Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s

by Sheila Fitzpatrick

Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by one of our foremost authorities on modern Russian history.
Focusing on urban areas in the 1930s, Sheila Fitzpatrick shows that with the adoption of collectivization and the first Five-Year Plan, everyday life was utterly transformed. With the abolition of the market, shortages of food, clothing, and all kinds of consumer goods became endemic. As
peasants fled the collectivized villages, major cities were soon in the grip of an acute housing crisis, with families jammed for decades in tiny single rooms in communal apartments, counting living space in square meters. It was a world of privation, overcrowding, endless queues, and broken
families, in which the regime's promises of future socialist abundance rang hollowly. We read of a government bureaucracy that often turned everyday life into a nightmare, and of the ways that ordinary citizens tried to circumvent it, primarily by patronage and the ubiquitous system of personal
connections known as blat . And we read of the police surveillance that was endemic to this society, and the waves of terror like the Great Purges of 1937, that periodically cast this world into turmoil. Fitzpatrick illuminates the ways that Soviet city-dwellers coped with this world, examining such
diverse activities as shopping, traveling, telling jokes, finding an apartment, getting an education, landing a job, cultivating patrons and connections, marrying and raising a family, writing complaints and denunciations, voting, and trying to steer clear of the secret police.
Based on extensive research in Soviet archives only recently opened to historians, this superb book illuminates the ways ordinary people tried to live normal lives under extraordinary circumstances.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Russian History, Politics, Soviet Union, Soviet History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 1999

About the author

Sheila Fitzpatrick (born June 4, 1941, Melbourne) is an Australian-American historian. She teaches Soviet History at the University of Chicago.

Fitzpatrick's research focuses on the social and cultural history of the Stalinist period, particularly on aspects of social identity and daily life. She is currently concentrating on the social and cultural changes in Soviet Russia of the 1950s and 1960s.

In her early work, Sheila Fitzpatrick focused on the theme of social mobility, suggesting that the opportunity for the working class to rise socially and as a new elite had been instrumental in legitimizing the regime during the Stalinist period. Despite its brutality, Stalinism as a political culture would have achieved the goals of the democratic revolution. The center of attention was always focused on the victims of the purges rather than its beneficiaries, noted the historian. Yet as a consequence of the "Great Purge", thousands of workers and communists who had access to the technical colleges during the first five-year plan received promotions to positions in industry, government and the leadership of the Communist Party.

According to Fitzpatrick, the "cultural revolution" of the late 1920 and the purges which shook the scientific, literary, artistic and the industrial communities is explained in part by a "class struggle" against executives and intellectual "bourgeois". The men who rose in the 1930s played an active role to get rid of former leaders who blocked their own promotion, and the "Great Turn" found its origins in initiatives from the bottom rather than the decisions of the summit. In this vision, Stalinist policy based on social forces and offered a response to popular radicalism, which allowed the existence of a partial consensus between the regime and society in the 1930s.

Fitzpatrick was the leader of the second generation of "revisionist historians". She was the first to call the group of Sovietologists working on Stalinism in the 1980s "a new cohort of [revisionist] historians".

Fitzpatrick called for a social history that did not address political issues, in other words that adhered strictly to a "from below" viewpoint. This was justified by the idea that the university had been strongly conditioned to see everything through the prism of the state: "the social processes unrelated to the intervention of the state is virtually absent from the literature." Fitzpatrick did not deny that the state's role in social change of the 1930s was huge. However, she defended the practice of social history "without politics". Most young "revisionists" did not want to separate the social history of the USSR from the evolution of the political system.

Fitzpatrick explained in the 1980s, when the "totalitarian model" was still widely used, "it was very useful to show that the model had an inherent bias and it did not explain everything about Soviet society. Now, whereas a new generation of academics considers sometimes as self evident that the totalitarian model was completely erroneous and harmful, it is perhaps more useful to show than there were certain things about the Soviet company that it explained very well."

Reviews

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 3 out of 5]

در این کتاب خانم فیتزپاتریک سعی می کند زندگی روزمره انسان در شوروی در زمان هیولای حاکم ، استالین را بیان کند . بی گمان استالین در ساختن جامعه ای عاری از روح انسانی ، مردمانی با دید محدود و به شدت بدبین و همیشه در هراس از تمامی دیکتاتورهای جهان موفق تر بوده است .
اساس کار او تئوری وحشتناک یکسان سازی بود ، با لباس و کفش هایی بی کیفیت و شبیه به هم ، کار سخت و طاقت فرسا ، صف های طولانی برای همه چیز و نگاه تیزبین و همراه با بدبینی پلیس و دستگاه امنیتی به همه . شاید فضای وحشتناک زمان استالین بیشتر از هر دوره ای دیگر به کتاب 1984 جرج اورول شبیه باشد ، خانه های اشتراکی و وجود جاسوس در دل هر خانه هم کار آن تلویزیون ناظر در کتاب را می کرد .
استالین با جدیت تمام به دنبال ساختن نوعی جدید از انسان بود که آنرا انسان شوروی می نامید و در این راه کل سیستم و بخشهای مختلف آن برای رسیدن به این هدف باید بسیج می شد . نویسندگان و شاعران و هنرمندان باید ذهن انسان را برای پذیرش و اجرای این هدف آماده می کردند و اقتصاد هم تنها باید کالاهایی جهت تولید یا به قول مارکس ابزار تولید را فراهم می کرد ، تراکتور ، لباس و البته اسلحه . کار هم به مزارع اشتراکی یا کارخانه های تولید انبوه ختم می شد و اصولا مفهومی به نام رضایت شغلی و یا کلا رضایت وجود نداشت .
آنگونه که انسان ها در چنین شرایطی زندگی می کردند موضوع کتاب است ، این که قوانین استالین و مکتب او چگونه زندگی را ازمیلیونها نفر گرفت و یا آن را برای همیشه به گونه ای باور نکردنی عوض کرد ، روح انسان ها را از آن ها گرفت و جسم آنان را در معرض خطرهمیشگی اعدام و بازداشت قرار داد . این کتاب باید حکایت کسانی باشد که در آن دوران زیستند و زنده ماندند تا فجایع زمان استالین را بازگو کنند . اما متاسفانه نویسنده چندان به شرح روایات و تجربه ها برای زنده ماندن یا بدست آوردن ناهار یا ماندن در صفی طولانی به مدت 6 ساعت برای گرفتن نان ، یا تعمیر کفش به گونه ای که به حزب توهین نشود و یا داستان هایی از این قبیل نپرداخته ، کتاب بیشتر به قوانین زمان استالین و اثرات آن برمردم عادی اختصاص یافته که این موضوع از جذابیت کتاب به شدت کاسته و فضای مخوف استالینی را به درستی به تصویر نکشیده است .

[ALLEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of most totalitarian regimes is usually written from the top down: Hitler built concentration camps; Stalin commissioned "show trials" to get rid of his political enemies; Fidel Castro decided that the nutritional needs of hungry Cubans were best served by miniature cows that died young. This one is different: it looks at the efforts of ordinary Soviet citizens to go about their lives in ordinary ways under the impact of a crushing bureaucracy and a madman who vacillated between genocide and purge. Solidly written, and a welcome corrective to "big man" history without quite being social history. I recommend it.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written both at the height of the openness of former Soviet archives in Russia and at the height of interest in “Alltagsgeschichte” or the History of Everyday Life. Although this term was new in the 1990s, Fitzpatrick herself had long been interested in examining the social history of Soviet Russia “from below,” as against those historians who insisted that all aspects of Soviet life were decided at the level of the State, making the State the only aspect worth studying. This book thus represents many years of research into the people of the USSR, their activities, aspirations, and frustrations. She points out the importance of the generation of the 1930s to the future leadership of the State – this was the “Brezhnev Generation” that was raised under Soviet leadership to move the country finally and absolutely into its Communist future. This generation, despite its hardships and purges, produced some of the most solid supporters of the regime and kept it going for decades after the death of Stalin and his cronies.

The book is well written and engaging, even fun at times, as Fitzpatrick describes numerous anecdotes of shortages, Party-led movements, jokes, schools, black markets, communal apartments, and family squabbles. To the degree that Soviet citizens had any “private life,” this is at the forefront, but more important is the degree to which collective life was determined by the attitudes and aspirations of the common people. While there are pockets of resistance, quite often the average person was supportive of the State’s claimed desire to build a more perfect society, even while critical of its inability to consistently provide material goods necessary for a “normal” existence. The concept of “normalcy” is important in the context of “ordinary life in extraordinary times:” Soviet citizens did not believe that times were “normal” or “ordinary” so long as there were famines and consumer shortages, but they held in their minds a standard of normalcy against which the current moment was judged.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the period, and even to those who find much history too dry or impersonal. The many colorful stories will entertain as well as inform, and will probably surprise anyone not thoroughly versed in the time and place.

[Annensky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Confession: I am only two-thirds of the way through this book. But I've been reading it almost without a break for the last 12 hours. Because from the first page, I have felt as if I were reading some kind of thriller written about daily life in Stalinist Russia by a very talented writer & scholar who has researched everything thoroughly and only included the most interesting and/or pertinent bits in her narrative…. "Extraordinary times," indeed! Utterly fantastic, horrible, gut-wrenching times. How was it even possible for the average, so-called ordinary person to survive? That is the inevitable question lurking behind virtually every sentence of this prodigious work. Of course, I can understand why potential readers who have never taken a course in Soviet history, or, more to the point, are not especially interested in or knowledgeable of Soviet (or even Russian) history, might find this book dry and hard to get into. Perhaps it is ideally suited only for specialists and grad students and unapologetic amateur students of Russian history like myself. All I know is that this is the best book I have ever read about Soviet history, with the sole (magnificent) exception of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago." Frankly I don't understand why it was so controversial when it was first published, regarded as so "revisionist" of communist crimes and horrors. All the horror is certainly there, ubiquitous and impossible to forget. But what is especially vivid and has made me rethink my previous views of Stalinist history (not only social history, but also political) is the evidence of local activism and pressure on the center to radicalize, even sometimes against the will of some political leaders in Moscow. (From what I have read recently about Nazi Germany, a rather similar process seems to have been at work in the origins and evolution of the Holocaust.) But of course, I am remiss in having taken so long to read this book, since most of its insights were long ago incorporated into Soviet studies. Many of them were, indeed, familiar to me from reading the works of both the fans & critics of Fitzpatrick, but it is another thing entirely to read the original work that sparked all the fuss! Highly recommended.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism, like many of her works, is concerned with the experiences of society under the Soviet regime rather than the state, but here she takes her research a step further and seeks to uncover what everyday life was like for the urban Soviet citizen in the 1930s. This is no easy task for any era of Soviet history, but is particularly difficult for a population that was living under a Stalinist administration wherein one could be sent to prison for even imagined dissent. Even with the openings of the archive and the benefit of Harvard University’s Project on the Soviet Social System, which included interviews from people who actually lived through this era, scant evidence of what actually went on in daily life remains, yet the author manages to construct a convincing depiction of the day-to-day existence of the Soviet citizen. Eschewing an overarching theory or a centralizing argument, Fitzpatrick attempts, with varying success, to relate a narrative wherein the subjects themselves are the speakers who relate a story that highlights both their ability to survive and their individual and collective agency.

If there is any grand theme to this work, it is expressed in the idea of “extraordinary everydayness”, wherein Soviets could only dream of living in the realm of the “normal” and dealing with extraordinary circumstances was routine. On a daily basis, the urbanite had to deal with chronic shortages, bureaucratic issues, networks of personal connections (blat), and the pervasive presence of the state. Following a broad overview that puts in the post-New Economic Program (NEP) era into context, Fitzpatrick begins her study with a review of the bureaucracy and government policy whose idiosyncrasies infested the daily life of any Soviet. The next chapter, focusing on shortages of goods, initiates the author’s investigation into how ordinary individuals dealt with the issues engendered by the invasive and powerful state. After examining the sources of scarcity and demonstrating that “things” were important because they were difficult to obtain, Fitzpatrick delves into the ways in which Soviets negotiated this reality outside of the official state monopoly on trade. Those with money could visit the kolkhoz markets, Torgsin stores (which exchanged scarce goods for valuables and foreign currency), and “commercial” shops outside of the rationing system, while those who engaged with blat might receive goods from their patron or gain access to centers of “closed distribution” that reserved goods for certain people or classes that were determined by the state or industries to be too important to go hungry or without shelter.

Yet despite these hardships, Fitzpatrick highlights a genuine belief in a utopian future that helped the average citizen get through their day, as they were convinced that the current problems were an unfortunate, but necessary transition on the road from capitalism to socialism. A notable manifestation of this was the metaphor of being reborn after the 1917 Revolution, particularly for criminals and juvenile delinquents who would renounce their past lives and enter the service of the state for a better tomorrow. These hopes tied directly to images of future abundance and Stalin’s famous 1935 declaration that life was becoming “more cheerful”. There was an emphasis on formerly bourgeois pleasures becoming available to “the masses”, although in reality these were accessible only to the elites. Yet these individuals never self-conceptualized as a “privileged” class, believing instead that they owned nothing and were instead taking advantage of the resources of a state that was growing ever-more prosperous. They also claimed that they were the vanguard of a lifestyle that would soon be enjoyed by all Soviet citizens, a myth supported by Stalin who referred to all elites as “intelligentsia”, as if to highlight that they had “earned” what they had based on their new “cultured” nature. The vast majority who were outside these circles, however, grew resentful and perceived a creeping embourgeoisement.

Fitzpatrick then tackles the notion of social identity. Individuals sought to conceal stigmatized identities and connections to past professions that were “bourgeois” or religious, while others made it their duty to “unmask” them. Concealment was a crime, but often a necessary part of daily life for someone seeking to survive in the new Soviet era. After highlighting the often arbitrary ways in which individuals were ostracized based on their past and the consequences that these processes entailed, the author examines the ways in which people coped. One path was renunciation of former lives, family members, and friends, although this method was often ineffective due to the fact that the state had worked so hard to inculcate a culture of “enemies” and stigmatization that the society would often continue to reject these individuals even after the state had forgiven them. It was often easier to flee from potential trouble and to acquire new documents, perhaps through marriage, theft, or forgery. As the author emphasizes, however, most Soviets conceptualized this as a temporary solution and believed that they would be caught eventually. This led to numerous psychological effects, including the breeding of a sense of inferiority and “exaggerated feelings of loyalty and devotion to the Soviet regime and its values”.

Fitzpatrick devotes an entire chapter to the “family” during the 1930s, which experienced both separation and resilience in the face of stigmatization. Going deeper, the author examines how women received some liberalizing benefits immediately following the revolution that were slowly transformed by conservative forces as falling population rate led to pressures for women to assume the role of motherhood. This had some benefit, however, in that the state became involved deeply with matters of absent and abusive husbands. The strains on the family, meanwhile, led to the phenomenon of neglected children, which quickly developed into a problem of homelessness and gang violence. The elites, meanwhile, distinguished themselves once again, through the formation of volunteer movements that were designed to make workplaces more “cultured” and take on roles as homemakers, even as the majority of women were being encouraged to undertake paid work and have professional careers.

The author’s final topic is surveillance, which was a symptom of the regime’s desire to know what people were thinking without giving them free speech. After outlining some of the state tactics and concerns, Fitzpatrick notes the difficulties in accessing how Soviets dealt with this, since their coping strategies and tactics could be considered subversive and may have landed them in trouble, and thus few were committed to sources that survive today. Nonetheless, she draws out an image of the reaction by examining jokes, sabotaged print sources, rumors, reports of public outbursts, anonymous letters, and Aesopian methods of hiding messages in writing to get past censors. She emphasizes the notion that surveillance did not necessarily entail terror, but that it was a constant reminder of the possibility. Following the Great Purges, there were no longer merely “class enemies”, but also “enemies of the people” who could be anyone and, since these purges focused on the communists and party members, many patronage networks were swallowed up. Since blat had been so critical to dealing with the shortages, many members of society were connected to purged individuals and soon they began to fear arrest and deportation through “guilt by association”. Public scapegoating grew increasingly popular, often because people wanted to accuse someone else before they themselves were accused, but also as a way to get revenge or acquire something desirable like an apartment. With associative guilt being a problem, and many elites having already been “punished”, patronage networks were no longer effective means of protection.

One area in which Fitzpatrick finds it difficult to gauge the “everyday” reaction concerns whether or not those who carried out the purges felt guilty, although she does present limited evidence that suggests that at least a few did. Overall, however, the reader gets a good sense of what everyday life was like for the urban Soviet citizen. The omnipresence of scarcity led many to work outside of the official system and engage in patronage networks, networks that later worked against them as waves of purges and denunciations left them with the common experience of dread that the footsteps crawling through the apartment at night might be coming for them. Although shortages entailed many hardships, including cramped and hostile living environments, the constant threat of crime, and hours standing in lines in the hopes of obtaining bread, the Soviets nonetheless persevered, in large part due to their belief in a socialist future of abundance and equality. Social realities, however, had numerous effects on individuals, and families in particular, and coping with denunciations and stigmatization, and living in a masked reality that was as ephemeral as it was essential, was the final major piece of everyday life. Everyday Stalinism is rich collections that makes an attempt to lay bare the realities of Soviet society and lets the reader interpret the meaning for themselves. This can make reading the book difficult, as it can come off as lacking a major argument, centralizing theme, or even an intended audience. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that any reader will walk away from this work without appreciating the fantastic job it does of uncovering the repressed and hidden daily realities during this period and the continuing historiographical theme of the resilience of society in the face of a strong state. While Fitzpatrick leaves it to the reader to decide just how much power and agency the society had during this era, she presents no doubt that the Soviet citizen earned at least one victory: “he was a survivor”.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last words of this book sum it up best: “It was a life of random disasters and of manifold daily irritations and inconveniences, from the hours wasted in queues and lack of privacy in communal apartments to the endless bureaucratic rudeness and red tape and the abolition, in the cause of productivity and atheism, of a common day of rest. There were fearful things that affected Soviet life and visions that uplifted it, but mostly it was a hard grind, full of shortages and discomfort. Homo Sovieticus was a string-puller, an operator, a timer-server, a freeloader, a mouther of slogans, and much more. But above all, he was a survivor.”

After reading this book I have nothing but respect for the patience and resourcefulness of the average Soviet citizen in the face of deprivation, cruelty, and incompetence. It is fascinating to speculate about how Communist theory and practice might have evolved had Lenin lived longer, or if Trotsky had succeeded him instead of Stalin. Some of the worst abuses might have been avoided, but under any leader life would certainly have been hard, since Communism was coercive at its core, its theorists recognizing that most people could not be argued into giving up everything they owned for the sake of some potential better life at an unspecified date in the future.

One sure sign of the times was that everything was in short supply: food, clothing, apartments, and all the other essentials. The communal living quarters were a result of priorities set by the leadership: the focus was on heavy industry, so few resources were available for housing, and the collectivization of the farms, failed harvests, and the program of de-kulakization sent millions of people fleeing to the cities. It is hard to imagine an entire family living in one room the size of an average bedroom, but it also meant that other families, often complete strangers, were living in the other rooms of the house or apartment.

A joke that was told in the Soviet Union in the 1980s:
Q: How will you know when Communism comes to the Sahara Desert?
A: They’ll start importing sand.

It is one of many bitter little ironies that the Communists, who overthrew the old bosses in the name of equality, quickly set themselves up as the new bosses, with nice apartments, access to the best quality goods, servants, and all the things that the ordinary folk wanted but could not get. I suppose it’s just human nature.

Life was very hard for the average citizen, but it was immeasurably more difficult for those known as “former people,” which included priests and nuns, former nobles, soldiers who had served in the White armies, merchants, and criminals. Of all of them, only the criminals had much chance of rehabilitation; otherwise, social disgrace was forever. Being a former person meant they could be denied ration books, living places, and jobs, and they were frequently exiled to the far reaches of the country. As bad as that was, it was made worse by the fact that the same cruelty was inflicted on their children. Many tried to hide their past and assume new identities, but the regime actively sought them out, and enlisted the general populace to find and punish them.

And then, after all that, came the Great Terror. “It seems impossible, at least to minds brought up on Enlightenment principles, that something so extraordinary, so monstrously outside normal experience, could happen ‘by accident.’ There must be a reason, people think, and yet the thing seems essentially unreasonable, pointless, serving no one’s rational interests.” No one was safe, but those at the top were especially vulnerable, since things were not going well in the country as a whole, and someone needed to take the fall. Like the bloodiest days of the French Revolution, the madness fed upon itself, and the regime decapitated its own leadership.

And it didn’t get better. War brought greater suffering and horrific loss of life, an estimated 11,000,000 soldiers and anywhere from 7,000,000 to 20,000,000 civilians killed (http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/ab...). After the war much of the country was ruined, and for the rebuilding effort still more was required of people who had already given so much.

Communism sounds good in theory, but has been a disaster in practice everywhere it has been tried. By the end of the 1930s the average person had long since lost faith in promises and was just trying to live their life with as much dignity and normalcy as the twisted system would allow. “The normal posture of a Soviet citizen was passive conformity and outward obedience. This did not mean, however, that Soviet citizens necessarily had a high respect for authority. On the contrary, a degree of skepticism, even a refusal to take the regime’s most serious pronouncements fully seriously, was the norm.”

This book is a great starting point for anyone interested in what it was actually like to live under Stalinism. It was a grim, hard life, and we in the West should count our blessings not to have experienced it.

[Freddie Bishop · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was extremely dry and repetitive. The author gushes in the acknowledgment section about how much help she received in editing the book, yet simple mistakes such as misspelling the words Communism (The main subject of the book) and adopt somehow managed to slip through.

Additionally, the book would have highly benefitted from a broader time period rather than just the ‘1930s’ (even though she extensively mentioned the 1920s) As it would have allowed her to compare the living conditions under, possibly, Tsar Nicholas II or Lenin and compare the Great Purge years to life during the Great Patriotic War and High Stalinism. At least, if she had extended the period, Fitzpatrick would have been able to see that the events she describes as “uniquely Stalinist” are not exactly that unique and we’re repeated problems acknowledged by Lenin and that led to NII’s abdication.

Furthermore, on the point of repetition, the overall structuring of the book was poor. With discussions at the end of one sub chapter being restated later as if it was a new point entirely. Moreover, the repeated reference to the satirical magazine ‘Krokodil’ every other paragraph was exceedingly boring, as Fitzpatrick (at least in this book) has the habit of restating her point over and over using different but similar examples which don’t effectively bolster her point, but rather put the reader to sleep.

[csillagkohó · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheila Fitzpatrick, whose name I keep misremembering as Fitzgerald, is one of the heroes of the new USSR historiography that emerged after the opening of the archives in the 1990s. With Everyday Stalinism, she has written a great and multifaceted social history of 1930s Soviet life.

But why learn about Stalin? So that we can say “never again”? Yes, but also so that we can reclaim that “never again” from centrist technocrats. Left-wing ideology will remain stuck if it continues to see twentieth-century socialism either as a success story to be emulated or as an accidental aberration that isn’t worthy of attention.

Some interesting takeaways from the book:

-In the 1930s USSR, class had become a matter of privilege and consumption much more than a matter of production. Priority access to food and amenities was priceless in a society where scarcity was the norm. This granted obvious privileges to Communist Party officials who were close to the levers of power. The new forms of inequality were exacerbated by the system of “closed distribution”, i.e. the sale of rationed goods in closed warehouses only accessible to the employees of specific workplaces. The Communist Party never acknowledged that a new elite class was coming to fruition in its own ranks. On the one hand, that undoubtedly had to do with the fact that it was most convenient to simply maintain the status quo, yet on the other hand it was also linked to a vulgar Marxist conception that saw control of the means of production as the only relevant indicator of class. They could never make an analysis of class that assigned a central role to distribution. What did happen, however, was that the state organs waged a campaign against local party bosses who lived in excessive luxury – as if these were isolated traitors to the socialist cause and not products of the way Soviet socialism was organized.

-Of course, access to consumption could only become so vital because there was large-scale scarcity in the first place. Why was this? Fitzpatrick sees two crucial policy errors (aside from uncontrollable historical and climatological factors). Firstly, the focus was entirely on breakneck industrialization, whereas consumer goods were neglected. This issue was specific to the Stalin-era USSR. Secondly, scarcity originated from the fact that peasants had zero incentives to produce surpluses (in fact, they mostly had an incentive to turn their grain into liquor). This lack of incentives continued to cause shortages, albeit in less severe forms, in the later USSR and other socialist states. Forced grain requisitioning has never worked; the main effects of such policies have always been drops in production and rebellions among the peasant population (no, not just among “kulaks”). One might raise an eyebrow at Fitzpatrick’s choice to cite János Kornai, a right-libertarian economist, as the authority on this topic, but a regressive remedy does not discredit the diagnosis. Since people want to see their basic needs (and desires) fulfilled, finding a way to eliminate scarcity has to be a priority for any socialist project to come. The fact that the Soviet NEP or the Yugoslav 1950s didn’t face such devastating shortages suggests that a “long NEP” – where small- or medium-sized private enterprise continues to operate – is usually a better idea than unhinged collectivization. (Whether this NEP has to be as extreme as what China has been doing since the 1980s is another question.) The Soviet NEP was abolished due to Stalin’s paranoia about internal and external enemies and for ideological reasons; it was not in a fatal crisis that made it impossible to carry on.

-The similarity between the labor regimes of Stalinism and Fordism is striking. The 1930s saw draconian labor laws (you could get fired if you were only 20 minutes late to work), working long hours, rising gender inequality on the workplace (and elsewhere), and military-style discipline to an extent that would make Jeff Bezos blush. Something that’s often on my mind is the fact that ideological goals and slogans pale in comparison to tangible day-to-day realities. A hyper-exploited laborer in Stalin’s USSR was not necessarily happier about his fate than a hyper-exploited laborer in Bangladesh today, just because the abstract promise of communism was somewhere on the horizon (even though, in one chapter of this book, Fitzpatrick does zoom in on people who managed to make their lives bearable exactly by focusing on that promise).

-The killings of party officials and intelligentsia during the Great Purge are well known, but the fact that the purge also included a vast repression of “socially undesirable” and marginal elements (beggars, thieves, prostitutes, …) was new and quite shocking to me. Without equating the USSR to the fascist regimes, Fitzpatrick makes a good point that Soviet state rhetoric in this period sometimes came close to Nazi ideals of social purity, albeit without the racial component.

-Once again I’m reminded that the Great Purge had a lot in common with China’s Cultural Revolution: it neither arose spontaneously, nor can it be fully explained as a planned top-down operation. The state bore the main responsibility as it set quotas for the number of opponents to be repressed and organized the killings. But ordinary people were brought to participate in the terror in many ways, such as the mandatory breaking of all contact with those who had become ostracized. Workers and managers had to compose lists of “wreckers” in their workplaces to be outed (it was not an option to leave the list empty). Denunciation became a matter of widespread score-settling with annoying neighbors and unpleasant colleagues. Arguably, violence on such a massive scale is only possible if you enlist the active support of segments of the population.

-The purges not only killed off the great majority of Old Bolsheviks; they also gave rise to a new generation of party bureaucrats that would retain power for almost five decades. For example Brezhnev was among those who opportunistically rose in the party ranks while much of the senior leadership was murdered. Maybe this fact should be pondered by those who see the post-Stalin USSR as a sudden “counterrevolution” that broke with everything that preceded, rather than a logical consequence of many processes that originated in the Stalin era.

-Stalin’s regime – while almost universally detested in the countryside – maintained a support base in the cities, at least among privileged groups, old revolutionaries and Stakhanovites. Still its popularity had suffered greatly in comparison to the NEP years. Unsurprisingly, much of that boils down to the economic catastrophes of the 1930s. People anywhere tend to be much more tolerant of the curtailing of democratic liberties than of food scarcity. The sharp decline in life quality after the unleashing of collectivization was felt by virtually the entire Soviet population, and shortages and repressive labor regimes were more tangible to the average inhabitant of Leningrad, Odesa or Moscow than the purges ever were. Again, if the left is to achieve and maintain popularity, it won’t do so by nourishing the people on slogans alone.

[Saeed8soltani · Rating 4 out of 5]

یک کتاب بسیار عالی در زمینه شناخت نحوه زندگی مردم در دوران زندگی استالینی هم از لحاظ سیاسی هم اقتصادی و فرهنگی که راهنمای بسیار خوبی برای مطالعه زندگی مردمان آن دوره است

[feifei · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting look into life behind the iron curtain from the russian civil war to the great purges—mechanisms for surveillance and terror, material shortages under rationing, etc

[Rob M · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Sundays too!!

[Neo Mohammad · Rating 4 out of 5]

یه نگاه سطحی به عنوان کتاب هم کافیه تا شما رو با چیزی که قراره‌ باهاش مواجه بشید روبرو کنه؛ مجموعه اتفاقاتی که‌ مردم عادی و حتی غیرعادی! تحت سلطهٔ حکومت استالین در زندگی روزمره‌شون تجربه کردن. اگه بخوام خیلی خلاصه و کلیدواژه‌طور این وقایع رو که در کتاب بهش اشاره شده عنوان کنم، می‌شه این:
گیرآوردن اجناس روزمره و ضروری از راه‌های غیرقانونی، پارتی‌بازی، محاسبه‌ و تخصیص محل زندگی با متر مربع‌های خیلی محدود و به تبعش تنش و درگیری در این مکان‌های زندگی اشتراکی، تهمت و خبرچینی، رانت و مفت‌خوری‌های اختصاصی، اغتشاش و تصفیه‌های کور و هدفمند، چاپلوسی و تظاهر و دروغ در راستای رسیدن به اهداف شخصی و ...
.
نویسنده خیلی دقیق و صریح و البته ساده تمام مواردی که بهشون اشاره کردم رو توضیح داده و ریشه‌یابی کرده. شما با خواندن کتاب یه دورنمای نسبتاً کامل و جامعی از زندگی مردم روس در حکومت استالین خواهید داشت. حکومتی که طبق شعارهای استالین قرار بود نابودکننده‌ی انحصارطلبی و دشمن طبقاتی‌شدن جامعه بشه، خودش باعث شکل‌گیری لایه‌های زیادی از تخصیص مزایا و امکانات دولتی به افراد و طبقات خاص شد؛ طبقاتی که حالا بطور غیررسمی ولی کاملاً ملموس در جامعه و در دل حکومت متولد شدن و رشد کردن. حکومتی که قرار بود با سیاست‌های اقتصادی عادلانه و آرمان‌خواهانه‌اش زندگی مرفه و بدون دغدغه رو برای مردم عادی و اغلب کارگر روس فراهم کنه، ولی با حماقت و اصول غیرمنطقی اقتصادی اونا رو بدبخت و تحقیر کرد. مردمی که عطش عدل و حق‌خواهی داشتن، با سرکوب و خفقان مأمورین و مسئولین حکومت به سمت زندگی‌ای پیش رفتن که از مرگ دردناک‌تره.
.
کتاب متن سخت و پیچیده‌ای نداره، ولی مثل هر کتاب تاریخی به حوصله و دقت نیاز داره تا ازش لذت ببرید. و‌ امان از هم‌ذات‌پنداری‌ها...

[Bubun · Rating 4 out of 5]

শিলা ফিটযপ্যাট্রিকের লেখা 'এভ্রিডে স্ট্যালিনিজম' -এর সাবটাইটেল হলো "একটা অসাধারণ সময়ে সাধারণ মানুষের জীবন"। মূলতো বইটায় তিরিশের দশক সাধারণ মানুষের জীবন নিয়ে আলোচনা করা হয়েছে: যখন স্ট্যালিনিজমের উত্থান ও কনসলিডেশন উভয়ই ঘটে। এই সময়টা সত্যিকার অর্থেই অস্বাভাবিক ও অসাধারণ ছিল। ঘটনাগুলোর অনুক্রম দেখলেই আমরা বিষয়টা সহজে বুঝতে পারিঃ রাদলেস কালেক্টিভাইজেশন, ১৯৩২-৩৩ 'র দূর্ভিক্ষ, কালচারাল রেভ্যুলুশন, নিউ ম্যান তৈরি করা, ইন্ডাস্ট্রিয়ালাইজেশন ড্রাইভ, গ্রেট পার্জ, স্টেট টেরর, লেবার ক্যাম্পস এবং সারভেইলেন্স, ১০ বছরের মধ্যে ইন্ডাস্ট্রিয়াল আউটপুটে পাশ্চাত্যকে ধরে ফেলা, রেভ্যুলুশনারি ভ্যালু থেকে সরে গিয়ে স্ট্যাবিলিটির দিকে যাওয়া--'দ্যা গ্রেট রিট্রিট'- ট্রটস্কির 'রেভ্যুলুশন বেট্রেড'। এক কথায় তিরিশের দশকই সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়নের পরবর্তি ট্রাজেক্টোরি নির্ধারণ করে দেয়: দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধে জার্মানিকে হারানো থেকে শুরু করে সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন ও অন্যান্য কমিউনিস্ট দেশগুলোর রূপ যা এক্সক্লুসিভ্লি স্তালিনিস্ট (ব্যতিক্রম চায়না ও যুগোস্লাভিয়া) এবং পরবর্তি পতন।

যাইহোক এখন প্রশ্ন হলো মানুষ কি এই 'অসাধারণ' সময়ে খুব ভালো থেকেছে? লেখকের উত্তর নেগেটিভ; যদিও পরবর্তী প্রজন্ম এই সময়ের কিছু সুফল ভোগ করেছে । এই সময়টা ছিল 'হোমো সোভিয়েটিকাস' জন্য নিদারুণ অভাব ও কষ্টের; বেচেঁ থাকা ছিল কঠিন। খাদ্য সংকট, রুটির জন্য বিশাল লাইন, হাউজিং প্রোব্লেম, জামা কাপড় ঘাটতি, রেশনিং সবকিছুই এন্ডেমিক ছিল এই সময়ে: সোভিয়েত ভারী শিল্পে অগ্রাধিকার দিয়েছে, ভোগ্যপণ্যে না।

তবে সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়নের লেজিটেমেসি ছিল জনগণের মাঝে, (তবে কৃষকদের মাঝে নয়): এর কারণ আপোয়ার্ড সোশ্যাল মোবিলিটি, শ্রমিক-কৃষক শ্রেণির লক্ষ্য লক্ষ্য তরুণ নিউ এলিটে পরিণত হয়; তারা শিক্ষার ক্ষেত্রে অগ্রাধিকার পায় কালচারাল রেভ্যুলুশনের সময়ে- কৃষকের ছেলেও এখন রাষ্ট্র প্রধাণ হতে পারে (ব্রেজনেভ, ক্রুশেচ জেনারেশন এই আপোয়ার্ড মবিলিটির মাধ্যমেই তৈরি); সবদেশেই আপোয়ার্ড মবিলিটি আছে- তবে সোভয়েত ইউনিয়নের কেসটা যে আলাদা তা বোঝা যায় আপোয়ার্ড মবিলিটির ফলে শিক্ষার সুযোগ পাওয়া এঞ্জেলিনার কথায়: “my rise is not exceptional. For if that (foreign) gentleman, as the magazine rightly puts it, ‘rose from the people,’ I rose together with the people.”

আমি লেখকের সাথে একমত, এই সময়টা ছিল ডেঞ্জারাস; বেচে থাকা ছিল কঠিন, সারভেইলেন্স-টেরর ছিল অসহনীয়। তবে আমি বিশ্বাস করি, এই সময়টা বা দশকটা উনবিংশ শতকের ১০০ বছর ব্যাপী পাশ্চাত্যের লিবারেল-ক্যাপিটালিস্ট রিগিম গুলোর বর্বরতা থেকে বেশী কিছু ছিল না (ভালো ছিল): কলোনিয়াল এক্সপ্লোয়েটেশন, ডিহিউম্যানাইজেশন, নিজ দেশে চাইল্ড লেবার, বস্তিতে শ্রমিকদের অমানবিক জীবন, ভিক্টোরিয়ান বৈষম্যবাদী আইন এবং দিস লিস্ট উইল গো অন। সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়নে গণতন্ত্র ছিল না- উনবিংশ শতকে ব্রিটেনেও প্রকৃত গণতন্ত্র ছিল না- ইউনিভারসাল ভোটাধিকার ছিল না- প্রিজুডিসের রাজা ইউ.এস. 'র কথা বাদই দিলাম। আমরা ১০-১৫ বছরের প্রাইভেশন-হার্ডশিপ-টেরর কে ডেমোনাইজ করি কিন্তু সহস্রবছর ধরে চলে আসা অন্যায়-বৈষম্য নিয়া আমাদের কোন মাথাব্যথা নাই: কারণ ব্যক্তিগত সম্পত্তি-অসাম্য-পুজিবাদের কোন বিকল্প নাই!

সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়নের রেভ্যুলোশনারী পোটেনশিয়াল এবং বিশ্ব বিপ্লবের স্বপ্ন এই দশকেই শেষ হয়ে যায় যা শুধু বলশেভিক বিপ্লবের-ই ট্রাজেডী না, বিংশ শতকের কম্যুনিস্ট আন্দোলনের জন্যও একটা বিশাল বড় রিট্রিট।

[Ana-Maria Bujor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book as it chooses another perspective about Stalinism. Rather than concentrating on the purges, violence, executions and the war, it chooses to show the life of the average Joe or more appropriately Ivan during those years. Yes, the terror is mentioned too, but only to explain how it affected everyone's lives. I've read a lot of chilling accounts of the times and the more I read, the more terrible it gets. However, I am also interested in how people managed to adapt to the insanity.
I love it when my mother tells me about how they worked the system back in the time, so it was quite fascinating to see how it was done in another place and in another time. I also like the narrative structure quite a bit, the book was very easy to follow. I recommend it even to those who know little about the topic.

[Judith Killen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book by one of the grande dames of Russian and Soviet history. It captures the texture of daily life for ordinary people in Stalinist USSR. Many books recount the dramatic horrors of living during the Civil War, collectivization of the peasants, the great purges--but this focuses on how "small" people went about their days--confronting scarcity, propaganda, zealots, work politics, errant spouses, and their revolts through jokes, accidents, drinking and suicide. This is well researched--with all requisite academic rigor and notations--but an easy read as well. I spent 2 months in Russia a few years after the fall of the USSR, and like so many people fell in love with the Russians, they are tough and funny and big-souled people. And survivors.

[John Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, but knew what I was getting into. This is a book about everyday life of people in Russia, informed by their diaries and post World War II interviews with refugees from the USSR. The author is an expert on Russian history, but I am not and had to do some background searches on Wikipedia to feel comfortable reading the book. I have posted a couple of things on my blog discussing the book in more detail:
http://stconsultant.blogspot.com/2013...
http://stconsultant.blogspot.com/2013...

[Olga · Rating 4 out of 5]

A key work in the "revisionist" school of Soviet history, which contests the previously dominant "totalitarian" model by showing that beneath the oppressive veneer of Stalinism there existed a lively and active society that exuded its own agency vis a vis the state and developed ingenious coping mechanisms to adapt to the shortcomings of Soviet policy. The book focuses on the urban environment and the survival strategies of "homo Sovieticus" in conditions of constant shortage, surveillance and class warfare.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only complaint about this book is that the type is so small. The content is great, how did citizens of the Soviet Union survive? I had no idea about the hardships these people faced, and what kept them going. Yet for all of communism's shortfalls, there were also some truly amazing human achievements accomplished during Stalin's reign. The mix of terror, nationalism, and modernization at any cost truly created a new type of soviet person.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a revealing and insightful peek into the cultural norms of the ordinary citizens of Soviet Russia. The detailed, careful approach packs in information and steers through nuance adeptly. Worth returning to again for a refresher about this period of history, the system of favors and patronage, and other particularities of Soviet life in the 1930s. Love good, readable work about topics that help explain life for the average individual in a period in history!

[tommie ☭ · Rating 1 out of 5]

i had to read this book for class and it sucked.
author described phenomena that had carried over from tsarist times and criticised them as uniquely stalinist (ie. crowded apartments in cities, famine); also used “stalinism” and “socialism” interchangeably, which is just stupid.
most of her criticisms of stalin’s ussr was that it disenfranchised the former bourgeoisie (i really do not care what happened to them)

[Derek Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's another great textbook, but I have to dock one star because of that. It is not something to pick up for pleasurable reading... that is unless you are a sadist who enjoys reading about the literal and figurative destruction of a entire nation of people by Stalin. Fitzpatrick's offering is a must read for this era in history.

[Jean Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good look at the lives of ordinary citizens during Stalin's rule.

[D · Rating 1 out of 5]

¿Cómo vivía y sobrevivía la gente común en la Rusia soviética? Para el culo, todos odiaban el régimen estalinista pero de alguna manera se mantuvo en pie durante décadas. O eso dice Sheila Fitzpatrick.

Mi principal problema con este libro es que hace algo muy común al tratar con la historia de países socialistas: lo exotiza hasta el punto de perder cualquier noción de realidad. Describe, horrorizada, que en la Rusia soviética había... ¡corrupción! ¡Beneficios obtenidos por ser amigo de dirigentes! ¡Hambre y pobreza! Como si fueran cosas que no existen en el Occidente capitalista.

Es realmente sorprendente que el libro esté enfocado exclusivamente en el rechazo, la oposición y la resistencia a las medidas del gobierno estalinista, como si "vida cotidiana" y "gente común" fueran equivalentes a "antistalinismo". Sólo en las conclusiones, y en un brevísimo párrafo, aparece una mención a la idea de que alguna "gente común" apoyaba al régimen. Y no lo digo por defender al stalinismo, ni por negar las purgas, la burocratización, el desastre de la planificación económica: lo digo porque sin duda alguna gente tiene que apoyar al gobierno. Pero Fitzpatrick sólo argumenta, dee nuevo, al final del libro, que "la mayoría de la gente apoya a su gobierno" (citation needed), pese a no haber hablado de eso en toda su investigación.

Más grave aún es que naturalice, explícitamente, la noción de que todo lo que pasa en una nación capitalista es producto de complejas cuestiones sistémicas y estructurales, mientras que todo lo que pasa en Rusia es culpa directa de Stalin. La noción de "homos sovieticus" (una aberración conceptual) es el punto de unión de estos dos problemas epistemológicos que definen el trabajo de Fitzpatrick: insistir en que la experiencia soviética es extraordinaria hasta el punto en que no puede compararse con nada que haya ocurrido antes ni haya ocurrido desde entonces (y así dando por sentado que el desarrollo capitalista moderno es el camino natural, normal, de una sociedad); y definir toda esa experiencia a través de una serie de fenómenos particulares de rechazo al gobierno.

Por otra parte, la ausencia de una explicación del abordaje metodológico me generó rechazo inmediato. Lo mismo ocurre con la carencia de una descripción del andamiaje teórico y conceptual. No soy historiador, pero tengo severas dudas sobre la existencia de algo así como una "vida cotidiana de la gente común" que puede ser reconstruida tan sencillamente.

En síntesis: un panfleto.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the book title suggests, with this book the author brings us to delve deeper into the daily lives of Soviet Russian urbanites during the height of Stalinization process. As Stalin and his cronies sought to consolidate and centralize their rule, while economy was collectivized and heavily industrialized through series of five-years plan, the ordinary, homo sovieticus was forced to bear the burden, with NKVD men closely listening to any sign of dissents.

Through this fascinating book, we follow the soviet citizens in navigating their lives through turbulent and often treacherous times of Stalin’s rule, through economic shortages, cramped living spaces, drives for greater productivity, manmade famines, and of course the great purges, which spread through layers of Soviet citizenry like plague. Many anomalies, which would be incredulous to people today, were only made possible by that abomination of an ideology, that is communism. Armed with promises to abolish class and other differences, they ended up only making another pyramid of classes, with party revolutionaries and bureaucrats at the top, getting all privileges, and the rest at the bottom, who often resorted to things like personal relationships and patronages from the top to survive. The most important thing that fascinates me the most is the fact that despite many hardships that common soviet Russians had to endure, they were survivors, and I tip my hat for that.

[Laura N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since this is an older book, the information wasn’t really new. It does give a good look at those living under Stalinism in the urban areas. One complaint, is that the type was so small that sometimes you felt you needed a magnifying glass to read some sections.

[drd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not just smart but one of the books that helps you feel that the past was just as funny as (if not funnier than) the present.

The regime comes out looking pathetic, evil, etc, but is is not caricatured. Everyday Soviet citizens, far from hapless victims, come across as human actors making the most out of life in deeply distressing circumstances. The conclusion at the end — of the Soviet State as a provider of goods and citizens as modulating their outward behavior accordingly — is persuasive and has greater explanatory power than painting the USSR as a one-note joyless empire of fear. Even when you are living under a ruthless and incomprehensible regime, life goes on and you do your best to make it work for you and the people around you. Full lifetimes were lived under this system.

[eliza!]

Stalinism midterm…hanging on by a thread here

[Lucia Suárez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo dejo por imposible, el tratamiento de las mujeres me resultó intragable.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Stephen Kotkin's authoritative 1,100-page study, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler 1929-1941, I was not entirely sated. Missing from his biography of the Soviet despot was a portrait of the people during times of famine and state terror. So I asked a friend, a retired professor of Russian religious history, to help fill the gap, and he pointed me to Sheila Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick's work focuses on the social and cultural history of the Stalinist period, particularly on aspects of ordinary, everyday life. So Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s was the right remedy. At fewer than 300 pages, this book is accessible, scholarly, and haunting.

As we look back at the prior century, it remains hard to grasp the dimensions of life in a totalitarian state that ultimately proved to be a house of cards -- after it inflicted incalculable suffering on generations of its people. Nearly bloodlessly and rather quickly, the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain collapsed, its economic and political systems entirely discredited. So it takes a book like Fitzpatrick's to remind oneself that at one time it appeared, at least to those who failed to see the real weakness beneath the military power, that the Soviet Union would be around for a long, long time. And at times during its near-century of existence, it imprisoned its people in a science-fiction-esque world of deprivation, control, and fear.

But the scholar's task of unearthing the sentiments and attitudes of the Russian people is daunting. There were no public opinion polls or a free press in the USSR. Conclusions have to be tempered by the recognition that we don't have all the evidence. Still, Fitzpatrick makes it clear that Soviet life "was a hard grind, full of shortages and discomfort."

People struggled to get goods, legally and illegally, and they counted living space in the cities in square meters. Multiple families crammed into small apartments, one family in each room. They stood in long queues for meager rations, and they witnessed their neighbors arrested in the middle of the night for imaginary crimes. During the great famine, they starved by the millions yet the survivors somehow endured. And despite its crimes, the Soviet regime "apparently successfully associated itself with progress in the minds of many of its citizens."

Indeed, many benefited from the crash industrialization of the 1930s as well as the Great Terror, because it elevated the younger generation of Communists into the places occupied by the Terror's older victims. That may not be the way you or I would like to receive a promotion, but it appears that at least some people believed the charges levied against the so-called spies and wreckers.

This is a solid, scholarly book about a time period that, as mentioned, remains hard to fully comprehend. Having never experienced suffering in my life, I marvel at humanity's ability to make the best of it.

At least for a while many Soviet people believed they suffered today for a better socialist tomorrow. But when that deterministic view of history's progress proved a grotesque illusion, people were left to either accept their lot to suffer like bastards or to resist the regime in ways large and small. But doing so risked a trip to the Gulag or a bullet in the back of the head.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

With “Everyday Stalinism”, Sheila Fitzpatrick has constructed a masterpiece on the history of life in Soviet Russia under Stalin. This book has the unique perspective of a “history from below” in that it relates experiences and impressions directly from the urban soviet populace themselves collected from Harvard Project interviews, diaries, periodicals, and archives. It is a chilling account of the Stalin atrocities but also a tribute to the brave and resilient citizens who fought to endure.

Step by step, Stalin consolidates his power and moves further and further away from the true mission of the Revolution as laid out by Lenin. Dismantling NEP, forced collectivism, and massive purges of “enemies of the state” are the most extreme examples but even the smallest routines of everyday life were controlled by the government’s policies which resulted in tremendous scarcity and terror. Nothing was owned by individuals and the state became the only supplier of food, housing, education, health care, etc.. Due to the massive and inefficient bureaucracy, as well as corruption of high officials, the distribution of goods and services was woefully inadequate and left the population in a state of severe scarcity and uncertainty. A disturbing portrayal of the scarcity was with regard to housing. Being in such short supply and high demand, apartments issued by the government were extremely difficult to obtain. One could spend a lifetime on a waiting list unless they had some connection to move them to the front. Even those who were lucky enough to secure an apartment were typically assigned a 50 square foot one room unit for a family of 5 with communal bathrooms.

Fortunately, the soviet people were resilient survivors. Whatever daily hardship they encountered was met with some clever adaption. For example, an elaborate mostly underground system of so called “blat” was established whereby people developed connections to exchange of favors and goods. One’s personal Rolodex was filled with individuals uniquely suited for helping to procure some necessary detail of every day life. Soviets also became very excellent letter writers as this was the only means to convey complaints to the government. Government officials routinely received hundreds of these letters every day and usually limited their answers to only those which were cleverly crafted. Another clever adaption was the practice of name changing and unregistered marriages. These were ways for people to hide their identity and heritage from the government and add a measure of safety and privacy to their lives.

Despite their resiliency, certain tragic consequences of Stalinism could not be avoided. The book does an amazing job chronicling the desperate and hopeless fate of citizens who were victimized by the cruelty of the regime. Arrest quotas set by the government led to hundreds of thousands of innocent persons being sent to the gulags as a means to provide the needed forced labor. Additionally, many classes of people were ostracized and exiled, including priests, peasants, and businessmen. Famine and Purge claimed millions of civilian lives all in the name of industrialization and Stalin’s personal obsession with power. Much of this was done without the world’s knowledge and only with the fall of the Soviet Union, fairly recent immigrant interviews, and the release of archives have the horrifying details finally come to full understanding. Kudos to Fitzpatrick for bringing all this information to the forefront in her very excellent historical achievement.