FEATURE Dealing with the past— changing the future It seems inevitable at times of pro- found change that people begin to ac- tively re-examine their own history. This is happening now in the Soviet press with respect to the repressions and distortions of socialism during the 1930s and 1940s, the period that is known as the years of Joseph Stalin’s ‘personality cult.”’ It is a painful, sometimes even agoniz- ing process. In putting themselves through it, Soviets are seeking not only to set the historical record straight after decades of silence, but also to redefine themselves and the nature of their social system. Letters in many publications, from the theoretical flagship of the Communist Party, Kommunist, to the newsy evening papers, are calling for deeper disclosures and questioning the extent to which the roots of current problems may be buried in the Stalinist past. M. Medvedovsky, of Lvov, for in- stance, recently wrote to the magazine From Moscow tary. The document published by Ogonyok was a bitter, searing voice from the past: an old Bolshevik, Fyodor Ras- - kalnikov, a former associate of Lenin who was serving as Soviet ambassador to Bulgaria in the 1930s, learned of his imminent arest as an ‘‘enemy of the peo- ple’’ and fled to the West. There he pub- lished an open letter to Stalin, protesting his innocence and fiercely condemning Stalin’s murderous abuses of power. “You have forced those going along with you in torment and loathing to tread through pools of the blood of yesterday’s Pte fabric a Soviet neon is now eng. _ repaired and accenelaied a oe that i is. Bees to take some time. Novoye Vremiya: “I lived through that period and I remember well the price we paid for collectivization and for our vic- tory in the Great Patriotic War ... I re- member the early postwar years as well. It was those years that gave rise to ser- vility, eyewash, corruption, red tape — all the prerequisites for economic and social stagnation and near-crisis discuss- ed at the latest plenary meeting of the CPSU Central Committee. This must not be passed over in silence lest such things happen again. This period cannot be erased from our memory.” . To acknowledge this in principle is easier than to face the ugly details. Some of the historical episodes now being openly written about do not make gentle reading. Few Soviets were prepared for the impact of a document recently pub- lished in the weekly magazine Ogonyok, which gave facts, names and numbers of victims in the Stalinist purges of 1937 and 1938. This social cataclysm decimated the party, the intelligentsia and the mili- Soviets at an outdoor book display. Few Soviets were prepared for the impact of a comrades. and friends,’’ Raskalnikov’s letter said. “*In the false history of the Party, writ- ten under your guidance, you have rob- bed the dead and those killed and de- famed by you of their feats and services and ascribed them to youself.”’ Raskalnikov’s letter is a cry of anguish and a powerful indictment of Stalin which was once used by anti-Soviet pro- paganda for its own purposes. The publi- cation of this authentic document in Ogonyok signifies that Soviet people are repossessing their own history. Soviet readers have also been stunned by a hitherto unpublished letter by the Nobel prize-winning author Mikhail Sholokhov, from the year 1929, which describes criminal excesses committed in the course of the collectivization drive in the Soviet countryside. Wrote Sholokhov: ‘‘Everyone up to Kalinin (President of the USSR) himself should be given a good whipping; every- one who shrieks hypocritically about the document recently punwshed which gives facts, names and numbers of victims in the Stalinist purges. 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 9, 1987 Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev in Latvia. Gorbachev declared while attacking the stagn@ tion in the social sciences ‘‘there must be no blank pages in our history”. alliance with the average peasant and at the same time is strangling the very same ' peasant.’’ The letter was published in Moscow News. When Mikhail Gorbachev declared re- cently that ‘‘There must be no blank pages in our history,’’ he was attacking the stagnation in social sciences which is in deep measure to blame for the slow- ness with which many sectors of Soviet society have responded to the pressing and urgent need for change. Many Soviets have not been able to grasp the important role of individual involvement in political, social and eco- nomic restructuring because they were never taught the extent to which progress in any society depends upon such parti- cipation. A corrosive legacy of the Stalin years is that Soviet history has been depicted to them as the work of faceless masses, guided by a single determined and clearsighted will. Contradictions have always been presented as those posed by external enemies, and not as legitimate differences within Soviet society. Messy — sometimes bloody — dis- putes, struggles and complexities were written out of Soviet history, along with the personalities who opposed Stalin’s economic policies and political style. The resulting void, where there should be a large body of historical data and analysis, has severely impeded the Party under Gorbachev as it works to come to grips with the dynamics of the Soviet economy and to re-shape Soviet society in a new era. One small but glaring example might illustrate not only how deep the problem is, but also how it can continue to gen- erate conflict: Some months ago I visited the Smolny Institute in Leningrad, which was the headquarters of the October revolution. There they display the por- traits of the members of the revolution- ary military committee that planned and executed the Bolshevik seizure of pow- er. I noted that some faces were missing. It happens, for example, that Leon Trotsky was chairman of that commit- tee, yet there is no acknowledgement of this at the Smolny or in any Soviet his- tory text. The long battle fought by Communists against Trotskyism is well known to me, but to mention such a fact is not pro-Trotsky but merely pro- historical truth. Without its foundation of fact, history becomes fairy-tale, and as such is useless as a guide to the future. The fabric of Soviet history is now being repaired and regenerated, a pro- cess that is likely to take quite some time. Much has been written in the West about the possibility of a conservative backlash against it, but actually there is a more serious danger. It is the risk that revela tions about the Stalin era not accom panied by responsible analysis unconnected with a positive program, may create demoralization or evel paralysis among people who have not been prepared for them. A young Soviet friend of mine, a very patriotic, hard-working and optimisti¢ soul, read Raskalnikov’s letter if Ogonyok, and was deeply distressed. ‘“‘We were never told these things be- fore. I had no idea,”’ she said. ‘‘How cal we go on now? Maybe it’s better not t0 know.”’ This is perhaps a typical emotional r& _ sponse. But even my friend agrees thal Soviet society cannot go on and meet the challenge of the future unless it has af unclouded and truthful picture of its ow past. ‘‘Historians have yet to sort out the significant and useful things that weré done for the benefit of socialism and thé nation under Stalin from what he did t0 the detriment of socialism,’’ writes Soviet philosopher and historian Victo! Kiselev. ‘‘I can hardly go along with those who believe that the industrializa tion program, introduction of co operative farming, and the defeat of fas: cism, — those indisputable achieve ments of socialism — make up for Sta lin’s wrongdoing and guilt. First, n° achievement can be seen unrelated to its ‘‘prime cost.’ Second, what was achieved was a result of the will and ef fort of millions of communists and not party people. It was the result of thé implementation of the great ideals oO socialism, even though materially de: formed while being translated into prac tice. Finally, there is-no justification fo! massive repressions and most glariné violations of the socialist rule of law. “The clean-up of deformations nov going on in the USSR proves them t have been deep-rooted, certainly root ed in the °30s and in the ’40s and in thé aftermath of the personality cult. On thé other hand, this clean-up inspires histor ical optimism and faith in what are fal from exhausted creative potentialities 0 socialism. ‘‘A measure of conscience is also ¢ measure of memory. There has to be é serious study of the past in its entirety . - Without the full truth, and without. < moral assessment of our own. past re cord, we cannot revive the ideal aspira tions of the community or broaden th‘ intellectual horizons of the individual. T¢ strengthen working peoples’ faith if socialism is the major purpose behind th current process of change.”’