Stalinism, Boyars and the Russian Tradition

Abstract

The author of this review engages in controversy not only with the book by J. Arch Getty, but also with the representatives of this trend in historiography, both western and eastern. Undoubtedly, there are a number of archaic traditions in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia as far as their political, economic and cultural foundations are concerned, especially in comparison with the Western countries. Without some definition and studying of these traditions one could not understand a peculiarity of the Russian political system. Here the author of the review agrees with the book. But it is important to define what archaic tradition is and what we are studying. J. Arch Getty and some specialists in Political Science try to find those traditions in so called ‘political practices’. They affirm that such traditions are as old as the hills. It is this approach that causes disagreement. In the reviewer’s opinion, nothing changes in the Russian history but the ‘political practice’, which really can be transformed. Having said that, we must show what this ‘nothing’ is. Although the Russian history is indivisible, it consists of some epochs which are different from one another. What hasn’t undergone changes is the state-serfdom Russian order which took shape in the middle of the 17th century and exists nowadays. In his review the author criticizes some cliché of Political Science. Such magic clues for Russian history as ‘patrimonialism’ and the ‘patron-client relations’ cause doubts. As far as the former is concerned, it is so vague that can be applicable to anything. For this reason it is not very harmful to the study of Russia. But one can’t say so about the latter. Being adopted by History from Anthropology, this theory has been very popular among some Russian and foreign historians. The author once more stresses the significance of anthropological data and their role in the historical research. But some anthropological data taken from their historical and cultural context may have a detrimental impact on scholarship. The author does not want to accuse Getty because he is a talented and diligent scholar, and his great desire to understand contemporary Russian history evokes only sympathy. But we have to take into account the historical approach, in other words, historicism, otherwise we can distort the historical perspective.