The present thesis looks at the Soviet economy in the 1940s-1960s period. It specifically focuses on the influence of economic policy and thought developed in the late 1940s on the post-Stalinist era. The thesis' aim is to prove that several key elements of 1950s-1960s economic reforms had already been conceptualised, proposed or implemented during the Stalinist period. The pillars of this 1940s-1960s reforming continuity which the research deals with are khozraschet, economic levers (profit, value, market, prices, credit, bonuses), perspective planning, the balance of the national economy method, as well as the debates concerning the law of value and the repeated attempts at drawing up a General Plan and at drafting a new Party Programme. The key figure this thesis focuses on is N.A. Voznesensky, top Soviet planner in 1939-1949. In the late 1930s he revived practices and methods discontinued after 1928, while under his aegis, policies and debates that later influenced post-Stalinist reforms were developed in the late 1940s. The thesis relies on primary evidence gathered at four Russian state archives (RGAE, GARF, ARAN, RGASPI) and on research carried out at British, Russian, Italian and German libraries.

In the annals of Soviet historiography, discord and rebellion mark the cultural form of the Khrushchev Thaw. Following the U.S.S.R.s loss of its Great Leader in 1953, a diffusion of political authority met a re-evaluation of established ideology; the dominant discourse of Soviet socialism shifted and, through the subsequent clash of orthodox and liberal forces, imparted a critical aesthetic to 1950s Soviet culture. But while the narrative of dissonance privileged by most historical texts cites the sharpness of post-Stalinist art, poetry, and literature as external evidence of a struggle, little attention has been paid to the internal logic of cultural production. Soviet cultural communication based itself on a mutual mythology that pursued both a dialogue of inclusivity and a sense of accountability. By re-examining how producers of culture managed their responsibilities to the state, to the public, and to their art against the Soviet ideal of the collective and its discourse of comradely persuasion, this thesis pursues the expression of Soviet thought by way of Soviet ideology in the malleable discourse of 1953-1958. / Graduate / 0582 / 0724

In the annals of Soviet historiography, discord and rebellion mark the cultural form of the “Khrushchev Thaw.” Following the U.S.S.R.’s loss of its Great Leader in 1953, a diffusion of political authority met a re-evaluation of established ideology; the dominant discourse of Soviet socialism shifted and, through the subsequent clash of orthodox and liberal forces, imparted a critical aesthetic to 1950s Soviet culture. But while the narrative of dissonance privileged by most historical texts cites the sharpness of post-Stalinist art, poetry, and literature as external evidence of a struggle, little attention has been paid to the internal logic of cultural production. Soviet cultural communication based itself on a mutual mythology that pursued both a dialogue of inclusivity and a sense of accountability. By re-examining how producers of culture managed their responsibilities to the state, to the public, and to their art against the Soviet ideal of the collective and its discourse of comradely persuasion, this thesis pursues the expression of Soviet thought by way of Soviet ideology in the malleable discourse of 1953-1958. / Graduate / 0582 / 0724

In this thesis, the records of the Menshevik ” Martov Club” for the years 1931–1932 are exploredthrough a microhistorical approach. These records are analyzed using the conceptual lens ofdesire and the self. Through this analysis, it becomes clear that the Menshevik ”self” experiencedan identity crisis in these year that was the result of sharply contested ideas around the nature ofthe social revolution and the historical role of the Bolshevik revolution. Debates around historyand the interpretation of the present were synthesized into prescriptions for political action thatcould not be reconciled, resulting in an analysis paralysis.

abstract: This dissertation explores how rank-and-file political prisoners navigated life after release and how they translated their experiences in the Gulag and after into memoirs, letters, and art. I argue that these autobiographical narratives formed the basis of an alternate history of the Soviet Union. This alternate history informed the cultural memory of the Gulag in the Komi Republic, which coalesced over the course of the late 1980s and 1990s into an infrastructure of memory. This alternate history was mobilized by the formation of the Soviet Union’s first civic organizations, such as the Memorial Society, that emerged in the late 1980s. However, Gulag returnees not only joined post-Soviet civil society, they also formed a nascent civil society after their release in the 1950s. The social networks and informal associations that Gulag returnees relied upon to reintegrate back into Soviet society after release, also played an essential role in the memory project of coming to terms with the Stalinist past after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As one of the first and most populous epicenters of the Gulag archipelago located in the Far North, from 1929-1958 Komi saw hundreds of thousands of prisoners, in addition to hundreds of thousands more who were exiled to the region from all over the Soviet Union. While some left the region after they were released, many were not able to leave or chose not to when given the choice. Regardless of where they lived when the Soviet Union collapsed, many former prisoners sent their autobiographies to branches of the Memorial Society and local history museums in Komi. For many, this was the very first time they had shared their stories with anyone. While Komi is unique in many ways, it is emblematic of processes that unfolded throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the Twentieth Century. This project expands our understanding of how civil societies form under conditions of authoritarian rule and illuminates the ways in which survivors and societies come to terms with difficult pasts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2019

abstract: This dissertation discusses children and childhood in Soviet Kazakhstan from 1928 to 1953. By exploring images of, and for, children, and by focusing on children’s fates during and after the famine of 1930-33, I argue that the regime’s success in making children socialist subjects and creating the new Soviet person was questionable throughout the 1930s. The reach of Soviet ideological and cultural policies was limited in a decade defined by all kinds of shortcomings in the periphery which was accompanied by massive violence and destruction. World War 2 mobilized Central Asians and integrated the masses into the Soviet social and political body. The war transformed state-society relations and the meaning of being Soviet fundamentally changed. In this way, larger segments of society embraced the framework for Soviet citizenship and Soviet patriotism largely thanks to the war experience. This approach invites us to reconsider the nature of Sovietization in Central Asia by questioning the central role of ideology and cultural revolution in the formation of Soviet identities. My dissertation brings together images of childhood, everyday experiences of children and memory of childhood. On the one hand, the focus on children provides me an opportunity to discuss Sovietization in Central Asia. On the other hand, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of Soviet childhood: it is the first comprehensive study of Soviet children in the periphery in English. It shows how images and discourses, which were produced in the Soviet center, were translated into the local context and emphasizes the multiplicity of children’s experiences across the Soviet Union. Local conditions defined the meaning of childhood in Kazakhstan as much as central visions. Studying children in a non-Russian republic allows me to discuss questions of ideology, cultural revolution and the nationalities question. A main goal of the dissertation is to shift the focus of Sovietization from the cultural and intellectual elite to ordinary people. Secondly, by studying the impact of the famine and the Great Patriotic War, I try to understand the dynamics of the Soviet regime and the changing conceptions of culture and identity in Soviet Kazakhstan. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2020

The Making of Soviet Chernivtsi: National “Reunification,” World War II, and the Fate of Jewish Czernowitz in Postwar Ukraine Doctor of Philosophy Svitlana Frunchak Graduate Department of History University of Toronto 2014 Abstract This dissertation revisits the meaning of Soviet expansion and sovietization during and after World War II, the effects of the war on a multiethnic Central-Eastern European city, and the postwar construction of a national identity. One of several multiethnic cities acquired by the USSR in the course of World War II, modern pre-Soviet Chernivtsi can be best characterized as a Jewish-German city dominated by acculturated Jews until the outbreak of World War II. Yet Chernivtsi emerged from the war, the Holocaust, and Soviet reconstruction as an almost homogeneous Ukrainian city that allegedly had always longed for reunification with its Slavic brethren. Focusing on the late Stalinist period (1940–1953) but covering earlier (1774–1940) and later (1953–present) periods, this study explores the relationship between the ideas behind the incorporation; the lived experience of the incorporation; and the historical memory of the city’s distant and recent past. Central to this dissertation is the fate of the Jewish residents of Czernowitz-Chernivtsi. This community was diminished from an influential plurality to about one percent of the city’s population whose past was marginalized in local historical memory. This study demonstrates a multifaceted local experience of the war which was all but silenced by the dominant Soviet Ukrainian myth of the Great Patriotic War and the “reunification of all Ukrainian lands.” When the authors of the official Soviet historical and cultural narratives represented Stalin’s annexation as the “reunification” of Ukraine, they in fact constructed and popularized a new concept of “historical Ukrainian lands.” This concept—a blueprint for the Soviet colonization of the western borderlands in the name of the Ukrainian nation—tied ethnically defined Ukrainian culture to a strictly delineated national territory. Applied to the new borderlands and particularly to their urban centres characterized by cultural diversity, this policy served to legitimize the marginalization and, in several cases, the violent displacement of ethnic minorities, bringing to an end Jewish Czernowitz.

Painted in 1937 as part of the centenary celebration of the death of Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Ulyanov's A. S. Pushkin and his Wife, N. N. Pushkina at the Imperial Ball has been lauded as the quintessential example of Soviet history painting. Modern scholars have followed the lead of Soviet critics, who praised the painting for its insight into the psychology of the brilliant poet repressed by the tyrannical tsarist regime. According to this interpretation, Soviet viewers in the 1930s were to ponder on the tragedy of Pushkin's demise and rejoice that the victory of Socialism had freed them from such repression. However, this thesis suggests that Ulyanov embedded a secondary, subversive message in his masterpiece. Through careful manipulation of Pushkin's complex semiotic significance, Socialist Realist dialectics, and the Aesopian method, Ulyanov crafted an image that could be celebrated for its adherence to Soviet ideology, while simultaneously suggesting to those who detected his clues that artistic repression had not ended with the revolution. In this subversive reading, Ulyanov's masterwork becomes a psychological self-portrait of an artist living under Stalinist oppression during the Great Terror.

During the shift from the rule of Joseph Stalin to that of Nikita Khrushchev, people in the Soviet Union witnessed dramatic political, economic, and social changes, evident even in such private aspects of life as residential home interiors. The major architectural style of Stalin's era, known as Stalin's Empire Style, was characterized by grandeur and rich embellishments. The buildings' interiors were similarly grandiose and ornate. By endorsing this kind of design, Stalin attempted to position himself as an heir of classical traditions, to encourage respect for his regime, and to signal his power. When Nikita Khrushchev became the country's leader shortly after Stalin's death in 1953, he proclaimed that "excessive decorations" were not only unnecessary, but harmful. As a result, the standardized panel buildings produced at his initiative were defined by straight, plain lines, and were devoid of literally any architectural details that were not considered functional. These changes in Soviet architecture were reflected in interior design and furnishings: the minimalist aesthetic became their defining characteristic. The purpose of this study is to gain, through examination of existing literature, new insight into why a transition to a minimalist aesthetic was happening in the 1950s and 1960s in Soviet urban interior design. To achieve this goal, the present thesis analyzes works by contemporary scholars on the subject and examines statements the Soviet government as well as Soviet architects and interior decoration specialists made regarding the state's views on architecture and interiors during the period of 1950-1960. While research has been published that explores some aspects of this stylistic transition, the present work is unique in that it identifies and focuses on three distinct reasons for the change to minimalism in Soviet urban residential interiors under Khrushchev: the deficit of apartment space, reduction of construction costs, and ideological motives.

Die vorliegende Arbeit wollte eine Antwort auf die Frage geben, was das wirtschaftliche und soziale Handeln tadschikischer Kolchosbauern seit den 1960er Jahren leitete. Das Kernargument der Arbeit ist, dass die Bauern auch nach der Industrialisierung der Agrarproduktion an einem vorindustriellen Wirtschaftshandeln festhielten. Zum vorindustriellen Wirtschaftsverhalten gehörten zum einen familiengetragene Bauernwirtschaften, zum anderen bewährte Formen von Reziprozität wie Patron-Klientel-Strukturen, redistributive Ausgaben für die Dorfgemeinschaft und die kollektive Nutzung von Ressourcen. Das Konzept, dass die Existenz im Sinne der vormodernen moral economy über soziale Bindungen gesichert wird, hatte während der Sowjetperiode Bestand. Die Fortdauer einer vormodernen Wirtschaftsgesinnung zeigt sich auch darin, dass die Bauern in den peripheren Gebieten (Kaukasus, Mittelasien) stärker als die Bauern in den zentralen Regionen der Sowjetunion die persönliche Nebenerwerbswirtschaft für die Steigerung ihres Einkommens nutzten. Die Steigerung der privaten Hoflandproduktion seit den 1960er Jahren ging mit einer sozialen und kulturellen Re-Traditionalisierung einher. Dank der konzilianten Haltung, die die Brežnev-Führung gegenüber den Muslimen einnahm, und den gestiegenen Einnahmen aus dem informellen Sektor lebten lokales Brauchtum und lokale Festkultur wieder auf. Die Befunde zur sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Situation in der Maxim-Gorki-Kolchose stellen die von James Scott vorgebrachte These in Frage, wonach die sowjetische Agrarmodernisierung als Misserfolg einzuschätzen sei. Die sowjetische Transformation brachte an der tadschikischen Peripherie eine komplexe Variante der Moderne hervor, in der sowjetische und traditionelle Identitäten gleichzeitig nebeneinander gut funktionierten. Diese subjektiven und lokalen Perspektiven müssen ebenso bei der Frage berücksichtigt werden, ob man das Verhältnis zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie als kolonial bezeichnen kann. / The present doctoral dissertation aimed to explore economic and social motives behind peasant activities in Tajik kolkhozes since the 1960s. The core-argument of the dissertation is that the Soviet agrarian modernization production could not overcome the peasants’ preindustrial mentality. Like pre-modern societies the rural Tajik communities were shaped by the family household economy and by different patterns of reciprocity such as the exchange of food, protective patron-clientele-relationships, the collective use of village resources and prestigious, redistributive expenditures of village elites. The concept that social ties secure one’ s existence as defined by the moral economy endured during the Soviet Period. The persistence of a preindustrial mentality also become apparent that the peasants of the Soviet periphery more intensely than the peasants of the central regions used the “personal garden plot economy”. The rise of the family production in the Brezhnev-Era went along with a social, cultural and political re-traditionalisation. Due to a more conciliatory attitude towards the Muslims and against the backdrop of the declining ideological appeal of Communism in the Brezhnev era, the kolkhoz farmers began to spend the increased revenues from the private fruit and vegetable trade for costly celebrations of life-cycle and religious holidays. In Tajikistan, the establishment of the new district (oblast') Kurganteppa in 1976, offered the opportunity to purchase posts in politics and administration. The findings concerning the social and economic situation in the Maxim-Gorki-Kolkhoz challenge James Scott’s thesis, that the Soviet agrarian modernization has to be regarded as a failure. The Soviet transformation generated a complex form of modernity, which smoothly combined traditional and Soviet identities. These local perspectives also have to be taken into account in the debate, if the relationship between Moscow and its Central Asian periphery was colonial or not.