Order Under Assault

To provide a backdrop for our stories and to study effects of duress on order, this chapter explores political authority and the field of power (the state and Communist Party). The dearth of food deprived the state of a tool for control, and skills and routines of average officials were not initially aligned with wartime needs. Further, intense material deprivation and hunger shifted civilians’ incentives: survival compelled breaking rules, even for civilians not otherwise so inclined. Finally, some officials and cadres were tempted to steal and resell food in shadow markets for speculative profit, creating a competitor to the state: the collective farmers’ market (rynok). Elites and the police/NKVD knew of food theft and rynok speculation but could not stop it. Paradoxically, shadow opportunists and civilians simultaneously challenged institutional coherence and reproduced it: shadow practices bled the state of control, but also required the state to provide food.