Grand Valley Review

Volume 6 | Issue 2 Article 20

1991

Book Review: The Great Terror: A Reassessment

Edward Cole
Grand Valley State University

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Recommended Citation
Cole, Edward (1991) "Book Review: The Great Terror: A Reassessment," Grand Valley Review: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 20.
Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/gvr/vol6/iss2/20

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thy industrial culture. It occurs to me that the Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reas- and narrati
sweet despair I comfortably enjoy might it- sessment. New York: Oxford University cipline. r
self be an industrial artifact 1hat is possible. Press, 1990. Richard Pi
But maybe these comforts are anesthetic, mind, but 1
numbing one's animal nature, making sub- Over the past two decades, students of than Robel
jectivity abstract, cerebral. Maybe my inter- Soviet history have watched with fascination on many 1
nal life is not nearly as intense as that of a as two interpretations emerged and torians hav
primitive hunter-gatherer. 1hat too is pos- diverged in an effort to discover the truth Soviets in 1
sible, and maybe the avatars of reason will about the great Communist experiment in andhistoq
explain why one possibility is more proba- the Soviet Union. There has been agree- presumat
ble than the other. ment on such issues as the failure to alter uniquely~
human nature and to direct a monolithic history is tl
AN1HONY PARISE world conspiracy from the Kremlin. What and misru
has divided the interpretations has been the from ideo!(
question of the meaning of the course of like agent:
events as they have proceeded since 1917. stacks, sp
One" team of historians has been united by greatest m
the idea that Soviet history has been a muniste:x.T
militant variation on the great theme of political, aJ
modernization. Another has seen it as the is a defon
disastrous consequnce of modern ideolol- West.
ogy. Althougl
The "A Team," clearly the sentimental the author
favorite of academia, featured powerful have had t,
scholars such as Sheila Fitzpatrick, Moshe has been d
Lewin,). Arch Getty, and Jerry Hough, all tainty clai
masters of social science wizardry. Under However,
their skilled hands what common sense had through 19
seen as a cautionary tale of ideological folly ever have
and sinister pathology was transmogrified ment. Sue
into the story of a painful but necessary and for a ti
march into the modern age of urbanization, to seewh<
industrialization, and equality. Boiled down, was not a
the A Team arguments came to this: the dotted witl
Soviet people had been through hell all camps wa
right, but at least it had been progressive populatioJ
hell, and by the 1980s the country exhibited turning w
most of the primary indices of a modernized pressed Ia
society. out of the
While grateful for the data generated by modernize
social science methodology, the "B Team," BTeamlec
remained faithful to the traditional analytic Central1

80 Grand Valley Reriew

,.error: A Reas- and narrative approach of the historical dis-
rd University cipline. Names like Leonard Shapiro,
Richard Pipes, and Adam Ulam spring to
mind, but none has been more prominent
~s, students of than Robert Conquest. Though they differ
rith fascination on many points, in general, B Team his-
merged and torians have shown a willingness to see the
over the truth Soviets in the context of their own culture
~xperiment in and history rather than as manifestations of
s been agree- presumably universal (but probably
ailure to alter uniquely Western) laws and trends. Soviet
a monolithic history is that of a peasant empire captured
Cremlin. What and misruled by a ruling class decended
IS has been the from ideological fanatics and their gangster-
the course of like agents, and despite forests of smoke
ed since 1917. stackS, space launches and the world's
:>een united by greatest military establishment, the Com-
y has been a munist eA-periment has ended in economic,
~eat theme of political, and moral ruin. The final product
; seen it as the is a deformed caricature of the modern
)dern ideolol- West.
Although they have often longed to enjoy
~ sentimental the authority of modern science, historians
red powerful have had to recognize that their discipline
'atrick, Moshe has been denied the kind of empirical cer-
rry Hough, all tainty claimed by the scientific method.
~ardry. Under However, in the Soviet Union, from 1986
non sense had through 1989, the gods came as close as they
eological folly ever have to running a historical experi-
ansmogrified ment. Suddenly the clouds cleared away,
mt necessary and for a time glasnost permitted the world
f urbanization, to see what Communism had wrought. It
Boiled down, was not a pretty picture. A vast rustbelt
1e to this: the dotted with mass graves and old slave-labor
ough hell all camps was the setting for a disoriented
n progressive population stampeding this way and that,
ntry exhibited turning without fail to ancient and sup-
a modernized pressed loyalties in an effort to find ways
out of the mess. Hardly the picture of a
generated by modernized society, and just about what the
the "B Team," B Team led us to eA-pect
tiona! analytic Central to the B Team interpretation has
been Robert Conquest's history of Stalin's
purges of the Communist Party in the Soviet
Union. The only comprehensive study of its
subject, it was written two decades ago from
readily-available published sources, includ-
ing official Soviet documents (always
suspect) and the highly-colored accounts of
survivors and defectors. Does the new data
of the glasnost years compel a revision? A
new version of The Great Terror, subtitled
"A Reassessment," is the author 's own
answer.
The Reassessment has about one third
more references than the original, thereby
indicating the new volume of material in-
corporated into the teA-t. There is an entirely
new chapter on the "Cultural Front" and the
old chapter about the "Nation in Torment"
has been pluralized to embrace the restless
republics. There is an epilogue ominously
titled "The Terror Today." Compared to the
original editions, the new book is much
more informative and useful. The horrifying
statistics which were a major feature of the
work have been updated according to the
latest evidence. Conquest's estimates have
proved to be remarkably accurate, in error,
as he imagined, only on the low side.
It may be that at long last general
academic assumptions about Soviet history
will change. The old view has a long
pedigree. For example, in the 1930s Sidney
and Beatrice Webb assured Professor Tcher-
nyavin that he was mistaken in thinking that
he had survived a slave-labor camp because
slave labor could not profit the Soviet State,
and therefore slave labor could not exist in a
rationalized, planned economy. Such well-
intentioned skepticism flourished even after
Khrushchev's revelations in 1956. Though
praised by the critics in the mid-1960s, the
first edition of The Great Terror had surpris-
Grand Valley Reriew 81
ingly little effect on an academic consensus Francine du Plessix Gray. Soviet Women: Gray's exce
that veered off in the direction of the above Walking the Tightrope. New York: endeavorp<
mentioned panglossian sociological inter- Doubleday, 1989. glasnost, pt
pretations based on the indices of moder- ( democrati2
nization. For hundreds of years visitors to Russia Sumarokov
Now that the serried ranks of witnesses have returned home with tales both latter's soci
have stepped forth, the memoirs have been wondrous and bizarre. However diverse the follows the
published, and the mass graves have been accounts, they all dwell on the curiosities of travels fron
opened, Conquest's interpretation has life in Rus', Muscovy, Russia, or the Soviet Great Russi
gained new force. In characteristic B Team Union. Most often travelers stress the nega- find out wt
fashion, it emphasizes the terror implicit in tive aspects of the country, for these unfor- what are th
the Communist program from the outset, tunately tend to dominate. Such an atmos- the book 1
the peculiar nature of the historical cir- phere has produced within Russia a long volume abl
cumstances, and the character of Stalin and tradition of fine social satire, most of which and elegant
his associates. How has this been received official censorship quickly suppressed. In short-lived'
among the living victims of Soviet Com- the mid-eighteenth century, Alexander the Soviet 1
munism? When Conquest recently visited Sumarokov wrote a satirical song, "Chorus to Soviet men
Moscow, he was lionized by the new intel- a Topsy-Turvy World," in which a bird who the current
lectuals and carried off in triumph to deliver has flown abroad returns to Russia to tell of riages; expl
an ex-temporaneous university lecture. strange lands where people are moral, men, famil~
In one or two details the original The straightforward, rational, honest, pious, dis- and create.
Great Terror is better than the Reassessment. creet, educated, respectful, industrious; Plessix Gra
For example, the author has removed from where "drunken men do not roam the Almost no<
the preface his comments on the profound streets" (Segel, The Literature of Eighteenth- the latest ve
philosophic issues raised by his researches. Century Russia, I, 246). world
This is a loss, because it made clear to the A century later the greatest of Russia's Like most
reader the strength of a historical method "civic" poets, Nikolai Nekrasov, explored the Union, du
which did not seek to delete the moral con- sufferings of the Russians, especially the Russian
tent of the sources in the name of some sort peasants with what one critic calls" social grandmotl
of abstract social science. And Conquest no compassion (Mirsky, A History of Russian magical o
longer apologizes for harboring "the Literature, 229). In order to settle an argu- abound n
prejudices ... of most civilized men." But per- ment among themselves, several peasants 1980s the v
haps the human cost of Soviet Communism, wander around the country asking people phrase 'We
now obvious to all, has rendered apologies of various classes the question of Nekrasov's as a result c
of this sort unnecessary. masterpiece, Who is happy in Russia? They and on the
are "told tales of extraordinary moral tion to he
EDWARD COLE achievements, heroism, and crime and the womanwa
poem ends on a note of joyful confidence in to stay at h
the future of the people with the help of the and childn
new democratic intelligentsia" (Mirsky, 231). clean hom
Mirsky's description of Nekrasov's poem nice clothe
could also apply to Francine du Plessix Even the

82 Grand Valley Review