Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More Author(s): Alexei Yurchak Source: Comparative Studies

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Soviet Hegemony of Form: EverythingWas Forever, Until It Was No More

ALEXEI YURCHAK
Universityof California,Berkeley Untilthemid-1980s, never it to that could evenoccurred anyone in ourcountry anything Neither children to adults. to was that There a complete nor change. impression everyAndrei thingwasforever (songwriter Makarevich).1
LATE SOCIALISM

This paperwas promptedby a personalquestionthathas puzzled many former Soviet people, myself included,since the late 1980s: How to make sense of the suddenevaporation the colossal andseeminglymonolithicSoviet system and of way of life, in which we grew up and lived? What was it aboutthe Soviet system that made its "collapse"appearcompletely unimaginableand surprisingly fast not only to most WesternSovietologistsbut also to most Soviet people?The of experienceof the unexpectednessand abruptness the collapse is reflectedin diverse materialsI have collected in Russia in the past ten years.This question is not aboutthe "causes"for the collapse but aboutits "conditionsof possibility": what conditions made the collapse possible while keeping that possibility invisible?To begin addressingthis question,we must analyze how the particular "culture" Soviet socialism invisibly createdthe conditionsfor the collapse of and at the same time renderedit unexpected.The periodwhen these conditions emerged,the approximately thirtyyearsprecedingthe beginningof perestroika (the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s), I shall call Soviet "LateSocialism." Late Socialism as a period in the history of Soviet state socialism was distinct from all previous and later periods in its "discursiveregime" (Foucault the 1972; Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983:44-78)-in particular, relationshipof the subjectto the hegemonic discourse of communistideology and the meanI wishto express comments sugand to who and gratitude friends colleagues provided generous on of Steven Gil DavidBrandenburger, Collier, Eyal, DianaBlank, gestions thedrafts thispaper: Alaina MelanieFeakins,ZeynepGuserl,Bill Hanks,Caroline MarcoJacquemet, Humphrey, Tara Rivkin-Fish, Lemon, Mamut, Ries,Michelle Irina Oushakine, Paperno, Tatyana Sergei Nancy at Katherine reviewers CSSH. and Michael Sinclair, Urban, twoanonymous Verdery, 1 Interview theprogram on 24 Ostankino television, June1994.See alsoMakarevich Vzglyad,
(2002:14).

0010-4175/03/480-510$9.50 ? 2003 Societyfor Comparative Studyof SocietyandHistory

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This periodbegan ing inscribedin ideological performanceandrepresentation. with a majorshift in the discursiveregime from a "semantic" a "pragmatic" to model (Mertz 1996) of ideological discourse. That is, the acts of copying the became more meaningfullyconpreciseforms of ideological representations stitutive of everyday life than the adherenceto the literal ("semantic")meanIn ings inscribedin those representations. the Soviet case, this emergingreladid not necessarily preclude Soviet people from continuing to be tionship invested in the ideals and ethical values of socialism. It ratherimplied a more complex and shifting relationship to Soviet ideological form, a form that claimed andwas once seen to representthese ideals andvalues, but duringLate Socialism decoupledfrom them. It was throughthatdecouplingthatthe conditions of possibilityfor the collapse of socialism, as a social system but not as a set of values, invisibly emerged. This copying of textual forms from one context to the next2 was unique in three respects: First, ideological forms were not just copied but perfectly replicated,which made them "frozen"and context-independent.Second, this replication was accompaniedby a transformationof the meanings for which ideological forms stood in different contexts. Third, this process took place not only at the level of ideological texts, but also in other discourses of ideology: visual (posters, films, monuments,architecture),ritualistic (meetings, of reports,celebrations)and in centralized"formalstructures" everydaypractice (De Certeau 1988:xv).3 To account for such broad process in which the form of representation replicatedbut its meaning is changed, this paperprois a concept of "heteronymousshift."4The Greek term "heteronym"-a poses word of the same spelling (written representation)but different and unrelated meaning than anotherword5--is used to emphasize that the meanings, for
2 Copying of textualforms between contexts is known in linguistic anthropologyas "transduction" (G. Urban 1996: 30). 3 In the 1960s, the following changes took place in public representation: Ideological rituals: the Partyunited various public ritualsunder one centrallyorchestrated "system of rituals"(Lane more formulaicand analogous(Glebkin 1998:130, 137). Visu1981:3, 46), makingtheir structure al propaganda: images of Lenin in monumentsand pictures became more formulaic and analogous, with fewer available poses, details, textures, and colors (author'sinterview with artists at LeningradWorkshopof Visual and Decorative Arts, KZhOI). Documentarynewsreels: regular Newsreels (Kinokhronika) aboutcurrentevents in each region of the countrybecame more formulaic, and spontaneousand unusualevents were edited out and often the same footage was used repeatedly to representdifferent events (author'sinterview with film directorYurii Zanin, St. PetersburgDocumentaryFilm Studios). The increasing replication of the "'formal structures'of everydaypractice"was the subjectof the famous Soviet comedy of the late 1970s, Ironiia sud'by (The irony of fate). 4 In postcolonial theory,transformation ideological signs is theorized as "metonymicslipof page" (Bhabha 1984; 1994), "hybridizationof codes" (Hanks 2000), covert ridicule (Mbembe 1992:5; 2001:104), etcetera.In these theorizations,however, it is the form (signifier) of ideological signs thatis changed,while in the Soviet context the formremainsintactandthe change occurs at the level of meaning. the 5 In English heteronymsare numerous.For example, bass (stringinstrument; fish), lead (to guide; metal), minute(sixty minutes;tiny), and tear (to rip; teardrop).

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which replicated ideological forms stood, came to involve an element of unpredictability.6 This study addressesa relatedconcern:thatmuch of the academicandjournalistic writing about Soviet socialism and post-Soviet transformation built is on assumptionsthat socialism was "bad,""immoral," and "imposed,"and/or was experiencedas such by Soviet people, and that the collapse of the Soviet system was predicatedon that.These assumptionsused to be manifestedin persistent referencesto Homo Sovieticus. In the late 1980s, FrancoiseThom argued that in the Soviet Union linguistic "symbolscease[d] to work properly," making it "a world without meaning, without events and without humanity" (1989:156). More recently,FrankEllis went further:"Whenreason, common sense, anddecency areassaultedoften enough,thenpersonalityis crippled,and human intelligence disintegratesor is warped.The barrierbetween truthand lies is effectively destroyed... Schooled in such a climate,fearfuland deprived of any intellectual initiative, Homo Sovieticus could never be more than a mouthpiecefor the Party'sideas and slogans, not so much a humanbeing then, as a receptacleto be emptied and filled as Partypolicy dictated"(1998:208). The same assumptionsare presenttoday in the terminologyused to describe socialism-for example, in referencesto the "Soviet regime"(how often does one hearaboutthe "American binariesto regime"?)and in the use of particular describe Soviet reality, such as the Partyand the people, repressionand freedom, oppressionand resistance,truthand dissimulation,official economy and second economy, official cultureand counter-culture, totalitarian language and self and privateself.7 For instance,it is claimed that people's language,public of ordinarySoviet people used to "hide things, such as tape-recorders, obviWesternprovenance, since they were associated with resistance to the ously regime"(Humphrey1995:57), andthatSoviet languagewas a "politicaldiglossia" between official Partylanguageand privatepeople's language(Zaslavsky and Fabris 1982; Inic 1984; Wierzbicka 1990; Kupina 1995; Epstein 1991; 1995; Jowitt 1992). Thus, for John Young, Soviet citizens are "non-conformthe ing"dissidents,who "counter deceptionsof government settingforth 'the by facts' in contrastto official falsehood"in "conversations with frustrated friends behindclosed doors, in sign languagedevised by family memberswho suspect the secret police have bugged their apartment,in a manuscriptor on a tape recordingpassed aroundfrom personto person ... (1991:226).
6 An illustration of heteronymousshift is the slippage between the form and meaningof an imTo portantconcept of Soviet ideology-the industrial"plan." variousactorsinvolved in Soviet industryit was crucial that the plan was successfully fulfilled at the level of form (in numbers,figures, statistics, reports, etc.) but not necessarily at the level of its "literal"meaning (e.g., a satisfaction of some social need). Moreover, in the "economy of shortage"(Kornai 1980 and Verdery1996) the fulfillmentof the plan's form was often predicatedon the non-fulfillmentof its literal meaning. See Lampland(1995) on the "fetishof plan." 7 For a discussion of the assumptionsbehindmodernbinariesin general,see Mitchell 1990, and in the socialist context, Yurchak2002a.

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of in Thebinary modelis alsoreproduced theories splitsubjectivity (Kharthe In khordin and"socialschizophrenia." a recentaccount, Sovietsub1999) intimate" and between "official" "hidden as selves, ject is defined a dichotomy and the of thepractice "dissimulation," where "hidwhichis sustained through or denintimate" is only "available the gazeof the closestfriends famito self and secretevenfromthem" can"bespotted" but ly members sometimes kept their let go onlywhenthesubjects "suddenly theirstrictself-control andbreak to Thesemodelsarerelated dissident utmostsecrecy" 277). (ibid. 1999:357, moralcritique people's"conformity" the state-socialist with of regime(e.g., theories coloof of in Havel'sconcept "living thelie"[1986]),andmorerecent to resistance dominant hidden nialandpostcolonial that subjectivity emphasize that norms,suchas JamesScott's(1990)modelof socialinteraction proceeds acandLisaWedeen's in two distinct"transcripts," and "official" "hidden," the where artof acting Asad'sSyria, countof theauthoritative in President rule a and "asif" allowsindividuals keeptheiractual "to private" sustain thought and "gap... between performance belief"(1999:82).8 An epistemological in modelsis thatby distinguishing problem thesebinary and between bounded psyches,or "real" "dissimulated" voices,theyimsplit is "fullydefined in that state" in is ply thatmeaning discourse a "psychological Eventhough thespeaker's mindbefore actof speaking" the 1993:25).9 (Duranti the thesemodelsdescribe subject is "split," that a reproduce they,ironically, inas of Western-centered sovereign understandinga normal person a bounded, 2000: dividual Strathern 1988:57)with a "unitary ego"(Hanks (M. speaking Thesemodelsinteror voice canbe hidden revealed.10 182),whoseauthentic the for conditions": example, eventsin termsof "truth discursive pretconcrete is underrituals act of shouting sloganof support state-orchestrated a during stoodas a "constative (Austin1999[1962];Searle1969)thatconveysthe act" evalact That is therefore "literal" for of support thestate. meaning theperson's orfalse ("disuatedfor its "truth conditions"-as eithertrue("real" support) of simulation" support)."1 of Another in is problem theseapproaches theirtheorization agency-they crilinkagencywiththe resistance subversion norms.SabaMahmood of and to assumptiquestheWestern theory's tendency makethislinkforits implicit In tionthata particular of Western conception agencyis universal. fact,Mahmood argues,"if the abilityto effect changein the worldand in oneselfis and 'change' historically culturally specific(bothin termsof whatconstitutes be and andthecapacity whichit is effected), thenits meaning sensecannot by
8 See Gal's 1994.Oushakine of (1996)brilliant critique Scott'smodel;see also Humphrey and in an modelof "mimetic resistance," whichthedominant subordi(2001)proposes alternative natebelongto thesame,notdifferent, fields. discursive 1992. 9 Duranti See of Searle's 1983theory meaning. alsoHillandMannheim critiques 1997. see toForanthropological of subjectivity," Strauss critique "fragmented 2001:104). (1992:5; 11 See alsoMbembe

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fixed a priori.... [Forexample,] agentivecapacityis entailednot only in those acts that result in (progressive)change but also those that aim towards continuity, stasis, and stability . . . " (2001:212).12

Russian sociologists Uvarova and Rogov (1998) arguethat the emphasis in the analyses of Soviet cultureon a dichotomybetween the official and unofficial originatesin the "dissidentideology" of the 1970s, which held that "nothing good could appearin an [official] Soviet journalin principle;and a real text could only be published in samizdat [unofficialpublication]or tamizdat[forIn eign publication]." formersocialistcountriesthis binaryview is closely implicated in personalpolitics today: since the late 1980s it has been importantfor membersof the intelligentsiato deny thatduringsocialism therewas any "mixing [of] the languageof power with theirown language"and to portraythe latter as "a free space to be extended throughstruggle"(Seriot 1992:205-6). In fact, the emphasison the dichotomyhas deeperroots: it is linked to Cold War and colonial "regimesof knowledge" within which such entities as "the West,"the Second, and the ThirdWorlds are produced.Therefore,critiquing isolated binariesdoes not necessarilydeconstructthe underlyingassumptions. Thus, Kligmanand Gal provideda brilliantcritiqueof some binarymodels of socialism:"rather thanany clear-cut'us' versus 'them'or 'private'versus 'public,' therewas a ubiquitousself-embeddingor interweavingof these categories" meantthat"everyonewas (2000:51).13Yet,they arguethatsuch "interweaving" to some extent complicit in the system of patronage,lying, theft, hedging, and and duplicitythroughwhich the system operated," often even "intimates,family membersand friends informedon each other"(ibid.:51). The emphasis on as such ideas as duplicity,pointing as it does to a moralquandary centralto the system and people relations,implicitly reproducesan underlyingassumption: socialism involved a complex web of immoralitiesthat are calibratedas such againsta moral system, perhapsWesterndemocracy. fact Whatmay get lost in these accountsis a crucialandparadoxical thatgreat valits numbersof people living in socialism genuinely supported fundamental ues and ideals,14althoughtheir everyday practicesmay appear"duplicitous" because they indeed routinelytransgressedmany norms and rules represented in that system's official ideology. The particular knowledge about Soviet socialism that privileges its divided,
12 Mahmooddraws on JudithButler's (1993) Foucauldianpoint that "the possibility of resistance to norms [is located] within the structure power itself ratherthan in the consciousness of of an autonomousindividual,"but critiques Butler's association of agency with resistance (2001: 212). This critiquealso problematizesNancy Ries' suggestionthat"resistant" "genresof suffering" in Soviet women's discourseduringperestroika"unintentionally valorizedor empoweredthe very structures (Ries 1997:40, andchs. 3 and4). On critiqueof "resistance" duringearthey subverted" lier stages of Soviet history see Hellbeck 2000. 13 For important critiquesof the binaryof public andprivatesee Lampland(1995:273-75, 304), and Humphrey (1994:25).

14 Perhapsthis was more so in the Soviet Union thanin EasternEurope.

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oppressive or immoralnatureand de-emphasizesthe values, ideals, and "normal" life that it representedto millions of people, is producedin the language and categories of "Western" knowledge. In Provincializing Europe, Dispesh thatin "theacademicdiscourse of history... 'Europe'reChakrabarty argues mains the sovereign, theoreticalsubject of all histories, including the ones we call 'Indian,''Chinese,' 'Kenyan,'and so on. There is a peculiarway in which all these other histories tend to become variationson a master narrativethat could be called 'the history of Europe.'In this sense, 'Indian'historyitself is in a position of subalternity; can only articulatesubalternsubjectpositions in one the name of this history" (2000:27). Chakrabarty's(post)colonial critique should be brought to the analyses of (post)socialism to provincialize, more specifically, "Western" Europe15-for example, to expose the language of biin which knowledge aboutsocialism is articulated, Western"master" as naries, that assumes certaincategories and uses particularterminologies to language communicatethem.16 To avoid positing binarydivisions we may insteadquestionhow Soviet peothe ple in fact interpreted lived ideology and reality of socialism. For this, we would need to replacethe conceptionof knowledge implied in the binarymodels as objective, static,bounded,and divided into spheres,with a conceptionof knowledge thatis always-already partial,situated,and actively produced(HarFabian2001:24).17 This conception of knowledge should away 1989:190-91; be compatible with the view of discourse as situated activity (Gal 1994; Duranti1993;Lampland1995:360)18andof the speaking/writingself as Bakhtin's "voice"that is never isolated or split but always dialogized. That is, speaking implies inhabitingmultiplevoices thatarenot "self-enclosedor deaf to one another,"but rather"heareach otherconstantly,call back and forthto each other, and are reflected in one another... " (Bakhtin1984:75).19 This dynamicconceptionof knowledgeaccountsnot only for "semantic" (literal) meaningsfor which ideological discourse supposedlystands,but also for "pragmatic" meanings that emerge in discourse as situated activity. For inthe question, "do you supportthe resolution?"asked during a Soviet stance, Komsomol meeting invariablyled to a unanimousraising of hands in an affirmative gesture.However, to participants was usually an act of recognition this of how one mustbehave in a given ritualisticcontextin orderto reproduceone's
15 See DonaldMoore's (2002) brilliantcritiqueof Chakrabarty. also Lampland'sdiscussion See of socialist history (1995:336). 16 See also Brennan (2001:62). 17 LaurieEssig, similarlycritiquingthe Westernconceptof a boundedsovereign subject,argues that in post-Soviet Russia, unlike the United States, the "strictboundary" between homosexuality andheterosexuality"existsto divide not personsbutpractices" (Essig 1999:292-93; see also Tuller 1996). 2000, 2002b, 2003. aspectsof Russiandiscourse,see Yurchak 18 For an analysisof performative 19 See also Bakhtin (1994:304-5; 1990:137); Gardiner(1992:73); Hirschkop(1997:59-60); Holquist (1990: 175).

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status as social actorratherthan as an act conveying "literal"meaning. In this sense, the raised hand was a response to the question, "areyou the kind of soand cial actorwho understands acts accordingto the rules of the currentritual, with its connection to the larger system of power relations and previous contexts of this type?"To analyze this act only for its truthconditions-as "real" 1999 and Wedeen of supportor "dissimulation" support(as do Kharkhordin 1999)-is to miss the point. This paperuses this dynamic conception of knowledge to analyze what Soviet ideology meant to Soviet people duringLate Socialism. It focuses on the people who were born,came of age, and startedtheiradultlives duringthatperiod-the last Soviet generation.20The materialsused for this analysis are diand vided into two groups,contemporaneous retrospective.The formerinclude accounts produced during Late Socialism (official speeches, ideological reports, personal diaries, letters, written notes, family films, photographsfrom people's private collections,21 and official Soviet publications);the latter include accounts about late socialism producedafterperestroikabegan in 1985 (interviewsand conversationsthatI conductedand analyses and memoirs that have been publishedsince the change began).22
SHIFTING LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES

Stalin's UncannyParadigm Shift As in France (e.g., Guilhaumou1989; de Certeau 1975; Frey 1925), the first years in Russia were markedby extremely dynamic experpost-revolutionary iments with language.Many new words borrowedfrom otherlanguagesor inwith great difficulvented anew were so unusualthatthey were "appropriated the people not accustomed to foreign phonetics" (Selishchev 1928: ty by by languagewas not merelyorchestrated the 166).23Initially,this revolutionary emergingSoviet state,but was also developed with greatenthusiasmby diverse The unartisticand political groupsover whom the statehad limited control.24
20 The analysis of changingculturaldynamicsamong generations,"cohortanalysis,"has occupied a prominentposition in anthropology.By focusing on the temporaldimension,this approach views of cultureas dynamic,contested,andnon-homogenous fits well with currentanthropological (Rofel 1999:22). 21 The materialscome from St. Petersburg,Moscow, Kaliningrad,Sovetsk, Novosibirsk, and Yakutsk. 22 Analyzing ideological meanings in discourse, I draw on two traditions:U.S. linguistic anthropology (Hanks 2000; 1996; Woolard 1998; Duranti 1997a; 1997b; 1993; Gal 1994; Hill and Irvine 1987; 1993) and British critical discourse analysis (Fowler et al. 1979; Fairclough 1989; 23 On the poor public comprehensionof the Bolshevik language see Gorham(2000:138-39), and and Ryazanova-Clarke Wade (1999:15-18). 24 Velimir Khlebnikov and other Futuristpoets worked on a new neologism-based language, zaum ', seeing it as a "powerfulsource of new meanings for both literatureand life" (Grigor'ev 1986:243; see also Rudy 1997:xii; Clark 1995:40; Jameson 1972; and Lemon and Reis 1965.

1992).

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familiarwords and sounds of this languagewere meantto serve as a "tool"for revolutionizing consciousness. While the "modernistexperimentation"and "verbalchaos of the early 1920s"may have suitedthe spiritof revolution,they "offeredlittle hope in the way of state building"(Gorham2000:140, 142). In the late 1920s andearly 1930s, political languagecame underincreasinglystrict andunifiedPartycontroland"thefeaturesof a Soviet-Russianlanguageof state Withbeganto emergefromthe confusedlanguagecultureof the day"(ibid.).25 in linguistics and philology the Formalistand other modernisttheories of language were replacedby the New Theory of Language,developed by the Soviet ethnographer,linguist, and archeologist Nikolai Marr, who argued, in a and Marxistevolutionisttradition,thatlanguageis partof the superstructure its transformations follow changes in the social base (Marr1977:31).26 However, while linguistics as scientific theory in the 1930s and 1940s was dominatedby Marr'steaching about the natureof language as superstructure, linguistics as Partypracticetreatedpolitical language as a tool of production, and thereforeas part of the base. This lattermodel of language, sharedby the Party leadership,implied that there existed an outsider position to language from which one could verify how adequatelyit representedreality and how it should be adjusted accordingly (Seriot 1985).27 A 1941 practical reference is book with a circulationof twenty-five thousandinstructed: "Language a tool of developmentand struggle. ... With the help of that tool the Partyarmsthe toilers with its greatideas thatinspire one to strugglefor the cause of Communism. ... Language,as any tool, needs to be perfected,polished, and carefully and protectedfrom whateverkind of contamination slightest spoil" (Kondakov 1941: 14), so that it may be used "to inoculate (privit') the readerswith concrete slogans and phrases"(ibid.:123). The Partysaw its role as producingand widely circulatinga public metadiscourse(Silverstein 1993) thatprovidedcritical commentaryon ideological language and evaluated concrete ideological texts and formulations.Duringthe editing of the first volume of Istoriia grazhdanskoi voiny (The history of the civil war), the Chief EditorialBoardheaded by Stalin himself introducednearly 700 correctionsin the text, that were discussed publicly (Kondakov 1941:122). Linguisticformulationswere evaluatedby Partyexperts,among whom Stalin was the chief expert. In 1930, the writerMaxim Gorky suggested in a pri"a vate letterto Stalinthatthe leader'swritingrepresented model of properwritand requesteda piece for Gorky'sjournal,Literaturnaiaucheba (Literary ing"
25 For a similar discussion see also Ryazanova-Clarkeand Wade (1999:18) and Rossianov (1993: 451). 26 For a discussion of Marr's views see also Gorham(2000:140, 142), Slezkine (1996:842), Clark(1995:201-223), Gray 1993. 27 I use the term"modelof language"insteadof a useful term "languageideology" (Silverstein 1979;Woolard1998) to avoid confusingthe latterwith my concepts of "Sovietideology" and "ideological discourse."

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of training)(Gorham2000:149). In 1935, the Chairman the CentralExecutive Committeeof the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin,publicly announced:"If you asked me who knows the Russianlanguagebetterthananyoneelse, I would answerStalin. We must learn from him the economy, lucidity, and crystal purity of language."28Stalin performedthe role that Erving Goffman would call the of "principal" discourse-someone who stands outside of discourse, publicly evaluatesit, and suggests how to improveit (1981:144).29 It was in this capacity that, in 1950, Stalin initiateda paradigmshift in the Stalscience of languagethat,ironically,destroyedthe position of "principal." in publicly attackedtheoretical schools in Soviet linguistics on the pages of He Pravdafor "vulgarMarxism."30 critiquedMarr'sview of language as part that of the superstructure still dominatedSoviet linguistics, calling it "idealist" for its treatmentof language as a reflection of thought,as if thoughtcould exist outside of language. Stalin also attackedthe view of language as a tool of production,i.e. as partof the base, the view that was still dominantin the ideological work of the Party organs. Stalin arguedthat language is completely After his original aroutside of the whole dialectic of base and superstructure. ticle in Pravda (1950), Stalin furtherclarifiedhis position in several responses to Pravda readers:"I insist that thought can appearonly on the basis of language material,that for people who know a language there can be no naked [At thought that is disconnected from language material."31 the same time] "thereis a profounddifferencebetween language and tools of production.... tools of productioncreate materialgoods, while language creates nothing or could creatematerialgoods then chatterers if 'creates'just words. .... language would be the richest people in the world."32 Two implicationsfollowed from Stalin'sinterventioninto linguistic science: since languagewas not partof the superstructure, languagecould not automatthe revolutionaryleaps promisedby Marr;and, since language ically undergo was not a tool of production, its political manipulationwas not the way to produce Communistconsciousness.33 Instead, Communistlanguage, argued Stalin, had to be understoodand managed according to "objective scientific laws."34 iazykozFollowing this critique,the newly establishedjournalVoprosy
Russian the and 28 Quoted "Beregiteizuchaite velikiirusskii in i (Safeguard learn great iazyk" 2 Komsomol'skaia Pravda, July1946,p. 1. See alsoBlinov(1948:15). language), 29 The"principal" responsibility a text(e.g.theU.S.president), reads "animator" the for takes the creates text(e.g.a speechwriter) and 1981:144). text(e.g.a spokesperson), "author" (Goffman discourses Rossianov scientific of was Stalin alsothe"principal" various 1993). (see 30 See alsomaterials Stalin1950and1954. in and D. to 31 "Tovarishcham i PravD. Belkinu S. Fureru" [Response Comrades Belkin S. Furer], da, 2 Aug.1950. 32 "Knekotorym E. Otvet [On voprosam iazykoznaniia. tovarishchu Krasheninnikovoi" some 4 to issuesin linguistics. Pravda, July1950. E. Response Comrade Krasheninnikova], from Sovietscholarship anexcessiveecobut freednotonlylinguistics "much 33 Thiscritique
nomic determinism" (Clark 1995:221). 34 A similarshift from "vulgarMarxism"to "objectivescientific laws" occurredin Soviet sci-

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naniia (Issues of linguistics) appealedin 1952 for a thorough"renovationand reconstruction" Soviet linguistics: "Soviet linguists have not yet closely apof some crucial problemsin the study of language, have not yet begun proached its concrete andprofoundMarxistinvestigation.These issues concernresearch on the connection between language and thought ... the connection between the developmentof thoughtand the perfectionof the grammatical orderof lan... [and] the influence of the base and ideological superstructures guage (political, philosophical,aesthetic,and others)on the developmentof the vocabulary."35 This appealmarksthe beginning of the gradualtransformation the model of to which Soviet ideology was evaluated for scientific accuracyaccording from a model based on the subjective opinion of a "principal" who publicly evaluatedformulations, towardone basedon "objectivescientific laws"anonymously statedandnever publicly contestedor discussed.This was a majorshift of the Soviet "discursiveregime"-one that marks the mid-1950s as the beginning of the epoch of Late Socialism. The Post-StalinistSemanticModel Withthis shift all discussions aboutcorrectandincorrectlanguagedisappeared from the public eye. In the 1960s, the productionof Partytexts became almost completelyhiddenwithinthe CentralCommittee(CC). Now "specialistsin ideological linguistics," Soviet linguist Kliamkin later wrote, "discuss[ed] their professionalproblemsbehindclosed doors"(quotedin Han-Pira1991:21).The only publicly visible position remainedwhat Goffmanwould call the "animators" of ideological discourse-Party and Komsomol Secretariesof different levels who publicly enunciatedthis discourse without engaging in its evaluation. A similar shift toward"objectivelaws" happenedin other,non-linguistic forms of ideological representation (see fn. 3). The discursiveregime shifted to a "semanticmodel" of language, in which the meaningof texts is seen as fixed inside them, transparent, independent and of context. ElizabethMertz argues that in the institutionalcontexts where the semantic model of language is dominant(e.g., in secondaryeducationin the United States)the concept of "literacy" understoodnot as one's ability to inis but ratheras a technical skill of finding within texts their "literal terprettexts, meaning,"the skill thatcan be measured"in context-independent, quantifiable fashion"(Mertz 1996:232). Similarly,in the context of Soviet discourse,ideological literacyincreasinglybecame seen as a technicalskill of reproducing preence. After 1948, science "wasconsideredto dependnot on class interests,but on some 'objective' laws of nature" (Rossianov 1993:451-52). When in a 1948 speech Lyssenkoargued,echoing Marr, for the class natureof all science, Stalin,who readthe draft,remarked the margins:"Ha-ha-ha!!! on And what aboutmathematics? And what aboutDarwinism?"(Rossianov 1993:443).
"5 "Zadachi sovetskogo iazykoznaniia v svete trudov I. V. Stalina" [The tasks of the Soviet linguistics in light of I. V. Stalin's works], Voprosy iazykoznaniia no. 1, 1952, p. 4.

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fabricated"blocks"of discourse, with predetermined context-independent and "literalmeanings"attachedto them. Ideological discoursewas no longer publicly evaluated;in the absence of an ultimateauthorityon the canon, the Party leaders could only look to others' texts to calibratetheir own, which led to a of progressivelyform-centerednormalization language.Any text could potenbe seen as a deviation, which made CC secretariesand speech writers tially compulsively comparethe form of theirtexts with that of everyone else's. According to Fyodor Burlatskii,a speech-writerin Krushchev's,and later Brezhnev's CentralCommittees,"the main problemfor the new leaders, such as Andropov,Ponamaryovand otherCentralCommitteeSecretaries,became to avoid committinga political mistakeby saying or writingsomethingthatcould be consideredinappropriate was likely to raise an objection and irritation and othersin the leadership]" (author'sinterview).Everyonein the leader[among the General Secretary,now felt continual nervousness about ship, including their discourse. Burlatskiiremembers:"WhenKhrushchevmade a speech he always readit from the writtentext. Only occasionallyhe would say: "Andnow
allow me to diverge from the text" (a teper'pozvol'te mne otoiti ot teksta). He

would startspeaking in the working class languagethat he learnedduringthe

Party discussions of the early 1930s. . . . However, he well realized that this was

a divergencefrom the norm and triednot to overuse it.... As for Brezhnev,he never diverged. He was afraidto step outside the limits of the acceptednorm, to not repeatthe precise Partylanguage"(author'sinterview). A joke from the 1960s illustratesthis progressive discomfort.The General SecretaryBrezhnev,surrounded the membersof the CC, is shown arounda by Soviet artexhibition.After the tour,the CC memberscautiouslygatheraround Brezhnev to hear what he thinks. Brezhnev waits for a minute, then declares: "Veryinteresting.But let us hear what they think at the top." A resultof this shift in the languagemodel of the leadershipwas thatthroughout the 1960s, official Partyspeeches and documentsbecame subjectedto increasinglymeticulousand publicly invisible editing with the goal of producing texts without "a single step sideways from the norm (nikakogootstupleniiaot normy)"(Burlatskii,author'sinterview).Most texts at the CC were now written and edited collectively. One of the most stringent editors was Mikhail and Suslov, the Secretaryon Ideology. In the clich6 "Marxism-Leninism proletariatinternationalism" Suslov insisted on replacing the conjunction"and" with a dash, because, he figured, "Marxism-Leninism inalreadyis proletariat ternationalism" "opposingone to the other"by the use of "and"could creand ate unnecessaryconfusion (Burlatskii1988: 188). The phrasewith the dash became fixed and repeatedfrom text to text. Similartypes of editing occurredin all key publicationsof the CC. The editorsat thejournalKommunist unusualwords with the usu"replaced al ones, squeezed out any literariness(literaturshchina),and combined several sentences into one paragraph-long sentence by adding commas and obliter-

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ating verbs"(Burlatskii,author'sinterview).A CC Secretary,YuriiAndropov, made his consultantsre-writespeeches endlessly, and at the final stage of editing, "wouldhimself sit at the head of the table with all the consultants,six or four of us, aroundhim. He liked to have many consultantstogether.We would edit the final version. He would read a phrasealoud and say: 'Somethinghere is wrong. We need to find a differentformulation.'Someone would suggest a word. He would write it down. Then anotherperson would suggest another word. Then anotherperson. We rewrotethe speech collectively. Then the text was returnedto the typist. Then Andropovread it to us again, then again. We kept changing formulationsuntil they soundedright"(Burlatskii,author'sinterview). The process of collective writing and cross-imitationcanceled out individual styles, pushing ideological texts in the direction of greater anonymity, replicability,and increasinglycumbersomenorms-ideological discoursebecame hyper-normalized. CC writershad their own slang term for the new The of composition-"block-writing" (blochnoepis'mo). The fixed "blocks," style explains the speech-writer,"consisted not only of single phrases but also of whole paragraphs. You could read these texts top to bottom and bottom to top with similarresults"(Burlatskii,author'sinterview).In many cases the form of blocks became more meaningfulthan any meaningthey were designed to convey.36 TheLate-SocialistPragmaticModel The emergingdominanceof block-writingindicateda shift from a semanticto a pragmaticmodel (Mertz 1996) of language. Since literarymeaningwas seen as embeddedin linguistic form (semanticmodel of language),eventuallyit became of secondary importance,with the form taking precedence (pragmatic model). Innumerableand widely circulatedbrochuresfor local propagandists continuedto stress the importanceof precise ideological language in the construction of Communism, but instead of comparing correct and incorrect aboutliteralmeaning),they specified exact phraseology(essentiallyarguments forms and instructedall to replicatethem word for word. A "ReferenceBook for the Secretaryof a Primary PartyOrganization" critiquedthose lecturerswho still allowed themselves to speculateon ideological issues in their own terms, an act which invariablyled them to slip into "superficialpseudo-scientificlanThe only structural elements of discourse in which experimentation guage."37
Thistransformationan example GregUrban's of is of on theory therelationship powerreis codedas "entextualization" "replication"discourse: more and in discourse overtly "The garding that but nonpersonal, is, notas something by generated theoriginator astransmitted himorher, by andtheless it is linked a present be to context circumstances, morelikelywill thecopier and the to replicate hence,themoreshareable is"(1996:40). it it;
pp. 8-17.
37 Spravochnik sekretaria pervichnoi partiinoi organizatsii, quoted in Kommunist no. 9, 1979, 36

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was encouragedwere some technical aspects of delivery-volume of voice, eye-contact, gesticulation,and "a little bit of humor"(Leont'ev 1975). As a result, most Soviet people learnedto worryless aboutthe literal meanings thatideological languagewas supposedto communicate.This new "pragmatic model"of languageis comparableto how languageis viewed in AngloAmericanlegal practice(Mertz 1996:234).Unlike the semanticmodel in which texts arebelieved to convey context-independent literalmeanings(see above), in the pragmaticmodel the meaningof texts is neitherliteralnor final-it proFor foundly depends on the context and on the reader-interpretation. example, U.S. law schools trainstudentsto readlegal texts for specific "technicalterms" that serve as pragmaticmarkerslinking texts to concrete contexts (a given legal case, relevantpreviouscases, etc.).38By learningto identify these markers, studentslearnthe skill of "recontextualizing" meaning:in each new legal case new meaningsmay be "fixed"and "new interpretations be forged,"which may allows "attorneyadversariesin practice [to] argue vastly differentinterpretations" of the same texts (Mertz 1996:234-35). The spreadof this "pragmaticmodel" of ideological language to everyday contexts is illustratedby one of my interviewees.While attendingthe Komsomol meetings in the 1970s, he paid very little attentionto the speeches, and instead read a book. However, when the vote on a resolutionwas announcedby the question, "who is in favor?,""a certainsensor would click in the head ... andyou raisedyourhandautomatically" 1997:172).Frequentlyit was (Yurchak more relevantto engage with the ideological meetings at the level of pragmatic markers,simply reproducingone's identity as someone who competently monitorsand recognizes the pragmaticflow of the proceedings.However, octo casionally,the same intervieweeremembers,it was also important pay closer attentionto the discussions, readingthe meaning of events and phrases for their "literal"meaning. In most meetings people took a combinationof these two stances,being involved in a relationshipof heteronymousshift with the unfolding discourse of the meeting: althoughthey meticulously reproducedthe visibleform of the ideological signs (by making speeches and voting in favor) the they actively reinterpreted meaningsfor which that form stood. It is as important to confuse this type of activity with dissimulation,as it not is to recognize U.S. attorneys'ability to argue vastly incongruousinterpretations of the same text as not imposture(Mertz 1996). The attorneystake opposing stances to the same case not to dissimulateseeking justice or take advantage of the system, but because American legal ideology is based on a of model" of justice, where the interpretations prosecutionand de"pragmatic fense are treatednot as "literal"meaningsbut as techniquesallowing the jury to arriveat the best approximation justice. of

38Thesemarkers a particular of Gumperz' of are case "contextualization cues"-any "feature

(1987 [1982]:131). linguistic form thatcontributesto the signaling of contextualpresuppositions"

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THE ART OF IDEOLOGICAL

WRITING

GenerativePrinciples of Block-Writing Soviet mediaprovidedendless instancesof ideological discourse,one daily example being the front-pageleading article,peredovitsa, of the CC newspaper Pravda.39These discussed some aspect of the Soviet experience, were collectively writtenby professionalCC writersand were never signed. By analyzing some of the fixed principles examples from a leading articleI will demonstrate to which any number of proper linguistic blocks were generated; according these principlesmay be called "generative principles"of ideological discourse. The following examples are taken from a 1977 leading article, "TheIdeological Conviction of the Soviet Person"(Ideinost'sovetskogo cheloveka,Pravda, July 1, 1977).40For considerationsof space, I will limit this analysis to two generativeprinciples of block-writing:the principle of complex modification and that of complex nominalization.41 The first sentence in the Pravda text reads:"Thehigh level of social consciousness of the toilers of ourcountry,their richest collective experienceand political reason,manifestthemselves with an exceptionalcompletenessin the days of the all-peoplediscussionof the draftof the Constitutionof the USSR (Vysokiiuroven'obshchestvennogosoznaniatrudiashchikhsianashei strany,ikh bogateishii kollektivnyiopyt i politicheskii razum s iskliuchitel'noipolnotoi proiavliaiutsiav dni vsenarodnogoobsuzhdeniiaproektakonstitutsiiSSSR)."I have italicizedphrasesthatarenounswith complex modifiersthatfunctionas "buildingblocks" of ideological discourse. This does not necessarilymeanthatsuch phraseswere replicatedwordfor word from one text to the next; but thatmost instancesof ideological discoursecontainedphrasesbased on complex modifiersthatwere constructedaccordingto two generativeprinciples:the use of multiple modifiers and the use of modifiers of degree (e.g., comparativeand superlativedegree). In the first phrase, "thehigh level of consciousness of the toilers,"the double-modifier"highlevel" conveys not only the claim that the Soviet toilers' consciousness exists (to be high it must exist), but also thatit can be measuredcomparatively, differby ent "levels."42 The latterclaim masks the formerone, therebymaking it harder to question directly and renderingit more natural.Similarly,in the phrase, "theirrichestcollective experience,"the complex modifier"richestcollective" suggests not only thatthereis a sharedentity of "toilers'experience"(to be rich it must exist), but also that it can be measuredcomparatively, degree (rich, by
39 With a circulationof eleven million (Roxburgh1987:55), Pravda was the newspaperreadily accessible to the widest Soviet audience. 40 Due to lack of space, this analysiswill be limitedonly to severalgenerativeprinciples.A more detailed discussion will be includedin my forthcomingmanuscript. 41 For a discussion of modifiersin Soviet ideological discourse,see also Humphrey (1989:159). 42 Similarly,in the phrase"deep-seafishing" the fact thatthe sea is deep is presupposed(treated as a known and incontestablefact), while in the phrase "the sea is deep" it is treatedas contestablenew information.

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richer,the richest).43 The latterclaim again masks the formerone, making it harderto challenge. The complex modifier, "exceptionalcompleteness"performs a similarfunction. These complex modifiers allow one to convey ideological claims while minimizing the exposure of one's voice to critical scrutiny. The use of such complex modifiersincreasedas pressureon CC writersto produce texts with minimumpotential deviations and ambiguitiesintensified (see above). Another principle for composing blocks was based on the use of nominal in PatrickSeriotshowedthatnominalstructures Sophrases- nominalizations. viet ideological discourse were used with much greaterfrequencythan in other genres of Russian discourse (1986:34). With the shift duringthe 1960s and model of discourse, the use of nominal 1970s toward the hyper-normalized structures increasedand new long nominalchains were created.This increased the circularityof ideological discourse.In the excerptfrom the same 1977 leadis ing article;the italicizedphrase(which in Englishtranslation brokeninto two is a block of multiplenominals44: "Thespiritualimage of thefighter and parts) creator of the citizen of the developed socialist society reveals-itself to the world in all its greatness and beautyboth in the chiseled lines of the outstanding document of the contemporarytimes, and in the living existence, in the everyday reality of the communistconstruction(I v chekannykhstrokakhvydaiushchegosiadokumentasovremennosti,i v zhivoi deistvitel'nosti,v povsedstroitel'stva peredmirom raskryvaetsia nevnykhbudniakh kommunisticheskogo vo vsem velichii i krasote dukhovnyiobraz bortsa i sozidatelia, grazhdanina razvitogosotsialisticheskogoobshchestva)." The proliferation such constructionswas againan effect of the writers'atof to minimize potentialdeviations and ambiguitiesof their texts: nomitempts nals allow one to renderideological claims implicit, maskingthem behindother ideas, and therefore rendering them less subject to scrutiny or multiple This nominal chain can be deconstructedinto several correinterpretations. verbal phrases,each containingone idea (Seriot 1986): "the citizen sponding "thefighterand creof the developed socialist society is a fighterand creator," atorpossesses a spiritualimage," "the spiritualimage is great and beautiful," etcetera. Converting these verbal phrases into one nominal phrase converts claims into presuppositions,presentingideas as pre-establishedfacts. The use of multiplenominalsin one long chain masks some claims (expressedin earlier partsof the chain) behind otherclaims (expressedin laterparts).For example, the idea that the citizen of the developed socialist society is a fighter and creatoris veiled behindtwo otherideas mentionedin the verbalphrasesabove. Of course, like most genres of political discourses, the Bolshevik discourse employedmanynominalsfromits inception.However,the 1970s discoursewas
43 On the use of superlativesin Soviet discourse, see Steinvand(1955:82). editors' strategyfor creating long phrasesby eliminatingverbs, above. 44 See the Kommunist

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long nominal chains and only one special: its sentences containedparticularly often simply a copula, with the sole purposeof turningthese long chains verb, of nominals into a sentence.This style createda notoriously"wooden"sound, giving ideological discourse its popularslang name, "oaklanguage"(dubovyi iazyk).In addition,all instancesof ideological discourseconstantlyquotedand sampledprevioustexts, solidifying form andmaking"manifestintertextuality" (Fairclough1992: 104) a centralprincipleof block-writing. Local Reproduction Ideological Discourse of To understand what ideological texts meantto Soviet people we need to go beyond discourseandanalyzethe practicesandcontextsin which it was produced, disseminated,and interpreted people locally. Most membersof the last Soby viet generation,whose practicesI discuss in this section, grew up with this model of ideological discourse,encounteringit daily in schools, colleges, at work, in the media, in the Komsomol organization,and so on. Sasha, who was born in the mid-1950s, was a secretaryat the local Komsothe mol Raikom(DistrictCommittee).To be trainedfor thejob he attended Higher PartySchool, wherehe took such coursesas "TheBasics of Marxist-Leninist Rhetoric."Studentsin the course were explicitly taughthow to write ideological texts by using prefabricated blocks-lists of key words, quotes, phrases, and grammatical constructions. After graduation,Sasha, as a Secretaryon Idetexts of documentsand speeches and received regularcirculars ology, prepared sent from the CentralCommitteein Moscow. He explains: "they stated what had to be mentioned-which figures, phrases, words, and quotes from Party leaders. ... These were usuallywrittenso well thatwe could simply insertthem into our own texts, even when speakingabout some local event." Sasha was more explicitly trainedin the artof block-writingthan most people of his generationwho occupiedlower positions in the Komsomolhierarchy. Andrei (bornin 1954), the Komsomol Secretaryof a researchinstitutein a city district of Leningrad that Sasha supervised, wrote most of his ideological speeches and texts simply by copying whole passages from old speeches the previous Secretarieshad left behind in the Committeearchive.Masha (bornin 1970), a high school Komsorg(Komsomolorganizer)in the city of Kaliningrad, wrote her reportsand speeches for the regularKomsomolmeetings by copying whole passagesfromnewspapers.She explains:"Itook a newspaperandcopied sentencesfroman appropriate editorial.... At first,I copied phrasesthatwould be useful in the text and then wrote the text." However, copying was not the only technique of text production.With experience one figured out some generative principles of block composition. inMasha,for example,explainsthatshe learnedto use "special"constructions of 'depth-level stead of "common"ones: "It was always importantto speak meaning'(glubinnyismysl) as opposedto 'deep meaning'(glubokiismysl), and of 'unebbingsignificance'(neprekhodiashchee znachenie)insteadof 'greatsig-

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nificance'(bol'shoeznachenie)."In otherwords,Mashalearnedto use the complex modifiersof degreediscussed in the previoussection:the modifier"depthlevel" (glubinnyi)unlike "deep"(glubokii),conveys not simply the concept of depthbut its comparative(superlative)degree.45Similarly,the modifier"unebbing,"unlike "great," conveys notjust significancebut its temporaldimension. In both cases, one claim (that some event has "meaning"or "significance")is masked and thus naturalizedbehindanotheridea-that it can be measuredby comparativeor temporaldegrees. Accordingto Masha,if the speech was written for a meeting devotedto "all-peopleholidays"(vsenarodnye prazdniki),she had to describe the importanceof the event by composing a particular type of statement.Such statementsinclude long chains of nominals, similarto general those discussedin the previous section. Considerone example (nominalchains are italicized): "Theunebbingsignificance of the victory of the working class in the GreatOctoberSocialist Revolution(or for a differentevent:of the Soviet people in the GreatPatrioticWar)is impossible to overestimate(Neprekhodiashchee znachenie pobedy rabochego klassa v VelikoiOktiabr'skoisotsialisticheskoirevoliutsii(Sovetskogonarodav VelikoiOtechestvennoi voine) nevozmozhno pereotsenit'). model used by people for the proAs mentionedearlier,in the new pragmatic ductionand interpretation ideologicaldiscoursethe generativeprinciplesand of lexical blocks (like the block of ritualisticpractice,such as voting in favor durmarkers signaledideologicalconthat ing meetings)playedthe role of pragmatic texts but usually did not have to be readon the level of literalmeaning.Masha, for example,remarks: often wouldbe unableto explainin my own wordswhat "I I wrote. Everyone, sort of, had a general feeling that the text soundedprecise As (chetko)and impressive(vpechatliaushche). a child I was always impressed To these serious and unclear(ser'eznye i neponiatnye)phrases." Masha and by becauseof their and hercontemporaries texts sounded"precise" "impressive" the architecture-these textsusedprecise generative principlesandblocks pragmatic functhe of ideologicaldiscourseand thereforerigorouslyperformed pragmatic tion of markingideologicalcontextsin everydaylife. The weight of meaningin this discoursehad shiftedfrom literalmeaningto linguisticform, or, to use Jacobson's terms,the "poeticfunction"of locally producedideological discourse function"(Jacobson1960).46 became moreimportant thanits "referential RenderingIdeology Meaningful It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that such Komsomol membersas Sasha,Andrei,and Masha, who often paid more attentionto the pragmaticas45 The adjectiveglubinnyi(depth-level)emphasizesa greatlevel of depth,while glubokii(deep) refers to depthin general. 46 The "poetic function"of language emphasizes the aesthetics of the medium into which the
message is packed, how it says-not what it says. The "referential function" emphasizes the "mes-

sage" (meaning)itself (Jacobson 1960).

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pects of their texts thanto their literal meanings,were simply dissimulatorsor opportunistswho did not care for the ideological values of socialism. Such a view would ignore the important fascinatingfact thatmany Soviet people, and members of the last Soviet generation,were able to conduct including many much of the daily ideological practicein the pragmaticways describedabove precisely because they continuedto subscribeto a more generalunderstanding of socialism. In this they were much like the above-mentionedU.S. attorneys, whose practice of arguingdiametricallyopposing positions in concrete legal cases should not be read as pureutilitarianism, but, on the contrary,as an indication of a sharedand sincerebelief in the importanceof the concept of justice. to As anthropologists know well, practicesthatmay appearcontradictory outto be so for insiders (or in anside observers (or in one context) do not have othercontext). To understand what concretepracticesmay tell us aboutthe natureof a given social systemwe need to analyzethe actualcontextswhereactors engage in them.This is why in this section I will considerhow the low-ranking local practitioners Soviet ideology reproducedthe social contexts in which of ideological texts circulated. In the early 1980s, the SecretaryAndrei was assigned by the Raikom to orKomsomolmembers ganize a "lecturegroup"in his institute.Tenrank-and-file in had to write and deliver political-ideologicallectures (politinformatsiia) the most tried course of the year in front of their colleagues. As Andrei expected, to avoid the task. To solve the problem,Andrei explains, "ourCommitteedecided to create a lecture group on paper.... We even had five or six people in it. ... I said to a friendof mine: "you will be the leader."He had to keep a system of reports(otchetnost')aboutlecturesand, if a reportwas reviewed by the Raikom, to discuss it with a competentlook (s gramotnymvidom).And also, when possible, once or twice a year, to arrangereal lectures, so that there was somethingto referto just in case." Such arrangements were so commonplacethat they did not appearsurprismembers.Accordingto Andrei, ing eitherto the Committeeor the rank-and-file crediblereportswas the Raikom"hardly ever spoke with real people. Preparing [Andrei'sCommittee's]main task."After reviewing the reportsof differentorganizationsin the district,the Raikom issued its own reportin which Andrei's As lecturinggroupwas named"exemplary." I mentioned,it would be a mistake or to conclude from this descriptionthatAndreiwas simply an opportunist dissimulator.In fact, he thought of himself as a ratherconscientious Komsomol form Secretarywho believed thatin generalpoliticallectureswere an important of ideological-education work (ideino-vospitatel'naia rabota). At the same time, as a practitionerof that work, he knew that to organize people and orchestrateevents was not as easy as devising them on paper. Like many othersof his generation,Andreicame to believe thatsocialist valrulesandthatsome ideological tasks ues were moreimportant thanbureaucratic could be ignoredwithout detriment,while othershad to be performedwith all

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earnestness.He distinguishedbetween two types of Komsomol practice. The firsthe called "formality" (proforma)and"ideologicalshell"(ideologicheskaia consisted of the productionof pragmaticmarkers(well-formed shelukha)-it reports,textualblocks, etc.) that simply signaledunavoidableideological contexts. The second type of ideological workAndreicalled "workwith meaning" (rabota so smyslom),and this he found importantand enjoyable, and often organized on his own initiative. Among the examples of that work he lists variousprofessionaland cultural initiatives:contests among young employees of the institutefor the best professional skills (konkursprofmasterstva),the system of apprenticeship(nastavnichestvo),the museum devoted to the institute'srole duringthe war, work in agriculturalfarms and constructionbrigades, assistance to young families with housing and kindergarten children,sportscompetitions,lecture series for on history,amateurtheatricalperformances,concerts of music groups, youth dances, celebrations,hikes in the country,and so on. For organizingthese diverse activities, Andrei won several honorarydiplomas (gramota) "For Kosmomol Work,"awardsof which he was proudand which he kept on the wall in his office, and later at home. For him, these were not meaningless documents received in exchange for meaninglessactivities, but signs of publicrecognition of his organizingtalents, creativityand genuine concernfor the social good. In practice,the two types of work-"pure formality"and "workwith meaning"-were in a mutuallyconstitutiverelationship: fulfilling some "formality" was a necessary prerequisitefor being able to perform"workwith meaning." To put this differently,performingthe unavoidableand ritualized"formality" helpedto outlinethe ideological space (whatAndreicalls "shell")within which forms of ideological work and socialist life could proceed. other,"meaningful" The abovementionedschool Secretary, Masha,was equally passionateabout and proudof the "meaningful" of her Komsomol work:initiatingacaaspects demic supportto the studentswho lagged behindand assistanceto the local elderly war veterans.Anotherstudent,Igor (bornin 1960), who, in the late 1970s was the Komsorgof a school class in the town of Sovetsk (the region of Kaliningrad),stronglydisliked the meaninglessside of his duties. Rememberingthat aspect of Komsomol work Igor exclaims: "Oh, how I hated the Komsomol meetingsfor theirendless formalityandboredom!"Nonetheless, this antipathy did not precludehim from being morally engaged in other aspects of Komsomol work such as organizingprogramsfor helping the elderly, lectures about political situations in differentparts of the world, or debates about literature. Igor even volunteeredfor the post of school Komsorg several years in a row. While he hatedthe bureaucratic formalityof manyrituals,he admiredmany socialist values for which other Komsomol work stood. Igor explains: the to at eventforme.I wanted be in Joining Komsomol, agefifteen,wasanimportant
the Komsomol because I wanted to be among the young avant-gardewho would work to improvelife. . . . I felt thatif you lived accordingto the right scheme-school, insti-

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for tute,work-everythingin yourlife wouldbe fine.... Basically, me the governof ment's It of good policywascorrect. consisted simply a careforpeople, freehospitals, education. father an example thispolicy.He was ourregion'schiefdoctor was of My andworked to improve medical And hard the worked services thepeople. mymother for hard a doctor. hada fineapartment the state. as We from A myriadof similardescriptionsmakes clearthatthe relationshipof the last Soviet generationwith official ideology did not simply involve a resistanceto ideology, or its opportunisticuse for self-advancement,or a dissimulatedrepetition of official ideological statements,but also entailedinterestingandcreative acts of renderingcommunist ideology meaningful within the broaderframework of humanvalues. Intertextuality life "Meaningful" was producedwithin "formulaic" ideological contextsby engaging with a wide variety of discourses and practices that were not strictly "ideological"but that were often explicitly linked with some ideological symbols and meanings.To give an example of these discoursesandpracticesin the case of the last Soviet generation,I will analyze the productionof youth culture that drew not only on ideological Soviet values but also on "bourgeois" Westernvalues, even though the latterwere routinelycondemnedin the ideological discourse of the Soviet press as anti-communist(Stites 1993; Frisby 1989; Troitsky1988;Yurchak1999; Friedberg1985).All SecretariesandKomsorgs previously discussed were variously involved in producing"youthculture"activities,andlisted these activitiesas examplesof Komsomolwork"with meaning."In the analysisbelow, I will focus on this workin the case of the now familiarKomsomol SecretaryAndrei. When Andrei studied in school in the early 1970s, he, like millions of his contemporaries,became a fan of Anglo-American rock music. He and his school-matesfantasizedabouthaving their own band, occasionallyjammed at bandin English-The Boysfrom a Morgue. home, andnamedtheirimpromptu At the university,between 1973 and 1976, Andrei met more music fans, and started in participating an active exchangeof tapes. Officially,the music of most Westernrock bands did not exist in the Soviet universe-one could not purchase the records of Alice Cooper Led Zeppelin,Pink Floyd, or Deep Purple in stores, hearthem on the radio or see them in concert.Moreover,this type of music was regularlydenouncedin official publicationsas an example of bourgeois culture.Yet in the daily life of Andrei's generationthis music was in vibrantexistence. Small numbersof Westernrecords were broughtinto the Soviet Union from abroadby Soviet sailors, copied over and over on reel-to-reel recorders,and in this reduplicatedform spreadat an exponential rate among membersof the younger generationaroundthe country.47
became Yurknown magnitizdat as 47 That system 1988; (home recording production) (Troitsky
chak 1999).

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From the late 1970s into the early 1980s, as a member of the Komsomol Committeeat the universityandlaterat the researchinstitute,Andreiorganized youth dances at which he played tape-recordedcopies of this "non-existent" Westernmusic throughthe sound system anddeliveredshortlecturesaboutdifferent Westernbands. Andrei also organized concerts of "amateur" Russian bandsthatemergedin the 1970s and were neitherofficially registerednor officially forbidden (Troitsky 1988; Cushman 1995; Yurchak 1999). All these events needed the approvalof a local Party Secretary,which Andrei usually managedto secure by representingthem in his reportsas ideologically sound forms of Komsomol youth life (komsomol'sko-molodezhnaia zhizn'). Let us consider how this combinationof Andrei's practices as Komsomol Secretary and culturalorganizerwas reflected at the level of his discourse.In 1982, Andrei, a brand-newKomsomol Secretaryof the researchinstitute,presentedhis first speech at the annual Komsomol meeting. The speech started with the words: "Oneof the centraldirectionsin the work of the Komsomol is politicoideological educationof young people. The formationof the Marxist-Leninist attitude (neprimirimoeotnoshenie) to bourworld-view, an uncompromising and morality,the educationof young people in the spiritof Sogeois ideology viet patriotismand socialist internationalism-these are the centraltasks facing the ideological leadershipof our Komsomol organization." Accordingto the Soviet media, Westernrock music was a primeexample of whatAndreireferredto as the "bourgeoisideology and morality" had crept that into Soviet life and needed to be fought.An articlethat appearedin the central KomsomolnewspaperKomsomol'skaia Pravda in 1981, severalmonthsbefore Andrei's speech, explained this official ideological position: "[Westernrock attitudeto the vices of the bands] almost completely lack an uncompromising world. ... The songs of new trendystarsonly lead the listenersaway bourgeois into the world of unrealizableillusions. This is music-drug(muzyka-narkotik), music-deceit (muzyka-obman).... music-sleeping-pill (muzyka-snotvornoe), Insteadof progress-this is regress.This is a naturalfate, a logical conclusion of the "evolution"of rock music, an indivisible partof the Westernmass culture-a deformedoffspringof an unequalmarriage betweenartandbusiness."48 These two ideological texts represent the discursive regime of the early 1980s: the literal meaning of Andrei's speech is an argumentfor a need to deattitudeto bourgeois ideology and morality";the velop an "uncompromising literal meaningof the newspaperarticleis an argumentthatWesternrock music as a culturalform lacked precisely that "uncompromising attitudeto the vices of the bourgeoisworld"(see italicizedparts).It was quite clear,therefore, that on the level of literalmeaningWesternrock was claimed to be a manifeshow the young tationof bourgeoiscultureandmorality.However,to understand
48 Barko, V. "Pered stenoi okazalas' segodnia populiarnaia muzyka na zapade" [Popular music in the West has hit the wall], Komsomol'skaia Pravda, 19 Mar. 1981 (emphasis added).

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Soviet audiencesin fact interpreted such texts we also need to considerthe contexts for their productionand circulation,and other discourses and practices these people were involved in at thattime. In 1982, the same year thatAndreimade his Komsomol speech, a friendlent him an issue of a WesternEuropeanmagazine, Music Express, broughtby a sailorfrom abroad. a Andreipainstakinglytranslated four-pagearticlefrom the abouta heavy metal guitarist,Michael Schenkerof the Germanrock magazine groupThe Scorpions,and typed it up on the Komsomol Committeetypewriter. Later,he referredto facts fromthe text when he introduced songs tape-recorded of The Scorpionsduringhis Komsomol dances.The translation describesin detail the careerof the heavy metal star and his stereotypicalheavy-metalproblems: "Now Michael's drug addiction became truly 'heavy.' ... He added tablets and cocaine to alcohol."The translationends with a cheerful appealto the fans: "So, what keeps Michael alive? Of course, the same as you and me'heavy metal!'" The text thatAndrei translatedseems to representAndrei's genuine passion for bourgeois rock music and its decadent culture, and seems to encourage praise from the audience.At the same time, Andrei'sKomsomol speech seems to appeal for an uncompromisingattitudeagainst them. Yet, Andrei and his between contradiction young audiencesdid not seem troubledby this apparent the two discourses. In fact, Andrei claims that both texts were equally importantto him because they representedmajoractivities in which he was engaged during that year of his life. He stored both texts in the same folder marked "1982"amongdocumentsandpicturesin his home archive,whereI discovered them. Note, that Andrei's Komsomol speech, just like the newspaperarticle, linked these texts containedrecognizablepragmaticmarkersthatunmistakably with the space of ideology, but disconnectedthemfrom othercontextsof everyday life. These markersallowedAndreiandhis audiencesto discriminatein interpretingsuch texts: some aspects in Andrei's critique of bourgeois Western culture(e.g., imperialism,colonialism, cold war politics, thirstfor money, etc.) were widely subscribedto at the level of literalmeaning,while otheraspects of thatcritique(e.g., thatWesternrock was an example of Westernbourgeoiscultureto be opposed) were treatedas a formulaicenframing.49 Just like in the examples discussed earlier,Andrei's young audience could avoid reading newspaperarticles critical of Westerncultureas a whole at the level of "literal"meanings. Indeed, as two prominentSoviet sociologists of of youth culture(both ardentPartymembersand representatives an older genthe eration)pessimisticallyconcludedin 1982 aftera long studythroughout Soviet Union, the new Soviet youththat seemed to be conscientiousin variousaspects of communistmoralitywas neverthelessratherblind to any connections between "Western music" and "thepolitics of anti-Communism" (Ikonnikova
and 49 See Humphrey(1994) on "evocativetranscript," Brenneis (1986) on "indirection."

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and Lisovskii 1982:96-97). At the same time, this complex reading also imWesternrock music andculplied thatSoviet youthdid not necessarilyinterpret ture the way it was interpreted Westernaudiencesin Westerncontexts. For by the example,in the articleaboutTheScorpionsthatAndreitranslated, reference to drugswas read as a pragmaticmarkerof an imaginaryand exotic context of Westernrock culturethat existed for Andrei and his peers on the level of fantasy. However, when in reality marijuanawas discovered in the university's dormitory,Andrei, as a conscientious member of the Komsomol Committee, helped to organizea vigorous campaignagainst drugs. In the 1970s, for many young people across the Soviet Union, includingAndrei, there was nothing contradictoryabout one's passionate affinity to some values of both anti-bourgeoisCommunistideology and anti-communistbourgeois culture.This simultaneityof interestsand passions was possible because of the dynamic and "situated" relationshipof these young people with ideoloof this dynamicrelationshipcan also be found in privateconvergy. Examples sations between membersof the last Soviet generationduringthe late socialist period. For a final illustrationI will analyze excerptsfrom privateletters written in the late 1970s by a teenager,Nikolai (born in 1959), from the Siberian For cities of YakutskandNovosibirsk,to his teenagefriendin Leningrad. Nikolike Andrei,the ideals and ethics of Communismand of bourgeoisWestern lai, rockmusic were equallyimportant he spoke aboutthem with his best friend and with passion and sincerity.Nikolai was well aware of the apparentcontradictions between these values, which is why he actively engaged in reinterpreting the meaningof Communistideology by disagreeingwith how aspectsof it were interpretedby school officials and the media. Instead of resisting ideology wholesale, he effectively domesticatedit, making it meaningfulin his life. In high school in Yakutsk,Nikolai occupied the post of the Komsomol Secretary and took that work very seriously. He wrote to his Leningradfriend (13 May It "I 1975, Yakutsk): believe in communism,and my belief is unshakable. is so enormousthat there would be enough for several more people. But this is not brainless,not blind faith.I do not like very loud words,but I will say one thing: the buildingof communismis the taskof my life. However,to be able to buildit one must know it, and know not only theory,but how to put theoryto life. This is why Ijoint the Komsomol,this is why I cherisheverythingconnectedwith it." On 7 October 1977, Nikolai wrote that he had just heard recordingsof the BritishbandsQueen and King Crimson,andthatthe latterbandespecially "impressed me quite a bit" and "I'd like to find out more about them."He ended the letter with a response to his friend's comment in an earlier letter: "P.S.I share your sorrow over the death of Elvis Presley."On 23 November,Nikolai "no addedthatthe BritishbandsKing CrimsonandYes represented longer simmusic (estrada)"but a "muchhigher,deeper,and more powerful"muple pop sic "thatdeserves to be called music that will live in the centuriesto come (v Nikolai's comments and his choice of bands, especially King Crimvekakh)."

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son, suggest that he was a serious lover of music, one interestednot in easylisteningpop, but in rock as a form of art.It is also noteworthythatin the 1970s, Westernbands managedto reach even tape recordingsof such "non-existent" remote Siberiantowns and played an importantrole in the upbringrelatively ing of Soviet youth. When Nikolai became a studentat Novosibirsk University, in the Fall of 1977, he wrote about the active interest in Westernmusic amonghis fellow students(14 December,Novosibirsk):"Manyof our students have personalcollections of stereorecordingsof the best rock bands.Although I must say that as far as the Beatles are concerned,I hear them ratherrarely. Overhere,it is morecommonto listen to "DeepPurple,""LedZeppelin,""Pink Floyd," "Yes,""Queen,""Wings,""King Crimson,""Alice Cooper,""Uriah Heep," andless frequentlyothers.The ones thatI underlinedI like most of all." Nikolai was well awareof the official Soviet criticismof this bourgeoismusic andindeedexplicitly contestedthis criticism.Importantly, however,his contestationwas not a resistanceto Communistideology-as a serious studentof Communismhe contested the official criticism from the position of the same Communistvalues thatthis criticismpurported uphold.The next two quotes to illustratehow Nikolai actively reinterpreted Soviet ideology, renderingit compatible with the Communistideals as he understoodand admiredthem. When the friendfromLeningradwroteaboutthe conflict his classmateshad with their teacherof aesthetics,a representative the system andan oldergenerationwho of criticized the young for their interestsin the "bourgeois" Westernrock, Nikolai responded by explicitly linking Westernrock to the officially celebrated achievementsof Soviet socialism (e.g., space exploration,nuclearphysics) and of "good" non-bourgeoisinternationalculture (e.g., classical music). On 21 January1977, he wrote from Yakutsk:
... tell yourteacher aesthetics one cannot of froma prehisthat viewtheworldaround toricposition. Because froma higher see one ground canclearly thatrockmusicand its relatives .... areworthy is successors classicalmusic,andthat"theBeatles" an unof

precedentedphenomenonof our life whose impacton the humanmindis, perhaps,com-

with us educate notknowing parable spaceflightsandnuclear physics.... Onecannot howwe live, overwhatwe suffer, whatandwhywe love.TellherthatI love Bach, and I Shchedrin. yet,withno reservation,canput And Vivaldi, Rakhmaninov, Tchaikovsky, nextto themPaulMcCartney. shedoesnotunderstand sheis nota teacher livIf of this but of whichis justlikereliaesthetics, a preacher dogmatic aesthetics, ingprogressive gious... aesthetics (original emphasis).

Nikolai's passionatebelief in communistideals, and his use of prescribedideological forms to formulatethem in his discourse, did not precludehim from of disagreeingwith some official interpretations these ideals and from sending these thoughtsacross the countrythroughthe official Soviet mail.50Compar50 This point challenges Orwell's model of "Newspeak": individualspeech can be creative and unpredictable even if the form of availablepublic discourse is strictlycontrolled.Also see Butler on "the space of agency"in controlleddiscourse (Butler 1997b:129; 1997a:15).

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ing an ideological version of the communist aesthetics to a religious dogma, Nikolai arguesfor a need to reinterpret Communismin more flexible, humanandnon-dogmaticterms,termsthatallow he andhis peersto see many asistic, cultureas compatiblewith Communistvalues. pects of "bourgeois"
CONCLUSION

This paperstartedwith the question: what was it aboutthe Soviet system that made its "collapse"appearcompletely unimaginableand surprisinglyfast not only to most WesternSovietologists but also to most Soviet people? One anof swer lies in the natureof Soviet people's understandings and relations with the official communist ideology in the decades that preceded the collapse. In the late 1950s throughthe early 1960s, Soviet ideology experienced a transformationtowarda new pragmaticmodel: it was increasinglymore important to reproduce precise ideological forms than to adhere to the precise meanings these forms were supposed to convey. Ultimately, the announced Party projectfor the creationof the New Soviet Person was both successful and unsuccessful. In line with the Party claims, the Soviet people unanimously reproduced the system on the level of form: they participatedin mass organizations, voted in favor of ideological resolutions,publicly manifested support at mass rallies and fulfilled official plans in numbers and reports. And yet, contraryto the Partyclaims, many Soviet people, especially the younger genthe erations,creatively reinterpreted meanings of the ideological symbols, destatic dogmas and renderingcommunist values meaningful on ideologizing their own terms. The act of the reproductionof form with the reinterpretation of meaning, which this papertheorizes as a heteronymousshift, cannot be reduced to resistance, opportunism,or dissimulation;indeed, it allowed many Soviet people to continue adheringto Communistideals andto see themselves as good Soviet citizens. The unanimous and ubiquitous replication of ideological forms, coupled with one's affinity to many communist values, contributedto the appearanceof the Soviet reality as monolithic and eternal.At of the same time, the constant internalreinterpretation the ideological meanwhich were the system's very raison d'etre, contributedto the condiings, tions of possibility for the system's imminent implosion, without necessarily causing this implosion. When the Party leadership,headed by Gorbachev,in the mid-1980s launched the critical public debates of perestroika, they only wanted to reform socialism, while still preservingit. Like all others, they did not see the internal"conditionsof possibility" for what they were, and therefore did not expect the collapse. However,by introducingthis new critical discourse they rendered the logic of heteronymous shift suddenly visible and publicly discussed, which amountedto a new change in the system's discursive regime. Perestroikabecame a final public manifestationof a majortransformation that had already taken place inside the system quietly and invisibly.

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