L'exil russe: La fabrique du réfugié apatride (1920-1939) by Catherine GousseffReview by: Marc RaeffSlavic Review, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Spring, 2009), pp. 179-180Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20453302 .

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Book Reviews 179

into the 1930s. Yet Stuart Finkel duly makes his case that-low numbers notwithstanding the deportation or exile of these members of Russia's intelligentsia at the beginning of the New Economic Policy (NEP) ushered in a period "that ... featured the introduction of significant restraints on intellectuals and their academic, cultural, and professional in stitutions" (3).

With this volume, a revision of his doctoral dissertation, Finkel challenges the notion that the Bolshevik Party took a "soft line" toward its real or perceived opposition. While Finkel does not deny that there was "a softening of Bolshevik rhetoric" (223), on the cul tural or ideological front by 1923, he sees this softening being possible because of the elim ination from the public sphere of a cohort of the Russian intelligentsia that the Bolshevik leadership, especially Vladimir Lenin, perceived to be troublesome or potentially trouble some due to its activities in professional societies or private publications. Finkel's work is especially strong in making a convincing argument that by removing a small group of academics, authors, and publicists -some of whom had been or were members of political organizations other than the Bolshevik Party, others of whom were clearly apolitical- the party was able to ensure itself that there would be what the author refers to as a "univocal network of institutions" (225) within a Soviet obshchestvennost' (public sphere, in Finkel's use of the word) that did not pose a threat to Bolshevik control of state and society.

Though his intention is to present the history of the expulsion and exile as a means of discussing and explaining the constrained public sphere at the beginning of NEP, Finkel has also provided a fascinating picture of the debate that occurred within the Bolshevik Party as its leadership determined how best to react to the perceived threat of this small group of intellectuals. Should measures be drastic, even to the point of execution? Lenin clearly believed these academics and writers posed a threat that warranted such actions and that the number of those targeted for arrest and deportation or exile should have been several times larger than the final count. Others-Anatolii Lunacharskii and Lev Kamenev, for example-did not agree with this line of thinking, either in terms of the number targeted or of the severity of sentencing; Kamenev even led some victims to be lieve that expulsion would not likely be permanent. Ultimately, a compromise prevailed: expulsion and exile for most, with the assumption that the terms would be indefinite.

Finkel's work is a welcome addition to the literature on the Soviet Union immedi ately after the civil war and at the onset of NEP. His discussion of the constraints on the public sphere that resulted from the expulsion and exile of intellectuals in 1922 and 1923 provides us with a greater understanding of how the Bolshevik Party was able during NEP to ensure that many of those intellectuals left in Russia would serve the state and the party-through state- and party-sanctioned organizations-as the latter established its control of the "public sphere."

CHARLES E. CLARK

University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

L'exilrusse: Lafabrique du refugieapatride (1920-1939). By Catherine Gousseff. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2008. 335 pp. Appendix. Bibliography. Figures. Maps. C30.00, paper.

As the scholarly literature on the postrevolutionary Russian emigration keeps growing, some basic questions concerning the numbers, routes of exile, and local distribution of settlement still remain unanswered. Catherine Gousseff endeavors to fill some of these gaps in our knowledge from a numerical and administrative perspective. In the process she also acquaints us with the interplay of national priorities and emigre communitarian institutions. Bolstered by an impressive array of documentation, Gousseff's book provides an original and fresh perspective on some gritty aspects of the formation of what came to be called Russia Abroad (zarubezhnaia Rossiia)- a nonsovereign country in the middle of nation states, as well as a forerunner of a new concept of political/religious asylum.

In the first part the author endeavors to establish the main routes of exile taken by the refugees from the Bolshevik takeover and the defeat of the White armies in the civil war. As is well known, the evacuation of the White forces through the Black Sea resulted in an

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180 Slavic Review

excessive accumulation of refugees in the area of Constantinople. In view of the Kemal ist revolution and the conflicts with Greece, it became imperative to convey the Russian refugees further south and west. The newly created office of commissar for refugees un der the League of Nations-not without the proddings and assistance of ad hoc Russian exile organizations (for example, the Conference of Ambassadors, the Russian Red Cross, the Zemgor) -provided an administrative and diplomatic framework. At first efforts were

made to promote the repatriation of as many refugees as possible. These failed, however, for both the Soviets and the refugees were unwilling to participate. At this juncture the need for labor in war-ravaged France and Belgium, as well as a demand for skilled cadres in the Balkans and the new Republic of Czechoslovakia, provided a welcome answer. This is how the main centers of the Russian diaspora came into being.

On the basis of a careful collation of numerical evidence (admittedly not devoid of bothersome lacunae), Gousseff arrives at numbers of Russian exiles much smaller than usually assumed. Thus for France as a whole she comes up with about 80,000, the bulk of them in Paris and its suburbs. But at the same time she points out, with supporting diagrammatic maps, the numerous provincial settlements resulting from the hiring of Russian workers in industries and agriculture. Another "discovery" is the large number of Russians in Poland. In this case our ignorance stems largely from the Polish government's reluctance to acknowledge the existence of a Russian minority in the eastern provinces of the new republic. As to Germany, the high concentration of Russians was short-lived, although Gousseff could have given more attention to the special economic and political conditions prevailing there.

The second part of the monograph is devoted to a detailed sociological picture of Russian exiles amid the other immigrants in France. While in most respects her picture confirms what is known, it is useful to have the detail brought together, with the im portant addition of the international and administrative dimension that is all too often omitted. It is also important to be reminded that the granting of special status-the Nansen passport-was the result of lengthy negotiations between countries, the League of Nations, lobbying by exile institutions, and Soviet actions that confronted the Euro pean countries with the fait accompli of "stateless" persons. In this context Gousseff re minds us that the early 1930s were a watershed in the existence of Russia Abroad. Not only did the community suffer from demographic attrition-an elderly population with a shortage of children-but also one with very few defenses against the rapidly degrad ing economic situation resulting from the world depression. The granting of a "coun tryless exile status" was not adequate protection against a shaky political and social environment.

Although she has cast her documentary net very wide, especially among interna tional, French official, and Russian nongovernmental institutions (an index would have been of great help), Gousseff has not avoided some repetition and lack of clarity in the narrative. More serious, in my view, is the fact that the laudable intention of telling the story "from the bottom up," rather than from the perspective of the elites, leads to the very dehumanization she endeavors to avoid. The emphasis on demographic and social num bers produces a "discourse" from which human beings are absent. One price that has to be paid is a jargony, cliche-laden style. I confess that I was stumped more than once by grammatical or stylistic turns I never encountered in my prewar schooling. And I would still like to know the meaning of the book's subtitle.

MARC RAEFF Columbia University

In Stalins Gefolgschaft: Moskau und die KPD, 1928-1933. By Bert Hoppe. Studien zur Zeitge schichte, no. 74. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2007. 395 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?54.80, hard bound.

The German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) was the larg est Comintern section outside the USSR, with roughly a third of a million members and

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