HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY 115at first in the party, which concentrated will and power, and only indirectlytransferred to Stalin, the party's leader. Soon, however, this transfer wascomplete: in December 1929, through the mechanism of the celebrations forhis fiftieth birthday, Stalin became officially the new vozhd', autonomouslyendowed with miraculous powers.It is worth pausing a moment to stress how this new ideology of the Stalinistleadership, founded on the almost unlimited power of the subject overhistory, on "vozhdism" and on a particular form of "national socialism,"distinctly echoed developments taking place in many parts of Europe,though in different ways. Similar ideas were then spreading in widelydiffering contexts—in Poland, in Germany, in Italy of course, and amongthe Jewish nationalists (think, for example, of Vladimir Jabotinsky and hisdream of achieving the Jewish state in "one sudden, irresistible act of will")and the Ukrainian nationalists, where the phenomenon was particularlyinteresting because it took on different forms in emigration (according toRoman Szporluk, the pillars of the OUN 1929 ideology were "the primacyof 'will' over 'reason' and the proposal to establish a one-party state headedby an elite with a single leader"), in Galicia and among the National Communiststemporarily in power.From this standpoint, "national socialism" (to be sure, not the extremeHitlerian variety) and "vozhdism" appear as key categories with which tointerpret European history between the two wars. In the USSR, as everywhereelse, they of course took on idiosyncratic forms—that of "imperial"socialism, 11 for example—but their diffusion strengthens the hypothesis thatunifying factors were at work: the Great War, first of all, the state-buildingor rebuilding processes which followed it, 12 and certain cultural fashionsLewin has analyzed the social context or, better, the social "void" that facilitated the spread ofsimilar illusions and offered the Stalinist elite such opportunities.1 ' One could think of "imperial" socialism (I resort to quotation marks because there is somethingparadoxical in the term) as the particular form taken by national socialism in countriespossessing a strong imperial tradition, where the dominant nationality is not strong enough topropound a program of "xy" for "xylonians," or is unwilling to do so (the concrete possibilityof renewing the imperial bonds may explain this). From this point of view, "imperial" socialismis, at least in its ideology, more palatable than national socialism proper, especially if comparedwith the version of the latter that emerges after a serious national crisis in countries witha strong national minority. In particular, its Russian variety, thanks to its link with Marxism,remained particularly "agreeable" in spite of the transformations imposed upon it by the CivilWar (as such, it was one of the preconditions for the Bolsheviks' victory). See also fns. 8 and12.12The formation of a great number of new states since 1945 has presented us with a new,bigger wave of "national socialisms" of many different kinds. The link between thisphenomenon and certain circumstances of state-building has thus been confirmed. Of course,one should not undervalue the aspects of socialism (as well as of Marxism) that are linked tothe emancipation of the working classes, nor think that socialism has been the only ideology of