The GulagDr. Matthew Payne

EMORY UNIVERSITY

History 487R-00CSummer Session 2, 2015

Class Instructor:Bowden 323 Professor PayneMoTuTh Office Hrs: Thursday, 1:00-2:00 pm

2:30AM - 4:45PM 119 Bowden Hall

email: mpayn01@emory.edu ph. 404/727-4466

Course PurposeThis class is an investigation of the most infamous symbol of Soviet Communism, the forced-labor camps—the Gulags. Despite their iconic nature to represent all that branded the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” the Gulag is remarkably poorly understood as a reality, rather than a symbol. The network of penal servitude camps were not static, they did not act as an equivalent of Nazi concentration camps, nor were they as larger or deadly, or as dominated by political prisoners, as they are usually considered in the popular imagination. Even so, in many ways the camps represented the style of rule of the man most

associated with their creation, Iosif Stalin. They may or may not represent the essence of communism—they certainly represent the brutal fate of millions of ordinary Soviet citizens in the grip of Stalinism. Most importantly, the GULag has a history. It is not a static, free-floating system of oppression but an institution whose goals, methods of operation and level of lethality differed from era to era. From the intake of millions of “dekulakized” peasants into “special settlements,” to the slave laborers of the USSR’s “Manhattan Project,” from the killing fields of wartime Gulag to the “administrative exiles,” the Gulag evolved, radically shifted and eventually produced some of the largest popular revolts in the history of the USSR. Too often the story of the GULag is told as a dark tale of oppression achieved, but in fact the Gulag was a political and economic fiasco that failed on its own terms and was swiftly abandoned after the death of Stalin.

A varied collection of works will be used to investigate these topics from memoirs and translations of previously secret Soviet archival documents to scholarly monographs to artistic texts. Students will receive the bulk of their grade from independent research projects while class will center on discussion and interpretation of texts, not lecture. Students will be expected to contribute to class discussions, read independently, present oral reports and reply to discussion questions. As an upper-level history class focused on the production of independent research, this class will focus on the process of research as well as course content. Therefore, in addition to reading and discussion preparation, students will be expected to complete clearly defined and discrete research tasks which will aid them in producing a research paper. With successful completion of the course and a grade of C or better, this class meets the GER’s post-freshman writing requirement (SWR). Within the History major, the class satisfies one of the two research paper requirements for the major, providing the final research paper receive a C or better.

Available at Emory Bookstore:

TEXT: Ann Applebaum, Gulag: A History. (Anchor). ISBN-10: 1400034094

READINGS:

Ann Applebaum, Gulag Voices: An Anthology (Yale Univ. Press). ISBN-10: 0300153200

Stephen A. Barnes, Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society (Princeton Univ. Press). ISBN-10: 0691151121

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution (Oxford). ISBN-10: 0199237670

Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind (Harcourt Brace). ISBN-10: 0156027518

Fyordor Mochulsky, Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir (Oxford). ISBN: 9780199934867

Nicolas Werth, Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag. (Princeton University Press). ISBN-10: 0691130833

REQUIREMENTS

Class requirements include: Readings: All students will read common readings (such as selections from Applebaum’s

Gulag, A History) but additionally each student will be assigned an additional reading per week (usually a scholarly article) and be expected to integrate that reading into class discussion.

Class participation and competence in discussing individual reading assignments. Moreover, part of the class participation grade will consist of responses posted to the class’s Blackboard site via "safe assign." The questions for each week are contained in this syllabus. Although these responses should be expository and discursive, I expect them to be submitted to the conference no later than 9:00 pm of Wednesday

The writing of a 16 to 24-page final research paper. Preparation of a three-page review paper from suggested readings (or a reading agreed

to by the instructor). The student will then introduce that week’s reading and integrate her/his own review with that week’s reading into this presentation.

Completion of all research tasks in a timely manner.

The grade of the class will be determined in the following proportion: final paper = 50% (timely completion of research assignments are vital to a successful

effort in this regard). review paper and oral presentation= 30% class participation (including learn-link responses)=20%

Class attendance is mandatory and unexcused absences will be penalized.

COURSE POLICIES

General Email policy: Prof. Payne reviews email daily during the work week but not necessarily more than once daily. Please be patient, especially with learn-link communications. I’m not Google!

Extra Credit: This class encourages outside the classroom learning. Emory offers a treasury of riches, in the form of outside speakers, internal seminars, exhibits, etc. Those talks, etc., deemed of interest to class will be publicized in class and on our learn-link conference. Modest credit will be granted to your final grade for attendance of these events and short write-ups required. It is your responsibility to fit such opportunities you’re your schedule, not the instructor’s to work around individuals’ hectic schedules.

Other Resources: The Writing Center provides individualized mentoring on exposition provided by a gifted cadre of mentors. Their sessions are rewarding and beneficial even to accomplished writers. For more information and to schedule an appointment see: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/WC/

Emory University Honor Code. As in all Emory classes, the strictures of the honor code apply. Infractions of the honor code, especially cheating and plagiarism, will be handled with the greatest possible severity. All work in the class should be your own and plagiarism from the web (including cutting and pasting of other’s text, but also use of others material or arguments without citation), use of others’ papers, etc, will lead to an honor council referral. The code is located at: http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/students/honor.html.

Unit 1: Introduction—Soviet Power

Tues. (6/30): Introductory Lecture: The Bolshevik RevolutionWed. (7/1):

Reading: Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution.Thurs. (7/2):

Reading: Applebaum, Gulag; A History, intro., pp. xvi-xl, ch. 1, pp. 3-17Peter Holquist, “State Violence as Technique: the Logic of Violence in Soviet

Totalitarianism” in Amir Weiner, ed., Modernity and Population Management (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 19-45

Assignments: Discussion Question and Research Assignment due.Research Assignment:

Consult the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History (MERSH)[DK14 .M6 V.1/ DK14 .M6 V.1 Suppl.] for an entry of interest to you (perhaps a possible paper topic). Note at least two primary sources and three secondary sources from the entry’s bibliography. Then consult the American Bibliography of Soviet and Eastern European Studies (ABSEES) or another major bibliographic data base and note at least five new sources appearing following the MERSH entry’s publication date.

Discussion Question Fitzpatrick gives a broad overview of the history of the Soviet Union in terms of the progress of the

revolution. Contra Trotsky’s famous dictum that Stalinism (and all that went with him such as purges, prison-camps and a police state) represented “Revolution Betrayed”, Fitzpatrick argues that it represented “Revolution Fulfilled.” What do you think of her argument that “terror” and purges, not liberation, were inherent in the entire revolutionary project? Is this not, essentially, the same argument Holquist makes about the logic of violence?

Unit 2: The Birth of the GULag

[Presenter: ]Tues. (7/7): Prehistory of the Gulag

Readings: Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 1, pp. 3-17.Barnes, Death and Redemption, Introduction &

ch. 1, "The Origins, Functions and Institutions of the Gulag," pp. 1-22.

Wed. (7/8): Solovki PowerReadings:

Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 2, pp. 18-41.Thurs. (7/9): The Canal and Collectivization

Reading: Applebaum, Gulag; A History, chs. 3-4, pp. 41-

72.Anatoly Zhigulin, "On Work," in Anne Applebaum, ed., Gulag Voices: An Anthology,

pp. 57-68. Barnes, Death and Redemption, ch. 2, " Reclaiming the Margins and the Marginal: Gulag

Practices in Karaganda, 1930s," pp. 28-78. Assignments: Discussion Question due, Research Question due. Presentation for Unit 2

Presentation Books (Book Reveiws): Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The of Social Catastrophe, Part I, “Lenin’s

Communist Dictatorship,” pp. 21-80.Loren Graham, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer. Michael Jacobson, The Origins of the Gulag; The Soviet Prison Camp System, 1917-1934.Roy R. Robson, Solovki: The Story of Russia told Through its Most Remarkable Islands, pp. 186-

251.Additional Readings:

Paul R. Gregory, Terror by Quota: State Security from Lenin to Stalin, “Introduction; Dictators, Their Enemies and Repression,” pp. 1-33.

Orlando Figes, The Whisperers, ch. 1, “Children of 1917,” pp. 1-76.Oleg Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag; From Collectivization to the Great Terror,

introduction and chapter 1, “Origins of the Stalinist Gulag,” pp. 1-53. Research Assignment:

Review the past five years of a major historical or Slavic studies journal. Slavic Studies journals such as Slavic Review, Kritika, Russian Review, Europe-Asia Review are obvious choices but remember that major historical journals such as The American Historical Review, Journal of Modern History and Past and Present also carry Soviet-themed articles. Note the major trends in the field of Stalin studies—whether particular topics or methodologies dominate the pages, as well as historiographical debates. Give at least five examples of interesting articles (titles and authors). Do not rely solely on JSTOR but examine the most recent numbers in the stacks. Contact the professor if you are having difficulty.

Discussion Questions (chose one):

How do Appelbaum describe early Bolshevik political repression? Why does she emphasize the improvisational and chaotic character of the “Red Terror”? Was Lenin the first architect of the Gulag? Why does Barnes reject the link of the Gulag only with Terror? What role, in his mind, does it play as a specifically penal instititution?

Appelbaum looks on the vast improvisation of the Gulag “system” during the collectivization and notes, quite rightly, the enormous chaos, disorganization and arbitrariness of an ever-expanding penal system. She largely considers the appalling suffering of the zeks in this period as a function of this conclusion. Barnes, on the other hand, sees very much a method to this madness—the use of political and social marginals to colonize the Soviet Union's margins. Again, whose views seem more compelling to you?

Unit 3: Policing Stalin's Socialism

[Presenter: ]Tues. (7/14): The Usual Suspects

Reading: Werth, Cannibal Island, chs. 1-3, pp. 1-85. Wed. (7/15): Chaos

Reading: Werth, Cannibal Island, chs. 4-5, conclusion, pp. 86-180.

Thurs. (7/16): The Culture of Denunciation Readings:

Orlando Figes, The Whisperers, pp. 329-342. (On reserve)Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of

Denunciation of the 1930s," The Journal of Modern History, 68/4 (1996): 831-866.

Lev Kopelev, "Informers," in Anne Applebaum, ed., Gulag Voices: An Anthology, pp.. 125-142

Assignments: Discussion Question due, Research Question due. Presentation for Unit 3

Presentation Books (Book Reveiws): David Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism: Repression and Social Order in the Soviet Union,

1924-1953. Paul Hagenloh, Stalin’s Police: Public Order and Mass Repression in the USSR, 1926-1941. Catriona Kelly, Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero.

Additional Readings:Paul R. Gregory, Lenin’s Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives, ch. 4,

“Marginals and Former People,” pp. 36-42. Golfo Alexopoulos, Stalin’s Outcasts; Aliens, Citizens and the Soviet State, 1926-1936, ch. 1,

“Marking Outcasts, Making Citizens” pp. 13-44.

Research Assignment:

Using Euclid, identify three historical monographs that represent a good, scholarly resource for studying your topic of interest. A monograph is a scholarly, peer-reviewed book (usually put out by a major university press) that focuses on one subject rather than trying to create an overview of a subject, such as a textbook. Thus, Suny’s The Soviet Experiment would not be appropriate (it’s a textbook) but J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov’s Yezhov: The Rise of Stalin’s Iron Fist (a detailed, scholarly would be an excellent choice). Similarly, a formal discussion of Mandelshtam’s poetry would be inappropriate but a study of his secret police file, Maggs’ Mandelshtam and “Der Nister” Files” would be. Memoirs, letters, etc., as primary sources, would also not apply. Please physically examine the monograph by going to Woodruff stacks and write up you observations of each based on a quick skim. For example, “Nekrich’s The Punished People is a pioneering but not up-to-date study of the whole nations Stalin incarcerated. I will need to supplement it with something more recent, such as Peter Gatrell’s Warlands.” Book reviews on J-STOR could help your selection process.

Discussion Questions (chose one): Werth emphasizes the misery, disorganization and appalling

dehumanization of exiles (note, not zeks) which led to so many problems at Nazino. Given that “Cannibal Island” was an extreme situation, what conditions there were endemic to the entire process of “social hygiene” and which were unique?

Figes writes movingly of how the culture of denunciation penetrated into every Soviet citizens soul—deforming family relations, creating suspicion and fostering guilt over silence. But Fitzpatrick points out that the issues involved with denunciation are not black and white, nor do they pertain only to totalitarian regimes. What is your take on the role of denunciation in “privatizing the gulag” into every family?

Unit 4: The God’s Athirst—The Great Purges

[Presenter: ]

Tues. (7/21): Under SuspicionReadings:

Werth, Cannibal Island, epilogue, pp. 181-193; Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 6, pp. 92-115;Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey Within the Whirlwind, chs. 1-9, pp. 3-40.

Weds. (7/22): The Machinery of RepresssionReadings:

Applebaum, Gulag; A History, chs. 7-9, pp. 121-159.Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey Within the Whirlwind, chs. 10-29, pp. 41-174.Paul R. Gregory, Lenin’s Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives, ch. 5, “The

Great Terror: Directive 00447,” pp. 43-61. (on reserve)Alexander Dolgun, "Interrogation," in Anne Applebaum, ed., Gulag Voices: An Anthology,

pp. 13-38.Thurs. (7/23):Life in the Gulag

Reading:Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 10-12, pp. 183-255, ch. 14, pp. 280-306.Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey Within the Whirlwind, part 2, chs. 1-9, pp. 273-416.Kazimierz Zarod, "A Day in Labor Corrective Camp No. 21," in Anne Applebaum, ed., Gulag

Voices: An Anthology, pp. 49-57. Assignments: Discussion Question due, Research assignment due. Presentation for Unit 4

Presentation Books (Book Reveiws): Janusz Bardach, Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag.J. Arch Getty, The Road to Terror; Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939,

Part I, “The Fork in the Road,” pp. 21-208.Paul R. Gregory, Terror by Quota; State Security from Lenin to Stalin.Hiroaki Kuromiya, The Voices of the Dead: Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, Abridged, Part III, “The Destructive Labor Camps,” chs. 7-22, pp. 220-290.

Additional Readings:Wendy Goldman, Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin, ch. 6, 204-254.Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, Abridged, Part I, “The Prison Industry,” chs.

1, 3-5, pp. 3-18, 39-94.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, 3-66.

Research Assignment:

Hand in your paper proposals. Each proposal should include a topic, a working thesis and a discussion of the methodology you plan to use and its appropriateness. For instance, a proposal on “Socialist Realism” might have a working thesis such as “the party’s inability to control even its own activists in literature, led it to develop a rigidly controlled system of cultural production which rewarded compliance.” Here you would most likely concentrate on cultural historical approaches but might chose to do a social history of the profession of dancer. Accompanying your proposal should be an annotated bibliography of your proposed research topic. Include at least five monographs and ten articles/primary sources.

Discussion Questions (chose one): With reference to Ginzburg especially, but also Applebaum and Werth, how do the process of “being

under suspicion” play out for victims of Stalinist terror? Why did Ginzburg and others refuse to believe they were in any real danger?

What was Ginzburg’s “crime” and was she “guilty”? How did the NKVD try to get her to confess and why did they think this was so important? Given that most people who died in the purges were simply assigned for execution in various “mass operations” why do you think Ginzburg’s Kafkaesque process of being convicted and punished has such resonance with us? Did Dolgun's experience of interrogation parallel Ginzburg's?

What was the life of a zek in the Gulag? Is it possible, given all the different types of prisoners and functions, to draw a generalization of the penal experience? Or was their a culture of the Gulag shaped as much by the inmates as the wardens? How did Zarod's experience, as a foreigner and male, differ from Ginzburg's?

Unit 5: The Gulag Climaxes: The Great Patriotic War And After [Presenter: ]

Tues. (7/28): Wartime Holocaust and Post-war Expansion.Reading:

Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 19-2, pp. 411-459. Mochulsky, Gulag Boss, 3-83, 90-108.

Wed. (7/29): The Camp-Industrial Complex.Reading:

Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 22, pp. 460-476. Barnes, Death and Redemption, ch. 5, " A New Circle of

Hell: The Postwar Gulag and the Rise of the Special Camps," pp. 155-201.

Isaak Filshtinsky, "Promotion," in Anne Applebaum, ed., Gulag Voices: An Anthology, pp. 83-94.

Thurs. (7/30):Zeks in Revolt.Reading:

Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 18, pp. 390-408, ch. 23-24, pp. 476-526.Barnes, Death and Redemption, ch. 6, " The Crash of the Gulag: Releases and Uprisings

in the Post-Stalin Era," pp. 201-253. Assignments: Discussion Question due, Research assignment due. Presentation for Unit 5

Presentation Books (Book Reveiws): Edward Bacon, The Gulag at War: Stalin’s Forced Labour System in Light of the Archives. Donald Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labor and the Restoration of the Stalinist System

after World War II, esp. chs. 1-4.Cathy Frierson, Children of the Gulag, chs. 4-6.Galina Ivanova, Labor Camp Socialism: the Gulag in the Soviet Totalitarian System.Vladimir A. Kozlov, Mass Uprisings in the USSR: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin.Hans Schuetz, Davai, Davai!: Memoir of a German Prisoner of World War II in the Soviet Union.Elena Zubkova, Russia After the War: Hopes, Illusions and Disappointments, 1945-1957.

Additional Readings:Golfo Alexopoulos, “Amnesty 1945: The Revolving Dorr of Stalin’s Gulag,” Slavic Review, 64/2

(2005): 274-306.Kees Boterbloem, Life and Death under Stalin: Kalinin Province, 1945-1953, ch. 5, “Victims; The

Penal System,” pp. 152-170.Oleg Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag, ch. 6, “Mobilization and Repression,” pp. 236-286.Orlando Figes, The Whisperers, ch. 7, “Ordinary Stalinists,” pp. 455-534.Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War; The Second World War and the Fate of

Bolshevism, ch. 3, “Excising Evil,” pp. 129-190.Research Assignment:

Hand in a working outline of 1-2 pages.

Discussion Questions (chose one):

Most of the cogs in Stalin's machinery of repression, from the informers to the bureaucrats to the camp bosses, were careerist officials who simply conformed to the system. What do you think about the Mochulsky’s role in the GULag as a boss? He was certainly a perpetrator but also seemed to be perilously close to becoming a victim of Stalin’s terror. Could a good man be a GULag boss?

Why did the Gulag reach its largest scope and most massive involvement in the economy following the war? How did this expansion of the Gulag act as both an economic policy and a repression of possible dissent? Why were the special camps introduced? Why would Stalin so brutally repress the very people (soldiers, for instance) who had just won the war for him?

There has been a great debate in post-Soviet history about the nature of the fall of the Gulag. One group of historians see the vast prison-industrial empire as being dismantled due to elite consensus—the idea that it simply was too expensive and unproductive. But others insist that the dogged resistance of the post-war zeks, from escape to sabotage to massive uprisings at Kengir and Vorkuta, forced the regime to humanize after the dictator’s death, a process now known as the Thaw. What do you think?

Unit 6: The Meaning of the Gulag

[Presenter: ]

Tues. (8/4): The ThawReading:

Applebaum, Gulag; A History, ch. 25, pp. 506-526.K. Petrus, "Liberation," in Anne Applebaum, ed., Gulag Voices: An Anthology, pp. 181-

192. Weds. (8/5): The Meaning of the Gulag.

Reading: Applebaum, Gulag; A History, chs. 26-27, epilogue, pp. 527-577;Alexander Etkind, "Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror,"

Constellations, 16/1 (March 2009): 182–200. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “Heirs of Stalin,” Collected Poems, 1952-1990, pp. 112-115.

Assignments: Discussion Question due, Research assignment due. Presentation for Unit 5

Presentation Books (Book Reveiws): Nanci Adler, The Gulag Survivor: Beyond the Soviet System.Miriam Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime and the Fate of Reform after

Stalin.Adam Hochschild. The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin.Kathleen E. Smith, Remembering Stalin's victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR.Leona Toker, Return from the Archipelago: Narratives of Gulag Survivors.

Additional Readings:Polly Jones, Memories of Terror or Terrorizing Memories? Terror, Trauma and Survival in Soviet

Culture of the Thaw, The Slavonic and East European Review, 86/2 (April 2008): 346-371.Miriam Dobson, “POWs and Purge Victim: Attitudes Towards Party Rehabilitation, 1956-1957,”

The Slavonic and East European Review, 86/2 (April 2008): 328-345.Oleg Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag, ch. 7 & conclusion, “The Victims,” pp. 287-327, “The

Price of Terror,” pp. 328-344.Jehanne M. Gheith, “I never talked”: Enforced Silence, Non-narrative Memory, and the Gulag,”

Mortality, 12/2 (May 2007): 159-175.

Discussion Questions (chose one): How was the “Thaw” experienced by zeks? Why was it so much easier for the regime to handle

exiled former prisoners yearning for “rehabilitation” than inmates? Why did the Thaw happen at all?

How does the memory of the GULag and Stalin's terror haunt modern Russia? Why does Stalin's ghost still walk the land.

Fri. (8/10): Hand in Final Paper Research Assignment (due on Friday, 10:00 am on Blackboard via Safe Assign