Autobiography of Bolshevism: between salvation and fall. Halfin I.

Bolshevism as a quasi -religious Messianic movement aimed to radically transform society and create paradise on Earth. To become a “new man”, each of its participants had to reflect himself with the help of communist ethics, understand his flaws and overcome their doubts.

The key practice of Bolshevism was the analysis of his own “I” - what Michelle Foucault called “communist hermeneutics”. Talking about your thoughts and intentions, writing autobiographies, letters and diaries - all this was designed to give the necessary interpretation of a person’s mental life, hidden from the external gaze. Halfin traces the poetry of Bolshevik ego-document, showing how the latter embodied the narrative of the movement from darkness to light and turning into a new faith. Over time, comradely courts and discussions about the “sins” of party members were replaced by real political processes in which the “wrong” communists, especially the Trotskyists, were declared counter -revolutionaries. Combining in his study an analysis of autobiographies with the study of communist psychology and sociology, as well as the policy of Bolshevik self -improvement, the author convincingly shows how the prerequisites for the subsequent large terror were formed.