There isn’t much by way of new information about the raid on Memorial. Why the human rights organization was raided still remains a mystery. Work has renewed at the organization’s office but day to day activities remain disturbed. After all, the police did confiscate a laundry list of materials. According to a statement issued by Memorial, those materials include several hard drives that contain “biographical information of tens of thousands of victims of Stalinist repression collected by Memorial over the last 20 years, a unique collection of photographs and copies of archival documents on Stalinist terror, the results of searches of camp cemeteries and firing ranges in the territory of the former USSR, and an archive of audio interviews with former GULAG prisoners.”
Memorial, of course, wants their stuff back unmolested and as soon as possible. When Irina Flige, the director of Memorial St. Petersburg, presented this request to the investigative committee, they told her that an official response will take about a month.
The seizure of historical documents relating to terror unsurprisingly raises the specter of Stalinism and its place in Russian historical memory. Stalin still remains a controversial figure. He’s continues to be loved and hated, sometimes in the same breath. Historians have provided no satisfactory unified narrative for this complex period of Russia’s history. This failure is not for lack of documentation. The problem is more than how one interprets those documents continues to have political resonance for the present.
Still, the Memorial raid does raise the issue about documents and whether, as Clifford Levy argued in a recent article in the NY Times, “many archives detailing killings, persecution and other such acts committed by the Soviet authorities have become increasingly off limits.”
The declassification of documents has ebbed and flowed in the last 15 years. In the 1990s, the archives were simply opened without any process of declassification. The process was formalized in the mid-1990s with the law “On the process of declassification and extending the period of classification of archival documents of the Soviet government.” Moreover, declassification committees are underfunded and understaffed. There is also little incentive. Now there seems to be a cultural atmosphere that suggests that Russians want to move on. They’ve heard enough about the horrors of the Soviet system and seem to either not care anymore or would rather look to the future rather than the past. There have been instances at the federal level to re-classify documents. A partial list for 2005 and 2006 can be found here. But these seem to have little do with Stalinist terror.
The amount of available materials on the Soviet period are enormous. According to Sergei Mironenko, the director of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, said the following in response to a question about materials on Stalinism in a press conference yesterday:
“I cannot say for certain, but I presume that three-fourths of such documents have been declassified. A quarter remains classified,” he said. “According to our laws, any document must be declassified automatically after 30 years. Unfortunately, this law is not fulfilled,” he said. “Russia has a very awkward and costly declassification system. It takes 27 resolutions of experts to declassify any document,” Mironenko noted. It is difficult to get access to declassified documents, as well, he remarked.
One should emphasize that the 30 years does not pertain to documents relating to individuals. There is a 75 year wait for those unless you get special permission from any surviving family members. Also, getting access to declassified documents depends on what you’re working on. It’s has always been a dance with archivists to get materials if you are interested in seeing blood. I’ve gotten the “You’re requesting a lot of negative material” talk from archivists and I don’t do any research on terror. Part of the reason for this is that most archivists were trained in the Soviet system, so their first impulse is to protect information and not dole it out. The other reasons is that they are particularly sensitive about foreigners sniffing around their archives looking to, in their view, defame their national heritage. Given the legacy of English language historiography on Russia, I can’t say I blame them.
It is important to remember that not all declassifications pertain to Stalinism. For example, one of the holdings declassified this year was the Commission on Paper under the Council of People’s Commissars SSSR, 1928-1929. Anyone interested in what has been declassified in the last few years are encouraged to take a look at Rosarkhiv’s yearly bulletins on declassification. This of course doesn’t include regional archives where access can be hit or miss and depend more on the temperament of local archivists.
Basically, while the Memorial documents are important and must be returned, they are but a drop in a vast ocean of available documentation.
Still, the issue is about historical memory, and in particular the memory of Stalinism. Many are often aghast that Stalin retains a positive image among many Russians. Again and again you hear people ask why Russians have yet to contend with Stalinism. Yet, I wonder whether those who repeatedly ask this question are really asking for Russians to contend with Stalin the way they want them to. They want Russians to see Stalinism as a singular death machine where one man, Stalin, stood at the apex. History is far more complicated and contingent and unfortunately, Stalinism cannot be reduced to this no matter how many victimologies you construct, no matter how many mass graves you dig up, or even however many documents you declassify. if it was our job would be all too easy.
This is why I agree with Slavoj Zizek’s statement that “We should . . .admit that we still lack a satisfactory theory of Stalinism.” Namely, Stalinism was a historical phenonmena, and frankly, to locate its horrors only in the personage of Stalin is whitewashing the millions of people who actively participated in those horrors. In my view, really contending with Stalinism would mean understanding it as a phenonmena where the line between perpretrator and victim was blurred. It would mean coming to terms with the perverse carnivalesque at its core. It would require Russians to look into the mirror and peer deeply into themselves, not to locate victims or even perpretrators, but to ask how a society could cannabalize itself.
Chris wrote:
“human ethical judgments usually are focussed on small groups of people and small time spans”
That’s true. Our biology (including our behavior, social and otherwise) is adapted to small groups. The vast majority of our time as Homo sapiens was spent in rather small groups (hundred or fewer). It’s interesting that at that level human societies were rather non-hierachical and what “guardedly egalitarian” (on the alert for cheaters.) Hierarchies, chieftains, social classes started to developed with larger groups. Another interesting thing is that chimpanzee societies are hierarchical even though their groups are small–the social dynamics of chimpanzees in the wild differ from the social dynamics of early man. (I’ll leave at that, in the last couple of decades there has been a lot interesting work done on this.)
Sean, I did not do justice to the scholars I had in mind–they are not folks involved in alternative history.
Also Sean, all this started from the following statement:
“2) due to the economic basis built by slavery, the US is better off than it otherwise would have been”
Using your words, we cannot state that “the US is better off than it otherwise would have been.” We don’t know because it didn’t happen. We cannot conclude that “but for slavery” the US would have not been as prosperous.
A sixty-year-old smoker died of lung cancer. We cannot conclusively state “but for his smoking” he would have not died at sixty.
Kolya, admittedly doing justice to scholars is difficult to do in this forum. In fact, I’m probably not doing justice to your points. They are interesting, as always, so forgive me.
It is also true that most historians don’t do alternative history, but there are some who work from conterfactual premises.
For example, Stephen Cohen published an article in the Slavic Review a few years ago arguing that the Soviet Union could have been saved if certain things would have happened. Now granted Cohen is not a historian, he only plays one occasionally, and the article is interesting. But he and others have made a career with arguing that Stalinism was an aberration of Leninism. Now this is fine and can be debated. I don’t have a problem with this argument. But I think it is important to recognize that this argument is based on an assumption that the Soviet Union would have been different, if not better, if Bukharin would have won (it is also worth noting that these people tend to be politically pro-Leninist but anti-Stalin). Now I can accept different. But different how? We will never know. Better? Who knows? It is a question we can never answer.
Also Sean, all this started from the following statement:
“2) due to the economic basis built by slavery, the US is better off than it otherwise would have been”
I didn’t see this. I don’t read all the comments that closely. Well, yes, I agree if we are trying to understand this question historically, then we can’t say that the US is better off than it otherwise would have been because to make that judgment we would have to know what the US would be like without the historical experience of slavery. We can never know this without a inter-dimensional portal of some sort.
Actually, the above quote seems to be more about a political statement rather than a historical one. I assume the context was one of these “Russia is . . . but the US is ALSO . . .” arguments that are fashionable among some here.
“Actually, the above quote seems to be more about a political statement rather than a historical one. I assume the context was one of these “Russia is . . . but the US is ALSO . . .” arguments that are fashionable among some here.”
Nah, that was my comment making a philosophical point about the nature of ethical judgments.
2) due to the economic basis built by slavery, the US is better off than it otherwise would have been”
I think many historians actually dispute the second statement. And they dispute it from the economic development point of view.
Very true. I would like to see ANY evidence that corroborates the statement about slavery. If anything, it’s consequences delayed economic and social advancement of the South way after 1861, making it 1961 instead.
But I think it is important to recognize that this argument is based on an assumption that the Soviet Union would have been different, if not better, if Bukharin would have won (it is also worth noting that these people tend to be politically pro-Leninist but anti-Stalin).
Sometime in 1980-s I happened to come across a book published in the USSR but out of print by then. It was Bukharin’s Экономика переходного периода (or a shorter version of задачи пролетариата в переходный период) with Lenin’s footnotes – the page was actually split into two columns for Bukharin’s text and Lenin’s. The amount of virtual blood in the book would make Freddy Kruger an Easter bunny. Stalin did not realty invent any of the terror methods. He borrowed quite heavily from Lenin, Bukharin and Trotsky.
On gulag labor, well my limited understanding of is that most gulag labor was used in mining, timber, and extracting other raw materials.
I do not know what proportions were, but I recall my grandfather’s stories of building Murmansk and Kandalaksha railroads. He was the ГИП and according to him, most of the work was done by prison labour. He had some sort of a drinking relationship with the chief of the local labour camp that and he was not onbly allowed to look at the list of new arrivals, but also to keep several of convicts sort of paroled at his word. Not because the system was lenient (as the Tzar’s system was when Lenin got exiled) but because even then a chiewf of a labour camp could have been bought денатуратом.
Speaking of “DOCUMENTED” Stalinism. Just a friendly reminder to Sean that December 21, is Stalin’s birthday.
I guess A-bomb was of very good quality
Also in many cases the conditions of “free” workers were same or worth. As I told – one of my grandfathers survived the War in camps (1939-1949) but other one – “free” – died in 1941 as result of hard work, little food and lack of doctors (many of them were in Gulag – treating Solzhenitsyn).
“That’s true. Our biology (including our behavior, social and otherwise) is adapted to small groups. The vast majority of our time as Homo sapiens was spent in rather small groups (hundred or fewer).”
This is why (IMHO), our capacity for sympathy/empathy/outrage turns off after a period of time exceeding three generations (the period of time in which one could have actually known people from previous eras). The murders committed by Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot create outrage, but those committed by Nero or Genghis Khan are purely academic, even though all will real. If you were to stick Aunt Mable’s corpse in a case and set it up for public viewing, that would be an abomination, but you can do it with an Egyptian mummy. The catacombs of Paris are a tourist attraction. Few people worry about what the repercussions of our actions will be for people living hundreds or thousands of years in the future. This is because our minds do not handle large stretches of time well. If it’s further back than our great-grandparents’ day, or further ahead than our great-grandchildren’s, it might as well be fiction.
PS. in a few centuries, people will blow off the murders committed by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot just like we blow off those of Nero and Genghis Khan.
Overall, the slave labor (according to “Archiplag GULAG by Solzhenitcyn) didn’t produce high quality work.
I guess A-bomb was of very good quality
Also in many cases the conditions of “free” workers were same or worth. As I told – one of my grandfathers survived the War in camps (1939-1949) but other one – “free” – died in 1941 as result of hard work, little food and lack of doctors (many of them were in Gulag – treating Solzhenitsyn).
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Ivanov,
for me it’s hard to judge, for those members of my family what ended up in GULAG, never came back, actually nobody heard from them (once they were arrested) or knows where they are buried. Maybe there were doctors, I don’t know.
Solzhenitsyn was not a historian and Gulag Archipelago, taken as a work of history rather than as a former zek throwing his clippings on the floor, is crap.
Although it is true AFAIK that the Gulag was inefficient, which IIRC is one reason why Beria (not Khrushchev, BERIA) had it closed down. But that was not the point, which to a large extent was to develop areas of the USSR where people would not willingly go to work. Inefficient work is better than no work.
You should talk to Upravlenie FSB of the region where members of your family had been arrested. UFSBs keeps the records and are in charge of answering such inquiries.
back, actually nobody heard from them
You should talk to Upravlenie FSB of the region where members of your family had been arrested. UFSBs keeps the records and are in charge of answering such inquiries.
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They were arrested not in Russia proper, but perished (presumably) in Siberia. Thanks for the tip though