Making peace with war: adaptation and the soviet political economy in the blockade of Leningrad

The second half of 1941 was a story of shock, panic, and desperation. By 1942, the war and Blockade were a new normal, and the regime responded accordingly: devising responses that were more in line with that new normality, that did not overtly challenging existing institutional arrangements and power logics, and that could defend state power to control its citizens. However, other challenges persisted (which we address in forthcoming work): a growing economy of shadow exchange (some of which involved theft and speculation), tensions in control and autonomy of Blockade bodies, and a tension between formal discourse (especially propaganda) and civilian discourse (from letters to the authorities, to shadow talk) revealing potential contradictions and correlations between the political economy of control and a nascent moral economy of dignity and provision. Ratsionnoe pitanie, podsobnoe klhoziaistvo, statsionry, and the like were the easy parts of innovation, and they revealed that the regime could adapt -- when power was not so much at stake. What happened beyond that is another story to be told.

food leningrad blockade policy

Literature

1. An example of the first would be Nikita Khrushchev's sovnarkhoz reforms, intended to undercut the central economic bureaucracy. An example of the second would be the constant attempts under Leonid Brezhnev to harness the “scientific-technological revolution” or Iurii Andropov's use of cost-account (khozraschet) and disciplinary actions to reduce labor absenteeism (which Mikhail Gorbachev copied in his first years in power). In neither case do we see real adaptation to new circumstances in the domestic economic and global context.

2. Izvestia TsKKPSS, № 9, 1990, pp. 204, 213.

3. Lomagin N. V tiskakh goloda. Blokada Leningrada v dokumentakh germanskikh spetssluzhb, NKVD i pis'makh leningradtsev (St. Petersburg, 2014).

4. Some such lessons include: the immediate introduction of ration systems in all frontline cities; a hard monetary policy, including strict limits on cash withdrawals from saving accounts; and tight control over energy consumption, transportation of fuel and other vital resources by water, and extensive use of local resources, etc. In one form or another, these recommendations were made by the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) or other relevant branches of the government. This topic, lessons of the Winter War learned and not learned, demands its own separate study.

5. See instruction by Narkomat of Finance, “On cash withdrawals from savings accounts”, in Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (RGAE, Russian State Economics Archives), f. 7733, op. 26, d. 24, l. 92.

6. E. g.: Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga (TsGA SPb, Central State Archive of St. Petersburg), f. 7384, op. 36, d. 128, 129, 148, and 149.

7. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF, State Archive of the Russian Federation), f. P-6822, op. 1, d. 21, l. 16.

8. RGAE, f. 7733, op. 26, d. 26, l. 32-34, d. 78, l. 86-91.

9. There were additional secondary categories, or revisions of categories, that were not announced publicly: for example, extra food for Party members, nomenklatura, blood donors, and others.

10. Leningrad's Military Council emerged as part of this process, albeit with its own unique politics. See: Danilov V.N. Sovietskoe gosudarstvo v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine: fenomen chresvy-chainykh organov vlasti 1941-1945 gg. (Saratov, 2002).

11. Boldovskii K. et al. Blokada Leningrada v resheniiakh rukovodiashchikh partiinykh organov Leningrada 1941-1944 gg. Postanovleniia biuro leningradskikh gorkoma i obkoma VKP(b), stenogrammy zasedanii. Chast' 1: Iun' 1941 g. -- mart 1942 g. (St. Petersburg, 2019), p. 39; Danilov V.N. Sovietskoe gosudarstvo, p. 47.

12. Sobolev G.L., Khodiakov M.V. `Prodovolstvennaia komissiia Voennogo Sovieta Leningradskogo fronta v 1942 g.', Modern History of Russia, no. 1 (15), 2016, pp. 8-21. Archival materials about Food Commission decisions were declassified only recently. In his Leningrad v blockade (Pavlov D.V. Leningrad v blockade (Leningrad, 1985)) Dmitrii Pavlov made little mention of the Food Commission and its work -- perhaps because he returned to Moscow on January 18 and did not observe its working, and because Food Commission members were repressed in the Leningrad Affair.

13. Andreenko was not a member of Food Commission. His job was to supply the Food Commission with all needed information and then immediately implement their decisions as decrees of Lengorispolkom.

14. TsGA SPb f. 2076, op. 4s, d. 67, l. 12-13.

15. Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv istoriko-politicheskikh dokumentov Sankt-Peterburga (TsGAIPD SPb, Central State Archive of Historical-Political Documents of St. Petersburg) f. 25, op. 15, d. 150, l. 2.

16. Cf.: TsGAIPD SPb f. 4000, op. 20, d. 18, l. 20-22.

17. Ibid., op. 10, d. 1131, l. 1-5.

18. Ibid., d. 327, l. 8-9.

19. Ibid. f. 24, op. 2v, d. 5787, l. 27.

20. Ibid., l. 28.

21. Ibid., l. 29.

22. Ibid., d. 5835, l. 38.

23. Ibid., f. 25, op. 15, d. 150, l. 3.

24. Ibid., l. 2.

25. Ibid., f. 4000, op. 20, d. 74, l. 1.

26. Ibid., l. 4.

27. Ibid., l. 1, 3.

28. Ibid., f. 24, op. 2v, d. 5082, l. 6-7.

29. Ibid., l. 5.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., f. 25, op. 15, d. 150, l. 2.

32. Gosudarstvennyi memorial'nyi muzei oborony i blokady Leningrada (GMMOBL, State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Blockade of Leningrad) op. 1r, d. 30.

33. TsGAIPD SPb f. 4000, op. 20, d. 75, l. 1.

34. Ibid., l. 4.

35. Ibid., l. 2.

36. Ibid., l. 4.

37. For one account, see the diary of Aleksei Evdokimov: GMMOBL op. 1r, d. 30.

38. TsGAIPD SPb f. 25, op. 15, d. 150, l. 2. We should note demographic changes eased the food situation somewhat: the massive death toll and then civilian evacuation meant fewer mouths to feed.

39. Ibid., f. 24, op. 2v, d. 5888a, l. 12.

40. Ibid., f. 4000, op. 20, d. 57, l. 66.

41. Ibid., d. 40, l. 4-5.

42. Ibid., f. 25, op. 13, d. 27, l. 87.

43. Ibid., f. 4000, op. 20, d. 40, l. 26-27.

44. Ibid., f. 24, op. 2v, d. 5835, l. 6.

45. Ibid., l. 8.

46. Ibid., l. 12-13.

47. Ibid., f. 7384, op. 17, d. 651, l. 1-6.

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