Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 by Timothy Johnston Read Free Book Online Page A

238–81; S. B. Graham, ‘A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot’ PhD thesis, Pittsburgh University, (2003).
78 Holquist, ‘“Information is the Alpha”’, 415–16.
xxxvi Being Soviet
peculiarity of the Soviet system itself. By propagating an authoritative narrative, the Soviet state made all rumour intrinsically non-authoritative, or ‘unofficial’. This is not to suggest that the two rhetorical worlds, the unofficial world of rumour and the official world of the Soviet press, were entirely separate from one another. They intersected with, and even referred directly to, one another. The contents of the official press were clearly, on occasion, intended to suppress ideas and stories that were circulating within the word-of-mouth network. 79 The contents of the informal rumour matrix were also deeply influenced by the rhetoric and categories of the official press. 80 The two arenas were distinct by virtue of the source from which the information flowed, rather than the kinds of language and ideas which circulated within them.
Rumouring was an extremely widespread phenomenon in the Stalin- era Soviet Union. The prominence of rumouring within Soviet life was first pointed to by the researchers of the Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System (HIP) in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Project’s authors conducted 329 interviews and 2,725 questionnaires amongst Soviet e ´ migre ´ s in West Germany and the United States. 81 One section of the interviews was devoted to ‘Communication’. In the first question, the respondents were asked about sources of information in a general manner. Soviet newspapers were referred to by 85 per cent, whilst both radio and ‘word-of-mouth’ were mentioned by 47 per cent of the respondents. 82 When asked, in the next question, which sources were most important to them, 36 per cent said newspapers, 28 per cent said ‘word of mouth’, and only 10 per cent said radio. 83 When asked which source they considered most reliable, 61 per cent cited oral information, and only 13 per cent newspapers. 84 The researchers of
     
     
     
79 See Stalin’s comments to King in late May 1943 which were clearly intended, in part, to address rumours circulating about the Comintern: Pravda , 30.05.1943, p. 1. For the capacity of ‘folk’ images to shape official narratives, see: S. M. Norris, A War of Images: Russian Popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity 1812–1945 (DeKalb, 2006).
80 See: Johnston, ‘Subversive Tales’, 71–2.
81 The main findings are summarized in: Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen and Bauer, Inkeles, and Kluckhohn, How the Soviet System Works .
82 Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System, Henceforth HIP. ‘Code
Book A’, (Unpublished, Davis Centre Library, Harvard University), 57. The percentages relate to a total of 329 cases: 276 in Munich, 53 in New York.
83 HIP. ‘Code Book A’, 57–8.
84 HIP. ‘Code Book A’ , 80.
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HIP concluded that rumouring was a peculiarly prominent feature of life in the Stalin-era USSR. 85
This oral information was transmitted along informal networks of close friends and family. When asked who told them rumours, 28 per cent of the interviewees cited family and 77 per cent friends. 86 As one respondent explained: ‘ . . . people simply soaked up these unofficial rumours. People who heard it would tell it to others and they would tell it again to others and it increased in a geometric progression.’ 87 The study of rumours offers important insights into the social networks that traversed Soviet society. 88
Respondents to HIP described the process of rumouring in the USSR in a manner that illustrates the process of bricolage in action. Rumours supplemented, rather than replaced, the contents of the official press. Some respondents to HIP claimed that rumours were more reliable; others claimed that the official press was a better source of information.
The Soviet papers