“Revenge of the Repressed”

Lecture on April 13, 2009

Lecture Overview

• Review of last two weeks• How to explain the transformation from

Stalinist repression + terror to sudden resistance?

• Explanatory framework• Comparing Hungary and Poland in 1956

Review

In the first two weeks we considered the question of how to explain compliance with the imposition of Communist rule in Eastern Europe:

-- why might intellectuals have been drawn into collaboration with the regime? (Milosz)

-- how WWII produced conditions that facilitated the imposition of Communist rule (Gross)

-- what factors might have provided the new regimes with some legitimacy (securing the property and territory acquired during and after the war, enhanced social mobility and ideological conviction – all touched upon indirectly in Kovaly)

Stalinism

We also examined the impact of Stalinism on Eastern Europe as a complex interlocking system of:

Control – institutional and social; constant monitoring and surveillance

Discipline – mental (‘constituting subjectivity’ through socialization), physical and emotional (continuous labor, inciting fears and anxieties through rumors to keep people continuously off balance)

Punishment – purges, imprisonment, deportation, terror inflicted by the secret police (a state within the state)

On Discipline

It is important to note, in this context, that a number of different positions can be taken within cultural theory on the question of the relationship between the regime’s socialization and subjectivity. So, while all are influenced by Foucault, some like Hellbeck look at the construction of the self “as a subject of the Soviet order” as, for example, in the Podlubnyi diary (in S. Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism New Directions, 2000). Others maintain that although the authoritarian regime’s official rhetoric may mentally exhaust its subjects, these subjects do not believe in its claims and can maintain private distance from public lies. See, for example, Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: politics, rhetoric and symbols in contemporary Syria , 1999 and the work of James Scott (see below).

How to explain the differentiation of East European regimes?

Why did the East European communist regimes differentiate themselves in terms of their levels of compliance? With, unexpectedly, the most advanced socio-economic societies (that should have been the most resistant to a form of communism imposed by the ‘backward’ Soviet Union) producing the most hard-line regimes. Regime types:

Bureaucratic-Authoritarian = GDR, CSSRNationalist-Accomodationist = Hungary, PolandPatrimonial = BulgariaSultanist = Romania (particularly brutal regime, only parallel N.Korea)See: H.Kitschelt, et.als., Post-Communist Party Systems, 1999 and J.Linz

+ A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation , 1996.

Potential Explanatory Factors for Czech and East German Hardline Regimes

• Density of civil society not a safeguard against dictatorship; can actually enhance dictatorial rule once civil society groups ‘captured’ by Party. See: Sheri Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” in World Politics, vol. 49, no. 3, 1997

• Heavily urbanized and professionalized populations more readily controlled (e.g., survival linked to employment, urban landscape facilitates social control as by the concierge women – as illustrated in the Kovaly reading)

Potential Factors, cont.

• Substantial pre-war presence of legitimate Communist Parties before the war (regularly polling, in the Czech case, ca. 10% of the vote); legitimacy enhanced by their opposition to Nazism and the discrediting of interwar democracy in both countries.

• Ironically, better economic performance until the mid-1980’s facilitated regime stability and hard-line stance.

• Both divided states (Germany between east and west; the CSSR between the Czech lands and Slovakia) which may have increased the vigilance of hard-line leaders against the rise of any reform-minded Party members.

In general, how were such terrorized societies able to produce sustained resistance?

Types of resistance seen continuously throughout Soviet rule over Eastern Europe:

1. Passive – most prevalent in the work place, e.g., foot-dragging, sabotage, pilfering, etc.; ‘hidden transcripts,’ e.g. jokes, private realm interactions

2. Rioting/Strikes – basic demands related to work conditions and/or food prices. E.g., Bulgaria, CSSR, GDR in 1953

3. “systemic and ideological challenges to the Stalinist structural legacy” (Rothschild) E.g., Poland, Hungary in 1956; CSSR in 1968.

4. Combining 2 + 3 –rapid slippage from basic demands to systemic protests. E.g., Poland in 1970 and 1980 (Solidarity)

So, how to explain such quickly and spontaneously erupting protests?

• As in Prague and the “spontaneous solidarity of the decent” (Kovaly, p. 179); when the “spell was broken for good” (Kovaly, p. 191)

• As in Budapest and people “crying tears of joy that at last they could find a way to speak” (Sebestyn, p. 110)

How does society move from defensive retrenchment in the face of pervasive terror to constructive public engagement against the regime?

Surveying Existing Approaches

• For the ‘totalitarian paradigm’ scholars (most influential in the 1950’s-60’s but still informing the scholarship of some East European historians and perhaps the Rothschild text) – resistance is inevitable since Stalinism based solely on force not legitimacy. Once force diminished, then societies take “revenge.”

• For sociological approaches, resistance would be logical in the event that the bases of regime legitimacy begin to erode (e.g., social mobility stalled, new class of elites consolidated as workers achieve greater class consciousness and resentment over unfulfilled regime promises, intellectuals increasingly alienated from dogmatic party leadership)

But, these approaches can’t explain the spontaneous eruption of open resistance with the attendant feelings

of social solidarityHere, cultural approaches might provide added explanatory

power as in the work of James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 1990. For Scott, the shift from domination to open resistance is facilitated by:

1. The pre-existence of “hidden transcripts” shared by subordinate populations

2. The courage of an individual in giving public voice to these “hidden transcripts”

Subsequently, “the highly charged atmosphere created by the open declaration of the hidden transcript may produce social effects that bear the marks of collective madness.” (p. 222)

As both the Kovaly and Sebestyn texts substantiate

This ‘collective madness’ in Hungary 1956, Prague 1968 was characterized by the rapid unfolding of events, a sense of instant community, an euphoric sense of personal liberation and social solidarity, a sense of all speaking the same language. If Scott is right, these phenomena were made possible by the hidden forms of resistance preceding the events in question. E.g., sustaining popular memories v. official memory; sharing linguistic codes (jokes, grumbling); private realms of ‘truth’.

Scott and subjectivity

Scott’s work, in contrast to other cultural approaches informed by the work of Foucault, assumes that subjectivity is not constituted by domination so as to disable resistance; that those dominated do retain a sense of individuality and autonomous personhood capable of critically evaluating circumstances as unjust and humiliating. What might the foundations of “dignity and autonomy” be, separate and distinct from the regime’s socialization efforts and conditioning effects?

-- moral economy beliefs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_economy), religious beliefs, pre-communist schooling in national traditions (see K. Darden and A. Grzymala-Busse, “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism and the Communist Collapse,” in World Politics , vol. 59, no. 1, 2006.

Scott

“Subordinates in such large-scale structures of domination nevertheless have a fairly extensive social existence outside of the immediate control of the dominant. It is in such sequestered settings where, in principle, a shared critique of domination may develop.” (p. xi)

But, for those whose identity was constituted by communist ideology,

Khrushchev’s secret speech in February 1956, represented a profound blow to their self-conception and to the legitimacy of the Party. As word spread of the contents, it “released a torrent of soul searching” (Rothschild) in Poland and elsewhere. For 5 hours Khrushchev exhaustively catalogued Stalin’s crimes from the mistreatment of Lenin’s wife, to the purges, the cult of personality and the lack of leadership during WWII. For those present, it was a shattering experience.

Explanatory Framework: Sources of Resistance/Revolution

By distilling key factors identified in theories of revolution (see, e.g., T. Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World, 1994), the following framework emerges:

I. Structural FactorsII. Cultural FactorsIII. Contingent Factors

Structural Factors

I. Vulnerable state structures-- in Eastern Europe, communist regimes obviously heavily

dependent on SU and the secret police; once apparatus of terror pulled back after Stalin’s death and reforms initiated from above– these states weakened.

II. Divided Elites-- Khrushchev’s reforms were contested, leading to Party in-fighting

and vacillating responses to unfolding circumstances; a situation replicated in all of the East European Parties as well

III. Disaffected Social Groups-- intellectuals, students, workers all clearly harbored grievances and

could be readily mobilized

Cultural/Ideological FactorsI. “Culture conducive to challenges to authority” (Skocpol)-- in Eastern Europe, the “ideological framing of resistance” was enabled

both by Khrushchev’s secret speech and by the ‘hidden transcripts.’ Problematically, however, the reform oriented Party leaders framed their resistance to Soviet domination in terms still consistent with Communist ideology (e.g. Nagy), while the population at large framed their resistance in terms of nationalism, freedom and independence.

II. “Politically Relevant Networks of Popular Communication”-- according to Skocpol, the “ideological framing of resistance” has to be

articulated and mobilized through social networks that sustain and coordinate “urban mass resistance.” In the case of Hungary, universities and work places provided the social networking context for students and workers to mobilize, while intellectuals organized around the Petofi Circle.

As Skocpol concludes,

…”moral symbols and forms of social communication can sustain the self-conscious making of a revolution in the context of a historical conjuncture.” (p. 250)

Contingent FactorsI. Galvanizing Events-- e.g., the reburial of Rajk; Julia Rajk’s speech (On the significance of

events to the study of revolution see, William H. Sewell, Jr., “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing the Revolution at the Bastille,” in Theory and Society, vol. 25, n. 6, 1996)

II. Individual Leaders-- their personalities and decisions will also play a crucial role as Sebestyen

demonstrates with his account of NagyIII. Escalating/De-escalating Dynamics-- e.g., regime responses such as the use of force against peaceful

demonstrations; the use of the Army against an uprising which then makes common cause with the protestors; the role played by RFE in over-promising Western assistance

Comparing Hungary and PolandGiven the structural and cultural similarities, the divergent outcomes in 1956 may

well be largely due to contingent factors, most significantly:I. Leadership Differences. Unlike Rakosi and Nagy, -- Ochab, Poland’s Stalinist leader embraced Khrushchev’s reform agenda against

internal opposition and chose not to oppose his replacement by Gomulka, a former victim of the purges, and supported Gomulka against the Soviets (see Sebestyen, pp. 99-100);

-- Gomulka, stood firm against Soviet pressure (see Sebestyen, p. 120) II. Galvanizing events occurring in Poznan, a provincial town more easily isolated,

rather than in Warsaw, the capitalIII. Escalating/de-escalating dynamic – Once the Polish leadership decided to

interpret the Poznan protests as the unfortunate product of legitimate worker grievances, a de-escalating dynamic characterized the course of events as the majority of the Polish CP took unified steps to regain control of the situation by introducing a reform course even in the face of Soviet opposition.

For a more detailed account, see

John. P.C. Matthews, Tinderbox: East Central Europe in the spring, summer and early fall of 1956 , 2003.