Practices of Exchange and Networking in Russia
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025886 |
| Pages | 218-233 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| Author | Alena V. Ledeneva |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal of Financial Crime — Vol. 6 No. 3 — Analysis
Practices of Exchange and Networking in Russia
Alena V. Ledeneva
Western researchers studying the former Soviet
Union first paid attention to the phenomenon of
blat
— to do with the use of informal contacts and
networks to obtain goods and services or to influ-
ence decision making — in the 1950s. Yet
although the importance of
blat
has been pointed
to,
there have been no attempts — and in fact no
possibility — to study it. This article is based on
original data gathered in 56 in-depth interviews
conducted during fieldwork in Russia in August
1994-April 1995. The window of opportunity for
such research occurred after people ceased being
inhibited talking about blat, while still having a
fresh memory of the Soviet period. These materi-
als are unique. They enabled the author, first, to
develop an ethnography of
blat
— that is to present
it as a distinctive form of social relationship or
social exchange articulating private interests and
human needs against rigid control of the state;
second, to record the daily problems which repre-
sent the ex-Soviet system in a light not readily
seen by an outsider; and third, to conceptualise the
phenomenon of
blat
thus relating it to other infor-
mal practices. In this article focus will mostly be
on the third angle of the research.
In Soviet society the phenomenon of 'blat' —
how goods and services were obtained in an econ-
omy where money played little role — was perva-
sive.
In the socialist system of distribution, with its
omnipresent shortages and hierarchical privileges,
the circumventing of formal procedures became
the 'reverse side' of an overcontrolling centre —
the reaction of ordinary people to the social con-
straints they faced. Despite its pervasiveness blat
was never studied directly. Although familiar to
every Russian and reported by scholars as early as
the 1950s,1 blat has never been adequately des-
cribed or analysed. At least three conceptual issues
have to be resolved before blat can be subject to
focused study and feasible fieldwork. First, the ver-
nacular term has to be translated into academic
discourse and conceptualised; second, blat should
be distinguished from other informal ways of get-
ting around formal procedures with which it is
sometimes associated; and third, it must be con-
sidered why such a pervasive phenomenon was left
for so long undefined and unexplored.
ON THE DEFINITION OF
'BLAT'
'Blat' is virtually impossible to translate directly
into other languages. As Berliner has remarked,
'the term blat is one of those many flavoured
words which are so intimate a part of a particular
culture that they can be only awkwardly rendered
in the language of another'.2 Most dictionaries of
the Russian language contain the pre-revolutionary
meaning of
blat,
which refers to criminal activity3
— although it was generally used to mean less
serious kinds of crime, such as minor theft. The
criminal underworld spoke a jargon of its own
which was referred to as
blatnoi
jargon, or thieves'
jargon. In early Soviet times the word acquired a
'new common vulgar' usage; in the expression po
blatu (by blat) it means 'in an illegal manner'.
Another Soviet dictionary defines po
blatu
as 'illic-
itly, by protection, by patronage'.4 In vernacular,
'by blat' means 'by acquaintance' (po znakomstvu)
and would be used to mean ways of obtaining
(dostat') or arranging (ustroit') something using
connections. Blat does not appear, however, in any
of three editions of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
published in 1927, 1950 and 1970, although it is
available in dictionaries of the Russian language at
least since the 1930s.5 For while the term was in
wide currency in an informal way, it was banned
from official discourse and the practices involved
in
blat
were condemned by the Soviet authorities.
According to respondents, blat is easy to identify
but difficult to define. 'Blat seems an obvious
word, it does not need definition', remarked one
of them. Interestingly, everybody knows what
blat
is about but cannot grasp its essence. One reason
for it is that the term means different things in
different contexts irreducible to some common
ground: blat is an acquaintance or friend through
whom some goods or services in short supply can
be obtained, cheaper or better quality. Also, blat is
a reciprocal relationship which people call 'Ty mne,
ya tebe' (I help you, you help me). Blat is about
using informal contacts, based on mutual sympa-
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Journal of Financial Crime — Vol. 6 No. 3 — Analysis
thy and trust, that is, using friends, acquaintances,
occasional contacts. Blat also takes place where one
arranges a good job for another, or where, on
otherwise equal conditions, the one who is known
or recommended gets chosen. Sometimes blat
means influence and protection, all kinds of
'umbrella' (kryshi), using big names, so-called 'I am
from Ivan Ivanovich' recommendations. Facing
this multiplicity of contexts to which blat or 'po
blatu' is considered a relevant term, we have to
consider the question what are the shared charac-
teristics of situations that are referred to be solved
'by blat'. The question cannot, however, be
answered satisfactorily because it is often the case
that some characteristics present in one case are
lacking in another: for instance, getting access to
goods and services in short supply in any case is
different from getting access to positions providing
income (jobs or educational courses). The variety
in regularity of favours, a kind of relationship
between the parties, type of need, character of reci-
procity, participation of an intermediary makes
blat
situations almost irreducible to any clear-cut classi-
fication. Rather, these situations are tied together
in the way which is best grasped in the notion of
'family likeness' or 'family resemblance' enunci-
ated by Wittgenstein in his Philosophische Gramma-
tik6
and developed in the Blue Book.7 Entities which
we commonly subsume under a general term,
Wittgenstein wrote, need not have anything in
common;
'they form a family the members of which have
family likenesses. Some of them have the same
nose,
others the same eyebrows and others again
the same way of walking; and these likenesses
overlap. The idea of a general concept being a
common property of its particular instances con-
nects up with other primitive, too simple, ideas
of the structure of language.'8
In what follows a range of such family features
will be explicated which may not be available in
every particular blat situation but which altogether
should be associated with
blat
practices.
First, blat is a distinctive form of non-monetary
exchange, a kind of a barter based on personal
relationship. It worked where money did not. In
the planned economy money did not function as
equivalent in economic transactions, things were
sorted out by mutual help, by barter. In his auto-
biographical story, an émigré Soviet writer des-
cribed his temporary position on the editorial
board of
a
journal as a source for such exchanges:
'I finally realised what kept these capable people
on the editorial board. One would think why
they need all this? Superfluous efforts, troubles,
administrative cares. Only for 250 humble
rubles? Why not just write books? It is not as
simple as that. The journal is a kind of property,
currency, an exchange fund. We publish N from
another journal. N publishes us
. . .
Or pays
compliments to our work in the party regional
committee
. . .
Or does not criticise
. . .
We give a
possibility of earning to B. B in his turn
. . .
And
so on. . . . C was responsible for the business
trips abroad. D brought me batteries for my
transistor radio. E arranged a swimming pool for
my daughter
. . .
Things went on and on.'9
Thus,
apart from official rations and privileges
allocated by the state distribution system to
dif-
ferent occupational strata, every employee had a
particular kind of access
(dostup)
which could be
traded in blat relations. The relative unimportance
of money in the command economy brought into
being this specific form of exchange, intermediary
between commodity exchange and gift giving.10
The objects obtained in blat relationships were
rarely exchanged in a straightforward manner. It
should be emphasised that blat involved relation-
ships and not merely goods. What was exchanged
are neither things for things, nor the relative values
people quantified in things, but mutual estimations
and regards. Blat was thus not a relationship for
the sake of exchange but an exchange for the sake
of a relationship. In gift exchange, inalienable
objects of the same kind pass between people
already bound together by social ties, while in
commodity exchange alienable objects of different
kinds pass between people acting as free agents.
Gift exchange underwrites social relations and is
concerned with social reproduction; commodity
exchange establishes relations between things and
ensures reproduction of the latter.11 Although blat
certainly does transfer alienable objects (favours), it
does so on the condition that social relationships
had already existed. 'The other' is not only func-
tional but is regarded personally and in this sense
becomes irreplaceable. The favours therefore bear,
as it were, a non-alienable character. They are
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