Abstract
In his book The Making of the Soviet System, Moshe Lewin refers to a ‘significant phenomenon in Stalinism: the return of the modernizing Soviet state under Stalin to the models and trappings of earlier tsardom’. In particular, he notes ‘the changeover of historical antecedents from Stepan Razin and Pugachev, leaders of peasant rebellions, to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, respectively the most absolutist of the tsars and the first emperor’. ‘This spiritual conversion,’ Lewin continues, ‘was rooted in a set of striking parallels in the social setting and political situation created in the 1930s.’ Stalin’s ‘revolution from above’ was similar to those of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. Peter’s programme of forced industrialisation, subjugation of the peasantry and bureaucratisation bore a marked resemblance to Stalin’s policies.1 Both Ivan and Peter created new elites which were dependent on and subservient to the ruler alone; Stalin did the same. Under later tsars, the autocratic system became institutionalised; Stalin resisted such tendencies within the Soviet system, and launched the purges in order to prevent processes of political ‘normalisation’ from taking hold.2 It is therefore not accidental, in Lewin’s interpretation, that Stalinist historiography should have idealised Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Moshe Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social History of Inter-War Russia (London, 1985) pp. 272–3.
In addition to works cited elsewhere in this essay, see V. Kobrin, ‘Posmertnaya sud’ba Ivana Groznogo’, Znanie — sila, 1987, no. 8, pp. 54–9;
V. Selyunin, ‘Istoki’, Novyi mir, 1988, no. 5, pp. 180–7;
N. Eidel’man, ‘“Revolyutsiya sverkhu” v Rossii’, serialised in Nauka i zhizn’, 1988, nos. 10–12, 1989, nos. 1–3, especially 1988, no. 10, pp. 100–5, and no. 11, pp. 109–18. I am grateful to friends and colleagues, and especially to Bob Davies and Julian Cooper, for kindly drawing my attention to references to Ivan and Peter in the current Soviet press.
Anatolii Rybakov, Deti Arbata; roman (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1988) pp. 179–80, 184, 240–3.
For reviews of Russian and Soviet historiography of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, see Leo Yaresh, ‘Ivan the Terrible and the Oprichnina’, in C. E. Black (ed.), Rewriting Russian History; Soviet Interpretations of Russia’s Past (London, 1957) pp. 224–41;
Richard Hellie, ‘In Search of Ivan the Terrible’, in S. F. Platonov, Ivan the Terrible (Gulf Breeze, Florida, 1974);
Hugh F. Graham, editor’s introduction to R. G. Skrynnikov, Ivan the Terrible (Gulf Breeze, Florida, 1981);
And the polemical work by the Soviet émigré writer Alexander Yanov, The Origins of Autocracy: Ivan the Terrible in Russian History (Berkeley, 1981).
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (Oxford, 1985).
On Pokrovskii’s career, see George M. Enteen, The Soviet ScholarBureaucrat: M. N. Pokrovskii and the Society of Marxist Historians (London, 1978);
J. D. Barber, Soviet Historians in Crisis, 1928–32 (London, 1981).
F. Shteppa, Russian Historians and the Soviet State (New Brunswick. 1962).
I. V. Stalin. Sochineniva. T.VIII (Moscow. 1952). no. 120–1.
B. B. Kafengauz, ‘Reformy Petra I v otsenke M. N. Pokrovskogo’, in Protiv antimarksistkoi kontseptsii M. N. Pokrovskogo. Sbornik statei. Chast’ vtoraya (Moscow and Leningrad, 1940) pp. 172–5.
I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya, T.2 [XV], ed. R. H. McNeal (Stanford, 1967) p. 35.
R. Trofimov, ed., ‘A Conversation with Stalin, Molotov and Zhdanov about Eisenstein’s “Ivan the Terrible” (Part Two). Transcript by Sergei Eisenstein and Nikolai Cherkasov’, Moscow News, 1988, no. 32, pp. 8–9.
M. Romm, Besedy o kino (Moscow, 1964), pp. 90–91.
Rybakov, Deti Arbata, pp. 240–1. The content of the conversation was available to Rybakov at the time of writing of the novel in the briefer version provided by Cherkasov’s memoirs: N. K. Cherkasov, Zapiski sovetskogo aktera (Moscow, 1953) pp. 379–81.
R. Wipper, Ivan Grozny (Moscow, 1947) pp. 146, 159–60. (This is an English translation of the 1944 Russian edition.)
Robert C. Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879–1929: a Study in History and Personality (London, 1974), pp. 279–88.
Maureen Perrie, The Image of Ivan the Terrible in Russian Folklore (Cambridge, 1987) pp. 21–7.
M. Kapustin, ‘Diagnoz — tiraniva’. Nedelva. 1989, no. 12. pp. 14–15.
Daniel Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston, 1976);
Maureen Perrie, ‘Folklore as Evidence of Peasant Mentalité: Social Attitudes and Values in Russian Popular Culture’, Russian Review, vol. 48 no. 2 (April 1989), pp. 119–43.
See, for example: Perrie, The Image of Ivan the Terrible; Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great, pp. 74–85;
V. K. Sokolova, Russkie istoricheskie pesni XVI–XVIII vv. (Moscow, 1960), pp. 21–81, 201–54; V. K. Sokolova, Russkie istoricheskie predaniya (Moscow, 1970) pp. 49–96.
A. I. Klibanov, Narodnaya sotsial’naya utopiya v Rossii: period feodalizma (Moscow, 1977) pp. 156–8.
Roy A. Medvedev, Let History Judge: the Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (London: Spokesman Books edn, 1976) pp. 289–90;
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. 2 (London: Fontana edn, 1976) pp. 316–17.
Yurii Feofanov, ‘Gruzchik Ivan Demura v skheme Niny Andreevy’, Izvestiya, 19 April 1988.
Hedrick Smith, The Russians (London: Sphere Books edn, 1976) pp. 300–5.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1992 Nick Lampert and Gábor T. Rittersporn
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Perrie, M. (1992). The Tsar, the Emperor, the Leader: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Anatolii Rybakov’s Stalin. In: Lampert, N., Rittersporn, G.T. (eds) Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12260-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12260-8_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-12262-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-12260-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)