1 <ONLINE MODERN HISTORY REVIEW> September 1993
2
3 Review of Books
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5
6
7 ANNA LARINA. <This I Cannot Forget, The Memoirs of Nikolai
8 Bukharin's Widow>. Introduction by Stephen F. Cohen. Translation
9 by Gary Kern. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.
10 ISBN 0-393-03025-3.
11
12 Reviewed by: Dmitry Shlapentokh
13 Indiana University at South Bend
14
15
16 This book is written by an important personality and, more
17 importantly, written about one of the leading figures in Soviet
18 history. Indeed, Nikolai Bukharin was more than a leading
19 Bolshevik: As American historian Stephen F. Cohen, the author of
20 the book's introduction, had discovered, Bukharin was the
21 alternative to Stalin. Cohen, in his own well known book on
22 Bukharin, portrayed him not only as an alternative to the
23 gruesome brutality of Stalin, but also as man who desired to
24 build 'socialism with a human face.' In a more broad historical
25 context, Mikhail Gorbachev considered himself to be Bukharin's
26 political heir and received Cohen warmly during his visit to the
27 U.S.S.R. As this book is written by Bukharin's wife and provides
28 a personal account of the events, one reads it with a certain
29 anticipation. Yet, despite such marvelous credentials, the book
30 is of little interest to historians, or to be more precise the
31 contemporary historian.
32
33 The major problem with the book is that Larina fails to
34 provide any new information. Historians in the West, and now in
35 the East as well, have long known that Stalin was a cruel and
36 vindictive man who loved to play cat and mouse games with his
37 victims, that the camps were awful, and that the Soviet terror,
38 following the blueprint of the French Revolution, consumed its
39 initiators. And this was the case with Bukharin's murderer, Ezhov,
40 who was subsequently consumed in another purge. Though all of
41 this is true, it has been written about so many times that it has
42 become merely a platitude, a sort of historical trivia. Larina's
43 elaboration on the nature of the well know letter Bukharin wrote
44 describing the awful conditions in the country on the eve of his
45 arrest is also not of much interest. Whether Bukharin was
46 actually the author of the letter or if was forged by Mensheviks
47 to discredit him does not matter much. The only interesting
48 episode in the presentation of the monstrosities of the regime
49 was the portrait of Beria, who interrogated Larina and displayed
50 some kindness to her, at least his present of fruit to her might
51 be interpreted in this way. It is quite possible, however, that
52 this good treatment might have been encouraged from above or,
53 merely, was a technique which Beria employed to gain a confession
54 from Larina. Of course, it is indeed possible that Beria was
55 charmed by Larina (pp. 188-189).
56
57 Besides providing little new information about the dark side
58 of the regime and its protagonists, the book also fails to
59 provide much new information about the people to whom Larina was
60 positively inclined. This is especially the case with Bukharin
61 whose idealization is understandable for various reasons. After
62 all, Larina is writing about her husband with whom she was really
63 in love, a man brutally murdered by a tyrant. According to her
64 account, he exhibited talents in various fields (Larina
65 elaborates on his love for painting), seemed to love life and was
66 good-natured. Finally, he served both for Larina and an array of
67 politicians, ranging from Western and Soviet liberals, as not
68 merely a better alternative to Stalin's Russia but rather as the
69 would be leader of a semi-ideal society. This is certainly the
70 reason why Bukharin is described by Larina almost like a Christ
71 figure. She directly compares him with Christ: 'In the upper
72 corner of my cell, just beneath the ceiling, I would see a
73 tortured Bukharin crucified on the cross, as on Golgotha. A
74 black crow pecked at the martyr's bloody, lifeless body' (p.
75 103).
76
77 Yet available facts show that from a moral point of view
78 confrontations between Stalin and his major rivals, Bukharin
79 included, were clearly simplistic. Stalin was merely eliminating
80 the competition. And though it is certain that things are not
81 quite so simplistic in the cases where the sadistically
82 Machiavellian Stalin eliminated some rather nice chaps, what
83 cannot be certain is that Bukharin can be numbered among them.
84 It is well known (and Larina should have been aware of this) that
85 Bukharin, in one of his comments on Esenin's poetry (Sergei
86 Esenin was one of the best known Russian poets), made a cruel
87 joke about the czar's daughters. Bukharin condoned their
88 execution, saying that they had become rather useless to the
89 country. While these utterances, made long after the actual
90 execution, could be explained as a slippage of Bukharin's pen
91 (indeed no one can be safe from such mishaps and Bukharin might
92 have been carried away for a moment), some of his other actions
93 can hardly be understood if we accept Larina's icon-like image of
94 him.
95
96 The Shakhty trial of a group of engineers accused of
97 sabotage might serve as an example. The trial, one of several
98 during the late 1920's, was a grand rehearsal for the Great
99 Purges of the 1930's which would consume Bukharin along with many
100 others. It received wide publicity and was discussed at the very
101 top; besides being a rehearsal for the purges that would follow,
102 the Shakhty trial had another important similarity to the trials
103 of the 1930's. Bukharin, at the time a powerful member of the
104 ruling elite, definitely had a chance to investigate the matter
105 thoroughly, especially as the lives of the accused were at stake
106 and it was certain that similar types of arrests would follow in
107 the future. But Bukharin made no effort in this direction and
108 even insisted on the toughest punishment for the accused, the
109 death penalty.
110
111 Moreover, when the terror started to devour the
112 representatives of the Left Opposition, Bukharin expressed utmost
113 joy at the news that these people were to be executed. Larina
114 touches on this matter in only a cursory fashion, stating that
115 Bukharin 'felt unbelievable rancor toward "the slanders" Zinoviev
116 and Kamenev, but definitely not toward Stalin. His hatred of
117 these two, especially Kamenev, had deep roots, as should be
118 obvious from what I have recounted about them earlier' (p. 285).
119 The only excuse could be that Zinoviev was a disgusting person
120 with sadistic proclivities which he had ample opportunity to
121 display during his rule over Petrograd at the time of the Reign
122 of Terror during the Civil War.
123
124 Contemporary historians, then, will hardly find any new
125 facts in Larina's narration, which, as can be expected from
126 pieces of this sort, is quite biased. In fact, the book is not
127 so much as a memoir as a litany. It is another piece of the myth
128 about Bukharin that Gorbachev wished to create to legitimize his
129 reforms. Yet, though the book is useless to contemporary
130 researchers, it might become quite important for those who follow
131 in the future.
132
133 Gorbachev, who had aimed to rejuvenate the regime with the
134 force of his powerful charisma and the resurrection of Bukharin
135 from the gutter grave infamy, was chosen by the whim of history
136 as one of those who buried socialism. Today, the grave of
137 socialism is still fresh and this is the reason that figures from
138 Soviet history have ceased to be of interest to post-Soviet
139 citizens. The interest in Soviet history in the West also does
140 not match the interest shown during the time of Gorbachev's
141 reforms. This will definitely change in the future.
142
143 Over the course of time, socialism will be transformed. It
144 will be carved in the history of humanity, both in the West and
145 the East, as a distinct and fascinating period of history. It
146 will enjoy a new birth in Russia, or the state which follows it,
147 as Russians discover that capitalism is far from being as
148 glamorous as they thought. As the decline of the Russian state
149 progresses even further, they will look back with nostalgia at
150 the past imperial glory. And at this very moment the history of
151 the Socialist state will reemerge in all of its mythological
152 glory, in the same fashion as the Roman Empire or the medieval
153 church, for it will be detached from political reality. In such
154 a mythological capacity, Soviet history might be seen as the
155 period which provides the people with a guide to a better future
156 (of course, the future as resurrected past will be in sharp
157 contrast with the ideology of Soviet communism which looked only
158 toward the future). Such a movement will also console those
159 Russian nationalists who, looking at the past, will find symbols
160 of the greatness of their country.
161
162 In such a situation, what will be required from history is
163 not so much as definite information, but rather a certain spirit
164 or examples to follow. They will not need real historical
165 personalities who, as all humans, are imperfect, but hero-type
166 icons. They will need people who forsook personal gain,
167 suffering and even death for the sake of the cause. And these
168 sort of images one can find easily in Larina's book. Bukharin
169 was fully absorbed with the cause (i.e. the victory of socialism
170 was indistinguishable in his mind with the preservation of the
171 U.S.S.R). In his last letter to his young wife, who he loved
172 passionately, he wrote that the preservation of the U.S.S.R. was
173 his major consolation in the case of his imminent death.
174 Approaching his death at the hand of the Secret Police of the
175 Soviet state, he asked his wife to bring up his son as a real
176 Bolshevik. With a plea as passionate as the final remission of
177 sin by a medieval priest, he also asked her to proclaim his
178 message to the future generation of party leaders. Having made
179 an appropriate distinction between the Bolsheviks in their early
180 years and the present 'infernal machine' that was about to engulf
181 him, he hailed the future generation of liberated mankind: 'Know,
182 comrades, that the banner you bear in triumphant march toward
183 communism contains a drop of my blood, too!' (p. 345).
184
185 The behaviour of the other protagonists in the book (e.g.
186 Larina's father) is drawn in a similar fashion: the same deep
187 internalization of doctrine and the search for a deep existential
188 meaning for their participation in the events. These emotional,
189 quasi-religious elements in the book are the most striking and
190 interesting part of the narrative. And, while of hardly any use
191 to the contemporary historian, they are waiting for their future
192 thankful readers to be read not so much as historical narrative,
193 but as the recounting of the lives of saints and as inspiring
194 examples of what to live for.
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