Finn Sivert Nielsen - The Eye of the Whirlwind: Russian Identity and Soviet Nation-Building. Quests for Meaning in a Soviet Metropolis

The Eye of the Whirlwind
Russian Identity and Soviet Nation-Building. Quests for Meaning in a Soviet Metropolis

For my own part I'd just like to add that nearly every reality, though governed by its own, immutable laws, is almost always unlikely and unbelievable. Often in fact, the realer it is, the more unbelievable.
(Dostoevsky 1868-89, p.313)

Acknowledgements

This text is the product of a long-drawn and intense process of experience and thought, and it would be quite impossible to thank everyone who has somehow contributed to it. Clearly, without my friends in Leningrad, nothing would have come of it at all. Vera, Viktor and Pavlik, Vitya, Natasha, Serezha, Tolya, Andronov and many others (all names are pseudonyms), opened their doors and their hearts to me, and gave me the opportunity to learn to know a way of life which - I'm afraid - is far richer and more interesting than the portrait I have managed to draw of it. Particular thanks are due to my now deceased academic supervisor at the Leningrad State University, Professor Rudol'f Ferdinandovich Its, without whom I would have been unable to return to Russia in 1983.

At the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, two people in particular have put their mark on this study. First, my supervisor, Professor Arne Martin Klausen, who insisted, ever since I started writing in earnest, that I should think for myself, and that whatever I wrote should be clearly and unambiguously stated. Secondly, I owe warm thanks to Hans Christian (Tian) Sørhaug, for theoretical inspiration and tactful criticism during the early phases of my work.

My friends and colleagues Arild Moe (now at The Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo), Pål Kolstø and Øivind Fuglerud (both now at the University of Oslo) have read and discussed early drafts of several chapters of the text. Their informed criticism has enriched the result significantly. Discussions with Kristin Aarnes and my brother, Christopher Sivert Nielsen, have contributed less visibly, but no less importantly. Astrid Bjønness, with her intimate knowledge of Russia and Russians, has inspired me in many ways; in fact, it was her idea that I start this work in the first place, back in 1981. My grandmother, Marabeth S. Finn, lent me the money with which to buy the word processing equipment on which the first version of this text was written.

The publication of the text in Russian in 2003 was made possible by the generous economic support of the Norwegian Research Council, the recommendations of Piers Vitebsky at the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge and Nikolai B. Vakhtin at the European University of St. Petersburg, and to the excellent and meticulous translation carried out by Alexandra N. Livanova and Ekaterina P. Prokhorova.

The present, AnthroBase, version of this text is mainly based on the Russian version, but a number of small changes have been made in the text itself and the tables in Appendix Three from the original version have been included (and to some extent updated). Most importantly, two supplementary papers have been added (Appendix One and Appendix Two). These add a substantial discussion of field methods and ethics to the text and also carry the analysis of Russian values in Chapter Five somewhat further.

During various phases of the work with this text, I have received valuable comments and criticism from a number of people, including Reidar Grønhaug (University of Bergen), Øyvind Jaer (Østlandsforskning, Lillehammer), Dmitry Pospielovsky (University of Toronto), Fredrik Barth (University of Oslo), Marvin Harris (University of Florida), Piers Vitebsky (University of Cambridge), Yulian Konstantinov (BSRCS, Sofia), Alexandra N. Livanova (University of St. Petersburg), Trond Thuen (University of Tromsø), Hülya Demirdirek (University of Lethbridge, Canada), Nora Gotaas (NIBR, Oslo), Per Liltved (Arendal, Norway), Jorunn Magerøy (Molde County Hospital, Norway), Anna Birgitte Mørck (Oslo), Kristin Rande (University of Copenhagen), Johnny Leo Ludviksen Jernsletten (University of Tromsø), Eva Klingenberg (University of Tromsø), and my wife and colleague Kari Helene Partapuoli.

Finally, I want to extent a heartfelt thanks to all my students, in Oslo, Tromsø and Copenhagen, who, since I was allowed to start teaching back in 1980, have taught me more than any book or lecture possibly could.

Preface to the Russian Edition (1999)

This generation will usher in a kind of life that we know nothing of, - let us what it will be like. People want happiness, egoistical happiness, bright colors, noise, fireworks, passions, - and that's not all they want, I know; they want culture, knowledge; they want life to become European at last - for Russia too; they want to speak all the languages in the world and visit every country on earth, hungrily, now, now! They want comfort, elegant furniture and smart clothing, instead of old village chests and homespun coats. They want to take over everything from abroad - dresses, theories, art, philosophical trends, hair styles, everything, - and they relentlessly discard our own achievements, our Russian tradition. And who can condemn all of this, when it's all so natural after so many years of puritanism and fasting, being closed in and closed off from the rest of the world.
(Svetlana Alliluyeva 1967, p.15)

Fifteen years have passed since I completed the fieldwork that forms the basis of this study, which is now being published for the first time - in Russian. In those years, the world I here describe - Leningrad in the early 1980's - has changed so fundamentally that it has, in a certain sense, ceased to exist. In this sense, what follows must be read as history. But in another sense (and as so many times before in Russian history), the old world lives on beneath the new as its precondition, without which the present must seem meaningless. For an understanding of the post-Soviet Russia of our own day, this account by a Westerner of the state of mind and means of life that characterized the late Soviet period may thus prove of interest.

When I originally wrote this book (in 1984-86¹) I was, inter alia, motivated by a typically anthropological passion: to show that the Soviet Union was not a static abstraction, an artificial construct of "totalitarian" ideology, but a living social organism, a complex and subtle compound of lifeworlds, a social Texture inhabited by real people with real lives to live. While Western sovietologists and Soviet ideologues unanimously proclaimed the centralized monolitnost' of the Soviet empire, I had experienced Leningrad as particularistic and pluralistic to the point of complete disorganization. The Soviet Union simply could not be a totalitarian dictatorship, I reasoned. It was an "unplanned society", as anthropologist Janine Wedel (1992) has later said of Poland. And while the experts insisted that the unspeakable power of the "Communist" states had frozen their societies in perpetual immobility, my informants' lives were filled with violent upheavals, sudden opportunities and chance encounters, and Soviet history itself seemed - as anthropologist Bruce Grant (1995) has recently phrased it - to have been a continuous "century of perestroikas". Perhaps most striking, in view of later events, people in Leningrad in 1983 were constantly telling me that still more dramatic changes were on their way. It is true that many of them envisioned these changes as a spiritual apocalypse, while I, as an anthropologist, speculated about the collective, social forces at work. Still, it was not hard to conclude that "something" was maturing deep down in the vast, chaotic social organism that was the Soviet Union - that heavy, ponderous forces were gathering and pressing against the barriers that contained them. This imagery seemed terrifying at times, since there was so much bitterness and pain at the root of what was taking place. But there was also hope - hope that sanity might prevail, that change could take place in a more or less peaceful manner (as indeed it so far seems to have done).²

In this context, I felt the need to express my belief that life in the Soviet Union was more often individualistic and creative than deadened by totalitarian conformity, that people were motivated by "passionate realism" rather than fear of power. The real pain of 1.1 million dead in Second World War Leningrad, the passionate skepticism to any new war after this one, and the creativity and pride to survive it all "and even laugh" (as Slavenka Drakulic (1992) puts it), are graphical metaphors of the qualities I here invoke.

My work, thus, came to have an implicit focus on the possibilities for change in the Soviet system. I did not foresee the demise of the Communist Party or the break-up of the Soviet Empire. Nevertheless, my text points forward to our own age, and there is a basic compatibility between the analysis I proposed in 1986, and the changes that have later occurred (see the Epilogue of the present volume for some further thoughts on this). This is for me confirmed by the fact that many of the conclusions I draw about the Soviet Union below, have later (and independently of me) gained wide acceptance in the anthropological literature on the post-Soviet societies. (On the other hand, a number of issues that are raised by my analysis seem, in hindsight, to have been insufficiently treated in the following. I have therefore included two short papers as appendices to this volume, which update my thinking (1) on the methodology and ethics of my investigation (Appendix One and Appendix Two), and (2) on my analysis of Russian values (Appendix Two).)

A. Post-Communist Anthropology

Since the advent of glasnost' and perestroika and the breakdown of the Soviet empire, a whole new field of study has appeared in Western social and cultural anthropology. Students of what is commonly referred to as "post-Communist anthropology" have described many interesting aspects of life in various parts of the former Soviet empire, and stimulated a creative and thought-provoking debate on general questions of social organization and human relationships in the region. Still more importantly, anthropologists have been consistently skeptical to the policies of economic "shock therapy" favored by many influential Western actors, and to the belief that total dismantlement of existing economic and political structures followed by rapid and consistent marketization, would by itself cure all the (real and imagined) evils of the "Communist" system. Through intensive studies of the effects of reform in local contexts throughout the former Soviet empire, anthropologists have demonstrated the deeply contradictory processes at work, and shown that when abstract policies are applied to real social situations, they have unpredictable and often counterproductive consequences (for examples, see de Soto and Anderson 1993, Hann 1993, Kideckel 1995, Verdery 1991a, 1995, Creed and Wedel 1997, Burawoy and Verdery 1999).

Contributions to this literature have come both from Western anthropologists and (increasingly) from colleagues in East Europe, where, as one of the minor results of the changes taking place, socio-cultural anthropology (and, in a wider sense, qualitatively oriented social science) is now emerging as an academic discipline. We are witnessing the birth of what Richard Fardon (1990) has dubbed a "regional tradition in ethnographic writing". What Fardon means by a "regional tradition" is a complex and evolving set of assumptions of what constitutes "relevant research strategies" in a given ethnographic region. The association of African studies with classical British lineage theory (Radcliffe-Brown, Fortes, Evans-Pritchard etc.) or of Melanesian studies with classical exchange theory (Malinowski, Mauss, Strathern etc.), are well-documented examples of this, as is the long-standing association of the Latin American and Mediterranean regions with studies of moral codes of honor and shame (Archetti, Blok, Bourdieu, etc.). Fardon emphasizes that regional traditions are both limiting and creative. Melanesia in fact enabled the study of exchange in anthropology, in the sense that the exchange systems of the Trobrianders, as described (most notably) by Malinowski (1922, 1935), revealed for the first time the vast complexity that even a relatively "primitive" system of moneyless exchange might have. At the same time, the researcher's insistent focus on exchange may restrain him from doing work on other problems that might be equally interesting; or else, through the power relations of the academic establishment, may prompt him to discourage his students from such work. A "regional tradition" is thus a cross between fact and fantasy, innovation and constraint, between actual field experience of a real world, and "constructions" (Berger & Luckmann 1966) of that experience to fit the researcher's notions of what he or she "should" find.

The anthropology that is being done in East Europe today is quickly acquiring the attributes of a new "regional tradition". The caveat is that we have problems delimiting the region as such. The cultural variety within the area that stretches from Eastern Germany to Mongolia, from the Caucasus to Kamchatka, is very great, and the people living in various parts of it may often seem to have more in common with their neighbors across the border than with people living at "their" region's other end.³ It is often argued that the only thing that unites this area into a region at all is the few decades it has spent under Soviet rule, and that defining a region on this basis is a political act that denies the traditional cultural plurality of the region's individual groups. One is, so to speak, reproducing the power of the Soviet state by treating its former domain as a unit of study. One should recall, however, that many other ethnographic regions are "politically" defined, although the political events in question usually lie much further back in time. The Mediterranean is perhaps the prime example, an ethnographic region that remains conterminous with the Mare Nostrum of imperial Rome, in spite of its later division into a Christian and an Islamic sphere.

Still, to my mind, the title "post-Communism" is something of a misnomer, since it defines our sphere of interest not in geographical terms, but in the terms of a (now defunct) political ideology. Like it or not, we are studying a geographical region. There exists a large "Soviet Studies" establishment in Western academia, and although this has by now mostly renamed itself "Post-Soviet", it is still applied to the same physical area, because this is where its cadres have their expertise and research experience. For anthropologists such considerations carry particular weight. Doing fieldwork anywhere in the "post-Communist" world presupposes the acquisition of a corpus of complex practical skills and cultural knowledge - that differs widely from what is needed, e.g. in Africa. Anthropologists must acquire this corpus in order to do fieldwork at all. And because we learn from colleagues with similar skills, we have founded a community of anthropologists who have done work in the "East European" region, and this community has proceeded to define the standards and interests of a "regional tradition" - which we might refer to (as does a well-known journal) as the Anthropology of East Europe.⁴

B. The Anthropology of East Europe

East Europeanist anthropology is a regional tradition in the making, and as such presents a somewhat unfinished and at times makeshift face to the world. The research community is rather small, with few older researchers with senior academic positions at prestigious universities, and a multitude of young students making interesting and unexpected contributions. The roots of this tradition go back to the work of sociologists, anthropologists and rural economists in the early years of the 20th century. These students, many of them East European (e.g. Bogoraz 1904, Chayanov 1919, Galeski 1976, Stahl 1958-65), were particularly concerned with the problems of the peasantry, and founded an influential school of rural anthropology. In many parts of East Europe, such studies continued under Communist rule after the Second World War. Most prominently, Polish sociologists developed a fieldwork-based school that is closely reminiscent of Western sociocultural anthropology (see Wedel 1992 for a cross section of the work of this school on informal organization in Communist Poland), and similar conditions prevailed for example in Yugoslavia and Hungary. In such countries, cooperation with Western colleagues was not uncommon, and a number of Western researchers who had been active before the war continued work in the area into the 50's and 60's (for examples, see Benet 1952; Halpern 1956, 1967, 1977; Sanders 1949). In the Soviet Union, in contrast, sociological and anthropological research was effectively silenced under Stalin (see Tumarkin 1999), and - in spite of the interesting empirical work that started appearing in the 70's (e.g. Arutyunyan 1970, Staroverov 1976, Boyko 1977, Pimenov 1977, Kon 1980, Shlapentokh 1989; for an early Western contribution, see Dunn 1967) - we have only recently seen a return to the social science "mainstream" (see Tishkov 1992 for a critical evaluation of the condition of contemporary Russian ethnography). Meanwhile, in the West, during the 70's and early 80's, a new generation of East Europeanist anthropologists had appeared, and a number of paradigmatic monographs, mostly on rural themes, were published (see Hann 1980 on Hungary; Humphrey 1998 [1983] on Buryatia; Kligman 1981, Sampson 1982 and Verdery 1983 on Romania; Wedel 1986 on Poland). All in all, however, we may conclude with Halpern and Kideckel (1983, p.378), in their review of the Western (particularly American) state of the art anno 1983 that Eastern European studies until the late 80's had had marginal impact on mainstream debate in Western anthropology.

Starting in the late 80's, this small, specialist field has seen unprecedented expansion, as previously inaccessible regions are explored, new questions are asked, and the number of students doing fieldwork steadily increases. Most of the leading figures of this new tradition are still the researchers that were active back in the early 80's, but today their students are also contributing to the field. Increasingly also, various traditions of anthropology - and more generally, of sociological research based on qualitative methods - are forming or reasserting themselves, often against significant opposition from traditional academia, in all the East European countries. In these circles, innovative and often interdisciplinary approaches are being pioneered, which challenge the rather airy generalizations that are often proposed by Western researchers. In St. Petersburg, for example, alongside traditional academic institutions (several of which have undergone significant internal reform), there have arisen a Faculty of Ethnology at the new European University (www.eu.spb.ru/ethno - led by Nikolay B. Vakhtin) and a Center for Independent Social Research - Centr nezavisimykh sociologicheskikh issledovanii (www.cisr.ru - led by Viktor Voronkov), specializing in applied qualitative research. As in the West, we find a young, enthusiastic, and often innovative research milieu.

C. Theories of Socialism

One of the greatest problems of writing about Russia in the mid-80's was the almost complete lack of general sociological theory of Soviet society. Quite a number of interesting empirical studies of East European societies had appeared, but the theoretical debate, which is otherwise so lively in anthropology, was virtually absent. The study of East European societies was still heavily dominated by the paradigmatic theory of totalitarianism, which put prime emphasis on the (presumably) all-powerful state. Of course, totalitarianism theory was never completely hegemonic, and much of the empirical research that was conducted (in anthropology as elsewhere) in fact contradicted central tenets of the totalitarian model. Nevertheless, there existed no developed theoretical alternative to this model, and few efforts were made to revise existing grand theory (such as Marxism, structuralism or Weberianism) to suit the circumstances of East Europe. In writing the present volume, I was therefore explicitly attempting to build up an alternative theoretical framework, and to develop a number of analytical concepts related to empirical Soviet society. Since my work was never published, however (see Footnote 1), it has had little or no influence except on my own students.

But this of course does not mean that other anthropologists were insensitive to the need for general theoretical approaches to the East European societies (see Halpern and Kideckel 1983, p.394), and in the course of the last decade several interesting theoretical syntheses had appeared. The most prominent of these is that of Katherine Verdery, whose monograph describing life in a Transylvanian village was published in 1983. Early in the next decade, Verdery published a second monograph on urban Romanian intellectuals (1991a) and a number of theoretical studies (1991b, 1993, 1996) that detail a complex model of the inner workings of "socialist society". This model draws in part on the work of Hungarian and Romanian scholars (e.g. Konrad and Szelenyi 1979, Kornai 1980, Campeanu 1986), in part on general anthropological theory (e.g. Polanyi 1957), and in part on empirical studies by Western anthropologists (e.g. Humphrey 1991). During the 90's, both Verdery herself and a number of other prominent anthropologists of East Europe have developed her model further, and there seems at present to be something of a consensus that it represents an exceptionally fruitful avenue of inquiry.

I find it interesting and encouraging that there are many striking parallels between Verdery's account of "socialist society" and my own description of the Soviet Union below. We agree that the monolithic power of the Soviet state was a sham. In fact, the state was weak, and hampered by what Hungarian economist Janos Kornai (1980, 1992; see also Birman 1983) has called a "shortage economy". This state governed a society fragmented into Islands (enterprises, kolkhozy, bureaucratic institutions etc.) that were ruled as semi-feudal domains by rival fractions of a nomenklatura-mafia (see Verdery 1995, Humphrey 1996-97, and Wedel 1998ab for examples of how this model may be adapted to the present, post-Soviet, situation). In this scheme, the state functioned as the primary redistributor of resources and wealth within a "supply-constrained" economy of shortages, and Islands competed for access to its wealth:

"In a supply-constrained system [...] everyone scrambles for access to the pot. At all points in the system, jobs or bureaucratic positions are used as platforms for amassing resources. Personal influence, 'corruption', and reciprocal exchanges are some of the major mechanisms. This sort of behavior goes on throughout the society but is especially important for bureaucrats, whose entire reputation and prestige rest upon their capacity to amass resources. Any bureaucrat, any bureaucratic segment, tends to expand its own domain, increasing its capacity to give - whether the 'gift' be education, apartments, medical care, permission and funds for publication, social welfare, wages, building permits, or funds for investments in factory infrastructure. Throughout the bureaucracy, then, there is rampant competition to increase one's budget at the expense of those roughly equivalent to one on a horizontal scale, so as to have potentially more to disburse to claimants below. That is, what counts most in the competition among social actors within allocative bureaucracies is inputs to one's segment, rather than outputs of production." (Verdery 1991b, p.424)

Verdery emphasizes the systemic centrality of the "second economy" in Soviet-type societies, and the peculiar role played by "culture", as a battleground between state and oppositional legitimacy. The importance attached to "culture" by a regime that professed materialism as its official ideology was indeed one of the more paradoxical features of the Soviet system, and Verdery attaches great importance to it. It is linked, in her theory, to the pivotal role played by the intelligentsia in the legitimation of Soviet-type regimes, as well as to the sudden eruptions of (intelligentsia-led) nationalism that accompanied the breakdown of the Soviet world. More generally, Verdery (following Humphrey 1991) describes the growth of East European nationalism as a result of the fragmentation of socialist societies into competing "semi-feudal" domains (Islands). As will be seen below (see Chapters 2 and Chapter 4, Part D), there is close agreement in all of these respects between Verdery's reasoning and my own.

Nevertheless, there are several points on which we differ. Most importantly, I sense - in Verdery's original model, as well as in much of the later work that has been based on it - a rather incongruous distance to the subject being described. "At its best," Chris Hann remarks, "the anthropological approach can offer a fully satisfying account of 'how the system really works', the pays reel as opposed to the pays legal, including the influence of specific cultural traditions upon its operation. Perhaps even more valuably, the anthropologist should be able to convey a sense of what it feels like to live in such a system" (Hann 1993, p.9). Post-Communist anthropology has certainly contributed to this agenda, not least in the sense that it questions the meaning of many of the key terms that are taken for granted in much of the non-anthropological discourse on the "transition" - such as capitalism, democracy, privatization or civil society - and emphasizes the local complexity of the changes taking place. Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little "feeling" of everyday life in much of what is written by anthropologists about the "formerly communist" world. Verdery, for example, bases her model of "socialism" on a generalized, abstract description of the type of power wielded by the socialist state, and from this derives the parameters of daily life - rather than proceeding from daily experience to the structure of society as a whole. This approach may leave us with the impression e.g. that Russian "culture" was not primarily a lived reality, to which individuals related with emotional and esthetic passion, but (merely) an instrument of political legitimacy, over which the state and its opponents wrestled for control. Thus, the magical power and allure of "culture", to which I have devoted much attention below (see also Nielsen 1994), and which may ultimately derive from "culture's" embattled status, is lost from view in many influential texts of post-Communist anthropology.⁵

I believe that this distanced attitude is a legacy of the macro-political and macro-economic concerns that dominated Western pre-perestroika sociological work on the Sovietized societies, and of the strongly politicized views of many of its most prominent practitioners, notably political scientists, historians and economists (see Verdery 1996, p.7). In post-Communist anthropology, a much weakened, but rather similar bias is revealed e.g. in the fact that almost the entire literature takes for granted that its object of study is "socialism" (socialist ideology), or "socialist society", terms which are usually treated as interchangeable. Thus, the volume edited by Chris Hann that I cited above, is entitled Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Local Practice. In his introduction, Hann, who has elsewhere (1992) argued against Verdery's holistic model and her emphasis on the urban intelligentsia, emphasizes that anthropological studies reveal many "local socialisms", rather than a single, uniform, global "socialism": "[D]espite the relative uniformity of socialist institutions among Soviet allies in Eastern Europe before 1989, the actual implementation of socialist programmes varied enormously, in ways that could to some extent be explained by reference to differences in pre-socialist history and 'political culture'" (1993, p.9). Despite this clearly valid insight, however, Hann's volume as a whole is premised on the idea that there exists a global category of societies and social processes that may usefully be described as "socialist", "communist" etc. In accordance with this assumption, the contributors to his volume discuss a very wide variety of subjects, ranging from philosophical critiques of Marx's theory of "socialism" to empirical studies of "socialist" societies in Tanzania, Sri Lanka, China, and various parts of the former Soviet empire - as well as an example of "local socialism" from England. What do all of these cases have in common, except for the label "socialist"? Elsewhere, Aidan Southall remarks that "the failure of socialism [in Africa] is simply an expression of the fact that it has not been socialism at all" (1993, p.60). Could not the same be said of the majority of the cases in Hann's volume? Perhaps, indeed, it is quite as misleading to refer even to the Soviet Union as "socialist", as to speak e.g. of American society as "Christian"? As I see it, the anthropology of "post-Communism" seems to waver between extremes: Either there exists a "global socialism", an abstract concept applicable to anything that calls itself "socialist", or else there exist only (very) "local socialisms", vastly different from each other, with nothing in common at all except that on some rarified level of abstraction they are "the same thing".

D. History and Russian Identity

The second (and related) point on which I differ from Verdery is in the surprising lack of historical depth in her discussion. Her theory is, as she puts it, an "ideal-type model [...] especially suitable for the highly centralized, 'command' form of socialism, best exemplified by [Romania and] the Soviet Union under Stalin and Brezhnev" (1991, p.420). But this equation of Stalin and Brezhnev (and the implicit contrast with the "less centralized" rule of Khrushchev) is at best naive. It fails to appreciate not only the vast difference between the Stalin era and the forty following years as a whole, not only the vast social revolutions that took place under Stalin, but also the more gradual (though no less fundamental) changes during the years of the so-called "stagnation" (zastoy) (cf. Shlapentokh 1989). So, though Verdery successfully highlights the complexity of the transition from socialism, "socialism" itself remains a discrete and self-contained system based on the implementation of a particular ideology: a static "ideal type" rather than an evolving social organism. The analytical basis of this idealization is the concept of the redistributive state, which owes much to Karl Polanyi (1944, 1957) and the substantivist school in economic anthropology. A redistributive state, according to this school, has a particular logic that under certain circumstances may aggregate into a semi-feudal order of warring factions of followers lead by patrons, each of whom controls a "feudal" resource base or domain. But this pattern has appeared in a number of forms under very different historical circumstances, and if we wish to understand its social-cultural impact on a particular empirical case (e.g. late Soviet Russia), it is essential to give an account of its historical genesis. Verdery's continuing focus on "socialism" might seem to exclude this possibility, since the continuities between pre-socialist Russia and the Soviet Union are broken by the intrusion of an alien ideology.

My own analysis is deeply committed to the idea that the socio-cultural conditions prevailing in East Europe today are the result (though not, perhaps, the necessary result) of very long-term historical processes, which may be envisioned as a complex, changing pattern of interaction between various regions, nations and sub-regions of Europe, and the various locales, classes and institutions that make up each of these. More specifically, I argue (with Gerschenkron 1970), that modernization in East Europe since the Early Middle Ages has consistently followed in the wake of Western modernization, and (with Anderson 1974ab) that is has evolved under the constant pressure of West European imperialism. The structural position of Russia as the Easternmost of the Eastern societies, as the limes separating Europe from Asia, is therefore a sociological constant of very great historical depth, and it has been demonstrated convincingly that this constant has profoundly marked the (real and symbolic) relationships between state and people in Russia. Thus, according to the Russian émigré historian Alexander Gerschenkron (1970), late modernizers go through sudden, violent "spurts" of forced, state-led modernization alternating with "stagnant" periods that are often anti-modernist. They are ruled by states that compensate for economic "backwardness" by pursuing policies of economic and political centralization; they preside over empires that are predominantly multi-ethnic, where national identities are often weakly consolidated (see also Greenfeld 1990); and they have a weakly developed sphere of what Jürgen Habermas (1962) has called Bürgerliche Öffentligkeit - which in the East Europeanist literature is often referred to with the heavily ideological terms "Civil Society" or "Third Sector" (tretii sektor). In Russia, Europe's Easternmost and most "underdeveloped" periphery, we may (as Gerschenkron emphasizes) expect each of these elements to be very powerfully expressed.

It seems to me profoundly significant that Russian "native theory" (both popular and literary) is deeply concerned with exactly these issues: Russia's relationship to the West, its borderline position between Asia and Europe, the distance between state and people. Quite often, moreover, there is fairly good concurrence between the conclusions drawn by "natives" and "social scientists" about these issues. Thus, the "victimization" of Russia, a theme of popular discourse that authors such as Ries (1997) have lately made much of, reflects Russia's historical position as a repeatedly colonized "primary periphery" (Wallerstein 1979) of West Europe. Historical analysis may thus lead us to the conclusion that cultural values and narrative tropes, which most anthropologists today tend to view as reified "discursive objects" within a semiotic-symbolic system (as "symbols that stand for themselves", see Wagner 1986), are often accurate reflections of actual sociological circumstances. Symbols (as I argue below) may thus be "true", i.e. they may communicate sociologically valid knowledge.

Such a conclusion flies in the face of much that is written in present-day "postmodernist" anthropology. Values, according to this view, are always social constructions, reifications or objectifications of semiotically arbitrary signs. While I am not insensitive to the value of this position, and though I approve of the self-critical stance that it has induced in the anthropological community, I object to its universal application, and suggest that it be applied with caution to complex empirical conditions such as those prevailing in Russia.

To exemplify what I mean by this, I shall briefly discuss some of the most intriguing recent anthropological work on Russian identity. Nancy Ries (1997) has published a fascinating ethnography of popular "talk" among Russian intellectuals in Moscow during the years of perestroika. Ries documents a phenomenon that a great many observers remark on in passing (though surprisingly few have taken the time to study it systematically): the "free outpourings of the soul" or "endless, fruitless discussions" (as my informants variously called them) that take place within the Russian (or perhaps Soviet) intimate sphere. Ries maintains that in Russian "talk" (everyday discourse) perestroika was represented as a ritual drama of transition from one stage of "the Russia story" to another: a reiteration of history rather than a transformation of it. In "talk", the inevitability of suffering and chaos are bemoaned, the heroic strategies of survivors are celebrated, and apocalyptic demands for total social transformation are given voice. As the reader will presently see, these themes (and many others mentioned by Ries) were amply represented in pre-perestroika "talk" as well. But during the hectic, unbelievable days of the "transition" itself, "talk" was vastly intensified, and "the Russia story" more frequently and passionately reiterated. But the ritual intensification of everyday narratives that claimed to challenge the status quo in fact confirmed it.

"In essence, the rituals of perestroika were a public marking and lamentation of the opposition between power and powerlessness, or, in a different valence, the battle between hierarchical and egalitarian impulses in Russian society. This opposition was hardly resolved or cancelled by perestroika. If anything, it was culturally validated and reproduced, as systematic, rational modes of social transformation were excluded from imagination and practice. By uttering their litanies and mystical poverty narratives, many people rehearsed themselves in the very stances of passivity, ironic detachment, and victimization that have helped to ensure their continuing vulnerability to power and pain." (Ries 1997, p.188)

Clearly, Ries is here making an important point. I sympathize with her belief that there was "a moment of opportunity and that a rational combination of socialist and market systems could have occurred" (1997, p.16), though I find her emphasis on missed opportunity and her trust in rationality somewhat naive. I also believe, with Ries, that Russian "talk" in many cases reproduces the perennial Russian dilemmas. However, I am not convinced that there is a simple connection between these factors. Russian talk is deeply grounded in the sociological realities of national and international politics, economy and culture, and gives voice to many profoundly valuable insights into the facts (rather than the ideals) of life in Russian society. Studies of "talk" that occurs in active situations, rather than passively over a teacup, reveal this clearly. Thus, the "talk" of Russian drinking and exchange (Hivon 1994, Pesmen 1995, Ledeneva 1996-97), of middle-aged Russians telling the stories of their lives (Pahl and Thompson 1994, Dickinson 1995), of Russian female entrepreneurs in Moscow (Bruno 1997), Russian teenagers contemplating their hopes for the future (Markowitz 1997), or Russians managing their lives in Leningrad in 1983 (see below) reveal a deeply practical attitude to life, that differs radically from the Dostoevskian dualisms of "talk" that are dwelt on by Ries.

But even these dualisms are more than naturalized but "actually arbitrary symbolic elements", as Ries claims (1997, p.25). Thus, Russians (e.g. Gerschenkron) often point out that there seems to be a "repetitious" or "circular" quality to Russian history. This fatalistic trope of "history repeating itself" is no doubt, as Ries argues, an ideological-semiotic "construction" but it is also a grimly realistic assessment of the actual prospects of life in Russia up through the centuries, given Russia's seemingly inescapable structural position as the most distant primary periphery of the rapidly (and autonomously) developing societies of the West European center. Repeated state-sponsored attempts to "overtake the West" (militarily, economically, culturally) have always, in the long term, failed, and resulted in the reproduction of similar institutional structures, similar everyday exigencies, and a similar "fatalistic", "impractical" or "passive" mindset. But fatalism is not merely a resignation and a defeat, it is also an acceptance of inevitability, and thus, as I point out in Chapter 3, a creative contemplation of the inevitable rather than a naively Promethean attempt to change what cannot be changed. Seeing Russians face real crisis, real tragedy, reveals the wisdom of this position.

Various ideologies, and various symbolic expressions of the same ideology, may thus contain variable proportions of "realism" and "construction". "It strikes me," Ries observes, "that all the references (both serious and ironic) that Russians make to their character have motivated a common journalistic and occasional scholarly reification of that concept" (1997, p.25). Certainly. But this does not mean that Russian character is only a reification. It is also a valid representation of the real.

Ries's discussion might profitably be framed by the very similar analysis made by the Russian émigré anthropologist Svetlana Boym (1994). Boym's work, which is based on the personal experience of a lifetime in Russia, as well as extensive knowledge of Soviet and Russian literature, art and film, discusses the "commonplaces" and "common places" of everyday life in the Soviet Union. In much the same way as Ries, she describes an "absolutist" streak in Russian and Soviet discourse, a "story of Russia" that switches wildly between binary extremes. This story is believed, she says, and enacted - particularly among the intelligentsia that are Ries's fieldwork subjects - and the enactors thereby perpetuate the conditions against which they rebel. Boym, however, presents this sphere of (ideal and idealizing) "teacup" discourse against the background of discourse generated by the practical exigencies of the household. "Fatalism" and "passivity", seen against the background of the coerced intimacy and latent violence of the kommunalka, may as well be Russian virtues as capitalist vices. When you have nowhere to go, remain quiet and learn to master the art of balance in "the eye of the whirlwind". Or as one Russian friend recently told me: "You must not fight against your fate (sud'ba); it is much stronger than you. You have to be considerate of your fate and take good care of it, or else it may turn against you and crush you."

E. Private and Public Life in Russia

As the reader will presently see, this volume is less concerned with ideological and philosophical questions (though they are also discussed), than with the sociological "facts of everyday life". Clearly Boym's distinction between everyday life itself (byt) and the ideal of everyday life (bytie) represents one such sociological fact, and it is probably possible to document that the contrast between ideology and reality, between theory and practice, is sharper and more absolute in Russian collective consciousness than in the more instrumentally oriented, compromise-prone West.⁶ Within byt itself, however, within the sphere of the everyday, other distinctions arise, and these come to play an important part in sociologically oriented studies such as my own.

One of the most interesting distinctions within everyday life is the breach between byt in intimate and byt in public contexts. This dichotomization of "private" and "public" life in East Europe was given an early formulation by the Polish sociologist Stefan Nowak (1981). According to Wedel (1992, p.9ff), Nowak postulated an extreme dichotomization between state and people in Poland, and therefore an extreme disjuncture between "public" and "private" spheres. What one said and did "at home" and what one said and did "at work" were entirely different matters (members of the Russian intelligentsia have referred to this as "dual consciousness"). This dualistic social structure (as opposed to the more gradualist Western ideal) has no room for a neutral, middle ground, a "polite" or "civil" society (Bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit). In its place, we find a sociological vacuum, an absence of institutionalized connections between private and public worlds. Later Polish sociologists have argued, against Nowak, that the absence of "mid-range institutions" (as I call them below) is by no means total - particularly in Poland, the most consistently and successfully oppositional nation of the Soviet empire (see Buchowski 1994). Sociologists have studied the role played by such institutions as the Catholic Church and the rodowiska: the "social circle" of family, friends and acquaintances that may be mobilized for private or collective purposes (Wedel 1992, p.12). The absence of formal mid-range institutions is thus shown not to imply an empty "sociological vacuum" but a tangled breeding ground for informal mid-range institutions. Important research has been done in latter years into the subtler problems of this informal "second culture" (Wedel 1992, p.17) or "second economy" (Grossman 1977), particularly by economic anthropologists (for some examples, see Mars and Altman 1983, Sampson 1985-86, Hann 1992, Stewart 1992, de Soto and Anderson 1993, Hivon 1994, Verdery 1995, Bruno 1997, Creed and Wedel 1997, Humphrey 1998, Lemon 1998, Burawoy and Verdery 1999).

Nowak's notion of the "social vacuum" has thus been reconceptualized from a mere absence, to an absence of formally institutionalized, state-sponsored control - which necessitates the growth of informal organization. In the course of Soviet history the relationship between the state and the informal institutions has changed several times quite radically (see Grant 1995 for a description of the local effects of these transformations among an indigenous people of Sakhalin), and as a result, the configuration of "private" and "public" spheres has changed. Below, I describe or touch on several aspects of these changes: the genesis of the mafia-state under Stalin; the transition from the austere 50's to the consumer-oriented 70's; the changing governmental policies towards religion and nationality, the family and education; the switch, during the early 30's, from the esthetics of kul'tura 1, to the esthetics of kul'tura 2 (Paperny 1996). The Russian sociologist Vladimir Shlapentokh has pointed out that an underlying trend of the entire period since the mid-50's has been a gradual "privatization of Soviet society", a "withdrawal of energy and emotion from the State" (1989, p.153). Shlapentokh traces this withdrawal throughout the public and private sphere: by degrees, restrictions on ownership and accumulation of private property are relaxed, private living quarters are increasingly available, the media refocuses on family life and romantic love, sexual mores are loosened, networks of friendship expanded. This is the impulse described by Svetlana Alliluyeva in the quote at the beginning of this Preface, a mood of "collective relaxation" after the extreme pressures of the preceding four decades. It corresponds to the idea of the growth of the New Class, as described by Djilas (1957; see below). Finally, Shlapentokh sees an increase in peoples' engagement in the informal, "second economy" and "second culture". I consider it necessary to qualify this last position somewhat.

As I argue in Chapter 4 (Part D), the mafia-state developed and reached its apogee during the Stalin era. Violence at that time reached a level of intensity and unpredictability that has never since been approached, and that cannot be rivaled even by the immediately preceding decades. Despite the (largely legitimate) complaints of intellectuals, however, the four decades after Stalin were largely peaceful, prosperous, and fairly optimistic. The mass hysteria of violence engendered by unchecked war between powerful rival "feudal" factions that had swept society during the Stalin years, no longer occurred. In the "social contract" engineered by Brezhnev, the leaders of the major factions of the mafia-state made themselves accountable to the central governmental bureaucracy, while the center in turn guaranteed stable deliveries of resources and wealth. The Second Economy expands in the following years - throughout the lower echelons of the system. In its higher echelons, the opposite is the case, relative stability and control reign; until they are disrupted by perestroika.

F. The New Class

In this book, I have attempted to describe some of these long-term processes, and to situate my informants' lives anno 1978 or 1983 within them. The post-war years were the first continuous generation of peace and relative prosperity in Russia since the beginning of our century. Peace allowed the predominantly rural, unindustrialized and uneducated population, which Stalin put through such violent changes, to assimilate what had happened to them. It is essential to bear in mind that Stalin's heritage was not merely one of terror and mismanagement, but that a fundamental sociological transformation was carried out during the years of his reign. In 1914, the country's urban population was 18%, primary and secondary schools had a mere 10 million pupils, less than 15% of the population were industrial workers and less than 15% of rural women could read and write. Fifty-five years later, about 60% of the population lived in cities, 55% were workers, there were close to 50 million pupils in primary and secondary school and almost the entire population was literate. In 1900, Russia was a society split in two - a vast, uneducated, poverty-stricken majority, and a minute, "cultured" splinter group. By the time of Brezhnev's death, a substantial "middle class" of educated professionals had emerged. As Milovan Djilas pointed out in 1957, this "New Class" (see Chapter 4, Part C) was in a sense an "instrument" created by the Stalinist regime to further its own ends. But, as Djilas further argues, a class is always more than a passive instrument in the hands of a ruling clique. A class consists of people, who strive to make life tolerable for themselves and to make sense of the world around them - goals that unavoidably conflict with the purposes of the state. This conflict, and the slow "privatization" (Shlapentokh 1989) that accompanied it, was in the long run fatal to the regime itself.

As the New Class grew and the state still insisted on treating it as an "instrument", more and more of its growth slipped silently out of the state-controlled public sphere and into the burgeoning Limbo of the Second Economy and Culture. The most dynamic entrepreneurs and stirring ideas escaped from the public sphere and created the rich, but in many ways destructive "counter culture" which is the main subject of this book. Increasing numbers of Soviet citizens came to depend on the black market to sustain an acceptable standard of living, on the cultural opposition to find a meaning in life. Some of the people I knew lived their entire lives in one part or another of this dual sphere. More importantly, by the beginning of the 80's it had become impossible to survive in the Soviet Union at all without to some extent participating in this vast "society outside society", and when stagnation and later catastrophic disruption hit the national economy in the 80's, dependence on the "Second Society" increased still further. I argue below (see also Nielsen 1994) that the dominant values of the emerging New Class - which became the sociological basis for the emergence of what is today the ruling class of Russia - derived from this economic and cultural "society outside society".

But the prolonged exclusion of the New Class and its values from positions of legitimate influence had destructive consequences. On the one hand the growth of the "second economy" was accompanied by a pervasive boycott of the official economy - a major factor underlying the economic crisis that overtook the Soviet Union in the early 80's (see Chapter 2). On the other hand, the frustration of the cultural opposition led to widespread disillusionment with modernity, increasing nostalgia for traditional values, and spreading Russian and non-Russian nationalism. Economic slowdown and ethnic activism overlapped and strengthened each other. Thus, by the time of my fieldwork, the substance of society had already changed irrevocably behind the "stagnant" official facade - a conclusion that is confirmed by the general demographic and economic slump that starts to be registered at this time.

G. Ordinary Life and Culture

Nevertheless, the most striking feature of life in the Soviet Union in 1978 or 1983 was its ordinariness, the peaceful, leisurely flow of everyday existence. There was a certain old-world gentility to this (and a very Russian bravura), by which the nights spent over a cup of tea in a cramped kitchen were made equivalent to visits at the country estate of the Karenins. People would go to great lengths to maintain what they construed as a "normal", "gracious", "beautiful" life. There was a strong consciousness of honor and shame, proper and improper demeanor. For this reason, and in spite of the horror stories recounted by many Western authors writing about the same period, such as Hedrick Smith (1976) or Ernst Brunner (1983), the Soviet Union in 1978 or 1983 was in most respects a very pleasant place for a foreigner to visit: people were hospitable, polite and took time off to be with you. Of course, the pressure was on, even then, but there was an underlying regularity, a sense in which a brittle, but still manageable social contract was maintained and could be trusted. Within this fragile, but known framework, there was room to create a life, a culture.

The term "Soviet culture" is commonly treated with disparagement. This "culture", we are told, was a fake; it was imposed from above by the State, a superficial product of ideology rather than an authentic growth of natural selection. Nevertheless, since people had to live with these impositions, they created a "culture" around them. It is beyond doubt that a unique "Soviet culture" existed, with its ethics and esthetics, its challenges, hopes, romance, and shattered dreams. This "culture" was not external to the people who shared it; it was the medium in which their lives were lived, and against which their measures of value and meaning were established (for examples of some aspects of this, see Boym 1994, Clark 1995, Yampolsky 1995). Even those who resented the Soviet state most intensely did so as Soviet people. Their visions of an alternative world resonated with the actual world they inhabited.

"Soviet culture" may be considered from many points of view, but one of the more interesting perspectives is to think of it as an all-out attempt to establish an alternative "model of globalization" to the model we speak of as "the West", "Western Capitalism" or "Western Civilization" (see Nielsen 1994). The "Soviet" model differed from its "Western" counterpart in many fundamental ways, among which ideology was perhaps the least important. It presupposed a different economic and historical order, a different power structure, different means and standards of education; it had its own ideals of propriety, practicality, sex, and common sense; it was expressed in automobile models and hair styles, in architecture, space programs, patterns of work and leisure, crime and punishment, love and humor, conformity and protest. The punk musicians I met in Leningrad in 1984 were Soviet punks, and the content as well as the form of their self-expression would have been unintelligible to punks from Great Britain or Norway. One of these young men carried an empty slide frame wherever he went. It was the nol'-ob"ekt, he explained - holding it up to "frame" the foot of an enormous statue of Lenin - the ultimate work of art: totally portable, totally subversive, and immune from prosecution.

Today, the ubiquitous, global quality of "Soviet culture" is easily forgotten, but the fact is that it pervaded life throughout the so-called "Soviet block", and that you felt just as much at the center of the world in Moscow or Leningrad as in Paris or New York - but at the center of a different world, that modeled "globality" differently. People derived satisfaction and pride from the mere consciousness that they belonged to a vast and powerful civilization. But they also seemed to realize that part of the price they paid for empire was a certain kind of superficiality, which is precisely what many Western observers and Soviet dissidents accused them of: "Yours is not a real culture!"

The Soviet Union, like the United States, was a multinational nation, and was built up institutionally around an (often tacit) acknowledgment of this. It is true that Lenin's idea that all nations would eventually melt away into meta-national solidarity was never much of a success; still, a particular brand of inter-cultural tolerance was an important aspect of "Soviet culture". People in Leningrad lived and died, often complaining, sometimes thriving, in what I refer to below as a state of "enforced pluralism": a rapidly changing and socially diverse public sphere. Tolerance was indeed often "enforced". A scholar in the Northern Caucasus, who received a grant to study ethnic conflicts in his native city, was required to keep his findings confidential. "That was the only sensible thing to do," he assured me, and I must say that later developments seem to have proven him right. Of course, Brezhnev's social contract could not contain all conflict, but every attempt was made not to publicize or incite those incidents that occurred. One had the impression that the remembered violence of the preceding generations, the war, hunger and terror that killed maybe 100 millions, had not simply hardened people to moral insensibility, but fostered in them a respect for life and a prudent regard for otherness.

"McDonald's - Chain of free toilets throughout Russia"
Old-style humor in a new world
www.anektodov.net

Introduction (1986)

On my first trip to Russia I traveled with a friend who made a point of his intellectual image and knowledge of the country. I was young, unprejudiced and easily impressed - still I felt he was overdoing things when he told me: "You can't spend more than an hour in the same room with a Russian without getting involved in a discussion about the existence of God." Two days later I arrived and was grabbed immediately by some Russian students, who welcomed me with vodka and zakuski - salt or spicy snacks to down it with. After half an hour we were, sure enough, heatedly discussing God's existence.

Although the topic wasn't broached again in my presence for months, this experience forced me to ask many questions: What does it mean to be Russian? How do they differ from us? Do they have some secret we might learn from? I was confronted with the "Russian enigma" from my first day in the country.

Later experience only served to confirm the reality of this enigma. As a foreigner I went through the traumas of being cold-shouldered in stores, on the streets, in offices; then, suddenly, being accepted into the "family" and subjected to the full weight of its curiosity, hospitality and portveyn; later, being shrugged off as an outsider who could "never understand us", while at the same time feeling that they hadn't the slightest wish to know me except as a reserve of information or luxury items from the West; and at last, gradually learning to trust and value a few close friends, and sometimes to be able to contribute constructive insights into their difficulties and joys. I experienced the extreme standpoints of intellectuals, each cooped up in his or her tiny world, suspicious of the other little worlds around them. I was drawn into the shapeless brawls of working-class youth. I felt the barriers of lies, mistrust, ignorance, gossip and fear surrounding each tiny group of people, and the care, consideration and tact my friends showed when I ventured to defy the barriers and introduce them to each other. I came to love the easygoing attitude to time, the disorder, the generosity and intimacy; to be repelled by those attitudes when they exceeded the invisible limits of respect. Gradually I recognized the fragility of personal relations, of life itself perhaps, the peaceful sadness of the empty fields and streets I passed through, the subtleness, sensitivity and endurance needed to live among them. The hollowness of so many outer forms, the warmth of heart within, and the courage, honesty and pain of those who strove to keep a fragmented world together.

This combination of fragility and strength is perhaps the strongest impression I am left with. It is also the one that is hardest to convey, since it is so paradoxical and so consistently present on every level of existence. There is a seriousness to it that I have never experienced anywhere else. Transported to our own society, it is so easily transformed into caricature, absurdity or triviality. Strangely enough, the opposite is also true: in Russia, much Western trivia takes on an earnestness we have difficulties accepting at face value.

But at the first meeting, the core of the Russian paradox is hardly discernible. One is bombarded by conflicting impressions, strikingly European in appearance, uniquely Russian in content. This perhaps is why Westerners, since their first meetings with Russia many centuries ago, have considered the country enigmatic.

A. Defining the Problem

The aim of this book is dual. I seek insight into the "enigma" of Russian identity. What does it mean to be Russian, and why? In the world of "Soviet Studies", bristling with statistical surveys and ideological involvement, such questions are rare, and I believe the field may be significantly enriched by an anthropologist, for whom they are a primary concern. My second aim is theoretical. Anthropology is a powerful tool - but exploring Russia, I found it would not cover all aspects of this exceedingly complex reality. My presentation is therefore a critique of anthropology itself, and an attempt at enriching it in specific ways.

But before these discussions can commence, we need a feeling for what the "enigma" itself entails. Father Peter,⁷ a priest who had seen many dark sides of Soviet reality without losing his clarity of mind, volunteered this (to me disheartening) statement:^7a

- "Our reality is incomprehensible to the mind and completely paradoxical. Any attempt at understanding it is doomed to failure. It therefore finds its ideal and only expression in the anecdote."

I have spoken to many Russians about what it means to be Russian, and the impression I have gathered is "enigmatic", to say the least: people often seemed to see themselves as either rotten to the core or chosen, almost holy - one or the other (or both, as in the haunting poetry of Aleksandr Blok), intermediate standpoints were rarer. The classical symbol of this clear-cut dualism is that of Russia suspended between West and East, Europe and Asia, culture (or decadence) and nature (pristine or barbarian). The problem of choosing sides in the war between these poles, attaining truth (pravda) by alliance with one, the other, or both, is endemic.

Vera, hearing I was to read a lecture in Norway on the theme: "Europe's cultural heritage - does it include Eastern Europe?", got angry: "Of course! What a stupid question."

But in a discussion with an Intourist guide, when I expressed my conviction that it's important for Westerners to understand Russia, the guide looked strangely at me and sighed: "It'll never work out. Russians are so different. We live closer together, in bigger families. We're closer to the soil, that's incredibly important. We're somewhat Asian, not only Europeans - my nemnozhko aziaty."

In part, this ambivalence reflects a real historical situation: for centuries, the cultural, political and economic influence of both "Europe" and "Asia" on Russia has been intense. Still, the "enigma" cannot be reduced to externals only. True, Zina, an émigré intellectual, was struck by "how much poorer people's lives are in Russia, how much less cultured (kul'turno)." And a working-class woman I met on the train two days later, returning home after several years in the same country as Zina, complained that the West was degenerate, people cold and inconsiderate, she was pressed upon and controlled from all sides (oni davyat), there was nowhere to run away to. So the West itself clearly gives rise to strong positive or negative feelings. But then, one of my more bitter friends used expressions nearly identical to those of the woman on the train - to describe life in Russia: "It's getting impossible to live here in a spiritual sense. They press on you (davyat) stronger and stronger." Later he continued: "There's nowhere you can forget yourself here." This makes it natural to think of "Europe" and "Asia" as symbolizing internal states within Russia and the Russians.

The impression Russia has made on Westerners is no less contradictory. Throughout the Stalin era an ideal image of the Soviet Union was projected outwards. It was a country of heroes, of millions marching in step towards Communism, led by One Party, One Ideology, One Leader. Westerners tended to accept this fiction, either embracing it as Utopian or condemning it as Dystopian - as in Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon (1940) or George Orwell's 1984 (1949). The latter interpretation gained ground as rumors of the horrors of Stalinism filtered through, as Eastern Europe was subjugated by Soviet troops and the Cold War enveloped us. Western intellectuals denounced the Soviet dream, claiming that the Revolution had created a new "Asiatic Barbary" (Koestler 1954). The academic field of Soviet Studies was not uninfluenced by this trend, and it was in these years that the totalitarian model of the Soviet system was formulated:

"The totalitarian society is characterized by an official ideology, a single mass party and terroristic police control... The state has a monopoly of mass communications and means of armed combat... [and] central control of the entire economy." (Dellenbrant 1986, p.81) "The distinction between state and society ceases to exist; the state penetrates and politicizes all spheres of life." (Nørgaard 1986, p.50)

Totalitarianism was a mirror image of the Communist Party's own claims to monolithic unity. The reason for this underlying similarity may well have been that the Eastern and Western "totalitarianisms" were both based on highly inadequate knowledge of Soviet reality. Their simplistic generalizations could only survive as long as they had to account for very few facts. Indeed, until the late 50's, facts were hard to come by - in part due to the near hermetic isolationism of Stalin's reign, in part because very little relevant research was conducted in the Soviet Union.⁸ But since Stalin's death (1953) the availability of data has increased vastly. The first exhaustive census since 1926 was conducted in 1959, and in its wake sociological, demographic and economic research experienced a slow renaissance, and Eastern and Western "totalitarianisms" were supplanted by more nuanced views.⁹ In the Soviet Union, empirical sociology came into its right - e.g. in Arutyunyan's erudite and critical analysis of rural conditions during the Second World War (1970). In the West, "corporativistic" and even "pluralistic" models were proposed (Nørgaard op.cit.).¹⁰ Thus, until the 60's the Soviet Union was, sociologically, an "enigma" in the most literal sense - and later the primary need, in both East and West, has not been for general theories of wide scope, but simply for a rough idea of the lay of the land. Collecting and systematizing data has therefore been the main focus of Soviet Studies since the Cold War.¹¹

Western Soviet Studies is a vast and heterogeneous field, encompassing political science, economy, demography, sociology, history and the humanities. It is beyond my capabilities to review this literature exhaustively here, but two common weaknesses with relevance for the present study must be noted:

First, research seems to concentrate on quantitative ("hard") data, ignoring systematic treatment of popular values and state legitimacy. Thus, in Alec Nove's classic The Soviet Economic System (1977), the all-important subject of work morale receives the following summary treatment:

"It is hard to evaluate some scattered evidence, mostly from conversations, about work morale... One hears of work-avoidance, absenteeism, drunkenness, petty and not-so-petty pilfering, bribery, and other negative phenomena. One must mention such reports..., without being able to evaluate them." (1977, p.228)

Specialized work on the "Second Economy", which has lately had increased attention, is no more informative. Gregory Grossman vaguely concludes that the Second Economy,

"...controverts such philosophical bases of Soviet society as the solidarity of the various population groups with one another and with the party and its leadership... It aggravates cynicism and lawlessness inside the Soviet Union, and even within the party... Furthermore..., it elevates the power of money in society to rival that of the dictatorship itself..." (1977, p.37)

A few studies of socialization treat these problems more seriously (Bronffenbrenner 1970; Dicks 1952; Gorer & Rickman 1949; Mead & Metraux 1953) But in these works, "typically Russian" values are reduced to a static a priori which can neither be affected by society nor itself affect it. These omissions seriously impair our understanding of Soviet society, where opportunities for formal organization of pressure groups have always been severely limited. As Abner Cohen points out, it is generally the case that "...interest groups which cannot organize themselves as formal associations manipulate... symbols in order to articulate informal organizational functions" (1974, p.14). In the absence of free political dialogue, symbolic discourse through literature and other "cultural" media plays a major role. Dissidents, black marketeers, high-level corruption and personal friendships are all part of a vast informal field, and to all, symbolic expression is essential. Informal organization thus penetrates the Soviet Union under the ideological facade, and we should therefore accord the study of symbolism and values the highest priority. There is no lack of literature on these subjects, but little of it is seriously studied except by humanists. Of particular interest is the internal dialogue of the Soviet intelligentsia - both in samizdat¹² and émigré publications (Zinov'ev 1978; Yanov 1978), biographical accounts (Khrushchev 1970; Bukovsky 1978; Volkov 1979; Ivinskaya 1978; Nielsen 1984),¹³ and realistic literary works about various subcultures (Topol' & Neznansky 1981; Shukshin 1980; Vysotsky 1983a etc.).

Secondly, the lack of general theory in Soviet studies is striking. Thus, although by now it should be clear to all that the Soviet Union is as much a product of the forces of history as any other society, discussions of whether or not it lives up to the ideals of "Communism" are still common. Thirty years of scholarship have brought forth a varied and rich literature, spanning a wide field of interest and supplying fundamental insights into the Soviet system. Nevertheless, the few existing accounts of Soviet society as a whole are generally compiled by journalists - conglomerates of personal experiences (of variable quality) and "facts & figures" (Smith 1976; Mehnert 1958; Udgaard 1977). More and more the need for comprehensive studies of a more fundamental nature is felt. One attempt at synthesis deserves mention, mainly because of its failure. This is Kerblay's La société soviétique contemporaine (1977). Kerblay here shows a subtle understanding of many aspects of Soviet society, and at least implicitly presents his material in a unified historical perspective, but he lacks a ready-made theoretical paradigm on which to rest his analysis, and he has not been willing to risk proposing one himself. So when culture and values are approached, the presentation flounders into trivialities.

Thus, even today there exists no alternative paradigm to that of totalitarianism.¹⁴ It remains the one unified perspective from which Soviet society may be viewed. As Ole Nørgaard puts it:

"Totalitarianism is the archetype of concepts in Soviet studies, that which all other concepts have referred to and the basis of numerous attempts at operationalization and falsification." (1986, p.52)

In my opinion, only a holistic^14a approach to Soviet reality - treating political power, economic integration, culture and ideology, and above all, the issue of values - as interrelated parts of a single whole, may enable us to formulate a less "enigmatic" paradigm. In this attempt anthropology, with its long-standing tradition of holistic analysis and intensive field studies, may have an important contribution to make.

Still, anthropology is no ideal tool. It studies informal organization and symbolism, yes, but its attitude to symbols is often inadequate. Let me illustrate this by returning to the image of Russia suspended between East and West. When people speak of their culture in such terms, "Europe" and "Asia" are clearly symbols. But they are not "mere metaphor" - they are statements about a concrete reality. As symbols they are part of Russian identity. As historical realities they have contributed to the genesis of this identity, and retain "true" information about the circumstances that led to its formation. So if the symbolism of Russian identity is "enigmatic", this is because Russians, in fact, live in an "enigmatic" world. As an anthropologist I was badly prepared to accept this. I was taught that,

"...the history of a cultural trait will tell us very little about its social significance within the situation in which it is found at present..." (Cohen 1974, p.3),

"To understand how some account comes to be offered, an investigator should not look to the objects being addressed; they will not explain the production of the account." (Shegloff 1972, in Larsen 1977)

In Russia I was confronted with symbols which not only spoke sensibly about "the objects being addressed", i.e. present-day Soviet society, but made valid statements about the past. Of course, they were not objectively "true" as a textbook or statistical survey attempts to be. Symbols are like dreams. They do not state facts but interpret them. They are models: viewpoints from which we can perceive reality as meaningful. They may contradict each other or lead us astray. But the same may be said of more formal models. And since the aim of science is not to catalogue facts but to understand them, "native symbols" are as good a point of departure as any, and have the advantage over most that they reflect the accumulated and sifted experience of generations. Yes, they must be examined critically. In an academic study, they must be placed in a wider theoretical and comparative perspective. But none of this is possible if we do not first admit to ourselves that symbols are indeed "true", and make a serious attempt to define what kind of truth they refer to.¹⁵

I shall discuss these issues in the second, theoretical part of Chapter One. But before going on I must make one point. It may be argued that anthropology's main asset is its insistence on seeing statements and acts holistically - in context. Symbols, values, tools and institutions are woven into webs of interrelationship, and acquire meaning and utility from the specific roles or functions they perform in these webs. Interpreting a cultural trait out of context is like understanding the Empire State Building on the basis of a single brick. I do not object to this. What I cannot accept is the narrow definition of "context", which reduces symbolism and the Quest for meaning to a matter of "strategic choice" and political expediency. In my view, symbols are powerful because they are incomprehensible. They refer to a wider context than the intentions and understanding of the conscious mind can encompass.¹⁶ They are keys to the social and existential circumstances of people's lives, and are embraced as much for the added understanding they give about the "context", as for their practical utility in manipulating it. The reason why this dimension is lost in many anthropological studies is that "the context" to which symbols refer is understood too narrowly:

My interpretation of the "Russian enigma" is deeply affected by these considerations. The reality I try to grasp consists of symbolic statements and acts by a limited number of individuals. But it is not limited to their personal circumstances. If we are to understand the full significance of the choice between "West" and "East", and how it connects with the question of the existence of God, we must explore the multiple threads leading outwards from this dualism to the furthermost limits of society in time and space, and inward, to problems common to all humanity. We must understand how simple words trigger complex emotions and thoughts that are products of a specific way of life, which, in its turn results from a unique historical past and political present. Symbols speak to and about this past and present. They are true. I mean this literally. Georgy, an Orthodox Christian, once said: "Westerners and Russians are so different that we can only meet on the basis of Faith." This is not only a statement about Russia - it is a truth about ourselves - about the West.

I shall commence my discussion of the "enigma" of Russian identity with a series of quotes out of context - to give the reader a feeling for the problems involved and let my friends themselves tell you who they are...

	Vera:	"The Russian people is asleep - like a bear."
	Mikhail:	"Russians are an anarchistic people. They would never accept power."
	Vasya:	"The Russian people is patient, it endures power."
	Ivanov:	"Iron-hard oak - that's genuine Russian."
	Kolya:	"Many Finns came back to Russia after the war. They got used to life here, it's softer. Russians are kinder (dobree) than people in the West."
	Zoya T.:	"Westerners are kinder (dobree) than Russians."
	Afanasy:	"People have lost their faith. There's a complete moral disruption going on among them. I often dream about the great migration, that we will all go to Siberia, and they will all come here. People there are better and purer."
	Vasya:	"It's bad enough in Leningrad, but once you get out into the countryside you're wallowing in Asia."
	A taxi driver:	"The Russian people isn't used to living well - as long as we have bread, vodka and some potatoes, things will be just fine."
	Andrey:	"Compared to Norwegians the Russian people is spoiled - they don't know how to do good work."
	Dima:	"Stalin was a hard man, but he appreciated good work."
	Galya:	"We're more collective..."

	Vitya:	"The greatest problem for people in this country is loneliness."
	Vitya:	"Half the people drinks, the rest whores."
	Vasya:	"It's impossible to be happy here! All good and honest people in this country have to suffer."
	Sonya:	"Russians are livelier than Westerners."
	Vasya:	"There's nothing here now - just a dead swamp."
	Masha:	"This is a country of Ideas."

	Zhenya:	"So you like the intellectual challenge? You know, it's interesting to talk this way. One understands that there really are big differences between Russians and Westerners. Take the Russian folk tales. It's always the stupid guy who wins. The one who isn't even trying."
	Lena:	"If there's no war - that's what everyone is talking about now - then in a hundred years the Soviet Union will be exactly like the West is today."
	Lena:	"You've got to understand this: the Russians you meet are exceptions. They are the ones who for some reason or other want to meet Westerners. You never meet the great majority who has no interest in you at all. So if you ask me what your position is here, I'll tell you: you are here in the position of a devil."

	Tolya:	"It must be a purely Russian trait, this insatiable need of ours to communicate with foreigners."

	Andrey:	"Our people is... how shall I say it?... simpler, more direct." (proshche)

	Pavlik (14):	"Our country is very queer..."^17a
	His mother:	"Don't talk that way! You're too young to understand what you're saying."
	Pavlik:	"I understand perfectly well that our country is very beautiful and very... famous. It just hasn't learned to behave like other countries yet."

The situation is succinctly summarized by Vasya, whose comments tend to be bitter. Still, he is an intelligent observer who has traveled widely and seen a lot, and his words should be accorded due weight when he simply states: "There are no Russians."

Obviously, when the contradictions of one's self-image develop to this point, things get uncomfortable - as many people, both loyal to the regime and in opposition, complain. Many contradictions in the statements I have quoted may be explained by observing that some refer to the Russian people, some to the Soviet state. Thoughtful Russians, observing the dilemmas they are caught in, often blame them on the state, particularly the Communist ideology. As Aleksandr Solzhenicyn puts it:

The Soviet system is not the result of Russian history but of a "...dark whirlwind of Progressive Ideology swept in on us from the West." (1974, p.17) "Soviet development is not a continuation of Russian development but a distortion of it carried out in a new and unnatural direction, hostile to its people... The terms 'Russian' and 'Soviet'... are irreconcilable opposites which completely exclude each other..." (1976, p.170) "For a thousand years Russia lived with an authoritarian order - and at the beginning of the twentieth century both the physical and spiritual health of her people were still intact." (1974, p.45)

Solzhenicyn superimposes the State-People dichotomy on the opposition between West and East. This is a Slavophile view, equating the state and the West with evil, asserting that Russia is "really" Eastern. It is possible, indeed common (perhaps even Solzhenicyn himself has done so?) to invert this image, making the state an "Asiatic Barbarism". Neither view is unproblematic. Many accusations that today are leveled at the Soviet state by members of the intelligentsia sound like verbatim quotes from the intelligentsia of the 19th century or earlier. Thus, in 1855, Konstantin Aksakov wrote:

"The current situation in Russia represents an internal decay covered over by shameless lies. The state and upper classes have turned away from the people and become foreign to them... And in the midst of this internal decay there has grown up, like a bitter weed, a vast and shameless flattery, asserting that all is well, transforming respect for the Czar into idolatry... Everyone lies to each other, sees this, keeps on lying, and no one knows what it all will lead to. The universal corruption or weakening of the moral fabric of society has reached enormous proportions. The bribes and organized plunder by bureaucrats are terrible... And this can no longer simply be attributed to personal sinfulness, but arises from the sin of society. It brings out the moral decrepitude of the public order itself, of the entire internal social structure. All these evils result primarily from the oppressive system of our government..." (p.38-9) "...in place of their former unity, the state has formed a yoke on the Soil - it is as if the Russian soil had been invaded, and the invader was the state." (p.36)

So many have been led to the opposite conclusion of Solzhenicyn, as in the following quote from the samizdat Vestnik RKhD (an Orthodox Christian periodical):

"Bolshevism... is not a Varangian invasion, and the Revolution was not made by Jews. For this reason the Communist regime is not an external force but an organic product of Russian life - a concentration of the whole rotten Russian soul, of the whole sinful outgrowth of Russian history, which cannot be mechanically cut off and thrown aside." (Vestnik RKhD No.97, p.6)

But historical explanations offer little consolation or peace of mind. As Zina put it:

"So it's our history that's different from the West's! But with people living the way they do after all this, you can't count it a real history at all. I guess it might help to destroy a couple of generations altogether, so we wouldn't need to drag such a past along. But of course, that wouldn't be a solution."

Klaus Mehnert (1958), who has seen more of Russia than most Westerners, attacks the "enigma" from a different angle altogether. Without going into which Russian state (Medieval Byzantine, Tartar, Czarist or Communist) is to blame, he defines some characteristics of Russian national character itself, as a morality and style of life. He describes it as breite Natur - breit being a translation of one of two typically Russian words (shirota, prostor) meaning openness, width, freedom (of expression - the concepts are discussed in Chapter 3, Part A). Russian behavior is breit in the sense that it fluctuates between extremes of peaceful acceptance and sudden anarchic rebellion. To illustrate this, Mehnert cites the following story:

"One day in the village near Moscow where we used to spend our vacations before the First World War, the news spread that a hermit, a holy man, had come home from the wilderness in the far North to visit his family, which he had left to serve God. Together with all the others I ran to his hut. There, on a birch wood stool in the little front yard, sat a greybearded man, who seemed age-old to me, although he probably really was not past the middle of his fifties. He looked completely unkempt, and wore a long, white shirt full of holes and loose threads; from his ascetic face, piercing eyes peered out of deep caverns. All this thoroughly corresponded to my view of a holy man. The ascetic said little. What he did say, I did not understand, but the peasants received it with awe. For a few days the hermit was the talk of the village, then people calmed down and got used to his presence.

But he hadn't been home a week when I was hauled from my bed early in the morning by a neighbor's boy. Something terrible and extremely interesting had happened. We ran to the holy man's hut. It was no longer standing, all one could see were smoking ruins from which the chimney still jutted up. The wife and daughter of the hermit were wailing and digging among the ashes. He himself was gone. From the people standing around the house I learned that the holy man had been on a binge last night, after which he had hit at everything his eyes fell on, whipped his wife and done something terrible to his daughter that I didn't understand. Afterwards he set fire to the house and made for the fields. On the same day it became known that after sleeping it off he had delivered himself to the police, and was immediately transported off to jail in Moscow." (p.52)

I am not insinuating that this kind of "expansiveness" is or ever was typical of the average Russian. Still, to anyone who has "been there" for any amount of time (or has read Dostoevsky) the story sounds familiar. A Russian actor put it this way:

"The sudden warmth [is most typical of Russian nature]. There is only the breadth of the split hair between cruel, coarse, abject brutality and the greatest warmth and tenderness. The peasants will curse the Virgin Mary, and a moment later kiss the hem of her dress..." (quoted in Mead & Metraux 1953, p.206)

Back in the 1940's, a team of American anthropologists made this fluctuating behavior the subject of research. They dubbed it "ambivalent", and explained its patterns of extreme introversion and extroversion as the result of the traditional Russian practice of swaddling newborn babies tightly for months and releasing them once in a while to free movement. (According to Geoffrey Gorer a common explanation of this restrictiveness is that the infant is considered so strong that if it were not swaddled it might harm, scare or even destroy itself.) As far as I could gather, swaddling is still practiced, even in cities and among the educated. But I doubt that it is sufficient to explain the complex problem we are dealing with - as Gorer himself underscores (Gorer & Rickman 1949, p.129).

On another and simpler level, a common complaint of Westerners in the Soviet Union is that everyone they meet in public or official contexts is "cold", impolite, even hostile. It is equally common to hear from the same people, after they have spent some time there and made friends, that Russian hospitality is unique and overpowering, as if they saved all their "warmth" for intimate, personal contexts. These transitions from "warm" to "cold" and back again can be unnerving until one gets used to them. They seem sudden, total and inexplicable to the outside observer.

The first time I was invited home to a Russian (Seryozha, a chance acquaintance at a restaurant - see Chapter 3, Part 1) this became apparent. I arrived at the agreed time, with some difficulty located the narrow, worn-down staircase, smelling intensely of cat and lit by a single, dreary bulb a couple of stories above the entrance. I followed the stairs to the fourth floor, where a forbidding, padded, black door with a number (no name)¹⁸ blocked my further advance. I rang the bell and after an indefinite wait heard a cracked female voice wheezing "Kto?" - i.e. "Who('se there)?" In fumbling Russian I tried to explain to the closed door kto I was, but as soon as the woman understood I'd come for her hooligan grandson, she left the (still unopened) door with a laconic "ego netu" (="he's not (here (yet?))").¹⁹ I went and sat in the yard (it was early April and rather cold), thinking ugly thoughts about the famed Russian hospitality. After a while Seryozha arrived, dragged me up the steps, through the forbidding door into his warm home, where I was drowned in vodka, fried potatoes, chicken and family quarrels. Reserve was thrown to the winds and I was an honored guest at any time for the next five years, until our ways parted.

It remains to be seen if there is any connection between these everyday fluctuations of "coldness" and "warmth" and the dramatic instance described by Mehnert, not to speak of the abstract problems of state and people, West and East. But to me, such behavior, so typical of the Russians I have met, seems an easier and more direct approach to the "enigma", than speculation about infant rearing, Holy Russia and the Tartar yoke. I shall therefore set off on an exploration of Russians in "intimate" and "public" contexts. To summarize briefly: I first acquaint the reader with the central concept of my analysis - Limbo.^19a This involves a theoretical groundwork, which takes up the last part of Chapter One. In Chapter Two I describe the political and economic framework within which public and intimate behavior take place. Chapter Three is a treatment of behavior patterns viewed as responses to this framework. Chapter Four seeks the framework's origin in Soviet history and concludes that much, but not all, can be explained by it. Chapter Five goes on to describe the "residue" of traditional values that underlie the patterns observed, and Chapter Six analyses pre-revolutionary history, to locate the deepest roots of the "enigma" there.

B. About the Fieldwork

I must emphasize the tentative nature of much that follows. My association with Russia seems to me rather extensive. I started studying the language in 1974, and have visited the country about 15-20 times since then. Twice I have spent 6 months in the same city, the main body of my data derives from the last of these stays, in 1983,²⁰ at which time I also took part in a one-month ethnographical "expedition" to Dagestan. In this time I have had talks with about 120 people. Perhaps 50 of these I have met more extensively, and of these perhaps one third might be termed friends, some 4 or 5 close friends.

My meetings with the country and its people have made a lasting impression on me. Two reasons for this should be mentioned: my two long stays (1978 and 1983) coincided with drastic changes in my personal life. In periods of inner tumult and uncertainty, my "Russian experiences" contributed a measure of perspective and direction to my life and influenced me profoundly. Secondly, on some level of subconsciousness the country and its people simply have an unusually strong appeal for me. I find myself liking things about the place (particularly its aesthetics), which few Russians like themselves. Fortunately I have two or three friends who agree with my views, or I would hardly have attempted to write this study. All this gives what I (perhaps over-optimistically) like to think of as a good general feeling for things Russian. I think I am reasonably objective, but also, definitely, emotionally involved.

Systematic fieldwork has been hard. The nature of the Soviet state necessitated considerable secrecy on my part, and only two or three people knew "what I was really up to". This does not mean that I am hostile to the Soviet state. I have defended it staunchly against my more fanatic acquaintances in Russia. I agree with a woman I met in Moscow, who criticized many Christians for "denying Soviet Power, as if it were not [also] an integral part of Russia". Of course, I can not either begrudge those who have suffered in the state's hands for hating it, but I think no future may be envisioned for Russia where this state does not play an important role.²¹ My secrecy was for practical reasons. Not only would "the powers" - vlasti - have stopped me if they knew what I was up to, but most people I talked to would have disapproved. From Ivan the Terrible's oprichina to Stalin's NKVD, Russians have seen too much "investigation" to tolerate it very well. Besides, in a country where Marxism is the State Church, any explanation of my activity in sociological terms would have been misinterpreted.

The ethical question of how I could go through with it anyway has caused me a lot of soul-searching.²² In the end I decided that I did it because I liked it, because I, in a sense, fell in love with the country and felt the need to understand it, and, in the process, understand myself better. Ultimately, this book is therefore the story of an experience, that of an abstract mind in a foreign world. And although my person may not always show up clearly in the following, I am constantly there, probing, trying to understand - and never entirely succeeding. Personally I owe Russia and the Soviet Union nothing but gratitude. I have had no "bad experiences" (except a few rides through customs), and everywhere I have met hospitality, helpfulness and openness. I consider myself privileged to have seen and done as much as I have. To be blunt: my experiences in Russia have probably been more positive - on every level - than anything the average Russian would experience if he or she came to Norway.

In the following I shall make some wide generalizations about "Russians", and I must therefore make it clear what my judgments are based on. For this purpose I have made a kind of "survey" comprising 64 of my informants,²³ in which I have collected data about their age, family and work situations:

I do not know for sure how many of the 64 were or had been married. However, out of a total of 53 known cases, 41 had been or were married, giving me some knowledge of 31 marriages, besides 4 unmarried couples living together. 27 of these couples have given birth to a total of 33 children. 20 of 31 married couples were 20- to 40-year-olds. 12 of these (none of the older couples), were divorced - including 2 "fictitious" unions, organized for residence reasons. Small, short-lived families seem common. In this respect my group was typical of the Soviet Russian urban population.²⁴

It was also typical in another respect: A large proportion had lived in the city only 1-2 generations. I know the birthplace of 34 people in my group. 18 of these were born outside Leningrad. This is hardly unexpected in a city that has swelled from 1,379 millions (1925) to 4,844 millions (1985) - largely on account of immigration.²⁵ (Table 7)

Furthermore, while the parental generation were mostly either peasants or "intellectuals" (doctors, artists, academics, officers, managers), the younger generation was dominated by a middle stratum of petty bureaucrats, teachers and employees in the service sector. Declassed intellectuals and peasants newly exposed to "culture" are archetypical of Soviet society, which has undergone such deep and sudden changes. Both are amply represented in my group.²⁶

Lastly, the changed status of women is reflected. The education levels of women and men seem (though my data is scant) as good as equal. All grown women in the group except two were regularly employed. (Two men were also unemployed, these however were active full time on the black market.) My data on income (very incomplete) seems to indicate that the sexes are equally represented in lower and middle-range income brackets. But a wider look at jobs held by men and women clearly indicates fewer women in the highest brackets. Always when a man's income is especially high his wife works less and/or has an inferior job.

From other points of view the group is atypical: the mean age was 39 years - I have mainly associated either with 35-45-year-olds or younger people and their parents. I have seen little of people above 45-50, a serious shortcoming in a rapidly ageing society, with a pronounced generation gap (Table 9D). Clearly also, the dynamic and expanding qualified working class is underrepresented, while the intelligentsia has a more prominent place than in society at large. Most obviously, my informants are atypical in the sense that they live in Leningrad, the second largest urban center in the country. But it would be an over-simplification to say that I have investigated the life of "young intellectuals in a Russian metropolis". True, the group includes artists, university workers, two business managers and people we might term dissidents (hardly any would use the word about themselves). But though Seryozha's grandmother was a famous doctor, his parents have respectable jobs and he himself dabbled in the local version of 60's culture - his way of life, his friends, lover, jobs and values do not fit this bracket. The same goes for Vitya, whose lifestyle I describe below. From these two men we can trace contacts to typical working-class milieus and the "lower depths" of violent crime, black marketeering and prostitution. From Tolya's Christian friends, the painters Vasya and Andronov or the Baptist circles I met through Vera, threads might be followed to the inner circles of self-declared dissidents. Afanasy and Darya, qualified specialists with University educations, might introduce you to more respectable people. And 20-year-old Natasha could bring you to the hideouts of ultramodern youth culture, though she figured as a Komsomol leader. Roughly, my introduction to Leningrad has been along these disparate lines. I have followed up different people whom I met in very different ways, and they have led me to differing milieus. Only gradually did I realize that all my key informants (with one possible exception) could trace connections to each other.

Once I realized this I had to stop and think. I thought I was investigating several things: The logic of the black market, the return to Russian tradition and the Church, the role of Western models in critical thought and culture. Now I was faced with the possibility that the many little splinter groups I thought so unique, that mistrusted each other so intensely, were perhaps all part of a larger network, a social organism, facing the same basic "enigma", and on a deeper level, attempting to solve it in many of the same ways.

In this sense Leningrad is a very small city. Among all its millions there is only a minority that is truly interested in discovering and understanding the Other. Perhaps, as Lena insisted, I was indeed imprisoned in the nets of a unique group of "Russians who are interested in foreigners". Maybe this was all I met, and all I could meet, in spite of the variation I seemed to observe - only a mask directed against the perpetual Outsider, the Devil from abroad?

"Don't be fooled by the language. The problem with Russian both as a culture and as a language, is that it can be understood without being comprehended. For everything is 'similar' and nothing is the same. They seek to understand themselves in us, and we to understand them as us when we meet. But in reality we - the West - are something they think about themselves with. The likeness we see is frippery, costume."

I wrote this in a fit of depression, at a time when I seemed to confront an insurmountable barrier. Later I have come to other conclusions.

For lack of a better name, I shall call the group I met "representatives of the Russian counter culture". Possibly it is nothing but a mask covering the "Real Russia". But I myself think it is more. The discussions I engaged in with my friends about "Russianness" are, I think, a part (though one of the most conscious and self-reflective parts) of a more general Quest for Meaning, for an answer to the question: "What does it mean to be Russian?" I like to view my stay among them, and this book, as a modest contribution to that Quest.

Chapter One: The Texture of Soviet Reality

Countless times, in the midst of [the Petersburg fog] I've been gripped by a strange but forceful fantasy: 'What about it - when this fog disperses and goes aloft, won't the whole of this rotting, slippery city go along with it, rise with the vapors and disappear like smoke, and only the original Finnish marsh will be left, and in the middle of it, if you like, for decoration, a bronze horseman on his hotly panting, harassed mount?' In one word, I'm unable to describe my impressions, because it's all illusion, poetry in the end, and therefore, you might say, absurd; nonetheless I've often found myself musing and asking a completely senseless question: 'Look at them all, rushing and milling around, and how do you know it's not all just a dream someone's dreaming, and none of the people here are real, true, not one act is actual? Suddenly someone will wake up, the one who's dreaming it all, - and in an instant it will vanish.'
(Fyodor Dostoevsky 1875, p.134)

A. Prospekt and Dvor

Even the casual observer straying through the streets of Leningrad cannot avoid the persistent impression of duality this city gives. No matter what area you choose, the same pattern repeats itself: in the Petrine nucleus, in the widespread classical center, nearly unchanged since the late nineteenth century in spite of the ravages of revolution and war, in the concentric rims of fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties housing, spreading ever wider and greyer out into the flat, marshy suburbs.

Everywhere you find the facade - the wide, ruler-straight boulevard or prospekt, which, in the words of Andrey Bely (describing the greatest prospekt of all: the Nevsky),

"...possesses a remarkable quality: it consists of a space for the circulation of the public bounded by numbered houses; the numbering follows the order in which the houses are located - which infinitely eases the quest for the house you are seeking." (Bely 1913-16, p.23)

The prospekty are a European idea. They were introduced by Peter the Great in an attempt to build the ideal Western capital in the midst of a Russian marsh, and ever since, Russian architects have planned their cities in this way. When Stalin and Khrushchev decided to modernize Old Moscow and turn that "heap of wooden shacks" (Bely, ibid.) into a showcase of Communism, they slashed prospekty through its mesh of winding streets. The prospekt is the clearest possible symbol of Order, clarity, visibility, efficiency and - hence - modernity and power. On Nevsky, the masses mill past, bodies touch, cars, trolleys and buses race to and fro, the atmosphere is hectic, the mob of pedestrians dense even for such huge sidewalks. This is Civilization, we are made to understand, Culture. Here the marshland is definitely tamed by the oaken pillars and granite foundations pounded into it by Peter's slave laborers. The wide river is chained by beautiful, flying bridges. The very word prospekt gives associations of a free, open view.²⁷ Neither does it pass unnoticed that both the word and the reality it denotes are imports from the West, foreign.

But the quote from Bely is an (intentional) oversimplification, for the quadrangles enclosed by the prospekty, linii and bul'vary are much too large to be easily accessible from the street. Locating the house you seek may turn out to be harder than you think. Each block consists of quite a number of houses, approached by narrow, crisscrossing alleyways and tiny parks. These are the dvory, the back yards. They are as closed, as intimate and disorderly as the prospekty are open, official and formal. The dvor is homegrown and genuinely Russian - originally the word meant simply a farmyard. "Na dvore" - "in the yard" - is a way of saying "outdoors". In the dvor the babushki sit in the sun on worn benches, the children play, piles of garbage lie about, and random plantings of bushes and weeds grow knee high or are trampled to the root as the case may be. This is home, private, and a stranger strolling past is noted. It's comfortable in the dvor - prosto, but hardly Civilized - kul'turno.²⁸ It is a closely guarded bit of untamed nature.

"Nevsky Prospekt is rectilinear (to put it bluntly), because it is - a European prospekt; and a European prospekt is not merely a prospekt, but (as I have noted above) a European prospekt, because... well, anyway... This is the reason why Nevsky Prospekt is a rectilinear prospekt." (Bely, op.cit. p.24)

Outside the Center in rush hour the streets seem absurdly overdimensioned. The few cars you meet go careening from side to side of the vast expanses of asphalt, barely avoiding potholes, puddles and pedestrians. Even in a modern Western metropolis such streets would be spacious, and when you consider that most of them were built at a time when traffic was a lot scarcer even than today,²⁹ Bely's quandary is understandable. They are certainly based on a Western model, but the very consistency with which it is followed through makes them all the more un-European. They seem (in all their dreamlike beauty) to embody the megalomaniac ambition of some Oriental Despot in a Western idiom, and leave you with a strong impression of tension between form and content.

Not only are the prospekty unnecessary from a purely practical point of view. They perpetuate the very problems they purport to solve. Since the blocks they enclose are so large, the ungoverned domain of the dvory comes to dominate the whole city, resisting the power of the prospekty and destroying the clear view they were designed to give. In the old parts of town you usually have to pass through a dark, smelly, exceedingly private-looking gateway in order to find the dvor at all. Once inside, however, you may issue again from a number of alternative portals at the most unexpected places. Several times I have walked nearly the whole length of Vasilevsky Ostrov (several kilometers) from dvor to dvor, never emerging onto the street except to cross it and disappear again into the next secretive passageway. Seryozha, a native of this island, told me how in his childhood back in the fifties, when Leningrad was a more dangerous city than today, the police used to lose track of local criminals in the fenceless maze.

In summer, the contrast between dvor and prospekt, nature and civilization, is clear-cut and obvious. Nature keeps within the confines defined for her by culture. But even in June the distinction may blur. In late spring, thousands of linden trees all over the city let loose a dense cloud of feathery-white, downy seeds. For weeks they fill the air, cover the streets, whirl through the open windows of overfilled buses. It has an eerie effect. Vitya, a black-market acquaintance, returning to Leningrad after some weeks on "business" in various northern towns, exclaimed: "It's like this down is pursuing me!" This may seem trivial, but at the time we both (and he is an ardent rationalist) were struck by the almost mystical quality of the experience.

As the seasons change and you get more intimate with the city, it becomes obvious that nature and culture are in fact at war. Just before the great May holidays there is always a collective, more or less festive "spring cleaning" - a subbotnik - when yards are raked, trash collected, fences painted, earth dug up around little bushes with comical but concerned care. The city looks nice and clean, with its red and light-blue May banners on every street corner and on the dainty bridges leaping across the canals. But the subbotnik lasts only one day, and when it's over nothing more is done about the matter. Piles of sticks and leaves and junk, waiting for a truck that never came, are left to be gradually spread out again in the course of summer. "Lawns" grow into jungles.

In winter the prospekty are thwarted again by their very size. The wind howls down mile-long corridors, snow piles up, defeating the hopelessly inadequate street cleaning equipment. The dvory lose all pretense of civilization. Snow is not removed, but narrow paths are trodden. Benches snow down and people clear off the top of the backrests to sit on them with their feet on the seat - level with the snow covering.

And when the drifts melt, the city reverts to its original state altogether - marsh and puddles. The biggest dvor of them all - the Smolenskoe graveyard, more than a square kilometer of bushes, birches, overturned graves and a maze of little paths, becomes a nearly continuous sheet of water with jumbled crosses and pale green birches rising from it. How tenuous the hold of culture is on the land becomes evident in this place. Ivanov told me how during the 900-day Nazi blockade of Leningrad, the local boys in each city block would split the graveyard into sectors and harvest nettles for soup. With starvation rampant, the boy who intruded on his neighbors' well-guarded patch might well be killed in the ensuing fight.

This is one of the places where my own sense of the esthetical conflicted with that of my Russian friends. To me the graveyard was a place of intense significance and beauty. To them it was scary. Rumor had it that all manner of drunks and criminals camped out there in summer and I was warned against entering it at night. (But imagine the moon shining through birch leaves down on swimming graves...) It was fine for skiing in winter or a summer stroll at noon, but on the whole it was a blemish on the city - a remnant of Chaos, definitely nekul'turno ("uncultured"). This is clearly the opinion of the city planners as well, who nibble away at the edges of the immense park to build factories and new housing. The resulting scars, themselves chaotic enough due to messy and inefficient building techniques, are directly painful to the eye: like wounds in a living organism. But building is slow, and the fight prolonged indefinitely. No doubt culture will win in the end, but by that time some new place like the graveyard may have emerged. And in the mean time it is truly symbolic, strongly evocative of the zona in Tarkovsky's film Stalker.³⁰ Moreover, with its many untended pre-revolutionary graves it is not only a refuge of superstition and nature but a repository of history. It was here I met a man who took me by the arm and led me and my girlfriend conspiratorially along byways I have never been able to retrace, promising to show us something interesting. We arrived at an inconspicuous-looking grave, to which he pointed: "That is Trotsky's first wife." Here the battle between nature and culture is waged at close quarters. Amidst the general wreckage you come to a grave that is well kept. A fence is erected round it. Inside, the ground is swept meticulously clean, the cross painted gold or silver or light blue, a vase of flowers and a little table set up with benches where relatives can sit. But the fence is a demarcation line. Outside, Chaos takes over.

The battle between culture and nature is reflected in many stories people tell - perhaps true, perhaps fantasy - it's hard to say:

Obviously, the modern equivalent of a prospekt is the Metro, the only piece of consistently efficient civilian technology I have observed in the Soviet Union. In Leningrad its tunnels dive deep down under rivers and swamps - the escalators are more than a hundred meters long. The intense noise, the precision, the masses of people, the sumptuous marble stations, the violent speed of the journey, make the Metro a truly awe-inspiring experience. It embodies the essence of the Petrine spirit in modern guise. But slicing as it does through the deepest roots of the Marsh it symbolically invokes the wrath of nature. Tamara Ivanovna, an inexhaustible source of fascinating apocrypha, told about the difficulties encountered in building it. Under Leningrad, she said, are subterranean rivers as large as the ones above ground. Any manner of heavy construction can disturb these watercourses with unpredictable results, for "no one really knows where the rivers flow".³¹ Once one of them broke through into a Metro station, causing the whole structure to collapse. Luckily it was night, the station closed, and the houses above, which were destroyed by the sinking ground, uninhabited.

Thus, nature and culture confront each other in the city, in a permanent symbolic and real battle, the outcome of which is hard to predict for those witnessing it. Mostly they seem to choose the side of culture - but we should not jump to conclusions, it seems more likely that they are divided over the matter, that the visible, external battle mirrors a battle within. Seva showed this clearly enough. He was reading the paper, and happened across an item that fascinated him, so he read it aloud to me: it was about a hurricane on Kamchatka, which wrecked havoc with lots of little villages. "It just blew them to the devil! Roofs and people and cars and fishermen and boats!" With considerable satisfaction he added: "That's nature for you, eh?!"

I have mentioned Tarkovsky and will do so again, because to my mind no one else has succeeded so eminently in portraying the simultaneous decay of culture and frontal attack on nature, which is so typical of Soviet society as I have learned to know it. I have been to India and seen a similar "decay" going on, houses wearing away, slowly losing their sharp contours and colors and merging organically with the ground they stand on. But I did not notice that other aspect of the battle waged in Russia, the unrelenting and often misinformed attack on nature, splintering the wooden fence of Smolenskoe graveyard, erecting huge dams in the midst of the Siberian wilderness, finished by shock labor years before the power they produce can be used for anything at all (Udgaard 1977, p.72), drawing giant turbines over hundreds of miles of unpaved roads by horse power, back in the unindustrialized late nineteenth century.

"It's the essence of humanity to transform nature," said Svetlana Sergeevna. And Vanya: "In principle science can explain everything." They echo the nineteenth century's and Karl Marx' optimism, which we have learned to distrust. But they do so under circumstances Victorian Europe never knew. They are not confidently arrogant but clutching at straws, like Vitya, after a bad mishap in his black-market enterprise: he sat down with a pocket calculator and mathematically estimated the probability that his blunder would get him arrested. When he discovered (by intricate calculations revealing an astonishing knowledge not only of mathematics, but more significantly, of the ponderous bureaucratic machine confronting him) that the chances were only 6-7%, he was visibly relieved.

The attack on nature is violent because defeat is all too easy to envision. This, I think, is another indication that the battle is raging simultaneously in outer and inner worlds. The external decay of a culture at war with nature mirrors an insecurity of the soul, a doubt about the legitimacy, even reality, of society itself. Tarkovsky's films are superb illustrations of the resulting uneasiness and fear: the research station suspended over an inexplicable, distant planet, which turns out to be a single organism, benevolently but blindly driving the scientists insane one by one by confronting them with living replicas of their unconscious guilt ("Solaris"). The man trying to free himself from the rustling, ominous leaves of his childhood home, and from his mother - who converses with the shower (it's alive!) and fears that she has threatened the entire rational social order by dropping an unspeakable printing error into a book she is editing ("The Mirror"). The zona - a bit of civilization overgrown by wilderness, where human habitation is impossible because all cultural pretense breaks down - houses, tanks, machineguns and lorries are disabled for unknown reasons, as are all but the purest humans - because here they face their innermost, secret desire.

The zona - in Tarkovsky's definition - is a "system of traps... where everything is constantly changing". It really exists - not only in Smolenskoe graveyard, but in thousands of places throughout Leningrad and Russia. It is the battleground between nature and culture, the dvory and the prospekty, which is simultaneously a battle within the Russians themselves. "Before you enter the lift, assure yourself that the cabin is located in front of you" reads a laconic sign in one of Leningrad's suburbs. "Their refrigerator jumps!" Seryozha explained, upon introducing me to Fedya and Lyuba. "They've got to tie it to the wall or else it'll be standing in the middle of the kitchen floor by morning." Vitya once took me (illegally) to visit a large factory. He led me through narrow alleys covered with refuse, past an immense old warehouse where the roof had caved in three or four years earlier and no one had touched the place since. Through a gaping hole in the wall we saw rafters and rusty sheets of iron dangling from on high. Here and there crushed, formless machines jutted out of the wreckage. Outside, tons of precious raw materials and semi-processed goods lay rotting and rusting for lack of adequate storage space. We passed dark doorways where dense clouds of chemical smoke belched out at us, accompanied by scorching heat and mind-shattering din. Inside, finger-thick layers of soot covered roof and walls, and inch-deep ruts were worn in the stone flagging by countless handcarts that had been hauled that way since the building was erected - in 1905, as the faded sign over the door proclaimed. In a particularly impressive spot Vitya stopped and looked at me: "Svalka (a dump)," he murmured, gesturing vaguely with his large hands. "Zona."

It was a decisive moment for me. I had wondered why so many people disapproved of Tarkovsky's art. Ira and Edik said he tried to impress you with effects and ruthlessly used people. To Lena (quite an intellectual herself) he was guilty of "intellectualizing" and being "complicated for complexity's own sake". Borya and Zhenya called him a disillusioned intellectual and his views "decadent". A philosophically inclined samizdat author criticized him for not unifying the personal with the impersonal - i.e. God.

I don't know if Vitya liked Tarkovsky. But he found his imagery descriptive, and in this factory, with its bleak human prospects and weird, "impersonal" beauty, I think I understood why so many others didn't approve. He's just a little too realistic for comfort. In his imagery a battle with real casualties and real human suffering takes on a serene, silent beauty which many find offensive. Nevertheless Stalker, the guide who led the curious and the seekers into the zona, is an archetypical character in this world. To me it was significant that Vitya should have recognized him, since he had made that role into a way of life. Actually our little expedition to the factory - to the mysterious, forbidden battlefield - was an unconscious reenactment of the film's plot; one of several he staged for my sake. Another person who recognized Tarkovsky's imagery was the woman I call Vera. In later chapters I hope I will be able to show what reasons these two could have for this.

B. The Rules of the Game

Tarkovsky's zona may be thought of as a symbol of the "enigma" of Russian identity. By immersing ourselves in its meaning and esthetics we are sensitized to a certain atmosphere, a poise, an attitude to life. But as I stated in the Introduction, a symbol is a repository of "true" knowledge: wandering through the streets of Leningrad we discover the zona all around us - it is a real battle of culture and nature, West and East, which is embedded in people's physical surroundings as well as in their hearts and minds. Indeed, it pervades every aspect of Soviet society. It may therefore be considered not only a symbol, but, in Victor Turner's words, a Dominant Symbol:

"Dominant symbols tend to become focuses in interaction. Groups mobilize around them, worship before them, perform other symbolic activities near them, and add other symbolic objects to them, often to make composite shrines." (1958, p.22)

The zona is, so to speak, a symbol of society as a whole, of the "medium" through which all activity, thought and emotion, regardless of its specific content, is transmitted. I shall refer to this "medium" as Social Texture. The zona is a dominant symbolic rendering of the Texture of Soviet Reality. But of course it is not the only dominant symbol of this reality, and if we choose another as our point of departure we will arrive at another final image of the society this book attempts to portray. The zona, we might agree, imagines Russia from the distanced, somewhat cerebral point of view that is typical of the alien, the outsider, the anthropologist. It is a viewpoint that is attuned to certain moods we recognize (and that I will point out later in the text) in such Russian authors as Dostoevsky, Blok, Bulgakov or Vysotsky; but it lacks the melodious sensuality of Pushkin, which is definitely also very Russian; nor does it approach the extravagance of Gogol', or the didactic moralism of Tolstoy. Many readers will perhaps not recognize the Russia they know in my imagery. Others will see in it a reflection of the specific place and period in which I came to know the Russians. Both will be right. My use of the zona as a focus of analysis and description reflects the nature and limitations of my own experience in Russia, and brings out aspects of Soviet reality, which I, as a result of that experience, have come to see as essential.³²

Viewing society as I have done above is like listening from afar to the complex but uniform drone of a large factory. In fact, the sound is a composite of millions of clashes, clicks, rumbles, whirs and eruptions, steps, whispers and shouts - which when massed together, all merge into one voice, uniquely characteristic of this factory - its auditory signature, we might say. Intuitively we may be able to grasp the significance even of the mind-boggling complexity of this "signature". But an intellectual understanding of such a composite - social Texture or drone - demands that we split it into its components, analyze it. However, it is not enough to trace each element back to its origin - in a specific piece of machinery, say, or a certain category of events. We must not dismember our wide-angle picture for an album of unrelated close-ups, but sharpen focus while retaining scope. If my sketch of Leningrad is treated in this way, we may learn to walk through the city's streets in silence, meditating on them as a true Icon of the Soviet Union. The total expression contains the innermost essence.

As anthropologists we must therefore approach whole and parts simultaneously: society in its widest historical and regional context, and the scarcely noticeable inflections of individual acts and responses. I agree very firmly with Fredrik Barth that "everything influencing the shape of an event must be there asserting itself at the moment of the event" (1981, p.6). No complexity of scale or history is relevant to analysis unless its consequences are present here and now in the behavior of real people. Social systems are concrete, not abstract: society is human action. Nevertheless, the nature of the whole cannot be deduced from its parts. Complexity is so densely packed in any individual act that it is impossible to observe and interpret directly. So it must be approached indirectly, through studies of macro-scale structures and long-term history that are later referred back to "real people" in the here and now. For this to be possible we need a general theory of society and action, which interrelates many degrees and kinds of complexity systematically.

In the following I shall sketch out the rudiments of such a theory - of social complexity - or Texture.³³ I have structured this presentation not as a commentary on existing theory but as a self-contained essay. Where appropriate I indicate my debt to other authors, but my attitude has been irreverent throughout. I have tried to develop an analytical toolbox - a set of theoretical instruments with precise and non-overlapping functions, and if an idea has sparked my imagination I have not hesitated to reinterpret it to suit my own aims, rather than tie myself to the author's intentions, nor have I hesitated to omit references, whenever these seemed to be a mere matter of formality. The main body of the book utilizes the resulting theory to understand a real, historical situation. The success or failure of this attempt may indicate the usefulness of my synthesis for anthropology.

Two ideas are crucial to social science, indeed to any thought at all - that of movement, force, energy; and that of restraint, form and order. These are the Yin and Yang of Chinese philosophy, where Yin is "the yielding", darkness - formless flux, while Yang is "the firm", "that which is shone upon" - static clarity of form (Wilhelm 1950, p.lvi). Similar dualities underlie much of Western thought - e.g. Aristotelian ontology (substance and form) and Quantum Physics (waves and particles); and many primitive cultures seem to have related ideas: in Michelle Rosaldo's monograph on the Ilongot (1980), the heedless passion of headhunting youth is balanced by the wisdom and stability of age. In anthropology these principles, which I refer to as Flow and Rules, are prominently reflected in so-called "action-oriented" theories (often referred to as "methodological individualisms") on the one hand, and in various "structuralist" (including some neo-marxian) schools on the other. Most anthropologists, however, rely in practice on some sort of complementarity between the two principles, and some theorists have gone to great lengths to establish a basis for this complementarity in formal language: the work of Anthony Giddens on "agency" and "structure" (1979) is here brought to mind, as well as the cybernetically inspired work of Bateson (1979), which focuses on such concepts as "process" and "categorization".³⁴ I shall here bypass many of the complexities of this literature, and simply assert that Social Texture may be envisioned as an extremely complex mesh of "rules" of various kinds (cognitive, moral, biological, material), through which the "flow" of direct human action and its indirect consequences passes, and by which it is restricted, channeled and organized into recognizable entities or aggregates, which I refer to as Centers, and which are discussed in the literature under various headings, such as categories, symbols, identities, roles, statuses, persons, values, intentions, ideologies, resources, institutions, classes, cultures, nations, historical epochs, and social revolutions.

Flow, in this generalized sense, may be understood as any movement: of goods, value, information, intention, all human action including speech, thought, emotion. Rules,³⁵ similarly, are anything that restricts, orders or governs flow. A moral principle or law is a rule. So is ignorance, lack of access to resources, or a brick wall, gravity, the fact that most human beings are born with two hands. The prospekty are a set of rules that order the flow of people, ideas, and goods differently from the rules of the dvory.

Three tenets will clarify the nature of these concepts further. The first has been pointed out by Bateson (1970a, p.458). All action is interaction, all flow cyclical. In cybernetic terms flow is a feedback circuit, self-sustained and self-regulating. A man chopping down a tree must receive impulses from it in order to transmit his will to it. A person paying his fare on the bus will reap the consequences - he's upholding not only the bus company, but the world market. All social entities - all "Centers" - are from this point of view aggregates of flow, they are more or less ephemeral states of dynamic equilibrium, rather than static objects. The second tenet has been succinctly formulated by Louis Althusser: a rule is its effect (Giddens 1979, p.160). It exists only if and when it governs flow - it is only real when we obey it. Rules flicker. They turn "on and off" as we confront or disregard them: the grammar of a forgotten language is as unreal as a car in the Amazon without roads or gas, the bus company disappears if we all boycott it, and the prospekty "rise with the vapors and disappear like smoke" if they do not impose their "European" rules on people successfully. Rules are the parameters, the boundaries, the "names" of states, and they exist only to the extent that the Centers they define are maintained. The third idea posits that reality in itself is unknowable. Knowledge is an ordering of experience by means of rules, and the reality we know is only knowable because we have thus ordered it. Hence, what is beyond order is unknowable, because we can only know it by imposing order (knowledge) on it, and thus changing it. But the unknowable should not be confused with Kant's idea of a transcendent Ding an Sich. As anthropologists such as Turner (1964, 1987), Mary Douglas (1966, 1975), and Bateson (1979) have pointed out, what resides outside the social order is not simply a vacuum, a Durkheimian anomie, but itself an active principle of change. The ordered Centers that we know (people, home, work, God, science, flag, truth, friendship, etc.) congeal out of the Unknowable - and when our ability to know them breaks down, they return to the ground from whence they came. The Unknowable is therefore the Potential - the ultimate resource - the ability to change. As Nietzsche puts it in Also sprach Zarathustra: "Man muß noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können" (1887).

Some preliminary conclusions may now be drawn: First, any social reality, i.e. any reality we can know and relate to, may be described in terms of rules and flow. Reality comes into being when we accept the conditions (rules) of its existence and act (flow) in accordance with or in opposition to them. The concept of "praxis" as reformulated by Neo-Marxists and others reflects the same idea: in a discussion of Engels's classical (but rather imprecise) maxim that economic production determines social relations "in the final analysis", Giddens thus concludes that production is indeed determinant, but what is "produced" belongs as much to the ideational as the material sphere (1979, p.150-55). In my terms, acts "produce" rules by letting themselves be governed by them. The distinction between material and ideational rules is trivial compared to this fundamental insight.

Secondly, no matter how assiduously we order the world, there remains a residue - perhaps subtle, but always present: the Unknowable underlies our edifices of order; it constantly threatens them, and always engulfs them in the end. This is the main point in Turner's description of rites-de-passage (1964): transitional stages like birth, coming of age, death - or in modern societies, indeterminate states like waiting in line - confront us with the basic inconsistencies of social life, and are thus important sources of insight, innovation, and critique. Tarkovsky's zona symbolically evokes such a residue of the Unknowable.

Finally, rules and flow cannot be conceived of in isolation from each other: they are complementary terms. Left to themselves, both return to the Unknowable; and the nature of this "return" will play a fundamental part in our further discussion. We have noted that a rule is its effect. If it is only "partly" obeyed by flow (like the prospekty) it is either not a rule at all or else a different rule from what it claims to be. It flickers "on" and "off" instantaneously, according to whether the state it defines is maintained or not. In contrast, flow without rules disperses gradually. Movement cannot arise or be disorganized all at once - it changes direction or intensity by degrees. In cybernetics, flow is analogue, rules digital. In music, flow is the tune, rules the beat. In Aristotelian terms flow is substance, rules form. Consequently it is through rules that reality acquires specific attributes such as time, space, life, meaning, value. All such states stand in constant danger of flickering "off", becoming unintelligible and returning to the Unknowable. This is a natural consequence of the abstract nature of rules. A rule defines an object as a specific thing simply by affirming that it is not anything else. Hence the rule is nothing but the abstract boundary implied by this word "not". But the only way such an intangible can give rise to the rich diversity of social phenomena is by limiting its own influence, by focusing and channeling flow rather than halting it, permitting contrast and comparison rather than segregating completely. Things therefore become things by engaging in specific types of interaction, and if the rules of interaction change they become things of a different kind. Rules are "gates" or "filters", and flow the self-sustaining flux of interaction running through them.³⁶ But flow itself neither compares nor contrasts. It asserts its being by including things within its cycle, penetrating their boundaries and assimilating them as "parts into a whole". Without the resistance of rules, flow would swallow everything in that total interrelatedness we feel when we are so involved in an activity or relationship that nothing else seems real.

Thus a rule is an abstract distinction, a mode of comparison - a logical "not". Flow is an inclusive relationship, a world in itself - an "is". Paradoxical though it may seem, it is this very limitation of rules, their utter lack of concrete substance, which is the key to their power. Since they are abstract, their range of application is unlimited - they can be "moved out of context" as in humor, or "imposed on a new context" as in generalization, imperialism, legislation or engineering - or as prospekty are imposed on dvory. Conversely, the power of flow lies in its inability to free itself from the context. Indeed, since its only function is to connect, flow in a very real sense is the context. It is a closed circuit of feedback, which - like a spinning gyroscope - resists displacement.

I have defined Texture as the medium through which interaction and communication flow, and indicated that the Texture of a society (or a more limited social situation) may be thought of as the sum of all its rules, all restricting, governing, ordering boundaries. It is a kind of hyper-complex, many-levelled "labyrinth", through the corridors of which all acts and communication eddy, meander, trickle or roar. Texture denotes the total complexity of a context. We must not forget how abstract this idea is. Texture does not consist of things, persons, institutions, or even roles and symbols. Such entities (Centers) are states, which we maintain by acting within a Texture: by resisting, conforming to or trying to understand it. Texture itself is only a labyrinth of boundaries. But since it includes all the rules - all the actual and fictive distinctions of a society - it is also the fundamental source of the society's uniqueness - it's basic form, it's deepest rhythm, the way in which its interpretation of the Unknowable differs from all others.

We may now take another step and attempt to describe various empirical Textures as results of different types of relationship between rules and flow. An analogy may assist us in constructing such a typology. If flow is thought of as a river contained by rules, two types of variation present themselves. First, the current may either be efficiently concentrated, as in a steep river gorge, or it may dissipate in switchbacks and marshlands. Secondly, the intensity of flow - its brute force, its speed and the distance it traverses - may vary from a dribble to an Amazonian surge. Clearly, the prospekty are inefficient carriers of flow, but carry flow of far greater intensity than the dvory - while a German Autobahn is both efficient and intense.

When social systems increase their efficiency this may be referred to as Adaptation. In the terms defined above, adaptation may be described as an accretion of multiple rules to the same current of flow. Multiple rules act as a kind of "security net". They allow flow greater elasticity of movement, so no matter how often it changes direction and intensity there is always a rule ready to catch and hold it. Bateson (1970b) has defined this quality as Flexibility, and exemplified it with the body's reaction to hunger. Food consumption fluctuates between lethal limits of starvation and overeating. But if these limits were the only rules to turn eating "on" and "off", the body would constantly be poised on the verge of destruction, and any chance occurrence could "surprise" it to exceed its own lethal limits and die. So instead there are many rules warning us to eat or not long before lethal limits are reached. Some are biological (it's unhealthy to not feel hunger), some social (etiquette and habit). The lethal limits are shielded by a dense cocoon of rules, which permit us to respond to hunger in a wide variety of ways, depending on the circumstances - without endangering our life. Flexibility, in Bateson's definition, is "uncommitted potentiality for change" (op.cit.). If we keep to the metaphor of the river, flexible flood control might be achieved e.g. by a system of stepped dikes, which, as the current intensifies beyond a certain point, would dissipate the energy of the waters by allowing them to expand to the next step, and so on. A single, massive floodwall, in contrast, is immediately attacked at its base by even the smallest swell, and if it is pierced at any point, there is no backup to replace it. In this way multiple rules channel flow efficiently, and absorb any "leakage" that jeopardizes the survival of the system. The "labyrinth" of social Texture consists of countless channels of this kind, crisscrossing and branching off from each other on many levels, from the finest-grained nuances of speech and gesture, to the massive surges of international commerce. By "lining" its channels densely with rules, society "prepares itself for any eventuality" and "takes all circumstances into account", while reducing its need to insist rigidly on any single rule. Flexibility allows alternative solutions and freer scope of expression.

Adaptation thus harmonizes rules and flow, the form and content of expressions. It creates consistency and beauty - hence it is an important component in many forms of art. Flexible, "leak-proof" rules form the basis of norms, categories, ideologies, roles and institutions, which are convincing and predictable. Adaptation produces a legitimate social order. The fundamental reason for this is that redundancy is increased, i.e. rules overlap and intermesh so densely that by mentioning one you always imply them all. This is experienced as variation, since there are always many ways of saying or seeing the same thing. Furthermore, as Bateson points out (1979, p.75-98), such "multiple versions of the world" harmonize and deepen our perception of reality (two eyes see differently (in depth), not more, than one). Adaptation thus utilizes separation and discontinuity (many rules) to "simulate continuity" (flow). Transitions seem gradual, almost unnoticeable. Stability and immunity to external influence increase till we seem to be living in the "only possible world", unchallenged by abrupt, unpredictable change. (But although the Unknowable recedes into the background, it never disappears - a point we return to in Chapter 3, Part D.) Such Textures (flexible, efficient, legitimate, stable and redundant) are called Dense in the following, since they "cover" the Unknowable with tightly "packed" rules. A Texture of poor adaptation, in contrast, is Open. Its rules are inflexible and brittle: its flow inefficient, illegitimate and unstable, its transitions sudden and violent. It "covers" the Unknowable incompletely, and unpredictable, random change is a constant threat. Since the zona symbolizes a vast "residue" of the Unknowable in society, we conclude that Soviet Texture is extremely Open. We will return to the consequences of this conclusion below.

Returning to our metaphor of the river, we may now ask how increasing intensity of current may be conceptualized in terms of flow and rules. On one level this seems obvious. As the Amazon runs in a wide basin, so a society must contain rules of broad validity and application in order to convey large quantities of goods and information at high speeds over great distances. I shall refer to the development of such a universalistic order as Evolution, since rules of this kind are most typically embodied in the universal laws of modern society, as well as in its overarching infrastructure of machinery, highways and communication. But on another level the situation is more complex. The Amazon is not a single, wide channel, but a vast basin collecting trickles of flow from many sources. In the same way, the universalistic structures of modern administration, communication and economics must coordinate millions of individual human beings - diverting their efforts from areas with immediate and obvious relevance to their own life and wellbeing into an impersonal sphere that often directly contradicts their personal interests. Thus evolution not only establishes global, impersonal principles (which I refer to as General rules), but polarizes these with principles of personal and local validity (Specific rules).

Another crucial aspect of evolution should be noted: a general rule (e.g. a prospekt) is a rule of Power. It dominates specific rules by extracting part of their flow and redirecting it onto higher levels. A wage laborer, for instance, no longer works for himself. His relationships to tools and people acquire a wider, impersonal function, which he never fully comprehends. Part of the autonomy of face-to-face interaction is sacrificed to "feed" the aggregate interaction of higher levels.³⁷ But since flow is a self-maintaining feedback circuit, specific rules turn inward on themselves and resist power. Indeed, general and specific rules are integrated into a hierarchy not by some kind of neutral, logical compromise, but by the constant conflict of power and resistance between its various levels. As Giddens points out (1979, p.145-50), this "dialectic of control" bears a striking resemblance to the "class conflict" of Marxism. But levels are rules, not groups. A high level is not a "ruling class", but a rule with universal pretensions, which extracts flow from throughout a widespread community. A "ruling class" may perform key high-level functions and exploit its position to terrorize the population. But violence is not power. Power exploits in order to integrate. The ruling class can neither fulfill this function alone nor limit itself to it exclusively. A class is not an abstraction - a rule, but a group of people, who themselves, in the very act of exploiting power, resist it. In the same way resistance to power is not mainly a conscious struggle, surfacing only at specific times or places, as certain versions of Marxism misleadingly assume, but a universal constant of all human interaction. Class struggle is an explicit conflict between groups, but in reality the conflict is far more pervasive, taking place within groups, within individuals, indeed, within the individual act itself.

Textures with intensive extraction and great power differences between their most general and most specific rules are Deep ("modern"). Textures with small power differentials are Flat ("primitive"). Like Density and Openness, these categories have implications for consciousness as well as social organization. Deep societies are held together by "abstract" circuits of flow conveying vast volumes of goods, information and people over great distances at high speeds. General rules are the infrastructure channeling this flow. But an infrastructure consists of more than material resources (roads, telephones, factories), it comprises all the knowledge, discipline and skills needed to operate and maintain these facilities. In both respects there must be uniformity for the infrastructure to function: smooth roads, universal laws, uniform value. Evolution thus enforces standardization, general rules that override the traditional barriers of Flat societies: immunities of caste and guild, local cultural variation, ritual and economic impediments to free exchange. The effect of the market on Flat societies with clearly delimited spheres of economic circulation exemplifies this (Bohannan 1959), as does the transformation of cyclical time conceptions into linear sequences measurable in standardized units (Löfgren 1979) or the development of written records, maintaining a stable standard of truth that local communities cannot reinterpret to suit their changing needs (Goody & Watt 1968). But in order to "fill" a general rule with flow, the efforts of innumerable individuals must be coordinated. Only part of a general rule is therefore found in any one place and time, in any individual or act, and only in the general rule itself - an abstraction inaccessible to consciousness - are all the fragments pieced together. From the point of view of the individual, standardization is therefore experienced as specialization of skills, roles and concepts.³⁸

Thus evolution produces opposite principles - general and specific rules, power and resistance, standardization and specialization - and polarizes them. At one extreme are rules of an abstract, impersonal order - upholding institutions, nations, the world market. At the other extreme are concrete rules, which apply to the personal needs and relationships of individuals. But no rule, no matter how general, can survive except by governing real human action. The entire polarized hierarchy is therefore compressed into individual acts: although a rule is abstract and general, its only tangible presence is here and now, in the fact that we obey it. The act is the medium through which flow of all levels is conveyed, and most acts in Deep societies therefore encompass vast internal tensions between general and specific principles. I pay on the bus - but why? For my own self respect? For the sake of bus company, the state or the world market? No matter how I rationalize it, my act is not autonomous, but split between many such considerations. We lead life on many levels of abstraction and are alienated from many essential consequences of our acts.³⁹ It is through this experience of alienation that a Deep Texture enters our consciousness, forcing us to distinguish between universal and local statements, abstract and concrete categories and values. It is therefore no coincidence that Western Europe - which has evolved, historically, into the Deepest and most powerful Texture in history - was also the point of origin of modern science. In contrast, polarization is weak in a Flat Texture. There is less power - primitive societies have rudimentary hierarchies. Standardization is not far-reaching - systems are small or weakly integrated into larger systems. Specialization is weak, roles multiplex (most people can perform most tasks). Abstract and concrete thought are not clearly separated, because they are not experienced as opposites.

The hierarchy produced by evolution is an apparatus of power and an instrument of abstraction. Once again we note that the distinction between "material" and "spiritual" orders does not apply, since we are dealing with a hierarchy of rules - not of things, concepts or groups (Centers). Power and abstraction are inseparable aspects of general rules, which extract flow from direct, spontaneous and personal acts - which are the only source of flow. In both cases this extraction is resisted. People do not willingly sacrifice time and energy for some impersonal "larger whole". Neither would they engage in abstract thought, irrelevant to the business of living, if they were not forced - i.e. if society had not "split" their acts, giving them a real stake in reflecting over such issues. This does not mean that people in primitive (Flat) societies do not engage in flights of fancy or devise ingenious systems of philosophy and art. All Textures adapt, increasing their variety and aesthetic elaboration. What is unique in Deep society is the polar opposition of abstract and concrete forms of life and thought - the fact that such forms belong to separate experiential worlds.

We have now arrived at two independent axes of complexity, at the extremes of which are four polar types of Texture: Deep, Flat, Dense and Open. None of these concepts are new: there is an extensive literature contrasting primitive (Flat) and modern (Deep) societies, notable are contributions by Marxists and social evolutionists. Studies of legitimacy and solidarity (both are forms of Density) go back to Weber and Durkheim, and ecological adaptation has received much attention since the early 60's. My ideas are inspired by this work but attempt to overcome one of its most common shortcomings: a tendency either to study one of the processes to the exclusion of the other, or to emphasize one as more beneficial. Bateson thus extols the virtues of flexibility and ecological health, but ignores the impersonal machinery of power enfolding through evolution, attributing this to individual motivation (1979, p.46-48). Maurice Godelier, in contrast, ignores adaptation and seeks a Communist Utopia in evolution (1978b). Marshall Sahlins (1960) demonstrates the spuriousness of such controversy by distinguishing between "general" and "specific" evolution (evolution and adaptation), and emphasizing their complementarity. But Sahlins's concepts have restricted application: evolution is only a long-term historical process, adaptation only ecological; both affect mainly material and economic conditions. The last tenet is clearly mistaken. Historical analyses since Weber and Marx demonstrate that evolution involves the psyche deeply. Ecological studies e.g. by Roy Rappaport (1968) show the same for adaptation. As I have emphasized above, the mental and the material are one. The fallacy of the first limitation is also clear: legitimacy (Density), and abstraction (Depth), affect not only the gross characteristics of culture, but its most intimate details as well. This is partly taken into account by Tord Larsen (1980): his processes of "immunization" and "mediation" correspond to adaptation and evolution, and describe daily life as well as cognition. But Larsen loses the historical dimension from view, assuming that the processes have equal weight in human affairs. This may be true in principle, but is denied by the empirical realities of modernization. Throughout the past five hundred years, evolution has become an increasingly dominating force, because it expands the scope of power and hence the ability to dominate one's neighbors: once a group has attained a certain level of Depth, surrounding societies are simply overrun. Morton Fried (1960) calls the origin of evolution pristine, its imperialistic sequel secondary. We shall return to the problems of a society undergoing secondary evolution in Chapter Four.

The concepts we have discussed may describe the Texture of any real system in formal terms. We may identify societies that (in an overall sense, and disregarding, for the time being, all local variation), are Deep and Dense, as in classical Western Europe; or Deep and Open, as the Soviet Union; or Flat and Dense, as most slowly changing, primitive cultures; or, finally, Flat and Open, as the volatile, messianistic cargo cults of Melanesia. But as yet our discussion has described society as if it were nothing but a field of flow. The Texture of this field is its rhythm or order, the sum of all its rules; and the tangible states we consider "objectively real" are nothing but evanescent byproducts, congealing out of Texture like icebergs out of the sea. I have referred to these products as Centers.

Centers arise from Texture as thoughts from the mind. Suppose a thought occurs to me - where did it come from? It congealed out of my mind's Texture, the "labyrinth" of rules guiding the flow of my impressions, desires and fears. In the same way objects, individuals, categories, values, situations, acts, roles, institutions, classes - even societies - congeal out of social Texture. They are "society's thoughts". But just as a person becomes more discerning, better able to make conscious judgments and perceive the world accurately when clear images and thoughts have formed in his mind, so society may become more "explicit", more efficient and flexible in its use of energy and people if its Centers are stable, clear-cut and many-faceted. Thus, it is an essential quality of Soviet society, as compared, for instance, to modern Western Capitalism, that its Centers - congealing out of an extremely Open Texture - are few and weak. Paradox and vagueness are here endemic, in personal life as well as politics. The omnipresence of the zona throws one back on one's own resources, forces one to improvise and endure like a Stalker. But to grasp the full impact of the zona we must understand how the Centers of "reality as we know it" arise from Texture.

First, no Texture is homogeneous. Any system consists of more or less independent sub-systems with varying degrees of Depth and Density. Even the Densest Textures retain lacunae of Openness, or, at times (as in the West, as we shall see below) deep-going and pervasive fissures that are systematically denied (and more or less successfully neutralized) by legitimation. Flat areas are common in Deep systems (an example is a family within a state). In Open societies - as the Soviet Union - people may create Islands of Density to defend themselves against the unpredictable world around them. Any more or less homogeneous area within a larger Texture may be considered an autonomous system - a system, which is able to sustain processes of adaptation and evolution independently, up to a point, and thence support its own version of the world, its unique Texture, which it develops and elaborates freely. A Center (e.g. a symbol, person, institution) congeals on the basis of such an autonomous sub-system. The impression it gives of being bounded in time and space is therefore a measure of the degree of autonomy of the sub-system upon which it rests, and as soon as evolution or adaptation can no longer be sustained by this sub-system, the Center collapses. The autonomy of some systems (e.g. societies or persons) is very great. Others (e.g. categories), may be considered autonomous only in specific situations. But every system has autonomy, and all autonomy is limited.

Its limits are of two kinds. The general rules of evolution define the outermost limits of a system's capacity for control, the "reach" of its power and abstraction: these are the Center's real boundaries. On the other hand, adaptation determines of the system's utmost ability to legitimize itself and resist change: the Center's perceived boundaries. The real boundary includes whatever the most general rule governs - whether or not this is perceived as legitimate - and the real and perceived boundaries of a Center therefore rarely coincide: we are often not what we hope or believe; we submit to incomprehensible rules. In modern times this is particularly true. Our most general rule, the world market, is global, impinging even on "closed" systems such as the Soviet Union - but even in Western Europe, where the market economy originated and matured, individuals rarely identify with its impersonal mechanisms. Centers thus embody a tension between two sets of boundaries, they are tenuous compromises between the perceived and the real, adaptation and evolution, and their equilibrium is easily upset by the forces flowing through and round them. Centers may seem separate and unalterable, but all are woven of the same woof - of Texture.

Centers would thus appear to be entirely ephemeral phenomena, ready to collapse at the slightest shift in the volatile Textures from which they spring. But all autonomous systems rest on Paradigms with great stability, and the Center is "anchored" in these. The nature of Paradigms will be discussed in the following:

A general rule coordinates specific rules by splitting off and re-channeling part of their flow: the reality of its abstractions is upheld by exploiting an underlying concreteness. The general rule is therefore dependent on the rules it governs, since they are its only source of energy. This however, implies that if the general rule overexploits the rules it rests on, it will undermine its own existence. This is most obvious in the relationship between society and nature. Society dominates nature just as general rules dominate specific rules, and for this reason it is also dependent on nature. True, when society extracts energy it transforms nature. But nature still does not "become society": social rules are meaningful, but nature, no matter how it is transformed, remains "meaningless". Without its people, Leningrad is a large and complex, but nameless and useless physical object, not a city. But since this object has been dominated and transformed by meaning, it bears an Imprint of society - it has become a natural "foundation" upon which a particular type of Social Texture can comfortably rest. The prospekty and dvory are external imprints in the material surroundings. But these external imprints elicit a spontaneous "gut reaction" from the people living among them, which I attempted to illustrate in my fable of the zona. This reaction rests on the internal imprint of social rules that are embedded in the body and psyche (Habermas 1973, p.27) - a "foundation" in memory, of unconscious habits and routines, basic attitudes, skills, and values - a "cognitive-emotional Texture" from which conscious choice and meaning spring. And like external imprints, these unconscious imprints in the psyche are not social or meaningful in themselves, but affect consciousness indirectly - through dreams, myth and symbolism - as in Tarkovsky's films (cf. Jung 1964, p.52-56).

The importance of imprints for our discussion lies in their relative stability, and in the fact that society depends on them for sustenance. If a Texture is firmly embedded in its imprints, it is established as an unalterable fact of life. We have noted how the power of general rules is transmitted downward from level to level in the social hierarchy, until all levels are compressed into the individual act on which they rest. But the act itself rests on external nature and on the body, dominating and depending on them. The entire complexity of society as compressed in the act is thus materialized in its imprints in nature. Leningrad's streets - their purely physical aspect - are silent witnesses to the complex organization of the Texture they bear. They are part of the Paradigm of Soviet reality. In Chapter Five and Chapter Six I shall expand the discussion of Paradigms. Here it is enough to remind the reader that Paradigms are the ultimate sources of social stability and continuity, and the ultimate obstacles to change. Both aspects of the Paradigm - the external, "architectural" imprints, and the internal imprints in the psyche - thus anchor society in history. Not only its present complexity but its past as well is contained, in a coded and highly abbreviated form, in its Paradigms.

A Center congeals out of an area of Texture where rules and flow intersect with particular Density, because they "cluster" around and gain stability from the same Paradigm. Nowhere does this occur with greater force and complexity than in the individual person. Since we are the ones "doing it all", the human body and psyche contain the supreme Paradigm of all Textures, the anchor of society's only truly autonomous Center: the Self. Other Centers (cultures, institutions, roles, symbols) are not as "solid" as the Self, they lack independent consciousness. But they acquire a limited autonomy that is stronger the more intimately they interact with the Self. We therefore seem to be surrounded by "other wills than our own" (the "wills" of societies, groups, traditions, ideas), shadowy and unsubstantial, but with a certain distinctness of purpose and identity. Symbols are such "shadow wills". Unlike the Self, these Centers are not alive, they make no judgments, but they are so complex that at times they seem to "come to life" and communicate the experience they contain to us.

The basic reason why symbols can communicate with us is that we, like they, are Centers. But it is only when their real boundaries overlap with ours (i.e. when they control, through power and abstraction, parts of "our" field of Texture) that symbolic communication attains importance. And when in addition our perceived boundaries do not overlap, symbolic communication becomes crucial to our lives. In such cases the symbol may be said to encompass something we "are", but do not "understand", a potential we have yet to realize. We may then learn from the symbol how to penetrate the depths of our being, to understand and influence the powers that rule us, or we may be obsessed by it, haunted and destroyed by its "evil" will. By learning to "know" and "master" such a symbol we expand our perceived boundaries, deepen and broaden the "area" of Texture we acknowledge as our Self until it coincides with the area encompassed by our real boundaries; by denying and resisting it, we cut our Self off from crucial sources of personal and cultural sustenance. This effect is never so strong as when we communicate with dominant symbols (such as the zona). Such symbols, in which vast expanses of Texture find expression, are vital keys to our psychological, moral and political situation. When we expand our perceived boundaries by symbolic communication we seek to "become ourselves", to "ground ourselves in our own reality". I call this the Quest for Meaning.

The Quest for Meaning takes many forms. Centers are flimsy creations, flickering lights of perception surrounded by darkness. Our basic problem is therefore to see a meaning in what we do and act consistently to sustain it. This is the same as saying that we must bring our own Center, our Self, into concord with the whole Textural field from which it springs, so our real and perceived boundaries coincide. To avoid this Quest is to lose control over part of our life. Bateson (1971) illustrates this in an analysis of the therapy of Alcoholics Anonymous. The "bottle" is a symbol congealed out of an area of Texture that the alcoholic does not perceive as part of his Self, though in fact it is. He has "projected" part of himself into it and thereby turned it into an ungovernable external force, an enemy he fights. But in fact he is fighting himself and thus doomed to failure. The AA claim that his only solution is to "hit bottom", admit that his fight has failed. Only then can he submit to a higher Will that controls both bottle and Self. This Will, or God, represents the real boundary of his Self, and his cure lies in perceiving that he is God and God is him. "Fighting it" implies an unfulfilled Quest. It is the logic of armament races and mother complexes - an internal deadlock projected outwards. Much human effort conforms to this pattern. What passes as "free choice" or "intention" is often, as Dag Østerberg (1963, p.16) points out, an ex post factum explanation of the act ("I did it because") rather than an envisioned goal carried out ("I shall do it in order to"). But the act may precede a discovery as well as a rationalization - it may allow us to see who we are - if interpreted correctly. Symbols are texts that teach us what we have done, ciphers deciphered by the Quest for Meaning.

C. Limbo

A real society is an immensely involved, composite Center, rising out of a heterogeneous Texture with varying degrees of Density and Depth predominating in different fields; a colorful or blood-streaked patchwork. As we approach Soviet Texture we must keep this in mind. This is a vast world, and I do not pretend to know it in great depth. I shall attempt, on the basis of my observations and an analysis of macro-structures and history, to draw a single line through this world, an abstract little prospekt of my own - confirmed Westerner that I am - and arrive at some ideas about a Paradigm of Russian identity that has, I hope, a certain relevance for the Quest for meaning which my friends in Russia are engaged in.

My presentation is structured around a single concept: Limbo. This term attempts to capture an essential aspect of the Texture of Soviet society. It is the battlefield between prospekt and dvor, the social reality, which the zona, the space between, symbolizes. As a whole, Soviet Texture may be described as Deep and Open, polarized and illegitimate: we sense this as we see the general rules of its prospekty slice through the dvory. But the dvory resist power. There's a war going on. You may desert or turn traitor - but the war is omnipresent. Moreover, it is a battle that cannot be won, for there are streets within the mind. It is as in Dante's Limbo, the forecourt of Hell, where the virtuous (but not Christian) sages of Antiquity whiled away the millennia of immortality in grey, featureless destitution. Not Hell this, nor Heaven or Purgatory. Only the waiting, biding their time, in the still point surrounded by swirling Chaos - the Eye of the Whirlwind.

Let me recount a story before commencing my account. I shall return to a scene like the factory I visited with Vitya, a place I discovered myself one bitterly cold and clear March afternoon, which I later described in a letter I shall quote:

"Between the yellow wall and the low red wall is an opening, some three meters wide, beyond which lies a vacant lot. It is very quiet. To the left, the yellow wall bends round to form a large building. The part facing the lot is gutted by fire, and the remains of floors, of rusty scaffolding, old machines, crushed aluminum ventilation ducts, window glass, piles of bricks, lie strewn around inside. Everything is covered by snow and ice, and rusty as only old trash can be. To the right of the entrance I have found stands a small burnt-out brick shack, its empty rooms full of unspeakable things.

Through my 'entrance' a narrow, well-trodden path leads. It winds around a gigantic corroded sheet of iron, between two short, rusted stumps of railing jutting out from a tilted fragment of steel floor, and disappears into the wilderness. I timidly follow the path (it seems so private, for some reason). From behind an enormous metal drum, a well-groomed fur cap suddenly bobs up. I hasten to the street. Later I venture in again.

I see the brick shack from behind. Glass and old newspapers litter the floor, and - weird beyond all comprehension - a hot water pipe has sprung a leak. From a deep hole surrounded by mushrooming mountains of ice, a boiling, miniature geyser jets out at me, surrounded by billowing steam.

Where does the path lead? Further on I find my answer. At its back, the lot abuts on a high concrete barrier, behind this is a factory, where people work. But the factory exit is at the other end of the block, a long walk around. Some smart person has erected a series of steps, consisting of an oil drum and an old chair, and by climbing this it is possible to scale the wall more or less comfortably.

As I am about to leave, work is over, and a stream of businesslike, quick Russian men - some with document cases at their sides - clamber over the wall and hurry home along the narrow path without a glance at me. One stops and enters the shack for a minute - it's a latrine! The geyser hisses, suddenly a little bird rises towards the sky through the steam. It's built a home in there, where it's warm.

I wander to the other side, where they are evidently building, though half the windows aren't yet put in, and the rest are already broken. I like the sign here: 'The attainment of our production goals is a matter of honor for every worker!'"

I shall single out three elements from this little fable from life: the Barrier, the Gate, and the Path.

The Barrier is the perceived boundary of a Center. It defends the relatively Dense and stable microclimate of the factory against the Open street - restricting such endemic practices as smuggling (alcohol in, goods for sale out). Like the guarded wall around the zona, it keeps people out of Limbo - the physical and social "vacant lot". But in a city where nearly everyone gets to work either on foot or by public transport, it is obvious that any large factory area should have more than one entrance. By its very restrictiveness, the Barrier forces people to scale it and go where they shouldn't. The Soviet Union is full of Barriers, defending tiny (or not so tiny) areas of stability and security, and fragmenting society irrevocably. I call the Centers that arise in this way Islands. But the most striking characteristic of this factory-Island is its instability, the illegitimacy of its "self-perception", its Openness. It dissolves back into Texture before my eyes - into Limbo. This is why the Barrier is so obvious in the first place: the zona is omnipresent, an underlying insecurity in the most regulated contexts. People erect Barriers as fortifications against Limbo, to compensate for the lack of stable rules in the world around them and hedge off more or less safe and predictable fields in self-defense.

But no Island is self-sufficient. There must be Gates in its Barriers to allow a certain flow of skills, resources and people in and out of it. Gates may be official or not-so-official - as my little story shows. But neither the factory management nor the workers could manage without either kind. Indeed, if we take a closer look at this factory we may find that the management itself is vitally interested in the unofficial Gate. Thus, Barriers are defended, insisted on at all costs. But at the same time, they are controverted and undermined - even by the powers that erect them. For the Gate opens access to Limbo - and Limbo is the potential, the Unknowable resource. Perhaps you only need to traverse it to get home from work, perhaps - if you're a Stalker - there's something there you need or may profit from. By opening a Gate, you may not only find a more practical way home, but a heap of money, the love of your life, and the meaning of existence as well.

Barriers and Gates - the text reads:
Vkhod - Vkhoda net - Vkhod
Entrance - No entry - Entrance
Artist: E. Bulatov (AYa, 1979: 32)

My story is thus not really tied to any specific place, any more than Tarkovsky's film. It is a story of a Texture, Limbo, and a Texture is not a place, but a medium out of which places (Centers) congeal. We may find spots, which strongly evoke it, physical localities, imprints, which are paradigmatic of it. But Limbo itself is an all-pervading state of mind and society - a state of "unmediated polarization" (Chapter 2, Part A) - abrupt transitions (Barriers) and sneaky ways around them - "absolutist" insistence bordering on the paranoid, or delicate "animistic" sensitivity to its Unknowable "traps" (Chapter 3, Part C). It is freedom or bondage, but above all, it is unavoidable. Every day you are forced to cross areas of insecurity on the way from one Island to another. More fundamentally still: the Barriers you erect in self-defense are constantly undermined - by yourself. So the safe field is far from safe, and you learn to move with caution. Coming home from work you tread carefully, but as fast as possible, avoiding open manholes (common in Leningrad), falling rafters and unnecessary exposure of your opinions. For Limbo's essential quality is the unpredictability with which it is encountered. It may materialize anywhere - on the personal or state level, in politics and economy, family life or religion. So you keep to the Path, as the fur-capped workers in my story...

The Path is a track through Limbo. The Stalker follows cautious, roundabout ways. He casts a strip of gauze tied to a rock ahead of him, carefully sensing where it's safe today (he's moving through a landscape which is "constantly changing"). Then he motions his followers to proceed to the rock, bringing up the rear himself. In this circuitous manner they cover a hundred yards in a day. Any step to the side is perilous, we are told, and although we never see the danger, we sense it. A real Path is a seemingly unorganized, random result of collective experience. It is a tenuous thread stretched out between Islands, as rigidly and insistently hedged off from Limbo as they - and as constantly threatened. If you stick to it you may avoid uncomfortable incidents, but one step outside and no one knows what will become of you. The Path is for all of us who are hurrying home from work, who do not care to take chances. The Stalker makes his own Path, bites back fear and faces the challenge of the zona. He realizes that Limbo may be exploited, though he does so, like Vitya, tongue in cheek. His is a dangerous business and people look at him askance, but it is exhilarating as long as all goes well (and if it does, he may be sure everyone will be following him in a few years - though by then of course, he will have moved on). But for the rest of us, the established Path leads from one Island of relative security to the next. It is businesslike, never meanders without reason, makes no scenic detours. We reach our destination, close the door, erect our flimsy Barriers, and let zona be zona... till tomorrow.

Chapter Two: Life on the Islands

The idea of impending doom had no place in their minds. Doom had been creeping up on them too slowly and had started moving closer too long ago... They were unwilling and unable to draw conclusions, or even to think about the world outside their little village. There was the village, and there was the forest. The forest was stronger, but then the forest had always been and would always be stronger. So what's all this talk about doom, anyway? What do you mean, doom? That's just life...
(Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 1972)

A. The Weakness of General Rules

The factory described above is prototypical of the Soviet Union as I have learned to know it. Seemingly, this is a society dominated by a "totalitarian" bureaucracy pursuing familiar goals of economic centralization and political control. But in fact, each institution, each group, even the state itself, is a self-defensive Center, an Island inhabited by people who simultaneously insist on its Barriers and controvert them. Soviet society is an archipelago of Islands rising from the sea of Limbo, and constantly threatened or even submerged by its unpredictable tides and gales. This is the external institutional framework⁴⁰ through which people move in daily life, and to which they must be willing to adapt to survive. In this and the next chapter I shall examine the consequences of this situation (its causes are discussed in Chapter Four). It is essential to understand how people adapt, what ethic they adopt as a response to a life on and among the Islands. This ethic is self-defensive, but volatile, for Islands are not only refuges from the war between Culture and Nature, Europe and Asia, prospekty and dvory. They are also "home bases" from which the "soldiers" of this war issue forth.

I have characterized the Texture of Soviet society as Deep and Open. It contains vast differentials of power, but few intermediate levels and little overlapping of rules. General and specific rules are separated by an extensive sphere of contention, insecurity, and potential change: by a power vacuum that various groups may step into and seek to restrain, control or make use of, but which they never succeed in dominating other than on a strictly local and temporary basis.⁴¹ What power governs is thus divorced from power itself. This is a Texture of unmediated polarization. I have furthermore compared general rules to an "infrastructure", a network of "channels" ordering overarching flow. When influx into this network from below is irregular and unpredictable, the infrastructure is eroded and reduced to a shadow. Power exists in order to extract flow from lower levels and divert it into overarching, integrative circuits of flow. When it is divorced from its object, extraction is disrupted. Overarching flow is no longer regularly "fed" from below, it tends to "dry out", and the general rules governing it become "weak", "unreal", in constant danger of flickering "off" (for a rule that is not obeyed is no longer a rule). From the state's point of view, the situation is highly unstable. The state attempts to govern flow, but succeeds poorly. Power is highly inefficient.

This has repercussions throughout the Soviet economy. Most obviously, the infrastructure, as a purely physical means of moving resources, people, and information from place to place, is grossly inadequate. There are too few roads, railways, telephone lines to "cover" the vastness of the Soviet Union. Railways, handling 55.6% of all freight (Hunter & Kaple 1982, p.232) are unable to fulfill the needs of industry and factories stop production because there are too few railroad cars to empty the bursting warehouses (LP: 15/2-83). Shifting to more flexible truck transport has proved difficult because of the lack of roads. In face of an 85% increase in the number of trucks (1965-80) and a more than sixfold increase of passenger automobiles, the length of hard-surfaced roads has only doubled, and the total extent of the road network has even decreased slightly (Hunter & Kaple 1982, p.226).

In part, these problems may be accounted for by the uneven distribution of population and resources, due to which the sheer cost of transport is exorbitant: In the 30's, when coal mined in the Ukraine was used to smelt iron from the Urals, one third of it was consumed by the carrier trains (AP: 22/5-84). The crux of the matter, however, is not lack of infrastructure, but wastage. When general rules are "weak", the infrastructure "leaks", and flow escapes in transit: 25% of coal, mineral fertilizers and other powdery goods simply blow away on the road, thanks to inadequate methods of handling and loading (AP: 23/5-84, Posev: 84/9:9). A Soviet commission found that direct losses due to low quality storage, transport, and packing amounted to 20% of grain produced, 20% of fruit and vegetables, and one third of potatoes (Malish 1982:49). Similar inefficiencies hamper production: A documentary film produced in Estonia in the early 80's estimated that for every 5-6 agricultural machines delivered, one might be assembled that was in working condition: 613,000 tractors and 189,000 combines were produced during the last two years of the 8th Five Year Plan. But the actual number of serviceable vehicles delivered during the whole 5 years was only 394,300 and 103,000 respectively (Staroverov 1976, p.21). The kolkhozy in the film were forced to keep up elaborate repair shops, and experts interviewed estimated that if the labor from these shops could be freed for agricultural production, output of grain might increase by 25-30 million tons per year only in the North-Western Soviet Union. (Total Soviet output was 190 million tons in 1983.)

But to understand the true dimensions of these problems we must keep in mind that an infrastructure consists of rules, which are not mere physical equipment. It is imprinted in material structures, e.g. in roads and machines, but in a more general sense it comprises all the means by which power and coordination are maintained throughout society: the weakness of general rules thus effects meaning as well as things. It is often assumed that state control is to blame for the lack of free information in the Soviet Union, and certainly, this must not be overlooked. But "censorship" is not always politically motivated:

"[The chief of Melodiya explained] that it is not only censorship that makes it difficult to get hold of good records. Nearly half of Melodiya's recording equipment is more than 20 years old, and an antiquated order system hinders mass production of popular records..." (Inf: 24/1-86)

In a wider perspective, lack of information weakens the apparatus of control itself, impedes culture and science,⁴² hampers governmental agencies and planners: Enterprises, badly pressed for time and resources, have little opportunity to conduct marketing surveys or research consumers' needs. Even were this not so, economic planning - emphasizing quantity at the expense of quality - provides few incentives for such work. A railroad official complains that trains haul millions of tons of freight over short distances. Trucks could do it at lower cost, but truckers are paid per ton-kilometer, and are unwilling to take short-distance jobs (Hunter & Kaple 1982, p.230). By the same call, coordination between enterprises is impeded: Pipelines for natural gas (produced by one organization) are finished before compressors (produced by another), and as much as two full years may pass before the pipeline operates at full capacity (Hewett 1982, p.400).

I shall thus argue that the prime factor in understanding the "totalitarian" Soviet system is the weakness and unpredictability, rather than the consistent, mechanistic tyranny, of general rules. These rules are imprinted in roads, railways, machines, in telephones, the media, sociological and statistical surveys. But such resources can only be used and serviced effectively if the people operating them have acquired the necessary knowledge, discipline and skills. This in its turn presupposes the existence of an emotional and symbolic order, in the light of which such qualities may be interpreted as valuable. Only at this point does the full impact of the weakness of general rules become clear. Despite impressive advances since the Revolution (Graph 1, Graph 6), education levels remain low in many fields: While the number of tractors and combines in agriculture increased 4.1 times between 1950 and 1970, the number of qualified drivers increased by only 2.1 (Staroverov 1976). This is not merely a matter of education, however, but reflects the more basic fact that the infrastructure lacks a basis in morality and values: Workers steal and drink at work or shirk it altogether. Hardly a day goes by without complaints in the press on this account, and common people often voice the same views (when not bragging about their own exploits). Three quarters of those convicted for theft in Rostov-na-Donu had stolen at work (Udgaard 1977, p.99). On the average, each Soviet citizen consumes the equivalent of 4 liters of pure alcohol annually, not counting moonshine (Kerblay 1977, p.291), nor the fact that consumption in parts of the Muslim South is comparatively low - as it is among women. Shirking was common and accepted among many of my informants. After all, why should work time be respected, when inefficiencies lead to such inordinate waste of time in other respects? 37 billion hours are wasted yearly in queues (FØ: 84/3).⁴³

The connection between such practices and the weak physical infrastructure is obvious: For the average consumer of the Soviet North, these conditions result in an almost universal shortage (deficit) of the most elementary necessities of life (in the South, for reasons we shall return to in Chapter Four (Part D), shortages are often not apparent in the same way). Examples could be drawn from any area, but I shall limit myself to complaints most often voiced by my informants: housing, food, services and "cultural goods" (books, amusements, etc.).

The housing problem is inordinate all over the Soviet Union, but particularly in war-ravaged Leningrad. In 1964, 55.6% of the city's population lived in a single room, most often sharing amenities (kitchen, bath) with several other families (kommunal'nye kvartiry or kommunalki), another 6.4% lived in dormitories (Kerblay 1977, p.62). Among my informants, 46.2% lived in various communal-type apartments, so it is evident that the problem is still serious. One young man told me about a family of five households crammed together in one apartment, which had queued several years for a place in a housing co-op. When at last one household could move, the other 4 were struck from the top of the list and had to start the process all over again. A woman in her 40's, living with her divorced husband and two handicapped children, was number 3500 in a housing queue, and was told (in 1983) that she had 4 years of waiting ahead of her.⁴⁴ Fancy apartment exchanges are the subject of endless debate and untiring endeavor, thousands of classified adds, and special street corner "accommodation-markets" (split up by the police periodically), where the needy meet to work out complex deals, sometimes involving half a dozen parties.

Food shortages have been a scourge for generations. True, the famines of the 20's, 30's and 40's will hopefully never recur and the late 50's are remembered as a period of plenty, though conditions were bad enough in the countryside. But the late 70's and 80's brought new tribulations. By 1983, elementary necessities that had been easy to get hold of in Leningrad five years before, were often unobtainable in regular stores except early in the morning, and from the Northern countryside and lesser Russian cities, reports of rationing were becoming commonplace (Posev: 82/11:6-7; 83/2:12-3; 83/11:9).⁴⁵

The service sector (obsluzhivanie) may be the greatest single cause of discontent, and service personnel are the butt of endless jokes, temper tantrums, and complaints in the press (LP:27/2-83, 16/3-83, 26/6-83b). Understaffed village schools and club houses (Staroverov 1976), hospitals where nursing and cleaning are carried out by patients' relatives or not at all, non-existent stores in areas of new housing, mile-long waiting lists for household repair jobs, baffling bureaucracy and paperwork, are among the more obvious inadequacies. Lack of daycare centers and convalescent hospitals of acceptable quality, niggardly pensions and social security payments, impractical or expensive household equipment, add to the problems of the young, the elderly, and (because she ends up caring for both) the housewife.

More subtle, but perhaps of greater ultimate importance, are shortages in the somewhat indefinite area Russians call kul'tura ("culture"). Some aspects are obvious: lack of books, theater tickets, discotheques and modern art exhibits. But when an old woman gazes at a photograph from Paris, showing street vendors selling glistening fruit and vegetables and exclaims: "Kak tam kul'turno!" - "How cultured it is there!", we sense that the real problem may be a shortage of beauty:

"More than anything I have been enraptured by the work of Alla Pugacheva," writes a woman to Leningradskaya Pravda. "When I hear her sing it seems to me that she knows all my worries, all my heartache and sorrow, all my soul. I was so happy to hear she was coming to Leningrad, how I dreamt of being at her concert! I got my name on all the lists, but still didn't get a ticket. Black marketeers were selling them at prices, which I cannot afford. I am crushed. In the deep of my soul I no longer know what to live for." (LP: 4/8-83)

So again we arrive at the question of values. Clearly, shortages have direct impact on people's work morale and state of mind. But on another level their effect is neither immediate nor simple. Living standards, though lower than ten years ago, are higher than in most Soviet (not to speak of Russian) history. Thus, people complain, but perhaps their most fundamental complaint is not the lack of material security, but of something - an "Idea" - "to live for".

B. The Weakness of Money

Western critics often take a simplistic view of these problems: Communism, we are told, leads to centralization, centralization to shortages and shortages to disillusionment and apathy. If Communism were abandoned, control would be relaxed, the free market would dictate supply and demand, efficiency and morale rise high. I shall argue that the basic conditions for a market economy are absent in the Soviet Union.⁴⁶ Instead, economic solutions of another kind are sought, both by common people and the state. I do not deny that suppression of the market is also a political choice. It might be said that once this choice is made, the system tends to perpetuate itself, producing conditions such as those described below, which preclude the introduction of the market - i.e. the political choice is primary, shortages follow from it. Though I agree with this view in principle, I believe (as I explain in Chapter 4, Part A) that the "choice" was made under historical circumstances of extreme external pressure, which effectively precluded any other option. Moreover I shall argue that without external pressure, even conditions where the market might be a conceivable option (as today [in 1986]) would not have arisen. The following discussion thus has an implicit historical dimension, which will be explicitly treated later in the text.

A major consequence of the prevailing shortages is the weakness of money in the Soviet economy. There are countless things that money cannot buy - simply because they are too scarce.

A black marketeer in his early 40's told about a girl who had "made a great deal", by exchanging a 13m² room in a kommunalka for a 25m² room. This was only possible, he emphasized, because she traded with a drunkard in desperate need of cash. She paid 50 rubles per extra square meter (600 rubles - quite a sum, when you earn 100-150 a month). Still he was the fool and the loser in the deal. No money could pay for extra living space.

The same informant also told me that he and his friends had planned to buy a house[!] outside the city. They thought the woman who had bought it (for 4000 rubles a few years ago) might be talked into selling it for 8000 rubles (illegal money of course). The only reason why she might have sold (she didn't in the end), was that she was a pensioner, and the kolkhoz that owned the ground on which the house stood would not permit her to live there, since she was unable to work on the farm. Money cannot replace the loss of a farm hand, so great is the labor shortage. This is even reflected in the law - she could not move if she did not find work at the place she was moving to.

The weakness of money and insecurity of private property are indicative of the differences between the Soviet economy and a free market. Hernes describes an "ideal market" in the following way:

"When everyone does what is most profitable for himself, commodities are produced in the most appropriate way, and marketed at the lowest possible price. Thus each furthers the interests of society, led by an invisible hand to achieve a goal he in no way intends... In this system specialization is profitable, the expectation of gain an incentive to effort and inventiveness. The prices give the necessary information when it is needed and the market automatically takes care of coordination - the system is self-regulating." (Hernes 1978, p.21-22)

In this model, the idiosyncratic choices of individual actors aggregate into a "rational and progressive" whole because each consistently maximizes his own profit. This is the same as to say that general rules arise from the greatest possible autonomy on lower levels, which is a clear contradiction in terms, since general rules are rules of power and cannot exist at all if they do not limit lower-level autonomy and extract flow. Still, the model may be salvaged by adding two premises: First, the choices of "free actors" are in fact constrained in important ways. Second, the model is valid only under the unique circumstances of plenty that prevailed during a limited period of Western history.

The first point was realized already by Weber: The market is not anarchic, but "...a regulated economic life with the economic impulse functioning within bounds." (1923, p.45, my emphases). Michel Foucault (1975) points out that the advent of capitalism presupposed increasingly subtle methods of controlling the population: Public shaming of delinquents was supplanted by internalized discipline imposed through schooling, religious morality, the intimate ethic of the nuclear family and the regulated time schedule of the work process itself (see also Weber 1927; Berger et al. 1973; Habermas 1962; Löfgren 1979). Discipline was thus a condition for the market. "Free choice" aggregates into an ordered whole if, and only if, power has become self-imposed on the part of actors. The market presupposes an infrastructure of values, and money is the physical medium in which these values are expressed. Only when money is accepted as a general rule, a universal medium of exchange, is it capable of distributing information through the economy by the mechanisms of price formation. Prices are agents of power, compelling actors to conform to the market's rules: The system is "self-regulating" because a powerful, historically established general rule constrains free choice.

Secondly, it is clear that actors will not maximize profit if there is not a realistic chance of achieving it.⁴⁷ The market presupposes predictability. One must be able to plan ahead, lay up stocks, invest, take risks - all of which is impossible without an adequate and regular supply of resources. General rules must therefore not only be internalized as values, but their status must be more or less stable. Money must be a predictable measure: one must know what one can buy for it. Remarking on this, Birman (1980, see also Kornai 1980) contrasts Western economies of surplus with the Soviet economy of shortages.⁴⁸ He estimates that 200 billion rubles were bound up in private savings accounts in 1980: more than three times the value of the total stock of goods in both trade and industry.⁴⁹ There are simply not enough goods to buy - so the real value of money fluctuates dramatically, according to whether or not one has access to scarce resources. Wages therefore become a poor work incentive (Birman 1983, p.70-71). As one participant in the Soviet "second economy" put it: "You don't work to make money, but to avoid becoming a criminal." (Unemployment without good reason is illegal.) In an economy of shortages, profit seeking is not always profitable. Supply is too inconstant to induce predictable choice.

Both Depth and Density, powerful and stable values, are thus premises of the market model, and since Soviet society is Deep but not Dense, the model has no application there.⁵⁰ In an unmediated hierarchy, general rules cannot rely on being "filled" by flow from below. The "economic impulse" does not function "within bounds", and can produce no stable aggregate. People simply do not think in terms of profit and loss: In the Capitalist West, if you want to live cheaply you hunt for "bargains". The shopper asks, "Where is it cheapest?" The producer does his best to "create a need" for his wares. In the Soviet Union, bargains are rare and unimportant for living standards. "How did you get it? (Kak dostal?)" is the question, and the answer will refer you not to the price of the item, but to some person, a "contact" or "acquaintance" with direct access. "Getting things" may mean paying more than in official stores, but oftener one is expected to do or "get" something in exchange - something else that "money can't buy". Similarly, a producer does not worry about how to sell his wares, but about keeping his factory staffed and procuring raw materials. The latter is the job of the tolkach, or "pusher",

"...a breed of unofficial supply agent, whose job is to agitate, nag, beg, borrow, sometimes bribe, so that the necessary materials, components and equipment arrive." (Nove 1977, p.103-4)

For this reason, the "things" obtained or longed for tend to shed many of the attributes of "plain objects" that Western Capitalism attaches to them, and acquire instead an aura of privileged access, status, successful sociability and deserved trust.⁵¹ Their true value cannot be expressed in money, but springs from the situation in which they were "acquired". When a flamboyant young musician bragged to me about the cheap shirt he had bought, the price seemed a secondary matter. More important was the fact that he knew the woman who sold it and was taken by her past other customers into the back room.

The market model is thus an inadequate instrument for understanding or criticizing Soviet economy, because the values on which it is based are absent. To build a more applicable concept we must explore the Deep and Open Texture of Limbo in detail:

In all Deep Textures, general and specific rules are polarized, but in "the West", polarization is to a very great extent mediated: The "gap" between general and specific rules is more Densely packed with intervening levels than is case e.g. in the Soviet Texture.⁵² Each level consists of a multitude of overlapping rules, some of which overlap with the rules of other levels as well. Levels of integration therefore cannot easily be separated from each other, the hierarchy as a whole is flexible, flow slips from level to level by gradual, almost unnoticeable stages. A person climbing through such a hierarchy (stepping from a private to a public context or pursuing a career) advances smoothly, as long as he conforms to legitimate, mainstream procedures, and encounters few abrupt or unforeseen reverses. The Texture is - from the point of view of a well-adjusted, mainstream, middle-class actor - "vertically transparent". Furthermore, since the hierarchy is very Dense, a multitude of mid-range institutions congeal out of it, and their stability and flexibility is great. Though often highly specialized, they have overlapping functions and areas of interest - one may attain many of the same goals and "serve society" in many of the same ways in such diverse roles as that of a member of a Church and an entrepreneur in business. The system's flexibility is further indicated by the fact that today one may also do so as a punk rocker or a transvestite. Communication between institutions is therefore relatively easy. Thus, the hierarchy is "transparent" horizontally as well. This is what economists refer to as "horizontal integration".

Soviet Texture is polarized but, to a very great extent, unmediated. There are few intermediate levels, few overlapping rules, and climbing through the hierarchy is hazardous and fraught with uncertainty. Mid-range institutions (often referred to as Civil Society) are few and far between. Differences between "inside" and "outside", intimate and public contexts, "people" and "state", are great and obvious. Society is fragmented into Islands. In the West, "Centers" (as defined in Chapter One) tend to congeal within areas of pre-existing Density. In the Soviet Union, they must compensate for the prevailing lack of Density, closing out Openness in self-defense. People do this in personal life. But all institutions function in the same general way. In fact, the Island may serve us as a model for the formation of any Center - institution, role, concept or symbol - in the Soviet Union. Thus, Soviet Texture lacks the transparency that is typical of the West: Horizontal communication "across Barriers" is as difficult and dangerous as "climbing" vertically. Since the state nevertheless forces its way down through a vacuum to control and "plan" flow on lower (local, intimate) levels, economists refer to this as "vertical integration" or a "command economy" - misleading terms, as we shall see.

The stable power of money in the market is a reflection of the "transparency" of mediated hierarchies. Sectors and institutions are compatible, and in most of them money is a legitimate standard of value. Money brings a diverse reality into a single mold, forcing us to accept that "we are all equal", because we are all "comparable". In an unmediated hierarchy, Islands impede flow between institutions and fragment the legitimacy of general rules. In place of a single medium of exchange, multiple currencies arise, legitimate only within a single type of Island. Money is often necessary, but it is a hard fate indeed to depend on it alone. One informant told me about a film where the following curse is uttered: "Chtob tebe zhit' na odnu zarplatu!" - "I hope you'll have to live off nothing but your salary!" The joke is not merely (or mainly) a comment on poverty, which is widespread. The point is that there are other media of exchange besides money, which are often as important for a person's wellbeing and even survival. One of my religiously inclined friends made do - spartanly, but by no means in destitution - on 40 rubles a month, thanks to his many close friends and an uncommonly lucky housing arrangement.

Situations where money is not a universal medium of exchange abound in anthropology. Primitive economies are often arranged in "spheres" (Bohannan 1959, Barth 1967) reserved for specific categories of goods. Soviet "spheres" have a very different nature. First, they are subordinate to general rules, as primitive spheres are not. They are "inserted" at different levels in the Textural hierarchy, and monopolized by Islands with different power and privilege. "Our money is three-storied", Father Peter said, quoting the satirists I'lf and Petrov. Secondly, spheres regulate access to resources, not, as in primitive societies, prestige: Economic inefficiency results in highly variable quality of goods produced by different factories - or even by the same one under different circumstances. High quality goods are siphoned off to high-level spheres - so though currencies may seem to buy the same product, real differences may be great:

At a factory where Andrey once worked, controllers suddenly arrived to supervise production of a small quantity of the factory's standard produce. Excellent and abundant raw materials were for once provided, control was meticulous and thorough, stealing (usually commonplace) not to be attempted. Later they left, taking their goods along, and things returned to normal.

The hierarchy of spheres is complex and in many cases unofficial, and I shall limit myself to its more conspicuous elements. At its lower end, where scarcity is greatest, money loses its function altogether. The wage system on collective farms is a case in point. Until recently, salaries were awarded according to a "work-day" (trudoden') system, which made the amount of money in the countryside highly variable, but always extremely low, since the value of a trudoden' fluctuated dramatically from farm to farm and from season to season. As late as in 1963-4, the average wage of a kolkhoznik was about 30% of an industrial worker's, and only part was paid in money: The average trudoden' was worth 0.3 rubles plus 1.5 kg. of grain, and in some cases no money was paid at all (Nove 1977, p.218).⁵³ Only in 1966 was a (low) guaranteed monthly wage introduced (Nove 1977, p.30; Dunn 1967, p.69). A system close to serfdom reigned. The state freely requisitioned the produce of public land. Peasants kept alive on meager, privately tilled plots, working overtime to produce the food they themselves ate by pure subsistence farming.⁵⁴ Salaries have since been raised, the requisitioning system changed, internal passports issued to peasants (since 1981!) (Dunn 1967, p.44; Kerblay 1977, pp.90, 94). But when problems threaten the economy, as in latter years, the old system reasserts itself:

Once, while traveling, Borya had spoken to a peasant woman who said that in her village shops no longer sold industrial products (e.g. textiles) for money at all, but bartered for potatoes, vegetables etc. She complained that prices were high - a ton of potatoes bought produce worth 100 rubles.

In cities, where supplies may be meager enough, workers buy high quality foodstuffs at special factory stores, where outsiders are not admitted; other stores sell packages of goods at a higher price - three "scrap" items and one "scarcity"; "co-ops" import goods directly from the countryside and sell them at several times the usual price; peasants sell private produce to city dwellers at markets, where prices are high, but goods obtainable and often of superior quality.⁵⁵ Higher in the hierarchy are stores and institutions catering to party workers, tourists, sailors returning with hard currency from abroad, diplomats, etc. Each has its own currency: Tourists use foreign money and there are several types of "certificate rubles" for the exclusive use of certain groups.

All the spheres I have so far described are established by the state and protected by formal regulations and laws. But where there are Barriers, there are also Gates. Spheres are circumvented and the "value gap" between currencies exploited. Alongside the formal system of spheres, an informal "Second Economy" flourishes. As we shall see, my friend Vitya made use of the gap in accessibility of resources between city and countryside. Regional differences are exploited by traders from the South selling fruit and vegetables to the hungry North. In cities where foreigners come, fartsovshchiki buy Western clothes to sell to Russians or acquire hard currency and buy items in berezki ("dollar shops"). Workers smuggle goods out of their factories for sale. But these are just some of the most obvious aspects of a virtually limitless domain of enterprise, ranging from gifts and mutual help among friends, to various quasi-legal services, to organized periodical markets for barter and/or sale (as the housing market mentioned above), to petty production, to - in the end - organized criminality and corruption. Some of these activities have congealed rather firmly as Centers: they are more or less consistently segregated and function informally as spheres. But as in the case of formal spheres, there are always Gates leading out from them, Paths connecting them:

I went to visit Seryozha (a former musician whom we will encounter again below), who decided to buy me some of the best Armenian portveyn. At the local store there was hardly any wine at all. So he took me to the meat counter and asked to see his friend Volodya. After a hurried conversation, Volodya escorted us to the cellar, where he spoke to the woman responsible for wines. In a back room she located several crates of the famous wine and sold us 4 bottles at half price. "That's how everything is here," Seryozha explained triumphantly on our way home. "Volodya's a butcher, and gets wine from her in return for meat." "And you give him records?" I asked (at the time he worked in a music store). "Well, once in a while I bring him an LP. But Volodya's a friend and a good guy. He won't object if he gets nothing in return."

Seryozha used the word priyatel' (friend or acquaintance), rather than the more serious and definite drug (friend) or the more distant znakomy (acquaintance). The word expresses his relationship to Volodya perfectly: not a friend "of the heart", as he claimed I was, nor a mere useful "contact". The transaction was a complex mixture of both, in constant danger of becoming one or another. It cannot be referred to a specific sphere. It hangs in Limbo, in between, where there are no clear boundaries.

A striking characteristic of Soviet spheres is that they permeate and overflow into each other. They are themselves Islands, and people try hard to keep them separate, but also constantly undermine their Barriers. Individuals may have definite ideas about how far na levo ("to the left") it is "moral" to go, but they often go further in practice than their principles admit. At least 55% of my informants aged under 45 years had to my (incomplete) knowledge taken more or less active part in various legal or illegal "deals". "Deals" are simply a necessity - for individuals as well as the economy as a whole. For this reason, the law is very vague in this area. Vitya complained that it was virtually impossible to know ahead of time if some biznis of his was legal or not. Bukovsky similarly recounts how he had to fight to be given a copy of the code of laws while in a large Moscow jail. It turned out that there was only one edition available in the whole establishment, belonging to the chief of police. This he was permitted to see as a personal favor (1978, p. 310). The vagueness of laws (rules) is directly related to the difficulty of gaining insight into them: like goods, they are "scarce".

One cannot stick to one's Island; it is too narrow and isolated. This is the main reason why the Second economy is not a capitalist market in embryo. It is neither regulated nor legitimate. Weber's economic impulse functions "out of bounds", and cannot generate an ordered aggregate.

C. The Importance of Place

Thus, under conditions of great and enduring scarcity, respect for "the rules" is minimal, because there is nothing positive to be gained from conforming to them (vs. the negative advantage of avoiding sanctions). Money, the carrot enticing the capitalist donkey to action, has limited value. The ideal is not to maximize profit, to "work one's way up" along the accepted ladder, but to "position oneself" strategically so the haphazard tide of goods, privilege and value somehow flows to you. It is not the job itself, nor the prospects of promotion that attracts workers, but "fringe benefits": access to privileged spheres. A janitor in the "right" place (a hotel for foreign tourists) may be better off than a manager in the "wrong" place. The reason is simply that you never know what tomorrow will bring. Planning is absurd where society is unpredictable - one of the more striking paradoxes of a state whose ideology presupposes that as much as possible be planned. The important thing is to find a "Place" - an Island - where Limbo's unpredictability can be kept at a minimum, and to keep your eyes open, grab opportunity as it flies by and hang on to it once you have found it. The "hunting", alert behavior of Tarkovsky's Stalker alternates with a paranoid fear of losing what you have. You either undermine Barriers or insist on them. The classical Western concept of the human being as an active initiator of productive processes is replaced by a more passive, waiting mentality.

Where to live and work is the fundamental question, and people are always on the move looking for a "Place" that is "better". As a result, the Soviet Union has an extremely high rate of mobility. True, compared to a country like the United States, it may not seem great. 23% of the US population changes address each year, compared to a mere 6.7% of Russians - the most mobile group in the Union (Kerblay 1977, p.231). But moving is harder for Russians due to the housing shortage, and hence labor mobility is considerably higher (20% job turnover in industry)⁵⁶ (Kerblay 1977, p.232). Furthermore, people seem unwilling or unable to "accept the general rules", to strive for goals that society values, which are necessary to its functioning. For this reason, and again probably in contrast to the (mainstream, middle-class) US, Soviet labor mobility is predominantly horizontal, not vertical. Indeed, promotion often entails more disadvantages than benefits. Here again, some positions of "responsibility" are regular sinecures, all privilege and no effort, but the typical Soviet manager is overworked and understaffed. He lacks manpower and resources. He is under constant tutelage of several hierarchies of superiors who decide which rules to follow and which goals to seek. Any failing, self-inflicted or not, ideological or economic, may lead to his downfall:

"Even the elite in the Soviet Union lacks the personal and social security that a solid and independent private economy can give, [not to speak of the security of predictable legal and administrative routines]. Privileges are dealt out, and may also be recalled - therefore one must always be careful with one's bosses, criticism is subdued, discussions become less open." (Udgaard 1977, p.92)

The manager must cling to what he has. But neither is this a rule to be counted on. His essential problem is precisely the lack of predictability, and for a Stalker-type mentality this has assets as well:

"The sheer quantity of [the manager's] obligations, many of which are incompatible, enables [him] to choose from among them and to concentrate on those criteria most likely to show off [his] management to its best advantage and thus further [his] promotion, or else those criteria most profitable to [his] personnel." (Kerblay 1977, p.183)

In management as well, then, the important thing is to find a "Place" and hold on to it - defend its Barriers and controvert them - not to actively "maximize" profit for its own sake. Indeed, too much diligence may get you in trouble, as Bukovsky's meetings with former businessmen in prison illustrate (1978, pp.187-205). Surprisingly often, people therefore do work we would consider "below them". Among my informants there were two reasons for this "deklassirovanie", as one woman bitterly called it. For most it was a preferred choice, but a smaller group (mostly intellectuals) had been banned from more prestigious work after conflicts with the authorities. In this chapter I shall limit myself to a discussion of the first group (examples of the second will be encountered later).

Consider Seryozha: In 10-15 years he has changed jobs at least 5-6 times. When I asked why he didn't work as an engineer (his profession), he said the work was stupid and the pay low. In his present job in a record store (which he has kept about 4 years) the pay is highly variable, depending on how sales go. At the time of my stay it was low, since few good records were produced and nobody wanted the bad ones. He considered quitting, but decided against it for two reasons. First, he is in obsluzhivanie (service, retailing), and can obtain many of the good things in life by exchanging deficitnye (scarce) records for other goods. Besides, the hours are flexible and he can take time off freely - because he is well liked and because he travels a lot, and it's hard to check if he's on the job. This means he can get to stores at times when most people are working, when queues are short and supply greatest. Finally, he and his girlfriend live in a suburb where he knows almost everyone, and through contacts (like Volodya) he can get things without money.

Seryozha's choice is typical, and other people I knew had similar stories. Faced with chronic shortages, he moves around in the archipelago till he happens upon an Island that has the benefits he needs. He entrenches himself behind its Barriers, but often shows no loyalty to its "official" goals. Thus, he undermines the Barriers on which he depends. Surveys conducted to discover workers' motives for changing jobs confirm this pattern: Some 30% of Leningrad workers gave reasons like great distance between residence and place of work, poor transport and inadequate social amenities. More than 20% complained about conditions specific to the place they worked (unhealthy, unpleasant, bad superiors, poor prospects of promotion) (Kerblay 1977, p.191-2).

"In a country in which the right to strike does not exist, but in which freedom to work is generally respected, the possibility of leaving one's job is often the only means whereby one can express an opinion on living or working conditions." (p.191)

Obviously, this kind of behavior cannot aggregate in the "rational and progressive" fashion of the market. The job is a resource to be "mined" for your personal benefit, not an institution through which you seek self-realization and serve society as a whole. For this reason, labor mobility (tekuchest'), is not an asset to the Soviet economy, but one of its most serious problems today. People flit from job to job because of shortages of goods, services and welfare specific to the situation they find themselves in. Thus they undermine their job by increasing the already rampant labor-shortages - which are a main reason for the problems they seek to escape. An important result is an intense competition for labor among factories, which "...may lead to sizable disparities in pay for a given level of qualification from one enterprise to the next in a single city, which means that everyone will apply for a job in the factory that pays the best wages" (Kerblay 1977, p.191) - or offers privileges of other kinds.

The best-known examples of such "fringe benefits" are the premii, bonuses paid for overfulfillment of production plans. Again, these might seem to be market-style wage raises - but in fact they illustrate the non-market character of Soviet economy perfectly. For the success or failure of an individual's efforts depend largely on factors outside his own, or even the enterprise's control - most obviously on deliveries of raw materials from subcontractors or central depots. Since these are subject to the overall economic shortages, workers may lose a substantial part of their income through no fault of their own. (Seryozha made 200 rubles a month when premii were at a height. Now this was reduced to 85 rubles.) Hence, bonuses are inefficient individual work incentives, and indeed, this is not what they are meant to be. True, they are awarded to individuals. But they are calculated on the basis of plan fulfillment by a collective of workers. Their object is to strengthen this collective, enhance loyalty to the enterprise and create an attractive work-"Place".

An enterprise will go to great lengths to secure a stable workforce, and monetary bonuses are perhaps the least important of all. A successful factory caters to all the needs of its workers, and attempts, as far as possible, to close them off from the surrounding scarcities, so they will have no cause to move.

Polina was responsible for workers' welfare at the power station supplying heat to most of Leningrad. This is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Electric Power, which has considerable means at its disposal, hence working conditions are very good. Most workers receive around 300 rubles a month (not counting premii). They live in high-quality 2-room (35m²) apartments, built and maintained by the power station, which are new, complete with modern amenities, and located close to the workplace. Rent is low (8 rubles a month, gas and electricity included). The plant has its own sauna with two swimming pools, a house by a lake in the country for weekend excursions and sells inexpensive vacation tickets (which are easy to get: many places they are only for the bosses).

Other amenities typically supplied are special stores (stoly zakazov), where workers can buy deficitnye consumer goods, hospitals for workers, schools for their children - to educate new workers (Udgaard 1977, p.55), daycare centers, large welfare budgets (ibid., p.83), facilities for household services and repairs (cleaners, barbershops, etc.) (LP: 16/3-83), parks and recreational areas kept by the factory (LP: 26/6-83c). Under Stalin, when shortages were at a height, many factories evidently had their own kolkhozy, producing food for workers. In some cases this "feudal" system has survived until today, particularly in Siberia, where supplies are hard to come by and workers hard to keep (Udgaard 1977, pp.73,81). In any case, many people prefer this system, with the added security it gives: An informant from Dagestan, for example, was angry at Khrushchev for "replacing it with money".

A good factory acts as a patron toward its workers, enclosing them on an autonomous, self-sufficient Island and making the welfare of each dependent on the cooperation of all. Workers' attitudes to such enterprises often remind one of a child's to a strong father. Letters to Leningradskaya Pravda from satisfied workers show that this is at least an ideal. One man writes how his whole family works in the same place, how proud they are of its achievements and how they deplore its failings (16/3-83). In recent efforts to heighten work morale, the government is clearly trying to exploit such attitudes. Emphasis is placed on the brigade (brigadny poryadok), a smallish group of people working together, signing a contract with the factory collectively, and collectively responsible for output and discipline (LP:12?/3-83). The brigada-project seems designed with the mixture of coercion and allowance for traditional preferences so typical of the Soviet Union. Vitya, a seasoned skeptic, was sure the coercive element predominated, and convinced that the goals could not be achieved. When asked what he thought would help the economy, he immediately answered that something must be done with peoples' daily lives (byt), especially housing. As long as construction is mainly in government hands, inefficiency will continue to slow it. Responsibility should be transferred to individual institutions and factories - vedomstva. His solution was, in principle, close to the state's - though of course less colored by the overriding emphasis on control.

When economists of such different orders as Vitya (with his tumultuous private biznis) and the planners of Gosplan can agree on principles in a matter like this, we are clearly dealing with economic constraints of a very general kind. But the solutions proposed are fraught with difficulties. Vedomstva are Islands and fragment society into a multitude of self-contained units, each seeking its own goals, independent of, and often in direct opposition to, society as a whole. For vedomstva do not compete in a Western sense, according to rules set up by a legal bureaucracy and reflected in the value of money, as in the market. They compete for a "Place", for security and predictability rather than productive change. Different vedomstva, which are in theory allotted specialized functions, instead prefer to take on as many functions as possible. This leads to overlapping, diffuse divisions of responsibility and unnecessary doubling of work. Thus, a lengthy article in Leningradskaya Pravda (11/8-83) complains that central consumer distribution agencies are hampered by the multitude of vedomstvo-controlled ones. Goods go from agency to agency before reaching the people they are meant for. On the way much is lost, spoiled or slowed to a near halt due to low quality vedomstvennye facilities and the quantity of paperwork along the way - not to speak of the wasted labor. The article advocates abandoning the present system for at unitary, centralized one.

But another, perhaps even more serious problem inherent in vedomstvennost' is the competition for labor, which increases horizontal mobility and labor shortages still further. This is most severely felt between city and countryside. Indeed, the cities themselves are a kind of Island. Their vedomstvo-like character has led to the siphoning off of people and resources from the Northern countryside to a point where crisis is imminent, with agricultural production stagnating in spite of enormous, but belated, investments (Nove 1977, pp.136-7). The state has always realized the dangers of this movement and sought to control it. Until recent years, peasants simply had no right to travel outside their village. Today this remnant of the Stalin era is abolished, but other restrictions remain, most importantly the propiska. This much-hated document certifies your right to live in a certain Place. If that place happens to be Gubdor, Dukhovshchina or somewhere similar, the propiska isn't worth the wood to burn it with (though even wood may be scarce enough in places like these). But if it is Leningrad or another big city, it is more valuable than anything money can buy. Obtaining such a propiska other than by birthright is difficult. An accepted method is marriage, and fictitious unions are fairly widespread.⁵⁷ A more common way is to get a job in the city. This involves problems of its own: Lately, nearly all city jobs have been closed for rural applicants. But the urban labor shortage being what it is, people who are willing to put up with a lot of hassle often wrangle a job anyway. The main reason for this is the competition for labor among factories. According to one knowledgeable informant, many enterprises do systematic recruiting in the countryside. They promise young people a limitka (temporary propiska),⁵⁸ and after five years, an apartment, though this is probably illegal. In a passionate defense of the countryside, the sociologist Staroverov attacks this practice, pointing out that labor shortages in cities may be eliminated by rationalization.

Rural exodus is common to all industrializing countries. But in the Soviet North, labor shortages are greater in the countryside than in the cities. In spite of this, the factories tend to win out in the competition for labor, since the city is a more attractive (and richer) "Place". This complicates the clear-cut picture of rural exodus. In cities, it is being there that attracts people, not better work or increased pay. They seek as fast as possible to get out of the low status jobs, which gained them their propiska. This particularly affects building industry, where turnover is 32% annually (Kerblay 1977, p.191). (Which slows down housing construction, and so on.) Next stop is often a factory - poor conditions but better pay. As migrants gain knowledge of city life, they shunt from job to job, the ultimate goal being obsluzhivanie (as in Seryozha's case), where there is little to do and plenty of opportunity for activities "on the left".⁵⁹

Neither is urbanization clear-cut from the point of view of the countryside, which has its own vicious circle - as devastating as that of the cities: Universal scarcities lower productivity and increase labor shortages. This forces kolkhozy and sovkhozy to emphasize self-sufficiency and Island-like separation from the public sphere. The family plot contributes to this picture, as its dominant subsistence function allows for little surplus sale. A lot of resources and labor are used just to keep alive, so the quality of public production declines still further, leading to greater scarcity and so on. The obvious solution is to migrate. But the whole country is segregated into Islands, enclosed by more massive Barriers the more benefits they give. One cannot simply move to Leningrad. Rural migrants are "hunters", looking for the Place where the good life is and hoping to work themselves closer to its wellsprings. From a small village, one moves to a larger one, from there to a small town, and so on (cf. Table 9H). Staroverov calculates that at least 50% of the rural population of the Northwest migrated during 1963-7, leading to an 8% overall population decrease in the area. The detrimental effect is enhanced by the fact that the youngest and best qualified move, leaving old people, invalids, women, children and the uneducated to care for the crops. Besides, those who get "furthest" are the best qualified and most enterprising individuals, and these, as we have seen, often end up in town, in jobs where their qualifications find no application at all. 44% of migrating agricultural specialists change profession, and for other educated workers (tractor drivers and mechanics), the percentage is even higher: In the 1960's, 1.4 million agricultural specialists received diplomas of higher or intermediate level, while the number of specialists working on the land increased by only 195,000 (Staroverov 1976).

Thus, in Limbo the economic rationality is not to expand, but to contract, not to maximize value through aggressive transactions, but to seek out a sheltered Place and entrench oneself behind its Barriers. This is a society of Islands, which I have referred to variously as spheres, vedomstva, kolkhozy, cities. Two other examples will be treated later: geographic regions (Chapter 4, Part D), and the closed circles of family and friendship - the uzky krug (Chapter 3, Part A).

But this is also a society of Paths. People close themselves in (or are closed in by others) behind Barriers, but there is almost always a "way out". One works one's way from one Sphere to another, from countryside to city; vedomstva are dependent on tolkachi for securing resources, on recruiting agencies for keeping up the work force. Where there are Islands, there are Paths, and in every Barrier there is a Gate, though it may be hard to find and perilous to pass through. So one insists on Barriers and undermines them - and to survive one must try to find a "balance" between these two movements. But this "balancing act" is not merely the pastime of individuals seeking to better their own lot. It is found on every level of society, for it is essential to society's functioning.

D. Paradox and the Clear View

What we have described above is the very opposite of "totalitarianism", as defined in the Introduction: a situation where "...the distinction between state and society ceases to exist; the state penetrates and politicizes all spheres of life". The Soviet state is not "inside", but "outside" people's lives. There is no continuity, no consistent and accessible way from your Island to the distant locus of power - for in a Texture of unmediated polarization society is fragmented. But it is in the interests of the state to counteract fragmentation and unify the base on which it rests. Society may lack both horizontal and vertical "transparency", but vertical transparency must be forced to ensure the state's survival.⁶⁰ It must extract the means of its own existence by force, because it rests on a self-defensive, fragmented, and volatile base. In a market system, general rules are aggregated "from below" by the ordered profit maximization of individuals pursuing the "economic impulse within bounds". In the Soviet system, where "free competition" degenerates into anarchy because stable rules are lacking, general rules must be imposed "from above", by the state. As Gerschenkron (1970) points out: centralization is a substitute for the market. The function of a planned ("command") economy is to simulate the impersonal control of price formation by administrative means, since general rules are too weak and shortages too great for ordered aggregates to arise "from below":

"The norms laid down by the administration play the part performed by competition in a market economy... Whereas the capitalist enterprise operates [independently] within a price system that dictates its constraints through the mechanisms of the market..., its Soviet counterpart is part of an overall plan... A single decision-making center, the Gosplan, takes the place of a multitude of arbiters." (Kerblay 1977, p.179)

That centralism is in fact a result of shortages becomes clear when we realize that the Gosplan's main function is to allocate resources. This is precisely the role played by money in the West, though far more abstractly: The right to goods and resources is "gathered up" and "stored" within the medium of exchange, and "released" by its owner. In the Soviet Union, the coordinating role of money is taken over by the administration, which controls access to all resources. As Father Peter shrewdly saw:

"The reason why we have a planned economy in this country is not that we control production any better that way, but that we lack money... The economy consists of an endless number of hyper-complex interconnections, and money is a measure of the collective dynamic of this system. It mirrors the whole system exactly. But plans, which people consciously try to build to measure this dynamic, mirror nothing at all."

His conclusion is significant. The market is altogether too complex to be "simulated", in particular in a society where the basic conditions for its formation are absent. Furthermore, the state pursues this aim in the midst of Limbo. It is itself beleaguered by the dissolution it makes out to control. Hence it is itself an Island, and shares the paradoxical duality of other Islands we have reviewed: insisting on Barriers and undermining them. The state, however, is an Island of a different order than the rest. Its insistence and subversion affect the whole of society and increase its paradoxes still further. So to understand how the state affects Russians, we must seek its manifestations in everyday life, rather than in abstract ideas of oppression and ideological monopoly. This becomes clearly visible through an analysis of its methods of control. For as an Island of order in Limbo, the state is continually striving for two goals simultaneously: to coordinate society, and to retain its own Island of independence and privilege. Where lack of control is endemic, the control mechanisms themselves are paradoxical.

The state's control apparatus may be likened to a piercing, but very narrow beam of light attempting to survey a large, dark area. Two approaches are appropriate in such a case, and both are frequently employed: singling out high priority areas for selective, continuous control, leaving the rest of society to itself; or sweeping at random throughout society, hoping for an occasional, haphazard hit. The first method demands that power be heavily concentrated in strategic areas. These must be strictly defined and segregated from society at large (e.g. high-priority factories). But in this way, the control apparatus itself creates Islands, strengthening the very tendency towards fragmentation, which it set out to combat. This is all the more true since circumstances outside such areas degenerate to more or less complete anarchy. Thus, although the capabilities of the KGB are undoubtedly unlimited once applied, it is common to hear the complaint that petty theft and criminality are endemic and the police can do little about it. According to Vitya, who should know more about the subject than most (since his existence depends on it), the police in small towns and villages is badly understaffed.⁶¹ Serious crime (e.g. murder) is often not even reported. Even in Leningrad, he said, apartment burglaries are rarely cleared up. The absence of central control also increases the autonomy of local authorities - vedomstva. They risk little by misusing - or dis-using - their power. The second method, the "random sweep", is dependent on sweeps being sufficiently unpredictable and frequent to keep lawbreakers constantly alert. Controllers must be where they are not expected. But again, the drawbacks are obvious: The state tears down the Barriers that protect Islands, and creates an image of itself as irrational and untrustworthy. It was a common view among my informants that the leaders are "too far from the people": unable to control their own emissaries. I have often heard Stalin defended in these terms: he didn't know about the persecutions, his assistants fooled him. Indeed, the state is often described as helpless, leading a heroic but hopeless battle against overwhelming odds. Of course the opposite stance is also common: The state, in its "distance from the people", is an all-seeing, malignant power, and its capabilities are then certainly greatly exaggerated, as when one old friend (whom I considered a sensible person), explained that the Moscow police had installed microphones in all city telephones, which automatically channeled conversations from all city apartments to a central computer. When "subversive" expressions were repeated often enough, a red light would blink, and the phone would be put under manual surveillance.⁶²

Thus, no matter which method one prefers, the result is insecurity in face of the state. By combating Limbo, the state's mechanisms of control reinforce many of Limbo's typical traits. Symbolically (in the imagery of ideologists as well as counter-ideologists), the state is either a helpless partisan of order in the midst of chaos, or itself the instigator of chaos - it erects Barriers and controverts them, just as the workers and enterprises described above. One of Vitya's stories illustrates this precisely:

Some years ago he had been to a minor Russian city outside of Moscow on "biznis". He was relaxing in the restaurant with his friends, when they were approached by a local gang led by a tough named Stas. Few minutes later the groups were fighting openly, and Vitya and his friends were badly beaten up. Soon the commotion got out of hand, and the band turned up the volume to maximum and called for the police through the speakers. When the police came they wanted to arrest Vitya's group, but while Vitya was trying to explain that they had been the ones attacked, he was knocked cold by a blow from a (highly illegal) knuckleduster. Now it was obvious even to the police that the others were the aggressors, and to utilize this advantage, one of Vitya's friends claimed that his denim jacket had been stolen by the other gang. This was a bad mistake.⁶³ The police let the others off and escorted Vitya's friends to their hotel room to see if the jacket "had been forgotten there". In the room they proceeded to comb every thread of luggage, assuming (rightly) that their business in the city was illegal. Since they had been celebrating the completion of a deal that evening, however, nothing was found, and they were led off to the police station. There Vitya (who is well versed in the workings of bureaucracy) insisted that the proceedings be protocolled. This led to a long argument, after which they were at last taken to the chief of police, a decent type, who decided they might as well have the full story: Stas and his gang, he told them, had been the terror of the community for years. The police knew all about them, once in a while they arrested some minor member, but the leaders were inaccessible. In court they could always muster any number of witnesses who would testify to their innocence, and a less important follower would take responsibility for the crime. The followers would never object, for the leaders could easily incriminate them by recounting some earlier, more serious, and as yet undetected misdemeanor. There was nothing the police could or would do about Stas. But they offered to escort Vitya and his friends to a place frequented by the gang, and let them beat the daylights out of them without interfering. Vitya thought this was a trap and declined the offer.

Later he returned to this town and was told that Stas had been arrested. His gang had broken into a local Orthodox church and stolen "cult items" (silver, icons etc.), which they sold on the black market. But the church is not a local concern. It is not integrated in the administrative hierarchy, but only connected to it on the highest levels (the Patriarch owes the state allegiance, and only through him, the priests). The crime against the church was therefore turned over to higher levels of the police apparatus, perhaps even the KGB. On this level, control is efficient, and the gang was promptly rounded up and sentenced.⁶⁴

The state, though a formidable force at times or in selected areas, is basically a weak controlling factor in Soviet society. This is indeed quite predictable, given the pervasive shortages of information and resources with which it has to contend. It is itself a victim of Limbo. The violence and randomness of its measures against those who somehow come into conflict with its interests only confirm this point. There is nothing rational in such sanctions, which ultimately defeat their own purposes.

The power of the state cannot be measured by its meanness and terrorism against a small group of non-violent and apolitical artists and intellectuals. More suggestive is the news of popular unrest, which infrequently filters through to the West. In recent years [i.e. in the early 1980's], workers have staged a number of isolated strikes around the country, demanding such luxuries as drinking water or better food supplies. In most cases, the state has rushed supplies to the spot, concentrating its energies to that end (as it can, when essential issues are at stake), fulfilling the workers' material demands, and imprisoning their leaders to avoid repeat performances (Posev: 7/80:6, 8/81, 11/81?, 11/82b:4; Udgaard 1977, p.82). Strikes are a real danger and must be avoided at all costs.⁶⁵

Another indication of the state's capabilities is the number and quality of personnel at its disposal. In the West, much is made of size of the KGB and army. Such measures are inappropriate for two reasons. First, both army and KGB have a wider range of functions than similar organizations in the West. They are high-priority Islands and must defend their Barriers against Limbo. According to Western estimates, the KGB has a staff of some 500,000 (Smith 1976, p.553), but by no means all of these are occupied with terrorizing the population. Aside from the substantial number devoted to activities abroad and the 175,000 man force patrolling the borders (Udgaard 1977, p.30), we have noted the inefficiency of the regular police, for which the KGB must compensate in situations vital to the state.⁶⁶ The army, with its 4.8 million personnel, has a similar role. 250,000 "soldiers" work on high priority construction sites (Udgaard 1977, p. 39). As a vedomstvo, the army maintains its own agricultural enterprises, railway transport, publishing companies and bookstores, film studios, construction companies, even builds its own highways in places (Udgaard 1977, p.39). And all of these activities demand extensive expenditures of labor power.

Secondly, neither institution is exempt from shortages and inefficiencies. As hawkish a critic as Barron admits that "...the KGB is bloated, overstaffed, overly centralized, overly bureaucratic, and frequently inefficient to a degree that would be intolerable in free nations." (1974, p.10). Less rhetorically, it is afflicted by internal Barriers hindering free interchange of information (p.101-102). If this symptom of vedomstvennost' is a problem within the KGB itself, it is all the more so between the various police-type agencies at work. Rivalry and conflict seriously hamper the enforcement of law (Topol' & Neznansky 1981), and reduce governmental efficiency. A sociologist investigating potential ethnic conflict in Dagestan, spent months trying to convince a librarian to admit him to local archives containing material vital to his thesis. In spite of his strictly confidential and centrally sponsored status, he never won through, but had to get the material through a friend. Rivalries between vedomstva are a likely explanation of instances like this. By defending their own Barriers, institutions undermine each other, and ultimately the state, which they were to support.

But the paranoid secrecy surrounding government agencies seems so dysfunctional, even self-destructive, that this line of thought is insufficient. During my stay in Leningrad, a spring poem was published in the journal Molodoy Leninec, about babbling brooks and birds' sweet singing. As it turned out, the first letters in each line were an acrostic spelling Khristos voskrese ("Christ has risen"), the traditional Russian Easter greeting. Evidently the editor was fired as a result. So, they said, was the director of the Hotel Leningrad, who permitted a single letter to go dead in the gigantic neon sign bearing the hotel's name. It now spelled: "Lenin gad", meaning "Lenin is a creep" (gad = "reptile"). Authority must be fragile indeed for an accident like this to cause such a commotion. What is striking about the Soviet state is therefore not so much its ability, as its need to control. Most conspicuous of all, for a person used to the rampant commercialization of the West, is the need - so evident in these examples - to control culture, to monopolize ideology.

This brings us to the essential question of legitimacy, which will be discussed in detail in the next chapters. We shall assume that the Soviet state is unable to exercise effective control over the mass of its people by force alone. In fact, as we have seen, by seeking to control Limbo directly, the state actually strengthens it and undermines its own power. Like all other Islands, the state cannot defend its Barriers without controverting them. There is only one escape from this deadlock: One must establish the state as a legitimate force, tie the population to it by voluntary loyalty, by implanting in them an ideology emphasizing the impersonal and universalistic needs of "society as a whole". The state's primary concern in its effort to "simulate the market" is thus not control itself, but the establishment of legitimacy on the state level, and stable values on the level of individual work discipline. In a fundamental sense, the state is engaged not so much in a search for power, as in a Quest for Meaning.

But society is fragmented into Islands. Meaning must therefore be established and controlled by the state - "from above". As we shall see in Chapter Four, the party's propaganda is, as it quite explicitly states, a vanguard gospel, a message pertaining not to the present as much as to the future, to the people not as it is, but as it may become. "Da zdravstvuet velikoe edinstvo partii s narodom!", proclaims a banner: "Long live the great unity of party and people!" This asserts that there will some day be rules that apply to all, that all will follow. It seeks - in the face of all odds - to unite an archipelago into a continent. Any threat to this aspiration must be sanctioned and persecuted - even a spring poem.

Interlude: Vitya

Girls can't be serious. I come running in, I've got real little time. They say: 'Now sit down, and have a bite to eat'! I can't talk to women. They give me a headache immediately - it's a totally different way of thinking.
(Vitya)

When Vitya and I first met, he was a young, mildly rebellious student, who satisfied his curiosity by hanging out with the foreigners at my dorm. He had a practical bent, and engaged in a number of more or less illegal dealings. There was nothing sensational about any of it. He acquired a room of his own, where he reconstructed shabby, mostly worthless icons, which he resold at a profit of sorts. He dabbled in fartsovka - dealing with jeans and foreign currency - like many others of his age and sex.

But even in those days his interest in the West was limited. He did not dress in Western clothes nor find Western pop music particularly attractive. With me, he seemed more interested in showing off his own world than reaping profit from association with mine. He took me to Easter Mass (he was a declared atheist) in the same spirit as he guided me to an illegal book market on a forsaken field south of the city. As one of his friends put it: "Vitya is a real Russian. He loves his country: Russia, that is, not the Soviet Union... Like me. Like all Russian people."

Vitya was not merely showing off. By taking me into his world, I sensed that he somehow gained perspective on it, saw it through my eyes. He did not often discuss my opinions, indeed, he must have thought me inexperienced and naive. He seemed to take note of my reactions and file them away in his orderly mind for future reference. He had a scientific leaning, and maybe it was just another kind of research for him. If so, it was "research" of a highly personal kind. Later in our acquaintance, he several times took me on extensive "tours of the city", picking his way along secret byways, talking to people, explaining to me, in his soft, rapid voice, how everything functioned, what it meant. Once he concluded with a sigh: "So you see what peculiarities we have here..."⁶⁷

Another time we were still thirsty, after visiting half a dozen bars and restaurants, but everything was closed - except the railway station. We passed the gates of the pre-revolutionary building and entered the vast hall enclosing platforms and waiting rooms. I headed for a sign reading "Restaurant", but he grabbed my arm with a laugh: "No, no. We go over there where it says 'No admittance for unauthorized persons'." We slipped through the little door, followed a narrow, stinking, neon-lit hall with cash registers along the wall and a small window at one end. Vitya explained: "You see, here you can always get a drink..." Deep inside the window we made out a swelling, insufferably sour female face, surrounded by a waitress' uniform that had once been white. It squinted out at Vitya when he bent down. I only heard her answer: "No, there's nothing!" He returned - unsatisfied, but undaunted: "She wouldn't give us anything. Control has gotten stricter under Andropov. But let's see..." A waiter staggered down the hall, drunk, his face shapeless, clothes covered with grease stains. He leant heavily on his cash register while he punched the keys. Vitya approached him with a hint of a smile, but almost respectfully, as one closes in on some exotic, slightly dangerous, but well-known animal. They exchanged mumbled phrases. Then we drank his health in two overflowing milk glasses of portveyn Agdam - but agreed that it was sad to stand in the hallway. So we followed the corridors, through the kitchen, where steaming tubs of dishes hissed after us and the girls yapped at each other and watched the clock. At the other end was a bufet - nearly empty because they sold no wine. We hung out at one of the tall, crooked plasticine tables, glasses hidden under our jackets and a couple of buterbrody (sandwiches) between us. At the counter, a couple of young men were flirting with the local whores. "Do you see why I'm happy to live here, and would never consider emigrating to the West?" he said, with something close to triumph. In this instant I think I "saw" him - the precision of a hunter in the jungle, a dancer.

During my stay in 1978, Vitya broke with his girlfriend. I remember Tamara as a big-boned, slightly vulgar woman, and her reaction to his leaving her bears this out. She evidently accused him to the KGB of spying for the Americans. He was interrogated, the officer was "polite, not coarse at all", and the charges were dropped since nothing could be proven. It is probable, however, as Vitya thought, that "they" noted his name, and perhaps put him under limited surveillance.

Vitya did not reform. He and his friends were not averse to a party now and then, and for this purpose would visit restaurants in the modern hotels reserved mainly for foreigners. These have since been closed to Russians with no business there, but at the time he was doing nothing illegal. One summer day, however, the hotel guards arrested him, interrogated him, and let him go. Three months later the University received a letter accusing him of "annoying a foreigner" and "appearing in an intoxicated state in a public place" - both charges false according to Vitya. He was reprimanded and expelled from the University for life. He tried to complain, but was told it would only make matters worse.

It's hard to say if the incident could have been avoided. However, two traits of Vitya's personality emerge from it. Both, as we shall see in the next chapters, are very Russian, and both tend to get you in trouble: First, his craving for freedom, to lay all caution and pretense aside, no matter the risk. Second, his fatalism, his conviction that you can't fight authority once it has it in for you. Vitya is a Stalker. Circumventing the powers that be is as natural to him as breathing. Confronting them head on in formal battle seems fruitless and hazardous to the extreme. He is bound by the very Barriers he controverts.

Both qualities are reflected in his family situation. Vitya grew up as an only child with his mother and grandmother. His father died when he was still a child, and since his death, his mother has born the responsibility for the household alone. She was a slight, unsmiling woman, kind and conscientious, who went through life with lowered eyes and gritted teeth. She lived for her work but constantly complained about it. "Older people believe they have to work - to survive, and to get money," Vitya said. "My mother is a householder. She knows which stores have the things she needs, she conserves fruits and vegetables. It's hard to survive with that attitude." Once I asked her why she didn't stop working and get her full pension - a fair, if not spectacular amount. "Oh certainly, I could stop. But it's not profitable," was her response. Fatalism seemed the essence of her existence, and Vitya, who still lived at home, constantly argued with her about it. Once I watched the film The Red Snowball Tree (Kalina krasnaya) with the two of them. This masterpiece by Shukshin portrays the life of a criminal after finishing his sentence. It is frankly realistic. We see how society shuns him, how he fights to establish a normal life until his past catches up with him. The film is old, but had (in 1983) never before been shown on TV. Vitya's mother was shocked: "Just look at their faces. You can see they're criminals!" Vitya fired back that lots of them had done no more wrong than she. "Don't tell fairytales!" she replied. "It's very rare that someone goes to jail without deserving it... You talk as if there were no honest people in this country at all!"

Vitya, it seemed to me, rebelled against the cheerless drudgery of his home. He desired freedom, but like his mother, he was practically - rather than ideologically - oriented. Like all of my Russian acquaintances, he was a dreamer, but his dreams were not of spiritual achievements, but of mastery of the material, practical and social world.

The incident in the hotel changed Vitya's life irrevocably. For years he was persecuted and harassed by the police. He was imprisoned several times on minor charges. His efforts to find a job were sabotaged. But he continued his illegal activities, learning a lot, and developing an instinctive caution, which kept him out of major trouble. Then he was summoned to military service. This was a bad setback. He assumed that with his background he stood a good chance of spending two years in some particularly unsavory part of the army, from which, likely enough, he might never return. He swallowed every pill he could lay his hands on, went into a coma, and awoke in a psychiatric ward. He described this institution with a shudder. Dangerous psychotics and common alcoholics were crammed together at random in forty-bed rooms and sedated with sleeping medicines. He had the good fortune to be singled out as a well-balanced patient and a willing worker and thus escaped "treatment". After four-five months he was discharged with a handy slip of paper in his pocket certifying that his medical record made him unsuited for military service.

From this day, the police also seem to have lost interest in him. Years later, a (hopefully) last episode rounded off this period of his life. I met him next day, in an unusually elated mood. He had been to the police to get some document. By this time he had acquired an image and self-assurance, which made such an expedition a routine matter. In a neutral, grey suit and tie, with a neat briefcase in his hand, a faint odor of eau-de-cologne hanging round him and a slight paunch at his belt, he looked very much like the efficient biznismen he in fact was. The secretary politely directed him to the chief of police. The room was empty. He returned to the front office, but the secretary was gone. He made a quick decision, retraced his steps. In the Chief's room he found an unlocked cabinet, located his own file, removed all incriminating papers, and left. To his chagrin there was nothing about Tamara's spy-report - he surmised that it must be in a central archive - hopefully well out of harm's way.

After his discharge from the hospital Vitya was able to engage in biznis unmolested. True, he was not accepted at any regular job, but this, he explained, was just an advantage. He didn't have time to work. In the beginning, he proceeded in much the same way as before. He and his friends engaged in irregular short-term moneymaking - working "on the left" for some kolkhoz, buying plain T-shirts, printing a logo on them and re-selling them. When a job was finished they would separate, live high on the proceeds till there was nothing left, and scrape through until a new job cropped up. But gradually a vision took form in Vitya's mind.

In this vision, of the delo⁶⁸ as something worthwhile in itself, several components came together. First, Vitya liked working. He had acquired considerable proficiency as a cobbler, and as long as he had raw materials and equipment he could make better shoes than any in the stores. He was proud of his craft and wanted to perfect it. Secondly, he had a talent for sensing potential markets. He realized the importance of scarcity and the vast disproportions in accessibility of merchandise in different regions of the country. He also knew that localized scarcity went hand in hand with localized and inefficient control. The possibilities intrigued him and he wanted to try his hand at utilizing his knowledge systematically. Finally, he had a vision of organization. If people could be induced to work regularly and coordinate their efforts, a totally different dimension of biznis would be within reach. Vitya realized the importance of cultivating and changing personal relations. He started his own Quest for Meaning - different, and yet not so different from that of the state: a Quest for a "new form of communication" (cf. Chapter 6, Part E).

Vitya's little room in his mother's apartment looks crowded, but otherwise normal. This is a well-planned illusion. It is the nerve center of a konsern employing as many as 10-15 people at times. Even a thorough search would reveal no blueprints, accounts or notes. Such evidence is burned after use. But the searcher might wonder at other things: rolls of leather behind a cupboard - some of it very high quality indeed - the idea was to sew jackets of it sometime, as an experiment. Under the bedspread, folded in perfect order, lay soft materials for linings. The drawers held a couple of cobbler's needles, glue, tacks, zippers - all hard or impossible to find in stores. In the wastebasket stood two cans of excellent homemade dyes, which Vitya was very proud of. The bookcase held some technical books on chemistry and cobbling, and a Handbook in Marketing, translated from the Hungarian. He picked that up in a bookstore a few years ago, and it had since been a bit more useful, he told me, than the publishers had really intended. But no tools for mass production. The searcher might conclude that Vitya liked making shoes as a hobby - nothing illegal about that...

But the room held other surprises. In the cupboard stood a brand-new phonograph, an expensive Leika. A fine Soviet color TV he had acquired through a friend who worked at the factory was lodged under a dust cover in a corner along with two good speakers. On the wall hung a handmade Turkestan carpet. This was Vitya's bank. As opposed to a regular savings account, such investments increase considerably in value. The items were picked with care. All were finest quality, none were Western-made. In a pinch they could be instantly resold with no questions asked through a secondhand store at high profit.

"Business" itself might surprise modern industrialists in the West, but would gain nods of appreciation from an entrepreneur of the 1750's. Work was "farmed out", much as in the "cottage production" system of that time, though for very different reasons. Each of about 8-10 girls had a specific task: One glued soles, another sewed the body of the shoe itself, a third dyed leather. Vitya and a couple of other men carried raw materials and half-finished products from home to home. It was efficient and - a major concern - inconspicuous, since there was never much in one place at a time. Most of the girls didn't know each other and asked no questions. Besides, the work filled a need. For several young women it was the only source of livelihood. Their husbands had run off and left them with a baby and no time for regular jobs. Vitya brought the work home to them.

Raw materials were acquired in a similar way. Some were obtained from regular stores, others from friends with few ties to the konsern itself - who worked at factories where they were produced. Stealing a box of tacks or a dozen zippers was easy and safe, and quite profitable for a person making 170 rubles a month. One friend even produced custom-made metal clasps at work. He bribed the mechanic to declare his equipment out of order (it broke down every few weeks anyway), and used it for his own purposes while waiting for "repairs". Rarer items were harder to get. Caucasian leather had to be bought, at considerable risk and cost, from Georgian and Armenian traders who would sell you their mother if you could pay. And a few months ago, Vitya made a discovery of great promise. To counteract rural depopulation, an effort had been made of late to locate small, experimental industries in the Northern countryside. From a man on the train, Vitya learned of a factory of this kind in a desolate place called Solnychnoe ("Sunnyville"). Small amounts of footwear were produced here and sent to the army and other elite spheres for testing. Solnychnoe's isolation precluded extensive use of machinery, so most work got done by hand and held high quality. Vitya made inquiries. Sure enough, the workers were willing to earn a few extra rubles, and a deal was made with one that he should supply Vitya with shoe soles of a quality that the konsern could never hope to emulate.

The scheme with Solnychnoe conformed to Vitya's ideals in two important ways. First, the location. The factory lay at the end of a 30-mile stretch of potholed dirt road, impassible in spring and fall. Police and inspections were unheard of in such places. For this and other reasons, Vitya had long worked to reorient his enterprise towards the countryside. Leningrad was perfect for production. It was anonymous, well supplied with raw materials and willing workers. A booming black market produced a wide variety of goods and services - from personal gifts to high-level graft, from murder and prostitution to letting rooms and teaching, from individuals trading with foreigners or repairing radiators, to whole factory departments producing nothing but illegal jeans. Vitya's extensive network in many of these spheres was invaluable to his delo. Nevertheless, the city was not suited for sale. It was too controlled, for one thing. If illegal shoes were confiscated, the police could easily trace them to the producer. Besides, fashions changed fast, and out-of-date models were hard to sell.

So he tried selling out of the city. He made contacts with trusted people in a number of small Northern towns and spent an inordinate amount of time traveling between them - by train, since planes are too well checked. His products were spread over a wide and uncontrolled area. What could a constable in Vladimir do if he confiscated 15 pairs of shoes? He would check out the local archives - but he couldn't start calling all the towns in a 200-mile radius to see if they had anything similar - the telephone network was too inefficient, for one thing. The locals had too much to do and cared too little. And they'd never report a trifle to the central authorities.

The second reason why Solnychnoe seemed ideal was that it enhanced the quality of production. "Quality," Vitya said, "is essential. People call us speculators. But all this, every last bit of it, is the product of our own efforts. It's our work... The point isn't the money. You don't work for money, but to keep out of jail. If you want money, just stop working. Do anything you like, people will pay. There's money enough. What they need is something to spend it on... If I wanted money I'd be a fartsovshchik: buy cheap, sell expensive, don't give a damn about the product. Take what you get, and if customers complain, you don't have anything else: 'That damn German sold me nothing but shit...' It's different if you make it yourself. The customer comes to your place, calmly tries on the shoes. Maybe he orders something else. The point is to do good work. You like it, the customer likes it - and as long as the product's great and the customer's happy, the police will never notice. It's all connected." People need food and clothes, but Vitya catered to another need, the need of simple people for beauty, for something pretty, fashionable, pointing out of the drabness of everyday life. This is why quality is essential. They want something good. And by the same token, Vitya wanted to make something good.

"That's what it's all about," he pointed out to me once. "Delo - the work, the cause. The people I work with aren't serious about the delo... Look at Lyosha. Smart guy, no one denies it. But he won't work as long as he has cash. Then it's out on the town, find a new girl, sleep at the best hotels, the most expensive restaurants. Taxi from door to door. That's how it was when I got back from the hospital. Misha was fighting with his girlfriend. Lyosha lay around in bed and played cards, only left the house to buy booze. Four of the girls were prostitutes. Then I come home. 'Vitya, Vitya. Have you got a job for me?' So I get the wheels rolling again, they're happy. But as soon as we're producing something and making money, they're gone. You've got to start all over again next time. It's like children. They need a strong arm to guide them..."

Vitya seemed to see himself as a pedagogue, working with people to shape and change them. Lyosha worked for him. But Lyosha was also an old friend - an unreliable friend with an unpredictable temper - but you can't fire a friend, no matter how much you might like to. The konsern was an enterprise and a drunken brawl wrapped into one and without the rhythmic alteration between its two states, neither Vitya nor anyone else would have appreciated it as much. Work was cyclical, as in peasant society. Go at it like mad on some project for a few months. When you're done, you celebrate. There has to be a party, a prazdnik, with bottles emptied, dinners at fine restaurants, and a scandal for desert. Vitya gladly admitted this. But there had to be firm leadership, or nothing would come of it - the others didn't like that either. Since they reorganized, things had been going well. People used to get their money when the job was done. The group dissolved till the need for finances drew them together again. He wanted to change that. They protested, but he forced them. "There must be a leader." Now they shared only half the profit at once. The rest he kept until the next job got started. It gave him something to buy materials for and it meant a lot for continuity. And continuity, he assured me, was alpha and omega. It made for better workers and heightened quality. Soon he'd be able to do things he only dreamt of now.

The point was to become invisible, merge with society around you. To move the frontiers of the possible by a fraction of an inch. You need Barriers, and you need to disrupt them, to spread out into Limbo. But there must be balance between these movements. If authority, continuity and quality can be established on a firm basis, they strengthen each other, and establish your "balancing act" on a firm basis. The longer you stick with it, the better you get, and the longer you'll be able to stick with it. Just one more step, and they'd be able to change the sales system again. To reduce the discrepancy between city and countryside, the state had instituted a system of ambulating stores, coming to villages 2-3 times a month, at times bringing products that were unobtainable even in Leningrad. Vitya had spoken to a chauffeur who would willingly take along some of his shoes on commission to sell to the villagers. In this way, the sale would be as good as legalized, and the risky middleman system could be abandoned. Today, Vitya's shoes might pass through 3-4 middlemen before reaching the consumer - each stage adding danger and reducing profit, since middlemen were often rather shady individuals. The chauffeur would sell directly - and carefully, since he had a good job he wanted to keep. True, he would need documents authorizing the shoes for sale, or else the village administration might start asking questions. But Vitya knew people who could fake passports... But it would all fall through without excellent and stable quality. There must be no shadow of complaint. Through more than a year he had contemplated this possibility and the problems involved. By reorganizing finances they had achieved more stable production, but no matter what he did, he could not achieve the necessary quality. The konsern was too tied up in old routines, too unwilling to go professional.

I just happened to be in Leningrad when a serious accident occurred, which Vitya feared might be a police provocation. To minimize the risk, great amounts of equipment, raw materials and finished produce were destroyed. But maybe they gained something too, Vitya mused, once he felt safe again. They had to start all over, do things differently. But now he'd do it right.

At about this time he took me to the top (15^th) story of one of Leningrad's few high-rises - a drab apartment complex with an incredible view. As we approached the tiny public veranda, he stopped me: "There's someone there. Let's go down a floor..." The fourteenth story also had a balcony, so we watched the city lights go on one by one while thunderclouds massed in the distance and the couple above us whimpered in ecstasy (finally a place to be alone...). We set our portveyn on the narrow railing, while deep below a red neon sign lighted up: "HEIGHTENING THE EFFICIENCY AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION IS THE DUTY AND HONOR OF EVERY WORKER!" Vitya laughed. "Efficiency? Well..." He flicked a finger at his thirsty throat - a universal Soviet gesture. "But quality, yes, we'll see what we can do about that..."⁶⁹

Chapter Three: Riding the Bus

What courses through his [Dostoevsky's] characters are the instinctual urges by which they are possessed, which transform their ideas and acts into a disease that descends upon humanity like a whirlwind, a tempest, a consuming spiritual flame, searing away every tendon and scheme of the psyche in an all-encompassing, maniacal fire. It is said about Raskolnikov that "his thoughts were feverish and disconnected. He could hardly feel that he had a body..." The body is a thin membrane, it burns away from within or cracks like an eggshell under the pressure of the spirit that has taken its abode in the person and once in a while forces itself out to mutilate the flesh it has gained mastery over.
(Abram Tertz (Andrey Sinyavsky) 1973, p.180)

In Chapter Two, I described the political and economic "framework" in which Russians live, and concluded that people lead their lives on Islands, enclosed by Barriers, which they both defend and subvert. Now we shall move closer to the people themselves and see how they react to this framework, how it influences their thoughts, acts and emotions, and, ultimately, their Quest for meaning. To do this, it is necessary to gain an understanding of behavior in intimate and public contexts.

Limbo, I have said, is an "unmediated hierarchy", a Texture in which general and specific rules are strongly polarized, but the "gap" between them is not "filled" with Densely interconnected intermediate levels. But we must remind ourselves that rules are governing principles, not persons, institutions or groups (Centers). A hierarchy of rules is a sociological abstraction; it is not "real", e.g. in a physical or geographical sense. Specific and general ("local" and "overarching") rules are not "objects" located in different "places", but epiphenomena of the fact that they are "obeyed" by flow, i.e. by action. All flow is extracted from individual acts, and therefore all rules - no matter how general - are present nowhere but in the interaction of real people. Therefore, the state, as an institution, a tangible "thing" (Center), may be perceived as distant and inscrutable, but the rules around which it congeals are present here and now, in the daily life of ordinary human beings.

In a Deep (modern) society, this means that the whole hierarchy, with the conflicting demands of all its rules, is compressed into individual acts. The act is therefore split. It is constrained by many, mutually opposed rules simultaneously: abstract and concrete, impersonal and personal, global and local. It contains violent inner tensions, which pose major emotional, intellectual and practical problems for the person acting. Such tensions can never be neutralized completely, but their effects may be minimized and kept under control if the influence of a specific range of levels is focused onto a limited number of acts, so that the extractive force radiating from these levels is to some extent - from the point of view of the actor - concentrated and restricted to certain characteristic places, times or situations. Groups of acts with relevance to different levels may in this way be separated and hedged off from each other, and ambiguity significantly reduced. Life is thus partitioned out into more or less clear-cut, unambiguous, tension-free zones. The actor must still relate to many levels of abstraction, but manages to keep some of their conflicting claims apart by relating to one set of levels at a time. I shall call this mechanism sorting.

When acts are sorted, they are grouped into more or less easily separable "packages". These "packages" are an important type of Center, which we may refer to (following standard sociological practice) as "offices" or roles. When many roles (offices) are grouped together into a more or less consistent, interdependent whole, they form an institution. We sort acts by arranging them in a diversified and stable system of roles, keeping roles separate from each other, and maintaining orderly relations between them. The tension inherent in the split act is thus reduced, by, so to speak, "flattening out the hierarchy onto the ground" - by projecting specific parts of it into specific Centers: roles and institutions.

When levels are thus "reduced to" acts, we recognize this as a form of adaptation (see Chapter One). Many overlapping discontinuities (rules) are used to "simulate" continuity (flow). Clearly, sorting is an ad hoc activity that can never succeed completely. We strive to keep our private life separate from our job, but they continue to influence and contradict each other. We adopt a politely formal persona in public contexts, but it is impractical and undesirable to eliminate the "personal touch" completely. An act is not and can never become a rule. But it is also clear that sorting can be achieved more stably, consistently and convincingly in a Dense (mediated) hierarchy, where roles congeal on the basis of a multitude of overlapping rules, and partake in the flexibility and stability of their underlying Texture. For this reason too, the perceived boundaries of role-Centers are widened and brought in more complete accord with their real boundaries, thus safeguarding the individual's need for order and consistency, and society's need for legitimacy.

The core institutions of Western, Capitalist society are constituted on the basis of a Texture that may be characterized as Deep, but simultaneously (with the reservations noted above, e.g. in Chapter Two, note 52) very Dense. Hierarchy is mediated: The violent tensions contained within each act are neutralized with unprecedented success, by pervasive and efficient sorting. Obviously, here as elsewhere the mechanisms of sorting break down, and sizeable parts of the population may be excluded from their benefits altogether. Nevertheless, in spite of the violent political and economic forces at work in modern Western welfare societies, mainstream middle-class citizens are assured a degree of security and predictability in their lives that has no historical parallel. There are pre-established ways of focusing emphasis and attention on one set of levels, of shifting between levels, and of reconciling their contradictions. As a result, individuals are seldom seriously at a loss as to how to sort their public and private roles, and when conflict arises, they are surrounded by service institutions expressly designed to help them out: kindergartens for working parents, therapists for those who can't "sort it out". In the legal system, the institutions of democracy, the media, public and private concerns are explicitly formulated, and made the object of intensive, mediating debate. In all these ways, and many others as well, "Westerners" are taught (in various ways, and to varying degrees) to become experts at the art of compromise, at rationalizing and reconciling the most glaring contradictions between general and specific rules as a matter of course.

Society is therefore highly legitimate, since private and public orders interpenetrate and influence each other so intimately. There are numerous mid-range institutions. The classical Western idea of "privacy" exemplifies this point. "Private property" is clearly of the utmost public importance, and ultimately belongs to the public sphere. But it is "left in trust of" individuals on the condition that they dispose of it in conformity with the needs of "society as a whole". Individuals gain freedom of action from this arrangement, while society gains flexibility. But the only reason why we are able to suppose, so placidly, that people will in fact conform to society's needs, is that rules of private behavior are congruent with rules in the public sphere, i.e. the polarization of general and specific rules is mediated. Privacy safeguards the individual in relation to the state, and society appears to us as rational and humane, though it would be more accurate to say that it is stable - and thence predictable; flexible - and thus open to criticism and change.

In person-to-person interaction, this legitimacy finds expression in a mode of behavior we call politeness. This is a refined, though mundane, version of the art of compromise, an extensive system of interrelated roles for behavior in all kinds of intermediate contexts - situations, which are neither clearly private nor clearly public. Its many-faceted flexibility allows the adept, cultured "Westerner" to slip with relative ease from formal to informal behavior with composure and grace.

In the unmediated hierarchy of Limbo, in contrast, there are few intermediate levels, and movement between them is unpredictable and abrupt. There is little interpenetration of personal and public spheres, and what penetration there is, is often violent and usually contradictory. Mid-range institutions are far between. Private property does not exist, since, as I argued in the previous chapter, people cannot be "trusted" to follow the rules of "society as a whole". Indeed "privacy" itself is a misleading term in the Soviet context: Circumstances are either public or non-public (I therefore prefer to speak of the "non-public" sphere as "intimate" rather than "private"). In Limbo, general and specific rules stand in glaring opposition, the tensions within acts remain very great, and society offers little assistance in mastering them. As a result, only a very crude and simplified sorting of acts is possible, and even this succeeds only when the act is governed by rules that are clearly either intimate or public. Sorting therefore neutralizes polarization very incompletely, and the role system itself is split into opposed halves. Most roles are either "informal" or "formal", "warm" or "cold". There is no "art of compromise". Instead, there is a "balancing act" between opposed roles and modes of behavior: between "cold" insistence on Barriers and "warm" subversion of them. Intimate roles make no claim to validity outside intimacy itself. They lack the implicit public content of "privacy" as practiced in the West, and are restricted more totally to personal contexts. For this reason they may be experienced as "warmer" than Western "privacy". Conversely, public roles are not considered to have personal relevance. They apply to society in general, but to no one in particular. They seem "artificial", "inhuman", "cold", since they emphatically exclude outsiders from the intimate circle. You either belong to our Island or not. But since most acts do not belong clearly to one category or the other, this insistent, "absolutist", sorting tends to break down. In "intermediate" situations, one is frankly disoriented, for the split remains in the act, making it ambiguous and volatile: "role-less". As a result, society is not legitimate, behavior not polite. There is one ethic of "warmth", another of "coldness", one morality for the individual, another for the state. Attaining a "balance" between these opposites is a difficult and hazardous enterprise, and one goes to great lengths to avoid engaging in it at all, for this is Limbo in its most obvious form: contradictory, dangerous - a battlefield of nature and culture, people and state, dvory and prospekty.

This should not, however, lead us to assume that there exist no ideals of political legitimacy or personal politeness in Russian culture. On the contrary, such values are pervasive, and play a major role in people's lives. Many aspects of these ideals are expressed by the Russian words kul'tura ("culture") and kul'turny ("cultured").⁷⁰ Kul'tura may be thought of as representing the ideal of legitimate government and "true" human communication, of a balance between state and people, public and intimate spheres. We shall return to these themes in Chapter 4, Part B. At present, we shall concern ourselves mainly with ideals of interpersonal behavior in the "intermediate" zone, central aspects of which are embodied in the everyday usage of the word kul'turny. Kul'turnost' as a standard of behavior is an inflexible and fragile ideal. To be "polite", in the "Western" sense, is to engage in a pleasant, superficial and fluent process of compromise. To be kul'turny, in contrast, involves an uncomfortable and demanding balancing act. For although it is universally accepted that one should be so, and the rules for what one must not do seem both strict and uncompromising - what one should do is much harder to ascertain.

Thus, behavior in Limbo may be discussed under three headings. First, the informal "warmth" of intimacy, which Russians refer to as teplota, serdechnost' ("of the heart"), otzyvchivost' ("responsiveness"), or most importantly, prostota.⁷¹ Secondly, the "cold" formality reserved for "strangers", those who do not belong to your Island. And finally, kul'turnost', the harmonious ideal, and the unstable, intermediate practice, in which "warmth" and "coldness" coexist, but do not mingle. One balances between the two, but stable compromise is never achieved. Hence one is constantly acting "out of context": being "close" when distance might seem to be called for, meeting warmth with rudeness (khamstvo, grubost'), sincerity with lies or "rottenness" (lozh', gadost') - or, turning the tables, confronting impersonal evil with personal integrity and warmth.

In the following three sections I treat these forms of behavior in turn. In the fourth section I turn to a more general discussion of what the lack of compromise implies, and describe two methods of finding meaning in spite of it. I then return to problems of state legitimacy and - in the final section of this chapter - arrive at an assumption that both legitimacy and public behavior have a more complex, historical basis than we have hitherto assumed. Once the connection between person-to-person interaction and state legitimacy (kul'turnost' and kul'tura) has been established, I commence a discussion of their history in Chapter Four.

A. Warmth - Seryozha and Olya

To give an idea of what "warmth" entails, I shall acquaint the reader with Seryozha and Olya, a couple in their late thirties. In 1978, Seryozha was an optimistic young man, newly married and with a baby. At the time of his marriage he had broken with his past: sold his drums. He could always buy new ones, he told me, but a married man didn't have time to move around with a band anyway. As a musician, Seryozha had been a man of some note back in '68, when rock came to Leningrad. Private concerts were arranged, musicians made big money, "the girls just came running up - 'Do you want to sleep with me? I know you're a great drummer!'" But aside from the status involved, and the free, easygoing life, Seryozha loved the music for its own sake. It was protest, and it was "kul'tura" - meaningful in itself. It gave an outlet for an important part of his background. For Seryozha belonged to that large group of "declassed" individuals, whose parents and grandparents had embraced "kul'tura" as embodied in the values of the Russian intelligentsia, but had then been forced by circumstances to abandon their ideals.

In 1981, Seryozha was divorced and had been living for 2 years with a divorcee, a girl named Olya, at her apartment in a suburb we shall call Pushkino. Here, in their snug, one-and-a-half-room, childless flat, I got to know Seryozha again in 1983. At the same time I was introduced to a number of his friends and acquaintances living in the immediate vicinity. The outlook and lifestyle of these people were probably typical of working-class youth in Leningrad. The men were into sport, rock and drinking (both heavy), and various (mostly minor) "deals". The women wanted a nice apartment, a baby (if they didn't have one, in which case they didn't), clothes and romantic music (scorned by the men).

Seryozha had aged since 1978. He had not bought new drums, but once in a while he took stand-in jobs with local dance bands. Perhaps due to drink, he had developed a paunch and a strong nervous trembling in his hands, which might hinder him in simple household tasks. He had settled with Olya and swore he would never leave her, but had a not-so-secret affair with 24-year-old Lyuba, the wife of his friend and neighbor Fedya. When he complained about life I found it hard to distinguish between the problems he attributed to society and the worsening economic crisis, and those of a personal nature. "Things have gotten so hard," he told me seriously. "Life is so empty. If it hadn't been for my records, I don't know if I'd stand it. When I listen to them, I forget everything around me."

Olya may have been part of the reason why he felt this way. She was a head-and-a-half taller than her wiry boyfriend and a dominating woman. Her background and values were simpler, less "kul'turnye", and gave less room for conflict than his. She was unashamedly uninterested in her job. She did not share Seryozha's passion for "good" music, and though she never actually discouraged him from playing, she was strongly oriented towards "keeping up with the Jones's", and this precluded any risky experiments that Seryozha might (and did) want to indulge in. Not that she didn't love him - she would defend him staunchly: "I love him. They say he's short and ugly, but he's a man. He's perfect for me. There's always something to talk to him about. Other guys are beautiful, but do nothing but swear at you." But she embraced the role of mother and caretaker, and I think Seryozha lost something in submitting to this: "He's like a child for me," she told me. Her behavior bore this out.

I was a guest at Pushkino quite a number of times, until the drinking and the whole cepky atmosphere got to be too much for me. In the process, I learned quite a lot about "warm" behavior and what it entails.

First of all, a "warm" person is inclusive - generous and hospitable: "You're just like at home here," they would repeat with urgency. "We'll invite you from Norway and you can come live with us." (Risky, at best!) "Bring your parents, we'll take care of them." Money (which they often had little of) was of no concern. Except on rare occasions they always paid for everything, and the presents I received were at times lavish to the point of absurdity. "We're used to giving everything to a good friend," Olya said. "People here are - somehow - kind." They gave of their time as freely: I have known Seryozha to take the whole day off from work and just wait around in case I should find the time to see him. My own attitude was different, of course, and to Olya that was incomprehensible: "So you don't love us enough, that's what it means! But we've loved you always," she told me (at a point when she hardly knew me at all). Underlying this statement is - we might reason - a deeper assumption that inclusiveness must be total, and open the other person's soul to you. "You're more than kin," Seryozha said. "No matter what happens you'll always understand me and I'll understand you." Being part of the same uzky krug ("narrow", intimate circle) of relatives and friends means sharing the most fundamental values, submitting to the collectivity without reservations. With outsiders the group is defended at the expense of any and all other loyalties. Once, after two full days with them, I left (unsteadily) for an appointment with a man I hardly knew, at which Olya erupted: "What does he mean to you? Tell him you don't give a shit!" The same attitudes were reflected in the way they judged other people:

I met Seryozha in Pushkino in a fury. Fedya had thrown his bass player out of the mediocre band he led. "That's rotten!" Seryozha exclaimed. "I never act rottenly... And he's a lousy drummer himself! Even his wife tells him so - 'is that drumming?' she asked him. He was banging away to a Beatles recording and going much too fast! When I had a band, I worked with my bass player, sat with him specially to work things out. 'You're going to be thrown out yourself,' I told him: 'Your wife's punishing you, and God will punish you.'" [Seryozha was alluding to his affair with Fedya's wife.]

"You know - we get paid exactly the same, but the other day we went to buy wine together and he wouldn't split even. Said he'd pay me back later. But when I needed 22 kopeks for bread he couldn't spare it. You know what he said? 'Why should I?' Besides, he treats his wife like shit, so she doesn't give a damn about him. He's a fool. She gives him presents [sex] on holidays," he snorted. "Once she came to our place, crying her heart out because of something he'd done. We told her not to cry. 'I'm not crying for him, I'm crying about the apartment,'⁷² she answered... That story with his bass player really pissed me off. I boxed him so he flew across the room and landed on his back on our bed. Then he left. 'Your wife's punishing you, and God will punish you,' I told him." (He kept repeating this, relishing the words.)

Like Vitya with his workers, you do not fire a friend. This is essentially what Seryozha is saying. A friend belongs to your uzky krug, and if you exclude him, you yourself risk exclusion. For there are only two states - "inside" and "outside" - and if you are "inside" you must be "warm". Clearly, Seryozha and Olya tried to include me in the same way, by tying me to them with the "power in the gift" (Mauss 1923-24). Their motives were complex. I am sure, for one, that Seryozha admired me as a representative of a more "kul'turny" lifestyle than his own. "You're so quiet and self-contained," Olya told me. "You'd never let yourself be carried away by emotion." My "reserve" and need for privacy, which they could attack so vehemently, were in fact an important reason why they wanted me around at all. I found myself in similar situations with many friends: Because I was a Westerner with an intellectual upbringing, my behavior was "colder" and more restrained, and I came to have an ordering and calming influence. As we saw above, something similar occurred with Vitya (though Vitya was obviously a far stronger and more discrete person). But in Seryozha's case the contrast was too great. Aside from being his friend and mentor, I became an exotic symbol of much that he had lost or hoped to attain. By showing off his hospitality and prestigious "contacts" to me he confirmed his own life, despite its sadly neglected potential. By showing me off to friends, he enhanced his prestige with them, proved he was not just "another one of the guys" (as, indeed, he was not!), but a special person with a background in "kul'tura" and access to the Mysterious West.

What strikes me now is not so much these motives themselves, as the intensely emotional way in which they meshed together. Seryozha was by no means a cynic; his show of sincerity and directness was whole-hearted and genuine in the sense that he himself was unable to relate to it in any other way. I think of him as a good (though somewhat negative) illustration of "warm" behavior: First, because the ideal he attempted to live up to was one of effusiveness and spontaneity. He condemned people who were calculating or "used" others. He sought unlimited trust, inclusion in a collectivity devoid of personal "egotism". Secondly, because his actual behavior conforms to this ideal. Indeed, as I experienced it, all separateness, self-discipline and ability to assess reality clearly were dissolved by it as if by acid.

Of course, "warm" behavior is often more enjoyable than this. The unguarded generosity of many of my Russian friends has always seemed a kind of miracle to me, and if they sometimes appreciated my "reserve", their own success at tearing it down and penetrating to the heart of matters was something I will always be thankful for. Still, in such an intensely personal world, problems of separateness and order - of establishing and defending moral boundaries - are bound to be endemic. Vitya faced this problem in his delo, where the people he worked with were also his friends. They demanded "warmth". He answered with authority, enforcing a discipline that they - in the long run - needed. For "warmth" - prostota - has (in the ideal type we are here describing) no internal discipline. It is "simple", unconstrained, unreserved, and, ideally, unworried. "People want to live prosto, humanly, without thought for money," Rodya said, complaining about the deceit and calculation needed to survive generously among of the shortages of modern Soviet society.

Prostota means opening your heart, "pouring out your soul" (izlivat' dushu). I've spent endless hours listening to rambling stories and anekdoty, and had a willing audience any time I myself had something to tell. "Tell me more!" Vera would say, wide-eyed as a child, when I stopped for fear of boring her. Seryozha at his best was a brilliant and interminable storyteller, with a sense of drama that made it hard, sometimes, to believe that he was telling the truth. But perhaps truth is not an issue. What attracts is the daring (udalost'), the humor, the beauty of the story itself, and when someone looks at you in consternation and asks "pravda!? (is it true?)", you sense it is not a literal but a dramatic truth they want you to confirm.

Prostota also means physical intimacy, with sensual overtones that I have only slowly and imperfectly learned to appreciate. It's common to see grownups embracing or holding hands in public, men as well as women. Touching strangers is unavoidable in a crowd, and may be a cause of conflict, but it arouses no objections when a man falls asleep on the train and lets his head droop onto the shoulder of the stranger beside him, or when a gaggle of giggling girls literally catapult themselves into the mass of people filling the Metro. Physical intimacy is precisely prosto - guileless and often artless. People on the street, especially women, seldom look as if they cared much for their fat, overworked, tastelessly dressed bodies.⁷³ Indeed, physical closeness may express contempt for the body. Walking along the beach one day, I am shocked to see a bloated, middle-aged woman in a short dress, seated on a deck chair with legs spread wide, making no attempt to hide her panties which are striped dark, reddish brown by blood and shit...

But there is an element of sheer exuberance, of physical abandon in this attitude as well, a passion that is all the more intense because of its sudden and uninhibited release. I owe the following anecdote to a fellow Norwegian anthropologist:

While doing fieldwork in East Berlin, she shared a tiny room with a German girlfriend. One evening after a party, a young man and a visiting Russian woman spent the night with them. They spread mattresses and pillows on the floor, and, after the hostesses had gone to bed, the man demonstratively stripped to his underwear, and snuggled down beside them. Finally, the Russian woman entered the room. "Lichte aus, bitte", she said, with a demure blush and a heavy accent, and undressed in the dark. The man immediately started pawing the girls, first the Norwegian, then the German, both of whom told him laughingly to mind his manners. The Russian woman's modesty, however, seemed to vanish at his first touch, and the two made frantic love all night, paying no attention to their hosts, until they collapsed at daybreak. (Magerøy, p.c.)

When my colleague told this story, she asked if such behavior was typical of Russian women. Frankly, I have insufficient data to judge by. But I have noticed that sexually "charged" occasions often seem to have an abrupt, demanding, almost violent character that is at least reminiscent of the story above.⁷⁴ Several years after my stay in Leningrad in 1983, a 14-year-old girl chose me as her confidant. Initially, she was circuitous and indirect about her personal life, rambling on about "love" in vague, poetical terms. Then, all at once, it was as if she decided to trust me and do away with all the small talk, and became amazingly outspoken about intimate physical details.⁷⁵

More than anything, perhaps, prostota thus seems to imply informality, which was what Seryozha demonstrated in his inability to structure his life and keep it separate from that of his friends. In a wider sense, however, to be informal is simply to be unconcerned with trivial restrictions, to live spontaneously and fully. Vera, deciding late one evening that she was sick of the daily rut, put on her ugliest coat (she chose it with care), left her handicapped son and volatile ex-husband to their own devices, and jumped on the train with me to go see Zhenya. "It'll do him good to have us drop in at 1.30 in the morning," she laughed, lightheartedly.⁷⁶ "He really is just a little pedantic, you know..."

If informality is valued among intimates, the converse is also true. Formality is disapproved of and resented. It radiates exclusion: hostility and mistrust, meanness, fear and constraint. Prostota, informality and intimacy on the other hand, let you be "natural", act out your innermost soul, they give freedom. The close inner circle is therefore, strangely enough, associated with endless, open spaces, with prostor.

"For Russians nature has always meant freedom, liberation, free abundance [svoboda, volya, privol'e]... Volya - is not being worried about tomorrow, it is carelessness, blissful immersion in the present. The wide-open spaces [prostranstvo, prostor] have always compelled the hearts of Russians. They are embodied in concepts and ideas, which other languages lack. How for example, to you distinguish volya from svoboda? Volya [the word also means "will"] is unconstrained, it is svoboda united with wide open spaces, space unbounded. The concept toska [nostalgia, sadness, longing], on the other hand, merges with tesnota [enclosed, crowded, narrow, straight], the loss of open space. To oppress someone [pritesnyat'] is above all to bereave him of space, to crowd him in..."⁷⁷ (Likhachev 1984, p.10)

Significantly, the above quote is from a book that Vera once gave me, telling me that it would help me to understand the truth about Russia.

B. Coldness - Fear and Formality

The "warm" role is one of inclusion: of generosity, freedom and informality. But in spite of the high value placed on such qualities, it is a common complaint that people, especially officials, are formalistic and "cold":

I needed a statement from the University administration, and approached the dekan in his spacious, old-fashioned office. No, he would not sign. He needed a certification from the Foreign Students' Section first. I had already been to the inotdel a number of times, besides getting stamps and signatures from half a dozen other officials, so this was no pleasing prospect. Also, I had been told earlier that I wouldn't need a certification. This made no difference to the dekan, who insisted that I follow "the rules".

Seemingly, there is nothing strange about this man's behavior. Just another bureaucrat: a mere agent, an office, a tool, putting the power of general rules into practice. Actually, it is not so simple at all. Two things struck me at the time: When I told him who had said I should get his signature, he promptly signed. Confronted with a name of greater importance than his own, the "rules" were suddenly irrelevant. Secondly, he himself did not know the formal procedures. He told me to get a stamp from his secretary when I left, but she explained that I wouldn't need it, and it turned out that she was right. The dekan shows the "weakness" of general rules: not only are they inconsistently enforced - even knowledge of them is incomplete.

Still, his insistence needs to be explained. For he did in fact have power, and if I had not over-trumped him, I would have left empty-handed, as all too many Russians are forced to do (cf. LP: 12/6-83; 27/2-83). There is a duality in this insistence, which we have noted earlier. To a certain extent, the man is in fact a tool - inefficient and incompetent, but still a tool - of overarching social control and coordination. On the other hand, he is defending his own position. By "playing safe", shoving the decision away from himself, he avoids responsibility for any mistake he might make. One might say that the character of his insistence - its formality - derives from the "original" and primary function of "the rules" (coordination and standardization), but the fact that he does insist, his sheer strength of motivation, is self-defensive. The dekan's nice office is an Island, which he defends by excluding the world around him.

Formality, "insistence on the rules", thus easily degenerates into a weapon of self-defense, and as such it is not limited to positions of power. It is a common way of defending any Island, a "cold facade" directed outwards, towards the ne svoi ("not ours"): "foreigners", "outsiders" of any description. But self-defense is not simply a rationalized form of paranoia. Inability to defend one's Island often has highly uncomfortable consequences:

Xeroxing is illegal without special authorization. Big libraries have copy machines, but access is strictly limited - a situation aggravated by the shortage of machines: My library (one of the country's largest) had only two. One morning I arrived at the desk to order some copies. The line was long, and the single woman working had to fill out a complicated form for each order, collect money, and after every few orders, carry the heavy books down the hall into the copy room - so time passed slowly.

While we waited, one of the machines broke down and orders for large books had to be refused. Since copy personnel started summer vacation the next day and no stand-ins could be found, tension mounted noticeably. A young man (probably Armenian or Georgian) placed an order for a pile of very large books. When the woman explained the situation, he got furious, hurled books down on the table and insulted her. At last he insinuated that she wouldn't help him because he wasn't an ethnic Russian. This brought her to the limit. She called in her boss and complained to her. This woman was restrained, but did not back her up at all. She said nothing to him, but told her to explain the situation. "I did!" she exclaimed. "Oh, but how, I wonder?"

At last the woman took one of the books and made a copy to show him how bad the result would be on the small machine. He said it was fine for him. She sniffed indignantly: "It is not good enough! We do quality work - like this," she tried showing him an example, then turned to the rest of us to demonstrate the difference. After more than an hour, the man reluctantly compromised. Later, I saw him in the reading room, complaining to the woman in charge: "She said the problems were technical, but I think she wouldn't!" The woman nodded evasively: "Try going down again," she suggested.

Several times the woman at the desk almost broke down, and she looked exhausted afterwards. I imagine her coming home tired, dispirited. She would have made out better if she had been able to act like the dekan. But she was too "kul'turny", believed too firmly in the dignity of work, and so she was vulnerable and went through an undue amount of hassle.

It is important to understand why. Rules are weak in the public sphere. As we saw in Chapter Two, shortages and technical inadequacies are a symptom of this weakness. This in turn creates bottlenecks, like the one in the library, Gates opening privileged access to Islands of scarce resources. Since state control is concentrated at such Gates, shortages are aggravated, bottlenecks further narrowed and the pressure on those guarding them increased. Finally, the mere existence of Islands in the midst of scarcity lends the commodities guarded additional prestige, adding moral responsibility to the guard's burdens: In part, it was plain that the woman simply did not want anyone to touch her expensive, beautiful machine. It was a white elephant, feared and revered.

In spite of all this, the woman at the desk was virtually defenseless. She was in the public sphere, "out in the cold", where, as Vasya put it, there are "no external forms that may receive the spirit": no mid-range institutions, no one to back you up. Her superiors did not support her, shrugging her off their shoulders. Like the dekan, they had their own Islands to guard. Any goodwill or effort she put into her job were her personal responsibility. Most fundamentally, she lacked the support of a stable role system of "polite" behavior. In the southern parts of the Soviet Union, professional haggling is common and accepted. This was lost on a Northerner. She was doing her best to be helpful. She was friendly to everyone else. She was proud of her work, in a slightly comical way, for the library is a symbol of almost holy values for educated Russians. The man stepped on her work, on her values, on the "European", "kul'turny" Russia. "He's in the library, and behaves like he's at the bazaar!" she exclaimed when he left. The bazaar of course, is "Asia", nekul'turno.

In a Texture of unmediated polarization, one is confronted, as this woman, directly and personally with the impersonality of general rules - rules which simply state that communication must be carried through, flow must go on, but (since they themselves are rigid and unstable) give no indication of how you are to achieve this in practice. Like the dekan, the woman merely followed "the rules", as she had to, as a subordinate in her job. But she had no way of knowing beforehand how people would react to such behavior, whether they would insist on their formal rights or "take it personally" (either sympathizing or blaming her). The formal system itself gave her no support when things went wrong.

Similar situations are encountered daily, in the endless queues, at work, in cramped kommunalki. General rules throw people together at random, with no respect for their preferences and no allowances for what to do when problems arise. You are on your own, facing what one might call an "enforced pluralism", a human chaos so prevalent, so diffuse and unpredictable, that it pays to make allowances for it in everything you do. People's constant concern about your health is a metaphor of this kind. Strangers stop you on the street if your shoelace comes untied or you look like you don't have enough clothes on. Friends carefully lead you across "dangerous" intersections.^77a

You must protect your Island. The woman in the library faced the general rules without defense. The dekan defended himself by "insisting on the rules" and "co-opting" their formality for his own purposes. But his solution is often untenable. The general order itself is weak, its rules often unknown, not respected or followed up. It may impossible to "co-opt" them as an effective defense, or they may let you down when you need them most. Even the dekan's Island was far from invulnerable, as we have seen, and less privileged people may lack even the potential formality of a library. Other defenses are therefore devised:

One afternoon I stepped into a cafeteria. It was crowded, with 20-30 people lined up in front of the counter, seemingly getting no closer at all. Behind it, half a dozen young women in dirty, white aprons were talking loudly among themselves and working very slowly. Much of the time they sat around doing nothing. When I finally got my meal and found a seat, the establishment closed down - far too early, to judge from the sign on the door. The women came out with dishrags and mops and started cleaning the room and upending chairs, chasing away disgruntled customers still eating with cries of "young lady, you let go of that table now!"

These women are "cold" in a manner typical of service personnel in the Soviet Union, disregarding their customers and not caring about their work. But their behavior differs from the dekan's. They were not insisting on any "rules" at all - although if they knew of a rule to support them, they would undoubtedly have cited it. But few "rules" are beneficial to canteen workers, so formality would give poor defense. They are in an "intermediate" position, neither public nor intimate, and have no stable role to fall back on. So they revert to sullen "non-behavior", disregarding anything outside their Island, including the customers, which, as far as they were concerned, might as well not have been there at all. The customers disregarded them just as completely. Of course, there was yelling to and fro, whenever someone felt stepped on, but what characterizes the situation more than anything else is lack of communication. If one can neither be informal and "warm", nor formal and "cold", there is no middle way, no intermediate role, and one lapses into rejection and silence.

We might ask (as many Russians themselves do) why they could not simply "be polite". But this is not as "simple" as it seems. A Russian tourist guide expressed this clearly:

"People are cold in Scandinavia. That's why it's hard for Russians to live there... We're used to warmth. True, here they yell at each other a lot, where you come from at least they're polite..."

Politeness is a compromise between specific and general rules, personal and impersonal orders, "warmth" and formality. What this woman seems to be saying, however, is that politeness and "warmth" are mutually exclusive. "Warmth" is not polite. It is direct, personal, demanding: heated (s zharom) in arguments and loves, but not polite. The same goes for formality. It is a weapon: "artificial", "inhuman", "cold". And since politeness contains an element of formality, it is totally incompatible with informality and "warmth". Formal and informal behavior, exclusion and inclusion, are opposites, with hardly any mediation between them. Compromise, politeness, the "relaxed formality" of impersonal, anonymous behavior, is not an alternative. The very word "politeness" (vezhlivost') has a slightly exotic feel in Russian.

But at the same time, as we have said, kul'turnost', the ideal of intermediate, polite behavior, is very real, though it's successful realization is rare. It demands that one obey "the rules": Both the cafeteria girls and the man in the library were nekul'turnye by not doing so. But at the same time, it demands that one show "respect" - uvazhenie - "warmth", that one is personal, as neither was. Unifying "the rules" with "respect", formality with "warmth", exclusion with inclusion, is difficult, because there is no stable, intermediate system of roles.

The existence of such an ideal reflects the fact that "non-interaction", as with the girls above, is in the long run very uncomfortable. Instead of sorting roles, it denies the reality of the public sphere. Limbo is the confrontation of your own intimacy with the relentlessness of the general order. Disregarding it may at times succeed. But more often this is impossible. People are forced every day to traverse vast distances out of reach of any Island. Ignoring this fact is impossible for any length of time, and attempting to do so results in constant misunderstandings and conflicts, which stable roles would counteract. One therefore attempts to sort roles into the only stable categories that exist: "cold" formality and "warm" informality. On the bus, in queues, one adopts a narrow, "pedantic" formality. Foreigners are infuriated by expressions of this kind: Ne prinyato. (It's not accepted.) Nekul'turno. (It's "uncultured".) U nas tak ne delayut. (We don't do it that way.) U nas takoy poryadok. (This is the "order" we have.) One encloses oneself behind a Barrier of "rules", a hard shell of invulnerability, and in the midst of the "cold", each individual becomes a tiny Island, moving along a narrow, pre-set Path. Seemingly, such "formality" differs from that of the dekan. The "rules" on the bus are not formally codified or enforced by the state. But in fact, the two types are similar, both in origin and function, and share the same duality: self-defense, on the one hand, and on the other, coordination of high-level flow (the reason why people are "on the bus" in the first place is to fulfill the demands of general rules: go to work, visit stores, etc.). Formality attempts to sort acts, to signal that "I'm not doing this out of personal choice - I'm running errands for society in general". But in both cases "sorting" breaks down. What was in origin the definition of an impersonal act, degenerates into a defense of Islands and the moral order (the "rules") surrounding them - a very personal concern indeed:

I went for a pleasure stroll on the ice of one of Leningrad's canals. A woman spied me from a bridge and started yelling: "What are you doing on the ice?! Come up here immediately! Nobody else walks on the ice! You're going to slip and break a leg." The attack was so sudden and unexpected that I was struck dumb, and just stood there staring at her. In the end she turned and stomped away: "Well! He deserves it. If he's that stupid!"

Attempts at sorting out a stable "cold" role and keeping to it in public thus collapse under pressure. Keeping acts sorted - even on this elementary level - is very difficult.

The same problem afflicts intimacy as well. The hallmark of intimacy (prostota) is the need for freedom of expression (prostor), inclusion in the wide-open spaces of spontaneous emotion. But in their obsession with self-defense, Islands violate this need. The very act of protection - "co-opting" the formality of general rules - strikes back at you. In spite of their "warmth", Islands do not supply the stable, routine security of Western "privacy".

Vanya told me about his recent experiences in the Army. Military service lasts two years and is incredibly tough. Meaningless disciplinary measures abound: digging holes, which are filled by bulldozers afterwards, emptying a pit full of water with a tin can. In the end I exclaimed: "But can't you complain!?" He gave me a patronizing look: "Well, yes, you can, but you see, complaining isn't accepted here (ne prinyato). It makes you unpopular with the guys." "Even if everyone agrees?" "You just don't complain," he answered with finality. "It's one of those subtleties (eto takaya tonkost'), you see?"

Formal rules protect the values of the collective. Since this is their basic rationale they may not be challenged without endangering these values, even if they themselves infringe on them. Underlying this assumption is the inability to compromise. If you break one rule, you break them all; you defy the whole fragile structure that contains your life. The essential reason for the weakness of rules lies, one suspects, simply in that the freedom of the prostor is too great to be contained at all. One lives in a "space too large to be ordered" (a fact that is evident in any Russian home: No matter how small, it seems disorderly, although in fact it is most often very strictly ordered indeed, a paradox which I have always found very pleasing). Informality denies rules and order. But order is still needed, as both Vitya and Seryozha show, and since intimacy has no order of its own, it must accept "the rules", no matter how unreasonable, set for it by an outside authority: the collective, or the state. I return to this in Chapter Five.

Rules degenerate into "rules" - weapons of self-defense. "Warmth" is violated and invaded. Kul'turnost' is therefore volatile and unstable - a field of battle - and this is the most important difference between it and politeness. Once in a while, of course, balance is achieved, but nearly always as a result of individual strength and integrity. This lends a fragile and intensely personal quality to the whole field of "intermediate" communication, as well as to any human edifice built up in this sphere. It is the reason why Vitya's biznis is not a "market element" in a non-market economy, but a delo - a calling, a hazardous and courageous attempt to create harmony and balance in the zona of conflicting public and intimate orders.

C. Peredat' and Propustit'

There are only two stable roles - exclusion and inclusion - formal insistence on Barriers or informal dissolution of them. When either is undermined, or synthesis attempted, one is cast out from society into Limbo, where they must be brought to balance each other, or communication breaks down altogether. In the middle-class, bourgeois "West", we are brought up to master a complex, all-inclusive system defining degrees of closeness and distance. We "compromise" - admit people by stages into our presence and interact flexibly in public. We learn the tricks of style, sociability, body language. The Soviet Union seems starker, less refined. Kul'turnost' is not a compromise, but a war, or a "balancing act".

Upon entering the intermediate sphere one is therefore immersed in a feeling of tempo and efficiency, or rather concentration, seriousness, curtness. Everything is over-filled, and there's always a rush. There's nothing fun about it. You're in dangerous and impassable terrain, demanding concentration and caution:

The doors of an over-filled bus whip open and people pour out. A man and his old, weak-legged father, leaning on a cane, stand near the door. Unable to reach his companion, the man mutters encouragingly: "Hold on, pop..."

While waiting, the same intent seriousness is projected outwards from the spot one claims and defends as one's own. On public transport, people stand or sit around, alone or in small, closed groups. Children are carefully guarded. A couple (of same or opposite sex) stand close, touching or holding (even stroking) each other, conversing quietly and intimately.

The "non-interaction" of the cafeteria girls pervades the intermediate sphere. In a sense, people do not meet at all. Or rather, they never meet "strangers". They are tiny, moveable Islands. But if for some reason or other they decide you're "close", even the coldest arena becomes personal, no matter how little they know you. The formal, cold facade may seem formidable, but is actually very fragile. Roles can be maintained only to a point, then they collapse. The seriousness in public has a "dangerous", "explosive" quality, and the closer you are hemmed in by strangers, the stronger this feeling becomes:

I'm on a bus crammed with people. Between the window and one of the posts for passengers to hold on to, a shabby-looking man is wedged. A well-dressed woman on her way out asks, rather rudely, if he could move. "Where do you want me to move to? Out the window?" he grouches. The woman starts explaining what she thinks of him - in very clear terms. The man makes no attempt to answer - nor to give room (he might conceivably be able). After a while, he snaps back: "Shut your trap!" The fuming woman must press past by brute force.

Other times, people find each other. Someone starts playing the accordion and everyone sings along. Or one appeals to the collective. At times a drunk performs this subtle alchemy:

It's 11.30 AM. A run-down, but strong-looking man swaggers on to the train, straightens himself by taking hold of the seats on either side of the isle: "I'm not dead! I'm still alive..." He pauses, making sure everyone's eyes are on him. "I've suffered all my life! The young girls are crazy about me - but it's the oldies I want..." We all laugh and clap, and he continues.

We are still, seemingly, in the "outside world", but these eruptions - pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be - are a show of "warmth". There's nothing formal about the situation any longer. You are, for an instant, part of the "inner circle". (Being accepted permanently is another matter.) I've been drawn into countless arguments and conversations in this way.

"Everything is different in America," a man I met on a street in Dagestan told me. "In what sense?" "Well, you can't just sit down and talk, prosto, like you and me. In the Soviet Union you go up to anyone and have a conversation. There you have to think first, who the guy is, what he's after."

This is the positive side of "enforced pluralism": an intense mobility, a happy-go-lucky style of life, the sudden, inexplicable, almost mystical meeting of souls or bodies. But once, after just such an encounter, when I commented to Vitya on people's openness and sociability, he turned serious: "Yes, that's the biggest problem in this country - loneliness." Chance meetings in Limbo have an attraction all their own, an aura of adventure, transcendence, sensuality, but people seek something more, a security and stability which Limbo cannot give.⁷⁸

Limbo may "erupt", but mostly it is mute, gruff, nearly silent. When interchange is unavoidable, it is formalized, consisting of a few, ritualistic, standard questions and answers:

"Getting off now?" [Asked when worming your way out through a crowd towards the doors.]
"Please send this [money] on [to the ticket machine]."
"No tickets [left in the machine]."
"Don't drop [the money into the machine - I want my change back]."

"Who's last?" or: "Who's after you?" [When you get in line.]
"I'm after you." [If you leave for a moment and want to keep your place...]
"What are you standing for?" [Vy kuda stoite? - literally, "where are you standing to?" Asked when you want to know what this line is all about.]

Such short formulas are the vocabulary of kul'turnost'. They are repeated every day thousands of times with little variation, and if you stick to them, you usually make out all right. They are a "substitute politeness", unable to generate much communication, but adequate to a point. In both form and function they are reminiscent of codes or passwords. The functions of these passwords are summarized in the title of this section: peredat' and propustit':

Peredat' means to "pass on" or transmit, as when passing money from hand to hand towards the ticket machine on a bus. It defines a Path, a tenuous, pre-defined, no-nonsense way through Limbo: a focused group effort towards a specific and limited goal. Numerous things are passed on like this, placed in the informal trust of the collective and transmitted from place to place independent of the inadequate official infrastructure: gossip and rumors, jokes, messages, appeals for help; illegal items (books, products of the black market); household necessities and money. Passwords are keys activating the linkages of transmission. They validate your claim to trust and enable you or your message to pass on.

Propustit' means to admit, give access. A password or propusk (permit) opens a Gate to the inner circle or lets you out of it. One asks to be propushchyon out of the bus or past a line (bez ocheredi). On the telephone the usual greeting is a sharp, short slushayu vas! ("listening!"). This marks a Barrier and asks for your password. When you mention your name, if you're a friend, the voice melts into warmth, otherwise your interlocutor may simply hang up without further comment. Access to Islands may entail a wealth of "fringe benefits", you are included in a wholly new category of people. Propustit' is thus the word for many kinds of (official) permission (to leave the country, arrange an art exhibit), and is often associated with privilege. The anonymous-looking building housing a luxury store for higher party cadres in Moscow thus bears the non-committal but symbolic sign Byuro propuskov (Bureau of Permits). Or the propusk may let you out into Limbo, if you have business there. Along with associations of privilege, it may therefore have an almost opposite meaning, as in the expression propustit' oshibku: to commit ("admit") an error.

Both of these functions are essential, and people face their challenge in every walk of life. Together, they constitute an art which is at the same time exhilarating, necessary, hard to excel at, and which entails heavy responsibility. It was Vitya's business to master both, and in people like him (or the tolkachi, cf. Chapter 2, Part B) they attain a high level of professionalism. Indeed, in a wider perspective, they represent archetypical lifestyles with wide currency, a dimension I shall focus on in the next section. But for the present let me merely point out that they are practical ways of coping with Limbo. They are the closest one comes to stable "intermediate roles". But these roles are in fact very unstable. They are "explosive", and highly dependent on the proficiency and strength of the person balancing them. Peredat' is the role of middleman - or as I shall call him in the next section - the animist. Propustit' is the role of gatekeeper or absolutist.

The essential nature of the middleman's role is evoked in one of Tamara Ivanovna's semi-mythological stories:

A girl met a man on the street, who asked her to peredat' a package to the post office for him. She dropped it in a mailbox instead - which was blasted to bits when the time bomb in the parcel exploded. No one was hurt, but Tamara was shocked by the violation of trust.

Trust is essential to the role of the middleman, because it is a role of inclusion. Once you accept the middleman's "warmth" and he yours, you are at his mercy, for you have no formal guarantees of safety in his hands. In Chapter 2, Part C I emphasized that the success or failure of people in positions of authority depends on their person to an unusual degree. The pattern was repeated in the example from the library above. The problem facing all such people is that the mid-range rules, upon which they attempt to base their role, are very weak. Their roles are not clear-cut, formal offices, which may be occupied and later left to a successor as a matter of routine. Their institutions stand and fall with the individuals inhabiting them. Personal responsibility thus replaces formal offices, in bureaucracy as elsewhere:

Seryozha described the problems involved when the truck driver he worked with took a month's vacation. He was offered a stand-in, but was unhappy about accepting: "You never know who you'll end up with," he explained. "If he's the type who steals, I'll be the one with all hell to pay." Luckily, he found a trusted friend who took the job.

Conversely, the gatekeeper's role is one of exclusion, as the following story shows:

At the Library the woman receptionist faced two young Chinese. Her frustration was evident: "I don't know English," she said, "and they can't - they won't! - speak French to me." After a while an interpreter arrived and they were able to communicate. Now everything was very friendly. When the receptionist heard they were from China, she was enthusiastic: 'It's been so long! It's so nice to have you back...!'

The curt "coldness" the gatekeeper shows in asking for your "password" is a kind of urgency. He wants a very particular response, and he wants it fast. He needs to know "who you are", and if you don't do the "right thing" immediately, he gets suspicious and "cold". So if you can't be personal - be quick. It's intolerable that the flow of activity grinds to a halt. This need not mean that your interlocutor doesn't have time to spare. He simply doesn't want to, can't, doesn't see any value in wasting time on the formal sides of life. All that is "outside". It's gotten over with in nothing flat - so we can start being personal - as friends or foes. Then we have time to spare! The brusqueness of the gatekeeper's facade conceals an invitation to "come in": "It's cold out there. Be sensible and let us protect you." People who don't understand (Chinese students) are incomprehensible and very possibly dangerous. They dawdle about, while there's a battle going on all around them. They're absurd, as bad as people who walk on the ice! There may even be an element of humor in the receptionist's statement: laughing (uneasily) at someone to knock sense into him. But for the uninitiated, discovering the "code" that "lets you in" may be rather hard:

A boy turns in an order at the library and is nearly chased from the room. He hadn't written his name clearly. He had signed on the line with "signature" written underneath, instead of writing "FAMILY NAME - IN CAPITALS, LEGIBLY".

Rules, forms, regulations, all the paraphernalia of bureaucracy, are not standardized and predictable expressions of general rules, but "codes". The form is filled out just so, deviation is downright immoral. But the important thing isn't what the form itself says - but the way it's "supposed to be". The gatekeeper only admits you if you share the "secret knowledge" of the inner circle. Life under such circumstances becomes rather like a series of riddles, to which the right answers must be found. Guesswork becomes an art of necessity. At times, however, the "solution" can be absurdly simple:

- "There's no tags!" (i.e. to mark your coat with. It's strictly forbidden to take outdoor clothes into the Library!)
- "None at all?"
- "None at all."
- "So what do I do?"
- "Wait around..."

- "But you can leave your coat without a tag..." (There was room to spare in the wardrobe, but they had lost such a lot of their little tags, and they couldn't get any new ones!)

Thus, the roles of kul'turnost' mirror those of "coldness" and "warmth". Gatekeepers are "formal", insisting on Barriers and excluding you from their Island until you prove you share the "secret knowledge" of the inner circle. Middlemen are "informal", including you or your message in their field of intimacy and trust, taking on "personal responsibility" for them. But though these roles are derived from "warmth" and "coldness", they are applied to an intermediate sphere of activity where neither mode of behavior is appropriate. One cannot be consistently "warm" or "cold" in Limbo - but neither can one choose a compromise, for none exists. So one flits to and fro, constantly alternating between the two, in an unstable and hazardous "balancing act". This is the fundamental reason for the "explosiveness" of kul'turnost' - that there are no stable, intermediate roles. The roles of gatekeeper and middleman, absolutist and animist, have no content of their own, no stable, pre-established interpretation. They must be "charged" with meaning by the people acting them out - by their "personal responsibility" and "secret knowledge". Their meaning and rationale is thus necessarily idiosyncratic. Life becomes Stalker-like, full of "traps" and "riddles" - and unpredictable, personal risks.

D. Materialism and Magic

This is the starting point of all Quests for meaning. The roles of kul'turnost' are unstable and rigid, and have a meager vocabulary of expression. One must "charge" them with personal responsibility and secret knowledge, or see their meaning disintegrate altogether.

Russians as well as foreigners therefore often describe the Soviet public as grey, monotonous, uniform (odnoobrazny), lacking the color and variation that is typical e.g. of a modern Western city. The uniformity of behavior is mirrored in other public realms as well: In material culture, the same dress, housing, food, even kitchen utensils, book-covers or cafeteria furnishings are found from Leningrad to Vladivostok. "Enforced pluralism" leads to its own kind of uniformity: Lidiya Fyodorovna (83) remarked nostalgically that classes had disappeared since the Revolution, and with them all clear and colorful distinctions between people. Rich and poor live door to door in the same kommunalka. "Sameness" also permeates ideology. The same slogans embellish walls; the same phrases are quoted in books and speeches. While Western media restlessly search for sensation, Soviet newsmen stress continuity. Even when potentially prestigious change is at issue, "we continue to follow the Party line, loyal to our Leninist traditions." And when Western politicians pride themselves in pluralism, Soviet leaders ponderously proclaim the fight for unity and incorporation: monolitnost', splochyonnost'. This pervasive ideological monotony is often cited in support of the totalitarian model (cf. the Introduction). But since lack of variation in public behavior may be explained as a result of Limbo (weak general rules), it is natural to ask if ideological uniformity may not be explained in the same way. If this assumption is correct, the impression of ideological monotony must (as with kul'turnost') be incomplete. Under the drab facade, ideology is pervaded by fragility and "explosiveness". It is "grey" and meaningless only as long as it is not "charged" by personal responsibility and secret knowledge.⁷⁹

We must remind ourselves that all Deep Textures enforce polarization of general and specific orders, and hence of both uniformity and pluralism, standardization and specialization. In any Deep (modern) society, uniformity is a necessary attribute of the "infrastructure" through which high-level flow is channeled. But modernity also produces a pluralistic "division of labor", to fulfill the demands of extraction. In a mediated hierarchy these orders penetrate and influence each other, as we saw in the discussion of Western "privacy" above. Specialization is relevant for standardization, and vice versa: Every part is a cog in the machinery of the whole. In an unmediated hierarchy the "machinery" breaks down. The two orders are separate and mutually antagonistic. Uniform standardization is reduced to monotony, specialization and pluralism fragmented into Islands. This is all the more noticeable, since modernity always implies extraction. To uphold standardization, the autonomy of individuals and local groups must be reduced, their flow split and diverted onto higher levels. Modernization thereby threatens the very basis on which society rests:

"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and men at last are forced to face [...] the real conditions of their lives and their relations with their fellow men." (Marx, in Berman 1982, p.21)

Fundamentally, it is this dissolution of meaning itself we noted in the discussion of kul'turnost'. If the Soviet public is "monotonous", this is because modernization has emptied it of meaning. As Berman points out, a similar experience is common to all modern societies. But in much of the West its effect was to some extent neutralized by the mediated relationships between general and specific rules. In an unmediated Texture the threat is far more tangible.

These points may be brought out by contrasting Soviet and Western interpretations of materialism. Through this discussion we will be led to a deeper understanding of kul'turnost' and its relationship to state ideology and legitimacy: kul'tura. Materialism is not only an important element of Soviet Communism but also a popular system of understanding, providing many people, like Vitya, with the reassurance of a rational outlook on life. But in its origin, it is a Western European concept with roots going back to the Enlightenment, which by asserting the primacy of objective "things" over subjective experience, reflects a "typical" Western duality:⁸⁰ on one hand specific and practical, on the other general and abstract. It is practical in stressing the importance of how "things" are manipulated and managed, as one expects of an engineer or architect. It is abstract in its concern with "things in general", its postulate that all things follow the same basic laws. Thus, each "thing" is viewed simultaneously as a specialized "tool" and as an expression of a standardized "purpose", to which all tools must conform in order to "serve society as a whole". In the Western version of materialism, these two aspects of the "thing" - the "tool" and its "purpose" - are intimately connected. We learn to recognize and understand immediately the connection between "specific tools" and "tools in general": between the concrete tool we happen to hold in our hands, and the abstract "purpose" attached to any tool. For us, a "tool without a purpose" is as much a contradiction in terms a "purpose without a tool" (here again, I refer the reader to note 6). The relationship between general and specific orders - "purposes" and "tools" - is mediated, and materialism confirms and strengthens this worldview. It functions as a harmonious "culture myth", as long as we remain in a society of great Depth and Density - as Western capitalism.

In the Soviet Union this harmony is destroyed. A Deep and Open Texture transforms "things" into "tools", but the connection between "tool" and "purpose" is lost. Islands are "tools without purpose" - diversity without coordination. The monotony of the public sphere is "inhuman", a "purpose without a tool", i.e. a general rule with nothing to govern. Here the image of reality promoted by materialism totters on the verge of nothingness, threatens to dissolve all meaning and application to which the individual can relate. It emphasizes and increases Openness, since it takes Density for granted - as it may, in the Western cultural tradition from which it derives. Transposed to Soviet society, however, materialism is for many simply "ugly":

I asked Vasya why work discipline was such a problem. "The spirit (dukh) has gone on strike," he said. "The mind doesn't understand, but consciousness feels it... There are no external social forms, which can receive the spirit. Creativity butts against a barrier and returns to itself... There's no independent, sustaining Idea in society, nowhere to forget yourself. You can't take refuge in the past, like in England or other Western countries. There are no youth clubs and organizations. You can't travel. We're imprisoned in our concrete bunkers [Islands]."

An Idea, he explained, is living, concrete. Even Fascism had some kind of Idea, but materialism has none. Its philosophies are empty, abstract. "Everything runs its natural course. It's a seething cauldron, where all is boiled and mixed together: remnants of primitive society, Orthodoxy, fragments of thought from the West. Gradually something new is created out of this, a new Idea. I think it will be a new Christianity, a new appearance of Christ, but I don't know what form it will take. They suppress it. They're afraid of anything new. But it keeps returning, stronger each time. But it's slow, for the process is totally natural..."

"Yes," he nodded when I asked, "it's a fascinating cauldron... But it makes life formless, full of violent tensions... It's almost impossible to live prosto, humanly, not to speak of being genuinely creative or anti-Communist. People are reduced to an unthinking, featureless mob (tolpa). Even in Leningrad I hardly know anyone who really thinks. And just a few kilometers out in the countryside you're wallowing in Asia. They've robbed people of everything. All they have left is air...

"And vodka," I interspersed, in a misplaced attempt at lightening our rather depressive conversation.

"And their own thoughts!", added Lidiya Fyodorovna, Vasya's 83-year-old aunt, an incurable optimist, who had hardly contributed to the conversation so far.

"No," he insisted, "not even that. That's why no one really wants to be Russian any more. No one wants to be Slav. The state is trying to impose some kind of German order on us, which will never succeed. People like Zinov'ev are only out to imitate the West. They don't have their own Idea. Or take Solzhenicyn. He's written some very important stuff, I won't deny that. But what does he want? To recreate some kind of Orthodox theocracy! That's why I say: There are no Russians. This place is nothing but a province of Anglo-American capital. Nothing but a Western European colony."

And the reason for Russia's impasse, he repeated, is that materialism has no Idea: "Materialism is a disease engulfing the world... In both West and East the same technical, materialistic civilization is headed towards its collapse. Materialism is more extreme in Russia, but for that very reason this is where the new concrete Idea, the new Spirituality will be born."

It is tempting to interpret Vasya's Idea as yet another symbol of standardization, of "civilization" taming "nature", and hence as similar to materialism itself. But Vasya very explicitly states that the Idea cannot be forced, cannot be imported from abroad, it must grow naturally out of what is here and now, though this takes time. Thus the Idea is not an instrument of power, its function is not to create a new standardization, but to harmonize chaos, tie the existing world together, give it meaning and legitimacy, make it whole. It is an ideal of mediation of general and specific rules - a model for increasing Density, rather than Depth - and since materialism takes Density for granted and thence undermines it, the Idea is naturally opposed to it. In the Soviet context monotony and materialism become expressions of Openness, of the weakness (not, as totalitarianism theory claims, the despotism) of general rules. This is why Soviet materialism is "more extreme" than in the West. It symbolizes the "purpose without a tool" - power divorced from its object. It is "inhuman", "cold". At the same time, it empties the things themselves of meaning, turns them into "purposeless tools". It emphasizes that things are not real enough to base one's life on. It is, as Afanasy said, "a materialism of despair", enhancing, rather than alleviating Limbo.

"Leningrad used to be world famous for its pastries," Rodya sighed. "You got fabulous cakes in the shops along Nevsky. Now there's nothing left, it all gets exported [a common explanation of any evil]. All they've left us is the Mechta," he concluded sadly. [Mechta ("dream") is the name of a cake.]

Things are simply too rare, too precious, too much "the stuff dreams are made of", to trust or take for granted, as Western materialism does. Strictly speaking, they are not "things" at all, as Westerners tend think of them. They have lost autonomous meaning, become "tools", without gaining the abstract and impersonal purpose accorded them in the West. An important consequence of this was brought to my attention by Zhenya:

"So many ugly things are made nowadays," he exclaimed. "At work the other day my truck driver took me to a depot out of town. There was a queue of course - and while we were waiting I looked around. Everything was dirty: an enormous warehouse, mud and mess everywhere. Great bulldozers and excavators stood waiting. 'This is where they live,' I thought to myself. They're some kind of evil spirits, but we don't have a mythology about them yet. We are spirits of light, they are spirits of darkness. But my driver's attitude was completely different. To him this was a natural world, morally neutral, even with its own possibilities and allurement..."

Like Vasya, Zhenya suffered under the lack of an Idea, a "mythology of bulldozers", as he jokingly called it. He was appalled by the ugliness of the modern world, the monotony of the "seething cauldron". But to Zhenya things seem "alive". Society may be "a dead swamp", as Vasya put it, but it sure is fermenting! I think this observation is significant. Things are rare. They are "obtained" in unlikely places and unexpected ways. For society is irrational and unpredictable as the weather. It follows mysterious laws, which one can merely accept.

- "Yesterday there was lots of sausage, lo-ots and lots! But today there's nothing..."

Suddenly the corner store is closed for remont ("repairs"). No one tells you when (or if) it will open again. Nothing seems to be going on behind the closed doors. It is not strange if things seem "alive", with their own inscrutable wills and motives.

Seryozha and I arrived at a metro station. People were eating ice cream, and I said I would like one. He took a quick overview, and led me speedily through the seething mob, directly to a vendor's trolley hidden away in a corner. Afterwards a polite young man approached us eagerly: "Excuse me, where did you buy that ice cream?" His eyes were wide-open as a child's. "Over there! See the queue?" said Seryozha.

The atmosphere in situations like this is hard to convey. The young man's excitement, Seryozha's businesslike manner, the need to notice nuances in the milling crowds and make use of them, are more reminiscent of a "hunt" for some mysterious prey than buying and selling at the market place (cf. Chapter 2, Part C). You don't "buy" oranges; you "catch" (or trap?) them (lovit'). And because of bottlenecks and stoppages impeding flow, some of the things you "hunt" for (buses, sausages, books, ice cream) have an uncanny tendency to "occur" in "flocks" - there's lots of oranges, or none. Never leave the house without a sumka (an empty hand-bag). You need it like a hunter needs his bow.

Thus, on the one hand, people complain that the world they live in is monotonous and meaningless - things are "dead". On the other hand, they act as if things were alive. But this is only a seeming contradiction. For as I pointed out in Chapter One, rules have no independent reality. Things only have permanent shapes and qualities if and when we act as if they do. Rules are there only because (and as long as) we obey them. Conversely, the less we follow a rule, the more discontinuous and "flickering" the entity it bounds will seem to be, until it fades altogether into the Unknowable. Indeed, as Nietzsche states:

"It appears clearly that the most important thing in heaven and on earth is to obey continuously, and always the same directive. In the long run this results in something that makes life on earth worth living, such as virtue, art, music, dance, reason, spirit, something with power to change, something refined, insane or divine." (quoted in Camus 1942, p.66)

By obeying a rule consistently, we "solidify" it, enhance its reality and "charge" it with legitimacy and meaning. We increase its Density. As Winch (1970) points out, this is the essence of ritual. Ritual is a state of mind and a way of acting that takes a certain framework (a rule) as given, and proceeds to contemplate it - as a necessary, inescapable reality, something that cannot be avoided or changed. For the aim is not to change, not to gain power over things by understanding their "how" and manipulating them to obtain specific goals. Ritual is not engineering. It seeks the "why" of things - to give them meaning - and to do this it must first accept that they are (as with death). Western society is Dense, and therefore highly ritualistic. This fact is often unrecognized, but that is because our ritual - e.g. as embodied in the ideas of materialism - is instrumental as well as contemplative.⁸¹ We seek the "why" through the "how". We seek to give meaning by controlling change. Density - which makes such control possible - is taken for granted, and subordinated to the all-important goal of increasing modernity and Depth. This contradictory endeavor is embedded in the most essentially Western institutions - from democracy and science to "politeness" and self-realization in a career.

In an Open Texture, where rules are weak and society tends to lose its clarity and definiteness, the art of charging rules ex nihilo, creating ritual from scratch, becomes a prerequisite of life. But Openness not only necessitates ritual creativity, it also supplies exceptionally favorable circumstances for innovative ritualization. Indeed, William G. Grey, a practicing occult magician, asserts out that active ritualization must proceed ex nihilo. One must attain a state of "non-being" before an edifice of reality is erected, or else one has little control over what enters into it (1969, p.23). I thus agree with Vasya that there is a unique, though chaotic, creative potential in Soviet society: "This is where the new Idea, the new Spirituality will be born", precisely because "there are no external social forms to receive the spirit". Vasya's Idea and Zhenya's "mythology of bulldozers" arise from an extremely fertile soil for ritualistic and symbolic creativity. The paradox that "things" seem both "dead" and "alive", devoid of meaning and overflowing with meaning, must be interpreted in this light. I suggest that the two sides of the paradox reflect two methods of ritualization, two ways of charging symbols ex nihilo, which I call absolutism and animism.⁸²

The absolutist is a Gatekeeper, a builder of Islands, who establishes Barriers and regulates flow through them by any means at his disposal. Anything outside the Island is "dead" to him, since it is irrelevant to this endeavor. He creates meaning by the ritual of repetition, by insisting on some fact, statement or design again and again, until it is known and accepted by all. A mere fragment will then (metonymically) trigger the same response as the whole. In this way, his Barriers are consolidated into a secure defense.

By building Islands, the absolutist fragments society and undermines general rules. Nonetheless, he often uses typical symbols of standardization as material for his Barriers. Indeed, they are eminently suited for this purpose, since they are instruments of power and may co-opted to divert power to further the absolutist's ends. We recognize this pattern in the dekan's insistence on formal rules earlier in this chapter, or in the transformation of bureaucratic institutions into vedomstva (cf. Chapter 2, Part C). Both examples negate the fact that general rules are mere "tools" of an overarching, general order. Both co-opt the "purpose" of this order to suit their own, self-defensive and insular needs. But the only reason why this "diversion" is possible in the first place is that the absolutist operates in an unmediated hierarchy, where "power is divorced from its object". The symbols of standardization are very often in fact empty - "purposes in search of a tool". The absolutist supplies a "tool" - his own Island - to which the "purpose" can be attached. But the power of the "purpose" is derived from its general, integrating function, and when it is used to segregate a single Island from the whole, its power is decreased. Repetition must therefore maintain an illusion of standardization while in fact undermining it. This is achieved by confining it to a very small repertoire of expressions - increasing "monotony" and simulating standardization, without promoting coordination.

This explains the scant vocabulary of kul'turnost'. There are so few formal expressions, because they are used for informal, self-defensive, purposes - but one must still be able to refer to them as "the rules" - the common ground uniting us all. The same mechanism is seen in ideology, where Soviet unity is emphasized by using a very small selection of symbols: statues of Lenin in uniform poses, the monotonously angular propaganda style derived from the futurists of the 1920's, Pushkin as the Father of Russian Culture, the Great Fatherland War, the old wooden churches of Kizhi, stories of ancient Czars. Such symbols are constantly repeated, in media, books, entertainment, schools and propaganda, as well as by common people. But they are a very mixed bag, and the "ideology" they proclaim is a patchwork. Efforts to unite it into a consistent system are suppressed, and discrepancies between its "orthodox" and popular versions are never discussed. To do so would be to undermine the illusion of the absolutist, to demand actual integration of a system, which merely claims to be integrating, while in fact it is geared towards self-defense. This more than anything brings out the contrast between repetition and standardization. The symbols listed above have a surface similarity with those utilized in the early days of the Western European nation state (cf. Sinding-Larsen 1983; Habermas 1962, Anderson 1983). But in the Western bourgeoisie these symbols were synthesized into a logically coherent ideology, which served as a basis for national standardization. In contrast, Soviet repetition establishes the "myth of the monolith" by a random series of reiterated postulates.

When absolutism fails, people must accept Limbo and utilize it to their best advantage. Gatekeepers are supplanted by Middlemen, symbols of standardization by symbols of specialization, the exclusive absolutist by the inclusive animist. The "hunting" mobility of the labor force (cf. Chapter Two) and the wary improvisations of the Stalker both exemplify this role. The animist moves along Paths in a weird landscape of objects, which "blur" unpredictably, sometimes conforming to an accepted rule, sometimes not. These objects are "tools without a purpose", dropped by their craftsmen and left to rot and ferment and develop a "life of their own". Once they were formed by power into specialized tools, but since they are hardly ever used as such, they have no unambiguous and clear meaning. But they may be given meaning, put to use in certain ways, if you look at them askance, give them another "slant". This precisely is the ritual of the animist, which I call expansion: not to insist or repeat, but to coax, bribe or wheedle into being something only slightly different, but very useful. The tolkachi (Chapter 2, Part B) are immediately brought to mind.

Thus, if the absolutist co-opts the "purpose" of standardization, the animist uses specialized "tools" in an unspecialized way. By slightly "twisting" these abandoned tools, expansion changes them, without rendering them unrecognizable. "Getting off now?", the standard password on the bus, is expanded into: "Excuse me, you aren't getting off at the next stop?", or simply: "Getting!?" (Vykhodite?). A slight nuance, but an expressive one, where there is so little variation to start with. The same method is used in ideology. Lenin is always Lenin, but he appears in a variety of poses: Lenin speaking from the armored car at his arrival from the West, Lenin hiding out in Razliv, Lenin conversing with the workers of Petrograd. Slogans are varied within the same strict limits: NAROD I PARTIYA EDINY! (the people and the party are one), expands into: THE UNITY OF PARTY AND PEOPLE IS THE WELLSPRING OF ALL OUR STRENGTH, THE PLEDGE OF ALL OUR VICTORIES!

The diversity of the animist is not functional. It is a kind of ornament, embellishing the monotony of the public facade. In fact, just as repetition undermines standardization, expansion is opposed to specialization. Its real purpose is not to reduce its objects to "tools" in the hands of a larger whole, but to concentrate all functions, all diversity into a single tool - just as the specialized vedomstva take on as many functions as possible. But after this, the tool no longer is a tool, sharply limited to one application, but a small, autonomous world in itself, a thing with "its own life". This sets clear limits to how far expansion can go. It creates different versions of the same thing, never anything new, never a specialized tool subservient to the "purpose" of the whole within which it is put to use. And to get away with this, the animist needs the protection of the absolutist's Barriers. The two are mutually dependent, and the animist cannot challenge the restricted vocabulary. You sculpt Lenin in many poses, but never in a nekul'turny one. You criticize individuals or instances, but these are exceptions (which, more or less, "prove the rule"): "Certain members of our collective...", "In spite of great advances...". Animism is inclusive, it cannot disavow those who "belong" - that is the role of the absolutist. But once again, the illusion must be kept up. The animist claims that his symbols are indeed specialized "tools": the One Lenin is in fact many - political debate is in fact real.

It is clear that the absolutist can only indulge in repetition because general rules are weak. Had they been strong, he could never have co-opted their "purpose". But since "power is divorced from its object", he can divert power to protect his own Island. But for this very reason, the Barriers of his Island are weakened. They collapse when they are needed most, and the animist unavoidably breaks out of them in many ways - all subversive. For like ornament on a gothic cathedral, expansion cannot be contained. This makes the Spartan repertoire of repetition singularly vulnerable to caricature; as compared, for instance, to Western advertisement. If "things" seem "alive", this is a result of animistic "twists and turns" gone rampant, controverting the absolutist's Barriers. People react to this with a mixture of resentment, suspicion and humor:

Aleksey came to an unknown city and was looking desperately for a toilet when he eyed a gigantic statue of Lenin pointing. Beneath hung a great, red banner with the text: "You're on the right road, comrades!" And sure enough...

Lenin had come to life and taken on a nekul'turny pose without asking anyone's permission.

Dethroning a symbol of unity is therefore a touchy affair: Borya told about a massive statue of Stalin near his home. After Khrushchev's denouncements it had to be removed. But it was too heavy. So the workers dug a grave and toppled it into it. Borya wondered what future archaeologists would make of this.

The uncanny, even sinister humor of such stories is a natural result of the poverty of the absolutist's repertoire. There can be only One Lenin, One Stalin. They figure exclusively in certain poses, which are well known throughout the country. The slightest divergence is immediately obvious, but impossible to avoid, since they are surrounded by the chaos of Limbo. Lenin and Stalin must "do or die". They are either true or false - as the absolutist affirms. If (or rather, when) the illusion breaks down, the symbols come to life, choose their own truth and falsehood - subverting the tenuous order they supposedly represent. The only alternative to a Stalin in power is a buried Stalin. The animist promptly buries him - literally.⁸³

So while materialism explicitly propounds a rational and instrumental ideal, it implicitly makes statements of a ritual, almost religious nature. Its attempts at establishing uniformity - in state legitimacy as in kul'turnost' - have an incantational quality, closer to myth and magic than to rational and secular concepts. For they are used and maintained by absolutists and animists, whose main concern is not power, but meaning - not Depth but Density. As we shall see in the next chapters, this is not their only purpose. Power is of course a major concern as well. But in the search for power, the powerholders themselves find that they cannot retain their position without a stable, legitimate base. Thus, the search for Depth is subordinated to the search for Density, the search for "how" to the search for "why". For the absolutist does not integrate a wider collective, but confines repetition to one Island of meaning, one circuit of flow: a single symbol, an uzky krug of friends, or the Soviet Union. The animist "expands" this Island by covering it with "many versions of the same thing" - subordinating the same area of flow to many overlapping rules. Together - "balanced" one against the other - they thus increase flexibility (cf. Chapter One), create fragments of a Denser, more legitimate social order. If they were in truth concerned mainly with modernity and Depth, as they claim, they would strive to extract flow from many Islands and reduce each one of them to a functionally specialized segment of a larger, coordinated whole. Absolutists and animists would be concerned with units of different scale and different degrees of generality, with a search for compromise between general and specific rules. But in fact, they both limit themselves to their own Island and seek to increase its Density, to enhance and solidify its meaning as opposed to the rest of the world.

Public communication and state legitimacy are thus confronted with the same basic dilemma and seek to resolve it in the same way, through a "balancing act" between repetition and expansion. They are different aspects of the same Quest for meaning, for a unified and harmonious Idea, an "external form, which can receive the spirit", and they attempt to build this Idea by ritual charging of symbols ex nihilo:

The absolutist charges symbols with the secret knowledge that opens Gates and gains you access to his Island of meaning. The animist charges symbols by personal responsibility, the integrity and strength needed to face an unpredictable world and master it. It is when the two roles are balanced that meaning emerges ex nihilo, and Limbo is focused into a new Idea.

In both cases we are struck by the "circumstantial" character of the meaning obtained. It is an exception to the rule, something achieved in spite of society, rather than because of it. Society is the raw ore out of which meaning is refined, not a giver of ready-made roles. Both absolutist and animist are charismatic figures - people with a mission,

"... natural leaders... holders of specific gifts of the body and spirit; and these gifts [are] believed to be supernatural, not accessible to everybody... [They] stand outside of this world, outside of routine occupations..." (Weber 1922, p.245-48)

E. The Arithmetic of the Masses

Soviet society is easy to caricature. The extreme exclusion of absolutists is so obvious, the subtle inclusion of animism so difficult to nail down. But most people "balance" inconspicuously, slipping quietly in and out of "warmth" and "coldness" as necessity demands. In the same way, two of the most important aspects of Limbo, danger and uniformity, are more striking to an outsider, whether visiting from the West, or like Vasya, living on the fringes of their own society, than to a "native". Life is mostly humdrum, commonplace. In the midst of insecurity, people knit together a more or less consistent, ad hoc world. They stay out of danger by keeping to Islands and Paths, and acquire great proficiency in defending their little territories and avoiding missteps. And when Limbo must be faced, it can be tamed - to a limit - by the "magic" of repetition and expansion.

The main object of complaint is neither state dominance nor Limbo's "danger", but the tyranny of trivia, small worries, dripping faucets, time lost in queues, bureaucratic stupidity and waste, shortages of necessities, or the disappearance of some treasured luxury. Trivial problems are forerunners of invading disorder, danger and monotony, but as long as they can be staved off, life continues peacefully enough and worries are suppressed. Limbo isn't dangerous, it's "a little dangerous", a faint undertone of dissonance, which most people, most of the time, accept without much questioning and probing. In the same way, monotony often has the soothing effect of things secure, predictable and well known. Danger and lack of variation are compensated for by particularly strong attachment to a few items and activities.

So society is neither all "ugly", nor "ugly" all the time. There are few amusements and luxuries, but those that are, are established and fortified by repetition, deepened and widened by expansion. They take on a traditional, "given" quality, which is touching and amusing in a low-key manner that is very hard to convey. Leningrad has Nevsky Prospekt, the White Nights, the bridges and canals, the Hermitage. Seen from the outside, it is indeed a beautiful city. But in the Soviet context it is not just a city, its beauties not mere sights. It is an important and good Place to be, unique not merely in that it gives a different "experience" from other cities but because it cannot be compared to anything else. It is one of The Experiences, like the Lenin Mausoleum, a vacation at the Black Sea, the Mountains of the Caucasus (which, to Westerners, are "more or less like the Alps"). Foreigners are often irritated when Russians point to such "Experiences" as if they were unique. Take ice cream: Soviet ice cream is simple and wholesome. It's universally available, inexpensive, and one of the Things One Eats if one feels like indulging a little bit. In cities, the ice cream parlor is an institution. White wine is served, and champagne. In the mid-80's, even the most stylish of these establishments, on Nevsky Prospekt, is supplied with no more than two flavors (menus list 10-15). Still, lines are always long - in part because of the faded, old-fashioned, nice interior. It is one of the Places One Goes, and many people's motivation for going is probably not so different from why they visit the Hermitage, where the public is often strangely "folkish" for an art museum. But it is not an art museum, it is the Art Museum. It is kul'turno to visit The Museum, eat Ice Cream, pay homage to the Embalmed Lenin. This does not mean that I revoke anything said above. I believe danger and monotony to be critical to people's lives. If they are usually able to cope anyway, this is merely a sign of the extent to which they have adapted to and mastered their circumstances.

The essential condition for this adaptation is an attitude of "readiness" or "awareness" (bditel'nost'). Limbo is constant ambivalence. You never know whether expansion or repetition, "warm" or "cold" behavior will be demanded, and you must notice and be ready to switch from one "mode" to the other on short notice. Sometimes informality in a formal situation (at work) furthers your interests. Other times it gets you in trouble. You have to be aware - keep your "balance".

One of my strangest flashes of insight came while getting on a train with Natasha. We were both slightly drunk and in excellent spirits, the train was full... but were there no seats left at all? Lots of people got on at our station, so we had to move fast. I followed Natasha at a half-run down the isle, from car to car. Further along there were fewer people standing, fewer in front of us rushing to find a seat. It seemed to me that it would be possible to calculate mathematically (from the number of cars in the train, the number of people seated and the number still ahead), whether or not the rush was worth it. If there were many people up front, the last car would be jammed, and we should find a nice Place to stand soon. A good observer could estimate all factors involved in this calculation from what he could see around him. For instance, since people had been streaming forwards at every station, a glance at the lucky ones sitting could tell you if they had been sitting there long (=few seats ahead), or not.

To make out in this disorderly, seething world, you must make calculations of this kind (not that it would be literally possible in this instance). If things and institutions are sometimes "alive", sometimes "dead" and immovable as a brick wall, you must be able estimate their behavior and place yourself strategically in relation to them. This is the arithmetic of the masses. For Vitya, it was a way of life and a condition for survival. But it can be an entertaining game as well: An eye for the anatomy of crowds tells you "where the ice cream came from" (what direction are eaters moving, how fast, how much do they have left of their snack?) - or which queue moves faster, where to "reserve a place" (zanyat' ochered') first.

"Paying attention" is a matter of economizing energy, moving fast or biding your time as needed. The first lesson in the "arithmetic of the masses" is therefore one of tempo: At times you chase away from "danger", at times hang back and wait. The crowd is quick and slow, patient and impatient. People on the street either "hurry" (speshit') or "stroll" (gulyat'). When "strolling" the atmosphere is languid, calm, even sluggish. The babushki gossiping in the sun, the couple out with their dog seem to have all the time in the world. You feel they are not part of the bustle around them, that somehow they don't even notice it. People waiting rarely show impatience. If you have to wait, you have to wait, there's no way around it. They stand immovable, shifting their weight from foot to foot once in a while if it's cold. The massive, bloated women are like mountains. But when the bus arrives or it's their turn in line, whenever something can be done, speed is immediate. Poshli! young people say: "Let's go!", literally: "We have (already?) left!" It sounds like a command, and implies that there's no time to lose. You are pushed and jostled from every side. Sometimes people grab hold of you with both hands and hang on.

A Norwegian friend took his polite old father on the trolley. The man let all the old ladies on first, then the doors slammed in his face and the bus left without him.

But "speed" isn't just a way of acting; it's an attitude, related to exclusion and "coldness", an impatience with anything one considers bothersome or problematic. Attempts at starting a "difficult" discussion, on subjects like politics, are often met with expressions like: "There's no sense in digging into it." (Ryt'sya ne stoit.)⁸⁴

Sonya, a student of ethnography, introduced me to an old woman in Dagestan by reeling off a five-minute lecture about "who-we-are-and-what-we-want-and-would-you-please-answer-this-young-man's-questions". Then she left, never letting the woman have an opinion about the proceedings. Her attitude was clearly that this was all empty formality. The woman wouldn't understand anyway, so why bother?

The opposite of "fast" attentiveness, is rest, otdykh. Vacation is otdykh. So is the slow stroll, staying out all night watching the bridges rise in summer, eating and drinking with friends, visiting museums or traveling to see old Russian churches. In spite of Masha's flowery description of how she spent the holidays in "active, saturated rest", otdykh is basically leisurely and "slow". One does not ask, "how did you spend your vacation?" (did you "profit" from it?), but simply: Kak otdykhal? (How did you rest?) Otdykh means attentiveness can be relaxed, "problems" ignored. And like being "fast", "slowness" is an attitude - of calm, related to the self-contained inclusion of "warmth":

One evening as I was waiting for the Metro, a newly wed couple strolled arm-in-arm down the platform, she dolled up in white with her wedding bouquet clasped to her breast, he in his (slightly faded) best. Some friends followed. There was laughter, talk, someone had a guitar he would pluck on once in a while. The atmosphere was unselfconscious, comfortable, commonplace, with no emphasis on the ceremony and importance of the occasion. They were prosto returning from their wedding, like others come home from work.

"Slow" and "fast" movement are aspects of "warmth" and "coldness", and hence of repetition and expansion. "Serious" behavior "on the bus", curt exchanges of "passwords", the hurried retreat from the public sphere, are "fast" - insisting on Barriers. Prostota has an inherent "slowness", a tendency to ornament and elaborate endlessly that Nadya called Russian "inertia" (inerciya), Sasha K. "sluggish peacefulness", and Vasya the capacity to "endure power".

But when we reduce the definition of "warmth" and "coldness" to neutral terms of tempo we notice weaknesses in the approach I have hitherto applied. The core in this approach was an understanding of Limbo as a "weakness of general rules" in modern Soviet society. The absolutist defends himself against this weakness by being "cold", the animist envelopes you in "warmth" when danger is banished. In this frame of reference, all behavior becomes a reaction to the danger of Limbo. We are left with Vasya's image of a harassed, fear-ridden multitude with no values beyond the need to survive from day to day. This is caricature, and the time has come to search for ways to avoid it. Clearly, the caricature has a certain, limited, validity. It describes an aspect of what it means to be a Russian today. A word often used to evoke this aspect is tolpa, the "mob". Vasya described the tolpa as "featureless, unthinking". Nina Mikhaylovna condemned its nekul'turnost': "The tolpa can't even rear children. They feed them oranges and bananas - vitamins, never consider reading a story!" But everyone also agreed that Russia is more than a tolpa. This becomes obvious if we take a closer look at the notion of "tempo":

First, the dualism of "fast" and "slow" motion is perhaps not merely a response to modern society. Traditional Russian folksongs, for example, may be divided (very roughly) into three broad types: Some are long drawn, melancholy, plaintive, "wide" (shiroky). Others are eager, quick and sometimes humorous. A last group starts slow and finishes fast, or the other way around.⁸⁵ In all cases, there seems to be a clear preference for the extreme tempos. Perhaps, therefore, the "fast" and "slow" behavioral forms we have discussed above as mere "responses " to the exigencies of the modern situation have their roots in traditional esthetics? Perhaps they are indicative of a style or habitus (Bourdieu 1972) that is valued in its own right? And if this is true of "fast" and "slow" movement, might not the same be said of "warm" and "cold" behavior - of expansion and repetition?

Secondly, the two tempos are reflected in ideology. People are exhorted to conform to ideals of efficiency and mobility, in work, sports, school. On the other hand, they are enjoined the virtues of patience, endurance - the stoicism of the soldier in battle, of his wife awaiting him at home. "Fast" and "slow", "cold" and "warm" attitudes are thus explicitly encouraged by the state, as well as being spontaneous responses to disorder.

This allows us to suggest the following hypothesis: The "balancing act" of expansion and repetition, "warmth" and "coldness", may occur in at least three different forms. Aside from being a response to the Limbo of modernity, it has a basis in traditional values, and in the policies of the state. Russians are a formless mob: a tolpa, as they have been described above. They are a traditional culture, a people: narod, to which we will turn in Chapter Five and Chapter Six. And they are "the masses": massy, cajoled, idealized and threatened by the state to support its goals, as the next chapter will attempt to show. Of course, a closer look at what exactly is meant by "fast" and "slow" behavior in these three cases will reveal discrepancies of content. But the same formal traits seem to repeat themselves: the sharp dualism, the two tempos, apply to both tolpa, narod and massy.

This is the second lesson of the "arithmetic of the masses", more subtle, but no less important than the first: The mob, the people and the masses are inseparably entwined in daily life, and any concrete instance of "fast" or "slow", "warm" or "cold" behavior incorporates all three. In the anonymous mobs, jostled together by "enforced pluralism", this is particularly clear. The tolpa seeks a connecting link, a focal point, around which to center its action. The fragile, but charismatic roles of kul'turnost' are the closest we have come so far to defining such a focus. But the fundamental reason for the inadequacies of kul'turnost' is that the tolpa has no unified identity. It is itself a "balancing act", between narod and massy - in fact, one might argue that the tolpa is nothing but the field of tension between narod and massy, as kul'turnost' is the intermediate zona between public and intimate behavior.

This is the ultimate problem of both state legitimacy and public behavior. It implies a different (or perhaps not so different?) definition of Limbo - the raw ore out of which absolutists and animists refine their Idea. A legitimate public order must encompass both narod and massy: tradition and modernity. It must balance the two against each other, for only in this way can it give meaning to the tolpa - the formless, intermediate field - Limbo. I have emphasized that state legitimacy is only an ideal - kul'tura. Just as kul'turnost' represents a potential balance and harmony between public and intimate behavior, kul'tura stands for a potential balanced unity of state and people. Like kul'turnost', kul'tura seeks to establish meaning in the midst of Chaos, meaning ex nihilo. The history of this ideal, and of the real balancing act of state legitimacy, is the subject of the next chapter. But before we proceed to this discussion, I shall describe an incident which sheds some light on the relationship of narod, tolpa and massy:

May Ninth - Liberation Day - is perhaps the most popular public celebration in the Soviet Union, providing an outlet for Russian nationalism, ideological loyalty and even semi-religious veneration of the dead,⁸⁶ all in a splendid pageant with fireworks, marching bands and streets swarming with festive people in the most beautiful month of the year. A Russian Orthodox Christian friend said that it was a celebration "for the people (narod), not the Communists". If there is any time when the conflicting identities of narod, tolpa and massy should be able to join forces, this must be it.

On Palace Square, in front of the Hermitage, the massive column erected by Alexander I still rises, crowned by an angel bearing a cross, leading the Russian legions to victory. The buildings around are draped with gigantic posters of Lenin, Andropov and the "toiling masses". The bands will come up Nevsky Prospekt and end their march here. There are still few people.

While we wait, a young man with an accordion and a sailor's cap takes a seat by the column and starts to play. People collect in a tight little circle. A girl jumps into the ring and starts dancing. The player shouts: "Hey! Is this the only woman in Leningrad who's not ashamed?" "Could you please repeat that," a woman taunts him, "what did you say you wanted?" Everyone laughs. A man tries giving him a ruble for his music, but he shoves it away. Soon others are dancing, among them a kind-looking old man with two medals and a dreamy look in his eyes. "Narodnoe gulyanie!" someone laughs.

A police officer forces his way into the circle. The man beside me mutters, laughingly: "They'll cart him off now..." The officer tries to stop the accordionist, but the narod is clearly against him, so he gives up. As he turns to leave, the musician lifts his instrument and calls: "S prazdnikom!" We laugh, one man even claps. The officer slinks off.

The square fills up. Police cordons form parallel lines along the marching route. Our circle dissolves, as people find places along this straight way. The circle is becoming a line. The musician disappears, so does the dancer with his two medals. I keep back, absorbing the festive air.

By chance I find the musician among the thousands. He's lost his hat, he's cursing and struggling while the police drag him off. Then the bands emerge from Nevsky, drawing all eyes towards them, away from the man, who lost his protective circle.

They march, the police cordons pull up smartly behind them, and the corridor is obliterated by the seething crowd, swelled by a wave surging up from Nevsky. At the end of the square the vans swallow band and police, and in few minutes "we" - many thousands of us - are left on our own. By chance I run across the dreamy old dancer. He gets in line before a cart selling bear and sandwiches. I step in behind him, intrigued. He's talking to a younger man; his voice is warm, childish:

- "There'll be bands now, and we'll dance!"
- "Nothing will come of it."
- "Yes, there'll be bands and dancing."
- "I'm sorry, there won't."
- "There's always dancing bands on the Ninth of May."
- "I said no!"
- "There'll be dancing... We just have to..." (he rubs his fingers together - i.e. "We just have to pay a little.")

- "Believe me, there will not. I don't know how it used to be. If they were going to play they would have started already."
- "But why? - Zachem?"
- "Now that I do not know..."
- "Three years ago they played. An army band came at seven and we all danced. But not last year, not the year before. I'll wait and see."

Later I drank a bear with the dancer and talked for a while. He had no idea I was a foreigner. He reminisced about his mother, who died during the Blockade - "I cried...", about Stalin, at whose death he had also wept. About his love for Lenin, who "I never met, but..." About his son who had got in a fight, like a fool, and he decided to help him out: "They gave me 8 years for that, but then they let me out after only 3 years, since I was such an excellent worker." Later, both his son and daughter moved away somewhere, he didn't even know where they lived now. In 1978, someone stole his watch and all his war medals. "Except these," he added, touching the two on his breast, with a smile. Then he told me about last Easter when he had been to church: "Oh, how beautiful it was! There used to be a church over on Maly prospekt too, but they closed it. Zachem?" He complained about modern youth and all the foreigners in town. And he spoke of his love of music, and the incomprehensible fact that today, of all days, there would be no dancing.

This incident became a parable to me, evoking in every detail the fate of the narod, the tolpa and the massy. The balancing act that failed, the haunting symbolism of the intimate circle (a "dvor") that became a formal line (a "prospekt") and then a swirling, formless mob ("zona"). The pointless abduction of the young musician (who, I noticed, stopped the officers just as they were passing out of view, and seemed to offer them money - did he get out of it, I wonder?) The old man with all his questions: "We dance," he seemed to say, "or watch the army bands. But we no longer dance to their music. Zachem?"

Chapter Four: The People and the Party

The Russian revolution is inevitable. It is just as inevitable as the sunrise! Can you stop the rising sun? [...] Russia is a loaded gun at full cock that can go off at the slightest concussion. Yes, comrades, the time is not far off when the revolution will hoist sail and "wipe from the face of the earth" the vile throne of the despicable Tsar! [...] Let us reach out our hands to each other and rally round the Party committees! We must not forget for a single minute that only the Party committees can lead us as we should be led, only they will light our way to the "promised land" called the socialist world! The Party, which has opened our eyes and pointed out our enemies, which has organized us into a formidable army and led us to war with them, which has never deserted us in joy or sorrow and which has always marched before us, - this is the Russian social democratic worker's party. And it will continue to lead us, only it!
(Yosif Stalin 1905, p.78-79)

In this chapter I shall attempt to give an answer to the sad dancer's zachem. We have noted that unmediated polarization leads to a sparse and ambivalent repertoire of "intermediate" roles (kul'turnost') and weak state legitimacy (kul'tura). In their Quest for a harmonizing Idea, in their charismatic balancing act of expansion and repetition, people must charge symbols with meaning ex nihilo. It is when balance is lost that the dancer's zachem comes forth with particular urgency. But to understand why this happens, we must outline Limbo's origin and development - attempt a historical analysis.

This will rest on two central premises. First, that Soviet history is the story of a sudden and violent spurt of modernization, which was started off not by forces internal to Russian society, but by pressure from abroad. In Fried's (1960) words, it was a process of secondary evolution. Secondly, all modernization produces higher-level general rules and increases power. But since general rules are sustained by flow extracted from lower levels of integration, modernity must induce people to see submission to power as natural, inevitable, even ethical. Modernization - increasing Depth - is inconceivable without maintenance of a minimum of Density. Power presupposes legitimacy.

"A fool of a despot may force his slaves with iron chains. But the true politician binds them much faster by the chains of their own conceptions. He fastens the shackles to the solid ground of reason, an anchor which is securer the less we know of its nature, and the more we believe ourselves to be its originators." (Servan 1767; in Foucault 1975, p.95)

There is an inherent contradiction between these two factors. For when the force producing modernization stands outside society, few groups inside society have vested interests in it. By the very process of building a vaster hierarchy of general rules, legitimacy is undermined. In contrast (following Fried again), the pristine modernization of the West emerged from internal processes, and the increase in Depth did not (as quickly, or to the same extent) "outdistance" the groups supporting it. Legitimacy was secure from the outset and the groups that opposed power were never in a position to threaten it seriously. Soviet development thus has much in common with modernization of Third World countries, where evolution is likewise forced from without and undermines its own legitimacy. In Developing countries, as in the Soviet Union, the fundamental problem facing modernizers is thus to locate reliable sources of legitimacy.

Two methods of achieving this present themselves. Legitimacy may be based on traditional social structures - ethnic, religious or political. Since these are more localized than the new general rules, they must be "generalized" to support modernization effectively: Symbols specific to one local culture are changed into tools of national standardization (this process is discussed by Sinding-Larsen (1983), with Norwegian folk music as an example). This transformation was relatively painless in Western Europe, where standardization of local cultures had gone on for centuries before modernization began in earnest. But where cultural heterogeneity is great, "generalization" of a single tradition into a universal rule of power inevitably leads to conflict with other traditions, which may threaten modernity fundamentally, as Øivind Fuglerud (1986) shows in his analysis of political legitimacy on Sri Lanka. In the Soviet Union, with 178 officially recognized national groups at the time of the 1926 census (Bromley 1977, p.484), no single tradition was sufficiently strong to serve as the sole base for modernization, and the new legitimacy had to be established on another basis: A "foreign" ideology (Communism) was imported, and all traditional segments of society subjugated to it. The weakness of this approach is obvious: the "imported" legitimacy had no roots in tradition - no mythology, no time-honored economic or political hierarchy on which it might rest. The monolithic and transnational Communist ideology, the ideology of the massy, was therefore forced to "balance" itself against the traditions of the narod with which it uneasily co-existed.

To understand Soviet modernization we must therefore clarify the nature of the components out of which this balancing act was constituted. Weber (1922) has described three ideal types of legitimacy, which I interpret as follows:

Bureaucratic legitimacy is found in modern, Deep societies, where specialized roles and institutions are integrated by a standardizing general rule, which motivates for and governs competition for "offices" in a mediated hierarchy.

Traditional legitimacy - typical of small-scale, Flat societies - rests on the multitude of shared interests in a group with highly multiplex, un-specialized roles. Authority is allocated on the basis of kinship, age, gender, shared history and religion.

These types are legitimate in the "true" sense - they are an expression of Textural Density. The stability of bureaucratic offices, for instance, presupposes a mediated hierarchy. In contrast, charisma is a "substitute legitimacy", arising in Open societies to compensate for lack of stable, "sorted" roles and institutions on which true legitimacy must be based. Charisma is an ideal harmony projected into the future. But here and now it is fundamentally unstable - a balancing act of past and future, tradition and modernity.

Soviet modernization was based on an unstable alliance of all three types of legitimacy: A bureaucratic component formulated in imported, "Communist" terms, viewing the people as massy - an international, ahistorical community. A traditional component, in which Russian tradition - the narod - played a leading role. And a charismatic component, an ideal of balance between bureaucracy and tradition - kul'tura. When the balancing act fails, narod and massy merge into the tolpa, suspended in the unmediated "vacuum" of Limbo. Only by stabilizing this infirm conglomerate could modernization succeed - and partial failure, if modernization was not immediately successful, was inevitable.

Soviet history is short, violent and contradictory. Graphs 1-7, showing the development of secondary education and party membership, demographic swings, energy, grain and steel production exemplify some aspects of this process, and a simple periodization may be outlined on this basis:

- 1914-28: These were years of war and social disorder. Population declined, urbanization receded (Graph 2, Graph 7), industrial production stagnated (Graph 3, Graph 5), grain production (Graph 4) plummeted frighteningly, education levels rose slowly (Graph 1, Graph 6).

- 1928-53: Stalinism produced a surge forwards in all sectors but agriculture, broken only by the calamities of collectivization, famine and the Second World War.

The final recession is universal, affecting every sector from heavy industry to food consumption (cf. Table 8). By the end of the 1980s, the results of this crisis had become obvious for all to see, but even in 1983, the effects on daily life were tangible: In Leningrad, cheese and butter were available only at certain times and places (if at all). Five years before all stores had them. The "fish day" observed by cafeterias was said to have been discretely exchanged with a "non-meat-day". Prices had risen. Officially there was no inflation, but reports to the contrary were insistent (Table 8D). Many increases were indirect: A kilo-loaf of bread evidently weighed less than before (0.8 kg according to one source), though it cost the same. And most striking of all,

"In the early 1983 the CIA publicly confessed its inability to detect any rise in the rate of Soviet military hardware procurement (in real terms) since 1976. CIA analysts concluded that total Soviet real defense 'output'... had been rising at only 2 percent a year, instead of the previous 4-5 percent." (Hanson 1984, p.3)

Since the military was a very high-priority Island (see Chapter 2, Part D), and the recession coincided with the Afghanistan war and increased East-West tension, this is strong evidence of the magnitude of the crisis.

This recession (which increases shortages and is thus a symptom of the increasing predominance of Limbo), cannot be properly understood except as a result of secondary evolution and the weakness of legitimacy, as outlined above. In this chapter I shall therefore describe the development of legitimacy in the course of Soviet modernization. The first section touches briefly on the forces, which initiated the process. The next three sections describe the interaction of charismatic, bureaucratic and traditional legitimacy. Finally, I return to the effect of these processes on people's lives today. Soviet history is the history of the genesis of the massy, and is therefore a key to understanding certain aspects of Limbo. Others, however, must be traced to sources in the Russian tradition itself - the narod. These are treated in Chapter Five and Chapter Six.

A. Dies Irae

The most important single event in recent World history is the rise of Capitalism. The origins of this development go back to the early Middle Ages (Anderson 1974a). Nevertheless, as a full-fledged economic and political system, Capitalism attained its final form much later: Historians often describe the final transition as a staggered process, reaching completion in various Western countries at different times - from the English Revolution in the 1660's to Bismarck's unification of Germany in the late 19th century. It seems necessary to re-appraise this view. Indeed, it may be argued that the great sociologists of the 19th century (who originated it) had an incomplete picture of Capitalism, since at their time Capitalism had not yet reached maturity.

This immaturity of 19th century laissez-faire Capitalism is revealed by the fact that it was contained within the political borders of a few nation states. But Capitalism is a non-political mode of integration. It subjugates society to the abstract and general rule of the anonymous market, which is almost entirely independent of conscious, political control. The market has therefore not reached its final form until it has outgrown political boundaries and become a World Market. In contrast, the so-called "international" market of the 19th century was dominated by British trade monopoly. But the depression of the 1880's heralded a new situation. The productive capacity of the capitalist nations had by then saturated the export market, and powerful industrial nuclei (Japan, USA) were emerging outside the original Capitalist Center. Violent wars followed, starting in the Periphery in the late 19th century and culminating in the two great 20th century World Wars. Mature Capitalism - which emerged from this worldwide transformation - differs from Early Capitalism in two respects:

First, internationalization and war eroded the nation state and established a World Market. Non-participation in this market was impossible. All nations outside the Western Center were drawn into its orbit, and the "entrance fee" for new nations was steadily raised. Secondary evolution spread to every corner of the globe, but as it spread, the inherent weakness of its legitimacy in the afflicted Peripheries steadily increased.

Secondly, with enhanced international competition, Western producers retreated from the external market, and emphasized production for the internal market (Sejersted 1973, p.69-73). Increased wages; service institutions and welfare; monopolies and state economic participation; diversified production; marketing and information management, were notable consequences. By such means, the legitimacy of Capitalism in the West consolidated, disproving (at least for a while) the Marxian prediction that it would be destroyed by internal contradictions.

Thus, the Capitalist Transformation created a new general rule - a rule of power -, which step by step forced every traditional culture in the world to participate in modernization. In the Center, from which development proceeded, this led to heightened legitimacy. In the Periphery, legitimacy was undermined. The legitimacy that developed in the Center was bureaucratic, in the sense defined above - it arose out of a Deep, but mediated textural hierarchy, ultimately subordinated to the general rule of the World Market. Since the same general rule extended to the Periphery, legitimacy was here also potentially bureaucratic. But here the general rule was superimposed directly on tradition, with no intervening Density. The result was an unmediated hierarchy, where bureaucracy co-existed in constant tension with tradition and charisma.

A ripple in the outskirts of this vast movement was a coup staged by a group of activists in Petrograd, November 6-7th, 1917 - in which a Mass Party of Workers (numbering 76,000 and led by avant garde intellectuals), modestly took on the leadership of 169 million peasants, soldiers and restive minorities. But the Revolution was part of the Capitalist Transformation, not a product of ideology. It occurred in a country, which was definitely Peripheral, and it could not have occurred at all without pressure from abroad. Social structure in the Russian Empire was too archaic to produce Capitalism autonomously. The administrative hierarchy had hardly changed since Peter the Great (Durman 1983, p.40). Serfdom, which in the West was succeeded in the late Middle Ages by more flexible and efficient forms of exploitation (Anderson 1974b) survived until 1861-64, and even on the eve of the revolution only 20% of the peasants were in fact emancipated (Kerblay 1977, p.92-8). All classes had vested interests in the old order.⁸⁷ The peasants resisted urbanization successfully, most of the bourgeoisie was anti-modernist, the state discouraged all change. Russia was a latecomer to modernization because there was no autonomous internal power strong enough to force the issue.

Modernization came in spite of this, as a result of pressure from abroad. By 1900, the world market had made substantial inroads: Russia had a 3.7% share in world industrial output in 1870, 5.5% by 1913. The factory labor force trebled to 3 million between 1895 and 1917. Cities grew, the need for capital increased and was met by loans and export of raw materials and foodstuffs (85-90% of exports in 1914 (Dobb 1948, p.37)). Economic infiltration was succeeded by military pressure, and when the State itself at last sponsored industry on a mass scale, it was because it faced an immediate threat: Social reform was introduced after catastrophic defeats in wars with capitalist neighbors, proving beyond doubt the inadequacy of the old order and its economic base.⁸⁸ After the Crimean war, the emancipation of the serfs followed, after the Russo-Japanese war, the Stolypin reforms of 1906. Russia was in this respect a typical Developing Country - a feudal society forced to modernize, and racked by the attendant contradictions: Only 10% of the workforce was employed in industry, but enterprises were unusually large.⁸⁹ Kerblay (1977) points out that large factories are a typical "shortcut" of late modernizers (p.173), and that their very size makes them unusually vulnerable to strikes (p.210). Similarly, Russia was the world's greatest grain exporter, but rural reform only strengthened the sedentary mir (Dunn 1967, p.11-12). Abolishment of serfdom produced millions of seasonal laborers, finding no security outside their village and drifting back to it after short-term employment elsewhere (Dunn 1967, p.10; Kerblay 1977, p.56). Living standards declined as over-population increased. Finally, the intelligentsia, as avant garde as the factories (and for the same basic reasons), was restive and more violently inclined than its counterpart in the West (Deutscher 1949, p.210).

Beneath the old structures, a vast storm was building. And just as outside pressure created the storm, outside pressures released it - war with capitalist nations, in the throws of their next "pristine" transformation - which ultimately, as the saying goes, would "unify the world". Limbo is this Whirlwind. The bol'sheviki did not create it, and they could not govern it. Proclaiming freedom, they merely legitimized chaos in formal terms. Had they failed in this, they would have been swept away in few months, like Kerensky before them. All they could hope for, was to ride the storm till it was spent (Deutscher 1949, p.179).

Along the peripheries of the empire, independent national governments sprang up, mostly anti-Soviet. Cossacks marched against the Donbass, one of the bolsheviks' strongholds. The Ukrainian state blocked the relief. The Soviets attacked (Deutscher 1949, p.200). Foreign forces intervened, and the country plunged into civil war. Steel production sank to 5% of the pre-revolutionary level (Graph 5). In 1921, drought and famine struck. Grain harvests fell from 86 to 27 million tons (Graph 4). Forced requisitioning and peasant revolts followed. In 1918-19, 60% of the railroad mileage was in the hands of White armies (Dobb 1948, p.99). Provision transports failed, people fled the cities: Urban population fell by 25-30% (p.100). Direct population losses "...may have been in excess of 14 million, to which at least ten million lost births should be added" (Matthews 1972, p.10).

The bolsheviks were convinced that their role was to "hold the fort" till the real Revolution took over in the West. This view promoted loyalty and discipline, and justified many expediencies. Moreover, from a historical perspective it was in a sense correct: The Party was indeed the "vanguard of World Revolution" that it claimed to be, riding the Limbo-storm that Western Capitalism had created, professing an ideology developed in the heartland of the West. But it was not the vanguard of anything in Russia. The popular revolt it rode on the back of was itself reactionary, directed against the destructive forces of modernization. Only Marxism was progressive, foreseeing the demise of the old order and many characteristics of the new. But it mistook necessity for Utopia, evolution for progress. Mature Capitalism in the West, and State Capitalism in the East, with their mass institutions and mass culture, are the Communism of real life. All Marx's vision of the future lacks (though it is essential to his historical analyses) is power. In both real versions power is evident enough.

The fundamental question of Soviet history is thus not one of ideology, but of power. How was power sustained? How did legitimacy develop, and from what? I treat this question in three stages, describing in turn Charisma, Bureaucracy and Tradition.

B. Culture, Charisma and the Warrior State

A classical example of charisma is the Melanesian "cargo cult", which expects gods, ancestors, or, for example, President Johnson, to arrive on the Last Day with cargo - the produce of Western civilization. Such movements arise out of culture contact. An autonomous traditional order is supplanted by conflict between tradition and modern Western values. Wilson (1975) calls this dysnomy, which, in the Soviet situation, corresponds to Limbo. The charismatic leader is a Messiah figure who steps into the void, promising a new synthesis, a new Idea, and the dominant focus of legitimation is on this function of harmonization, rather than on the leader's person (Worsley 1957; 1968). The leader is thus "created" by the people's need, at times quite literally, as when a child, madman or dead person is leader. He is an impersonal focal point, a catalyst for a fragmented world, in whom the assurance of ultimate harmony is embodied. Charisma is thus inherently unstable. The leader demands faith and obedience of his disciples, who want signs and miracles to prove his status. If the last need gains the upper hand, the leader is discredited. If faith predominates, charisma is sooner or later "routinized" into a set structure. Only the tenuous bond of a shared mystery of expectation ties the leader to his disciples.

Charisma is therefore dependent not merely on a vision of a harmonious future, but on accentuating the disharmony of the present. It must be exceptional, must transcend and break all laws. Limbo is made universal, that the leader may be suspended in it. In this state of suspension his chimerical visions of a New Heaven and Earth become self-evident and inevitable. Charisma is syncretistic and transitional. It smashes worlds, and builds the New out of the shards left over, for the new cannot be built where the old survives. Lévi-Strauss (1962, p.16-36) has coined the term bricoleur - a handyman, assembling tools from whatever materials are available. The bricoleur is not a Messiah. The first is typical of Flat, Dense societies - an agent of traditional legitimacy, improvising because he has few specialized tools at his disposal. His tools and symbols are multifunctional, but stable. The Messiah arises in an Open Texture. He is absolutist and animist - balancing old and new against each other and charging symbols ex nihilo. His efforts spring from an acute lack of coherence and meaning in the world that surrounds him, and the tools - symbolic or real - that he creates, are functionally restricted and extremely fragile. They are dependent on instability, because their only content is the promise to do away with it - create the new Idea. We are on our way - to "the 'Promised Land' called the socialist world", and "only the Party committees can lead us as we should be led..."

In Russia the old order was crushed by pressure from abroad - war and the "imported" ideology of Communism. In a historical perspective this destruction increased mobility and made room for the emergence of a new, more powerful general rule. But until this rule was established, society hovered in a vacuum - Limbo - into which the intelligentsia stepped, the creators of the new Idea, kul'tura, the ideal of balance between state and people - the new massy and the old narod. The 20's - full of experiments, splintered values and shining hopes - saw the birth of this new Idea. Their catchword was mobility for its own sake - uncontrollable and free. Lidiya Fyodorovna called it a "thoughtless, lightheaded age".

"'I have... henceforth freed myself forever from human immobility, I am in constant motion' (Vertov). This is a culture of displacement, of changeable fortunes, of disequilibrium, of instability. This is 'eternal struggle, permanent revolution, the earth upturned'. It won't do to 'stand and sit, you must inevitably be drawn upward, downward to the depths, you must be drawn against your will' (Punin). Your eyes 'are forcibly attracted to those logical details that must be seen' (Vertov). This is 'the instant of a creative race, a rapid shift in forms, there is no stagnation, only energetic movement' (Malevich)." (Paperny 1982, p.45)

Later, this release would be redirected into overarching channels, and the subtle emphasis on force in the quote be taken literally. But as yet, Limbo seemed to presage nothing but the glory of interminable freedom and change. The charismatic "balancing act" is essential to the Party's legitimacy. It has been said that the Slavophiles and Westernizers (cf. Chapter 6, Part D) were united in Bolshevism (Deutscher 1949, p.212), in which a "Western" avant garde placed itself in the forefront of a rebellion of "Asian" peasant masses, realizing the deepest hope of the Slavophiles by the opposite of their means. One of them wrote of this hope:

"The blind historical process has torn us loose from the people. Like all so-called civilized human beings we are alien to it, but we are not its enemies, for with our hearts and mind we are with it... Oh, that I might only flow out into the people's grey and coarse mass, drown myself without trace in it, but at the same time retain that light of truth and ideal, which I have attained precisely at the expense of the people." (N. K. Mikhaylovsky, in Kolstø 1982, p.77)

Bolshevism in its early form and the kul'tura of the 20's are expressions of this unstable balance of opposites. They spring from a charismatic base. They are syncretistic, not only in substance, but in form - as epitomized in the montage-technique of Eizenshtein's films. At the height of the Revolution, Aleksandr Blok wrote his poems Skify and Dvenadcat'. In Skify, Russia is history's sentinel, guarding Europe from the nomadic hordes. But,

"... from now on we are no longer your shield, from now on we go no more to war".

"... while you still live, while you still toss in sweet agonies" - come to us, "come to the brotherly feast of work and peace..." Or else, "we will watch... with our slanted eyes, while the furious Hun burns your cities, drives his flocks into your churches, and roasts the meat of white brethren on the fire!" (1918b)

In Dvenadcat', twelve hooligan Revolutionaries march through the flying snow of Petrograd, shooting at anything that moves, while the Old World snaps at their feet like a mangy dog.

A white figure appears "...before them - with a bloody flag, invisible in the blizzard, untouchable by the bullets, stepping tenderly upon the storm, as a pearly scattering of falling snow - before them goes Jesus Christ." (1918a)

This is Messianic syncretism on a grand scale. The Revolutionaries shall be the Apostles when East and West shall meet. It is beautiful, it is utopian, and it represents an intensity of commitment, which, in view of what followed, is directly painful to contemplate. Perhaps this is why Irina protested so violently when I suggested that the West might profit by assimilating something of Russia:

"No, there must be no synthesis! It is impossible. The West has the active life, Russia the life of prayer. The yearning for synthesis is the Tower of Babel. We are split and speak many tongues. We cannot reach heaven."

"He's a great poet, but dangerous. I used to think he was harmful, but now I see he was prophetic. He was a medium who passively mirrored the spirit of the people. But he is dangerous - for he had no strength of his own, he was just an expression. Light and darkness live side by side in him."

The importance of the Party lay in its extremism, its exclusiveness, in its difference from everything else. With no real stake in the tangled mass of contradictions that ruled the day, it could stand outside and represent the new Idea - kul'tura - the Messiah. The storm was too disunified for anyone but extremists to survive. And when the storm's power was spent, the extremists could not be unseated by such a fragmented population. They were unique. There was no other alternative to the formlessness and chaos of Limbo. As Trotsky said, on the eve of his own expulsion:

"The party in the last analysis is always right, because the party is the single historic instrument given to the proletariat for the solution of its fundamental problems. I have already said that nothing would be easier than to testify in front of the party that this is all [my] criticism, all the announcements, convictions and protests, - all of this was simply an error. But, comrades, I cannot say this, because I do not think so. I know that I cannot be right against the party. One can only be right with the party and through the party, since history has created no other paths to realization of historical justice. The Englishmen have a historical saying: my country - right or wrong. With even greater historical justification we can say: true or untrue on particular questions, in particular instances, but it is my party." (Trinadtsaty s"ezd RKP(b) 1924, p.158)

The party sprang from chaos, forced from without. No power could unseat it, because no unified mass movement ever existed. It would have failed in the West, where social homogeneity and class-consciousness were further advanced. Its existence depended on insecurity and fragmentation, and when Stalin set about establishing stable power structures, the utopian ideology could not be abandoned before stability was secure. But neither could anarchy be tolerated. Charisma had to be encouraged, but controlled - its autonomy and pluralism curtailed without lessening its force.

Worsley (1968) points out that charisma is often "routinized" by projecting Utopia ever further into the future. Stalinism was a projection in space. Utopia became a question of expanding or defending frontiers, and millenarianism was clothed in a military metaphor. Internally, moving civilization into the wilderness, conquering nature, was a condition for Communism. Externally, the threat from abroad was its prime hindrance. The party established discipline without endangering its charismatic base, by defining itself as a Warrior State. But its war was paradoxical: If it vanquished chaos before a stable power base was built, it would undermine the ground on which it stood. It was an army at war with Limbo - and dependent on perpetuating it. Its war was a "balancing act" - and in this form, charisma survives throughout the Soviet era.

War is the supreme metaphor of Limbo, and state legitimacy is intimately tied to its suffering and heroism. The Great Fatherland War rightly bears its name. It is a shared history, which the Soviet people as such claims as its own. Even as late as in the 80's, the army brings together all segments of society, providing a tough, but shared experience, creating the nucleus of a Soviet identity that crosscuts ethnic and local loyalties (Kerblay 1977, p.168). The War, besides, is a metonym (pars pro toto) of all the suffering that the Soviet Age brought about, much of which was unmentionable. As the universally revered Vladimir Vysotsky said in an interview:

"[A lot] is written about how I include war songs in my repertoire. That's not quite the way it is... You know we are all brought up on material from the war... Everyone in our country has victims, dead or wounded, among their close ones, the war touched us all. These are simple words, serious and clear... The songs are written by a person who lives now, for people who mostly haven't either been through all of that, ... so it's clear they must contain something that made me write them now." (Vysotsky 1983b, pp.198, 207)

C. Examination, Privilege and the New Class

Stalin's age was ruthless and arbitrary, its effects contradictory. But its primary result is clear: Out of years of Tsarist mismanagement and civil disorder, in spite of latter-day mismanagement on an even vaster scale and a second great war, an industrial superpower was built by 1953. Thirty years later, during my stay in Leningrad, the ferment and pluralism of the 20's seemed distant indeed, and the time more like that of the Tsars than that of Lenin. The program that accomplished this transformation was expressed succinctly by Nikolai II's Minister of Finance in 1900:

"International competition waits for no one: we must take energetic and decisive measures if our industry is to be able to satisfy the needs of Russia in the coming decades... The rapidly expanding foreign industrial enterprises are planning to establish themselves on our soil; our economic backwardness could increase our political and cultural backwardness." (Witte, in "Istorik - Marksist", No. 2-3, 1935, p.130)

Stalinism was a case of secondary evolution. It was the first "National Revolution" to arise from the Capitalist Transformation: a revolt against the West, closing its power out and modernizing the country on the basis of its own resources.

Stalin correctly realized that the accelerating Capitalist Transformation made modernization paramount to survival. In the long run, only by erecting a new general rule, by standardizing society and focusing its energies towards overarching goals, could one neutralize the pressures of violence from abroad, disintegration from within. The intelligentsia had welcomed the Transformation to Russia, mistaking it for a harbinger of worldwide Utopia. To Stalin this was illusion. Like other successful second-generation modernizers - in Germany, Japan, the USA - he embraced a policy of protectionism. Developing countries that attempt to compete on the World Market seem almost invariably to be reduced to dependency. Protectionism instead erects Barriers against the Market and attempts to establish modernity from within. Stalin's closure of the borders is an extreme expression of this theme. But protectionism cannot ward off modernity indefinitely. It gives a breathing space, which may be utilized to build the new general rule. But since secondary modernization has no internal impetus, this new rule cannot emerge spontaneously, "from below". It must be forced, and historically speaking it seems that only the state is strong enough to do so. Late modernizers may thus compensate for economic "backwardness" by political centralization (Gerschenkron 1970), and in this perspective, our analysis of state power in Chapter 2 (Part D) attains new meaning: The state replaces the aggregate order of the market - because it is the driving force of modernization, the agent of a "revolution from above".

In the West, the market grew slowly, out of the increasing demands of numerous small-scale consumers with a wide variety of needs (cf. Habermas 1962). In Russia, there was only one monolithic consumer: the state. The state focused almost exclusively on enterprises of nation-wide standardization (defense and heavy industry), which developed at the expense of variety, small-scale units and the individual consumer's needs. Soviet modernization was completely dominated by the state's needs, and it was thus highly selective. While steel production increases rapidly throughout the age of Stalinism, grain production remains stagnant - and fluctuates erratically (Graph 4, Graph 5). Vast industrial conglomerates were "dropped from above" into an unurbanized hinterland: Even in the late 70's, 55.5% of the urban population lived in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, as compared to 40% in Western Germany; but with four times the population of the BRD, the USSR had the same number of small towns (pop. less than 10,000) (UN 1976, p.213, 236; Kerblay 1977, p.59).

Selective modernization thus generated an overarching infrastructure of vast institutional units, which was superimposed directly upon small-scale local communities. It produced a Deep Texture of rules without a Dense intermediate field: an unmediated hierarchy. The examples above reflect a systematic underdevelopment of all mid-range institutions and services. This, as we have seen in Chapter Three, corresponds to an incomplete sorting of acts, and a sparse and unstable inventory of mid-range roles and "offices". So although selective modernization was in a sense simply an attempt to "import capitalism" and "catch up with the West and overtake it", its results were too one-sided to produce stable bureaucratic legitimacy. In Western modernization, there was an intimate relationship between economic change and the transformation of basic values and attitudes - to time, morality and the individual's place in the community (cf. Löfgren 1979; Habermas 1962; Thomas 1971 etc.). The Western bourgeoisie first crystallized into a homogeneous class, and only then took over state power. In Russia, where no existing group had vested interests in modernity, people were forced to behave differently without changing their motivations. Massive movements of goods, people, ideas and information were brought about - by deportation, requisitioning and ideological pressure - in a society that lacked an overarching infrastructure in both material and spiritual terms. An integral part of this development was an attempt to "synthesize" a Western bourgeoisie, which could provide a stable source of bureaucratic legitimacy. The party thus built its own class basis. In Djilas's terms, it transformed itself into a "New Class":

"In earlier epochs the coming to power of some class... was the final event resulting from its formation and its development. The reverse was true in the U.S.S.R. There the new class was definitely formed after it attained power... It did not come to power to complete a new economic order but to establish its own..." (Djilas 1957, p.38)

As Foucault (1975) points out, an essential component of bureaucratic legitimacy is the examination system. This is a flexible and individualized means of determining a person's qualifications and loyalties, to "place him where he belongs" in the intricate web of "intermediate" roles and offices, which constitute bureaucratic legitimacy. Successive "exams" allow one to pursue a career, by advancing along a "ladder" of offices from the private sphere into positions of power in public. In this way, examination promotes not only individual freedom, but also social conformity. Examination, like the market, is a system of selection based on ordered competition.

Examination is an integral component of Stalin's New Class as well, but it lacks the autonomous dynamism of its Western counterpart. The New Class is bourgeois in that it unifies discipline with freedom. It is non-bourgeois, because its freedom is anarchic and charismatic, its discipline imposed by an external authority. Weber's "economic impulse within bounds" therefore does not aggregate spontaneously into an orderly bureaucratic whole. It is dependent on bounds set for it by the state, and disintegrates when these are threatened. As a result, the free competition for advancement through "exams" also loses its autonomy. The New Class is surrounded by Barriers, and admission to it is actively monitored by an external authority - which can override "exams", even at the expense of the requirements of the office to which one aspires. So if the ideal Western state is a unitary hierarchy of formal, bureaucratic offices, the Soviet ideal is dual: Bureaucracy is monitored by a second, controlling hierarchy - the Party. The Party's role, we note, is that of the gatekeeper, and this brings us back to the discussion of standardization and uniformity in Chapter 3, Part D: By imposing a system of controlled examination "from above", the Party is in fact not only promoting modernity and standardization, but co-opting the "purpose" of standardized tools as soon as they are built up, in order to defend itself as an Island. The basic reason for this is the weakness of state legitimacy, which necessitates a covert Quest for meaning side by side with the stated aims of modernization. But in its search for meaning, the Party undermines the logic of examination itself. Its Barriers are established not by competition, but by repetition, insistence, exclusion. The Party worker is not a bureaucrat, but an "absolutist".

The legitimacy of the New Class was thus a blend of examination and repetition. But its Quest for meaning often tends to overshadow the process of modernization. Since the old intelligentsia was too individualistic, it was exterminated. But the charismatic pathos of its kul'tura was too essential to the Quest for meaning to be abandoned. Instead, it was formalized and petrified by repetition into a rigid structure of "formulas" (official propaganda "art" derives from the once revolutionary style of futurism). Thus, a new kul'tura arose to fit the New Class - the massy. But the massy are not free, charismatic instigators of movement but victims of control, uprooted by an external force and tossed by it through history:

"Thus, people... lose their unattachedness in geographical space, but as a peculiar compensation, culture singles out specific persons who take on the heavy burden of movement, relieving all others of it... [T]he spectacle of a man torn from the earth creates an uneasy feeling... 'Locomotives tore across the country. A tormented whistle issued from their breasts: They couldn't keep up with the people. People took off, and nothing could stop them' (I. Ehrenburg). 'Time is condensed. It flies. It imprisons you. You must break loose from it, leap out of it. You must leave it behind. Time flew through them' (V. Kataev)." (Paperny 1982, p.50)

The architectural ideal of the 30's: Chained to the ground.
(Paperny 1982, p.48)

The new kul'tura is an uneasy blend of charismatic freedom and absolutist control: a vision of potential balance, of a new Idea, but stabilized and suppressed - kept "within bounds" - by the external authority of repetition, which enables bureaucracy to survive. This is why cultural policy played such a crucial role in Soviet modernization, and often seems to weigh more heavily even than economy. For by gaining converts to kul'tura, the party swells the ranks of the New Class, and a new generation, more numerous and less independent, is raised to replace the old intelligentsia (Graph 6). But the opposition of freedom and control remains, and the self-image of the New Class is deeply influenced by its ambivalence. According to Kormer (1973), the latter-day intelligentsia had made opposition a lifestyle, which was simultaneously a symbiosis with the state:

"The entire being of the intelligentsia is pervaded by a deep-rooted dichotomy" - a "dual consciousness... Though the gulf remains unbridged intellectually, it is crossed existentially by a particular kind of skeptical or cynical behavior, involving successive switches of consciousness from one plane to another, and by the extraintensive erasure of undesirable memories." (Vestnik RSKhD, No 97, p.102-3)

D. Clients, Relations and Tradition

Soviet legitimacy is thus a blend of controlled examination and militarized charisma. But a third factor has as great or even greater force: tradition. In the 20's, the old order was attacked by the charismatic ideologues. But traditional structures were vitally alive and resisted change. For modernization did not proceed from them, but from abroad. The consequences of this situation may be seen through an overview of rural, ethnic and family policy:

The 20's idealized city life and assumed that urbanization would follow as a matter of course. But in fact, urban population, after increasing from 9% (1860) to 18% (1913), stagnated or fell (Graph 2 and Graph 7). In May 1983 in Moscow, I spoke to the American historian Mark von Hagen, who had studied these questions in depth. He was convinced that there was hardly any urbanizing influence at all in the 20's: Contrary to what is often assumed, land reform did nothing to alleviate this trend - it may indeed have strengthened traditional rural society and hindered industrialization. By supplying subsistence agriculture with a secure economic base, it encouraged local self-sufficiency at the expense of state extraction and integration (von Hagen, p.c. 1983). In spite of the havoc wrought by the Civil War in rural areas, the result was therefore massive de-urbanization. The countryside offered greater security than the cities.

In the same way, ethnic policy failed at cultural modernization. True, written languages were developed for a score of Central Asian and Siberian peoples, and general literacy rose from 51% in 1926 to 81% in 1939 (Graph 6). But the intelligentsia were utopian internationalists: Since the World language would soon be English, alphabets were formed on a Latin basis. But modernization demands a standardized, national lingua franca, and Russian was the obvious choice for this purpose. By 1936 it was clear that World Revolution was not imminent, and Latin alphabets were exchanged with Cyrillic ones, nullifying years of painstaking effort. The process can, as L. I. Lavrov laconically remarks, "not be appraised unequivocally" (quoted in Bromley 1977, p.286).

Family policy shows the same trends: Aleksandra Kollontay proclaimed the emancipation of women, free abortion, divorce and marriage. Idealistic though they were, these reforms often reflected only stark necessity. More often than not, the reforms ran up against traditional values, with unpredictable results: In Vladimir a decree issued by the local sovet in 1918 made all women over 18 years the property of the state (Bach-Nielsen 1980, p.78). Free divorce was abolished in the mid 30's, after the rate had exploded to 440 per 1000 marriages, threatening the entire family institution (Table 9B). Mehnert's description of a youth collective illustrates the problems involved. Initially, "they were ready to start their human experiences at zero, 'like the first human beings'" (p.74ff). Everything was shared: sex, money, living space. They lived in true Communism. Then followed a gradual drift away from principles, forced by the exigencies of poverty and the need for order, and finally the Commune paired off into couples in the early 30's. Family policy threatened tradition without replacing it with modern alternatives.

Under Stalin the attitude to tradition changed. True, all modernization destroys traditional divisions to make room for new general rules. But Stalin's selective modernization was highly inconsistent in this respect. Where tradition conflicted outright with high priority projects it was ruthlessly suppressed. Where there was no obvious conflict, or where society was too underdeveloped for modernization even to be attempted, it was left to evolve more or less at random. And where it might enhance state legitimacy, tradition was actively encouraged. Most importantly, selective modernization established a formal order legitimized by repetition and examination in the public sphere, and suppressed tradition into intimacy, after divesting it of its public (juridical, political and religious) structures. Conversely, under the extreme conditions of the time, people could only survive by upholding tradition in intimate life. Soviet ethnographic studies (e.g. Pimenov 1977; Arutyunyan 1980; Boyko 1977) confirm this view, and even indicate that tradition has experienced a resurgence in latter years. This corresponds to my own impression: In Dagestan, where religious rites were rarely practiced and claims to political autonomy never voiced, traditional family- and community-oriented rituals (weddings, funerals) were popular and admired - and on this level people showed national pride very explicitly. Thus, as Kerblay aptly puts it,

"Soviet society may be regarded as a two-tier society: Each person belongs to a national tradition and inherits its language, but at the same time that individual has the feeling of belonging to a far vaster community..." (Kerblay 1977, p.49)

Our understanding of intimate and public behavior thus acquires an underlying historical significance. The public order of the massy is imposed from above and without. It is modern, imported from abroad, sponsored by the state, divorced from the people, "cold" - and therefore formal. The traditional order of the narod is suppressed into intimacy, but divested of its formal trappings. It is necessarily informal. Modernity is a general rule, dominating the specific rules of tradition, but there is no mediation between the two - formality and informality belong (literally) to different worlds. They are separated by Limbo - the void.

Out of Limbo the charismatic hope may grow. Repetition co-opts the power of modernity and uses its formal rules to defend Islands. Expansion diffuses outwards from a tradition, which has "lost its formality", its inherent bounds. The "freedom" of expansion, its "twists and turns", its ungovernable ability to make things "come alive", are a result of precisely this: It has no internal formality, no rule of its own. Together, repetition and expansion - controlled examination and suppressed tradition - co-opt the whole project of modernization, undermining the search for power and turning it into a Quest for meaning, for kul'tura, for the new Idea. The "balancing act" of repetition and expansion in fact negates power, transforms a hierarchy of levels into Islands of meaning. When this balancing act fails, the massy and narod are reduced to a mob - the tolpa - as we saw in the parade on May 9th.

But the nature of this balancing act varies greatly from nationality to nationality within the Soviet Union. The contrast is most noticeable between the North and the predominantly Muslim South. The Northern countryside was ravaged by selective modernization, and its traditional formal order (as embodied in the patriarchal extended family and the communal authority of the mir), were nearly obliterated by collectivization and raskulachivanie (liquidation of the kulaks). It is often supposed that this campaign, involving forcible deportation of millions and arbitrary shootings of hundreds of thousands, was an attempt at modernizing agriculture by enlarging farms. I doubt this. Certainly, the first years of misguided, incomprehensible bestiality were a failure in any and every sense and policy was later revised (Table 2). But it may be argued that the goal was never to modernize agriculture, nor even to increase agricultural production, but to drain the traditional rural community of all resources - human, material and spiritual - and destroy any formal order which might effectively resist modernization:

A middle-aged man told about a friend who was deported as a kulak (or so he thought, the reason was never specified), along with his whole village. In mid-winter they were left by a river, in the heart of the taiga, without tools or provisions. Many died, a few escaped (distance was the only barrier), the rest survived in the miserable shelters they managed to erect.⁹⁰

There is no conceivable constructive purpose behind the treatment of these people. If it had any purpose at all, it was consciously destructive, a frontal attack on a lifestyle too entrenched to die a natural death, yet not allowed to live. Deportation and hunger succeeded where the ideals of the 20's failed: They disinherited the peasant and forced him to leave for town. In a vast surge, urban population, at 18% in 1926, increased by 28 millions to 32% in 1939 (Graph 2). War struck again, but now people did not abandon the cities.⁹¹ The countryside was no longer safe. This more than anything indicates the bitter success of Stalin's policy.

This "success" was not only inconsistent, but based on inconsistency. The ostensibly "socialist" collective farm was nothing but a patched-up version of feudalism, designed for maximum exploitation without attendant modernization of agriculture. Kerblay (1977, p.92-8) observes that local sovets to this day carry on many functions of the traditional mir: distribution of internal passports (until 1981), corvee for upkeep of roads, collection of taxes, administration of local finances. Other aspects (which we have already discussed in Chapter Two) are even more striking: the weakness of money, prohibition of free movement, subsistence farmers cultivating the "lord's demesne" and keeping alive on tiny private plots worked in their free time. The survival of the family plot under conditions of "socialist agriculture" is often viewed as a contradiction in terms, but in fact it was a precondition for selective modernization. Without it, the peasants would simply have starved to death (see note 54).

This, among other things, is what is implied when we state that tradition was suppressed into intimacy. Formally it was denied, but informally it remained essential to both people and state. People were left to fend for themselves, and informal traditional networks of friendship and family became a prerequisite for life. This becomes evident when we contrast living conditions in the North and South:

Olya once took a cruise on the Volga. The ship docked at many villages and small towns, where people queued for margarine, and the waiters on board made shashlyki out of meat scraps, and sold them with a glass of wine for 1.5 rubles. People flocked around - for a taste of meat. "They don't even know what meat costs out there!" she exclaimed.

In Dagestan I was amazed to see common people living in (relative) luxury. I was told that living standards had improved vastly during the last twenty years, particularly in the 80's, when recession had racked the North, and (even more striking) in the countryside. Immense private homes were erected; cars, hand-woven carpets and other luxuries were commonplace. A man made a living repairing Western cars - Mercedes, BMW's etc. If roads weren't improved, he told an acquaintance of mine, he'd never worry about money. These differences have far-reaching demographic consequences (cf. Table 9A-D): In the North, families are small and divorce common. A Moscow survey shows that couples want more children (an average of 2.3) than they get (1.4). An important reason for the discrepancy is bad housing (50% of answers), which is also a major cause of divorce (Kerblay 1977, p.122, 126). In the prosperous South, families are large and stable. As a result, population is stagnant and rapidly ageing in the North, while still growing fast in the South. The economic consequences are serious, since industry is concentrated in the North, where labor shortages are chronic at any rate.

People's attitudes to the state also differed radically. In Dagestan the state was respected and admired, and similar impressions are conveyed by accounts from Central Asia⁹² (Krag 1984, p.23-4). In Leningrad everyone complained: workers, intellectuals, party members and dissidents. The dilemma of the North is that of selective modernization, which could utilize only the most easily accessible and developed resources. In human terms, these were found in the North, and particularly among Russians. Russians were on the whole more mobile and educated, more dedicated to the charismatic cause than most other groups. One might say that they were used - as an ethnic group, a tradition - as an instrument of modernization. They populated cities and manned factories, were sent as emissaries to the furthest reaches of the country (cf. Table 9G). Selective modernization overexploited such loyal and "developed" groups, and impoverished traditional Russian culture and living standards. "Russians have lost their roots," Nina Mikhaylovna said. "They're nothing but a mob (tolpa) now."

But as Vasya aptly put it, "all nationalities who live closer to the soil are better off." Many "backward" groups were left to themselves. They did not enjoy the scant benefits of modernity, but they escaped exploitation and control. Stalin evidently permitted an extensive black market in the Caucasus (Khrushchev 1970, p.284), and collectivization was not as rigidly enforced in the South (Arutyunyan 1970). Traditional networks therefore survived far better here. The prosperity of the South cannot be accounted for in monetary terms. Vasya confirmed the official fact that wages are lower in the South, but, he continued, it's easier to make a living "on the side". Mars and Altman's (1983) discussion of the role of tradition in Georgia's Second Economy confirms the view of a Danish specialist on Central Asia (Krag, p.c. 1983), that Southern prosperity was a product of informal barter, mutual help and family loyalties. In Dagestan as well, this seemed to be the case. Economy was a point on which people were consistently vague when asked (while they talked openly enough e.g. about politics), but great importance was placed on the honor and responsibility inherent in a large circle of "guest-friends" (kunaki) and a supportive family. And when the state (in the 60's) belatedly started giving priority to services and welfare, this contribution, though meager in itself, entered the traditional networks as an extra stimulus, and had far more noticeable effects than in the North.

Thus, selective modernization suppressed tradition into intimacy, where it survived in the informal organization of "friends and relatives". We have seen (in Chapter 2, Part B) how the Russian uzky krug diffuses into a wider field of informal contacts. The Second Economy is of course an important expression of expansion. But it is no secret that such "animistic" networks spread still further outwards, particularly in the South, where something very similar to a mafia (Blok 1974) permeates regional administrations, at least in the Caucasus (Mars & Altman 1983).⁹³ The survival of tradition therefore has fundamental political and economic repercussions, and the difference between North and South is only one aspect of this theme. Every Soviet nationality experienced modernization differently, and in no case has standardization been consistently enforced. Its power has instead been co-opted by local absolutists, who have permitted expansion (e.g. as corruption) to flourish on the basis of traditional social organization, values and networks. Indeed, selective modernization has in many respects tended to accentuate cultural differences and utilize them for its own purposes. It has transformed ethnic groups into Islands, instead of standardizing them.⁹⁴

Stalin's state therefore had no unitary basis of legitimacy. Policy was a charismatic "balancing act" between bureaucratic and various traditional legitimacies, one taking over when the others failed.⁹⁵ Thus, Fairbanks (1978, p.144) shows that each member of Stalin's inner circle built his power on a personal Island, an extensive network of clientage based on mutual support and loyalty. These networks spread throughout the state structure, and bureaucratic legitimacy was undermined by personal "fiefdoms" or vedomstva, which were protected against central interference by their patrons. Fairbanks points out that regional and ethnic networks must have been more stable than those based on specialized institutions (e.g. ministries, the police), since their internal legitimacy was more deeply rooted.

Russians were the activists of the "Revolution from above", and represented a traditional legitimacy-base of great power. During Stalin's reign, legitimacy was therefore increasingly constructed on a Russian foundation - even the Orthodox Church was to some extent encouraged, and loyalty to the Soviet Union and Russia subtly blended. In a broader sense, however, the leader allowed each of his lieutenants to develop a partial, often non-Russian legitimacy in their personal fiefdoms, because the support thus gained would ultimately devolve on the state - but he could not permit this independence to go too far, not only because it threatened his own supremacy, but because it might lead to total dissolution of the formal, bureaucratic order. So Stalin balanced Russian nationalism against "internationalism" (i.e. various non-Russian legitimacies), his lieutenants against each other, and the whole patron-clientage system against the bureaucratic rationale of a modern state. In this Byzantine court of intrigue and counter-intrigue, he became the archetypical absolutist and animist in one. The Quest for meaning and legitimacy became an all-consuming concern, and the technical problems of practical modernization degenerated into squabbles for influence and prestige between the various groups he balanced against each other.

It is fascinating to read such documents as Khrushchev's memoirs in this perspective. Since the Ukraine was Khrushchev's fiefdom, he was responsible for combating the famine there after the last World War. The situation worsened, and Kaganovich was sent from Moscow to "help him" (a clear threat to Khrushchev's position). On one occasion he visited a kolkhoz, which practiced a method of "shallow plowing":

"(Y)ou'd have to know Kaganovich and how he talked. He roared at him, at that kolkhoz chairman: So, you plow shallowly, do you! But he answered him in Ukrainian, I later got to know this Mogil'chenko, he's really a man who knows his stuff, he says - I plow like I should plow - jist like Ah oughter. He talked to him in Ukrainian. Well, so he said, now you plow shallowly, later you'll be begging for grain from the government! No never, he said, I never, he said, asked the government for grain, Comrade Kaganovich, I send the government grain myself, that is...

Well, so you see, Kaganovich was very alarmed by all this. He said, later he said, you know, I'm afraid he really will get a good harvest with his shallow plowing. Now, you need to know that, well, Kaganovich had just recently taken up the fight against shallow plowing, and the so-called... at the time there were entire trials against the bukery. And so the bukery, those who supported bukero, that is, were even, I think, sentenced and convicted and destroyed, well, yes. And here he was suddenly confronted with, that this shallow plowing, this was also buker-plowing, that is, although that was just stupid, that is. At the time, I believe, this theory was popular, particularly in Saratov, this bukero, and there, I believe, some professor, I forget his name, I believe, he suffered, I believe, he was convicted, that is, - or went to jail or even worse than jail." (Khrushchev 1981, p.132-33)^95a

Stalin could not be challenged, but each lieutenant strove to increase his power in his own fiefdom, and to control information between it and the leader - each was both animist and absolutist in his own right. Often, as in this example, they would sacrifice all bureaucratic rationality for the purpose of defending their Island (cf. also Khrushchev 1970, p.99, 291). Stalin himself was of course the chief absolutist, controlling all vital decisions, keeping information of national importance from even his closest advisors (p.154, 205). In latter years he hardly moved from his narrow Moscow circuit, where all threads converged. Within this uzky krug he was the master animist, whose rule was achieved by informal and unstructured manipulation of subtleties: "I doubt that there has ever existed a leader in a similarly responsible position who has wasted more time than Stalin did, simply sitting at the dinner table, eating and drinking," remarks Khrushchev with endearing naivety (p.124). Djilas, a subtler nature, dispels this impression:

"There were no set rules for which members of the Politburo or others in high positions were to be present at these dinners. The participants were usually people who worked on projects that at the time were in the foreground, or concerned some specific guest. The circle was clearly very limited, and it was a great honor to be invited... Such a dinner usually lasts six hours or more - from ten at night to four or five in the morning... In reality, much of Soviet policy was decided at these dinners." (1962, p.64-70)

The abundance of hidden motives and counter-information undermined the stability of bureaucratic offices completely and made the "personal responsibility" and "secret knowledge" (cf. Chapter 3, Part C) of an emissary of the state more or less unlimited (Khrushchev 1970, p.171-2). Khrushchev recounts how he discovered the reason for a series of mysterious horse-deaths during the war. Only by appointing three independent and mutually controlling commissions, did he succeed in discovering that the cause was not sabotage but wet hay:

"We had won more than a mere victory for agriculture. It was a moral and political victory," he exults. "But how many kolkhoz-chairmen, agronomists, breeding experts and scientists had not lost their heads as saboteurs before I [!] stepped in and took over leadership to solve the situation?" (p.109-111)^95b

Soviet modernity was bought at a price we cannot comprehend: The Civil and First World War cost some 14 million deaths. Perhaps 7 million died from collectivization and hunger in the early 30's. Some 20 millions went to labor camps, and no one knows how many survived. Perhaps as much as 30 million died in the Second World War - some 1.0 - 1.1 million of these in Leningrad alone (Table 2, Graph 7). Modernization is always violent, and secondary modernization "from above" particularly so. But the needless suffering of Stalin's age cannot be explained by economic necessity alone. The crisis of legitimacy - leading to a virulent and destructive Quest for meaning, to perpetual squabbles for influence and prestige regardless of human loss - enlightens us somewhat in this respect. But only when we view these factors in conjunction, and add to them the pressure of invasion from abroad, do we begin to see how - if not why - the age of Stalinism could arise and endure.

E. Mothers and Sons

The legitimacy of selective modernization was a charismatic balancing act of suppressed tradition and controlled bureaucracy - expansion and repetition. In an ideal case, the three types of legitimacy might have followed each other in sequence - traditional society evolving into modern bureaucracy by way of a transitional, charismatic stage. But in the Soviet Union legitimacy was such a scarce resource that the three historical stages were cemented into a fixed organization of post-Stalinist society by three different principles. The "diachronic" sequence was compressed into a "synchronic" structure: Tradition was suppressed, and continued to function only informally. It remained rooted in the intimate sphere, from which it diffused by expansion into other areas of informal social organization (Limbo). Bureaucracy was seconded and over-ruled by a parallel hierarchy of control and privilege. The lifeless formality of its "foreign", modern rule was co-opted by repetition and came to dominate the public sphere. Secondary modernization did not integrate these two spheres, but polarized general and specific rules without mediation, increasing the violence and unpredictability of government and sucking tradition dry of its most vital resources. The Quest for meaning - where meaning was so scarce - accentuated this violence. But its essential rationale was one of balance and increased Density, rather than of power and Depth. Under less stressful international conditions, balance would perhaps have been achieved, Limbo might have been stabilized and the tolpa's energies would not have been wasted in bloodshed. But instead, Limbo - the social "vacuum" - remained inherently unstable, and only charisma could balance its opposed forces. Limbo, which arose out of revolution and cultural dysnomy, remains a battlefield to this day (i.e. 1986), even after the violent historical paroxysm has spent itself. It came to dominate the entire Texture of Soviet society, and was internalized by people as values and attitudes that shaped even their most personal lives. We must now take a closer look at how this internalization comes about.

Since modernization was to a large extent brought about by their efforts, the heritage of Stalinism is most forcefully felt today by Russians. But by exploiting Russians as a people, selective modernization has enhanced, not weakened their identity, their sense of mission and uniqueness. Though Russian language and culture is triumphant from coast to coast, Russians often feel (often with reason) that they have enjoyed few privileges as a result. But disillusionment springs not so much from contrast with other nationalities as from the direct effects of modernization on Russians themselves. In particular, the family has changed, and through it, the patterns of socialization:

Modernity effected Russian men differently from women. Men were the front-line soldiers in the battles of the Warrior State: In the Great Fatherland War and on the internal frontiers - building industry, filling the cities, digging the mines. They swelled the labor camps and prisons by the millions. This mass absence of males from their families has led to a general weakening of the male role, high rates of male alcoholism⁹⁶ and increasing male mortality. As late as in 1959, the European parts of the country had only 44% males due to War losses and other calamities. The inequality was later reduced, but in the late 70's the recovery rate slowed again, and life expectancy for males soon started declining rapidly (Table 9F). Russian men remain the main agents of controlled bureaucracy. They staked their lives for the "formal" order of the state, and were struck most heavily when its "forms" turned out to be empty. Their traditional role as authority figures has been supplanted by one of "cold", "foreign" formality. They became the clearest exponents of absolutism. The patriarchal Russian family has thus been divested of its male head, and even when present, the man is rarely able to make his authority felt at home (see below, Chapter Five, Section B).

Women were also drawn into the public sphere, and the percentage of working women in the Soviet Union is among the highest in the world (Kerblay 1977, p.30). But they were never "drawn out" as completely as the men. Women generally have less qualified and prestigious jobs, work closer to home, keep more flexible hours, etc. (Kerblay 1977, p.128, 188-90). They are left with an exhausting double workload, keeping house and a job outside it, but have retained a real responsibility for the home, which men have very often lost. Women have thus retained strong roots in intimacy. They are agents through which tradition is perpetuated. The state does little to lighten their burdens or increase their independence,⁹⁷ but has praised them as a locus of stability since the 30's. But since the traditional family has lost its formal order (e.g. its male head), they are also agents of informality and "warmth" - of animism.

The typical Russian urban family thus has a stable mother figure, a non-participating or absent father, one or two children, and very often a grandmother (babushka). In anthropological studies of urban black poor in the US, similar family structures - arising from many of the same causes - have been called "matrifocal" (Harris 1971, p.485-7). Primary socialization is thus more heavily dominated by females in Russia than in most of the West. One may object that parents, including women, have little time for children at any rate (Kerblay 1977, p.151-53). But this is not a valid objection, for two reasons. First, 25% of urban households are three-generational (vs. 5-8% in France) (Kerblay 1977, p.140-41), and in a majority of cases the grandparent is female. A Leningrad survey (Ruzhzhe 1983, p.49-50) shows that this figure is deceptively low, as cooperation between young couples and parents and grandparents is common, even when they do not live together.⁹⁸ Secondly, women occupy the vast majority of jobs in kindergartens, children's groups, elementary schools and nursing (Table 9E). Bronffenbrenner sees this as an expression of greater continuity between home and school than in the US (1970, p.50).

The values emphasized in this primarily feminine sphere are "warm", "informal" and therefore inclusive and collective. (Several mothers I knew said they had to go to bed every night with their children to get them to sleep.)

"Russians are accustomed to close physical contact with children... They show exaggerated concern to protect the child from all bodily harm. Yet at the same time children quickly learn to consider outside adults as uncles and aunts... which helps to soothe the child when left with other people... [Children] tend to confide more in their mothers, but get more understanding from their fathers when contact can be established, and Soviet sociologists would like to see rather more paternal influence in order to produce emotional stability in children who are overprotected by their mothers." (Kerblay 1977, p.151-54)

The literature indicates that sanctions in the family are mostly informal. Punishment is usually indirect, with emphasis on the child's having "disappointed" the parent and lost the right to love. Withdrawal of affection and exclusion from the collective are recommended educational methods (Bronffenbrenner 1970, p.23). Collectivity and informality are thus typical features of Russian upbringing, that create a closed sphere of emotional intimacy around the child and conserve tradition in the intimate sphere, but at the same time weaken its formal authority (see Boym 1994, Mørck 1998). Home life is intensely alive, but often undisciplined. Without a khozyain, it is animistic.

But the continuity between home and school that Bronffenbrenner emphasizes is dramatically broken by the transition to the public sector and secondary socialization. At one moment the child is secure in the intimate sphere and believes the whole world to be like it. Then, without forewarning, he is "drafted" as a "soldier" of the Warrior State, confronted with the "cold" of the external world. It is hard to generalize about when this "break" takes place, but some situations seem to be typical: starting work and discovering that opportunities are not as golden as you thought; moving to the city; getting married early and seeing fluffy, romantic dreams dissolve in the trivial problems of daily life; confrontations with the authorities. The archetypical experience for men is military service (lasting 2-3 years, usually without leave).⁹⁹ For this and other reasons, the "break" affects men more generally and violently than women - an important reason for the weakened male role (the archetypical "break" for women is probably having children, which, however, commonly involves the woman even more deeply in family obligations, and which is therefore perhaps, on the whole, a less uprooting experience).

The "break" casts you out into Limbo. The problems of "making a career", the aimless and tiring "hunt" for a "Place", the "enforced pluralism" of cramped living quarters, dubious neighbors, queuing and dangerous work conditions - are all expressions of the history of selective modernization that produced a dominant social Texture of unmediated polarization and weak mid-range institutions. The key problem, however, is not material, but spiritual. For Limbo has two separate and opposite interpretations: In one version, you are brought up in intimacy and later fight to preserve it. You are an animist who must learn to become an absolutist - protecting the inclusive freedom of expansion by insisting on the exclusive barriers of repetition. You may be sent to the furthest reaches on the most Kafkaesque missions, but you are a soldier defending your Island, and you will wait and endure. But at some point, many, perhaps most, people suddenly "fall through" this interpretation into another.

"Sooner or later a man confronts an injustice or a lie so glaring that he can't keep silent." Then he speaks his mind, blurts out all the pain, and "experiences an unusual and lasting feeling of freedom and omnipotence." This continues until he is called in by "Nikolai Petrovich or Sergey Ivanovich, or, if worst comes to worst, Vladimir Fyodorovich", who tells him: "'My little man, you cannot crush the hammer with a whip!'" (Bukovsky 1978, p.64-74)

In some sense (not necessarily ideological) you grasp that life is "not the way we've been told". It is this mental revolution that constitutes the "break". Suddenly, for you, personally, society is no longer legitimate. The balancing act is disrupted. The exclusion of absolutism no longer serves to defend the inner freedom of animism, and your Quest for meaning is revealed to be subordinate to power. You become a specialized cog in the machinery of standardization - nailed to a hierarchy instead of negating it. But the "machinery" doesn't work. The hierarchy is unmediated. There is no way you can "compromise" between general and specific rules, as in the West. So you crash through the fragile structures of meaning into the Unknowable. Stalin on his pedestal is toppled into his grave.

Once one has "fallen through" there is no way back, no "art of compromise", no mediation between disillusionment and innocence, because the battle myth is charismatic and absolutist. You either believe in it or not. If not, you desert, turn traitor, are forced back into intimacy - feeling all the time that this is to betray it. For neither the public nor the intimate sphere is self-sufficient. Tradition and modernity, animism and absolutism, are entwined, and to retain your belief in either, you must somehow encompass both. You must "unify the two times" - not by an "art of compromise", but - as Stalin with his lieutenants or Vitya in his delo - by a "balancing act", which creates meaning ex nihilo.

I shall conclude with a conversation I had with Misha, a man who came to Leningrad from a city near Moscow to work - in a factory similar to the one I described in Chapter One. To him, this experience was a clear "break". He was cut off from his family and left on his own - suspended in Limbo, bereaved of his ideals of "human" relations. Our talk conveys the atmosphere of this state of suspension - of the tolpa without the unifying Idea of kul'tura.

I had been in Leningrad with a group of young Scandinavians, and Misha and I spent a week partying: girls dancing in gossamer dresses, men laughing, drinking, relaxing - smiles, friendship, wine and warm embraces. It made an immense impression on Misha. Now we sat alone in luxurious chairs on the 12th story of a Swedish-built hotel. Below, the city shimmered in winter mist, and the sun lay red on the horizon as we opened the portveyn he had brought, then bottle after bottle from the bar upstairs, and early next morning, when all other alternatives were literally drained, the Danish "Solberry" I was taking home with me.

- "You drink this for its taste," I explained hopefully. "Pour a little in a glass and just sip..."

- "Can I have the bottle?" he asked. "It's beautiful... the tiny brass cup on it. They don't make these things here."

Sure, take the bottle! Then I understood: the fine and special thing was the container, the fascinating form from abroad - not its contents. It reminded him of the human beauty he had felt when the foreigners were here. But he couldn't take it before it was empty...

Last night I asked how he liked his new job. He was happy with it, he said: "Work gives life rhythm..." Then he turned to me, earnestly:

- "I want to leave this place. Run away from it all. It's so bad for us here... The work, all that, it's so complicated. And simple. I can't describe it. It would take days..."

But his friend Sasha had described it concisely: After military service in Leningrad, Misha decided he would stay here. It seemed unrealistic, but he was lucky and got a lousy job in construction. Then he maneuvered himself to this factory, where he was even promised good wages: 300 rubles monthly. After two weeks he got 25 - they told him it was an advance. At the end of the month he got another 50 and that was that. But the most "complicated" part was the people. Sasha had worked a while as a guard at Misha's work place. As one of two who didn't drink heavily (of the guards!), he got so popular with his employers that he had problems leaving when he needed to move on to a new job.

I objected that there were some people who followed their convictions and lit up the drabness. He thought for a while:

- "Yes, there's Vysotsky. He's a new Pushkin. Vysotsky was honest. He was a saint... But he suffered! He had integrity and courage, all the rest were cowards... But no one understood him. They all think he wrote blatnye songs...¹⁰⁰ How is that possible? They don't understand him at all. Vysotsky fought. He gave his life, but wherever you look otherwise - everything runs out into drunkenness. You just can't imagine how bad it is for everyone here!"

- "I'd just like to... rest for a while. And then - to war...! I want to associate with people simply and sincerely (prosto i iskrenno). I want peace of soul."

- "But do you really think it will be easier to rest there? Weren't the days we spent here with the girls an exception?"

- "Don't you understand...? We were just friends, people together. It's an ideal. They're just people, so I love them. I love you too, because you also came from there. And if it should turn out... that it's as bad where you come from, just as rotten... then it's better just to take one's life."

He switched on the TV. To get him onto another track, I asked if he knew anything about the besprizornye, wandering orphans of the 20's and 30's, which I had recently read about.

The screen flickered, and we watched soldiers running through dense woods, a documentary from the War.

- "They keep showing that war. They live in the past - like my parents... My parents don't think of anything but the way it used to be, and how to survive today. They believe in that." He motioned at the screen. "I'm against the way my parents lived. It's terrifying to be so. I wrote to them about it and they answered - 'you don't read the kind of things you should'."

His father has worked in industry all his life. Fifteen years old he left his parents, who were peasants. He moved around, met his wife, moved to the city where Misha was born. They moved again, and again, and again, as the need for workers arose at the new factory sites. At last they came to Voronezh, where he is now a crane man.

- "I love my mother more than anyone," he said. "I have a younger brother. He works. Drinks and acts rough - never thinks about anything. It's easier that way. We have no contact, except through my parents. We're so few, and we hardly see each other..."

- "They all call themselves friend (drug), but few are. Most are just some kind of bottle sharers and acquaintances (sobutil'niki i priyateli). They're probably all lonely, but won't admit it."

Interlude: Father Peter and Tolya

"We live in hell, you live in heaven. But you're not living right, because you've forgotten about suffering."
(Tolya)

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