This week I wanted to finally come back around to a subject
that’s been on my mind for quite some time, and would actually mean tackling
one of the pieces I promised to write way back in January (but clearly haven’t
yet). As a historian of the Soviet Union I work in relatively recent history,
in fact it will be only a year and a few months from now the world will be able
to look back and reflect on the centennial anniversary of the October
Revolution. However, due to the intense politicization of the Soviet system in
the West (and of course vice versa)
during the Cold War, much of Soviet history today seems to the average observer
something like peering onto an alien planet straight out of the futurist sci-fi
of the 1920s—which was largely inspired by the revolution, it’s worth noting—or
maybe an alternate dimension where people think and behave differently than the
world we know. I expect this piece will one way or another be a fruitful
exercise, if not for my dissertation than at least for my preparation to teach
my Soviet history course this Fall. I want to make Soviet history accessible
and engaging, and to do that I think it’s important to teach not just what
people did, but how people thought; how they conceptualized the world around
them and how that in turn led them to shape it.
This discussion will probably range a lot farther than
between the strict confines of 1917 and 1991. After all, modern political
revolutions were not invented in the streets of Moscow and Petersburg, nor were
they confined there over the course of the tumultuous twentieth century and
beyond. The intensity of commitment to or entrenchment of revolutionary value
structures varies greatly from revolution to revolution, or even “revolution”
(that is to say, a non-revolutionary revolution). In light of some recent
events, I think we even have the opportunity to look at some very contemporary
case studies to define a revolutionary value structure by what it is not. We’ll
come back to this later, though. First, let’s see if we can’t lay out some
boundaries so my dear readers can begin to imagine just what the hell it is I’m
talking about.
I first began to conceptualize the idea of a “revolutionary
value structure” as a response to one of my field exam questions, the
beautifully succinct yet poignant “What was Stalinism?” This is probably the
question out of all of my exams that I felt most prepared to answer: I spent 4
years trying to come to grips with the political phenomenon of the Soviet Union
in the 1930s. Still, though, to definitively answer the question, and not just talk about the myriad possible
ways of understanding it, I felt I needed to make my own intervention, as many
scholars have come close to capturing but not always defining the term. I admit,
I have been heavily influenced by a number of scholars and feel particularly
indebted to the works of Stephen Kotkin, Jochen Hellbeck, Shelia Fitzpatrick,
and Miriam Dobson, just to name a few. Basically their main methodological
innovations were that trying to separate Soviet life into spheres of culture,
politics, the everyday, etc., we must try to understand the Soviet experience
as a single whole. In this track of thinking, I applied of all things “an
inquiry into values”—a philosophical endeavor of Robert Pirsig laid out in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and
later expanded on in Lila). If you
haven’t read Zen yet, let me first
say this: YOU SHOULD. Second, if you haven’t, it can get a little jargonistic
in the way he talks about thing like “quality” and “values.” I probably adopted
a little too much of that in my analysis, and I’m going to do my best to cut it
back and explain my terms when I can, but… yeah, sorry if this gets dense or
hard to follow.
So, to begin, just what is a “revolutionary value
structure?” If we consider cultural and political norms as regulated by a
hierarchy of shared values—or perhaps more precisely, an interlocking,
overlapping structure of values—then if we are able to identify those values we
can track their rise or fall within the structure over time. I think this can
be applied to any civilization—Americans operate under a value structure where
“freedom” as a concept is given higher priority than say, I don’t know,
“collective safety” or “responsible gun control.” It was the concept that the
country was founded on, and in its day, it too was a revolutionary value
structure (and I suppose one could even argue it still is, though I think that
would be a challenging position to hold given the state of the world today).
Myriad value structures exist, not only at state or national levels, but also
among social groups, on down, if you care to imagine it, as the unspoken rules
that unify a group of friends or even our families. They are by no means
immutable, either, as value structures can flex, change, and even be forcibly
overthrown (though of course this is no small task—it is typically a
revolutionary endeavor).
What makes a value structure, then, revolutionary? My definition
would be that a revolutionary value structure is one that puts the health and
pursuit of the revolution at the top of the value hierarchy. A revolution in
itself can be seen as an attempt to restructure the fundamental value
hierarchies that define a society—for instance, to take values like “freedom”
or “equality” or “social good” and reshuffle them to create a new model based
on the prevailing revolutionary ideology. While these are of course more
abstract values to think about, the abstract ones tend to be the values that
rise to the top and from which the rest of the hierarchy can stem.
To examine this, let’s take a look
at the case that I have thought the most about: Soviet Russia. From 1917
onward, the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union acted according to two primary
goals: the defense of the revolution, and the building of socialism. While
these objectives invariably shaped Soviet governance during the Civil War and
even the NEP, let’s focus here on the revolution as it became more concretely
manifest in a system we now commonly refer to as “Stalinism.”
For instance, let’s look at the
First Five-Year plan as an assertion of certain values: such as that heavy
industry was inherently more valuable important than light because it would
produce arms that could be used in the inevitable upcoming conflict with
capitalist states. In addition, we can see that collective farming was seen as
more valuable than the peasant village. If we broaden our scope in this vein,
we can see how these values effected other related concepts. Specialized knowledge
of metallurgy would trump an individual’s class background, because for the
success of heavy industry, specialists were required. However, in the
collective farm, success was seen as dependent on the collective, rather than
the individual, and opposition to the collective was then identified through
class background (kulak-ism). The campaign against kulaks was also made
possible by the high value placed on the security of the revolution, which
dictated constant vigilance against reactionary elements of society and held
that the possibility of internal enemies and saboteurs bent on the destruction
of the world socialist movement. When combined with the high value placed on
the development of a modernized industrial base, which meant that food
allocation would heavily favor the industrialized cities rather than rural
areas, this leads to mass starvation in one of the most agriculturally
productive areas in the entire world.
If we are to only look at the
values at play and not the results of their interplay, it’s becomes hard to
point to a specific place where things went wrong. The emphasis placed on heavy
industry is not an inherently immoral choice, and indeed it would eventually
allow the Soviet Union to withstand and eventually overcome the onslaught of
the highly-mechanized Nazi war machine. The collectivization of agriculture is
not inherently less moral than small peasant farming (though the methods used
to enforce this decision might be). Nor is the imperative to protect the
revolution inherently immoral—the right of a body to defend itself from force
is an agreed upon right of humankind, whether it be in the form of a state,
nation, or a merchant caravan taking up arms to protect itself from roaming
bandits. It is possible to now go back down the chain of events and point
directly to instances of immorality and inhumanity. But in the subjective
context of that value structure that existed under the First Five-Year Plan,
these policies held a higher value, because they were to work toward the spread
of socialism and the defense of the revolution. This value ultimately eclipsed
the value of an individual human life, and that is where the paradox of
Stalinism lies.
This
phenomenon is not confined just to the Soviet experience. While I don’t want to
spread my scope too far or bore anyone with too specific details, I think it is
worth pointing to the first real time a revolutionary value structure was
erected in the modern age, and the parallels it has with the revolution of the
Bolsheviks: the rule of the Jacobins during the French Revolution. Here was the
first time where “defense of the revolution” was elevated as the highest spot within
the value structure of the governing body. It inundated society, created a
strict divide between allies of the revolution, and potential agents of counter
revolution. This was seen as necessary to the revolution’s Jacobin caretakers,
because they saw their role as rebuilding French civilization again from the
ground up, sweeping away every aspect of the old order from aristocratic privilege
to the very ordering of the calendars. In attempting to destroy the old world,
many lives would be sacrificed upon the altar of the guillotine. Ultimately, it
was this fervor that consumed the Jacobins themselves, and in doing so the long
dormant forces of counterrevolution were able to slowly reassert control.
If we
jump back in time a scant few years and cross the Atlantic Ocean, some would
perhaps point to another case worth comparing. However, I actually want to
point to the American “revolution” as an incomplete revolutionary model. While
it touted the ideals of the Enlightenment and espoused the virtue of freedom
from a (largely imagined) “tyranny” of the English, it also helped enshrine a
doctrine of slavery and oppression based on a racial and social hierarchy that
placed white men squarely on top. By in large, the independence movement of the
13 colonies was an affirmation of the status quo rather than a revolution. The
society built in the Americas was already codified by the time they broke free
of the label of “colony” had already developed its own value structure based
around the core beliefs in private property, personal independence, protestant
industry (and of course slavery) that made it a distinct civilization separate from
that of its parent empire.[2]
The whole “no taxation without representation” was a rather convenient
myth—it’s not like the English Empire wasn’t at this time governed by
Parliamentary system wherein the colonies did have representatives (albeit with
limited powers). Regardless, this was the language used to justify their
“revolution” affirming the rights of a select few individuals at the expense of
the rest of American society. While we have as a polity made strides to
undermine this principle (at least in its most egregious forms), one could
reasonably argue that for many this is still the highest value of what they
understand to be the once “great” American value hierarchy of which they hope
to somehow revive.
While we’re
on the subject of incomplete American revolutions, I feel that we’ve finally
reached a safe distance to look back and do an autopsy of the failure of the
Sanders campaign to actually deliver on its revolutionary promise. Though I
fully supported Sanders’ bid in the primary, there were still many concerns I
had with the movement that he helped to form. Ultimately, looking back, it’s actually
shockingly easy to see how doomed his campaign was from the start. Many people
saw his entrance into the race as an attempt to drag Clinton farther to the
left on economic issues. What I think
has become clear now, is that the reverse occurred: every step of the way, Sanders
was driven more and more to the center.
It’s
relatively simple, with the power of hindsight, to point to the exact moment
where it all went wrong: when Sanders decided to register as a democrat. Yes,
he did so to be able to debate Clinton on a national stage and gain the name
recognition that helped spread his movement beyond its original bounds of a
small circle of independent progressives. In doing so he was able to make a
serious challenge to Clinton in what had for years been thought to be an
inevitable coronation. However, he also walked the “revolution” he hoped to
lead straight into an established bastion of conservatism and counterrevolution.[3]
We’ve
seen it now. We’ve got the emails; we have the proof. Once inside the
Democratic party machine, Sanders proposed revolution was cut off, forced to
redirect its energies to play political games, all the while being undercut by
party officials who ignored their own rules meant to provide an honest primary.
We can see here an obvious corollary to my previous point about the revolutions
in Russia and France. Since “defense of the revolution” was not the highest priority
of Sanders campaign (or even, it seems, within the hierarchy at all), it was doomed
to be picked apart by the practiced, steady hand of counterrevolution. (EDIT 8/25/16: further proof: http://www.npr.org/2016/08/24/491242694/bernie-sanders-to-announce-our-revolution-political-group)
Without
this priority of defending the revolution at all costs, really at best the
lofty ideals espoused by the Sanders campaign--grassroots political organizing
and financing, getting money out of politics, and instituting a basic
progressive tax structure—became little more than suggestions for reform, and
historically “refolutions” have proven rarely if ever successful in the long
term. But long into the primary, before it was clear that Clinton would prevail
and provide republicans with the perfect center-Right candidate they had always
dreamed of, we still called it a revolution, even as what little trappings of a
real revolution the campaign had continued to fall away. The revolution was a
story that, for a time, we progressives could believe in. Sadly, in the
immortal words of Laura Jane Grace Gable, “the revolution was a lie.”
I feel like this particular discussion actually transitions
well into another philosophical venture I’ve been wanting to make: the value
of--and the values contained in—stories. The more I think about story-telling
and stories in general, the more I understand them as simply system for the
transmission of values. This is of course an absurdly broad definition, but if
we apply it across the broad spectrum of what constitutes as a “story,” I think
it holds up. The fantasy epics of the immortal Hero’s Cycle convey the value of
honesty, bravery, and self-sacrifice. The Brothers Grimm fairy-tale of
misbehaving children being eaten by the witch of the woods or being snatched up
by whatever horrid beast certainly strives to instill the traditional
protestant patriarchy. Or a beaming friend telling you about the big ass fish
he caught over the weekend attempting to convey the joy of victorious hunt, of
a day’s fruitful labor done well. Or more cynically, perhaps it’s the story of
an unarmed black man shot by police that becomes a vehicle for white power narratives
when an unflattering image of said man is smattered across TV screens and is
labeled a “thug” before being implicated (though he will never be convicted,
mind you) of committing some petty crime. (A quick aside here: news stories,
whatever their actual factual reporting of content, are told through a filter
of cultural context where a subjective morality is inferred if not implicitly
stated—even relatively objective reporting can’t escape this, though
undoubtedly some sources are less objective than others.)
If stories are key then to the
transmission of values, it should come as no surprise that revolutions tend to
have a massive impact on storytelling and the stories that end up saturating
our collective consciousness. Altogether, revolutionary stories help convey the
core values that will serve as the building blocks for the new order.
I think for now I will leave off.
The “revolutionary value structure” is still just a kernel of an idea that, now
that it has taken root in my consciousness, I can’t help but see everywhere I
look, especially when I start to think about my research question and how I
hope to answer it. It’s a giddy and exciting feeling, and I regret having it
taken me this long to put it down on paper. As with all big ideas, it’s going
to need some serious refining. I’m already contemplating giving an optional
project to my students this fall to try to flesh out what they see to be as
pieces of the revolutionary value structure within Soviet civilization as an
extra credit assignment. I want to see what fresh (and unbiased) eyes come up
with when applying my model, just to see how well it holds water. If I do, I’ll
be sure to report my findings here.
For my next installment, however, I
want to really come back to the concept of stories and their importance to the
human experience. I’ve finally got an idea burning a hole in my pocket, and
with the interns finally gone from the jobsite, I’m back on extremely repetitive
boring tasks that, while unglamorous, give me time to collect my thoughts. It’s
my sincerest intention that there won’t be such a gap before you hear from me
again!
Until then, comrades…
Until then, comrades…
[1]
Thermidor was the name of the month in the new revolutionary calendar, during
which Maximillian Robespierre’s political “reign of terror” was brought to an
end, signaling a retreat away from radical revolutionary tactics and would subsequently
lead to a return of aristocratic power at the heart of French politics and,
ultimately, made the conditions perfect for a figure like Napoleon to seize
power.
[2]
Anthony Pagden makes this argument in Lords
of all the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain, and France (1998)
and points to it as one of the factors that would mark the end of the first
“phase” of British colonial ideology, which would undergo a transformation to
the more separated and exploitative model that it would use to dominate peoples
across Asia and Africa.
[3] If
you don’t believe me, even the Atlantic has made the connection: As of 2016, Democrats
are now America’s conservative party. Republicans are against the status quo,
insofar as they hope to transform the world’s oldest democracy into a fascist
police state. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/democrats-conservative-party/496670/
