Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (39 page)

this astounding, puzzling pairing more evident than in the campaign for

union democracy (
profdemokratiia
), a mass movement to revitalize the un-

ions that coincided with the sharpest period of political repression in 1937

and 1938.

The Democracy Campaign

The democracy campaign was first launched at a Central Committee (CC)

plenum, which met from February 22 – March 5, 1937. It was part of a

wider effort to revitalize Soviet institutions, including the soviets, the Party, and the unions, from below. The plenum delegates gathered amid an intensifying hunt for enemies within the Party and industry. Nikolai Ezhov,

appointed head of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD)

in September 1936, had already arrested over 1,000 officials in industry for

——————

4 A disgruntled former Party member, Leonid V. Nikolaev, assassinated Kirov, the secretary of the Leningrad Party organization, in 1934. The murder led to mass arrests of former oppositionists and the abrogation of civil liberties (Lenoe, 2010; Conquest 1989).

Scott (1989, 197) notes that newspapers, radio, and theater all encouraged Soviet citizens to be vigilant of spies.

150

W E N D Y Z . G O L D M A N

“wrecking” and “industrial sabotage” (Getty and Naumov 1999, 282). In

January, Grigorii Piatakov, the Deputy Commissar of Heavy Industry, and

other former members of the left opposition, were charged with industrial

wrecking and espionage for fascist Germany, tried in the second of the

famous Moscow show trials, and subsequently shot. The Commissar of

Heavy Industry, Grigorii (Sergo) Ordzhonikidze, unable to protect his

employees from arrest, foresaw his own fate and committed suicide on the

eve of the Central Committee plenum. Parallel to the quickening tempo of

arrests, the new Stalin Constitution had recently been adopted after broad

discussion and a national referendum. It mandated multi-candidate, secret

ballot, direct elections to the soviets, lifted previous voting restrictions on

priests, white guards, former aristocrats, and other
byvshie liudi
(former people of the tsarist regime), and provided equal weight to rural and urban

votes. Party leaders were more than a bit nervous about how their candi-

dates would fare in such elections. The lead editorial of the main union

journal queried anxiously, “Are we ready for this?”5 The hunt for enemies

among industrial and Party leaders was thus accompanied by great fanfare

trumpeting “the most democratic Constitution in the world.”6

The CC plenum, too, was shaped by the striking duality of terror and

democracy. Much of the plenum was devoted to the “anti-party activities”

of Nikolai Bukharin and Aleksei Rykov. The discussion ended with the

CC’s decision to expel them from the Party, arrest them, and march them

directly from the plenum to prison. Ezhov and other party leaders deliv-

ered lengthy speeches on the threats posed by a new terrorist bloc of

Trotskyists and rightists who aimed to assassinate Soviet leaders. At the

same time, Stalin and Andrei Zhdanov, secretary of the CC and the Lenin-

grad Party organization, focused on the need for greater internal Party de-

mocracy, presenting a vision of a new, revitalized Party purged of opposi-

tionists. The Party needed to eliminate the noisy boasting, servile flattery,

and empty sloganeering that characterized its activities.7

——————

5 Informatsionnoe Soobshchenie ob Ocherednom Plenume TsK VKP (b),
Voprosy

profdvizheniia
, 5–6, Mart (1937), 2. Elections to the Supreme Soviet were held in October 1937 but single candidate elections were substituted for the promised multi-candidate form at the last minute (Getty, 1991).

6

Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(OGIZ State Publishing House of Political Literature, Soviet Union, 1938).

7 Materialy Fevral’sko-Martovskogo Plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,
Voprosy istorii
, No. 5 (1993), No. 3 (1995). The full stenographic report was published in sections in
Voprosy istorii
between 1992 and 1995. A long excerpt in English, dealing with the purge

T H E G R E A T S O V I E T P A R A D O X

151

Using the same phrases that marked the Party’s earlier introduction of

the Stalin Constitution, Zhdanov linked the coming elections to the Su-

preme Soviet to the need for greater democracy within the Party itself. He

called for the “activation of the party masses”, “mass involvement in gov-

ernment”, “multi-candidate, secret ballot elections from top to bottom”,

“an end to appointments [
kooptatsiia
] in place of elections”, “criticism and self criticism”, and “greater accountability of Party leaders before their

members”. Zhdanov held that elections within the Party had become “a

mere formality”: heads of local Party committees were chosen and con-

firmed by rote elections, or appointed and removed “from above”, prac-

tices that “deprived members of their legal rights to control the Party or-

gans”. The Party had to be rebuilt “on the basis of unconditional and full

realization of internal Party democracy”.8

What did Party leaders mean by “democracy [
demokratiia
]”? The answer

here is fairly clear cut: secret ballots, multi candidate-elections, accountability of leaders, greater involvement of the rank and file, and an end to the

mini-cults surrounding local and regional leaders. This definition, which

encompassed both the general electorate and Party members, shared much

with the classical liberal conception of democracy, yet differed from it in

two crucial respects. First, although Party leaders encouraged the rank and

file to speak out against bosses and officials, they placed limits on free

speech and policed them. Party leaders never endorsed the abstract princi-

ple of free speech. Second, although they insisted on secret ballots and

multi-candidate elections, they never viewed the ballot as the sole defining

feature of democracy. They also placed great emphasis on active participa-

tion, or control from below, realized in workers’ brigades, for example, to

oversee prices in stores, disbursement of social insurance funds, housing

construction, and the re-gendering of industrial jobs. The brigades often

wielded real power to redress problems. Yet like elections, these participa-

tory control mechanisms, too, were often transformed into empty perfor-

mative rituals devoid of power.

What did Party leaders intend in their invocation of democracy? This

question is more complicated. Party leaders believed that the practice of

——————

of Bukharin and Rykov, can be found in the work of Getty and Naumov (1999). No. 5

(1993) contains Zhdanov’s speech; No. 7 (1993) resolutions on Zhdanov’s speech; No 3

(1995) Stalin’s speech; Nos. 11–12 (1995) Stalin’s concluding words.

8 Materialy Fevral’sko-Martovskogo Plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,
Voprosy istorii
, No 5 (1993), 3–14; No. 7 (1993), 17–23.

152

W E N D Y Z . G O L D M A N

kooptatsiia
made it difficult to remove oppositionists, fostered resentment, and widened the gap between the leadership and the rank and file. Regional and local leaders staffed the posts beneath them with their own loyal

appointees, creating an atmosphere of
semeistvennost’
or “family” based on circles of mutual protection. Not beholden to an electorate, wielding vast

power to appoint and fire others in leading posts, they built up personal

fiefdoms and cults. A. I. Ugarov, former secretary of the Party’s Leningrad

city committee, complained at the plenum, “Parades, clamor, boasting,

glorification of leaders, and toadyism” had replaced honest relations be-

tween Party officials and workers.9 At the same time, the Kirov murder

provoked deep fears within Stalin and his supporters that oppositionists

might mobilize the social discontent created by collectivization and rapid

industrialization.10 Party leaders thus had several interests in democracy.

They wanted to revitalize the links between the Party and its base and

eliminate the creeping apathy at the lower ranks,
but at the same time
, mobilize those ranks to break up the “family circles” around the regional leaders

that protected former oppositionists. Most importantly, in their promotion

of democracy,
they viewed these aims as complementary, not contradictory.

N. M. Shvernik, the head of the All Union Central Council of Trade

Unions (VTsSPS), delivered the main address on the unions to the CC

plenum. Although a number of speakers had prepared their texts in ad-

vance for review by the Politburo, Shvernik’s speech seemed to surprise

Stalin and other CC members (Khlevniuk 1995a, 126–27, 145–46). When

Shvernik mentioned that wreckers had seized leadership posts in the un-

ions, Stalin called out, “Who seized these posts?” Shvernik replied that

Gil’burg, the head of the Union of Coke and Chemical Workers, had been

arrested, and Stalin interrupted again, “He seized a post?” His bewilder-

ment suggested that he was not aware of which union leaders the NKVD

had already arrested. Shvernik also surprised the delegates with his an-

nouncement that the unions were as badly in need of democratic overhaul

as the Party. “I should say here directly and with all frankness that the

unions are in even worse shape.” He casually tossed out the suggestion that

——————

9 Materialy Fevral’sko-Martovskogo Plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,
Voprosy istorii
, No.

5 (1993), 6–8, No. 10 (1995), 22–24.

10 These fears were among the main subtexts of the first Moscow show trial in August 1936. See also speeches of Stalin, Kabakov, Eikhe, Kalygina, and Kosior in Materialy Fevral’sko-Martovskogo Plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,
Voprosy istorii
, 6 (1993), 3–

12, 27–9; 7 (1993), 3–5; 3 (1995), 3–14.