Elle Mahdavi
IAS 45 – Discussion 106
19 April 2018
Nationalism and Industrialization in the Soviet Union from 1925-1953
Karl Marx specified that communism could only be achieved in countries that have accomplished the five preceding stages of history. The Russian Empire that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks inherited after the October Revolution had not completed the capitalist stage, the second to last stage before communism. Russia under Tsar Nicholas II was not uniformly developed and had not achieved the level of industrialization that Marx predicted would precipitate a proletariat revolution and thus a transition to socialism. As Marx also specified that achieving communism should be an international movement, the Bolsheviks had to mobilize society to industrialize through other methods besides traditional nationalism. In the absence of nationalism based off ethnic or social criteria, the Soviet Union created an imagined community based off labor ideals to induce rapid industrialization.
John Maynard Keynes, during his first visit to Russia in 1925, recounted how industrialization could succeed under the Soviet Union because Leninism widely operated as a religion , although it was economically faulty. Keynes illustrates how the Soviet system serves as a “new religion” —or imagined community—in that it compels individuals to follow Soviet thought and cultural expectations or else face persecution. During the Five Year Plan, for example, the Soviet leaders stimulated the Stakhanovite movement, based off a hyperproductive coal mining record set by a miner by the name of Aleksei Stakhanov . After Stakhanov’s productive feat, the Soviet Union publicized his story to encourage workers to match or break his record. This cultural campaign was widespread among other industries across the USSR, fostering an expectation of extreme productive competition , ultimately achieving the goal of rapid industrial development.
In order to mobilize enough labor to achieve rapid industrialization without encouraging an ethnic national culture across the Soviet Union, the Soviet communists thus had to create a national identity based on the working man. Across all industries, managers established short-term hyperproductive goals to constantly engage workers until they were working intensive overtime hours . In order to compel such labor and hyperproductivity, to the point of eleven to twelve hour working days, the USSR attempted to create a shared identity between all workers based off the Stakhanovite man. The story of the Stakhanovite man serves as the Soviet Union’s version of a cultural origin story in the context of a new Soviet religion, as Keynes describes. This concept of a shared cultural origin and hero, whose powers are based in superhuman laboring abilities, compelled laborers across the USSR to work harder than before. This was the subliminal aim of the Soviet leaders who sought to precipitate widespread industrialization.
The Soviet communists further developed this imagined community by extending it to women and banning abortion . They developed their narrative and new culture around the importance of labor force participation and of population growth to satisfy industrial needs. As a seemingly united imagined community built on the basis of work, there was a sense of inclusion and exclusion in achievement of productive gains. The Stakhanovite culture excluded those in forced labor camps who were often perceived as enemies of the state for former socioeconomic or ethnic reasons . By creating a division in who was able to be included and excluded from this labor movement, the Soviet leaders could use the guise of social mobility and progressive monetary bonuses for productive record-breakers to create a defined working identity and culture. By separating “free” laborers from peasants and kulaks, the USSR gave working class men and women a socioeconomic potential that could only be achieved through hyperproductivity. Keynes describes how the new religion of Leninism follows the same pattern of other religions in that it “exalts the common man” . The Stakhanovite culture gave the common laborer a renewed sense of purpose and hope for achievement as they strove to accomplish the Stakhanovite ideal. Through this hierarchical imagined community, the Soviet communists were able to increase the pace of industrialization by culturally incentivizing “free” laborers to achieve their productive maximums.
Although the opportunity of Stakhanovism was seemingly offered to all “free” laborers, few workers were actually capable of achieving the title of a Stakhanovite. The USSR created an elite class of these workers—an even more narrowed imagined community—to influence common workers to work harder or pursue labor in the sectors vital to industrialization . By giving these individuals public fame and benefits, the Soviet communists branded Stakhanovites as a type of cultural hero in order to induce laborers to work at the pace needed for the USSR’s industrial development. These Stakhanovite elites were granted special material and cultural privileges, such as receiving spacious housing or attending the theater, and were taken to tour around the USSR to motivate other workers . As Keynes said the Soviet communist system would uphold the common man , the celebritizing of the Stakhanovites influenced common workers to attempt to break records for greater socioeconomic mobility within Soviet society. As the workers increased their productivity, guided by the Stakhanovite incentive, the state achieved its goal of mobilizing labor through creating a cultural hero and thus a set of shared social values.
Soviet leaders also used mass media to establish national ideals of productive heros and a culture of devoted laborers . The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, published in 1947, defined labor discipline and detailed how labor indiscipline could result in being tried for treason . By establishing work terms in such scientific norms, the Soviet communists attempted to illustrate the national culture that they perpetuated—for industrial reasons—as a reality . Through emphasizing the feasibility of becoming a Stakhanovite in all mediums of culture and presenting a standardized attitude towards labor, supposedly shared by all workers, the USSR was able to rapidly industrialize through this imagined reality. Keynes describes how the new Soviet imagined community changed social perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in the context of moral values . For example, those who did not participate in the hyperproductive worker culture were labeled as “social parasites” or treated as “saboteurs” of the communist vision . As many migrants left Siberia or extremely cold climates, migration was considered a violation of labor discipline because it conflicted with the goal of uniform development as these eastern regions would be left with less labor . Thus, the USSR also created a cultural anti-hero for those who did not conform to the culture that Soviet leaders designed as a means to achieve their industrial goals.
Keynes illustrates how the Soviet communists, establishing communism like a religion with new moral values, created a national identity where desiring financial gain was seen as morally wrong . Although the Soviets might have outwardly denied the value of material accumulation, they actually used that ideal to incentivize workers to increase their productivity, as in the Stakhanovite movement. They attempted to create common ethics among all workers where the individualistic pursuit of financial gain was wrong, but at the same rate, they publicly offered monetary and material benefits to Stakhanovites . Thus, the Soviet leaders’ explicit proclamation of shared values among workers differed from the values they used to influence workers to achieve their productive maximums, as part of a greater industrialization process.
Although these Soviet leaders aimed to instill values of devotion to the community, through means of productive labor and cooperation with the state, they also had to incorporate individualistic financial and material incentives into their constructed culture. Stakhanovites were given the opportunity to pursue higher education where they could work as managers over other laborers, facilitating higher productivity instead of participating in it . This demonstrates another hypocrisy in the publicized cultural ideal of devotion to productive labor, as workers aimed to become Stakhanovites in order to avoid further intensive labor. As the Soviet leaders could not eradicate the previously existing imagined community under the Tsar of Russia, where socioeconomic hierarchies existed, they had to include financial motives in the new Soviet culture. Although as Keynes highlighted , the Soviets presented these “pecuniary motives” as a violation of Soviet values, demonstrating the inconsistency in stated versus utilized incentives. A goal of socialism is to achieve a more egalitarian society, but the Soviet leaders realized they had to employ socioeconomic hierarchies and individual interests to their advantage in order to achieve the rapid industrialization they envisioned to complete the capitalist stage.
This socioeconomic mobility, however, did not extend to the political realm, as none of the Stakhanovites could influentially participate in state affairs . Excluding Stakhanovites from political participation limited the expectation of political participation for the general populace. As Stakhanovites appeared as cultural elites, in the way that they had the largest potential for socioeconomic advancement, their limitation in political advancement within the state depicted an apolitical cultural hero solely focused on labor. Through this limitation, the USSR implied to workers that participation within the communist party was not an ideal to achieve whereas hyperproductive labor was. By doing so, Soviet leaders retained the power of enforcing their industrial goals through creating a workers’ culture solely focused on productivity and not political gain. Like a religion, as in Keynes’ words, laborers in the USSR were left to uphold Soviet moral values and have faith in the Bolshevik leaders, who, like ecclesiastical figures, were to steer them in the right direction.
Not all the productive and industrial gains from this period in Soviet history were wholly due to cultural campaigns, despite what Keynes suggests , as the Soviet leaders also efficiently reallocated industrial capital. The impetus for the surge in industrial production during the early days of the Soviet Union came from a thousand million ruble increase in industrial investment from 1913-1927 . With that said, however, most of the industrial feats did come from increased achievements in worker productivity , achieved by the establishment of a widespread workers’ culture, that acted like a unifying religion, by the USSR.
Such mobilized labor, as under cultural campaigns like the Stakhanovite movement, declined after these campaigns were retired. After Stalin’s death, the Soviet leaders strayed from Stalin’s legacy of repression and compulsion, decreasing much press of Stakhanovites and labor selflessness . Consequently, productivity began to decrease in the absence of a constructed labor culture . The decline in worker productivity after the decline of Stakhanovism as a national workers’ ideal demonstrates how the Soviet leaders relied on coercing labor for the greater industrialization effort through this imagined community.
As output doubled and tripled in many sectors from the 1920s until the 1950s in the USSR, the Soviet Union successfully achieved rapid industrialization. With all their productive achievements, however, the Soviet Union still did not end up in the communist stage—and arguably did not progress past the capitalist stage. Although the Soviets’ intentions with rapid industrialization did not manifest in the manner they desired, the USSR did significantly rise the standard of living for many people. To compel the magnitude of labor needed for this type of industrial project, the Soviet Union had to rework their cultural standards. They centered the creation of the USSR around the common laborer and incorporated individualistic incentives so that each individual would max out their productivity. Although these incentives often contradicted socialist values, some Soviet leaders realized their utility as they were the social remnants of Tsarist Russia that the USSR inherited. To eventually realize an egalitarian society, as prescribed by Marx, the Bolsheviks had to make concessions in instituting socioeconomic hierarchies as a means to achieve complete industrialization—a necessary step to complete the capitalist stage of history. The Soviet Union constructed an imagined community based on the ideals of hyperproductive labor, incorporating cultural standards of the past and adjusting them to serve the goals of the present.
Bibliography
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