A root cause of widespread dissatisfaction was the Soviet Union’s low standard of living.
17
Agriculture, its productivity severely undermined by collectivization, lurched between crisis and stagnation. Almost every year, the Stalinist government acknowledged that famine or “food difficulties” affected either a large swath of the country, as in 1931–1933 and 1946–1947, or some particular regions. Even in the best years the average diet was meager. Most people lived primarily on grains and potatoes. Budgetary studies conducted on the eve of Stalin’s death, during the relatively prosperous year 1952, established the following daily nutritional intake in worker and peasant families: the average Soviet citizen consumed approximately 500 grams of flour products (primarily bread), a small amount of cereals, 400–600 grams of potato, and approximately 200–400 grams of milk or milk products. These items accounted for the bulk of the typical diet. Anything else, especially meat, was a special occasion. The figure for per capita consumption of meat and meat products averaged 40–70 grams per day and 15–20 grams of fat (animal or plant oils, margarine, or fatback). A few teaspoons of sugar and a bit of fish completed the picture. Average citizens could permit themselves an average of one egg every six days. These rations are approximately equal to the dietary norm for prison camps.
18
The figures were produced by the Central Statistical Directorate, which was under constant political pressure and probably painted an overly rosy picture. Averages could be inflated, for example, by selecting workers at the high end of the pay spectrum or peasants from relatively prosperous kolkhozes in the study. Also, the budgetary studies did not factor in the often poor quality of the food. A resident of Chernigov Oblast wrote to Stalin in November 1952, “Now they are baking black bread, and even that is of poor quality. It is impossible to eat such bread, especially for people in poor health.”
19
The supply of manufactured goods was just as bad. Prices of factory-made items were traditionally kept exceptionally high. People had to settle for simple, relatively cheap products, but few could afford even these. For example, in 1952 only one out of every four peasants could afford leather footwear.
20
Some lacked even the simplest footwear and clothing. As one resident of a village in Tambov Oblast wrote to Stalin in December 1952, “In our kolkhoz the kolkhozniks have one article of winter clothing for 3–4 family members, and children in 60 percent of the population cannot go to school since they don’t have the clothing.”
21
For the majority of the population the housing situation was no better. Under Stalin, housing was the chronically underfunded stepchild that received whatever resources were left after priority items had been taken care of. For years the housing shortage grew continually worse—and then came the devastation of war. As of the beginning of 1953 there was an average of 4.5 square meters of residential housing per urban resident.
22
When temporary residents and those without official registration were taken into account, this ratio grew even worse. The quality of housing was also low. Only 46 percent of state-owned residential space came equipped with running water, 41 percent with sewage hookups, 26 percent with central heating, 3 percent with hot water, and 13 percent with a bathtub.
23
Even these figures reflected the higher standards found in major cities, chiefly the two capitals. A striking indicator of the housing crisis was the prevalence of urban “barracks”—flimsy temporary communal housing without plumbing—and the increasing number of people registering such barracks as their residences. In 1945 approximately 2.8 million people lived in urban barracks, but by 1952 the number had grown to 3.8 million. More than 337,000 people in Moscow lived in barracks.
24
Another source of hardship for the Soviet people was the exceptionally difficult working conditions in industry and agriculture. The poorly developed system of material incentives led to widespread coercion in the workplace. The use of slave labor was of course most blatant within the Gulag system, but supposedly free industrial and agricultural workers also often toiled under compulsion. The workforce for certain industries, especially the most poorly paid and dangerous, was assembled by pressing young people into service through compulsory mobilization. Evasion was punishable by a term in a labor camp. Beginning in 1940, emergency labor laws were used to bind workers to their places of employment. Peasants, who were essentially not paid for their work in kolkhozes, were prosecuted for failure to fulfill their work quotas. Between 1940 and 1952 approximately 17 million people were convicted of tardiness, leaving their place of employment without permission, or evading mobilization.
25
This huge number, which fails to capture the extent of violations of workplace discipline, belies the propagandists’ exultation of Soviet workers’ selfless enthusiasm.
Between the two extremes of devotion and opposition to the regime, the vast majority made empty shows of loyalty but were largely indifferent to politics. Only marginally influenced by propaganda and trying their best to evade the grip of repression, most took comfort in tradition and ritual. Despite state repression of priests and active church members, especially in the 1930s, most Soviet citizens held onto their faith. During the census of January 1937, 57 percent of respondents over the age of sixteen identified themselves as religious—more than 55 million people. Surely many others hid their faith out of fear of persecution.
26
In the area of inter-ethnic relations, Stalin left a problematic legacy. The relative liberalism of the early Bolshevik regime, which built what historian Terry Martin calls an “affirmative action empire,” came to an end in the early 1930s.
27
Under Stalin, nationalities policy grew increasingly brutal. Mass arrests and executions based on nationality, the internal exile of entire peoples, and the effort to use russification to create a single Soviet nationality laid a minefield under the country’s future.
28
Explosions started to go off while Stalin was still alive, when guerrilla wars roiled western Ukraine and the Baltic states. Although a degree of inter-ethnic unity was actually achieved, behind the propaganda façade extolling the “friendship of peoples” seethed many inter-ethnic conflicts.
29
The “Russian question” that grew out of the contradictory position of the Russian majority—simultaneously the bulwark of the Soviet empire and one of its chief victims—promoted instability and ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union, an interpretation advanced by Geoffrey Hosking.
30
What did Stalin know about the real life of “his” people? The Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha visited Moscow in 1947 and later recalled Stalin saying, “To govern, you have to know the masses, and in order to know them, you have to walk among them.”
31
Stalin could hardly claim to adhere to his own wisdom. After his famous visit to Siberia in 1928, most of which was spent meeting with functionaries, he almost never walked “among the masses.” Official meetings with representatives of the workers were carefully orchestrated propaganda spectacles. During better days, Stalin would occasionally indulge his taste for theatrics and suddenly appear in public. But even these spontaneous meetings inevitably took on the aura of “Christ appearing to the people.” In September 1935, accompanied by several Soviet leaders, he toured the outskirts of Sochi and encountered small groups of vacationers. On Stalin’s initiative a spontaneous “fraternization” was allowed. One vacationer left a striking account of the event:
Comrade Stalin … stopped us with the following words: “Why are you leaving comrades? Why are you so proud that you shun our company? Come here. Where are you from?” We walked up to him.… “Well, let’s get acquainted,” Comrade Stalin said, and he introduced us to each of his companions in turn and introduced himself as well. “This is Comrade Kalinin, this is the wife of Comrade Molotov … and this is I, Stalin,” he said, shaking everyone’s hand. “Now we’ll all have our pictures taken together,” and Comrade Stalin invited us to stand next to him.… While the photographers were working, Comrade Stalin kept making fun of them: he said they were “mortal enemies” and were always trying to interfere with one another. He asked that they photograph not only him but “all the people.” … Then Comrade Stalin began to invite the woman selling apples from a kiosk … and a salesman from the food stand to come have their pictures taken. It took a long time before the disconcerted saleswoman could be persuaded to leave her store. Comrade Stalin told her that “it’s not good to be so proud” and told the photographers not to take the picture until she came. “The saleswoman,” Stalin proclaimed, “should become the most respected woman in our country.” Finally she came and the photo shoot continued. An empty bus drove up, and Comrade Stalin invited the driver and conductor to have their pictures taken.
32
Obviously such “walks among the people” did little to enhance Stalin’s understanding of them, and even these mostly stopped after the 1930s. The
vozhd
never took an interest in seeing the conditions in which the Soviet people were living, what they bought and where, what sort of health care or education they received. His knowledge of “the masses” came mostly from what he read in his office. So far we know of two main sources from which he gleaned knowledge of daily life: summary reports from state security about the public mood and letters and complaints from ordinary citizens. A steady stream of such letters arrived in government offices, including some addressed to him personally.
As far as can be determined from archival studies, state security summaries were a major source of information for the Soviet leadership in the 1920s and 1930s. These reports contained rather candid assessments of the situation in the country, albeit from a chekist perspective, which saw almost all crises and difficulties as the work of enemies. There were a number of types of reports, some providing an overview of sociopolitical processes, others devoted to matters of economics or politics. One problematic aspect of these reports was their length. The leaders for whom they were prepared had to spend hours poring over them. In recent years historians have published a number of informational state security summaries dating to the prewar period.
33
These publications, however, are based on copies found in state security archives—not in Stalin’s personal archive. We do not currently know the extent to which, or in what form, they are contained in the Politburo archive, which is part of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Historians therefore cannot be sure to what extent the leadership in general or Stalin in particular read these secret police summaries. There is evidence to suggest that they were mostly unaware of these reports’ contents.
We know more about Stalin’s familiarity with letters from Soviet citizens. It would not be an exaggeration to say that most of the country sent complaints, requests, and petitions on a wide array of topics to all sorts of government offices. Such letter writing was an extremely common practice and was even encouraged by the authorities. Within the highly centralized system, letters to the government were one of the few ways of solving everyday problems. The government was virtually the only employer. It also had authority over the allocation or construction of housing. Government stores supplied (or were supposed to supply) all basic needs. Government hospitals were the only places to obtain treatment for serious illnesses. The government determined the rather narrow category of people eligible for pensions or benefits and the size of the payments. Given the flaws of the Soviet judicial system, citizens turned to bureaucrats to resolve conflicts and disputes. Abuses by officials within the huge bureaucratic apparat occasioned countless grievances. Arrests, forcible relocations, imprisonments in camps, or death sentences against tens of millions of people generated millions of complaints and pleas for relief. Arrestees themselves wrote, as did their relatives, and even unrelated people sometimes worked up the courage to intercede on behalf of an acquaintance or colleague. This pursuit of justice was encouraged by the state since it created the illusion of impartial leadership.
Another practice that was encouraged was denouncing abuses or “enemy activity.” Stalin made it no secret that he held denouncers and informers in high regard. All denunciations, including anonymous ones, were investigated. The government’s attitude is eloquently illustrated by the fact that even prisoners who were deprived of all other rights had the right to submit denunciations. In February 1936 the NKVD chief signed an order calling for the installation of boxes in all camps, prisons, and penal colonies into which inmates could insert statements addressed to him personally or the head of the Gulag directorate. “The boxes shall be sealed with the seal of the Directorate of Camps,” the order read, “and only the head of the camp or his deputy (in camps) and the head of the Department of Detention Centers or his deputy (in prisons and penal colonies) shall open them.” All correspondence was to be sent to the NKVD chief personally and “under no circumstance concealed.” Inmates were to be informed of “the purpose of these boxes.”
34
Taking advantage of the regime’s eagerness to uncover enemies and the almost total impunity enjoyed by slanderers, many Soviet citizens used denunciations to game the system. Informers used the government to attain their own mercenary objectives—to settle scores, get rid of annoying neighbors sharing the same communal apartment, or eliminate those competing for the same job. For the hapless multitudes at the bottom of the societal hierarchy, denunciations were the only means of taking revenge against powerful officials. The state implicitly encouraged people to use this disgraceful means of fighting for their rights.
In addition to complaints and denunciations, the archives abound with “helpful” letters. Some offered ideas for reorganizing government agencies or for various socioeconomic innovations; some offered ideas for renaming cities or creating new holidays or ceremonies; others sought to correct “errors” in the press. Writing such letters was one of the few outlets for activism available to ordinary citizens. These letters may have contained an element of self-promotion as their authors tried to draw the top leadership’s attention to themselves.