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POSTWAR SOVIET POLITICS THE FALL OF ZHDANOV AND THE DEFEAT OF MODERATION 1946-53
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January 2, 2026
When reading this book, it immediately becomes obvious that the author is coming from the “cold warrior” school of bourgeois Soviet historiography and, considering the period the book was written in and certain statements contained within, it is likely the author fancied himself a “Kremlinologist”. Although the author is not as rabidly anti-communist as other “historians” in the same school like the infamous Robert Conquest, the author still relies heavily on the now-discredited “Stalin paradigm” regarding every happening in the Soviet Union as an extension of Stalin’s will and believing that Stalin had absolute control over everything, and the author practically admits his adherence to such an erroneous position in Soviet historiography at the end of the book as well as in his introduction. Add to this paradigm the author’s propensity for speculation (often baseless or reliant on the Stalin paradigm), and we find that the general methodology is very poor.
The author sets out with the aim of proving that Zhdanov represented a “moderate” position in the Bolshevik Party and that this led to a falling out with Stalin, a groundbreaking discovery if true. But when setting out to prove this, speaking in terms of “dogmatists versus moderates” or “moderates versus conservatives”, the author gives very little in the way of a definition for any of these categories and behaves as though these things are self-evident. On the topic of biology, particularly with respect to Lysenko, the distinction between “moderate” and “dogmatist” might be a bit clearer as there existed certain uncritical persons in the field of science deserving of the title “dogmatist”, but when discussing fields like say philosophy or economics where problems are divided by the debate between idealism and materialism or socialist and capitalist political economy, the terms “dogmatist” and “moderate” become far more vague and feel quite meaningless in how the author uses them. The author points to people like the philosopher Kedrov who was undoubtedly a liberal later in life, Alexandrov, and so on and uses their tacit proximity to Zhdanov to prove the “moderatism” of Zhdanov’s politics, and this is the crux of his argument. Nevermind the fact that Zhdanov had not a few critical words for Alexandrov and others the author connects to Andrei Alexandrovich and if one were to read Zhdanov’s own comments about the 1947 debate in Soviet philosophy, one will find words that would not look out of place in the works of Mitin or Yudin who Mr. Hahn places in the “dogmatist” camp.
To speak on matters of “dogmatism” and “moderatism” and weigh in on discussions about philosophy, political economy, etc. in the Soviet Union, one should, if not a Marxist outright, at least have a decent understanding of Marxism since these debates in the Soviet Union were based on the worldview of Marxism. But Mr. Hahn does not seem to possess more than a cursory understanding (which, to be fair, is par for the course among bourgeois historians) evidenced by the author’s failure to comprehend the meaning of the dispute between idealism and materialism and why this was important, or chalking up certain changes in Zhdanov’s views to pressure from Stalin rather than reasoning that, both being Marxists, Stalin and Zhdanov could arrive at the same conclusion by virtue of both being Marxists using the same method of analysis. And what’s worse, the author often will concede things that hurt his case or would seem to disprove his conclusions (like admitting that Eugene Varga was not very close to Zhdanov but then using Varga as evidence of Zhdanov’s moderatism), most notably when Hahn cites a speech by Zhdanov from 1946 that appears to espouse a liberal foreign policy before conceding that Stalin had said very similar things in 1946 and then claiming that Zhdanov only became more “conservative” in his foreign policy when Stalin did and as a result of Stalin. The conclusions are very reflective of poor methodology based largely on speculation where very little supporting evidence exists, and rely on discredited anti-communist cold war talking points.
But if one looks past the very dubious conclusions of the author, there is a silver lining to this book. Although the overriding themes of anti-communism and anti-Soviet hysteria are very clear, the author still does from time to time cite from reports at conferences, speeches, articles in various Soviet periodicals, memoirs, etc. which, if the reader ignores the author’s attempt to baselessly imply things from these excerpts, can be quite interesting and occasionally the author is forced begrudgingly to admit that the Soviet Union was not quite as bad as other historians have tried to portray. For example, the author disproves the common cry that scientists, philosophers, and artists were shot as a result of Zhdanov or Lysenko, admitting that, in fact, no one in the fields of culture or philosophy had been shot as a result of Zhdanov’s campaigns and that only two people had been arrested (and were shortly after released) in connection with Lysenko. There is also some interesting stuff about the Leningrad affair and relations with Yugoslavia and China, if one looks past the author’s silly attempts to paint Zhdanov as somehow sympathetic to Tito, such as evidence that the culprits in the Leningrad affair had been part of a spy ring connected to the Titoites and that Mao behaved in much the same was as the Yugoslavs with respect to the communist movement. These small pieces of information can be quite useful, but it is unfortunate that the reader needs to fish for it amid a sea of anti-communist filth.
Failing to substantiate his arguments, the Mr. Hahn’s conclusions fall flat and the bulk of this book is anti-communist cold war propaganda in the same vein as Robert Conquest, if with more mild language. Someone looking for a sober account of Zhdanov’s politics or post-war Soviet politics should look elsewhere. The saving grace of this book is the excerpts from works from the Soviet Union, many of which have never been translated outside of Russian, and some of the forced admissions, like the aforementioned fact that Lysenko and Zhdanov did not contribute to anyone being killed. But, generally, this is a very poor work of history and the citations which the author often butchers are way more informative than anything the author himself has to say.
The author sets out with the aim of proving that Zhdanov represented a “moderate” position in the Bolshevik Party and that this led to a falling out with Stalin, a groundbreaking discovery if true. But when setting out to prove this, speaking in terms of “dogmatists versus moderates” or “moderates versus conservatives”, the author gives very little in the way of a definition for any of these categories and behaves as though these things are self-evident. On the topic of biology, particularly with respect to Lysenko, the distinction between “moderate” and “dogmatist” might be a bit clearer as there existed certain uncritical persons in the field of science deserving of the title “dogmatist”, but when discussing fields like say philosophy or economics where problems are divided by the debate between idealism and materialism or socialist and capitalist political economy, the terms “dogmatist” and “moderate” become far more vague and feel quite meaningless in how the author uses them. The author points to people like the philosopher Kedrov who was undoubtedly a liberal later in life, Alexandrov, and so on and uses their tacit proximity to Zhdanov to prove the “moderatism” of Zhdanov’s politics, and this is the crux of his argument. Nevermind the fact that Zhdanov had not a few critical words for Alexandrov and others the author connects to Andrei Alexandrovich and if one were to read Zhdanov’s own comments about the 1947 debate in Soviet philosophy, one will find words that would not look out of place in the works of Mitin or Yudin who Mr. Hahn places in the “dogmatist” camp.
To speak on matters of “dogmatism” and “moderatism” and weigh in on discussions about philosophy, political economy, etc. in the Soviet Union, one should, if not a Marxist outright, at least have a decent understanding of Marxism since these debates in the Soviet Union were based on the worldview of Marxism. But Mr. Hahn does not seem to possess more than a cursory understanding (which, to be fair, is par for the course among bourgeois historians) evidenced by the author’s failure to comprehend the meaning of the dispute between idealism and materialism and why this was important, or chalking up certain changes in Zhdanov’s views to pressure from Stalin rather than reasoning that, both being Marxists, Stalin and Zhdanov could arrive at the same conclusion by virtue of both being Marxists using the same method of analysis. And what’s worse, the author often will concede things that hurt his case or would seem to disprove his conclusions (like admitting that Eugene Varga was not very close to Zhdanov but then using Varga as evidence of Zhdanov’s moderatism), most notably when Hahn cites a speech by Zhdanov from 1946 that appears to espouse a liberal foreign policy before conceding that Stalin had said very similar things in 1946 and then claiming that Zhdanov only became more “conservative” in his foreign policy when Stalin did and as a result of Stalin. The conclusions are very reflective of poor methodology based largely on speculation where very little supporting evidence exists, and rely on discredited anti-communist cold war talking points.
But if one looks past the very dubious conclusions of the author, there is a silver lining to this book. Although the overriding themes of anti-communism and anti-Soviet hysteria are very clear, the author still does from time to time cite from reports at conferences, speeches, articles in various Soviet periodicals, memoirs, etc. which, if the reader ignores the author’s attempt to baselessly imply things from these excerpts, can be quite interesting and occasionally the author is forced begrudgingly to admit that the Soviet Union was not quite as bad as other historians have tried to portray. For example, the author disproves the common cry that scientists, philosophers, and artists were shot as a result of Zhdanov or Lysenko, admitting that, in fact, no one in the fields of culture or philosophy had been shot as a result of Zhdanov’s campaigns and that only two people had been arrested (and were shortly after released) in connection with Lysenko. There is also some interesting stuff about the Leningrad affair and relations with Yugoslavia and China, if one looks past the author’s silly attempts to paint Zhdanov as somehow sympathetic to Tito, such as evidence that the culprits in the Leningrad affair had been part of a spy ring connected to the Titoites and that Mao behaved in much the same was as the Yugoslavs with respect to the communist movement. These small pieces of information can be quite useful, but it is unfortunate that the reader needs to fish for it amid a sea of anti-communist filth.
Failing to substantiate his arguments, the Mr. Hahn’s conclusions fall flat and the bulk of this book is anti-communist cold war propaganda in the same vein as Robert Conquest, if with more mild language. Someone looking for a sober account of Zhdanov’s politics or post-war Soviet politics should look elsewhere. The saving grace of this book is the excerpts from works from the Soviet Union, many of which have never been translated outside of Russian, and some of the forced admissions, like the aforementioned fact that Lysenko and Zhdanov did not contribute to anyone being killed. But, generally, this is a very poor work of history and the citations which the author often butchers are way more informative than anything the author himself has to say.
Displaying 1 of 1 review