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Languages of Power: How the Saratov Bolsheviks Imagined Their Enemies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Donald J. Raleigh
Donald J. Raleigh*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
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The Bolsheviks made civil war inevitable by forcing a showdown with the Kerenskii government in October 1917—and concomitantly with the moderate socialist parties, the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and Mensheviks. The resulting conflict accelerated complex processes underway since February that exacerbated social polarization and fostered political and economic localism. Following the local Soviet's siege of the city duma in the provincial capital of Saratov in October, opposition forces began to contest Soviet power, which before long was reduced to Bolshevik and Left SR rule. As a result, the Saratov Soviet spent all of 1918-19 battling a variety of manifestations of discontent with the new political order. The calculus of civil war in the province involved the sustained threat to strategically located Saratov of White armies, which succeeded in striking against and taking the uezd (district) towns of Khvalynsk, Vol'sk, Serdobsk, Tsaritsyn, Balashov, Kuznetsk, and Kamyshin. Opposition from within the province proved every bit as formidable. Anti-Bolshevik forces, inspired by both the socialist and nonsocialist resistance, mobilized uprisings in all of the towns of Saratov province during the civil war; moreover, not a single uezd escaped the throes of peasant violence and resistance before this turbulent chapter in Russian history drew to a close.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , Summer 1998 , pp. 320 - 349
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1998

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References

I thank Elizabeth Jones Hemenway, Beth Holmgren, Peter I. Holquist, Jeffjones, Katherine Jolluck, Sharon Kowalsky, Louise McReynolds, Paula Michaels, David Nordlander, G. Michael Snyder, Kate Transchel, Jon Wallace, Anthony Young, Christopher Ward, Diane P. Koenker, and the anonymous readers for Slavic Review for their helpful advice in sharpening this essay. I also thank the International Research and Exchanges Board and the University of North Carolina Research Council for their financial support of my research.

1. Following convention, I capitalize the word soviet when used as part of the expression Soviet power. I also capitalize the word when a specific soviet is mentioned, as in Saratov Soviet. In all other instances the word is not capitalized.

2. William A. Gamson, “Political Discourse and Collective Action,” International Social Movement Research: A Research Annual (Greenwich, Conn., 1988), 1: 221. Gamson maintains that political struggle takes place in an issue arena and that for every challenge there is a relevant discourse.

3. Hunt, Lynn, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1984), 12.Google Scholar

4. See Baker, Keith Michael, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 27–28.

6. This is the formulation of Thomas Childers. See Childers, , “The Social Language of Politics in Germany: The Sociology of Political Discourse in the Weimar Republic,” American Historical Review 95, no. 2 (April 1990): 335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. I would argue that external language was also the medium of public meetings, agitational literature, and propaganda, while internal language was likewise the idiom of closed meetings for party members only and other private forums. Space limitations do not allow me to discuss these possibilities here.

8. Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990), xii.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 14.

10. The term is Caryl Emerson's. See Emerson, , “New Words, New Epochs, Old Thoughts,” Russian Review 55, no. 3 (1996): 357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Stephen Kotkin uses this phrase in “Coercion and Identity: Workers’ Lives in Stalin's Showcase City,” in Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds” Making Workers Soviet: Power, Class, and Identity (Ithaca, 1994), 302.

12. Little attention has been given to this subject in the Russian field. An exception is Peter Holquist's pioneering dissertation, which examines the linguistic construction of Bolsheviks and Cossacks in the Don region during the civil war, focusing on how those claiming to speak for various social groups helped bring into being the objects they strived to represent. See Holquist, “A Russian Vendee: The Practice of Revolutionary Politics in the Don Countryside, 1917–1921” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1994).

13. In a book I am completing I address the semantic and stylistic features of the two discourses. The project is entitled “Experiencing Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture on the Volga, 1918–1922. “

14. Peter I. Holquist, ‘ “Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work': Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan European Context,” Journal of Modern History 69 (September 1997): 443–46.

15. See chapter 8 of my Revolution on the Volga: 1917 in Saratov (Ithaca, 1986).

16. Kolonitskii, Boris I., “Antibourgeois Propaganda and Anti–'Burzhui’ Consciousness in 1917,” Russian Review 53, no. 2 (April 1994): 184, 187 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the role the press played in shaping Russian public opinion at this time, see McReynolds, Louise, The News under Russia's Old Regime: The Development of a Mass Circulation Press (Princeton, 1991).Google Scholar

17. Elizabeth J. Hemenway, “A Revolution of Words: Socialist Rhetoric, Newspapers, and October” (seminar paper, University of North Carolina, 13 December 1991). Saratov newspapers make similar claims. See the Bolsheviks’ Sotsial demokrat, the Mensheviks’ Proletarii Povolzh'ia, and the Socialist Revolutionaries’ Zemlia i volia, as well asSaratovskii vestnik and Saratovskii listok.

18. Tsentral'nyi muzei revoliutsii SSR, GIK 30244/200, “Avtobiografiia V. P. Antonova (Saratovskogo).” See Antonov's speech of 3 October 1918.

19. Izvestiia Saratovskogo Soveta (hereafter ISS), no. 1, 3 January 1918, 1, 4.

20. Ibid., no. 24, 31 January 1918, 1, 3. See also V. P. Antonov Saratovskii, ed., Saratovskii Sovet rabochikh deputatov: Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow and Leningrad, 1931), 359–60 (hereafter cited as Saratovskii Sovet).

21. A. A. Klempert, “Rol’ Saratovskogo Soveta rabochikh, soldatskikh i krest'ianskikh deputatov v bor'be s astrakhanskimi i ural'skimi belokazakami,” Saratov: Sbornik statei i materialov po voprosam narodnogo khoziaistva i kul'tury, no. 6 (Saratov, 1948), 44–46; S. V. Terekhin, Gody ognevye: Saratovskaia organizatsiia bol'shevikov v period Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i grazhdanskoi voiny (Saratov, 1967), 77, 97.

22. V. P.|Antonov Saratovskii, ed., Godovshchina sotsial'noi revoliutsii v Saratove (Saratov, 1918), 45–56 Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Godovshchina).The Special Army included a unit under the command of V. I. Chapaev, the civil war partisan hero whose adventures provided the material for a multimedia cultural industry following the 1923 publication of D. Furmanov's novel, Chapaev.

23. Ibid., 30. See also Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Saratovskoi oblasti (GASO), f. 521 (Ispolnitel'nyi komitet Saratovskogo gubernskogo Soveta), op. 2, d. 28, 1. 8.

24. Godovshchina, 50–51; GASO, f. 3586 (lichnyi fond V. P. Antonov Saratovskii), op. 1, d. 56, 1. 2.

25. Furet, Francois, Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Forster, Elborg (Cambridge, Eng., 1981), 67–68 Google Scholar. See ISS for March and April 1918. Holquist makes this point about the war in ‘ “Information. “'

26. ISS, no. 49, 19 March 1918, 3, and Saratovskii Sovet, 399–400.

27. Saratovskaia Krasnaia gazeta (hereafter KG), no. 20, 17 March 1918, 1–4.

28. ISS, no. 57, 28 March 1918, 2, 3; no. 58, 29 March 1918, 1; no. 60, 31 March 1918, 1; Na strazhe revoliutsii (Iz istorii Saratovskogo gorodskogo soveta, 1917–1921) (Saratov, 1921), 7.

29. Slovo proletariia, no. 1, 21 January 1918, 4; no. 7, 28 January 1918, 1.

30. GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 207, 1. 118; M. Shchepakin, “Saratovskie gruzchiki na zashchite zavoevanii oktiabria,” in V boiakh za diktatury proletariata (Sbornik vospominanii uchastnikov Oktiabria i grazhdanskoi voiny v Nizhnem Povolzh'e) (Saratov, 1933), 19–20; Semenov, G. L., “Saratovskie gruzchiki v dni velikikh sobytii,” in Sukharev, G. et al., eds., Za vlast’ Sovetov: Vospominaniia uchastnikov revoliutsionnykh sobytii 1917 goda v Saratovskoi gubernii(Saratov, 1957), 142.Google Scholar

31. Colonel Vladimir Lebedeff, an SR involved in the Samara government, argued in 1919 that a national struggle against Bolshevik tyranny had begun in April 1918 that differed qualitatively from the sporadic outbursts of discontent flaring up before then. Lebedeff, V. I., The Russian Democracy in Its Struggle against the Bolshevist Tyranny (New York, 1919), 7Google Scholar, also available as Bor'ba russkoi demokratii protiv bol'shevikov: Zapiski ochevidtsa i uchastnika sverzheniia bol'shevistskoi vlasti na Volge i v Sibiri (New York, 1919). Leonard Schapiro also called attention to the phenomenon in his classic study of political opposition to the Soviet state. Schapiro, Leonard, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase, 1917–1922, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 191 Google Scholar. V. N. Brovkin has more recently and in greater detail examined the Mensheviks’ political “comeback” in the spring of 1918. Brovkin, V. N., “The Mensheviks under Attack: The Transformation of Soviet Politics, June–Sept. 1918,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 32 (1984): 378–79Google Scholar. See also Brovkin, , The Mensheviks after October: Socialist Opposition and the Rise of the Bolshevik Dictatorship (Ithaca, 1987).Google Scholar

32. The new Gubispolkom comprised thirty two Bolsheviks, seven Left SRs, and one Maximalist.

33. Godovshchina, 27; ISS, no. 87, 5 May 1918, 2 (emphasis added).

34. ISS, no. 69, 11 April 1918, 1; no. 71, 13 April 1918, 1.

35. I am not ignoring growing democratic strains in Russian political culture, but I am emphasizing that in circumstances of civil war they had much less chance to develop. I treat this subject in my forthcoming book. Anna Geifman and Peter Kenez make similar points regarding the intelligentsia's role. See Geifman, Anna, “The Russian Intelligentsia, Terror, and Revolution,” in Brovkin, Vladimir N., ed., The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars (New Haven, 1997), 35 Google Scholar; Kenez, Peter, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929 (Cambridge, Eng., 1985), 4–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. A paper shortage kept the press run small—approximately 10, 000. N. A. Iakorev, “Iz opyta politicheskoi raboty v massakh v gody grazhdanskoi voiny (Po materialam Saratovskoi partiinoi organizatsii),” Uchenye zapiski Saratovskogo universiteta 59 (1958): 239.

37. As Pierre Bourdieu suggests, discursive strategies such as these help create the social structures they depict. See Bourdieu, , Language and Symbolic Power, ed. with an introduction by Thompson, John B., trans. Raymond, Gino and Adamson, Matthew (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 128.Google Scholar

38. Scott, Domination, 11, 67.

39. Godovshchina, 27. ISS, no. 30, 21 February 1918, 1–2; no. 34, 26 February 1918, 1–2; no. 40, 5 March 1918, 4; KG, no. 2, 21 February 1918, 1; no. 7, 27 February 1918, 2; Saratovskii Sovet, 393–94; GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 125, 11.1–2; op. 2, d. 27, 11. 15 and 25.

40. Godovshchina, 31–32; A. Tsekher, “Istoriia Saratovskogo Soveta,” in Piat’ let proletarskoi bor'by, 1917–1922 (Saratov, 1922), 39; V. Berdintsev, “Epizody bor'by s kontrrevoliutsiei v Saratove v 1918 godu,” in V boiakh za diktatury proletariata: Sbornikvospominanii uchastnikov Oktiabria i grazhdanskoi voiny v Nizhnem Povolzh'e (Saratov, 1933), 12–13. The paper issued by the SRs is Golos trudovogo naroda. See the report from Svoboda Rossii, no. 33, 24 May 1918, 3, published in Bunyan, James, Intervention, Civil War, and Communism, in Russia: April–December 1918: Documents and Materials (Baltimore, 1936), 160–61.Google Scholar

41. The soviet explained to townspeople that a large band of rowdy troops, who called themselves terrorists, had arrived in Saratov where they had hoped to receive the support of local anarchists. Because of the subsequent rumors that Soviet power was about to collapse and owing to an increase in armed attacks against townspeople, the Cheka had decided to disarm these troops; this resulted in a showdown. ISS, no. 94, 17 May 1918, 3.

42. KG, no. 69, 24 May 1918, \;ISS, no. 96, 21 May 1918, 1; no. 97, 22 May 1918, 2; Berdintsev, “Epizody bor'by,” 13; F. A. Rashitov, “Sovety Nizhnego Povolzh'ia v pervyi god diktatury proletariata” (candidate dissertation, Saratov University, 1968), 50, 217; Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GA RF), f. 130 (Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov), op. 2, d. 627, 1. 3.

43. GA RF, f. 130, op. 2, d. 627, 11. 11–12; Saratovskii Sovet, 505–15.

44. ISS, no. 96, 21 May 1918, 1. The Whites in the Don behaved similarly. See Holquist, “A Russian Vendee. “

45. Rashitov, “Sovety,” 218–19; Saratovskii Sovet, 535–36; Godovshchina, 29–30; ISS, no. 98, 24 May 1918, 3. Also see ISS, nos. 101–8, 28 May to 5 June 1918, and KG, nos. 79–81, 5–7 June 1918.

46. ISS, no. 96, 21 May 1918, 1; no. 95, 20 May 1918, 1; no. 101, 28 May 1918, 1; Saratovskii Sovet, 509–15.

47. ISS, no. 116, 15 June 1918, 2.

48. KG, no. 84, 11 June 1918, 4.

49. Protokoly Saratovskogo gubernskogo s“ezda sovetov krest'ianskikh deputatov, proiskhodivshego v g. Saratove s 25 maia po 2 e iiunia n/st. 1918 g. (Saratov, 1918), 2, 112–13.

50. Saratovskii Sovet, 515. Antonov later added the Japanese and Chinese to the list (598).

51. ISS, no. 98, 24 May 1918, 3; no. 101, 28 May 1918, 1.

52. This is but one of numerous instances in which interpretations found in party external language became entrenched in Soviet historical writing. ISS, no. 103, 30 May 1918, 1.

53. Sorin, I, “Saratovskoe vosstanie 1918 g. (Po chernovym zametkam),” Letopis’ revoliutsii, 1923, no. 5: 219 Google Scholar; Gerasimenko, G. A. et al., eds., Khronika revoliutsionnykh sobytii v Saratovskom Povolzh'e (Saratov, 1968), 266, 271–72, 275, 278Google Scholar; Terekhin, Gody ognevye, 96.

54. Space does not allow for a discussion of how both languages depicted the disturbances. See Malinin, G. A., “Saratovskii Sovet v gody inostrannoi voennoi interventsii i grazhdanskoi voiny,” Nauchnyi ezhegodnik za 1954 god (Saratov, 1954), 111–12Google Scholar; GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 181, 11.23, 141–41ob.

55. Levinson, , “Kontrrevoliutsiia v Saratovskoi gubernii,” 1917 god v Saratove (Saratov, 1927), 87 Google Scholar; Godovshchina, 58.

56. Levinson, “Kontrrevoliutsiia,” 86; GA RF, f. 393 (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennykh del), op. 3, d. 327, 11. 30–31; Sviatogorov, V., “1918 god: Sovetskoe stroitel'stvo v uezde po gazetnym materialam,” Kommunisticheskii put’, 1923, no. 9 (34): 66 Google Scholar. See also, ISS, no. 133, 6 July 1918, 1; no. 134, 7 July 1918, 1.

57. Sorin, “Saratovskoe vosstanie,” 224.

58. Bunyan, Intervention, Civil War, and Communism, 161.

59. ISS, no. 111, 8 June 1918, 3. See the Soviet's discussion in Saratovskii Sovet, 523–24, 526.

60. KG, no. 83, 9 June 1918, 1.

61. Rabochii internatsional, no. 4, 2 June 1918 (RSDRP, Nicolaevsky Collection, Hoover Institution, Folder 5, box 4).

62. KG, no. 84, 11 June 1918, 2 (emphasis added).

63. Nash golos, no. 3, 9 (22) June 1918; Vladimir N. Brovkin, ed. and trans., Dear Comrades: Menshevik Reports on the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War (Stanford, 1991), 121.Google Scholar

64. Emphasis added. The report is found in GASO, f. 3586, op. 1, d. 201, 11. 1–6. It is difficult to characterize the Investigative Commission, which was comprised of representatives from the Supreme Military Inspectorate and members of the Saratov party organization, many of whom were newcomers to Saratov. The commission's membership is found in Saratovskii Sovet, 508. Antonov later tried to undermine the credibility of the commission. See Saratovskii Sovet, 793n232.

65. GASO, f. 3586, op. 1, d. 201, 11. 1–6. See also Novaia zhizn', no. 102 (317), 16 (29) May 1918, 4.

66. Epstein, Mikhail N., After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture, trans, with an introduction by Anesa Miller Pogacar (Amherst, Mass., 1995), 104, 107–8, 117–18Google Scholar. Epstein draws some thought provoking but not altogether convincing parallels between Soviet Marxism and postmodern pastiche.

67. Scott, Domination, x, 18. Framed by the party's external language, Bolshevik propaganda represented a more conscious and systematic effort to educate and transmit values.

68. Ibid., 151, 36.

69. Because the party's ban on factionalism proved ineffectual once the struggle for Lenin's successor got underway, this phenomenon can be observed throughout the 1920s. Jeffrey Brooks dates the existence of a “single overarching discourse, concentrated in the leading newspapers arid legitimated by the fuU punitive power of the state,” to the 1930s. See his “Socialist Realism in Pravda: Read All about It!” Slavic Review 53, no. 4 (1994): 975.

70. ISS, no. 163, 11 August 1918, 2.

71. This same strategy was used with all groups; thus, “kulaks” were all peasants who opposed Soviet power. See Holquist, “A Russian Vendee,” 850–51. See ISS, no. 196, 21 September 1918, 1.

72. Saratovskii oblastnoi tsentr dokumentatsii noveishei istorii (SOTsDNI), f. 151/95 (Partiia Revoliutsionnogo kommunizma), op. 2, d. 1, 1. 1; GA RF, f. 393, op. 3, d. 392, 1.315–315ob.

73. Although this is not one of the examples of the imposition of martial law that I discuss, external language's depiction of Trotskii's visit failed to note the concern on the part of local Bolsheviks that declaring martial law in Saratov would undermine their authority. In fact, Antonov appears to have clashed with Trotskii over this and other matters, supporting Iosif Stalin in the feud smoldering between these future rival contenders to succeed Lenin. GA RF, f. 393, op. 3, d. 327, 1. 84; Antonov, “Avtobiografiia,” 9–10.

74. ISS, no. 202, 29 September 1918, 1.

75. ISS, no. 181, 4 September 1918, 1–2; B. B. Lobach Zhuchenko, “Nezabyvaemyi 1918–i god,” 12 (unpublished memoir showed to me in 1988 by the author, who was then ninety years old).

76. GASO, f. 456 (Saratovskii gubernskii otdel upravleniia Gubispolkoma Soveta rabochikh, krest'ianskikh i krasnoarmeiskikh deputatov), op. 1, d. 218, 1. 49; f. 521, op. 1, d. 444, 11. 8, 20; Zenkovich, V. A., Dva goda vlasti rabochikh i krest'ian (Saratov, 1919), 18 Google Scholar; Izvestiia Balashovskogo Soveta, no. 136, 26 June 1919, 2–3.

77. GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 427, 1. 4. See O. A. Vas'kovskii, “Sovety Saratovskoi gubernii v bor'be za organizatsiiu tyla v period pervogo i vtorogo pokhodov Antanty” (candidate dissertation, Saratov University, 1953), 87, 111.

78. SOTsDNI, f. 27 (Saratovskii gubkom), op. 1, d. 87, 11. 36, 92, 144; d. 56, 1. 25.

79. SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 56, II. 40.

80. ISS, no. 85, 24 April 1919, 1 (also see Izvestiia Vol'skogo soveta for April 1919). After the disastrous attempt to foment class war in the villages by setting up the committees of the village poor, the Soviet government began openly to court the socalled middle peasant.

81. Ibid., also no. 91, 4 May 1919, 3; and KG, no. 340, 4 May 1919, 3.

82. KG, no. 335, 25 April 1919, 2; ISS, no. 88, 27 April 1919, 2.

83. KG, no. 334, 24 April 1919, 2–3.

84. ISS, no. 150, 14 July 1919.

85. Vas'kovskii, “Sovety Saratovskoi gubernii,” 179–91; O. A. Vas'kovskii, “Rabota partiinykh i sovetskikh organizatsii Saratovskoi gubernii po sozdaniiu prochnogo tyla letom 1919 goda,” Uchenye zapiski Saratovskogo universiteta 47 (1956): 27–29. The text of the appeal is found in Iakorev, N. A., “Iz opyta politicheskoi raboty v massakh v gody grazhdanskoi voiny (Po materialam Saratovskoi partiinoi organizatsii),” in Uchenye zapiski Saratovskogo universiteta 59 (1958): 240 Google Scholar; and in SOTsDNI, f. 27, d. 76, 1. 12.

86. SOTsDNI, f. 2804 (Saratovskii gubrevkom), op. 1, d. 1, 1. 2.

87. Latsis, M.I., Dva goda bor'by na vnutrennem fronte: Populiarnyi obzor dvukhgodichnoi deiatel'nosti Chrezvychainykh komissii po bor'be s kontrrevoliutsiei, spekuliatsiei i prestupleniiami po dolzhnosti (Moscow, 1920), 28 Google Scholar; Vas'kovskii, “Sovety Saratovskoi gubernii,” 244–46.

88. ISS, no. 142, 5 July 1919, 1; no. 143, 6 July 1919, 2; no. 144, 8 July 1919, 2.

89. SOTsDNI, f. 81 (Oktiabr'skii raikom), op. 1, d. 5, 1. 169; f. 27, op. 1, d. 57, 1. 70; ISS, no. 151, 15 July 1919, 3.

90. Izvestiia Atkarskogo Voenno Revoliutsionnogo komiteta, no. 256, 22 July 1919, 4; SOTsDNI, f. 200 (Atkarskii ukom), op. 1, d. 87, 1. 43.

91. Rabochii i krest'ianin (Vol'sk), no. 146, 3 July 1919, 2.

92. ISS, no. 155, 19 July 1919, 2.

93. Iakorev, “Iz opyta,” 232–36.

94. See Maksakova, L. V., Agitpoezd ‘Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia’ (1919–1920) (Moscow, 1956), 52–55, 58–61, 163–64Google Scholar; Vas'kovskii, “Sovety Saratovskoi gubernii,” 205–21, 226, 228, 232, 234–35; Kalinin, M. I., Rechi i besedy, bk. 2 (Moscow, 1919), 4–6, 8, 10–11, 22Google Scholar; alsoRabochii i krest'ianin (Vol'sk), no. 166, 26 July 1919, 1–2, and Privolzhskii krasnyi put', no. 14, July 1919, 4–5; SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 89, 1. 6.

95. SOTsDNI, f. 81, op. 1, d. 5, 1. 90.

96. GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 431, 11. 76–82.

97. SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 56, 1. 35.

98. Ibid., 11. 7, 10.

99. GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 286, 11. 24–25.

100. SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 57, 1. 16. The local Cheka identified hostile attitudes among some units, but pro Soviet ones in others (SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 76, 11. 115–16). For the most part, though, its reports confirm the unreliability of the garrison. See SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 76, 11. 112–13, and Privolzhskii krasnyi put', no. 11–12, June 1919, 1.

101. GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 427, 11. 5, 8.

102. SOTsDNI, f. 27, op. 1, d. 76, 11. 76–77; KG, no. 331, 17 April 1919, 4.

103. Izvestiia Ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta Vol'skogo Soveta, no. 66, 25 March 1919, 4.

104. KG, no. 324, 9 April 1919, 2–3.

105. GASO, f. 521, op. 1, d. 286, 1. 43.

106. Joan W. Scott, “On Language, Gender, and Working Class History,” International Labor and Working Class History 31 (Spring 1987): 6.

107. Like Brooks, I would argue that this process was not completed until the 1930s. See his “Socialist Realism,” 975. See also Bakhtin, M. M., The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Holquist, Michael, trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael (Austin, Tex., 1981).Google Scholar

108. See Antonov's version of this in Saratovskii Sovet, 765–78.

109. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 201.

110. Foucault discusses the conditions under which a discourse may be employed authoritatively, the rules imposed upon those who employ it, and the ways it denies access to those outside the group. See Foucault, Michel, “The Discourse on Language,” The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. Sheridan Smith, A. M. (New York, 1972), 215–37Google Scholar.

111. Again, it is instructive to point out that the Whites held similar views. See Leonid Heretz, “The Psychology of the White Movement,” in Brovkin, ed., The Bolsheviks in Russian Society, 105–21.