Alexei Yurchak. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. In-formation Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. x, 331 pp. Halftones. Illustrations. Tables. $59.50, cloth. $24.95, paper.Reacting against the system/anti-system binarism that characterizes so many analyses of the late Soviet period, Alexei Yurchak casts the last Soviet generation in quite a different light. He confronts a paradox-that although young people were caught off-guard by the collapse of the USSR, as soon as it occurred realized that they had been prepared for that unexpected change-by arguing that the processes of everyday life that reproduced the Soviet system and those that resulted in its continuous internal displacement were mutually constitutive. No mask/reality; public/private; falsehood/truth dichotomy here. Instead, each of the book's chapters explores different, seemingly contradictory or nonconformist lifestyles and shows that these were enabled by the very laws and structures that they seemed to defy, but did not. Komsomol organizers performed their jobs wholeheartedly while distinguishing between tasks that were "pure formality" and "work with meaning." At the same time they blended love of Western heavy metal with their deep belief" in socialist values and often organized amateur rock bands to play at Komsomol events (Chapters 3 and 6). Based on letters, diaries, documents and retrospective interviews, Yurchak makes a convincing case that those involved in the youth wing of the Communist Party developed future-oriented notions of a good, interesting and "normal" life that included cacophonous electric music, jeans, and other products of the real or imaginary West (Chapter 5), along with socialist state welfare practices and a broader Marxist-Leninist vision.At the same time, other less conforming or less ambitious young people simply found the Komsomol and politics in general "uninteresting." Yurchak devotes Chapter 4 to how they formed deterritorialized communities and lived vnye-simultaneously inside and outside of the system-holding down jobs or pursuing studies that gave them both a wage, or stipend, and an opportunity to follow their decidedly apolitical interests. Living vny,; the amateur rock scene, those boiler-room attendants, guards and doormen who abjured careerism to focus almost exclusively on obshchenie (an intense form of socializing), and various kinds of pranksters, were, as Chapters 4, 6 and 7 show, agentive and creative choices but not resistance against the Communist Party or the state. In fact, Yurchak argues that this wide array of ironic, unconventional lifestyles was enabled by an entrenched paradox: "In the late Soviet context, when authoritative discourse became hypernormalized, its performative dimension grew in importance and its constative dimension became unanchored from concrete core meanings and increasingly open to new interpretations" (p. …

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OF DISSERTATION SAVE OUR REPUBLIC: BATTLING JOHN BIRCH IN CALIFORNIA’S CONSERVATIVE CRADLE Previous accounts of the development of the New American Right have demonstrated the popularity and resonance of the ideology in Southern California. However, these studies have not shown how contention surrounded conservatism’s ascendancy even in regions where it found eager disciples. “Save Our Republic” uses one conservative Southern California community as a vehicle to better understand the foundations of a wider movement and argues the growth of conservatism was not nearly as smooth as earlier studies have suggested. Santa Barbara, California, experienced a much more contentious introduction to the same conservative elements and exemplifies the larger ideological clash that occurred nationwide during the late 1950s and early 1960s between “establishment,” moderate Republicans and the party’s right flank. In California’s cradle of conservatism, the ideology’s birth was not an easy one. Santa Barbara should have provided a bonanza of support for the John Birch Society, a staunchly anticommunist organization founded in 1958 by retired businessman Robert H.W. Welch. Instead, its presence there in the early 1960s divided the city and inspired the sort of suspicion that ultimately hobbled the group’s reputation nationally. Rather than thriving in the city, the JBS impaled itself in a series of self-inflicted wounds that only worsened the effect these characterizations had on the group’s national reputation. Disseminated to a nationwide audience by local newspaper publisher Thomas M. Storke, who declared his intention to banish the organization from the city, the events that occurred in Santa Barbara throughout 1961 alerted other cities of the potential disruption the JBS could inspire in their communities. The JBS would forever bear the battle scars it earned in Santa Barbara. “Save Our Republic” argues the events in Santa Barbara exemplify the more pronounced political battle that was occurring throughout the nation in the 1960s as conservatives grappled to determine the bounds of their ideology. The threat from the right that caused so much handwringing in the halls of conservative power had an equally unsettling effect in the city’s parlors, churches, schoolhouses and newsrooms.

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Save Our Republic: Battling John Birch in California's Conservative Cradle

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Save Our Republic: Battling John Birch in California's Conservative Cradle