The -Isms of Stalinism

University of Glasgow

The -Isms of StalinismAuthor(s): Michael WallerSource: Soviet Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Oct., 1968), pp. 229-234Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/150020 .

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THE -ISMS OF STALINISM By MICHAEL WALLER

'THE history of large dictionaries shows that each one of them is a reflection of the class interests of its epoch. By making a study of these dictionaries one can see what has been added to the fund hitherto built up, one can see what in it has been re-fashioned by a new class that has won predominance and in what manner this has been done. The dictionary we are publishing is an attempt to reflect the process of re-fashioning lexicographical material in the period of the proletarian revolution, laying the basis for a new phase in the life of the Russian language and at the same time to indicate the new norms that are being established for the uses of words.'l

The four-volume dictionary of the Russian language, which was published under the chief editorship of Ushakov, and from which these words are taken, is a monument in the history not only of 'large dictionaries', but of the Soviet Union itself. The publication of a compre- hensive dictionary is at any time an event of the greatest social significance. All the more significant was the appearance of the first official dictionary of the Revolution which, together with the first revolutionary encyclopaedia, could not but regard itself as the shrine of new thinking and new values, the reference of last resort of publicist, propagandist and pedagogue. That Ushakov was aware of this is revealed in the striking self-consciousness of his introductory words quoted above, and in his prescriptive aplomb. The dictionary does not

necessarily set out to record previously accepted usage; it 'attempts to reflect the process of re-fashioning lexicographical material in the period of the proletarian revolution', it lays a basis and indicates new norms.

Accepted usage, in fact, was more of a hindrance than a guide, since a

great part of the work of the revolutionary writers had been directed at

re-defining much of the abstract vocabulary of the Russian language. Nor is it reasonable to blame Ushakov for being prescriptive, since of course any dictionary, by selecting words for inclusion and by the

wording of the definitions it gives, must be prescriptive. The point is that under more usual conditions the editor appeals, as the basis for his

prescribing, to the previous usage of respected authors. This, in the case of many of his terms, Ushakov does. But in certain areas, pre- dominantly politics and philosophy, respected authors of the past were suspect. A peculiarly Stalinist flavour is imparted by constant reference to the works of Lenin and Stalin, and many illustrations of usage are given which no doubt embody new attitudes but which bear no attri- bution whatsoever. An extreme example is provided by the phrase

1 Tolkovyi slovar' russkogoyazyka (M. 1934-40), vol. I, pp. ix-x.



quoted in illustration of the word 'podruchnyi' in its fourth sense, 'assistant-"The plotter and fascist murderer Bukharin, despised assistant of the ober-bandit Judas Trotsky."' No source is offered for this phrase. The situation was bedevilled by the fact that many political and philosophical words were of foreign origin, and here Ushakov was clearly faced with a dilemma. He had to balance the nationalist senti- ment of his times, which would tend to mistrust words of foreign derivation (much as the pre-revolutionary dictionary of Dal' had done), against modernity and the needs of propaganda, which required the inclusion of a great number of political and technological terms, what- ever their origin. For general purposes Ushakov produced an excellent dictionary. But viewed as an historical landmark it bears the stamp of its time in its aggressively doctrinaire definitions of political and philosophical terms, its self-consciousness in face of the task which it claims to be performing and, as we shall see, its availability for purposes of propaganda.

It being my aim to examine Ushakov's attitude to precisely these political, philosophical and technological terms, I have picked out one particular group of them as the basis for this study-terms in the suffix -izm. This for two reasons. The first rather obvious reason is that -isms abound in the political, philosophical and technological field. The second reason is that being, with very few exceptions, words of foreign derivation they cast an interesting light on the editors' views on which lexical items should be included in the revolutionary dictionary. The main point of interest is that Ushakov singled out for inclusion in his dictionary 4 5 terms in -ism, as against Dal' 's total2 of 79. Of Ushakov's total no fewer than 87 -isms were appearing for the first time in a Russian dictionary. The fact that Dal' had a prejudice against words of foreign origin only adds extra significance to Ushakov's exuberant total. The latter had a prejudice infavour of -isms, and it is interesting to speculate why.

It is worth considering for a moment the history of these linguistic prejudices in Russia and to follow the battle of the purist against the importer in this corner of the lexical field. First, the purists. When in I845 B. A. Vasiliev used the words ratsionali.m and obskurantizm in Otechestvennye Zapiski he was attacked by 'D' in Moskovityanin with the words 'We regard these words as literary, comical and barbarous; they call down upon themselves the jeers of the ignorant.'3 In the i86os Saltykov-Shchedrin feared the splitting of society into two mutually

2 The reference is to the second edition: Tolkovyi slovar' ghivago velikorusskogo jaykaz Vladimira Dalya. Vtoroe igdanie (St. Petersburg, 1880-82). 3 'D' (P. Golokhvastov), 'Golos v zashchitu russkogo yazyka', Moskovityanin, 1845, no. I I. It is interesting that this particular controversy between the innovator and the purist was taken further by Belinsky himself in an article 'Golos v zashchitu ot "Golosa v zaschitu russkogo yazyka"' (Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (M. 195 5), vol. IX, pp. 468-73).

THE -ISMS 230



inimical camps, 'on the one hand various despicable -isms, and on the other people who are unflinching in their convictions about life',4 thus making it clear where he himself stood. A blow of some power was struck for the purists by Dal', whose dictionary had a confessed bias against words of foreign origin. Both Dal' and the other purists went out of their way to uncover alternative forms through which to russify the Western-sounding -isms. Aristokratstvo, zhurnalistvo, pedantstvo were offered for aristokratigm, zhurnaligm and pedantizm.

This purist approach lost ground with the Revolution. Most of the writers and orators of the revolutionary movement were well-travelled and cosmopolitan people. A large part of their writings dealt with ideas couched in a vocabulary which was common to many European languages. The important point is that in the Stalinist period purism returned with a vengeance. In the thirties, for example, a commission sat to reform sporting terminology, and the foreign-sounding forvard and golkiper were replaced by the more Russian napadayushchii and vrater'. Manizer, writing on sculpture in the forties, said: 'If in the era that preceded us there prevailed a world view of various tendencies which was the ideology of the exploiting classes, the bourgeois art of that epoch, with its -isms of every possible kind, clearly reflected the inconsistency and the marasmus of bourgeois culture.'5

In this purist camp there are two distinct attitudes. One maintains that -isms are not Russian words and are therefore not acceptable; the other allows that they are Russian words, but maintains that they are negative. The second alternative would allow a purist lexicographer to include as many -isms as he wished, provided that they were pre- dominantly pejorative. These purist attitudes were adopted in the face of the growing influence on Russian of the other European languages. The citation from Saltykov-Shchedrin indicates that this process was well under way during the nineteenth century, when many translated works were entering Russia from Western Europe. When an -ism occurred in a foreign text it tended to be transferred in that form into the Russian. Secondly, whereas Dal' conscientiously omitted -isms wherever possible, a number of other dictionaries had been doing the opposite-the dictionary of Kirillov, for example, in I845-46, and of Mikhel'son in i866 and I869. Thirdly, and surely the most important sphere of influence, the writing down of the ideas of the Revolution, involving again frequent translation from foreign texts, brought -isms and other foreign borrowings into ubiquitous currency.

Lenin, whose attachment to the dictionary of Dal' is well known, 4 Quoted in M. Fogarashi, 'Materialy k istorii suffiksov -izm/-ist v russkom yazyke', Studia Slavica, 956, vol. 2,

which gives a good account of the history of -isms in Russian in the nineteenth century. See also V. V. Veselitsky, Rayvitie otvlechennoi leksiki v russkom literaturnomjya,yke pervoi treti XIXogo veka (M. 1964). 5 M. Manizer, Skul'ptor o svoei rabote (M.-L. I940-52), vol. 2, p. 15.

OF STALINISM 231



had hard things to say about the corruption of the Russian language. Nevertheless his years in the cities of Western Europe had left their mark, and it was Lenin himself who was responsible for many an -ism

gaining currency in Russian, and when a word had been used once or twice by Lenin its respectability was assured. Hence the appearance in at least two of the major Soviet dictionaries of the eminently Leninist but little used word 'ura-patriotiEm' (hoorah-patriotism).

Then, in the late thirties and early forties, Ushakov's dictionary appeared, the first official dictionary of the Revolution, at a time when nationalism and purism (nationalism's linguistic expression) were approaching their height. How were the editors' attitudes to 'new norms' to be reflected in their treatment of words of foreign origin? Should they be where possible excluded, as Dal' had excluded them? Should the negative ones be kept and only the positive ones excluded, thus making a point for nationalism and a limited purism? Or were as

many as possible to be included on the grounds that it was important to list technological, scientific, political and philosophical terms whether they were of foreign origin or not?

I return to my original observation, that Ushakov surprisingly chose to include a far greater number of -isms than had ever appeared in a

dictionary of Russian before (or indeed after). Moreover, it seems that Ushakov not only wished to include as many -isms as he reasonably could, but he wanted also to invest them with a better pedigree by allowing only eleven of them the note 'neologism'.6 At a time when

long-established words of foreign origin (I have mentioned sporting terms) were being officially expunged from the language and when political interference in academic work was reaching its height (in linguistics no less than in biology), it is most surprising that Ushakov should have included this exaggerated number of-isms, almost all of which were of foreign derivation (of his 415 -isms, only twelve have Russian roots).

It seems to me that there are two distinct explanations for this. The clue to the first is to be found in the fact that although the dictionary was published at a time when nationalism was in the ascendant, the preliminary work of compiling the dictionary had been done in an earlier period when words of foreign origin were in vogue, and when the writings and speeches of the revolutionaries were strongly influenced by an international idiom. The lexicographer was, so to speak, caught off-side by the growing nationalist tendency, and from this point of view found himself in a transitional situation. This is easily illustrated by reference to those sporting terms which I have

6 The eleven are aktivi?Zm, fashiZm, glavkiZm, fordiem, leninizm, liberalism, parashuytiZm, planeriZm, politekhninm, rekordiZm, ukloniEm. LiberalisEm appears at first sight to be a strange intruder, but Ushakov offers a fourth sense which he classes as a neologism.

THE -ISMS 232



mentioned. It was in the late thirties that football terms derived from English were ousted in favour of Russian roots. Ushakov includes both sets of words. Obviously the new terms had to feature in the dictionary, but this nationalist development in sporting terminology was too recent to allow him to be led into a more militant purism, and so the old terms came in on an equal footing.

The dictionary therefore to a certain extent reflected the 'literary norms' of the earlier revolutionary period. But it reflected no less the new norms of Stalinist nationalism. The number of quotations from Stalin given in illustration of the terms listed is striking evidence in itself. There are also such specific examples as the entry under the word podruchnyi, which I have quoted earlier. It is hardly conceivable that so

important an event as the publication of the first large Soviet dictionary should be free from political oversight. Indeed, if we assume quite the reverse, and use the political oversight to account for the treatment, if not only for the number, of Ushakov's -isms, we are provided with our second explanation. Here was an opportunity to gather up the words for all the harmful tendencies of the past, neutralize them by means of their definitions, and thus prevent them from doing harm in the future. For Dal' it was enough to maintain that the -isms which were circulating were not Russian and to leave them out. The Stalinist dictionary took a more positive stand than this. It allowed that the -isms were Russian, despite the prevalent linguistic purism of the time, but used their foreignness to help to discredit the meanings of many of them. Among Ushakov's -isms are many of the terms which marked the various

divergencies in the revolutionary movement-otzovizm, ultimatimm, khvosti<m, menshevizm, maksimali<m (and minimalimn), ukloni<m. Lenin had himself used (or coined) these words, not without scorn. But Lenin's scorn was nothing to the rigid taboos of the thirties. By then these words were strongly pejorative, nor were their negative overtones offset by the currency of such terms as bol'shevizm or kommuni~m. Then, going beyond these terms of purely Russian circulation, there is the whole remaining host of political and philosophical terms which form the majority of Ushakov's -isms. One has only to look at the way some of these words are defined to make it clear that Ushakov's job was to bring forward as many -isms as possible in order to discredit them:

freidiem (Freudism): An idealist bourgeois theory in psychology .... vitali/m: An idealist tendency in biology .... femini<m: A bourgeois movement in capitalist countries .... utilitariam: In bourgeois ethics-an idealist tendency .... (similarly universalitm, volyuntariZm, evdemoni.Zm (eudaemonism)). urbani<m: The decadent culture of the ruling strata of a large capitalist town ....

OF STALINISM 233



and so on. These definitions are, of course, only pejorative if the words 'idealist' and 'bourgeois' are regarded as pejorative, which they are. It is not surprising to find in 1956 the philologist Livshits7 maintaining that the suffix -ism had been used to cover false systems, harmful political tendencies and negative phenomena in Soviet actuality. Out of over 5o political and philosophical -isms which Ushakov listed for the first time in a Russian dictionary, 32 carry a definite pejorative sense. Some of these are obvious-trotskiZm, egalitariZm, uklonizm; others serve a less

highly-charged propaganda purpose-imzaghinimnm, fideigm, ieziitiZm. Against this there are only seven positive new -isms-aktivizm, demokratigm, internatsionaligm, leninizm, marksigm-leninigm, bol'shevigm, revolyutsionizm. There then remain in the political and philosophical field some 20 new -isms. Some of these are neutral-glavkiZm and dinanmzm, for example; but many others are by inference pejorative- transtsendentaligm, spinozizm, martinigm.

This analysis accounts for the bulk of Ushakov's 87 entirely new -isms. The remainder fall mainly into the field of science and medicine, and their presence must be accounted for along the lines of my first

explanation for Ushakov's fondness for -isms. They represent an earlier

tendency to give currency to international symbols and at the same time

they served to emphasize the scientific and technological progress of Soviet society.

In dictionaries published since Ushakov, the tendency has been to list

considerably fewer -isms. Even the much more substantial seventeen- volume Academy dictionary of 1948-65 dropped 26 of Ushakov's total. The final eclipse of the spirit of the twenties? A return to conventional

purism? Less emphasis on propaganda? I finish as I began, with the words of a lexicographer, this time Babkin, in the preface to a new edition of Dal' in I955: '. . . but the very idea of replacing useless

foreign terms, especially in the field of specialized scientific and tech-

nological terminology, is congenial to our times.'

University of Lancaster

7V. A. Livshits, 'Suffiksal'noe slovoobrazovanie v yazyke sovetskol epokhi', Naukovi Zapysky kyyivs'koho universiteta, vol. 52, I956.

THE -ISMS OF STALINISM 234



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The -Isms of Stalinism