A Review of Sheila Fitzpatrick's "Everyday Stalinism - Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times"

Sheila Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism was written with the purpose of demonstrating what life was like for ordinary people living in urban Russia during the 1930s and it certainly accomplishes its aim. Fitzpatrick provides a clear and detailed picture of the tumultuous decade and she does so in a format that is accessible to both the historical community and the public alike. The focus on the everyday lives of the masses of Russians as opposed to the political careers of Soviet leaders is refreshing and enlightening. Fitzpatrick consulted a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including some only recently made available to historians, and while her book does not call into question the generally accepted view of the Stalinist period it is surely the most complete and authoritative account given thus far.Everyday Stalinism was written from the perspective of a Westerner with an obvious bias against the Bolshevik Party. In commenting upon the origins of Stalinism in he
r introduction, Fitzpatrick makes no differentiation between the original Bolsheviks and the Stalinists. She speaks only of 'the regime' as if there were no change whatsoever in the composition, political direction or leadership of the Bolshevik Party from the time of the October Revolution in 1917. Fitzpatrick displays a very negative attitude towards both the Revolution and the Bolshevik Party, claiming that from the very beginning in 1917 'the regime, committed to social, cultural, and economic transformation, rammed through radical changes regardless of the human cost, and despised those who wanted to rest from the revolutionary struggle'.Fitzpatrick uses the term 'Stalin's Revolution' to describe the period of time during which Stalin came to power in the Bolshevik Party. While giving no information as to the causes of this Revolution, she describes it as a 'transition' that was 'violent, destructive and utopian'. She notes that 'this revolution was largely the result o
f state initiative, not popular movements, and it did not result in a change of political leadership'. However, Fitzpatrick mentions that the Left and Right Oppositions both had to be defeated in order for Stalin to take power. Surely, Fitzpatrick must acknowledge that a change of political leadership of the Bolshevik Party did take place, even if a change of leadership of the Soviet state did not. That she does not acknowledge that any such change took place within the Bolshevik Party demonstrates to the reader that Fitzpatrick equates Marxist-Leninism (the original guiding theory of the Bolshevik Party) with Stalinism. Indeed, she uses the terms interchangeably throughout her text.Happily, while Fitzpatrick gives an incomplete and inaccurate account of the origins of Stalinism, this does not prevent the reader from gaining from her text a good understanding of the nature of the 1930s themselves. While there are different theories on how to write a history of everyday life,
ranging from concentration solely on the private sphere, the public sphere or on resistance to the regime, Fitzpatrick chose to define 'everyday' as 'interaction that in some way involved the state'. Thus, her book covers such wide ranging themes as 'shopping, traveling, celebrating, telling jokes, finding an apartment, getting an education, securing a job, advancing one's career, cultivating patrons and connections, marrying and rearing children, writing complaints and denunciations, voting, and trying to steer clear of the secret police'.Victor Rosenberg finds it significant that Fitzpatrick 'sees the Great Purges as having been less troubling to ordinary workers than the hunger of the early 1930s and the tightening of the labour discipline via laws of 1938 and 1940'. Jeremy Black and John Clayton also find it 'surprising' that Fitzpatrick believes the purges 'did not have a huge impact'. Indeed, the premise of Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism seems to be that the lives o
f urban Russians were affected firstly by the material shortages of the decade, and only secondly by the pervasiveness of the Stalinist state itself.Certainly, the reader can be confident of the truth of this conclusion, secure in the knowledge that Fitzpatrick's text was researched meticulously and extensively over a ten-year period. Everyday Stalinism was written only after Fitzpatrick had consulted copious Russian archives, including several diaries only recently made available, and secondary sources in the form of newspapers, magazines, monographs, journals and dissertations. Fitzpatrick has especially drawn upon dissertations written by her own students at the University of Chicago.Significantly, as Heather Coleman notes, Fitzpatrick's 'best source for the actual feelings and attitudes of individual urban-dwellers' was the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System. Conducted in 1950-51, the Harvard Project was the first comprehensive Western study of Stalinist Russia.
Gene Sosin, a member of the Harvard team, explains that 'the purpose of the Project was to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the USSR by interviewing displaced persons. A representative sample was selected from the thousands of refugees who remained in the West after World War II,' and these individuals were interviewed by the group of American specialists in Munich, West Germany. Coleman notes that the use of the Harvard Project allows Fitzpatrick to include many 'personal examples, jokes and colourful details' that make for 'engaging reading'.The only sincerely disappointing aspect of Fitzpatrick's text is her failure to include a chapter on the experience of urban Russians in the workforce. She justifies her decision claiming that she is 'interested in the experiences and practices that were common to the urban population as a whole, not just parts of it'. However, as Jeffrey Rossman notes 'if she had applied that standard consistently, she would have published a mu
ch shorter book, since most of the chapters here focus, in fact, on one or another subset of urban society (e.g., the elite, the disfranchised, women)'. The success of the Five-Year Plans depended on drawing millions of peasants and women into the workforce for the first time, particularly in the area of heavy industry. As such, the 1930s was a period when well over half of the urban population was employed. Given this situation, as Rossman correctly points out, Fitzpatrick's 'lack of attention to the work environment is puzzling'.As Sheila Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism can only be criticised seriously for what she leaves out, the text is clearly an overall success. It provides the reader with a full and detailed description of what everyday life was really like for the majority of urban Russians during the 1930s, and it does so in a narrative that is enjoyable to read. Rossman is certainly correct in his declaration that Everyday Stalinism 'deserves a wide audience'. The
book is a decisive demonstration of why Fitzpatrick is known as 'the leading social historian of Stalinism'.(This article is a review of Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s, Oxford, 1999.)

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