Retrenchment

Retrenchment 1945-53

Forced Repatriation

Stalin scored notable success in concealing from Western allies the strength of disaffection shown by the population of USSR from 1941
With Germany defeated his immediate problem was to conceal evidence of mass hatred of his regime
5 million Soviet citizens west of USSR in 1945
3 million in territories liberated by Western armies
Included forced labourers, POWs and civilians who’d fled as the front advanced
Some decided to flee or surrender to Germans
Many glad to escape from Communism even though conscripted into forced labour or taken prisoner in battle by Nazis
Some wished to go home to family and friends in USSR
Soviet Authorities suspicious of them – feared they were ‘contaminated’ by contact with ‘capitalists’ and ‘imperialists’
This led to many re-defecting en route to or after arriving back in USSR
Such individuals were repatriated twice
Others decided to stay in West

Yalta and “Displaced Persons”

USA, USSR and GB agreed to the repatriation of all citizens of Allied countries when war over
As there were few Western citizens in areas captured by Red Army, this agreement mainly affected Soviet citizens and peoples of countries occupied by Red Army
Communist puppet regimes were being established in the latter
In West it was assumed everyone wanted to go home

D.P. Camps

Run by UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration)
Soviet citizens were detained in camps for “displaced persons” (DPs)
To escape repatriation many pretended to be citizens of other states to get exemption
These included: Ukrainian areas of pre-war Poland; Baltic States - Soviet annexation was not recognised as legal by West; Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia
Many hid amongst local population
UNRRA personnel were told to “persuade the DPs to agree voluntarily to proceed to Russia”
Anti- Soviet propaganda was banned in the camps as were mass meetings for fear they might provide an opportunity for dissidents, hecklers and anti-repatriation organisers “which might result in emotional mob action” against Moscow’s liaison officers
Soviet propaganda was allowed and plenty was provided
In the last resort, if persuasion failed, force would be used to repatriate the DPs

Repatriation by Force

Using force to repatriate the DPs was not as easy as the authorities believed
Large numbers of DPs resorted to suicide rather than go back
They fought the soldiers sent to collect them in lorries for the journey home
Jumped off moving trains
Some burned themselves to death
At Kempten in Bavaria, American soldiers were sent to collect Russian DPs from a camp. Most of these people were in church when the soldiers arrived. They made it clear they had no intention of going back to USSR. So the Americans broke into the church, manhandling the priest and dragged out the DPs hitting them with rifle butts to force them into the lorries. Some of the women tossed their children into the nearby Baltic DP camp because they were exempt from repatriation

The End of Repatriation 1947

Determined resistance to repatriation by Soviet citizens led to it being officially ended in 1947
2 million people had been sent back
Soviets sent 3 million back from their occupation zone
½ million nevozvrashchentsy or “non-returners” remained in the West

Further Defections

Estimated that between 1945-1948 20,000 Soviet soldiers deserted
In early 1948 it was reported that in previous 12 months 13,000 had defected to the West including 4,000 officers and 2 generals
Many escapees avoided the Western authorities and merged into civilian life because Western forces had been ordered to return deserters to the Red Army where they were shot
West halted return of deserters at the time of the Berlin blockade in 1948

Activities of Soviet Secret Police

Under the guise of ‘Soviet military missions’ to foreign cities, the Soviet secret police carried on operations to repatriate its nationals
Western governments gave the same facilities afforded to the Red Army command
Frequent abductions by Soviet secret police in Paris until French press revealed what was going on
These activities continued in a more circumspect way
Such kidnapping was recorded as late as 1956 in New York

Reconversion

Those who returned to USSR were re-indoctrinated, punished or executed
Red Army soldiers who had fought outside the borders of USSR needed much re-indoctrination
Millions of people with anti-communist attitudes came under Soviet rule when territory was annexed from Poland, Germany and Czech.
A serious problem were the 65 million people who had been under Nazi rule
Rest of population of USSR who hoped for concessions for freedom and democracy as a reward for their efforts to save the regime during the war were to be disappointed

Post-war Internal Repression

Stalin instigated a number of repressive domestic measures which were linked to a fictitious threat from capitalists and imperialists
It was the start of the Cold War
From 1944 closed Party meetings were told that “the war on fascism ends, the war on capitalism begins”
Stalin made a speech in February 1946 in which he declared that war was inevitable as long as capitalism existed
Said USSR was a beleaguered fortress of socialism resisting the false glitter of bourgeois culture

Zhdanov’s Campaign

Summer 1946 Stalin’s chief aide, Andre Zhdanov began a full-scale ideological campaign against those who admired West’s free culture
Began by targeting literature especially 2 writers renowned before the Revolution:-
Anna Akmatova – poetess, described as “a harlot and nun who mixed harlotry and prayer”
Michael Zoshchenko – the most popular Soviet humourist, was called “a literary swindler”
August, Central Committee passed resolution stating that “Soviet literature neither has nor can have any other interests except those of the people and of the state”
Those accused of showing Western influence and neglecting Marxist ideology included film director Eisenstein and composers Shostakovich and Prokiev
G. Alexandrov – philosopher and member of the Orgburo was attacked for his “History of West European Philosophy”
Eugene Varga the most prominent Soviet economist was denounced for doubting that economic depression was about to hit America
‘Cultural Life’ the official organ of the Propaganda and Agitation Section of the Party Central Committee led the attack on architects, historians and geographers
Circus managers were denounced for having “planted in the arenas of Soviet circuses alien bourgeois tendencies”

Zhdanov’s Last Triumph

August 1948 at a congress of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Science Zhdanov turned his attention to natural science
An attack was launched against accepted genetic science by Trofim Lysenko, a plant breeder who instead imposed the Lamarckian idea that acquired characteristics can be inherited
Soviet biologists at the assembly were forced to accept because Lysenko had the backing of the Party Central Committee
It was followed by the liquidation of the most important of the Mendell-Morganist geneticists
31^st Aug 1948 Zhdanov died quite suddenly

Stein

Cultural purges continued after Zhdanov’s death
At a writers’ meeting in 1949 the gifted critic Stein said he’d read 20 plays about collective farms but they all had the same plot
His comments revealed the damage done to the arts by the Zhdanovshchina
The plot he set out went as follows:

Act 1: A Kolkhoz ruined by the Nazi occupation:
There are no seeds
There is no fuel
The tractor station has been destroyed
The chairman of the kolkhoz is either absent, or drunk, or has lost faith, or is an idiot
Curtain of the 1^st Act
The district Party secretary arrives with the assistant chief of the political Department
A war veteran is made chairman of the kolkhoz
2^nd Act
The chairman tells the people that they are given the earth for their eternal use and must gather the harvest in

Stein was condemned for this and his implication that the “new soviet man” was a myth and for the fact that he was a Jew

The 1949 Anti-Semitic Campaign

Measures against Jews in Soviet Union went back decades
Many were disenfranchised in 1820s and 30s for being “bourgeois” ie an occupational charge not a racial one
During the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact there was an increase in dismissals of Jews and further restrictions were imposed
In this case diplomatic necessity was the excuse
Early 1949 there was no attempt to disguise the new anti-Semitic campaign
The target of the campaign of ideological repression was given the new definition of “bourgeois cosmopolitanism” often prefixed with “homeless”
In the latter case it was referring to Jews
The campaign coincided with the formation of the new state of Israel which was acting like a magnet for Soviet Jews
Its aims appeared to be an extension of Zhdanov’s anti-Western policy begun 3 years before
The main features of the campaign were: drawing attention to the Jewish names of many who took Russian aliases eg Trostsky and Zinoviev; grotesque cartoons emphasising Jewish physical features
Jews were accused of inherently admiring the West and so they should be “hounded out of Soviet life”
The intensity of this campaign continued to mount until Stalin died in 1953
To help foreign apologists “prove” that the Soviet regime was not anti-Semitic, there remained Kaganovich in the Politburo and Ilia Ehrenburg in the writers’ organisations

The Physiologists

1949-50 accused of having turned metaphysics from the study of the official mechanistic teachings regarding the human mind according to Pavlov
Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned reflex in dogs carried out before the Revolution
1950 Stalin intervened in the campaign of repression in a “discussion” organised by Pravda on questions of linguistics
Nicholas Marr was the officially favoured linguistic theorist – died 1934
He interpreted language as part of the Marxist structure of society
Said that when the socio-economic foundation was transformed, there would emerge some kind of new “language of socialism”
Stalin now denounced Marr – said language was independent of social development, not a merger of languages but the triumph of a single language was to be expected in the future – Russian
Stalin’s position was paradoxical because Soviet linguists said his doctrine was one of ‘genius’, and, Western linguists agreed with much of what he said (they had long regarded Marr as a charlatan) though they did not buy into his forecast of ‘victory’ for the Russian language

Pronouncements on the Soviet State

Stalin also said that the state would not wither away during the last stage of communism
He also said that the superstructure, especially the state which forms part of it, might act powerfully on the base which “produces” it
This was a new theoretical defence of the universal significance of the Soviet state
The statement had overtones of Russian nationalism

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