The Soviet Century By Moshe Lewin - 25

We have dwelt on the institutional decay of what was supposed to be the system’s mainstay. This chapter will be entirely given over to social dynamics, change, and progress. Here too we shall encounter conflicts and will consider them in due course.

We have already stressed the extent to which the depth of the inherited backwardness and the complexity of the task were dramatically accentuated by the serious regression consequent upon the First World War and the Civil War. In a country already in the throes of a crisis, such regression made the task of reconstruction and recovery that much more difficult and increased the pressure for recourse to the big stick – i.e. the state. However, this assertion must be qualified somewhat in view of the NEP, its vitality, and the interest in its possible retention for a much longer period – an expectation shared by Lenin and Trotsky alike when it was launched. The short-lived NEP still continues to fuel discussion about the alternatives open to Russia at the time (during perestroika, some even believed that it could serve as a model for the post-Soviet period). Evidently, one of the readily available alternatives was a hypertrophied, despotic state, which (as we keep on stressing) found fertile ground in the country’s history – ground rendered even more fertile by recent catastrophes. In 1921, the country was poorer than it had been before the First World War, and it lagged even further behind the West – something that was painfully felt. The ‘historical distance’ between rural, urban and bureaucratic components widened. Those who embarked on modernization after Lenin’s death began by emasculating the original political organization of the revolutionaries who, having arrived in power in 1917, had constructed a state, saved the country from disintegration, and planned great things for the future. They now prioritized their own methods, which combined accelerated economic development with an accentuated form of political archaism, leading some commentators to use the term ‘agrarian despotism’ to characterize the Stalinist state. At all events, we are dealing with the phenomenon of a non-modern modernizing state, creating a conundrum that would influence the country’s destiny for decades.

This line of thought also proves useful when attempting to understand the Soviet phenomenon in its historical trajectory as a whole. The contradiction involved in the category of ‘non-modern modernizer’ endured and manifested itself in a variety of guises after Stalin’s death. The modernizing aspect of the state’s activity (industrialization) generated a series of developments (urbanization, education, upward social mobility) that were broadly emancipatory for the masses of people involved, even if this emancipation was constrained by some powerful checks. One of the keys to the Soviet riddle lies in the interplay between emancipation and the factors fettering it.

Development in the standard sense of the term could not occur without bringing millions of peasants into the towns and partially closing the gap between privileged minorities and the broader mass of the population. Such a dynamic accorded with the plebeian spirit and character of the revolution. Soviet social development was in fact very broad and profound, with momentous effects that varied depending upon the period – the 1920s, under Stalin, and thereafter. Often used and sometimes criticized, the term ‘modernity’ is applicable here so long as we stick to the bare facts and steer clear of its ideological undertones, which are sometimes present in the sources we use below.

One of these sources is the two-volume social history of Russia recently published by B. N. Mironov, a Russian historian and statistician. 1 His approach is based in the main on anthropometric data, although he also assigns considerable space to social factors. The book contains a wealth of analysis and information. Yet readers must be attentive to the highly subjective and metaphorical character of some of Mironov’s statements, which we shall occasionally react to but mostly allow to speak for themselves.

Mironov’s adoption of ‘the West’ not simply as a model, but as an absolute yardstick for measuring historical development, is disarmingly naive. Readers can judge for themselves as I recount his findings. In sum, what it boils down to is informing us that Russia was not the West. But it is not enough merely to cite what the East lacks when compared with the West. Over the centuries, ‘the East’ (in fact, there are several of them) founded states, resolved problems and produced cultures; accordingly, we must also examine things from within and not simply refer to the non-existent.

Even so, Mironov’s general view of the USSR’s actual advance towards what can be called ‘modernity’ is realistic and competently argued. Russia, he maintains, differed from the West in the way an adolescent does from an adult: it was emotional, hyper-active, lacking sufficient self-control and prudence, tending to experimentation, naive, and absolutist in its demands – but at the same time endowed with an innate curiosity and an ability to assimilate novelty. After all, an adolescent is not a ‘backward adult’. Russians did not produce Western institutions, not because they proved incapable of so doing, but because they did not feel the need for them. Everything of value in the West reached Russia sooner or later – if not at the beginning of the twentieth century, then at its close.

Mironov highlights the secularization of social consciousness, which comfortably exceeds what we observe in the West: the Russian value-system became fully secular and temporal. A demographic revolution occurred that liberated women from the heavy burden of giving birth to children who were condemned to die young. The social structure acquired a modern aspect: social mobility attained high levels and social classes became open. Society as a whole became more receptive to the influence of Western values and behavioural norms. A nuclear family model emerged, with children receiving greater attention and women achieving legal equality with men and higher social status. Urbanization progressed: the country became basically urban and its inhabitants reoriented themselves to urban patterns of consumption. They automatically switched from rural-communitarian forms of social organization to different, more complex ones, including in the countryside itself.

Thus, by the end of the Soviet era modernization had progressed quite far towards Western models. A robust social welfare system had been created (pensions, health care, benefits for pregnant women, family allowances), and the list can be rounded off by noting the remarkable development of education and intellectual culture as a whole. In addition, the empire became a de jure confederation and the non-Slav nations experienced genuine development. Only in the Soviet period did a ‘disciplined’ society (Mironov uses Foucault’s term) emerge in Russia, which made it possible to avoid any revolutionary explosion during the transition to a post-Soviet regime. In broad terms, the distance between Russia and the West had thus been reduced, and the country was no longer part of the developing world. Mironov is, of course, aware of the means used at the outset to effect this modernization. But he is right to stress that the outcome was remarkable. I would add some more features: personal physical security, libraries, a broad reading public, interest in the arts in general and poetry in particular, the importance of science. For reasons unknown to me, Mironov does not register the fact that since 1991 all these developmental indicators have regressed appreciably, when such knowledge is indispensable for a better understanding of the Soviet phenomenon and its legacy.

Mironov then turns to a method borrowed from Western researchers: the use of anthropometric criteria – e.g. the height of conscripts during their compulsory military service – which, he believes, offer a good indicator of the country’s fluctuating socio-economic state. Thus, we find that the average height of men began to fall from the 1850s (on account of the Crimean War) and went on dropping after the emancipation of the serfs. The crisis lasted thirty years and its main victims were peasants, on the verge of exhaustion as they bore the brunt of warfare and taxation. In the 1880s, the biological condition of the population improved somewhat. Various data (which are not altogether reliable) suggest that nutrition worsened between 1850 and 1890, but improved thereafter up to 1910. Mortality was high and unstable between 1850 and 1890, but declined from 1890 onwards thanks to medical progress. After Alexander II’s reforms there was much talk of the degeneration of the Russian people, based precisely on the physical condition of young recruits. Such complaints continued until the end of the century, although improvements began in the 1880s. P. R. Gregory’s estimates for national income for the years 1885–1913, quoted by Mironov, indicate a growth in per capita consumption from the mid-1880s onwards.

In 1927, as we know from reliable data published subsequently, the population had recovered from the ravages of the First World War and the Civil War. In the towns, the average height of recruits was 1.676 m; in the countryside, 1.675 m. Their average weight was 61.6 and 61.9 kg, respectively. Hence the body mass index (the weight-size ratio) was 22 in the former case and 22.54 in the latter, indicating what Mironov calls a ‘good bio–status’. Thus, contrary to what might be expected, the height of the newborn continued to grow between the end of the Civil War (1920) and the late 1960s (and even between 1985 and 1991) – meaning that the 1930s and the Second World War did not have an impact in this respect. Beginning with the 1936–40 generation, the increase in average height was as rapid in towns as in the countryside. In the space of a quarter-century, it rose on average (according to different categories) between 47 and 61 mm – an unprecedented rate of growth. This means that during the Soviet era the ‘biological status’ of town dwellers, and probably that of rural inhabitants as well, went on improving.

How was this possible when we know that the state was constantly depressing living standards?, asks Mironov. His hypothesis is that in the 1930s—1950s per capita family income rose thanks to internal resources, and in part to external resources, in four ways. Birth rates decreased sharply, and with them the cost of rearing children. Medical expenses likewise declined, for the population in general and children in particular. Many women who had not previously worked were now able to do so, because they had fewer children, there was a huge demand for labour, and the state supplied crèches and kindergartens. Finally, a better distribution of wealth also conduced to this improvement in ‘biological status’. We might add that this is a fascinating but under-explored topic.

All this has to be seen in the framework of the demographic revolution that occurred in Russia between 1920 and 1961 (later than in the West, where it had already been achieved by the beginning of the century). It was marked by a sharp reduction in birth rates (in accordance with parents’ own wishes), by greater success in the fight against infectious diseases, and by a reduction in infant mortality – in sum, a more modern, rational and economic pattern of population reproduction.

Some reduction in birth rates had already been observed following the 1861 reforms. A further reduction was attributable to the ravages of two world wars and a civil war. By the mid-1920s, prewar birth rates had been restored. The second half of the 1920s exhibited a downward trend that continued into the 1930s. In 1941, the rate was 25 per cent down on the 1925 figure. The Second World War further aggravated the decline. Peace did not, however, restore prewar rates. After some increase in 1949, a sharp, irreversible reduction set in. Two figures illustrate the scope of the phenomenon: Russia went from a birth rate of 206 per thousand in the 1920s to 29 per thousand in the 1960s. The main cause was the desire of Russians to limit the number of children they had, in particular by abortion (the highest rate in the world). Some importance must also be ascribed to the tendency to postpone marriage, the divorce rate, and the increase in the number of unmarried women.

This downward trend in birth rates was counterbalanced by an extraordinary decline in general mortality (39.8 per thousand in the 1880s, 30.2 in 1900, 22.9 in the 1920s, 7.4 in the 1960s), with a corresponding increase in life expectancy (28.3 years in 1838–50, 32.34 in 1896–7, 44.35 in 1926–7, 68.59 in 1958–9) and a commensurate growth in the number of pensioners. In 1926, for every 100 able-bodied persons we find 92 not belonging to the active population (including 71 children and 16 pensioners); in 1959, the figure for the non-active population was 74 per 100 (53 children and 21 pensioners). In the years 1926–59, the average figure fell by 20 per cent per family. And since most non-able-bodied people received pensions, the family was aided correspondingly. All in all, society and families thus benefited from the decline in mortality and the increased length of working life. Mironov concludes that everyone gained from the demographic revolution, which he calls a ‘rationalization of the process of reproduction’.

This kind of modern reproduction rationalized the whole life-cycle of families and individuals – especially women. The procreative functions that had demanded such enormous effort from them in the past, from the onset of nubility to the menopause, were henceforth confined to a narrower span of their life, allowing them to work and help increase the family income. Women in fact became an important component of the workforce in all key branches. By 1970 they were broadly well educated, were well represented in the technical professions, and had a strong presence in scientific research. Mironov is right to insist that ‘no other country in the world has experienced such a high level of female participation in the world of work and culture’.

We might halt here for a moment to point out that, while basically accurate, this strikes an unduly triumphant note. Numerous Soviet sociological studies have demonstrated that the very real emancipation of women was marred by two limits: their purely symbolic presence in the power structure and a tenacious patriarchal system, including in urban families. The latter was aggravated by an inadequate supply of household appliances. Women still returned home after a hard working day to a good three hours of household chores, contributing to widespread chronic fatigue. In the 1960s the state made ‘heroic’ efforts to increase the production and supply of household appliances and obtained satisfactory results. But this was not enough to eradicate a sizeable obstacle to women’s equality.

Despite these qualifications, the indicators of female emancipation are undeniable and we are indebted to Mironov for a better appreciation of the changes that occurred in the country’s social structure and the formation of what I call a ‘new society’ – and this in record time and despite past cataclysms. The demographic data will detain us further in the next chapter, for whilst they indicate a genuine emancipation, they also reflect some darker realities.

For now, we shall make do with mentioning in passing a phenomenon described by Mironov, which is specific to Soviet society and well known, but never really studied in depth, and whose importance has also been underlined by the prestigious sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya of the Academy of Sciences. Mironov argues that the ‘equalization of incomes for the broad mass of the population around a certain average represented a further internal reserve that Soviet society could mobilize’. He makes an even stronger claim to the effect that reduced income inequality between social groups contributed to the improvement in the population’s ‘biological status’: the poorer a society, the more prone its ‘biological status’ to inequalities. We do not possess any reliable assessment of this inequality in the USSR, but the state worked hard to reduce material inequalities and it unquestionably succeeded. Significant population mobility and mixed marriages between people from different regions and cultures also impacted positively on such indices as the height of conscripts, as did the phenomenal rate of urbanization (from 15 per cent in 1921 to 50 per cent in 1961). Even if the system offered its citizens a much lower standard of living than that of Western countries, it remains the case that the height of men went on increasing in Russia, until the 1980s at least, at about the same tempo as in developed countries.

From Mironov’s work we shall above all single out the idea that the improvement in ‘biological status’ (and the set of factors that produced it) was the system’s ‘secret’ – a secret it might not have been aware of itself. And given that the population’s ‘biological status’ is no doubt on the decline in the post-Soviet period, this probably accounts for the nostalgia felt by many Russian citizens for the defunct Soviet system.