Claudio Morrison
MUBS, London UK
12/11/2012
Beyond Nostalgia? Class identity, memory and the Soviet past in Russia and the "near
Abroad".
This paper explores the role of memory in the emergence of a new working class identity in
the post-soviet space. On the basis of findings from case study research, the paper argues that
workers have developed memories of the soviet past which are distinct from official
discourse. These have become a yardstick for critically engaging with the new social reality
of ‘market democracy’ as well as an important tool to legitimise mobilisation in the
workplace.
Case study research, in the first instance, was conducted between 2003 and 2007 in
individual Russian and Moldovan manufacturing enterprises and the surrounding
environment, employing ethnographic methods. A second line of research focused on labour
migration, beginning in 2010 and still ongoing, led us to explore the life trajectories and
expectations of post-soviet labour migrants working both in Russia and in the “West”.
The Soviet society was saturated with class symbolism and collectivist institutions but these
mostly functioned as a legitimising tool for the ruling elite. Working class agency was
confined to interstices, individualised and informal like collective bargaining. The new
institutional framework following the restoration of capitalism, though, has seen neither the
straightforward emergence of class conflict nor the westernisation of management. Postsocialist legacies, consequently, have become central to transition scholarship. Yet, their
impact on working class behaviour has been regarded negatively, blamed for breeding
passivity and preference for individual solutions. As the effect of the former decline and class
divisions appear to consolidate and delineate more clearly, judgement over the soviet past has
began to diverge and memories modelled accordingly, delineating the basis for distinctive
class identities. Nostalgia has become an important ‘commodity’ in the political market and
the elites continue manipulating the socialist past for control and legitimising purposes but
workers have proved able at extricating from it those elements consistent with their interests
and use them to independently the raise their grievances.