Bloody Perestroika

'Secondhand Time - the Last of the Soviets," by Svetlana Alexievich, 2016 English Translation

Alexievich is a liberal journalist from Belarus who presently opposes Russian policy in the Ukraine.  However, she is also a professional reporter who in this book seeks out many stories about the fall of the Soviet Union, from both capital-C Communists and newly-minted businessmen, but mostly those in between.  Whatever your theoretical views about the fall of the USSR, these stories help flesh out what went wrong, or what was right.  They are organized into two dated sections, 1991 to 2001 and 2002 to 2012. 

Would You Trust Your Country to this Man?

Alexievich, through these first-person narratives, paints a picture of a de-politicized, disorganized population yearning after consumer goods and a bit of freedom, who bought into Yeltsin's abstract pleas for 'freedom' and were tricked.  Many tell stories of rushing out to back Yeltsin in his Moscow showdown in August 1991, when tanks of the tiny remnant of the bureaucracy that still backed 'actually existing socialism' attempted to stage a putsch. The Army was unsure, the 'putsch' lasted 3 days and they surrendered to a pro-capitalist strata of the nomenklatura, Yeltsin and Putin, et al.  Unlike the mass uprising that was the Bolshevik revolution, the capitalist counter-revolution could be more likened to the collapse of a rotten building, given the small amount of people involved.  It was a true putsch. 

The lack of violence also shows the class basis upon which the USSR was built - the working class majority.  Unlike our own greedy capitalist class, which will have working class soldiers fight to the end to protect their yachts and bank accounts against the majority, a government based on the majority has to collapse at some point if its supporters drop out.  Sort of like a union that faces a decertification vote because of years of malfeasance.  The massive 15 million member Communist Party rallied no one.  It's own roots were weak, as the bureaucratic cadre had robbed the actual working class of any independent agency.  The inextricable link between workers democracy and class rule had already been broken by the CP, and this led Russia and the rest of the USSR's working class into an economic abyss for 10 years and ongoing. 

Nearly all of the people in these stories rue the day they supported Yeltsin and Gaidar, as criminals, oligarchs and former nomenklatura took over everything.  Factories were bought for a song, many workers were laid off, PHD's became taxi drivers, kiosk peddlers appeared in Red Square barely making a living selling Hungarian sausage, old people begged.  The stability of the USSR collapsed.  Thugs appropriated apartments.  The majority of the bureaucracy had the head start in being the owners of the factories they once managed.  This is the root of their counter-revolutionary role, which came to final fruition after being predicted by the Left Opposition so long ago.

One thing made clear by the book is that the concentration on military defense - one official put it at 80% of the economy - robbed the population of easily-produced consumer goods like VCRs, blue jeans and decent food like salami, which is mentioned many times in the book. Housing for many was primitive or very small - barracks, dormitories, bunkers, packed communal or small apartments. While you may think that 'defense' is all about how many tanks or jets you have, a real defense is also a population that supports you, and that means not spitting on their material needs.  For instance, when the Rolling Stones played Havana in 2016, the Cuban workers state did not collapse.  Rock & roll is not 'anti-communist' except to a clueless bureaucrat.  If the Soviets had grasped this simple idea, they might have still existed, but that would mean losing control. 

Alexievich tells the stories of former CP officials who dismiss the counter-revolution as basically 'trading our souls for chewing gum and VCRs.'  She describes the brutal ethnic cleansing that broke out after the destruction of the Soviet Union against many nationalities - Armenians, Jews, Tajiks, Georgians,  Abkhazians, Azerbajanis.  There were many subsequent suicides; vicious drunken husbands beating their wives or girlfriends; people exchanging books for new toilets; the desires for a 'new Czar" or a return of Stalin by some; the oppression of poverty-stricken Tajiks by the new Russian businessmen, cops and skinheads.  

It covers an endless war and terrorism from Chechnya; unhappy soldiers returned from Afghanistan; kitchen conversations that ended after 1991; the present obsession with money and the passing of the 'Sovak' citizen; the enduring memories of the penal colonies, torture, deaths and arrests of Stalin's time that hover over everyone; the Russian love of suffering; the nostalgic security of life in the USSR; anti-Soviet 'democrats' getting rich; the unity of 'all peoples' given over to violent nationalism after the counter-revolution; the failures of Gorbachev; the enduring life of the countryside, no matter who is in power; the haunting sweetness of Victory Day and Yuri Gagarin; the suicide of Akhromeyev after the fall of the USSR; veterans of World War II committing suicide because of the counter-revolution; Russian anti-Semitism; the passions of rich Russian yuppie women; the many dreams of escaping Russia; the enduring romance of prisoners in the culture and on and on.

Alexievich has chosen mostly tragic and depressing stories.  Perhaps that is what makes up mainstream Russian life, but I think it is an authorial choice to illustrate certain issues.  For instance, a former camp guard tells a story of needing massages of his trigger finger, as he was getting carpel tunnel after shooting so many people in the head 'back in the day.'

Yeah, sad ass stuff.

Prior reviews of books on the USSR:  Alexievich's own "The Unwomanly Face of War." Also: "How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin," "Russian Fates and Lost Alternatives," "Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism," "Absurdistan," "Reinventing Collapse" and others.

Red Frog

September 9, 2017