History of Communism in Europe

Volume 8, 2017

The Other Half of Communism: Women's Outlook

Anna Carr
Pages 299-321

Post-Stalinist Body Economy
Female Corporeality, Desire, and Schizophrenia

The article provides an argument on the Soviet system of the early post-Stalinist years reflected in Haidamaky by Yurii Mushketyk. Through the concept of “body economy” inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis, it investigates the case of the female corporeality hidden in the novel. The article contests that the female body is part of the economy of desire flows which connected it to the male body. It also states that, after the death of Stalin, the reorganised Soviet regime demonstrates schizophrenic states as reflected in Mushketyk’s Haidamaky.