By Kelly Raftery
The last Romanov Rulers, Nicholas II and Alexandra at a fancy dress ball. |
Today, there is a place called the Russian Federation.
Before the Russian Federation, there was a place called the USSR and before
there was the USSR, there was something called the Russian Empire. I know,
super confusing. It gets worse when you realize that cities, towns, and other
geographic features were renamed along with the political changes. To start at
the beginning, the Russian Empire was ruled by a royal family, the Romanovs. These
rulers of Russia were called Tsars or occasionally, Tsarinas (female rulers).
Russian society was comprised of a small stratum of wealthy individuals and a
huge mass of the very poor. Tens of millions of Russians were essentially
enslaved to wealthy property owners to work the land, under a system called
serfdom, which was only abolished in 1861. Former serfs migrated from the
country into the cities, where they took up factory jobs. These new industrial
workers (like many others worldwide during the Industrial Revolution) worked
long days in deplorable conditions with no protections under the law. In labor
disputes, it was the Tsar’s army that came to quell workers’ strikes with
rifles and sabers. Urban poverty grew, Russia entered World War I and the
situation was ripe for revolution.
No one monolithic organization overthrew the Russian
Empire. In fact, even after Tsar Nikolai II was deposed in February 1917, his
government remained at least partially in power, trying by half-measures to
stem the rising tide of rebellion. Ultimately, a coalition of various Socialist
factions united and took power in what was referred to as the “Great October
Socialist Revolution.” (To make things
even more confusing, today the anniversary of the Revolution is celebrated on
November 7th.) The Civil War
followed hard on the heels of the Revolution and lasted for half a decade more.
Reds (Socialists) battled Whites (Tsarist supporters) throughout the Empire
from Ukraine to the Russian Far East, Novgorod to Bukhara. In Central Asia, a
resistance group called the basmachi
was not completely put down until 1934; seventeen years after the Revolution
had begun on the streets of St. Petersburg.
Let’s please take a moment to discuss definitions. The
Soviet Union was never a Communist country, though it was ruled by an
organization called the Communist Party. “Communism” and “Socialism” were
theoretical stages of evolutionary economic development as outlined by Karl
Marx, but whose theoretical roots lay further back with thinkers such as Thomas
Moore in the 16th Century England and Jean Jacques Rousseau in 18th
Century France. In theory, Communism was a more evolved form of society in
which the means of production and distribution (e.g. land, factories, shops,
etc.) were placed in workers’ hands. This more equitable distribution of
resources would then eliminate poverty and industrial abuses. Socialism was the
middle stage between Capitalism and Communism. The Soviet Union never “achieved
Communism” but always strived towards it as a Socialist state.
Propaganda poster reading, "Long Live Equal Rights for Women of the USSR!" |
Many of the men and women of the Revolution were
idealists, dreamers who sought to bring about a more just, fair society for all
citizens. Among the articles of the 1936 Soviet Constitution were: equal rights
for women, the right to non-discrimination on the basis of race or nationality,
the right to an education free of charge, the right to a workplace, the right
to a limited hour workday and annual paid vacation time, the right to
maintenance in old age, sickness or loss of capacity to work, free medical care
and the guarantee of freedom of speech, press, assembly and protest.
Then, at some point along the way, the idealistic goals
and heady dreams of the revolution–fair distribution of wealth and resources,
equal rights for all citizens, collective ownership of farms, factories and
shops and a better life for everyone got perverted. Some say that the entire
theory is erroneous; some say it was Lenin’s (the first leader of the USSR)
fault. Many more point to the Stalin era (1928-53) as the point at which the
ideals of the revolution were warped by a tyrant who was willing to claw his
way to the top of a towering pile of corpses to achieve his goals.
"We live more happily with each day!" |
At the end of Stalin’s time in power, the central
government (not the workers) had control of all means of production and
property, any opposition (real or imagined) was forcibly silenced and the
Soviet Union was a modern, multicultural state. Tens of millions of men, women
and children were killed under Stalin either through direct means like a bullet
to the back of the head in the basement of KGB headquarters, or indirect
methods such as starving to death as the result of harsh policies to wrest
private farms away from “wealthy” peasants. I wrote a bit about this time in "A Soviet Secret."
Double-headed eagles take the place of USSR after 1991. |
Under Socialism a person was born in a state-run
hospital, educated in a state-run school, grew up and worked at a state-owned
job and when he retired, he was provided with a pension from the state as well.
Salaries were steady and adequate; the Soviet ruble was never floated on the
international currency markets, thus did not suffer from value fluctuations or
inflation. For thirty years, between 1961 and 1991, a ride on the metro cost 5
kopecks. It was not the workers’ paradise that had been promised, but there was
no unemployment, no hunger, no homelessness and everyone had enough to live. There
were no great upheavals, life was predictable. A person could plan for the
future, save money for special occasions and provide for his children.
When I taught Russian Pop Culture of the 20th
Century, I did an exercise with my students. Sometime about two-thirds of the
way through the semester, I entered the room and put index cards on each desk. As
my students filed in, I looked at them quite sadly. I then informed them that
the Department of Foreign Languages had decided that they were not pleased with
how I was running the class and therefore were terminating me immediately. The
entire course would be restructured, all the work they had done to that point
was no longer valid and a new instructor would arrive shortly and give them a
new syllabus, texts and assignments. I reemphasized that everything they had
done to this point was worthless and would be discarded. They would need to
meet their new instructor and start all over again.
Once the hubbub died down, I asked my students to write
on one side of the index card I had placed on their desks how that announcement
made them feel. I then asked them to turn the index card over and write on the
other side how they would feel if that happened to their country.
It has been over twenty years since the Collapse of the
Soviet Union when one country became fifteen and the U.S. “won” the Cold War. A
whole generation of children has grown up never knowing the Soviet Union at all.
But, take a minute today and think about that time when everything people had
known was destroyed – their currency, their government, even their belief
system was negated, what they believed to be true, all plans for the future
rent asunder and before them stood a great abyss of uncertainty and chaos.
Now how does that make you feel? How would you feel if that was your country?
What a great exercise! Your students must have really gotten a lot out of your courses. I'm curious if you received any surprising responses from the students?
ReplyDeleteTo be quite honest, it was a student who gave me the idea for the exercise, she said for her fellow students to truly, deeply understand that I had to "hit them where it hurts." I always learned a great deal from my students when I taught, they pushed me for the reasons why, to look deeper and stretch further to help them to understand this area of the world.
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