A Study On American Sovietology Of The Cold War Period

The Cold War period is the developing and prosperity period of AmericanSovietology. A number of famous institutions of Soviet studies such as RussianInstitute of Columbia University, Russian Research Center of Harvard University,Center for Slavic and East European Studies of University of California at Berkeleyand so on were set up during this period; some projects on Soviet Studies such as“Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System (HPSSS)” and “Soviet InterviewProject (SIP)” played an important role in government policymaking in this period;the academic style of American Sovietology which emphasized collecting andanalyzing the information, using the multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary theoriesand methods to expand research also took shape during this period.The Dissertation is divided into three parts including introduction, main bodyand conclusion.The introduction mainly elaborated on the major issues of the topic, significanceof the topic, research status, research methods and key materials.Chapter1reviewed the training of Sovietologists as the beginning of AmericanSovietology during the Cold War. At the end of19thcentury, individual universities inthe United States began to set up some curriculums about Russia, but the overalldevelopment of Russian studies was somewhat slow. When after the establishment of American-Soviet diplomatic relations in1933, American academia launched anexperiment which achieved an improvement of teaching methods of Russian language,and simultaneously high-level personnel training work was also gradually expanded.After the outbreak of World War II, many wartime projects of universities andmilitary such as “Intensive Language Program” etc. were set up in succession, Sovietstudies occupied large amount among them and acquired some fruits. In1944, theRockefeller Foundation began to advocate area studies in the field of Sovietology.Although initially there were a few failures, finally the Russian Institute of ColumbiaUniversity which was established in1946successfully trained a considerable numberof Soviet experts for academia and government. Thence American Sovietology of theCold War rose.Chapter2introduced “Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System”. In the earlypostwar period, American people of various circles involved in the Cold War more orless because of the guidance of Anti-Communism; social science circles especiallySovietologists played a key role in formulation and implementation of the Cold Warstrategy. The Russian Research Center of Harvard University which was establishedin February1948tried to provide views about the Soviet Union by means of thetheories of social psychology, cultural anthropology and sociology; the Cold Warcharacteristics of American Sovietology which was produced by the cooperationbetween the Center and military or government also emerged in this period. HarvardProject on the Soviet Social System (1950-1954) was precisely an important productof the cooperation between the Russian Research Center and the USAF. This projectderived from the idea of interviewing Soviet refugees. Though there were manyproblems in operation process, basing on a large number of interview information the project made a series of achievements ultimately. Thereafter academia and politicshad combined around the National Security.Chapter3discussed the developments and effects of American Sovietologyduring the Cold War. During1950s to1960s, the American Sovietology experienced agreat reform and a fast development. On one hand, it was attributed to thedevelopment law of scholarship itself; on the other hand, a strong policy orientationconferred by the Cold War also demanded that Sovietology expand to an enormousacademic profession in the United States. During this period, because of the NationalSecurity State and the Cold War strategic objectives, to know the enemy more deeply,the funding to the Sovietology of the federal government and private foundations wasenlarged on the scope and increased on the amount; taking this as a juncture, relevantacademic institutions of this area were established in many universities throughoutthe United States, the number of Soviet experts that government might absorb andutilize grew exponentially, additionally the American Association for theAdvancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) embraced nearly all the AmericanSovietologists by reorganizing. As a result, in the developing process of AmericanSovietology during this period, the disparity of different academic institutions of thisfield had gradually narrowed, the academia-government symbiotic relationship hadconstantly enhanced, the mobilization of scholars to involved in the Cold War by statepower had continuously reinforced, simultaneously more and more Sovietologistsaccepted official requirements as main orientation of their research, and all of thisreflected the close relationship of scholarship and politics which cannot becompletely separated.Chapter4discussed the crises of American Sovietology and its countermeasures during the Cold War. In1970s, the field of American Sovietology fell into a financialcrisis, successively suffered oversupply and shortage in personnel aspect, and theacademic research was in the state of stagnation and silence, even many outstandingSovietologists had completely left the field. To1980s, with the continuous evolutionand change of international situation, the US government, private foundations andacademic organizations attached importance to Sovietology once again and tookmany measures of response for the crises, so that the field basically got rid of thecrises and made a number of achievements and progress. The funding status ofAmerican Sovietology of this period reflects cyclical characteristics whichchronically existed in this field, and clearly related to US-Soviet relations and Sovietbehaviors.Chapter5introduced “Soviet Interview Project” which was in later period ofCold War. In1970s, affected by many factors such as the international situation, therehad been an Immigration boom which was dominated by Jewish people in the SovietUnion, and more than245,000soviet citizens went to Western countries such as theUnited States during the decade. These former soviet citizens provided a largenumber of samples available for study to American Sovietology, so that scholars triedto expand some practical research about soviet social conditions by investigating theimmigrants; and the results of the project were significantly valuable and meaningfulfor both academia and government to learn more about the latest dynamic informationof the Soviet Union. Therefore, in August1979, the proposal which was proposed byJames Millar to study recent soviet immigrants was adopted, thus “Soviet InterviewProject” was established. Soon after the special processes including questionnaireprogramming, sampling, interviewer recruiting and training, field work, the project was gradually expanded. Lots of information collected by survey built a materialfoundation for expert group to writing reports for government as the funder andpublish papers and monographs themselves; the fruits which the project achievedwere able to verify some related hypothesis proposed by scholars in the past, alsoobtained many quantified conclusions which involved in all areas of soviet society,simultaneously provided strong basis for the US government to make policy towardthe Soviet Union more directly.Chapter6studied the relationship between American Sovietology andpolicymaking during the Cold War. During the Cold War, it was a significantAmerican political cultural phenomenon that scholars entered political circles.Because of the politicization of academia, Sovietologists was faced the possibility ofacademic and political dual career choice, and thus established a relation betweenAmerican Sovietology and policymaking. This relation mainly reflected in someaspects such as being the highest policy advisors, participating activities of theCongress, dealing with specific affairs or providing advisory services for the federaladministrative agencies involving foreign and defense, and so on. For the effects ofSovietology on policymaking and the politicization of the discipline itself, the“academic&political” dual professional role of American Sovietologists played animportant part in that process.Chapter7reviewed American historiography on Russia during the Cold War.American historiography on Russia had absorbed and integrated the theories andmethods of the tradition of Western historiography and Russian historiography sinceits beginning of birth, therefore it formed the disciplinary characteristic withAmerican style and laid a foundation for the field to develop a more mature discipline when after the World War II. During the Cold War, with the changes of internationalpolitical situation and the growth of knowledge itself, American historians hadadopted totalitarianism and modernization theory as the mainstream paradigms tostudy Russian history. By doing research on some important issues of Imperial Russiaand the Soviet Union, they achieved many fruits which deserved academic attention.The conclusion concluded that significant demand for expertise on the SovietUnion from the political aspects of the United States is to promote the development ofthe Sovietology during the Cold War; ideological factors played a major role in thedevelopment of American Sovietology during the Cold War. Furthermore,experienced the development of the Cold War period, the scholar team of AmericanSovietology happened a structural change which was from dominated by Russian andEast European immigrant scholars to dominated by Native American scholars, thephenomenon reflected a development strategy that American academia consciouslytook advantage of immigrant scholars but limited their scale and impact, ultimatelywas able to basically get rid of their dependence and review Russia and the SovietUnion byAmericans’own perspective.