seasonal foci of diseases. The author shows the main directions and specific actions of the Soviet leadership to carry out anti-epidemic measures on the example of Ulyanovsk region sanitary service during the war period for the main groups of diseases. Anti-epidemic measures covered all major groups of the population – workers and employees of industrial enterprises, students and pupils of organized children’s groups, the sick and wounded soldiers of the Red Army who passed treatment in hospitals, as well as the evacuated population from the frontline territories. In order to identify the foci of diseases, household rounds were carried out. When a disease was detected, the patient was isolated. Special attention was paid to maintaining cleanliness and order in public places. Thus, the complex of anti-epidemic measures carried out by Ulyanovsk region sanitary service contributed to containment of infections growth during this period.

To the question of national, economic and financial security of Russia

The article reveals the theoretical aspects of the national, economic and financial security of Russia before the Great October Socialist Revolution, in the period from the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to its collapse and in the period of the modern history of the Russian Federation. the author's position of the activation of the global geopolitical crisis and geo-economic crisis (caused by the creation of new geo-economic centers for the development of the world economy) is given, which is an objective reason for the redistribution of the world caused by the next phase of the reproductive crisis and the global financial crisis in the world economy. the role of finance in economic development and ensuring economic and financial security at different historical stages of Russia, the USSR and the Russian Federation is shown. It is concluded that in the conditions of the global monocentric model of the functioning of financial capital, led by the United States, the countries of the economic "periphery" are forced to bear losses due to the monopoly dictate of the world financial centers of emission (primarily the dollar and the euro). the reasons for the destruction of the USSR are formulated, the main of which is: the destruction of the country's national security system by the top leaders of the USSR, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and other union republics of the Soviet Union. the principled character of the Soviet leadership in conducting a sovereign, national monetary policy is shown. the creation by the global financial system of conditions for overproduction of two world fully unsecured currencies (the dollar and the euro) and the formation of the potential of the global financial crisis are argued.

The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind by Martin Sixsmith

<i>The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind</i> by Martin Sixsmith

The Many Faces of SALT

Abstract This interpretive essay explores the multiple, changing faces of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. When SALT I was being negotiated in the early 1970s, it was generally viewed as the product of contemporary arms control theory that stressed the value of crisis stability. The U.S. national security adviser at the time, Henry Kissinger, justified the talks in those terms while also positioning them as part of a broader attempt to forge a détente with the Soviet Union. But after the Cold War ended, Kissinger claimed that he had really been engaging in a holding operation to buy time for the U.S. government to rebuild support for a more assertive policy. Declassified documents reveal that he and President Richard Nixon hoped that technological innovations would yield military and political advantages. The two of them believed that previous administrations had failed to overcome dangerous military vulnerabilities and that the United States could get a better deal because the USSR was more anxious for an agreement than Nixon and Kissinger were. In the end, however, this did not prove to be the case, and SALT was little different from the sorts of policies Nixon and Kissinger had scorned. But SALT I was a centerpiece of détente and a symbol of U.S. and Soviet leaders’ recognition that each side had a legitimate interest in the other's military posture.

A Diplomatic Meeting: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Art of Summitry by James Cooper

<i>A Diplomatic Meeting: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Art of Summitry</i> by James Cooper

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

The Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush edited by G. Pascal Zachary

<i>The Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush</i> edited by G. Pascal Zachary

The Sino-Soviet Alliance: An International History by Austin Jersild

<i>The Sino-Soviet Alliance: An International History</i> by Austin Jersild

The Ends of Modernization: Nicaragua and the United States in the Cold War Era by David Johnson Lee

<i>The Ends of Modernization: Nicaragua and the United States in the Cold War Era</i> by David Johnson Lee

Cold War Frequencies: CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe by Richard H. Cummings

<i>Cold War Frequencies: CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe</i> by Richard H. Cummings

The Supreme Court of the RSFSR as a legal form of the supreme judicial authority: to the 100th anniversary of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

The 100th anniversary of the highest court instance of Russia determines the relevance of studying the Supreme Court of the RSFSR as a historical and legal phenomenon, formed as the highest judiciary authority on fundamentally different organizational approaches than before. The article studies certain specifics of the highest instance of Russia’s judiciary, including legal forms of its organization, activities of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, structural intra-system relationships, and its place and role in the development of Russia’s statehood. The research offers analysis of theoretical concepts and judicial legislation during the preceding period between the two judicial reforms (of 1864 and of 1922). It aims at revealing certain features of the legal model of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in 1922 as the first created national form of an organizationally autonomous court of the highest judicial instance in terms of its place and role in the system of Soviet justice. The research methodology is based on comparative-legal and historical-legal approaches. The author refers not only to legal acts, but also to publications of the party and Soviet leaders of the first years of the Soviet power, devoted to the issues of formation of a unified judicial system and its supreme body. The prerequisites for the formation of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR associated with requests for stability and clarity of the rule of law, uniformity of judicial practice in the conditions of the New Economic Policy have been highlighted. The article draws conclusions concerning the legal status of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, highlights its features as the highest level in a unified judicial system, and determines the legal nature, the place and the role of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in the system of judiciary, where it was endowed with organizational and managerial powers in respect of people’s investigators, collegium of defense counsellors, bailiffs and public notary offices.

Archival Data of the Activity of Sericul Aldabergenov, which Began from the Alash Idea and Ended with Migration

The article, based on data from secret funds, restores the political activities of the representative of the movement Alash Serikula Aldabergenov, whose identity has not yet been investigated. Under the Soviet rule, the political activity of S. Aldabergenov, who participated in the First All-Kazakh Congress with М. Shokai in 1917, which held in Orinbor, took on the most difficult character. The fact that under colonial power he was a regional administrator is evidenced by archival data on the beginning of subsequent political repressions. S. Aldabergenov's documents from secret funds made it possible to reconstruct his biography and socio-political activities, which are still unknown. His commitment to the Alash idea was expressed as resistance to reforms of Soviet power in 1929–1934. He was one of the organizers of the migration of the population, who experienced pressure from the totalitarian authorities to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from the south of Kazakhstan. This fact served as the basis for concluding that he was the leader. The article proposes the concept of formulating the phenomenon of migration, which has become one of the «white spots» in the history of the Fatherland. The article presents a new conclusion regarding the phenomenon of migration, which has become one of the topical issues in Fatherland’s history. Data from secret funds in special archives made it possible to draw new conclusions about the history of migrations. It is proved that the transfer process was not spontaneous, but was organized with the involvement of Soviet leaders along with representatives of the traditional elite.

The activity of G.M. Malenkov in the USA State Department evaluations

This paper discusses the process of evaluating the activities of Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov by the USA State Department and people associated with it. On the basis of documents available to the American Foreign Office, an analysis is made of the perception of the personality of this Soviet leader. The paper traces the evolution of points of view regarding his position in the political hierarchy in the USSR, G.M. Malenkovs influence on the domestic and foreign policy of the state. The paper identifies the features of the analytical intelligence of the State Department on this issue. Telegrams, letters and memorandums provide an opportunity to trace the vision of diplomats, officials, politicians in contact with this department, the causes and consequences of G.M. Malenkovs elevation to the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and his final removal from the Soviet leaders. The sources allow us to explore a retrospective analysis of his activities based on the reports of American ambassadors. The overall body of evidence demonstrates the importance of a personal approach in assessing Soviet leaders, not only for the State Department, but also for the USA President, the National Security Council, the CIA, congressional committees and allied foreign diplomats. The results of the study can become a basis for scientific research on the topics of the Cold War, the political development of the USSR, and the assessment of the Soviet system by the American authorities.