PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This article explores the dynamics of communicational exchanges in Stalin's time and its impact on the formation of opinions. Whereas diaries, which represent their authors in a solitary state of inner monologue, often exhibit expanses of roaming doubt and ambiguity, communication, particularly when it occurs between people who trust each other, is much more likely to give rise to clear opinions and judgments, which is of utmost importance for the question of critical ability. The particularly well-documented personal correspondence between members of the Kravchenko-Spunde family (Kravchenko and Spunde were two highly committed Old Bolsheviks) shows how open communication can elicit and reinforce both support and the harshest criticism of the system. These documents reveal a major shift from almost unconditional support to a profound criticism of the Stalinist regime as "undertaker of the Revolution" a condemnation that emerged from political debate within the narrow circle of the family. Moreover, the defense of a common good against official discourse drove the discussants to transcend the family circle and look for a supporting public essential to the rescue of the cherished "common good" from the odium of particularity and to the confirmation of the "common" character of this good. The attempt at enlarging the family's communicational circle led to a new activity in memoir writing that aimed at exposing the system's lies and revealing a revolutionary legacy distinct from the official representation monopolized by the regime. The experience of personal relations is central to this dissident claim for a revolutionary legacy. Comradeship and joint confrontation of the enemy during the civil war must be distinguished from the enunciation and elaboration of opinions in public debates. The latter experience, based on reciprocity, was solely able to constitute a political person. The Stalinist system feared that political person and tried to destroy it systematically during the show trials, when the human relations and trust experienced during the Revolution were demeaned with the accusation of hypocrisy.