Between the two extremes of devotion and opposition to the regime, the vast majority made empty shows of loyalty but were largely indifferent to politics. Only marginally influenced by propaganda and trying their best to evade the grip of repression, most took comfort in tradition and ritual. Despite state repression of priests and active church members, especially in the 1930s, most Soviet citizens held onto their faith. During the census of January 1937, 57 percent of respondents over the age of sixteen identified themselves as religious—more than 55 million people. Surely many others hid their faith out of fear of persecution.26
In the area of inter-ethnic relations, Stalin left a problematic legacy. The relative liberalism of the early Bolshevik regime, which built what historian Terry Martin calls an “affirmative action empire,” came to an end in the early 1930s.27 Under Stalin, nationalities policy grew increasingly brutal. Mass arrests and executions based on nationality, the internal exile of entire peoples, and the effort to use russification to create a single Soviet nationality laid a minefield under the country’s future.28 Explosions started to go off while Stalin was still alive, when guerrilla wars roiled western Ukraine and the Baltic states. Although a degree of inter-ethnic unity was actually achieved, behind the propaganda façade extolling the “friendship of peoples” seethed many inter-ethnic conflicts.29 The “Russian question” that grew out of the contradictory position of the Russian majority—simultaneously the bulwark of the Soviet empire and one of its chief victims—promoted instability and ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union, an interpretation advanced by Geoffrey Hosking.30
What did Stalin know about the real life of “his” people? The Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha visited Moscow in 1947 and later recalled Stalin saying, “To govern, you have to know the masses, and in order to know them, you have to walk among them.”31 Stalin could hardly claim to adhere to his own wisdom. After his famous visit to Siberia in 1928, most of which was spent meeting with functionaries, he almost never walked “among the masses.” Official meetings with representatives of the workers were carefully orchestrated propaganda spectacles. During better days, Stalin would occasionally indulge his taste for theatrics and suddenly appear in public. But even these spontaneous meetings inevitably took on the aura of “Christ appearing to the people.” In September 1935, accompanied by several Soviet leaders, he toured the outskirts of Sochi and encountered small groups of vacationers. On Stalin’s initiative a spontaneous “fraternization” was allowed. One vacationer left a striking account of the event:
Comrade Stalin … stopped us with the following words: “Why are you leaving comrades? Why are you so proud that you shun our company? Come here. Where are you from?” We walked up to him.… “Well, let’s get acquainted,” Comrade Stalin said, and he introduced us to each of his companions in turn and introduced himself as well. “This is Comrade Kalinin, this is the wife of Comrade Molotov … and this is I, Stalin,” he said, shaking everyone’s hand. “Now we’ll all have our pictures taken together,” and Comrade Stalin invited us to stand next to him.… While the photographers were working, Comrade Stalin kept making fun of them: he said they were “mortal enemies” and were always trying to interfere with one another. He asked that they photograph not only him but “all the people.” … Then Comrade Stalin began to invite the woman selling apples from a kiosk … and a salesman from the food stand to come have their pictures taken. It took a long time before the disconcerted saleswoman could be persuaded to leave her store. Comrade Stalin told her that “it’s not good to be so proud” and told the photographers not to take the picture until she came. “The saleswoman,” Stalin proclaimed, “should become the most respected woman in our country.” Finally she came and the photo shoot continued. An empty bus drove up, and Comrade Stalin invited the driver and conductor to have their pictures taken.32
Obviously such “walks among the people” did little to enhance Stalin’s understanding of them, and even these mostly stopped after the 1930s. The vozhd never took an interest in seeing the conditions in which the Soviet people were living, what they bought and where, what sort of health care or education they received. His knowledge of “the masses” came mostly from what he read in his office. So far we know of two main sources from which he gleaned knowledge of daily life: summary reports from state security about the public mood and letters and complaints from ordinary citizens. A steady stream of such letters arrived in government offices, including some addressed to him personally.
As far as can be determined from archival studies, state security summaries were a major source of information for the Soviet leadership in the 1920s and 1930s. These reports contained rather candid assessments of the situation in the country, albeit from a chekist perspective, which saw almost all crises and difficulties as the work of enemies. There were a number of types of reports, some providing an overview of sociopolitical processes, others devoted to matters of economics or politics. One problematic aspect of these reports was their length. The leaders for whom they were prepared had to spend hours poring over them. In recent years historians have published a number of informational state security summaries dating to the prewar period.33 These publications, however, are based on copies found in state security archives—not in Stalin’s personal archive. We do not currently know the extent to which, or in what form, they are contained in the Politburo archive, which is part of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Historians therefore cannot be sure to what extent the leadership in general or Stalin in particular read these secret police summaries. There is evidence to suggest that they were mostly unaware of these reports’ contents.
We know more about Stalin’s familiarity with letters from Soviet citizens. It would not be an exaggeration to say that most of the country sent complaints, requests, and petitions on a wide array of topics to all sorts of government offices. Such letter writing was an extremely common practice and was even encouraged by the authorities. Within the highly centralized system, letters to the government were one of the few ways of solving everyday problems. The government was virtually the only employer. It also had authority over the allocation or construction of housing. Government stores supplied (or were supposed to supply) all basic needs. Government hospitals were the only places to obtain treatment for serious illnesses. The government determined the rather narrow category of people eligible for pensions or benefits and the size of the payments. Given the flaws of the Soviet judicial system, citizens turned to bureaucrats to resolve conflicts and disputes. Abuses by officials within the huge bureaucratic apparat occasioned countless grievances. Arrests, forcible relocations, imprisonments in camps, or death sentences against tens of millions of people generated millions of complaints and pleas for relief. Arrestees themselves wrote, as did their relatives, and even unrelated people sometimes worked up the courage to intercede on behalf of an acquaintance or colleague. This pursuit of justice was encouraged by the state since it created the illusion of impartial leadership.
Another practice that was encouraged was denouncing abuses or “enemy activity.” Stalin made it no secret that he held denouncers and informers in high regard. All denunciations, including anonymous ones, were investigated. The government’s attitude is eloquently illustrated by the fact that even prisoners who were deprived of all other rights had the right to submit denunciations. In February 1936 the NKVD chief signed an order calling for the installation of boxes in all camps, prisons, and penal colonies into which inmates could insert statements addressed to him personally or the head of the Gulag directorate. “The boxes shall be sealed with the seal of the Directorate of Camps,” the order read, “and only the head of the camp or his deputy (in camps) and the head of the Department of Detention Centers or his deputy (in prisons and penal colonies) shall open them.” All correspondence was to be sent to the NKVD chief personally and “under no circumstance concealed.” Inmates were to be informed of “the purpose of these boxes.”34