Stephen Lovell: Shadow of War. Russia and the USSR 1941 to the Present. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 370 S. ISBN: 978-1-4051-6958-5

Stephen Lovell: Shadow of War. Russia and the USSR 1941 to the Present. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 370 S. ISBN: 978-1-4051-6958-5.

When it comes to the history of the 20th century, there are two defining moments for Russia and the Soviet Union: World War II and the collapse in 1991. The October Revolution, “is now almost an irrelevance” because the war casted a “shadow” over the later Soviet era. (p. 1/3). Therefore it is Stephen Lovell’s aim to write the history of postwar Russia and Soviet Union, taking “the period from 1941 to the present as a whole” and looking at changes and “signs of ‘normalization’” (15-16). Periodizations, such as “Thaw” and “Stagnation”, or a too teleological narrative of Soviet decline are to avoid. The result is a comprehensive book that definitely presents late Soviet and Russian history as a multi-layered complex of socio-economic structures, decision-making and arbitrary turnouts.

Lovell divides his book into eight systematic chapters that cover the modes of Soviet / Russian government (politically and economically), the society with its sociological trends and patterns of private life, the imperial governing of a huge territory with dozens of different ethnic groups, and the relationships abroad (geopolitically and culturally). Each chapter follows a chronological line that touches also most recent developments in Russia. Especially in the chapters dealing with politics, Lovell points out how chequered post-war (post-)Soviet history is, and that popular opinions on it have to be revised. During the war, for example, the Stalinist state managed to tighten its exercise of power and deepen the connection between the party and the population. But in the last years of Stalin’s reign violence and mass-participation retreated. For the era of “Thaw” under Khrushchev Lovell states that the system became more responsive to voices from below and more legally precise, but that at the same time the KGB expanded its workforce and scope of activity. And also for the rural population he can trace such a twisted approach: Its ruthless exploitation was stopped by Khrushchev, who tried to modernize the countryside by advanced work methods, education, and training. The internal passport system, however, which prevented rural migration and was conceived as a “second serfdom”, was reformed only in 1974 under Brezhnev, during his presumed reign of “Stagnation”.

In Soviet dealing with economic affairs there “was a gaping contrast between the long time horizons of the planning system and the short-termism of many actors”, as Lovell puts it. (p. 81) Such contradictions made economic problems and shortages of supply worse, and gave rise to an untransparent bureaucracy and to corruption. It was Mikhail Gorbachev who tried to solve these problems by increasing control over Party authorities via accountability and political freedom. In the end, his actions led to (quickly progressing) poverty, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of power structures under Vladimir Putin.

For his analysis of the Soviet impact on regions and ethnic groups Lovell revives the category of empire. Here, the war served as a pretext for purges, deportations of peoples, Russian settlements in assumed suspicious territories and other coercive measures, some of which were reversed later on. The identification label “Soviet” was not a clear-cut issue for the people living in the Soviet Union throughout the decades: As a code, it could mean “privileging of Russianness” and thus appear as a term to justify resistance in form of new nationalisms. But it could also embody offers of affirmative actions for marginalized regions.

In the empire’s dealing with the world abroad Stalin showed the most pragmatism towards the Soviet satellites in Central Europe and had no sense for the growing bipolarity in the world that affected mostly the decolonizing Third World. It was Khrushchev who created a “Third World interventionism” and introduced increasingly coercive policies towards Central Europe. In the end, it was again Brezhnev who stepped back from will-imposing measures as he granted more freedom to Poland and its civil movements, for example.

While all these chapters mostly focus on Soviet leaders, others deal with the rather impersonal category of society. For that, Lovell can state that the liberal concept of privacy is less appropriate to describe Soviet society. Instead, he focuses on a growing sense for one’s personal life, meaning emotional fulfillment, consumption and one’s own home, that can be traced in a modernizing Soviet and Russian society throughout the decades. In those years, Soviet culture was always, in one way or another, protected from Western influences.

In his book Stephen Lovell does not present any new archival sources, and sometimes the impact of the war on the described phenomena is not as obvious as claimed by the author. But by re-arranging known phenomena his fascinating book offers new and consistent perspectives on the last Russian and Soviet decades. It is one of the best introductions to the focused period of time.

Kerstin Bischl, Berlin