2. See Esaulov 1992 who, although he argues that the extremes of sobornost’ and totalitarianism are “two faces of Russian culture,” does not deal with the underlying masochism that unites the apparent polarity.
3. Gromyko 1986, 167.
4. Ivanov 1969, 131.
5. As quoted by Schmemann 1991, A9.
6. See Peskov 1992.
7. Examples provided by Belkin 1991b, 13.
8. Maiakovskii 1970 (1924), vol. 3, 217.
9. Miller 1961, 68.
10. See the section titled (after Mayakovsky) “The Individual Is Nothing” in Smith 1991, 194–99.
11. Klugman 1989, 205, italics added. Urie Bronfenbrenner provides chilling examples of how grade school teachers in the Soviet Union manipulated the student group itself into disciplining individual students (Bronfenbrenner 1972, 57ff.).
12. Berdiaev 1990, 39.
13. Nikol’skii 1898, 66. By comparison, says Nikol’skii, educated Russians have a downright “cult of personality” (“kul’t lichnosti”). Clearly this phrase was not invented just to describe Joseph Stalin.
14. Nikol’skii 1898, 83–84.
15. Okudzhava 1992, 5.
16. Smith 1991, 199.
17. Ibid., 202.
18. Zenova 1992.
19. Here I translate a typical attitude paraphrased to me by Irina Bukina in Moscow in May of 1990: “Esli ia budu zhit’ plokho, pust’ i oni budut zhit’ plokho.”
20. Example kindly provided by Konstantin Pimkin.
21. Cf. Siniavskii 1992, 3.
22. Zaslavskaya 1990, 126.
23. See, for example, Gromyko 1991, 57–63, for extensive documentation.
24. Smith 1991, 203.
25. Semenova-Tian-Shanskaia 1914, 95.
26. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 2, 148, 149.
27. See Smith 1991, chap. 11.
28. Conversation with Dmitrii Starodubtsev in Smith 1991, 229.
29. Belkin 1991b, 15.
30. Grafova 1991, 6.
31. Kochubei 1990, 13.
32. Likhachev 1992, 6.
33. Katerli and Shmidt 1992, 12.
34. Belkin 1993, 185, italics added.
35. Prokushev 1990.
36. From an anonymous introduction in Literaturnaia gazeta, 9 October, 1991, p. 2.
37. Anzieu 1984 (1975), 118.
38. Ibid., 73.
39. Ibid., 118.
40. Ibid., 122. Cf. GAP 1987, 5, and various items in 252 n. 48 above.
41. Anzieu 1984, 73–76, 140–41. Cf. Freud (SE, vol. 18, 127) who believes that it is a paternal leader of the group, rather than the group itself which takes the place of the ego ideal.
42. Chasseguet-Smirgel 1985 (1975), 82. Cf. Koenigsberg on “the country as an omnipotent mother” (1977, 6 ff.).
43. Kernberg 1984, 15.
44. There is an enormous literature on the Russian land commune. For a generous sampling of recent views, see the volume edited by Bartlett (1990). An excellent Soviet study is Aleksandrov (1976). See Worobec (1991) for a clear and engaging treatment of the complexities of peasant economic life in post-emancipation Russia. Hoch (1986, chap. 4) gives a good discussion of communal functions in the pre-emancipation period. Gromyko (1991, 155ff.) provides a well-documented but rather idealized view of the peasant’s relationship to the commune in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. None of these works pays much attention to the psychology (and particularly the masochism) of the individual commune member.
45. See especially Gromyko 1991, 73–85.
46. See, for example Nikol’skii 1898, 72–73.
47. As quoted in Kolchin 1987, 332.
48. Leroy-Beaulieu 1902–5, vol. 2, 43.
49. E.g., Semenova-Tian-Shanskaia 1914, 95.
50. Gromyko 1991, 73–85.
51. Kingston-Mann 1991, 43.
52. Worobec 1991, 45. See Aleksandrov (1976, 294–313) on the commune’s powerful influence in family affairs.
53. Worobec 1991, 147.
54. See Frank 1990 for a detailed treatment of Russian charivaris and other collective punishments.
55. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 315–16.
56. Rittikh 1903, 51.
57. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 316.
58. Ibid.
59. Kuz’min and Shadrin 1989, 138.
60. Fedotov 1981 (1949), 166.
61. Illiustrov 1904, 312–13.
62. Mironov 1990 (1985), 18–19.
63. Gorer and Rickman 1962 (1949), 135.
64. Mead 1951, 26.
65. See especially Macey 1990, 227–28.
66. Treadgold 1959, 107.
67. Confino 1985, 42.
68. Clines 1990, p. A2.
69. Taubman 1988, p. A6.
70. This is not to deny that there are many differences as well (social, economic, political) between the tsarist peasant commune and the Soviet collective farm. See, for example: Kerblay 1985; Medvedev 1987.
71. See, for example Seliunin 1989, 202 (= Seliunin 1988, 186).
72. Medvedev 1987, 362–65.
73. Solzhenitsyn 1989, 530–31, italics added. The Russian original is Solzhenitsyn 1978-, vol. 12, 168.
74. Losev 1990b (1941), 15. For the Russian original, see Losev 1990a, 6.
75. Ibid. I have had to make some corrections in the translation.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Berdiaev 1991 (1949), 120–21.
79. Ibid., 151 ff.
80. Berdiaev 1990, 295.
81. Ibid., 294.
82. Here it is appropriate to note a general tendency in Russian philosophy: things should be “united” in some fashion. Selves should somehow be joined to others. This is already apparent in Chaadaev, it is especially clear in the Slavophile notion of the union of self and collective (e.g., Khomiakov’s sobornosf), it becomes “total unity” (“vsëedinstvo”) in Solov’ev, and appears as “multi-unity” or “all-unity” (“mnogoedinstvo,” “vseedinstvo”) in the works of Fedorov. George Young’s comments on this philosophical topic are quite pertinent: “In all these models, the individual is incomplete in and of itself. The individual completes himself, becomes whole, only by becoming part of a greater whole. Russian thinkers, like Russian composers, love the strong chorus” (Young 1979, 179). The “greater whole” that Young speaks of here implies an asymmetrical relationship with something lesser, i.e., the self as an isolated, insignificant individual. It is this obligatory lesser status, this acknowledgment of one’s own personal insignificance in the face of the all—that comprises the masochistic element in Russian mystical philosophy. One submits “freely,” says Solov’ev, i.e., masochistically. Even the great antimasochist Fedorov, who resists submission to death with such vehemence, and who rejects altruism as “slavery” and “self-destruction” (Fedorov 1906–13, vol. 2, 201), envisages a masochistic submission of the many to the all as the ideal alternative. Otherwise the “project” he proposes could not have been termed the “general task” (“obshchee delo”). Fedorov does not want the “blind force of nature” to coerce humankind, but his own writing is ultimately coercive, or conversely, it invites moral masochism in readers. Here it is ironic that Fedorov resisted making his writings generally available (“not for sale” is printed on the title page of the Vernyi edition). He must have sensed that widespread, popular acceptance of his ideas would have been uncomfortably close to acceptance of the “blind force of nature.”
83. Berdiaev 1990, 297.
84. Berdiaev 1991, 179.
85. The notion of “Godhumanhood” (“Bogochelovechestvo”) is of course not original with Berdiaev. Among Russians it played an especially important role in the thinking of Vladimir Solov’ev, and it endures to this day in Russian theology (e.g., Men’ 1991, 127–29). The epithet “God-human” is an ancient one, referring to Christ, who was God become human (Greek “theandros” or “theanthropos”).