Why the Soviet Union was not an empire. Is the USSR an empire? Whether the USSR was an empire
The question posed in the title of the lecture is one of the most controversial among scientists studying the history of the USSR. In addition to the fact that various researchers put forward arguments in favor of one or another answer to it, this question turns out to be not only purely academic, but is perceived very emotionally and is accompanied not only by scientific, but also by political discussions. At the very beginning of his speech, Sergei Abashin warned the audience that he would not give a final answer to this question, but would try to provide an overview of the opinions and arguments expressed by various authors.
During the existence of the USSR, the official ideology of the country was anti-colonial. The colonial essence was recognized Russian Empire, but arose after its fall Soviet Union, as was proclaimed, did not bear any of the features of a colonial empire. Foreign Sovietologists, on the contrary, tried in every possible way to prove that the USSR was a colonial power and continued the policy of the empire in relation to its outskirts.
The idea that the USSR was a colonial empire persists throughout the post-Soviet period. Orientalist and political scientist Alges Prazauskas wrote in February 1992, just a month and a half after the collapse of the USSR: “The Indestructible Union of Free Republics, which has sunk into oblivion, was undoubtedly an formation of the imperial type. The USSR, by force and through total control, held together a diverse world, a kind of Eurasian panopticon of peoples who had nothing in common with each other except their tribal properties Homo sapiens and man-made disasters. Like other empires, the Union developed powerful imperial structures, ideology, and a system of quasi-class inequality. The Russian core of the empire did not prosper at all, but this circumstance is not unique in the history of empires: in the past, Spain, Portugal, and Anatolia shared a similar fate.”
But both during the USSR and in the post-Soviet years, the discussion on this issue has a political background. And any researcher who becomes interested in it finds himself, even against his will, in a political discussion. This debate continues today.
The current position of the authorities in Russia is the positioning of both modern Russia and the USSR as non-colonial powers. Many authors deliberately avoid using expressions like “colonial policy” in relation to the Soviet Union. In the former Soviet republics, a rethinking of their own history is taking place, as a period of being under alien power and subsequent liberation and revival of national statehood. Many of them, for example, have museums dedicated to the period when these countries were part of Russia and the USSR, and this period is presented as colonial dependence. In the “Museum of Memory of Victims of Repression” in Uzbekistan, for example, the exhibition begins with the 18th century, when the Russian state began attempts to conquer Central Asia.
In parallel to this, a discussion is taking place in the academic space about how to evaluate the Soviet period of history, whether the history of the USSR should be recognized as completely unique or can it be compared with the histories of the colonial powers of the West. Ideally, this debate should be completely free of political associations, and its participants should rely on existing scientific concepts.
What arguments are possible in such a discussion? It must begin with the definitions of colonialism and the colonial empire, but the matter is complicated by the fact that there are many such definitions. The common elements in them are the existence of different parts of the state that are in unequal relations, certain territories are subject to economic exploitation and have less political rights, usually these territories are captured by military means and their main population belongs to a different nationality.
Sergei Abashin assessed the presence of such signs in the history of the USSR using the example of relations with the Central Asian republics. The Soviet government conducted military operations to annex them. The Kokand autonomy, proclaimed in 1918, as well as the formally independent Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva were annexed in the 1920s as a result of a military campaign. The armed struggle with supporters of independence continued until 1923, and the last major clash occurred even in 1931, when an attack by a two-thousand-strong detachment of Junaid Khan, which penetrated into the USSR from Afghanistan, was repulsed. All these events are known in Soviet historiography under the name “the fight against the Basmachi.” In reality it was a large-scale war. All the repressions of the 1920s - 1930s, the object of which was the political elite of all the union republics of Central Asia, were also acts of a violent nature.
However, the division between the Bolsheviks and the rebels in Central Asia was not clearly along national lines. On the side Soviet army A large number of local residents fought, one way or another accepting the new government. On this basis, the power of the USSR in Central Asia differed from the power in this region of the Russian Empire. But it was not only Muslims who fought on the side of the Basmachi. For example, in the Fergana region there was an entire Peasant Army of Russian settlers led by Konstantin Monstrov. She entered into an alliance with the prominent Kurbashi Madamin-bek, and in 1919, the Provisional Fergana Government formed by them controlled almost the entire Fergana Valley.
Serious violent activities in Central Asia ceased after the 1930s. Unlike, for example, the British Empire, in Soviet republics ah Central Asia in the 1940s - 1980s there was no suppression of periodic uprisings, repressions against the national political opposition. The collapse of the USSR also occurred without mass armed resistance from the Central Asian population. The power of the “center” fell not because of an anti-colonial uprising, but in fact by the decision of the “center” itself.
Was there political inequality between the center and the regions? Since the Soviet Union was a highly centralized state, all decisions were made in Moscow. Regions have always been in a subordinate position. Moreover, at different periods there were many external government bodies: the Turkestan and Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Central Asian Economic Council, which operated in parallel with the republican authorities. The second secretary of the Central Committee of the local Communist Party was usually always appointed from the center. The KGB and the troops of the Central Asian Military District were also withdrawn from the control of the republican authorities.
But there are also arguments against seeing a colonial character in this political system. It can be noted that the practice of relations between the center and the republics did not always consist of strict control. The center usually took into account the interests of local elites, concluding certain alliances with them. In the 60s - 70s on leadership positions in the republics there were local representatives who even had quite significant independence in internal affairs. At the same time, they remained in power for twenty years or more.
An important difference is that local elites were included in the Soviet nomenklatura. In a colonial state, it is very difficult to imagine a person from a colony entering the central government and occupying high positions there. In the USSR, representatives of the Central Asian republics were included in the CPSU Central Committee, the Politburo, and union ministries. It should also be remembered that residents of the union republics had the right to participate in elections, the right to access to social institutions. The Soviet government even took measures to support ethnic minorities.
Was there economic exploitation? In the USSR there was an “inter-republican division of labor”, where Central Asia played the role of an agricultural and raw materials appendage. The basis of the economy of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan was the production of cotton, which became the raw material for the light industry of the USSR. Industrial enterprises in Central Asia developed later and less intensively than in other regions. At the same time, industrialization usually took place through the resettlement of workers and engineers from the RSFSR and Ukraine to Central Asia, and local residents worked mainly in agriculture, which gave the industrialization process a colonial flavor.
Are there any arguments here against colonial status in economic terms? In the post-war years, the situation in Central Asia began to change. Investments were made and projects were developed to create industrial enterprises, power plants, and so on there. True, not all of them were implemented before the collapse of the USSR. Also, despite the different economic levels of the regions, the authorities made sure that the social sphere was equally accessible to everyone. The republics paid pensions, had free public secondary education, and operated hospitals and clinics. This partly smoothed out economic inequality.
Another interesting economic feature was the possibility of unofficial (shadow) economic activity. Its preservation was, according to Sergei Abashin, a conscious, although not officially proclaimed, policy of the Soviet government.
Was there cultural inequality? Here, too, the picture is contradictory. The features of colonialism were the suppression of local cultural forms, such as Islam, as well as Russification in the field of language policy. These actions were the most painful for the local population and were perceived as discrimination. A form of protest was, for example, the novel by Chingiz Aitmatov “And the day lasts longer than a century” (“Stormy Stop”), which mentioned the Mankurts who had forgotten their homeland and family.
But the same Aitmatov was a recognized Soviet writer, his work was part of the culture of the USSR. Many other national cultural figures also received recognition and support. The formula “national in form, socialist in content” made it possible to take into account national cultural interests. Cultural institutions were implanted not as an element of Russian culture in the colony, but as part of the general Soviet culture, which could include national figures.
Identity is also recognized as an important factor in the colonial situation. Do the inhabitants of the region feel themselves as representatives of an oppressed, colonized, disenfranchised people? How did the residents of the metropolis perceive them? It cannot be denied that the USSR had many forms of inequality based on identity. There was also xenophobia; pejorative ethnonyms were used in everyday life. There were many stereotypes about “underdevelopment,” “feudal remnants,” and “lack of real culture.” Inequality was also reflected in the official formula of “big brother and little brothers.” But besides this, there was undoubtedly a policy aimed at building an all-Soviet society and culture, where general equality was implied. There were many examples of friendly and equal relations, interethnic marriages arose.
In every area, there are strong arguments for and against the USSR being a colonial empire. Apparently, the correct approach would be to accept both those and other factors. The nature of the relationship between the center and the outskirts was complex, contradictory and varied significantly both in space and time. There were forms of violence and subjugation, as well as measures to develop emancipation and equality. Many forms of relations were indeed colonial in nature, but Soviet times were not limited to colonial relations, but contained other elements.
At the same time, the collapse of the USSR unexpectedly gave rise to a new situation. Although Soviet society cannot be described as colonial, after its collapse the signs of colonial relations remained and became the most obvious. For example, migrants from Central Asia in Russia represent a typical postcolonial phenomenon, similar to migrants from former colonies in England or France.
Transcript of the speech:
B. Dolgin: Good evening, dear colleagues! We are starting the next lecture in the series “Public lectures “Polit.ru””, which is also the next lecture in a large sub-cycle, jointly with the European University in St. Petersburg. We are glad to have this opportunity to so closely present the various scientific forces working in it. This is a very large-scale institution - not in terms of the total number of students, more precisely, undergraduates and graduate students, but in terms of its real weight, in terms of quality, in terms of what happens there and what is produced there. This is one of the leading Russian centers of social and humanitarian knowledge. Those who are present here and those who watch the video have the opportunity to see this center in its diversity, from sociology to anthropology, from history to art history, economics and so on. This is the first. And second: at one time we had many books on the imperial outskirts of Russia from a rather interesting series published by the New Literary Review. Unfortunately, the book, in the preparation of which our guest today, Sergei Nikolaevich Abashin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the European University in St. Petersburg, Professor of the Faculty of Anthropology, was almost not presented.
This book is about Central Asia within the Russian Empire.
Sergei Nikolaevich studies not only pre-revolutionary, but also post-revolutionary history. Today we will talk primarily about the Soviet stage. A sufficient number of researcher publications are also devoted to this stage. You can see a list of main publications in the announcement, and I think that it will be possible to move forward on them following the lecture. So, today we are talking about whether it can be said that the Soviet Union was some kind of colonial power, a colonial empire. This is such a very pressing question, adjacent to all imperial studies, on the one hand, and to the difficult topic of Soviet history, on the other hand. Our rules are traditional. First there will be a lecture part, then there will be an opportunity to ask questions and make some remarks, but only in the second part. We kindly ask you to turn off the sound of mobile devices. And with this, I am pleased to hand over the floor to Sergei Nikolaevich.
S. Abashin: Thank you and good evening everyone. I am glad to see you all on this weekday evening, in such rainy weather, on such an unusual topic and with such a probably provocative title “Was the Soviet Union a colonial empire?”
I can say right away that I am not going to give any unambiguous answer and convince you of some certainty - it was or was not. Rather, I propose to think and reflect on this issue, to see what arguments there may be for and against.
In science, there is rarely any clear answer to a complex question, with complete 100% consensus. There are different points of view, there is a debate, and my task today is to discuss or attempt to discuss these different arguments using the example of Central Asia, the region in which I am professionally involved. This will not be a theoretical lecture, but an overview of different ways to prove whether the Soviet Union was a colonial country or not.
As I said, this question is one of the most difficult, most controversial, and I would even say, the most emotional. Disputes about it are not of a purely academic, calm nature, but are always loaded with some kind of politics and some kind of emotions. But I could demonstrate their political nature using a current example. It so happens that our meeting today is taking place the day after Russia Day. I won’t talk about rallies, I’ll talk about something else. Russia Day, as you know, was proclaimed on June 12, 1992, many here remember this, and was dedicated to the declaration of sovereignty, which was adopted by the Supreme Council of the RSFSR in 1990. And the question immediately arises: what did the deputies mean in 1990 during Soviet times within the framework of the Soviet Union when they adopted the declaration of sovereignty? And a clear answer appears that this was such a gesture against the Soviet Union: “Our republic of the RSFSR bears a large economic burden, we give too much to other republics, we feed them.” Then, if anyone remembers, this thesis was popular: “We feed them, we support them. Let's focus our energy on ourselves. Let's not pay attention to the other republics. Let all the republics earn money themselves and live on what they earn.”
Strictly speaking, this is typical anti-colonial rhetoric, and in this sense, the holiday of June 12, the day the declaration of sovereignty was adopted, was, in general, an anti-colonial holiday that demonstrated that the USSR was a colonial power, and now we have freed ourselves from it. Russia proclaimed that we were freed from it. Then, as you know, in the late 90s - early 2000s, the holiday was renamed, it ceased to be a holiday of the adoption of the declaration of sovereignty and became a holiday with a simple name - Russia Day. That is, the mention that this was the day of the adoption of some kind of anti-Soviet statement, or some kind of anti-Soviet declaration, completely disappeared from it. Here it is Russia Day, and I’m talking about reconstruction, about these historical theatrical performances. After all, they were given the idea that the USSR, the Russian Empire, Kievan Rus, the Moscow State were all the predecessors of Russia. And in this sense, today’s Russia is not something new in relation to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, but it is a continuator, heir, successor, and so on.
The meaning of the holiday has completely turned upside down, the ideology has completely changed. I want to say that even using the example of this one day of the holiday, we see two opposing interpretations of Russian history. What was Russia itself within the Soviet Union? Metropolis, colony? Or was the USSR and the Russian Empire the Russia of today? Discussions are ongoing, and there is no single point of view on this matter. But as far as Russia is concerned, this is a question of “internal colonization,” a special concept that Etkin introduced. How Russian society itself felt inside the Russian Empire or inside the Soviet Union. But there is also the theme of “external colonization.” How did the former Soviet republics of the Baltic states, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Ukraine, and Belarus feel? What did they think and how did they position themselves in relation to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union? And here we understand that there is not a very large number of points of view, but these points of view are diverse. And there is a big academic discussion, and a political discussion, and even this very personal emotional discussion about this.
The idea that the USSR was a colonial power has persisted throughout post-Soviet times. I'll give you one quote. There was an orientalist and political scientist Alges Prazauskas. And on February 7, 1992, literally a month and a half after the collapse of the USSR, he wrote a phrase that did not seem like some kind of challenging thesis at the time: “The “Indestructible Union of Free Republics” that has sunk into oblivion was undoubtedly an formation of the imperial type. The USSR, by force and through total control, held together a diverse world, a kind of Eurasian panopticon of peoples who had nothing in common with each other except the generic properties of Homo sapiens and artificially created disasters. Like other empires, the Union developed powerful imperial structures, ideology, and a system of quasi-class inequality. The Russian core of the empire did not prosper at all, but this circumstance is not unique in the history of empires: in the past, Spain, Portugal, and Anatolia shared a similar fate.” That is, a month and a half after the collapse of the USSR, a well-known scientist, a modern political scientist, quite clearly and unequivocally stated that - yes, the Soviet Union was a colonial empire, and the colonial empire collapsed. And as an orientalist who studied different countries of the East, it was very easy for him to apply what he studied to the fact of the collapse of the USSR and to the formation of new states.
What was easy for him is actually now difficult for all of us to do. I want to talk about two circumstances that complicate our thinking. I have already spoken about the political component of this issue. It is clear that in Soviet times, the USSR ideologically positioned itself as an anti-colonial country. Ideologists and scientists of the USSR said that the Russian Empire was a colonial power, but the Russian Empire collapsed, the monarchy collapsed, and on its basis a new state of a new type was created, completely anti-colonial. Of course, the geopolitical opponents of the Soviet Union disagreed. The entire history of Sovietology was an attempt to prove that the USSR is also a colonial country and a colonial power, the heir of the Russian Empire, it continues its colonial policy, and so on. That is, throughout Soviet times, throughout the 20th century, there was a discussion about whether the Soviet Union was colonial or non-colonial. Just yesterday - the day before yesterday I saw a link to an article that I had not read yet. Back in 1953, the year of Stalin’s death, a British official who had once served in British India wrote an entire article called “Colonialism in Soviet Central Asia,” which argued: “how we have British India, Central Asia – the same”, such an ordinary normal fact, nothing to worry about. And all Soviet scientists argued that - no, no, we are not a colonial power. That is, this whole discussion “colonial - not colonial” throughout the twentieth century had such a political background.
But it has such a political basis even now. As soon as I pose the question (the question of this lecture): whether the USSR was a colonial power, I immediately find myself in a modern political discussion. Even if I don't want to be a part of it. The current government, as I have already said, positions itself as the successor of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union. Of course, she also says, one way or another, that - no, we had a special civilization, a special path, and we have nothing in common with some kind of European-type colonialism. To which, of course, current geopolitical opponents or some opponents say: how can this be, after all, the Russian Empire was an empire, and the Soviet Union, and now you, too, are in fact an empire, you also now have colonies and so on.
This political debate continues today. Moreover, many former Soviet republics that have become independent states understand themselves not as part of a large state, but as a national state, separate, independent, with its own independent destiny. They, too, are now rethinking their history as the history of being within the framework of an empire and a colonial state, and they describe their current history as a history of liberation from this empire. And such liberation leads to some kind of national revival, a national state.
They should not be reproached for some kind of ingratitude, or something, this is a narrative of liberation and independence, completely rational, pragmatic for these states. They became independent in 1991. By the way, many do not do it of their own free will. If you remember, many voted “for” remaining in the Soviet Union, but then Russia said “goodbye” to them. And, having found themselves independent, they were forced to build some kind of their own history, their own independent destiny. And the history of liberation for them is a pragmatic act of self-affirmation as an independent state, a state with its own institutions of sovereignty, and so on.
And now you can easily find the “Museum of Totalitarianism and Repression” in many republics. There is such a museum in Georgia, and in Uzbekistan there is the “Museum of Memory of Victims of Repression.” It begins, by the way, in the 18th century, with attempts at conquest in Central Asia. This is a typical anti-colonial, imperial museum, which is part of modern national ideology.
While I say that this issue has a political basis, I will still make a reservation: I would not like us to reduce the entire discussion on this matter to politics alone. It seems to me that placing this discussion in the political field hinders us, at least in the academic space. Still, we must see in it some kind of our own basis for such a discussion, see what arguments and theoretical concepts we have that allow us to look and think: what was the USSR? How can we think about Soviet history in the 20th century? Is this some kind of unique story of something unusual that never happened at all? Or does this story have parallels with the history of, say, Western empires?
In the academic space, if we move away from this political aspect and the political basis of this issue, there is an academic debate: how should we study Soviet history? Like something unique, completely unlike anything else? Or we should see something in common in Soviet history, some parallel universal patterns and trends that most European empires went through.
And we immediately find parallels - yes, there was the collapse of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Russian and Soviet Empires. Maybe it's something similar?
The very collapse of the USSR destroyed any legitimacy or provability of the arguments that the Soviet Union was somehow unique. After the collapse of the USSR, it became difficult to prove that Soviet society was somehow unusual. Scholars in Russia and the West are divided on Soviet history. You will easily find American scientists who will say that the Soviet Union was not an empire in the “European” sense, but was a very unusual historical world experience - I want to say that not all positions in the Russian scientific space and in the Western scientific space are dictated by which - for political reasons.
There are also academic arguments. Let's try to reproduce these arguments. I will try to list all the pros and cons. And maybe we will somehow discuss these different points of view in a discussion. I will base myself on the example of Central Asia: firstly, because I know this region, it is easier for me to navigate it, and you can already think how relevant these examples are for other former republics of the Soviet Union. And then it is conceptually clear that if Central Asia was a colony, then we already have the right to say that the Soviet Union was a colonial empire, regardless of how we think about other parts of this Soviet space.
This conversation requires some definition. What could make the USSR a colonial empire? There is a difficulty here. There are many points of view and different definitions - what colonialism and colonial society are. I decided to take a simplified path, opened Russian Wikipedia and English Wikipedia, two such sources of mass knowledge, mass stereotypes, and looked at how they define what a colony is. Russian Wikipedia tells us this: “Colonial policy is the policy of conquest and often exploitation by military, political, and economic methods of peoples, countries and territories predominantly with a foreign population, as a rule, economically less developed.” English-language Wikipedia tells us the following about colonialism: “It is the basis of the exploitation, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of a colony in one territory by political power from another territory. It is a set of unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony and often between the colonists and the native populations.” That is, what is colonialism? This is when there are certain parts or countries that are in an unequal relationship with each other, one conquers the other, exploits it economically. There is political inequality and some cultural inequality between them, because in all these definitions there is an indication of the national, local population, which differs in some way from the population of the metropolis.
Let's look at the arguments from different sides about whether there was colonialism in the Soviet Union, based on these definitions and factors. Was there a conquest? Not the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire, but the conquest of Central Asia by the Soviet Union. Facts are a stubborn thing; they tell us that there was something similar to a conquest. In 1918, almost simultaneously with the proclamation of Soviet power in St. Petersburg, Turkestan autonomy was proclaimed in Tashkent. It was proclaimed by political forces mainly of Muslim persuasion and origin, who announced the creation of their own independent autonomous state with its own attributes of power. And literally a month after its announcement, it was suppressed by Bolshevik military detachments, after which there was a rather brutal military campaign in Central Asia for five years, which is known as the fight against the Basmachi. But in Central Asia they no longer like the word “Basmachi”; they say “rebels”, “anti-Soviet rebels”, “anti-Bolshevik rebels”. It was a real war with all the trappings.
Moreover, back in 18-19, there were two autonomous or semi-autonomous practically independent states in Central Asia - the Bukhara Emirates and the Khanate of Khiva, which were protectorates under the Russian Empire, and in 18 practically became completely independent states . In 1920 they were conquered by the Red Army, commanded by Frunze. Conquered in the literal sense of the word - Bukhara was bombed from airplanes. Of course, along with the Red Army there were some local residents who called themselves communists, Bolsheviks, young Bukharians and so on, but, in general, their rise to power was completely prepared by the Red Army.
That is, we see here obvious violent large-scale actions that led to the annexation of the region. By the way, these hostilities continued for quite a long time. The last major battles with the rebels were in the early 30s. It was a fairly lengthy campaign to pacify the region and its military incorporation into the Soviet Union. All the repressions of the 20s and 30s probably included the same violent actions that can be described as conquest? The entire political elite that existed at the beginning of the 20th century was repressed in different periods of the 20s and 30s. The entire political elite of all the republics that existed at that time was repressed. This also, in general, falls under the definition of conquest and some kind of military subjugation of this region. These are the arguments for it.
What arguments could there be against the fact that this was a military forced subjugation of the region? One argument is perhaps that the border between the Bolsheviks and the anti-Soviet rebels of Central Asia was not clearly cultural or national. Still, entire categories of the local population fought on the side of the Bolsheviks, who, one way or another, accepted Soviet power, who, one way or another, saw their political and social careers within the new Soviet state. With them, the Soviet government entered into some kind of temporary or permanent alliances, and in this sense, the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government were not a completely external conqueror of this region, as, for example, was the Russian Empire, which came to territories where it had no interests, some previous history, subjugated it.
It was a slightly different story here. Still here local groups the population supported the Soviet government. On the other hand, not only Muslims were on the side of the Basmachi. A fact known to all scientists and perhaps little known to the general public: an entire peasant army led by Monstrov fought on the side of the Basmachi in the Fergana Valley, in the former Khanate of Kokand. And there is evidence that at some point this Basmach movement with the peasant army, quite organized, entered into an agreement with the Kolchak government. It was not only and not so much, perhaps, a colonial and anti-colonial struggle, but it was, perhaps, part of the civil war that went on after the revolution of 17. It can be described not so much in cultural, national and colonial categories, but in social, class, and civil war categories. This is one argument against some doubts about the colonial nature of these military acts of violence.
The second argument is that since the establishment of peace in Central Asia in the 30s, we have not seen such serious violent actions in this region. If we remember the history of the British Empire, there was a constant anti-colonial struggle, there were always uprisings against Britain, they were suppressed all the time, until the very last moment when Britain decided to dissolve the empire. Or the French empire: we also remember well that it dissolved against the backdrop of an uprising against the French by the Muslim population in Algeria. It was a brutal war where hundreds of thousands of people died on both sides. We don’t see anything like this in Soviet times, from the 40s to the 50s. There was no anti-colonial war in Central Asia - no uprisings or disturbances. And there was no special repression, no subordination.
This case of the Soviet Union is probably unique in some ways. The collapse of 1991 occurred, in general, without any mass armed resistance, say, from the Central Asian population, and demands for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. They all voted for the Soviet Union, they all wanted to stay, there were no attempts at military rejection or military subjugation. And there was the famous “cotton affair” in the 80s, which led to quite significant repressions of the elite, in particular, of Uzbekistan. In modern historiography or even the ideology of Uzbekistan, this is often interpreted as a manifestation of Soviet totalitarianism and colonialism. But these are quite controversial cases, because in Soviet times itself, as all these events were described, the “cotton case” was described as criminal prosecution for criminal offenses, even economic ones: they handed over the wrong amount of cotton for which they received money. At that time, the entire discussion around this case took place in the criminal, economic, economic-criminal field, and not around the issue of independence, liberation, some kind of struggle, or even putting forward demands for increased political status, and so on.
These problems did not exist at all, there were only economic and criminal crimes.
Political inequality. Was there political inequality between regions? Again, the arguments are in favor: well, of course it was. The Soviet Union, in general, was structured as a strictly centralized state, where all decisions were made in Moscow by the top of the Politburo. In this sense, the regions were always in a subordinate position and always carried out the decisions of the Center, which was not located in Central Asia itself, but outside it, and was an external force in relation to Central Asia. It was not just that the whole system was organized: the income of all the republics went to the State Planning Committee or somewhere else, they demanded something and solved some issues. But there were also special forms of external control. In the 20s - 30s, this form was the Turkestan or then the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) or the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, specially organized in the Center under the Politburo, which specifically governed all of Central Asia. It was located in Tashkent. Despite the presence of republics there at that time, local authorities, their own governments, their own parliaments and so on, all issues were resolved by this political Bureau, which was sent from the Center. Of course, this was a form of external control. There were other forms - the Central Asian Economic Council under Khrushchev, for example. Now we don’t even remember what a council of economics is, but these were also Central Asian forms, attempts to create supra-republican bodies that would somehow manage the region as a whole through control from the Center.
There were other famous things. For example, many remember, know or have heard that the Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the local party was usually always appointed from the Center. He was always an “outside” person, and everyone understood that the second secretary, who controls the local political life, is a trustee of the Center. And in this sense, it was also a method of external control, very similar to the colonial one. Well, and of course, all the KGB special services or military bodies - the Turkestan Military District or the Central Asian Military District were outside any control of the local republics, they were all directly subordinate to the Center, appointed from the Center. That is, all law enforcement agencies have always been under the complete control of the Center. And this reproduces political hierarchy, political inequality, which is described as colonial.
What are the arguments against seeing a colonial character in the political system? One of the arguments is the fact that, although in form the Soviet Union has always been strictly centralized and strictly subordinate in nature, when we begin to study the practice of these relations between the Center and the regions and republics, we see that it is much more complex. The center did not always command and put pressure and could not always govern harshly. The center most often preferred to take into account the interests of local elites, local regions and, as I call it, entered into certain informal alliances or unions with local elites. The center has always sought these alliances. In the 20s, he entered into alliances with local, pre-Soviet elites, who were not Marxist or Bolshevik, they were bourgeois. He completely concluded some kind of alliances with them, attracted them to his political authorities. True, he then removed them from their positions after 10 - 15 years, maybe shot someone, but, nevertheless, for 10 - 15 years it was some kind of negotiations and finding some kind of mutual balance. In the “late Soviet” period, in the 60s and 70s, we also see an interesting situation, when almost all the leaders of the Central Asian republics were in power for 20–25 years. And, in general, although they were formally subordinate to Moscow, they were full masters in their republics. Apparently, the Kremlin went to grant such broad autonomy quite deliberately, because it was difficult for it to control the situation in these regions from the Center from afar. Moreover, I will say that sometimes the Center did not even have a very good idea of the difference between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. That is, a lot of current management was left to local leaders. Of course, in return, a certain minimum of concessions was required - ideological and political loyalty, and some particulars, for example, in the case of Uzbekistan - so you give us more cotton, and what you do next there, you can decide on the spot. That is, it was not always unequal or harsh colonial-type management, when everyone had to unconditionally obey the Center. It was a more ideological, more complex balance of interests, which gave quite a lot of autonomy to local elites. Also, local elites were included in the Soviet nomenklatura. In a colonial state, it is very difficult to imagine a person from a colony who suddenly finds himself in the central government and finds himself inside the Center. This already violates the logic of colonial disproportion. In Soviet times, it was quite possible to imagine (and there were such cases and examples) when people from Central Asia found themselves in the Politburo, as candidates for the Politburo, in the Central Committee, in some union ministries, government bodies, and so on. That is, they were co-opted into the central authorities and also became part of this all-Soviet administration. This is also one of the arguments that tells us that this was not entirely a colonial situation.
Well, and finally, if we take the rights of Soviet citizens, then even though these rights were often formal and equally violated both by those who lived in the RSFSR and those who lived in Central Asia, but this had equal rights. For example, there were equal voting rights. By the way, in the Russian Empire, residents of Turkestan were deprived of the right to vote in elections to the State Duma, the Imperial State Duma. And this is one of the main features of the colonial Russian Empire.
In the Soviet Union, everyone chose, everyone was equally endowed with the right to choose. Another thing is that these were formal, unreal elections, but the rights were the same. Everyone had the same access to social benefits - schools, education, medicine, and so on. That is, the whole range of people’s rights was approximately the same. The Soviet government paid special attention to the status of minorities, that is, many residents of the Soviet republics still saw the advantage of being inside the USSR. Women received more rights in the Soviet Union precisely because Soviet ideology was structured that way. Greater rights were given to various kinds of ethnic minorities, which had a rather low status in pre-Soviet times, and so on.
That is, when we talk about political inequality, the political hierarchy in Soviet times, we understand that it was not strictly structured, and it did not have any pronounced national cultural boundaries. There were more complex balances and more complex devices.
Was there economic exploitation? This is sometimes considered the most important sign of colonialism. In fact, all economists' calculations for all empires show that the empires (neither the British nor the French) were never that profitable from an economic point of view. The costs of administration, of suppressing an uprising, of some kind of external administration, of owning colonies have always been quite high, so the economic benefits of owning colonies were not always tangible.
However, was there economic inequality, economic exploitation? In fact, in the so-called all-Union division of labor, Central Asia was clearly assigned the role of an agrarian and raw materials appendage. Of course, they didn’t say that, but they said “intra-union division of labor”, it was such a more flexible and ideologically acceptable term, but we understand that, in general, it was precisely an agrarian and raw materials appendage.
The main role was given to cotton; it was a key element of the economy of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Soviet Union needed cotton. First of all, cotton is gunpowder. The Soviet Union was a military organization; it needed gunpowder. Secondly, cotton is a light industry that was located in Russia, and the light industry needed cheap cotton raw materials to develop. And a lot of other resources.
Uranium, a very important resource that had such a strategic and even military nature. Of course, industry gradually developed there - in the post-war period after World War II, in late Soviet times. There was also aviation and some other forms of industry, but they developed less rapidly.
Another important feature is that they developed largely due to the attraction of workers, labor from the European part of the USSR - from Ukraine, from Russia, and so on. In general, willingly or unwillingly, this gave such a colonial flavor to the development of the economy, when the cities had mainly a Russian-speaking population, and local residents mainly worked in cotton. Of course, everyone felt, saw and understood this as some kind of inequality or some kind of disproportion. It is clear that the agrarian and raw materials nature of these republics also created financial imbalances.
The final product always has a higher cost than the raw materials from which it is produced. Therefore, in economic calculations, the republics always provided a smaller volume of GDP, which was calculated precisely from the price of these products, than all the other republics that produced these final products from these raw materials. And it always turned out that from a budgetary point of view, these republics were supported. And it was always necessary to transfer money to provide for some of their needs. That is, it has always been a disproportion associated with the economic nature of these republics.
What are the arguments “against” to consider such a situation colonial? I have already said that in the post-war period this situation began to change: industry was already developing, prices for local raw materials were already rising - that is, the authorities were concerned that these regions would develop and not be economic appendages. At this time, quite significant investments were made in the regions. And numerous construction projects of various power plants and enterprises have already been planned, for example, an aluminum smelter in Tajikistan. Another thing is that not all of these plans were implemented. The USSR collapsed before many of these industrial projects were realized.
Another factor is the socio-economic level of development. Yes, there was a disproportion between the regions, these were raw materials appendages and these were industrially developed regions, but at the same time, the authorities, especially in later times, took care that the social difference was not so significant between different republics. Everywhere there were approximately the same salary rates, there was a single Soviet grid. Everywhere there were pensions with a single grid, everywhere there were the same benefits, and so on. That is, all these social benefits and bonuses were distributed in Soviet society in such a way as to regulate this economic inequality.
There was also an interesting economic feature of these regions. Many of you came to Georgia or Central Asia during Soviet times and sometimes thought: why are they considered poor? They have huge houses, often have cars, they seemed rich to us. Why? Because there was a fairly strong shadow economy or informal economy, whatever you call it. And my experience of studying the informal economy suggests that this, in general, was a conscious policy of the Soviet government to maintain such an informal economy in the republics. Roughly speaking, we need cotton, lots and lots of cotton. But we need cheap cotton, we can't pay much for it. Indeed, there were cheap prices for quite hard work. But how can you get people to work in cotton for pennies? In Stalin's time they tried to do this partly by force, by some kind of coercion. They were assigned to collective farms, they were not allowed out of them, they were not given passports, so that people would not leave.
And in the 60s, such an interesting solution was found, it seems to me: they actually began to turn a blind eye to shadow economic activity, when people kept some kind of livestock on their plots, local markets and bazaars, small trade, which were not subject to taxes, developed quite strongly . Of course, from time to time this was persecuted as some kind of speculation, but, in general, people were allowed to do this and make money that way. You work in cotton, you make your plans for cotton - please, and at the same time you can earn some money “in the shadows”. There was such an interesting contract between the Soviet government and local residents, which also smoothed out these economic inequalities that existed between different regions of the USSR.
The next question is: was there cultural inequality? In general, the issue of cultural inequality is one of the most important, because colonialism arises where a cultural boundary arises between the dominant and the subordinate. Because if this cultural boundary does not exist, then these are simply class differences or something else, and then we must describe this in some other terminology of the class struggle. If we use the term “colonialism,” it means that there is some kind of cultural difference between these classes, between these categories of those who rule them and those who are subordinate, or they themselves see it as a cultural difference between each other . There is also some kind of cultural inequality, some kind of cultural hierarchy within Soviet society.
And here we also see what could be called colonialism - this is a rather harsh suppression of some cultural local forms. For example, Islam. In the 20s, some of its forms - the Islamic court, for example, were still recognized. This is what I was talking about - the alliance of the Bolsheviks with the local elites, when there was no strength to simply close down Muslim institutions. This meant a new war with the local population.
At the end of the 20s, when Soviet power strengthened, when a significant part of the local population joined the Soviet authorities and became loyal to it, Islam began to be persecuted quite harshly. And practically the entire Islamic official open culture was marginalized and partly destroyed.
Another serious factor that is similar to the colonial one is Russification. The local alphabet was first translated into Latin, at the end of the 30s - into Cyrillic, and already from the beginning of the 30s, and certainly from the 50s - the Russian language became compulsory in both secondary and higher education. In general, gradually all office work, all cultural life in the republics was translated into Russian. In general, it was an external decision, it was dictated from above.
I name only these two factors - Islam and Russification, but there were other factors. European cultural forms were introduced into local life, implanted. We sometimes think that we brought some kind of civilization, but from their “local” point of view it was the introduction of some foreign cultural forms that were not their own, this could be understood as some kind of colonial pressure.
Islam and language have always been perceived painfully, including by the local elite. As soon as in the 80s people had the opportunity to talk about their rights and cultural demands, the issues of restoring Islam and restoring the role of local languages became leading issues and most offended the local elite. These were things that the local population considered as some kind of discrimination. Do you remember Aitmatov’s novel “And the day lasts longer than a century”, his term “mankurt”? It is often described as an anti-colonial novel of the Soviet era, because the author says in the words of one of the characters: you have forgotten your language, your history and culture and appeals to forms of culture and history that are not yours. And the word mankurt became a sign denoting the loss of one’s roots, the transformation into a person who had forgotten his origins.
Let's look from the other side - the arguments against. Immediately again about Chingiz Aitmatov with his novel and the “mankurt” metaphor from there. Aitmatov was a recognized Soviet writer. With a very well-deserved biography, with numerous honors. Here we see an amazing paradox: some anti-colonial complaints or claims were made by a man who was at the very center of Soviet and even Russian-speaking culture - he wrote most of his works in Russian. That is, there is already some kind of paradox here: the anti-colonial metaphor was inscribed in the official Soviet culture, which recognized these demands, these complaints, it considered them legitimate. And not only Aitmatov spoke out like this - these complaints were heard from many: literary and artistic groups both in the republics and in Russia. They expressed criticism and wishes, and this was considered quite officially recognized.
This also applied to many other things. Let's say Islam: yes, it was very limited, but still, when the spiritual administration of Muslims was restored in 1943-1944, Islam acquired a completely official character. At the local level, religious practices flourished; official authorities turned a blind eye to them. Despite all the harsh persecution of Islam, at some point in history it remained in the official culture.
Cultural local figures, let's say, were completely included in the general Soviet culture. In general, the culture being introduced and propagated was not positioned as Russian, although it was Russian-speaking. She was European and Russian in many ways. For example, opera houses were built everywhere in Central Asia. And this was presented not as Russian or European, but as Soviet art. And this is a very important point: people on the ground saw not Russian, but something Soviet, which they can accept and at the same time can do themselves. We know a lot of local figures who participated in the creation of Soviet culture. Poets, writers, artists, actors from these republics were included in the all-Soviet list of cultural achievements. Here, too, cultural hierarchies, disproportions, some kind of cultural inequality coexisted quite well with cultural mobility and with some kind of cultural proximity.
Another important factor is identity. In modern studies of colonialism, the debate about what is or is not considered colonial often ends with the conclusion that it is very difficult to draw the line - where is colonial and where is not colonial? Therefore, identity is an important factor for many theorists. Do people themselves recognize themselves as colonized? Do they describe themselves as subordinate, oppressed or not? This question of identification, that is, self-determination, is sometimes a key factor in whether a time is considered colonial or not.
And here we see a complicated picture. We would hardly deny that there were many, many forms of inequality based on identity. There was xenophobia, racism, and forms of mutual alienation of people based on ethnicity. The very formula of “big brother and younger brothers,” which was official, contained a certain inequality that can be described as colonial. Why are we all divided into older and younger? There were various types of descriptions of Central Asians in other studies as patriarchal, wild, “uruks”, “churks” - all these terms lived quite well in everyday life. They existed and were in the official language: for example, the lack of hygiene or real culture. Or feudal remnants - all this characterized Central Asian society both in everyday life and sometimes in official culture. Maybe someone remembers the reports of Literaturnaya Gazeta during the “cotton affair” of 1993 about Adylov and the zindans that he built. Akhmadzhan Adylov was the head of a huge agro-industrial complex of several state farms, and journalists, when they arrived there, found that he was managing very tightly. Zindans and a “shadow economy” were set up there. And journalists described all this as a kind of feudalism, as relics.
The description of the inhabitants of Central Asia as strangers, “Asians”, people of lower development and culture existed in Soviet times. But when we look at that time, we see that in addition to this there were some forms of Soviet identity, a common identity of people. People became friends and became related – there were a lot of interactions that crossed the “friend or foe” line.
I want to show you photographs of Max Penson, who worked for Pravda Vostoka in the 30s and 40s, the central newspaper of Uzbekistan. Look at the different ways of defining “friend or foe” in these photographs. You will often see this inequality: people not from Central Asia are the teachers who show the way. Local residents in skullcaps, in the “traditional” form, are always in the position of being trained.
Here is an interesting photo: an Uzbek family, wearing skullcaps, where Central Asian residents are recognizable, but they are depicted in advanced culture. What is “advanced culture”? We immediately recognize her as Russian. Samovar, table, curtains. Portraits of Stalin are a little different.
What else is the paradox of these photographs? They seem to have happy faces, as if people already think of themselves as Soviet, but most of these photos are staged. They already include inequality and subordination. These people are often placed, shown in a certain way, in such a way that they seem to be Soviet.
Here is a typical photograph - throughout the composition you can see who is in charge and who is subordinate. And the division into “us” and “strangers” is already built into this.
Here is a good example: we read this photograph both as the liberation of women - they went out to work and build, and at the same time this is the enslavement of women - they carry sand and stones. Again a contradiction. They are both oppressed and at the same time Soviet people.
Another interesting photo: local children doing exercises. There is even a woman in a burqa. But the form of their movements is already introduced from the outside. This is not their “native”.
Here is a girl reading a book - the works of Lenin, some volume. I admit that the girl didn’t even know how to read yet. A candid staged photograph, most likely. Here is all the complexity of the Soviet era. This shows the liberation of this girl, her emancipation - she reads a book with an open face, without a burqa. And at the same time, the staged nature of this photograph is immediately visible: the girl is not reading a novel, if she consciously reads at all, but ideological literature. And this shows some kind of coercion, some kind of hegemony.
Agree that it is unlikely that these women gathered near the monument to Lenin and Stalin to feed their children. They were obviously put there and photographed. But at the same time, in such staging there is also a moment of liberation - these women are photographed with open faces, without a burqa. There is a whole website maxpenson.com, where many similar photographs are posted.
When concluding your speech, you can try to summarize. What do we see? Firstly, we see that there are arguments for and against. And they are quite strong. For myself, my understanding is that we must adjust our analytical apparatus and our view of the Soviet era in such a way as to accept both. Now the whole discussion is being conducted along the lines of “was that time colonial or not?” And everything is aimed at rejecting the arguments of the opposite side. To say: there was nothing colonial, everything was Soviet and wonderful! Or vice versa: everything was colonial, there was nothing liberating. In my opinion, it was both. Apparently, we must recognize the contradictory and complex nature of the Soviet era. We understand that this was a complexly organized space. The Baltic republics are one thing, Central Asia is another. These were different regions with different balances of different interests.
It was also a difficult era. We can never say that Soviet times were monotonous. The 20s were different from the 30s and 40s. The 50s and 60s were radically different from Stalin's time. The “late Soviet” time, the 80s, is a completely different, fundamentally different era. We must consider the Soviet period as a complexly organized time in which there were many different stages. And we must simultaneously see violence, subjugation and some form of emancipation, equality and reform.
The second thing I wanted to say: in my opinion, if we recognize the complex nature of this time, we must recognize that there was a colonial component to it. Many of the relationships, practices, discourses, rhetorics, many of the hierarchies that we see are very similar to colonial ones. But the Soviet era was more than colonial. It contained a lot. My second thesis is that, although some elements of coloniality existed in some periods in some regions, Soviet times were not limited to it.
And the last thesis, which seems to me very important: unexpectedly, the collapse of the USSR gave rise to a new situation. When we see migrants from Central Asia in Russia today, we easily recognize this as a post-colonial relationship. North African migrants in France are easily identifiable as a post-colonial phenomenon. Migrants from British India in present-day Britain are easily identifiable as a post-colonial phenomenon. Migrants from Central Asia in Russia are also recognized as a post-colonial phenomenon. And here we see a certain irony of history: Soviet society itself was not colonial, and its direction of movement should not be described as colonial. The collapse of the USSR led to the fact that all intentions that were intended to be good basically failed. And what was colonial, elements that may have been marginal, suddenly turned out to be something that survived the collapse of the USSR, and now we see this in the form of migration or in other phenomena that can be discussed separately. This is also an interesting effect, when the postcolonial does not necessarily arise on the basis of colonial society, it arises from some new forms of inequality, from forms of relations that arise as a result of such historical cataclysms as the collapse of the USSR.
I guess I'll end here.
B. Dolgin: Thank you very much. Now is the second part, when you can ask questions and make comments using a microphone. First I will say a few words.
It seems to me very important to try to demonstrate different logics, starting with the logic “why in the process of nation-building by post-Soviet states is the concept of a colonial empire in demand?” and why all these “museums of occupation”? It turns out that this is some kind of construction of the past, which is intended to make the current present and the expected future logical. At the same time, the issue is examined from different sides, different arguments “for” and “against” are shown. I would probably just draw attention to one point, it is neutral. When we talk about the Civil War and further about repressions that can be considered as part of the conquest, it seems to me, as in many other cases, that it is interesting to compare not only with other empires, but also with those territories within the USSR that - as it were ! - are not considered imperial. Although you rightly recalled the concept of internal colonization. We remember that there were seizures of territories with the support of local Bolsheviks, who are now part of Russian Federation. That is, in this sense, post-Soviet states are no exception. We remember that such seizures took place in the South Caucasus and Ukraine, and so on. But similar seizures took place on the territory of the modern Russian Federation. Repressions with the destruction of “bourgeois nationalists” - of course, we remember them in Central Asia and Ukraine, but we also remember them in Tatarstan, which is part of the Russian Federation. This campaign of struggle against bourgeois nationalism is a kind of rollback after the affirmative period - it is probably all-Union. The only difference is that there are some exceptions associated with the Russians, which are that here the fight against bourgeois nationalism, chauvinism, and so on, took place earlier, and there were no special affirmative actions here in the 20s.
Where am I going with this? What we are used to: an empire has a center, a metropolis, something specific. Is it possible, in your opinion, to talk about Russia as a metropolis for the USSR, or can we say, with the exception of the question of language, that Russia was another Soviet colony or a collection of Soviet colonies, if we talk about the internal structure of the Russian Federation? Or, after all, in this case, is it closer to its perception as a metropolis?
S. Abashin: Thank you. This is one of the arguments why we cannot talk about colonialism.
B. Dolgin: Or can we talk about a somewhat strange colonialism, where the metropolis is a little virtual?
S. Abashin: This argument seems strong to me. It also makes me think of Soviet society as not quite colonial. With some colonial features, yes, but overall not colonial.
But what is important here is how people identify themselves in relation to this very center.
B. Dolgin: Yes, yes, and at the very beginning you practically quoted Valentin Rasputin, who spoke at the First Congress of People’s Deputies, with the thesis “maybe Russia should secede from the Union?”
S. Abashin: If the Russians, who were also oppressed by the Center, still identify themselves with this center - cultural or in some other sense, historical, then from the point of view of identification, self-identification, they put themselves in the position of the metropolis. If a resident of Central Asia or other outlying republics does not identify himself with the Center, but sees himself as different, especially in a cultural sense, then he sees himself as a kind of colony.
There is an interesting argument here: in modern Central Asia, anti-colonial rhetoric is very popular, through which national ideology is built, but the word “colonialism” itself is not very popular. They don't like to call themselves a colony, thinking that it puts them in the position of Africa or something else that they don't want to identify with. And until recently, the word “colony” as a self-description was not very popular for local ideologies; they preferred to bypass this term, calling it totalitarianism or oppression, but not colonialism. And this also tells us that colonial self-identity, at least in the Central Asian republics, did not take shape. What I was talking about: that in the “late Soviet” period we do not see any anti-colonial movement for secession from the USSR, not to mention any kind of armed resistance or uprising. People considered themselves Soviet in many ways; it was a strong Soviet identity. Or they saw themselves, their republics, as separate, autonomous, but within the framework of some Soviet projects, and so on. Postcolonial or colonial trauma is a popular theme in postcolonial literature.
There is such a famous French author, psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, who was black. He wrote an interesting book where he thought about how a colonial man should become white through colonial intervention. Fanon considers the white man to be the norm. But a black man can never become white, no matter how much he considers this to be the norm and the desired goal. He's black. Fanon said that this creates a certain kind of “internal schizophrenia” in colonial man. A postcolonial person is characterized by such schizophrenia when he has a duality - he is both white and black. In his ideas about the norm, he is white, but at the same time he understands that he cannot be white, he is black by nature. In Soviet times, I don’t see such schizophrenia. “Being Soviet” - this largely removed the conflict “should I become Russian?” The Russian language was understood as the Soviet norm; it removed the elements of “schizophrenia” and internal discord. And this is one of the differences between the Soviet experience of Soviet history and such a classical experience of colonial history, in my opinion.
B. Dolgin: For me this is not an argument against the idea of empire. Rather, “for” a special form. On the contrary, I would say that your argument “against”, related to the fact that they were governed differently, taking into account local characteristics and so on, is a classic imperial situation! Remembering your books on the imperial outskirts - they are about different formats of governance in the Russian Empire, in Austria-Hungary or somewhere else.
I ask those who wish to ask questions, and I ask them to speak more concisely when making remarks or asking questions.
Question: My grandmothers, born at the beginning of the century, spoke Arabic script, which is very complex. Then they mastered the Latin alphabet, then the Cyrillic alphabet, and still they were elevated to the rank of “illiterates” by the educational program! The autonomous republics - Tatar, Bashkir, others - were not equal in rights. For example, in the level of salaries: the People's Artist received two times less than in the union republic. There was discrimination.
B. Dolgin: Wait. Do you want to point out to us a rather important point about the existence of a hierarchy of ethnicity through autonomous?
Question (continued): Autonomous republics were discriminated against. This was it. And one more thing: it’s no secret that in the Russian Empire, even if people accepted Christianity, like Pozharsky, an ethnic Tatar...
B. Dolgin: Get to the point please.
Question (continued): The Russian language is so rich only because all the small languages have contributed to it. For that matter, this was also colonization.
As for Chingiz Aitmatov, yes, he is a recognized master. But a people who lose their language, without the opportunity to study it at school and then receive higher education in it, is doomed to cultural extinction. No matter what English is written, no matter how well it is written, it is extinct. These are also the results of colonial policy. In my opinion, this is true.
S. Abashin: Thank you. I was just saying that there were disparities. Russification is one of the arguments in favor of the fact that there was colonization. Another thing is that in your question I would like to draw attention to a feature that I see not only in your country, but can be found everywhere now - they are beginning to confuse the Russian Empire and the Soviet era. It's all over the place. It is very important for me and for the academic tradition to separate them. These are different periods with different political systems, different ideologies, different social projects, and so on.
By the way, there is also a debate about the Russian Empire - was it colonial? But this discussion is rather emotional. In the academic environment, I have not yet come across a single serious work that would say that the Russian Empire was not colonial.
Question (continued): Yes, we need to separate. Another question: about the staged shots. Everyone remembers the flag over the Reichstag, the filming of Chaldea. But Egorov and Kantaria were not the first. And this is already Soviet times.
B. Dolgin: Thanks, that's not relevant. Undoubtedly, in Soviet times there was a lot of production.
Question: Good afternoon. First, I would like to make a comment about your speech: “Soviet Empire” is a concept. It, coming from the West, carries within itself negative character. Both Russian and Soviet academic science tried to build counterarguments in defense of this concept.
B. Dolgin: Sorry, not Russian academic science, but some of its representatives.
Question (continued): Fine. But, if we move away from the negative meaning of the concept of “Soviet empire”, and view it as a complex modernist system, then it is easier for us to perceive everything that happened in the USSR, including in those territories that we are now talking about. Because if we compare Central Asia at the beginning of the century with the bordering territories - Afghanistan, Muslim Western China, we will see that in socio-economic terms these territories were very close. After 100 years, we see that these are completely different territories socio-economically, even taking into account the fact that over the past 25 years each of the Central Asian republics has been regressing and degrading.
B. Dolgin: This is solely your point of view on “regressing and degrading.”
Question (continued): Okay, mine. This Soviet period fits very difficultly into the construction of new political science concepts in each of these republics - Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. They cannot “digest” it, they cannot find a place for it. Even using the term “totalitarianism” and creating certain museums. But they cannot achieve a coherent Soviet system, more or less intelligible, anywhere. My question is more aimed at a certain future in light of the fact that we are disintegrating - I mean, like the Soviet system: Russia’s relationship with this region, with these republics, we also have not formed, we do not understand how to interact with them.
B. Dolgin: Excuse me, but with whom was it formed? Is there anyone not from Central Asia?
Question (continued): No. This is some kind of emptiness after 25 years. I am not talking about relationships with other regions; we are discussing Central Asia here, and we need to concentrate on this issue. And there are a lot of Russians there, this system, as such, is “hanging.” Moreover, there are threats to Russia there. And we cannot formulate and “digest” this. “We” are the governments of these countries and the Russian government as such. Question: what positive Soviet experience can be used in the current situation? Or from the negative?
B. Dolgin: That is, is it possible to use something from the past as positive or negative for the future?
S. Abashin: I would like to start with the fact that the Soviet experience has obvious success in some of its manifestations. The Soviet experience was an experience of utopian modernism. The Soviet experience is the experience of building a new society, creating and remaking everything, all local social and cultural structures, ideologies, and so on. And, being a centralized, ideological state, a state with high degree ideological mobilization, with a high degree of military violence, it was able to achieve great results. It cannot be denied. But I would be careful to say that there were no results in other empires. You mentioned China - Xinjiang. But it is now developing rapidly, and the Chinese center is investing huge investments there. Didn't British Indiana develop as part of the British Empire? It developed. Railways, cities, and universities were built. Therefore, I would not say that the Soviet experience is somehow unique in this sense. That all other empires were destroyed, but the Soviet one was built. No. All empires, along with some forms of oppression, injustice and inequality, carried out some kind of modernization, made some kind of development. Then you can compare how this development occurred in each case. At what pace, at what costs, and so on. In this sense, the Soviet experience has specifics, yes – high costs, but also high rates. Probably so.
My second reaction to your question. If we, using the category “empire” neutrally, as a given, recognize that this is some stage of historical development, that this is how society was organized, then we should not introduce censorship. We must admit that there was inequality, repression, there was injustice, disproportions, exploitation. That is, when we refine the concept of “empire,” we must not forget that it contains phenomena that we must also describe, probably without emotion, and recognize as facts.
As for modern times, is it possible to take something from there? What can we take? It seems to me that modern Russian society is not able to formulate some kind of utopian project for some kind of development, it is not able to mobilize resources for this project, and it does not have such resources. She is not ready to invest huge amounts of money, to send, as she did in the 50s, a huge number of people to Central Asia to build something there. In this sense, Russia has exhausted all its resources - ideological, emotional, economic, political - and has nothing to offer. Analytically it is interesting to think - why are they exhausted? There may be different versions here. In general, the stage of a mobilization state, which mobilizes all resources, is apparently the stage of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society. Then the state takes some violent action to drive everyone into the cities and force them to work in factories and so on. Russia has passed this stage. Now it's urban, consumer modern society, relaxed, sitting in a cafe and so on. This is already a society of corruption, not mobilization. Well, it seems so to me anyway. This is a different type of organization, a different stage. You can call it whatever you want. And there is no strength for aggression, where do they come from? There are no mobilization resources. Previously, it was possible to round up millions of peasants - here you have an army with which you can perform both labor feats and various others. Now – where are these millions of peasants, and where will you drive them? This is my feeling.
B. Dolgin: Continuing the example of Xinjiang: by raising it, China is dealing with a story familiar and understandable to Soviet people with the resettlement of the Hain people there to mix them up, as if to fight the threat of separatism. We remember from the USSR about labor migrations to the Baltic countries, and you mentioned resettlement to the cities of Central Asia and so on. To what extent, in your opinion, is this a typical imperial story?
S. Abashin: These are clear parallels. Apparently, this is the same policy of emancipation, modernization of the outskirts, an attempt at assimilation, unification, incorporation, inclusion into one’s main “body” with its own specifics. Because - yes, an attempt to assimilate, to crush demographically. On the other hand, for a long time the Chinese had a ban on birth and, conversely, minorities allowed it. Demographically, minorities were allowed to develop more. But, unfortunately, this is not the area of my direct knowledge...
B. Dolgin: The question was not about China as such, but about the specificity of the Soviet method for a certain stage of the empire's development.
S. Abashin: I think that China is now going through approximately the same stage of history that the USSR went through in the 50s and 60s.
Question: Could you please clarify about the definitions? When you talked about the definition in the English-language Wikipedia, you did not include the definition of “conquest.” Is it, in principle, recognized there under colonialism?
S. Abashin: I'll find a definition now. In this English-language definition from Wikipedia, this is a kind of average term. There is the word “formation” - the formation of colonies, but there is no word “conquest”. This does not mean that the academic community does not understand that without conquest there are no colonies. But they obviously don’t write.
B. Dolgin: Colonies still exist without conquest.
S. Abashin: Without any violence. You know that the Russian Empire itself for a long time calmly called the annexation of Central Asia “conquest,” thereby understanding the certain violent nature of the subjugation of Central Asia. In Soviet times in the 30s, this was also recognized, and then the terminology changed and the term “annexation” of Central Asia became popular, which slightly removed this negative connotation of the word “conquest.” A book came out recently in which I had a small section where I used the term “conquest.” So the editors asked me to remove it, at least from the title. We were talking about the Russian empire, not the Soviet one.
Question (continued): The second question about modern forms of colonialism and inequality: is this accepted as a fact by Western researchers? After all, it is not necessary to conquer a country; you can keep it in such a form that it will be used? Not directly?
S. Abashin: It's a very popular concept there. It precisely implies that global capitalism creates global inequality of a neocolonial type. At first it was direct control, now through an economic instrument. So it's a "fashion theme" in a sense.
Another thing that is interesting to think about is how neocolonial the relations between Russia and the post-Soviet space are. Everything is not so simple there, because Russia itself has undergone economic degradation, has itself turned in many ways into a raw material appendage of the West, and in this sense it is interesting: why is there a certain failure in relations with Central Asia? Because we produce gas, and they produce it. We are competitors. We are economic systems that do not complement each other, but can somehow fit into a single social economic organism. Not exactly, but also. It is not beneficial for us if they directly sell gas and oil to other countries.
Question: Why did the Russian Empire need to conquer Central Asia? And one more thing: what is the situation with the alphabet now in Central Asia?
S. Abashin: I want to say right away that the first question concerns only the Russian Empire, and this is a completely different topic. It's important to me that it doesn't mix. The Russian Empire itself did not know why it was conquering Central Asia. The elite had active discussions on this matter - why? There were a lot of opponents and supporters, there were economic arguments, there were geopolitical ones - to “show the motherfucker” of Britain that we are also annexing territories and can also threaten British India with some kind of military operations.
Here it is, it’s easy to conquer - let’s conquer it. In general, there was no purposeful ideology. Until the very end of the Russian Empire there were discussions about what to do. A certain consensus emerged that only cotton would make it possible to receive some tangible benefit from this region and, perhaps, resettle the Russian population there, which was then surplus. There was little land in the European part of Russia, and demographic growth was high, so the population was actively resettled so that there would be no poverty in the European part. Somehow they saw Central Asia this way, but there was no clear program.
The second question about the alphabet - well, we know that in Uzbekistan a decision was made to translate it into the Latin alphabet, recently this was announced again in Kazakhstan... To be honest, I don’t remember about Turkmenistan. But I want to say that there is no need to be sensitive about this. The Latin alphabet is used in Azerbaijan. In Armenia - the Armenian alphabet, in Georgia - the Georgian alphabet. So what? Why do you have to react painfully? Another thing is that, for our part, we can say that this rather looks like some kind of political statements and symbolic gestures. In practice, we see that in Uzbekistan, where romanization has been going on for 20 years, a significant part of the culture and local daily life continues to take place in the Cyrillic alphabet. As symbolic political gestures this is always very beneficial and convenient, but in practice it is very difficult to implement. There is a lot of technical and organizational work, a lot of finance is required, and it is difficult to change people’s habits. States are simply unable to speed up this process. Well, apparently some steps will be taken.
B. Dolgin: Let me ask this question: when you talked about equal rights, you remembered repressed peoples. Some of these peoples were rehabilitated in the 50s, yes. But until the very end of Soviet power, Crimean Tatars lived in Central Asia, who did not have the opportunity to return to their homeland, Meskhetian Turks lived, and Koreans lived. To what extent are such specific actions regarding individual peoples, in your opinion, some sign that confirms or does not confirm the imperial character of the USSR? Which way is this argument going?
S. Abashin: Yes, this does not apply to Central Asia, this is a little different. On the one hand, the eviction of peoples as repression is part of the mobilization policy. They are approximately the same type as dispossession, decossackization, forced relocation from the mountains to the plains - this happened in Central Asia, in Transcaucasia. They gathered masses of people and resettled them to other territories - with various problems, with the death of people. But these were often repressive measures, often as modernization measures. Let’s say that relocation from the mountains to the plains was considered as a measure of economic development and the development of a new territory, and ideally, a social improvement of life. After all, on the plain it is easier to arrange social life - provide electricity, water, etc. Probably, repressive measures against deported peoples have a colonial character. Although mobilization projects were also built into these deportations: for example, when Koreans were resettled, even before the war, it was not a punishment, but a preventive measure. And they were seen as the workforce that should develop the economy of Central Asia. Certain investments, organizational efforts, and so on were made here. The paradoxical situation with the Meskhetian Turks or the Crimean Tatars: they were deprived of their rights in a certain way. They could not register in Georgia or Crimea, for example. But in Central Asia itself, they had the same rights as the local population: they had the same pensions, moved up the same social ladders as everyone else.
B. Dolgin: I'm not sure that everything was fine with the “social elevators”.
S. Abashin: They studied at higher educational institutions. They didn’t occupy the highest positions, but they did. It seems to me that here again we see the contradiction on which I insist: there was not only oppression. In this case, we cannot explain how many had quite successful careers, lived, received pensions, and so on. If we try not to notice some kind of oppression, then this is also a wrong position, because it happened. There was a politics of revenge or geopolitical game that tried to manipulate these minorities. That is, a rather complex picture with colonial elements. In my opinion, yes.
B. Dolgin: And further. Remember, you talked about Russification, that in many ways there was a change in the status of languages, the Russian language received a more privileged status compared to national languages, despite the fact that education was carried out in them. What do you think is the logic behind this? There was logic about a culture that was national in form and socialist in content - who bothered with national languages?
S. Abashin: National languages were not destroyed or prohibited. They even developed - literature, theaters, cinema, everything was in national languages.
B. Dolgin: But this is not the same as the development of a language, it is a game with the statuses of languages, a game with social elevators, which are tripled a little differently if a person has fluent Russian.
S. Abashin: In my opinion, there was a parallel colonizing and modernizing logic at work here. Still, this is not classical colonialist logic, which assumes the Russian language as a method of assimilation, when in the end you should all be Russian or almost Russian.
Question (continued): Identity pressure?
S. Abashin: Yes Yes. Russification in Soviet times did not imply that Uzbeks would become Russians and so on. Rather, she proceeded from rationalization logic - that it is convenient when everyone speaks Russian, it integrates and unites, makes mobility and communication easier.
B. Dolgin: That is, the Russian language was here as a neutral Soviet language?
S. Abashin: Yes Yes. I think it was always a game, it never got rid of the logic of assimilation and colonization. The logic of assimilation and colonization always went a little sideways, as if implied by various acts. I see the picture as more complex than just an assimilationist colonization policy.
B. Dolgin: In Ukraine, periods of slightly more teaching of the Ukrainian language followed each other, then – slightly less teaching. Was there any clear dynamics in Central Asia and Kazakhstan? And what did this depend on?
S. Abashin: It's easier for me to talk about Central Asia. Things were always running late here. Active total “Sovietization” began to occur starting in the 50s, after Stalin. All Soviet projects - modernization, Russification - they began to develop quite late, in the second half of the “Soviet period”. It is unlikely that there were stages of any changes in policy. In the 20s - 30s, local languages existed because it was impossible to remove them, practically no one knew Russian, it was impossible to use it as the main language. Therefore, the languages of office work were local languages. Plus, this overlapped with the policy of indigenization.
B. Dolgin: That is, we can see that radical measures have been taken since the 50s, more or less progressive.
Question: You said that colonization was costly; it was not very profitable to maintain a colony. If this were unprofitable, then why did the colonialists of different countries fight among themselves?
S. Abashin: This is a pre-Soviet theme again. In general, it is a well-known fact that during the 50 years of the existence of the Turkestan Governor-General in the Russian Empire, for about 40 years it was an unprofitable territory. This is explained by the fact that, of course, most of the funds went to the maintenance of the army that was located there, to the construction and improvement of Russian cities. For what? Why did the USSR give huge loans to satellites on the other side of the world? Probably, there were some geopolitical ambitions, some kind of competition between spheres of influence, some kind of prestige: “Yes, we spend on the status of a great power, it is important for us politically, for self-awareness.” Apparently, in addition to economic logic, there is a military-political logic and some other logic.
B. Dolgin: Probably the last question. We remember that in Ukraine, again, there was a national movement, including for greater attention to language, to literature, and for the observance of relevant cultural rights. Was there something similar in Central Asia in late Soviet times?
S. Abashin: Yes it was. It was not so organized, did not take the form of open pamphlets or statements, political dissidence with national programs was not very developed, but at some underlying level there were demands for the development of the language and demands for the maintenance of the language, the preservation of historical figures or important events in the cultural memory. In the 70s, Islamic groups also appeared that tried to defend the preservation of Islamic and Muslim identity.
B. Dolgin: To what extent were the cultural “pro-perestroika” organizations that emerged in Central Asia during the perestroika years related to them?
S. Abashin: They grew out of them.
B. Dolgin: Thank you very much, it was very interesting and informative!
Abashin Sergey Nikolaevich
In 1987 he graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, where he studied and defended his thesis at the Department of Ethnography. In the same year, he entered graduate school at the Institute of Ethnography named after N.N. Miklouho-Maclay of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the region of Central Asia became a specialization. In 1990, he graduated from graduate school and was hired by the Institute of Ethnography (later the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after N.N. Miklouho-Maclay of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Conducted active field research in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In 1997 he defended his candidate's dissertation and in 2009 his doctoral dissertation on the history of nation-building in Central Asia. In 2001-2005 performed the public position of executive director of the Association of Russian Ethnographers and Anthropologists. In 2009, he worked as a foreign employee at Hokkaido University in Sapporo (Japan). In 2013, he moved to the position of professor at the European University in St. Petersburg, where the main topic of interest is migration studies.
He is a member of the editorial boards of the journals “Ethnographic Review” (Moscow), “Central Asian Survey” (London), “Cahiers d’Asie centrale” (France).
Research interests and areas of research: Anthropology of migration, nationalism and ethnic identity, Islam, postcolonial and imperial studies, Central Asia.
Publications include books:
- Nationalisms in Central Asia: in search of identity. St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2007
- Die sartenproblematik in der Russischen geschichtsschreibung des 19. und des ersten viertels des 20. jahrhunderts / ANOR, 18. Halle/Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2007
- Soviet village: between colonialism and modernization. M.: New Literary Review, 2015.
- Editing:
- Devotees of Islam: the cult of saints and Sufism in Central Asia and the Caucasus. M.: Oriental Literature, 2003. (Jointly with V. Bobrovnikov)
- Fergana Valley: ethnicity, ethnic processes, ethnic conflicts. M.: Nauka, 2004. (Jointly with V. Bushkov)
- Central Asian ethnographic collection. T.5. M.: Nauka, 2006. (Jointly with V. Bushkov)
- Central Asia within the Russian Empire. M.: New Literary Review, 2008. (Jointly with D. Arapov, T. Bekmakhanova)
- Le Turkestan: une colonie comme les autres?/ Cahiers d’Asie centrale. No. 17-18. Paris-Tachkent: IFEAC-Editions Complexe, 2010. (Jointly with S. Gorshenina)
- Uzbeks. M.: Nauka, 2012. (Collaborated with D. Alimova, Z. Arifkhanova).
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The USSR as an “empire”: was the imperial character of the state preserved during the Soviet period? Is modern Russia an empire?
Liven D. Empire: the word and its meanings // Liven D. Russian Empire and its enemies from the 16th century to the present day. M.: Europe, 2007. P. 39-7
But, perhaps, nowhere and never has the issue of a positive or negative attitude towards the empire been so acute and so controversial as in modern Russia. In order to understand its new goals and objectives, post-communist Russia needs to determine its attitude towards the tsarist and Soviet past. But to call the Soviet Union an empire - for the majority of Russians, brought up in Marxist-Leninist simplicity, would mean to unconditionally condemn it, throw it into the dustbin of history and recognize the life of the entire older generation of Russians as meaningless, even immoral. If the Soviet Union was an empire, it was not only illegal - it simply should have no place in the modern world. In today's global "big village," where markets are open and ideas flow freely across borders thanks to the Internet, any attempt to restore empire will be reactionary and quixotic. On the other hand, if we consider the Soviet Union not an empire, but a single supranational space, strong in its ideological and economic unity, then its destruction was, of course, a mistake and, possibly, a crime, and the desire to revive it partially or even entirely is not necessarily immoral or hopeless. And since the majority of the Russian population has not yet accepted the post-Soviet order and definitely will not, at least during the life of the current generation, the issue of attitude towards the empire remains extremely important and politically controversial for Russia.
The Soviet Union was not an empire because its rulers strongly rejected that term. This approach is not very promising. When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” it was certainly partly inspired by science fiction and naturally resonated with people accustomed to its terminology. Which gives yet another reason to emphasize the absolute falsity of Reagan’s ideas about post-Stalin Russia.
from Rome - through Byzantium and Tsarist Russia - to the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, all genealogies of this kind look rather dubious. But in one very important aspect the Soviet empire can be seen as a continuation of the Roman Christian imperial tradition. This is a combination of enormous power and vast territory with a religion that had the chance to become universal and monotheistic. International communism eventually met a fate similar in some respects to that of the early monotheistic universalist empire: the emergence of rival centers of power clustered around political factions and legitimized by differing interpretations of core doctrine.
Etkind A. The Burden of the Shaven Man, or Internal Colonization of Russia
Russia emerged on the international scene at the same time as the Portuguese and Spanish empires. It expanded in competition with the imperial continental states Austrian and Ottoman Empires in the west, China and the North American States in the east. It reached maturity in competition with the maritime empires of the New Age - British, French and Japanese. Win and lose, she has outlasted almost everyone. If you count the area of territory that empires controlled year after year for centuries, then by the number of square kilometer-years it turns out that the Russian Empire was the largest and most durable empire in history. Together, Muscovy, Russia, and the USSR controlled 65 million km2/year, much more than the British Empire (45 million km2/year) and the Roman Empire (30 million km2/year; see Taagepera 1988). When the Russian Empire was founded, the average radius of the territory of a European state was 160 km. Given the speed of communication at that time, sociologists believe that the state could not control an area whose radius exceeded 400 km (Tilly 1990:47). But the distance between St. Petersburg and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, founded in 1740, was approximately 9500 km. The empire was huge, and as it grew, the problems became more and more significant. But throughout the imperial period, the tsars and their advisers cited the vastness of Russian space as the main reason for imperial power. The enormity of these spaces was the main motive for both the further centralization of power and the even greater expansion of the empire.
More and more often we hear the USSR called an empire. Of course, the Soviet Union was called an empire before – usually for propaganda purposes. Say, an evil empire, a country that enslaved half of Eurasia, etc. The calculation was clear - the Red Menace, a communist monster expanding its territory by force of arms. In general, the Soviet Union was called an empire by people waging an information war against our country. However, today the situation is exactly the opposite! Now the USSR is called an empire by jingoists who are speculating on the longing of the Russian people for the lost great power. Let's try to understand the reasons for this curious rebirth.
First we need to decide whether the USSR was an empire. And for this it would be nice to understand what an empire is.
Strictly speaking, any terms used to classify states according to one principle or another are quite arbitrary. It is impossible to draw a clear line and say where exactly monarchy ends and oligarchy begins, and at what point oligarchy changes to democracy. It is just as impossible to say clearly that in such and such a year the Upper Paleolithic gave way to the Mesolithic, such and such nomads switched to a sedentary way of life, and in such and such a country people went from tribal relations to (for example) feudal ones. All facets are conditional, and all definitions are not very accurate, and often reflect not so much reality as the ideas of descendants about it. Therefore, very often old definitions die out over time, giving way to new, equally conventional and speculative ones.
And yet, by empire we mean a state formation that has a number of certain characteristics.
Firstly, we are talking about the monarchy. Moreover, about an absolute monarchy, where the power of the first person is indisputable. There is an empire - there must be an emperor who rules it. Somehow, you will agree, it is unlike the Soviet Union. The transfer of power by inheritance (although not by blood relationship) is rather an innate ugliness of the “new Russia”; the institution of successors never developed in the USSR.
Secondly, an empire is a state formation with a multi-ethnic composition, with the main imperial people being the hegemon in relation to the subordinate (and often conquered, or even enslaved) peoples, and is definitely the titular nation. There were precedents when there were two titular nations (Austria-Hungary) - but this is an exception that only confirms the rule. After all, Hungary extracted equal rights from Austria by force, doing this at the expense of even more ferocious oppression of other peoples of the empire. There were no dominant or oppressed peoples in the USSR. On the contrary, the equality of the nations inhabiting the country was declared in every possible way, and in practice this equality was often expressed in the fact that the Russians bore a greater burden than other peoples.
By the way, the stubbornness with which the Americans called us, despite everything, Russians - “Russian” - is largely explained by the efforts of Western ideologists to discredit the USSR. But the Russians (while remaining Russian, no one in the USSR forced them to become “Russians”!), stubbornly corrected the Americans, demanding to call themselves Soviet in the international arena. Thus showing that in the international arena we are not Russians plus those who were conquered by the Russians, but, on the contrary, Soviets. Those. Russians plus those who volunteer with them.
Thirdly, an empire is “imperial”; “imperial ambitions” inevitably mean external aggression, expansion and conquest. Perhaps the world has never seen a country that, like the USSR, would emphasize its peacefulness. The country of the Soviets made (especially in the later period) peacefulness almost its main ideologeme, which, by the way, largely ruined it.
Fourthly, an empire is a large territory. The USSR, of course, corresponds to this criterion (but only this!). But can it be considered an empire based on this alone? Certainly not.
History has repeatedly encountered state formations that did not really correspond to these characteristics, and in which some of these characteristics might even be absent, but nevertheless, in historiography they are usually called empires. However, if we call states that correspond to at least one of these characteristics empires, then almost all countries of the past and present are empires, from monarchical Monaco to the invader Israel and from vast Canada to multinational Papua New Guinea. To put it simply (so that even the most faithful fans of the Fursovs-Kurginyans-Starikovs-Prokhanovs understand) the USSR is not an empire. And those who call the Union of Empires are deliberately substituting concepts.
The goals of those who did this during the Cold War are clear: to convince everyone (preferably not only outside the USSR, but also in the Union) that our country is evil itself and has no right to exist. What is the goal of guards today? Let us venture to assume that they are lying for no less vile purposes.
After all, if the USSR is an empire, then the Union is put on a par with all other states. The fundamental difference between the first country of socialism and the slave-owning Aztec empire disappears: after all, both are empires. And it is absolutely clear that today’s Russian Federation, in all its ugliness, can become a full-fledged heir to the USSR and revive the former empire.
This simple manipulative technique is actively used today by defenders of today’s state, which not only is not the heir to the USSR, but, on the contrary, is its opposite.
In the USSR, let us recall, property belonged to the state, acting (at least in general) in the interests of the people; in the Russian Federation, property belongs to oligarchs and officials who have merged with Western capital, whose interests have nothing in common with the interests of the majority of the people. Moreover, the next round of denationalization was undertaken not so long ago by the “emperor” Putin.
In the USSR, the interests of the people were put at the forefront, and the economy, social structure, public institutions were needed to ensure the interests of the people. In the Russian Federation, the priority is making profit. Moreover, it doesn’t matter what money is made from – from oil or from our own citizens. By the way, the existence of these citizens is not economically profitable within the framework of modern Russia: given the role assigned to the Russian Federation in modern system of the global division of labor, citizens (unlike oil) are a non-core asset, which it would be nice to get rid of. What, in fact, is happening: official data from the latest censuses testify to this more than eloquently: in 8 years of Putin’s stability, more Russians have died out than in the previous 14 years, along with the so-called. "The Wild Nineties™". This is another fundamental difference between the USSR, whose population (including the Russian population) was steadily growing, and dying out (the “imperial” Russian population in it is dying out especially quickly) Russia.
But for the Vasermans-Kurginyans-Fursovs-old men and others like them, this fundamental difference does not seem to exist. After all, if they saw this difference, then it (the difference) would prevent them from shouting “heil Putin” and saluting the mythical “Putin empire.” Saluting, of course, is not free. And they are paid precisely to hammer into our heads that the USSR supposedly was an empire, and that today an empire is also being built: they say, calm down, citizens. Everything is fine. Don't swing.
And we must understand that dreams of justice, and longing for a great power, and the revival of the Russian people, and great culture, and liberation from the shackles of transnational capital - all this in one in a simple word. This word was our credo just a quarter of a century ago. And this word is socialism.
25 years ago, the State Emergency Committee is believed to have isolated Mikhail Gorbachev in Foros (the State Emergency Committee still had enough abilities for this), and then completely and disgracefully failed its failed “putsch.” Thus, the State Emergency Committee put an end to Gorbachev’s career. The President of the USSR finally lost face and the remnants of political power, turning out to be insignificant than the “Gekachepists”. What happened allowed Yeltsin to finish off the USSR in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in order to obtain the personal power of the first person in the RSFSR.
Since then, it has been customary to puzzle over whether it was possible to preserve the USSR or another version of the union state in its place.
Some believe that in the ups and downs of the struggle for power, it was Gorbachev and Yeltsin who destroyed the USSR, the first because of political mediocrity and irresponsibility, the second because of selfish motives and actual defection to the side of the United States. And both - because of betrayal. But if this had not happened... If both turned out to be patriots... It is difficult, however, to imagine these people in such a role.
Others abstract from the dramatic details of the last months of the Union's existence and argue that the collapse was inevitable simply because the USSR economy was outdated, became uncompetitive, could not feed itself, etc.
Here well-known facts are firmly forgotten: the abolition of the monopoly of foreign trade, which led to the export from the country of almost all material assets and goods; the introduction of prohibition, which deprived the budget of the main source of revenue, etc.
The price of oil, of course, fell (not on its own, but with the deliberate efforts of the United States), creating difficulties with vital imports, but a critical economic situation was also created from within the country - deliberately and tactically in a very timely manner in favor of the enemies of the USSR.
And all the same, Cuba, North Korea, and China lived worse, we ourselves lived worse after the war, but in all these cases we were not talking about the collapse of the country and the state.
It is difficult not to see in the economic fatalism of views about the inevitability of the collapse of the USSR a perverted vulgar Marxism, a belief in the primacy of the economic basis.
Meanwhile, the question of the existence of the USSR was finally and negatively resolved at least a year and a half before the failed putsch of the State Emergency Committee.
The fact is that the USSR was not a state. And not only because it was a very specific union of several states that were in a dormant state.
The USSR was not a state, but a political project that received a previously unprecedented depth of control and suppression, turning into a means of the state as such, as a cultural and civilizational institution. Marxism proclaimed the inevitable historical death of the state. And systemic control over the state, the use of the state as an instrument by a superior historical force was the first stage on the path to its supposed end.
Russian bourgeois revolution February 1917 ended the Russian Empire. The states of Europe and the United States quite reasonably believed that this was the end of Russia itself once and for all, and its collapse was inevitable. The intervention of European states, England and the United States proceeded from the fact that several dozen “democracies” would arise in Russia’s place, and it was necessary to colonize and subjugate them using methods proven in other regions of the world.
Party as helmsman
The Bolsheviks were not a party in the literal sense of the word; they did not intend to be part of any political system or share power with anyone.
The Bolsheviks intended to dominate without limit. The Bolsheviks were going to build a new society, and saw the old one as material for such work.
In this respect, the CPSU was not a “party”. It was a monopoly political organization that proclaimed the principle of the universality of the political as a new basis for the organization of society.
This is what it looked like in the late Brezhnev period of the USSR:
Article 6 of the 1977 Constitution: “Armed with Marxist-Leninist teaching, the Communist Party determines the general prospects for the development of society, the line of domestic and foreign policy of the USSR, guides the great creative activity of the Soviet people, and imparts a systematic, scientifically based character to its struggle for the victory of communism.”
Everything in this text was true. That's how it really was.
Boris Yeltsin, Andrei Sakharov and others began to demand the abolition of Article 6 in May 1989 at the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. Gorbachev tried to evade. But already at the 3rd Congress he himself made this proposal, which was accepted by the Congress. On March 14, 1990, the CPSU died, since this organization could not exist in any other capacity.
Since the political force that controlled the political project—the USSR—and maintained its stability has disappeared, then the project itself is no longer needed.
Therefore, the question for our historical reflection should be posed not about the fate of the USSR, but about the essence of the CPSU (the political organization of the Bolsheviks), about the birth, fate and death of this historical and political force.
Left without a party (and having participated in its destruction), the party leadership had to self-determinate. Most of its representatives have forgotten what the historical Russian Empire was. They used fictitious Russian nationalism, faith in the West, love for non-existent universal human values and other militant anti-Russian and anti-Russian ideology, aimed at the destruction of Russia and carefully prepared during the Cold War. Those who succumbed to these temptations while in positions of responsibility can probably be called traitors - to the history of Russia, its traditions and political culture. But this does not explain the death of the CPSU.
Where did the Bolsheviks come from?
Their appearance was a complete surprise for the imperialist enemies of Russia, which was supposed to disappear from the world map as a result of the First World War. This surprise is understandable - the Bolsheviks had no history. Late Soviet ideology constructed such a pseudo-history, declaring the revolutionary movement the forerunner of Bolshevism and elevating it right back to the Decembrist aristocrats and commoner intellectuals.
Terrorists were also counted among the predecessors of Bolshevism. But the real emergence of Bolshevism from a socio-historical nothingness occurred precisely when the self-name “Bolsheviks” arose: at the memorable 2nd Congress of the RSDLP.
The congress ended on August 23, 1903 and set a political task - the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The European and Russian authorities of that time would hardly have understood what we were talking about, and if they had, they would have laughed.
Those gathered themselves declared themselves the only and supreme power in world history. Well, how can you not scroll your finger at your temple? But after 15 years, they actually received such power in the space of the Russian Empire, which had ordered a long life. They received power that is higher than all known and existing states in history.
The Bolsheviks did not have any traditional basis for power: neither transferring it by inheritance, nor obtaining it through the democratic choice of a majority, nor purchasing power through wealth. But the Bolsheviks declared themselves the highest historical force on the basis of possessing scientific knowledge about society and the course of history. This was their cultural and civilizational innovation, their unexpected move. The thing was that such knowledge really existed, and they really took advantage of it.
The curse of scientific knowledge will hang over the Bolshevik-communist subject throughout the life of this subject - from August 1903 to March 1990. After all, scientific knowledge is always relative, partially and refutable by the course of scientific thinking itself. Even in the natural sciences.
The contradiction between the scientific and religious components in the foundations of the power of the political subject of Bolshevism-Communism ultimately killed him. The scientific component eventually disappeared completely, all command positions were taken over by secular religion, which degenerated into an ideology - creeds without faith itself.
Stalin was already trying to put an end to the political subject. Our Civil War was not conducted for economic and legal reasons, such as, for example, the war between North and South in the United States. It was carried out with the aim of establishing the scientific truth about society (that is, for the sake of bringing the object society into conformity with the theory, which is normal for scientific thinking) and establishing a secular religion for the masses.
Therefore, she was merciless towards the enemy and set the goal of his destruction, which was done. Due to what has been said, it could not end with any reconciliation, and therefore no two-party system, as in the USA, could appear in our country.
Stalin's policy had many signs of imperial restoration, which the Great Patriotic War only intensified. But he could not go as far as abolishing secular faith, reflecting on real socialism and returning to a scientific search in the field of the foundations of power and social structure.
Khrushchev tried to revive the communist myth. The 60s passed under the sign of this policy, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia put an end to these aspirations of society (not just the leadership).
The actual political economy of Soviet society became more and more state-capitalist, consumption-oriented, finally becoming so under Brezhnev. For which Comrade Mao scolded us as renegades and opportunists - and with him all the European leftists. The 1970s became the decade of the CPSU’s decline, and perestroika its death throes.
Society and theories about it
The political subject will not return. It - unlike the state - has no mechanisms of reproduction. We will have to learn to implement the principle of the universality of the political without coercion from a monopolist political organization.
Looking at the disasterPeople went to defend the White House in August. But why, after the announcement of the Belovezh Accords and Gorbachev’s resignation, citizens did not take to the streets to protest against the disappearance of the USSR, asks Maxim Kononenko.Today we see dogmatic efforts of liberal ideology very similar to the late USSR, a reluctance very familiar to us from our own experience to analyze the real state of affairs and problematize the prevailing scientific ideas about society.
But society itself may not want to correspond to theories about itself, which makes social knowledge even more unstable than knowledge of the natural sciences. And that seems to be exactly what is happening today.
Again, the survey was inspired by Solovyov’s “Sunday Evening.”
Naturally, the interview with the President of the Russian Federation (it is recorded) and Russia’s intervention in Syrian affairs were discussed. Naturally, the President of the Russian Federation also commented on yesterday’s terrorist attack in Ankara. Well, you can see what they talked about, but one question really interested and intrigued me.
In general, the President of the Russian Federation said in an interview that the Russian Federation is not going to restore the empire, and already in the transfer itself one of the opposing parties was very satisfied with this. This needs to be decided once and for all. Still, an empire in general presupposes the presence of a powerful metropolis that exploits the colonies. Britain, of course, was an empire, and France and even Portugal. The USA, while not directly occupying countries, nevertheless exploits half of humanity (I wonder what to call them in this case???). What did Lenin call the highest stage of capitalism? But was the USSR an empire in this regard? Where in this case is the metropolis and where is the colony? Well, yes, the Trotskyists believed that Moscow was exploiting the outskirts and the nationalists were closing in with them, who were destroying the country under the claim that Russia stole something from them (lard, fish, oil, gold, cotton, etc. Russian nationalists on the contrary, they claimed that the RSFSR feeds everyone. But were both statements true???). So was the USSR an empire in in the generally accepted sense?
*Note: A semantic subtlety has emerged: although I have lived for 24 years after the USSR, I was brought up on historical and mathematical studies. At V.I. Naturally, for Lenin, the empire has only a negative meaning, and therefore, for the Bolsheviks, the Russian Empire is a prison of peoples (which I put as an option), alas, it is impossible to correct it (LJ does not allow it). But now there has also been a positive reading of the word empire in relation to Russia and the USSR, for example, the red empire, the Stalinist empire... So, we ask those who think so, vote without reading the prison of nations, but in the comments state that you are into this concept you put a positive meaning, in the sense of a strong powerful state, and not a colony and a metropolis. This way we will identify everyone who considers the USSR an empire and, additionally, those who believe that this is good.
And the second, absolutely natural question in this case. Well, now we have 24 years of experience of living without the USSR, so to speak, as separate sovereign states. One can debate for a long time whether the sovereignty of each individual country has increased or whether the economy has grown. The simplest and most correct thing to ask is where was it better to live for an ordinary working person, in the USSR or in a sovereign republic? Better in the sense - more reliable, more spiritual, richer, calmer, more educated and better realized as individuals.
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