Existentialism in the USSR

 by Henry Hayter

Solzhenitsyn being searched, in the Gulag

Existentialism is the belief in individual purpose and experience, that an individual has control over their own actions and that their destiny is not predetermined by a religious deity. This belief was in almost every way suppressed by Stalin’s regime - as discussed in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book `The Gulag Archipelago`. Whilst this is not a book review I would urge anyone with an interest in philosophy, history or politics to read Solzhenitsyn’s literary investigation into the USSR.

One of the first things that Solzhenitsyn makes clear is that the USSR oppressed existentialism in most forms - though I believe that this is already a well known fact perhaps the ways in which this was achieved are not. The first way in which this was achieved was through Dekulakization - a kulak originally being a peasant who did not contribute fully to the USSR by stealing produce from the collective farms - but a term that was extended well beyond this to all peasants who held wealth. Be that a house, employees or food stores. In this way Stalin forced the wealthier of the lower class to abandon their possessions and pledge themselves fully to the cause and quotas of the USSR thereby stripping them of their existential being. Dekulakization went on to have massive repercussions for the poor in areas of the USSR where loyalty was questioned - this is seen in the Holodomor which was a famine in the SSFR Ukraine which is estimated to have killed ~ 4,000,000 Ukrainians who were deemed as deviants by Stalin. This presented a threat to existentialism in the USSR as the Holodomor killed millions - which prevents someone having control as they’ve been killed by what was in many ways a higher power, although in this case the higher power was not some deity but Stalin.

The Holodomor and ¹Dekulakization beg the question of where and when existentialism was prevalent within the USSR. Solzhenitsyn speaks of the `Bluecaps` which is a way of speaking of ²KGB - Soviet Secret Police - officers as they wore distinctive blue caps. He speaks of the corruption which existed within the KGB referring to the blue caps as deity’s in their own rights; ` Anything you saw was yours! Any apartment you looked at was yours! Any woman was yours! Any enemy was struck from your path! The earth beneath your feet was yours! The heaven above you was yours - it was ,after all, like your cap, sky blue!` Solzhenitsyn in this way describes the inequitable existentialism that these KGB members experienced due to the corruption within the organisation and the vague nature of Soviet laws. 

In this way a bluecap could accuse you of anything as a way of blackmail to obtain what they wanted - even without trial people would be sent to the gulag for interrogation and trial - which was often not conducted instead people would be imprisoned for 5 years + for crimes they never committed on the sworn evidence given by the KGB member. This form of existentialism is clearly very damaging due to the immense corruption and the power that this corruption brought with it. In many ways the KGB and Stalin were the only truly free people within the USSR and were therefore the only people to experience existentialism as they were granted full control over their own lives - and, for the worse, the control over others lives.

The prevalence of existentialism whilst suppressed in the USSR had a massive effect on people's lives, be they bluecaps , the victims of bluecaps, `kulaks` - though I say this with doubt due to how few true kulaks there were, or Ukrainian serfs. This perhaps paints existentialism in a bad light given how the bluecaps were able to exploit their lack of opposition to its fullest extent and rob people in broad daylight of their possessions, relationships and status. This is not what I believe however, I believe that it was the mix of extreme authoritarianism and extreme existentialism that created the bluecaps power as similar things can be seen throughout modern history during: the industrial revolution in Britain, the Stalinist regime in the USSR (as discussed above), the Nazist regime in Germany with the SS officers committing such deeds as Kristallnacht and unfortunately in modern times with the oppressive regimes in the DPRK and in Iran. 

In all of these examples there are those who experience true existentialism and the majority who do not experience it and are oppressed mightily, as such some of those with the freedom that existentialism grants take advantage of the oppressed.This is seen in the DPRK with Kim Jong Un and in Iran with the leader Ali Khamenei’s regime committing the Mahshahr Massacre demonstrating a clear lack in freedom and control over oneself and as such a lack of existentialism for the majority whilst the few experience the bliss of power.

 ¹Dekulakization - Over 3 million ( as high as 5 million ) peasants deemed Kulaks were sent to the Gulag, to build the Siberian roads or plainly executed by the secret police in the late 1920s and early 30s to assert authority over the growing of food which was later used as a tool to weed out the disloyal during the holodomor.

²KGB founded in 1954 so many years after the holodomor and the dekulakization which caused it

³The mahshahr massacre occurred in Manshahar in 2019 where ~ 150 protesters were killed by government forces.