Soviet Public Spheres

In his work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Jürgen Habermas formulated in the following way the concept of the public sphere, giving rise to a number of studies: “The public sphere itself appears as a specific domain – the public domain versus the privatec. Sometimes the public appears simply as that sector of public opinion that happens to be opposed to the authorities. Depending on the circumstances, either the organs of the state or the media, like the press, which provide communication among the members of the public, may be counted as ‘public organs’”1. Thus, oppositions between authorities and society, as between private and public, have become structuring elements of debates around the public sphere in modern societies.

The relevance of this concept for studies of socialist societies (Soviet, in particular) is nonetheless controversial. At first glance, it may seem paradoxical to speak of a ‘public sphere’ in societies of the Soviet type, or even to think in terms of a separation between public and private: in relation to the Soviet Union, isn’t the fact that the authorities interfered in all aspects of life the first observation one makes2? For the Bolsheviks, no autonomy was allowed in the private sphere because everything – including intimacy – had to be placed under the vigilant eye of the collectivity3. Even the term ‘private,’ associated with bourgeois society, was replaced by the term ‘personal’ (thus one didn’t speak of ‘private property’ but of ‘personal property’). What was ‘public’ was designated as ‘common’. In theory at least, in place of the ‘public-private’ opposition, one thought in terms of a complementarity between common and personal4. All members of the society were to share socialist ideals and values, and contribute, notably by work, to the common good, whose ultimate expression was communism. In return, one would be rewarded according to one’s efforts (under socialism) and one’s needs (under communism). The collective – the common – was made up of the multitude of individuals each endowed with unique capacities and personalities. But each one needed the collective, as a body on which to depend and which would control his or her personal behavior, so as to feel at one with the others on the path to the building of communism.

Although it may not be obvious at first to speak of the ‘public sphere,’ there has been significant research on public opinion in the USSR since the 1950s. Coming from what was called the ‘totalitarian school,’ these studies aimed at formulating how public opinion was formed and expressed in a country where communication was associated above all with propaganda, and where the public could not openly oppose the authorities. The reception of Habermas by specialists on the Soviet Union came at a time when this explanatory schema was being questioned, with the emergence of revisionism in Soviet history, beginning in the 1960s-70s. ‘Revisionist’ historians were opposed to the totalitarian approach and postulated the impossibility of total government control over society. They emphasized the tension between the necessity, for the Soviet regime, to involve all citizens in collective units, and the persistent will of individuals to reserve private space for themselves5. This way of thinking in terms of the tension between government and society structures how researchers envisage the public sphere. The first revisionists in fact rejected the expression ‘public sphere’: to avoid reference to Habermas and any analogy with liberal democratic societies, they preferred to speak of ‘popular opinion.’

The opening of the Soviet archives in 1991 renewed questioning. The exceptional nature of the Soviet experience caused some researchers to think in terms of a substitute for the public sphere – ‘quasi public sphere’ – or ‘public privacy’6 : in their view, the typical characteristics of the public sphere (free expression of opinions, open discussions and possibilities for influencing politics) were lacking in the USSR. These historiographic evolutions are the focus of this article, which begins with an analysis of readings and usages of Habermas by specialists of societies of the Soviet type and suggests new perspectives that may be able to transcend the dichotomies between public and private as well as between support and opposition to the regime.

Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate (New York, The Harvill Press, 1960).

 

Yevgenia Nikolaevna Shaposhnikova settled in Kuybeshev in the room of an old lady, Zhenni Genrikhovna Genrikhson, a German who had long ago been a nanny in the Shaposhnikov household.

It was strange for Yevgenia, after Stalingrad, to find herself in a quiet little room with an old lady who could not get over the fact that the little girl in braids had become a grown-up woman.

Zhenni lived in a room with hardly any light, which had once-upon-a-time served as the servant's quarters in big merchant's apartment. Now every room had a family living in it, and every room was divided by screens, curtains, carpets, and the backs of couches into nooks and corners where people slept, ate, and entertained guests--where a nurse gave shots to a paralyzed old man.

In the evenings, the kitchen hummed with tenants' voices.

Yevgenia Nikolaevna liked this kitchen with its arched ceiling blackened by soot, with the red-black flame of its kerosine stoves.

In and around the laundry drying on lines, bustled tenants in robes, in quilted jackets, in military shirts; knives glinted. Steam curled overhead as women washing clothes bent over tubs and basins. The wide stove was never fired up; its tiled sides shone white as snowdrifts from some volcano that had gone dead in a previous geological epoch.

In the apartment lived the family of a truck loader who had gone to the front; a gynecologist; an engineer from a secret factory; a single mother working as a cashier in a distribution center; the widow of a barber who had been killed at the front; a post-office manager. In the biggest room of all, the former living room, was the director of a medical clinic.

The apartment was as vast as a city. It even had its madman: a quiet old man with gentle puppy-dog's eyes.

People lived at close quarters, but apart from one another. They were not really friends. They fought; they made up; they hid the details of their lives and then suddenly, loudly and openheartedly, would reveal everything.

Yevgenia Nikolaevna wanted to draw this. Not the objects, not the people, but the feeling they stirred in her.

This feeling was complicated and hard to describe; even a great artist could not express it. It united the awesome military power of the state and people with this dark kitchen, this poverty, gossip, and pettiness. It combined the destructive force of military steel with kitchen pots and potato peelings.

The expression of this feeling destroyed lines, blurred edges, dissolved into what seemed from outside to be a meaningless connection of broken images and spots of light.

The old lady was timid and obliging. She wore a dark dress with a white collar. Her cheeks were always rosy, even though she was always on the verge of starvation.

In her head lived the memories of pranks that Lyudmila had played when she was in first grade and funny expressions that Marusya said when she was little. She remembered how two-year old Mitya would burst into the dining room in his bib and waving his hands, would shout "dinder! dinder!" [Mitya—Dmitrii, as he is referred to later in this excerpt—and Marusya have both died, Marusya while trying to leave Stalingrad and Mitya in the Gulag—trans.]

Now Zhenni Genrikhovna worked for a woman who was a dentist. She did housework and took care of the dentist's sick mother. Her employer would often leave for five or six days to work in regional clinics, and then Zhenni Genrikhovna would spend the night in her house looking after the helpless old woman who could barely move her legs after a recent stroke.

She had absolutely no sense of property. She constantly apologized to Yevgenia Nikolaevna, asking her permission to open the transom in connection with the comings and goings of her motley-colored cat. Her greatest interest and anxieties concerned this cat, whom she feared the neighbors would hurt.

One of the neighbors, the engineer Dragin, a factory manager, would look at her wrinkled face, her girlishly slender, dried-up waist, her pince-nez hanging on a black string, and give a nasty sneer. His plebeian nature was offended by the old lady's loyalty to the past, by the ridiculous innocence of her smile when she talked about taking her prerevolutionary charges on a drive in their carriage and accompanying "madame" to Venice, Paris, and Vienna. Many of the "babies" she had pampered ended up with the White Army or were killed by Red troops, but the only thing that mattered to the old lady was the memory of the scarlatina, diphtheria, and colitis they suffered from when they were little.

Yevgenia Nikolaevna would say to Dragin:

"I have never met a sweeter, gentler person than she is. Believe me, she is kinder than anyone who lives in this apartment."

Dragin, looking intoYevgenia Nikolaevna's eyes with a man's frank and impudent gaze, would reply:

"Keep it up, sweetheart. You, comrade Shaposhnikova, have sold yourself to the Germans for living quarters."

Apparently Zhenni Genrikhovna did not care for healthy children. Her favorite subject was the frailest of her charges, the son of a Jewish factory owner. She kept his drawings and notebooks and would start crying every time when she reached the part of her story where she had to describe his quiet death.

Many years had passed since she lived with the Shaposhnikovs, but she remembered all the children's nicknames and she cried when she found out about Marusya's death. She kept writing, in her uncertain hand, a letter to Aleksandra Vladimirovna, but she could never finish it.

She called pike roe "caviare" and liked to tell Zhenya about her children's prerevolutionary breakfasts: a cup of strong bullion and a piece of venison.

Her own rations she fed to her cat, whom she called "my dear, silver child." The cat was a rough, sullen beast, but it adored her and as soon as it caught sight of her, became gentle and happy.

Dragin kept asking her how she felt about Hitler: "I suppose you're glad?" But the crafty old lady declared herself an anti-fascist and called the Fuhrer a cannibal.

She was hopeless at everything. She couldn't wash clothes, couldn't cook, and when she went to the store to buy matches the busy clerk would tear off of her ration card the monthly allotments of sugar or meat.

Contemporary children in no way resembled her charges of that long-ago age that she called "peacetime." Everything had changed, even the games. In "peacetime," little girls played hoops; they spun rubber diabolos on strings attached to lacquered sticks and played with a soft, painted ball that they carried in a white net bag. But today's children played volleyball, swam the crawl, and in the winter, dressed in ski pants, they played hockey, yelling and whistling.

They knew more than Zhenni Genrikhovna about alimony, abortion, illegally obtained certificates of employment. They knew about senior lieutenants and colonels, who brought their mistresses fats and canned food from the front.

Yevgenia Nikolaevna liked it when the old German lady told stories about her own childhood—about her brother Dmitry, whom Zhenni Genrikhovna remembered particularly well on account of his whooping cough and diptheria.

One time Zhenni Genrikhovna said:

"I am thinking about my last family in nineteen seventeen. Monsieur was with the Finance Minister. He would pace the dining room and say, "Everything is ruined, estates are being burned, factories have stopped working, hard currency has lost its value, vaults have been robbed." And then the whole family fell apart, like your family now. Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle left for Switzerland, my little boy volunteered to serve with General Kornilov, and Madame cried "We're spending entire days saying goodbye. This is the end."

Yevgenia Nikolaevna gave a sad smile and said nothing.

One evening the local policeman brought Zhenni Genrikhovna a summons. The old German put on her hat with its white flower and asked Zhenya to feed the cat. She was going to the police, and from there to her job with the dentist lady; she promised to be back a day later.When Yevgenia Nikolaevna returned from work, she found the room in disarray. The neighbors told her that Zhenni Genrikhovna had been taken by the police.

Yevgenia Nikolaevna went to inquire about her. At the police station, she was told that the old woman was exiled to the north with a group of Germans.

A day later, the police officer came with the building superintendent and removed a sealed basket of evidence: old clothes and faded photographs and letters.

Zhenya went to the NKVD to find out how to send the old lady a warm shawl. The man behind the window asked her:

"So who are you, a German?

"No, I'm Russian."

"Go home. Don't bother people with your inquiries."

"I'm talking about winter things."

"Am I making myself clear?" asked the man behind the window in such a soft voice that Yevgenia Nikolaevna lost her nerve.

That very evening she heard voices in the kitchen—the neighbors were discussing her.

One voice said: "All the same, I don't like her behavior."

A second answered: "In my opinion, she pulled it off. First she got one foot in, then she told the right people who the old woman was, and now she's taken over the room."

A man's voice said: "What do you mean room, it's a cubicle."

A fourth voice said: "Someone like that will always come out on top, it's good to have someone like that by your side."

The cat's fate was a sad one. While the neighbors argued over what to do with him, he sat in the kitchen, sleepy and dispirited.

"The hell with this German animal," said the women.

Dragin unexpectedly announced that he would help feed the cat. But the cat didn't live long without Zhenni Genrikhovna. One of the women either by accident or because she was annoyed splashed boiling water on him, and he died.

What ‘public opinion’ in the first propaganda State?

The question of propaganda and public opinion in the USSR has interested Western historians and political scientists since the 1950s, as it provides material for examining the degree of individuals’ adhesion to a regime. Historiography has concluded with a thesis that has become commonplace, according to which the Soviet regime rested on two pillars, propaganda and repression, or, in Lenin’s terms, “on an equilibrium between coercion and persuasion"7. On one hand, propaganda would have a ‘brainwashing’ effect, and on the other, coercion would reduce opponents to silence. Some scholars of the ‘totalitarian’ school thus concluded that in the case of the USSR, propaganda and public opinion were synonymous8. For the American historian Peter Kenez, for example, the strength of the propaganda left Soviet citizens with no alternative: they behaved correctly from the point of view of the regime, not because they believed in its values but because by dint of repeating its slogans, they acquired the necessary state of conscience9. The increasing fragmentation of society produced by the substitution of horizontal relations that favored the exchange of ideas and opinions and the emergence of critical thought by vertical political communication, assured the success of Soviet propaganda.

Nikolai Kochergin, Even Higner the Banner of Leninism! (poster, 1932)

The poster celebrating the achievements of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1933) in USSR. The division of the poster in two dichotomous parts allows carrying out a true pedagogical work. The ordered world of socialism is opposed to the chaotic world of capitalism falling apart. The army of workers (industrial workers, farmers and intelligentsia) faces the workers fighting with unemployment, for their rights and against Nazi militarism. While in the socialist world, the exponential growth of production gives a promise of a better future, in capitalist world, the economic crisis precipitates the humans into decay.

Although studies on propaganda generally adopted a top-down approach, research on popular opinion took place in the wake of a social history that took the opposite view. The revisionist school opposed a society capable of action – of supporting the regime, as of resisting or opposing it – to the image of a society composed of ‘terrorized zombies’. The first revisionist studies, in the 1960s-70s, for example, insisted that in Soviet society there was voluntary support of the regime on the part of its beneficiaries – the ‘privileged promoted ones’ (vydvigentsy) – those in a position of upward social mobility. Their support was presented above all as a means to an end: hypocritical individuals adapting to the particular time for personal profit10.

The discovery in the archives of the reports (svodki) of the political police (NKVD) on the population’s state of mind stimulated new studies on popular opinion, after those of Sarah Davies, who underscored the ambivalent attitude of the Soviets vis-à-vis the regime: the language of official discourse provided a space for social conflicts debating the divergent meanings of the signs and symbols contained in the language11. Her insistence on the capacity of individuals to elaborate a critique on the basis of the very terms of the official discourse corresponds to one of the postulates of subaltern studies: the dominated do not necessarily need references outside the system in which they live to criticize those who dominate them

Using the same archival sources, other historians tried to approach public opinion from the point of view of rumors12, but the limits of the svodki soon came to light as concerned knowledge of what people were thinking. The approach of agents of the political police led to a classification of opinions in three categories: ‘positive,’ ‘negative,’ and ‘neutral’. With their ‘hunting for spies’ mania, the authors of these reports tended to see opposition everywhere, to overestimate some opinions, to generalize from individual and disparate remarks. The pressure on agents to identify enemies during the epoch of repressions and to produce numbers, drove them to translate the words of the population into the language of the political police, which would have meaning for the authorities, even to invent certain remarks. The choice of subjects for these reports was dictated by the priorities of the regime and did not necessarily coincide with what was important for individuals. Briefly, these reports said what the authorities wanted to hear and not necessarily what individuals were thinking13.

Confronted with these obstacles, the neo-revisionists, using other sources, proposed a new explanation of the relations between the authorities and society and the mechanisms underlying the formation of public opinion. As of 1995, the American historian Stephen Kotkin rejected the dichotomy between opposition and support, insisting on the strategic use by Soviet citizens of the language of power (the famous ‘Bolshevik-speak’) as a means to an end, enabling them to be understood by leaders, to obtain promotions, benefits and recognition. For Kotkin, there was no alternative to this language during the inter-war period: the Soviets had no possibility of using other mental tools14.

A note from the NKVD to Stalin concerning the protection of strategic companies of the city of Moscow, 21 August 1941.

 

The use of these documents also produced the effect of a magnifying glass focused on those who opposed the regime: the totalitarian school and its idea of effective propaganda was followed by that of inefficient propaganda up against a resisting society. The sole focus on opposition however, as in the work of Sarah Davies, made social links difficult to perceive. With attention focused on a resisting society, revisionist studies were incapable of explaining how and why the regime lasted. Coercion alone provided a limited explanation – if only because it was no longer as strong during the post-Stalin period.

The role of subjectivities in the formation of public opinion

Research on letters addressed to the authorities and published in the press as a source of knowledge for the authorities of the population’s state of mind and as a mode of communication in the USSR – was to a large extent based on this idea of ‘Bolshevik-speak’. Though denunciations and complaint letters allowed the authorities to more easily target their supposed enemies and were used by them for repressive purposes, approaching this source as a faithful representation of the population’s state of mind has led to a number of historiographic debates. These letters certainly give one an idea of the variety of opinions in the population, but they only document an infinitesimal part of it: the large majority of opinions were not expressed in writing and were not communicated to the authorities. The feeling of being politically engaged enough to send a letter to the authorities was not at all common to the whole of the population15.

The German historian Jochen Hellbeck took a stand in the debate, pointing to the tendency to overestimate the importance of resistance in Soviet society – the result of projecting the liberal optic of political choice on a non-liberal society. Unlike the first revisionists, who emphasized support of the regime motivated by self-interest (the ‘promos’), neo-revisionists laid emphasis on the transformative and performative side of official discourse as internalized by individuals. In particular, documents written in the first person show the desire to have a Soviet biography, to be integrated into society, also the fear of being left on the sidelines of history and being crushed by it. Although for Kotkin, we cannot possibly know whether any of the authors of letters really believed in what they were writing, in Hellbeck’s eyes personal diaries nonetheless constitute a source attesting to the sincerity of the wish to become ‘new men’ and ‘new Soviet women,’ builders of socialism, members of a collective and actors of history in the making16. According to Sarah Davies, all rich peasants resisted Soviet authority, while Jochen Hellbeck claims that it was not at all uncommon for the son of a kulak to want to become a perfect Soviet citizen at all costs17.

Igal Halfin and Jochen Hellbeck, “Rethinking the Stalinist Subject: Stephen Kotkin's ‘Magnetic Mountain’ and the State of Soviet Historical Studies”.

 

« The question of belief is central to Kotkin's understanding of the Stalinist subject. In asking whether the people of Magnitogorsk believed in the "truths" incessantly produced and disseminated by the Bolshevik state, he chooses an ingenious approach borrowed from the French historian Lucien Febvre. Rather than inquiring into what members of Stalinist society believed in, he maps out the limits of unbelief- the boundaries of critical thought beyond which nobody living within the Soviet system could think. A combination of factors - such as the compelling nature of the regime's "revolutionary truth," the Stalin cult, and most important, the crisis of the capitalist world and with it, of a credible alternative to socialism - combined, according to Kotkin, to preclude the emergence of systemic unbelief toward Stalinism. Yet abandoning his methodology halfway, Kotkin falls back on a psychological, ahistorical understanding of belief. Thus he writes of individuals "struggling" to hold to their "cherished beliefs," of their "attempts" to "convince" themselves, and of their "problems" in confusing the official, revolutionary truth with their own observational truth (pp. 229, 350, 354). Kotkin's distinction between "believers," "half-believers," and rare non-believers reinrroduces the possibility of an essentially pure and non-ideological subject by conceptual- izing belief as an instance of contamination by Bolshevik ideology. The author's approach obscures the fundamental implication of all Magnitogorsk subjects in the Stalinist matrix of meaning, regardless of their beliefs. Even when individuals criticized the regime, the terms of their argument remained determined by the Stalinist language. Thereby they inadvertently contributed to its legitimization. Furthermore, Kotkin ignores the cases of those contemporaries who experienced their inability to accept the official truth as an instance of personal inadequacy, rather than as an indication of the system's shortcomings. Discussing the rare instances when Magnitogorsk workers came forth publicly to criticize aspects of the Stalinist order, Kotkin writes of "moments of catharsis" (p. 229). The cathartic act, he implies, was experienced as a release of pressure accumulating in a world of deception and blatant lies. Indeed, as private diaries from the era show such moments of letting off steam and denouncing the official system of truth were not infrequent. Kotkin is correct in stating that such instances of criticism far from undermined the Stalinist system. Indeed, they were a constitutive part thereof. Yet what Kotkin terms as moments of "catharsis" might be better understood as instances of personal crisis. Rarely, if at all, did individuals experience articulations of critical thought positively. They could not help but regard their propensity to criticism as sinful, the token of an impure soul and an impediment to salvation. In the final analysis, Kotkin's portrayal of the subject strikes us as ahistorical. It is as if he invites the reader to project himself into the urban jungle of Magnitogorsk and identify with the protagonists. Behind this empathie narrative lurks a presupposition of a transhistorical subject with a universal response to external challenges of any sort. Taking Kotkin's agenda to its logical conclusion, it should be possible to map out the worldview of the Stalinist subject. Private sources that have become available in recent years allow for insights into the system of values, attitudes, and emotional responses that characterized the Stalinist subject. In this connection, the liberal subject Kotkin at times falls back onto might make a good comparison, as long as we do not posit it as normative ».

 

Igal Halfin and Jochen Hellbeck, “Rethinking the Stalinist Subject: Stephen Kotkin's ‘Magnetic Mountain’ and the State of Soviet Historical Studies”, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, 3 (1996), p. 456-463.

Inspired by the works of Michel Foucault, Hellbeck studied personal diaries from the point of view of tools for ‘work on oneself’ – the ‘reflexive’ self seemed to him essential to an understanding of the formation of public opinion. Much more complex than the simple reaction to the ideas of the authorities or to events, public opinion should be thought of in relation to experiences of personal transformation. For historians of subjectivities, ideology is not so much imposed on society as produced by it – rather by individuals than by groups (which poses a problem with Habermasian theory, in which discussions and exchanges of opinion are indispensable for the formation of public opinion). The ideology does not pre-exist the subject: it only becomes real through individual acts of appropriation. In that sense, it is constitutive of subjectivity, and appears as a vector of social inclusion, a way of thinking and acting that makes one part of a society18.

These studies on subjectivities made it possible to transcend the State-society opposition, also to renew analysis of the mechanisms of public opinion formation. By envisaging individuals at the crossroads of their vertical communication relations (relation with official discourse) and horizontal ties (interpersonal correspondences), Malte Griesse, for example, showed how the exchange of letters could become a place of fermentation of criticism19

This kind of thinking was nonetheless criticized for its lack of capacity for generalization: even if Soviet society is said to be graphomaniac20, during the inter-war period only a small fringe of society (urban youth, individuals in a situation of ascending mobility or victims of discrimination or stigmatization) engaged in this kind of work on oneself by means of personal diaries21. Farmers whose personal diaries were found were not all working on themselves and often limited themselves to a remark or two on the weather, without wondering whether they were or not part of Soviet society22. Also, what about those who did not write daily? If we assume, along with Sandro Landi23, that opinion can also be expressed by silence, behavior and non-verbal acts must also be taken into account.

Sandro Landi, « Au delà de l'espace public. Habermas, Locke et le consentement tacite ».

 

« Habermas est le dernier grand philosophe allemand vivant. L’influence de ses théories dans le monde universitaire est inséparable de son autorité, acquise dans le domaine médiatique en tant que défenseur polémique de la modernité : c’est à ce titre qu’on l’a vu intervenir dans les débats sur la prolifération nucléaire, sur l’Holocauste, sur le « patriotisme constitutionnel », sur le rôle de la religion dans les sociétés post-sécularisées. Ce statut public explique sans doute en partie le caractère minoritaire et à contre-courant des voix qui, dans les dernières décennies, ont souligné les faiblesses de son modèle, notamment d’un point de vue philosophique et sociologique. L’opinion publique, conçue comme l’émanation d’un espace discursif, rationnel et critique, a fait ainsi l’objet d’une naturalisation, à tel point qu’il est devenu inhabituel de faire référence à des notions antérieures ou alternatives ou bien de se demander si cette puissante représentation de la réalité historique et sociale ne contribue pas à occulter d’autres réalités possibles.

Parmi les voix dissonantes, celle de la sociologue Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann est devenue aujourd’hui, pour les historiens de l’espace public, presque inaudible. Son livre le plus connu, Die Schweigespirale: Öffentliche Meinung. Unsere soziale Haut, publié en 1980 et rapidement traduit aux États-Unis, est une prise de position très nette contre une approche purement théorique des phénomènes d’opinion. Sous-entendue, l’intention polémique à l’égard d’Habermas – déjà objet de la critique de Noelle-Neumann dans un article paru en 1979 – est néanmoins évidente et motivée par un désaccord qui n’est qu’en partie de nature philosophique : en effet, la controverse qui a opposé ces deux chercheurs a parfois dépassé les limites du monde universitaire. Sans doute, le jugement sur les théories d’E. Noelle-Neumann est influencé par les soupçons qui pèsent sur son passé de collaboratrice du régime nazi. Cependant, Die Schweigespirale reste un livre intéressant qui essaie de combiner la technique des sondages d’opinion avec la relecture de certains textes classiques de la philosophie politique. Le but de cette méthode originale et contestable est de rechercher dans les observations des auteurs du passé les traces d’un phénomène mesurable à travers la pratique des sondages qu’E. Noelle-Neumann qualifie de « spirale du silence » ; l’un de ces auteurs est précisément John Locke. Le modèle de la « spirale du silence » donne lieu à une représentation de l’espace public renversée par rapport au modèle habermassien. En effet, dans la réalité étudiée par E. Noelle-Neumann, lorsque des individus faisant partie d’une communauté font un usage public de la parole, ils n’obéissent pas à une rationalité discursive inscrite dans la dimension de la sociabilité mais plutôt à la peur primordiale de l’isolement ; d’où cette défi nition apparemment paradoxale de l’opinion publique : « Public opinions are attitudes or behaviours one must express in public if one is not isolated oneself; in areas of controversy or change, public opinions are those attitudes one can express without running the danger of isolating oneself ». E. Noelle-Neumann postule donc un lien entre les opinions exprimées et celles inexprimées et, dans sa vision, la parole n’est réellement publique que quand elle est la manifestation d’un consentement silencieux. Le silence, plus que la parole, est ainsi constitutif de l’opinion publique ; une opinion publique silencieuse qui se situe au cœur des processus qui fondent le lien social et la subordination politique. Selon E. Noelle-Neumann, la découverte lockéenne de la law of opinion met en lumière l’identité oblitérée d’opinions et de comportements collectifs dans les dynamiques qui permettent à chaque communauté de s’identifier à certaines valeurs et de survivre dans le temps. E. Noelle-Neumann ne précise pas si la « spirale du silence » est seulement l’une des formes historiquement possibles de l’opinion publique, mais elle est persuadée que celle-ci correspond au visage de ce phénomène aperçu par des auteurs politiques, tels que Machiavel ou David Hume. Il s’agit d’une suggestion qui mérite d’être approfondie : que signifi e en effet étudier les opinions tacites d’un point de vue historique ? Et par ailleurs, avec quel degré d’exactitude l’usage historique du modèle habermassien permet-il de restituer des réalités dont témoignent certains acteurs du passé ? Pour tenter une réponse, il faut d’abord et encore analyser les conditions qui ont permis la réception des thèses d’Habermas dans le milieu historien. »

 

Sandro Landi, « Au delà de l'espace public. Habermas, Locke et le consentement tacite », Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 4 (2012), p. 7-32.

In addition, many of the studies mentioned up to now focus on the inter-war period, while the second part of the 20th century, characterized by the inclusion of the countries of central and eastern Europe in the Soviet sphere of influence, by changes in the official Soviet discourse, as well as by the inflow of new information and language resources (notably via foreign radio stations beginning to diffuse programs in Russian on Soviet territory and that the authorities did not manage to scramble completely)24 transformed the context of the problem. These new resources in fact constituted fertile ground for the formation of critical opinions concerning the government, and made the liberal rationale of political choice more likely. Scholars using the concept of the public sphere in their studies on Soviet-type societies tried to take these changes into account.

A bourgeois public sphere in socialist societies?

History of a misunderstanding

The reception of the Habermasian theory of the public sphere by specialists of Soviet society can be seen as a huge misunderstanding. Whereas Habermas himself in his preface to “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,” indicates that it is not possible to make an ideal-type of public sphere as it appears during the High Middle Ages and then apply it to diverse historic realities, specialists of the Soviet Union consider this concept precisely as a normative ahistorical model25. As a result, the aim of the majority of studies is to show the gaps between historic reality and the conceptual tool forged by Habermas.

This partial reading neglects the distinction made by Habermas between different types of public sphere: 1) that structured by representation (Middle Ages); 2) the liberal bourgeois public sphere, closely linked to practices of reading and sociability in Europe of the Enlightenment, and which was “constituted by private people putting reason to use”; 3) plebeian, illiterate public space, whose advent in the 19th century is associated with the consequences of bourgeois revolutions; 4) the post-literary plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere (the law of opinion reigns, without any public discussion), a typical feature of 20th century societies26. Despite this effort at historical classification, historians working on the USSR focus their attention only on the bourgeois public sphere, which they judge on the basis of Soviet empirical sources.

They take into account neither the above classification nor the last section of the work, devoted to the decline of the bourgeois public sphere. Either they assume it still exists in Western societies, or at best, they engage in diachronic analyses applying the model of the bourgeois public sphere to Soviet society – which is all the more surprising coming from historians who, precisely, have a tendency to find fault with philosophers for their abstract thinking, detached from local social and historical contexts. These historians neglect the impact that the environment in which Habermas was writing –post-Nazi, post-WWII Germany – had on him, and which can explain his pessimism vis-à-vis the limited critical potential of the plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere. Although historians did not amputate the last part of Habermas’ book, reflections on the plebiscitary-acclamatory sphere could be more extensively developed.

Finally, the last and most explicit symptom of this misunderstanding is that authors aiming to demonstrate that the use of the concept of the public sphere is possible for Soviet society, nonetheless take the precaution of saying that the concept has none of the characteristics of the public sphere as defined by Habermas. Use of the concept therefore causes problems: no intellectual filiation is elaborated between the way Habermas defines it and the way it is used in the historiography of Soviet-type regimes; nor does any reference competing with Habermas appear in these studies.

Beyond the obshchestvennost’: public sphere and public spaces

Whatever the case may be, these studies defined the Soviet public sphere in both a narrow and a broad sense. In the former, the public sphere is assimilated to the obshchestvennost’ (which designates activists and militants committed to the regime and expected to represent ‘orthodox’ public opinion, meaning one and the same as official discourse). In the latter case it refers to a multitude of practices and spaces, both formal and informal (resistance niches included).

When the public sphere is associated with the obshchestvennost’ we first underscore the fact that in this case critique is not of the power structures, but for them, in their favor, not of the regime but for it. This was the raison d’être of the public spheres created by those in power27 : critique was limited by the contours of official discourse, which provided the sole and unique mental tools that made sense for actors.  As both agents and objects of official discourse, members of the public sphere during the Stalin era could not question it28. This type of public sphere seems at odds with Habermas’ definition, according to which “sometimes the public sphere seems to be that sector of public opinion that happens to be opposed to the authorities”. We thus forget that according to Habermas himself, with the advent of the plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere in the 20th century, “the strength of its principle, critical Publicity, loses all its acuity”. Habermas sums up the decomposition of Publicity thus: “it penetrates more and more vast spheres of society, but at the same time loses its political function, which is to subject the state of things made public to the control of a public making critical use of its reason”29.

A priori, the observable processes in Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power present all the signs of a plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere: elections, referendums, public hearings, meetings of professional unions and the party, street demonstrations, newspapers, theatrical representations and scientific debates. One might say that the Bolsheviks did in fact plan to create a socialist public sphere with a maximum capacity for integration and that would allow all persons to participate in public debates – the place where the will of the people, which would orient political choices, would be expressed30. Partisans of the narrow definition consider that Stalin was able to create a new type of political public sphere, founded on forms of participation inherited from the imperial regime, and allowing him to have control over social relations – by modifying or destroying them. For Stalin, obshchestvennost’ thus became a tool for the manipulation of social relations31.

In the regular meetings of the activists of Communist Youth Organizations (considered a public sphere where communication played a crucial role), militants had to practice the art of Bolshevik rhetoric, to self-criticize rather than question the foundations of the policies conducted by the authorities. Physical presence that produced situated communications (as in village communities) played an essential role in these organizations, for which distance and depersonalization – typical features of the public sphere in a liberal democracy – were impossible. Even the Soviet media were not distance-oriented: their messages also had to be discussed publicly during obshchestvennost’ meetings. The Bolsheviks saw these meetings as schools for political training, for the appropriation of a certain political culture reflected in ‘show of hands’ votes among others and in the public resolving of conflicts.

The obshchestvennost’ was meant to be a panoptic mechanism of power, a government relay and a tool with which those in power disciplined the social body. As places for horizontal social control, these organizations were in charge of transforming each and every individual into a conscious builder of communism (and at certain periods, of dealing with deviants and non-conformists) and of involving the largest possible number of Soviets in what they considered the political life of the country: the discussion of national and foreign news. The obshchestvennost’ was thus responsible for social cohesion. However, the question of its role and precise responsibility in the repressions remains a moot point among scholars. For some, these meetings made it possible for the authorities to better spot flaws in the system and potentially suspect persons, who then became victims of repressions. For others, since the critique of meetings was mainly directed at representatives of local authorities, the latter sought rather to neutralize obshchestvennost’ by ritualizing these meetings as much as possible.

Meetings were seen as performances – performative acts for the description of reality and mobilization into action. Describing oneself as loyal to the regime meant proving it by acts: participating in a subbotnik, subscribing to a bond for a state loan, participating in collectivization, socialist competition, etc. Public and the actors were a united whole – there was no place for non-engaged spectators. Meetings were places where the abstract concepts of propaganda were filled with concrete meaning32.

An “official” public sphere: obshchestvennost

The rejection of this narrow definition is linked to a historiographic approach which does not see the evolution of the Soviet system solely in terms of political processes – in other words, the visible part of the iceberg. Partisans of the broader definition seek to include all social manifestations of the public sphere and reason above all in terms of public spaces.

Thinking in terms of a unique public sphere in the form of obshchestvennost’ meetings would amount to the domination and absolute control of that space by the authorities33. Partisans of the broader definition, however, do not refuse the postulate of state interventionism in all spheres of life, and propose the inclusion in the public sphere of all social organizations and institutions supported and aided by the State, as well as all places of assembly authorized by the government (parks, shops, theatres, cinemas or even public baths, for example). According to scholars, these public spaces were amplifiers of the government’s message, laboratories where that message was internalized, socialization spaces where one also acquired specific competences. Emphasis was still laid on the physical co-presence of individuals in public spaces – consequently the preference of these historians for the expression ‘public space’ rather than ‘public sphere’.

Thus we note a confusion between concrete public places and the abstract public sphere: the spatial aspect in this definition of public space is important in France, due perhaps to the choice made in translating Habermas: the term translated in French by “Publicity” is incarnated in public places, but cannot be reduced to that only. However, even German historians specialized in the USSR reiterate the spatial aspect in their definition of socialist public space. Emphasis on the spatial dimension and the physical co-presence of individuals comes at the expense of attention to communications, to the use of reason in critique of the government. Emphasizing this latter aspect would have above all led to interest in resistance niches (dissidents or believers, for example). As these niches were a minority, they were considered as not being the sole forms of public space in regimes of the Soviet type. The broad definition of the public sphere explores what was taking place on the fringes of the regime, where in theory, individuals were not granted freedom and autonomy.

These multiple public spaces were not necessarily places of blind agreement with the projects of the regime, nor were they resistance niches (even if the authorities could perceive them as such, accuse their members of sabotage and engage in repressions). The same individuals could belong to several public spaces at the same time without being aware of it34. The latter could be solidarity networks of the personnel of a high administration, peasants belonging to a kolkhoz or believers united in a single faith. The whole informal sphere included these diverse public spaces, analyzed, following Michel de Certeau, in terms of everyday tactics – from ways of putting up with the demands and conditions of the regime, to strategies for getting round the rules imposed from above35. These spaces also engendered alternative rules. Open critique, characteristic of the bourgeois public sphere, was therefore replaced by social practices that did not question political decisions and existing mechanisms, but on the contrary, ensured the permanence and stability of the regime. The practice of exchanges of services and favors, fed by public funds, strengthened social links within clans and networks.

This definition of public space is all the more distant from Habermas, as it is closer to what John Locke called “the law of opinion”. In effect, discussion is not an obligatory condition for the formation of these public spaces, whereas for Habermas, public opinion cannot come from tacit consent without use of the word and of reason. Locke’s “law of opinion” is therefore qualified by Habermas as non-public, because it is a matter concerning private persons who feel guided by morality and the values commonly adhered to in their society36.

Soviet public spheres

Studies on the post-Stalin period see the Soviet public sphere still differently. According to Alexei Yurchak, there was an extreme formalization of official discourse at the time, in the sense that its signifiers were lost and only the performative aspect remained, engendering an extreme ritualization of public manifestations and all the obshchestvennost’ meetings. The importance of this official public sphere decreased considerably, while on the other hand, the massive housing construction campaign launched by Krushchev in 1957 resulted in an increasing empowerment of the private sphere: communications in the kitchens of individual flats and in cafés became new socialization places, where people discussed authorized literature and above all, that which was censored (the famous samizdat), and where critique of the regime became more and more harsh (though not systematic).

Aleksandr Laktionov, Moving into a New Flat (1952) 

Aleksandr Laktionov, Moving into a New Flat (1952) 

Communal apartments rendered the private public, while kitchen discussions in individual flats brought the public sphere into the private domain. Listening to foreign radio stations offered mental tools and references different from those of official discourse. Possibilities for using reason to elaborate a critique of those in power increased, attested by clandestine parties founded by students, the sticking up of posters and distribution of subversive tracts in letterboxes. Dissidence appeared in this context and should be taken into account in the study of the forms of the Soviet public sphere, significantly transformed by the Thaw. This transformation did not however exclude the presence of elements of the plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere, supported in particular by the development of the media, which assured the integration of all in an enlarged public sphere37.

By systematizing these studies and referring to the last part of Habermas’ work, devoted to the decline of the bourgeois public sphere, we can distinguish three types of public sphere in socialist societies. First, a purely official plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere corresponding to the Soviet notion of obshchestvennost’, where critique was expressed only in favor of the regime and not against it. Second, a semi-controlled public sphere making it possible to elude control thanks to the official frameworks which ensured its existence38 – these semi-controlled spheres guaranteed the permanence of the regime and were the places of disguised critique, making use of coded language, interwoven with inferences and references accessible only to the initiated. The third and last type of public sphere existed in the niches opposed to the regime, where a non-disguised critique developed, hence their status of clandestine groups39.

Thus in Soviet-type societies, we can observe not only a plebiscitary-acclamatory public sphere, but a variety of public spheres, since critique had some room for maneuver. If we acknowledge both this room for maneuver and the gradual loss of the capacity for critique in all public spheres of industrialized societies beginning in the 19th century, we can relativize the exceptional nature of the socialist public sphere. In the end, a ‘social sphere’ – neither public nor private – is a common form of modernity for 20th century social-welfare States40.

Socialist “common places”

Finally, as a key to understanding the concept of the public sphere, it is important to examine the imperative of publicity. According to Antoine Lilti, the idea of publicity, considered the requirement for a critical use of reason, is “founded entirely on a political ideal, that of the public deliberation it projects onto the golden Age of the Enlightenment so as to better criticize everything that in our contemporary world diverges from it.” By idealizing the eighteenth century, this conceptualization of publicity leads us along a false track concerning what is public. Through his study of celebrity, Antoine Lilti showed that the public “is not only an entity of literary, artistic or political judgment; it is rather an ensemble of anonymous readers who have in common that they read the same books and, more and more in the eighteenth century, the same newspapers. The public is not formed by the exchange of rational arguments, but by the sharing of the same curiosities and the same beliefs, by the fact of being interested in the same things at the same time and being aware of this simultaneousness41.

This conceptual displacement is decisive in order to go beyond the private / public dichotomy problematic in socialist countries. Considered in that manner, the public is an entity that can exercise a collective critique (for or against the regime), but also a source of mass culture. When individuals are conscious of constituting a public, in other words, of being interested in the same thing at the same time, this creates an atmosphere of imitation and the possibility of influencing one another at a distance. In that sense, the role of the media is central.

The October 1917 change of regime was accompanied by a revolution in communication, which first manifested itself by the diffusion of the press throughout the country, and later by radio and television. For the Bolsheviks, it was crucial, in particular for their aim to politically educate the masses, to give all those who lived in the country access to the official discourse. Several different mechanisms were used for this purpose, beginning with the fixing of extremely low prices for newspapers: at the end of the 1920s, they cost four times less than before the war, for twice and a half more volume42.

Despite this pricing policy, costly for the State, it remained difficult during the first half of the 20th century to cover the whole of the territory with the same communication networks. In 1947, 65% of the Soviet population lived in rural areas and possessed 20% of the radios. Some kolkhozes had no type of loudspeaker at all. Most villages were more than ten kilometers from the nearest post office, which complicated newspaper delivery. Even if the political educators did their work, government discourse was not omnipresent in rural areas where, at least until the end of the Stalinist era, solidarity remained mechanical.

The Front Page of the newspaper Pravda, 12 April 1961.
The Front Page of the newspaper Moskovskaia Pravda, 12 April 1961.
The Front Page of the newspaper Komsomolskaia Pravda, 12 April 1961.

The Front Page of the newspapers Pravda, Moskovskaia Pravda and Komsomolskaia Pravda, 12 April 1961.

The Double Page of the newspaper Moskovskaia Pravda, 12 April 1961.

The Double Page of the newspaper Moskovskaia Pravda, 12 April 1961.

Beginning in the 1950s however, rather strong dynamics for the constitution of publics appeared due to the media, first with wireless telegraphy and the start of foreign radios diffusing in the USSR, the arrival of transistor radios and then television. This diversification made it possible to choose the programs one wished to listen to and/or watch. By 1970, the radio had entered all Soviet homes – there were 95 million radios in the country. In 1950, there was one television set for twelve thousand inhabitants, in 1970, the proportion was one for fifteen, and in 1980, one for four. In parallel, urbanization gave the increasing number of city-dwellers access to mediatized mass culture43. The development of such a culture is closely linked to mechanisms of celebrity creation, at which the socialist media were particularly adept, especially if we recall the media campaigns around Alexei Stakhanov, Iouri Gagarine and other cosmonauts. Communication through celebrities is at the heart of media culture in socialist countries.

The grammar of ‘common places’ and the sociology of regimes of engagement conceptualized by Laurent Thévenot give us greater insight into how individuals were able to get along despite differences. Common places are neither what is obvious, nor are they clichés, but intermediate objects – beloved heroes, emotionally charged objects, emblematic scenes from literature, poetry and cinema – to whom or which one may refer differently according to one’s personal affinities44. Celebrities constitute such ‘common places’ to which we can be attached according to our personal affinities: they are never questioned or exposed to a critical discussion. In fact, as analyzed by David Brandenberger, there is a close link between the success of the Soviet propaganda of the first half of the 1930s and the abandoning of the abstract discourse on anonymous social forces – with its replacement by ‘ordinary heroes’ (Stakhanovists, aviators, etc.) in literature as in films45. The engagement of all persons with these common places that can be invested individually, gives a personal and emotive character to communication. This theoretical prism helps resolve the dichotomy between support and opposition. To understand the diversity of opinions in one and the same person, we must think in terms of situated engagements, making it possible to avoid judgments on the supposed duplicity of individuals.

Unfold notes and references
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1

Jürgen Habermas, L’Espace public. Archéologie de la Publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société bourgeoise (trad. Marc B. de Launay), Paris, Payot, 1978 (éd. orig. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Auflage, Berlin, Neuwied, 1962), p. 14.

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2

Michel Christian, Sandrine Kott, “Introduction. Sphère publique et sphère privée dans les sociétés socialistes. La mise à l’épreuve d’une dichotomie”, Histoire@politique, n° 7/1, 2009, p. 1-12.

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3

Gabor T. Rittersporn, Jan C. Behrends, Malte Rolf, “Exploring Public Spheres in Regimes of the Soviet Type. A possible Approach (Introduction)”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankgurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 23-35, ici p. 23.

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4

Michel Christian, Sandrine Kott, “Introduction. Sphère publique et sphère privée dans les sociétés socialistes. La mise à l’épreuve d’une dichotomie”, Histoire@politique, n° 7/1, 2009, p. 6.

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5

Gabor T. Rittersporn, Malte Rolf, Jan C. Behrends, “Open Spaces and Public Realm. Thoughts on the Public Sphere in Soviet-Type Systems”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 423-452, ici p. 446.

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6

Katerina Gerasimova, “Public Spaces in the Communal Apartment”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 165-193 ; Gabor T. Rittersporn, Malte Rolf, Jan C. Behrends, “Open Spaces and Public Realm. Thoughts on the Public Sphere in Soviet-Type Systems”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 439.

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7

Alex Inkeles, L’Opinion publique en Russie soviétique. Une étude sur la persuasion des masses, Paris, Les Îles d’Or, 1956, p. 7 (éd. orig. Public Opinion in Soviet Russia. A Study in Mass Persuasion, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 1950).

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8

Voir, par exemple : Alex Inkeles, L’Opinion publique en Russie soviétique. Une étude sur la persuasion des masses, Paris, Les Îles d’Or, 1956 ; Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State. Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985. Tous deux sont commentés par Jan Plamper : “Beyond Binaries : Popular Opinion in Stalinism”, in P. Corner (dir.), Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes. Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 64-80, ici p. 65.

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9

Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State. Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

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10

Vera Dunham, In Stalin Times. Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979 ; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1932, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979 ; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Tear off the Masks! Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005.

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11

Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia. Terror, propaganda and dissent, 1934-1941, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997 ; voir aussi un ouvrage récent qui se tient à la même ligne interprétative : Gabor Rittesporn, Anguish, Anger and Folkways in Soviet Russia, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014.

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12

Timothy Johnston, Being Soviet. Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011 ; Igor Narskij et al. (dir.), Sluhi v istorii Rossii xix-xx vekov. Neformal’naja kommunikacija i krutye povoroty rossijskoj istorii, Tcheljabinsk, Kamennyj pojas, 2011.

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13

Peter Holquist, “Anti-Soviet Svodki from the Civil War : Surveillance as a Shared Feature of Russian Political Culture”, Russian Review, n° 3/56, 1997, p. 445-450 ; Peter Holquist, “‘Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work’: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context”, The Journal of Modern History, n° 3/69, 1997, p. 415-450 ; Lesley Rimmel, “Svodki and Popular Opinion in Stalinist Leningrad”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 40, n° 1-2, 1999, p. 217-234 ; Jochen Hellbeck, “Liberation from Autonomy : Mapping Self-Understanding in Stalin’s Time”, in P. Corner (dir.), Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes. Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 49-63, ici p. 51-53 ; Alain Blum, Yuri Shapoval, Faux coupables. Surveillance, aveux et procès en Ukraine soviétique (1924-1934), Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2012.

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14

Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilization, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995.

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15

Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Supplicants and Citizens : Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s”, Slavic Review, n° 55/1, 1996, p. 78-105 ; Matthew E. Lenoe, “Letter-Writing and the State : Reader Correspondence with Newspapers as a Source for Early Soviet History”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 40, n° 1-2, 1999, p. 139-170 ; François-Xavier Nérard, Cinq pour cent de vérité. La dénonciation dans l’URSS de Staline, 1928-1941, Paris, Tallandier, 2004 ; Rósa Magnúsdóttir, “‘Be Careful in America, Premier Khrushchev!’ Soviet perceptions of peaceful coexistence with the United States in 1959”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 47, n° 1, 2006, p. 109-130 ; Miriam Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer. Gulag Returneers, Crime, and the Fate of Reform after Stalin, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2009, p. 11. Des recueils de documents d’archives russes, Pis’ma vo vlast’, ont également été publiés en plusieurs volumes.

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16

Igal Halfin, Jochen Hellbeck, “Rethinking the Stalinist Subject: Stephen Kotkin’s ‘Magnetic Mountain’ and the State of Soviet Historical Studies”, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, n° 44, 1996, p. 456-463.

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17

Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind. Writing a Diary Under Stalin, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2006.

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18

Jochen Hellbeck, “Liberation from Autonomy : Mapping Self-Understanding in Stalin’s Time”, in P. Corner (dir.), Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes. Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 49-63, ici p. 50-53.

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19

Malte Griesse, Communiquer, juger et agir sous Staline. La personne prise entre ses liens avec les proches et son rapport au système politico-idéologique, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2011.

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20

Svetlana Boym, Common places. Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 200-205 ; Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Supplicants and Citizens : Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s”, Slavic Review, n° 55/1, 1996, p. 78-105.

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21

Golfo Alexopoulos, Stalin’s Outcasts. Aliens, Citizens, and the Soviet State, 1926-1936, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003.

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22

Véronique Garros, Natalia Korenevskaya, Thomas Lahusen (dir.), Intimacy and Terror. Soviet Diaries of the 1930s, New York, The New Press, 1995.

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23

Sandro Landi, “Au-delà de l'espace public. Habermas, Locke et le consentement tacite”, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, n°59/4, 2012, p. 7-32.

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24

Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005.

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25

Gabor Rittersporn, “Reflexes, Folkways, Networks: Social Spaces in the Pre-war USSR”, in Ph. R. Bullock, A. Byford, C. Nun-Ingerflom, I. Ohayon, M. Rubins, A. Winestein (dir.), Loyalties, Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society. History and Culture, Londres, University College London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2013, p. 125-139.

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26

Jürgen Habermas, L’Espace public. Archéologie de la publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société bourgeoise (trad. Marc B. de Launay), Paris, Payot, 1978, p. 9-11.

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27

Gabor T. Rittersporn, Jan C. Behrends, Malte Rolf, “Exploring Public Spheres in Regimes of the Soviet Type. A possible Approach (Introduction)”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 27.

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28

Gabor Rittersporn, “Reflexes, Folkways, Networks: Social Spaces in the Pre-war USSR”, in Ph. R. Bullock, A. Byford, C. Nun-Ingerflom, I. Ohayon, M. Rubins, A. Winestein (dir.), Loyalties, Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society. History and Culture, Londres, University College London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2013, p. 125-139.

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29

Jürgen Habermas, L’Espace public. Archéologie de la publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société bourgeoise (trad. Marc B. de Launay), Paris, Payot, 1978, p. 48.

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30

Gabor Rittersporn, “Reflexes, Folkways, Networks: Social Spaces in the Pre-war USSR”, in Ph. R. Bullock, A. Byford, C. Nun-Ingerflom, I. Ohayon, M. Rubins, A. Winestein (dir.), Loyalties, Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society. History and Culture, Londres, University College London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2013, p. 125-139.

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31

Lorenz Erren, “Stalinist Rule and Its Communication Practices. An Overview”, in K. Postoutenko (dir.), Totalitarian Communication. Hierarchies, Codes and Messages, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2010, p. 43-65.

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32

Pour tous ces points, voir : Lorenz Erren, “Stalinist Rule and Its Communication Practices. An Overview”, in K. Postoutenko (dir.), Totalitarian Communication. Hierarchies, Codes and Messages, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2010, en particulier p. 44-45, 55, 48.

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33

À ce sujet, voir : Gabor T. Rittersporn, Jan C. Behrends, Malte Rolf, “Exploring Public Spheres in Regimes of the Soviet Type. A possible Approach (Introduction)”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 24-31 en particulier.

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34

Gabor Rittersporn, “Reflexes, Folkways, Networks: Social Spaces in the Pre-war USSR”, in Ph. R. Bullock, A. Byford, C. Nun-Ingerflom, I. Ohayon, M. Rubins, A. Winestein (dir.), Loyalties, Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society. History and Culture, Londres, University College London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2013, p. 125-139.

Retour vers la note de texte 108

35

Michel de Certeau, L’Invention du quotidien. I. Arts de faire, Paris, Gallimard, 1990 ; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Le Stalinisme au quotidien. La Russie soviétique dans les années 30 (trad. F.-X. Nérard), Paris, Flammarion, 2002 (éd. orig. Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Soviet Russia in the 1930s, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) ; David Crowley, Susan E. Reid (dir.), Socialist Spaces. Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc, Oxford, Berg, 2002 ; Nadège Ragaru, Antonela Capelle-Pogacean (dir.), Vie quotidienne et pouvoir sous le communisme. Consommer à l’Est, Paris, Karthala, 2010 ; Larissa Zakharova, S’habiller à la soviétique. La mode et le Dégel en URSS, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2011 ; Larissa Zakharova, “Le quotidien du communisme : pratiques et objets”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 68e année, n° 2, 2013, p. 305-314.

Retour vers la note de texte 109

36

Sandro Landi, “Au-delà de l'espace public. Habermas, Locke et le consentement tacite”, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, n° 59/4, 2012, p. 7-32.

Retour vers la note de texte 110

37

Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005 ; Katerina Gerasimova, “Public Spaces in the Communal Apartment”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 165-193 ; Vladimir A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki v SSSR pri Khrouchtcheve i Brejneve, Novosibirsk, Sibirski khronograf, 1999 ; Gabor T. Rittersporn, Malte Rolf, Jan C. Behrends, “Open Spaces and Public Realm. Thoughts on the Public Sphere in Soviet-Type Systems”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2003, p. 448.

Retour vers la note de texte 111

38

Bella Ostromoukhova, Jouer et déjouer. Construction sociale d’une jeunesse active à travers le théâtre amateur des étudiants soviétiques. 1953-1975, Paris, thèse de doctorat, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2011 ; Anna Zaytseva, “La légitimation du rock en URSS dans les années 1970-1980”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 48, n°4, 2008, p. 651-680.

Retour vers la note de texte 112

39

Ici il convient de citer toute l’historiographie de la dissidence. Pour son versant politique, voir par exemple, Cécile Vaissié, Pour notre liberté et pour la vôtre. Le combat des dissidents de Russie, Paris, Plon, 1999. Pour la dissidence religieuse, voir par exemple : Sergei Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City. The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960-1985, Baltimore, MD, the Johns Hopkins University Press & Washington, D.C., Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010.

Retour vers la note de texte 113

40

Michel Christian, Sandrine Kott, “Introduction. Sphère publique et sphère privée dans les sociétés socialistes. La mise à l’épreuve d’une dichotomie”, Histoire@politique, n° 7/1, 2009, p. 6.

Retour vers la note de texte 114

41

Antoine Lilti, Figures publiques. L’invention de la célébrité. 1750-1850, Paris, Fayard, 2014, p. 17.

Retour vers la note de texte 116

42

Larissa Zakharova, “Concevoir l’efficacité des communications en Union soviétique (fin des années 1920-début des années 1930)”, Histoire et mesure, t. XXX, n° 1, 2015, p. 69-102.

Retour vers la note de texte 117

43

Kristin Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time. How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2011 ; Stephen Lovell, “How Russia Learned to Listen : Radio and the Making of Soviet Culture”, Kritika : Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, n° 3/12, 2011, p. 591-615 ; Olaf Mertelsmann (dir.), Central and Eastern European Media Under Dictatorial Rule and in the Early Cold War, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, Tartu Historical Studies, vol. 1, 2011.

Retour vers la note de texte 118

44

Laurent Thévenot, “Voicing concern and difference: from public spaces to common-places”, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, n° 1/1, 2014, p. 7-34 ; Laurent Thévenot, L’Action au pluriel. Sociologie des régimes d’engagement, Paris, La Découverte, 2006.

Retour vers la note de texte 119

45

David Brandenberger, Propaganda State in Crisis. Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination, and Terror Under Stalin, 1927-1941, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2011.

Golfo Alexopoulos, Stalin’s Outcasts. Aliens, Citizens, and the Soviet State, 1926-1936, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.

Alain Blum, Yuri Shapoval, Faux coupables. Surveillance, aveux et procès en Ukraine soviétique, 1924-1934, Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2012.

Svetlana Boym, Common Places. Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

David Brandenberger, Propaganda State in Crisis. Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination, and Terror Under Stalin, 1927-1941, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.

Michel de Certeau, L’Invention du quotidien. I. Arts de faire, Paris: Gallimard, 1990.

Michel Christian, Sandrine Kott, “Introduction. Sphère publique et sphère privée dans les sociétés socialistes. La mise à l’épreuve d’une dichotomie”, Histoire@politique, n° 7/1, 2009: 1-12.

David Crowley, Susan E. Reid (dir.), Socialist Spaces. Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc, Oxford: Berg, 2002.

Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia. Terror, propaganda and dissent, 1934-1941, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Miriam Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer. Gulag Returneers, Crime, and the Fate of Reform after Stalin, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Vera Dunham, In Stalin Times. Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Lorenz Erren, “Stalinist Rule and Its Communication Practices. An Overview”, in K. Postoutenko (dir.), Totalitarian Communication. Hierarchies, Codes and Messages, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2010: 43-65.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1932, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, « Supplicants and Citizens : Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s », Slavic Review, n° 55/1, 1996: 78-105.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Soviet Russia in the 1930s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Tear off the Masks! Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Véronique Garros, Natalia Korenevskaya, Thomas Lahusen (dir.), Intimacy and Terror. Soviet Diaries of the 1930s, New York: The New Press, 1995.

Katerina Gerasimova, “Public Spaces in the Communal Apartment”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 165-193.

Malte Griesse, Communiquer, juger et agir sous Staline. La personne prise entre ses liens avec les proches et son rapport au système politico-idéologique, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011.

Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Berlin: Neuwied, 1962.

Igal Halfin, Jochen Hellbeck, “Rethinking the Stalinist Subject: Stephen Kotkin’s ‘Magnetic Mountain’ and the State of Soviet Historical Studies”, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 44, n° 3, 1996: 456-463.

Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind. Writing a Diary Under Stalin, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Jochen Hellbeck, “Liberation from Autonomy : Mapping Self-Understanding in Stalin’s Time”, in P. Corner (dir.), Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes. Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 49-63.

Peter Holquist, “Anti-Soviet Svodki from the Civil War : Surveillance as a Shared Feature of Russian Political Culture”, Russian Review, n° 3/56, 1997: 445-450.

Peter Holquist, “‘Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work’: Bolshevik Surveillance in its Pan-European Context”, The Journal of Modern History, n° 3/69, 199: 415-450.

Alex Inkeles, Public Opinion in Soviet Russia. A Study in Mass Persuasion, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1950.

Timothy Johnston, Being Soviet. Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State. Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilization, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Vladimir A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki v SSSR pri Khrouchtcheve i Brejneve, Novosibirsk: Sibirski Khronograf, 1999.

Sandro Landi, “Au-delà de l'espace public. Habermas, Locke et le consentement tacite”, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, n° 59/4, 2012: 7-32.

Matthew E. Lenoe, "Letter-Writing and the State : Reader Correspondence with Newspapers as a Source for Early Soviet History", Cahiers du monde russe, t. 40, n° 1-2, 1999: 139-170.

Antoine Lilti, Figures publiques. L’invention de la célébrité. 1750-1850, Paris: Fayard, 2014.

Stephen Lovell, “How Russia Learned to Listen : Radio and the Making of Soviet Culture”, Kritika : Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, n° 3/12, 2011: 591-615.

Rósa Magnúsdóttir, “‘Be Careful in America, Premier Khrushchev!’ Soviet Perceptions of Peaceful Coexistence with the United States in 1959”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 47, n° 1, 2006: 109-130.

Olaf Mertelsmann (dir.), Central and Eastern European Media Under Dictatorial Rule and in the Early Cold War, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang / Tartu Historical Studies, vol. 1, 2011.

Igor Narskij et al. (dir.), Sluhi v istorii Rossii xix-xx vekov. Neformal’naja kommunikacija i krutye povoroty rossijskoj istorii, Tcheljabinsk: Kamennyj Pojas, 2011.

François-Xavier Nérard, Cinq pour cent de vérité. La dénonciation dans l’URSS de Staline, 1928-1941, Paris: Tallandier, 2004.

Bella Ostromoukhova, Jouer et déjouer. Construction sociale d’une jeunesse active à travers le théâtre amateur des étudiants soviétiques. 1953-1975, Paris: PhD Thesis, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2011.

Jan Plamper, “Beyond Binaries : Popular Opinion in Stalinism”, in P. Corner (dir.), Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes. Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 64-80

Nadège Ragaru, Antonela Capelle-Pogacean (dir.), Vie quotidienne et pouvoir sous le communisme. Consommer à l’Est, Paris: Karthala, 2010.

Lesley Rimmel, “Svodki and Popular Opinion in Stalinist Leningrad”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 40, n° 1-2, 1999: 217-234.

Gabor Rittesporn, Anguish, Anger and Folkways in Soviet Russia, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014.

Gabor T. Rittersporn, Jan C. Behrends, Malte Rolf, “Exploring Public Spheres in Regimes of the Soviet Type. A possible Approach (Introduction)”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 23-35.

Gabor T. Rittersporn, Malte Rolf, Jan C. Behrends, “Open Spaces and Public Realm. Thoughts on the Public Sphere in Soviet-Type Systems”, in G. T. Rittersporn, M. Rolf, J. C. Behrends (dir.), Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs/ Public Spheres in Soviet-type Societies, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 423-452.

Gabor Rittersporn, “Reflexes, Folkways, Networks: Social Spaces in the Pre-war USSR”, in Ph. R. Bullock, A. Byford, C. Nun-Ingerflom, I. Ohayon, M. Rubins, A. Winestein (dir.), Loyalties, Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society. History and Culture, London: University College London / School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2013, pp. 125-139.

Kristin Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time. How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Laurent Thévenot, L’Action au pluriel. Sociologie des régimes d’engagement, Paris: La Découverte, 2006.

Laurent Thévenot, “Voicing concern and difference: from public spaces to common-places”, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, n° 1/1, 2014: 7-34.

Cécile Vaissié, Pour notre liberté et pour la vôtre. Le combat des dissidents de Russie, Paris: Plon, 1999.

Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Larissa Zakharova, S’habiller à la soviétique. La mode et le Dégel en URSS, Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2011.

Larissa Zakharova, “Le quotidien du communisme : pratiques et objets”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 68e année, n° 2, 2013: 305-314.

Larissa Zakharova, “Concevoir l’efficacité des communications en Union soviétique (fin des années 1920-début des années 1930)”, Histoire et mesure, t. XXX, n° 1, 2015: 69-102.

Anna Zaytseva, “La légitimation du rock en URSS dans les années 1970-1980”, Cahiers du monde russe, t. 48, n°4, 2008: 651-680.

Sergei Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City. The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960-1985, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press & Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010.