In this section we will consider the main works devoted to the study of the problems of the historiography of Stalinism. During the time when the phenomenon of Stalinism became the subject of widespread scientific research, a large number of works were published giving general ideas about it. Although, it is worth noting that the peak of studying the problem of Stalinism occurred in the 1990s and early years. 2000, currently a large number of different events are devoted to the discussion and study of this issue, such as speeches and reports at scientific conferences, stories in television intellectual and entertainment television programs, discussions at various levels. All this indicates continued interest in this issue on the part of the general public.

For this reason, it is worth paying no less attention to the study of the historiography of Stalinism in earlier periods. As a result, the review of historiography on this issue will be structured chronologically. In this section, the works under study will be divided into 3 large groups. At the beginning, documents written in 1950-60 will be presented, which are connected primarily with the results of the 20th Party Congress, at which the cult of Stalin was “debunked” and a course of de-Stalinization was launched, in which the question of “Stalinism” is raised for the first time as a problem of social and scientific significance. These sources help illuminate the development of Soviet historical science, in which it will be indirectly possible to trace the influence of the problem of “Stalinism” and the attitude towards it on the part of representatives of the scientific community.

The second group includes studies from 1987-1990, this is associated with the beginning of the policy of perestroika and glasnost. It includes works of a journalistic and scientific nature from the 1987–1990s, the period when the topic of Stalinism was rediscovered and the foundations were laid for further scientific study of this issue. An analysis of these works can help identify the theoretical and methodological foundations that form the historiographic field of the current stage of research into the problem of Stalinism in the scientific field.

And finally, the third stage directly affects the studies that were released in 1991-2000, which is associated primarily with the opening of access to archives to documents that are sources of evidence about the activities of the party, which is called “from the inside,” as well as pluralism of opinion and concepts in historical science. In the course of studying the works of this group, an assessment will be made of its significance and place in the general process of historiographic research into the phenomenon of Stalinism. This group will include materials from conferences devoted to the problem of Stalinism and the history of Russia in the twentieth century. Being sources that reflect the position of historians studying this topic, they are very important for analyzing the dynamics of development of research on the topic and help draw some intermediate results in the development of the direction.

Thus, let us begin the review of the first stage of 1930-1960. The first to introduce the term “Stalinism” itself was L.D. Trotsky in his speech “Stalinism and Bolshevism” in the bulletin of the Bolshevik-Leninist opposition dated August 28, 1937. It is worth mentioning right away that this definition was used in the sense that the phenomenon of Stalinism consists in the deviation of Stalin and his political-economic course from the main direction Bolshevism.

In the initial period, i.e. at 30 - early 50 XX century, no scientifically reliable and unbiased study of this problem was possible. Well, what can we say that such a problem itself “did not exist”.

Only in March 1953, after Stalin’s death, would a course to end Stalin’s “personality cult” begin. This term was first used by G. Malenkov and soon became a replacement for the term “Stalinism.” The main document of this stage is the report prepared by P.N. Pospelov and N.S. Khrushchev, and then presented by the latter in February 1956 at the XX Congress. When analyzing the main document of the 20th Congress, which had a decisive influence on the development of the problem of Stalinism in the 1980s, it is necessary to have at hand the actual text of the report. But historians don’t have it. In the published collection “Report of N.S. Khrushchev about the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin" presents an extensive selection of documents devoted to both the report itself and the reaction to it. But what is considered the report of N.S. Khrushchev, are later versions of the speech he read on the night of February 24-25. Historians have at their disposal an edited version, sent to party officials for review no earlier than March 5, of the mentioned report by P.N. Pospelov and additions dictated by N.S. Khrushchev on the eve of the congress.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting the fact that this document was more an instrument of political struggle than a historical work. The purpose of this report was an attempt to separate the system of power itself from the figure of the tyrant, its leader, who for a long time were identified and inextricably associated with the very essence of the new communist system.

Despite this, this report represents the most important and main source for the study of the politics of Stalinism, and is also a large-scale source of information, for the creation of which a huge amount of work was done in collecting information, processing statistical data, assessing government decisions, etc.

A review of the second group of studies should begin with the article by A.S. Tsipko “The Origins of Stalinism”, which proves the point of view that Stalinism is an objective process arising from the very foundation - socialism. Stalinism is a direct consequence of the very essence of the socialist concept. This article marked the beginning of a discussion about the relationship between the terms Stalinism and socialism. In a broader sense, it represented a debate between supporters of Marxism and anti-Marxists.

The answer to this was the work of O. Latsis and the collection “History and Stalinism”. The main feature of these studies is the small source base and unreliable theoretical basis for evidence of these points of view.

In contrast to these works, N.A. Simonia in her study tries to analyze the concept of Marxism-Leninism from deep theoretical positions. This is a general theoretical study based on the works of K. Marx, F. Engels and V.I. Lenin - and these sources are presented not as infallible dogmas, but as “ever-evolving” theories applicable to today. The conclusion, however, correlates with the conclusion of other researchers in the group: the Stalinist model is a special, initially crude model of socialism. This work is distinguished by the use of a significant array of sources, primarily documents of a theoretical nature, to which other supporters of the concept only refer.

A different approach was used in the study of this issue by L.A. Gordon and E.V. Klopov. They analyzed the relationship between socialism and Stalinism from the perspective of economic theory.

During this period, international cooperation was also attempted for the first time to jointly study this issue. The result of this was the release of the collection “50/50: A Dictionary of New Thinking.” The title of this work clearly reflects the task set - overcoming the previous ideology, an attempt to enrich historical science with new conclusions. The collection is a set of articles defining key historical and social terms, which is built on a two-sided principle - the same concept (repression, destanilization, socialism, democracy) is defined by foreign and domestic historians. A more detailed explanation of Stalinism is given in his article by M.Ya. Gefter. n offers a different, philosophical dimension, capturing both the political system, the mechanisms of managing society, and the philosophy of the new system (“Stalinist anthropology”).

Another group of studies of this problem focused their attention on the issue of Stalin’s personality cult - on the personality itself. In 1989, the collection “Stalin’s regime of personal power - on the history of its formation” was published. A term designed to combine the theory of totalitarianism, i.e., the definition of Stalinism as a regime and system, with the problem of the personal role of I.V. Stalin and the relationship of his personality with this system was substantiated in an article by Yu.A. Shchetsinova. This article consistently proved the conclusion that socialism was perverted into the regime of Stalin’s personal power.

Scientists who adhered to anti-Marxist positions also published the previously mentioned collection “Understanding the Cult of Stalin,” which for the first time attempts to use psychological and social approaches in solving this problem. As a result, the statement is formed that Stalinism is a product of mass social consciousness and is studied as an ideology: “totalitarian ideology in a radical form,” “the ideology of bureaucratic socialism and the administrative command system.”

Another approach is an attempt to use the religious-psychological method of considering Stalinism as a result of the creation of a mechanism of social faith, proposed by D. Furman in his article. L.I. follows this direction even more deeply. Sedov, who states that the cult of personality is a direct result of the development of Russian history and a feature of Russian culture.

Thus, the researchers come to the conclusion that the system of Stalinism was not generated by Stalin himself, but was a logical result of development in the context of the entire Russian culture and history.

Speaking about the source base and methodological foundations of research into the phenomenon of “Stalinism” during the perestroika period, several comments should be made. First, almost all research is primarily articles published in journals and collections. Consequently, they represent preliminary theses and reflections to be developed further, rather than fundamental works based on an extensive source base. Secondly, the style of “reflection” was determined by the closed nature of the archives and the inability of a wide range of researchers to access documents from the period 1930–1950. Therefore, the basis for articles was often works of fiction, memoirs and memoirs.

The third group of analyzed studies is characterized by a more complete understanding of the subject of research. This statement follows from the fact that in the first half of the 90s. wide access was opened for scientific study of a huge amount of materials from many closed archives. For the first time in history, such a large array of documents that were previously not available was examined.

Another important feature of the research of this period is the apologetic nature of the research. The figure of Stalin takes on a different meaning. From a tyrant, he turns into a “gatherer of Russian lands,” the founder of Great Russia, the creator of a superpower. And the huge sacrifices of the government’s course are finding new explanations. So, for example, according to O. Zhukov, the reforms of the 30s. are associated primarily with the transition to a democratic regime, and victims of repression are associated with opposition to the partyocracy.

Other studies tend to study Stalinism in line with studies of totalitarianism. These works argue that totalitarianism began to take shape during the Civil War and War Communism, and also that it is now viewed as an administrative-command system (ACS).

This term was first introduced in the work of G.K. Popov, and the main features were developed by T.P. Korzhikhina.

Another approach was characterized by closer attention to the very figure of I. Stalin - his political and personal life.

A revisionist movement developed separately, which studied mainly not political, but social history. The main goal of these studies was to revise existing findings “from below”, and not from the point of view of the state apparatus of power. The main representatives of this school are Sheila Fitzpatrick, John Arch Getty, Lynn Viola.

At the end of this paragraph, I would like to separately highlight the large-scale series “History of Stalinism,” which includes more than 80 monographs that examine this phenomenon from a large number of different points of view. A more detailed study of such a large-scale literary heritage is an extremely interesting topic for study, but unfortunately, it goes beyond the modest scope of our work.

Dear editor-in-chief! Recently I had the opportunity to encounter plagiarism. The conclusions that I made six months after the start of the case, it seems to me, will be of interest to the readers of your magazine. Judge for yourself.

In a twenty-page article by M.I. Smirnova and I.A. Dmitrieva “Sociocultural origins of Stalinism: historiographic discourse”, published in the collection “Historiography of Stalinism” (M., ROSSPEN. 2007. RGNF project No. 06-01-16202. Head of the author’s team, Doctor of Historical Sciences V.E. Bagdasaryan. Editor: academician, member of the board of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation N.A. Simoniya), I found more than a page of unquoted quotations from my work, for which there were no footnotes.

The collection, which pretended to be academic, made a strange impression: it did not contain brief information about the place of work and position of Messrs. Smirnova and Dmitrieva, there were no subject and name indexes. Mr. Bagdasaryan, the head of the team of authors, modestly published only three of his articles, and not seven, the article of Mr. A.A. Danilov can hardly be called historiographical, but there was a place for her, but, alas, not for the volume’s apparatus. This blank was dedicated to the memory of the historian. RGNF paid for it.

I had only one thing left: to request information about the ladies’ place of work or study from the chairman of the RGNF council, Yu.L. Vorotnikov, which was done by registered mail in July 2008. The postal service confirmed on its website that the letter had arrived to the addressee, but the official did not respond.

Mr. Vorotnikov could forward my letter to his acquaintances who are directly related to the publication of the volume: Messrs. Simony and Baghdasaryan. Judging by the fact that they did not answer me, Mr. Vorotnikov was not going to analyze the situation with the omission of plagiarism by his organization and develop measures to prevent such incidents in the future. Plagiarism is sometimes difficult to detect immediately, but when measures are not taken after a reasoned report about it, then the position of officials that is beneficial to the plagiarists is revealed.

The following registered letter was sent in October 2008 to the Chairman of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation, Academician M.P. Kirpichnikov with a request not to count the plagiarized article as a published work on the topic of the dissertation if any of the plagiarists submits it. I did not receive any response from Mr. Kirpichnikov.

Considering that Mr. Simonia also works as an adviser to the RAS, in October I sent a registered letter to the President of the RAS Yu.S. Osipov, drawing his attention to the benefits to plagiarists of the behavior of persons known to him and asking him to remind them of the deadlines established by law for organizations to respond to letters from citizens. I did not receive any response from Mr. Osipov. Now we will have to remind the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences: organizations and officials are obliged to give an answer to the citizen on the merits of the case within a month.

The science management system must have an effective mechanism for getting rid of plagiarists without going to court. There are all the prerequisites for this: scientific advice, experts, scientific press, administrative power. The opportunity to run through the courts should be given to insane plagiarists who do not agree with the decisions of scientific councils and administrative punishments, and not to creatively minded authors. But today this project is not feasible: there is no subjective factor - the desire of officials to fight plagiarism. Therefore, plagiarists are not afraid of contempt on the part of colleagues and students, possible demotion, or the need to return taxpayer money spent on publication to the state.

The situation is typical. Here's another example. Researcher N.S. Andreeva’s plagiarist “borrowed” a whole stack of pages, and then, using the money of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, made a report. “Plagiarism as the norm?” Ms. Andreeva is perplexed (Questions of History. 2008. No. 10).

I think we can sum it up. Three high-ranking officials - three silent “no” to this system of science management: “no” to social justice, respect for copyright, solidarity with the author against plagiarists. I would state: for this system, plagiarism is the norm!

Fateev A.V. Candidate of Historical Sciences.

Appendix: Files 01-09, comparison of texts by the author and plagiarists.

Comparison of the above passages

Slavic Studies, No. 1

© 2012 A.F. NOSKOVA

RUSSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY OF STALINISM IN THE USSR AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: SOME RESULTS OF THE STUDY (END OF XX - BEGINNING OF XXI CENTURY)

The article analyzes the views of a number of modern Russian researchers on the problem of totalitarianism in general, its leftist modification in the form of Stalinism in the USSR and Soviet-type regimes in Eastern European countries; the interconnection of the fact of the appearance of this historical phenomenon of the 20th century is noted. with urbanization and industrialization.

The article presents an analysis of the views of modern Russian scholars on the problem of totalitarianism in general und its left modification in the form of Stalinism in the USSR and regimes of the Soviet type in Eastern Europe. The article stresses the interdependence between this historical phenomenon of the twentieth century on the one hand and urbanization and industrialization on the other.

Key words: historiography, totalitarianism, Stalinism, Soviet-type regimes, urbanization, industrialization.

Since the death of I.V. More than half a century has passed since Stalin. During this period, thousands of books and articles were published in the USSR, and then in Russia, about the Soviet leader and the socio-political system inextricably linked with his name. In Soviet times, extensive factual material was extracted from the archives, but it allowed the formation of only a mythologized image of the leader and the history of the country's development.

XX Congress of the CPSU and the secret report of N.S. Khrushchev gave impetus, especially to the younger generation of philosophers, historians, and economists, to comprehend and reassess the recent past. The positive role of the “children” of this congress - the “sixties” and then the “new readers” in initiating such a process is undoubted. At the same time, it was censored literature, remaining, with rare exceptions (for example, books by A.M. Nekrich or M.S. Voslensky), within the framework of the official ideological paradigm of science.

About the comprehension by domestic historians of the essence of the regime that was created in the USSR since the 20s, and in the countries of Eastern Europe at the turn of the 40-50s of the XX century, about the birth of scientific historiography of such a significant problem in the history of Russia and the countries of the region, we can caution to say, starting from the second half of the 1980s. The real historiographical “explosion” came

Noskova Albina Fedorovna - Doctor of History. Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

for the 1990s. Even the most qualified bibliographer is not able to create an annotated list of all published books and articles, much less distribute them according to problem-thematic principles. Only in the catalogs of the Fundamental Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where some of the products published in the country in the social sciences arrive with a great delay, there are many hundreds of works published in Russian since the late 1980s. The process of accumulating and comprehending the continuously increasing volume of knowledge about the Stalinist stage in the history of the socialist experiment continues. A domestic historiography is being formed, presenting alternative views of researchers of Stalinism (from varying degrees of apology to unconditional denial and condemnation of the entire past). There are also calls for dialogue between representatives of the “historiographical poles” in the name of creating an objective history of the 1920-1950s (for more details, see). Moreover, interest in the phenomenon of Stalinism and the figure of Stalin continues unabated.

The term “Stalinism,” which applies to the era of his reign, appeared in our science after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, but was consolidated at the end of “perestroika.” At the turn of the 80-90s of the twentieth century. saw the light of the work of social scientists who tried, by analyzing the role of the leader and Soviet reality under Stalin, to understand what it was. At the same time, the transformation of the positions of Soviet historians and their assessments of recent reality began, which, undoubtedly, was facilitated by the opening of domestic archives. For some time, the idea of ​​contrasting the Leninist period in the history of the USSR, characterized, as a rule, with a “plus” sign, to Stalin’s rule, which was called a gross deviation from the commandments of V.I., picked up from the “sixties” and “new readers”, became mainstream. Lenin (see, for example). As the main evidence of this, numerous facts were cited that testified to the massive nature of political repression under Stalin.

To a large extent, the “course” of scientists’ reasoning was determined by the atmosphere of “perestroika.” In 1987, “The Gulag Archipelago” by A.I. was published. Solzhenitsyn, in 1988 - “Through the eyes of a man of my generation” K.M. Simonov, in 1989 - “Uninvented” by L. Razgon, then - “Triumph and Tragedy. Political portrait of I.V. Stalin" D.A. Volkogonov, as well as the works of a number of other writers and historians. The situation was directly influenced by the new rehabilitation “wave” and the mood in Soviet society, which demanded changes, although to varying degrees it was ready, or even unprepared, to deny the socialist past. A difficult “obstacle” to overcome was and partly remains the recognition of the crimes of Stalin, with whose name in the minds of the Soviet people industrialization, that is, the transfer of the country to a different level of development, and, of course, Victory in the Great Patriotic War, were and are still associated. The question about the price of both began to be asked later.

Domestic scientists date the modern, new stage of the historiography of Stalinism from 1991-1995, including the beginning of the new century, when the main directions in the study of the problem took shape, historiographic models for its interpretation arose, and threshold transitions in the evolution of the Stalinist system were determined (see, for example) . This happened and continues to happen in difficult internal conditions. The noticeable growth, especially since the mid-1990s, of positive or qualified public “memories” of the past is sometimes called the “Soviet reconquista” and is explained by the reaction of resistance of people “overfed” by anti-communist propaganda in the era of B.N. Yeltsin. But, undoubtedly, this growth has objective reasons and is associated with the tragedy of the collapse of a large country, with the decline of its international prestige and opportunities and, first of all, with the results of “reforms” from which the absolute majority of the population suffered. In Russia there is an acute

They react to their results, which destroyed the supposedly previously valid principles of justice and equality, albeit in poverty, which is enshrined in the Russian mentality, especially of people formed in Soviet times.

The attitude of representatives of the Russian scientific community towards the past does not remain uniform. Along with fundamental publications of new documents and monographic studies that are new in scientific spirit, there are works in historiography whose authors, delving into the problem and trying to understand why the Stalinist regime arose the way it was, sometimes move from explanations to apologetics of this phenomenon and Stalin as its creator.

So, what content do our scientists put into the concept of “Stalinism”? What are its defining features and specific manifestations both in the USSR and in the countries of Eastern Europe? What are the results of research and the state of the historiography of this problem? Even a large scientific team is unlikely to be able to offer high-quality and comprehensive answers to these natural questions. This still requires a considerable historical distance, and a large corpus of various documents that still remain inaccessible to researchers. I see my task as using the example of the works of some Russian historians, which, from my point of view, reflect the main trends in the study of the problem, to show how modern scientists understand the reasons for the emergence of Stalinism in Russia and the mechanisms of functioning of absolute power, what they see and see whether relatedness, and what are the differences between Stalinism in the USSR and other variants of the totalitarian organization of society, for example in Germany in the 1930s, what were the specifics of the stage of Stalinism in the countries of Eastern Europe and what explained them.

As for the term “Stalinism”, which in the scientific lexicon quite quickly replaced the definition of “Stalinism”, in the literature, especially scientific and journalistic, the “range” of the proposed options is very large. This is the result of a scientific approach and familiarity with the achievements of foreign colleagues in the study of totalitarian political regimes, as well as often the influence of political preferences and emotional and journalistic perception of the past. As examples of the latter, one can cite such definitions of Stalinism found in the literature as “Satanocracy”, “Oriental despotism”, “Soviet Thermidor”, “system of state slavery” - for some; “Orthodox communism”, “people’s monarchy”, “mutant socialism”, socialist order - for others.

In theoretical, political science, historical or sociocultural contexts, Stalinism is also called differently: the “emergency system of government” formed during the period of Stalin’s rule; “absolutized Bolshevik authoritarianism, brought to its logically extreme form, to totalitarianism”; “the Soviet model of totalitarianism”; “the totalitarian model of Soviet autocracy”; “the Soviet version of left-wing totalitarianism.” There are definitions where its ideological component comes to the fore. For example: “a system of general ideocratic bureaucracy, which has not yet achieved absolute perfection, but is as total as possible,” and which by 1953 had achieved “final victory.” When defining Stalinism, Russian scientists are increasingly using the words “total” and “totalitarianism”1 as key words.

2008.02.002. HISTORIOGRAPHY OF STALINISM / Ed. Simony NA. - M.: ROSSPEN, 2007. - 480 p.

Key words: historiography, Stalinism, history of the USSR, Stalin I.V., totalitarianism, authoritarian power, political system of society.

The collection opens with an article by M.I. Smirnova and I.A. Dmitrieva “Sociocultural origins of Stalinism: historiographical discourse.” In the existing extensive historiography of Stalinism, the authors identify the following topics: 1) methodological approaches to the problem of Stalinism; 2) the formation of Stalinism; 3) Stalin's personality. Of the many works devoted to the theoretical aspects of the nature of Stalin's rule, the concept of A. S. Akhiezer, exploring the origins and essence of Stalinism through sociocultural mechanisms, is analyzed in detail. The authors of the article believe that this concept has significant flaws: when changing its form, it retains the essential features of the methodology of Stalinism; does not clearly explain the reasons for the emergence of new values; “shamefully” drags materialism into the framework of idealism, which lacks the resources to explain social phenomena; leads to an a priori conclusion about the primacy of ideal factors in the development of the historical process (p. 15).

Considering the topic “The Formation of Stalinism,” the authors highlight several concepts. O.R. Latsis explains the origin of Stalinism based on the objective history and politics of the late 1920s. In the concept of G. A. Trukan, the struggle within the Bolshevik Party is given first place, as a result of which, instead of representatives of the old “Leninist guard,” poorly educated, desperate, cruel politicians came to form the support of authoritarianism. The paragraph “Stalin’s Personality” notes the polarization of assessments that reigns both in historical science and in journalism: from unbridled praise of the “leader of the peoples” during his lifetime to the stigma of a “murderer and criminal.”

The publication “The History of Studying and Understanding the Process of the Origin and Formation of Autocracy in Soviet Russia” (S.V. Devyatov) describes and analyzes the most typical works on the history of power in the USSR in the period 1920-1990s of the 20th century. The first paragraph, “Literature of the 1920s as a tool of internal party struggle during the formation of a system of autocracy,” is devoted to the works of V. Lenin, N. Bukharin, L. Trotsky, A. Rykov. The author explains this by the fact that “... the main researchers of the issues of internal party struggle were the Bolshevik leaders themselves, who took the most active and direct part in it” (p. 32). The second paragraph, “The Soviet period in the history of studying the process of establishing autocracy in Russia,” covers the 1930s - mid. 1980s. The author believes that a distinctive feature of this time is that the specific ideological or practical task of the leader or party determined both assessments in the scientific literature and directions of research. The final paragraph, “Methodological changes in Russian historical literature since the late 1980s,” notes the genre and research diversity of the works. The author emphasizes the contribution made by foreign researchers S. Cohen, E. Carr, R. Tucker, M. Wener in the creation of new approaches in historiography. Russian scientists began to actively study and develop the genre of political biography. More attention is paid to the problems of forming a system of autocracy and internal party struggle.

“Stalinism and the industrial breakthrough: the main trends in Soviet and post-Soviet historiography” (I.B. Orlov). The first stage of historiography is the 1930-1950s - the formation and consolidation of the Stalinist version of the country's industrialization. In the works of this period, archival documents and periodicals are practically not used, the historiographical base is weak, and the analysis and conclusions are superficial and dogmatic. The second stage - 1950-1980s - is characterized by an expansion of the source base and research methods used. Collections of documents on industrialization were published, for example, “History of industrialization of the USSR. 1926-1941”, the number of studies has increased (the works of V.I. Kuzmin, V.K. Bagdasarov, B.A. Abramov, etc. are considered). The third stage - 1985-1991. - time of completion of the Soviet

tradition and the final destruction of the Stalinist interpretation of industrialization. Often, the works of publicists and scientists (Yu. Karyakin, N. Shmelev, D. Volkogonov) initiated the process of scientific rethinking of the Stalinist period. The fourth stage - 1992-2005. - marked by the emergence of various concepts in the coverage of this process. Works have been published showing changes in the material and spiritual culture of the working class during the years of the first five-year plans, collections of documents have been published, and studies have been published highlighting previously unexplored aspects of industrialization.

The article “Socialist experiment in the countryside: historiographic assessments of the phenomenon of collectivization in the USSR” (author - V.L. Telitsyn) identifies several periods of historiography. 1) The end of the 1920s - the beginning of the 1950s - the time of the formation and development of the orthodox trend in historiography; the works were mainly of a propaganda nature and were kept in line with those outlined in articles and brochures written by the top officials of the party and state. 2) The second half of the 1950s - mid-1960s - studies based on archival and documentary materials appeared, showing the “excesses” and cruelty of the ongoing reforms. But, the author of the article emphasizes, collectivization was still viewed as an inevitable process, just as the victims of its implementation were inevitable. Stalin's policy was already interpreted as “voluntaristic” and “subjective.” 3) The second half of the 1960s - the mid-1980s is the time of the historical “renaissance” of Stalinism. Historians shifted their attention to the socio-economic aspects of collectivization, “removing the figure of Stalin from under attack.” The main emphasis was on studying the collectivization process itself, class struggle, and dispossession. 4) The end of the 1980s - the present - is characterized by the emergence of new directions in historiography: 1) liberal-radical anti-Stalinism - evaluates collectivization as the practical embodiment of the dictator’s ideas; 2) moderate socialist - socialism is positively assessed, but Stalin’s policies are criticized; 3) representatives of the orthodox movement continue to assert that Stalinism is the only true path for the socio-economic and political development of the country.

Three articles by V.E. Bagdasaryan are devoted to individual problems of Stalinism. “Shot in Smolny: conspiracy or “tragic accident”? - analysis of existing versions of the murder of S.M. in historiography. Kirov. “The mysterious thirty-seventh”: the experience of historiographic modeling” - various models of the “great terror” are presented: the “self-destruction of revolutionaries” model was developed by R. Orlova, A. Akhiezer, A. Solzhenitsyn; “Stalinist usurpation of power” - R. Medvedev, J. Hosking; “pathological personality” - M. Shatrov, R. Tucker, B. Ilizarov. Along with them, other models are also considered: “personnel rotation”, “witch hunt”, etc. The article “Conspiracy in the Red Army: historiographical discourse about the “case of M.N. Tukhachevsky”” shows that in historical literature there are several versions explaining the repressions in the Red Army in the late 1930s.

M.I. Meltyukhov in his article “Prehistory of the Great Patriotic War in Modern Russian Historiography” pays attention to new directions in research on the eve of World War II. In the study of the pre-war political crisis, the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations and the Soviet-German non-aggression pact occupy a significant place. If there are no significant disagreements in the coverage of the progress of the negotiations, then the issue of responsibility for their termination is still debated. In the traditional version, the blame is placed on England for secret negotiations with Germany. Another concept emphasizes the mutual distrust of the negotiating parties. The Soviet-German Pact also causes mixed assessments: some scientists assess it as a success of Soviet diplomacy, others as a forced step. Scientists continue to debate whether there were alternatives to the pact. In the historiography of the foreign policy of the USSR, M. Meltyukhov notes little-studied topics: the USSR’s relations with Great Britain, France and Japan have been studied fragmentarily, and Soviet-Italian and Soviet-American relations still remain in the shadows.

A.E. Larionov, in the article “The Trial of the Generalissimo: Contemporary Discussions about Stalin’s Role in the Great Patriotic War,” reconstructs the exculpatory arguments found in the literature on the charges brought against Stalin as a military leader and statesman. The author believes that

The unconditional dominance of anti-Stalinist concepts is being replaced by a reverse trend, balancing the first. He considers the most appropriate general assessment of Stalin’s actions, presented in one of the university textbooks. It emphasizes his strong-willed and military abilities, approves the transition to a policy of state patriotism and cooperation with the church, and stipulates the complexity and ambiguity of his personality.

Several articles are devoted to the problems of the historiography of ethnic politics during the period of Stalinism. A. A. Androsov, in the article “The Tragedy of Nations: Collaborationism and Ethnic Deportations in Historical Literature,” examines how the study of military cooperation, civil collaboration, and deportation of peoples arose and developed. In the 1940-1950s, the topic of deportation was not touched upon at all in historical scholarship. During the years of rehabilitation processes, separate publications about the deportation of some peoples of the Caucasus and other ethno-social groups became possible. Soviet works of the 1960-1970s were few in number and had a pronounced ideological character. The multifaceted exploration of the themes of collaboration, deportation and repatriation began in the 1980s and continues to the present day. The largest number of works is devoted to the deportation of the peoples of the North Caucasus and Crimea, fewer works are devoted to the resettlement of the Baltic peoples, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.

In the article by A.A. Danilov “I.V. Stalin in 1946-1953: new sources and attempts at comprehension” examines the post-war evolution of the political regime, the influence of interpersonal relationships of political figures on decision-making in foreign and domestic policy.

YES. Amanzholova in the material “Stalinism in National Politics: Some Issues of Historiography” analyzes works on the process of formation of the USSR and nation formation and works examining specific examples of the formation and functioning of Soviet unitarianism.

In the material by B.I. Povarnitsyn “Historiography of Stalin’s ethnopolitics: from political conjuncture to scientific knowledge” analyzes domestic and Anglo-American “Soviet research”. Povarnitsyn emphasizes that initially Soviet research was strongly influenced by political

tic factors, therefore, Stalin’s role in ethnopolitics was presented as dominant, then in the 1960-1980s, the apologetics of Stalin was replaced by the apologetics of the CPSU. At the same time, the topics and specialization of research have significantly expanded. The main place in them was occupied by such topics as the theory of nations under socialism, the state and legal status of republics and autonomies, the history of the formation of Soviet federalism, etc. Subsequently, in Russian historiography, interest arose in the history of autonomies and non-ethnic administrative units, in the history of individual ethnic groups: Russian Germans, Jews, etc.

In Anglo-American historiography of the 1920s-1930s, assessments of Soviet nationality policy ranged from apologetic (A. Strong, L. Barnes) to restrained (C. Lamont, S. B. Webb). The 1940s-1990s are a time of simultaneous dominance of politicized Sovietology and the development of regional studies and regional studies. A significant place in the works of foreign scientists was given to the history of individual peoples of the USSR. At the present stage, works have appeared in Russian and foreign science that consider ethnopolitics in connection with the foreign and domestic policies of the state (S. Cheshko, R. Sunyi).

A fundamentally new scientific environment - Internet resources - is the subject of the article by S.I. Kornienko “Sources for studying the problems of the history of Stalin and Stalinism on the Internet.” The websites of large domestic and foreign scientific and information centers, various databases of photo and video materials, and websites dedicated to Stalinism are considered.

The collection ends with an article by N.A. Simony “Was there a real alternative to the Stalinist dictatorship?”, dedicated to discussions during perestroika about alternative aspects of the country’s history.

There is one remarkable scene in Mikhail Romm’s film “Lenin in October”. The worker Vasily brings Lenin, who is hiding in a safe house, a whole stack of fresh newspapers. However, Lenin remains dissatisfied with the fact that there is no Black Hundred newspaper among the newspapers. "You need to know your enemies! Bring it tomorrow" - Lenin demands. It doesn’t matter whether this conversation is a creative invention of the screenwriter or some kind of apocrypha from Lenin’s life. The important thing is that in order to understand the current situation, information from the camp of the ideological enemy does not play a secondary role.

Transferring this principle to historical ground, we must also realize that in order to study the Stalinist period, we will one way or another have to familiarize ourselves with and understand the provisions in Western historical science. It seems to me that the importance of this approach lies not so much in mastering specific facts, but in searching for new ones. aftershocks to understand the Stalinist period or even confirm our view of the Soviet era. It would seem, how can Western historians share our views? In this case, I would like to give a specific example. The head of the department of East European history at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Jörg Baberowski, who even among other Western historians stands out for his extreme anti-Sovietism, writes: « Russian communists were sophisticated students of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment (hereinafter it is emphasized by me) : what nature has missed must be replenished by human hands. And everything that did not meet the requirements of reason, as the Bolsheviks understood it, had to disappear from the face of the earth. Socialism in no way refuted the main idea of ​​modernism; on the contrary, it strived for its true implementation.” . So, the German historian considers the Bolsheviks to be students of the Enlightenment era, striving for genuine implementation of modernity. For Russians Svanidz And Pivovarovs recognition of the Bolsheviks as continuers of the work of Voltaire, Leibniz, and Montesquieu would have been an insurmountable ideological barrier. I note that in terms of modernity, this statement is fully consistent with the provisions of the Essence of Time (the differences are only in assessments).

Further, I will not dwell in detail on the research and conclusions of individual Western historians. It seems to me that it is much more important to outline the genesis of the development of Western historiography of Stalinism using the example of the two most striking scientific movements. I will take the USA as a country, since it was the United States that had the strongest influence in the formation of historiography about the USSR in Western countries.

Active study of the Stalinist era began after the end of the Second World War within the disciplines Russian studies And Soviet and Communist studies, better known as Sovietology ( Sovietology). Sovietology was strongly tailored to the needs of the Cold War, which determined its exceptional ideologization. Real knowledge about the history of the USSR was needed to the extent that it corresponded to the needs of the ongoing war in its propaganda and political directions. It was important for the American political elite to understand what kind of enemy they were facing. What is its military and economic potential? How institutions function. What is the personnel policy and how are decisions made in the highest echelons of power? What is the relationship between the people and the government? The study of Soviet history was supposed to help in understanding the Soviet present. However, politics iron curtain prevented the flow of current and historical information, and there were few own sources for studying Soviet history. The main sources were: the Hoover archive, founded during the Volga famine of 1921, the Trotsky archive, various emigrant archives and the official Soviet press. The main trump card for studying Stalinism was the Smolensk party archive. He was captured by the Germans during the Great Patriotic War, and in 1945 he ended up in Bavaria, in the American zone of occupation. Actually, during the Cold War, most of the works on Stalinist topics were written on his materials. The narrow base of sources, on the one hand, greatly limited American historians, on the other hand, gave freedom for a wide variety of interpretations and conjectures.

There was also a staffing problem. There weren't that many people who studied the Soviet Union. Therefore, even historians were included in the staff of political analysts. Thus, the prominent American Russian historian Richard Pipes got along quite well in the role of head of a group of so-called analysts. Team B The group was formed on the initiative of CIA Director George W. Bush (the same future US President) in 1976. Its tasks included assessing the latest military strategic developments of the USSR. Pipes was far from the only one who willingly went to serve his country. Many American historians have used their positions as consultants and experts to the political establishment to increase their material status and influence in academic circles. State, etc. public organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation provided them with adequate funding and prestigious jobs at Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. David Engerman defined this dual position of American historians as "service to both, Mars(implying a militant state) and Minerva(meaning science)". Service Mars inevitably affected the direction of scientific publications. Sometimes the historian’s knowledge was used in specific actions of information warfare. Thus, in 1984, historian Robert Conquest published a practical guide for the Reagan campaign called “What to do when the Russians come?» In it, a doctor of historical sciences from Stanford University outlined the consequences of a possible Soviet occupation with all of this (according to the author) ensuing consequences, such as: robbery of the population, murder, famine and mass rape. In this vein, the skepticism of the Soviet side regarding people from elite US universities seems quite natural. Remembering this time, American historian Lynn Viola wrote: “ It comes as no surprise to me that...the councils routinely viewed exchange students as spies, especially if they were from Harvard..."

The dominant theory among American Sovietologists was the theory of totalitarianism. I believe that most are familiar with this theory. I will limit myself to only a brief enumeration of its central provisions. According to this concept, a totalitarian state means a system of personal power of a dictator based on a single party with mass social support. Power is controlled through a repressive and bureaucratic apparatus, censorship of the media and a ban on private property. In its earliest version, the theory was formulated by Hannah Arendt. On American soil, it was consistently developed by Harvard University employees Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski. The theory of totalitarianism helped to reduce under one roof Nazism and Stalinism, while conveniently leaving liberalism (i.e. the USA itself) out of the discussion brackets. The US authorities quickly assessed the role that the totalitarian approach could play in the ideological confrontation with the USSR. By the sixties, representatives of the totalitarian trend were firmly dug in in almost all personnel forges political elite. The language of the US political establishment to this day carries the pronounced terminology of this theory. Karl Deutsch, Peter Kenez, Adam Ulam, Martin Malia and the already mentioned Conquest and Brzezinski became the most famous representatives of this trend. Conquest's work "Great Terror" became a classic of totalitarian theory. It cannot be said that the dominance of the totalitarian school was associated only with the support of the US authorities. Its successful promotion was also facilitated by the absence of other slim theories. The concept of totalitarianism was captivating because it was easy to understand and easy to apply. Adherents of totalitarian theory often sinned with excessive universalism, trying to apply their principles right back to antiquity. However, the theory of totalitarianism has not always met with positive responses in scientific circles. According to historian John Arch Getty, the imposition of a totalitarian concept sometimes resembled church liturgy . Historians who worked outside of this theory may have encountered stiff opposition. When historian Manuel Sarkisyants tried to publish his articles on the British origins of Nazi ideology in the early 50s , running counter to the theory of totalitarianism, he encountered the warnings of his colleagues and the omnipresent lack of interest among scientific publishers.

Historians of the totalitarian school:

Robert Conquest	Adam Ulam	Zbigniew Brzezinski

The dominance of the totalitarian school continued until the end of the sixties. The defeat of the United States in Vietnam, civil and student movements gave rise to a new cohort of historians. The new direction in American historiography was not recognized as such for a long time. Only in 1986, Sheila Fitzpatrick’s article became a kind of manifesto for a new direction, which is commonly called Revisionism. There Fitzpatrick drew front line between totalitarians and revisionists. According to Fitzpatrick, the main controversy was in the methodological area. Supporters of the totalitarian model preferred to consider the Stalinist period from the position of the state and the political elite, i.e. from above, revisionists , on the contrary, they mainly looked at Soviet society and its interactions with the authorities, i.e. from below. In this sense, the French historical tradition had a strong influence on the revisionists annal schools Block brand. Ultimately, the revisionists were never able to develop anything like a unified slim theories as representatives of totalitarianism. The only thing that united the revisionists into one movement was sociological methodology and rejection of the totalitarian model.

Considering the main directions of revisionist research, the following points can be highlighted:
1. The revisionists pointed to high social mobility Soviet society. There were social groups ( beneficiaries), benefiting from Stalin's policies. Privileges could be expressed both in an increase in material level and in social prestige: Stakhanovites, closed distributors for the nomenklatura, MTS for collective farmers, etc. The revisionists also emphasized the mobilization role of Soviet ideology in carrying out political and economic transformations. In her monograph, Lynn Viola showed the importance of the so-called . movements 25 000 for collectivization. Contrary to the then prevailing opinion about the cruelly imposed idea of ​​collectivization from above, Viola defended the position that the workers heading to the village fully shared the expediency of collectivization. Thus, the Stalinist state secured support among groups of the population. In the totalitarian model, the people played a rather passive role. Any initiatives from above were of a coercive and repressive nature. Supporters of totalitarianism did not consider mass support for Stalinism from below. By supplementing their research on groups supporting Stalin's course with research on groups opposed to the state, the revisionists proved the heterogeneity of Soviet society.

2. Differences on the issue of Stalinist repressions became especially acute. From the point of view of totalitarianism, terror was a tool to strengthen the personal power of Stalin and the Communist Party. The source of terror was, naturally, Stalin personally. The monograph by historian John Arch Getty became a real provocation. In his monograph, Getty examined repression from the point of view of the struggle of the center with the ineffective bureaucratic apparatus of the periphery. Moreover, according to Getty, Stalin was not necessarily the initiator of the repressions. Getty believed that part of the regional party and state apparatus was no less interested in unleashing repression. Later, Getty’s idea of ​​a center-periphery conflict was picked up in Russia by historian Yu.N. Zhukov. Getty was also one of the first to question the millions of victims of Stalin's terror, but due to the lack of access to archives at that time, Getty went to the other extreme and greatly downplayed them. Supporters of totalitarianism saw in Getty's conclusions an abrogation of Stalin's responsibility for the repressions. At the same time, Getty's concept provided for the presence of other government entities in the form of regional party-bureaucratic groups. This provision put an end to the model of totalitarianism, since the presence of such groups actually meant that the USSR was not a totalitarian state.

Historians Revisionists:

The nature of the discussion that ensued went far beyond the decency of ordinary academic debates. Supporters of totalitarianism perceived the ideas of the revisionists not only as criticism of their theory, but also as an attempt on sacred stones American worldview and world order. Accordingly, the rebuff to the revisionists was often given in a very harsh form. Assessing the level of discussion of those years, Lynn Viola wrote: “Even though the enemy in the American Cold War was the Soviet Union, I was always surprised why are American Sovietologists, in their internal wars, so reminiscent of the Stalinists(Trotskyism = revisionism), turning all debates into binaries and marginalizing all voices outside the mainstream.". The practice of labeling has become widespread. Revisionists were accused of communism, apologetics for Stalin, and even Holocaust denial. Richard Pipes stated: "I ignore them(revisionist) work. How can you fight people who deny the Holocaust? It's the same as if someone believes the earth is flat.". This was an outright lie. The revisionists had no special sympathy for Stalin (quite the contrary) and never denied the Holocaust. Despite such pressure, the influence of the revisionists grew. Proponents of the revisionist approach quickly appeared in Western Europe.

Perestroika played a cruel joke on the revisionists. The revisionists saw in Gorbachev's new course confirmation of their concept that the Soviet system was not static totalitarian and was quite capable of political evolution. But it was precisely thanks to perestroika that the theory of totalitarianism became most widespread in Russia, just at the moment when its decline was becoming apparent in the West. Perhaps, almost the only work of revisionists published in the USSR was the book by Stephen Cohen (who can only be classified as a to the revisionists) about Bukharin. The reason for the publication, in my opinion, stemmed from the then historical policy of M.S. Gorbachev and A.N. Yakovleva - hit good Bukharin against bad Stalin. It was quite natural. For the ideological war waged by Russian liberals against the Soviet past, the concept of totalitarianism was much more convenient. The destruction of the Soviet Union, although it provided the revisionists with long-awaited access to the Soviet archives, but at the same time left revisionism outside the framework of Russian public discourse. As a result, the terminology of the totalitarian school reigned unhindered in the Russian media of the 90s. Quite a large number of Russian historians, especially those closely associated with Society "Memorial" switched to the position of totalitarianism. Only after 2000, then, when the train has already left, some revisionist works were translated into Russian, but they no longer had the desired effect.

The end of the Cold War led to a noticeable softening of the debate between the totalitarian and revisionist trends. This is also due to the reorientation of American geopolitics towards the Middle and Far East. According to Lynn Viola, totalitarianism has been replaced by the concept clash of civilizations, Pipes was replaced by Huntington. Some historians talk about post-revisionism and post-totalitarianism, but it seems to me that it is premature to talk about a complete blurring of these two concepts. After all, the followers of totalitarianism retained for themselves the instrument of shaping the consciousness of the US political elite. What these gentlemen Nowadays they persistently teach Farsi and talk about the totalitarian nature of the regimes of Gaddafi and Assad, which does not mean that tomorrow they will not begin to remember Russian again. Formula of Mars and Minerva remains valid.

Returning to the words of Romm’s Lenin, I would like to call for a detailed mastery of the revisionists’ developments. Yes, the revisionists did not have much sympathy for the Soviet Union, and sometimes despised everything Soviet. But, just as Berdyaev, hating Bolshevism, was able to discover an interesting side in it (essentially, restoring the connection between Russian Orthodox culture and the Soviet project), so did revisionists were able to discover many interesting aspects of the Stalin era. The revisionist approach is by far the most thorough rebuff to the theory of totalitarianism, so popular among Russian liberals. If you learn to isolate the anti-Soviet judgments of revisionists, concentrating on the semantic and factual core, then you can gain knowledge, and therefore weapons, to fight the dominance of the totalitarian approach in Russia.

Scientific heritage American and European revisionists are too numerous to fit into the confines of one article. Therefore, I hope that I was able not only to conduct a mini-excursion into the American historiography of Stalinism, but also to show how notorious Western view

Lynne Viola: The best sons of the fatherland. Workers in the vanguard of Soviet collectivization. New York, 1987.

Lynne Viola: Peasant rebels under Stalin. Collectivization and the culture of peasant resistance. New York, Oxford 1996.

John Arch Getty: Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938. New York, 1985.

Quoted in: Sheila Fitzpatrick: Revisionism in Retrospect: A Personal View, in Slavic Review, vol. 67, num. 3, 2008, p. 691.

Lynne Viola: The Cold War within Cold War, in: Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol.12, Num. 3, 2011, p. 689.