{"id":1173,"date":"2020-12-14T15:59:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T19:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2020-12-14T15:59:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T19:59:12","slug":"five-questions-with-jonathon-dreeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/2020\/12\/14\/five-questions-with-jonathon-dreeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions With … Jonathon Dreeze"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Note: <\/span><\/font>2020-21 marks the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the Havighurst Center.\u00a0 One of the ways we will mark this occasion is through a regular \u201cFive Questions With \u2026\u201d series, where we will check in with former colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, and students.\u00a0 In this latest installment, Stephen Norris, Director of the Center, asked Dr. Jonathon Dreeze five questions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. You defended your PhD dissertation this past spring at Ohio State on the subject of Stalinist-era propaganda in Kazakhstan. Tell us more about what you argue in it and some of the more interesting conclusions you reach.<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    My dissertation,\n\u201cStalin\u2019s Empire: Soviet Propaganda in Kazakhstan, 1929-1953,\u201d examines\nCommunist Party propaganda and agitation (agitprop) in the Kazakh Soviet\nSocialist Republic (Kazakhstan) during Joseph Stalin\u2019s rule over the Soviet\nUnion. I define propaganda as the transmission of ideological information to\nindoctrinate and persuade a populace to adhere to a larger political or social\nidea. My dissertation argues that Communist Party propaganda in Kazakhstan was\ndecentralized, under-funded, and understaffed. Rather than higher-ranking party\nofficials in the Kazakh capital Alma-Ata, or even Moscow, directing propaganda\n(which one would expect in such an authoritarian state), individual\npropagandists and agitators (agitprop workers) at the grassroots level were\nresponsible for the production and dissemination of propaganda, specifically\nthe conveying of Marxist-Leninist ideology in Kazakhstan. Much of this\npropaganda would have taken the form of lectures, study circles, and classes\nduring which agitprop workers would convey ideological information to groups of\npeople. The Communist Party placed huge expectations on propagandists to act as\nprofessional teachers, albeit without the professional-grade training of\nteachers. These unrealistic expectations often resulted in undertrained and\nunmotivated agitprop workers disseminating ideologically incorrect propaganda\nthat did not align with Soviet ideology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The decentralized\nSoviet bureaucratic culture of the propaganda apparatus further exacerbated\nthese issues by passing the responsibility for rectifying chronic problems with\nagitprop\u2014such as lack of propaganda texts and financial resources, poor\norganization, and general apathy towards agitprop work\u2014to the lowest\nbureaucratic level. Local propagandists would be ordered by higher party\nofficials to simply solve the problem without adequate funds or specific\ninstructions. More often than not the problems went unsolved. This bureaucratic\nculture resulted in shortcomings with propaganda that remained unresolved for\nthe duration of the Stalinist period and served to undermine, rather than\nreinforce, the transformative impact of communist ideology on Kazakh Soviet\nsociety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When I first started my\nresearch on Kazakhstan I expected to find considerable regional variations in\nKazakh Party propaganda, regarding both agitprop content and mechanics. But\nregional variations were relatively minor. The propaganda meant for Kazakhs was\noften in Kazakh, but the content differed little from what Party officials\nexpected agitprop workers to create and disseminate in other Soviet republics.\nThe mechanics for propaganda creation and dissemination, including the heavy\nreliance on grassroots level agitprop workers, appear to have been prevalent\nthrough the entire union, including the mechanical shortcomings. The problems\nwith agitprop in Kazakhstan did not appear unique or different compared to\nagitprop problems in Uzbekistan or Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. You\u2019ve now studied Stalin and Stalinism for over a decade, stretching back to your time as an undergraduate at Miami (when you wrote your senior honors thesis on Stalin\u2019s 70th birthday celebrations): how has your understanding of Stalinism evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When I first started studying the Soviet Union I was very much\ndrawn to the figure of Stalin and the immense control that he had over the\ncountry. I really wanted to understand how this son of an illiterate cobbler\nfrom Georgia became the supreme ruler of a super power. It was for this reason\nthat I first turned to studying Soviet propaganda, specifically Stalin\u2019s cult\nof personality. Propaganda and a strong leader cult appeared to be the clearest\nexplanation for how Stalin was able to maintain his hold on power and govern\nthe country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As I continued to study Russian and Soviet history in graduate\nschool, my views of Stalin and the Soviet Union began to broaden. I no longer\nrelated the idea of Stalinism to just the individual and cult of Stalin, but to\nan entire social, cultural, and political system. To borrow from Stephen\nKotkin\u2019s work, I began to see Stalinism as a civilization. I was and am still\nvery fascinated by how such a large socio-political apparatus responded to the\nwhims, beliefs, and policies of one individual, but also how these ideas\naffected Soviet society in general. For example, the command system that\nemerged from Stalin, the Politburo, and lower party and state organs constantly\nbarking orders to their subordinates directly impacted the mechanics of Communist\nParty propaganda. Much as Stalin dictated that orders should be fulfilled,\noften without specifics or the necessary resources to fulfill his orders, low\nranking Party officials ordered agitprop workers to create and disseminate\npropaganda content without providing the training or resources for agitprop\nworkers to carry out their work. The result of such a system was a mechanically\nflawed agitprop network and a populace that more often than not learned little,\nif anything, from propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As I began to more fully understand the impact of Stalinism on the\nSoviet Union, I also started to realize how the ideas at the very heart of\nStalinism (authoritarianism, opposition to plurality, regular use of terror and\nfear, heavy control over media and information, dogmatic adherence to ideology,\nand the prioritization of the state over the individual) were also the\nfoundation of the entire Soviet Union. When Mikhail Gorbachev began to\nimplement his reforms in the 1980s under the banner of glasnost <\/em> and  perestroika<\/em>, he sought to change the\nStalinist attributes that had long defined the Soviet Union and which had fully\nmatured under Stalin\u2019s rule. The ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union and the\nEastern Bloc was partly the result of the inability of the Soviet state and Communist\nParty to continue to exist as it had without the Stalinist features that had\nlong empowered these institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. You studied Kazakh and then spent a year in Almaty using the archives there. Tell us about the archives there and give us a good story about working in them!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The initial plan for my dissertation was to examine Communist Party\npropaganda in Uzbekistan. I took intensive Uzbek language courses during the\nsummer at Indiana University, as well as another two years of Uzbek at Ohio\nState University. But as I started to do research on the party archives in\nUzbekistan it became clear that it was very difficult for Americans and other\nforeign scholars to gain access to the main Uzbek Communist Party archives in\nTashkent. I then shifted my project to Kazakhstan. I was fortunate enough to be\nable to take Kazakh language courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as\nwell as at Kimep University in Almaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Unlike the Uzbek Party archives in Tashkent, the Kazakh Communist Party\narchives (officially known today as the Archive of the President of the\nRepublic of Kazakhstan), and to a slightly lesser extent the Kazakh State\nArchives, were very open and inviting to foreign researchers. The archivists\nwere very friendly and did not hesitate to help locate and acquire the\ndocuments that I was looking for. Not only was photographing and scanning\ndocuments free of charge, but the rules for what documents could be photograph\nwere very generous. This atmosphere stands in pretty stark contrast to my\nexperiences with Russian archives in Moscow. It is not uncommon in certain\nRussian archives to receive a verbal dressing-down if you did not strictly\nfollow the rules, regardless of whether you knew the rules, had ever been told\nthe rules, or if you were a rookie graduate student or senior scholar. During\nmy first few visits to the archives in Russia I had several verbose encounters\nwith Russian archival employees who did not appreciate my lack of knowledge of\nthe archive\u2019s rules.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

                While the Kazakh archives were\npretty pleasant to work in, there were a few quirks. I was often the only\nnative English-speaker at the Presidential Archive and several times archive\nemployees would ask me to proofread various English-language documents they had\ndrafted. There was also the possibility that you would be called into a random,\nunannounced conference. I can remember one summer I was in Almaty conducting\nsome preliminary research at the Presidential Archive and an employee asked me\nto meet with the director of the archive the next day to talk about my research\nwith him. I agreed assuming that it would be a low stakes one-on-one meeting.\nWhen the time for the meeting came, an employee ushered me into a conference\nroom where I was asked to present my research topic to most of the archive\u2019s\nstaff. I was equal parts terrified and surprised. Everything, of course, had to\nbe in Russian or Kazakh, and I had not prepared any materials or put together a\npresentation. But I was able to discuss a few salient points of my work and\nanswer the questions that the audience asked of me. Needless to say, the whole\nthing was quite a stressful experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    4. Are you sticking with Stalin for your next research project?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My larger research goals are\nto write a few articles and publish a monograph based on my dissertation\nresearch. Once I have done that I think I am probably going to move away a bit\nfrom Stalin and the Stalinist era as a whole. I\nwould like to examine Kazakh and Uzbek society during late socialism under the\nrule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982). I am particularly interested in the onset\nof economic stagnation in Central Asia and the extent to which it followed a\nsimilar course as compared to other regions of the Soviet Union. I also want to\nexamine how major global events during this time period, such as the rise of\nyouth protest movements in the 1960s, Cold War tensions, greater focus on\nenvironmentalism, and increasing disillusionment with socialism in the Eastern\nBloc countries influenced Central Asian society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    5. You just spent your first semester as an assistant professor at Cornell College in Iowa: how did it go? How has Cornell adapted to the pandemic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I was very excited to join the faculty at Cornell College. My\nfirst semester has been a bit hectic, especially given the coronavirus\npandemic, but I think that it went very well. Cornell College is on block\nschedule, which means that students take one class at a time. The school year is\ndivided up into eight blocks, each three and a half weeks long. This class\nstyle allows both the students and the professor to delve deep into subject\nmatter and readings in a way that is difficult to do in a regular semester-long\ncourse. It has been a challenge to adjust to this different schedule, but I do\nenjoy the class style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This past semester I taught three courses, \u201cThe Soviet Union in\nWorld War II,\u201d \u201cRevolutionary and Soviet Russia,\u201d and \u201cModern Europe and Its\nCritics.\u201d I was very excited to teach these courses. I was especially excited\nto teach the military history course on the Soviet Union during World War II,\nin part because I now had a captive audience to whom I could lecture on the\nfiner details of Soviet tanks versus German tanks during the war! But also\nbecause I was able to revisit readings and authors that I had read many years\nago. I assigned large sections of Vasily Grossman\u2019s grand epic Life and Fate<\/em>. I had read this novel,\nalong with Leo Tolstoy\u2019s War and Peace<\/em>,\nin a Russian history class at Miami taught by my old advisor, Stephen Norris. I\nreally enjoyed the book then and I enjoyed reading it alongside my students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I think that Cornell has been able to deal with the challenges of\nthe pandemic in a very effective manner. Being a liberal arts school, Cornell\nprioritizes teaching and student-faculty interactions. The administration\nsought to maintain this focus and over the summer developed an extensive plan\nover the summer to ensure Cornell\u2019s campus was a safe place to learn and teach.\nIts small size (slightly more than 1,000 students) and location in the countryside\nhas been a major advantage. A smaller student population in a more out of the way\nlocale has meant that the chance for transmission was lesser than in a more\nurban populated setting. Cornell science and health faculty were able to\nestablish a regular testing regime in which several hundred students, faculty,\nand staff were regularly tested every week. The administration also set up\nquarantine and isolation dorms for students who had been exposed to the\ncoronavirus or who had tested positive. The New York Times<\/a> even\nmentioned Cornell in an article about some of the more successful measures that\ncolleges and universities were taking to combat the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    At the start of the fall semester students had the option of\ncoming to campus like normal, or choosing to take all of their courses in an\nonline format. There were a few classes that were in an online only format, but\nmost of the classes this fall have been in a hybrid format, with in-person and\nonline components. My own classes were hybrid with in-person and online\ncomponents. It was definitely a challenge to teach in a hybrid format on the\nblock schedule during my first semester, but everything worked out well. The number\nof students who tested positive for the coronavirus remained relatively low during\nthe fall semester, although there was an increase in the latter half of the\nsemester. Despite this increase, the measures that Cornell has put in place\nkept any outbreaks on a small scale. I think I speak for all of the students\nand faculty at Cornell, that we are all looking forward to the end of this\npandemic and a return to in-class teaching. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Note: 2020-21 marks the 20th\u00a0anniversary of the Havighurst Center.\u00a0 One of the ways we will mark this occasion is through a regular \u201cFive Questions With \u2026\u201d series, where we will check in with former colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, and students.\u00a0 In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":781,"featured_media":1174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-miami-alumni","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}