Soviet Nonconformist Movement: Historical and Rhetorical Context

Colin Potter

Dr. Stephanie Brown

ENGL 306

Historical and Rhetorical Context Drafts

Historical Context

            Amid the oppression and, at times, chaos of the Soviet Union after Stalin, the Soviet Nonconformist movement emerged and asserted personality, culture, and voiced dissent within this authoritarian regime. This movement is unique in many ways, containing mediums such as art, literature (through the samizdat), music, and photography. But perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the nonconformist movement is how the repression and authoritarianism in the USSR acted to simultaneously stamp out dissidents in the movement, yet served to create dissent and movement itself in the process. Nonconformist dissent began around the 1950’s after Stalin and WWII and ended with the fall of the Soviet Union, emphasizing the fact that the movement itself depended on the existence of the forces trying to oppress it (Sabbatini, 337). In this section, I intend to analyze the historical events and policies leading up to and during the Soviet nonconformist movement, exploring the conditions underlying its beginnings and its evolution from the ‘50s to the early ‘80s.

            The Soviet Union was established in December of 1922, following a series of Russian military conquests and quelled rebellions, when multiple Soviet governments approved the creation of the USSR (Pipes, 299). Only a few years after the establishment of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin died before he could make many of the theories he was known for into well-established policy. His death left a hole which Josef Stalin quickly filled. Stalin’s policies are important for the culture and policy in the Soviet Union from the time he took power until after WWII when he died in 1953. However, the terror, Stalin’s cult of personality, and the atrocities for which he is known were not necessarily responsible for the nonconformist movement itself, which began in the 1950’s post-Stalin. It was the contrast between Stalin’s authoritarianism and the policies of his successors, Nikita Khrushchev (who led from 1953-1964) and Leonid Brezhnev (from 1964-1982), that are really important for beginning and continuing nonconformist dissent in the USSR (Wyszomirski, 48-49).

            Compared to the Stalin-era policy of the USSR, the Khrushchev period was, according to Barghoorn, was a period of “relative leniency,” (132). It’s not that Khrushchev was a saint, lifting the force of oppression from Soviet peoples and imposing lenient policy. Policy implementation by officials under Khrushchev showed a drastic change from Stalin’s policies, and this change is often referred to as de-Stalinization (Wyszomirski, 48). Khrushchev’s de-Stalinaization campaign led to release of slave labor victims, to legal reforms, the reduction of the use of terror, and even to the loosening of boundaries to expression and conduct (Barghoorn, 132). This is not to say there was no repression. Between persecution of various peoples and the regulation of photography and other forms of media, there was plenty of systematic repression under Khrushchev (Neumaier, 55). But compared to what Stalin had implemented, Khrushchev’s policies seem almost progressive. It was within this environment that intelligentsia, people in the USSR who are educated and intellectual and who often are the thinkers behind many kinds of cultural expression, felt more confident expressing dissent, both underground, unsanctioned dissent and overt, public dissent (Barghoorn, 136). The literary journal, Novy Mir, went so far as to begin publishing small critiques of Soviet government, which then evolved into bolder and more challenging dissent of the USSR. Referred to as “permitted dissent,” this is an example of the relative leniency of Khrushchev when compared to Stalin and even Khrushchev’s successors. Khrushchev’s form of oppression was often under the guise of unification, enforcing policies that led to the suppression of local cultures and the forced teaching and adoption of a true “Soviet” culture as nations were supposed to be merged into one Soviet Union (Fowkes, 72). This period fairly quickly led to the rise of the nonconformist literature, photography, and art (Sabbatini, 337; Neumaier, 47; Graffy, 114), and shows how oppression serves to generate the expression of dissent, providing that such dissent isn’t too severely punished.

            Following the overthrow of Khrushchev from power in 1964, Leonid Brezhnev became the leader of the Soviet Union. In many ways, this marked an end to the de-Stalinization of the Khrushchev period and the beginning of a much more authoritarian state (Barghoorn, 138). While Khrushchev allowed the expression of dissent in those he considered loyal to the USSR, Brezhnev attempted to stamp out dissent, arresting protestors and especially targeting those suspected of being a part of nonconformist art and literature, and even going so far as to re-implement selective terror against dissenters, particularly artists (Wyszomirski, 58). In an attempt to down-play this oppression, officials under Brezhnev often convicted dissenters of ordinary, non-political crimes, effectively reducing the visibility of dissent and preventing others from joining movements such as the nonconformist movement (Fowkes, 75). Above-ground movements that may have at least been tolerated under Krushchev, such as the Ukranian dissident movement, were driven underground by targeted repression during Brezhnev era. Brezhnev also took a very active approach to equalization across the Soviet Union, a policy that often meant Russification at the expense of the local cultures in different areas of the USSR (Fowkes, 75). All of this created an environment where any culture that was not Soviet was repressed, and public dissent was severely punished and made seemingly no impact on the state of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. Brezhnev’s policies were able to stave off the fall of the Soviet Union for a little while, but less than a decade after Brezhnev, the USSR collapsed.

            The Soviet nonconformist movement was, at its core, a response to the repression of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, that became a complex cultural phenomena that impacted the lives of citizens and Soviet policy itself (Komaromi, 598). It was a movement of intelligentsia throughout the USSR whose goal was to reinstate and maintain unofficial culture, speech, and expression in a society intolerant of it and trying to stamp it out. As I move forward with the exploration of this movement, I will primarily be focusing on how the identities of these intelligentsia and nonconformist members are related to the content and execution of nonconformist practices, and how this in turn affected the culture of the Soviet Union itself. Because of the unconventional nature of this protest (i.e. it is underground, not centrally organized, and its purpose of defiance rather than to push for change), it doesn’t fit cleanly into the stages of protest defined by Griffin. The stage of the nonconformist movement I will be investigating here is when the nonconformist movement existed to oppose the censorship and repression of the Soviet Union by providing a medium and an audience for dissident speech. This most closely relates to Griffin’s moment of inception, because over this long period where the many actors and works contributed to define the movement and the identities of those involved.

Rhetorical Context

            The Soviet nonconformist movement was, in essence, a movement of rhetoric, from visual to musical to written and spoken. Rhetoric that was, at once, defined by the intelligentsia and consumers of nonconformist works, and by the Soviet State itself. The USSR dictated, through the policies of its leaders and officials, what would and would not be considered acceptable language, thus defining what rhetoric would be itself nonconformist and therefore need to be a part of the movement to be distributed or spoken. This intimate relationship between the policies of leaders like Khrushchev and Brezhnev, as I’ve previously examined, and the nonconformist movement is at the core of the rhetorical context of this particular movement.

            One of things to consider when looking at the effect of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev period on the rhetoric of the nonconformist movement is the concept of “official” rhetoric. I’ve used this previously, but it is important to define it moving forwards. “Official” rhetoric is specifically government sanctioned rhetoric. It includes literature, news, art, photographs, music, propaganda, and any other physical way of disseminating information or meaning (Hoptman, 37-52). Anything that is not approved by the ruling government in the Soviet Union during this time is therefore considered “unofficial,” and it is this label that defines works of the nonconformist movement. Nonconformist literature, art, music, and photographs, all key aspects of the Soviet nonconformist message and identity, would be considered “unofficial.” This is an important distinction to make moving forward as we analyze how Soviet policies affected the nonconformist movement, and vice versa.

            Under Khrushchev, citizens in the USSR experienced a time of relative leniency, sometimes referred to as the “Thaw” (Barghoorn, 132; Sandle, 139). This led to a corresponding increase in the acceptability of unofficial language in Soviet Society. Publications like Novy Mir were not government sanctioned, yet they were still tolerated, if only barely, under Khruschev, and so were unofficial because they weren’t controlled by the regime. This kind of “permitted dissent” is an example of a tolerance of unofficial language under Khrushchev, which emboldened intelligentsia to begin publishing underground literary works in the beginning of the Soviet samizdat, or self-publishing, nonconformist movement in the Leningrad undergroiund in the 1950’s (Dolinin, 166). Khrushchev brought intelligentsia throughout the Soviet Union outside the ruling party to determine laws and policy, allowing them to discuss controversial topics in relative security (Sandle, 141). This allowed intelligentsia, because of Khrushchev’s policies, to breathe life back into previously dead intellectual conversation after Stalin and begin to approach unofficial topics again. Khrushchev’s policies that attempted to merge all the nationalities of the Soviet Union into one Soviet culture resulted in the restriction of cultural autonomy (Fowkes, 75). This resulted in much of accepted culture in non-Russian provinces in the USSR being labeled as unofficial culture, and this unofficial culture contrasted with the official mandated Soviet culture.

Yet, there was still the issue of how to disseminate this underground culture and nonconformist work. Writers solved this by self-publishing works in the samizdat, often writing books and poems by hand once or twice and distributing these works among trusted individuals (Komaromi, 599). Artists converted apartments into temporary galleries to display art to groups of people and visitors, and an Estonian couple was able to maintain their culture in this way despite USSR repression (Troncale, 32; Kurg, 45). Music was played at unofficial venues where patrons could experience unofficial music in secret (Schmelz, 181). All of these methods created safe spaces, locations or mediums within which freedom of speech and expression could be practiced in relative safety underground. In this way, the policy of the USSR in the Khrushchev period played an important role in the beginning of the Soviet nonconformist movement, in defining its rhetoric as anything outside the scope of official rhetoric and permitted dissent, in the revival of Soviet intelligentsia and ideological diversity, and in the mediums of dissemination of nonconformist rhetoric.

            Brezhnev likewise played a key role in the evolution of nonconformist rhetoric, and again it was through his policies that this rhetorical evolution occurred. His no-tolerance policy towards all forms of dissent, particularly nonconformist dissent, quickly changed what would be considered official and unofficial rhetoric (Barghoorn, 138). Official rhetoric was narrowed to include only works that expressed positive, sanctioned views of the USSR government, meaning that even small amounts of dissent, like those that were tolerated under Khrushchev, became labeled as unofficial. Dissent was no longer permitted under Brezhnev, possibly due to his insecurity, but the result of this was that, with the nonconformist movement already established and more unofficial rhetoric than under Khrushchev, the nonconformist movement continued to produce dissident works and activity (Barghoorn, 160; Sandle, 150). Brezhnev’s policy on the intense Russification of some countries in the USSR, even if others were spared, created a similar situation as Khrushchev’s merging policies (Fowkes, 75). With many cultures forced to go underground, citizens in Eastern Europe especially began to participate in the nonconformist movement as a way to maintain their own culture in the face of Brezhnev’s repression.

            Recognizing that Soviet policy has an effect on official and unofficial rhetoric and on the nonconformist movement itself is important, particularly when looking at the distribution of ideologies within the nonconformist movement. Acts of a nonconformist nature, particularly under Brezhnev, ranged from overt and at times public dissent to simply passive obedience (Sandle, 144). While dissent was punished, severely under Brezhnev and comparatively leniently under Khrushchev, and passive obedience was tolerated by both regimes, it is the area in between that is particularly of interest. It’s the underground nonconformist movement, not overt dissent yet unregulated, unofficial thinking and culture that permeated and spread over much of Soviet society at the time (Komaromi, 614). Under Brezhnev, attitudes towards intelligentsia gradually began to become more negative, especially for artists of the time (Fowkes, 144). The approach of many intelligentsia of the nonconformist movement was to express little dissent in public, but then express dissent in havens, either like one’s I’ve previously discussed or through closed lectures and salons in the privacy of institutions, maintaining an exchange and expression of ideas without being outspoken dissent (Fowkes, 153). The result of all this is that, while intellectual life and Soviet society appeared to be homogenous, conformist, unified under repression, even grey on the surface, beneath that surface in the privacy of safe spaces Soviet society was heterogeneous, creative, expressive, highly intellectual, and colorful and diverse.

            As I continue to investigate the nonconformist movement, I will begin investigating the effects of nonconformist identity. While the nonconformist movement includes anyone who created or even consumed nonconformist art, literature, music, or photography, as I move on I will not be focusing on this broad of an identity. Specifically, it is the intelligentsia, those at the forefront of the movement that I am going to investigate. The intelligentsia were the artists, writers, and unofficial journalists of the nonconformist movement. They worked to create, think, consume, and speak independently of the official Soviet culture and the government, so it is this identity that is of particular importance to me as I analyze the nonconformist movement. These people often wrote and drew about each other, portraying and reacting to ideas of other nonconformist intelligentsia as a way to debate and depict culture (Komaroni, 601; Graffy, 114). Intelligentsia at the time rejected the official, socialist doctrine and official aesthetics under both Khrushchev and Brezhnev (Dolinin, 170). They considered themselves part of a world stage and a global culture, and so rejected the repression imposed by the Soviet Union through the nonconformist movement. It is the intelligentsia that contributed to and developed the nonconformist movement as it spread across the Soviet Union, and the body of unofficial literature, art, and photography produced in the movement was produced by intelligentsia writers and artists. This identity assumed the most risk by partaking in the Soviet nonconformist movement, and they are especially important moving forward with examining how they directed the nonconformist movement and influenced Soviet culture from the 1950’s to the early 1980’s.

1.      How easy is it to understand which identity I’m covering and how they relate historically and rhetorically to the nonconformist movement?

2.      Are the connections between political policy and rhetorical context clear?

3.      Does everything have a logical flow to it that is easy to follow, especially during the more complex parts?

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