Moshe Lewin
Encyclopedia
Moshe Lewin (1921 - August 14, 2010) was a scholar of Russian
and Soviet history
; he was a major figure in the revisionist school of Soviet studies which emerged in the 1960s. His surname is pronounced "Luh-VENE".
(now Vilnius
, Lithuania
), the son of ethnic Jewish parents who died in the Holocaust. Lewin lived in Poland for the first 20 years of his life, fleeing to the Soviet Union
in June 1941 just ahead of the invading Nazi
army. For the next two years, Lewin worked as a collective farm worker and as a blast furnace
operator in a metallurgical factory.
In the summer of 1943, Lewin enlisted in the Soviet army
. He was sent to officers' training school and was promoted on the last day of the war
.
In 1946, Lewin returned to Poland before emigrated to France
. A believer in Labor Zionism
from his youth, in 1951 Lewin emigrated again, this time to Israel
, where he worked for a time on a kibbutz
and as a journalist
before eventually returning to school. Lewin received his Bachelor of Arts
from Tel Aviv University
, in Israel
in 1961.
In 1961, Lewin received a research scholarship to study at the Sorbonne
in Paris
, where he studied the collectivization of Soviet agriculture. In 1964, Lewin was awarded his Ph.D from the Sorbonne.
This monograph
dealt with the Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 and the associated political battle, a bitter fight which resulted in a decision to forcibly collectivize Soviet agriculture. In this work, Lewin emphasized collectivization as a practical (albeit extreme) solution to a real world problem facing the Soviet regime, one out of several potential solutions to a crisis situation. Rather than an inevitable and predestined action, collectivization was cast as a brutal manifestation of realpolitik
— a view in marked contrast to the traditionalist historiography
of the day. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power was initially projected as the first part of a long study of the social history
of Soviet Russia down to 1934, although the project seems to have been abandoned, perhaps as duplicative of the work of British historians E.H. Carr and R.W. Davies
.
Lewin's other 1968 book, Lenin's Last Struggle, was an extended essay charting the evolution of Lenin's thinking about the growing bureaucracy of Soviet Russia. In it, Lewin additionally chronicled the politics of the post-Lenin succession struggle during the time of Lenin's final illness, emphasizing "lost" alternatives to the actual path of historical historical development. In this Lewin again presented a perspective which again stood in marked contrast to the voluminous writings of the totalitarianist school
that dominated academia, which cast the USSR as a monolithic and fundamentally unchanging structure.
From 1967 to 1968, Lewin was a senior fellow at Columbia University
in New York City
. Upon completion of his Columbia fellowship, Lewin took a post as a research professor at Birmingham University, England
from 1968 until 1978. During this interval he published Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates: From Bukharin to the Modern Reformers, which, along with the work of Princeton University
professor Stephen F. Cohen, helped to restore the name and ideas of Nikolai Bukharin
to the academic debate concerning the Soviet 1920s. Lewin noted that many of the same criticisms which Bukharin had leveled against Stalin during the political battles of 1928 and 1929 in the USSR were later "adopted by current reformers as their own," thereby adding a contemporary importance to the study of the historical past.
After leaving Birmingham, Lewin returned to the United States, where he assumed a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania
, where he remained until his retirement in 1995.
Although regarded as a doyen of social history
and a godfather of the so-called "revisionist
" movement of young social historians who came to the fore in the field of Soviet studies during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, Lewin's own work largely centered on the relationship between high politics
and economic policy. One notable exception came with the publication in 1985 of a collection of Lewin's essays and lectures entitled The Making of the Soviet System. In this book, Lewin visited a number of key topics of social history such as rural social mores
, popular religion
, customary law in rural society, the social structure of the Russian peasantry, and social relations within Soviet industry. Lewin emerged as a critic of the politicized "What are they up to?" orientation of Soviet studies in favor of a more apolitical perspective attempting to answer the question "What makes the Russians tick?"
Lewin's final works attempted to analyze the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev
and his brief efforts at top-down reform of the communist system and to put the rise and fall of Soviet communism into historical perspective. In his final book, The Soviet Century, published in 2005, Lewin argued that the political and economic system of the former Soviet Union constituted a sort of "bureaucratic absolutism" akin to the Prussian
bureaucratic monarchy of the 18th Century which had "ceased to accomplish the task it had once been capable of performing" and therefore given way.
.
In 1992, Lewin was honored with a Festschrift
edited by historians Nick Lampert and Gabor Rittersporn entitled Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath: Essays in Honour of Moshe Lewin. Contributors to the volume included economic historians Alec Nove and R.W. Davies as well as key social historians such as Lewis Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor Suny
, among others.
In the Lewin Festschrift, co-editor Lampert summarized Lewin's work in the following manner:
Lewin's papers are housed at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia
.
History of Russia
The history of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The state of Garðaríki , which was centered in Novgorod and included the entire areas inhabited by Ilmen Slavs, Veps and Votes, was established by the Varangian chieftain Rurik in 862...
and Soviet history
History of the Soviet Union
The history of the Soviet Union has roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, emerged as the main political force in the capital of the former Russian Empire, though they had to fight a long and brutal civil war against the Mensheviks, or Whites...
; he was a major figure in the revisionist school of Soviet studies which emerged in the 1960s. His surname is pronounced "Luh-VENE".
Early years
Moshe Lewin was born in 1921 in Wilno, PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(now Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
), the son of ethnic Jewish parents who died in the Holocaust. Lewin lived in Poland for the first 20 years of his life, fleeing to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in June 1941 just ahead of the invading Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
army. For the next two years, Lewin worked as a collective farm worker and as a blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...
operator in a metallurgical factory.
In the summer of 1943, Lewin enlisted in the Soviet army
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
. He was sent to officers' training school and was promoted on the last day of the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In 1946, Lewin returned to Poland before emigrated to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. A believer in Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism can be described as the major stream of the left wing of the Zionist movement. It was, for many years, the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizational structure...
from his youth, in 1951 Lewin emigrated again, this time to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, where he worked for a time on a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
and as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
before eventually returning to school. Lewin received his Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1961.
In 1961, Lewin received a research scholarship to study at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he studied the collectivization of Soviet agriculture. In 1964, Lewin was awarded his Ph.D from the Sorbonne.
Academic career
Newly credentialed with his doctorate degree, Lewin was named Director of Study at l'École des hautes études, Paris, where he served from 1965 to 1966. During this time he converted his Sorbonne dissertation into a book manuscript, which was published in 1966 in French and translated into English in 1968 as Russian Peasants and Soviet Power.This monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
dealt with the Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 and the associated political battle, a bitter fight which resulted in a decision to forcibly collectivize Soviet agriculture. In this work, Lewin emphasized collectivization as a practical (albeit extreme) solution to a real world problem facing the Soviet regime, one out of several potential solutions to a crisis situation. Rather than an inevitable and predestined action, collectivization was cast as a brutal manifestation of realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
— a view in marked contrast to the traditionalist historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
of the day. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power was initially projected as the first part of a long study of the social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
of Soviet Russia down to 1934, although the project seems to have been abandoned, perhaps as duplicative of the work of British historians E.H. Carr and R.W. Davies
Robert William Davies
Robert William "Bob" Davies, best known as "R.W. Davies," is professor emeritus of Soviet Economic Studies, University of Birmingham.His research contributions in the history of the Soviet Union are recognized by the peers.-Books:...
.
Lewin's other 1968 book, Lenin's Last Struggle, was an extended essay charting the evolution of Lenin's thinking about the growing bureaucracy of Soviet Russia. In it, Lewin additionally chronicled the politics of the post-Lenin succession struggle during the time of Lenin's final illness, emphasizing "lost" alternatives to the actual path of historical historical development. In this Lewin again presented a perspective which again stood in marked contrast to the voluminous writings of the totalitarianist school
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
that dominated academia, which cast the USSR as a monolithic and fundamentally unchanging structure.
From 1967 to 1968, Lewin was a senior fellow at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Upon completion of his Columbia fellowship, Lewin took a post as a research professor at Birmingham University, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
from 1968 until 1978. During this interval he published Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates: From Bukharin to the Modern Reformers, which, along with the work of Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
professor Stephen F. Cohen, helped to restore the name and ideas of Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
to the academic debate concerning the Soviet 1920s. Lewin noted that many of the same criticisms which Bukharin had leveled against Stalin during the political battles of 1928 and 1929 in the USSR were later "adopted by current reformers as their own," thereby adding a contemporary importance to the study of the historical past.
After leaving Birmingham, Lewin returned to the United States, where he assumed a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, where he remained until his retirement in 1995.
Although regarded as a doyen of social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
and a godfather of the so-called "revisionist
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
" movement of young social historians who came to the fore in the field of Soviet studies during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, Lewin's own work largely centered on the relationship between high politics
Political history
Political history is the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, and leaders. It is distinct from, but related to, other fields of history such as Diplomatic history, social history, economic history, and military history, as well as constitutional history and public...
and economic policy. One notable exception came with the publication in 1985 of a collection of Lewin's essays and lectures entitled The Making of the Soviet System. In this book, Lewin visited a number of key topics of social history such as rural social mores
Mores
Mores, in sociology, are any given society's particular norms, virtues, or values. The word mores is a plurale tantum term borrowed from Latin, which has been used in the English language since the 1890s....
, popular religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, customary law in rural society, the social structure of the Russian peasantry, and social relations within Soviet industry. Lewin emerged as a critic of the politicized "What are they up to?" orientation of Soviet studies in favor of a more apolitical perspective attempting to answer the question "What makes the Russians tick?"
Lewin's final works attempted to analyze the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
and his brief efforts at top-down reform of the communist system and to put the rise and fall of Soviet communism into historical perspective. In his final book, The Soviet Century, published in 2005, Lewin argued that the political and economic system of the former Soviet Union constituted a sort of "bureaucratic absolutism" akin to the Prussian
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
bureaucratic monarchy of the 18th Century which had "ceased to accomplish the task it had once been capable of performing" and therefore given way.
Death and legacy
Moshe Lewin died August 14, 2010 in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
In 1992, Lewin was honored with a Festschrift
Festschrift
In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
edited by historians Nick Lampert and Gabor Rittersporn entitled Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath: Essays in Honour of Moshe Lewin. Contributors to the volume included economic historians Alec Nove and R.W. Davies as well as key social historians such as Lewis Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor Suny
Ronald Grigor Suny
Ronald Grigor Suny is currently director of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History at the University of Michigan, as well as Emeritus Professor of political science and history at the University of Chicago...
, among others.
In the Lewin Festschrift, co-editor Lampert summarized Lewin's work in the following manner:
"The scope of Lewin's explorations has been very wide, dealing with a panorama of social classes and groups, with the lower depths of society as well as the bosses, with informal social norms as well as formal law, with popular religion as well as established ideologyIdeologyAn ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
. The range of his intellectual debts is also broad, owing as much to WeberMax WeberKarl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
as to MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, emphasising as much the power of ideologies and myths in human behaviour as the weight of economic structure. The key thing is the perception of society as a socio-cultural whole, though Lewin always remained open to new pathways that might appear in the course of research, always eclecticEclecticismEclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
in the best sense, always eschewing the pursuit of a grand theory for all history — a pursuit which only leads you away from the rich canvas of concrete human experience."
Lewin's papers are housed at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
Works
- La Paysannerie et le Pouvoir Sovietique. Paris: Mouton, 1966. English edition: Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. Irene Nove with John Biggart, trans. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968.
- Le Dernier Combat de Lénine. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967. English edition: Lenin's Last Struggle. A.M. Sheridan Smith, trans. New York: Random House, 1968.
- Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates: From Bukharin to the Modern Reformers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974. Reissued as Stalinism and the Seeds of Soviet Reform: The Debates of the 1960s (1991).
- The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
- The Gorbachev Phenomenon: A Historical Interpretation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
- Russia — USSR — Russia: The Drive and Drift of a Superstate. New York: The New Press, 1995.
- Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Co-edited with Ian KershawIan KershawSir Ian Kershaw is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich...
. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997. - The Soviet Century. London: Verso, 2005.
External links
- Kaiyi Chen, Finding Aid for the Moshe Lewin Papers, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1998.
- Interview by Sasha Lilly with Moshe Lewin, "Against the Grain," Part One and Part Two, Talking History radio show, 2005. —Audio files.
- Moshe Lewin, Articles in Le Monde diplomatiqueLe Monde diplomatiqueLe Monde diplomatique is a monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first created mainly for a diplomatic audience as its name implies...
.