1992 Reports

The Stalin Debate and the Reformulation of the Soviet Past

Von Hagen, Mark

It comes as no surprise that a major reform movement that has affected all aspects of economic, social, political, and cultural life should have also provoked a fundamental reconsideration of the national past(s). Indeed, the years since 1985 have been accompanied by impassioned discussions of the national heritage, the character and origins of the current systemic crisis, the search foralternative models in the past that would point to a better future social order, and the settling of old blood feuds among national and ethnic groups. Institutional struggles have been waged in important symbolic arenas through the tactics of historical revisionism, on the one hand, and through defense of relatively more orthodox views of the past, on the other. Other observers have focused on earlier periods and written more detailed chronologies of events;! I shall discuss the contexts of the debate among the historians, then the newly emerging challenges to the long-reigning orthodox historical narratives, and finally focus on some specific “hot points” in the discussions.